Canada - USA Trade War commencing March 2025 #2

[Charlot123]

And now this...

Jackie Robinson’s Army career wiped from military website in DEI purge

And the Borowitz’s joke of the day: “George Washington is removed from government website after AI confuses him with Denzel Washington”.

(Seriously, the person who breaks a barrier, especially a color one, is not DEI. It means that an unfair barrier has existed but this person was so good that owing to him, the barrier is not there anymore.)

 

[Fabled Automatic]

And the Borowitz’s joke of the day: “George Washington is removed from government website after AI confuses him with Denzel Washington”.

(Seriously, the person who breaks a barrier, especially a color one, is not DEI. It means that an unfair barrier has existed but this person was so good that owing to him, the barrier is not there anymore.)

They're making a boogieman out of DEI for reasons Otto has put much more succinctly than I could.

They're pretending that DEI means a person with no professional merit was handed something simply for being a visible minority. That is not the case. DEI is simply a suggestion that if there is X number of qualified candidates, that a person of visible minority be considered priority for (not given), the job - to upwards of 30% of the workforce.

If a person takes issue with 30% of the workforce representing minorities relatively equally, well... that says more about them (IMO).

Additionally, and I can't stress this enough, it simply means consideration is given to such qualified candidates. It doesn't mean they automatically get the job, and it doesn't mean any unqualified Joe Blow off the street is given the job.

But, we all know you can only lead a horse to water...

"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."

- Lyndon B. Johnson

 

[LoveyG]

DBM
I keep pushing the wrong buttons today.

 

[Charlot123]

Medicaid is a health care program for low income people. It is distinct from Medicare, which is a health care program for seniors and the disabled. Medicare is a program that receives funding from payroll taxes, like our Social Security. People pay for one portion, Part B, monthly. Part B is mainly outpatient care. Part A, hospital care, has no monthly charge. Medicare is not really income based; everyone over 65 can use it, although higher income people pay a surcharge on their monthly rate.

Medicaid, which is needs-based, generally prohibits having assets over $2000. It is administered by the state that the recipient lives in, and varies some by state. People may continue to live on homes that they own, but the state puts a lien on the home in the amount the program spends on the recipient.

But here are inevitable questions to be asked. We all, the working people, pay Medicaire taxes. Now, if anyone, ever dipped into the Medicaire pool, and it could have been done way before Trump, it may be exhausted. Could it have happened? For sure, we had a big crisis of 2008, for example. Inflation itself depletes the pool. Any president printing more dollars for his, no matter how good, plans, is doing the same, increasing inflation. It has been up consistently.

With AI, lots of jobs are going to be nulled, and then, jobs servicing them will be nulled too. Would people having green cards but unable to find jobs move home? I doubt because the whole world is in the same position. Jobs will be hard to find everywhere. I guess for a while, austerity will be the living principle for many countries. This is where we are moving, worldwide.

 

[LovesPeace2]

Alberta government releases impounded U.S.-produced liquor

After nearly two weeks of impoundment due to trade war, the province has released U.S. liquor from an AGLC warehouse.

calgaryherald.com

Consumers will have more U.S.-produced liquor to choose from — for a while — after the province moved to release millions of dollars worth of booze that had been impounded amid the trade war.

 

[BayouBelle_LA]

“The swarm of violent attacks on Tesla property is nothing short of domestic terrorism. The Department of Justice has already charged several perpetrators with that in mind, including in cases that involve charges with five-year mandatory minimum sentences,” Bondi said in a statement released Tuesday.

https://thehill.com/policy/transportation/5202981-bondi-labels-tesla-vandalism-domestic-terrorism/

 

[Vern]

Good for the charges for the domestic terrorists. I do hope they get locked up.

I also hope that the next president doesn't just come in and blanket-pardon those who are convicted. That would be a detriment to the actual enforcement and standard of 'law and order'. But I;m not certain that won't happen now that the precedent has been set with the J6er domestic terrorists.

Lock 'em up IMO.

 

[Charlot123]

He's thoroughly distrustful of his Vice President, so he will never back down out of the office. If anything, he would try to appoint one of his children to the job, with Elon at their side.

Like a true dictator, he does not trust anyone below him at all. He learned his lesson with former VP Mike Pence. He learned that there may be a line the VP will not cross in their loyalty, so they can never be trusted.

I doubt that Elon is a permanent figure. I think he is a convenient one, for today, but from day one I had my doubts.

 

[SouthAussie]

Apparently there is a difference in the acts being carried out at Tesla dealerships.

Some will be domestic terrorism, some will be acts of vandalism (and some will be peaceful protests).

The 3 people arrested on domestic terrorism charges included using Molotov cocktails to set fire to Tesla cars and charging stations and possessing other "incendiary devices" and a suppressed AR-15 rifle.

