Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Everybody saw this coming.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

The willow is too close to the house.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

The revolution will be supervised.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

We still have time to mess this up!

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Damn you, Canada!

Damn you, Canada!

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It’s impossible for this American NOT to envy Canada it’s nerdily handsome prime minister. Unlike the orange fart cloud stinking up our Oval Office, Trudeau is capable of stringing together a coherent sentence and doesn’t seem to hate women, minority groups, immigrants or foreigners. But this, which came to my attention via the Twitter, is just unfair:

Look closer:

Even closer:

He’s wearing Chewbacca socks. ::swoons:: ::picks self up:: ::shakes fist northward:: Damn you, Canadaaaaaa!!!!

Reader Interactions

103Comments

  5. 5.

    MjOregon

    I saw this too and my first thought was where could I get a pair for myself!! Amazon has them but not for women, darn it!

  6. 6.

    TenguPhule

    He’s wearing Chewbacca socks. ::swoons:: ::picks self up:: ::shakes fist northward:: Damn you, Canadaaaaaa!!!!

    Trump is going to respond with Moff Tarkin Slippers.

  7. 7.

    Ohio Mom

    About fifteen years ago we took a trip to Niagara Falls and then onto Toronto.

    We were waiting for the light at some random crowded street corner on our way from the Toronto art museum to lunch, and I was surveying the passing scene when it suddenly struck me: we were the only three people there who had to worry about health coverage.

    I know Canada isn’t perfect but they appear to be considerably smarter about governing themselves than we are.

  10. 10.

    d58826

    Speaking of Canada, or at least their medical system. Just wasted 90 minutes trying to get a pneumonia shot. I got my flu shot at the local chain pharmacy and they were pushing the pneumonia shots as well. Check with my doc and he said would be a good idea. So stop in today to pick up a script and get the shot. 90 minutes later i have the script but no shot. Seems my company plan only wants to have the shots administered in the doc. office. So rather than making the trip a complete bust I asked how much would the shot be out of pocket – ready $219.00.
    And this is before the GOP finishes its hatch job on Obamacare.

  11. 11.

    trollhattan

    @TenguPhule:
    What, Jar-Jar socks too obvious?

    And this, from the opposite end of North America.

    As Oklahoma City police officers closed in on a man and fatally shot him Tuesday night, neighbors screamed, “Don’t kill him! He’s deaf!” Madgiel Sanchez, was shot around 8:15 p.m. right outside of his home. He was pronounced dead at the scene. The 35-year-old was on his front porch holding a two-foot-long pipe when police arrived in the area to investigate a hit-and-run accident. Police ordered Sanchez to drop the pipe, but he could not hear them. He walked toward the officer and waved the pipe in his right hand, officials said. Neighbors nearby saw the situation unfolding and ran toward officers, screaming. “Don’t kill him! He’s deaf,” a 12-year-old girl yelled. “Don’t do it!” Six other neighbors joined in before another officer arrived and shot him.

  12. 12.

    TenguPhule

    @Ohio Mom:

    I know Canada isn’t perfect but they appear to be considerably smarter about governing themselves than we are.

    What do you mean appear?

  14. 14.

    Corner Stone

    When I saw the second picture I thought, “Hmmm, well he does have a nice manicure. Oh and a sock tribute to maybe a passed shih tzu pet?

    edited because

  15. 15.

    TenguPhule

    Blame Canada! Blame Canada!!

    “We must blame them and cause a fuss
    Before somebody thinks of blaming us!”

  16. 16.

    geg6

    Think Canada would be willing to lend him to us after they’re done with him? I’ll take sloppy seconds in this particular case.

  18. 18.

    Roger Moore

    @TenguPhule:

    Trump is going to respond with Moff Tarkin Slippers.

    Nah, he’ll go with Chewbacca slippers. I’ve heard wookie skin is ideal for footwear.

  19. 19.

    Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)

    Honestly, more of a “don’t get too invested in your heroes” thing. The “CIA is not your friend” phrasing is a jab at left/farther-left articles that semi-frequently push this point — which are generally preaching-to-the-choir* at best and blatant concern-trolling at worst. Also: In case this article wasn’t clear, Gilardi has a history of rabid anti-Semitism.

