Reflections on the decay of real journalism in the Royal City

By Gerry Barker

November 26, 2018

I stumbled across an article written by the Mercury Managing editor, Phil Andrews April 3, 2014. Four some five years, I worked for Phil writing a column on the editorial page every three weeks. I’ve worked for a number of ME’s in my life, some really good, talented and could deal with an involved publisher. Others were mediocre, devoid of original thought and officious with staff to cover upon their inability and insecurity. They came and went like ships passing in the night.

Phil Andrews was an “A” list managing editor. Firm but fair and ran a small but productive staff. They are all gone now as the Mercury died in January 2016.

The following is an example of what a news organization should be.   The medium doesn’t matter, and the principles are the same. Phil wrote it in response to a question from the floor when he was guest speaker at the Guelph Wellington Men’s Club.

It is a journalistic mission statement that is now a lost element of good stories, well-written and fair comment based on fact, clearly separating news from opinion.

Here is part of Phil’s reply to his questioner.

“I enjoyed my speaking engagement and Q&A session with the Guelph Wellington Men’s Club this week.

“The first question from the floor for me was posed by a gentleman. I was later advised he was a retired judge.

“He wanted to know who owns the Mercury and how/when we get marching orders to cover certain things and take certain editorial positions. I advised the questioner that the Mercury was a Torstar paper — within its Metroland division — and that it has a set editorial mission statement. I also advised that no corporate-editorial marching orders have ever been issued to me, that the mission statement would likely trouble no one in our market

“The following principles guide our editorial board:”

1. Community responsibility. The Guelph Mercury will be an advocate for sound planning and good government at all levels. We will encourage local citizens to play an active role in the growth and health of Guelph and Wellington County.
2. Freedom of speech and thought. The newspaper will uphold and preserve the principles of free speech and defend those who exercise this right. We support academic freedom and universal access to education. We will encourage a full range of opinion on our editorial pages.
3. Social justice. The Guelph Mercury’s editorials reflect a belief that societies have a shared responsibility to ensure that the most needy and disadvantaged among us have a decent quality of life, including the most basic needs of food, shelter and health care. We support the equal treatment and civil liberties of all citizens as guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
4. A United Canada. The Guelph Mercury believes in a strong and united Canada. The newspaper envisions a culturally diverse, bilingual country that plays a positive role on the world stage.
5. Environmental responsibility. The newspaper supports environmental responsibility through the responsible preservation and protection of the environment for future generations.

I spent 23 years in the editorial department of the Toronto Star, Canada’s largest circulation newspaper. I was proud that I was a reporter and later editor managing various editorial management areas of the paper.

Some of Canada’s top newspaper people worked for the Star. I covered Marilyn Bell’s swimming across the Strait of Juan de Fuca separating the U.S. and Victoria B.C. then covered the Beatles first North American Tour and went on to conduct a scientific vehicle gasoline consumption test to compare the performance in the leading models of cars at the time.

Through it all, some great bosses who trained me in journalistic principles and accuracy influenced me. I learned during the late and great newspaper daily war between the Star and the Telegram. The name of the game in the Star newsroom was beat the Tely.

Today in Guelph we are bereft of community responsibility with the media being corporately controlled by non-resident corporate owners. There have been several major events in the city of which every citizen’s interest is blocked.

In the first two years of the Guthrie administration, city council conducted 84 closed-session meetings that were never summarized or reported to the public. It is odd that the same number 42 occurred in both years. There are some issues that should be discussed in closed session but not nearly the numbers held by the city of Guelph.

Next comes Freedom of Speech and Thought. City council has the opinion that what citizens don’t know won’t hurt them. That’s a perverse and irresponsible action by elected officials who practise it with the aid of some senior staff. Sadly, news coverage has deteriorated markedly since the Mercury closed in 2016.

Those two principles sum up the decay of news coverage in Guelph. The parade of city softball press releases and the police occurrence sheet is not journalism. News means coverage of events that affect all citizens. It includes the give-away of Guelph Hydro based on a phony premise that the future of electricity distribution is better in the hands of a large power distributer.