This article says that the US has no domestic terrorism statute, it is a state-by-state thing. 32 states and Washington DC have state domestic terrorism laws.


"Other protesters have spray-painted swastikas and smashed windows of Tesla showrooms. But Patel says it's unlikely authorities will consider those cases of petty vandalism — or of someone keying a Tesla — to be domestic terrorism."

https://www.npr.org/2025/03/20/nx-s1-5333315/tesla-attacks-ag-bondi-domestic-terrorism-trump-musk#:~:text=The%20FBI%20defines%20domestic%20terrorism,racial%2C%20or%20environmental%20nature.%22

 

[acutename]

MOO: I don't think he can see himself as being wrong. It's everyone else. The polls are wrong. The protesters are paid by Soros and bussed in from blue states. It's the Fake News.

I think he'll just become more aggressive and illogical as his plans backfire, one after another. There will not be a time when he will look for a better way to do things because that will be him admitting he was wrong. I predict some sort of implosion, or self destruction, or catastrophe that gets him out of the way will be the only way he will change course. Unless Congress finally gets their fingers out and does something. That will require his own party stepping up, too, though.

He does watch TV a lot and he does not like criticism, but you are right- he sloughs the criticisms off... I do ask myself- "what is the end game?" He is 78 and unless the Constitution is changed, he is not supposed to run for Pres again. He still has to live in the country.... I think. If the country is miserable, he still has to live in it. Is the goal to just to amass $? In his first term, he was more likely to pivot- he pivots a lot but so far it does not seem to be because he wants to be popular.

 

[Herat]

He does watch TV a lot and he does not like criticism, but you are right- he sloughs the criticisms off... I do ask myself- "what is the end game?" He is 78 and unless the Constitution is changed, he is not supposed to run for Pres again. He still has to live in the country.... I think. If the country is miserable, he still has to live in it. Is the goal to just to amass $? In his first term, he was more likely to pivot- he pivots a lot but so far it does not seem to be because he wants to be popular.

If he was ever to leave the office of the President, he would take up some noisy position as international advisor so he could go around the world golfing and telling everyone else what to do. He already has golf courses enough to keep him occupied for a bit. He's got enough Middle East connections to spend a considerable amount of time in ultra-luxury there thanks to Saudi interests.

He could pretty much avoid having to deal with anything in Europe, Canada, China, or Mexico and still be a big noise (in his own mind).

 

[Charlot123]

Apparently there is a difference in the acts being carried out at Tesla dealerships.

Some will be domestic terrorism, some will be acts of vandalism (and some will be peaceful protests).

The 3 people arrested on domestic terrorism charges included using Molotov cocktails to set fire to Tesla cars and charging stations and possessing other "incendiary devices" and a suppressed AR-15 rifle.

This article says that the US has no domestic terrorism statute, it is a state-by-state thing.


"Other protesters have spray-painted swastikas and smashed windows of Tesla showrooms. But Patel says it's unlikely authorities will consider those cases of petty vandalism — or of someone keying a Tesla — to be domestic terrorism."

https://www.npr.org/2025/03/20/nx-s1-5333315/tesla-attacks-ag-bondi-domestic-terrorism-trump-musk#:~:text=The%20FBI%20defines%20domestic%20terrorism,racial%2C%20or%20environmental%20nature.%22

Why am I against it.

First, my state is one of the last “blue” ones. We have Teslas although not as many as Bay Area, for example. Most of them were likely bought before this year. Four were burned in Seattle. Obviously, it was not a protest against the new government or even the ones who voted for him.

Moreover, participants of peaceful protests are not highly prone to arson, at all. These were, most likely, some lumpenized elements who happily destroyed the property of “haves”.

If these acts of vandalism continue, it will be the best gift to Trump.

Last, we are having fires, one after another. The sheer stupidity of arson given recent fires in California cannot be underestimated. And again, what was burning? Property of “haves”.

 

[SouthAussie]

These are the states (the coloured ones) with domestic terrorism laws. There is no federal domestic terrorism statute.

State Domestic Terrorism Laws in the United States

www.icnl.org

 

[Charlot123]

These are the states (the coloured ones) with domestic terrorism laws. There is no federal domestic terrorism statute.

View attachment 572581

State Domestic Terrorism Laws in the United States

www.icnl.org

It should be arson IMHO.

 

[SouthAussie]

Why am I against it.

First, my state is one of the last “blue” ones. We have Teslas although not as many as Bay Area, for example. Most of them were likely bought before this year. Four were burned in Seattle. Obviously, it was not a protest against the new government or even the ones who voted for him.

