Links - 2nd April 2026 (2 - Pro-Crime Policies: Ukrainian Refugee Iryna Zarutska)

Meme - ""Don't let kids talk about Hitler or else..."
"Or else what?"
"Or else we'll keep releasing schizophrenic lifelong criminals onto the street to kill female white war refugees"
"You'll keep doing that anyway, which is why the kids are talking about Hitler""
"CAREFUL! I GRADUATED FROM REDDIT UNIVERSITY"
PoliMath: "Here is the thing... and I genuinely need conservatives to listen when I say this: When you protect coddled little idiots who joke about Hitler, you are putting people like Iryna in more danger"

The Free Press on X - "Psychiatrist Sally Satel explains why she believes the execution of the schizophrenic man who stabbed a Ukrainian refugee on a train would be an act of cruelty, not justice."
pagliacci the grinch 🎄🎁 on X - "no one who believes this shit can ever explain why these “schizophrenic men” always seem to exclusively target the tiniest women in their proximity. why don’t their “delusions” ever tell them to attack, say, a black man their own size"

Why did nobody? : r/TeenagersButBetter - "Partly because she wasn’t killed by the state, and afaik her killer was brought to justice"
"Technically she was killed by the state. Her killer was spared from prison multiple times by a state appointed judge who helped facilitate the states failed policies."
"Yeah that much different than state officials killing her directly. That's like saying that mass shooting victims were killed by the state because the police ingoned red flag laws against the shooter."
"Nope?... I see the connection but a kid being edgy at school and a person having 10+ cases of breaking the law are WAY different when it comes to being noticable. And it's COMPLETELY the State's job to protect it's people."

Laura Loomer on X - "EXCLUSIVE:  🚨Teresa Stokes, the magistrate judge who let career criminal DeCarlos Brown Jr. walk free before he violently slaughtered Iryna Zarutska in North Carolina, sold chicken wings to drug addicts in 2021 before becoming a DEI magistrate judge in April 2023.🚨   Mecklenburg County Magistrate Judge Teresa Stokes, the DEI Shaniqua magistrate judge who released DeCarlos Brown Jr., the feral career criminal, in January 2025, who was caught on video viciously murdering Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on the Charlotte, NC light rail train last month, sold chicken wings before she became a judge. @LoomerUnleashed  has uncovered an old news clip about Teresa Stokes and her chicken wings.   See video below 👇🏻   Perhaps she should have focused on selling chicken wings instead of unleashing dangerous predators back into our society.  Magistrate Judge and fried chicken restaurateur Teresa Stokes, co-owner of Wing Heaven Sports Haven, openly admitted in a March 15, 2021 interview in Lansing, Michigan with FOX 47 to losing a brother and a nephew to drug addiction in 2020, revealing a clear bias for those struggling with substance abuse—and her statements suggest she extends excessive compassion to such individuals, perhaps too much so in the case of DeCarlos Brown Jr.  Wing Heaven Sports Haven described itself online as a “sober and recovery atmosphere” that catered to drug addicts and criminals before it permanently closed.  The interview also confirmed that Teresa Stokes is co-owner of Pinnacle Recovery Services, a Lansing nonprofit housing program.   Radical leftist judges who are deliberately ignoring our Constitution and common sense are unleashing an uncontrollable violent black crime wave on innocent civilians in our country. These radical activist judges are literally just as dangerous as the killers they are unleashing upon us.  How do you go from selling chicken wings to being a magistrate judge?   This is insane. And it’s one of the most obvious examples of how DEI= DIE.  WATCH 👇🏻"
Time to denounce private prisons and their conflicts of interest

Reform urged as public questions magistrate qualifications after brutal NC train murder - "the judge who reportedly released Brown in January 2025, Magistrate Judge Teresa Stokes, is under fire for allegedly not passing the bar exam... North Carolina is not the only state that allows magistrate judges to not pass the bar exam to serve in their position. According to a study by the Columbia Review, thirty-two states allow judges to serve without a law degree, and seventeen states don't require a judge who presides over eviction cases to have a law degree.  Over 80% of magistrates in North Carolina do not have a law degree, the study shows."

Meme - *Fork in the road*
*Daniel Penny restraining Jordan Neely*
*Decarlos Brown killing Iryna Zarutska*

Meme - "r/DoomerCircleJerk
Memorial for dead Ukrainian immigrant is "Fascist Astroturfing"
Elon Musk and Andrew Tate Backed Fascist Astroturfing on Jefferson and Evergreen
Exactly what it says. The new mural on the corner of Jefferson and Evergreen is part of an Elon Musk and Andrew Tate backed campaign to memorialize Iryna Zarutska in hundreds of murals across the country."
Left wingers love criminals

Megan Basham on X - "Another factor in the death of Iryna Zarutska on Charlotte's light rail--the left-wing MacArthur Foundation giving Mecklenburg county a $3.3 million grant to reduce the jail population. Specifically as part of "racial equity aims. Like Soros' Open Society, the MacArthur Foundation incentivizes local municipalities to make residents less safe by leaving threats like Decarlos Brown on the streets."

Meme - Ivor Cummins: "Netflix is working on a drama about the recent horrific murder of Iryna Zarutska:"
"La triste vicenda di Iryna presto su Netflix *white man about to kill black woman*"

Meme - David Sant...: "Which of these two immigrants got wall-to- wall sympathetic news coverage from the media?"
"Ukrainian refugee escaping war"
"Wife-beating MS-13 gang member"

Meme - "If you stop a violent Black man, you make national news. *Daniel Penny*
If you are a violent Black man, you don't. *Decarlos Brown*"

Meme - "r/TooAfraidToAsk
Why is there no riots in the streets or national outrage over the killing of Iryna Zarutska?
Iryna Zarutska was a Ukrainian refugee who was stabbed in Charlotte. The killer was Black. Liberals seem to care so much about refugees, but I haven't heard anything from them about this incident
You're currently banned from this community and can't comment on posts.
Sorry, this post has been removed by the moderators of r/TooAfraidToAsk"
Turns out you have good reason to be afraid to ask questions that threaten the left wing agenda

Right Angle News Network on X - "BREAKING - The official black lives matter account has posted a video stating that black people “have a right to violence” amid mass outrage over the slaying of Iryna Zarutska at the hands of a black male in Charlotte, North Carolina."

Colin Wright on X - "The left will only report on stories inconvenient to their narrative when the right makes enough noise about an issue that it suddenly becomes useful to report on the right's outrage about it."

Meme - "POV: Just trying to make it home alive on public transit despite the 'socioeconomic factors' behind you *woman in knight armour*"

Meme - 0liver✨⛈️🌴🐊🦈 @0Iiver_Sister: "decarlos brown wasnt crazy, he knew exactly what he was doing and why he was doing it because he rehearsed his magical get out of trouble words as he was exiting the train. this is the lede. dont bury it."
"She called me nigger"

Meme - End Wokeness: "Not a single celebrity or feminist activist has said a word about this"

Meme - Netflix: *white man about to murder scared black woman*

Johan Jelqington on X - "I wonder what percentage of historic "lynchings" were actually in response to black guys doing shit like this."
Thread by @Trust_Lion_ on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "Looking back on lynchings being discussed in history class is so funny in retrospect. "Yeah white people used to become very angry and very violent all of a sudden for NO REASON and find a black person and hang them and this happened all the time"
"It happened basically every single day and we're only ever going to discuss one case which we insist was motivated by a false accusation which we'll never acknowledge originated as a claim almost 50 years after the event and was denied by every authority that investigated it"
"So off of this one case which we claim was falsified with no credible reasoning, now believe that there were thousands and thousands of episodes of white people just getting together to harm Minorities™️, again- FOR NO REASON. Do not consider that!!""

Thread by @jessesingal on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "After Jordan Neely randomly punched a 67-year-old woman in the face, which led to one of his three dozen or so arrests, several for assault, he spent 15 months in jail, max. Then The Helpers arrived(!), leading to "a carefully planned strategy between the city and his lawyers to allow him to get treatment and stay out of prison." The traumatized, violent, deeply mentally ill guy got to do basically an honor-code type of deal where he sorta pinky-swore to stay in treatment. But 13 days later he just walked out (because of course he did!).  Then outreach workers saw him on the subway. They approached him and he started pissing in front of them. They called the cops, who didn't bother to check if he had a warrant out -- they just shooed him off the train. Three weeks later he was killed.
The reason I'm reminding people of this story is that I think it's a really really really bad idea to treat "If someone commits multiple public assaults and is not in any control of their own life or actions, it's okay to incarcerate them for awhile" as a MAGA position."

Morgoth on X - "What I find striking about this image is that it mocks the conventional liberalism of the West. The killer has never known hardship or war. He has no recent cultural memory of communism or forced famines and poverty. Unlike her, he isn't a refugee; he's a pampered pet from a demographic that has been indulged to the point of madness."

Meme - ""What terrifies me more than a White girl getting her throat slashed by a subsaharan repeat offender is White people getting mad about it""
Plantation scientist @plantationdrip: "New York Times article on the murder of Iryna Zarutska"
"In North Carolina, as in other Southern states, newspapers in the Jim Crow era often egregiously exaggerated stories about Black criminality. Among other things, such stories served as a precursor to a white supremacist uprising in Wilmington, N.C., in 1898, in which at least 60 Black men were killed."

