This Man is Certifiable

 

Trump: "To be honest with you, Canada only works as a state. We don't need anything they have. As a state it would be one of the great states. This would be the most incredible country visually. If you look at a map, they drew an artificial line right through it." pic.twitter.com/oxzF3jzLOC

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 13, 2025

With respect to our neighbors to the north, my god. I am just so embarrassed and sorry about this delusional halfwit. I knew he was a halfwit, but he managed to keep the worst of it under his MAGA hat for the benefit of his true-believers. I hope they understand how extremely messed up this crap is now, though.

And if they don't, well, I guess I am sorry for them, too. Because that is just one hell of a low and dangerous level of stupid. 

Today. Trump made comments that NATO needs to help with the US acquiring Greenland, which is not going to happen and is profoundly ignorant, as well as having congratulated himself for filling Lake Tulare with reservoir water intended for future irrigation and fire-fighting. He describes this as "invading LA" which is not even remotely a description of how any of this profoundly stupid and useless event occurred. 

Comments by Trump and his cabinet suggest that his intentions with respects to Canada and Greenland are real, and also folks are charged with drafting a Panama Canal strategy. 

Shart of the Deal 2: The Takers

 

This blog (me, Vixen!) understands that Trump thinks of himself as the Deal-maker, and his mishpocha love that for him. We discussed The Shart of the Deal a minute ago, and it's holding up. He imposes a threat, and will accept any terms that make him look like he got his "deliverables". He just got the Mexican president to send 10,000 troops to the border that were going anyway. He got Justin Trudeau to agree to the same kind of commitment he was already making. 

It's ok--just so long as Trump gets to take credit for something, even if it was nothing he actually accomplished (other than demonstrating to our allies that his government is duplicitous and not to be trusted, ruining our relationship in a completely shartastic way!)  And the 30-day pause probably just means we get another round of Trump drama. 

But the thing to recognize is Trump didn't do anything other than wreck our allies' faith in us Just like him patting himself on the back for the flow of the water (which is idiotic) into lakebeds that have nothing to do with the already-contained LA fires. It's bullshit--but he's a tv president for dipshits who watch too much tv. 

Which brings me to Elon Musk--his avatar Vizier and the shadow-president. 

Trump takes credit. I don't know what Musk is taking--but it's a whole lot, because he's rooting through our servers, gathering our information, and I have no earthly idea what all he means to do with it. But he is using boys young enough to be his sons to do it. 

Egads, I Hate JD Vance.

 

Of all the trifling twats that ever twatted triflingly, JD Vance feels like he might be both the most trifling and twattiest. The adoption of Trump's victimization fetish that the US has been "taken advantage of" is so uniquely lame and fucked up. Did Lady Liberty get railed by the big old Lumberjack? How sway? 

Trump himself conflated the Canadian trade deficit thing with our actual US debt, which this asshole put 8 trillion American dollars on. As a member of the party that DOES NOT swan about preaching "fiscal responsibility" while racking up losses by granting tax cuts to the rich at every opportunity, um. 

Fuck you. Fuck you from the soles of your shitty unspurred feet to the crown of your molting head. And what I say for Trump goes ditto (megadittoes. even!) for his mini-me. 

JD Vance tells stories. That is to say, more appropriately, he lies, and he knows and accepts that he lies. 

Let's know and accept that. too. And acknowledge how unacceptable that behavior is. 

Generational Wingnut Welfare Cases

 

Rep. Brandon Gill: "Listen, I think that the people of Panama, I think that the people of Greenland, I think that the people of Canada for that matter should be honored that President Trump wants to bring these territories under the American fold." pic.twitter.com/T6IJzunB0c

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 8, 2025

This obnoxious weird and wrong little man is married to Dinesh D'Souza's daughter.  D'Souza had to apologize for being very badly wrong about the 2020 election. His little son-in-law is just being part of the family--pay him little mind, because little mind is all they have 

Post-script: A lot of the GOP have adopted the "should be flattered" talking point, but to get at why this stupidity makes me furious--it's not a serious opinion. Telling a country "We will economically or militarily threaten you because we want something you have" is,a war of choice--and it amounts to saying "If someone threatens to rape you, you should be flattered." 

TWGB: Putting us on the Map

 

You know, maybe Trump can't end Russia's war in Ukraine with a phone call, or bring the hostages home from Gaza, or really do anything at all in the Middle East except make things worse, and maybe he won't bring down grocery prices and it's a whole lot to think he'll do much about fuel prices, but maybe he and his magic Sharpie can change the map! 

