#New Democratic Party of Canada

[cree-n-jewish-thoughts]

B’nai Brith Strongly Opposes Federal NDP Stance on Preeminent Working Definition of Antisemitism - B'nai Brith Canada

[ryandjaxon]

“When corporate-backed Conservatives and Liberals need to raise funds, they invite their CEO buddies to dinner. That's why we need to rely on grassroots supporters to give what they can. Chip in $16 today to stand & fight with your fellow New Democrats.”

https://act.ndp.ca/donate/june-donate-deadline

[allthecanadianpolitics]

“The Palestinian people have the right to a state, and this right is nearly universally recognized at the United Nations. Today, 140 other States (139 UN member states and the Holy See) already recognize the State of Palestine. After decades of the near universal affirmation, including by Canada, that the Palestinian people have a right to self-determination, members of the international community must see to it that this right is finally given effect before it is too late. The United States and United Kingdom have said they are looking into avenues to recognize the State of Palestine and Canada must do the same. For decades Palestinians have been subject to foreign military occupation, resulting in the denial of political and economic sovereignty and the right to move and live freely within what are considered to be Palestinian territories. Canada’s longstanding policy ‘recognizes the Palestinian right to self-determination and supports the creation of a sovereign, independent, viable, democratic and territorially contiguous Palestinian state, as part of a comprehensive, just and lasting peace settlement.’

Read the full statement here.

Tagging @politicsofcanada

[vyorei]

Mona Abuamara tells of 5 of her relatives being killed in Gaza.

Galled for her knowing Canada didn't push for a ceasefire.

[canadachronicles]

What a beautiful day! Wab Kinew was sworned-in yesterday as the 25th Premier of Manitoba.

[agentfascinateur]

"By refusing to end arms sales to Israel, including by allowing loopholes to send weapons through the United States, Canada could potentially be complicit in war crimes.”

- Heather McPherson, NDP

[inquebubbles]

Join Jagmeet Singh in calling on Justin Trudeau to stop the selling of arms to Israel until the end of the illegal occupation.

Canada can play an active role in helping build a just and sustainable solution for Palestinians and Israelis.

[mspiggy]

all the americans i follow talking about their election has me thinking about the next canadian election (coming 2025)... god i wish white canadians weren't some of the most insidiously racist and xenophobic people in the world so all the former liberal voters frustrated with trudeau would vote NDP instead... but i know they're gonna throw their support behind canada's biggest most racist cardboard cut-out, also known as "pierre polievre"

[ppcbug]

Jagmeet is a discord mod now 🤣

[paddysnuffles]

Whatever you do, don't vote blue.

As one of my Grade 5 students so eloquently and aptly put it:

"Smith worries me, and I don't trust her. She's been recorded multiple times saying 'Should the government really have to cover 100% of the cost of a doctor's visit?'. Which is like, yeah. Because some people can't afford to pay and if you don't go to the doctor you die."

Healthcare isn't a luxury and it's not optional.

It's literally listed as a right in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which we have ratified.

[ghost-hawk]

Canadian politics being what they are, I support the bloc Quebecois in it's decision to ask for justin Trudeau to stand down from office, however I ask that bloc Quebecois to take into consideration that the NDP has been taking steps to improving the relations with the indigenous communities more than past elected officials.

If the elections are to continue without Justin Trudeau I hope that all parties continue towards a future recognizing the needs of all Canadians including the native American indigenous.

While I voted for Justin Trudeau into office, I can understand if other Canadians are unhappy with him.

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Former premier Rachel Notley, the leader of the Alberta NDP and Official Opposition, is stepping down. “Having considered what I believe to be the best interests of our party, our caucus, as well as my own preferences, I am here today to announce that I will not be leading Alberta’s NDP into the next election,” she said Tuesday afternoon. Notley said she’ll stay on until there’s a leadership race and vote for a new Alberta NDP leader, and that she’ll support the new leader. Once a new leader is chosen, she’ll step down from the leadership role.

