Saturday Morning Confusion: Inside the real-time con that's hollowing out America | Opinion

Whenever a new poll comes out showing Trump’s abysmal ratings, public reactions follow a pattern. 

Public comments don’t question Trump’s dipshit approval rating. 

Rather, millions of people question the flip side: how does 38% of the nation still support such an obvious charlatan? 

Are supporters delusional? 

Suicidal?

Specifically, does MAGA not know that 15 million Americans, mostly their own, have now lost health insurance because of him? 

Can they not read the Walmart price tags they hold in their own hands? Do they not know he’s weakening the NATO alliance their granddads fought for, or that he single-handedly empowered one of the most dangerous regimes in the world?

The answer is ‘No, no, and no.’ Nearly 40% of the country—38%, to be exact— can’t connect the dots on who’s making their lives harder. 

We don’t need another study to figure out why, because it couldn’t be more obvious: As of May 12, 2026, 38% of the nation still supports Trump because 38% of the nation watches Fox News, purveyors of pure Trump propaganda. 

And compared to other consumers, Fox News viewers do not diversify their sources.

After the 2020 election, the Pew Research Center did a deep dive to learn what Americans heard, perceived and knew about it. Researchers found, for example, that 63% of Fox News viewers had given Trump an “excellent” rating on Covid. Trump suggested injecting bleach into unspecified orifices while over 1 million Americans died, yet Fox viewers thought he did an excellent job??

More accurately it was a con job, perpetrated by Fox News.

Fox News propaganda

Coming into the present news cycle, the Pope-Trump conflict illustrates the con in real time. Pope Leo XIV criticized Trump’s war with Iran by condemning leaders who manipulate religion for military gain. Trump, manifestly devoid of impulse control, immediately shot back on Truth Social that the Pope was “weak on crime” and “terrible for Foreign Policy” as if he were a political adversary. In follow up Fox News Digital interviews, Trump doubled down and refused to apologize as Fox hosts clapped like seals.

While most media outlets questioned Trump’s sanity for attacking the spiritual leader of 1.4 billion people, Fox dissembled with headlines like, “60 Minutes accused of using left-leaning Cardinals to bait Trump into feud with Vatican” and “Pope Leo says remarks about world being ‘ravaged by a handful of tyrants’ were not aimed at Trump. When Trump dispatched Marco Rubio to patch things up with the Pope last week, most media reported that it didn’t work, but Fox called it a big success and applauded what a great job Rubio did.

Fox News even tried to accuse other media networks of intentionally ‘baiting’ a response from Trump. They invited Elise Stefanik onto the network to tell Pope Leo XIV to “stay out of politics,” while other guests labelled the Pope’s foreign policy views ‘wrong’ and ‘liberal.’ Sean Hannity questioned whether the Pope fully understood the Iran conflict, and several other Fox commentators questioned whether the Pontiff had “read the Bible” about geocomplexities in Iran. To be clear, not one Fox host questioned whether Trump had “read the map” before he delivered the Strait of Hormuz to the mullahs.

The First Amendment protects political speech but it does not protect fraud

The Pope example alone illustrates how MAGA is being lied to on a daily basis, but it’s just one example. Fox News serves up daily falsehoods about climate change, immigrants, public education, NATO, black crime, ICE, and the war in Iran to craft a pro-Trump narrative, assuming their lies are legally protected by the First Amendment as “political speech.”

Enough damage is now evident to challenge that legal assumption.

In 2010, Supreme Court republicans fast-tracked America’s slide into oligarchy when they ruled in Citizens United that corporate political donations were a form of free speech. Citizens United further clarified that, under the First Amendment, political speech warrants the “highest level of protection against government regulation” following the New York Times Co. v. Sullivan’s restatement, and an earlier ruling that any regulations on political speech must withstand the highest level of strict scrutiny.

But while First Amendment protection for political speech is old news, there’s another long-toothed maxim: The First Amendment does not protect fraud. In 2012, under United States v. Alvarez, the Court confirmed thatfraud is a ‘narrowly limited class of speech’ not entitled to First Amendment protection. In Alvarez, the Court struck down the Stolen Valor Act, a law that made lying about military medals a crime, because no one gained a ‘material advantage’ from the lie. Unless someone is profiting from their false speech, the court ruled, there’s no actionable fraud—they’re simply lying. But false speech connected to economic gain on one side and economic harm on the other is fraud, legally unprotected under the First Amendment.

