Quotes from Neil Macdonald

I once found myself in Paris, Texas, possibly the most curious juxtaposition of place names in America.

Of all the criticisms levelled at Stephen Harper by his critics, the most puzzling, at least to anyone who has covered Washington, is that he behaves more like a president than a prime minister.

Quietly, without much public fuss or discussion, a new ruling class has risen in the richer nations. These men and women are unelected and tend to shun the publicity hogged by the politicians with whom they co-exist. They are the world's central bankers.

At the very least, Donald Trump and his most rabid followers have been objective allies of the white supremacist movement, even if they thought they weren't.

I often wonder, when I hear some important speaker rattle off the rote land acknowledgements that have become the standard introduction for official events in this country, whether Indigenous people are getting sick of being constantly and dolefully reminded of who owns their land now.

Conservatives generally think it's best to take enemies at their word, to believe their bombast and threats and make preparations, rather than dismiss them as crackpots and regret it.

The modern election campaign is created by power in order to convince the realm that all is well, and, further, that its inhabitants are being presented with new information and a clear choice.

Trump's direct predecessor, Barack Obama, never attacked his own generals or officials on Twitter, and never referred to war criminals as heroes.

I cycle like a fiend, but I can't even sit through the highlights of the Tour de France.

Elizabeth Warren fully intends to change the system, and says so. When she said how good it felt to be with working people in a workers' hall, you knew it wasn't a platitude.

If you speak to his friends like Adam Sandler, David Spade or Tim Meadows - the people he came up with at 'SNL' - they would all agree that Norm was the purest amongst them. He was the comic's comic.

The plain Canadian fact is that relative to other Western democracies, the U.S. in particular, there isn't much difference between our two main political parties.

The Fed has been acting in rare concert with central banks worldwide to encourage borrowing and spending - and risk. And because all the new money being unleashed has to flow somewhere, it's been flowing, among other places, into the equity markets.

Speech is protected in the U.S., and at the risk of repeating a hackneyed aphorism, free speech is worthless unless it applies to offensive speech. It is an American value, and one well worth protecting.

But political parties must claim to be radically different from one another, and political journalism must play along, or else why exist? So the Liberals and Tories concentrate on what does distinguish them: their leaders. That in itself just about guarantees a campaign of ad hominem gooning.

I've seen Jordanian television lead its newscast with three identical, consecutive scenes, all on the same royal couch. It's hilarious, and most Western reporters cackle sarcastically when they first see it. I certainly did.

It is no exaggeration to say many evangelicals consider Trump an anointed figure; a clearly venal man somehow chosen by their God to rescue America from venality.

I am delighted to see the government spending more money to improve Indigenous life, and I would be happy to see even more spent.

The prime directive of media training is that the question never matters. That an honest response is for amateurs. Media trainers advise memorizing a set of non-responses and repeating them no matter what question is asked.

Resist, however peacefully and even in your own home, and heaven help you, no matter what your skin color.

My dad, toward the end of his life, said our health care system expects you to check your brains at the door. He was right. Yell at your politicians. Lose control.

While Trump, and, yes, Biden spend time with wealthy donors, Warren refuses big money. She also refused to participate in a Fox News town hall, wanting nothing to do with what she calls Fox's 'hate for profit' business plan. She is unafraid to name her enemies.

Very deliberately, the central bankers have punished savers, pushing interest rates so low that any truly safe investment - and older people are always advised to play it safe - yields a negative return when inflation is factored in.

When I was a kid, and the Hockey Night in Canada theme issued from our black-and-white Sylvania TV, I disappeared to the basement to listen to 45s and read the encyclopedias that my parents kept buying from travelling salesmen.