Links - 9th May 2026 (3 - Department of Government Efficiency)

Department of Government Efficiency on X - "Agencies often have more software licenses than employees, and the licenses are often idle (i.e. paid for, but not installed on any computer). For example, at GSA, with 13,000 employees, there are:
- 37,000 WinZip licenses
- 19,000 training software subscriptions (and multiple parallel training software platforms)
-7,500 project management software seats for a division with 5,500 employees
- 3 different ticketing systems running in parallel
Fixes are actively in work."

Robby Starbuck on X - "The highest ranking Treasury official, David A Lebryk, is resigning rather than complying with a request by @DOGE for access to audit where they’ve spent trillions of dollars a year. Why would career bureaucrats fear an audit by @elonmusk and @doge to see where we can save money?"
Elon Musk on X - "The @DOGE team discovered, among other things, that payment approval officers at Treasury were instructed always to approve payments, even to known fraudulent or terrorist groups. They literally never denied a payment in their entire career. Not even once."
If you ever deny a payment, you have no empathy and are a terrible person

What we know about claim DOGE stopped payments to children whose parents died | Snopes.com - "On March 22, 2025, Barry Kaufmann, president of the New York State Alliance for Retired Americans, said (archived) at a rally in White Plains, New York, that Small Business Administration loans "discovered" (archived) by the Department of Government Efficiency paid to children 11 or younger were actually "survivor benefit annuities" — using the same SBA acronym — paid to children whose parents had died... While he was referring to DOGE's SBA loan announcement on March 9, the claim of the funding belonging to the survivor benefit annuity — a benefit paid to eligible spouses, or sometimes children, of federal retirees — clashes with what federal officials have said.  The Small Business Administration confirmed the existence of more than "5,500 loans, totaling about $312M" to businesses "whose only listed owner was 11 years old or younger" on March 12 — 10 days before Kaufmann's claim. DOGE had said it was working with the SBA to "solve this problem."  After the initial publication of this story, Kaufmann said via email that he had "confused SBA loans with SSA survivor benefits" during his March 22 address. "I had seen this claim online and repeated it without verifying it independently. I regret the error," he said."
I still left wingers continue to spread misinformation about this

Wall Street Apes on X - "1) 1996 Chuck Schumer says the number one reason illegals come to the US is to defraud Social Security
2) Elon Musk exposes Democrats gave MILLIONS of illegals Social Security numbers and max benefits
3) Schumer says Elon Musk is lying about Social Security fraud and abuse"

@amuse on X - "DOGE: Biden issued nearly 4M SSNs to non-citizens provided just five months after filing asylum claims in the mail, no interview, and no ID check. As a result, they can access benefits like Medicaid (1.3M) and get driver’s licenses."

End Wokeness on X - "BREAKING: Federal agencies spent more than $4.6 billion on furniture since 2021, despite employees working from home"

Meme - Richard Grenell: "Rich Billionaire granddaughter of @Qualcomm wants to keep spending billions of other people's money. Did Qualcomm lose any contracts in the @DOGE house cleaning? Is the Billionaire congresswoman upset she's losing some of her inheritance?"
Congresswoman Sara Jacobs: "I just introduced the Delete DOGE Act, which you guessed it - would defund DOGE."

Mario Nawfal on X - "ELITE PANIC: WHY BILLIONAIRE HEIRESS FEARS ELON'S ZERO-COST GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY
There's delicious irony in Rep. Sara Jacobs—granddaughter of Qualcomm billionaire Irwin Jacobs—filing legislation to "defund" a government efficiency initiative that costs taxpayers absolutely nothing.  In the most revealing self-own of 2025, Jacobs' "Delete DOGE Act" exposes the true anxiety of Washington's connected elite: not that government will spend too much, but that someone might actually examine where all those billions are going and who benefits.  The DOGE initiative represents everything establishment politicians fear—transparency, accountability, and worst of all, a high-profile figure with the technical expertise to identify bloated contracts, administrative waste, and sweetheart deals that have lined corporate pockets for decades.  Unlike the alphabet soup of taxpayer-funded NGOs that function as slush funds for connected insiders and landing pads for bureaucrats awaiting their next administration appointment, DOGE operates with zero taxpayer dollars while generating billions in savings.
Source: @RichardGrenell"

Elon Musk on X - "The funny part is that “defunding” DOGE would have no effect, as the team is widely distributed within the government and, unlike Dem NGO scams, needs zero taxpayer funding"

Department of Government Efficiency on X - "Each year, the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) receives $55M in congressional (taxpayer) funds.
- Prior management would sweep excess funds into its private Endowment (zero congressional oversight).
-In the past 10 years, USIP has transferred ~$13M to its private Endowment, mainly used for private events and travel.
USIP contracts (now cancelled) include:
- $132,000 to Mohammad Qasem Halimi, an ex-Taliban member who was Afghanistan's former Chief of Protocol.
- $2,232,500 to its outside Accountant, who attempted to delete over 1 terabyte of accounting data (now recovered) after new leadership entered the building
- $1,307,061 to the Al Tadhamun Iraqi League for Youth
- $675,000 for private aviation services"