As citizens, we are held in the grip of a powerful political organization that has mismanaged our city and in the process has wasted millions.

But if the last civic election is any example of voter apathy, the real reason is they are not informed on a regular basis. The truth, like Elvis, has left the building.

Will the deceit and cover-ups disappear?

Only the people can do that by voting.

We lost that opportunity last October when more than 57,000 eligible voters did not turn up to express their support or denial of those seeking public office.

The enemy of democracy is apathy.

 

 

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As a public service, the latest exercise by the administration isto plumb your opinions to satisfy their operations

By Gerry Barker

November 19, 20118

It all began in 2007 when former mayor Karen Farbridge won a sweeping election seizing control of city council.

For all you history buffs here is what happened some 11 years ago. It was an evolutionary process that took us from blue boxes to three plastic bags to three bins. The last waste management collection move cost citizens $15.5 million. Then it failed to service some 35,000 households because the automatic trucks, costing $150,000 each, failed to navigate many of the high-density condo properties.

Solution: Hire private contractors to remove waste from those condos planned and approved by the City planning department and also the majority of the Farbridge council.

It didn’t take long for residents in condo properties to figure it out that they were being taxed for city pick-up of waste but paying someone else to do it. About a year ago the waste management staff resolved part ofthe problem by changing the collection system to accommodate the owners who were paying extra to have their waste removed.

With the announcement that funds were being made available there appeared to be a number of condo sites that were not to receive the benefits of the new waste removal largess.

Declaration of interest: Our Wellington Condominium 99 Corporation was not included and that’s where we live. More on this later.

I do not blame the current waste management team led By Deputy Administrative Officer Scott Stewart. Joining the staff in 2015, he was handed a rock of wasted funding, poor service and disorganization. In such an important department, it is impossible to turn things around to serve all the residents of the city.

I do not believe this survey will accomplish anything including assuaging those of us who must pay double for waste removal. It is not just a Guelph problem.

Royson James, a seasoned writer in the Toronto Star ,outlined the problems facing GTA municipalities where the rules are different, confusing and counter-productive in basic recyclable technology

In Guelph, we are stuck with a collection system that does not cover all residents or businesses in the city and sorting is done by hand. How does a a sorter distinguish between dangerous medical materials and certain forms of plastic in a high speed assembly sorting likel that includes recyclables from other communities?

Why does the city ship its recyclables to Cambridge where Waste Management operated an automated plant to handle these materials?

Is it pride? Is it to justify the millions spent on the Dunlop Drive Waste Innovation Centre that includes the $34 million organic waste facility that was over built and is run by a subsidiary of the company that built the plant? In fact, the compost produced by the plant is not available to Guelph citizens as it is sold privately. Perhaps that’s a good thing, as we don’t know what’s in it.

So we encourage people to answer the questions and let the management know that the services need reorganization to reflect the modern needs of effective waste management.

About that rock mentioned earlier? There are several factors that reflect the mistakes made by previous administration. Our waste collection and dispersal, in my opinion, is disgraceful, inflamed by ego driven leadership and wasted millions.

Unfortunately, The survey form would not download. It can be located on the city website. In our opinion it has affected many taxpayers for 12 years.

What’s fair and should be addressed for the following reasons?

We live in a land condominium composed of 22 single family homes and the city has never picked up our waste. Instead we pay a private contractor to remove our waste weekly, we have lived in our home for 15 years. Most of our neighbours voluntarily segregate wet garbage from recyclables. We do not have any city supplied bins or carts to dispose of our waste so we use plastic bags. The cost of this to residents is more than $7,000 a year although we must pay for the service through our property taxes.

We have made overtures to the waste management without resolution. We pay to have our street cleared of snow, we maintain our water and sewage system including a connection to the Guelph Country Club.

We believe it is hypocritical of the city to charge for waste removal through our taxes and ignore that we do not meet the high standards of waste removal as dictated by city council.