>Meme<.a> - shoe @shoe0nhead: ">NYT finally covers it
>it’s about the people covering it
however much you hate journalists i promise you it will never be enough"
""New York Times. A Gruesome Murder in North Carolina Ignites a Firestorm on the Right. Security footage capturing the unprovoked stabbing in Charlotte became an accelerant for conservative arguments about the perceived failings of Democratic policies."

i/o on X - "The NYT just can't help itself. Every few months it provides yet another breaking update on the Emmett Till situation, but it has only printed the phrase "black homicide rate" in its pages three times in 52 years. The staggering rates of black homicidal violence embarrass the paper. So rather than report on them, it prefers to deflect, project and obfuscate."

Meme - Aesthetica @Anc_Aesthetics: "This is what black twitter is posting right now just so you understand what time it is"
"Deserved"
"Clean up in aisle 13"
"We even for George now *decarlos brown as Derek Chauvin kneeling on Iryna Zarutska as George Floyd*"

Thread by @webdevMason on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "People talking about "situational awareness" like it's perfectly normal to sit down in a train and spend the entire ride assessing angles of attack rather than reading a book or checking your messages. I don't know why you people want to live in a post-apocalyptic nightmare but I would simply rather not"
When left wingers admit public transit is dangerous

She had already been stabbed at this point and cowers in fear while she bleeds out and these people just sat and watched. While her killer says "I got that white girl". The hate filled rhetoric of democrats is responsible for this kind of violence and apathy. The DNC is a plague on our society. : r/libsofreddit - "What that girl needed was a Daniel Penny."
"And they locked him up immediately and then a PIECE OF SH!T DA tried him for murder."
"Which is why you’ll never see the likes of his actions again from a bystander. The inactions those people is exactly what the right said would happen by charging Daniel Penny for murder."

The brutal murder of Iryna Zarutska exposes the cost of the Left’s ‘compassion’ - "A picture, as they say, is worth a thousand words. You could replace this article with the photograph of Iryna Zarutska and her alleged killer: a Ukrainian refugee still in her work uniform reading her phone on the bus, and a hooded man rising from his seat on a train to swing a knife into her neck. You would get the essential dynamics: American cities are unsafe, with a criminal class left to run riot at the expense of the innocent people around them. Then again, much of polite society across the West has dedicated itself to not noticing the patterns that keep unfolding across these horror stories. The “compassionate” thing to do is turn a blind eye, look elsewhere until the news cycle moves on, then continue to make the same mistakes until the next slaughter... While it may not have fed into this decision, Republicans have also seized on the actions of North Carolina’s “Task Force for Racial Equity in Criminal Justice” set up in the wake of George Floyd’s death. A report released last year set out progress against a laundry list of aims, many concerned with lowering arrests, incarceration, and the use of cash bail. “Compassion” apparently requires that disparities within the criminal justice system be eliminated regardless of the wider impact.  Even after watching a woman killed on video, with the suspect then walking away in a trail of blood, the values of liberal America were on full display. The mayor of Charlotte, Vi Lyles, called for “compassion” to be shown to the suspected killer on the grounds of mental ill health; Zarutska wasn’t mentioned by name in the statement. Meanwhile, a fundraiser was immediately opened for Brown, who was “failed categorically” by the “judicial system and the mental health services” of the state; another attempted to crowdfund for his legal fees, to “fight against the racism and bias against our people”. If this sounds familiar, it’s because you’ve heard every element of it before. A criminal released after multiple incidents; judges who don’t want to be responsible for putting him or her away; a mental health system that thinks the kindest way to treat those failing to manage is to put them onto the street; the defensiveness of the Left who maintains overrepresentation of particular groups in the criminal justice system is the result of pure racism; a political system which panders to this belief.  Together, these “compassionate” behaviours have wreaked havoc on American communities. Studies around the world have shown that criminal behaviour is hugely concentrated among a small group of hardened offenders. In Sweden, for instance, a group consisting of just 1pc of the total population racked up 63pc of all convictions for violence. The last time I ran the numbers, the rough implication was that fractionally harsher sentencing in a handful of US cities would prevent dozens of murders and thousands of assaults each year.If lawmakers had genuine empathy for society and for those forced to live near dangerous people, they would do the sensible thing: they would remove them from the streets, ending their ability to terrorise new victims. If they were genuinely concerned about people with severe mental health problems, they would institutionalise them rather than leave them homeless. A society where a man can be accused of shooting another person in the head, be found incompetent to stand trial, be released, and then be charged with committing the exact same crime a second time is one which has abandoned all sense of reason. Being unable to understand your actions or restrain them is if anything a reason for a sentencing enhancement rather than release. And if lawmakers are worried about racial disparities, they should look at the victims of crimes as well as the perpetrators. In cases where the race of an offender is known, African Americans made up roughly 58pc of homicide offenders in the last five years, but also around 56pc of victims. Turning a blind eye to these figures, to claim that is racist to arrest dangerous criminals, is an abrogation of duty that leaves communities to rot. There is nothing compassionate about this inaction, or its consequences. Jordan Neely was also homeless with mental health issues, and a long criminal record: he had been arrested 42 times, including three times for unprovoked assaults on women on the New York subway. When he threatened passengers on a journey in 2023, he was restrained by Daniel Penny, a former marine, and died in a chokehold. The same set-up, with a different outcome.  Neither incident should have happened. Neither needed to. Donald Trump is completely correct when he says the people who “refuse to put bad people in jail” have blood on their hands. Until America abandons “compassion” for common sense, however, the death toll will continue to rise."
Left wing "empathy" is highly selective and weaponised

Show compassion for Ukrainian refugee murder suspect, says Democratic mayor - "Ms Lyles said that Charlotte “must do better” for people like Mr Brown, who is homeless, as they “need help and have no place to go”... “I want to be clear that I am not villainising those who struggle with their mental health or those who are unhoused. Mental health disease is just that – a disease like any other that needs to be treated with the same compassion, diligence and commitment as cancer or heart disease.  “Also, those who are unhoused are more frequently the victim of crimes and not the perpetrators. Too many people who are on the street need a safe place to sleep and wrap around services to lift them up.  “We, as a community, must do better for those members of our community who need help and have no place to go.”... a GoFundMe account set up for Mr Brown was pulled soon after it was set up and garnered $5 in donations out of a $35,000 goal.  The fundraiser claimed that the suspect had been “failed categorically by the judicial system and the mental health services of North Carolina, and as such is not entirely to blame for what happened”."

TheBlaze on X - "Van Jones on CNN discussing the brutal Charlotte stabbing: “We don’t know why that man did what he did. This man was hurting. Hurt people hurt people.” 🤡🤡🤡"
Michael Shermer on X - "“Hurt people hurt people” is not a theory of violence or mental illness. It’s an absurd statement meant to excuse the murderer. Would he say “Derek Chauvin was hurting and hurt people hurt people”? Woke poisons everything it touches. Progressives make Fox News seem rational."

Geoff Russ: North Carolina train killing shows why soft-on-crime urbanism has failed - "The killing of Iryna Zarutska is a tragic example of why people are not convinced by the evangelists of city life. The YIMBY movement , and other urbanist voices, grew much loude r in recent years as the housing crunch took hold across the West. Besides calls for denser housing, they also uphold old, walkable European cities as a template for restructuring car-centric cities. Urbanism sounds great, until mentally-ill people with knives get on the train. People see crimes like what happened to Iryna Zarutska and buy houses in the suburbs or move away to a small town. We are not immune to this in Canada. In 2022, 31-year old Vanessa Kurpiewska was fatally stabbed on Toronto’s subway. It can happen to anyone. Arguments for expanded public transit fall apart when you see drug addicts lighting up glass pipes on the bus , releasing toxic fumes that might contain deadly hits of fentanyl . It is not pleasant standing next to a gaggle of mentally ill addicts milling around City Hall/Bow Valley College station on Calgary’s C-Train line. Such company is tense for an average-sized man, and much worse for women. Just in March at that same station, a woman was attacked by a mugger. Anybody can go for a walk in that part of Calgary, and be treated to sad scenes of homelessness, mental illness, and drug addiction. A city like Calgary can try and pedestrianise itself as much as it likes. It can fill the Beltline’s parking lots with condo towers, open new transit routes, and brag about falling crime rates . Professionals and young families will not sit down for a picnic in Calgary’s downtown Central Memorial Park, the location of the city’s cenotaph, when people are doing drugs in the bushes. They’d rather hop in their car and drive back to the suburbs, leaving most of downtown empty after 6 p.m. Our cities should be vibrant, walkable, and full of life. For that to happen, however, they have to not only be safe on paper, but make people feel safe and at-ease. Some are comparing the killing of Iryna Zarutska to the death of George Floyd in 2020, which resulted in a wave of anti-police rhetoric and soft-on-crime policies that caused havoc in American cities. That year, Canadian politicians eagerly tried to imitate their American counterparts, with then-Vancouver mayor Kennedy Stewart flagellating himself for his “ white privilege ” and dramatically stepping down as spokesperson for the Vancouver Police Board. In the 2022 Vancouver election, amidst heightened fears of public safety, Stewart was thankfully defeated by challenger Ken Sim, who had promised to hire 100 new police officers. Sim kept that promise , and officials announced in June violent crime rates in Vancouver were at its lowest in 20 years. It turns out that the problems of public safety have simple solutions. What happened to Iryna Zarutska should be the death rattle of permissive attitudes towards criminals and urban crime. We need police on transit platforms, prosecutors who keep violent offenders away from them, and transit agencies that help keep cities safe for the taxpayers that fund them. Like it or not, what happens in the U.S. affects the entire English-speaking world, and the story of Iryna Zarutska is now being reported in Britain and Australia , whose cities are also stricken with rising disorder and violence . People deserve to live in safe cities, and should not have to see human degradation on their way to work, or be at risk of random, deadly assaults."