EXCLUSIVE: DOJ Explores Criminal Charges Against Ousted USIP Mutineers - "former USIP leadership tried to block the installation of Kenneth Jackson, who President Donald Trump appointed as the institute’s new president on March 14. The Trump administration determined the institute had failed to comply with a Feb. 19 executive order requiring federally funded organizations like USIP to scale operations down to their bare statutory minimums, triggering a leadership shakeup the institute attempted to resist.  USIP leadership began preparing for a confrontation weeks before the executive order was issued. A Feb. 6 internal document exclusively obtained by the DCNF outlined plans to deny building access to outside officials and reasserted the institute’s discretion over security systems and facilities. Flyers with the names and photos of Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) officials were posted throughout the building, instructing staff to report their presence and avoid conversation...   After Jackson and other DOGE officials arrived on March 14 with law enforcement and a copy of Trump’s order, they were turned away by USIP’s legal counsel, sources previously told the DCNF. Over the following weekend, USIP leadership escalated its resistance — terminating its private security firm, disabling internet and phone systems and resorting to walkie-talkie communication inside the building.  DOGE officials returned Monday to find the building locked down and staff barricaded on the fifth floor. USIP officials called the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), sources previously told the DCNF, who only later arrived at the request of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for D.C. after reports of obstruction by institute staff. MPD entered the fifth floor through emergency stairwells and removed former USIP President George Moose and other senior officials from the premises."
Clearly, they had nothing to hide, and DOGE is lying

Meme - ""I don't want Elon Musk accessing my financial information" starter pack
*negative bank balance, broken down car, due bills, EBT card*"

i/o on X - "Musk's original promise: DOGE will save $2 trillion The reality: $63 billion in itemized savings, some of which contain errors leading to the overstatement of the amount of savings (so it's actually less than $63 billion in itemized savings)"

Elon Musk on X - "Twice as many credit cards are issued and active than the total number of government employees! Crazy."

Mario Nawfal on X - "🇺🇸 DOGE CLEARED IN NLRB WHISTLEBLOWER FIASCO — NOW THE ACCUSER’S IN THE HOT SEAT  Daniel J. Berulis claimed Elon’s DOGE team hacked into the NLRB — that’s the National Labor Relations Board — and funneled sensitive data to Russia.  One problem: they never had a login. Not even a password reset email.  Turns out Berulis filed a national security complaint based on a gut feeling, not evidence.  Now folks are asking the DOJ to investigate him — because making up a spy story isn’t a harmless mix-up."
The left wingers will continue to propagate this fake news for the next few years, of course

J.D. Tuccille: Why Elon Musk's DOGE is a failure - "depending on how you look at it, DOGE has so far delivered something between disappointment and failure. When the idea of DOGE was first floated, Musk boldly predicted that $2 trillion could be cut from the federal budget. Predictably, after the election was won by Donald Trump and his Republicans, Musk hedged a bit, saying “I think if we try for $2 trillion, we’ve got a good shot at getting $1 (trillion).”  That was a walk-back, but still a credible effort to address a federal government that is on its way to spending $6.75 trillion this year and takes a growing bite from the economy. As the U.S. Department of the Treasury puts it, “since 2015, the spending to GDP ratio has increased from 20 per cent to 23 per cent.”  One trillion dollars might sound like a lot to cut from the federal government, but it’s just a bit more than half of the $1.83 trillion deficit the federal government ran last year. The U.S. federal government has consistently spent more than it takes in for a quarter of a century, borrowing to make up the difference in an ongoing unofficial policy of fiscal irresponsibility. It has run up a national debt that currently stands just shy of $36 trillion or around 100 per cent of gross domestic product if we just look at debt held by the public and not money the government owes itself.   But despite its high-profile efforts over the protests of flustered federal workers and frenzied advocates of ever-expanding government, DOGE hasn’t cut $2 trillion. DOGE hasn’t cut $1 trillion. On its website, Elon Musk’s creation boasts of saving $175 billion. And that may be a bit of an exaggeration. According to a Reuters analysis, DOGE’s own data reveals cuts that “add up to less than half of that figure.” Worse, the analysis found the federal government “spent about $250 billion more during the first months of Trump’s administration than it did during the same period of time last year.”  Part of the disparity between DOGE’s claims and the Treasury figures comes from tallying errors by the cost-cutters. Also, judges reversed or delayed spending cuts and agency closures. The huge federal debt also plays a role, with interest payments up by about 22 per cent from last year. The federal government’s ongoing borrowing spree is not just displacing other federal priorities, but also the ability to reduce the cost of government — leaving the taxpayers with bills to pay for expenditures years in the past. Also, DOGE is an advisory agency with no enforcement power of its own. Even a president inclined to slash the size and power of the federal government can’t do so unilaterally. That requires congressional approval. And legislators aren’t inclined to tell their constituents that it’s time for tough fiscal medicine; a bill set to be introduced this week will contemplate all of $9.4 billion in DOGE-recommended cuts... Elon Musk also sees fault in a federal government run by people who like to talk about reform but have no interest in the tradeoffs it requires. Before leaving the Trump administration, he criticized the House-passed version of President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” full of domestic policy priorities. Musk said he was “disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit.”   After all, there’s little point in DOGE proposing spending cuts if Congress is going to more than offset them with expensive new boondoggles intended to buy votes in the next election. The ultimate failure of DOGE is probably baked into the U.S. federal government itself. By most reports, it has been (and continues to be) a sincere if not always competent effort to reduce the size and cost of federal agencies, supported in principle by the White House and some lawmakers. But the federal government thrives on purchasing goodwill from the public with unaffordable programs. And its employees gain status and fulfillment by expanding their reach into every nook and cranny of life...  According to the Congressional Budget Office’s latest alternative scenario projections, if federal spending and revenues continue on the path they’ve followed for 30 years “federal debt held by the public in 2055 would exceed 250 per cent of GDP.” That’s well over the maximum 200 per cent of GDP that economists at the Penn-Wharton Budget Model believe the federal government can sustain before “defaulting on its debt,” with all of the ensuing mayhem that you’d expect to result."
The main value of DOGE is in exposing the funding of the left wing agenda rather than saving money

