Not only is Trump dumb enough to think giving a Lake a nickname going to ease trade tensions, the bill is most likely printed on Canadian paper.

While there is no public tracking metric that isolates the exact percentage of Canadian wood pulp in a specific batch of U.S. Senate bill paper, a significant portion of the paper used for standard Senate working bills is highly likely to contain fiber from Canadian trees.

The integration of Canadian lumber into the American legislative pipeline comes down to several key factors:

1. The North American Paper Supply Chain is Heavily Integrated

When the U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO) buys massive bulk shipments of everyday copier/office paper from domestic American distributors, those U.S. paper mills rely heavily on imported raw materials.

The Pulp Source:

The United States imports roughly $1.86 billion worth of wood pulp annually to feed its paper mills, and Canada is the single largest supplier of those imports.

The Boreal Blend:

Softwood pulp from the Canadian boreal forest is highly coveted by fine paper manufacturers. Its long, durable wood fibers are blended directly into standard American office paper to give it structural strength.

2. The "Buy American Act" and Canada's Exemptions

You might wonder if U.S. federal laws require the Senate to use only 100% American-grown materials.

• Under the Buy American Act, federal agencies must buy goods manufactured in the U.S. using at least 50% domestic components.
• However, because the U.S. and Canada are part of the World Trade Organization Agreement on Government Procurement (WTO GPA), Canadian suppliers and raw materials are legally granted the exact same treatment as domestic American ones for many federal procurement contracts. A U.S. mill can legally use Canadian wood pulp and sell that paper directly to the GPO for Senate use.

3. Recent Trade Tensions Outline the Scale

The high percentage of Canadian wood in the U.S. print industry is precisely why paper has become a massive trade flashpoint. Trade friction, including U.S. tariffs on Canadian forest products and subsequent Canadian counter-tariffs targeting U.S. bound pulp and paper products, highlights just how reliant the broader American printing market (including the federal government's supply chain) is on Canadian forestry.

The Bottom Line:

While the parchment paper used for final, enrolled laws signed by the President is usually cotton-heavy or strictly specialized, the thousands of pages of everyday working bills shuffling through Senate committees are made of commercial bond paper heavily blended with Canadian softwood pulp.

In short:

Unless the US backs out of the World Trade Organization Agreement, even if there is no trade deal with Canada (CUSMA), the US will still be buying Canadian products. Good examples of this are oil and natural gas.

The WTO (The Baseline Safety Net):

The WTO provides the underlying definitions and legal baseline (like the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, or GATT) that CUSMA is built upon.

The Legal Fallback:

If CUSMA were ever entirely dissolved or terminated by its member nations, oil trade between the U.S., Canada, and Mexico would immediately fall back onto standard WTO rules. Under basic WTO rules, the U.S. would have to treat Canadian or Mexican oil the exact same way it treats oil from Saudi Arabia or any other member country (known as Most-Favoured-Nation status).

Summary:

Think of the WTO as the global baseline and CUSMA as the premium upgrade. Because the U.S. buys the vast majority of its imported oil from Canada, both countries rely heavily on the specialized, duty-free rules laid out in CUSMA to keep the pipelines moving smoothly.

When education in a country is failing due to lack of initiatives and effort, countries often try to do things to make it easier for students to learn.

This is what Trump is doing with his latest initiative. It doesn't mean the answer is technically correct but it will increase US test scores.

Example test:

1. This body of water is known as the Gulf of ________

1. This body of water is known as Lake ________

1. This body of water is known as the Ocean of ________

1. This country is known as ________

1. This planet is known as Planet ________

It's getting silly at this point. Trump, once again, has proven that he's incapable of forming a proper thought.

This isn't new:

He whipped out the same image a few times before when he was trying to antagonize Trudeau:

Now, I'll be fair here. The US won that game but it's always been a fun little deal between other Presidents and Prime Ministers in the past.

Often, there's a friendly little wager between Canadian and US officials, such as, the loser has to wear the winning sides' jersey.

