Stephen Lewis Left Canada & The World a Better Place Than He Found It

Stephen Lewis, former leader of the Ontario NDP and later Canada's Ambassador to the UN, passed away today following a lengthy battle with cancer. He was 88.

Lewis' death comes only 48 hours after his son Avi was chosen the new leader of Canada's NDP. His father David served in that same role between 1971 and 1975.

Elected to the Ontario legislature when he was only 26, Lewis would become leader of the Ontario NDP seven years later. In 1975, Ontario voters gave the NDP official opposition status. Lewis was a formidable foe to Ontario Premier Bill Davis who was at the zenith of the four decade plus long Tory dynasty in Canada's largest province.

Perhaps Lewis' most notable achievement in his 15 years as a provincial parliamentarian and as the leader of his party occurred in 1974 amid the wildcat strike of uranium miners in Elliot Lake, a community in Northeastern Ontario situated between Sault Ste. Marie and Sudbury. The miners walked off the job in protest of dangerous working conditions which caused many of them to be diagnosed with silicosis, an incurable lung disease. Lewis' efforts pressured the provincial government to create a commission on mine safety which later resulted in the passage of the Occupational Health and Safety Act.

A decade later, Lewis would be appointed Canada's Ambassador to the UN. The most surprising aspect of this appointment was that it was issued by Brian Mulroney, a Tory. It would be like President Trump appointing Hillary Clinton to be his Ambassador to the UN. Although political rivals, the pair presented a common front in the fight to impose international sanctions on South Africa's Apartheid system. In this century, Lewis spent many years campaigning to eradicate HIV/AIDS in Africa as a UN special envoy. After leaving the UN, Lewis established his own organization dedicated to this very mission.

In short, Stephen Lewis left both Canada and the world a better place than he found it. R.I.P.

Ken Clay Had His Moment in the Sun in Game 1 of the 1978 ALCS

 

Former MLB pitcher Ken Clay passed away on March 26th due to heart and kidney failure. He was 71.

Born and raised in Lynchburg, Virginia, Clay was a second-round draft pick of the New York Yankees in 1972 straight out of high school. 

After five plus seasons in the minors, Clay would make his MLB debut with the Bronx Bombers during the 1977 season earning a World Series ring. He would also earn a second World Series ring the following year as the Yankees bested the Los Angeles Dodgers in back-to-back Fall Classics.

Despite earning World Series rings in consecutive seasons, Clay did not live up to expectations and was publicly maligned by both Yankees owners George Steinbrenner and Yankees manager Billy Martin. This was no small feat considering how Steinbrenner and Martin hardly ever agreed on anything.

By 1980, Clay was in a Texas Rangers uniform before finishing his big-league career with the Seattle Mariners in 1981. His professional career was over at the age of 27. In 111 career games (including 36 starts) over five seasons, Clay went 10-24 with a 4.68 ERA. Control was a problem for Clay as he would issue 141 walks against 129 strikeouts.

Life after baseball proved difficult with a myriad of bad choices which led to frequent run ins with the law with charges and convictions of grand larceny and DUI which would lead to jail time. It does not appear Clay had any legal infractions after being released from prison in 2012. One can only hope that Clay's last decade or so had some measure of peace.

As to his time on the mound, Ken Clay did have a moment in the sun. It happened on October 3, 1978, when the Yankees faced the Kansas City Royals in Game 1 of the ALCS. It was the day after the Yankees earned the AL East crown in Boston on an infamous HR by Bucky Dent. In that first game of the ALCS, Clay pitched 3.2 innings of scoreless relief earning a save despite issuing three walks. 

Ken Clay may have more bad times than good both on and off the field, but the good times he had can never be taken away from him now or ever. R.I.P.

Avi Lewis Takes Over NDP But He Will Be Nothing Like His Father & Grandfather

 

This morning, Avi Lewis was announced as the new leader of Canada's New Democratic Party (NDP).

Lewis succeeds Jagmeet Singh who resigned nearly a year ago after losing his seat in the 2025 Canadian election. He won 56% of the vote on the first ballot nearly doubling the total of his closest rival Heather McPherson who is one of only 6 current NDP Members of Parliament. Last month, Lori Idlout crossed the floor to join Mark Carney's Liberals who may soon have a majority government. 

