So far DOGE has made cuts to the PACT but they said it's primarily on the administration side, contract workers but recently stopped after many hard core Vets and congressional members who are Vets too stated the cuts would cause physical harm to Vets by causing safety problems in their ongoing healthcare. Musk/DOGE now say the terminations “will not negatively affect Veteran care, benefits or services”. A buddy of mine, a Vet retired in North Carolina, said he noticed at the VA Hospital in his state some of the offices have signs saying they're "under-staffed" and to ring the bell on the counter to get help from an employee. He now usually needs to wait about 5mins for someone to come to the desk whereas in the past there was someone (a secretary) at the front desk of the office. That particular day he was in the Oncology Department. DOGE states the following cuts will impact - The contract cuts includes those covering sterility certification for VA hospital pharmacy operations, facility air quality and safety testing to prevent transmission of infections, and sterile processing services to decontaminate equipment and medical instruments. Also on the list: contracts providing required certification and accreditation for stroke centers and follow-up care for cancer patients. wrbtrader
Okay, enough with the scholarly BS. Whether "America" is one or two continents (or not) is unimportant. What needs to be addressed is why we're the only friggin' chauvinistic pigs on the continent who proudly call ourselves Americans. Why is that? You don't hear Canadians calling themselves Americans, even though they're also inhabitants of the American continent. You don't hear Mexicans claiming themselves to be Americans, nor Ecuadorians or Argentineans. What gives people in the USA such a privileged sense of entitlement to make them into pompous asses?
During the Revolutionary War...the British and French often referred to the colonies or the Continental Army as "Americans". The ratification of the U.S. Constitution stressed the words "American Citizens". In contrast, the British and French referred to Canada as Canadians when the four colonies joined together as "Dominion of Canada" within the British empire but not as Americans regardless to the fact that Canada and the United States are part of the North American continent (not American continent). Simply, the United States has exclusively been referred to as "Americans" by the French, British, Canada, and the U.S. Constitution even though both Canada and the United States are members of 23 countries in the North American continent...22 countries who do not referred to themselves as Americans except for the United States. wrbtrader
Predominantly WASP for the first 100 years or so until Irish and German immigrants came around mid-1800's so its kinda funny that the "Americans" label stuck seeing how an Eye-talian Explorer Amerigo Vespucci was mistakenly given credit by a mapmaker for "discovering" the southern part of the continent. Who knew! Now Elon is looking for mapmaker to credit him and rename the planet Mars to the planet Musk.
The US cannot afford to invade and would struggle to occupy even parts of Canada. Are you not aware what happened in Afghanistan ? Some of you just aren't very practical. Remember the Nazi's world power, huge army ? Started invading their neighbors but killed their chances by invading a massive country that didn't want them with harsh winters. Gee, sounds familiar. Real enemies of the US would love to see the US weaken their resources trying to occupy one of the largest countries in the world for reasons even worse then Iraq. I think we could develop some nuclear weapons within weeks if things got bad. Canada was one of the original participants in the Manhattan project, and some of the earliest working nuclear reactors were in Canada. We have a ton of raw materials to build the weapons if we need a deterrent.
I forgot to mentioned that the Opioid Crisis in the United States was discovered by a "Whistleblower" who discovered the over prescription of Opioids by the company named Purdue Pharma inducing Doctors in the VA Healthcare to over prescribe Opioids as a pain killer to U.S. military soldiers and military veterans at the direction from Purdue Pharma (owned by the Sackler Family)... Purdue Pharma knew Oxycodone (OxyContin) was highly addictive an very dangerous while lying (cover-up) that it was a non-addictive miracle painkiller. The watchdog federal agency that the "whistleblower" used has now been fired by President Trump. Fentanyl is part of the opioid family but is 100x more potent than Oxycodin and is a synthetic and much cheaper to make than Oxycodone. Drug dealers often sell Fentanyl as fake Oxycodone when the United States begin it's investigation into Purdue Pharma owned by the Sackler Family. Trump won key states in his first term (2016) with promises of ending the opioid crisis and did not sign an executive order to call the crisis a “national emergency”. Essentially the Opioid crisis dramatically increased during Trump's first term. In fact, more people have died from fentanyl overdoses than prescription opioids since fentanyl overtook prescription opioids. Worst, the Trump administration went easy on the Sackler Family. In October 2020, his Justice Department reached a settlement with Purdue Pharma, under which the firm agreed to plead guilty to criminal charges related to its marketing of OxyContin and faced about $8.3 billion in fines. The Sackler family, which was worth an estimated $13 billion, only had to cover $225 million in civil penalties instead of $8.3 billion. Simply, Trump wasn't trying to protect America when in comes to the Opioid Crisis...it has always only been a "talking point". Today, the Sackler Family is one of the richest families in America even after their Purdue Pharma company was dissolved in bankruptcy proceedings. The company had once employed the Purdue Pharma PAC to contribute to federal candidates, most of the donations went to Republicans. As a Republican, I can only say we screwed up and we let down our U.S. Armed Forces and Military Veterans by allowing one of the richest families in America start the Opioid addiction crisis which has now transformed into a Fentanyl addiction crisis. We need to come clean instead of blaming Canada and targeting Canada with tariffs without using the FBI, DOJ, and Homeland Security to put the Sackler family in prison who use to be lobbyists on Capital Hill with the FDA along with most Republicans in their pocket....making the United States as ground zero for the global opioid crisis...with roots all the way back to the late 1990s. wrbtrader
Afghani's have been fighting with someone forever. Canadians have never had a war on their home land. Our response to aggression would be to write a strongly worded letter. How many Canadians are armed? I'll bet there is a huge part of the population that has never even held a firearm. I just can't see myself with my hunting rifle going up against well trained soldiers with night vision and infrared technology, not to mention assault rifles with unlimited ammo.
But then again, why was our nation named "The United States of AMERICA" and ended up calling ourselves "Americans" rather than "United Staters"? I'm thinking the reason might be because USA was the first colony on the continent to have won independence from it's colonial master.
Our response would probably involve nuclear weapons, an area we have top expertise in. Hard to see how ground forces invading our country would matter if we have a series of missiles that are easily in range of top US centers. Remember, just a few guys with boxcutters managed to create a surgical strike on NYC and narrowly avoided a more significant hit on Washington DC. The main weakness in the US is penetrating their illusion that they are safe from the dangers of war. Creating an enemy to the North seems counterproductive. Traditional war at this point is mostly pointless but a tool of irrational leaders. The deterrence factor is important. Canada sent a lot of troops to Afghanistan and has donated a ton of military equipment to Ukraine. Which is a reminder that our resources in these areas are far larger than some on here seem to understand. And the US for all it's military spending would still be in serious trouble in a global war without allies. Again, deterrence is important; otherwise psychopaths like Trump and Putin could unleash a devastating nuclear war with no winners for centuries. In any event, how many parents in the US are willing to send their young adult kids in the military and risk their lives on some flimsy pretense to invade Canada. Because that's what you are suggesting that they would. Better make up your mind does Canada matter or not . Trump says the US doesn't need anything from Canada yet he wants us to join the US . Chances that we will join the US are effectively zero eventually Trump will drop dead and save us the trouble of talking about an invasion anymore.