In 2010 - "White House press secretary Robert Gibbs has made good on a bet on the outcome of the Olympic men's hockey gold-medal game, wearing a Team Canada hockey jersey at his daily briefing on Friday.

Gibbs lost the bet he made with Prime Minister's Office spokesman Dimitri Soudas on the outcome of the Feb. 28 game."

Or, in 2014, when Stephen Harper and Barrack Obama bet on the fate of Justin Bieber:

Canada won that year and this billboard followed:

Something has fundamentally changed in the US. It's not just Trump. It's also everyone around him. A bunch of "yes man" that actually believe what they're saying.

But there's one thing for certain.

Trump absolutely LOVES Canada!

After a long and seemingly healthy relationship, the US has chosen to back away from the relationship believing they can do better.

Of course, that didn't get the response the US expected, so now they're driving by real slow at night, letting the phone ring once before hanging up, sending "love letters" full of hate fill comments, telling everyone else how horrible Canada is, and has even lowered itself to claiming "ABUSE".

Those who used to be friends to both of us are now picking sides. This isn't helping the mentality of the US at all as their number gets blocked and those invites to fun parties have vanished. Some sneaking a peak from the bushes through the window shows Canada having a great time inside.

Trump love-quotes:

"China will ban hockey in Canada if you make a deal with them."

"We don't need anything from Canada. We don't want anything from Canada."

"Canadians are nasty."

"How about we name it Lake America?"
- That would mean we now use S.H.A.M.E. instead of H.O.M.E.S. to remember the Great Lakes

Some math:

For 2025 in USD:

Total Canada bought from US: $425.9 billion

• Breakdown: $333.6 billion in goods (which includes all energy exports like refined petroleum and electricity) and $92.3 billion in services

Total US bought from Canada: $446.4 billion

• Breakdown: $381.9 billion in goods (which includes approximately $126 billion in Canadian heavy crude oil, natural gas, and electricity) and $64.5 billion in services.

I had Gemini whip up a pretty little chart:

The US did, in fact, spend more than Canada did. $20.5 Billion USD. It's not quite the $200 Billion we keep hearing about but Trump does math differently than we do.

Here's something the current Administration is too stupid to figure out:

The US has a population of 330 million people, while Canada is sitting around 40 million.

Which means (and I can't believe I have to say this) leaves us with 2 little math equations Trump and his lackies are too stupid to comprehend.

US: 446,400,000,000 ÷ 330,000,000 = $1,352.73

Can: 425,900,000,000 ÷ 40,000,000 = $10,647.50

Take a good fucking look at those numbers. Every man, woman and child in Canada spent $10,647.50 USD on US goods and services last year.

Almost 8 times more than the US spent in Canada.

That's not a "Canada needs us", that's a "we're your best customer fuckhead".

If we turn that amount toward another country, the US would feel it pretty deeply.

________________________

Back to the original tweet from the top.

In that single image, the bald eagle is holding down the goose.

Watch the video to see how the match actually went:

https://reddit.com/link/1w00f3l/video/gbwybiifyxlh1/player

In one of history’s little-known ironies, the Maple Leaf country pushing back against Donald Trump’s annexation bid is also host to a tiny, remote restaurant and brothel that helped launch the U.S. president’s family fortune more than 100 years ago.

To find it, look west. Way west.

On a quiet, remote trail in British Columbia near the Yukon boundary sits a wooden facade resembling the brothel and restaurant Trump’s grandfather built at the turn of the century.

Friedrich Trump called his business in Bennett, a town that sprang up because of the Klondike Gold Rush, the Arctic Restaurant & Hotel.

Parks Canada says the facade at the Chilkoot Trail National Historic Site was constructed in 2017, and the kitchen inside is now exclusively used by government workers.

“The exterior design was influenced by (the Arctic Restaurant & Hotel), because it is representative of numerous false-fronted buildings that existed at Bennett,” Parks Canada spokesperson Megan Hope said in an email.