Meme - bla bla bla @nakkaiiii: ""all were black" who cares?"
Renson Seow @lefireRS: "The people like me who have affirmed that avoiding black people on public transport for safety care."
@BSalm25931: "You are racist"
Renson Seow: "She wasn't racist. And now she's dead."

Meme - Democratic Donkey Judge: "EVERYONE DESERVES A 2nd CHANCE!"
DeCarlos Brown Jr.: "or 14th chance..."
Democratic Donkey Judge: "except for THE VICTIM" *DeCarlos Brown Jr. stabs Iryna Zarutska*

🌋🌋 Deep₿lueCrypto 🌋🌋 on X - "The criminal who killed Iryna Zarutska had 14 prior arrests and was released back onto the streets every time and eventually he killed her. Irynas blood is on Democrats hands. Irynas blood is on the Leftist DA’s hands"

If the Choice in 2024 Were So Obvious, the Election Wouldn’t Be So Close

From 2024:

Opinion | If the Choice in 2024 Were So Obvious, the Election Wouldn’t Be So Close - The New York Times

"There are many styles of Harris-Walz signage in my lovely university-town neighborhood, but the one that’s stickiest in my mind comes with a one-word slogan: “Harris-Walz 2024: Obviously.”

It’s sticky because it gets at something fundamental and fundamentally strange about Trump-era America. The divisions in our country are resilient, the reversion to a 50-50 split seemingly inevitable even amid plague and war and protest. Yet in those regions of America that officially have a professional commitment to debate — the realms of academic and journalistic argument — things are still mostly as they were when Donald Trump first emerged: To oppose him is completely obvious, obligatory, a matter of simple common sense.

Except that it can’t be that obvious or we wouldn’t be where we are. So let’s take one last survey of why some waverers might not yet be sold on Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, by returning to where this all began: The world of 2016, when Americans normally disinclined to vote for liberals were first informed that there was no other reasonable choice.

In that world, the Hillary Clinton campaign offered the country an implicit bargain. The promise was not some sort of dramatic bipartisan moderation to meet the Trumpist threat; on policy Clinton’s campaign was somewhat more left-wing than Barack Obama’s White House.

Rather the promise was that even if you disagreed with liberalism’s elites on policy, you could trust them in three crucial ways: They would avoid insanity, they would maintain stability, and they would display far greater intelligence and competence than Trump and his hangers-on.

The promise of sanity was broken first. Under Trumpian and especially Covidian conditions, the culture of elite liberalism lurched toward fanaticism, embracing radical and fanciful ideas to a degree that I had not imagined possible.

At the time some liberals resisted this lurch, but many others fell silent under pressures that felt almost McCarthyite in their threats to livelihoods and reputations.

Today more liberals concede that things got a bit kooky for a while. But the tendency is still to cast the high tide of wokeness as just a silly season whose effects were hardly comparable to right-wing depredations.

To me, though, the farther that we get from that moment, the more the remarkable the damage looks. For instance: After the liberal establishment was radicalized by the killing of George Floyd into a temporary repudiation of normal policing on “antiracist” grounds, America experienced a dramatic wave of homicides, on a scale unique among developed countries in the Covid era, in which thousands and thousands of people died unnecessarily.

Or again, America in that season mainstreamed experimental and unproven chemical and surgical treatments on thousands of gender-dysphoric young people, with the enthusiastic support of the medical establishment and then the Biden administration, because people with a normal degree of skepticism were afraid of being called transphobes.

Even before you get into harder-to-quantify issues of intellectual corruption, damage to schools and social life and mental health, there is a basic physical toll here — on “bodies,” to use the language that some progressives favor — that undermines the liberal claim to represent sanity against populist derangement.

And it undermines those claims even if the craziness has passed for now, because we could see how a figure like Kamala Harris behaved during that period. Is she a true believer in every notion she endorsed in the 2020 campaign? Perhaps not. But neither is there any good reason to think that she would offer principled resistance if liberalism entered a fevered state again.

Then alongside sanity at home, there is the failure of liberalism to deliver stability abroad. When Trump was first elected president I expected a period of testing — cross-border incursions, terrorist violence, a coordination between our adversaries against a wobbling Pax Americana.

All of that happened — but under Joe Biden’s leadership, not Trump’s. The position of the United States is more parlous today than when Trump left office, the risk of a genuine world war has intensified, and the cost of destabilization is already measured in thousands upon thousands of dead.

I don’t think all this reflects terrible case-by-case decision making by the Biden administration. But in the aggregate you can see a severe weakness in liberal internationalism right now — a tendency to extend itself rhetorically without the material investments required to back those promissory notes, a limpness in its relationship to allies who take our patience and protection for granted, a difficulty figuring out how to negotiate with enemies after you’ve spent so much time denouncing them. (We are clearly paying the price for missing a 2023-era window for an armistice in Ukraine.)

One might prefer well-meaning weakness to the Trumpian alternative of an amoral president seeking retrenchment, surrounded by foreign policy hands trying to use his mercurial persona to keep our rivals off balance. But it’s possible the Trumpian formula yielded better results for a reason, and it’s not at all clear that Harris is ready for the tests that Biden’s failing foreign policy will hand on to her.

Especially since the final promise of 2016-era liberalism — its claim to have a profound advantage in competence and intelligence — is not exactly vindicated by the Harris-Walz ticket.

I understand that we are close enough to the election that this last point will be furiously rejected. But notwithstanding the great rally around her after Biden’s bow-out, the Democratic nominee for president is still the Dan Quayle-like figure that almost everybody saw just a little while ago, still vague on policy and painful in extended interviews, still carrying a record as a vice president that inspires little confidence in her abilities.

By comparison Hillary Clinton was clearly a more serious policymaker, Joe Biden was clearly better at the work of politics, and both were more experienced in ways that matter to a chief executive. And Harris’s selection of running mate was a telling double-down on mediocrity: She picked a partner who would cast no shade on her own capabilities, even when there were clear political incentives to choose otherwise.

Better mediocrity than Trump — except that in 2024, unlike 2016, the Republican ticket has the ballast of a running mate who is capable of going multiple rounds in any format (I may have a personal bias in JD Vance’s favor, but I think his performance in interviews and the V.P. debate have been extremely effective), and the fervent involvement of the man responsible for America’s most successful automotive startup and rockets that are the wonder of the world." 

Links - 2nd April 2026 (1 - Iran War)

Caitlin Johnstone | Facebook - ""It's possible to oppose this war AND oppose the Iranian regime. You can denounce BOTH." Sure you can. But you shouldn't. You should not do this. You should not be a pro bono Pentagon propagandist in the middle of a US war of immense consequence. You should not do the hasbarists' job for them. Make them do their own job themselves. This war already has a huge number of propagandists screaming "REGIME BAD" at the top of their lungs in order to ensure that the slaughter continues. You don't need to add your voice to the chorus, and you shouldn't. You should not help them manufacture consent for more human butchery. You should be using your voice solely and exclusively to end the butchery your government and its allies are inflicting on human beings. All your "REGIME BAD" sloganeering accomplished was paving the way to the carnage you see before you today. Your self-righteous denunciations of the Iranian government failed to expand the rights of a single Iranian woman or LGBTQ individual. All you accomplished was helping to grease the wheels for a war of unfathomable horror, ensuring that all Iranians now live under more fear and misery than ever before. If you live under the western empire, you have an ethical obligation to use your voice responsibly in that context. You don't get to just irresponsibly feed into an active war propaganda campaign by regurgitating the same regime change narratives about an empire-targeted government as the US and Israeli governments, and then pretend this doesn't make you culpable for the consequences of your actions. If your words help grease the wheels of the war machine, then you bear partial moral responsibility for what the war machine does with your assistance. You don't get to just pretend that responsibility doesn't exist. The families who are being torn apart with the help of your pro bono war propaganda efforts do not care about your anarchist or Trotskyist "all tyranny is equally bad" political philosophy or how good your virtuous purity posturing makes you feel about yourself. All they experience is the consequences of your actions. As a westerner, your one and only duty is to oppose the depravity of the western empire. That's your only job. Don't lean out the window of the Empire of Perpetual Bloodlust to wag your finger at empire-targeted countries in the global south. It's obnoxious. Curb the murderousness of your own government and its allies. THAT'S your job. If you get your job done, THEN come talk to me about how bad and wrong some random government in west Asia looks to you. Until then, shut the fuck up and do your job."
When left wingers admit that they just hate the West.

