Shaya Scher, 35, a Republican who lives in New Jersey, argues that Trump’s rhetoric toward Canada is largely bluster.
...
He believes a deal will eventually happen and tensions will ease.
“I think at the end of the day, they’re still allies,” he said. “Under the hood we’re still allies, and if anything comes up, we’ll still be allies.”
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Questions and an idea for my #USAnian friends...
Your ~~feral~~ federal government is currently being commandeered by an executive that believes that it can rewrite the U.S. constitution via executive orders. One of the primary techniques they are using is usurping the congress's "power of the purse", by either refusing to spend congressionally-allocated funds, or by spending those funds on things other than congress allocated them for.
If the executive branch thinks it's fine to ignore your constitution and screw taxpayers with tax dollars, then...
1) Most of the feds' tax income comes from income tax and various #employment taxes.
2) Employers collect these taxes and remit them to the government.
3) Q: exactly *who* do they remit them to? Based on history, I would think this would be a state agency, who would keep the state/municipal portion and remit the rest to the federal government. Is this correct?
4) "Blue" states are, in general, net payers of tax dollars vs. federal services received.
5) "Red" states are, in general, the opposite - they receive more in federal services / support than they remit in taxes.
So, depending on the answer to (3), my #idea is: why don't blue states stop remitting funds to the federal #government? Don't steal it, just hold it in trust until the feds can be made to follow the law correctly.
I would think this would hurt the feds, a *lot*.
@randahl
What does the UK say ?
Will they they keep their F35 and nuclear arsenal or will they pragmatically abstain when the aggression on Denmark will be unleashed ?
The Zapatistas avoid having to use their guns. If I'm killed when I could have been the one to kill, I will still have taken the wisest path. I will have lived in the union of means and ends. I will have died glad that those who knew me could find solace in that.
As helpful as it can be to hear ‘I love you’ in times of hardship, ‘I trust you’ healed my heart right now.
https://www.girlonthenet.com/blog/i-trust-you/
No guest blog today, so instead you're getting BONUS PLOT. #trust #relationships #love
From candy to crochet hooks, peer supporters help drug users through Hamilton hospital stays
Marcie McIlveen hated health care after negative experiences in treatment programs. Now, she’s spearheading a pilot at St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton where people who’ve experienced addiction offer peer support to patients.
#healthcare #addiction #support #trust #Hamilton #News
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/st-joe-s-peer-support-substance-use-1.7486934?cmp=rss
https://apnews.com/article/world-happiness-report-ranking-finland-afghanistan-us-b41c1712448762d98fe9e4f80233c15f “Happiness isn’t just about wealth or growth — it’s about trust, connection and knowing people have your back,” said Jon Clifton, the CEO of Gallup. “If we want stronger communities and economies, we must invest in what truly matters: each other.” #happiness #trust #community #Finland
Strangers twice as kind as we think, happiness study suggests
'This year's World Happiness Report - released on Thursday - measured trust in strangers by deliberately losing wallets, seeing how many were returned and comparing that with how many people thought would be handed in.'
This is something a lot of people need to know.
Good morning from Finland! 
“Finland is named the happiest country in the world for the eighth year in a row, according to the World Happiness Report 2025 published Thursday.”
@GottaLaff In the #Yukon, the #Conservative Party excluded #journalists from witnessing the #election of their candidate. How can we #trust these people?
Old friends coming over. We know each other since school, decades ago. We last met 7 years ago.
At my stage in life, this means wrinkles and all sorts of rather visible changes to our bodies. Not incapacity, necessarily, but an annoying dominance of wear and tear, all over.
Old friends meet, each absorbs the shock of seeing what is happening to the other, each recognises that their friend has the same experience.
Also: the joy of complete trust when meeting those old friends. Laughing together about subtle references to events 50 years back. The affirmation of having done a few things right in our lives. The easy recognition of past mistakes. All is good now. We have left those grudges and embarrassments behind us.
My braised ox cheek, slow-cooked in the chicken stock that I had made especially for the occasion in the week before: a success. Enjoying simple things together, based on a half century of shared experiences, good and bad.