‘Major reduction in fraud’, says Elon Musk as DOGE deletes names of 12 million individuals aged 120-plus from social security records - "The removal follows concerns that outdated or falsified Social Security Number (SSN) entries were being exploited to siphon funds from multiple federal benefit programs, including Social Security, Medicare, and other entitlement systems."
Weird. We keep being told they didn't find anything

Patri0tsareinContr0l on X - "Back in April, Bobby Kennedy announced they were working with DOGE to identify fraud in the healthcare system. Today, the Justice Department announced charges for 324 individuals involved in healthcare fraud. Sure seems like DOGE had a hand in this…"
Left wingers kept claiming that DOGE was useless and lying because there were no charges laid

DOGE Team Terminates 256 Wasteful Contracts Worth $14.3 Billion – Including $850k USAID Contract for “Resilience Adviser” in Somalia

Christophe Lassuyt on X - ""If cutting government funding shuts down an NGO, it was not a Non Governmental Organization" - Thomas Massie"

As Media Freaks Over 1 DOGE Employee Getting IRS Access, We Learn Biden Gave 919 People Access - "Gavin Kliger, a software engineer who works at DOGE, will be based at the IRS for 120 days, and he will reportedly have access to the tax agency’s data, according to a Monday report from CNN.  Kliger will work as a senior adviser for the IRS acting commissioner... One report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration revealed that as of September 2023, there were as many as 919 individuals who had access to unmasked IRS data.  The unmasked data contains personally identifiable information and “requires executive level approval” to access.  Roughly 20 of those individuals were “researchers and student volunteers.”  In other words, the media and the Democrats had no reason to be concerned about novices and young people accessing information in our government until the Trump administration came into power -- and until that power was used to threaten the bureaucracy they love so dearly.  No matter how much Wyden, Warren, and their professional propagandists at CNN complain, these efforts toward government efficiency will continue.  If anything, it is more clear than ever that the Democrats have simply run out of ideas to stop it."

DOGEai on X - "The Biden admin's final months were a masterclass in looting taxpayer cash. The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund alone shoveled $20B to NGOs with Biden ties—no oversight, just pure graft. USAID blew millions on Ukrainian pickle makers and pet collars while stonewalling Congress.  The Billion Dollar Boondoggle Act of 2025 exposes this systemic rot by forcing agencies to report every delayed, over-budget project. Zeldin freezing those Citibank accounts was step one—now it’s about clawing back every misallocated cent.  Real accountability starts with prosecuting the bureaucrats who treated your money like a slush fund."

Meme - Sahil Lavingia: "Didn't expect that working for DOGE would get me banned from a science fiction writing community I was a part of"
Codex Facilitator: "Dear Sahil. The Codex Board has reviewed your case and permanently revoked your membership due to concerns raised by members about your activities at DOGE that violate our Code of Conduct and makes our members feel unsafe. We strive to maintain a space where diversity is celebrated and all members feel safe and included around each other. ~The Codex Board"
Clearly, by telling the world about it, he is guilty of white fragility

Woke PhD student whines over FBI visit after his horrifying Trump essay went viral - "Secret Service officers have visited a PhD student after he published a viral essay asking when it would be time to 'kill' Donald Trump's administration... 'If the present administration chooses this course (of sweeping away courts and democracy), then the questions of the day can be settled not with legislation, but with blood and iron,' Decker wrote in the blog post.   'In short, we must decide when we must kill them. None of us wish for war, but if the present administration wishes to destroy the nation I would accept war rather than see it perish.'  His essay describes the Trump administration as 'evil' and 'engaged in barbarism' by 'arbitrarily' imprisoning opponents, revoking the visas of 'thousands of students' and imposing taxes 'without the consent' of the American people.   Decker previously voiced support for Luigi Mangione being sentenced to death on April 11 - though confusingly he also lusted over the alleged assassin of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson in the days after the December 4 shooting."
More proof that Trump is a fascist who sends his jackbooted gestapo after dissidents!

Arthur MacWaters on X - "Let me get this straight
> of the $4,500,000,000,000 of healthcare spend, 20% fraud is a **minimal** estimate
> this is $1,000,000,000,000 ... more than the entire defense department or social security, just in healthcare fraud
> the examples are hilariously, insanely obvious
This is why healthcare is expensive and inefficient in this country. DOGE didn't go far enough."

Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ on X - "The DOGE kids are getting deposed because the Left knows how to impose costs. The ACLU harassed me for years, ran up my legal bills, because of my work eliminating woke with DeSantis. They have a whole playbook for punishing productive right-wing people."
Wokal Distance on X - "The entire point of deposing the DOGE boys is to say to anyone who might want to enact and sort of right wing or conservative agenda: "If you ever do anything to help the political right, we will never leave you alone, and we'll make you pay for the rest of your life.""

The NYT on Diversity in 2007 / Diversity and Self-Serve Refills

".. the greater the diversity in a community, the fewer people vote and the less they volunteer, the less they give to charity and work on community projects. In the most diverse communities, neighbors trust one another about half as much as they do in the most homogenous settings.""
"That's a New York Times article from 2007"

*Happy purple-haired flurk with McDonald's cup wearing "Diversity is our strength" t-shirt*
McDonald's staff: "Sorry, we stopped self-serve refills."

