Wednesday, August 19, 2026

Today in "Christ What an Asshole!"


Trump, of course
Yeah...it was Taco Tuesday
View on Threads

The war with Iran ended six months ago. Iran surrendered like a dog. The victory parade in Washington was the biggest ever, people are saying.

- Dan Gardner

Read on Substack
Sounds like the tariff negotiators will pretend to give Trump a "win" by boasting about how he will revive the Keystone XL Pipeline -a project that Harper and Trudeau both promoted and that many Canadians had supported before anyway.
And note that the announcement will likely be made just before the US markets close for the weekend.

Trump is already heralding his new agreement with Canada as a way to bring the Keystone-XL pipeline back. Except: Canada already approved the pipeline, it's waiting on Trump approval. (Carney has been pitching KXL to Trump for the past year) www.reuters.com/business/ene...

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— Justin Ling (@justinling.ca) August 18, 2026 at 8:50 PM

- Brains Matter

Read on Substack

Yesterday in A View from Canada substack, Hans Casteels writes a great piece titled Yo, Orange Idiot... Canada Is Not Your Vending machine. He wrote this before the news about the three-day pause, but it all still applies. Here is how it ends:
... Canada should refuse the demands, retaliate and finally use its strategic resources as leverage. The answer does not require another summit. It does not require seventeen rounds of consultations. It does not require a working group, a bilateral framework, a joint communiquรฉ or another photograph of politicians sitting beside tiny flags pretending everybody had a productive afternoon. The answer is no. Canada is not your mineral warehouse. Canada is not your captive energy supplier. Canada is not required to purchase your fighter jets as an entrance fee to normal trade. Our provinces do not have to stock your bourbon because your president is having another episode. And our sovereignty is not one more item to be negotiated between lumber tariffs and dairy quotas.
From a boring Canadian country that has spent far too much time being polite to the increasingly unhinged people running the place downstairs, the answer is finally short enough that even Donald Trump should be able to understand it.
No. Go fuck yourself.
Now its Andy Burnham's turn

The UK signed a bad trade deal to win Trump's favour. Now he is threatening them with 100% tariffs. Canada would be fucking nuts to think we could give concessions to this mobster and get peace.

- Charlie Angus / The Resistance

Read on Substack

Too bad England doesn't have an Elbows Up / Maรฎtres Chez Nous tradition!


And Poilievre too
In Routine Proceedings, journalist Dale Smith writes
The July inflation data was released yesterday, which means that Pierre Poilievre had something to say about it, and it was…mind-numbingly wrong and stupid...

In which Poilievre selectively reads this morning's inflation data in order to support his pre-determined but purely bullshit narrative.

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— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) August 17, 2026 at 8:43 AM
...Poilievre keeps fancying himself an economic genius because he watches crypto bros on YouTube, but he absolutely does not understand anything he’s talking about, and the tax cut/deregulate ideology he espouses got us into the mess we’re in as a society, where the young people he claims to advocate for can’t get ahead. Doubling down on those measures won’t help young people, but he refuses to change his mind, and when your only plan is to betray the audience you claim to be fighting for, well, I’m not sure what to tell you.
Interesting observation...

๐Ÿงต 1/2 ๐Ÿ”ด There’s a fascinating phenomenon that takes place on the African savanna. When a wildebeest is about to die, it emits a loud, resounding, penetrating shriek that can be heard from miles away, and then he succumbs. It is called the Last Call. Poilievre’s macho-bro gym videos...

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— Fun Tom (@funtomvids.bsky.social) August 17, 2026 at 10:46 AM

2/2 are the political equivalent of the Last Call. ๐Ÿคท๐Ÿป‍♂️ His tone-deaf fitness videos are the shadow that precedes political death. ๐Ÿ˜Œ

— Fun Tom (@funtomvids.bsky.social) August 17, 2026 at 10:46 AM
This too:

No sign of Poilievre or Smith campaigning to keep Canada together.

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— John Espley ๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿณ️‍๐ŸŒˆ๐Ÿ’‰๐Ÿš€๐Ÿ”ญ๐Ÿ“š (@johnespley.bsky.social) August 18, 2026 at 8:36 PM

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