Some comments on the passing scene: the US is destroying university research; NATO is buttering up Trump; Carney is winning military hearts & minds; and Americans are fighting ICE gestapo

I'm seeing random stuff all over tonight, so here's a few of my comments on the passing scene. 

First, the destruction of academic and scientific research in the United States continues. I just do not understand why they are so angry and what they think will happen now:

Journalists keep asking me, baffled, “What’s the Trump administration really trying to do to the science agencies?” So I say “They are trying to destroy them. Cut off their funding, ruin their facilities, harass their staff into leaving.” It’s not reform, and it never was. It’s destruction.

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— Derek Lowe (@dereklowe.bsky.social) June 24, 2025 at 4:34 PM

One thing to emphasize strongly is that funding to science is like oxygen to the brain. Temporarily restricting oxygen flow for ten minutes (while you figure your shit out) is going to have the same outcome as shutting oxygen off permanently. We are close to the ten minute mark.

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— Harmit Malik (@harmitmalik.bsky.social) June 25, 2025 at 9:46 AM

This administration's goal is to destroy US science and to do it quickly *40% cut for NIH funding * 50% cut in National Science Foundation funding * Virtual elimination of funding for climate and environmental research * Attacks on elite universities Science is so woke www.npr.org/2025/04/18/n...

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— Laurie Loves Data (@laurelann.bsky.social) June 21, 2025 at 5:02 AM

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Today's News: Carney's CNN interview, Poilievre's parade bust, Trump's F-bomb

Carney:

Amanpour calls Carney "the Trump whisperer". Really good, substantive interview. #cdnpoli youtu.be/l8gWyt4wZjc?...

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— Steve Valeriote (@stevev68.bsky.social) June 24, 2025 at 1:24 PM

I'm seeing more online progressives saying "Fuck Carney" now because....I don't really know why exactly...

I guess they think some of his legislation isn't perfect but Trudeau's wasn't either. 

And some of Carney's recent statements about Trump and Netanyahu haven't been as critical as they would have liked. Yeah, I know.  For example, he didn't use the CNN interview to bash anyone. 

But one thing to remember about Carney is this: he demands respect. And he gives respect too -- he respects the offices of Prime Ministers and Presidents regardless of whether he dislikes the person in it or disagrees with what they are doing. You could see that respect in the CNN interview too, where he gives the Trump administration the benefit of the doubt and doesn't take pointless cheap shots.

Of course, like every other leader now, Carney also knows the only way to deal with Trump is to treat him like the 5-year-old son of your new boss — give him treats and bouncy castles and make him think you are just delighted to play with him.

Basically, I agree with The Oakleafs:

Compare and contrast: Trump's bombastic stupidity vs. Carney's smooth effectiveness

First, here's Trump. How stupid is this?

The night the Iran bombing was announced, this is what I posted:

I suspect Trump bombed Iran tonight because his military parade was a bust & the G7 leaders laughed at him & Fox News' Jessica Tarlov ridiculed his "two weeks" post. "I'll show them!"

— Cathie from Canada🍁 (@cathiecanada.bsky.social) June 21, 2025 at 11:46 PM

Not only that, but Trump was also jealous of how Fox News was covering Israel:
Heather Cox Richardson / Letters from an American

June 23, 2025
In a timeline of Trump’s decision to drop 12 of the reportedly 20 Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs the U.S. military possessed on Iran, New York Times reporters confirmed what Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo judged from the beginning: Trump wanted in on the optics of what seemed to be Israel’s successful strikes against Iran.
Andrew Perez and Asawin Suebsaeng of Rolling Stone reported conversations with administration officials who confirmed there was no new intelligence to suggest Iran was on the brink of producing nuclear weapons.
Mark Mazzetti, Jonathan Swan, Maggie Haberman, Eric Schmitt, and Helene Cooper reported yesterday in the New York Times that Trump had warned Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu against striking Iran but changed his mind after seeing how Israel’s military action was “playing” on television. The reporters write: “The president was closely monitoring Fox News, which was airing wall-to-wall praise of Israel’s military operation and featuring guests urging Mr. Trump to get more involved.”
Trump began to hint he had been part of the operation, and military advisors began to draw up plans for a strike. According to the reporters, by June 17—three days after his military parade had fizzled and more than 5 million Americans had turned out to protest his administration—Trump had decided to bomb Iran.
Rather than keeping the mission quiet, Trump issued increasingly aggressive social media posts appearing to hint at a strike....

Sunday Funday: funny posts, some interesting stuff, more Trump Watch, and Animal Crackers (with a goofy camel, too)

I usually save most of my funny clips and posts for Saturday night, to make a funny post for people to read on Sunday.
Tonight everyone is doing hot takes on Trump's decision to bomb the nuclear sites in Iran -- but we don't know yet how Iran will respond, what Russia will do, how Hezbollah will react, whether Iran will close the Persian Gulf shipping, how Israel can continue to survive as a country, and so on and so forth, so its difficult to predict what will happen. 

Except to confirm that Trump and Netanyahu, each for their own selfish and short-sighted reasons, have pushed the entire Middle East beyond politics and into history now. 

I suspect Trump only did it now just because his military parade was a bust and the G7 leaders laughed at him and Fox News' Jessica Tarlov ridiculed his "two weeks" post and "I'll show them!"

So, on with the funny stuff:

This kind of exchange is why I still enjoy Twitter:

🥱 Took you long enough…a person could die waiting on your sequel schedule! 😉 https://t.co/7pmcx9Rh6P

— William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) June 16, 2025

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

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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