The Gulf of Mexico was the Gulf of Mexico, before there was a USA. If we have a national security issue regarding Greenland, well, we have had an air base there since 1943--Pituffik, formerly known as Thule. (Does he think it went away because the name changed? He seems to have a problem with accepting that military bases can change their name but still exist. His sense of object permanence is fleeting.) 

Canadian Bacon and Trump Ham

 

Honestly, right-wing forces have been working at Trudeau since well before Trump started on this 51st-state nonsense.  This appears to be an appeal to turn out conservative Canadians. It's only part delusional. But along with his renewed Greenland interest--and the observed meddling Elon Musk has been engaging in in Europe, that we seem to have a very disturbing case of two megalomaniac viruses swapping DNA. 

I'm still working on the big picture about this

Oh, Canada. I'm Sorry.

 

Canada fought alongside the U.S. in World War Two, the Korean War and in Afghanistan post-9/11. In Afghanistan, they did some of the hardest, frontline duty of any U.S. ally and suffered more than 150 killed in action. The antagonizing of a neighbor and longtime treaty partner… https://t.co/zKefr2LI74

— Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) December 17, 2024

I mean, I didn't vote for the guy, but while I tried to caution against it, somehow we still got him and he's a stupid, insulting, know-nothing brat who doesn't understand the value of our close relationship. He's a fucking obvious rude ugly American jackass, and we should really be better than this. You all have given so much. Michael J. Fox. John Candy, rest his soul. And pretty much the best bits of SCTV and all of Kids in the Hall! And letting our film crews sometimes pretend Vancouver is part of the US, which, let's face it, we wish!

Dan Ackroyd, basically an international treasure. I'm pretty sure the trend of pairing maple things with bacon things would not exist without Canada, that's for sure. The science teacher who runs the Bunsen, Beaker and Bernoulli account on Twitter. And of course, you know, our shared vision of democracy and the wars we've generally fought together. We've been through a lot like some kind of Corsican twins where one is a dissolute nationalist jagoff and the other is, you know, Canada, and frankly, "Murdoch Mysteries" is better than a lot of our shows here because we just don't "do" historical, because US Americans don't read. So, most of us only know Anne of Green Gables through your tv productions. 

I forgot where exactly I was going with this, but I support Chrystia Freeland over my imaginary Canadian boyfriend if one of the things she wants to do is make Trump eat fresh financial hell. and try to roll him because I suspect my country won't suffer--Trump's ego will. 

And he'll make a "brilliant deal" to eat it.  You stand firm for yourselves, and I don't think you'll actually be in the wrong. 

As Red Green said, "We're all in this together." 

So Much for the Bentley Bomber

 

At the top of the above picture, just past the border checkpoint, you can see a car frozen in air after its driver had made some very poor speed-related decisions. This unfortunate launch of a generally land-based vehicle resulted in an explosion that Fox News, among others, wanted to term a terrorist attack. 

It wasn't, but a lot of right-wing fear-mongers jumped on the news:

Ted Cruz reposting noted journalist Benny Johnson to say his "worst fears" were confirmed is amusing to me in a way I don't think Sen. Cruz would understand. 

Sometimes I think to myself that conservative "news" outlets and the politicians they have a symbiotic relationship with are just cynical liars, but I also think they do believe their own bullshit. People who say things like "open borders" in all serious are like people who say "post-birth abortion"--what they fuck are they on about? It's delusional. They assumed that OF COURSE an explosion on a bridge was terrorism. Because OPEN BORDERS: is why! I think there's some people this morning who are mad their talking point got, um, exploded.

But man, I am still trying to wrap my head around who is doing terrorism in a Bentley. That is a distant Saudi prince with Jason Chaffetz's turkey in his lap kind of high-priced terrorism....

Searching for Sara Carter

 

A Fox News contributor, of all the people in the world, made a very bad mistake by amplifying a viral video purporting to be of a protester trampled under the feet of the "obviously" heavy-handed and tyrannical fascist government of notoriously insane and not at all PMILF Justin Trudeau. The woman is fine. Someone threw a bike at the horse and the horse is fine. Ted Cruz left a tweet up about how terrible this was for longer than the story lasted after anyone followed up, but I guess he's okay, but like, no, everyone check in on that guy because he's been way more signifying than usual and that is generally a sign of people being not okay in his world. like is he worried about liability for stirring up the crowd at 1/6 and his reputation stinking more than usual, because wow. Nice time to notice. 

