I am Groot

Ah, it can be a fun diversion for a little time, and it's not like you kooks don't make it easy.

You should ask contrarian about how to make avatars He likes to teach these things and I believe this would make a good one for you.

It never worked in the first place. There's all kinds of videos of illegals climbing over and through it. And he only managed to get a small section put up anyway since he did absolutely nothing about it his first two years in office. It wasn't until the Democrats took office he remembered he could use the wall as a weapon against them and started harumphing about the desperate need to protect America's border.

And Trump is a man of such profound ignorance and such enormous intolerance for different views and opinions that he simply can't be trusted with any position of responsibility. He doesn't know how government works, or an economy, or business, and is incapable of establishing any kind of trusting relationship with foreign leaders (or anyone actually). Everything you say about Biden might well be true, but Trump is simply not an option. And wouldn't be even if he hadn't tried, in a fumbling, incompetent way, to overthrow the legally elected Biden administration. Think about this. What other president in US history has threatened to sue both his university and his high school if anyone were to find out what his marks were?

I don't need to make an excuse to ignore your ranting on abortion. I've been ignoring crazy people for a very long time. I don't ignore Biden. I don't ignore the Democrats. I just don't agree with crazy MAGA kooks. If the Republicans had a party like they did under either of the Bushes, or even Reagan, and I could vote in the US I'd definitely vote Republican. Even if they have someone halfway coherent and reasonably intelligent like de Santis I could easily be persuaded simply because I detest the Democrats and their identity politics obsession so much. But the MAGA stuff is just too far over on the lunatic right for me to abide.

And this, of course, exhibits why we put up with Reason's dumbass posts. Because we put up with yours. We let anyone post whatever moronic thoughts and indignant, sanctimonious crap comes into their demented heads regardless of its low quality. Personally, I'd just as soon get rid of both of you, but it ain't my call.

You seem to have a memory that doesn't extend back more than three years. But I, you know, was alive through the Trump years and saw he and his government do absolutely ZILCH to combat wokeness beyond a few publicity stunts. And even most of them weren't until the election loomed. Like him banning all that CRT bullshit in federal agencies. You know that federal public servants were being indoctrinated by these mandatory sessions right through his time in office, right? At great cost, too. He likewise did little or nothing to push back against the indoctrination of students in either universities or K-12 schools, despite how much federal funding goes to them. Did the government ever say they would no longer give grants or loans to students taking junk like gender studies? Nope. There were a bunch of things a 'milquetoast' like me could and would have done that your fat diaper baby didn't even think of because he didn't know or care about what was going on and he was too busy shoveling fried chicken down his throat while he conducted flamewars with celebrities on Twitter.

Trump had and has virtually every character flaw known to man. But in terms of America's economic performance or its budget deficit he had little involvement. He was just, as Mitch McConnell has said, a guy who would sign pretty much anything that was placed before him.

Kotkin talks about the decreasing economic performance of men, esp blue-collar men, the increasing numbers of women graduating from universities and going on to high positions in bureaucracy of government and the corporate world are seeing economic success but not so much in terms of mates or children. Men are dropping out and pushing away from women, not knowing how to deal with them socially without risk of cancellation or arrest. They're turning to internet porn instead. Women in choosing mates choose those of equal or greater status on the economic/social ladder. If those men aren't available or aren't interested in more than casual tinder hookups then women have to go without. Rates of depression and suicide have skyrocketed among women, esp younger women, in no small part due to social media. But also because Tinder and the like have been a disaster for women in terms of finding the kind of men they want (attractive, successful) willing to commit when such men can swipe on their phone and have another eager woman available fairly easily. It's also been a disaster for men, of course. Statistics have shown only a small percentage of male users of these sites (good looking and with good jobs/money) get most of the attention from women. The rest are mostly out of luck. It all makes for a future that looks increasingly bleak. https://nationalpost.com/opinion/women-have-won-the-war-between-the-sexes-but-at-what-cost

I suspect you're wrong. He does it because he CAN. If he couldn't, he'd not do it. Just pay heed to what Confucious said about taking offense. "He who takes offense when none is intended is a fool. He who takes offense when offense is intended is a bigger fool.”

Hey, I'm using the description Trudeau has embraced. If you think it's an exaggeration take it up with him.

Yes, the shrieking from the mainstream media over the border during Trump's time in office was an excellent example of lying by omission. It might have also pointed out that the US Border Patrol had been begging congress for funds for more detention facilities for years, through both the Trump and Obama administrations, and been ignored. But then, the Democrats have never professed to care much about the border. And even when they do we know they're lying. The Republicans are supposed to care. But I strongly suspect they're lying too. The only way to really secure borders from floods of migrants is to change the laws that guarantee everyone who asks for asylum be given a formal hearing. Right now in the US that takes over four years. I'm not sure what it is in Canada, but likely around the same. That's to start the first hearing. That doesn't count the legal appeals. These laws were put in place based on treaties signed in the 1940s and 1950s that need to be canceled. They were of another era, and no one who agreed to them ever imagined hundreds of thousands, and even millions of people would flood north asking for asylum. The Republicans had a majority in congress and house and a compliant president and never changed those laws, never pulled out of those treaties.

