👉FOR SOME TIME NOW, most of us have come to the realization that the
American president, Donald Trump, is either demented or senile or both. He has
become, in a remarkably short time, an emperor with no clothes; butt-naked,
self-absorbed, capricious, whose ire is easily aroused against friend and foe
alike. It's quite possible that Trump is not his own man and is beholden to
donors, or members of the deep state, or the MIC (Military-Industrial Complex). His
uncompromising support of Israel, clearly guilty of war crimes and genocide, seems
inexplicable unless you assume there’s some “compromat” about, perhaps beach-blanket-bingo
pics from Epstein Isle that found their way into the hands of Israeli security
services. Who knows?
His kooky trade policies: sanctions on again, off again. Most recently,
because Carney seemed to criticize him in Davos (he did) the day before he came
and delivered his usual rambling, cranky, talking points, now he's “decertified”
several types of Bombardier business-class jets to get even. (Maybe he was
pissed that Carney got a standing ovation and he received only sparce applause?) We'll see where this goes. His domestic clusterfuck around his ICE (Immigration and
Customs Enforcement) brownshirts officers killing innocent American citizens while searching for
illegal immigrants in Minneapolis is eroding support among younger voters.
As is his criminal support for the beyond-the-pale administration of “Bibi”
Netanyahu as the prime minister of Israel conducts a genocide and
ethnic cleansing in Gaza before the eyes of the world.
BTW, young people are fleeing TikTok, now that it’s been bought by
Zionist billionaire Larry Ellison and coverage of cute kittens dancing competes with tips
on how to tighten one’s derriere. Under thirty-fives are finding other venues and platforms
to gather news of the world, like the latest from Gaza and other crimes scenes.
What will happen in the next while around Venezuela? Greenland? Canada? Will
Trump continue half-heartedly supporting Zelensky or drop him like a hot
potato? And what about the New START arms limitation treaty which ends in five days?! Will Trump
renew it for a year while the U.S. and Russia negotiate a new one? I doubt it, and that may be another sign he is not his own man and bows to behind-the-scenes
pressures. Will TACO Trump launch an attack on Iran even with the danger of a
major Iranian response against American bases in the region and Israel? Can
Israel survive an all-out missile and drone attack from Iran? Will it resort to
nuclear weapons if it appears it is losing? It's quite possible. And then the world
will change in ways we can’t yet apprehend.
So, stop fucking around Mr. TACO! Man-up and do what is necessary to end this dangerous sabre-rattling. There’s
already enough blood spilled on your watch.
Screw it for now. A hit of Soma, the latest feelie, and I'm right as rain.
👉AT THE DAVOS CONFAB earlier this month, Canada’s PM, Mark Carney, gave a
memorable speech that went viral a couple of weeks ago. I know what many of you
are thinking: ‘Jake, how can you say with a straight face that a Canadian
politician could give a speech that was in any way memorable?’ True enough,
dear readers. So, it goes without saying that I was more than a little surprised
when our Prime Minister laid bare in Davos a couple of whopping truths rarely
spoken by Western politicians and their hangers-on. His speech came after
months of roiling and thrashing about on the part of the American president,
with buckets venom upended on his neighbours, friends and foes. Including
Canada. Carney’s Davos debut (as Canadian PM) came after a career in finance (at
the giant, “vampire-squid” investment bank, Goldman-Sachs),
and serving as head of both Canada’s and England’s central banks. On 23 April
2025 he was installed as Canada’s twenty-fourth Prime Minister, following
Justin Trudeau’s departure from politics in late January 2025.
FUN FACT: Originally, in the mid-Twentieth Century,
during the Cold War, global economies were divided into the ‘First World’,
composed of democratic, capitalist, industrialized NATO countries aligned with
the United States; the ‘Second World’ was composed of the USSR, other communist
countries, and Warsaw Pact countries aligned with the USSR; and the ‘Third
World’ originally referred to non-aligned countries that were members of neither bloc. Today, the ‘Third World’ usually refers to impoverished and
mostly Global South countries.
MARK CARNEY IS NO RADICAL—he’s very much an ‘insider’, an elite member
in the globalist, neo-liberal, IMF, World Bank, de-industrialism, financialization,
free trade, post-WWII economic order. He’s a banker; he doesn’t want to tear
down the system that, for decades, benefited ‘First World’ countries and their elites.
Yet, his Davos speech, in which he said the world order was entering a “rupture” with the past, was interesting because he
said the quiet part out loud to an audience of his peers. He said the system,
also dubbed the “rules-based international order” is no longer working. Instead,
“Great Power” rivalry, where the use of military force and economic sanctions has
eroded the fiction that Western governments, particularly the United States
(though Carney doesn’t mention it by name), all act in accordance with
international law or promote rules that facilitate trade and regulate
interactions between countries in a fair and equitable manner.😆
CARNEY SAID it had all been a lie—that we were not the ‘good
guys’, that actions taken by powerful nations against weaker ones were not
done because they were upholding “democracy” or “freedom” or “good governance”.