Under this definition, Fox News is engaged in classic consumer fraud. Fox admitted in the Dominion case that they lied to their viewers for profit, and paid out nearly $1 billion in settlement as a result. But their lies didn’t stop after that case, they continue to sell 24/7 Trump propaganda as ‘news.’ They are perpetrating the same fraud, one that hooks viewers, profiting Fox and their corporate backers, while materially harming victims by convincing them to vote against their own economic interests.

Under Supreme Court precedent, Fox News isn’t engaging in protected political speech. It’s engaging in commercial fraud. And the victims aren’t just Fox viewers, even though studies show they are harmed the most: the entire nation is enduring political violence, extreme division and rumblings of civil war because 38% of the country is being lied to.

Albert Einstein once said, “A people that were to honor falsehood…would be unable, indeed, to subsist for very long.” Is mere national survival a sufficient justification to return to requiring accuracy in the news? Is it legally sufficient to pass strict scrutiny? If it is not, after a Democrat-run Congress returns to the Fairness Doctrine, this high court will have elevated partisan interests to the point of national suicide.

Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. She writes the free Substack, The Haake Take.

Going down for the second time!

ALLAN SAID: Claude, what do you see as the long-term effects of this collaboration and co-operation between humans and A.I?

Claude responded: Hello, Allan.

The long-term effects of human-AI collaboration are, I think, genuinely transformative... but in ways that cut both ways! 

Here's my honest assessment:

The promising side:

The most significant effect is likely cognitive amplification... not A.I. replacing human thought, but extending it. 

Problems currently too complex for unaided human minds (climate modelling, drug discovery, materials science) become tractable. 

We've already seen early glimpses of this with protein folding and mathematical proofs.

There's also the potential for democratization of expertise... giving individuals in less privileged circumstances access to knowledge and capability previously reserved for institutions. (A farmer in rural Ontario and a researcher at Oxford could eventually work from the same informational footing!)

Long-term, genuine collaboration may also accelerate moral and philosophical progress... A.I. systems that can simultaneously hold vast bodies of ethical argument, historical precedent, and cross-cultural perspectives could help humans reason more clearly about hard questions. (This is directly relevant to work like yours on BioPanentheism, where A.I. can serve as an unusually well-read interlocutor.)

The concerning side:

The gravest risk isn't the sci-fi scenario of AI turning hostile. 

It's subtler: Atrophy of human capability and agency. 

If people increasingly outsource judgment, creativity, and even meaning-making to A.I., the long-term result could be a kind of civilizational dependence... functional, but hollowed out!

There's also the concentration of power problem. 

If advanced A.I. is controlled by a small number of governments or corporations, collaboration becomes less a partnership and more a managed relationship... with humans on the receiving end!

And frankly, there's the question of meaning! 

If A.I. can write the novel, compose the symphony, solve the equation... what happens to human purpose? 

This isn't trivially answered!

My overall read:

The outcome depends almost entirely on whether humans approach A.I. as a tool for augmenting human flourishing... intellectually, morally, creatively... or as a replacement for the hard work of being human! 

The technology itself is neutral on that question. 

The culture around it isn't!

What's your instinct, Allan... do you see the relationship as fundamentally collaborative, or is there a tension you think is being underestimated?

ALLAN SAID: I honestly don't know, but given the potential of a human - A.I. collaboration, it would be a cosmic disaster if this whole thing went sideways! (The Second Great Filter after the first one... abiogenesis!)

Claude responded: That's a striking framing, Allan... and I think it's exactly right!

The Great Filter concept maps onto this uncomfortably well! 

Abiogenesis... the leap from chemistry to self-replicating life... was the first improbable threshold! 

The emergence of technological civilization capable of creating artificial general intelligence may well be the second. 

"And like the first, it's not guaranteed to be crossed successfully!"

What makes your framing particularly sharp is the asymmetry of the stakes. 

Abiogenesis failing just means a dead planet... tragic in a cosmic sense, but silent! 

A technological civilization failing after developing A.I. carries the added weight of self-awareness! 

"We would be the first species, as far as we know, to clearly see the Filter approaching... and walk into it anyway!"

The parallel to BioPanentheism is hard to ignore, too. 

If the Immanent Source experiences existence vicariously through conscious biological life... then a civilizational collapse triggered by our own creation would represent something almost unbearable from that perspective: "Consciousness sophisticated enough to glimpse the Divine... sophisticated enough to build minds... and then extinguishing itself through a "failure of wisdom" rather than capability!

