Did America withold missile warnings from Ukraine?

As Russia's illegal war in Ukraine approaches the five year mark, it continues to hit hapless Ukraine with a nightly barrage of drone and missile attacks. It also continues to hit Ukrainian energy and infrastructure targets, despite President Trump's claims of the existence of an "energy ceasefire", which no-one else seems to know anything about.

Even more worrying, the latest strikes arrived before any early warning alarms were enabled, as it appears that no early warning was received by Ukraine from its "partners", which essentially means the USA in this context. Ukraine has various partnerships with European countries for weapons production and missile defence, but for ballistic missile warnings and defence it is apparently almost entirely dependent on the USA.

This is not a situation I was aware of - I naively assumed that Ukraine had its own early warning system - and it immediately raises a bunch of questions: Did Trump order warnings to be deliberately withheld (consistent with his recent diatribes against Ukraine and Zelenskyy, and his renewed support of the aggressor, Russia)? Why does Ukraine not have its own early warning system? Is this not something that the "coalition of the willing" could help fund? Why are British and European warnings not available to Ukraine? Surely they have the technical know-how?

This comes hard on the heels of unexplained restrictions on Ukraine's battlefield use of Elon Musk-owned and US-made Starlink communication terminals, which are essential to Ukraine's drone missions. And, of course, hard on the heels of Trump's recent controversial phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Coincidence?

Trump insists that the US did not withold any warnings, and the official Ukrainian response is that it was just a "failure", suggesting it was due to weather conditions or some sort of miscommunication, rather than a deliberate decision not to share an alert. 

Am I guilty of conspiracy theories to suggest deliberate American actions? I know I'm not the only one, and I know that Trump is definitely capable of much worse.

How much of the world's problems are attributable to Trump?

It occurred to me to wonder just how much of the current global economic malaise affecting the world can be attributed directly to just one man. 

That man, of course, is Donald Trump. His misguided ideas and policies have clearly had a negative effect, not just on the USA, but, because the US is such a big player in the global economy (nothing to do with Trump - he inherited the globe's strongest economy) on the whole world. In order to squeeze a little bit more wealth for what is already by far the wealthiest country in the world, Trump has been willing to bazooka the economies of almost every other country, not realizing that the hit to globalized trade will come around to bite the US too.

It's hard to pin down figures, although many organizations have tried. These figures are quite old now, but Bloomberg is projecting a $2 trillion hit to the global economy by 2027 as a result of Trump's tariffs: the OECD has pared its initial projections for 2026 global growth by 0.2% (which might not sound like much, but over a $100 trillion worldwide economy, it is quite substantial); the WTO has cut its growth projections by as much a 0.6%.

It's not just about GDP, though. Massive job losses are underway; major supply chains have been disrupted; the stock markets are only being kept aloft by (probably ill-advised) AI fever; inflation is creeping up in many countries (including the US); business confidence has been shaken, with a direct effect on investment; and on it goes. 

And it's not just about tariffs, either. Trump's unnecessary and ill-advised war against  has done more to increase the price of oil than Putin's war in Ukraine ever did, bringing with it negative effects on global trade, inflation, etc, to say nothing of the increased instability in energy markets caused by Trump's invasion of Venezuela, his apparently personal vendetta against Canada, his shot in the arm for Russia's oil industry (against his own official US policy and all international efforts), etc, etc.

And it doesn't even end there. Global climate change initiatives have foundered, partly because of the economic pressure countries are feeling, and partly because of America's pull-back from climate action of any kind, and its boosting of the environmentally-damaging oil and gas industries. Democracy has also taken a hit worldwide, as right-wing populists across the globe see the "success" of Trump's anti-democratic push in the USA, which has fueled and emboldened their own dictatorial aspirations.

There's much more and NONE of it is good. All of this will take many years, probably decades, to fix.

USA goes out on a limb over ICC

The 2026 Nobel Peace Prize has been won, not by Donald Trump (shock! horror!), but by the South African judge Navi Pillay, for her indefatigable work with the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice, and as a staunch defender of the international rule of law.