When city approve a plan of subdivision, why do they not adhere to their own waste management bylaw?

We live in the heart of the city, a lovely island of privacy and independence and pay the same tax rate as those nearby who enjoy the services the city provides.

The solution is simple. Just remove those city services it does not provide from our tax bills. This would include roads, curbs, water and sewer system maintenance, snow removal, waste pick-up including recyclables, street lighting, tree servicing, administration, liability insurance, common area maintenance. Most importantly, residents are required to contribute monthly to our reserve fund to support the various assets for which the city is not responsible.

We understand that other municipalities do grant discounts for services they do not provide.

Our board of directors would be pleased to discuss this possibility or other resolution.

Gerry and Barbara Barke

271 Riverview Place

Guelph, ON. N1E 7G9

 

Bo

The Ford government has little incentive to bail out Guelph because we elected the wrong MPP

By Gerry Barker

November 15, 2018

Guelph is a no man’s land when it comes to accountability and transparency.

Yet a Guelph Today writer seem to believe that holding closed=session meetings is okay. In the first two years of the Guthrie administration, there were 84 closed-session meetings held by council. It is impossible to obtain the minutes of those meetings.

I know from personal experience when I requested a copy of the minutes of a closed-session held, December 10, 2015. It concerned the pay increases for four top city managers. The request was referred to an outfit in London, known as the “Closed Session Investigators” who took four months to deny my request.

The organization has been on retainer with the city since 2008. Since then there were three requests for minutes of closed-session council meetings all of which were denied.

That’s transparency Guelph council style

It’s a political island in a provincial sea of blue. It has elected a member of the Legislature who is a party of one, the Ontario Green Party. He is a member who is politically left of the late NDP leader, Jack Layton. A man who is bent on creating a David Suzuki brand of an environmental green nirvana that most Ontario electors voted against last June.

The election was a total repudiation of the Liberal government’s policies of structuring a disastrous energy file, the cost of which has yet to be determined. The Kathleen Wynne government imposed a long-term residential development plan on every municipality in the province. The focus of the plan was building residential housing incorporating “Intensification” by eliminating single-family development. By condensing more housing units on smaller acreages, the result was low-rise condos accompanied by strip attached townhouses with little open space.

The evidence of these ghettos of intensification is concentrated along Victoria and Clair Roads. Tiny garages, open space parking for condo owners, and jammed together like sardines.

The bonus to the city was increased assessment that created increased revenue. The downside is these developments do not produce any affordable housing.

All this happened in eight years under former Mayor Farbridge’s two-term councils. And it still continues to this day. City planners have allowed development that has inadequate driveways and narrow streets with little visitor parking.

The Wynne plan called for Guelph to have a population of 175,000 by 2031. However it is predicted that the city is rapidly becoming a bedroom city, occupied by commuters heading for jobs in the GTA.

Successive progressive dominating councils, have ignored eight years of failure of the economic development department to seek and encourage industrial and communications companies to come to Guelph to create jobs.

Economic development, what’s that?

Since 2006, the city’s ratio of residential assessment compared to commercial/industrial has not changed. Some 84 per cent of all city assessment is residential. This places an enormous burden on property owners whose taxes and special levies average more than 3.5 per cent annually.

Just remember that the man just re-elected Mayor, promised in his first campaign to maintain property tax increases at the same rate as the Consumer Price Index. That was 1.99 per cent when he was elected in 2014. His first budget approved in March 2015 by council, was 3.96 per cent following changes in property assessment. Rookie mistake?

The new council, as described by the Guelph Today writer, is not new at all. All of the incumbents were re-elected. Only two new councillors were added. That looks like the same council as before continuing the domination of the progressives who retain a 7-6 majority.

Time to get serious. The city is facing a growing drug problem, a fiscal problem that will never go away until the brakes are pumped to control the grandiose plans to redevelop Baker Street. There is need to freeze further city funds for the Guelph Innovation District on the provincially-owned reformatory lands. What influence does Mr. Schreiner, our MPP, have to persuade the province to part with the more than 1,077 acres of the reformatory property?

