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[Trekkin]

Canada. The true enemy.  It lurks above us with its mighty oil reserves. It's like a cold Mexico, a french Russia, or a really laid back Iraq.

One day, we will learn what they're all so sorry about -- and it will be far, far too late.

[Egan_BW]

You know, it would be a lot simpler to just murder every human not in the US than to take over the whole world.

[alway]

Speaking of drug cartels: https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/09/opioid-maker-posed-as-doctors-office-lied-to-push-deadly-opioid-on-patient/
Pretty well sums up why we have an opioid problem in the US. Pharma companies making hideously expensive end-of-life pain management drugs, then lying to get them in the hands of people they should never be prescribed to.

[Zangi]

Profit trumps ethics.  Until you are caught.

[misko27]

You know, it would be a lot simpler to just murder every human not in the US than to take over the whole world.

I mean sure we could, but why do that? They're no good to anyone dead. But if we take them under our Eagle wing things could be wonderful. More broadly, I'm disappointed that democratic imperialism isn't the first solution we reach for.

In other, stranger news, Trump is happy, and so are the Democrats' leadership. Their deal just passed the Senate, and will soon face the wrath of the Republican Study Committee (which is 150 representatives strong and has come out against the legislation). It'll have to rely on Democratic votes to pass, but it's helped by the fact that Paul Ryan (who just had an interview with the NY Times) has "evolved" from calling the Democrats plan "ridiculous and disgraceful" to calling it wise to avoid a "partisan fight" that could endanger Harvey aid. It is a rather unusual situation for this Presidency.

[Descan]

Trying to remove the drug cartels from Mexico, would be like trying to remove the historic mafia (Al Capone, and pals) back in the 20s and 30s. Only with things much more aggressive than tommy guns.

It would require substantive law reform, and substantive assistance (for many decades!) to law enforcement for that to happen, and likely, would also require substantive upset of government to remove corrupt/compromised politicians.

It's not some "Hey, this is an easy thing to do, yo!" type scenario.

Nobody said it's easy. Just that moving the U.S. Armed Forces into Mexican territory and against the cartels wouldn't be an act of war if the Mexican government invited them or accepted an offer of assistance.

Like, having a foreign military on your soil isn't an act of war; or else the U.S. is at war with a *lot* of people around the world, what with all their military bases. Even if we limit it to explicitly fighting in another countries territory, does that mean that the Allies were at war with France after D. Day?

[RedKing]

It's always Liberation Time somewhere.

[Trekkin]

Trying to remove the drug cartels from Mexico, would be like trying to remove the historic mafia (Al Capone, and pals) back in the 20s and 30s. Only with things much more aggressive than tommy guns.

It would require substantive law reform, and substantive assistance (for many decades!) to law enforcement for that to happen, and likely, would also require substantive upset of government to remove corrupt/compromised politicians.

It's not some "Hey, this is an easy thing to do, yo!" type scenario.

Nobody said it's easy. Just that moving the U.S. Armed Forces into Mexican territory and against the cartels wouldn't be an act of war if the Mexican government invited them or accepted an offer of assistance.

Like, having a foreign military on your soil isn't an act of war; or else the U.S. is at war with a *lot* of people around the world, what with all their military bases. Even if we limit it to explicitly fighting in another countries territory, does that mean that the Allies were at war with France after D. Day?

It might be a violation of the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, though; there's nothing in the Act specifying that only American laws may not be enforced by the military.

[Max™]

I read "Cartels" as "Canada" and was very confused for a second.

Until you've seen someone ready to knife a baby cause he needs to get his poutine fix.

Then apologize profusely.

The missus has a friend she does hangouts with a lot up in mooselandia and she was teasing her about apologizing for stuff... for which she of course apologized.

[nenjin]

You know, it would be a lot simpler to just murder every human not in the US than to take over the whole world.

I mean sure we could, but why do that? They're no good to anyone dead. But if we take them under our Eagle wing things could be wonderful. More broadly, I'm disappointed that democratic imperialism isn't the first solution we reach for.

In other, stranger news, Trump is happy, and so are the Democrats' leadership. Their deal just passed the Senate, and will soon face the wrath of the Republican Study Committee (which is 150 representatives strong and has come out against the legislation). It'll have to rely on Democratic votes to pass, but it's helped by the fact that Paul Ryan (who just had an interview with the NY Times) has "evolved" from calling the Democrats plan "ridiculous and disgraceful" to calling it wise to avoid a "partisan fight" that could endanger Harvey aid. It is a rather unusual situation for this Presidency.

Hurray for bipartisanship? *shrugging shoulders and holding up hands while saying it*

Seems about right for Trump. He's focused on his agenda and he will completely ignore slandering someone if 30 minutes later they're useful to him. He's showing he's completely willing to break ranks if he gets what he wants, he didn't think through the deal (hah) to the satisfaction of the Republicans and has positioned them to be the ones that have to say no to Hurricane relief, if they want to keep up their plan to financially ruin the US and restructure the states as a series of franchises after the the motor cycle gangs and mutants have had their way with the country.

I'm sure he thinks this is a brilliant pivot in the flaming shit mire he has been filling up since he started.

[Karnewarrior]

I'm hoping Donald Trump decides to make his name in the history books by being the first U.S. President to change party affiliation in the middle of their presidential term.

The mileage of "keks" I would get out of the butthurt nazis on /pol/ would be hilarious. I don't think it'll happen, because Dems support those darn black folk, but after the last election cycle I'm prepared for anything less than or equal to John McCain supporting the Vietcong.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Based on what I know of Trump, this whole DACA scenario is a power play. It's retaliation for the Congressional Republicans not delivering him a healthcare bill to sign when told to do so. The message is "You will pass bills that I want, when I want, and if you don't I'll use issuing and rescinding executive orders to dump problems on your doorstep, and I'll adopt Democrat plans to make you look bad".

It's the sort of intimidation tactic that Orange Slice takes as Plan A in all situations, and it fits here. Not convinced it'll actually compel their compliance, but that's the shadow game here, in my judgement.

[alway]

Or more likely, someone just told him that if the government runs out of money, he won't be able to funnel government money to himself through his golf trips and hotels.

[martinuzz]

Equifax got hacked (again). The credit card numbers, home adresses, dates of birth and various other personal data of 143 million US citizens have been stolen.
To a lesser extent, private data of Canadian and UK customers has also been compromised.
Equifax discovered back in late july already, that hackers had broken into their systems, and gained access to customer data from may to july.
They only disclosed their findings today, and sent it's customers an apology via Twitter.

This is the third time within one year's time that they got hacked. Security experts are criticizing the company for not increasing it's security protocols.

[Reelya]

Surely they can do better in 2017? blockchain technology, which was developed for Bitcoin hides the ledger in plain sight, yet nobody's been able to crack that - the only time hacks work are when people share their private bitcoin key to an exchange, which is a traditional website / server, then that website gets hacked.

The news reports are that major banks are now investigating blockchain technology for themselves, because the traditional ways of doing things are clearly broken. I mean seriously, the entire database for Bitcoin is publicly downloadable yet nobody has tech to crack that shit. It's actually majorly embarassing to the establishment that Bitcoin's amateur tech is so much more hack-resistant than stuff used by the major financial institutions.

(btw Bitcoin price is now almost $5000 US dollars. While it's all well to smirk at those who bought into bitcoin as fools, they're now rich fools. So smirk while you're working retail, serving those fools).