This broadcasts his insecurities about being clueless how the economy or anything works, and has surrounded himself with yes men idiots that can't even bail him out of this hole he dug himself. A big tell is he is so pissed he is giving them over 4 wks to lift their electricity premium.
As an American I say Canada should just go the "we don't bargain with terrorists" approach and just cut the electric today. Call the bully's bluff.
The US as a whole has gotten more extreme (we just elected a guy that praised Hitler), but we also have kids born into a world where school shootings are a common occurrence. Kids are surrounded by adults that hate people that don't fit the "norm", that fear everything, and then they see violence everywhere.
I mean we just re-elected a guy that used violence in an effort to overthrow the government, and not only did we not punish him, we gave him that highest position in our government. He then freed the people that carried out his orders.
The Right has also embraced the Proud Boys and other domestic terrorist organizations. The President met with a former Grand Wizard of the KKK, and told people that Nazi's marching with tiki torches chanting "Jews will not replace us" were "some very fine people".
He also got a 30 year sentence for burglary, which seems like an out of control maximum sentence for burglary. Dude was also 67 (was ~44 at the time of his crime), and had been behind bars for 23 yrs, why waste the time/money unless the fantasy of killing (or the power trip) is the goal.
And not an excuse, but the guy grew up watching his mother get beatings from an alcoholic father, and surprisingly had mental health and substance abuse issues. He apparently was drunk and doing coke before going to the girls house with a bat to confront her, and got there and found the parents she was living with and attacked them both going back and forth between rooms.
The best part is he is an adjudicated felon and was indicted in several other cases he ran the clock out on, and he saw a weaponization of government where there was none, yet these protesters have committed no crime and he wants them punished beyond what the law allows.
We are in the upsidedown.
That number seems incomprehensible, and absolutely gut-wrenching. The fact we have to continue down this path of generational PTSD and survivor syndrome is maddening and heartbreaking.
It's also defending the cult leader mentality. Breaking with the cult puts you on the outside, and an enemy of the cult. Breaking free of a cult isn't easy when the cult's actions are constantly being reinforced and regurgitated by their leader and his media disinformation networks.
Allowing people to get measles puts the general population at risk in addition to the asshole parents (and sadly their kids). The vaccine has something like a 97% immunity effectiveness after 2 doses (so less than that for only the 1st), but that means 3% of people that did the right thing could still contract and spread measles without hurd immunity.
Churches should not be allowed to have any political influence. They should be required to give any funds coming in right back out to the community to maintain their tax exempt status. Allowing these mega churches to have people living like the 1% while using their wealth and influence to oppress others should be enough to force them to shut down.
I'm addition to his sexual assault history, the FBI should have been allowed to look into the large amount of gambling debt that disappeared when journalists looked into it, and his alcoholism. Any of those should be disqualifying for the highest Court in the country.
They are supposed to be the interpreters of the law, and to send things back down to lower courts for things that are not spelled out in laws or the constitution so that the courts can help settle the grey (untested/unsettled ) areas of the law.
The Court currently is anti human rights, pro corporate, anti environmental, pro Christian indoctrination, and pro Trump and/or fascists. The majority hasn't ruled on anything based on case law in years. And that became super apparent when Trump got to stack the court with rubber stamp judges.
It's like all these assholes have amnesia and can't remember how he screwed everyone but the rich over last time. He actually had to bail farmers out because he screwed them so bad, costing tax payers more than $60 Billion.
Oh the irony of a paper billionaire, rich off the labor of the people that depend on programs like Social Security, calling it a ponzi scheme is wild.
And it's no more a ponzi scheme than say insurance, 401Ks, or Medicare that people pay into because the government has left them no alternative way of affording to stay alive once they stop providing labor to the machine.
And these rich assholes that have no need for these social services because they have billions, or pensions, or government insurance need to STFU.