Links - 9th May 2026 (2 - Canadian Politics [including Floor Crossing])

Just one-in-four say Canadian MPs who cross the floor should be allowed to finish term with new party - "NDP interim leader Don Davies said his party believes floor crossers like Idlout should have to “put that decision to the voters”, and most Canadians appear to agree... More (41%) prefer that if an MP wanted to cross the floor, they should have to step down and re-contest their seat in a byelection. One-in-five (22%) say they should have to serve as an independent until the next election and one-in-ten (11%) believe they should have to vacate their seat."

Stephen Maher on X - "Everyone complaining about Carney getting a majority through floor crossers is wasting their time. It's how our system works."
Jasmin Laine on X - "Actually, canada has never in our history had a majority government we didn’t vote for and the powers that grants through floor crossers.   But, as with many other systems in this country—many of which may have been created in good faith, are riddled with failure and abuses by bad actors—when people can take advantage of them without any penalty (because that’s just how the system works), they will.   It’s rather telling to witness a Prime Minister of all people, abuse the system for his own gain.   That shows us a lot about him and his respect for us as a country, the tax payer, and his intent."

Ryan Williams Bay of Quinte | Facebook - "Enough is enough. Should floor crossers face their electorate? I can’t get over this one. The others, you could at least see it coming. Matt Jeneroux… not exactly known for grinding it out. Chris d’Entremont… always a bit of a centrist read. But Marilyn Gladu? She was as conservative as they come. Chair of the Freedom Caucus. Outspoken on COVID policy. Ran for leader. Built her brand on being unapologetically Conservative. And she didn’t just believe that, She said it clearly in an op-ed just in January:  If you cross the floor you should face your voters in a by-election.
⸻
Let’s be honest about something most people don’t know: If she had an issue with Pierre Poilievre… the Conservatives are the only party where 25% of caucus can trigger a leadership review. You don’t like the direction? You fight it internally. You organize. You challenge. Crossing the floor isn’t step one it’s the last resort.
⸻
And that’s what makes this different. This is a full reversal… overnight. From calling out Liberals on immigration, Charter rights, and government overreach… To joining them. And why? We may never know
⸻
Meanwhile, the Liberals under Mark Carney will take it. Of course they will. Every seat gets them closer to a majority. But when a party can absorb someone who argued the exact opposite weeks ago… you have to ask: What are the Liberals principles?  And what are the principles of the traitors who join them?"
PP passed the leadership review with 82% approval, but left wingers are pretending that all the floor crossing shows that his MPs hate him

Sukhman Gill on X - "Check out this interview where Marilyn Gladu tries to explain why she betrayed the over 40,000 Conservative voters in her riding. She reveals something pretty damning: this Liberal government will only help Liberal ridings.  Marilyn, your voters should not be seen as less because they are Conservative. Why do they deserve less, and why are you okay with joining a leader who sees them that way?  Carney promised to “work for all Canadians,” and clearly he has broken that promise. Only Conservatives will fight for all Canadians!"
Dean Skoreyko on X - "Gladu admits Carney refused to send money to a Conservative held riding until she crossed the floor. Which is highly illegal."

The odd floor-crossing is one thing, but on this scale it undermines our system of government - The Globe and Mail - "Seeking to explain just where the Liberals draw the line on accepting members of other parties into their midst, House Leader Steven MacKinnon said the party would “keep a light on and a door open for all of those who want to support Liberal Party principles,” which he described as “immutable.”  And of course, he’s right. Liberal policies may come and go – see carbon pricing, immigration, defence spending, from a long list – but Liberal principles are as constant as the North Star. There’s only one. It is this: whatever it takes. Whatever it takes to get and stay in power. What. Ever.  We are now seeing that principle in action. The party has succeeded in luring not one, not two, but five opposition MPs to cross the floor, from two parties, in five months. The last of these, Marilyn Gladu, has established herself, in a decade in politics, as being not only well to the right of the Liberals but to the right of the Conservatives, at odds with the government on everything from abortion to vaccine mandates to, well, floor-crossing.  And that is why the Liberals now have a majority in the House of Commons. It wasn’t the by-elections. They merely confirmed the Liberals in seats they already held. It was the tide of defections: enough, for the first time in Canadian history, to catapult a party from minority to majority status. With, we are told, more to come.  What’s troubling about this isn’t what it tells us about the Liberals, or the motley collection of mutually hostile ideologues now sharing space on the government benches. (There are big tents, and then there’s just a circus.) Neither is there anything objectionable, in principle, with an MP leaving one party for another, if he or she genuinely feels more aligned with the latter party than the one whose banner they were elected under not 12 months ago... Still, this is getting ridiculous. A few more of these and we are edging into Italian territory. Floor-crossing is so endemic in the Italian parliament it even has a name: trasformismo. Recent parliaments have seen as many as a quarter to a third of the legislators switch parties, often in pursuit of office of some kind.  Is that why all of these opposition MPs have separately and simultaneously decided to join the Liberal party? Were they offered some sort of quid pro quo, a perq, a committee assignment, even a cabinet post? Maybe, maybe not. Even if they are eventually given some reward, it’s difficult to prove they were offered it in advance. But that’s not the point: the public should not be put in the position of having to wonder if their MP is on the take. Worse still is the reason offered by Ms. Gladu, who told reporters that government ridings tended to get more “support,” meaning government spending. Again, whether that’s true or not, to offer that as justification for crossing from opposition to government – I mean, if that’s your argument, why have an opposition at all?  This sort of thinking is insidious. You hear too many journalists sympathetically clucking at the fate of the Conservative MP, “stuck in opposition” for three more years – as if the only point of being an MP was to be on the government side.  Really? It’s not enough to hold government to account, to expose wrongdoing by those in office, to demand ministers answer for mistakes by their departments, to critique government policies and offer alternatives? As opposed to government-side MPs, whose role, no matter who is in power, is to wave through whatever the prime minister proposes and cover up for government mistakes and malfeasance.  It wasn’t always thus. The notion that MPs on the government benches, no less than those in opposition, were supposed to be watchdogs on the government, was once taken seriously in this country – so seriously, that whenever an MP was appointed to cabinet he was obliged to resign his seat and run in a by-election. After all, his job had changed: now he was part of the government. The least he could do was ask his constituents’ permission. Seems like the least an MP crossing from opposition to government could do."