So, the reality is, the pro-trucker crowd were denied their Ashli Babbit for the time being. For what it's worth, Sara Carter eventually dropped her story and Ted Cruz deleted his Tweet, but the idea that the response in Ottawa was trampling the FREEDUMBS of the protesters will live on, because that was the idea. Asking the Fox News audience to even consider the source is probably too much. Asking Fox News itself to consider whether running with this is definitionally journalistic malpractice is stupid when you consider Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity exist.

The Blockade isn't Over

 

Voici la vidéo : pic.twitter.com/94iXLiHVni

— Mylène Crête (@MyleneCrete) February 19, 2022

You can see this is pure malevolence against a journalist. It is very much like the claim of Trumpers that journalists are the "enemy of the people"--unless they are personalities that they like, such as Tucker Carlson.  

Here's why you won't see me comparing Trudeau to Hitler, like some dumb South African billionaire did--because a blockade would be an act of war, actually, and because the supposedly civil protestors don't even understand how civil rights protests work. Of course you can go to jail--it's supposed to be the point. These people are insurrection-minded and Nazi-adjacent, and I don't respect any inch of their snow-sculpture autonomous space. 

The funders of this stupidity want to do this here. I am genuinely thinking that funders of terror in the US should be subject to confiscatory justice, and just get their whole capacity for monetary shenanigans taken away. 

There is really a part of me that is cool with people fucking around, to the extent that they will also be finding out. But the finding out part is non-negotiable. As in, everyone associated with any such a thing in the US should be finding out--but that these guys used tactics like using their own kids as human shields makes me shudder. 

And I guess I also have very little time for people extending their best wishes towards this stubborn street stain. I am anti-convoy, or antiblockade. I think blocking the streets with massive trucks is dangerous to commerce and the cause of freedom. I don't think much of what these people do, or the tactics they employ, and am glad Canada has shut them, lawfully, down. 

WTF, Rubber Duck?

 

There's something rotten going on in the Great White North, but I understand it's fixing to come down to Flagtown and maybe head East to the Jersey Shore, and tangle with smokies and bears in the air and whatnot along the way. Now, if you are younger than 40, you probably have no idea what the hell I'm talking about, but if you can remember where you were when Jimmy Carter was sworn in, then you know I'm talking about the convoy. 

There is a lot that is disturbing about this--the convoy doesn't represent all truckers, just a contingent of them that looks massive because trucks are massive. The convoy kind of looks a little bit astroturfed and purely political, a lot. Truckers are blue collar heroes of the open road, but these folks aren't representing concerns like the costs of people doing the contract job of hauling, the hours, the safety. They are raising a political ruckus in a way that is intimidating (a truck can be a tank in a world where vehicles have been used as weapons against pedestrians--and who knows if it doesn't harbor fertilizer or explosives?)  and now associated with racial undertones, vandalism, and right wing politics.  

What is the result of their tantrum against vaccine mandates, of all things? Fear and tension. Terror for health care workers. They are making people feel unsafe.  They are draining city resources where they turn up, and creating a nuisance. 

And the funding is damn fishy.  I get deeply skeptical when I see US right-wing pols and media glom on to things elsewhere, and when Trump weighs in and there is some dubious Go Fund Me issue afoot, I start thinking our internal saboteurs are making a test run against a stable democracy to see what might be accomplished here. I mean, take stock of what Flynn and Bannon and other Trump associates like, well, corporate Fox News, have done encouraging anti-vaxx and anti-mask protests, and how anti-mandate-ism, along with the anti-CRT (and by now, essentially anti-education/books) movement has been used against soft targets like hospitals and school boards and libraries, with the effect of often-female staffed professions like nursing, teaching, and librarians getting hollowed-out. 

The damage done by this kind of destabilizing protest well outweighs any potential rewards--I mean, like, end the vaccine mandate? Okay, so go and catch a face-full of covid, see if we care. But how messed-up is that as a goal, as goals go? This isn't about people demanding the right to catch Covid and spread it all they want. Maybe it's protest for the sake of anything at all, because of a need to feel like a part of history. To fuck it all and go be an hero. 