Continue Reading

Tagging @politicsofcanada @abpoli

[head-post]

Canada’s PM Trudeau weakened after his main ally abruptly withdrew support

A minor party helping to keep Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government in power has withdrawn its support, forcing him to seek new alliances.

Trudeau dismissed talk of an early election after New Democratic Party’s (NDP) leader Jagmeet Singh claimed he was “ripping up” a deal struck between them in 2022. The move left the prime minister dependent on the support of other opposition lawmakers to survive a confidence vote in the lower house of parliament.

An election will come in the coming year, hopefully not until next fall, because in the meantime, we’re going to deliver for Canadians. I really hope the NDP stays focused on how we can deliver for Canadians, as we have over the past years, rather than focusing on politics.

He first took office in November 2015, but struggled over the past two years to repel attacks from opposition centre-right Conservatives. They blamed him for high inflation and the housing crisis. The NDP’s Singh expressed growing frustration with Trudeau in recent months, particularly over what he said was the Liberals’ inability to deal with high grocery shop prices.

Justin Trudeau has proven again and again he will always cave to corporate greed. Liberals have led people down – they don’t deserve another chance.

Crisis of mistrust

However, polls show that the same voter fatigue that Trudeau suffers from has spread to the NDP. Despite successfully pushing the Liberals to introduce measures like a national dental programme, the party is lagging far behind and comes third.

Under the terms of the 2022 deal, the NDP agreed to keep Trudeau in power until mid-2025 in exchange for increased social spending.

The House of Commons will reconvene on 16 September. The Conservatives will then be able to offer a vote of confidence. Trudeau’s Liberals will reportedly retain power if the NDP abstains in the vote. Key to the Trudeau government will be a budget update later this year, which, if lawmakers vote against it, will lead to a new election.

Read more HERE

[canadachronicles]

More Excellent News!!!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Lina Khan’s future is the future of the Democratic Party — and America

On OCTOBER 23 at 7PM, I'll be in DECATUR, presenting my novel THE BEZZLE at EAGLE EYE BOOKS.

On the one hand, the anti-monopoly movement has a future no matter who wins the 2024 election – that's true even if Kamala Harris wins but heeds the calls from billionaire donors to fire Lina Khan and her fellow trustbusters.

In part, that's because US antitrust laws have broad "private rights of action" that allow individuals and companies to sue one another for monopolistic conduct, even if top government officials are turning a blind eye. It's true that from the Reagan era to the Biden era, these private suits were few and far between, and the cases that were brought often died in a federal courtroom. But the past four years has seen a resurgence of antitrust rage that runs from left to right, and from individuals to the C-suites of big companies, driving a wave of private cases that are prevailing in the courts, upending the pro-monopoly precedents that billionaires procured by offering free "continuing education" antitrust training to 40% of the Federal judiciary:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/13/post-bork-era/#manne-down

It's amazing to see the DoJ racking up huge wins against Google's monopolistic conduct, sure, but first blood went to Epic, who won a historic victory over Google in federal court six months before the DoJ's win, which led to the court ordering Google to open up its app store:

https://www.theverge.com/policy/2024/10/7/24243316/epic-google-permanent-injunction-ruling-third-party-stores

Google's 30% App Tax is a giant drag on all kinds of sectors, as is its veto over which software Android users get to see, so Epic's win is going to dramatically alter the situation for all kinds of activities, from beleaguered indie game devs:

https://antiidlereborn.com/news/

To the entire news sector:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/06/save-news-we-must-open-app-stores

Private antitrust cases have attracted some very surprising plaintiffs, like Michael Jordan, whose long policy of apoliticism crumbled once he bought a NASCAR team and lived through the monopoly abuses of sports leagues as an owner, not a player:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/michael-jordan-anti-monopolist

