Journalist, Windsor Star, RTs/follows not endorsements (unless you're really angered — consider those endorsed)
Windsor, Ont. Canada
Joined July 2010
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Doug Schmidt retweeted
What is the point of history if not to help us understand today?
80 years ago, in the early hours of this morning in Europe, ten of Herman Goring's fellow senior Nazis were executed at Nuremberg. Goring committed suicide, escaping the hangman's noose.
The Nuremberg executions set an important precedent that has not been universally upheld: state officials and military leaders can be convicted and executed for war crimes. Waging aggressive war, invading another country, is illegal under international law - a "crime against peace."
Why did Hitler and the Nazis come to power? What lessons can we learn for today?
Here are Goring's own reasons for the rise of Nazism and Hitler, with lessons for today.
1. Fear and Patriotism Silence Opposition
Göring’s view: Leaders can always make people do their bidding by telling them they are under attack.
The lesson today: Beware of leaders who use fear, foreign threats, or manufactured crises to force unity and silence critics.
2. Desperation Destroys Democracies
Göring’s view: Germany’s post-WWI economic collapse and humiliation made the public crave a radical savior.
The lesson today: Extreme economic hardship and social chaos make societies highly vulnerable to authoritarian promises.
3. Mainstream Enablers Provide Legitimacy
Göring’s view: As an aristocrat, Göring personally introduced Hitler to wealthy elites and military leaders who funded and legitimized the Nazi movement.
The lesson today: Radical movements succeed when mainstream political and financial elites tolerate or partner with them for short-term gain.
4. Institutions Can Be Weaponized from Within
Göring’s view: Once inside the government, Göring rapidly took over the police forces, created the Gestapo, and legally dismantled democracy.
The lesson today: Democratic systems are fragile and can easily be destroyed by leaders who use the law to crush political rivals.
Doug Schmidt retweeted
US has not spent $350B on Ukraine. It has spent $132B, $33B of that is money. The rest is $21B in loans, repaid from frozen Russian assets, $4B in humanitarian aid, and the vast majority, $74B is military equipment.
Half that equipment is new, made in the US. The other half is old stockpile equipment, which soon would have had to be demilitarized at great cost. The replacement equipment is made in the US, so the money stays in the US.
Meanwhile, the EU and European countries have spent a combined $271B, more than twice as much as the US.
Doug Schmidt retweeted
This is not complicated!
Russia has roughly 140 million people. Iran has around 90 million. MAGA has around 77 million and falling. It is not America, but a political faction inside it, and one already showing signs of fraying.
Against them stands democratic America, Canada, Britain, Europe, Australia and the wider allied world: well over a billion people, commanding vastly greater wealth, technology, capital, military capability, universities, institutions and industrial capacity.
Yet somehow the larger side has allowed itself to look frightened.
Russia is dangerous, certainly. But much of its best military capacity has already been consumed in Ukraine. Iran can cause enormous disruption, but it is hardly an economic or technological superpower.
And then there is MAGA: the odd member of this axis because it operates inside the United States.
Its political base has been sold a story of national revival by a remarkably small collection of billionaires and ideologues who would quite like lower taxes, weaker regulation and fewer constraints on their power, even if dismantling those constraints weakens the Western system that made their fortunes possible.
MAGA should also understand exactly what it is choosing to become. Governments change. Presidents leave office. Political movements fracture. The institutions they attack do not simply vanish with them.
There will be an ordinary morning after Trump. Courts will still open. Elections will still be held. European regulators will still regulate. Allied governments will still choose where to buy weapons, technology and energy. Contracts will still be written. Laws will still apply. And countries with long institutional memories will remember very clearly who threatened them, who helped them and who tried to tear the system apart.
That is the part MAGA seems to misunderstand. It is behaving as though this moment is permanent. It is not.
The democratic world is larger than Trump, larger than MAGA and considerably older than both. Its institutions were built precisely so that one faction, one government or one collection of billionaires cannot simply bulldoze the rules and expect everyone else to shrug forever.
That is the real picture. Disruption is not strength. And temporary power is not permanent power.