They were done to advance Great Power dominance, period, and operated less from United
Nations’ principles and international laws than from rules made by stronger
nations for their own benefit. It was a convenient and
profitable fiction for the countries promoting it, including nations within the hegemon's orbit.
THAT FICTION Carney ripped away, leaving the ugly scar exposed for all
to see. The PM stated, bluntly, that everyone knew* the ‘rules based
international order’ was a fiction but we went along with it because we
benefited, were made rich by it. We rode the coattails of the United States
for decades, “comfortably numb” to how often
America’s actions benefited us at the expense of blood and treasure levied
against other nations. Trump’s actions in the first year of his second
presidency exposes the hypocrisy so evident in the West’s preeminent
nation—that it wasn’t a good-faith actor abiding by rules along with the rest
of us.
Carney said that we in the West promoted the lie when we claimed we believed
in the so-called rules-based international order. We didn’t, actually, but we
went along with the masquerade. The Prime Minister made his Davos speech at a
time when it's becoming clear that the United States no longer wishes to pretend it abides by international laws when they prove inconvenient. As a global
hegemon since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States uses
military force, sanctioning and coercion against whomever it considers an enemy
or peer competitor. Even countries once considered allies are now being targeted with sanctions or by threats of
invasion or by other coercive methods.
Since he’s
returned to office, Trump has taunted Canada about becoming the fifty-first
state. His actions vis-à-vis Venezuela and potential actions against Greenland no doubt convinced Carney that Canada needs to diversify its trading networks and to form
new alliances and not be so dependant on the US market. In his
speech, he said middle-powers like Canada need to come together with other
middle-powers to push back, or better weather the times when hegemons, old and
new, begin using their power untempered by law, rule or morality.
“We live in a
world in which you can talk all you want about international niceties and
everything else, but we live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is
governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power.
These are the iron laws of the world that have existed since the beginning of
time.” (Joseph Goebbels Stephen Miller, White House Deputy
Chief of Staff. CNN interview, with Jake Tapper 3 January 2025.)
AND IF ANYONE THINKS the above quote is hyperbolic and not
representative of the Trump administration or of Trump himself, think again. Listen
to what Trump himself has been saying about acquiring Greenland, “the easy way
or the hard way,” to name just one piece of real estate the president is
interested in adding to his portfolio. He sounds like he’s channeling Don
Corleone these days more than anything else. So, keep your head down and don’t
fly your kite in stormy weather.1
👉RECALL
the case of Montrealer, Eves Engler—political activist, author, and recent NDP
leadership candidate who, in 2025, was charged with “harassment” of the pro-Israel
social media influencer, Dahlia Kurtz, and spent five days in jail while the
charges were processed. The complaint stemmed from Engler’s social media
replies to Kurtz’s posts on X, some months prior to his arrest. Kurtz is a
rabid Israeli apologist and Engler challenged her assertions by replying to some
of her posts. He says: “I’ve had no other interaction with Dahlia Kurtz in
my life except for responding to her anti-Palestinian and pro-genocide messages
on X.” (Rabble.ca) He was told by the
arresting officer he would be granted bail with the stipulation he does not write
about police actions in his case, a requirement both Engler and his lawyer
rejected. He was released on bail after a few days. Subsequently, he wrote
posts critical of the police in their zeal to defend Kurtz’s right to publish
pro-Israel posts while denying Engler’s right to challenge her positions.
His
supporters started a letter writing campaign after Engler suggested in his blog one be started for
which he was charged with “harassment” of the arresting officer who received about
two-thousand emails supporting Engler. The officer complained that having to
deal with so many emails limited her ability to perform other police duties. [Set
up an email filter. Easypeasy. Ed.] He was subsequently charged with four offences including “intimidation” of the snowflake officer in question. IIUC,
he was found guilty and has an upcoming sentencing date in April.
This
is an example of “lawfare” used by the state to intimidate and silence critics,
especially critics of Israel and its Hasbara minions
in Canada like Kurtz. If Yves receives anything more than a slap on the wrist
or a small fine, it will be obvious that the government is trying to silence his
voice and that censorship is alive and well in Canada. Who’s next? Keep your
eyes open, folks.
👉BITE OF GOOD NEWS: The Appeals Court of Canada ruled the Trudeau
government’s use of the Emergencies Act in February 2022 to break up the
“Freedom Convoy” trucker protests in Ottawa and several key border towns infringed
on protestor’s Charter rights. Three Court of Appeals Justices agreed with
Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley2 in his earlier ruling that the threat
posed by the protestors did not rise to a level that warranted the
federal government’s invocation the Emergencies Act. [That’s the updated
version of the War Measures Act, invoked by
Trudeau senior in 1970 during the “October Crisis”.