Lewis is part of the first family of Canadian socialism. His grandfather David led the NDP from 1971 to 1975 while his father Stephen led the Ontario NDP from 1970 to 1978. Between 1972 and 1974, David Lewis led NDP held the balance of power keeping Pierre Trudeau's Liberals afloat. Between 1975 and 1977, Stephen Lewis was the leader of the Official Opposition against the Progressive Conservative dynasty led by Bill Davis. It was the closest the NDP would come to power until winning the 1990 Ontario election under Bob Rae.

Somehow, I don't think Avi Lewis will be anything like his father or grandfather.

However, before I go any further, some disclosure. When I was active with the Ontario NDP about 30 years ago, I was acquainted with Michael Lewis (Avi's uncle) who was working with the United Steelworkers of America. On one occasion, he was nice enough to invite me out for lunch.

When I say Avi Lewis won't be anything like his father and grandfather, I mean that he lacks pragmatism. When his father and grandfather sought their respective party leaderships, they had to deal with the Waffle Movement which wanted to nationalize all industry and were essentially a party within a party. Both father and son purged the Waffle from the NDP. 

Fast forward to a decade ago, the NDP was faced with the Leap Manifesto, essentially a modern-day version of the Waffle. Unlike his father and grandfather, Avi Lewis was a key figure with the Leap Manifesto along his wife author Naomi Klein.

One of the key platforms of the Leap Manifesto is for Canada to have 100% clean energy by 2050. Needless to say, Lewis' ascension to the NDP leadership has been met with a less than enthusiastic response by the Alberta NDP and Saskatchewan NDP led by Naheed Nenshi and Carla Beck, respectively. Nenshi stated that Lewis' victory "is not in the interest of Albertans" while Beck stated she will not meet with Lewis unless he "publicly reverses" his position against fossil fuels.

Another key area where Avi Lewis differs from his father and grandfather is Israel. The younger Lewis is virulently anti-Israel and an enthusiastic supporter of the BDS Movement who has seen fit to shame and shun those who support Israel. This presumably would have included his father and grandfather. Although David Lewis could not be characterized as a Zionist per se, he did forge strong relationships with fellow Israeli socialists like Golda Meir and Shimon Peres while Stephen Lewis, during his tenure as Ontario NDP leader, demanded the UN cancel a conference to be held to Toronto due to presence of PLO members. Although I should note that Avi Lewis now claims his father, now 88, regards Israel as "a rogue state". Perhaps this is the case now, but when Lewis was in a position of actual responsibility, he, well, acted responsibly.

Of course, when it comes to Israel, it wouldn't matter much who leads the NDP. All five candidates who sought the party's leadership claim Israel is committing genocide. McPherson wore a keffiyeh in the House of Commons and introduced a petition to criminally investigate any Canadian who served with the IDF. But with Lewis being Jewish, he and his supporters can say, 'Even a Jew is saying Israel is committing genocide,' and 'Criticizing Israel isn't anti-Semitic,', etc.

Yet truth be told, the governing Liberals aren't much better with their concerted effort to remove tax exempt status from various Jewish non-profit organizations thus shunning Jewish institutions from Canadian civil society.

As it stands now, Lewis does not have a seat in the House of Commons. He ran for office twice before and was soundly defeated. The best-case scenario would be for the NDP to win zero seats in the next federal election. In which case, the NDP could be put out of its misery or perhaps a responsible social democratic party could rise in its place. Such a party could keep the Liberals and Tories honest in creating a more equitable Canada while eschewing more impractical notions such as living without fossil fuels and without legitimizing anti-Semitism.

Why The No Kings Rallies Have No Real Impact

Organizers of today's No Kings rallies expected a nationwide attendance of 9 million people.

It is quite possible their expectations could be exceeded.

But even if this comes to pass, I believe the No Kings rallies have no real impact.

Oh sure, there will be plenty of press coverage today and tomorrow.

But by Tuesday or Wednesday, it will be a fleeting memory for most Americans.

I am not saying these rallies shouldn't be held.

Americans should be given every opportunity to vent their displeasure of the Trump Administration, and a large public protest is one way to do so.

