Today's News: Budget angst, Trump angst, Blue Jay angst

Tuesday is Budget Day
...and Canada can expect a shitshow -- screeds about imaginary taxes, tales of woe, gasps of horror, hand-wringing, pearl-clutching...

The Conservatives' budgetary demands include fiction. There are no "hidden taxes" on food. The industrial carbon price doesn't apply to agriculture. There is no "food packaging tax," and plastic regulations largely exempt food packaging. The clean fuel standard "17¢" was one scenario over time. 1/2

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— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) November 3, 2025 at 8:31 AM

And most egregious of all, nobody is printing money to pay for deficits. Nobody. There isn't even quantitative easing happening as there was during the height of the pandemic, and the Bank of Canada has been on quantitative tightening since. These are all lies that the Liberals just let fester. 2/2

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) November 3, 2025 at 8:31 AM

The Conservatives are never, ever going to support a budget so long as they're the official opposition. Can we please stop this constant hand-wringing about it?

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— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) November 2, 2025 at 9:29 PM

I'm not sure how much actual news we will get about what is actually in the budget; instead, we'll just see endless speculation about whether Carney's minority government will fall.
My prediction? Not a chance. Carney doesn't actually need any NDP votes, he just needs a few abstentions. And he will get them.

Dale Smith sums it up:

...we still have obligatory melodrama, which is a whole lot of “who is going to support it?” because this is a minority parliament, but guys. Stop pretending that the Conservatives would ever support it in a million years because they won’t. They’re the official opposition. They are never, ever going to support it for that very reason. Constantly asking them and getting them to lay out unrealistic conditions is not helping anyone, and just muddies the water from where any pressure needs to be applied, which is of course, the Bloc and the NDP. And the Bloc have already laid out wholly unrealistic “non-negotiable” demands, which leaves the NDP. And they can’t oppose it because they’re broke, they have no leader, and they are going to have to swallow themselves on this one, because they have no choice.
The budget will pass. The only possible way it’s not would be by accident because Don Davies is too big for his britches, and no one else can count properly. It won’t happen. You can cut out the artificial drama.

🔴 Canada. 🙂🚀 PM CARNEY: “As Prime Minister, my number one focus is to put Canadians back in control, by building here at home and building new partnerships abroad.” #LeadershipMatters

- Fun Tom

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Trump vs 60 Minutes, Not 

Moving on, Trump did an interview with Norah O'Donnell on 60 Minutes and it was....how should I say this ...a shitshow:

Ann Telnaes Trump on 60 Minutes

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— Jaymac3 (@jaymac3.bsky.social) November 3, 2025 at 8:39 PM

Our friend Marc Elias watched the unedited version that did not air on "60 Minutes" and noted "On four separate occasions, Donald Trump lied about the outcome of the 2020 election.... Not once did O’Donnell correct him. None of these lies made it into the final broadcast." CBS sold out.

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— Cheri Jacobus (@cherijacobus.bsky.social) November 3, 2025 at 2:33 PM

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Two thoughtful Substack Notes here:

I saw some clips of Norah O’Donnell interviewing Donald Trump on 60 Minutes, and they perfectly illustrated the two keys to Trump’s success. First, he is utterly shameless. What he wants to be true is true. He will state it with iron certainty as fact no matter how transparently nonsensical it is — and repeat it over and over and over in a torrent of words that can overwhelm critical faculties. Second, American journalists are so much more pathetic than their counterparts elsewhere (the British, notably.) They don’t come armed with facts. They don’t interrupt the Gish gallop. They aren’t able to think on their feet and ask a short, sharp question that penetrates fog and noise and gets to the heart of the matter. Norah O’Donnell looked like the editor of a high school newspaper interviewing a world-class conman. When Trump spouted his bullshit about saving Washington DC from savage crime — a complete and total fraud — she sputtered about wanting to go onto the next question. When he persisted, pushing her to agree that things are so much better, she got flustered and said something stupid about working too much to go out. She didn’t push back with personal experience or, better, the crime statistics that so blatantly show it’s all a lie. She did nothing. And any American who isn’t already hostile to Trump would have concluded — not unreasonably! — that Trump must be telling the truth. He really did save DC. This is how democracy dies.