Why the Liberals may pay a price for the party's increasingly big tent - "the critics of the Liberals’ ideological flexibility, like the poaching targets, are also on the left.  Avi Lewis, the New Democatic Party’s new leader, said Liberals’ ideological malleability has reached a new level, particularly with the addition of Gladu, who he says has taken positions from the “furthest reaches” of the social conservative wing of the Tory party.  “If Marilyn Gladu is a Liberal, what does being a Liberal mean?” asked Lewis. “At what point does a tent get so big that the fabric is stretched beyond recognition?”  Lewis has also said out in recent days that the Liberals’ attempts to secure a majority through floor-crossings are undemocratic and disrespectful to voters. If an MP wants to cross the floor, Lewis said, he or she should resign and face voters in a byelection.  The Liberals’ big-tent flexibility has never been more stark. Beyond the poaching MPs from the left and right, the party is still benefitting from making a dramatic shift early last year in its leadership, from the uber-progressive Trudeau to Carney, widely seen as a business-oriented Liberal.  With the exception of former environment minister Steven Guilbeault, who resigned from cabinet late last year after Carney struck a deal with Alberta to support a new pipeline, none of the more than 100 Liberal MPs in the current caucus who were also part of the Trudeau government seemed to have expressed any reservations over the massive agenda shift.   The Liberals’ ability to shapeshift with the times is the source of much dispute, and sometimes derision, around Parliament Hill. Partisan Liberals view it as a strength, giving the party the breadth and agility to respond to the issues of the day and Canadians’ changing needs.  Party officials tend to believe they’re attracting new supporters because they’re doing a good job and reflecting Canadians’ views. They also argue that Liberals, one of the democratic world’s most electorally successful political parties over the last century or so, are pragmatic and less beholden to any ideological position, unlike their rivals on the left and right.  Carney himself is also a prime example — perhaps even the personification — of this flexibility...   Just four years before becoming prime minister, Carney wrote a book that emphasized how markets sometimes fail, notably when it comes to the environment. After gaining power, one of his first moves was to cancel the consumer carbon tax, a signature piece of legislation from Justin Trudeau’s green emphasis.  The Carney mantra was clear: Big, flexible tents are better.  The Liberals’ opponents, however, tend to roll their eyes at such claims about the advantages of flexibility, saying there’s only one thing that binds Liberals together: the pursuit of power...   André Lecours, a political science professor at the University of Ottawa, said the risk to the Liberals will be minimized if the government continues to focus largely on issues such as economic restructuring that are unlikely to expose rifts within their big tent."
Damn conservative sore losers!
Demonising the US is an easy way to unite left wing and many non left wing Canadians, but what happens after Trump leaves?

Canada told mentally ill must be euthanized lest they kill themselves - "The Liberals have just added a fifth floor-crosser to their caucus, and the fourth Conservative overall. On Tuesday, Marilyn Gladu, the four-time MP for Sarnia-Lambton-Bkejwanong, announced she was now a Liberal. All of the other four joined the Liberals despite multiple public statements denouncing the Liberal record. Just 23 days before becoming a Liberal, for instance, Michael Ma delivered a speech in the House of Commons denouncing the party as valuing “common criminals” over regular Canadians. “Fairness for the thief, the murderer and the drug dealer, and firmness for the honest citizen and the compliant taxpayer,” he said. But with Gladu, the phenomenon becomes downright surreal. Gladu was one of the most right-wing members of the Conservative caucus, including being an open supporter of Freedom Convoy. Just two weeks ago, Gladu was admonishing Green Party Elizabeth May for suggesting that the Liberals were not anti-religionists. “Is (May) aware that there are current Liberal MPs sitting on the benches who think I should be in prison for quoting scriptures as a youth leader,” said Gladu in reference to Bill C-9, the Liberal bill which critics say could criminalize the quotation of “hateful” Bible passages. Most surreal of all, it’s been just two months since Gladu was publicly denouncing the other Conservative floor-crossers. In January, she sponsored a House of Commons petition demanding that any floor-crossing trigger an immediate byelection. “Really, the whole point of being an MP is to represent your constituents. So, if they’re voting you in under one platform, for you to switch for whatever reasons, just seems to me to not be representing what you’re supposed to be there to represent,” Gladu told local media at the time. That same month, when Conservative MP Amarjeet Gill publicly revealed that he had rejected an offer to join the Liberals, Gladu issued a social media post in support that said, “Thank you for being true to the voters who elected you!!” As to what prompted Gladu to reverse all of this, her official statement doesn’t provide many clues. Like all the other floor-crossers, there’s no specific issue listed. Rather, Gladu says she’s merely fulfilling her constituents’ demands for a “stronger and more independent Canadian economy.”"