Moreover, participants of peaceful protests are not highly prone to arson, at all. These were, most likely, some lumpenized elements who happily destroyed the property of “haves”.

If these acts of vandalism continue, it will be the best gift to Trump.

Last, we are having fires, one after another. The sheer stupidity of arson given recent fires in California cannot be underestimated. And again, what was burning? Property of “haves”.

I get what you are saying, but I can only see the protests growing - in whatever forms they grow. As more and more "have-nots" lose their jobs and their public entitlements, and their frustration grows.

imo

 

[Trooper]

I get what you are saying, but I can only see the protests growing - in whatever forms they grow. As more and more "have-nots" lose their jobs and their public entitlements, and their frustration grows.

imo

Seems to me that the unfortunate citizens of the USA, bombarded daily with enormous far reaching edicts, war with Canada, and Mexico and whomsoever, anyone else, medicaid for the chop, social security being made wobbly, insurrection, mayhem, tariffs, taxes, oil price up, food prices up, NO EGGS, and so on, the least that could be expected is some infuriated voter sees a Tesla and sees more than a car, they see the enemy. Just sitting there on the pavement, right in the face.

 

[keek]

Why am I against it.

First, my state is one of the last “blue” ones. We have Teslas although not as many as Bay Area, for example. Most of them were likely bought before this year. Four were burned in Seattle. Obviously, it was not a protest against the new government or even the ones who voted for him.

Moreover, participants of peaceful protests are not highly prone to arson, at all. These were, most likely, some lumpenized elements who happily destroyed the property of “haves”.

If these acts of vandalism continue, it will be the best gift to Trump.

Last, we are having fires, one after another. The sheer stupidity of arson given recent fires in California cannot be underestimated. And again, what was burning? Property of “haves”.

Agree, people who did do this, go that far, had time to think about what they were doing. A man started up his tesla car next to me yesterday, I barely gave him the side eye on purpose. No matter. I'm not a terrorist. He's brave though, plus it is his transportation. They make a landing on mars sound, now I know.

 

[keek]

Seems to me that the unfortunate citizens of the USA, bombarded daily with enormous far reaching edicts, war with Canada, and Mexico and whomsoever, anyone else, medicaid for the chop, social security being made wobbly, insurrection, mayhem, tariffs, taxes, oil price up, food prices up, NO EGGS, and so on, the least that could be expected is some infuriated voter sees a Tesla and sees more than a car, they see the enemy. Just sitting there on the pavement, right in the face.

I understand an immediate reaction, I know people here in my quiet blue town in MA have written on the town FB about people screaming at them and giving the finger etc in their gross truck tesla's as they go about. Oddly they do come off as Trumpers though. The thing is, they all had their kids with them at these times as well, so people do NEED to think and just ignore seeing them. Cool your jets, but you are right about seeing the enemy. Can't be hotheads though, like the magas.

 

[Charlot123]

I get what you are saying, but I can only see the protests growing - in whatever forms they grow. As more and more "have-nots" lose their jobs and their public entitlements, and their frustration grows.

imo

Interestingly, our “have-nots” are not the people who recently lost their jobs.
The “have-nots” in our state are the people who have jobs but are barely able to make a living here.
It is quite a problem. We are a technocratic state, so services around are well-developed, too.
But the humongous imbalance in wages and incredibly high cost of living makes lives difficult. People can barely make a payment for a studio in Seattle. Young men who are not in IT have zero value on dating sites.
I see lots of people, and lots of problems to come.
I think it is everywhere else, too.
Canadians, you potentially might have the same problem. I support my state when we stand against sending Afghanistan refugees back home. I shall. But the people who say, “I was born here, why are my taxes spent this way?” - also have a point, because they are barely making a living plus taxes.
You have exactly the same people and I think, there will be exactly the same problems (look at how your provinces vote).
The scariest part is when our “conservatives” start behaving in a revolutionary way.

 

[SouthAussie]

"Anti-Tesla protests have erupted across London, part of a broader global movement against Elon Musk.

These demonstrations, which include vandalism of Tesla showrooms and public protests, have an unexpected financial backer: Karla Jurvetson, a prominent Democratic donor from California. A psychiatrist by profession, Jurvetson has contributed over $500,000 to Indivisible Action, a political action group linked to the protests.

Ironically, her ex-husband, Steve Jurvetson, remains one of Musk’s closest allies."

Anti-Tesla protests shake London—And a Musk insider’s ex-wife is behind it

Tesla is facing mounting protests worldwide, with activists accusing Elon Musk of supporting authoritarianism and far-right politics. Demonstrations, vandalism, and boycott campaigns have intensified across the US, UK, and Canada. Investigations reveal ties between protest organisers and...

economictimes.indiatimes.com