SpankyMcFarland

Trump is utterly incorrigible. Just now he brought up his 51st state idea and spoke of ‘Governor’ Trudeau again. In a proper democracy he’d be getting robust feedback from the parliamentary party about how to behave. Not in America any more.

Take a look at what the cartels do to their own people. They will not be deterred by stiffer sentences. Drugs will be supplied as long as people are willing to pay for them, and the more we criminalize an activity the more the hardcore paramilitary gangs will control the market.

Illegal drugs are part of a global market and they will flow to where profits are highest. Australia should be angrier with us than Trump is: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/australia-drug-trafficking-canada-1.7349586 Gangs in Ireland are sending crystal meth to Australia. https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/kerry-businessman-connected-to-mexican-cartel-drug-smuggling-scheme-court-hears-1728348.html

There needs to be a worldwide boycott of Musk companies.

America has a massive surplus in services with us. In a trade war it’s a vulnerability. Quite apart from Meta, X, Instagram, Microsoft etc. they are everywhere. As a Globe poster observed: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/commentary/article-the-us-actually-has-a-huge-trade-surplus-in-services-thats-where/#comments In addition, we should not have US software in our clinics and hospitals anyway. Lord knows what they are looking at there through those infamous backdoors that Snowden revealed which were followed up by nearly no journalist. Any critic of Trump could be targeted. Let’s start by taxing US banking and insurance software. I’d say going after Elon would be popular world-wide, esp. in the EU. A 100% tariff on Tesla and an outright ban on X sounds good.

Jean Carroll’s claims of sexual assault, ie digital rape, against Trump were considered credible in a court of law. The fact that it was a civil case doesn't nullify the evidence against him. The jury believed her.

It was extraordinary to hear spokesperson James Blair say that Trump’s utterly grotesque and stupid 51’st state claim had not been dismissed by Trump staff when they met Canadian politicians. The Dear Leader’s absurd ramblings need to be worshipped. Real North Korean stuff. https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/eby-white-house-pushback-calling-trumps-51st-state-plan-non-starter

Seems like Trump is in a hurry to cave to Putin while sidelining Zelenskyy. Some deal-maker that boy is!

Our per capita emissions will continue to attract global attention and the West collectively has already made a significant contribution to greenhouse gases that will persist. We should clean up our own house before telling others to do the same.

I suspect that carbon taxes in some form aren’t going away forever. In the coming decades, the pressure to reduce emissions will only get stronger as the consequences come home to roost.

I would say that Mulroney’s sagging fortunes resembled JT’s situation which is why both ducked the election audit and made what is called in rugby a ‘hospital pass’ to a hapless player about to be crunched. The difference is in what happened next. Trump swooped in to save the Liberals from a shellacking. Whether they manage to win remains an open question. Maybe the anoraks can tells us but I don’t recall a similar foreign intervention on this scale in Canadian electoral history. By contrast, Poilievre looked like a shoo-in until a few weeks ago.

As in the Robert Menendez case, a corrupt Democrat was prosecuted. The only difference here is that Adams has thrown his lot in with Trump. The quid pro quo could not be more transparent.

Note that the charges have been dismissed without prejudice and can be refiled at any time if Adams displeases his benefactor.

I hope so. Russia’s campaign depends on one man. Ukraine has to be lucky just once.

If the cartels are terrorist organizations, then their financiers are all around us. Anybody buying cocaine here helps sustain mass murder in South and Central America. Time was when conservatives cared about personal responsibility rather than blaming everybody else.

A lot more nationalist than I was a few weeks ago.

What creates the cartels? Who pays for them? People who use illegal drugs do. Our neighbours do. Maybe some of us do. And does anybody here seriously believe that gangs in Canada have had a bigger role in creating the US opioid crisis than the US pharmaceutical industry, especially the makers of opioids like OxyContin who lied for years about its highly addictive nature despite being told of it by many doctors. Why isn’t Trump talking about that every day if he cares about addiction in his country? Why isn’t he questioning the fact that the major beneficiaries of OxyContin never went to jail. At least a few of the hoodlums involved in peddling SUBSYS did. Eventually. https://abcnews.go.com/Business/authorities-drugmaker-paid-off-doctors-lied-insurance-companies/story?id=61488372

No. Of course not. Who said any of that? Do I have to ritually reiterate that I don’t support Hamas every time I post here? For the umpteenth time, I am not a Hamas supporter. Theocratic death cults aren’t my thing. The practicalities of what can happen there are beyond our pay grade. What I object to is the way Trump talks about it. Notice how he uses the passive voice for that extraordinary level of destruction eg, things are demolished. The active agents of the destruction - the country that made the bombs and handed them over, the country that used the bombs - is often not spelled out. That’s one big problem with aerial warfare - its savagery is at a remove and those responsible can have difficulty seeing their role even if they would otherwise want to.

A crucial measure of prosperity is median income which isn’t much affected by a tiny few making billions. There’s nothing wrong with raising that in nearly every country.

He’s not even drunk when he comes out with this all stuff about Gaza, another crazy Asian war in the making. The leaders of Egypt and Jordan have three choices. 1. Publicly disagree with Trump and cease to be an ally. 2. Publicly agree with Trump and cease to be a living human in short order. 3. Pull a Chrétien, mutter incomprehensibly and pray the whole thing goes away da bedder da sooner. Option 3 looks wise.

Given that you and your closest ally did all that damage, yes.

SA doctors are excellent, by and large. Their preference for candour can be amusing to watch with Canadian administrators who aren’t used to that kind of thing. I believe the Indians could only apply to one med school in the ‘good old days’ of Apartheid which made it incredibly difficult to get into. Now the Africans keep them out so they can’t win.

They are the tariffs I was referring to. Trying to explain trade deficits to him would be like convincing Emperor Joseph II that Mozart’s works don’t have too many notes. The annexation talk is the same as before and at some point we are going to have to start believing him. PP better hope Trump finds another focus for his ire and just forgets about Canada for a while. Nobody in the West will seek to antagonize this ignorant thug by supporting us. The UK is in enough trouble already with its support of the ICC and other Israel-related matters.

Trump is the major factor. He can seriously damage Poilievre’s chances if he goes all out against us. In that case, there’ll be support for the Libs right across the political spectrum including from many who haven’t voted in a while and disillusioned Liberal voters who might have sat this one out. Plus Danielle Smith might be a little preoccupied with events closer to home to play at Trump whisperer again. Best case for PP is that this round of tariffs is the last, the whole disgraceful story peters out and he glides in on what’s left of his lead. Has anybody asked Trump about the political effect he is having up here?

Those vuvuzelas were fairly grim. Best thing? Mr. Tolkien.