Open Sources Guelph - August 29, 2019

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we wind down the summer with a relaxing look at the schizophrenic diplomatic situation around the world. Seriously, the global political order is not coming apart at the seams, it just feels like it. Anyway, we'll talk about that ball of zany that sums up the lost weekend at the France hosted G7, and we'll look at the seriously explosive situation in Kashmir. Closer to home, we'll look at the past politics of the Federal Conservative leader, and whether there's a possibility that a more rational Republican might unseat the standard-bearer in 2020.

This Thursday, August 29, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:

G7-Whiz! What a whirlwind weekend in France! The politics! The pageantry! The pettiness and self-aggrandizing of the President of the United States! After last year's much more tense meeting where Donald Trump walked away with insults and complaints about host Justin Trudeau, this year's G7  was almost stolid by comparison. Trump did skip out on the meeting about the burning rain forests of the Amazon, and lied about, but it literally could have been worse, like how Trump is thinking about hosting next year's G7 at one his tacky Florida resorts and is thinking about inviting Vladimir Putin. We'll talk about all the news that came out of the G7.

The Blast is Prologue? The Liberal campaign dug up a 2005 video of then-Conservative MP Andrew Scheer speechifying in the House of Commons about how same sex marriages can't work because, you know, they can't have babies the old-fashioned way. Now Scheer has said repeatedly that it's not his intention to chase a socially conservative policy agenda, but he doesn't exactly make regular appearances at Pride events either. The real question is whether revisiting the spectres of House speeches past are going to have any effect on the electorate. Are Scheer's past comments fair game, or is this an example of Liberal desperation?

Quibbling Rivalry. Although President Donald Trump enjoys the near universal endorsement of the Republican Party, he is now facing some challengers from the right. Former Congressman Joe Walsh, who once said, "If Trump loses, I'm grabbing my musket. You in?", has now declared his intent to supplant Trump as the GOP nominee in 2020, joining Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld in an attempt to restore sanity to the American political right. The question: Is this a suicide mission for Weld, Walsh, and possibly former South Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows? Do they have a constituency in Trump's America, and enough rebel Republicans willing to side with them to make a difference?

Kashmir. If it's not *the* most volatile region on Earth, it's pretty darn close. Kashmir, administered by India, but made up of a majority Muslim population, is sandwiched between two nuclear super-powers that are not only international rivals, they basically hate each other's guts. That's why it was probably a bad idea when earlier this month India Prime Minister Narendra Modi pulled Kashmir's semi-autonomous status and put an unprecedented security lockdown on the territory, which prompted Pakistan to come to its defence most vigorously. We'll catch up on the current state of affairs in Kashmir, and see if there's anyway out of the diplomatic void.

Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.