The Emergencies Act (1988) had never been used before young Justin wielded it
to batter the protesting truckers. Ed]. The federal government appealed Justice
Mosley’s ruling and on 23 January 2026 the Appeals Court upheld Mosley’s
ruling.
The Emergencies Act’s purpose is to give a range of additional powers to
the federal government in situations that, “cannot be effectively dealt with
under any other law of Canada.” It may be invoked when “an emergency arises
from threats to the security of Canada that is so serious as to be a national
emergency.” The Act uses the CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service)
definition of a serious threat “which includes serious violence against persons
or property, espionage, foreign interference or an intent to overthrow the
government by violence.” Hardly the characteristics of the Ottawa protests.
Though they were unruly, noisy and disruptive, the Federal Court of Appeals upheld
the lower court ruling that the protests fell well short of a threat to
national security and should have been dealt with through regular policing and
laws.
CHEERS, JAKE. _____________________________________
* Perhaps I’m being unfair. Given the thick swamp of propaganda that
Western publics are forced to wade through, particularly since 2001, it is
understandable that most people still swallow the mainstream pap fed to them
24/7. Politicians, military leaders, academics, analysts, etc., should know better, and Carney is saying most do
know the “rules-based international order” story was hooey, but they went
along to get along. Carney says the lies we told ourselves and the
world—endlessly! —that we were the good guys, that it was those evil [take
your pick] doing bad things to their populations, to other countries etc.,
that those lies hid the truth: It was Great Power machinations and little fish
devilry that roiled beneath the fiction of international laws that prove inconvenient and vexatious to hegemons.
The powerful accept the rule of law when it favours
them. And they ignore it when it doesn’t. Now, it seems, the United States no longer needs to
use such fictions, or excuses, couching their real-politic actions as “defending
democracy” or some other vacuous and meaningless trope. For example, Trump says
he wants Greenland because it is “necessary for U.S. security”, period. Never mind that
its part of Denmark, a NATO ally. And never mind that Denmark would welcome any
additional American bases or investments in Greenland.
👉SO here we are today with institutions, laws, agreements, treaties,
legal processes fair and unbiased and, most recently, laws guaranteeing the
sovereignty of nations (Gaza, Venezuela, Greenland, Canada?), that are being
shredded by the country that once exemplified and promoted the rule of law and
unbiased, international ‘rules of the road’ for all. It’s a sorry state of
affairs, I’m sure you’ll agree.
1. Critics of Carney's speech call it hypocritical because it’s only now, when
Canada is 'on the menu', that he speaks out, denouncing the system that for
decades Canadians and other Western sycophants benefited from, with our
obsequiousness before the hegemon’s court extending to the unwritten rule never to
speak about the emperor and the fact he has no clothes.
A further criticism of Carney is his solution to defend against our great
neighbour to the south—that other middle-powers need to act in concert to push
back or soften the harms done, but keeping intact the visibly failing
system of late-stage capitalism, with all its inequities, instead of
looking for other ways to organize our economies and our foreign and domestic
affairs. Nevertheless, the first half of Carney’s Davos speech came as
something akin to a breath of fresh air. Stay tuned.🙋
2. The legal advocacy group, Canadian Constitution Foundation took the
government to court. The case was heard by Justice Mosley who ruled in 23 January
2024 that the government failed to provide convincing arguments the trucker protests
were a threat to Canadian security, and that its actions to shut down and
remove trucks outside Parliament Hill, and in particular the freezing of
protestors’ and supporters’ bank accounts in order to break the blockades, was
an overreach by the government and unlawful. The government subsequently appealed
the decision, but the Federal Court of Appeals upheld Justice Mosey’s ruling
last week.
MEANWHILE, in early May as I write this, countries around the world are
beginning to feel pressure points in their economies as looming shortfalls in crude oil supplies are ‘baked-in’ and all but inevitable, with the resulting supply-chain disruptions already being felt in Asian countries, especially
those with inadequate strategic petroleum reserves, or ones that are hard-pressed
to pay for more expensive petroleum products. By now, most tankers that exited
the Straits prior to February 28 have reached their destinations and have discharged
their cargoes. Once that is used up, there will be a 20% shortfall in available
crude until production levels once more meet the demand. Unless something is done to bring this war to an end real soon, some commentators
predict a global recession by the summer and the possibility of a serious depression this autumn—one that could be on
par with the Great Depression of the 1930s—unless crude oil and petroleum distillates
are flowing full-throttle within the next few weeks. 
