This is what the fascists do: hijacking legitimate terms of discourse and abusing them so they become meaningless. It’s a deliberate strategy to subvert their opponents’ ability to talk about the issue by poisoning the terminology. See also what they’ve done with “fake news”, “critical race theory” and “DEI”.
The election of EU representatives is separate from the election of representatives in parliament. Canada could end up like the UK was (in the good old days), with PR for the European elections and FPTP for its own national elections.
Pierre Poilievre won’t even want to stand up to his role model.
There are two German tourists detained independently:
https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/german-tourists-detained-otay-mesa-detention-center/3770608/
Even though Trump has now paused tariffs on some products until April, we’re still not about to spend a nickel to prop up the U.S. economy when its president has pledged to destroy ours. We don’t want to be doing any of this, and we know so many Americans who also wish none of this were happening. But this is our reality now.
Yep, that’s about it. But it’s not just our economy Trump has vowed to destroy, it’s our country.
The removal effort has sparked confusion, as some images appear to have been marked for deletion because their filenames contain the word “gay,” including those of service members with that last name and the Enola Gay, the Boeing B-29 aircraft that dropped the first atomic bomb in combat during World War II.
The vast majority of the Pentagon purge targets women and minorities and it also removes a large number of posts that mention various commemorative months—such as those for Black and Hispanic people and women.
Images of historically significant military achievements or personnel, such as the Tuskegee Airmen and the first female Marine Corps infantry graduates, have been flagged for removal.
And a photo of Army Corps biologists was on the list, seemingly because it mentioned they were recording data about fish—including their weight, size, hatchery and gender.
Those bits of the US Government that haven’t been dismantled by Musk and co. are spending their time and resources implementing a pointless policy of hatred towards ordinary Americans.
I found this video interesting, about Bonhoeffer’s theory of stupidity and how it relates to Arendt’s investigation into what made Nazis do what they did. In brief, he characterises stupidity as not just ignorance, but ignorance that resists and is opposed to learning, and he said this stupidity could be a more damaging force than evil.
Yes. It’s not actually all blue water like it looks here. But there’s less and less, and Russia has ice breakers that can deal with a certain amount of ice. Arctic shipping routes are becoming more useful and valuable as the Arctic warms.
Funny, it’s exactly what Putin said about Ukraine. That and “It’s not a real country,” which Elon Musk recently said of Canada.
Yes, the first thing Canadians can do to protect Canada is not vote Conservative. Unfortunately, Ontario doesn’t seem to have figured that out yet.
Oh well. Do both.
And control of all this water, important strategically for Russia, I mean the USA. And Russia.
Vivaldi is a very good browser, but if you want to support open web standards it would be better to use a non-Chromium-based browser like one of the Firefox derivatives. Also Vivaldi is closed source. Still, I do like Vivaldi.
Or can he promise one positive thing for Canada? All I hear is “I’m not Trudeau” and attacks on the Liberal leadership candidates. Poilievre doesn’t appear to have any interest in actual government.
Then again, Ontario elected Doug Ford’s Conservatives three times in a row without them telling anyone what they planned to do. People are weird.
Canada should take advantage of this situation to hire US scientists and doctors too.
PP refuses to speak out against the attacks on Canada from Trump and his associates. Canada doesn’t need a government led by a cowardly wannabe Trumplet right now.
The NDP needs a leaders who are less glossy and more gritty. It needs leaders who have a working class background and can sell the party to working class voters.
None of these former KGB operatives has provided evidence, but the fact that three KGB agents located in different places and speaking at different times agree on the story suggests this possibility should not be dismissed out of hand. If there’s one thing we’ve learned from the first Trump administration and from the initial weeks of the second, it is that everything, including what appears to be impossible, is possible.
Back in the 1980s Trump was a rich, obvious narcissist who loved being the center of attention, took pride in his sexual conquests, liked younger girls (and bragged about it) and eastern European women, and was easily flattered and manipulated. In the late 1980s he overreached financially and got himself in trouble, so he would have had big debts. He had dodgy connections in NY and NJ and was prominent in American business circles. He had political ambitions and connections and was famous and influential. And he was visiting Moscow and trying to get some business going over there (why?), so he was ready to take Russian money to fund his ventures.
Is there anything about that that wouldn’t absolutely scream “recruit this guy” to the KGB? The journalist talks as if this is a bit of an out-there suggestion, but it would actually be very surprising if they hadn’t at least attempted to recruit him. And the KGB wouldn’t do that by asking nicely: they’d find a way to gradually hook you in so you couldn’t say no. There was no shortage of ways to do this with Trump. So they probably at least tried.
And then do we think Trump would have been the kind of guy to make a principled stand, or to be smart enough to recognize what’s happening and not take the bait? He’s exactly the kind of guy who goes with whoever offers him the sweetest deal in the short term. You make him feel like he’s winning, he’s smart and great at business, all the while documenting his every compromising move, and only later does he realize that he’s trapped. But then you say, go back to the USA and continue your life as before. We’ll help you in business and politics, you can have a successful life, everything will be good, and we’ll let you know when you can help us.
So I disagree with the author that this is in any way an implausible suggestion. It seems far more implausible that the KGB would have decided not to try to recruit Trump, or that they would have failed in their attempt. The most likely thing is that Trump was recruited by the KGB, and we know that after the collapse of the USSR he took a lot of money from wealthy Russians, and sold real estate in deals that look a lot like money laundering, to Russians. How plausible is it that none of this was ex-KGB Putin or his allies ensuring that Trump stayed hooked in case he came in useful?
And then we know the Russians helped him in 2016 and everything Trump has done while President has been conspicuously well aligned with Putin’s interests. Is it more likely this is all one big coincidence, or that he is indebted to Russia in a way that gives them a lot of leverage? And what could be better leverage than being able to reveal that they had him all along?
It’s not certain, but I disagree with the author that it even initially looks unlikely or implausible. I’d even say it’s probable that Russia has been playing him for decades.
Our healthcare system is already struggling badly. Voters just opted to finish it off. I don’t understand it when you only have to look next door to see the effects of healthcare privatization.
That’s because he and his kind believe government is useless and can just be broken without losing anything important. From their point of view, government is just a thing that takes money from them and spends it on people who don’t deserve to live because they’re not asshole billionaire techbros. And it makes poor people’s lives slightly less unpleasant by giving them money and services, which billionaires don’t like because it makes the poor less desperate and exploitable.