General Discussion

If you kissed Trump's ass, you get to determine the future of this country and, in part, the planet. Your qualifications do not matter.

I thought I heard some Republicans bitching about DEI and how merit-based hiring is gone. Would really love to see what merits these fuckers are getting hired under, other than "I hung onto Trump's balls the tightest".

Yeah, we're fucked. What a shithole country, to quote our President.

 

Yeah, we're fucked. What a shithole country, to quote our President.


I think your going to be OK dline.......Trump reminds me of a Junk Yard Barking Dog.........Lots of ferocious noise and then nothing ever happens in the end.

He was going to throw Hilary Clinton in Jail.......?

He was going to Build "The Wall" and charge Mexico ?.....it was going to be 727 KM long and he only build 127 KM (which is 80 miles) and asked Congress for BILLIONS of Dollars in funding...several previous US Governments has already put Barriers in Place.

He has stated that he will Close the Border and do Mass Deportation..........or course Immigrant's are scared Shitless.....he Loves creating a Fear Factor because he knows it will cost your country Trillions of Dollars to act on this.

Baby is right Canada is concerned because we share the Longest Undefended Border in the World with the US........so no need to worry.

ALL that he says never comes True.......he is a Fear Monger and your Country will be just fine...and we will still be good neighbours....YES that is spelled with a "U"....as in FUCK U Trump.

 

Trumps appointments for his Staff in the White House are very disturbing.

RFK jr..................Conspiracies Ten Fold

Matt Gaetz...........The guy is a Criminal

Kristi Noem...........Psycho Bitch from Hell


Without a Doubt the next 4 year is going to be very interesting .....But I firmly believe the USA will weather this Storm and come out Flying over The Don.

Your Country is Already Great and has been that way..............so you don't need MAGA.

 

So... what do we think now?

Tariffs? We just got home from helping dump water on the fires in Cali. As did Mexico.

Edit:
I just read in the news that he has paused the tariffs for 30 days. I guess he probably didn't think it all the way through?

That's small potatoes compared to the havoc he's causing in the states.

What are your thoughts?

 

My thoughts? OK. You asked. Tariffs? They have BOTH been paused for 30 days to see if Canada and Mexico do what they say their going to do. Problem solved. Now to the water dumping thing. Maybe we needed some extra man power to help, But that wasn't the problem. It was WATER!! Or, not enough of it. That is the responsibility of the city and county of Los Angles. And the state of California. All run by liberals. What do you think is going to happen. Cut the budget of the LAFD and this stuff is going to happen.

Havoc ???? I've been grinning ear to ear for two weeks. Don't you guys have some guy named Trudeau to worry about. We're just fine down here!!!!!

 

Does this mean that you don't want to vote to be our 51st state ????? Fine. Don't want you.

 

Let me preface this by stating clearly, I am a Republican and I haven’t voted for Trump in 3 elections now.

That being said, the tariffs did Exactly what Trump had hoped they would in Mexico and Canada. They provided the fuel to get both countries to participate in border security, which he hopes will combat fentanyl and other dangerous drugs from being funneled into this country. It was never about economic prowess with these two countries, it was about national security.

Chinese tariffs may still hurt Mexicos economy somewhat, as that is an economic tool against what many consider to be our biggest enemy at the moment. China is funneling many imports through Mexico to avoid other tariffs that were already in place. Trump made the 10% China tariff universal on all originating goods, which will affect those being funneled through other nations as well. This is about economic power.

 

As a general rule, this board tends to yield thoughts with so little brain power behind them that you can't legally call them thoughts.

Trump sees tariffs as a way to bully other countries into doing things, but he hasn't clearly set out what he wants them to do. So, this has resulted in lots of absolutely nothing, and is just another of the poorly thought out, ineffective and wasteful ways that Trump runs this country. More of the same.

More importantly, though, he sees it as a way to raise tax dollars so that he can further cut taxes on the rich without the federal government completely collapsing. This is ultimately the goal of much of his presidency - cut taxes on the rich and find other ways that he can get the rest of the US population to pay for it. We saw it his first go around, he promised it for his second go around, and he get to doing it right away. It's pretty simple.

 

Thank you for your well thought-out response Irish.

Since Trump seems focused on fentanyl crossing the border from Canada to the U.S., I wanted to share this information that I read on the WP, NYT and The Globe and Mail.