- Dan Gardner

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I think I should clarify my thinking on Trump as there seems to be some misapprehension on this subject. I’m a soldier so forgive my bluntness. Donald Trump is an idiot. He’s perhaps the stupidest person to ever hold high office in a major democracy. Trump is incapable of nuance and is profoundly ignorant. He doesn’t read, doesn’t analyze, doesn’t consider other points of view and conflates what he sees in popular media with real life. What thoughts he does have are grounded in a profound racism and a complete lack of empathy. Donald Trump is a Fascist. Trump’s world view is driven entirely by his immense ego and everything is looked at in terms of how it can benefit him personally. He surrounds himself with toadies and sycophants because he can’t tolerate opinions divergent from his. Indeed, there’s ample evidence to suggest Trump selects subordinates based on how they look rather than for any competence. Trump believes he is in a television programme and we must view virtually everything he does in this regard. Indeed, he’s creating a situation in Venezuela precisely because it makes him look tough and strong. Donald Trump is a pathological liar and a malignant narcissist. Nothing - nothing - he says can be trusted, nor can he be expected to negotiate in good faith. The only saving grace is that his level of self-awareness is so low that he can be easily manipulated with shallow praise and trinkets - but even this only lasts until the next manipulator comes along. Trump always chickens out because he cannot see the second and third order effects of his edicts and has to be manipulated to walk them back. Thus Trump is not a rational actor. We can take absolutely nothing he says at face value. So, yes, I recognize that Ottawa is attempting to apply tactics that flatter and placate him and to manipulate his thinking regarding Canada. In fact, it’s entirely possible - perhaps even probable - that Carney and Ford are playing a game of “good cop, bad cop” in an effort to improve Carney’s standing with Trump. But the soldier and patriot in me doesn’t have to like it. Some 70% of Canadians want a tougher line with Washington and to an extent I agree with them. National honour and pride do matter, after all, and praise of Trump when it isn’t warranted grates. However, I’ll suck it up if it translates into a better deal for Canada but at this point I have trouble believing that it will; unfortunately, we may have little alternative.

- Black Cloud Six

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The interview just gave us another example of #ETTD - Everything Trump Touches Dies. Latest victim is Speaker Johnson

CNN Speaker Johnson I don’t know montage

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— Acyn (@acyn.bsky.social) November 3, 2025 at 9:31 PM

When Mike Johnson mimics his dear leader Trump by answering questions he doesn't want to answer with "I don't know anything about that" or "I'm hearing this for the first time," he doesn't have the same conviction as Trump; you can feel whatever small amount of dignity he ever had slipping away on camera in real time.

- Joe Thomas

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— dredecopp.bsky.social (@dredecopp.bsky.social) November 3, 2025 at 9:46 AM

Blue Jays Forever!
Some more great posts and comments about the world series

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And on a side note:

It's funny how angry this tweet made the haters. You're not allowed to criticize Poilievre. You can't even joke about him. They just lose it. https://t.co/myaKanf5Dg

— Gator⚡Gum (@gator_gum) November 3, 2025

This was a great Defector article:

Barry Petchesky / Defector

Toronto Will Never Get Over This
...The Blue Jays broke the Mariners' hearts. The Mariners broke the Tigers' hearts. But World Series heartbreak? World Series Game 7, tie game, sudden-death heartbreak? That's something special. So let's have a little heart-to-heart chat, you, the grieving and traumatized Jays fan, me, a fan who was on the wrong side of what was probably the best and most dramatic World Series until this one. Maybe I can help:
You're screwed. You will never get over this. You will never fully recover. The sharp pain may age to a dull ache, but it will never go away. You will go hours, then days, then weeks without thinking about how close you came—and then something will remind you, and it will hurt all over again. Who you were last week is not who you will be for the rest of your life. You are ruined; you are a ruined human being. Something that was whole and good in you is irrevocably broken now.
How can you not love baseball?

99 days until pitchers and catchers report to kick off spring training.

— Bill Kristol (@billkristolbulwark.bsky.social) November 2, 2025 at 7:28 AM