Thread by @TrentTelenko on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "The Mullah Regime of Iran is in very deep trouble. Any critical thinker can see that.  What I find remarkable is how many people who should know better are so blinded by their hostility to Netanyahu and Trump that they ignore the military context and the domestic context inside Iran.
The outcome of this war was decided before it began. The January 2026 uprisings occurred because the Iranian currency had collapsed and the economy was collapsing.  This was due to a massive increase in American economic warfare starting right at the beginning of the second Trump administration. Inflation was over 100% a year in January 2026.  The war has made this much worse. Hyper-inflation has now set in and that has only one ending. IMO Iran’s economy and mullah regime will totally collapse in 4-5 months, even if the war ends immediately.  Even if oil exports last until then, hyperinflation means the oil industry workers will go out on strike and the regime protection forces must seek other jobs to feed their families. The latter has already started to happen.
On the military front, these recent Iranian missile/drone launch depletion curves, using AI collected empirical data, shows TELs and munitions may still be squirreled away in dispersal sites, and some blocked tunnels may have been excavated.  The volume has been knocked back over 90%. Only drones are a sustaining asset.
Nowhere is the Mullah Regime's plight underlined more than with Iranian threats against Gulf power to desalination plants.  These threats are genocidal in nature. The lack of understanding of that point just blows my mind.
The inept reactions we see from those who should know better demonstrate how few people understand what happens when the potable water supply is gone in a desert.  Pres. Trump will use graphite weapons against Iranian power plants to show he follows through on his threats and the IRGC will respond with more lethal force against the Gulf infrastructure. It’s likely Iran will hit this target set no matter what Trump does or does not do as they will seek to do as much damage as they can as they go down.  The IRGC are looking for leverage, and their faction of the Mullah regime doesn't care about the consequences, as this is a survival issue for them.  This is the full 1945 German NSDAP "Sampson option" protocol.
How is Iran "winning" when they are shattering their relationships with every Iran appeaser globally?  Additionally, the bottom 40% of Iran has been using barter to obtain food since Nov 2025, and that is what kicked off the failed Jan 2026 rebellion.  Yet otherwise, smart people still say Iran is 'winning' because they hate Trump. Even the ones who acknowledge Mullah regime security forces are not getting paid.  This is madness.
Iranian food insecurity cannot be anything but chronic, and yet some of these people say Iran has food supplies via using the Yuan to buy it across land borders and not by sea via Bandar Abbas.  Which is a dollar-denominated trade and is the cheapest food source due to the lower transportation costs of sea and connected railroads. This is maritime supply chain logistics 101.  Iran as an example of the "irrational regime hypothesis" is less and less a hypothesis and more and more a horror story.
Given Iran's controlling IRGC faction is executing the 1945 German NSDAP end of regime protocol.  We are at the end of an age.  The IRGC-dominated Mullah regime will try to do what it can to bring down the West and the Arab world.  Whether is because the IRGC/Mullah faction hates the Arabs as they are Sunnis, more than they hate the West as secular / Christian, or they hate the Jews is an open question.  [I think "Yes" covers it.]  For the IRGC faction of Iran's Mullah Regime, the concerns of the "internal power game" control, with external reality merely as props for that struggle.  Which is the "Irrational Regime hypothesis" in a nutshell.
Again, we are at the end of an age.  The damage Iran’s Mullah regime does to the world on its inevitable way out guarantees it."

Eyal Yakoby on X - "BREAKING: An Iranian missile struck a Muslim village in Northern Israel on the last night of Ramadan. Ilhan Omar has yet to condemn the repeated attack by Iran against Muslims during Ramadan."

Mario Nawfal on X - "🇮🇷🇺🇸🇬🇧 Iran just proved its missiles can reach far beyond the Middle East  Iran fired two intermediate-range ballistic missiles at Diego Garcia, a joint U.S.-UK military base sitting 4,000 kilometers away in the middle of the Indian Ocean.  Neither hit the base, but the message landed harder than any warhead could.  Tehran has always publicly claimed its missile range tops out at 2,000 km.   This strike attempt doubles that number overnight.   The Khorramshahr-4 that likely carried out the attack can also deliver cluster warheads, the same munitions that have been devastating Israeli cities for three weeks.  Look at the map.  A 4,000 km range from Tehran draws a circle that reaches Paris, London, and most of Europe.  Every NATO capital that thought this war was a distant Middle Eastern problem just realized Iranian missiles could theoretically reach their doorstep.  Source: @sentdefender  WSJ"
Piers Morgan on X - "So not only has Iran brazenly lied about its ballistic missile range capacity, but this means it can probably hit the UK with them - and we have zero, I repeat ZERO, defence against these missiles. Very worrying."
Saul Sadka on X - "The IRGC can definitely hit the UK with a missile that can hit Diego Garcia, the distance is the same, and if it hadn’t been for the efforts of the United States and Israel, all of Europe would have been under a permanent jihadi nuclear cloud, since just as they were lying about the missile range, they were lying about building the nukes to put on the end of those missiles: nukes to destroy London, Paris, and Madrid, and bring about the Armageddon they are religiously bound to crave.  No need to thank Israel and the United States for literally saving the world, but history will know what they did, and how the childish leaders of Europe stood on the sidelines and whined as the adults saved them from their own stupidity."
The cope is that it was an Israeli/American false flag

The Spectator Index on X - "BREAKING: Palestinian Interior Minister has condemned Iranian attacks on Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states"
Clearly, Palestine is controlled by "Zionists" and must be destroyed

Meme - Carl Zha: "I can't get over the fact that Dune is about an oppressed people fighting for their homeland, waging a jihad to bring down a hegemonic empire by threatening to cut off the flow of their most precious commodity after the empire had assassinated their religious leader's father."
The Love Life Of An Asian Guy: "I will always be fascinated with the way propagandized, pro-war, islamaphobic Americans shamelessly consume movies, tv shows, and books that center around marginalized people rising up to fight the authoritarian elites, blissfully unaware that the main protagonist they love so much would probably beat their ass if they met in person."
Scott Laviolette: "Paul Muadib is the bad guy in Dune lol"
"Media literacy" doesn't mean understanding what a cultural work is about. "Media literacy" means pushing the left wing agenda

Meme - "I JUST CAN'T SUPPORT THE MONEY SPENT ON AN ENDLESS WAR WITH IRAN. THIS NEEDS TO BE OVER IN LESS THAN 2 WEEKS!"
"COOL STORY, NOW DO UKRAINE!"

Lebanon expels Iranian envoy, becomes third Gulf nation to act against Tehran
Damn Zionists!

Ryan Gerritsen🇨🇦🇳🇱 on X - "It’s amazing how our Government can’t seem to find 700 IRGC individuals living in Canada, but could immediately find out who donated 5 bucks to the Freedom Convoy"

Moral Clarity Is Not Optional - "I’ve been listening to Democrats and the No War in Iran crowd demand ridiculous things. They want public announcements of timelines, strategic plans, budgets, manpower, reports on readiness, and briefings that will be immediately leaked. They want down to the minute accounts of what Trump knew and when he knew it and what he plans to do and what he will rule out, all the while knowing that releasing all this information would mean disaster for any military move.  I recognize all of it is just an attempt to stop American leadership from ending a half-century of threats, the funding of death around the world, and a risk of nuclear war... I’ve studied some of great Western leaders – Reagan, Churchill, Teddy Roosevelt, George Washington, even FDR and Truman’s wartime leadership—and it appears to me that great leadership requires many traits—competence, discipline, patience—but above all, it requires moral clarity. Even our American Founding Fathers chose moral clarity in separating from England to form a new nation.  A nation that cannot distinguish between right and wrong, friend and foe, truth and deception, will eventually succumb to a do-nothing paralytic—this is especially true in foreign affairs, where the stakes are not theoretical but existential. While strategy, diplomacy, and calculation all matter, they must rest on a foundation of moral certitude. Without that foundation, leadership becomes reactive, inconsistent, and ultimately ineffective... The great failures of leadership have often stemmed not from excessive moral clarity, but from its absence—from an unwillingness to call things what they are. When leaders refuse to recognize aggression, duplicity, or ideological hostility for what they are, they do not create peace; they invite exploitation.  At the same time, it is important to recognize that foreign policy is not a courtroom. Nations are not judges issuing verdicts from a position of detached authority. Foreign policy is far closer to a chessboard—dynamic, adversarial, and unforgiving. Every move invites a counter-move. Every decision carries second- and third-order consequences. The objective is not merely to be right, but to prevail.  Yet even on a chessboard, there are rules and more importantly, an objective: to win.  That is where moral clarity and strategic thinking must intersect"

Israel: Jerusalem holy sites closed to protect worshippers of all faiths - "Jewish, Christian and Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem have been closed “for one reason: protecting worshippers,” the Israeli Foreign Ministry said on Saturday, after official Palestinian Authority TV claimed that wartime restrictions were in place to facilitate a “Passover sacrifice.”  “The same safety measures apply to the Western Wall, Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre,” the ministry wrote in an X post.  “While the Iranian regime fires missiles at civilians of all religions—even toward Jerusalem’s holy sites during Ramadan—Israel protects the life and safety of all worshippers,” the Foreign Ministry added. The Israel Defense Forces’ Home Front Command instituted an across-the-board ban on all public gatherings of more than 50 people due to security concerns following the outbreak of the fighting with Iran... Dean Elsdunne, the police’s international spokesperson, said in a social media post on Friday that “an area such as the Temple Mount complex has no proper shelter for ballistic missiles—definitely not for tens of thousands of people.”  On Feb. 28, the first day of the war, an Iranian warhead impacted “just a few hundred meters” from Jerusalem’s Old City.  The bomb was neutralized by bomb disposal teams of the Israel Police, “who transferred it for further examination at explosives laboratories.”"
This doesn't stop terrorism supporters lying that they didn't close Jewish sites or that they're persecuting Christians and Muslims by closing their sites

Israeli police say new framework aims to ‘enable freedom of worship’ in Jerusalem - "Pizzaballa instead celebrated Mass in the nearby St. Savior’s Monastery, a soaring marble church which is located next to an underground music school that the Israeli military has deemed a safe shelter space."
Damn religious persecution, not letting Christians celebrate Mass!

KanekoaTheGreat on X - "🚨NEW: Steve Witkoff says Iran had 460kg of 60% enriched uranium. "There's no reason to be at 60% unless you're pursuing a weapon." "They have been testing for weaponization since 2003." "They could have easily taken the 60% and made a dirty bomb.""