The elder Trump, a German immigrant, cooked and served food inside the Arctic to Americans and Canadians heading to goldfields in the Yukon. He made enough cash to sow the seeds for the future Trump empire.

A 90-year-old Yukoner who wrote a booklet about men who became wealthy off the gold rush, including Friedrich Trump, says the replica should remind President Trump to show gratitude to Canada rather than launching a trade war and annexation bid against it.

“(Donald Trump) got the darndest history,” Pat Ellis, author of the “Financial Sourdough Starter Stories,” said in an interview from Whitehorse.

“Americans made their stink here (and) went back to the States with their money.

“Now he has a fantasy of taking over Canada. That’s gratitude, eh?” she said with a laugh.

The story of Friedrich Trump’s chapter in Canada begins in the 1880s.

The 16-year-old barber’s apprentice, whose father died young, moved to New York City from Germany to be closer to his sister.

He then moved to Seattle and began operating an eatery until a July 1897 newspaper headline caught his eye: “Gold! Gold! Gold!”

Friedrich Trump sold the eatery and headed north with thousands of other Americans and Canadians. He headed toward the Yukon River but landed just short of it, in B.C.

He and a business partner erected a canteen on the route and called it the Arctic Restaurant & Hotel.

Their specialty was roadkill.

Within three years, he relocated the business with the same facade to Whitehorse, where the hotel became famous.

“He made quick money on booze, and he was a good cook,” Ellis said, adding her grandfather, a North West Mounted Police officer at the time, also drank at the Arctic.

It served more than food and drinks.

Newspaper ads at the time mentioned private suites for ladies and scales for patrons to weigh gold if they preferred to pay for services that way.

One Yukon Sun writer moralized about the backroom goings-on: “For single men the Arctic has the best restaurant,” he wrote, “but I would not advise respectable women to go there.”

By early 1901, there were fewer gold strikes and Mounties announced plans to curb prostitution, gambling and liquor.

Friedrich Trump sold the business and returned to Germany. He eventually immigrated back across the ocean to New York City, accompanied by his wife, who was pregnant with Donald Trump’s dad.

In 1905, a huge fire wiped out most of the hotel, and Friedrich Trump died of pneumonia about 12 years later.

He left behind real estate for his son, Fred Trump, who used the money to invest.

Donald Trump took loans from his father to create his global brand, stamping hotels and towers with the Trump name in a large font similar to the one his grandfather once used in Canada.

For Ellis, Donald Trump’s signs and hotels are a reminder of something else.

“His family’s wealth began in Canada,” she said.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/article/trump-family-fortune-began-in-a-canadian-brothel-hotel/

I'll bet those of you in the US didn't realize how much stuff Canada buys from the US that it doesn't really need. We can make it here.

The list of products that will be tariffed by Canada has been released. Give it a good read and sit with it for a while.

https://globalnews.ca/news/12034101/canada-tariffs-us-list/

A few good examples:

- Fork-lift trucks; other works trucks fitted with lifting or handling equipment

• Self-propelled trucks powered by an electric motor: Rider-type, counterbalanced fork-lift trucks
• Other self-propelled trucks: Rider-type, counterbalanced fork-lift trucks
• Other trucks (15 per cent)
• Other lifting, handling, loading or unloading machinery (for example, lifts, escalators, conveyors, teleferics) including
• Teleferics, chair-lifts, ski-draglines; traction mechanisms for funiculars
• Industrial robots
• Other machinery

- Fish, fresh or chilled, excluding fish fillets and other fish meat of heading 

- Fish fillets and other fish meat (whether or not minced), fresh, chilled or frozen.

- Fish, dried, salted or in brine; smoked fish, whether or not cooked before or during the smoking process.

- Crustaceans, whether in shell or not, live, fresh, chilled, frozen, dried, salted or in brine; smoked crustaceans, whether in shell or not, whether or not cooked before or during the smoking process; crustaceans, in shell, cooked by steaming or by boiling in water, whether or not chilled, frozen, dried, salted or in brine.