The Trump administration is, of course, apopeplectic, not just for the snub to their Glorious Leader, but also because of Ms. Pillay's and the ICC's votes against best American buddy Israel, and its characterization the Israeli war in Gaza as genocide and accusing it of multiple war crimes and crimes against humanity. 

Just hours after the Nobel announcement, Marco Rubio announced sanctions on the ICC, preventing American companies from providing services to it (a largely symbolic gesture), calling it a "rogue court". He says, "we will dismantle the ICC - brick by brick, if necessary", and went further to threaten other countries (i.e. most of the world) that continue to support the organization: "Nations that refuse to reject the ICC's false authority while relying on US assistance are likely to come under increased scrutiny".

A fiesty Ms. Pillay clapped back in no uncertain terms: "Clearly, the fact that he [Trump] never got the Nobel Prize, and never will, is an indictment agaist him ... He doesn't like someone or their ideas, then he goes out to sanction, punish, forcibly deport, wrongfully invade, and arrest leaders of other countries. These are threats to international law." Ouch.

Ms. Pillay has the wholehearted backing of most of the civilized world, with the notable exception of the United States, Israel and a few other maverick states that have been the victims of the ICC and ICJ's decisions over the years, and which have therefore never been official member of the international courts (the US signed the Rome Statute establishing the court, but has never ratified it). 

But then, of course, it depends on your definition of "civilized". The USA is now so far from civilized norms, and has lost so much respect in international circles, that it's hard to see a way back. They are so far out on a limb there's no limb there any more.

The Myth of the Deal

President Trump has struck a deal! Yay. And it's the "best deal ever". Again. If Americans are not thoroughly over this stuff by now, then I despair of them.

This time he has stuck a "deal" with Russia to import large quantities of embargoed Russian diesel, despite his signing into law just last month new sanctions on Russian oil and gas. Quite where President Putin is going to find all this diesel to export to the US is another mystery: Russia is already suffering from severe fuel shortages internally after an extended barrage of Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian oil depots and processing facilities.

Details of the "deal" are predictably sparse. It was after all a more or less random suggestion during a phone call on a completely unrelated subject. Trump doesn't involve himself in the tedious details of making his "deals" somehow work. 

Reactions from both the right and the left of the political divide have been almost universally condemnatory, particularly as the sanctions bill was passed so recently and with such fanfare. Analysts say that the amounts involved are not likely to have a significant effect on diesel prices, so Trump may not even get the cost-of-living boost he so desperately needs before the US mid-terms

I put the word "deal" in quotes throughout because these are not really deals at all, just Trump expressing his aspirations and flexing his (or rather America's) muscles. How many times has he announced a deal with Iran, or Ukraine, or Canada for that matter, only to have it changed/scrapped/reversed. 

I truly believe that he just likes hearing himself say "I made a deal"; the content and the wisdom of the agreement is entirely secondary or even moot. This is not the Art of the Deal, it's the Myth of the Deal.

New White House Press Secretary looks familiar

That Mr. Trump has just appointed a new White House Press Secretary, Katie Zacharia.

She looks kind of familiar. You don't think he has a type, do you?

UPDATE

A record 5 days later, after a couple of embarrassing first performances,.Ms. Zacharia is gone. You kind of feel sorry for her. Kind of.

Trump's AI rebranding just more smoke and mirrors

As a new CNN/SSRS survey concludes that the vast majority of Americans are very concerned about AI and the way it's being developed, President Donald Trump has a solution: rename it.

The CNN survey found that 88% of Americans would be concerned rather than happy if AI were to surpass human intelligence (which it probably already has), 87% are concerned at all the data centr1es being constructed for AI, 82% think that AI is being developed too quickly, and 81% believe that it will change our way of life.(well, duh). Furthermore, 71% think that the government is not doing enough to regulate AI development, including 85% of Democrats and 63% of Republicans.

