Moving forward with Brandon

Crooked Joe's 2024 election campaign... 

As the Democrats see it. 

Warranty expired long ago but what the hell, it's still running. Besides, there's nothing better on the lot.

As the Republicans see it. 

Never gonna make it up the hill carrying so much baggage. Joe's not "crooked", he's "cooked"!

Very à propos Image submitted by a faithful reader. Keep the faith, baby!

Why young Americans are so confused

The problem is the new politically correct vocabulary. What they read and hear is the opposite of reality.

Thanks to Neocon Servative, on Disqus.

On to New Hampshire, while CNN, MSNBC sulk

I hear there is already much soiling of shorts at the DNC HQ. My sources tell me President Brandon has been invited to come out of hiding and get into the office for a little talk.

And this is only the beginning of the end for Senile Joe and The Boy. As Nelson Muntz sez: HA-ha. 

Oh yeah... stay tuned... but NOT to CNN or MSNBC. Read: "MSNBC, CNN Refuse to Air Donald Trump's Victory Speech in Iowa but Air Haley and DeSantis Speeches", Breitbart News, 16/1/23.

Are the Habs for real? Poor Len Canayen's mid-season report

Memo to WWW National Sports (as long as it's hockey) Editor. Len, you scum-sucking son of a motherless goat, you've got exectly ten hours to get your copy in before tonight's Habs-Oilers matchup. It's a new year and I'll be damned if you're going to draw any salary for sitting on your derrière. Vas-y!

Hokay, Hed! (Hey, you're not going to post dat, are you?) Here's my report on the Montréal Canadiens, to the half-way point in their NHL season. Thursday night's loss to the lowly San Jose Sharks. 

Final score 3-2, and that pretty much sums up the Habs season so far. Lots of one-goal games, and so many games won or lost in overtime or a shootout that I've lost count of them. 

That said, les Glorieux have won their share of those games. They rarely get blown out of the rink, and have 6 wins in overtime or a shootout. Could be worse. They've been playing roughly .500 hockey, currently .488, which is good for 6th place in the NHL's Atlantic division.  

That means -- and this is the "pleasant surprise" part -- that they're not likely to finish in a good position in the draft lottery. Indeed, with a bit of luck, they might get a wildcard position in the playoffs. That's nothing to sneeze at. The 2020-21 Habs finished 16th overall, just barely getting into the playoffs, but made it through to the Stanley Cup finals, which they lost to the Tampa Bay Lightning.

That les Glorieux still have a chance at this point in the season is due to good coaching from Martin St. Louis, and a much improved team effort, and that without Tanner Pearson, Alex Newhook, Christian Dvorak and Kirby Dach, who played in only 2 games before being laid low by a season-ending injury.

Let's look at who's still on the roster, whoès helping and who's not. This year's team is remarkable in that a lot of scoring is being done by defencemen. For my money, the Canadiens' MVP is D-man Mike Matheson. If Montréal didn't already have a good captain, they should give the "C" to Matheson. The guy's a horse! He's one of the NHL’s leaders in time on ice and his willingness to lead the rush -- it's a pleasure to watch him skate -- makes him the ideal for a team coached by St. Louis.

At the other end of the spectrum is Johnathan Kovacevic, one of half a dozen youngsters who've played in front of Habs goalies this year. "The K-man" is a solid stay-at-home defenceman, who may think he needs a passport to enter the opposing teams' zone. He has scored 5 goals, including the most bizarre goal of the year, into an empty net when eveeryone (except him) thought there had been a stoppage in play. However, Kovacevic is +6, which is a decent +/- stat. The coach doesn't seem to like him, but I do!

I'm not saying Coach is wrong. The Canadiens lead the league in goals by defencemen but they rank a lowly 28th in offence, which means guys up front haven’t been pulling their weight. 

Captain Nick Suzuki leads the team in scoring for a third consecutive season, with Cole Caufield, for whom fans had great hopes, in third place. The aforementioned Mike Matheson has one more point than Caufield.

Caufield's goal production is off, and I think it's because the little guy is playing like a little guy. (Wee Brendan Gallagher, on the other hand, always plays like a giant!) Perhaps Caufield is dealing with the effects of the shoulder injury that sidelined him for the second half of last season. He shys away from the "dirty" areas -- the slot and the blue paint -- and opposing teams have figured that out.

Another forward I like (and wish he could do better) is big Josh Anderson. Talk about slow starts! It wasn't until December that Anderson scored his first goal, not counting an empty-netter. Then he had 5 points in 5 games and now he's gone dry again. It's not that he doesn't try. Bulling his way into the offensive zone he's nearly unstoppable. But when he gets there... hands of stone. Keep trying, Josh!

At present, sophomore Juraj Slafkovsky plays on the right of Caufield and Suzuki. He too had a slow start, but has learned to use his size and skill and looks to me like a keeper. The absence of Kirby Dach, Alex Newhook, Rafaël Harvey-Pinard and Christian Dvorak makes it easier for defences to concentrate on the top line and the lack of depth filters through the other lines, affecting players like Sean Monahan and Jake Evans.

Monahan and Evans are both good at the dot. Props to Evans who is getting a lot more ice time this year, faut de mieux. Monahan is one of the Habs' top goal-scorers and the most consistent faceoff man despite not having much support on the wing. 

Getting back to defence, the Canadiens may have a blessing in disguise, in the form of half a dozen D-men aged under 25, in their first or second years in the NHL. One of them that Coach St. Louis likes is Justin Barron, because he likes jumping into the rush -- too much so, IMHO. He needs to learn to play defence!

