The Imperial Presidency, Part 2

[Mamorien]

a perfect talk or two with his good friend Xi Jin Ping

"He's Xi ther Jinping. Don't you know what 'ther' means?"

[classicdrogn]

I have several spicy but unlikely guesses... I suspect you'd need to be behind the closed doors with them to know for sure, and I am not that curious. I will simply accept that they are very good friends, comparing the power of their their dictatorships and has the bigger ballroom.

[robkelk]

this one's too depressing for me to read. Maybe somebody else can get through the article and post a tl;dr of it.

How Trump’s mass deportation plan became big business

[Labster]

this one's too depressing for me to read. Maybe somebody else can get through the article and post a tl;dr of it.

How Trump’s mass deportation plan became big business

TL;DR electing Trump has led to death and misery for lots of people, but you knew that already

Private prisons are the original sin here -- the only thing that has really changed is the number of people in detention.  So the overcrowding is new, but the barely-edible food is not.  The intentional reshuffling to facilities far away from their families and social network is a new Trump innovation, I'll grant.

The cruelty is intentional, of course.  For 99% of the people, they can leave at any time.  All they have to do is sign a document that they agree to be deported, and they can be on a flight to some random country overnight. These are all just the scofflaws who want to argue their case before a judge instead of just agreeing that "Trump was right all along." Of course we can't send back Iranian dissidents to Iran, that would be cruel -- well, it would be impractical anyway. So they are sent to Burkina Faso or Rwanda.  Probably Rwanda, now that I think of it, because you wouldn't want to deport a Muslim to a place with Muslims, they might think we were soft and try to come back.

Dead but deportable: US immigration judge signed order to eject teen murder victim - the perfect intersection between bureaucratic cruelty and American gun violence.  All of these immigration judges are under the supervision of the President, not the court, so they need to keep their numbers up, spending immigrants as quickly as if they were AI tokens.

The company in the article, CoreCivic, was once partially owned by lefty billionaire Tom Steyer a decade ago, and that came up as an attack on his the campaign for California governor.  I like him, he cares for a lot of progressive and environmental causes.  He keeps to all the rules.  The only thing he lacks, is that perhaps he should sell all of his holdings and give it to the poor, instead of running a vanity campaign.

In any case, if you can't stand to read articles like the one above, it just proves Canadians are weak.  There's an article like this one every day, new wanton cruelty on someone else, else blatant depravity or needless death, each day brings a novel invention in the inexecrable march of time.  In America, we need strong men, and strong men are made by hard times.  Which is why we're so busy making hard times, of course.  Stay up in your weak country based on weak values like love and justice.

[Jinx999]

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/06/17/trump-va...ar-g7.html

Trump's decided to capitulate. And blame the VP for it.

[classicdrogn]

How shocking! A TACO, but it's not tuesday!

[robkelk]

Jimmy Kimmel's taking a couple of months off for the summer. No doubt he'll spend some of that time working on big projects for next season, but he won't be in front of the camera.

In the meantime, there'll be a succession of guest hosts, including Colman Domingo, Tiffany Haddish, Ike Barinholtz, Anthony Anderson, Jelly Roll.... "And as a special treat to our commander-in-chief, I asked one of his all-time favourites, Rosie O'Donnell, to be here to keep the hits coming."

[robkelk]

Trump-shuttered climate change site back online in nonprofit hands

tl;dr: s/climate.gov/climate.us/g

All of the content that was purged from the .gov is now back, along with blogs from experts, climate status reports, maps and data pathways, and national assessments of climate change as well.

[Climate.us managing director Rebecca] Lindsey told us that rapidly changing political winds have led her to believe that the government isn’t the right place for that mission to continue, and that she would have concerns about returning the site to federal management if a future administration changed its position on climate change.

[classicdrogn]

Well, at least there is still an adult in some room, even if the brat's grumps and tantrums are too obnoxious and diaper too stinky to still be in the same room... that still leaves the prooblrm of needing a nanny to deal with the tantrumpy toddler, but someone's still minding thhe shop in the meantime.