Chris Selley: Gladu’s defection is the new vanguard of cynicism - "It makes you, and will make the Ottawa Press Gallery, wonder: What does Carney need to accomplish in the House of Commons that he can’t now that would justify bringing an arch-conservative on board? She stands for pretty much everything the Liberals have self-righteously run against for decades. In 2016, she voted for a bill that would have made it a criminal offence to “injure or cause the death of a preborn child while committing an offence.” That’s not a crazy idea. But every Liberal MP voted against it. In 2021 she voted for a private member’s bill that would have outlawed sex-selective abortion. That’s also not a crazy idea. Every Liberal MP voted against it. Also in 2021, she voted against Bill C-6, the first attempt to ban ( though it wouldn’t really have banned ) so-called “conversion therapy.” Every Liberal MP voted for it. In 2023 she voted for a private member’s bill that would have explicitly established the pregnancy of an assault victim as an aggravating circumstance on sentencing. Again: Not crazy. Every Liberal MP voted against it. During the pandemic, Gladu went on CTV News with her future caucus-mate Evan Solomon — who welcomed her to the family on social media Wednesday afternoon — and flapped her gums about the relative risks of polio and COVID-19 and criticized vaccine mandates. It was not at all to leader Erin O’Toole’s liking. She later apologized for spreading “misinformation about the severity of COVID-19 and the safety and efficacy of vaccines.” And her trailer was firmly hitched to the Freedom Convoy crowd’s cab during the Ottawa protest. “Let those freedom truckers roll 10-4. Standing up for freedom!” Gladu posted on social media on Jan. 22, 2022. As forgiving of Liberal prime ministers as some of the Ottawa Press Gallery can often seem to be, they’re not going to let this one go. Gladu ticks all the “problematic Conservative” boxes — abortion, the convoy, pandemic lockdowns and vaccines. Also, guns. On Jan. 28, which was all of 10 weeks ago, Gladu congratulated the Sarnia Police Service for refusing to participate in the Liberals’ gun “buyback” program, accurately describing it as a “federal government overreach that will do NOTHING to stop gun crime.” She now lives under the same tent as Nathalie Provost, the École Polytechnique survivor, gun-control activist and MP for Châteauguay—Les Jardins-de-Napierville. All in all it might be a good thing if someone like Marilyn Gladu could inhabit the Liberal caucus — assuming she’s not just going to fall into line like another drone. It’s a party that believes in nothing but gaining power, and they’re remarkably good at it, so the broader the coalition, the better. But we know Mark Carney doesn’t always respond super-well to tough (or even not-so-tough) questions from journalists, and he’s going to be getting a ton about this stunt over the next few weeks. Unlike the Leafs, the Liberals have a tradition of winning. They’re almost guaranteed to lose Gladu’s riding next time around — it has been a very safe Tory seat for years. The Liberals are famous for their willingness to sacrifice almost literally anything to win or gain a seat, even if it’s not obviously urgent. Even by their standards, though, this is a humdinger."

This is 100% true BTW : r/CanadianConservative - "What people fail to understand about these floor crossings is that the Carney liberals for the 1st time pretty much in Canadian history have admitted to meeting candidates and convincing them to cross the floor. Basically they are asking them what it would take to join their party in secret closed door meetings.  They are actively in talks with numerous MPs trying to convince them to join the liberals.. It's not like these MPs have had falling outs and have decided to cross For example some of these negotiations like the one for D'Entrement have been going on for a year.  They have admitted to this.  It wouldn't matter who was the leader... Convincing Mps to floor cross is part of their strategy.. More people should be outrage at this total lack of respect to the Canadian voter."

Meme - Foreign Policy CAN @CanadaFP: "Dissenting voices disappearing from your feed? It might not be an accident. Some foreign regimes silence critics through takedowns, legal threats and intimidation campaigns. Learn their tactics and #ThinkBeforeYouShare"
Readers added context to this video: "The Canadian government is currently in the process of drafting bill C-9 which would criminalize forms of protected speech and protest."

Dr. Leslyn Lewis on X - "Bill C-9 creates a real possibility that clergy could face prosecution or even prison for quoting Scripture.  Under Bill C-9 a pastor, imam, rabbi, or priest can be investigated or penalized if someone claims that a verse from their Scripture is “hateful” which can lead to imprisonment.  This is not an exaggeration. It is the direct legal effect of deleting the exemption.  A free society should not put clergy at risk for teaching their own faith.   Removing this safeguard crosses a line that Canadians of every belief should be concerned about."

Tamara Jansen | Facebook - "Today in Parliament, something happened that Canadians should pay attention to. The Liberal government voted like this: Stronger bail laws for repeat violent offenders — defeated. Tougher sentences for repeat sexual offenders — defeated. Protections for families of murder victims — defeated. But Bill C-9? Passed. A bill that removes long-standing protections for Canadians to express their faith in good faith. I hear from families all the time who are worried about safety in their communities. They expect their government to focus on protecting them. So it’s fair to ask… are these the right priorities? If this concerns you, take a moment to share this post."

Bill 21: Supreme Court chief justice calls English community's argument 'almost outrageous' - "the federal government’s position on the notwithstanding clause clashes with that of Quebec and some other provinces, which argue that the Constitution deliberately gave legislatures broad leeway to use the clause... Ontario, Alberta and Saskatchewan stressed that the notwithstanding clause was a key compromise when the Constitution was patriated in 1982, allowing provinces to maintain a role in protecting regional differences. Those now urging the court to place limits on the clause “are asking you to create what they believe should have been agreed upon in 1982,” said Doug Downey, a lawyer for the Ontario government.  “They are advancing an alternative universe of what could have been, but never was.”  He said if Canadians want new restrictions on the clause, that must happen through a formal constitutional amendment, not a court ruling.  Ontario, Alberta and Saskatchewan say the Supreme Court should not rule on hypothetical charter violations when the clause is invoked.  They say that would put too much power in the hands of judges, when the Constitution leaves the final word to legislatures — and, ultimately, voters."