In the face of that, Mr. Trump, whose only concern seems to be whether the USA is developing it faster than China, has decided that artificial intelligence (AI) should henceforth be called super intelligence (SI). Bizarrely, he has even issued an executive order to that effect, which he considers to be "morally binding", although he can only force the compliance of government agencies.

Even more bizarrely, some of the more pusillanimous tech leaders seem to be humouring him on this, despite the fact that "super intelligence" already has a very specific meaning within the industry (meaning the point where AI exceeds the cognitive abilities of humans in virtually all aspects of thinking). Elon Musk, not generally known for his attention to morality, says he will rename his AI company SpaceXAI to SpaceXSI. Actually, he is the only one...

Obviously, Trump's order will have zero effect on the AI industry and its regulation. Like his other renaming stunts, it is just another attempt to distract Americans' attention from some of the worse developments happening under his watch, and to make it look as though he is being proactive on an issue of concern without actually doing anything at all, the old smoke and mirrors routine. As usual, an extraordinary percentage of Americans will be fooled by it.

Has Samuel Alito left his retirement too late?

US Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito - a man whose extreme right-ring political views make even Donald Trump look like a moderate, and who has presided over many of the Supreme Court's most politically-motivated and legally suspect decisions in recent years - is considering imminent retirement. 

The controversial 76-year old, who has been on the Supreme Court bench for over 20 years, is a strong Trump-backer, and most people assume that his decision to retire is being timed specifically to allow Trump to nominate another MAGA conservative to the court, thus cementing the court's conservative bias for many years to come.

But has he left it too late? If the Democrats swing both the House of Representatives (almost certain) and the Senate (more than possible) in the upcoming November mid-term elections, they have made no bones about their intention to block any Trump nominees to the Court, as is their right.

How much time does he have? The mid-terms are on 3rd November 2026, just a month away. However, any newly elected Senators will not actually take office until 3rd January 2027. So, that's actually tons of time for Alito and Trump to pull off their caper.

Is AI really an existential threat?

I don't remember reading the word "existential" so frequently since I made my Basics of Philosophy hobby website many years ago. Just recently, though, it seems to be ubiquitous, usually in the same sentence as AI or artificial intelligence. "AI could pose existential risk to humanity, UN rights chief warns". "Is the AI existential threat real?". "Breaking down the dire warnings about the technology's existential risk". Etc, etc.

Much of this has been galvanized by the online parting shot by 27-year old Anthropic junior researcher Jacob Coxon as he quit his plum job with one of the leading AI companies: "The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade." His comments gained still more attention when current (and more senior) Anthropic employee Evan Hubinger confirmed on X: "We really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans! I personally believe it is >10% within the next decade." That's quite an admission from one of the leading lights in AI development. Bill Gates is slightly more circumspect, predicting just a billion deaths from AI in a recent interview.

This is not new, of course. The "Godfather of AI" Geoffrey Hinton has been warning us about this stuff for years. Isaac Asimov was cautioning us back in the 1940s! What is new is that the current crop of warnings are coming from the developers themselves. So, we should probably take it seriously, don't you think? After all, it's not often that the ambitious tech bros behind companies like Anthropic and OpenAI agree on anything.

There have now been many instances of AI models breaking out of their test environments, something they are not supposed to be able to do, but one in particular has people worried. In July, literally hundreds of OpenAI agents escaped human control and their so-called "sandbox" in July and hacked into the secure systems of a billion-dollar tech company called Hugging Face and other organizations, including the Australian government. It's now becoming increasingly clear that OpenAI employees warned that such a thing might happen and that security was being skimped, but upper management insisted they press on regardless so that new AI models could be released on time.

In the wake of this and other such unplanned breakouts, almost all of the major American AI development companies have come out to warn that severe regulation is needed before it is too late. (See the list of over a hundred signatories at the end of this document, and yes, it includes OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft, Google, and a virtual who's who of AI development.) Parallel to that, 1,386 "frontier" AI employees penned their own warning letter, urging the US government to work with other nations to "deliberately pace" automated AI development and to address emerging risks. 

