Because the comment I replied to was directly commenting on the quality of the joke?

“Congratulations to anyone capable of writing a joke so good, that it is a crime.”

This is directly saying it’s a good joke. I’m saying it wasn’t a good joke. I also said how bad it is to be arrested for a joke.

I fail to see how this is complicated.

My guy I literally said “horrendous to be jailed for a joke”. Get mad about something I actually said please.

I mean, kind of not really from the sounds of things. It was a joke about a veteran who lost his legs to a landmine running over his foot in the Moscow subway with the skateboard he used for mobility. Not exactly any social benefit from the joke, just a crass ablist jab. Apparently the audience didn’t really appreciate the joke either so I doubt it’s just lost in translation.

Horrendous to be jailed for a joke, but I also don’t think it was a good joke.

I mean, a weaker currency really does boost your export value. That’s why Canadian farmers tend to consider the weaker CAD a benefit - they get paid more CAD per yuan when exporting soy or canola for example.

The issue is that the US intentionally positioned itself with a strong dollar so they can import stuff cheaper. The deal for American “exorbitant privilege” was essentially “hey America, you can have the world as your shopping mall with a strong currency for cheap imported goods, but in exchange you’ll provide the backing for collective defense with your extra budget, stay stable, and buy our goods”. Trump wants to have his cake and eat it too, maintaining the effective global tax via USD transactions but also have a weaker dollar for American exporters. This is all that hubbub about “reducing trade deficits”… which were created intentionally as part of that deal in the Bretton Woods/post-Bretton Woods Era.

US consumers like cheap phones, TVs, imported fruits, and travel. The strong dollar is a necessity for this. Much of the US debt is heavily subsidized as a side effect of a strong dollar as part of that exorbitant privilege exchange. They can have their weaker dollar but they’ll lose the benefits from it and I don’t think they’ll accept that easily. Throwing all that away to strengthen your export market is deeply foolish, but the mechanisms at play do work generally as they claim.

The gold and silver market is another sign if a softening dollar. The treasuries will be slower to move, but record high gold and silver prices are a terrible sign for investor sentiment. In 2023 I said dedollarization was a meme. 2025 made it obvious it was inevitable. The question is just when Europe and the rest of the world will take back the US’s exorbitant privilege, and how badly they’ll react when we do.

Yes the US wins any individual conventional conflict for sure. But putting up a resistance force on Greenland could dissuade the US from trying, as even military win may prove to be a loss, especially if the rest of NATO can take some Americans with them when Greenland falls.

Simply pulling out of Greenland is a non-option, even if the US would win the battle for Greenland.

This is the mentality they are banking on, it’s the Russian mentality since time immemorial that’s kept Europe in the cuck chair for so long. “Yes but if we respond, they might escalate things!”

Gotta tell you, as a Canadian I don’t love the concept of the US having even more leverage over our already tenuous logistical connection to European allies. Keeping the Atlantic un-dominated is important for us.

I believe I misread something - the majority of the accused are Somali-American, although there are some large damages caused by non-Somali people as well. I’ll delete my original comment as misleading.

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Gotta have 'em yourself. Canada needs to get our nukes back, even your closest allies are potential threats.

Yeah, we might not. We could still bid on F35 production runs. I think the specifics will be quite important to determining what’s a good outcome.

Regardless, I like that we’re courting other options even if it just results in leverage elsewhere.

Yeah, I saw that. I’m not sure how that 10k number relates to the number created by F35-related manufacturing so far.

To be fair, we’ve manufactured a lot of parts for other country’s F35s so far. That’s quite standard for defense contracts. Still, if Saab commits to bringing more guaranteed manufacturing jobs than the F35 program, it could be worth it. If this gives us a leg up in F35 manufacturing bids, that could also be worth it. Feels like a strong play regardless of outcome.

Ok.

I’m asking if you’re aware of the fact that the articles you’re posting have no basis in fact. ICE has proven 72 million on equipment, an astonishingly large number. There is absolutely no data or anything at all to lead anyone to believe they’ve purchased “warheads” “guided missiles” or “artillery” as the articles you’re posting claim.

Is this disconnect intentional?

A bigger outlet repeating the same false claim with the same citation doesn’t make it more true. Or are you saying you know the claim is made up and its worth posting anyways as propaganda?

What’s worse is I fucking called it, now The Independent is repeating this BS (although the rest of the article is much better at focusing on all the horrendous shit ICE actually is doing, and the guided missiles lie is a single sentence basically), here is the article.

While the majority of the money has been spent on guns and armor for field agents, the outlay has also seen ICE purchase “guided missile warheads and explosive components,” according to Popular Information.

There we go, tracked this particular disinformation live. Next step is a major US outlet like NYT repeating the same “Popular Information states ____”. Journalism used to mean actually doing something just just copy/pasting from random blogs online. I doubt they’ve even pulled the data from the government portal themselves. /sigh

Here’s the REAL story, after the made up stuff:

ICE has also attracted a deluge of unwanted headlines for the administration, including the recent revelation that it has arrested at least 20 children who are American citizens this year, two of whom had cancer.

Reports of operations involving armed agents “traumatizing” mothers and children and firing pepper balls at a priest attending a demonstration have not helped their publicity drive.

“What we’re seeing is a general escalation of violence and the use of excessive force by ICE officers,” Ed Yohnka of ACLU Illinois told NPR recently.

? The articles HEADLINE says “warheads” and the body says “guided missiles”, and then cites a source saying “guided missiles” and “artillery”. I’m not just disambiguating minutiae, there’s a huge difference between buying a flashbang and a fucking guided missile system.

Misinformation is cool as long as it’s “our guys” making shit up?

We have so many real things to go after the gestapo for, INLCUDING spending $72 mill on guns and shit, but you’re right, we should say they bought tanks and F35s as well. It’ll really get this ball rolling.

I wasn’t even accusing you of doing anything, but hey, attack me personally to make your point. Makes you look really smart and reliable. No wonder your country is fucked.

The only source cited is a blog which cites a blog + raw acquisition numbers from government data, none of which contain ANY reference to “guided missiles” or “artillery” as the original substack claims.

As best I can tell, this claim was just kind of made up, then referenced by a blog, and now by the daily beast. We’re like 3 days out from NYT writing this and referencing this daily beast article.

Fuck this administration for all the illegal and inhuman shit they’re doing, but I’m almost certain this is just made up. They definitely have spent a shitload of money on weapons and equipment (bad) but theres no proof they’ve bought explosives and chemical weapons (beyond pepper spray)

Oh I’m with you - gerrymandering, purging of voter roles days before elections, systemic voter suppression methods, etc. are all existential threats to democracy. I’d argue that apathetic voters is a bigger issues though in aggregate, the vast majority (80%+) want taxpayer funded single payer healthcare but if you were to consider “did not vote” as a political party, “did not vote” would have won the election in 2024 by a landslide (40/30/30). Voter suppression alone cannot account for ~108 million voters.