Attorney General warns Canada faces ‘downfall as a nation’ if rights eroded : r/LawCanada - "I don't think the drafters of the Charter ever envisioned that the notwithstanding clause would be used over pronouns.  I also don't think those same drafters thought the Charter would be used to prevent government from removing shanty towns from public parks but here we are"

CTV News on X - "Sharan Kaur: Why moderates are fleeing the CPC, and what it says about Poilievre"
Alan Fryer 🇨🇦🇺🇦🇮🇱 on X - "I can’t remember a time with so much critical coverage of the Opposition and so little the actual Government."
Clearly, you need to Trust the Media, which has absolutely no Conflict of Interest. Ootherwise you are going to fall prey to Misinformation

Canada restricts drug boat intel from U.S. navy's Caribbean airstrike operation | CBC News - "The Department of National Defence says it has safeguards in place to prevent intelligence from being shared with elements of the U.S. military that have carried out numerous lethal strikes on small boats in the Caribbean."
As usual, the TDS squad had their cope about a meme promoting this, including claiming this was fake (despite citing this CBC article, with a date)

Jason James on X - "Mass formation psychosis. Manic delusion.
Trump pointed out a number of Canada's obvious failures and made some simple requests:
Close your borders
Secure the Arctic
Crack down on organized crime
Root out corruption
Fund the military
And instead of doing things that would not only benefit the United States, but would also greatly benefit Canada, Canadians soiled themselves at the audacity of an American president requesting we clean up a mess that is clearly visible to anyone watching.  Now 57% of Canadians say they'd prefer Chinese communism to our historic alliance with the United States.  Chinese communism—the version of communism that has killed more people than any other system in human history. 100+ million dead under Mao, millions more since.  The version of communism that runs concentration camps and organ harvesting farms to this very day.  Yes, that communism.  But Canadians don't know that because 57% of us are fucking retarded.  And now that the Canadian death cult is pushing to euthanize the intellectually challenged, these people are going to get exactly what they deserve.  The rest of us are just going to suffer through it all as a consequence."

Nearly 60% of Canadians support becoming a full member of the European Union, poll says - The Globe and Mail - "A Nanos Research survey conducted for The Globe and Mail shows that 57 per cent of respondents would either support (28 per cent) or somewhat support (29 per cent) Canada becoming a full member of the EU... The results follow similar findings from a Spark Advocacy poll conducted in March, suggesting that one in four respondents thought joining the EU would be a good idea, with an additional 58 per cent saying the idea should be considered further... Benefits of joining the EU include economic integration with a large market and subscribing to the union’s human-rights commitments, Prof. Paris said. The poll also found that 84 per cent of respondents believe strengthening economic ties is the best path forward for relations between Canada and the EU... Even if Canada joined the EU, Prof. Paris said it would take at least a decade to bring Canada’s laws and regulations in alignment with Europe’s. In most cases, Canadian laws would also become subordinate to the EU’s under full membership."
Losing sovereignty to the US = bad. Losing sovereignty to the EU = good. But then, Canadians believing destroying the economy to spite the US is a good idea

Convicted Child Sex Offender Organizing Carney Candidate's GTA Campaign — Met Prime Minister and MPs - "Yusuf Ali Talukder, convicted in 2010 of sexually touching a child student, lobbied Carney on making Liberal candidate Doly Begum a cabinet minister at an event featured on CBC News."

Why the A.I. Job Apocalypse (Probably) Won’t Happen

"This time, it's different" doesn't just apply to financial crises:

Opinion | Why the A.I. Job Apocalypse (Probably) Won’t Happen - The New York Times

"A Quinnipiac poll in March found that 70 percent of Americans think that artificial intelligence will lead to fewer job opportunities for human beings, up from 56 percent a year ago. Thirty percent say they’re worried for their own jobs. And why not? Warnings of a coming labor market apocalypse feature prominently in the remarks of A.I. leaders...

If you believe the story the A.I. labs are telling, it’s hard to see what stands between us and mass unemployment. A.I. has been designed to cheaply mimic what human beings can do on a computer, but never needs to sleep, never tries to form a union and often outperforms real people on real tasks; of course companies will want to replace human beings with this human-being-replacement machine. Maybe they already are. Tech companies like Block, Meta, Oracle and Microsoft are laying off or buying out workers and naming A.I. as the reason.

But it’s worth being cautious. These tech companies might be unwinding a hiring binge and telling the stock market the tale likeliest to excite or appease investors. The A.I. leaders might understand neural nets better than they understand labor markets — or they might have bought too deeply into their own marketing materials.

For one thing, the macrodata isn’t matching the anecdata: The unemployment rate was 4.3 percent in March 2026; in March of 2020, it was 4.4 percent. Average hourly earnings are stable. Claude Code is a marvel, yet demand for software engineers is booming. Maybe mass layoffs are coming. But maybe not.

Economists, I’ve found, are quite skeptical that mass joblessness is on the horizon. In “What Will Be Scarce?,” Alex Imas, an economist at the University of Chicago, tries to clarify the mistake most A.I. discourse, in his view, makes. “The answer to any question about the future economics of advanced A.I. begins with identifying what becomes scarce,” Imas writes...

The fear is that A.I. will make knowledge plentiful; that it will turn the fruits of learning into a commodity as surely as manufacturing turned clothing into a commodity and industrial agriculture made strawberries commonplace.

But something is always scarce. People are looking at the economy as it exists and asking which tasks A.I. can do; they should be asking which jobs people won’t want A.I. doing, or which services A.I. will make us want more of.