The extraordinary achievement of this axis has been convincing more than a billion people on the stronger side to behave as though a much smaller coalition holds all the cards.
It does not.
Perhaps it is time the democratic world remembered who is actually outnumbered.
And perhaps MAGA should remember that history continues after the people who thought they owned it are gone.
Poland (like almost all of the free world) knows who the baddies are here.
Spoiler: it’s Russia.
Madam, as a neighbour of both Ukraine and Russia, we would be delighted to support @POTUS in peace negotiations. Please note, however, that to get to a deal pressure should be put on the aggressor and not on the victim of aggression.
Russian bots on social media and Russian orcs on foreign lands … get rid of those and things begin to look a whole lot brighter.
When we started responding to Russia’s operation against our data centers, and when our strikes reached Yandex’s data centers, it suddenly became a little easier to breathe on many social media platforms. A lot of people noticed it. There was less hate, less division, and fewer provocations.
Because there were fewer bots. And it’s pretty clear where those bots were coming from – if they disappeared when Yandex went offline. This proves, again and again, that Europe is not the source of the problems. Europe is not the one making everything more difficult.
Most importantly, we need people in America, every morning, when the day in Europe is already moving toward evening, to really see what is happening. To see the truth.
From a speech at the Warsaw Security Forum. (3/3)
Why Trump Inc. doesn’t like Canada, doesn’t like incorruptible international judges winning big awards.
#CrimeFamily #NobelPeace
Doug Schmidt retweeted
Another way to think about Trump announcement today: If he increased US diesel imports from Canada by 4%, he would gain as much fuel as from this Russia deal. But the Canadians are global super-villains, so who wants to buy from them when you could enrich Putin instead?
Great message from Ukraine neighbour Poland to the United Nations.
#SlavaUkraïni
Po latach bezsensownej, kolonialnej wojny Władimir Putin niczego nie osiągnął. Kończą mu się zasoby, brakuje mu rekrutów. Od ponad 12 lat próbuje podbić Donbas, a od ponad 4 - Kijów.
Wystarczy.
📍 Nowy Jork, @UN Rada Bezpieczeństwa nt. Ukrainy.
Doug Schmidt retweeted
Thanks to Andy Donato's cousin, I have Andy's final editorial cartoon that was rejected by The Toronto Sun, resulting in Andy resigning from the paper after 55 years.
torontomike.com/2026/09/andy…
‘Kindness with a backbone.’
Inspiring @jeanchretien12 words today.
If there was one wish I had about coming to Canada, it would be that I arrived early enough to see Jean Chrétien’s leadership in action here. I listened to his words from Gander Newfoundland today marking 25 years since September 11 and he said “Never mistake our generosity for weakness.”
I came to Canada knowing its generosity firsthand. My family and I were welcomed here with open arms and given a chance to rebuild our lives while other countries chose to close their doors.
And there may be no better place for those words than Gander. When thousands of people suddenly found themselves stranded far from home on September 11, this small Canadian community opened its doors and Canadians offered their homes and every help they could give to complete strangers who needed them.
Kindness with a backbone. That’s a Canada I will always believe in. Thank you PM Chrétien.
🇨🇦
Doug Schmidt retweeted
Periodistas despedidos del histórico The Washington Post por Jeff Bezos, han creado un nuevo periódico para luchar contra la desinformación y los bulos de la era Trump.
La era donde las élites millonarias quieren controlar el mundo. No hay que rendirse.
I heard the same sentiment, repeatedly, from U.S. (and other nations’) officers while embedded as a journalist with Canadian Armed Forces during three 6-week stints in the Taliban’s Pashtun homeland of Kandahar, Afghanistan.
Can I share something with you. As US Ambassador to Canada I met with many senior officers of the US Military and several told me if they were ever stuck in a foxhole under fire and they couldn’t have an American at their side they would undoubtedly want a Canadian at their side defending them. They said to my face there isn’t a better trained combat officer. They said this after serving with them in Afghanistan. Thank you Canada 🇨🇦
All municipal sewage treatment plants in #Canada 🇨🇦 now referred to as Trump Centres.