"How much Canadian fentanyl crosses into the U.S.?
As the opioid epidemic raged in the United States, killing thousands, Congress in 2020 established a commission to look into ways to reduce the flow of the drugs into the country. The commission found that “Canada is not known to be a major source of fentanyl, other synthetic opioids or precursor chemicals to the United States, a conclusion primarily drawn from seizure data,” according to its February 2022 report.

Last year, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents intercepted about 19 kilograms (about 45 lbs) of fentanyl at the northern border, compared with almost 9,600 kilograms at the border with Mexico, where cartels mass-produce the drug."

So it's not the drugs. In fact, I would venture to say that the opposite is true; that drugs pour into Canada from the US.

Why then, is Trump bullying his trade partner?

I'm on my phone so I can't capture accurate numbers of illegals crossing from Canada into the USA. I would project that number as being pretty low.

I believe, after doing my due diligence, that there is a much bigger picture looming. It has not fully unfolded yet. I think we are seeing just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what Trump's ambitions and goals are. I am convinced that there is a lot at stake here for both Americans and Canadians.

 

I think this is very interesting dline.

Much of what the world is seeing right now, is Trump vacillating in his directives. Making sweeping decisions and directives and then reversing them. I have a nephew who is ADHD and on the spectrum. This is the kind of thing he does on a daily basis.

As these events unfold, future civics and history students will be incredulous.

And the whole world is watching.

 

I don't think these posts were very seriously written, so I'm answering them in kind.

Instead of giving genuine gratitude unadulterated by ridicule, you choose to point fingers.
"Maybe we needed some extra man power to help".

Maybe?

"That is the responsibility of the city and county of Los Angles. And the state of California. All run by liberals."

Ah. Finger-pointing has always been such an effective means of resolution and problem-solving.
I'll leave that there.

"Don't you guys have some guy named Trudeau to worry about. We're just fine down here!!!!!"

Oct 20, 2025 is our next Federal election. We've done this 45 times before, so I don't see anything worrisome about it.

If you think you're just fine down there let's chat again in 4 years. Lunch or cocktails perhaps?

Wow.
That's hurtful.

 

I don't really give a fuck about the whole world - he's fucking up shit here. My wife works for our county in providing assistance to the needy - people who are receiving financial assistance through government programs - and they've spent the last week answering frantic calls from people worried that they're going to lose their assistance, etc. Something as stupid as an executive order that was never going to stick, because it wasn't lawful or even remotely thought out, has now caused thousands of people (just in our county) pain, and delayed the government's work by, at absolute minimum, a full week's worth of work.

There are real world consequences to having a moron running the country. We can hem and haw about long term consequences, relationships with other countries, etc. But just the stuff that he does firing from his asshole without thinking first has immediate and meaningful impacts on people, whether those orders get struck down or not.

 

This is massive with massive repercussions which will be felt by real people all over the country.

Job security (your wife), food and housing security (her clients) are just some of the very real and terrifying outcomes of Trump's unbalanced and irrational first few weeks in office. These are people's lives being impacted in devastating and permanent ways.

 

And then you go on to write this:

You do realize, that with these tariffs it would ridiculously raise tax dollars on the wealthiest companies operating outside the US, right (many owned by the wealthiest people in the US)? I know you are talking about individual taxes, but this is actually a way to pay for the federal programs that actually matter. Higher corporate taxes (In this case in the form of tariffs) hits the wealthiest at the heart of their gross profit machines. You can say it doesn't effect them because they will simply pass that tariff on to the consumer, but what it actually does is makes those manufacturing inside the US more competitive. Canada inadvertently HELPED the American consumer when they countered with their own tariffs. Most of the goods that were being taxed were imported food sources. With the 25% tariff on these sources, it would actually create a surplus inside the US that would drive prices down on things like milk, eggs, poultry, etc... Remember when eggs were $.69 a dozen or a gallon of milk was $1.50? It would take months, if not years, but the goods being taxed on exports would be redistributed in ways that would effectively lower many other items like feed and cattle, which would help farmers be more productive and profitable by keeping their final goods domestic.

It would also create more jobs...

However, the tariffs will be rescinded if these countries agree to do their part in border control.

He is also de-funding federal programs that should be run at the state and local levels. The Federal government wasn't put in place to aid programs for social purposes, like welfare and education. The Federal government is in place to keep the citizens safe and make sure the state's do not impede on Constitutional Rights of all. How well is the current state of Federal government doing at keeping everyone safe?