A much weirder and more unlikely antitrust plaintiff than Michael Jordan is Google, the perennial antitrust defendant. Google has brought a complaint against Microsoft in the EU, based on Microsoft's extremely ugly monopolistic cloud business:

https://www.reuters.com/technology/google-files-complaint-eu-over-microsoft-cloud-practices-2024-09-25/

Google's choice of venue here highlights another reason to think that the antitrust surge will continue irrespective of US politics: antitrust is global. Antitrust fervor has seized governments from the UK to the EU to South Korea to Japan. All of those countries have extremely similar antitrust laws, because they all had their statute books overhauled by US technocrats as part of the Marshall Plan, so they have the same statutory tools as the American trustbusters who dismantled Standard Oil and AT&T, and who are making ready to shatter Google into several competing businesses:

https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/8/24265832/google-search-antitrust-remedies-framework-android-chrome-play

Antitrust fever has spread to Canada, Australia, and even China, where the Cyberspace Directive bans Chinese tech giants from breaking interoperability to freeze out Chinese startups. Anything that can't go on forever eventually stops, and the cost of 40 years of pro-monopoly can't be ignored. Monopolies make the whole world more brittle, even as the cost of that brittleness mounts. It's hard to pretend monopolies are fine when a single hurricane can wipe out the entire country's supply of IV fluid – again:

https://prospect.org/health/2024-10-11-cant-believe-im-writing-about-iv-fluid-again/

What's more, the conduct of global monopolists is the same in every country where they have taken hold, which means that trustbusters in the EU can use the UK Digital Markets Unit's report on the mobile app market as a roadmap for their enforcement actions against Apple:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/63f61bc0d3bf7f62e8c34a02/Mobile_Ecosystems_Final_Report_amended_2.pdf

And then the South Korean and Japanese trustbusters can translate the court documents from the EU's enforcement action and use them to score victories over Apple in their own courts:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/10/an-injury-to-one/#is-an-injury-to-all

So on the one hand, the trustbusting wave will continue erode the foundations of global monopolies, no matter what happens after this election. But on the other hand, if Harris wins and then fires Biden's top trustbusters to appease her billionaire donors, things are going to get ugly.

A new, excellent long-form Bloomberg article by Josh Eidelson and Max Chafkin gives a sense of the battle raging just below the surface of the Democratic Power, built around a superb interview with Khan herself:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-10-09/lina-khan-on-a-second-ftc-term-ai-price-gouging-data-privacy

The article begins with a litany of tech billionaires who've gone an all-out, public assault on Khan's leadership – billionaires who stand to personally lose hundreds of millions of dollars from her agency's principled, vital antitrust work, but who cloak their objection to Khan in rhetoric about defending the American economy. In public, some of these billionaires are icily polite, but many of them degenerate into frothing, toddler-grade name-calling, like IAB's Barry Diller, who called her a "dope" and Musk lickspittle Jason Calacanis, who called her an all-caps COMMUNIST and a LUNATIC.

The overall vibe from these wreckers? "How dare the FTC do things?!"

And you know, they have a point. For decades, the FTC was – in the quoted words of Tim Wu – "a very hardworking agency that did nothing." This was the period when the FTC targeted low-level scammers while turning a blind eye to the monsters that were devouring the US economy. In part, that was because the FTC had been starved of budget, trapping them in a cycle of racking up easy, largely pointless "wins" against penny-ante grifters to justify their existence, but never to the extent that Congress would apportion them the funds to tackle the really serious cases (if this sounds familiar, it's also the what happened during the long period when the IRS chased middle class taxpayers over minor filing errors, while ignoring the billionaires and giant corporations that engaged in 7- and 8-figure tax scams).

