Voroxpete

Yeah, there's no question that Putin helped to get Trump elected because he, like any halfway intelligent person, could see the damage he would do.

It's the notion that Trump is checking in weekly asking for new orders that annoys the shit out of me.

Also, I will be stealing "Fire-and-forget idiot", that is fucking excellent.

An invasion of Greenland, or Canada, wouldn't necessarily be unlawful.

Remember 9/11? Remember George Bush asking Congress to approve his use of military force to hunt down the suspects?

Well that Authorization for the Use of Military Force, unlike any prior which had clearly defined limitations, was simply against "terror" and set to expire "never."

One member of Congress refused to vote for this, precisely because she understood that Congress was effectively forever giving up its ability to determine when and how the President was allowed to deploy the military. She got death threats. She was right.

All Trump has to do is "find" a terrorist threat in a country, and he's allowed to send US troops there. Remember how he recently decided that fentanyl is a weapon of mass destruction? Yeah.

Fair enough. If your family are all tech savvy enough that that's a good solution for them, then congratulations, and I'm jealous.

I like the idea of decoupling from the US. I'm concerned by the idea of putting "economic growth" (which usually means growing the wealth of the wealthy) above everything else.

What we need is to grow our economy from the bottom up, but doing that involves making moves that work against the interests of the wealthy.

This theory that it's all Putin's master plan is giving Trump too much credit.

There's no conspiracy here. He really is that much of an idiot all on his own. He's been going on about trade imbalances and the need for massive tariffs hits entire adult life. It's a personal obsession for him. It didn't just come out of nowhere.

The reason it seems incredibly stupid and self defeating is because it's incredibly stupid and self defeating. People who are born rich never have to learn how much of an idiot they are, so Trump genuinely believes this is a good idea.

Three actually. The admin has also consistently claimed that they're a new source of revenue that will offset tax cuts (in some versions this removes income taxes entirely).

And yes, as you said (and I've made this point more than a few times on here myself), each version of what the tariffs do is mutually exclusive with the others. If they're a bargaining tactic, they cannot be a source of revenue or a permanent change to manufacturing, because a bargaining tactic requires the offer of the tariffs being removed. Even if they're not actually a bargaining tactic and are in fact intended to be permanent, they can't be both a source of revenue and a way to rebuild American manufacturing. For the tariffs to be a source of revenue, imports have to continue at their existing levels. If manufacturing repatriates, the revenue disappears.

Amazing how quickly they pivoted from "Trump will bring down the price of groceries" to "It's better if things get more expensive," and his cultists just ate it up.

Counterpoint: I can access my friend's Jellyfin servers, and they can access mine, without anyone else in the world knowing what the fuck we're doing. Saying "It's necessary" always begs the question "Why did you make it necessary?"

No need to abandon all the user-friendly aspects of a self-hosted streaming platform. Just use Jellyfin. I switched to it from Plex years ago and have never looked back.

If you're trying to do this as an American, it won't help you. Buying directly from a Chinese manufacturer won't avoid the tariffs, it'll just make you responsible for handling them. The shipment will either get held at the US border until you pay, or you'll get a bill later. Probably with some inspection fees added on top if you didn't pre-declare.

Your best option is to ship to a friend in the UK or some other place with 10% tariffs, then have them repack the shipment and send it to you.

Current polling still shows that only 25% of Albertans would vote to separate.

Smith, I think, knows this, and I don't believe she actually wants a referendum to happen. I certainly don't think she wants one to pass.

Much like Boris Johnson attaching himself to Brexit, Smith likes the way that supporting "Albertan Sovereignty" gives her an enemy to constantly rail against and blame every problem on. If Alberta seccedes, suddenly all those problems become her problems.

Transforming a province into an independent nation would be an absolutely nightmarish task, and every new problem, every compromise would be hung around your neck forever as a result. Again, look at Brexit, only a thousand times worse.

Smith, I suspect, wants the appearance of fighting for Albertan Sovereignty, but not the reality.

That's been the plan for a while anyway. China really wants to move away from being the world's sweatshop. They're happy to lose a lot of that low tier labour to less economically advantaged countries, while they invest in things like computing, electric cars, heavy industry, advanced electronics, etc.