[robkelk]

I'll just leave these here.

The Register: Supreme Court rules cops need a warrant to vacuum up phone location data

CBC News: Republicans portray Canadian border as a threat, but U.S. statistics tell a different story

CBC News: What July 1 means for CUSMA, Canada's trade deal with the U.S. and Mexico

[robkelk]

Variety: Trump Makes It Official: The ‘Freedom 250’ Concerts Are Canceled — to Be Replaced With ‘the Greatest Rally EVER!,’ Starring Him and (Surprise) Lee Greenwood

Link

Oh, sorry, wrong link. Variety link

But, hey, who really wanted a quartermillenial / semiquincentennial / sestercentennials celebration? That's the kind of thing that Canada does.

Meanwhile, the big festivities in New York City are proceeding as scheduled.

Celebrities descend on Manhattan as Taylor Swift wedding frenzy continues

[classicdrogn]

I hope it works out for her, building a stable relationship is hard enough without the added stress and complications of celebrity.

[robkelk]

Trump promises 'really long' Fourth of July speech despite heat warning

I recall what science says about older people being out in hot weather for long periods of time... but, you know, that's science. And we all know what the GOP thinks of science:

From where Winston stood it was just possible to read, picked out on its white face in elegant lettering, the three slogans of the Party: WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
-- Nineteen Eighty-Four, Part One, Chapter 1

[classicdrogn]

Couple decades late, but we're getting there. The question is if Cyberpunk comes first, with the other being a reactionary overcorrection to excess or dearth of regulatory authority.

[robkelk]

Oh, for...

No evidence whether this is or is not because of political meddling... but I'm not inclined to give the benefit of the doubt to somebody who's both already said they want to get rid of the organization and is in a position to meddle with their operations.

The Register: Ex-NASA boss points out small flaw in Moon landing plan: No lander

[MilkmanConspiracy]

WTOL11: 'Big Boy' draws thousands to Fostoria, but traffic leaves many waiting for hours
What does a train passing through Ohio have to do with national politics? Quite a bit just beneath the surface. Currently Norfolk Southern and Union Pacific are trying to broker a merger that needs federal approval. Guess what two companies were orchestrating the tour? It could be an innocent promotion or patriotism, but my gut says otherwise.

The article undersells how bad the event was. The other day I went all the way to Train City, Fostoria to check out Big Boy, and a planning screw up made the whole thing a mess. Some of this was hearsay since I was idling in a car for hours, but I overheard a lot while cooling off at KemoSabes. The shuttles around the city didn’t actually go to the train, they just went to side events, and you needed a car to get in. It was at a Norfolk Southern facility on the edge of town, with very limited road access. I guess they closed entry access down in the name of safety after they ran out of water.

Predictably, the public reaction to this was not great from what I saw. This is Fostoria "PVC is a good material for rollercoaster rails", Ohio. Fostoria "Build an urban iron triangle of rail", Ohio, Fostoria "We had a living man a judge refused to claim is legally alive", Ohio. Nobody bought that excuse, especially not when East Palestine, Ohio is still relatively fresh in their minds.

Anyway, I was able to catch big boy yesterday near a rural crossing with the intersection where crazy eights happened. Funny enough, it had to emergency break as it was passing us, though that was probably due to some moron on the track rather than corporate misplanning. People were pretty jazzed, but it was for the train, not the companies or the merger. If it does go through, and there is a next administration, I hope they seriously consider rolling it back, or nationalizing the rail infrastructure to operate as an open market, because I have near zero trust in class one railroad companies at this point.

[hazard]

WTOL11: 'Big Boy' draws thousands to Fostoria, but traffic leaves many waiting for hours
What does a train passing through Ohio have to do with national politics? Quite a bit just beneath the surface. Currently Norfolk Southern and Union Pacific are trying to broker a merger that needs federal approval. Guess what two companies were orchestrating the tour? It could be an innocent promotion or patriotism, but my gut says otherwise.

