I am Groot

Why does Canada have a Black History Month? Because the Wokists say we must. We have no real Black history but nevermind. Why did we put a black hairdresser on our ten dollar bill, replacing the founder of our country? Because of Woke. Sir John A MacDonald might have founded Canada but he said a few very politically incorrect (by modern standards) things about natives, plus founding Canada was a sin against indigenous peoples, so he has to be shunned and cast out. Meanwhile, Viola Desmond never said anything controversial at all (or anything that was recorded). Plus, she's BLACK! And a woman! She's a Black woman! What more could you want!?

I would say that this has indeed given birth to much of the excesses of the Right today (which is what I think you mean). The craziness of the Left on this issue has caused craziness on the Right. And now it's on the edge of bringing Trump back into power. Because make no mistake, it's the woke religion that will see Trump back in power if he succeeds. There's little about Biden's stewardship of the US anyone can point to do suggest why he doesn't deserve to be elected. What's got even moderates riled up is crime in the street, where, as I think it was Bil Maher suggested, the Wokists have now deemed drug addicts and the homeless to be one of their protected identity groups and kept them from prison while denouncing police. It's Wokists in the school boards badly interpreting theories about critical race and then teachers clumsily trying to tell white kids as young as eight that they're all racists and oppressors and black kids they're all helpless victims without agency. It's colleges changing not just admission requirements, but actual passing requirements for courses, and not just in the humanities. It's the twisting of even professional organizations by Wokists to pull away from science in veneration of the religious texts of Wokism. It's the constant Black this, Black that, Black everywhere they get from their media and entertainment, provided by members of the Woke religion. Canadians are growing tired of being constantly nagged about our supposed terrible past and Americans have been nagged a lot more for a lot longer. No wonder they're tired of those in this church. And Biden has professed allegiance to the Church while foul-mouthed Don the real estate salesman is constantly instluting it the way they wish they dared to do.

No conservatives admire Putin. However, Trump's allegiance to Putin, his visible and obvious deference to the man, his constant attempts to flatter and praise him have caused a part of the Trumptard political group to feel that Putin is somehow one of them, too. Trumptards aren't conservatives, though. They're slow thinkers with little going for them in life taken in by a snake oil salesman who promised them the world would be theirs.

Deemed? Deemed by whom?

I can't help noticing in that list of corrupt leaders you somehow missed mentioning Trump.

Come on. You're usually more sensible than this.

John McWhorter wrote a whole book on how antiracism is the new religion of the Left. The high priests are people like Robin Diangelo and Ibraham X Kendi. Their clerics are the ones in charge of all these DEI organizations that provide church services, otherwise known as antiracist seminars, to various government departments and corporate organizations that employees are required to attend and where disagreement is considered blasphemy. Speaking the wrong words or challenging the wisdom or logic of the religion's sacred texts draws shrieks of heresy and the followers of the religion then seek to have the heretic shunned and cast out - from their job, from their campus, from society. White people are supposedly imbued with the original sin of racism from which none may escape. It attaints them from birth, and only devotion to the new religion can spare them condemnation. Claiming to not be racist is a sign of racism. Claiming to treat all races the same is a sign of white superiority. There is no way for a white person to escape his sinfulness other than submission to the new religion of antiracism. It's mostly a religion of the elites, who parrot the words of its gospel to each other, and join in celebrating them and denouncing heretics to demonstrate their religious virtue while accomplishing absolutely nothing. Think of Mr Blackface-giant-banana-dick Trudeau going out into the demonstrating crowd with his bodyguards (during covid, when all public gatherings were banned) to visibly take a knee in symbolic devotion to the new religion.

It's a GOP bill. The Democrats were anxious to get this border business done before the election so they largely caved on almost everything during the negotiations. You don't want asylum seekers to be let free into the country but you don't want to pay to keep them in detention or provide judges to speed up asylum hearings. No, it isn't. The courts have already ruled on that. What IS Trump good for other than running his mouth? You forgot to give him credit for there being no major hurricane damage in Florida. Surely he gets credit for that, too. When will you get it into your head Trump was never more than the titular president. He had no ideas. He had no vision. He took no part in policy discussions, did not attend meetings, would not read briefing notes. President PENCE was the guy who ran everything, arranged all the negotiations with congress, and got the bills Mitch McConnell came up with signed by Trump. Trump sat in front of a TV watching FOX and having tweet wars with celebrities when he wasn't droning on while the hosts for Fox and Friends tried to get him to hang up. I don't even particularly like Biden. And I've already admitted he's probably corrupt. I'm perfectly willing to see him replaced by someone else. You, on the other hand, have devoted your life to the worship of Donald Trump and venerate everything he says as though it came from the mouth of God Himself. You kiss a picture of Trump before going to sleep at night. As for the rest of that nonsense in your post - I don't even know what point you're trying to make, but you didn't make it. We both admit you don't care about corruption. You know Trump is corrupt and you worship the ground he walks on.

