Tuesday, February 04, 2025

And we were singing, bye-bye Miss American Pie

Well, what a day, eh?
...We all got up to dance 
Oh, but we never got the chance 
 'Cause the players tried to take the field 
The marching band refused to yield 
Do you recall what was revealed 
The day the music died?*
Here are some memes and cartoons and posts about this momentus day, the day Canada refused to yield. Some are funny, some heartfelt, some worried still. 
But Trudeau's message of solidarity and courage resonated with Canadians. and with Americans too, as the messages of a true leader always do -- today, I haven't seen a single post of anger toward Americans, just against Trump and MAGA. 
We booed the American national anthem but we aren't booing the people singing it. 


Lesson for this Trump tariff shakedown bullshit is that you can call him up and say "well okay, we'll do [list of things we're already doing], that's a really good idea" and he will take that as a win. It's like putting a blanket over a budgie's cage

— Ian Boudreau (@ianboudreau.com) February 3, 2025 at 4:06 PM



View on Threads

Bluesky doesn't link posts yet, but this is a post from Mark Cuban and a good reply:

Questions for the Canadians out there. There seemed to be a pro Trump conservative movement that dragged down Trudeau. Is that movement getting stronger or weaker ?

— Mark Cuban (@mcuban.bsky.social) February 2, 2025 at 5:49 PM

I think the pro-Trump Conservative movement took a huge hit with Trump’s tariffs & rants that πŸ‡¨πŸ‡¦ become the 51st state. (Just typing that makes me feel sick).Pierre PoiLIEvre campaigned constantly on AntiTrudeau propaganda but now that Trudeau has stepped down, PP has nothing & is actually vilified

— SE_Sasaki (@sharonsasaki.bsky.social) February 3, 2025 at 11:15 PM
I thought this was a funny one -- sorta. Its easier to laugh tonight than it was last night:
Poilievre finally gave a speech today -- did you know that Canada's border "is broken"? What an original approach! And he wants towers with armed guards all along the border, and we should be keeping track of Canadians who dare to leave the country! Basically, he sounded hysterical - he was panicking and he wanted Canada to panic also.
Canadians are made of sterner stuff:
View on Threads

 

Here is some American commentary:

Phillips O'Brien / Phillips's Newsletter
Damaging US Relationships for Nothing
What is the best way to say the opposite of “A Mouse that Roared”. Is it “An Elephant that Burped”, “A Lion that Swooned”, or even “A Dinosaur that Gently Lamented”?. Because that’ is what we have really seen over the last few days from the USA. If anything, it was even worse....
Paul Krugman
Trump Is Doing Exactly What He Said He Would. Who Could Have Predicted That?
Maybe the oligarchs deserve what’s coming. But the rest of us don’t.
...Donald Trump’s decision to launch an all-out trade war, not with China, but with our neighbors and allies — who are gearing up for large-scale retaliation — probably isn’t the most important thing happening right now. I’ll talk in a minute about what is. But it has certainly come as a wake-up call for business.
It would be funny if it weren’t so serious. Actually it is funny if you’re into gallows humor. Trump spent the entire campaign proclaiming that he was a Tariff Man, promising high tariffs and asserting that we were somehow subsidizing Canada and Mexico. Yet businesses and bank analysts blithely assumed that he didn’t really mean it. ...
...As I get ready to hit the publish button, stock futures are down — but not nearly as much as the situation seems to warrant. Investors still seem to believe that there’s a good chance that Trump will use some minor concessions (about what?) to declare victory and dial the tariffs back. As I wrote about the same time Goldman and Dimon were telling us to chill out, this market complacency is a self-defeating prophecy: muted market reaction makes it likely that Trump will continue and expand his trade war.
And even if some of the tariffs prove temporary, the Rubicon has been crossed. We now know that when the United States signs an agreement, on trade or anything else, the president will treat that agreement as a mere suggestion to be ignored whenever he feels like it. That revelation in itself will do huge long-term damage.
All of this was entirely predictable. But there are none so blind as those who will not see.
Dean Obeidallah / The Dean's Report
Trump’s tariffs and Musk’s cuts are about tax cuts to benefit the GOP’s wealthy oligarchs
The new Gilded Age is here
...Donald Trump wants you to believe that his 25% tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico—and 10% on goods from China-- are somehow connected to stopping “illegal immigration” and fentanyl from coming into the country or creating more U.S. jobs. None of that is true--as even the Wall Street Journal detailed in their editorial Sunday titled, “The Dumbest Trade War Fallout Begins.”
Same goes for Elon Musk’s vow to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget because he is all about “efficiency.” That, too, is a lie.
The reality is Trump’s tariffs and Musk’s cuts are about one thing: The rest of us paying for Trump’s promised tax cut to the wealthy oligarchs who bankrolled his 2024 campaign. Period.
... the people who will bear the brunt of Trump’s tariffs and Musk’s cuts are you and I. Trump even admitted this Sunday declaring smugly, "We may have short term, some, a little pain. And people understand that." But we all know the pain won’t be felt by the wealthy oligarchs who funded Trump like Musk, Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman, Miriam Adelson, Timothy Mellon and others.
...An all tariff funded federal government as Trump now seeks harkens back to before the federal income tax was established in 1913, when tariffs accounted for at times 90% of federal revenue. But this isn’t the 1890’s U.S. economy and last year tariffs only provided us $80 billion in revenue.
The only way to fund our massive military budget alone--that will exceed $850 billion in 2025--would require massive tariffs and massive budget cuts. Don’t be surprised when Musk calls for slashing government programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and more. Ending these programs has been a long-held dream of the GOP—just like overturning Roe v. Wade.
To Trump defenders who claim that the tariffs will somehow spark job creation in America, the facts destroy that lie....
Some future ideas:

I honestly think Canada should consider this

[image or embed]

— Bruce Arthur (@brucearthur.bsky.social) February 1, 2025 at 10:06 PM
*By the way, my title tonight is from Don McLean's American Pie

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I actually was delivering papers The Packet and Times (Thompson) door to door when this happened. Small article, front page below the fold. J. W.

Cathie from Canada said...

Wow, JW, what a memory for you to have, and it actually was the anniversary just yesterday, I think: "bad news on the doorstep, I couldn't take one more step, I can't remember if I cried when I read about his widowed bride. but something touched me deep inside, the day the music died."