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Trump administration 2024-2028

daftandbarmy said:
Oh hell yeah...

Canadian lawyers urge crackdown over Alabama prison labour imports​

Competition Bureau complaint alleges products made with forced labour​


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This should absolutely be in play. Facts are facts and if the facts establish U.S. prison labour is contributing to our supply chain in contravention of the law, that must be remedied. Obviously that must be alongside a concerted campaign against all other forced labour inputs too.
 
brihard said:
This should absolutely be in play. Facts are facts and if the facts establish U.S. prison labour is contributing to our supply chain in contravention of the law, that must be remedied. Obviously that must be alongside a concerted campaign against all other forced labour inputs too.
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I am not sure we can handle the diplomatic fallout from that. Excludes a lot of trading partners.
 
Eaglelord17 said:
I am not sure we can handle the diplomatic fallout from that. Excludes a lot of trading partners.
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Ok, then that’s a policy decision, but if we aren’t going to exclude U.S. forced labour we should be prepared to defend including other forced labour. As it stands we have committed to excluding it. So we should exclude theirs too.
 
brihard said:
Ok, then that’s a policy decision, but if we aren’t going to exclude U.S. forced labour we should be prepared to defend including other forced labour. As it stands we have committed to excluding it. So we should exclude theirs too.
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100% agree. I would even go farther and state if a product couldn’t be produced in Canada because it doesn’t meet our environmental or labour standards we shouldn’t allow it in.

I am simply pointing out that we lack the moral courage/pain tolerance to actually follow through on it.
 
mariomike said:
I suspect you may be right.

I read an an article published two days ago in Brookings that 62% of rank-and-file Republicans now identify as MAGA.

The article suggested that dominance has come at the cost of alienating a non-MAGA minority that increasingly thinks and votes like independents.
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GK .Dundas said:
I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that he went bankrupt not once but twice actually.
How you do that?
Casinos are machines designed to produce cash !
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The businesses went bankrupt, not Trump. He made money on the deals…every time.
 
A few years ago I worked at the newly formed Supply Ontario, as the lead for their Digital Strategy. Like many Canadian jurisdictions and companies, they voluntarily abided by the US standard, much as the CAF acknowledged Leahy Vetting in Iraq and elsewhere
 
Never heard of Leahy Vetting until now. Learn something new every day.

The U.S. government’s process for screening foreign security force units and individuals to ensure they have not committed gross violations of human rights (GVHRs) before receiving U.S. assistance. This process implements the Leahy Laws, which prohibit funding to units with credible evidence of abuses such as torture, extrajudicial killing, enforced disappearance, or rape under color of law.

The vetting procedure is conducted by the Department of State and Department of Defense, utilizing the International Vetting and Security Tracking (INVEST) system. Checks begin at U.S. embassies overseas and are reviewed by analysts in Washington, D.C., assessing both classified records and open-source reports. If a unit is found ineligible, assistance is denied unless the partner government demonstrates remediation by taking effective steps to bring responsible members to justice through impartial investigations and appropriate sentencing.
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Clearly a shady customer...

'Vandals arrested' as Trump's $14m reflective pool project sees it turn green again​

The president launched his refurbishment of the pool to mark America's 250th anniversary, as he said his predecessors had let it turn an algae-stained green.

One man arrested was David Hearn, 67, of Bethesda, Maryland, who owned a company that made composite used to build watercraft.

He said he stopped by the pool during his 64-mile bike ride on Friday to see what was going on.

Mr Hearn, a former Olympic canoe racer, told the Associated Press he reached into the pool because he wanted to examine the peeling new coating.

He said he briefly touched a chunk that was still attached to the side of the pool, then let go shortly after a park worker told him to.
https://www.google.com/preferences/source?q=news.sky.com
But, Mr Hearn said, he was then detained by National Guard troops and Park Police for five hours before being released on Friday night.

"I'm a curious citizen," Mr Hearn said in a telephone interview. "I reached down to see what it felt like. It was very rubbery."

