The funny side of the news

I'm seeing some funny posts tonight about recent news stories so I wanted to share. 

It looks like the G7 may have had an uninvited guest:

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Today's News: Cons step on a rake in Alberta; Updates on Jerome Powell, Trump's decline, Los Angeles, and ICE Gestapo, plus America #KneesUp

Just a few updates today -- 

Canadian unity 🇨🇦💪🏻 https://t.co/Jb8ZqG0zR4

— Laura Babcock 🇨🇦 (@LauraBabcock) June 18, 2025

How NOT to win Alberta hearts and minds
Talk about stepping on a rake! The Conservative campaign manager Jenni Byrne apparently hates Carney so much she posted this after the Edmonton Oilers lost yesterday -- why did she think this would somehow troll Carney by laughing at his support for Canada's team?  

Who knows, I guess it seemed like a good idea at the time. 

The X post is now deleted, but the stench lingers on.

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Jenni Byrne should focus on winning elections and not winning Twitter and the fact that she thought clowning on Carney and the Oilers tonight did anything other than make her look like a bitch explains why the CPC lost an unlosable election

— Evan Scrimshaw (@EScrimshaw) June 18, 2025

The fact that Pierre Poilievre’s number one advisor mocks Edmonton Oilers fans just as Pierre is about to run in a byelection in Alberta is completely astounding.

— Mark Marissen 🇨🇦 🇳🇱 (@marissenmark) June 18, 2025

Meanwhile, this is the tweet about the Oilers that Carney sent out:

Proud of the Oilers' grit. Proud of the guys for getting us to this moment. Heads high. Next year. #LetsGoOilers

— Mark Carney (@MarkJCarney) June 18, 2025

War between America and Iran? "Avoid history at all costs. History is too big, too abstract, too dangerous."

They're doing it again.

It sounds like Trump is going to get the United States involved in another damn war in the Middle East.

Heard the same thing going from 3 to 2 pic.twitter.com/8yHK5Wpeql

— Nancy Just Nancy (@NancyJustNancy) June 19, 2025

It took Netanyahu 29 years, but he finally found an American president who was itching to go to war with him against Iran. https://t.co/BmIAftzPgV

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) June 18, 2025

Watch @Timodc on the Israel-Iran conflict: "There's one thing I do know, I wish that a genocidal maniac was not leading Iran and that a corrupt, indiscriminate, prime minister was not leading Israel and that a fucking moron was not leading our country." pic.twitter.com/uDTL5xaklJ

— The Bulwark (@BulwarkOnline) June 18, 2025

Journalist Gary Kamiya wrote this article for Salon magazine in 2003, two weeks before the US invasion of Iraq. 

It remains eerily prescient today: 

Gary Kamiya / Salon March 11, 2003 

Sleepwalking toward Baghdad 

As the sand runs out on peace, America drifts alone toward a strange and unjustified war. 

 ... we have gone from being in a political moment to a historical one.
I use the words somewhat eccentrically, to distinguish between events that are simple enough to be fully explicable ("political") and those that are too complex to be defined ("historical"). The war against Afghanistan took place in what I am calling the political realm: It had a clear, limited and achievable goal, one understood by all -- and widely supported around the world. The impending war against Iraq, on the other hand, is a historical event. It cannot be explained or defined. When it comes, it will simply exist, with the opacity of history. Its outcome is not foreseeable.
The distinction also has a moral dimension. To exist in history is to have passed beyond the pieties and slogans of the political. History is tragic: politics is not. History is glorious. It is also fatal.
The two great competing ideologies of the 20th century, fascism and communism, were both self-consciously historical movements. As Czeslaw Milosz brilliantly noted in his classic study "The Captive Mind," it was precisely the abstraction of communism, its claim to have attained the summit of morality and to have incorporated into itself all possible contradictions, that made it so meticulously horrifying. In similar fashion, fascism contained a kind of blankness at its core: the self-glorifying violence of the state simultaneously concealed and revealed the emptiness of its founding concept, the national tribe.
The lesson every government should have learned from the bloody 20th century, one written in blood across the tortured soil of old, very old Europe, is very simple: Avoid history at all costs. History is too big, too abstract, too dangerous. Avoid men with Big Ideas -- especially stupid men with Big Ideas. Take care of politics: let history take care of itself. In a word, don't play God.
George Bush is a deeply religious man, and he deeply believes in the God-given mission of the United States to shed light -- Auden's "affirming flame" -- upon the world. But as we wait for the bombs to fall, we can only pray that he does not release darkness.