After all, Trump behaves like a monarch or a dictator who is not subject to the law whether by tearing down the East Wing of the White House for an ornate ballroom, demanding an end to mail-in voting for everyone but himself  and placing his signature on U.S. currency. To say nothing of the cruelty of ICE up to and including murdering American citizens. All things considered, it is understandable that large numbers would turn out in St. Paul.

Yet it must be remembered the reason why the protests worked in Minneapolis-St. Paul is because they were sustained over an extended period of time. Of course, there were extenuating circumstances. The city was under siege by the federal government and the people, aside from showing their displeasure in the streets, banded together in person and online through ad hoc measures to protect their neighbors from ICE. The federal government disrupted the day-to-day lives of the people of Minneapolis-St. Paul and the people adapted to those circumstances by trying to restore a semblance of order.

Then there was the abhorrent behavior of the federal government in Minnesota which saw fit to justify the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti all the while excluding the state government and local authorities from investigating these acts. The final straw was former Border Patrol goon Gregory Bovino claiming the ICE agents who murdered Pretti were actually the victims. Bovino would soon be replaced by Tom Honan. While it cannot be said that ICE agents have left Minneapolis, they have a far lower profile.

My point here is that the No Kings rallies are held sporadically on a Saturday morning or afternoon and then it is over like it never happened. For protests to work, they must be sustained day and night until such time that certain objectives are achieved (i.e. ICE getting out of Minneapolis even if only partially). 

While there certainly exists tremendous public discontent against the Trump Administration, it is far from certain that Trump and Trumpism is finished. Barring any electoral shenanigans by Republicans, Democrats will likely win the November mid-terms. But if that comes to pass then surely there will be unfavorable scrutiny of Democratic majorities in the House and Senate especially if they fall short in containing the Trump Administration's excesses.

And who can say that Trump won't run for a third term, constitution or no constitution? Even if Trump doesn't run in 2028, there is certainly a chance we could elect a JD Vance, a Marco Rubio or a Tucker Carlson to continue Trumpism. If we choose another Republican President in 2028, it will be Trump who is still calling the shots with a good portion of the country being just fine with it.

I'm sure there will be one, perhaps two more No Kings rallies before the end of 2026 with more planned before the 2028 election. I'm sure the numbers of people participating in these rallies will grow. And then they will be over and people won't remember one ever happened by the time they enter the voting booth.

While there might be a scenario in which we see a sustained local level protest such as the one in Minneapolis-St. Paul which cause the Trump Administration to bend, I cannot see such a thing happening in this country at the national level. Not unless, we lost everything and we had nothing left to lose. By that, I mean food, fuel and water shortages like there have been in Iran followed by the regime killing of tens of thousands of protesters. We're not there yet. 

Indeed, while Iran has tens of thousands of Renee Goods and Alex Prettis, I doubt very many of the people who attended the No Kings rallies today stood in solidarity with the Iranian people clamoring for their freedom. One can quarrel with Trump's military action in Iran while recognizing that millions of Iranians want the current regime toppled. While we have legitimate grievances, so do the Iranian people and a great many anti-Trump people are not prepared to acknowledge this fact.

There is no question that President Trump is marching this country down the road to authoritarianism and it is our duty to make our disagreement and displeasure known. But in order to stop that march we need to agree on certain principles and what is to be achieved. I, for one, will not be part of a movement which tolerates anti-Semitism. What is to be gained from exchanging one form of tyranny for another?

I don't question the sincerity of most of the people who took time out of their Saturday to attend No Kings rallies wherever they happened to be. 

I would ask these people one question. What happens next Saturday?

Trump: Mail-In Voting for Me but Not for Thee

President Trump has long publicly decried mail-in voting.

On Monday, while in Memphis, he called the process "mail-in cheating."

Of course, that didn't stop him from using a mail-in ballot during a special election in Florida.

Trump essentially defended his behavior by saying I'm President and you're not:

There’s a big difference between somebody who is out of state and does a ballot and everything is sealed and certified and everything else. I think mail-in voting is a terrible thing. I think if you vote, you should go.

Alas, when Trump voted by mail, he was in Palm Beach, not in DC.