    *That said: The obvious counterpoint would be the post-election upswing in Mensch’s popularity.

  22. 22.

    Miss Bianca

    @Ohio Mom: I remember that moment in Toronto when I realized I hadn’t seen any trash on the streets, *until* we got to the art museum. To this day I wonder if it wass meant as an exhibit. “American, Artist Unknown” or something….

  23. 23.

    Sab

    Haven’t read the other comments yet, so probably repeating. Canada had twelve phucking years of S. Harper, so let’s not get too excited about their wonderfulness.

  28. 28.

    Betty Cracker

    @Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): To her credit, she apologized for the tweet, and not one of those “sorry if anyone was offended” non-apologies. But it’s incomprehensible to me how anyone could have even skimmed that article, as Plame claimed she did when walking it back, and not realized it was for the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” set. When I first saw it, I assumed Plame’s account had been hacked.

  29. 29.

    Cacti

    Another great part of living in the Pacific northwest is that in addition to Seattle and Portland, you also have Vancouver, BC, probably the most beautiful city in North America.

  30. 30.

    trollhattan

    @Rob in CT:
    Thought that occurred on first reading the article–was the first cop pissed at the arriving cop for “getting his kill?” Think I’ve hit max-cynicism and I’ve checked, the dial doesn’t go to 11.

  33. 33.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Betty Cracker: I don’t know Plame’s politics exactly, but the European left is no stranger to antisemitism and that sometimes leaks into lefty discourse over here. Somebody who reads a lot of that stuff might not have noticed, at first glance, that the article was insanely antisemitic. It’s only one step removed from the sort of language I’ve heard in private conversations.

    Being charitable.

    ETA I gather that it’s a right-wing publication but her Twitter feed makes her seem liberal

  34. 34.

    sharl

    @Betty Cracker: I assumed a hack as well. But then Ashley Feinberg did her usual digging in dark and creepy corners of online, and came up with this 2015 winner:

    I never heard this story about 9/11: The Dancing Israelis https://t.co/jtATGOMTta— Valerie Plame Wilson (@ValeriePlame) December 6, 2015

    I get surprised by these on occasion to this day, when I really shouldn’t be at this point. There are a number of folks who have been correct about One Big Thing, but upon further inspection found to belong somewhere on the sometimes horribly wrong —> unhinged continuum. Justin Raimondo (the antiwar.com guy) is my first personal recollection from those days, but since then there have been Sibel Edmonds, Coleen Rowley, and now Plame-Wilson; who knows how many others I’ve forgotten. Oh well…

  38. 38.

    TenguPhule

    GOP Leaders Confident They’ll Have Cruelty Necessary To Pass Healthcare Bill

    Increasingly optimistic that the callousness they required would be locked down by the September 30 deadline, GOP leaders were confident Wednesday that they will have the cruelty necessary to pass their new healthcare bill. “While we were nearly there on our previous attempts, with this go-around we’re all but certain we have the savagery we need for this measure to move forward,” said bill coauthor Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), adding that the utter contempt for the lives of middle class and poor Americans appeared to be “falling into place nicely.” “I’m not saying that lining up the wanton disregard for human suffering will be easy, but I’m more and more persuaded that it will be there when this bill ultimately comes to the floor.” At press time, Graham was meeting with several key undecideds, confident they just needed a bit more coaxing before fully pledging their inhumanity.

  41. 41.

    Mnemosyne

    @Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD):

    She has now apologized, FWIW. She says that she just skimmed the article and didn’t take the source into account.

    This is why I’m always wary of the people who urge us to make common cause with, say, Ron Paul, because he’s anti-war. No. If someone is anti-war because they’re racist fucks, then they are not my allies. Ever.

  42. 42.

    eemom

    Not to be a killjoy, but liberal Canadians I have spoken to say Trudeau is all schtick and no substance.

    To state the painfully obvious, however, his socks themselves would be better than what we’ve got in the oval office. Even a pair of uncool ordinary socks, unwashed, would be better.

  44. 44.