A pleasant suprise this year has been the emergence of rookie Jayden Struble on defence. His solid two-way play is the reason why Arber Xhekaj is stuck in Laval, in spite of being a fan favourite for his scrappy physical game. Like Barron, Xhekaj should play defence first, fight later.

Now to another problem that is good to have... maybe. La Sainte Flannelle is the only NHL team playing three -- count `em, three -- goaltenders, more or less in rotation. None of Jake Allen, Samuel Montembeault, or Cayden Primeau has had more than two starts in a row. The save percentages are, respectively, 900, .907 and .905. Those are pretty good numbers, considering that they face an average of over 33 shots per game, the highest in the NHL, which says something about the Habs' defence.

As we approach the trade deadline, it's clear that one of the three will have to go, and there are plenty of teams sniffing around. The question for GM Kent Hughes is what he can get in return for (most likely) Jake Allen. There are gaps to fill on both offence and defence. 

If the team was still in rebuilding mode, he could settle for draft picks and "future considerations". But now that the surprising Canadiens are in danger of making the playoffs (!), fans will be hoping for someone who can make a significant impact right now. As Walt would say, stay tuned!

...or else!!!

What Covenant House doesn't talk about in its fundraising pitch

Agent 3 reports that  Covenant House Toronto has recently flighted a massive repeat of its successful fundraising video ad, which opens with a long shot of a poor waif, sitting, cold and hungry, in the doorway of a downtown building, as a strange man (possibly a "chicken hawk") approaches.

"Amazing Grace" (of course) plays softly as we go to the voiceover which suggests Covenant House saves little white "barely legals" like this from a fate worse than death. The ad would melt the heart of a Scrooge, which is the intention of course.

If that one doesn't get to you, perhaps you'll be persuaded by this snippet scraped from the Covenant House Toronto website.

Even Ayn Rand couldn't refuse to help a sweet little girl like that "find a path forward", dontcha think? Sadly, young women like her are in the minority [the visible minority? Ed.] of Covenant House's "clients". The majority, in Toronto at least, include:

* "international students", getting into Canada by the back door -- a student visa to study at the likes of the Singh School of Truck Driving,

* drug addicts who won't get treatment, seeking only need a place to crash, and

* bogus refugees, asylum-seekers and other illegal immigrants (read: benefits shoppers) avoiding deportation, not that deportation is just as much a threat in Canada as it is in the US of A.

Jasmine Ramze Rezaee, the Director of Advocacy & Communications for YWCA Toronto, which undertakes similar work, told an interviewer that for those who are new to Canada, students included, housing challenges can sometimes be magnified. "I do think that refugees and people with precarious immigration status and even folks who have not yet obtained their refugee status, deal with a lot of compounding challenges and vulnerabilities because they can't oftentimes access even the minimum level of support that our society provides. And it's not uncommon for them to end up in the shelter system."

For a more accurate picture of the kind of marginalized yoofs the charity protects from the realities of life, check out "Rising above hate to build a better life", on their website. I suppose that it would be churlish to suggest that poor Nathaniel would have been better of had he stayed in his own country and straightened out his personal life. But don't let them guilt you into feeling like an ogre for suggesting that "how he is" is his own choice, and it's somehow our duty to shield him from the consequences.

On its website and in its literature, Covenant House Toronto says "We are part of an international network. Covenant House is an internationally recognized child care agency with 'houses' in 34 cities in Canada (Toronto and Vancouver), the U.S. and Latin America."

For some reason, Covenant House downplays the fact that it is, in theory at least, a Catholic charity. The mother organization was founded by Franciscan Father Bruce Ritter to provide shelters for homeless teenagers. Father Ritter was forced to resign a few years ago over accusations of financial and sexual misdeeds. (Source: Toronto Star, 3/3/16) I beg your forgiveness for wondering in the, errr, misdeeds involved Lolitas like the one in the TV ad.

Well, no matter. Covenent House Toronto has been a high-profile Catholic charity in Toronto for the past several years now. Although their "Impact Report 2023" (a model of wokeness and DEI) says they receive only 2% of their funding from Catholic Charities and the Archdiocese of Toronto's annual ShareLife appeal, the executive director of ShareLife Toronto, told an interviewer that $1 million a year comes from Toronto’s ShareLife, and $1.5 million dollars comes from Covenant House, New York. The balance of the over $3 million yearly budget is supplied from provincial and municipal funds.

Funny, then, that according to an article in The Interim, Covenant House Toronto -- "set up to help street kids rehabilitate themselves" -- hands out condoms and does abortion referrals! While condom distribution is a matter of public record and is sanctioned by the Archdiocese of Toronto, abortion referrals are made quietly and depend on which worker a girl seeks at the House. Both practices have been publicly justified by several Canadian theologians on the grounds of "the lesser of two evils."

A director of ShareLife Toronto defended the practice of giving out condoms to high-risk street kids. He described many of them as homosexuals who were possibly AIDS carriers, and claimed this provided some measure of protection from them. He said the policy had been approved by the Catholic board of Covenant House after extensive consultations with moral theologians whom he would not name. 

I am not telling you not to respond to Covenant House's insistent appeals. I believe in "Judge not, that ye be not judged." Unlike the perpetrators of the Help Kids Canada scam, the people running Covenant House are trying to do something to help the marginalized and less fortunate. God knows their intentions and will surely forgive them if, in their zeal, they do or advocate things that are morally questionable. But that doesn't mean that it's racist or homophobic or uncharitable or un-Christian to disagree with what they're doing. To give or not to give, the choice is yours.

Something to think about

The Dumbocrats know they could run Brandon stuffed -- think Weekend at Bernie's -- and still win California, New York and (of course) Massachusetts, so what's to worry?