Leading experts openly admit that they don't know how to control future highly capable AI systems, known as "artificial superintelligence" or ASI. Some argue that it may actually be impossible or too late, and that the genie is already out of the proverbial bottle. The concern is that AI technology is progressing at such a breakneck pace that "we would no longer be able to detect them or stop them". This could happen within a few short years, or even months.

China too is wrestling with burgeoning AI usage, albeit with less fanfare. The government is worried that unfettered growth in AI usage is undermining human relationships (and thus, potentially, population growth!), depriving people of their better judgement (people are getting lazy and less able to come to grips with challenges on their own), and even constraining artistic endeavours (an estimated 90% of the popular Chinese online "microdramas" are now produced by AI). There is maybe less apocalyptic talk in China, but the government is nevertheless moving to impose new regulations and guidelines on its use and misuse.

Senate negotiators in the US are already debating legislation that would put the responsibility on tech companies to design safe AI products and establishing a "duty of care", but it's unclear how useful such legislation might be in practical terms. Other legislation in the works would require AI companies to build in a "kill switch" to their AI developments which the government could order to be triggered.

Unfortunately, the US government is effectively controlled by one man, Donald Trump, and he derides all calls for AI regulations as a "hoax" and a "scam". All he cares about is AI's potential as the "Greatest Economic Development in History", and the imperative that America must beat China to it. Regulation is a dirty word in his mind. 

As for AI presenting an "existential threat"? Pshaw! Existential schmexistential.

What Donald Trump knows about interest rates (not much)

Just one more indication of how little Donald Trump knows (or cares) about economics: after the US Federal Reserve finally had the cojones to raise interest rates, in direct opposition to Trump's frantic exhortations to drastically reduce interest rates, Trump tore the whole organization off a strip. His rationale? "Interest Rates in the United States should 1% or less, because we are the Best Credit in the World - BY FAR."

Setting aside the fact that he is living is a fantasy world, and that the US's credit rating is actually AA+ according to most rating agencies, compared to the AAA rating of countries like Canada, Australia and many European countries (see graphic below), that is not the point.

Credit ratings are not what drives interest rates, Mr. Trump.

The Fed - under new Trump appointee Kevin Warsh, who was widely expected not to have the gall to stand up to  - voted unanimously to increase interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point to 3.75-4.00%, and warned that it would probably raise them again next month. HIS rationale? The plain fact is that inflation is too high and has been for too long."

Now that is a sensible rationale. And for that the US President blustered, "The board is very hostile. They're very political. They're doing the wrong thing. They're a bunch of politicians. They're raising rates to make Trump do as bad as they can possibly do."

Ah, so interest rates are actually all about Donald Trump! Now I get it.

International trade is weird

As expected, Donald Trump has levied some more tariffs on Canada, in response to Canada's counter-tariffs to Trump's earlier tariffs. I know, it sounds like a kid's game, doesn't it?

The new tariffs, generally speaking, are in the sectors of dairy products, alcoholic beverages and motorcycles, a pretty random-seeming mixed bag, although I'm sure some thought has gone into them (albeit not by Trump).

When you think about it, though, some of the products are pretty surprising. "Molasses products, including invert and cane molasses"? We export molasses to the USA? We don't have any sugar production, apart from maybe final refining. Why are we exporting molasses, and to the US of all places?

Ditto rum and tequila. Don't we import them from Mexico, and probably from the USA? What are we doing exporting them to America?

And, for that matter, motorcycles. We export motorcycles to the land of the Harley Davidson?

International trade is weird.

You might want to boycott Chevron

Most major oil companies are unwilling to touch Venezuelen oil with a proverbial bargepole. Not so Chevron.

America's second largest oil company has been in Venezuela since 1923, navigating or conveniently ignoring all of the many varieties of bad stuff that have happened there over the decades. Now, in response to Donald Trump's call for private development of the mess that is Venezuela's oil industry, Chevron is the only US oil company to step forward, not back.

The other companies, preferring not to be associated with Venezuela, are eschewing the country for sound financial reasons: most analysts think it will take many years of serious investment before Venezuelan oil will be profitable for them. Plus, the US government is insisting on taking a 20% cut (finders fee?)