I get it. But just as with 1/6, if you find yourself alongside people sporting Confederate flags and swastikas, and aren't second-guessing, you are absolutely on the wrong side of shit. And this convoy doesn't seem to be about freedom, as much as it is about intimidation and warlordism--taking control of local areas and fucking up their ability to restore order. That isn't civil discourse, but terrorism. And we don't want it here in the US, either.

People need to come to their senses about a protest response, generated by internet malefactors and funded by who-knows-who, well and truly disproportionate to one's actual level of grievance, or at the very least, inspect what the true grievance is. Think about the things you are thinking about!

The idea of being a temporary outlaw might in the moment feel historic, but if it isn't about something righteous, why even venture it? If it involves abrogating others' rights, how is it noble, even? Why can we not understand how to be better citizens to one another, better neighbors, better at all? 

I'd love it if that was where the discourse was. But there is no Rubber Duck here. And if we found him, he'd be backed by wrong money and bad ideas.  

Trump's Still Big. It's the Pictures That Got Small. Er.

Trump tells this annoying Kevin person exactly where he can go, like a real (TM) New Yorker would.

So, it looks like the President, who has definitely been impeached despite the opinion of a few lawyers (who are totally sucking up or trying to be special), is pretty sure that photogenic legacy-PM of Canada, Justin Trudeau, had a hand in the CBC's editing out of Trump's really brief cameo in that time-honored cinematic classic, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. Because obviously, the 7 seconds he got as a part of a rider to film on his property were integral to the plot, and you know, you have to preserve the movie as made, so only politics could cause anyone to butcher a movie by editing out its biggest celebrity!

Especially someone with his very own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame! (They don't just give those away, you know.  Nor can they just vote them away.  Even if people really, really wanted to.) 

I think it is definitely possible that Trudeau has no idea at all how hard someone like Trump has worked for the recognition he has received in Hollywood.  Does an IMDB page like this happen by accident? I should certainly think not! 

But just imagine if everyone did realize how hard Trump worked to be considered a celebrity and understood this to be a visible sore point with him, when he is not recognized for his genius at television and movies and all that? Ouch! Like, if actual movie stars understood his slights came from a place of sick jealousy? If more politicians understood the same?

That would be a terrible sore bunion for people to step on, would it not? But Trump needn't worry--there are some videos he hasn't been edited out of, I suppose, available where that sort of thing is traded. 

That could be some solace, or maybe not. I'm not very knowledgeable about such things, myself. 

Justin Trudeau Seems Alright.

It's a damn shame, but I have no grasp whatsoever regarding Canadian politics. I had the general impression that Stephen Harper was just this side of "stomp a baby seal to make friends and influence people" level of evil, and in the general sense he was horrific for energy and the environment.

But the sad truth of the matter is, all I know about Justin Trudeau is he's the son of Pierre Trudeau and basically my age and also terrifically good-looking. He really is. Fine, actually. Also unlikely to be baby-seal-beating evil. Which may actually sum up my political "need to know".

Regarding the Ottawa Shooting

The very shocking and tragic news of the shooting that  killed Cpl Nathan Cirillo has led to a heightened threat alert, coming fairly soon after another possibly-jihad-motivated death of a Canadian soldier, WO Patrice Vincent, in a hit-and-run incident.

It looks, to me, anyway, probable that the shooter, Michael Zahaf-Bibeau, was acting as a "lone wolf" in this scenario, and actually, some of what that last link suggests to me is that he was something like the DC sniper killers or Nidal Hassan--talking about jihad is something tangential to whatever motive really resulted in the rampage. It's like an excuse. There's Christian mass killers and killers of no particular obvious religious bent. It looks to me like sometimes, a person just has a predisposition to do some horrible thing, and they fill in the blanks with whatever mental salve lets them justify it.

Sometimes I think, as a species, our unique ability as reasoning animals is our ability to perform homicide with vast and colorful justifications for it. We do absurd things. Sometimes for religion--or something almost like it. Sometimes for other fantasies--weirder ones.

There may be some reactionaries who will look at this particular incident and single out the Muslim community or say it must be in sympathy with the current jihadist bogeyman of the moment, but frankly, I give a bit of credence to the people who knew this person and thought that he was mentally heading in a bad way--which is a thing that people actually can do. (I am also concerned about his mention of Shaytan--I tend to see "The Devil made me do it" as a universal permission-slip for the homicidally-tended.)  But I don't think these two incidents are a pattern, as such, for terrorism. They are more like the senseless, regular violence we see in the world today.

And no, this is not to excuse it at all.