(Painting is Paul Nash, Landscape from a Dream)

Today's News: Oilers lose, Singh apologizes, Poilievre gets his chance, Liberal bills criticized, G7 continues, Rothkopf on Trump; Xi on America

Well, the Oilers won't be bringing the Stanley Cup back to Canada this year. 

They played well overall but in the end they just gave up too many goals. Tonight's game was not a joy to watch.

Sorry about the Oilers. I prefer the Leafs win the Cup but since that'll never happen again, I was kinda hoping McDavid would get one there.

— Bill Lavoy (@bill-lavoy.ca) June 18, 2025 at 12:10 AM

FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oilers loose.. Trump is an asshole. I have to deal with Ice agents running a muck in CALIFORNIA WITHOUT FRONT LICENSE PLATES... Fucking fascist hypocrites... i mean how much more can one take. i suppose you are going to tell me Disco is making a comeback too.. LOL

— Skippy the Magnificent (@skippyhasyermuni.bsky.social) June 17, 2025 at 11:07 PM

Well, that was unexpected! Trump left the G7 early....

Hundreds of people on social media predicted all weekend that Trump would leave the G7 in Canada early because he is:

1. mad that his parade was a bust
2. bored with Canada
3. outclassed by Carney
4. hurting in his fee-fees because all the other leaders laughed at him 

5. all of the above
So why now is anyone surprised that he left the G7 early?
The story was that he had to get back to Washington lickety split because he's arranging the end to the Iran-Israel War.
Yeah, sure. If there is one thing you can count on, its that the Trump White House was lying.
Or, actually, two things - that the Trump White House always lies and that Trump can't get either Netanyahu or the Ayatollah to do anything they don't want to do.
And I fully expect that Trump will be on one of his golf courses by Wednesday at the latest. He had to miss playing this weekend because of his miserable parade -- he was visibly disappointed in the poor turnout, particularly compared to the millions at the No Kings protests around the country.

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Trump had a temper tantrum where he blamed the weather forecasters for the turnout, then declared war on US cities:

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Sunday Funday: Some very odds and sods, including Poilievre, Elbows Up, & Derek Guy; plus TrumpWatch and Animal Crackers

Here are this week's odds and sods - and some are very odd indeed!

Poilievre is just a joke!
A collection of recent Poilievre cartoons:

Poilievre is fading into oblivion in the minds of Canadian voters and he's dragging down the CPC with him. How long will he hold on? #cdnpoli

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— Coup d'État (@kudeta.bsky.social) June 8, 2025 at 3:07 PM

Some Funny Ha-Ha and Funny Strange posts about Trump's parade and the No Kings protests, plus how it feels to cut off America

I don't know who get AI to do this, but isn't it great!  The MacDonald's "medals" in particular. 

Looks like its going to rain on Trump's parade. With any luck...

Today's News: Just some updates on the Sask wildfires and on the ICE protests, plus saying goodbye to Brian Wilson

 First, yes I feel this way too:

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Just when my frenzied mind feels that it’s about to explode from the barrage of dystopian news, some well-balanced optimist posts a video clip of a chipper goofball dog bouncily trotting along a sun-lit path in happy abandon, and I am momentarily restored to well-being.

- Joanne Pettis

Read on Substack

Newsom's speech: "The rule of law is giving way to the rule of Don"

California governor Gavin Newsom gave a powerful speech to California tonight, and to the nation:

 

 

Wow! "You are the antidote to fear. What Donald Trump wants is your fealty, your silence, to be complicit in this moment. Do not give into him"

The Mayor of LA has issued a curfew tonight — not because the citizens are out of control BUT BECAUSE THE PRESIDENT IS.

— Randi Mayem Singer (@rmayemsinger.bsky.social) June 10, 2025 at 7:28 PM

California, never change!

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Carney is moving fast and fixing things

The motto of Facebook used to be "move fast and break things".  But really, folks -- that sounds cute but it doesn't actually work out very well, as XKCD says (above) and as Elon has now found out.

In Canada, PM Mark Carney is moving fast and fixing things - in the last two weeks, the Carney government has announced a new student jobs program, the One Canadian Economy bills, improvements to citizenship by descent, the Strong Borders Act, middle-class tax cut, GST relief for new home buyers, and provincial agreements to build more homes.

Monday Carney announced a generational investment in Canada:

We will invest in new submarines, aircraft, ships, armed vehicles, artillery, radar, and drones — equipment that for too long, Canada has let age and deteriorate.