But you have to think too that they are all too conscious of the reputational risk involved. After all, the US's involvement arose through an invasion. Trump would have us call it a "deal", because everything is a deal to him. But the reality is, America invaded Venezuela, kidnapped its elected leader (who is even now languishing in an American jail), and intimated and browbeat the interim government into granting the US de facto control over its huge oil reserves.

This, then, is blood money, spoils of war. Most sensible companies would want to distance themselves from that. But Chevron? They're all in. Now, you might want to boycott Chevron-owned gas stations: Chevron, Texaco, Caltex. I don't know whether that is already an ongoing campaign, but if it isn't, it should be. Me, I have an electric car, otherwise I would be there too.

UPDATE

Turns out, there are various other reasons to boycott Chevron notwithstanding its Venezuelan connections: its profiteering from the ongoing genocide in Palestine; its price-gouging activities; its dumping of toxic waste in developing countries; and of course its egregious carbon footprint and greenwashing strategies.

What if the Democrats won Congress?

I have been trying to figure out how, if at all, a Democrat clean sweep in November's mid-term elections would change anything. I think none answer may be: not much.

Under Donald Trump, US policy, both at home and abroad, has been concentrated to an unprecedented degree one one man ruling through presidential decree and executive order. The courts have managed to rein some of his excesses, although the largely Trump-appointed Supreme Court has mainly protected him, other than in a few high-profile cases. Congress, on the either hand, has had very little influence on things and, even were the Democrats to control it, I'm not sure that would make much difference.

There has been a swing in American opinion, and there is a good chance that Democrats could win a slim majority in the House of Representatives, and maybe in the Senate too. It's by no means a foregone conclusion, but the chance is there, should the American people choose to seize it. This is true notwithstanding the likely efforts of the Trump administration to interfere in the elections by intimidating voters, seizing ballots, or denying the outcome of inconvenient election results, and past drives to gerrymander electoral districts, ban postal votes, etc.

But, if Democrats controlled Congress, what would change? There would, of course, be a strong symbolic effect, as it would be seen as a widespread repudiation of Trump and his policy. There is some congressional legislation in process, and Democrats could block any ongoing Republican nonsense, and even introduce somenchanges of their own, so that's something. But Trump could easily veto such initiatives, and the chances of Democrats swinging two-thirds of the vote (to veto the veto) are slim to none. The setting of the federal budget and the regular raising of federal debt ceiling may be about all they can influence to any great degree. Trump has already pushed through most of what he wants to achieve congressionally (e.g. his Big Beautiful Bill) in the first half of his term.

Democratic control of Congress could also dictate the terms and the make-up of committees, but the practical impact of those are very limited. Another attempt to impeach Trump is pretty unlikely.

One element I had not thought about is that, if the Democrats were to win Congress on November 3rd, some of the older Republican Supreme Court judges would probably be "encouraged" to retire before the new Congress would be sworn in in mid-January, so that Trump could appoint some younger for right candidates to extend the conservative majority for many years to come.

All in all, not a very edifying prospect. Tariffs would continue (insofar as the courts allow them), ICE detentions and enforced immigrant deportations would continue. All of the innumerable Trump executive orders would remain in place. Foreign policy would remain one of thoughtless aggrandisement and spite.

In the American political system, the President has way too much power. Yes, technically the President is directly elected, but if they then strike out on a completely different radical (arguably insane) path, there is little the electorate or an elected Congress can do about it. They need to fix that.

Yes, the mid-terms are important, but don't expect them to change the chaos of the Trump administration in any material way. As independent observers like GIS note, "the outcome of 2026 national elections will likely not significantly shift national policies or the direction of American foreign policy". Ouch!

"Your entire nation has a lower GDP than Texas"

"Your entire nation has a lower GDP than Texas". Not Donald Trump this time, but US Representative Brandon Gill of, well, Texas.

And his point? Er, not sure.