Why are we financing these two projects?

There is no capital funding for these two projects that are proposed for long-term construction and purchase of the reformatory property.

Instead, concentrate building a new downtown library with adequate parking and make it convenient to all citizens.

In the near term, there will be the task of funding additions to the Guelph General Hospital as the population increases each year.

Let’s get started building the South-end Recreation Centre in three stages: First, infrastructure for entire project, parking and rinks, community rooms and staff offices; Second, children’s area, library branch and computer facilities, auditorium for stage events and film; Third, swimming pool, change rooms, exercise area and more parking.

Architects and planners can rearrange elements. Once the plan is ready the public should have input. This is a major and necessary project and could be spaced out over the new term of council.

The chief decisions that need immediate attention is to review all audited statements, eliminate unnecessary spending on staff and social programs. The staff reviews are painstakingly slow and the internal auditor should be given assets to speed up the review process.

It’s not all dark and gloom. It is important that financial information be presented to the public in print as well as online. The Financial Department has made great progress in improving the clarity of information but if you don’t have a computer, you won’t see the information. Sending a note requesting preference of citizens to receive important details of city operations will be beneficial to all citizens.

Bon chance, mes Amis

Will the new council come clean about the GMHI $66 million asset sitting on the 2017 city financial statement?

By Gerry Barker

November 12, 2018

Opinion

In a little more than two weeks, the newly elected city council will take command.

The October civic election sent 11 incumbent members back to council plus two newcomers. Rodrigo Goller and Dominique O’Rourke.

So, nothing has changed when change remains more needed now than in the previous four years.

The seven progressive members of council still hold the majority and will for the next four years. While the Mayor worked to establish a slate to create a personal majority to offset the power of the Leftists, it failed. What occurred was Ms. O’Rourke replaced Mr. Wettstein and Mr. Goller replaced Mr. Van Hellemond.

The voter turnout was one of the lowest in many years with some 57,054 out of 90,786 eligible voters who did not bother.

The only explanation is that those voting absentees must be satisfied the city was in good hands. Or, many were not informed of the issues, present company excepted. Between the communications staff at City Hall and various online bloggers, the organic action of city council was rarely, if ever, reported.

So let’s review: Unfortunately, right now there is faint hope that the new city council will address the mistakes of the past and reform needed governance and financial issues. There is no evidence that those elected incumbents will stop clinging to their failed concepts that have already wasted millions.

For starters, and this is information that you will not find anywhere in the softball media serving Guelph, is the financial asset listed in the official City of Guelph audited Consolidated Position as of December 31, 2017. The listing was the asset of Guelph Municipal Holdings Inc. (GMHI) of $66,341,000.

Did you ever read or hear about that?

So the next question is: What happened to that $66,341,000 in 2018? Guess we’ll have to wait for the 2018 official financial statement that will be published sometime next year.

But here is what I believe occurred.

In February 2017, the little known Strategies and Options Committee, (SOC) was appointed by city council to study the disposal of Guelph Hydro that operated under the GMHI board of directors. Initially, the SOC was composed of joint chairmen Chief Administrative Officer (CA) Derrick Thomson and CEO Pankaj Sardana, Chief Executive Officer of Guelph Hydro. There were three other non-elected public members.

Their mandate was to sell Guelph Hydro, or amalgamate with another municipally owned electric power distribution system or merge with a large power distribution corporation.

That February meeting of SOC removed the sale of Guelph Hydro as a consideration. What followed was a purge in which Mr. Sardana was removed and replaced by Ms. Jane Armstrong, chair of Guelph Hydro. One of three committee members resigned later stating he was opposed to taking the sale of Guelph Hydro off the table.

The GMHI Board of Directors consisted of Mayor Karen Farbridge as Chair, Councillors Lise Burcher, June Hofland, Karl Wettstein and Todd Dennis plus two non-elected civilian members. The CEO was CAO Ann Pappert. Ms.Papert left her job as CAO May 26, 2016.