Can the world ever #trust any future presidential administration again?...
Here's Chris Knight's key article on #ritual/speech coevolution as matrix and scaffold of #trust across #speech #communites. In 1998 he posited 130,000 years, and today it needs pushing back, coinciding with our process of speciation. At least the Chomsky crew here are conceding earlier dates for the critical transition to #language (they used to argue it was in the region 50-70,000 years wgo, which is now looking dumb).
People trust what sounds right… people are led towards ever more intense outrage about what they already fear or hate.
—Timothy Snyder, The Road To Unfreedom (2018)
#manipulation #trust #fear #hate
"Lost trust? A lost future!" - Futurist Jim Carroll
Let's talk about trust - or rather, the lack of it.
Somewhere along the way, I came across the 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer 2025 - it's worth a look.
The fact is, it's a pretty depressing read! They call it a crisis of grievance. As I've been saying - that tracks.
What are the findings? 3 key facts.
Fact 1: Majority hold grievances against government, business, and the rich
Sixty-one percent globally have a moderate or high sense of grievance, which is defined by a belief that government and business make their lives harder and serve narrow interests, and wealthy people benefit unfairly from the system.
Fact 2: Widespread grievance is eroding trust across the board
Those with a high sense of grievance distrust all four institutions (business, government, media, and NGOs).
Fact 3: Hostile activism is seen as a legitimate tool to drive change
To bring about change, 4 in 10 would approve of one or more of the following forms of hostile activism: attacking people online, intentionally spreading disinformation, threatening or committing violence, damaging public or private property. This sentiment is most prevalent among respondents ages 18-34 (53 percent approve of at least one).
The report makes plain that over a decade of crises have helped to fuel this crisis of grievance.
So where does it leave us? We are witnessing nothing short of a societal transformation – one driven by a profound crisis of grievance that threatens to reshape our institutions, our economy, and our very future! And we all know we are living through this in real-time, since we know that a mindset of grievance is driving a lot of the change swirling around us right now.
What can we conclude? Several things. Keep reading!
**#Trust** **#Grievance** **#Inequality** **#Activism** **#Future** **#Leadership** **#Change** **#Economy** **#Institutions** **#Transformation**
Original post: https://jimcarroll.com/2025/03/daily-inspiration-the-acceleration-of-grievance-lost-trust-a-lost-future/
The US is ending support for Ukrainian F-16s
https://personaljournal.ca/paulsutton/the-us-is-ending-support-for-ukrainian-f-16s
Yikes, from an article that contains a lot more detail, but just to get your attention as to the impact part:
«The ubiquitous ESP32 microchip made by Chinese manufacturer Espressif and used by over 1 billion units as of 2023 contains undocumented commands that could be leveraged for attacks.
The undocumented commands allow spoofing of trusted devices, unauthorized data access, pivoting to other devices on the network, and potentially establishing long-term persistence.
…
"Exploitation of this backdoor would allow hostile actors to conduct impersonation attacks and permanently infect sensitive devices such as mobile phones, computers, smart locks or medical equipment by bypassing code audit controls."
The researchers warned that ESP32 is one of the world's most widely used chips for Wi-Fi + Bluetooth connectivity in IoT (Internet of Things) devices, so the risk is significant.»
People worried about this topic might also "enjoy" the recent Netflix series Zero Day.
And not to get too far afield, but hopefully it also didn't escape notice that there have been broad firings of qualified people in the US government for reasons related not to their technical skill or ability to protect our nation from issues like this, but because of irrelevant details of their private lives or personal leanings on issues of having fair and competent government, helping the needy, defending individual human freedom and dignity, or avoiding mass death in myriad ever-more-likely ways.
Alex Witt/MSNBC:
All 80,000 #HHS employees, incl MDs, have rec'd an UNSIGNED letter offering them a payout if they resign. Many, if not all, are leery of it since they have no idea who or where it came from &/or don't believe they'll get paid in the end anyway.