And we’ll rebuild with Canadian steel, Canadian aluminum, and Canadian workers. pic.twitter.com/wg0iFIf60b

— Mark Carney (@MarkJCarney) June 9, 2025

"Mark my words, we're making history"

“Say it loud, Carney’s here….” 👇👇👇🇨🇦#canada #markcarney @MarkJCarney @liberal_party #NeverPoilievre pic.twitter.com/Zt06nfcosk

— Bev 🇨🇦 (@Garnet_2203) June 9, 2025

Monday funny stuff: TrumpWatch, AmericaWatch, some Canada posts, other odds and sods, some beautiful stuff, and Animal Crackers

This week in TrumpWatch:

Remember what happened to Anwar Sadat at his parade in 1981?!?! #Resist #NoKings #TACO #DeportElon ✊🏼✊🏼✊🏼✊🏼✊🏼

— So Cal Beer Guy (@socalbeerman.bsky.social) June 7, 2025 at 12:51 PM

And now, I will be posting AmericaWatch too -- another regular feature on the funny side of 

America's decline and fall...

True.

- #Francesk🇨🇦

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Never again should anyone be amazed that Jim Jones was able to get his followers to drink the poison.

— Brad (@BraddrofliT) June 7, 2025

Tin soldiers and Trump is coming...

...but back in the day, Nixon was a lot scarier than Trump:

LAPD Chief McDonnell when asked if National Guard is needed: “This thing has gotten out of control.” Everything Trump touches...

— Wajahat Ali (@wajali.bsky.social) June 8, 2025 at 11:30 PM

There is a basic innocence here with this protest, it isn't "organized":

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Skateboarding dude. Hero of the day. It has to be this kid! He stood all alone while LAPD took shots at him. Kid stood his ground and danced a bit, which pissed off the Nazis more! They tear gassed him. Finally the kid walked slowly away, turning just once to give them the finger! Respect. ✊

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— MadGreek 🧿 (@madgreek2024.bsky.social) June 8, 2025 at 11:41 PM

“Tasted a little tear gas— tasted like fascism”

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— Acyn (@acyn.bsky.social) June 7, 2025 at 10:40 PM

Los Angeles stands up to ICE

Photo credit: Eric Thayer, Associated Press

Reading the LA Times coverage about the people of Los Angeles tonight, I needed to do a post about their courage. 

Its not surprising that people are organizing to oppose what ICE and Homeland Security are doing to US cities.

A good summary here:

John William Evans / The Old Rascal’s Journal

Battle For LA
The population of Los Angeles County in 2023 was 9.63 million. Los Angeles County's Hispanic or Latino population was estimated to be 4.8 million. Los Angeles County has the largest Hispanic/Latino population in the United States. It was also estimated that there were around 951,000 undocumented immigrants in Los Angeles County alone.
It’s always smart to know if you’re going to go to war with somebody what the opposing force looks like. Well, it looks pretty big to me.
I’m going to take a leap of faith here and say most of the LA Latino community do not like being shoved around and harassed by ICE thugs or other federal law enforcement officers. I’m going to take another leap of faith and say there are many non Latino members of the LA community who also don’t like seeing their community turned into a war zone. Actually, the amount of resistance I’m seeing already confirms these suspicions.
So … Trump and his war mongers Tom Holman, Kristi Noem, Stephen Miller and others want to go to war with LA. Miller has even called the protesters protesting recent ICE raids “insurrectionists.”
Remember, just a few days ago LA citizens were just living their normal everyday existence in an already complex, chaotic, culturally diverse metropolitan community. There’s a lot going on in LA to put it mildly. But people love it and it’s THEIR community. There’s no other place else like it in the world.
So in marches ICE and a community that was churning along and nowhere near the level of violence that ICE has brought with them is now on the precipice of full scale riots and war.
Let’s not forget. LA is no stranger to riots. Remember the Rodney King riots? Those riots resulted in over 60 deaths, thousands of injuries, and an estimated $1 billion in property damage. Or you can go all the way back to the Watts riots in 1965. Those, too, resulted in significant loss of life, injuries, and widespread property damage. Lots of other smaller eruptions of civil unrest lay between and after those two historical events in LA.
And our own federal government wants to provide the spark that sets off something like that again?!? Somebody better get a grip. Somebody better be asking where this all ends. What have we got ourselves into?
BECAUSE THIS IS NUTS! This is not the way to handle what little bit of a problem we had with illegal immigration. Most people KNOW the vast majority of these people were no problem at all. They came here to work and work they did. A recent study found they produced 63 million dollars of income to our economy more than it costs us to have them here. Stephen Miller quashed that government report, btw. He sure didn’t want any of us seeing that after telling us all these years, immigrants cost us all this money.
I sure hope the legislature, the courts, ANYBODY can stop this runaway administration soon. If not I can’t even imagine how bad things may become.

