Friday Post

For a fresh Friday...


Check out the Fur. You know you want to.



But... but... Trudeau was going to change the tone of Canadian/American relations!

U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday rejected the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada in a victory for environmentalists who campaigned against the project for more than seven years.

"The pipeline would not make a meaningful long-term contribution to our economy," Obama told a press conference. He said it would not reduce gasoline prices, and shipping "dirtier" crude from Canada would not increase U.S. energy security. ...

(Sidebar: but Buffet's trains are safer and cleaner?)

Newly sworn in Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, a supporter of Keystone, voiced disappointment but said the Canada-U.S. relationship "is much bigger than any one project."

 
What a surprise that was.

Did the Right Honourable Moron think he could just flip his hair and make Steyer-backed Obama see things his way?

Watching two empty-suits duke it out pansy-style will get tedious very quickly.


Also: Premier Notley just doesn't care.



Oh, dear....

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau did not meet his promise to have gender parity in his cabinet after appointing five women to minister of state roles, a Tory MP criticizes. 

“Fantastic to see women in cabinet, but don’t say they have equal responsibilities when they don’t,” Michelle Rempel wrote on Twitter on Thursday night. 

She asked people to “count the number of women chairing cabinet committees.” Seven of  10 committees are chaired by men. 

The main committee of cabinet “makes the big decisions. Spoiler: no gender parity,” she tweeted.

The cabinet committee is made up of 11 members including the chair. Four of the members are women and six are men, but Trudeau is chair, bringing the number of men to seven. 

Trudeau unveiled his historic cabinet on Wednesday that featured 15 men and 15 women. But a report on iPolitics brought into question the status of five female MPs, who were named as ministers of state in the orders in council (OIC) notes. 

Marie-Claude Bibeau (international development and la Francophonie), Bardish Chagger (small business and tourism), Kristy Duncan (science), Patricia Hajdu (status of women) and Carla Qualtrough (sport and persons with disabilities) were all described as “a Minister of State to be styled minister” of their portfolio in the notes. 

All five women also report to another cabinet minister and do not have their own department, technically making them junior ministers. Duncan and Chagger will assist Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Navdeep Bains, Hajdu and Qualtrough will answer to Minister of Canadian Heritage Mélanie Joly, while Bibeau will serve under Foreign Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion. 

None of the men appointed to cabinet were given minister of state positions. 

A Liberal source who spoke only on background about the cabinet appointments, told Yahoo Canada News there are “bureaucratic hoops” but “our intention is that these are all full ministers and they are equal. There is no difference between them.” 

(Sidebar: then make them full ministers.) 

A list of hobby post female ministers who get the men tea is here.

I know it's 2015 and everything but that still doesn't mean that the Liberals and Shiny Pony aren't full of crap.

Don't tell the gullible masses that. They will never believe you.


(Merci)



Who said the Liberals were friends to Israel?





Trudeau can't and won't stick it to who he thinks is rich and he certainly won't screw over his backers.

Smoke and mirrors:

Experts say the Trudeau government should have little trouble meeting its self-imposed Jan. 1 deadline to rejig tax brackets as a way to ease the load on middle-income earners.

On the campaign trail, the party worked hard to sell the plan to voters by stating the economy would grow if middle-class Canadians had more cash in their pockets.

The change, however, has raised questions whether the tax increase would produce as much additional revenue as the Liberals expect, or if it would address income inequality.

It would also make Canada's highest income bracket one of the most heavily taxed in the industrialized world.

The Liberal plan calls for a new 33 per cent rate on Canadians who earn more than $200,000 per year. The existing top bracket of 29 per cent would continue to apply to those earning between $138,586 and $200,000, and 26 per cent for those between $89,401 and $138,586.

The party also promises to cut the rate to 20.5 per cent from 22 per cent for those with a taxable annual income between $44,700 and $89,401. The maximum annual benefit, it says, would be $670 per person for those with earnings at the top of that middle bracket.

Liberal estimates say the change would lift $3 billion worth of tax burden per year off the backs of middle-income earners. That would be counterbalanced by heaping another $3 billion in taxes on those in the highest income bracket.

Looking at the big picture, the overall economic impact remains less than clear.

Experts say the government would likely rake in less revenue by jacking up taxes on the rich, particularly from financially savvy Canadians whose incomes barely qualify for the top bracket.

Rhys Kesselman of Simon Fraser University said earners near that margin would likely become a little more aggressive on tax planning and with their investment arrangements.

"It is more elastic in both tax planning and tax advising, and legal tax avoidance," Kesselman said of the highest bracket.

Others believe the Liberal plan would only have a limited effect on the economy.

So much for those promises.



Russia has suspended flights to Egypt:

Russia is suspending flights to Egypt amid growing evidence that a jet with 224 people on board was blown up by a terrorist bomb.

Vladimir Putin - who had previously dismissed claims of Islamic State involvement in the Metrojet disaster - said he was ordering his government to draft a plan for getting some 45,000 Russians currently in the country home.

The Russian President's U-turn came just after a day after he said Britain was jumping the gun by stopping flights, after spies uncovered evidence that  Islamic State-linked militants may have smuggled a bomb into the aircraft's hold .

But the Kremlin insisted the move should not be treated as a sign that Russia has been convinced terrorists were responsible.

And now,  eighteen facts about Charlie Brown:

12. SNOOPY HAS FIVE SIBLINGS.

Spike was the first Snoopy brother, introduced in 1975 and named after Charles Schulz’s childhood pup. Snoopy’s other siblings include Marbles, Olaf, Andy, and his only sister, Belle.