What it comes right down to is the fact that Trump demands of others what he will not demand for himself. And why wouldn't he? Trump doesn't believe the rules apply to him and, well, he got the Supreme Court to agree when they bestowed him with presidential immunity.

Trump doesn't have a problem with utilizing mail-in voting.

What he has a problem with is losing elections and accepting the fact that he lost. 

In his worldview, Trump does not lose elections unless there is chicanery. Hence scapegoating mail-in voting.

This country has been voting by mail since the Civil War and he wants to take it away from everyone.

Well, everyone that is but himself.

Howie Mandel is Right: Being Told You Look Good for Your Age Isn't a Compliment

 

Howie Mandel, the longtime host of America's Got Talent is being chastised for "snapping" at Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos during an appearance on Live with Kelly and Mark earlier this week.

Mandel, who turned 70 last November, briefly took issue with Ripa and Consuelos for telling him that he looked great for 70. For her part, Ripa didn't say that although Consuelos confirmed that he thought Mandel look good for 70. The Canadian born comic added that he didn't like the "compliment" because "it's a caveat."

Having watched the exchange a couple of times I do think Mandel overreacted a little bit towards Ripa although it is clear they both struck a raw nerve even if it was not their intent to do so. However, I do think the coverage of their exchange has been blown out of proportion because the exchange last about 30 seconds before the interview got back on track.

So, you might ask, why I am weighing in on the matter?

Because it reminded me of when I took Dad to see Jerry Seinfeld at the Beacon Theatre for his 75th birthday. (Incidentally, Dad will be celebrating his 85th birthday next month.)

What I remember most vividly about the evening wasn't Seinfeld, but rather his opening act. Opening that night for Seinfeld was Mario Joyner who admittedly I had never heard of prior to the event. But I found him funnier than Seinfeld.

The part of Joyner's act which resonated with me most was a bit he did about being told you look good for your age. Joyner, who turns 65 in October, said that a proper compliment is "You look good. Period." Being told that you look good for your age is like telling a heavyset woman, "That dress fits you nice for someone your size."

As a fellow comedian, I'm sure Mandel is familiar with Joyner and his act. In his exchange with Ripa and Consuelo, Mandel said, "It's like saying you're smart for a stupid person."

So, I understand where Mandel is coming from in this situation. A compliment should be a compliment without qualification.

With that said, I do allow one exception. It concerns someone with whom I went to elementary school with more than four decades ago and reconnected with her a few years back on Facebook. I should add that she was born the day after me. So, we are both now 53. One day, I post a picture of myself at a restaurant with a friend. She sends me a reply which says, "You look good for our age."

That compliment I can accept because she is bringing herself into the conversation. Instead of "your age" it was "our age." I can't speak for either Howie Mandel or Mario Joyner on that particular context. For them, it might be a distinction without difference. But for me, it makes all the difference in the world.

In the grand scheme of things, when it comes to compliments less is more. Keep it simple, direct and to the point. 

Trump Claims There Has Been "Regime Change" in Iran; Tell That to the Iranian People

Yesterday, President Trump proclaimed that he had achieved "regime change" in Iran.

We have, really, regime change. This is a change in the regime, because the leaders are all very different than the ones that we started off with.

Tell that to the people of Iran. 

Oh, there might be some new faces, but the regime is exactly as it was before.

In which case, Trump's "excursion" into Iran is as exactly as I had feared before military action was taken:

Yet let us suppose there is military action in Iran. Who can say it would be any different than what occurred in Venezuela earlier this year where they extracted Nicolas Maduro only to install his vice-president as his replacement? Meet the new Ayatollah. Same as the old Ayatollah.

Frankly, I'm not putting much stock in his latest statement that he will "unleash hell" if Iran does not agree to his deal. Trump made an ultimatum on the Strait of Hormuz last week and didn't even wait out his own deadline before he folded.

Trump is looking for a deal, any deal. The effect of that deal is that the Iranian regime will be stronger than ever. The consequence of this is that the Iranian people will continue to be repressed, Israel will still need to worry about a nuclear Iran and the U.S. (Trump in particular) will be seen as a pushover who talks tough but carries a very little stick.