M.A. Rothman on X - "𝐑𝐎 𝐊𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐍𝐀 𝐒𝐀𝐘𝐒 𝐍𝐄𝐆𝐎𝐓𝐈𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒 𝐖𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆. 𝐈𝐑𝐀𝐍 𝐇𝐀𝐃 𝟏𝟏 𝐁𝐎𝐌𝐁𝐒' 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐇 𝐎𝐅 𝐔𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐈𝐔𝐌 𝐀𝐓 𝟔𝟎% 𝐄𝐍𝐑𝐈𝐂𝐇𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓.
Let's be precise about what Ro Khanna is actually arguing — because it deserves to be stated clearly before it is demolished.  Khanna's position: Iran was not an imminent threat. The JCPOA had enrichment down to 3.6%. We could have negotiated tougher terms through Oman. There were no ICBMs pointed at America. We should have kept talking.  Now here is the reality that Jacqui Heinrich delivered in a single sentence that Khanna had no answer for: Iran walked into negotiations and opened with the declaration that they had enough enriched material to build 𝟏𝟏 𝐧𝐮𝐜𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐰𝐞𝐚𝐩𝐨𝐧𝐬 and were two weeks from doing so.  That was their 𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧. Not a leaked intelligence assessment. Not an American estimate. Iran said it themselves — at the table — as a statement of leverage. They were not hiding their nuclear capability. They were weaponizing it as a negotiating tool. 𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐊𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐚 𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐬 "𝐧𝐨 𝐢𝐦𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭."  Now let's talk about the JCPOA — Khanna's great fallback position. The 2015 deal that was supposed to hold Iran's enrichment at 3.6%. Let's examine what that win actually produced.  Weapons-grade uranium requires 90% enrichment. The JCPOA was supposed to cap Iran at 3.6%. When inspectors and intelligence agencies tracked what Iran was actually doing, they found enrichment at 𝟔𝟎% — nearly seventeen times the agreed limit, and two-thirds of the way to weapons-grade. Iran signed the deal, pocketed the sanctions relief — billions of dollars that funded H-z-b, H-m-s, and every proxy war across the region — and kept enriching the entire time.
That 3.6% Khanna is so proud of? 𝐈𝐫𝐚𝐧 𝐧𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐡𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐭. They reached 60% while diplomats congratulated each other on the success of the framework. And then they walked into the next round of negotiations bragging about enough material for 11 bombs. That is not a negotiating success story. 𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐚 𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐥 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐭 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝐨𝐧𝐞.  Khanna argues the JCPOA bought 15 years of delay. But even accepting that framing entirely — delay to what? At the end of those 15 years, sunset clauses expire, restrictions lift, and Iran is legally permitted to enrich to whatever level they choose. With a more advanced centrifuge program. A more sophisticated missile arsenal. A more entrenched regional proxy network. And 15 additional years of revenue funding all of it. The JCPOA did not solve the Iranian nuclear problem. 𝐈𝐭 𝐬𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐝𝐮𝐥𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐚𝐭 𝐚 𝐡𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐜𝐨𝐬𝐭.  Even Democrats acknowledged this. Even JCPOA supporters conceded it was a delay mechanism, not a permanent solution. Khanna himself admits in the interview that you'd need tougher negotiations afterward. But Iran just told you at the table that they already have 60%-enriched material sufficient for 11 bombs and are two weeks from assembly. Explain exactly what leverage produces tougher terms from a country that has already crossed every red line, violated the existing deal, and is openly bragging about its nuclear capability.  𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐧𝐞𝐠𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐊𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐚 𝐢𝐬 𝐝𝐞𝐟𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐡𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐚𝐫𝐠𝐮𝐞 𝐚𝐠𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧. Decades of diplomacy. Two nuclear deals. Billions in sanctions relief. And Iran arrives at the table at 60% enrichment, bragging about 11 bombs, two weeks from a weapon.  Khanna says we have now created a threat by acting. Let's look at what acting produced.
- The nuclear program is set back.
- The factories are rubble.
- The missile stockpile has drained 90% in ten days.
- The Supreme Leader is incapacitated.
- Kharg Island — 90% of Iran's oil export capacity — has been struck.
- And Iran's Foreign Minister is raging on camera because HIMARS rounds are landing from UAE soil.
 𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐬𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐚 𝐧𝐮𝐜𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐦 𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐬 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞.   Ro Khanna's alternative was another round of talks with a regime that signed the last deal, violated it immediately, enriched to 60%, and then opened the next negotiation by announcing 11 bombs.  And here is the part that should keep every American up at night. This man — Ro Khanna — and the Democrats who think exactly like him were one election away from being in charge of this decision. They would have gone back to the table. They would have offered more sanctions relief. They would have accepted another framework with more sunset clauses and more loopholes and called it diplomacy. And Iran would have kept enriching and producing viable nuclear weapons.  Instead we have a president who looked at 60% enrichment, 11 bombs, and two weeks on the clock — and decided the negotiations were over.  The factories are rubble. The program is set back by years. The Supreme Leader is incapacitated. And the man who made that call is Donald Trump — not a career diplomat, not a think-tank consensus builder, not a president who measures success by the number of agreements signed rather than the number of centrifuges destroyed.  𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐤 𝐆𝐨𝐝 𝐰𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐓𝐫𝐮𝐦𝐩 𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐦 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐑𝐨 𝐊𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐚."

Tahmineh Dehbozorgi on X - "This is an ILLEGAL war on Mordor.  We’re told Sauron “poses an existential threat,” yet somehow this involves sending hobbits 1,500 miles to a volcano.   Regime change in Mordor will only create a power vacuum filled by worse orcs.  Sauron is bad, sure. But is he “march to Mount Doom” bad?  Meanwhile second breakfast is underfunded.  Tell me again how this puts the Shire first?"

Apranik 🇮🇷🇮🇱 on X - "A reporter asked 50 EU politicians in Strasbourg (including the head of the Ecologist party) to simply point to Iran on a map.  NOT A SINGLE ONE got it right. They pointed to Bulgaria, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia!   These exact people sit in cozy offices, dictating Middle East policy and appeasing the Islamic Republic, while lacking basic geography skills.  And YES, throughout their 47 years of appeasement, this terror regime has slaughtered our brightest stars!"
Time to mock Americans for being ignorant

Jill Stein on Iran / Iran & Terror Financing

Dr. Jill Stein @DrJillStein: "holy shit. if confirmed this changes everything."

Tayyaba Usmani @TUsmaniX: "Iranian officials have officially confirmed that a U.S. air operation in Tehran failed, & 173 American soldiers & officers from the U.S. military's elite unit known as "Delta Force" were captured."

Readers added context: "The second picture has the Gemini watermark on the bottom right showing it's a fake Al picture. Account is a free account as evidenced by Google's TOS...."

Shaun Maguire @shaunmmaguire: "When I was in the DoD, one of the things I worked on was understanding global terrorist financing

Every scheme somehow involved Iran and drugs in America

Delete the Islamic Regime and so many problems will simmer down:

- drug supply in America
- disinfo bots
- terror proxies"

"Money Laundering at Lebanese Bank
The chart below shows the intricate money-laundering system the Lebanese Canadian Bank used to divert money to the Shiite militant group Hezbollah, according to United States officials.

According to American officials, the Lebanese Canadian Bank was the hub of an international drug money laundering operation with ties to Hezbollah. Used car and other consumer goods sales revenues had been used to mask the proceeds of illegal drug trade.

LEBANESE CANADIAN BANK

EXCHANGE HOUSES

MONEY
Some money is diverted to Hezbollah.

MONEY
Some money is returned to the U.S. to purchase more used cars.

*drugs from Africa to EUROPE, MONEY back to Africa*
Drugs are sold in Europe. Proceeds are mixed with legitimate used car sale profits in Africa and sent to the L.C.B. through exchange houses.

U.S
Used cars are shipped from the U.S. and sold in Africa.

Money from the L.C.B. is sent through U.S. accounts to pay Asian suppliers of consumer goods
*money to CHINA*

Cocaine is sent from Colombia to European markets via Africa.

