This subtle invocation of the quid pro quo came to mind as the government of Justin Trudeau announced the panelists who would decide how to divvy the $660 million his government is planning to deliver to struggling media in this country. Many are likely to be direct recipients of the graft.

It is considered an anomaly. In this highly secular age, where people seem to have abandoned organized religion, an entire segment of godless society has immersed itself in a virtuous crusade to right wrongs, seek harmony and excommunicate non-believers in the pursuit of purity. 

Had Justin Trudeau turned the Liberal brand in Canada into a dead parrot? And, in doing so, has he vaulted the Green Party into a permanent fixture in the country’s politics?

Aristotle insisted that a good education was necessary for younger people, because the deliberative process can be so difficult. But what did he know? He wore a bed sheet.

This week’s Senate appearance by U.S. attorney general Bill Barr represent the Democrats’ final chance to pick over the bones of the Mueller Inquiry into Russian collusion. Democrats running for the 2020 presidential nomination posed, Republicans smug with Trump’s vindication deposed and Barr generally amused himself batting away the faux outrage.

In the pantheon of limp virtue-seeking missles, surely this past week’s purging of Kate Smith from the public square has to be a ranker. In case you were passed out on Easter chocolate, the details are as follows:

The Alberta election has ended, and Jason Kenney has won a decisive— if not crushing— majority for his new United Conservative Party. However you parse it, by getting over 50 percent of the votes he’s received a decisive mandate to negotiate on behalf of the economically crippled province. The bomb bay doors have swung open.

The stunning revelation from U.S. attorney general William Barr that, yes Virginia, someone was spying on the the Donald Trump presidential campaign produced a spasm of incredulity from America’s heirloom media. 

Grammy nominated rapper/ entrepreneur Nipsey Hussle (born Ermias Ashgedom) was gunned down in cold blood in front of his clothing store in Los Angeles on Sunday. L.A. police say they have detained a suspect, who is also black, in the shooting. 

It’s been a tough season for the proponents of social justice on the Left and their media handmaidens. They keep telling people how virtuous they are. And events keeping saying, In a pig’s eye.

Justin Trudeau’s ascension to the prime ministership of Canada was one of the greatest political feats in the nation’s history. Trudeau took the husk of the corrupt, played-out Liberal Party brand and gave it a whitewash. 

Call them the three Rs of Woke racism. Recriminations. Retribution. And Reparations

Overpromise. Under deliver. In pubic life it’s wise to observe this retail maxim for managing expectations. Had several notable figures and media outlets done so in the past few weeks, one might not be on the verge of losing his government, another its prominence as a media giant. 

Yeats’ observation in the run-up to WW II— “The best lack all conviction/ while the worst are full of passionate intensity”— rings true today as we hear of hush money and attempts to hush the attorney general. 

Journalist Lara Logan was hot shit when CBS News hired her in 2002. The South African had been a first-rate war correspondent who’d proven she could get the people that mattered on a story. Soon, she was appearing on 60 Minutes and the network’s top programs.

In the tale of the scorpion and the frog, a frog offers a lift across the river to a scorpion. Halfway across the river the scorpion stings the frog. With its dying breath the frog asks why the scorpion would sting him after such a generous favour. “But you knew I was a scorpion when you met me,” he replies as the pair both drown.

Try this thought exercise. You’re watching a tennis match between Novak Djokovic, winner of 15 Grand Slam singles titles, and a Cinderella performer getting his first taste of a final in a big event. Who are you cheering for? Well, most people would be pulling for the faint hope to have his day in the sun.

The movie world is buzzing about the Oscar-nominated film The Favourite. It’s a British movie documenting the romantic rivalry between two courtiers in the time of Queen Anne. The women— Lady Marlborough and Abigail Masham— are cousins who both want a place in the Queen’s heart— and bed— at the start of the 18th century.

This week’s celebration of the life of Dr, Martin Luther King has seen the requisite images of the era of racial intolerance in the United States. As time passes, the images of KKK lynch mobs beggar the imagination even more. 

For those who think the #metoo movement over-reached a tad in making a 36-year-old unsubstantiated sexual assault claim the basis for rejecting a candidate for the U,S. Supreme Court: Hold my beer.