Andrew Coyne has a great summary of most of what's been happening, and some great questions we need any public inquiry to answer. Assuming, of course, that Johnson doesn't figure out a way to say one isn't needed without completely and utterly trashing his public reputation. Intelligence reports say that China wanted to help the Liberals get re-elected. Why? Were the intelligence reports broadly correct in their assessments: that is, was China attempting to interfere, in the ways described? Who knew what when? Is it conceivable that not one of these multiple reports over several years could have reached a minister’s desk, the Prime Minister’s in particular? What about their advisers? If so, what does that say about how we are governed, if critical intelligence on a pressing matter of national security never reaches the final decision-makers? But if not, then why would they lie about it? And the ultimate question, assuming somebody knew: Why was nothing done about any of it? Was it incompetence? Negligence? Or was a deliberate choice made to look the other way – perhaps out of embarrassment at having been played by the Chinese regime, an inability to admit that they bet the farm on China, and lost? Worse, was it because, as Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has suggested, the Liberals benefited from it? Or worse yet, was it out of fear of what might come out: potentially, that certain Liberals had been compromised? https://archive.ph/vymEn

Canada's military barely functions at all. But I suppose they can say "We aren't capable of doing that" in two languages. In order to appease Quebec Francophones, who were not even slightly appeased, and who would vote to leave Canada in a heartbeat if they thought there wouldn't be economic consequences. But I'm unsurprised you believe that the cultural genocide of English Canadians was and is a good idea. It does not work in either language. But I get that all you care about is that they're bilingual.

He'd have to tone down the childish insults, but his dumb opinions should be able to be expressed, even if this place was more heavily moderated. Yours are, after all.

I almost never do. But the weird thing is there are other posters here almost as kooky, so I guess they've had the effect of making a screwball like reason seem ... well, a nut job, sure, but just one nut job among others. These two are hardly on the same level. And politically incorrect words don't bother me. Then again I'm from a different culture where such words were perfectly normal where I was born and raised.

Ah, I see. Would you care to explain the difference between a social program and an entitlement? So all seniors are rich and don't need social security? Have I got that right? Or Medicare presumably. I guarantee you Trump is getting social security. That man never passed up a buck if he could get his pudgy fingers around it. He 'sacrificed' his presidential salary to look good to the suckers of the world, but he more than made up for it with bribes and things like adding a special tax cut for real estate companies into the budget. Administrative costs for payers. Within the U.S. system, the share of expenditures that are attributable to administrative costs varies greatly by payer. The BIR costs for traditional Medicare and Medicaid hover around 2 percent to 5 percent, while those for private insurance is about 17 percent. https://www.americanprogress.org/article/excess-administrative-costs-burden-u-s-health-care-system/#:~:text=Administrative costs for payers,insurance is about 17 percent. "Some sources" Uh huh. Well, I say it's at just 4%. You show me evidence it's at 80 and I'll show you mine it's at 4.

While this is technically true, Trump had almost nothing to do with American budgets at the time. He was far too busy having twitter wars with Hollywood celebrities to concern himself with budgets and the economy, neither of which he understood or knew (or wanted to know) anything about anyway. His one intervention, and no one will even admit to it, was getting the word to McConnell that he wanted a bigger piece of that taxcut pie. So in addition to the tax bill exempting his kids from having to pay inheritance tax when he finally rids the world of his existence a special tax measure benefiting real estate companies somehow found its way into the budget.

Yeah, that's not actually true. The children had to be separated because of a court order that said it's illegal to detain them when their parents are charged with a crime. Just as it would be anywhere else in America. I think you misunderstood. I simply pointed out the cages to someone who had said the border was secure under Trump. It wasn't secure under Obama, it's not secure under Biden, and it wasn't secure under Trump. Is that too complicated?

The Left creates the mainstream. Progressives are hugely overrepresented in media and arts and skew the news to their preferences. It doesn't matter if it's owned by a mega corporation. They don't care about news quality or being unbiased. They only care about money. Not all corporations are right wing, and many are infested with progressives (see Disney) who are willing to sacrifice profit for pushing out 'the message'. Amazon is just as bad. Enormous corporation but controlled by people who are social progressives.

Yeah, I'm sure that brought a few tears (of laughter) to those concerned. Like anyone in their right mind would want to go Russia these days.

Just bad ideas. And how was I to find it given it was posted under a topic about the ignore list? Yes, I read it now. It was a bad idea and I don't like it. That it makes following the progression of the discussion more difficult. I don't like my posts to different people being merged.

Trump had no secure border. Or have you forgotten the cages already, miserable international relations (everyone hated him except autocrats who were delighted at how easily he could be swayed by flattery), and an economy built on huge tax cuts which has (surprise!) led to increased deficits and inflation.

Caused by social programs, yes. I get that. So how come every other country managers to pay for its social programs even though they spend more of their GDP than you do? Like senior citizens? So they should all starve? Is that it? Maybe push them out on ice floes? And health care? There shouldn't be any unless you can pay? If not, what? What is your solution? Take away healthcare from seniors and the poor? Just let them die? You want children to die if their parents aren't rich enough to pay for a doctor? I thought you said it was 75%. Now it's 90%? Actually, it's 52%.