Keep in mind that the SOC meetings were held in closed-sessions. GMHI did not produce regular summary of operations, financial statements, objectives or recommendations to council.

Not until October 2017, when Mayor Guthrie announced an agreement in principal to merge Guelph Hydro with Alectra Inc., a large power distribution corporation for several Greater Toronto Municipalities.

All it took was $2.36 million of your money to convince council

Yes, that was what the city spent promoting the deal with town halls, telephone surveys and an online document, the size of the Toronto telephone book, with little substance or financial details. Hard copies of the multi-page book was only available to a few key people. Certainly few of the 55,000 Guelph Hydro customers read the this online-based document, presented just 12 days before the council meeting that approved the deal.

More of your tax dollars at work

Slam Dunk! No details except a glowing endorsement from the Mayor about what a great deal the city had made. In December, city council approved the deal, still under negotiation, by a 10 to 3 margin and the rest is history.

The only evidence that exists today, following the Ontario Energy Board’s (OEB) approval, four days before the civic election, is the statement by the OEB that Alectra Utilies was purchasing all the outstanding, shares and issues of Guelph Hydro Electric Systems Inc, aka Guelph Hydro.

Key word here is “purchasing.” Could it be that the price happened to be $66 million of GMHI as shown on the city’s 2017 financial statement?

Is this what council traded to get out from under the GMHI financial disaster?

All along Mayor Guthrie has stipulated that Guelph Hydro is not being given away.

So why did he not tell the truth and refuse to reveal the financial details?

We may never know except that the $66 million asset of GMHI had better be part of the city’s assets in the 2018 financial statements. I’m betting it may still be there because the merger with Alectra closes January 31 2019. It will take another 18 months before the money disappears from the city books.

By then Guelph Hydro will no longer exist.

I still maintain that Alectra got the bargain of the century. Guelph city council looked like hicks at the circus approving this flawed merger concocted by highly skilled lawyers with little oversight of our representatives..

Of course, the new council should tell us what really happened to that $66 million asset on the city nooks in terms that citizens understand.

Trumpspin and Canada slaps a tariff on horse manure

By Gerry Barker

November 8, 2018

I’m a guy who is not tolerant of tyrants or ranting tolerants. Case in point was yesterday’s fake press conference conducted by the President of the United States in which he argues that the result if the mid-term election was a great victory for the Republicans.

Was he juiced up with cheeseburgers and diet Cokes again?

Honestly, this guy should have been a car salesman. Whoa pardner! That not fair to most car salesman. For more than an hour Donald Trump ignored the huge victory by the Democrats who now take control of the House of Representatives on January 1, 2019. By any spin Trump tries to downplay it, his life as a politician will be carefully checked as he attempts to deal with the new sheriff in town – 230 Democrates who have the power to say no.

Even perhaps when it comes to expanding health care or legalisig the estimate 800,000 young people, born in the U.S. by illegal immigrant parents. At one point, the Trump administration threatened to deport them even though the U.S. Constitution specially states that if you are born in the U.S. you are an American citizen.

This is the same guy who said that President Barack Obama was not born in the U.S. therefore was not a citizen and should be removed from office. Wrong but Trump’s racist’s attitude surfaced after he was elected President in 2016.

Sorry Mr. Trump, your spin, laced with lies and vindictive personal attacks on anyone opposed or critical of your performance. Tour press conference performance accurately describes yout \ attitude toward the people who have spoken.

There was a blue wave Tuesday and your passionate posse could not stop it.

*            *            *            *

Back in Canada

Soon the election financial statement that must be submitted by all candidates will be available for public viewing. The candidate who had the highest number of votes was Mayor Cam Guthrie. In fact he received more than two-thirds lf all votes cast in the October 22 election. His opponent, Aggie Mlyarz, also polled surprisingly well received a third of all votes cast.

Again her source of support will be identified either in cash or (in kind, payment by a third party for services rendered).

Only 28 years old, Ms Mlyarz wants to be the political prom queen before learning how to dance. Regardless, her polling in the provincial election in June and in the Guelph civic election was impressive.