COLOMBIA
MONEY from SOUTH AMERICA to Colombia

DRUGS from Colombia to Africa

CONSUMER GOODS from China to South America
Goods from Asia are shipped to consumer product dealers and sold in South America in a scheme to pay off cocaine suppliers."

iFunny deleted this

Links - 1st April 2026 (Mark Carney)

Carson Jerema: Chairman Carney is here to take over the economy - "instead of outlining a plan that would actually increase exports, Carney’s speech at the University of Ottawa recycled nearly all of the themes he’s been talking about since he entered the Liberal leadership race in the winter. He talked of “hinge” moments and the need for making “tough choices,” about how we live in a “dangerous and divided” world and about how the “long process” of deepening economic integration with America is “now over.” When Carney said Canada’s “economic strategy needs to change dramatically,” he really meant it needn’t change much at all. The prime minister can talk about his government’s “60-day red-tape review,” but there is no plan to free the energy industry from the Impact Assessment Act, the tanker ban or the emissions cap.  He can say that, “Budget 2025 will balance the operating deficit in three years,” but that ignores the fact that the true deficit could increase to infinite levels based on how the government defines “operating” and “capital” budgets. Liberal House Leader Steven MacKinnon has already dismissed as “ludicrous” the Conservative party’s demands for supporting the budget, which include keeping the deficit at $42 billion.  What was most clear from Carney’s speech, like pretty much every speech he gives, is that he sees an expanded role for the government, and himself, over the economy. So while he acknowledges that Canada has been gifted with the “third-largest reserves of oil and the fourth-largest reserves of natural gas in the world,” he is almost entirely uninterested in those reserves. He trumpeted a “foundational agreement” with the European Union, but that agreement places a heavy emphasis on “renewables,” “low carbon technologies” and transitioning “away from fossil fuels in energy systems.”  So perhaps the Liberals will behave differently than under the Trudeau years, but they will continue to grow the government in much the same way, perhaps while dating fewer pop stars. The Major Projects Office is tasked with streamlining approvals for infrastructure projects, but only those that meet the government’s approval and numerous requirements, including contributing “to clean growth and Canada’s climate goals.” Carney cited our changing relationship with the United States as the reason for going in a “new” direction, but his views on that relationship cannot be trusted.  The prime minister won the spring election by campaigning on the lie that U.S. President Donald Trump’s public musings about annexing Canada were a serious threat, and the claim that he was best positioned to contain any economic damage from the tariff fiend in the White House. So far, Carney has little to show for it, other than what appears to be a cozy personal relationship with Trump.  While the Americans may not always be the reliable partners we wish them to be, they are still the best option for global leadership. Yes, even with Trump in power. However, Carney talked Wednesday of “re-engaging” with China, a power whose intentions are clearly malevolent, which has interfered in multiple Canadian elections and whose military ambitions are a direct threat to the western world.  Aligning with China will not alleviate Canada’s relationship problems with the Americans, but it will put our security and prosperity at risk... The reasons behind Canada’s middling economic performance are well understood, and it has nothing to do with a lack of government spending, even though Carney bragged about the government’s “fiscal capacity” on Wednesday night. No, this country is overtaxed and over-regulated. Would-be investors are mired in uncertainty.  Rather than, say, rewriting regulations to get critical mineral mines up and running in less than the current 10-15 years, no government funding required, the Liberals would prefer to subsidize electric vehicle battery plants that may not be economically viable on their own, leaving Canada vulnerable to auto companies moving production to the U.S., which is exactly what is happening.  At the core of Carney’s plans is putting government at the centre of the economy — to build homes, to make cars, to invest in artificial intelligence, to pick and choose what projects companies should build.  The free market works because, through prices, it communicates information about scarcity and availability, about which products are in demand and which are oversupplied. It accounts for the countless decisions made by individuals and businesses every day, decisions that no one person or government department is capable of understanding in real time. This is why government is best left to creating clear and limited rules for markets to operate in, but instead Carney believes that he, alone, can run the economy."

Carney government should retire misleading ‘G7’ talking point on economic growth - "In the past, this talking point was frequently used by prime ministers Stephen Harper and Justin Trudeau and their senior cabinet officials. And it’s apparently survived the transition to the Carney government, as the finance minister earlier this year triumphantly tweeted that Canada’s economic growth was “among the strongest in the G7.”  But here's the problem. Canada’s rate of economic growth relative to the rest of the G7 is almost completely irrelevant as an indicator of economic strength because it’s heavily influenced by Canada’s much faster rate of population growth. In other words, Canada’s faster pace of overall economic growth (measured by GDP) compared to most other developed countries has not been due to Canadians becoming more productive and generating more income for their families, but rather primarily because there are more people in Canada working and producing things.  In reality, if you use the more appropriate measure for measuring economic wellbeing and living standards—growth in per-person GDP—the happy narrative about Canada’s performance simply falls apart.  According to a recent study published by the Fraser Institute, if you simply look at total economic growth in the G7 in recent years (2020-24) without reference to population, Canada does indeed look good. Canada’s economy has had the second-most total economic growth in the G7 behind only the United States.  However, if you make a simple adjustment for differences in population change over this same time, a completely different picture emerges. Canada’s per-person GDP actually declined by 2 per cent from 2020 to 2024. This is the worst five-year decline since the Great Depression nearly a century ago. And on this much more important measure of wellbeing, Canada goes from second in the G7 to dead last.  Due to Canada’s rapid population growth in recent years, fuelled by record-high levels of immigration, aggregate GDP growth is quite simply a misleading economic indicator for comparing our performance to other countries that aren’t experiencing similar increases in the size of their labour markets. As such, it’s long past time for politicians to retire misleading talking points about Canada’s “strong” growth performance in the G7.  After making a simple adjustment to account for Canada’s rapidly growing population, it becomes clear that the government has nothing to brag about. In fact, Canada is a growth laggard and has been for a long time, with living standards that have actually declined appreciably over the last half-decade."

Pierre Poilievre on X - "No wonder Carney wants to fire the Parliamentary Budget Officer. Canada’s top Budget Watchdog today published a brutal report exposing how Carney’s costly credit card budget cooks the books, doubles the deficit and promises fake savings. Canadians can’t afford the cost of Carney."

tobi lutke on X - "What you are actually doing here is to bribe nokia to put these jobs into Canada by paying hundreds of thousands of dollars per job from taxpayer money. What this does is to lower the cost basis of nokia per employee. This has been going on for decades, called FDI which all civil servants think is a good thing. I spent a lot of time explaining to civil servants in ottawa that its not good for our economy that American and Oversees branch offices can employ Canadians at half the cost to all the canadian companies around them due to these subsidies. We should not do them at all, they are toxic, at least in the tech sector.   It's never meat to be this way, but the situation that very often arises is: It's strictly worse inside of Canada to be a Canadian company compared to a company headquartered everywhere else.   This is a bad situation, because the fruits of the subsidized labor will accrue to the wealth of other countries and not Canada. It's tax payer money invested into locking up scarce high tech talent in jobs where they no longer contribute to the Canadian economy directly. Why"
Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 on X - "This is the most ominous thing I've read in 2025.  This is the CEO of Shopify, Canada's largest tech company. It's almost as valuable as the Royal Bank.  He's pretty clearly saying Mark Carney's corporate welfare strategy of bribing foreign companies to open up branch plants here undermines homegrown success stories like his. Carney is paying foreign companies to compete against Canadian companies.  Shopify has shown it can win in the free market; but Carney's World Economic Forum style of "stakeholder capitalism" prefers to artificially choose other winners, by giving them  billions.  I'm so sorry to say it, but I predict that Shopify will relocate to Austin or Miami in 2026."

PM Mark Carney's housing photo op faked, Privy Council Office admits | Toronto Sun - "Newly released documents confirm the construction site used as a venue for Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Sept. 14 press conference announcing a new federal housing agency was nothing more than an elaborate — and costly — stage for the cameras... This prompted widespread criticism, with many accusing the government of erecting a “Potemkin village” for the benefit of the cameras."

Mark Carney leaves the AFN meeting early and immediately faces backlash from an Indigenous Chief : r/CanadianConservative - "Also left the House early during question period to attend the AFN meeting. Guy is so busy he can never stick around for questions."
"His personal attacks in question period were deplorable.  When it became obvious that he has no other response to the PBO calling him out yet again his chief of staff must have told him to scram ASAP.  Libs looked very weak and pathetic in QP yesterday on the whole. Too bad most voters don't even watch the soundbites let alone the whole thing."

John Ivison: Carney’s ‘commerce-first’ foreign policy spares no care for atrocities - "Even Justin Trudeau’s own one-time foreign affairs minister, the late Marc Garneau, thought the former prime minister foreign policy prioritized style over substance — a perception that he said weakened Canada’s standing on the international stage. It was to be expected that Prime Minister Mark Carney would attempt to distance himself from the man who took an ill-fated passage to India in February 2018, replete with braided sherwanis and bhangra dancing. It was a trip that played into the narrative that Trudeau was not a serious leader... Carney appears to have secured up to $70 billion of investment in critical minerals, ports and artificial intelligence from the Emiratis. The release announcing the good news contained a paragraph on the ongoing massacres in Sudan, where both leaders condemned attacks against civilians by the Rapid Support Forces and the Sudanese Armed Forces, and called for an immediate ceasefire in the civil war that is devastating that benighted country. So far, so ho hum. Except, as a recent report by the Montreal-based Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights makes clear , UAE is not just another disinterested observer in Sudan’s misery: it is a key architect of it. After the popular uprising against the dictator Omar Al-Bashir in April 2019, the new civilian government was undermined by UAE in favour of the Rapid Support Force (RSF) — the former dreaded Janjaweed — under the command of Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti. The Emiratis covertly armed the RSF, the United Nations alleges, in the face of warnings that the force would commit ethnically targeted mass killings, as it did in 2003. The report, authored by Mutasim Ali and Yonah Diamond, says there is “substantial evidence” linking the UAE to the RSF, including informants who confirm the Emirates has supplied heavy weaponry, armoured vehicles, munitions and drones through Chad and Kenya. The report pointed to an article in the New York Times in June that alleged direct communications lines between Hermedti and Sheikh bin Zayed. The key motivation for the Emirates appears to be gold, which has emerged as the key conflict commodity. Control over gold-mining operations and trade has become a central driver of the civil war, the report said, with 50 to 80 percent of the 70-million tonnes produced annually smuggled abroad, principally to the UAE. The word “genocide” has been thrown around with abandon in recent months, but what is taking place in Sudan merits its use — namely, specific acts carried out with the intent to destroy in whole, on in part, an ethnic or racial group, in this case, the non-Arab population of Darfur. The RSF captured the city of El Fasher last month and satellite images have since shown RSF fighters burying bodies in large numbers in an apparent effort to hide the evidence of mass slaughter. The Emiratis deny the allegations but have not provided any evidence to the contrary, particularly on the 85 cargo flights that are said to have transferred arms. The UAE has directly and indirectly enabled the RSF and its allies to carry out war crimes and crimes against humanity, the report says. “The UAE bears complicity in these crimes,” it concluded, adding it is breaking the Genocide Convention in doing so. At a press conference to highlight efforts to create an all-party parliamentary coalition to call for action, former justice minister Irwin Cotler said the latest tragedy highlights the international “indifference, inaction and impunity” since the last genocide attempt in Darfur 22 years ago."
Time to sanction Israel, since we know "Zionists" are behind everything wrong in the world