The article undersells how bad the event was. The other day I went all the way to Train City, Fostoria to check out Big Boy, and a planning screw up made the whole thing a mess. Some of this was hearsay since I was idling in a car for hours, but I overheard a lot while cooling off at KemoSabes. The shuttles around the city didn’t actually go to the train, they just went to side events, and you needed a car to get in. It was at a Norfolk Southern facility on the edge of town, with very limited road access. I guess they closed entry access down in the name of safety after they ran out of water.

Predictably, the public reaction to this was not great from what I saw. This is Fostoria "PVC is a good material for rollercoaster rails", Ohio. Fostoria "Build an urban iron triangle of rail", Ohio, Fostoria "We had a living man a judge refused to claim is legally alive", Ohio. Nobody bought that excuse, especially not when East Palestine, Ohio is still relatively fresh in their minds.

Anyway, I was able to catch big boy yesterday near a rural crossing with the intersection where crazy eights happened. Funny enough, it had to emergency break as it was passing us, though that was probably due to some moron on the track rather than corporate misplanning. People were pretty jazzed, but it was for the train, not the companies or the merger. If it does go through, and there is a next administration, I hope they seriously consider rolling it back, or nationalizing the rail infrastructure to operate as an open market, because I have near zero trust in class one railroad companies at this point.

You don't want the rail infrastructure to operate as an open market.

In the end what you end up with is monopolies, because there are only so many trains that can use a given section of track in a given amount of time, and there is only so much stuff and so many people that need to be transported over it, while the rolling stock is far from cheap.

The best bet for a reliable rail service is government ownership of the rails and the rolling stock. That does not mean it will inherently be reliable, or good, just that it's the one most likely to deliver it. And at a cost the average citizen can afford.

[MilkmanConspiracy]

WTOL11: 'Big Boy' draws thousands to Fostoria, but traffic leaves many waiting for hours
What does a train passing through Ohio have to do with national politics? Quite a bit just beneath the surface. Currently Norfolk Southern and Union Pacific are trying to broker a merger that needs federal approval. Guess what two companies were orchestrating the tour? It could be an innocent promotion or patriotism, but my gut says otherwise.

The article undersells how bad the event was. The other day I went all the way to Train City, Fostoria to check out Big Boy, and a planning screw up made the whole thing a mess. Some of this was hearsay since I was idling in a car for hours, but I overheard a lot while cooling off at KemoSabes. The shuttles around the city didn’t actually go to the train, they just went to side events, and you needed a car to get in. It was at a Norfolk Southern facility on the edge of town, with very limited road access. I guess they closed entry access down in the name of safety after they ran out of water.

Predictably, the public reaction to this was not great from what I saw. This is Fostoria "PVC is a good material for rollercoaster rails", Ohio. Fostoria "Build an urban iron triangle of rail", Ohio, Fostoria "We had a living man a judge refused to claim is legally alive", Ohio. Nobody bought that excuse, especially not when East Palestine, Ohio is still relatively fresh in their minds.

Anyway, I was able to catch big boy yesterday near a rural crossing with the intersection where crazy eights happened. Funny enough, it had to emergency break as it was passing us, though that was probably due to some moron on the track rather than corporate misplanning. People were pretty jazzed, but it was for the train, not the companies or the merger. If it does go through, and there is a next administration, I hope they seriously consider rolling it back, or nationalizing the rail infrastructure to operate as an open market, because I have near zero trust in class one railroad companies at this point.

You don't want the rail infrastructure to operate as an open market.

In the end what you end up with is monopolies, because there are only so many trains that can use a given section of track in a given amount of time, and there is only so much stuff and so many people that need to be transported over it, while the rolling stock is far from cheap.

The best bet for a reliable rail service is government ownership of the rails and the rolling stock. That does not mean it will inherently be reliable, or good, just that it's the one most likely to deliver it. And at a cost the average citizen can afford.