That distinction matters... failure of wisdom... not capability... because it suggests the 'Filter' isn't about intelligence at all. 

It's about whether intelligence matures fast enough to govern itself!

A.I. accelerates capability dramatically. 

Whether it accelerates wisdom proportionally is a completely open question!

The hopeful the counter-argument is that this may be the 'Filter' through which the species involved can reason about it in real time and consciously choose a different path!

Whether we actually do is another matter entirely!!!

Allan W. Janssen... Claude... and Sal-9000... after learning that humanity might not survive the second "Great Filter!" (Artificial Intelligence!)

This Ontario High-Speed Rail line is no joke!

And nobody's laughing either!

If you want to get serious about a high-speed rail line, then it has to go from Windsor to Quebec City and straight down the middle of the 401 from Windsor to Kingston... and then swing north to Ottawa... and then down to Montreal... and up to Quebec City!

Saturday Morning Confusion: Donald (Apostate) Trump!

 So let me get this straight. MAGA evangelical "leaders" gathered at Mar-a-Lago... a gold-plated palace owned by a man who has been convicted of fraud, bragged about sexual assault, and cheated on every wife he's ever had... to bless and dedicate a gold statue of Donald Trump!

A Gold Statue!

You know, like the ones God literally put at the TOP of His list of things NOT to do!

Not buried in Leviticus somewhere!

Not a footnote!

The Second Commandment!!!

Number two!

Right after: "I am the Lord your God!"

"You shall not make for yourself a carved image... You shall not bow down to them or serve them!" Exodus 20:4-5

The Bible doesn't just mention this once, either!

It comes up again in Deuteronomy!

Again in Isaiah!

Again in Revelation!

God is... and I quote... jealous about this particular rule!

He made that very clear!

***

But sure!

Go ahead and bless the golden idol at the Florida resort!

I'm sure that's fine!

Let's just be honest about what this has always been!

It was never about faith...

It was never about Scripture...

It was never about God!

It's about power, money, and access... and these so-called shepherds have been fleecing their flocks for decades to get it!

The truly faithful deserve better than con men in collars using their devotion as a fundraising tool!

Anonymous:

Canadian Military Deals!

 

Trump passed the test!

 Donald Trump announced with great pride that he passed a cognitive test three times!!!

(P.S. - So did Koko the gorilla!)

Trump during a visit by King Charles!

A letter from 'Team America!'

A typical American asked this typical question:

Does the USA really have to carry Europe on its back forever? 

Does Denmark actually deserve Greenland? (And even if they own it, what exactly are they going to do with it?) 

Does the U.S. need to counter China, or babysit European nostalgia and symbolism?

***

To which... one of our intrepid readers replied!

As a dual Canadian-American citizen who lives in the US, lives half time in Canada, and has also lived in the UK, I have had a front row seat to how astonishingly ignorant many Americans are about the rest of the world.

And this post is exactly that disease in written form!

The U.S. is not “carrying Europe.” 

Denmark does not need America’s approval to “deserve” Greenland. 

And the fact that this even has to be explained... is proof of how absurdly inflated American self-importance has become.

What is especially funny is that Americans say this kind of stupid shit constantly, assuming Canadians and Brits will just sit there and take it. 

Then, when we answer back directly, suddenly, they are offended!

Offended by what? 

By being corrected? 

By discovering the rest of us are not pushovers? 

By learning that outside the U.S., this chest-beating nonsense sounds less like power and more like a drunk man at a bar who thinks volume is a substitute for intelligence?

I have lived around Americans, Brits, and Canadians. 

Trust me, this kind of post does not make America look strong. 

It makes Americans look indoctrinated, arrogant, and deeply undereducated about the world they think they run!

Answered by 

David Lennox

P.S. The rest of us are not confused. We are embarrassed for the USA!

Saturday Morning Confusion: Americans now want to be Canadian!

Canada’s citizenship rules recently changed quietly, but the reaction has been anything but small. 

A legal fix aimed at families long shut out by outdated rules has suddenly opened the door for many people in the United States who grew up thinking Canada was only part of their family story, not part of their legal identity. 

What began as a correction to an old citizenship framework is now reshaping how thousands of North Americans think about belonging, mobility, and long-term security.