The Washington Post first reported Mr Hearn's arrest, and he said he has a date to appear in court next month and is looking for legal help.

 
daftandbarmy said:
"I'm a curious citizen," Mr Hearn said in a telephone interview. "I reached down to see what it felt like. It was very rubbery."
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Yeah, people reach into public fountains and pools out of curiosity all the time. I can't get close enough to toss a penny in anymore due to the press of people waiting their turn to feel the slimy textures.
 
ModlrMike said:
If you want to find the vandals responsible for damaging the reflecting pool, look no further than the White House.
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Yes, the cracked frog pond they had before which had also been imperfectly repaired by a previous administration (at much more than twice the cost) was so much better.
 
Brad Sallows said:
Yes, the cracked frog pond they had before which had also been imperfectly repaired by a previous administration (at much more than twice the cost) was so much better.
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Trump has actually been very clear in the fact most of his plans to 'restore' Washington would essentially be resurfacing.

Not just the pool, but this was by his own words the solution for the roads, walkways, medians, and other fixtures as well.

He actually prefers asphalt over concrete saying it's "no good" since it takes too long, and is too much work later.

This guy is all about the quick cheap fixes that deliver instant gratification.

Now, shortly after the resurfacing... Nobody touch the water! The resurfacing job is fine, what's happening is due to vandals, and even worse, Joe Biden!!!
 
Mills Bomb said:
Trump has actually been very clear in the fact most of his plans to 'restore' Washington would essentially be resurfacing.

Not just the pool, but this was by his own words the solution for the roads, walkways, medians, and other fixtures as well.

He actually prefers asphalt over concrete saying it's "no good" since it takes too long, and is too much work later.

This guy is all about the quick cheap fixes that deliver instant gratification.

Now, shortly after the resurfacing... Nobody touch the water! The resurfacing job is fine, what's happening is due to vandals, and even worse, Joe Biden!!!
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What I'm observing is that people bitter about Trump are bitter about all the cleanup being done for 1776 + 250. Any excuse to criticize will do.

$850M for Obama's eyesore, though - what a magnificent deal.
 
Brad Sallows said:
What I'm observing is that people bitter about Trump are bitter about all the cleanup being done for 1776 + 250. Any excuse to criticize will do.

$850M for Obama's eyesore, though - what a magnificent deal.
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The difference is….Obama, unlike Trump, went through proper approvals including Congress, there was open-bidding on the job as opposed to Trumps sole-source crony contract and Obama didn’t waste bandwidth chest-thumping his own greatness as a saviour of national icons…..that promptly came apart. And don’t forget, Obama was dealing with deep-seated and long-standing structural issues from 40 years of deferred maintenence, hence the cost.
 
Brad Sallows said:
What I'm observing is that people bitter about Trump are bitter about all the cleanup being done for 1776 + 250. Any excuse to criticize will do.

$850M for Obama's eyesore, though - what a magnificent deal.
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What you also could be observing is a blowhard narcissist end running every rule and procedure in the books to remake public property then bragging that it is the greatest, bestest thing that no other president had the courage to do, only have it unravel. Washington is a popular tourist destination. I suspect it would stoke public curiosity and be newsworthy if it turned into a swamp with or without new paint.

You seem to becoming quite the apologist. Would you be ok with our PM, of any stripe, playing fast a loose with our public Ottawa spaces? Unilaterally hiring a buddy contractor to tear down 24 Sussex?

I don't know the details or timelines of the reflecting pool fiasco. If they simply painted it then filled it, what did anyone expect?
 