    Mnemosyne

    @Betty Cracker:

    Like I just said, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” is a very bad organizing principle. Apparently the guy said sneery things about neocons and she didn’t bother to check to see why. Dumb mistake.

  48. 48.

    Kay

    It’s as if they TRY to make it horrible to live here:

    An individual with pre-existing conditions could and likely would obtain an injunction blocking either of these actions.

    If you want health insurance they expect you to sue the state to get it. OMFG. People have jobs! And families! They just want to buy health insurance! They’re supposed to “obtain an injunction” to get it?

    I sometimes wonder if they’re opposed to immigration not because they worry about people getting in, but because they worry about people getting out.

  51. 51.

    Mnemosyne

    @JPL:

    She thinks he’s not rich enough for her. That was her sole critereon for choosing a husband, and she doesn’t get to whine about the fallout from her poor choices now.

  53. 53.

    Kay

    If Canada had “ope borders” month you wonder how many people would take them up on it. Why not live in a competently managed country instead of an insane asylum, where your health care can be snatched away at any moment depending on the whims of some idiot in the Senate?

  54. 54.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Kay: Definitely one of the major problems with the American health care system is that chronically sick people spend too _little_ time navigating byzantine bureaucracies and fighting deep-pocketed adversaries. It’s just too _easy_ for them to get treatment, and they need some toughening up. :/

  58. 58.

    Kay

    @FlipYrWhig:

    “what are you whining about? Go get an injunction!”

    People are like “what? Why do I have to go thru all this to get health insurance?” The truth is they want us to leave. They must! They work as hard as they can to make every day life as miserable as possible.

    8 years we have been trying to just get a bare-bones subsidy to purchase private health insurance. We can’t even do that.

  62. 62.

    d58826

    @FlipYrWhig: read my comment above about waiting 90 minutes and still not getting a simple pneumonia shot. The pharmacy folks tried but they were beaten by the system

  63. 63.

    Yutsano

    @Kay:

    where your health care can be snatched away at any moment depending on the whims of some idiot in the Senate?

    This comment cuts to the quick. The Canadian Senate is pretty much a joke of Parliament. The House of Commons has all the fun.

  64. 64.

    Kay

    @FlipYrWhig:

    They want to buy health insurance,these people!

    Republicans say “no, I’m afraid that’s impossible”

    Really? 8 years and we can’t even solve that ONE problem? Meanwhile Canadians are cruising along, just a couple miles north, doing whatever they do without all those endless bullshit.

  65. 65.

    No Drought No More

    As far as I’m concerned, Mr. Northern Exposure may as well be wearing blinking, multi-colored neon socks. All he needs now are clown shoes and a twirling bow tie..

  67. 67.

    trollhattan

    @Kay: Once read a formal Libertarian statement that held EPA as unnecessary because anybody harmed by environmental pollution can simply sue the polluter.

  68. 68.

    Betty Cracker

    @Gin & Tonic: Because I pointed out that she’d issued an actual apology rather than a bullshit “sorry if anyone is offended” non-apology? And then went on to express astonishment that anyone could tweet such insane antisemitic garbage without realizing it? That’s making an excuse? Not according to my understanding of the word.

  69. 69.

    bmaccnm

    @Ohio Mom: I had this same revelation about fifteen years ago on a train from Copenhagen to Stockholm. I suddenly realized nobody else on the train who had to worry about what would happen if I broke my leg and couldn’t work for 2 months. Nobody else had to worry about how I would send my very bright son to college. Nobody else had to worry about what woud happen when I was 60 years old and didn’t have the physical strength to be a labor and delivery nurse any more. Nobody on the train seemed to be suffering under the weight of all that socialism.

  73. 73.

    Brachiator

    @TenguPhule:

    GOP Leaders Confident They’ll Have Cruelty Necessary To Pass Healthcare Bill

    Yeah, the Onion actually nails it. The GOP is pretty much destroying health care in order to “save” it.

  74. 74.

    Corner Stone

    How does one even look at the article headline and read anything after that?
    You put “Jews” in the headline because why exactly?

  76. 76.

    Corner Stone

    @Kay:

    Meanwhile Canadians are cruising along, just a couple miles north, doing whatever they do without all those endless bullshit.