Kelly McParland: Carney buries Trudeau's 'feminist foreign policy' - "Much as he’d like to concentrate on his plans to transform Canada, Mark Carney still finds it necessary to explain to people that he’s not Justin Trudeau. Weekending in Johannesburg on one of his regular missions to drum up business, he found himself being queried about his government’s dedication to gender equity. That was a big concern of the previous Liberal regime, but one that’s had a lower billing with the Carney camp... “We have that aspect to our foreign policy, but I wouldn’t describe our foreign policy as feminist foreign policy,” the prime minister replied. “Those are different points, but related.” The remarks were reported as a sharp shift away from a decade of Liberal policies that saw gender equality as a core principle. The Trudeau government never spelled out in detail exactly how the policy worked, but the former prime minister and his top lieutenants regularly declared their dedication to feminist values at home and abroad. I expect Carney would strongly object to any suggestion he’s anti-feminist; instead, he was making the point that demanding progress on feminist priorities doesn’t supersede all other interests in Canadian public policy... The focus of his travels has centred mainly on economic issues and the upheaval in world relations: what to do about Trump, what to do about Ukraine and Russia, what to do about China, what to do about Canada’s chronic status as a large but underperforming economy... It’s been like that for much of the Carney agenda. A record of stops and starts, advances and retreats. He won a pledge for $70 billion in investments from the United Arab Emirates last week; yet at the same time a big meeting on interprovincial trade indicated Canadian premiers still don’t quite grasp the concept of a barrier-free country. A “mutual recognition agreement” reached in Yellowknife heralded supposed advances in cutting barriers, but excluded food, alcohol, tobacco and plants, and “does not currently apply to how a good is sold, or who may sell or purchase it.” A separate memorandum of understanding was reached on transportation issues, a key barrier to progress, but wasn’t released pending further discussions."

Lorne Gunter: Liberals' hatred of Alberta and oil obvious in major projects snub - "Both the CBC and the Globe and Mail were given advanced copies of Carney’s list of Round Two projects. And like the first round he released in September, it not only doesn’t include a pipeline from Alberta to the West Coast, it doesn’t include any projects in Alberta at all. To add insult to this oversight, the Ksi Lisims LNG pipeline that is supposed to be included in Thursday’s announcement will not take any natural gas from Alberta to an LNG terminal on Pearse Island north of Prince Rupert. The only gas will be from B.C. Could it be that Alberta’s oil and gas are being deliberately targeted? There have been recent reports that the Liberals’ environmental caucus (made up mostly of the most radical “green” members of Justin Trudeau’s cabinet and caucus) have been upset with Prime Minister Carney’s decision to delay the implementation of Ottawa’s electric vehicle (EV) mandate for at least a few years. A move to landlock Alberta’s resources could be a bone thrown to the eco-caucus so they don’t create problems within the Liberal party. Such a move would also not be a stretch for Carney, who was himself an environmental ambassador for the United Nations before becoming Liberal leader. One of the members of the Liberals’ “green” caucus, Steven Guilbeault (who endorsed Carney for leader), did all he could to shut down the resource industry while he was Trudeau’s extremist environment minister. Whenever you’re talking about the Liberals, remember that nothing motivates them more than thoughts of re-election. They have 20 seats in B.C., just two in Alberta. What’s more, the Liberals’ 20 B.C. seats are mostly in the “green”-obsessed Lower Mainland. An oil and bitumen pipeline from Alberta to Prince Rupert would anger Liberal voters in B.C., without winning them any votes in Alberta. Most of Carney’s high-profile projects, especially in the first round, were shams. Before he announced them two months ago, most of them were already approved and under construction... Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has got to stop making nice-nice with Carney and the Liberals. Smith claims she is “still working” with the federal government on approval of a pipeline to the B.C. coast, plus a major carbon-capture project or two. She also thinks she might convince the Libs to repeal of what she calls the “nine bad laws,” including the emissions cap on oil and gas, a tanker ban off the West Coast and the net-zero electricity mandate. Those Trudeau-era laws scared away hundreds of billions of dollars in investment to our province"

KLEIN: Is this the beginning of Canada’s collapse? - "Across the federation, serious discussions about separation are gaining traction. These aren’t fringe activists shouting into the wind. They are business leaders, community figures and everyday residents who believe their province is no longer respected or represented by the federal government. What is most alarming is how many Canadians dismiss these conversations as background noise, as if unity is something that sustains itself without leadership or action. Take Quebec. The Parti Québécois has revived the sovereignty project with more detail than we have seen in years... the most pressing danger is coming from the West, and the warning signs are impossible to miss. Prime Minister Mark Carney recently announced another round of so-called nation-building projects. Once again, an Alberta pipeline was nowhere to be found. At this point, that omission is not an oversight. It is a message. And people in the West have heard it loud and clear. Grant Fagerheim, the CEO of Whitecap Resources, didn’t soften his words when asked about Ottawa’s refusal to prioritize pipeline development. He warned that if the federal government continues to stall, we should expect “fury from Alberta and Saskatchewan.” He’s right. Their patience is wearing thin. And why wouldn’t it? These are the only two landlocked provinces in Canada. They rely on cooperation from Ottawa to get their energy to international markets. Instead, they face regulatory walls and political lectures. Fagerheim wants something very simple: a federal government willing to help break down barriers so Canadian products can reach global buyers without being sold at a discount. That isn’t radical. That is common sense. But common sense has been missing in Ottawa for years. Meanwhile, Americans continue selling our oil and gas to other countries at a premium while also benefiting from cheaper domestic fuel. We have allowed ourselves to become a captive supplier to the United States. A pipeline to tidewater would give Canadians access to international markets instead of being forced into the role of junior partner in our own energy economy. Yet when Alberta proposes a bitumen pipeline or even a broader energy corridor that could move natural gas, oil, rail and electricity across multiple provinces, Ottawa hesitates. Fagerheim’s vision is practical and rooted in economic reality. He knows the industry inside and out. His company just completed a massive merger to create a leading Canadian light oil producer. He’s not making emotional arguments. He’s speaking from experience. He is also blunt about the political double standard. If these resources were in central or eastern Canada, he believes “this would be a different game.” That shouldn’t be controversial. It is supported by decades of decisions that favoured one region’s priorities over another’s. And he’s right that the energy sector has been demonized. Few Canadians seem aware that Western producers spend enormous resources on emissions reduction, carbon sequestration and responsible development. Saskatchewan is home to one of the largest carbon sequestration projects on the planet. It earns applause in Europe and Asia, but barely a mention in its own country. How long can a federation survive when the engine of its economy is treated like an inconvenience?... For provinces like Manitoba, this is a direct threat. If Alberta and Saskatchewan decide they have had enough, equalization payments collapse. Manitoba would face financial devastation. Services would be slashed. Our economy would take a hit that would take generations to recover from. These are not speculative warnings. They are mathematical realities. Yet Ottawa continues selecting projects in regions with the most votes, while the West is expected to wait patiently for recognition. That pattern erodes trust. And without trust, there is no federation. Corporations see this instability too. Every headline about sovereignty, every political fight over pipelines, every sign that Ottawa is unwilling to support resource development makes investors hesitate. Capital is mobile. If uncertainty grows, companies will place their money elsewhere. Canada cannot afford to bleed investment and expect the economy to somehow hold together. We are already losing ground. Printing money and hoping inflation will settle is not a plan. It is a gamble."
Time for more concessions to Quebec, funded with Albertan money, while mocking Albertans as traitors, condemning the US, and continuing to destroy the oil and gas industry

Guns versus butter: Canada's military-industrial complex - "According to the Mark Carney Liberal doorstopper piece of economic fiction, the 2025 Canada Strong budget, Ottawa plans $81.8 billion in new military spending that will help boost the economy and create thousands of high-paying jobs. “Our government is making a generational investment in defence that will create good, high-paying careers for Canadians, and strengthen our economy and collective resilience.” The new military spending “will create good, high-paying careers for Canadian workers and drive investments that strengthen our economic, infrastructure, and collective resilience.” Ottawa, it repeated, will “reform defence procurement to make it easier and faster to buy Canadian-made equipment — supporting our domestic defence industry and creating high-paying careers.“ Unfortunately, the idea that defence spending and investment automatically boost economic activity and growth is far from being a solid pillar of economic theory. As the pressure grew on Canada to increase defence spending to up to five per cent of GDP as part of an expansion of NATO commitments, various economists issued papers over the past year that cast doubt on the links between defence spending and economic benefits... The negative aspects of defence spending include possible “capital leakage, fiscal overspending, and the risk of diverting resources from more productive sectors of the economy.”... research suggests “that the economic impact of increased military spending in Canada will depend closely on the specific types of expenditures undertaken, its military characteristics (capital intensity), and its ability to generate spillover effects within a military-industrial complex.” Which means that the deeper Canada becomes involved in the international military expansion boom, perhaps the economic impact will be positive. A European Commission summary of the economic impact of higher defence spending failed to find positive evidence"

