Catching up with the news: Canada is worth fighting for. Plus Trade War Dispatches and Signs of the Apocalypse

First, a Thanksgiving message from PM Carney - "Canada is worth fighting for"

Dispatches from the Canada-US Trade War
Wow!

We learn that Howard Lutnick threatened to send US troops across the Canadian border "by sundown" if we didn't back down. The threat was made over the plan to retaliate over arbitrary tariff with an energy surcharge. Canada must be ready for all threats from the USA. youtube.com/shorts/EKjjV...

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— Charlie Angus (@charlieangus104.bsky.social) October 12, 2026 at 12:47 PM

I believe this is true

@mark-carney.bsky.social Mark Carney is psycho-engineering a whole country to build a cohesive fighting unit to take back Canada from the US. Creating a new patriotism for a country that hasn't existed for many years.

— Gerry Dunn (@ballydunn.bsky.social) October 10, 2026 at 9:51 AM

I did not know our Canadian pucks were so unique

At your local rink or in the Stanley Cup Final, you’ve seen Inglasco’s pucks on the ice. They’re the NHL’s exclusive puck supplier, and they’ve been based in Sherbrooke, Québec, for more than 50 years. So remember: behind every puck drop and every goal, is a little bit of Canada.

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— Mark Carney (@mark-carney.bsky.social) October 10, 2026 at 5:57 PM

International Trade Maninder Sidhu is in India this week as the two countries look to reach a free-trade agreement by the end of the year.

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— CTV News (@ctvnews.bsky.social) October 12, 2026 at 4:45 AM

Meanwhile, Canada and Stelco may be duking it out

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— @KatyET www.abresistance.ca (@katyet.bsky.social) October 12, 2026 at 2:35 PM

President of United Steelworkers Local 1005 says Stelco's American owners are trying to use layoffs to get Ottawa to accept a deal with the U.S. that will likely "hurt Canadians overall."

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— Hamilton Spectator (@thespec1846.bsky.social) October 12, 2026 at 12:34 PM

On a side note, here's a good zinger about Poilievre

Tweets and memes have been Poilievre’s whole career and look where he is. So he’s weirdly right.

- Gerald Butts

Read on Substack

Signs of the Apocalypse - a regular round-up of the crazy stuff happening down south
What a ridiculous weekend this was. 

Trump declared that Ukraine and Russia had agreed to a ceasefire of attacks on refineries -- which would only help Russia of course because they're going broke without being able to ship their oil. 

But actually, of course, the ceasefire never happened.

I don’t think this is how the world works.

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— Ron Filipkowski (@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social) October 12, 2026 at 4:42 PM

Then Trump announced he was buying some diesel. From Russia.

Krugman writes:

...He’s not allowed to do this: Sanctions preventing purchase of Russian oil are law, not a choice on Trump’s part. But under Trump laws are suggestions at most, so it might happen anyway. In any case, the main lesson here, as Phillips O’Brien explains, is that Trump isn’t even hiding the fact that he is supporting Putin’s war of aggression against Ukraine.
But being a nerdy economist, my first printable reaction to the announcement was, 300,000 tons??? That’s a bit over 2 million barrels. America consumes approximately 4 million barrels of distillates — diesel (mostly) and heating oil — every day.
So Trump is betraying an embattled democracy, demonstrating our faithlessness to the whole world, seriously damaging whatever is left of America’s leadership in the world, for the sake of maybe 12 hours’ worth of diesel. Really?
Of course, Trump and those around him don’t care about the national interest. But I would strongly guess that they didn’t do the math, that 300,000 tons sounded like a lot to them and that they had no idea that it was trivial for an economy the size of America’s. I might add that this is general issue with Trump: he often touts trivial policies as major achievement, and it often seems obvious that he has no idea how big America and the world are.
Arithmetic, I guess, suffers from Trump derangement syndrome....

"The 2.25m barrels of diesel Putin offered Trump will have zero net impact on the world price of diesel. But accepting them will collapse the US-led sanctions regime on Russia—and align Trump with Putin against Ukraine's attacks on Russian energy production..." www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/1...

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— Rachel Maddow (@maddow.bsky.social) October 11, 2026 at 12:09 PM

People are noticing what Trump is actually doing

Canada condemns Trump's "deal" with Russia over diesel products. #Canada #cdnpoli

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— Scott Tribe -A proud "Ketchup Chip Nationalist" member (@stribeprogblog.bsky.social) October 11, 2026 at 1:06 PM

So if Russia is funding Iran. And Trump is paying Russia for diesel. Is Trump funding Iran’s war against America?

— Peter Alexander (@peteralexandertvs.bsky.social) October 11, 2026 at 9:03 PM

By Monday Trump was whining about how terribly he is being treated by the meanie media

Trump defends buying diesel fuel from Russia

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— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes.bsky.social) October 12, 2026 at 8:19 AM

By Monday evening Trump was scampering for cover

The Moron and Lunatic in the White House has now declared China and Russia aren’t helping Iran, and that if they were, “we would know about it very fast.” We do know. His own Defense Secretary told senators they are. Trump's covering for Putin and Xi as they help Iran kill American service members

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— MeidasTouch (@meidastouch.com) October 12, 2026 at 8:50 PM

Ukraine Now Has Leverage Over Trump For years, Washington could control Kyiv with one threat: do as we say or lose American support. Trump has thrown that power away. He cut the aid so deeply that Europe now pays most of Ukraine’s bills, which means Ukraine has far less to lose by ignoring him. At the same time, Ukraine has found something Trump badly needs. Its drone strikes on Russian refineries are helping push up diesel prices, and high fuel prices could cost Republicans the midterms. Trump knows it, which is why he has pressed Kyiv to stop the attacks. So ask the obvious question: why would Ukraine help him? He cut its aid and eased sanctions on Russian fuel. Ukraine can simply keep hitting refineries for its own military reasons and let American voters, 62 percent of whom side with Ukraine according to Economist/YouGov, punish Trump for the price at the pump. Trump once told Zelensky he didn’t have the cards. I’d say he’s holding a pretty good hand now.