The bill includes a lot of money for more Border Patrol agents, more security systems along the border, like cameras, drones, etc., and more detention facilities so they don't have to just release people out into the states. There's also money for more immigration judges and facilities to speed up the hearings for those claiming asylum so they don't take years to get to. None of this is bad! Even if it's not 100% perfect it's a great improvement over what they have. There's also changes to laws enabling the president to LEGALLY close the border. Again, not a bad thing! You're telling me Trump was no better than Obama at managing the deficit?! And this is a reason to re-elect him!? But a picture of some diplomatic meeting doesn't mean anything, you know. Nor their belt and road diagram. Here's a map for you. https://www.rand.org/pubs/tools/TLA2045-3.html

Well, you've convinced me that Hunter Biden shouldn't be president. Grats on that.

I've always been in favour of much higher border security, both down south and on our own borders. I think Biden was just reflecting the current flavor of liberal America and trying to please the left wing of the Democratic party. He's come around now, though, and so has much of the Democratic base (excluding the left). And instead Trump is now against enhanced border security! The deficit. US international power and soft power. Do you know how much of Africa China took control of while Trump couldn't care less? Law and order also got worse under Trump. Regardless of where the blame lays (and I blame the Democrats at the municipal and state level) Trump did absolutely nothing to stop it. DEI also got worse during his time in office, infesting every public institution, including the federal government. He didn't notice. Too busy in twitter wars with celebrities, I guess. He didn't even mention it and ban the indoctrination sessions for government employees until he was into his re-election campaign. American's sense of unity and pride in country. This vastly deteriorated during Trump's time in office, as he clearly only saw himself as the leader of half the country and couldn't care less about the other half. I think the main reason Covid was treated by him as 'just the flu' was because it landed on the west coast in democratic states and so he couldn't care less. It wasn't until it started killing people in Republican states that he had to show some concern, but since he doesn't know how to admit he was wrong his efforts were mostly half-assed. High inflation was inevitable given the huge borrowing, and that's what's caused high interest rates and the high cost of houses. The rest is all an apsect of American disunity and stupid liberal virtue signaling. Listen, if I was an American and there was almost ANYONE running for office other than Trump I'd absolutely be voting Republican, but this guy is an assclown and his rule was chaotic at best according to virtually every cabinet minister and staffer at the White House. When people like Mike Pence and Bill Barr say that Trump isn't fit for office people should take note.

So what? I Don't care if Biden is corrupt or not. He almost certainly is. So is every other long-term congressman and senator. I don't ultimately care that Trump is corrupt. The US has had lots of corrupt presidents before. I don't care whether he insults people and is or is not a racist. The US has had lots of racist presidents before. What I care about is he's dumb. He knows nothing about anything but thinks he does and fires anyone who contradicts him. The guy is a very good salesman. I'll give him that. But as a businessman or father or leader of any kind he's a disaster.

And, of course, it was just coincidence that Trump's son in law, who acted as a White House aide, negotiating deals in the middle east in particular, got a $2 billion contract from the Saudis after leaving office. Trump himself registered eight numbered companies in Saudi Arabia during his campaign Then there are the tens of millions spent at Trump properties by countries and companies who realized that they could curry favor with trump by doing so. Not to mention Trump ensured he visited his properties regularly, bringing tons of staff and secret service with him. He spent almost one in every three days as president at one of his own properties, charging the government through the nose. There's his shady charity that didn't give any money to charity. His shady university that was shut down. The run down mansion he sold to the Russians for almost a hundred million, the shady and mysterious deal in Azerbaijan with shady people associated with Russia and Iran, and his tax fraud in New York. But the concerning thing about Trump is that he said in his book that he was broke, that when he and Ivanka passed a bum on the street he said to her that bum is millions of dollars better off than he is. Then suddenly he's not. And his son Don said Russian and eastern Europe money saved them. Where did that money come from exactly? Given Trump's history of shady dealings (he mentioned dealing with the mob as a realtor in New York) it's not exactly inconceivable that he took money from people he shouldn't have and wound up being involved in both money laundering and sanctions busting. And if he did, and the odds are good, then Putin knows about it and has him by the balls. And the only evidence for that is circumstantial - and the deferential, even obsequious way he acts to and around Putin.