Genetk44 said:
The difference is….Obama, unlike Trump, went through proper approvals including Congress, there was open-bidding on the job as opposed to Trumps sole-source crony contract and Obama didn’t waste bandwidth chest-thumping his own greatness as a saviour of national icons…..that promptly came apart. And don’t forget, Obama was dealing with deep-seated and long-standing structural issues from 40 years of deferred maintenence, hence the cost.
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You're right. The important thing is, process was followed. (Not entirely, since the foundation appears to stiffing the backstop fund requirement.) And Obama does a lot of his own chest-thumping. Of course, it's not a mere presidential library. It's a presidential center, which is not a novelty (it essentially is the new standard), but it certainly sets a new benchmark for scale. It's amusing that Obama has beaten Trump to the goal of being the first ex-president to undertake such a massive monument to himself. It's instructive that the same amount of heat from the sources that reliably deplore Trump's latest (weekly) self-promotion has not accompanied this one. I'm dissatisfied with the general situation, but as long as the deplorable behaviours and candidates continue on both sides there isn't really satisfactory third option yet. The return to George Will Republicanism will have to wait, and it's doubtful a return to Ronald Reagan Republicanism is possible. I see no path for Democrats to return to any prior version of moderation at all.

Politically this is going to be hard to correct. Administration supporters are pretty happy with some of the things that are just getting done. My read on the political temperature is that whatever passes for the base is beyond caring about due process short-cuts and cronyism. The moderates aren't resigned to it; they reliably object in the places inhabited by political moderates (eg. NRO, Reason). But it's over to states to show whether it's possible to have governors and legislatures that can get shit done, in a timely fashion, on budget, without being interminably bound up in processes. They are neither looting the treasury on a small scale to enrich themselves and their cronies, nor on a large scale to provide money streams to activists.
 
lenaitch said:
What you also could be observing is a blowhard narcissist end running every rule and procedure in the books to remake public property then bragging that it is the greatest, bestest thing that no other president had the courage to do, only have it unravel. Washington is a popular tourist destination. I suspect it would stoke public curiosity and be newsworthy if it turned into a swamp with or without new paint.
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Everything Trump touches is that way. His bluster is a distraction not worth paying any attention to.
lenaitch said:
You seem to becoming quite the apologist.
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I just leave the area whenever he comes on TV; I don't read transcripts of anything he says except when I (rarely) want to confirm whether the way people are spinning some inflammatory statement is correct in context or not (eg. "fine people"). Nothing he has to say is useful or interesting or durable, and it just unhinges others present and makes them unpleasant to be around. I take political corruption and cronyism ("beak-wetting") and double standards for granted (in all politics). I measure his administration by its policies and compare it to the alternatives. I'm probably the moderate in any room.

Here is the heart of the position: right now, in America, any kind of Republican control on offer is preferable to any kind of Democratic control on offer. The bluster and corruption have been weighed, and found inconsequential in balance with what the true alternative is.
lenaitch said:
Would you be ok with our PM, of any stripe, playing fast a loose with our public Ottawa spaces? Unilaterally hiring a buddy contractor to tear down 24 Sussex?
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For 24 Sussex, and a lot of the blight problems facing communities, probably. A template is this: something needs to be done; a need has existed for years (maybe decades); nothing has been done; so, "the system" can't or won't do it. I reject the premise that "the system" may be a permanent obstacle; so, I'd entertain alternative processes.
lenaitch said:
I don't know the details or timelines of the reflecting pool fiasco. If they simply painted it then filled it, what did anyone expect?
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They attempted to seal it. That's not an impossible job, but it can be done imperfectly. (I'd laugh if I learned they used the same blue goo that I once used to prepare a bathroom floor.) If it was done imperfectly, it merits criticism. An early return of algae in late spring/early summer does not merit an immediate Nelson Muntz Moment, though. And now there's a tug-of-war between activists who want the algae to return and stay as a rebuke to Trump, and those who would rather see it gone but use it's current presence as a rebuke to Trump.

The reasonable points of criticism have, again, been lost in the circus. And I'm through with the circuses.
 
If you want Washington "Resurfaced" the Brits and Canadians did a great job last time and are willing to do it again.


On a more serious note, I suspect changing the PH levels in the pond will help reduce algae.
 
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