- Gandalv

Read on Substack

Whatever Russia thought they could get out of this deal, its not happening for them, because Zelensky isn't stupid

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— JeffTrnka (@jefftrnka.bsky.social) October 12, 2026 at 1:09 PM

Ukraine just nuked Russia's influence on the US elections in three weeks. They damaged or destroyed three of Yandex's (their Google) data centers. More to come? That brought Russian bot traffic down to almost zero. Details at tcps-blog.com/ukraine-figu...

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— securityman.bsky.social (@securityman.bsky.social) October 12, 2026 at 10:07 PM

Zelensky recognizes that "Russia is a gas station with an army" is a 20-year-old view. Nowadays Russia is out of gas; they are a bot farm with an army. Also, some bad news about the army...

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— Pavel (@spavel.bsky.social) October 11, 2026 at 7:08 PM

🇺🇦😍

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— WomenRiseUp2026 (@womenriseup2026.bsky.social) October 12, 2026 at 2:32 PM

Ukraine blows up Russian data centres and immediately and mysteriously online talk about Germany’s Far Right AfD virtually disappears. Stop Putin you stop the Far Right. (Source: Euro MP Tomáš Zdechovský)

- Mark Chadbourn

Read on Substack

Phillips O’Brien writes about Ukraine’s attacks on Russian data centres.

- Cathie from Canada

Read on Substack

- God

Read on Substack

Nation Feels Oddly Fine After Millions Of Bots Perish In Russian Data Center Strike ❤️ CEDAR RAPIDS, IA. Americans and Europeans reported feeling inexplicably okay on Monday after a Ukrainian strike on several Russian data centers killed an estimated 14 million Trump- and Putin-friendly accounts, none of whom are survived by anyone. "I had a beer with a guy from work and we just sort of talked," said regional sales manager Dale Hutchins, 46, who described the experience as "weird, but good weird." "At no point did either of us call the other an enemy of the people. I honestly didn't know you could still do that." According to a survey by the Institute for American Mood, neighbor-to-neighbor greetings rose 340 percent overnight, while 62 percent of respondents said they had made prolonged eye contact with a dog and felt good about it. Wildlife officials confirmed that deer were emerging from wooded areas across the country "looking visibly relieved." The few remaining human trolls, now forced to type every post themselves, were said to be in a state of panic, with many complaining of wrist pain by noon. At press time, Hutchins' neighbor had waved at him over the hedge, and Hutchins was fairly sure he had waved back.

- Gandalv

Read on Substack

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— Xela Hart (@xelahart.bsky.social) October 11, 2026 at 6:19 AM

Moving on, this made me feel sick.

RFK Jr is funding a grotesquely unethical study on newborn babies in Guinea-Bissau; ethicists, pediatricians, clinical trial experts, & infectious disease experts are calling this horrific trial The New Tuskegee. It is unethical to withhold a life saving intervention from half of newborns FFS.

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— Prof Gavin Yamey MD MPH (@gavinyamey.bsky.social) October 8, 2026 at 9:20 AM

Here is an excerpt from the Guardian story about this vile study.

A controversial research trial that will withhold hepatitis B vaccines from some African newborns was given approval to move forward this week.
It is a central part of the vaccine vision for Robert F Kennedy Jr, the secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and a longtime vaccine opponent.
...Kennedy “wants to make it so we don’t use a birth dose here in this country,” said Paul Offit, an infectious disease physician at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “That’s the goal.”
Kennedy would never be able to do the trial in the US because of its significant ethical concerns, Offit added. “He’s taking advantage of a developing country … Is it because children in Africa are more expendable than children here?”
Danish researchers plan to enroll 14,000 infants in Guinea-Bissau in the trial, giving the hepatitis B vaccine to half of the babies at birth and withholding it from the others for the first six weeks of life.
... This study will focus on vaccination and mortality, as well as outcomes such as skin conditions and neurodevelopmental conditions. “The main problem of this trial is that you have some very well-known bad diseases that you can protect with this vaccine,” Støvring said. “And what they then want to study is something highly speculative – in a situation where WHO and others are saying that you should give this vaccine at birth, period.”
When asked about the study in a Thursday briefing, an official with the Africa CDC, which has opposed the trial, said there were “ongoing discussions” between the US and Guinea-Bissau and more details would be shared shortly. Guinea-Bissau planned to begin vaccinating all newborns against hepatitis B in 2027, but they pushed the campaign back to 2028.
Kennedy and the Danish researchers were “taking advantage of that delay in practicing standard care to put these children at risk unnecessarily”, Offit said. “What a terrible thing to do. What a horribly unethical and cruel thing to do.”

This seems to be the direction America is going now

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— 1kr5ur43m.bsky.social (@1kr5ur43m.bsky.social) October 12, 2026 at 1:15 PM

And on a lighter note - the stupid, it burns!

A Republican PAC spent nearly $25,000 running ads to help Sen. Susan Collins in Portland. Wrong Portland. They’re inept at everything. Portland, Oregon, that is. Not Portland, Maine. www.nbcnews.com/politics/202...

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— Hoodlum 🇺🇸 (@nothoodlum.bsky.social) October 12, 2026 at 5:22 PM