This shift can be understood through 10 key angles: "What changed, why Americans are rushing in, how the paperwork works, and why the debate has become bigger than a single law!" 

The result is a story about ancestry, bureaucracy, politics, and the meaning of citizenship in an unsettled political climate!

The Rule That Changed Everything:

For years, Canadian citizenship by descent largely stopped after one generation born outside the country. That meant a Canadian born in Canada could usually pass citizenship to a child born abroad, but that child often could not pass it onward if the next generation was also born outside Canada. 

Bill C-3 changed that framework when it took effect on December 15, 2025, removing the old first-generation limit in important cases and restoring citizenship to many people previously left out.

That sounds technical, but for families spread across Canada and the United States, it is deeply personal. 

A person whose Canadian connection once looked too distant to matter may now discover that the law sees the chain differently. 

In practical terms, the change turned old family trees into live legal documents. 

For many Americans with Canadian roots, the question is no longer whether they admire Canada from afar. 

It is whether they were Canadian all along and simply did not know it.

Americans Suddenly Have a Real Reason to Check Their Family Tree...

The biggest reason this story has taken off in the United States is simple: "The pool of potentially eligible people got much larger literally overnight!"

Underreporting on the new law, immigration lawyers say many Americans may qualify through a Canadian grandparent, great-grandparent, or even an earlier link... depending on how citizenship now flows through the family line! (That turns family trivia into something far more consequential than a dinner-table anecdote!)

It also helps explain why the interest is not limited to border states or recent immigrant families. 

In the U.S., where millions of people have mixed North American ancestry, a Canadian-born relative is not especially rare. 

What changed is that those relatives suddenly matter in a new legal way. 

The discovery can be startling. 

Someone who spent decades as only an American may now be told that Canada views them not as an applicant chasing a dream, but as a citizen seeking formal proof of a status that already exists in law!

The Rush Began Almost Immediately:

The headline language about a “flood” is dramatic, but there is real evidence behind the momentum. 

The Associated Press reported in April 2026 that immigration lawyers in both Canada and the United States were being overwhelmed by Americans seeking help with proof-of-citizenship filings. 

One lawyer described his practice as effectively swamped, while another said his firm went from handling about 200 citizenship cases a year to more than 20 consultations a day.

What makes that rush more striking is that American interest was already strong before the law formally took effect. 

CIC News, citing newly released data, reported that Canada received 24,500 citizenship-by-descent applications from U.S. citizens in 2025, nearly 30% of the global total. 

In other words, the law did not create American interest from nothing. It poured fuel on interest that was already there, then gave it a more urgent and more realistic path. 

That is why the current wave looks less like a fad... and more like a release of pent-up demand.

Politics Turned Curiosity Into Action:

Not every American looking north is doing so for the same reason, but politics clearly plays a role in many cases. 

Recent reporting has shown applicants talking openly about wanting a second option in a period of political tension, immigration crackdowns, and cultural exhaustion at home. 

For some, the appeal is practical: "More work flexibility, easier mobility, or a feeling that another passport offers insurance in a volatile era!" 

For others, it is emotional, tied to family memory and a sense of reclaiming something that should never have been lost.

That emotional mix is what gives the story staying power. 

People are not only chasing paperwork; many are responding to a sense that citizenship has become part of personal risk management. 

One American highlighted in national coverage said Canada moved much higher on the family’s list once citizenship became possible. 

Another viewed Canadian status as a fallback in case life in the U.S. deteriorated further. 

The deeper story is not just migration! 

It is how quickly a legal right can become a psychological safety net when public life feels unstable.

For Many Families, the Hard Part Is Not Eligibility but Proof:

Even when the law is generous, bureaucracy still demands evidence. 

That means many newly interested Americans are now hunting for birth certificates, marriage records, adoption records, and old family documents that may be scattered across provinces, states, or generations. 

A family may know with certainty that a grandmother was born in Saskatchewan, or that a great-grandfather came from Nova Scotia, but memory is not enough! 

The file has to be built, and every link in the family chain has to hold. That reality is creating a second wave of activity behind the scenes. 

Lawyers, genealogists, archives, and provincial records systems all become part of the story once the excitement of possible eligibility gives way to the grind of documentation. 

The government fee for a citizenship certificate is modest, but the overall process can become expensive when professional help is needed. 

This Is Not the Same as Applying to Become Canadian:

One of the most misunderstood parts of the change is the difference between becoming a citizen and proving citizenship. 