Carney forced pension funds to back Canada. What happened next is a warning for Reeves - "Melanie Joly, his industry minister, has told fund providers to invest more of their C$3tn (£1.6tn) of assets at home to help the turn to economic nationalism.  But now, this wave of “pension nationalism” risks spiralling out of control. Cash-strapped Canadian provinces – tempted by the prospect of a new source of much-needed capital – have rushed to copy the approach and invest pensions in local projects, pouring people’s savings into potentially unprofitable ventures.  The embrace of pension nationalism risks getting “very messy” for millions of Canadians’ savings, senators and former Bank of Canada officials told The Telegraph... Canada’s Maple Eight pension system has become the envy of the world since it was introduced in the 1990s.  The scheme unites the country’s public sector funds which pay out defined benefit pensions. It is famous for its independent fund managers and its diversified, global portfolios in private markets.  With that model, the Maple Eight have delivered a higher net value add to savers in the past 35 years than any of its competitors around the world, according to CEM Benchmarking, a pension data analytics firm.   But experts say that tradition risks being sacrificed as Carney looks to use all the economic tools available to him – including the Maple Eight – to fortify Canada against American threats.  Paul Beaudry, who previously served as deputy governor of the Bank of Canada, warned that the “arm-twisting” involved in forcing pension funds to support development goals risked descending into “crony capitalism”.  “You want to be very careful not to coerce the pension funds because then you open up a whole set of issues. The accountability of the pension funds is towards the pensioners, so that can get very messy”, he said.   Sebastien Betermier, associate professor of finance at McGill, said pension nationalist policies like mandated investments were “the equivalent of imposing a tax on pensioners”.  “It’s a dangerous path that risks lower returns for savers. Every fund at the end of the day will want to maintain a globally diversified portfolio”, he added.  Meanwhile, the threat of “pension nationalism” spreading to the Canadian provinces risks even further damage as savers’ money is used to fund projects that could yield lower returns.  François Legault, the Quebec premier, has announced a “Quebec Power” programme – pushing the French-speaking province’s Caisse de Depot pension fund to invest in the anaemic local economy.   Similar moves are being made in Alberta – the western province often referred to as “Canada’s Texas”. Danielle Smith, the populist premier, wants to withdraw the province from the federal pension fund in a bid, according to her critics, to pour people’s savings into the single large local industry: oil and gas.  Critics claim that when pension nationalism is put into practice, particularly on a more local level, it can lead to a large portion of people’s savings being concentrated in a small set of industries – with too many of their eggs in one basket.  Senator Clement Gignac, an economist and former Quebec cabinet minister, said: “At the end of the day, if you want to have a decent revenue at retirement, you know you have to diversify.  “The funds have to be managed by professionals. It’s not the business of politicians.”  Mr Beaudry claimed that politicians should be in charge of a “big enough unit” before they “even think about pension nationalism”... Quebec’s main pension fund, the Caisse de Depot, has historically worked differently than the rest of the Maple Eight because of its origins in the Quebecois nationalism of the 1960s and 1970s. Since it was founded, the fund has had a “dual mandate” which requires it to boost the provincial economy on top of the normal fiduciary responsibility to savers.  But in recent decades, as Quebec faced a rapidly ageing population, the Caisse fund shifted its strategy towards globalising its portfolio – an approach which yielded great success and avoided financial insolvency.  Daniel Béland, a political science professor at McGill, warned Mr Legault’s measures could turn the fund back to the past and threaten its financial future once again."
When returns fall, it will be proof that capitalism has failed and more regulation is needed

Jasmin Laine 🇨🇦 on X - "Can we drop the whole ‘Conservatives are terrible’ thing already? They’ve run Canada for 9 of the last 32 years… and the last 10 have been under this mess. So who’s really to blame? The Conservative government that—by every metric—had us on the right track… or the establishment that’s had a 32-year grip and has been manipulating you to keep them in power?"
Clearly, this shows how damaging Harper was, such that he's ruined Canada forever

Ryan Gerritsen🇨🇦🇳🇱 on X - "A great clip summarizing the long list of bad policies Carney’s Government still has in place. Canada will never prosper under a Liberal Government."

Roman Baber on X - "Carney sent @FP_Champagne and @AnitaAnandMP to Mexico in an act of desperation. Mexico wasn't interested. @MarkJCarney has terrible judgement."

“It is essential not to contribute to increased oil and coal production and to focus on renewable and transition energies." - Marc André Blanchard, Mark Carney’s new Chief of Staff : r/Ontario_Sub

What will you sacrifice for Carney and country? - The Globe and Mail - "The budget, to be voted on by MPs on Monday, had much-hyped cuts to the public service. But there were no major tax hikes or cuts to social programs. The budget had nearly $90-billion in net new spending. To pay for that, we borrow on the bond market. Canadians down the line pay that back.  Canada’s books are relatively good, and the government says we’ll borrow less next year. But we say that year after year, announce more borrowing and shift the goalposts. The trend is worrying. In Britain and France, debt devastates state capacity and breeds instability because those countries once thought their books were good, too.  Instead of asking what we can do for future generations, we asked what future generations can do for us. That is not sacrifice. A prebudget Globe editorial cartoon was surprisingly prescient: It showed kids handing Mr. Carney their Halloween candy.  If we want to, in Mr. Carney’s words, “invest more” and “reinvest in the Canadian Armed Forces,” we should pay for today’s spending today. The cuts to the public service are positive. Ideally, we should cut more, such as from Old Age Security, which benefits rich as well as poor retirees. But OAS seems a sacred cow no party dares touch. Indeed, a lot of federal spending covers various benefits, health care and social services – politically impossible to cut...  Many economists agree that taxing consumption does less to hurt productivity than taxing income... Ireland gives tax incentives for business investment, but that is balanced by consumption taxes as high as 23 per cent. From 1995 all the way up to the 2008 financial crisis, Ireland’s economy grew 6 to 10 per cent per year, on average...  in Canada consumption taxes are not charged on necessities such as groceries, and lower-income folks get some back via the GST credit payment. If we worry about the regressive impact of a higher GST, we can always up the credit... Michael Wernick, former clerk of the privy council, has suggested a 2-per-cent “defence and security” consumption tax. It’s really just a GST hike, but his proposal labels where the money goes and separates it... this tax should be clearly labelled such on receipts. And the cheque and letter sent should not only elaborate in detail what that additional GST buys but also include a personal thank you from a real person. If it’s a defence tax, the thank you could be from a soldier. We can go even further and have high-schoolers pitch in, thanking taxpayers for not saddling them with debt in the future."

Tasha Kheiriddin: Don't fall for Carney's 'Buy Canadian' fallacy - "Protectionists, start your engines. On Monday, Prime Minister Mark Carney unveiled a “Buy Canadian” procurement policy that prioritizes Canadian suppliers for all manner of federal spending, including a second set of national “major projects” he’s announcing on Thursday. “We will build Canadian, by becoming our own best customer,” Carney intoned. Ottawa will allocate nearly $186 million in new funding to the policy, including “streamlined support for Canadian small and medium-sized businesses trying to break into the federal market.” At first blush, this sounds incredibly patriotic: make things at home, spend our tax dollars on our own businesses, support Canadian jobs. But it also represents a retreat from the free trade policies that have served Canada so well, while doing nothing to counter the big bugbear of our economy: low productivity. It makes a virtue of corporate welfare, whereby the government picks economic winners and losers, in this case based solely on nationality. The “Buy Canadian” doctrine effectively gives Canadian companies a guaranteed market, regardless of how good their products are, or how efficient their business is. But guaranteed markets breed complacency. The drive to cut costs, innovate, and reach new markets vanishes — and consumer prices go up. Case in point: for decades, Canadian regulations have sheltered our Big Six banks and our telecom monopolies from competition. As a result, Canadians pay billions in “excess” bank fees and some of the highest telecom costs in the world. Supply management policies do the same thing for agricultural products, keeping foreign competition out and raising the cost of staples like eggs and milk for consumers. Worse yet, attempts to prefer “home-grown” businesses can lead to graft and waste. The $59-million ArriveCan procurement scandal resulted in part from guidelines requiring the awarding of contracts to Indigenous-owned firms, which saw companies pretending to be First-Nations based to get deals. In fact, Ottawa’s entire IT procurement policy was slammed for a lack of variety in suppliers. When you erect trade walls — even patriotic ones disguised as procurement policy — you also stunt productivity. According to the Bank of Canada , a more competitive business environment would drive greater innovation and efficiency, particularly for small and medium-sized businesses, the very ones Carney’s strategy now wants to prefer. Canada’s productivity problem will not be solved by stifling competition, but by opening it up. And contrary to the naysayers, free trade has benefitted both Canadians and Americans. The Bank of Canada found that real income rose by 15-40 per cent due to Canada-U.S. free trade. Canada is now the top export market for 36 U.S. states, supporting millions of American jobs. The U.S. trade deficit with Canada is due entirely to energy imports , which America has enjoyed at below-market rates for decades. This energy has in turn fuelled their domestic industries in everything from manufacturing to AI... If we insist our government spend only on Canadian goods or services, other nations will respond in kind, and our firms lose access to markets... Industrial policy and procurement nationalism produce winners by government decree rather than by merit; they protect sectors and shield them from competition; and they shrink markets and squelch innovation. Carney should not swap Canada’s trade advantage for the illusion of self-sufficiency."
The same people who support this bash Trump's tariffs and denounce "greedy" corporations for raising prices, of course