What it tells me is the progressive left followers in Guelph are well organized, loyal to the cause and formidable. The re-election of all seven incumbent progressive candidates who retain the majority on council is yet another example of after 12 years, they still control the council agenda. And, voter apathy works well for them because they know their supporters and ensure they get out and vote.

Two ways to break the system is allow online voting in 2022 and reduce the size of council, all councillors who are elected at large, are paid the equivalent of full time work.

*            *            *            *

Financing Jujitsu of the Baker Street redevelopment project

When Mayor Guthrie announced that the city was entering a 3P (Private, Public, Partnership) with an Ottawa company ivlding a huge redevelopment complex on the Baker Street parking lot with he key occupant the new Downtown Library.

The estimated $350 million project announcement failed to provide the public share of the project. But did include the statement that the city had already invested $29 million in the project.

So far, that $29 million is composed of $5 million to purchase two properties facing on Wyndham Street several years go to enlarge the parking lot and provide access onto Wyndham Street.

Then there was an item that the city’s contribution included $22 million, the cost of the

5-storey Wilson Street Parkade next door to City Hall, now under construction.

While the taxpayers are paying this cost, why is it included as a contribution in the 3P proposal? Trying to make us look good?

The Fascist President who believes he is the American Fuhrer

By Gerry Barker

November 5, 2018

Opinion

Tomorrow is Election Day in America.

President Donald Trump is not on the ballot but in reality, he is.

Last Friday night in Toronto, thousands turned out at Roy Thomson Hall to protest the two guest speakers’ presentation of the new America. The occasion was the Munk lectures inviting the public to hear the voices of politics, arts and culture.

Steve Banion, former senior advisor to President Trump and a far right American nationalist, and David Frum, son of the late Canadian broadcaster Barbara Frum were the two speakers. Mr. Frum was a senior advisor to former president George W. Bush and frequent guest on cable TV in the U.S. He is currently a senior editor of the Atlantic magazine and an author.

Both speakers were met with a coalition of some 40 organizations, protesting the guest speakers’ political points of view and recent performance proponents of the conservative far right agenda. It would be unfair to label Mr. Frum as a Trump supporter, far frum (sic) it. He has spoken and written often about how Trump is degrading the Republican Party in the U.S.

The presentation started 45 minutes late due to the crush of protesters and people trying to get in the hall. It ended with a glitches outcome that stated Bannion won. It was reversed. Perhaps the Munk organizers should recalibrate their lectures and debates.

Dumping the Trump effect

So the protestors leaving 12 persons hurt, a few charged and a long period of shouted chaos surrounding the hall dismissed the Trump fake doctrine.

This election on Tuesday is the first time that Trump can be judged, following his first two years in office, by the voters. It has been two years of chaos in the White House where the president munches on cheeseburgers and diet cokes, eyes glued on Fox News, while tweeting streams of invective lies and self-serving messages to his core supporters.

Trump is never wrong, never apologetic, and is frequently dishonest or displays the intellect of a five year-old.

And yet, according to the media, the real media not the fake media that he excoriates, some 40 million supporters believe him for a variety of reasons.

Any negative story or statement concerning him or his performance is attacked using pejorative descriptions of legitimate reporters and editors. No one is safe who dares to criticize him. The Washington Post team of 11 fact-checkers has determined that in two years, Trump has told 6,700 lies.

His targets were identified a couple of weeks ago by a Trump supporter who mailed explosive pipe bombs to 15 persons. All recipients were Democrat leaders and supporters including two former, two-term Presidents, Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Barack Obama.

Don’t bother me with the details

Trump never contacted either former presidents offering support.

Quick work by the coalition of law enforcement agencies arrested the guy who was living in a van, plastered with photos of Trump and a picture of Hillary Clinton with a gun sight circle super imposed on her face. Evidence revealed the bomb maker was a Trump supporter who attended a number of his rallies.