Sorry if I wasn't clear. I think the state should own the major rail networks because that is a natural monopoly, and operate an open market on top of it. That market should still be regulated, and operate similar to how private companies offer limited service on public rail, like in France. I could be totally wrong about that as a model though.

[hazard]

WTOL11: 'Big Boy' draws thousands to Fostoria, but traffic leaves many waiting for hours
What does a train passing through Ohio have to do with national politics? Quite a bit just beneath the surface. Currently Norfolk Southern and Union Pacific are trying to broker a merger that needs federal approval. Guess what two companies were orchestrating the tour? It could be an innocent promotion or patriotism, but my gut says otherwise.

The article undersells how bad the event was. The other day I went all the way to Train City, Fostoria to check out Big Boy, and a planning screw up made the whole thing a mess. Some of this was hearsay since I was idling in a car for hours, but I overheard a lot while cooling off at KemoSabes. The shuttles around the city didn’t actually go to the train, they just went to side events, and you needed a car to get in. It was at a Norfolk Southern facility on the edge of town, with very limited road access. I guess they closed entry access down in the name of safety after they ran out of water.

Predictably, the public reaction to this was not great from what I saw. This is Fostoria "PVC is a good material for rollercoaster rails", Ohio. Fostoria "Build an urban iron triangle of rail", Ohio, Fostoria "We had a living man a judge refused to claim is legally alive", Ohio. Nobody bought that excuse, especially not when East Palestine, Ohio is still relatively fresh in their minds.

Anyway, I was able to catch big boy yesterday near a rural crossing with the intersection where crazy eights happened. Funny enough, it had to emergency break as it was passing us, though that was probably due to some moron on the track rather than corporate misplanning. People were pretty jazzed, but it was for the train, not the companies or the merger. If it does go through, and there is a next administration, I hope they seriously consider rolling it back, or nationalizing the rail infrastructure to operate as an open market, because I have near zero trust in class one railroad companies at this point.

You don't want the rail infrastructure to operate as an open market.

In the end what you end up with is monopolies, because there are only so many trains that can use a given section of track in a given amount of time, and there is only so much stuff and so many people that need to be transported over it, while the rolling stock is far from cheap.

The best bet for a reliable rail service is government ownership of the rails and the rolling stock. That does not mean it will inherently be reliable, or good, just that it's the one most likely to deliver it. And at a cost the average citizen can afford.

Sorry if I wasn't clear. I think the state should own the major rail networks because that is a natural monopoly, and operate an open market on top of it. That market should still be regulated, and operate similar to how private companies offer limited service on public rail, like in France. I could be totally wrong about that as a model though.

The Netherlands operates similarly, privatizing the national rail carrier in the late 90s while keeping the network in government hands.

The problem is that the network has not improved, train reliability has not improved, quality of service has not improved, but prices have risen faster than inflation, rail executives are taking massive bonuses and salaries, and the staff wages have dropped year over year when you compensate for inflation.

[robkelk]

Yeah, we'll use the original clickbait title for this one... because it's accurate.

Trump signs executive order to push for the rewrite of U.S. history

New order calls on the Smithsonian Institution to acknowledge alleged inaccuracies in its exhibits

[robkelk]

Trade deal became untenable when U.S. 'asked too much and offered too little'

The prime minister revealed that the U.S. had issues with Canada's subsidies for French culture; the prevalence of French-language media online and even the requirement to have bilingual labels on products sold in Canada.

"It was unacceptable right from the start, but the Americans kept trying and trying and we said no," Carney said. "Ultimately it's simple. That was never on the table for Canada and it would not have been acceptable to Canadians."

Ontario Premier Doug Ford welcomed Carney's decision to abandon negotiations and insisted Canada would win a trade war with the U.S. because Canada is united and prepared for a fight.

"I'm glad he didn't sign that deal because it was a bad deal," Ford said in Toronto on Saturday. "It was a bad deal for Ontario. It was a bad deal for the auto sector, the steel sector and the manufacturing sector."