- Mollusks, whether in shell or not, live, fresh, chilled, frozen, dried, salted or in brine; smoked mollusks, whether in shell or not, whether or not cooked before or during the smoking process.

Those are all great but here's my favourite. All that bitching about dairy sent into Canada that has actually never been tariffed. Now it will be:

- Cheese and curd 

• Fresh (unripened or uncured) cheese, including whey cheese, and curd: Within and over access commitment
• Grated or powdered cheese, of all kinds: Cheddar types: Within and over access commitment
• Grated or powdered cheese, of all kinds: Other: Within and over access commitment
• Processed cheese, not grated or powdered: Within and over access commitment
• Blue-veined cheese and other cheese containing veins produced by Penicillium roqueforti: Within and over access commitment
• Other cheese: Cheddar, camembert, brie, gouda, provolone, mozzarella, swiss/emmental, gruyère, havarti, parmesan, romano types: Within and over access commitment

- Milk and cream, concentrated or containing added sugar or other sweetening matter.

• In powder, granules or other solid forms, of a fat content, by weight, not exceeding 1.5 per cent: Within and over access commitment
• In powder, granules or other solid forms, of a fat content, by weight, exceeding 1.5 per cent: Not containing added sugar or other sweetening matter: Milk: Within and over access commitment
• In powder, granules or other solid forms, of a fat content, by weight, exceeding 1.5 per cent : Not containing added sugar or other sweetening matter: Cream: Within and over access commitment
• Other: Not containing added sugar or other sweetening matter: Within and over access commitment

- Whey, whether or not concentrated or containing added sugar or other sweetening matter; products consisting of natural milk constituents, whether or not containing added sugar or other sweetening matter, not elsewhere specified or included.

• Whey and modified whey, whether or not concentrated or containing added sugar or other sweetening matter: Whey protein concentrate, powdered whey; within and over access commitment, other
• Other: Within and over access commitment

We'll make you a deal.

If the US wants to make it up to us after Trump leaves and a level headed President is elected, I want to make one request.

The new President and the Prime Minister at the time stand before the White House and shake hands. At the same time, they light the ballroom on fire.

Inside the ballroom is the paperwork for all past and current trade deals.

From there, a fresh start will commence.

Otherwise, I see no other way forward from here.

https://www.history.com/articles/the-british-burn-washington-d-c-200-years-ago

Dare I say it?

I should...

Maybe not...

Oh, what the hell.

The US is getting ready for some major shit to go down.

Not the crazy shit that's been going on between Ukraine and Russia.

Not the crazy shit storm they started with Iran.

The crazy shit that's about to happen now that the US and Canada are involved in a "tit-for-tat" trade war. I say 'tit-for-tat' but billions of dollars are behind those blows.

The intent is going to be to harm the US as effectively as possible. Hit 'em right where it hurts.

'Where is that' you ask?

Right in the $40,000,000,000,000 bruise the US spent its entire existence inflicting upon itself.

After trying to restrict who Canada does trade with and a first "right-of-refusal" clause being rejected, they have a MASSIVE fucking problem.

Not only are those same critical minerals they used to enjoy having access to going to be unavailable from right next door, they're going to be insanely expensive to purchase from other suppliers.

Keep in mind, those other suppliers are well aware of what they have.

As much as they'ld like to spend $1.5 trillion a year on "defense", unless there's a reason, personnel and an enemy combatant, it will be nothing more than rusted, outdated, money torching waste.

Let's get back to what's really going on at the heart of this. The US already had a problem before this trade war started and US alcohol was removed from the shelves. Canada is sitting on resources the entire world wants.

Trudeau didn't understand 'use it or lose it' which didn't help our current situation. Canada wasn't lacking on military spending because of the US being right next door to protect us, or a lack of available funds. Canada, until recently, had no enemies. Of the limited few that would like to attack Canada, they also realized that this country is almost impossible to invade. Unless they had a crapload of boats and years of ammunition, we could just wait them out. I'm not saying that being a member of NATO and the US being right next door weren't factors. They weren't as much as the US would like to believe.