It represented a metaphor of the Trump Presidency, making and mailing pipe bombs is one thing, getting them to explode is another matter. Trump tweeted only referring to the threat as “the bomb thing.”

Fortunately, not one of the devices exploded but the nation was appalled and frightened over these attacks on the Democratic leadership and billionaire Democrat investor, supporter George Soros, who was sent one bomb to his home that was intercepted by security and another in his New York office.

Just eight days following the arrest of the bomber in Florida, a lone gunman, armed with a modified AR15 assault rifle and three Glock handguns, entered a Synagogue in Pittsburgh and killed 11 worshippers on the Jewish Sabbath.

Although wounded, the man told police that he wanted to kill all the Jews.

The Following Tuesday, against the advice of Synagogue officials, Trump, his wife, daughter and husband attended the murder scene. Some 25,000 protestors assembled nearby, shouted their objections to Trumps uninvited appearance. Trump later tweeted that there were only a few protestors who were far away.

Your Commander in Chief needs his army

Trump sloughed off the “bomb thing” and turned up the volume about the thousands of Central American asylum seekers heading toward the U.S border in a caravan, on foot and many without shoes. These people included women and children who are escaping from Honduras because it is nation in total economic chaos, with daily murders, high unemployment and incompetent government.

Trump called it an invasion of America and ordered 5,000 regular army troops to the border to join the 22,000 border patrol officers and some 2,900 National Guardsmen reservists, already backing up the border guards.

Trump justified his decision claiming the caravan-contained murderers, people from Middle East countries, thieves and rapists, determined to take over America.

The fact the unarmed caravan of some 4,000 were some 700 miles away from the U.S. border, moving at 20 miles a day, did not deter Trump from attacking them daily. In one of his tweets he claimed that persons in the caravan threw rocks at Mexican army troops and police.

One wag quipped that the NRA gun organization should now be called the National Rock Association.

OOPS! Judgment alert

Of course, none of this should ever happen because the US constitution prevents U.S. armed forces from firing weapons at anyone on U.S. soil. The last time that happened was when Ohio National Guard soldiers fired on unarmed students protesting the Viet Nam war at Kent State University. Eight students were killed in the fusillade.

That slaughter of the Kent State student’s shocked America and the world. It marked the beginning of the U.S. withdrawal from Viet Nam.

The president, stoking the fires of fear shortly after, claimed the Honduras caravan contained bad people that were “invading” the U.S. He then ordered the U.S. Army to send up to 15,000 regular soldiers to defend the border against the Honduras horde. He went on to say at his rallies to make America Great again, that if the “invaders” threw rocks hitting the troops they would fire on the group wanting to enter the U.S.

If there was ever a reason to vote tomorrow, it is to elect candidates to stop these incessant Trump attacks on a group of unarmed people just wanting a better opportunity to live and work in America.

The Trump fear-mongering assault on the helpless and the innocent replicates the fantasy remarkably similar to those narcissistic personalities, Napoleon and Genghis Khan, two ambitious strongmen who he emulates.

He keeps saying: I am the President.””

His thesis of protecting the southern U.S border from immigrants seeking asylum is a Fascist ploy to stoke fear among U.S. citizens. The President is a fake, a Fascist and pathological liar. Why should any thinking person believe him now?

Get the hell away from my country

It remains just one of many reasons to stop the accusatory rhetoric by a President. He is a man who has made America worse again. He cozies up to dictators, the neo-Nazis and U.S white supremacists. He denigrates people of colour. He has alienated powerful allies and he is incapable of telling the American public the truth.

He frequently blames Canada as unfair traders who have ripped off America. Actually, the U.S. has had a trade surplus with Canada for the NFTA lifetime.

He and his sycophantic sidekick, Mike Pence, have taken America down a perilous path leading to isolation and economic disaster.

Tomorrow, hopefully will be the beginning of the end of Trump power and that of his followers.

The early indicator of a record-breaking advance voter turnout is the surging numbers of people who have already voted. Power change is coming to Washington.

Mr. President, your bunker is ready, sir. While Mr. Pence joining you?