    The original sin of America will never stop haunting us.

  79. 79.

    randy khan

    @trollhattan:

    I’ve heard that before, but of course it’s ridiculous on many levels. Besides the point that suing other people just generally is hard and expensive, the likelihood of winning would be extremely low. One reason we have environmental laws in the first place is that the courts tended to find (following rules that are perfectly reasonable in other situations, like when you get hit by a car) that a victim of pollution couldn’t prove that the pollution actually caused the harm except in the most extreme cases.

  80. 80.

    Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)

    @Corner Stone: A lot of headlines seem to work on the same principle as Pen & Pixel album covers – namely, that the ideal headline/cover is one that makes even the mere adequacy of the inside product look like a coin flip.

    Of course, you don use blatantly bigoted headlines like that unless the underlying article is already loathsome — you wouldn’t title an article with a racial slur unless you already thought that doing so was an acceptable thing to do, for example.

  85. 85.

    Elmo

    Y’all are looking at the colors of his shoes, and his suit, or just squeeing about the socks, and all I can think about is: Both Chewbacca faces are correctly lined up! They’re both facing front, at the same angle – neither one is twisted sideways. How much effort does that man put into getting dressed?

  92. 92.

    catclub

    @Elmo:

    How much effort does that man put into getting dressed?

    Enough to identify the heel reinforcement in the socks and line it up with each heel? Does not seem like rocket surgery. Maybe I am sartorially gifted.

  93. 93.

    Ohio Mom

    @smintheus: oh god, it’s that “What color is this dress?” thing all over again.

    I don’t know or care what color his shoes are, I trust his judgement.

  96. 96.

    Corner Stone

    @Elmo: If you do not put the toe line in the right place you will be miserable all freaking day. Not saying it’s not a nice touch to keep them straight, but lining up the heel and toe line is essential.

  97. 97.

    NotMax

    Looking at the full sock, unshod, you’d have to go to some lengths to convince me that’s not a patch of Wookiee pubes just above the toes.

  98. 98.

    Jay

    @Major Major Major Major:

    Nope, not a horribleneoliberal sell out, just a typical center right politician like Obama.

    Funny thing, is when the Right take Politics further to the Right, ( Harper), everybody moves right, even the Dippers,

    And when the Center get’s elected, the Politics return towards the center, but they still remain to the right of where they were.

  99. 99.

    Jay

    @Major Major Major Major:

    Getting Crucified by the State, while serving the State, for crass political purposes, tends to change your world view.

    Consuming alt-left and left alt-media and writings is often tricky for many people to navigate. Unlike the racist, mysoginist, fake news alt-right, there is subtlety there, that requires often, a non-binary approach, and little of it is “light reading”.

    Reading and understanding that the ARDA is a cross between an Islamic Terror group, Nepali Maoist forced collective action group, and not a traditional Mymarese Ethic Self Defence Army, and that their recent attacks against the Mynemar State, ( including Royhingya Elders), is what sparked the current round of ethnic cleansing,

    Is not the same thing as endorsing the Ethnic cleansing or trying to “smear” the Royhingya refugee’s.

    Binary minds don’t see that.

    More complex world views understand that most issues, other than “punching Nazi’s”, are very complex, and that the 2010 round of Myanmarese/Royhingya Conflict, the Royhingya Citizenship situation, Bangladeshi Royhingya Migration, and the refugee situation,

    Created a situation that outside actors, through the Royhingya expat community, and the Radicalisation of Islam, a violent minority are “taking advantage of”, to the cost of the Rohingya majority.

    During Bush II’s reign, “NeoCon” became a pejorative. Unless an alt-left or left article documents a person’s involvement in established neo-Conservative politics or policy, I kinda just ignore it.

    It’s sadly, really easy for a lot of people to get sucked into binary thinking, shallow reading and this tends, on both the right and the left, to a certain amount of radicalization.

  100. 100.

    Jay

    @catclub:

    And the Southern Interior triangle from Osoyuse east to Christina Lake, and North to Salmon Arm, an area the size of Texas,

    and the Sunshine Coast, the Gulf Islands, and the east coast of Vancouver Island as far north as Nanimo.

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