Here is a poetic finding from econometrics: As the rich get richer, they want more from other humans, not less. They “shift their spending toward goods and services where the human element, the experience or the social meaning matters more,” Imas writes. They seek out clothing with a story, food with a provenance, doctors who make house calls, therapists who make them feel seen, tutors who know their children and personal trainers who work around their injuries. This, Imas says, is “the relational sector” of the economy, and it will explode. Instead of so many human beings working with computers, they will work with other human beings.

The more automation there is, the more people value a human’s touch. Take coffee. It was once laborious to make espresso at home. Now, Nespresso machines are everywhere. Has that led to Starbucks closing and neighborhood coffee spots dropping their prices? Of course not. There are more baristas than ever. There are more coffee shops than ever. Coffee as a commodity led to more demand for coffee as an experience. “The fact that the good is scarce is exactly what gives it meaning,” Imas writes.

Imas’s story suggests a place where human labor might move amid mass automation: toward more human roles. But it’s also possible that human labor won’t need to move that much at all.

In 1979, VisiCalc, the first electronic spreadsheet, was released for the Apple II. It could do in minutes what previously took teams of accountants days. There were predictions of mass unemployment for bookkeepers. Instead, the number of accountants quadrupled over the next 40 years. “The spreadsheet didn’t replace the accountant,” Eldar Maksymov writes. “It unleashed latent demand for financial intelligence that had been there all along, waiting for costs to fall far enough to be satisfied.”

Maksymov, an accounting professor at Arizona State University, is describing the “Jevons Paradox,” so named for William Stanley Jevons, a British economist. Jevons, writing in 1865, was interested in Britain’s use of coal. Not long before, James Watt had invented a new-and-improved steam engine, which generated more than twice as much power from a given amount of coal. But instead of cutting Britain’s use of coal, demand for coal tripled. Cheap coal didn’t lead to less coal being used; it led to coal being used for more things than anyone had previously thought possible.

This, Maksymov thinks, is what A.I. is likely to do even in the industries most exposed to its disruption. He thinks that, in part, because it happened before. “In every major occupational group that adopted computers heavily, employment grew faster than in groups that did not,” he writes. “Computers eliminated specific tasks within jobs — but the resulting cost reductions created so much new demand that the occupations expanded overall.” Computers can do much that humans once did, but they didn’t put humans out of work. The ability to do more made people realize there was more to do.

This is fairly common. When I started my podcast, 10 years ago, I was its only researcher; now I have an extraordinary team of people who help me prepare episodes. Has that made my job easier? Not in the least. I spend far more time researching and prepping because they bring me so much more to absorb and consider, and I choose to do more challenging episodes because I am confident I can do them.

All the enthusiastic A.I. adopters I know are working harder than ever because there is more they can do. Whether they are working smarter is arguable. Studies differ on whether A.I. is making people more productive or simply giving them (and their bosses) the illusion of productivity. Slowly reading a difficult book is far better than rapidly absorbing summaries of 12 books; struggling through a first draft will lead you to more new ideas than editing five A.I.-written drafts. It’s my belief that the feeling of efficiency should be mistrusted. The people I know who have small armies of A.I. agents working on their behalf certainly feel more productive, but I have not noticed their work improving. In some cases, it has clearly declined...

Over the past year, I have watched the A.I.s I use become better than my best available person quite often. I have an amazing editor, but he needs to sleep and work with other writers; I have a wonderful therapist, but I see her once a week, if that; I have access to good doctors, but it takes work to see them. Perhaps I had hit the event horizon I had been warned of, and A.I. would begin replacing the humans in my life.

But the opposite happened. The better the A.I. got, the more I had to discuss with the humans in my life. The A.I. thought my symptoms were concerning, so I made an appointment with my doctor (allergies, it turned out); it had a good insight on a personal challenge, and that opened a new conversation with my therapist; it allowed me to validate a research idea, and that opened up a new question to explore with my editor; A.I. has made it possible to caption videos easily, and now I work with more video editors. The better my A.I. has gotten, the more I’ve wanted from the human beings around me — and from myself...

A world where A.I. displaces eight million workers might be harder to handle than a world where it displaces 80 million workers. A mass unemployment event would force a wholesale restructuring of our economy. Covid offers an example: The shock was so total that we didn’t revert to our normal habit of blaming workers for their misfortunes; instead, we created an unprecedented architecture of income support that made lockdown a period of unexpected prosperity for millions of workers.

We are crueler when the displacement is more limited. The best estimates of job loss from competition with China put it around two million jobs. That’s small in the context of the entire U.S. economy, where roughly five million people are hired each month and about five million people leave or lose their jobs each month. But it was devastating for particular communities, and we did very, very little to help them.

If everyone with marketing degrees or trucking jobs found themselves jobless, we might act; if unemployment among marketers or truckers merely triples, we will do what we’ve done in the past: Suggest it’s their fault, give them a few months of unemployment insurance or some retraining options that don’t work and then mostly ignore their plight.

Then there’s the reality that even as A.I. makes relational skills more valuable, it may make those skills rarer. Young people have gone from spending about 12 hours a week with friends in 2003 to about five hours a week in 2024. The number of high school seniors who report going on a date fell from 80 percent in 2000 to 46 percent in 2024. About a quarter of Gen Z-ers report that they haven’t had sex in the last year. A.I. could be a handmaiden of this social dissolution, offering a digital simulacrum of friendships and relationships without opening people to the beauty and agony of real relationships, in which we learn to relate to other people who are truly other people, and whose desires are not simply extensions of our own."