Le nom du lac Ontario tire son origine du mot wendat « Ontari’io », qui signifie « le lac est beau, le lac est grand ».
Ce nom remonte à plus de 400 ans, bien avant la Confédération canadienne et la Déclaration d’indépendance des États-Unis d’Amérique.
Nous savons que les États-Unis sont en train de changer. Leurs relations commerciales, leur politique étrangère, leurs monuments nationaux, leurs hydronymes.
Les Canadiennes et les Canadiens savent aussi qu’il faut appeler les choses par leur nom, et ce lac se nomme Lac Ontario – aujourd’hui et pour toujours.
Good explainer, using Windsor/Detroit crossing, on why Trump trade war is bad for U.S. (albeit more painful for Canada).
Windsor, Ontario, alone has HUNDREDS of auto parts manufacturing companies.
(BTW — final assembly of Pacificas is in Windsor)
By threatening his newest Canadian tariff hike only after Jan. 1 (namely, AFTER the U.S. midterms) at least Trump has finally recognized that American consumers/voters are finally clueing in as to who pays those added costs (namely U.S. consumers).
- The US Department of Agriculture correctly says on its website that "almost all" US agricultural exports to Canada face no tariffs at all
- The super-high Canadian dairy tariffs Trump often talks about are *over-quota* tariffs...tariffs that apply only after certain negotiated quantities of zero-tariff exports are met...and those quotas are rarely hit, often not even approached
- Most Canadian exports go to the US, but it's not close to "95%"; it was about 72% of goods exports in 2025, down from 76% in 2024
- The US goods-trade deficit with Canada has sometimes been $60 billion but often been much smaller, and it overwhelmingly exists for one reason: the US imports a lot of cheap Canadian oil
When it comes to protecting Canada 🇨🇦 employers and employees rally round the flag.
This is a public note of admiration & appreciation for @Lanampayne & @UniforTheUnion.
I represent Employers, but the labour movement in auto has been an inspiration in defence of 🇨🇦.
Lana especially is a prodigious 🇨🇦 leading from the front. We are all stronger because of her.
At a time of #MAGA horror and depravity, this guy’s tweets amid the toxicity and divisiveness and hatred that is post-Musk Twitter, are a lovely and needed tonic, speaking to what is still great about America. 🇺🇸 I miss that America.
I attended a county fair and watched a child sell a pig.
The pig is worth, I am told, somewhere near four hundred dollars. I looked this up afterward because I did not believe what happened.
The girl is twelve. She walked the animal into a ring wearing a white shirt and a numbered card. She had raised it herself, from a piglet, for nine months, which I confirmed, and she had a binder of records because the program requires one.
The bidding began. Local men. A man from a bank. A man who sells tires. A woman who owns a restaurant I had eaten at the previous evening.
It did not stop at four hundred.
It stopped at three thousand two hundred.
I turned to the man beside me and asked whether the pig was of exceptional quality.
He said, "It's a fine pig."
I asked whether it was worth three thousand two hundred dollars.
He said, "No."
I asked why the price was three thousand two hundred dollars.
He said, "She's a good kid."
I stood up. I could not remain seated. I said, out loud, in a metal building that smelled of animals, that a market which knowingly and deliberately misprices a good in order to put a child through a university, and does so every year, in the open, with an auctioneer and a microphone, is not a market at all but a rite, and that I have never seen a province conduct one so cheerfully.
He said, "You want a lemonade?"
I said that I did.
Here is the part I had entirely misread. The men bidding against each other were not rivals. They were raising it together. The tire man bid, then the bank man bid, and the tire man nodded at him, and they were pushing the number upward on purpose, in public, in front of the girl. She knew. Everyone knew. The auctioneer knew. The rite requires that nobody says it.
Afterward the girl shook every buyer's hand. She writes them letters later. That is also part of it. She writes letters.
I asked the restaurant owner why she bids every year.
She said, "Somebody bought mine."
She is fifty-eight.