But the FTC wasn't merely underfunded: it was timid. The FTC has extremely broad enforcement and rulemaking powers, which most sat dormant during the neoliberal era:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge

The Biden administration didn't merely increase the FTC's funding: in choosing Khan to helm the organization, they brought onboard a skilled technician, who was both well-versed in the extensive but unused powers of the agency and determined to use them:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/18/administrative-competence/#i-know-stuff

But Khan's didn't just rely on technical chops and resources to begin the de-olicharchification of the US economy: she built a three-legged stool, whose third leg is narrative. Khan's signature is her in-person and remote "listening tours," where workers who've been harmed by corporate power get to tell their stories. Bloomberg recounts the story of Deborah Brantley, who was sexually harassed and threatened by her bosses at Kavasutra North Palm Beach. Brantley's bosses touched her inappropriately and "joked" about drugging her and raping her so she "won’t be such a bitch and then maybe people would like you more."

When Brantley finally quit and took a job bartending at a different business, Kavasutra sued her over her noncompete clause, alleging an "irreparable injury" sustained by having one of their former employees working at another business, seeking damages and fees.

The vast majority of the 30 million American workers who labor under noncompetes are like Brantley, low-waged service workers, especially at fast-food restaurants (so Wendy's franchisees can stop minimum wage cashiers from earning $0.25/hour more flipping burgers at a nearby McDonald's). The donor-class indenturers who defend noncompetes claim that noncompetes are necessary to protect "innovative" businesses from losing their "IP." But of course, the one state where no workers are subject to noncompetes is California, which bans them outright – the state that is also home to Silicon Valley, an IP-heave industry that the same billionaires laud for its innovations.

After that listening tour, Khan's FTC banned noncompetes nationwide:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/25/capri-v-tapestry/#aiming-at-dollars-not-men

Only to have a federal judge in Texas throw out their ban, a move that will see $300b/year transfered from workers to shareholders, and block the formation of 8,500 new US businesses every year:

https://www.npr.org/2024/08/21/g-s1-18376/federal-judge-tosses-ftc-noncompetes-ban

Notwithstanding court victories like Epic v Google and DoJ v Google, America's oligarchs have the courts on their side, thanks to decades of court-packing planned by the Federalist Society and executed by Senate Republicans and Reagan, Bush I, Bush II, and Trump. Khan understands this; she told Bloomberg that she's a "close student" of the tactics Reagan used to transform American society, admiring his effectiveness while hating his results. Like other transformative presidents, good and bad, Reagan had to fight the judiciary and entrenched institutions (as did FDR and Lincoln). Erasing Reagan's legacy is a long-term project, a battle of inches that will involve mustering broad political support for the cause of a freer, more equal America.

Neither Biden nor Khan are responsible for the groundswell of US – and global – movement to euthanize our rentier overlords. This is a moment whose time has come; a fact demonstrated by the tens of thousands of working Americans who filled the FTC's noncompete docket with outraged comments. People understand that corporate looters – not "the economy" or "the forces of history" – are the reason that the businesses where they worked and shopped were destroyed by private equity goons who amassed intergenerational, dynastic fortunes by strip-mining the real economy and leaving behind rubble.

Like the billionaires publicly demanding that Harris fire Khan, private equity bosses can't stop making tone-deaf, guillotine-conjuring pronouncements about their own virtue and the righteousness of their businesses. They don't just want to destroy the world - they want to be praised for it:/p>

"Private equity’s been a great thing for America" -Stephen Pagliuca, co-chairman of Bain Capital;

"We are taught to judge the success of a society by how it deals with the least able, most vulnerable members of that society. Shouldn’t we judge a society by how they treat the most successful? Do we vilify, tax, expropriate and condemn those who have succeeded, or do we celebrate economic success as the engine that propels our society toward greater collective well-being?" -Marc Rowan, CEO of Apollo

"Achieve life-changing money and power," -Sachin Khajuria, former partner at Apollo

Meanwhile, the "buy, strip and flip" model continues to chew its way through America. When PE buys up all the treatment centers for kids with behavioral problems, they hack away at staffing and oversight, turning them into nightmares where kids are routinely abused, raped and murdered:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/they-told-me-it-was-going-be-good-place-allega-tions-n987176