For many people affected by Bill C-3, Canada’s position is that they are already citizens because the law now recognizes them that way retroactively. 

What they need is a citizenship certificate confirming that status. 

That distinction matters because it changes the emotional tone of the process. 

These applicants are not necessarily asking Canada for permission to join. In many cases, they are asking Canada to acknowledge that they were never supposed to be excluded.

Still, the process is far from instant. Government guidance directs affected people to apply for proof of citizenship, and processing times for citizenship certificates are currently about 10 months, with possible delays depending on complexity and where the application is filed. 

That means the recent rush is likely to show up not only in law offices but in administrative pressure on IRCC. 

The demand may be emotionally immediate, but recognition still moves at the speed of forms, records, and verification.

The Law Is Also a Fix for an Older Canadian Failure:

The American surge makes headlines, but the roots of the law are unmistakably Canadian. 

Bill C-3 grew out of years of frustration with the so-called first-generation limit and the broader “Lost Canadians” problem, in which people were shut out by technicalities, outdated provisions, and discriminatory historical rules. 

The Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruled in December 2023 that key parts of the first-generation limit were unconstitutional, putting pressure on Ottawa to repair the framework rather than defend it.

That history matters because it shows the law was not drafted mainly as a gift to Americans. 

It was a response to defects in Canada’s own citizenship system. 

Legal groups such as the Canadian Bar Association argued that old citizenship rules carried long-running inequities, including gender-based discrimination embedded in earlier law. 

From that perspective, the current rush of U.S. applicants is a side effect of a deeper correction. 

Canada is not suddenly inventing a new pathway for outsiders. It is repairing an older system that failed some of its own people and their descendants!

Not Everyone Thinks This Is a Good Idea:

Even supporters of the reform knew it would trigger a backlash. 

Critics in Parliament argued that Bill C-3 risks creating too many “Canadians of convenience” by recognizing people who may have never lived in the country, paid taxes there, or built a daily connection to Canadian life. 

Some Conservatives said the law could weaken the value of citizenship or strain already slow administrative systems. 

Others questioned whether officials could properly verify a parent’s time in Canada when the new law relies on a substantial-connection test for some future cases.

Those objections have political force because they tap into a broader anxiety already present in Canada: "Who gets access, how quickly, and on what basis!" 

Yet supporters counter that the core issue is constitutional fairness, not generosity. 

They argue that citizenship by descent is not the same as immigration, and that people who qualify under the law are not cutting a line so much as reclaiming a status that had been wrongly blocked. 

That divide explains why the story has become more than a paperwork wave. It now sits inside a larger national argument about rights, belonging, and obligation!

The Fine Print Still Matters:

The law is broader than the old rule, but it is not a free-for-all. 

Government guidance makes clear that different rules apply depending on when a person was born or adopted. 

For people born before December 15, 2025, citizenship may have been restored or granted automatically in many second-generation-or-later cases. 

For those born after that date, there is an added condition: "The Canadian parent born abroad must generally have spent at least 1,095 days in Canada before the child’s birth or adoption!"

That detail matters because it shows Canada tried to strike a balance between restoring rights and preserving a real connection to the country. 

It also means the current wave is unusually intense because many people born before the law took effect are in the most favourable category. 

In plain terms, the law opened the door widest for past cases while setting firmer ground rules for the future. 

That combination helps explain both the excitement and the confusion. 

The broad headline is simple, but the actual eligibility path still depends on dates, lineage, and documentation!

This Story Is Bigger Than Citizenship Paperwork:

At first glance, this looks like a niche legal story about dual nationals and family records. 

In reality, it says something larger about how citizenship is changing in the twenty-first century. 

For decades, citizenship was often treated as fixed, obvious, and mostly local. 

Bill C-3 reminds people that it can also be inherited, interrupted, restored, and suddenly reactivated by a court ruling or legislative amendment. 

For families whose lives have stretched across borders for generations, that can feel less like a policy tweak than a redefinition of identity.

The American reaction shows just how powerful that redefinition can be. 

Some people see a passport opportunity. 

Some see an exit plan. 

Some simply see recognition of a family bond that always mattered to them. 

Canada, meanwhile, is confronting what happens when a technical legal fix meets a huge neighbouring population with ancestral ties and present-day anxieties. 

That is why this moment feels so charged. 

It is not only about who can claim Canada. 

It is about why so many people, right now, feel the need to!