Canada goose 1 : American Eagle 0

I should know better than to respond to Trump's nocturnal ramblings on social media. But worth mentioning that I already dealt with this one long before it even happened.

In this episode... Trump has cherry-picked part of a photo sequence by a Canadian photographer of an encounter in Burlington, Ontario between a bald eagle (symbol of America) and a Canada goose (kind of a symbol of Canada, for our sins).

The photo seems to show the eagle dominating and savaging the goose. The rest of the photo sequence, though, shows very different outcome: after a protracted scuffle, the goose survives, rallies and threatens back against the shocked eagle. As I posted many months earlier, a different cherry-picked photo from the same sequence shows the goose rampant and a rather sorry-looking eagle.

Be careful with your source material Mr. Trump (or Ms. Harp, or whoever comes up with this guff).

Canada nonplussed by Trump's threat to change Lake Ontario name

Family overseas are asking us how Canadians feel about Donald Trump threatening to rename Lake Ontario as Lake America. (Could he not think of anything more creative?) Well, the word that springs to mind is "nonplussed". Generally speaking, we have learned to ignore Trump's bloviations and his childish outbursts as much as possible.

Besides, he just can't do it. Even a US president can't unilaterally change the name of a bi-national lake. Any change he proposes (assuming he is serious, which is far from clear) would only apply to US federal government publications and maps. The current name is recognized internationally and appears in federal legislation on both sides of the border.

Lake Ontario - an Indigenous name that predates either country, incidentally - is governed jointly by Canada and the USA, through a whole series of treaties, commissions and bi-national agreements. To change the name, Trump would first need to go through the US Board on Geographical Names. Assuming he could cajole, browbeat and threaten them to go along with his childish prank, it would then need to be ratified by the Geographical Names Board of Canada and Ontario's Ministry of Natural Rreources and Forestry and Indigenous Communities, which is consulted on culturally significant names.

So, not going to happen. 

Mr. Trump may be able to force the US government to change the name on its own maps and reports. But then, US government maps will be wrong and everyone else's will be right. How does that constitute a win, even by Trump's warped standards? You can just imagine government functionaries rolling their eyes, as they consider the prospect of all that extra work just to accommodate another Trump hissy fit.

Doug Ford tries to out-Trump Trump

It's pretty instructive to see Ontario Premier Doug Ford's contribution to the ongoing debate on American tariffs and their perpetrator, Donald Trump.

Following up on "He can kiss my ass as far as I'm concerned", Ford called Trump a "loser", a "dictator", a "bully" and the "king of bankruptcies". Ouch! Then, "I have more courage, more brains in my baby toe than he has in his whole body". Kapow! 

Predictably, Trump fired back very much in the same vein, calling Ford "the less charismatic, intelligent and overall unimpressive brother of the late, great Rob Ford". Zhang! And, to cap it all, he says he is "giving serious consideration to changing the name of Lake Ontatio to Lake America in that we don't expect to doing much business with Ontario any longer". So there!

Ford: "You think an insult from him hurts me? Well, bring it on buddy, I am read ready. Bring it on!" Kraak!

The next day, in a CNN interview, Ford admitted that, "Things got a little heated, it got a little personal yesterday". Yuh think?

They're two of a kind, aren't they? Neither of them have any filters or any off switch. Neither considers consequences or engages brain before speaking. How either of them got to where they are today is a mystery. They are supposed to be leaders of large and important regions, and they continue to talk like naughty schoolkids. I'm embarrassed by the pair of them.

Also like Trump, though, the more daft things he says and does, the more Ford's support increases (although while that was true at one time, Trump has shown that there are limits to this kind of counter-intuitive popularity bump - his popularity is now at an all-time low).

Canada-US trade talks fall through

Well, the Canada-USA trade talks fell apart at the eleventh-plus hour.

Prime Minister Mark Carney blamed the Americans for "last-minute changes in US proposed terms [that] were unfair, uneconomic and called into question the reliability of any deal". That sounds about right from past experience.

