One upside of this year’s downsized Thanksgiving is you’re less likely to get into political arguments with relatives. Better luck next year, Racist Uncle Ned. Unfortunately, this also leaves you with less to discuss at the table. Fortunately, you’ll have some pretty interesting conversation pieces sitting on the plate in front of you.
For example, did you know there’s a good chance your turkey came from Minnesota, your cranberries from Wisconsin and your sweet potatoes from North Carolina? Justin Fox knows this now, because of researching it, along with many other interesting facts about which political swing states produce the food that will have you “swinging” to the couch for a long nap.
And you might think this weird holiday season would be good news for turkeys and bad news for the farms that slaughter them for people to eat. In fact, David Fickling writes, one of the weird ways Americans have coped with coronavirus lockdowns is to re-create Thanksgiving dinners again and again, spending their many spare hours brining, spatchcocking, stuffing and roasting. This pandemic can’t end soon enough, for humans or for turkeys. Also, zombie minks. Anyway, Happy Thanksgiving!
Trump’s Power to Make Mischief
President Donald Trump just can’t seem to help himself. Even with President-elect Joe Biden’s transition now in full swing, and even after Pennsylvania certified Biden as winning its electoral votes, Trump had planned to travel to Gettysburg today with his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, to complain more about voter fraud in that state.
Trump bailed on the trip, possibly depriving America of another much-needed Four Seasons Total Landscaping moment. But he’s obviously not ready to leave the stage gracefully. In fact, every move he has made since the election that hasn’t involved either claiming robbery or pardoning turkeys has been to make trouble for Biden and, by extension, the country, writes Tim O’Brien. And he still has two months in which to make mischief. Of course, there is a non-zero chance he’ll simply flee to Mar-a-Lago before his term is up. But even then, Bill Barr and other highly placed loyalists can quietly pour sugar in the gas tank of the government just before handing it off to Biden.
Of the many Chernobyl-sized messes Trump is leaving Biden, the relationship with China is one that hasn’t gotten much attention lately. But maybe it should, considering how these two nuclear-armed countries could someday end up at war. Trump has simply stopped communicating with China, leaving the two sides exchanging only menacing gestures at this point, writes Bloomberg’s editorial board. That won’t end well. Biden doesn’t have to be much less hawkish about China, but he should at least get the two sides talking again.
Pandemic-Friendly Companies
As we’ve mentioned a bunch in this newsletter, weird pandemic habits such as our whole-turkey craze have been an unexpected windfall to many lucky companies. One of these is Deere, notes Brooke Sutherland, which makes the tractors that produce the food that we have spent many extra hours preparing and eating. And the prospect of slightly warmer relations with China under Biden make the future look even brighter for Deere, raising the potential for more food demand, more farming and more tractors.
Tech companies — and Deere’s modern space-age tractors almost make it one of those — have also thrived in the pandemic as we all shop and surf and binge on our couches. The payment company Stripe has been one beneficiary, so much so that it’s raising new private funding at what could be a $100 billion valuation, which has more than doubled since just April, writes Alex Webb. But with great valuation comes greater expectations and pressures.
Argentine football diety Diego Maradona died. Bobby Ghosh makes the case Maradona was the greatest player of all time, better than Ronaldo or Messi because he had to do everything basically alone. He was Jordan without a Pippen. He had many incredible goals, but his best may have been the one that sealed England’s fate in the 1986 World Cup. Here’s how that play-by-play translates into English:
If you can’t figure out how to unscramble the answer letters in our country music Conundrum, don’t forget to look to Dolly Parton for a bit of help. You might find there’s less unscrambling to be done than sorting.
And if you’re still having trouble figuring out that Garth Brooks song, it’s possible you’ve got the wrong Aesop’s fox fable. We were thinking of this one, rather than this one. — Scott Duke Kominers
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the NDP is caving to political pressure from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre when it comes to their stance on the consumer carbon price.
Trudeau says he believes Jagmeet Singh and the NDP care about the environment, but it’s “increasingly obvious” that they have “no idea” what to do about climate change.
On Thursday, Singh said the NDP is working on a plan that wouldn’t put the burden of fighting climate change on the backs of workers, but wouldn’t say if that plan would include a consumer carbon price.
Singh’s noncommittal position comes as the NDP tries to frame itself as a credible alternative to the Conservatives in the next federal election.
Poilievre responded to that by releasing a video, pointing out that the NDP has voted time and again in favour of the Liberals’ carbon price.
British Columbia Premier David Eby also changed his tune on Thursday, promising that a re-elected NDP government would scrap the long-standing carbon tax and shift the burden to “big polluters,” if the federal government dropped its requirements.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Simon Jolin-Barrette, minister responsible for consumer protection, has tabled a bill to force merchants to calculate tips based on the price before tax.
That means on a restaurant bill of $100, suggested tips would be calculated based on $100, not on $114.98 after provincial and federal sales taxes are added.
The bill would also increase the rebate offered to consumers when the price of an item at the cash register is higher than the shelf price, to $15 from $10.
And it would force grocery stores offering a discounted price for several items to clearly list the unit price as well.
Businesses would also have to indicate whether taxes will be added to the price of food products.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
Quebec legislature member Youri Chassin has announced he’s leaving the Coalition Avenir Québec government to sit as an Independent.
He announced the decision shortly after writing an open letter criticizing Premier François Legault’s government for abandoning its principles of smaller government.
In the letter published in Le Journal de Montréal and Le Journal de Québec, Chassin accused the party of falling back on what he called the old formula of throwing money at problems instead of looking to do things differently.
Chassin says public services are more fragile than ever, despite rising spending that pushed the province to a record $11-billion deficit projected in the last budget.
He is the second CAQ member to leave the party in a little more than one week, after economy and energy minister Pierre Fitzgibbon announced Sept. 4 he would leave because he lost motivation to do his job.
Chassin says he has no intention of joining another party and will instead sit as an Independent until the end of his term.
He has represented the Saint-Jérôme riding since the CAQ rose to power in 2018, but has not served in cabinet.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