The Federal government has become too powerful by utilizing federal tax dollars to feed the social programs.

Education is going to be looming large in the news in the coming days. My wife is a teacher and a democrat and she is scared shitless that she is going to lose her job because of Trump... She ALSO bitches every month, not just year, etc.. about the meaningless testing that is required by the department of education in order to keep their funding. Dismantling the Department of Education isn't going to collapse schools as we know it, it is going to put the onus back on the state and local governments to implement programs that actually help our children learn what is needed to prepare them for the world. Anyone not in education, doesn't realize the wasted money spent from the Federal aid that comes to public schools every year in the form of new programs required to keep the funds flowing. As soon as they implement a program, it is replaced by a more expensive one the following year. New books, new software, new required training for the teachers (ever heard of teacher in service days? That is mostly required continuing education to implement new department of education programs). Tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars from each school district are spent, in order to keep the funding needed to teach the kids how to pass the federal standardized testing that changes regularly. It's a pyramid scheme.

I have mentioned numerous times, I cannot stand Donald Trump, but I agree with a lot of the policies he is enacting to control the borders and get federal spending under control.

The Tariffs on Canada and Mexico did what they were supposed to.. It brought both governments to the table to help aid in controlling their borders and be held accountable if they don't. Borders aren't ONLY to keep out immigrants. It is to help control the masses of illegal drugs being sent into the country. They need to re-direct funding to states to pay for people to hand out monthly checks and move those jobs to more people to deal with legal immigration.

As for the other social programs, I cannot speak to them without ignorance and lumping them all together, so I won't. But again, the programs will need to find funding from other sources, apart from the federal government. I understand your wife's concerns, I've already described my wife's in the previous paragraph, but it's a change in policy, not something that needs to go away completely. I fully believe in a system with checks and balances that hit closer to home. If a state program needs accountability, it is much easier to regulate that accountability over 88 counties from an office in Columbus OH, than 3,144 counties from an Office in DC. That is all these new policies are doing is shifting accountability from Federal to State and local administration. It will cause some hiccups for sure, but it will also weed out what is factual vs fraudulent needs in society. It should add more local jobs to the table, which will eventually dwindle as the case load gets smaller. Right now there is an epidemic of fraudulent claims to welfare needs across the country that costs tax paying citizens Billions of tax dollars. Do we ignore that, simply because the current system if broken? If we don't return it to the states to regulate, we will never have the resources to regulate it properly.

We have two big enemies at the moment, China on the economic front and Drugs that are killing our citizens at a higher rate than any other threat. If you don't think that is worth taking head on, then you have the issue with using as little brain power as possible...

 

I don't disagree in any way that Canada is a much lower issue with border control.. Right now.

Now, take a moment to think about a joint effort between the US and Mexico to close down the majority of the southern border and choke the trade coming through those areas in both drug and human trafficking. If you are the drug lords, do you just close up shop, or do you find a new way to distribute? Remember, this is a problem for Canada and Mexico, but I am worried about the US. The US doesn't just have a southern and northern border, they also have East and West borders and we don't have any help in closing those, it's all on us. When Mexico helps us with the southern border, it could very well become a much bigger problem in Canada, if the trade routes are closed in the southern US. The drug problem is so large right now here, Canada hasn't absorbed the same issue because of demand. When that demand decreases, the drug lords will come looking for new customers. I would say, get on board with fighting the issue now with the US, so that it doesn't become your problem in the future.

 

When I look at North America I see the eastern and western borders are shared. I don't share your concerns about either of those borders.

I agree that our shared south/north border is the issue. Weapons and drugs coming from the south into Canada is a very real problem for Canadians. The way we approach the problem is to think of a solution and resolve it ourselves. We do not threaten our neighbours to the south, because that goes against our good trading instincts.

Speculating the what-ifs doesn't seem responsible to me. There can always be monsters under your bed.

 

This is from the US Customs and Border Protection:

 

I don't know how you always manage to write so much and think so little.

 

Our Eastern and Western borders are ocean.. making it a very large area for one country to police alone. Having help on both sides for the north and south borders would relieve some of that pressure.

 

Doesn't take me long to figure out why you write so little.... So, I guess we are even and should just avoid each other's posts.