When PE buys up nursing homes, the same thing happens, with elderly residents left to sit in their own excrement and then die:

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/12/24/nursing-homes-private-equity-fraud-00132001

Writing in The Guardian, Alex Blasdel lays out the case for private equity as a kind of virus that infects economies, parasitically draining them of not just the capacity to provide goods and services, but also of the ability to govern themselves, as politicians and regulators are captured by the unfathomable sums that PE flushes into the political process:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/oct/10/slash-and-burn-is-private-equity-out-of-control

Now, the average worker who's just lost their job may not understand "divi recaps" or "2-and-20" or "carried interest tax loopholes," but they do understand that something is deeply rotten in the world today.

What happens to that understanding is a matter of politics. The Republicans – firmly affiliated with, and beloved of, the wreckers – have chosen an easy path to capitalizing on the rising rage. All they need to do is convince the public that the system is irredeemably corrupt and that the government can't possibly fix anything (hence Reagan's asinine "joke": "the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: 'I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help'").

This is a very canny strategy. If you are the party of "governments are intrinsically corrupt and incompetent," then governing corruptly and incompetently proves your point. The GOP strategy is to create a nation of enraged nihilists who don't even imagine that the government could do something to hold their bosses to account – not for labor abuses, not for pollution, not for wage theft or bribery.

The fact that successive neoliberal governments – including Democratic administrations – acted time and again to bear out this hypothesis makes it easy for this kind of nihilism to take hold.

Far-right conspiracies about pharma bosses colluding with corrupt FDA officials to poison us with vaccines for profit owe their success to the lived experience of millions of Americans who lost loved ones to a conspiracy between pharma bosses and corrupt officials to poison us with opioids.

Unhinged beliefs that "they" caused the hurricanes tearing through Florida and Georgia and that Kamala Harris is capping compensation to people who lost their homes are only credible because of murderous Republican fumble during Katrina; and the larcenous collusion of Democrats to help banks steal Americans' homes during the foreclosure crisis, when Obama took Tim Geithner's advice to "foam the runway" with the mortgages of everyday Americans who'd been cheated by their banks:

https://www.salon.com/2014/05/14/this_man_made_millions_suffer_tim_geithners_sorry_legacy_on_housing/

If Harris gives in to billionaire donors and fires Khan and her fellow trustbusters, paving the way for more looting and scamming, the result will be more nihilism, which is to say, more electoral victories for the GOP. The "government can't do anything" party already exists. There are no votes to be gained by billing yourself as the "we also think governments can't do anything" party.

In other words, a world where Khan doesn't run the FTC is a world where antitrust continues to gain ground, but without taking Democrats with it. It's a world where nihilism wins.

There's factions of the Democratic Party who understand this. AOC warned party leaders that, "Anyone goes near Lina Khan and there will be an out and out brawl":

https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1844034727935988155

And Bernie Sanders called her "the best FTC Chair in modern history":

https://twitter.com/SenSanders/status/1843733298960576652

In other words: Lina Khan as a posse.

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/11/democracys-antitrust-paradox/#there-will-be-an-out-and-out-brawl

[weirdrtvscomments]

in case anyone is struggling with deciding who they want to vote for in the RTVStan/RTVS Nation/RTVSia/RTVS Topia/RTVS Topia-Ville presidential election, i have compiled a list:

Log

Representing the Ethernet Party: “A people with 5 ping to the main server is a people that prospers.”

Will change the name to RTVS Nation

Comic books are a part of the platform

Everybody gets a free moat

Eyes that are twice as big for everyone that wants them

Offload cost to Wifi users

Working on a battery charged snack

Hypnotist is a protected class

Robloxia war veteran

Defenses are proven

Will take your ants and import more

Endorsed by: Soulja Boy, Ken Masters, Stitch 

Signature move when President: Snake Trick (no weaknesses)

Punishment for other candidates: Follow him out & about like an RPG party

Mike

Representing the Sweets & Treats Party: “I was just outside eating a sandwich.”