This is straight up authoritarian playbook shit. Trump is going to deploy our troops on our streets against our people. And he’s not going to stop with one protest in one city. Trump is going to invoke the Insurrection Act. And that will be a point of no return.

- JoJoFromJerz

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Remembering June 6

Remembering the Canadians at Juno Beach:

The Canadians, many of them volunteers, pushed furthest inland today. Allies matter. You don't win wars without friends. pic.twitter.com/VBc32DGWKN

— alex kershaw (@kershaw_alex) June 6, 2025

Here's what D-Day means:

“If you think the world is selfish and rotten, go to the cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer overlooking Omaha Beach. See what one group of men did for another on D-Day, June 6th, 1944.” — Andy Rooney pic.twitter.com/yd1VNqoGe7

— Christopher Hale (@chrisjollyhale) June 6, 2025

A cloudy morning. The smell of saltwater. Waves crashing on the hull of the landing boats.

Soldiers quiet – carrying the weight of Europe on their shoulders.

We remember the brave heroes who risked everything when they landed on Juno Beach 81 years ago. pic.twitter.com/Tccx2usQg0

— Canadian Army (@CanadianArmy) June 6, 2025

What happens to our Strong Borders Act if we ever elect a Canadian Trump?

Because we almost did.

I don't think Canadians have yet realized how lucky we are. 

Only a coincidental confluence of unforeseen and extraordinary events in the six months between November 2024 to April 2025 prevented the election of Pierre Poilievre as our Prime Minister. 

So now the Carney government we are happy to support has introduced the Strong Borders Act (Bill C-2)

Canada’s new government just introduced the Strong Borders Act — focused on safety, security, and integrity. It strengthens: 🔹 Border inspections 🔹 Coast Guard patrols & intel 🔹 Immigration + asylum systems 🔹 Anti-money laundering rules 🔹 Canada Post’s authority to stop crime by mail

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— Chris Bittle (@chrisbittle.bsky.social) June 3, 2025 at 2:44 PM

Despite some on-line freaking-out, I think likely its all going to be just fine as long as (big-L or small-l) Liberals are leading government.
But I wonder what happens when (big-C or small-c) Conservatives get elected again -- as they inevitably will someday, either under Poilievre or, more likely, Doug Ford. 

And I'm not the only one who is concerned.
Because of course its not just Carney or even Poilievre or Ford themselves that we need to worry about -- it is the license a bill like the Strong Borders Act could give to their deputies and department heads and security troopers and Coast Guard officers and Information Technology dweebs and RCMP constables and police officers and all the rest who could go overboard when they implement the new Strong Borders powers and policies. 
In the name of carrying out Trump's agenda, we are already seeing this kind of zealous, excessive, immoral overreach in the United States -- remember that Trump has passed very little legislation yet, so in theory his government should still be operating mostly under the same laws and regulations he inherited from Biden. 

But Trump hired people like Stephen Miller and Pam Bondi and Kash Patel and Dan Bongino and Pete Hegseth and Kristi Noem and Tulsi Gabbard and Tom Holman, and he unleashed the J6 rioters and the Proud Boys, and all of them are now, enthusiastically and excessively, storm-trooping around the streets, roughing people up, and tossing innocent people into prisons without lawyers or trials 

They all think they are "just following orders" -- Trump's blizzard of Executive Orders . These actually do not have the force of law at all, but they have been interpreted as such - and now American law enforcement is running wild in the streets - this is, after all, the nation that invented Gitmo, Abu Gharib, and Bagram.

And no, I don't think that under a Carney government we would seriously risk having our RCMP or the Canadian Border Services Agency or municipal police forces or CSIS think they can abuse the new authority they will get under the new Strong Borders Act.
But under a prime minister with fewer scruples -- someone who might also hire people without ethics or morals precisely because they have no ethics or morals - maybe it could happen here too.

Events now in the United States are horrifying:

Masked men with AR-15’s mounting suppressors to pick up cooks at a Mexican restaurant? This has nothing to do with detaining immigrants. It’s to terrorize us.

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— Fred Wellman (@fpwellman.bsky.social) June 4, 2025 at 1:29 PM