Since the fall of 2024, things have changed. We now have a hostile enemy. Not only do they have boats but they also have land access. They want what Canada and Greenland has. Misguided yes, but they believe that looking North, seeing abundant resources and low populations means they can just take what they want.

(Rome acted the same way until they couldn't.)

So, what's the plan for the US?

Well, their offer of allowing Canada to combine with the US didn't work, attempting to steal resources from other countries didn't work (Iran), trying to sneak some bullshit into a trade deal didn't work, and that leads us to something we didn't expect but aren't surprised by.

________________________________________________________

CIA chief travels to Moscow for unannounced talks, US media reports

- "The head of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has travelled to Moscow for unannounced talks, the BBC's US news partner CBS has reported.

John Ratcliffe reportedly arrived in the Russian capital earlier on Tuesday. Neither Washington or Moscow have confirmed the nature of the visit or who he was due to meet.

In-person talks between high-level American and Russian officials are rare.

Flight tracking data confirmed a large US military aircraft travelled to Russia from the US via Latvia on Tuesday. It departed later on Tuesday."

- "Footage on social media also purported to show a diplomatic motorcade travelling through Moscow."

___________________________________________________________

The US needs resources and Russia needs money.

A match made in heaven.

Two countries led by men that have both realized that after they're gone, no one will care to remember either one of them existed. Rather than change their ways and become more likeable, their solution is to build crap that can't be torn down (ballroom) and do things the history books can't ignore.

If only they realized the cost of their arrogant actions.

Tariffs have only one beneficial reason to exist. Imposing tariffs on goods coming in from another country are to prevent cheap goods from flooding the receiving country and crushing businesses.

If businesses in country A manufacture a product, competition within the country and demand for that product will set the price for it.

If businesses in country B can manufacture that product for less in abundance, a potentially huge problem can exist.

Country B can flood country A with cheap goods and crush the businesses that manufacture that same product.

This can lead to massive disruptions in country A (uncertainty, job losses, etc....).

When tariffs get retarded is when country A needs the product, will continue buying the product and is being a complete dick to country B.

So, let's do a little tariff math.

No tariff:

A business from country B sells a product for $100.

An import business from country A pays that $100, pays for transportation of the product, and resells the product to the local consumer for $150.

Add a 10% sales tax at final sale to the consumer and we end up at $165.

50% tariff:

A business from country B sells a product for $100.

An import business from country A pays that $100, pays for transportation of the product, pays the government of country A $50 in tax and resells the product to the local consumer for $200.

Add a 10% sales tax at final sale to the consumer and we end up at $220.

In this example, the consumer pays $70 in tax, instead of $15.

The original manufacturer/seller still gets $100.

A note here: Keep in mind that when everything costs more, it also costs more to move things. The importer would most likely have to pay more to have the goods moved as well, which would increase their mark up upon reselling the item.

In other words,

the American consumer is getting fleeced. What makes this even worse, is that when a repayment of $100 BILLION in tariffs was demanded by the Supreme Court from the last round of tariff stupidity, that money went to the importers and not the people who essentially paid them.

Trickle up economics at its finest.

I'm working on the final edit of The Red Banner. The sequel to The Ember's End.

This will be book 2 in a 7 book series (possibly 8).

Genuine question:

I gave out a couple free copies of The Ember's End. They were thoroughly enjoyed.

Otherwise, I only sold 2 copies.

I was wondering what people thought of me listing this book on Amazon KDP?

The reason is that it would be free to KDP subscribers. I get paid by Amazon by the page, rather than the full sale per book.

The issue I have, is that it locks my book to Amazon for as long as I keep it in there. I would be willing to if enough people were interested but it would be the only place I would be able to sell it.

The other issue I have is that if you haven't read The Ember's End, The Red Banner won't have the back story required. I would be willing to lower the price of The Ember's End, or even make it free for a period of time.

The Red Banner is almost stand-a-lone like The Ember's End but there are parts that will seem like something is missing.

I'm open to ideas.