Trump cannot even get straight what the tariffs are for. During the campaign they were positioned as being needed for economic reasons. If you take even the most generous reading of these latest developments for Trump, he has used them as bargaining chips to get greater border security (we didnt, but just go with it). Well, what about their needed economic effect? Do we just fuck that off now?
This is what I hate about the Trump era and his coverage. It is not just that he is abhorrent and a moron, but that he is not even held accountable to his own stated goals and objectives.
RFK Jrâs nomination has passed out of committee on a party line vote, including a yes vote from Bill Cassidy, a trained physician who knows Kennedy is a danger but could not bring himself to do what he knows is the right thing.
Meanwhile in AmericaâŚ
I am sure this bird flu thing is overblown, natural immunity. Maybe hire BoJo as a consultant to help âtake it on the chinâ
How does the border operate between the usa and Canada? A huge distance to controlâŚhow easy is it to cross back and forth? I was in Maine many years ago and there were loads of Canadians in the shopping mall so I assumed it was then very easy to cross the border.
Government controlling commerceâŚthe means of production. Isnt there a word for that?
Exactly! And if anyone tries they roll out the old âfake newsâ bollocks and his cultists just lap it up.
Donât forget bleach injections!
From an American friend:
â My late father worked for USAID when George H.W. Bush was president. He was tasked with transitioning socialist economies towards free market capitalism after the fall of the Soviet Union. The current US administrationâs attempts to shutter USAID, the USAâs foreign humanitarian arm (which spends about $72 billion a year), is another petty decision from heartless, corrupt clowns who cannot see entire swaths of humanity because poor people are invisible to them, and offer nothing transactional in return for their attention. The cowards at DOGE wonât tackle waste and fraud in the Pentagon (which has failed multiple financial audits and is missing trillions of dollars), but theyâll kill thoughtful, relatively cheap programs that actually improve the world from the bottom up. Ending US humanitarian aid puts the rest of my countryâs grotesque foreign policy in stark relief, and that foreign policy usually boils down to some blatant combination of SMASH & GRAB, ARM & EXPLOIT, BRIBE & BULLY, EXTRACT & COLONIZE, etc etc. That approach is not going to work anymore, and if you think it will, you need to spend some time outside the US to appreciate how irrelevant we have become to countries planning for the future. We are unreliable, close to insolvent, and we cannot be trusted, and everyone knows it. Abandoning soft power will just create a vacuum and other nations will step in with actual solutions and push their own agendas. Asia remains the focus of the 21st century and the place where the future unfolds from, as it should be, since it contains more than half the worldâs population. Broligarchs looting the US government and breaking down state industries to turn them into private sector fiefdoms and monopolies is what happened to the Soviet Union, and it was only a matter of time before it happened to us.â
Itâs generally pretty quick and easy. Last time I was up near a border crossing was last summer in Van Buren and there wasnât much traffic or anything.
If you are trying to cross âillegallyâ they have lots of cameras in the forests. Someone I know has a camp up there right on the border he is always complaining that he gets stopped multiple times every weekend by border patrol agents or rangers coming onto his land to ask him what he is doing.
The other thing is why someone would leave the densely populated part of Canada to get to Fort Kent or Van Buren, hundreds of miles from anything resembling a city.
Maine is pretty reliant on Canadian tourism, as well as Americans who summer up here. There has been lots of conversation in the state about how badly this potential trade war could affect Maine.
Just donât inject it into your chinâŚ
They have more cameras than they once did, but out West there are still kms of open border space. There are still road crossings in VT, NH, and ME with just cameras in place.
I understand Irving Oil customers in Maine got notice of the tariff billing already.
When I first met my wife and we came to visit, about 18 years ago, passports werenât required either direction over the Niagara, only some form of photo ID, and they were more random checks from what I remember. Most people were waved through without having to show anything.
I went over a couple times this last summer and itâs still easy enough, though. Walking back over from Niagara Falls ON., think itâs called the Rainbow Bridge, there was just a $1 turnstile, no officials around.
I know there is a crossing in NY that is little more than a wood hut that may sometimes have someone sat there.
This one is at Cape Vincent, New York, where there is a small ferry across to Wolfe Island. No idea now, but I have crossed there and seen a sign saying I needed to fill out and deposit a form to avoid being in the US illegally. When you did cross there when it was manned, the CBP guy was astonished if you said you were staying anything longer than a week, it is mostly cottage country.
Heâs talking here about US citizens
This is unambiguously illegal. It is impeachable behavior to even raise it
Look at these two useless schlubs
https://x.com/atrupar/status/1886864489951187040
âWhat they are doing is illegal. We are going to propose a law that forbids them breaking the other law. And weâll call it stop the stealâ
Fucking kill me now
Feckless.
A law that cannot get out of the Senate let alone through the House. Cool.