Orange creamsicles will be available in every store

Free Steam Deck for every American citizen

Will lower tariffs and imports on all types of sweets and treats from Canada, while raising tariffs on everything else

Most important snack is Wasabi Peas

Not very good against zoners

Why are ants so bad?

Endorsed by: 2 (anonymous), Trap Snax

Signature gimmick when President: Whenever he eats a yummy piece of candy he gets an install, which gets its own theme

Special move when President: A cool punch like Marissa from Street Fighter 6

Punishment for other candidates: Have to reach into a bin of Bean Boozled that's 90% gross ones and eat it in public in front of cameras and the press. After, push into the alligator moat. Also, Mira’s idea

Mira

Representing the Drinks & Eats party: “I was rooting around in a dumpster out back.”

Will change the name to RTVSia

One of every food and drink, free of charge

Will develop a chemical compound called “Ketracel White,” will genetically engineer ants to be dependent on it 

Endorsed by: IceFrog, Yoshi, Yoshi (from Mario), baby Yoshi (might be one and the same), Chun Lee

Signature move(s) when President: Level up system (up to 3), if she gets knocked down she loses a charge of it, gets it when she does some power up move (or something), negative edge inputs (landmine, fireball, that one thing Bison does in Street Fighter 5), install where she gets a command grab, 8-way air dash, guard impact, levels reset between rounds, invincible super (can do it on wakeup)

Punishment for other candidates: Detractors rounded up and taken into woods where they are given a knife, camera, and laptop to make a Youtube channel of them living in the woods (Ethernet in the trees)

Trog

Representing the People’s Choice Freedom Integrity Liberty Justice Prosperity Sovereign Citizen’s Ethical Governance Democratic Renewal Global Sustainability Citizens for Unity (may be part of the Lego Star Wars Party): “We’re all part of God’s nation in my eyes.”

All breakfast restaurants have to be open for lunch & dinner in addition to breakfast

THEY HAVE TO GIVE YOU A LARGE WATER WHEN YOU ASK FOR IT

Desegregate PornHub and GayTube

Everybody gets a free castle

Immediately cease all snack exports 

Will start war with Canada

Will mail a bomb if you want him to

Will double your ants and give them to the next guy OR will turn them all into 1 big ant

New category on PornHub for ants

Will build death robots and a spaceship

Will be inventing gorgons, griffins, vampires, Frankenstiens, zombies, mummies, insects, gorgon ants (small)

Endorsed by: The Sims, Captain Video, Half Life 2: Lost Coast (demo), Tobuscus

Super move when President: 1 Sphinx on every tile surrounding, +1 food, +1 culture (if next to a river, +2 food, +2 culture instead)

Theme song: Steppin’ Out by Joe Jackson

Punishment for other candidates: All other candidates have to do an embarrassing pose and gaze into Medusa’s eyes, which will turn them into stone. The statues will be put in front of the White House, where during a nation-wide celebration they will be knocked down with a wrecking ball/individually destroyed with dirty bombs

Wayneradiotv/Wayne John 

Representing the California Milk Processors Board: “Enjoy DOGh.”

Every gallon of milk will have $2,000 in it

Free PornHub premium

Any dairy product you want whenever you want it

Will attract more ants

Will rename it to Milk Nation

Pig milk Iron Fist

Endorsed by: Britney Spears, Beyonce, Rhianna, Serena Williams, Venus Williams, Shaquille O’Neal, Harrison Ford (all branded with Permanent Milk Mustache & committed their eternal lives), Batman, Mario, Spongebob

Signature move when President: Cow army that walks on their hind legs and shoot milk as projectiles

Punishment for other candidates: Mulched into feed for his cows

Things you need to rememer for the ONLY ELECTION THAT MATTERS!!!!