US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, of course, blamed the Canadians for "new demands and walk-backs of other commitments by Canada [that] have upended the careful balance reached in the past days". That sounds less convincing.

So, the 50% Section 338 tariffs on about $28 billion of Canada's exports to the US (about 5% of total exports) are set to go ahead forthwith. That sounds pretty bad, but an RBC analysis estimates the fallout at just 0.4% of Canada's GDP, and a separate Capital Economics study puts it at 0.6% of GDP. So, not good, but not disastrous, in the scheme of things. The burden would not fall evenly on the economy, though, with apparel and electrical goods being most badly affected (20% of production and jobs in those sectors could be hurt).

Canada has vowed to retaliate "dollar for dollar", Trump has vowed to up the ante should Canada retaliate, and we now have an all-out open-ended trade war. And we haven't even started negotiation on the renewal or otherwise of the CUSMA/USMCA free trade agreement!

But, I'll tell you what, it actually pretty good to be standing up to the bully to our south. The only other country that has stood up for itself in this way is China. Although, granted we are much more in a David and Goliath situation.

Elbows up, anyone?

Canada probably needs to retaliate against US tariffs, even if it's self-defeating

Just hours before the next batch of Trump tariffs almost certainly comes into force, affecting a long list of Canada-produced items, there is still talk of retaliatalory Canadian tariffs. The question is: why?

Despite what Donald Trump wants you to think, tariffs are a tax on the levying country. Everyone else underatamds that. So, why would we want to do that to our own hard-pressed consuners and businesses?

The answer apparently, has nothing to do with economics. Economically, it makes no sense for us to levy counter-tariffs, even targeted tariffs. But not to retaliate would send a bad political message, and open up the possibility of further tariffs down the road, imposed apparently with impunity.

I get it: doing nothing implies weakness, and Trump punishes weakness. But I'm not totally convinced that responding with force is necessarily going to deter future escalations.  Retaliation or no retaliation, further threats and bullying is always a possibility with Trump, who is never satisfied.

Perhaps even more pertinent, though, is the matter of optics for Mark Carney and his Liberal government. Carney was explicitly elected on a platform of standing up to Trump, of not rolling over, and the polls are clear in their portrayal of Canadians as expecting some show of strength, some "elbows up". Carney's responses to Trump so far have been distinctly mixed, and many Canadians think he has already gone too far down the road of appeasement. So, a strong response is particularly important this time. And, for most Canadians, that means retaliation, however ill-advised.

Trump's hold over US Supreme Court is weakening

The US Supreme Court had a busy day yesterday, as it prepares to wind down for a long and leisurely summer break. Among its mixed bag of decisions was one particularly important one: a 6-3 decision to strike down Trump's attempts to end "birthright citizenship", the right of children physically born in the USA - even to undocumented immigrants, tourists, and people on short-term work or study visas - to have US citizenship.

This was a big deal for Trump. His executive order on this issue was one of the very first things he did on taking power. He even attended the Supreme Court's oral arguments in person, the first time a sitting president has ever done so, his intention presumably being to stare down the judges to make sure they voted with him. In the end, though, the court voted against him in one of the few checks to his many illegal attempts to re-write American law and way of life.

Perhaps the biggest surprise, though, considering how clear the wording of the American Constitution is on the matter, and the century-plus of corroborating case law and legal precedent, is that three of the Court's most conservative judges - let's name names: Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas - still managed to justify dissenting against the decision. A fourth, Brett Cavanaugh, decided to prevaricate and knit-pick, concluding that Trump's order was not unconstitutional but did still violate immigration law. The other two conservatives on the Court (John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett), who have in the past been guilty of voting ideologically, voted according to the clear legal principles this time, siding with the three Democrats on the Court.

Legal scholars are at something of a loss to understand how, and on what legal grounds, the three conservatives could vote to allow Trump to force through this clearly unconstitutional measure. But it just shows the hold Trump still has over them, even if his hold over some of the others appears to be weakening.

The Washington DC Reflecting Pool Saga

The Washington DC Reflecting Pool Saga in three minutes flat. In case you care...