Right now we're at the point where immigration is discouraging couples from having children. Immigration is a ponzi scheme, in any event, because the more you grow the more immigrants you need to sustain that growth. Right now, Canada is growing faster than anywhere in the G20. It's not necessary to have this many people coming in to sustain growth. And that is not the point of immigration anyway. It might have been a century ago but it stopped being the point around the 1970s. There was another article on that site that I read which is an interesting summary of how immigration morphed around the 1970s into a political program designed more to improve the political fortunes of the party in power than to improve or help Canada. https://dominionreview.ca/did-canada-ever-really-have-an-immigration-consensus/

The economy is what it is. All this mass of immigrants and foreign workers does is pretend it's better for the statistics. The GNP continues to rise, albeit very much less than down south where they have almost no immigrants compared to us - but GNP per person shows that we're getting poorer not wealthier, as a nation. Without the steady flow of newcomers the GDP would be negative and we would officially be in recession. But even with them, realistically, we ARE in a recession. Jobs are not easy to come by, unemployment is rising as companies lay people off, and people are finding it harder and harder to make ends meet. Many of them can't. So the flood of newcomers doesn't so much change that as hide it. Because, as always, this is the style over substance government. It would be interesting to see just what he does when he's unemployed. I suspect he'll be offered a number of very well-paid directorships by some of the big companies, none of which he's actually qualified for, and be paid big money to do little or nothing as a reward for favors done in office. That's how the game is played, after all.

The piece quoted cites recent Abacus and Leger polls on immigration. Remarkably, Canadians seem to be in agreement at every age group, in every province, and from every political party, among both immigrants and Canadian born that there is too much immigration. Most of those think there is WAY too much immigration. And the majority also feel immigrants are contributing negatively to everything from crime to cost of living and congestion. Despite this, Canada's immigration ministers says there is no question of lowering immigration. Do the Liberals have a suicide wish? https://dominionreview.ca/abacus-poll-shows-canadian-immigration-attitudes-hardening/

That wasn't what I replied to. I said I had never heard anyone complain about We buy, train, shoot once a year and have the public complain we are wasting time and effort but never using. I've never heard anyone complain about the military training or getting needed equipment. Complaining about vastly overpriced equipment is something entirely different. I've also complained about the new AOPs, given their almost complete lack of weapons or sensory systems. But I'm all for buying new tanks, armored vehicles, self-propelled artillery, trucks, subs, helicopters, etc.

That falls completely apart if you suddenly find yourself in a situation where all of your infantry needs to be deployed at once, as in a war. What do you do then? Every small single infantry unit needs to have the proper equipment, including trucks, flack vests, helmets and missiles. And probably drones now. All we have to do is look at Ukraine to see what western missiles are working against Russian gear. Mobile artillery, javelin anti-tank missiles, and stingers for anti-air. Though good luck getting those for some time as the US is running out and the company is building a factory to restart production.

I have never seen nor heard of such a complaint.

That's all very nice but it seems from the numbers as if they cheaped out again. That this is only enough to equp the people in Latvia, with the rest of the army getting nothing.

Jonathan Haidt has given a number of talks on this subject and I think he's onto more than a little something. The first 10 minutes tells you a lot. The first 20 minutes tells you a lot more. For those really interested.

They couldn't survive the age of sound bytes, with reporters 'interpreting' everything else they said in an hour or two-hour speech in a few sentences.

Gee, what a shocker. The DEi bullshit is based on crap science. Yet if you work in large organizations you can't get away with this political/social indoctrination. The federal government hires legions of these people to harangue their staff at mandatory sessions every year with no demonstrated evidence they do a thing but waste time and money. A study of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) research found that such instruction leads 'to greater prejudice and even harm' “DEI instruction is now aggressively entrenched at all levels of our educational system from kindergarten up to university,” Haskell told National Post in an email on Tuesday. “Core concepts of the instruction such as ‘white privilege’ and ‘implicit bias’ are promoted as verified truths. But the research shows that these concepts are not rooted in solid, empirical evidence. Ironically, the public organizations we have charged with providing factual knowledge are, on this front, doing the opposite.” https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/dei-initiatives-not-supported-by-the-empirical-evidence-canadian-researcher-says