The premier said Canada needs to inflict pain on the U.S. to remind the Trump administration that Canada is its best customer and should be treated as such.

The U.S. team also wanted to introduce measures into the pact that would significantly undermine Canada's sovereignty, the prime minister said.

"The U.S. introduced, in the last hours, efforts to restrict our ability to have other trade deals," Carney said. "Because we believe in free trade, we're the partner of choice, in many respects, for countries around the world, and Americans wanted to restrict that, they had language to restrict that. Unacceptable."

Carney said the effort to try to squeeze more concessions into the deal at the last minute derailed months of negotiations.

---

CBC Analysis: Mark Carney doesn't stop the United States from driving negotiations over a cliff

Other countries might quibble, but they might agree that the U.S. is no longer to be taken for granted — that it can no longer be taken for granted that the U.S. will stand by its traditional allies, that it can no longer be taken for granted that the U.S. will abide by its own trade agreements, that it can no longer be taken for granted that the American political system will produce presidents like those who governed between 1932 and 2016.

---

CBC Analysis: How Trump's tariffs work to redistribute wealth up the food chain

One of the main effects of tariffs within the U.S., economists say, has been to cause a massive transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class to the wealthy and well-connected corporations.

And in that sense, the tariffs fit in with the overall (unstated) economic thrust of the Trump administration and the Republican Party, which has used tax policy to achieve the same ends.

"This is consistent with other current trends. Red states in the U.S. are facing co-ordinated efforts to reduce income taxation and to increase sales taxes, which would have similar effects," said Veljko Fotak, an associate professor of finance at the University of Buffalo's School of Management in New York.

The effect is so strong that some economists have suggested the real target of tariffs is not "foreign cheaters" at all but rather the principle of progressive taxation in America.

"Tariffs effectively tax consumption, and lower-income households consume a bigger proportion of their paycheque," Fotak explained. "Taxing consumption sounds fair, until you realize that Warren Buffett and Elon Musk 'consume' a minuscule proportion of their income and an even lower proportion of their wealth."

[robkelk]

Trade deal became untenable when U.S. 'asked too much and offered too little'

The prime minister revealed that the U.S. had issues with Canada's subsidies for French culture; the prevalence of French-language media online and even the requirement to have bilingual labels on products sold in Canada.

"It was unacceptable right from the start, but the Americans kept trying and trying and we said no," Carney said. "Ultimately it's simple. That was never on the table for Canada and it would not have been acceptable to Canadians."

According to the blowhard in the Oval Office, the last-minute changes to his proposal -- including, apparently, one that would have forbidden Canada from making trade deals with anyone else -- are somehow our fault.

Bullshit.


I've updated my signature here:

Boycotting ALL products from the USA as long as that country's leader continues to lie about my native country.
Government of Canada: How to immigrate to Canada
Government of Canada: Claiming refugee protection (asylum) from within Canada

So far, nobody except call-in-show callers has mentioned the word "embargo", but remember how panicked the guy in the Oval Office was when one province announced a couple of years ago to cut off electricity to various states.


I've noticed that he says Canada is difficult to deal with. I suspect he thinks that because we don't kowtow to him.

[classicdrogn]

To the sort of person who mistakes kindness, honesty, and good manners for weaknesses to be exploited, Canadians are hard to deal with. Sadly he's standing dead center in that Venn diagram

[Bob Schroeck]

So I overheard on a TV this morning while waiting for a medical appointment that Trump's idea of retaliating for Canada not rolling over is to rename Lake Ontario to "Lake America". Even the Fox newscasters were unimpressed.

[Jinx999]

So I overheard on a TV this morning while waiting for a medical appointment that Trump's idea of retaliating for Canada not rolling over is to rename Lake Ontario to "Lake America". Even the Fox newscasters were unimpressed.

He's decided to pretend to be a pathetic petulant child to confuse people who think he's a bratty whiny loser.