Tuesday, September 24, 2019

How Dumb is Donald Trump?



Jack Nicholson in , Rob Reiner's. "A Few Good Men"

How Dumb is Donald Trump?

At the end of the Rob Reiner movie, "A Few Good Men" Colonel Nathan R. Jessup, portrayed by Jack Nicholson, is his own worst enemy when he contradicts and perjures himself. Even more laughable, at that moment, Jessup is completely unaware and clueless that he had perjured himself. He's simply is too stupid to realize he is his own worst enemy, and his own mouth has landed him in hot water. In fact, even his own counsel realizes it immediately, leaving Jessup as the only remaining person in the room not understanding what just happened. 

The fact that Rob Reiner is a long standing opponent of Donald Trump is almost too perfect. Nathan Jessup is eerily characteristic of Donald Trump on so many levels. They are both arrogant, power-mongering, petty, and sociopathic and completely unaware that they have committed a crime. Meanwhile, everyone around them are stunned at what they've said, perplexed that they are clueless as to what just happened. 

This is how stupid Donald Trump is. 

After being accused of leveraging the Ukrainian President for Trump's own political agenda, he admitted what he did as if he thought there was nothing wrong with it. While the public, the media, and politicians are standing there with their jaws wide open, there stood Trump, just like Jessup, being the only person in the room who had no idea what he said just started his worst nightmare of impeachment. 

For months, House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, or "Nancy" as Trump refers to her, had been dragging her heels on launching an impeachment inquiry into Trump. While the numbers of Congress grew and grew well past the majority Congress needed to send the impeachment to the Senate, Pelosi still didn't support impeachment. Perhaps Pelosi was waiting for the smoking gun that would create bipartisan support to impeach Trump? Given that the Republicans have stood behind Donald Trump's defence at every opportunity they had, this seemed like a miracle in the making. 

Well, Donald Trump finally gave that miracle to Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic majority of Congress by opening his mouth, and just continuing to be Donald Trump. 

And if all follows as it should, this should be the start of Donald Trump's inevitable demise as he goes down as one of the most shamed men in modern history. And just like in a Few Good Men, Trump will be the final character to not understand what just happened, and I can't wait to see Rob Reiner's reaction when it happens.


Friday, February 1, 2019

The Humboldt Broncos, Jaskirit Sidhu and Justice




The story of the Humboldt Broncos Hockey Club is simply gutting at every level of Canadian humanity. I say, "Canadian" humanity because we are dealing with a Junior A hockey team, and we as Canadians are etched in the game of hockey in our roots as a nation. So when you take a team of young men whose lives were altered in such a horrific accident, the hearts of the entire nation goes out to that entire community. Nobody doubts this.

But there are also two sides to this horrific story.

Jaskirit Sidhu, the driver of the truck who blew the stop sign and collided with the Humboldt bus, will be sentenced for pleading guilty to the numerous counts he was charged with in the accident. The court has spent this entire week hearing the victim statement reports and finally, Jaskirit Sidhu will face his sentence from the court on March 22, 2019. But while I was following this story, I couldn't help but see two polarizing views from this narrative

The first view was that of the prosecuting attorney for the crown, Thomas Healey who was visibly emotional when addressing the media today. Healey recommended 10 years prison time and repeatedly referred to Sidhu's actions as "criminal" for his "crimes" as if Sidhu had planned and executed this event.

As I sat with those words, I couldn't help but think they were too much. Certainly, I'm not downplaying the result of what happened. But I can't also help but believing Sidhu's actions weren't criminal in nature because I don't think anyone believes he had the intent of committing this action. I think the man made a driving mistake. A driving mistake we have all probably made, without the carnage.

I can look into my own life where I have been impaired behind the wheel. I say impaired because it covers all matters of sins. I don't believe there is a person out there who hasn't driven impaired at some point in their life. Why do I think this? Because the government just recently made distracted driving an offence, and we have all been guilty of it. -Texting, talking, eating, multi-tasking behind the wheel. I've done all of these. I've also been behind the wheel when I was falling asleep and eventually arrived at my destination with absolutely no idea of how I got there. Clearly, that could be considered impaired driving. Impaired doesn't simply mean under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

But, in all of these circumstances, I was lucky. I never hit anyone, caused any harm or damage, and only by the good graces of fortune did I avoid carnage. I was just as guilty, probably even more so than Jaskirit Sidhu, and yet, I was more fortunate in not getting caught by my impairment.

Which brings me to the point of justice.

How do you extract justice in the terms of a prison sentence in this case? The punishment for the crimes one is faced with is to act as a deterrent and a precedent for further cases before the court. For the life of me, I can't see what a prison sentence would solve here. Jaskirit Sidhu is in no way a threat to "re-offend" for his behaviour, and no reasonable person in the future would be able to use this as a manner in justifying their actions.

This was simply a horrific accident that demonstrates what can happen when you aren't fully present and take your mind of the task at hand. So anyone who is throwing their vitriol towards Sidhu for this better be taking personal inventory of their own lives.

One of the most surprising videos I watched came from Christina Haugan, the widow of  Humboldt coach, Darcy Haugan. In these few videos, you can see Christina's empathy for Jaskirit, knowing full well this was a terrible, unfortunate accident. Christina talks about the power of forgiveness and how she has forgiven Jaskirit Sidhu

https://globalnews.ca/video/4906109/remorse-expressed-by-humboldt-truck-driver-helping-widow-of-head-coach-move-on/

So how will justice be served? Will it make the family and community feel better for Jaskirit Sidhu go to jail for 10 years? How many years would it take for him to be rehabilitated, or to "learn his lesson"? He's already waived his trial, admitted he was at fault, authentically apologized in the most humane way possible, he hasn't asked for a plea bargain, and he said he can't make it right, so he doesn't want to make things worse.

I think this man has just demonstrated all the qualities necessary in what we would want rehabilitation to look like. But now, he must be punished for people to feel like justice was served? That simply makes no sense.

The crown is asking for 10 years, the defence is saying anywhere from 1-4 years. My hope would be that this man be forgiven for making a simple human error that had catastrophic results that he will probably never be able to forgive himself for. I hope that these families find solace that he didn't do it with an ounce of malice. He was simply having a bad series of thoughts which distracted him from 4 stop sign warnings, and the stop sign itself.

We've all been distracted without the impact of the situation his lack of presence has caused, so I can't sit here and cast a stone at him. In fact, I feel terrible for this man. Jaskirit Sidhu will live in a self-induced prison for the rest of his days knowing one stupid moment caused such carnage and he can't reverse that. I think it's horrible. I think the situation is horrible, but I don't think he deserves going to prison for it.

Lastly, as always on social media, there's always a person intent on deriving their own twisted intent in projecting what they want to hear in any particular story, instead of what's really said or written. So to be clear, I will state this so there is no interpretation about what I mean.

I feel terrible for these kids, their families, their communities and all their Loved ones. This is just such a terrible story. I can't even imagine the hardships they've experienced every 5 seconds for the past 10 months since that fateful day. I hope that they all find forgiveness and peace for how they need to experience it for their own lives moving forward in what life holds for them.

To the memory of those lost in the Humboldt Broncos accident, to where you are...

For the Boys...