She’s Baaaaack…

Due to Passover, Blanche will be coming in on a different schedule for a couple of weeks. Back to our regularly scheduled programming once the holiday is over.

With only the threat of a wall and an aggressive immigration policy that is on hold in the courts, fewer than 12,200 people were apprehended in March trying to sneak into the US via borders in Texas etc. This is a 64% decrease from the same time last year, and the lowest monthly number in at least 17 years.

You may not like Trump and think him crass and verbose. But people know he means business. Who would risk paying close to $10,000 to be smuggled across the border if you’re not sure you’ll get to stay? In the end Blanche, people respond to strong leadership as opposed to what we had the past eight years down and south have now in Canada – all talk.

Last Thursday at the Women in the World Summit, Hillary Clinton spoke publicly since losing the election five months ago. Blanche, is there such a thing as a men of the world summit? Why do we get aggravated when we see these kinds of ‘summits’.

Make no mistake, a women’s conference on business, making contacts and increasing one’s knowledge is fantastic. But what’s the point of this summit? But we digress.

When asked why she thought she lost the election, her answer was 100% predictable and certainly not her fault: Two of the most important factors were the plunder and release of her campaign emails and the last-minute announcement by the F.B.I. director, James Comey, that the investigation into her use of a private email server could be reopened.

Can we talk? Admitting that she was wrong to have put the government server in her house doesn’t cut it and frankly she should have been prosecuted for doing that. She is the master of her own misfortune. It’s no secret that as secretary of state she made millions and millions of dollars using the old pay for play trick. She would be better to move on from the election because it just brings up the public’s perception that she is dishonest – which she is.

One more thing, which needs a barf bag: After the interview she walked backstage to sign a poster for Women in the World, and scrawled: Hillary Rodham Clinton. She said she’s no longer going to be just Hillary Clinton. She used that name (dropping the Rodham) during the election so as not to o.f.f.e.n.d the traditionalists. Seriously? It’s things like this that make thinking women, who are comfortable in their own skin, cringe at ‘feminists’.

Anyone fly Delta in the last few days? If so, you cannot be happy. Delta cancelled more than 3,500 flights since Wednesday affecting 550,000 passengers. Seems there was the ‘perfect storm’ in Atlanta, Delta’s hub and, following the storm, they could not get the planes and pilots coordinated. It’s now Monday (this happened last Thursday) and there is still a backlog of both people and luggage. Ah, the joys of traveling.

While we are always happy that we don’t live in Toronto, this statistic is proof of why this is so: The average single-detached house in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) sold for $1,214,422 last month up from $910,375 in March of last year — that is a 33 per cent surge, and follows a 16 per cent run-up over the prior 12 months.

Blanche was in Toronto last week and took a short tour of one of the more tony and highly valued areas. The price of the homes in no way mirrors the what the house is worth. Many of them were truly dumps and the lack of any land around said homes is shocking. No front, side or backyard. Nada. If you want to put up a barbecue, one has to set up shop on their very small front steps. Seriously, what’s the deal there?

In the past, Toronto home prices went up at an annual rate of 4 per cent in real terms, in the past year they have surged by nearly 30 per cent. If you own a house in Toronto, want to sell it and don’t need to buy another one, you’re going to make a very nice profit. If you need to buy something else, fuggedaboutit.

Seems Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner don’t get along and had to sit down and try to ‘work things out’. Who’s going to win this fight? Trump’s daughter’s husband aka the son-in-law or Bannon, the outsider? There are no bets on this one as there is no contest.

Neil Gorsuch was sworn in Monday as the newest Supreme Court justice. In case you didn’t know, he’s a conservative judge, not a liberal.

The Habs are in the playoffs. Get those car flags out.

Happy Passover we’ll talk…