As IF Times

link: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckg0m79gm10o

The biggest news of the week was the imposition of tariffs by the US on its heretofore best trading partners, Mexico and Canada.  The expected outcry ensued from the respective governments about the unfair bullying tactics of the US and then the knee jerk retaliatory actions followed..

What could have precipitated this action on the part of the US?  General bullying? Manifest Destiny? Regional hegemony?  Well it took root with Donald Trump’s pledge to protect American citizens and their borders from infiltration of illegal migrants and associated with that, a continued flow of drugs, particularly fentanyl and of course, the associated crime.

It’s the national equivalent of having your neighbors with whom you share a fenceless property line, allowing their dogs to defecate on your lawn.

The rational response should be, “Wow, that is a problem, we’ll do better to stop that kind of activity, since we’re good neighbors and all”. Of course, that didn’t happen.  The response has been more like, “what dog?” Canada and Mexico took umbrage at the mere accusation of being un-neighborly and imposed sanctions of their own back at the US.

In the case of Canada, which at the moment is led by nobody, but nevertheless, the recently resigned Prime Minister Trudeau still presents himself as the savior and champion of Canada’s interests by invoking patriotism and the Team Canada flag. While this is entirely laughable and tragic, some delusional Canadians are voicing their national pride in denouncing the Americans and rallying around some of Canada’s political leaders.   They’ve already coined an expression for this: Stockholm Syndrome.  Some may recall that in the 1970’s, the heiress to the Hearst fortune, Patty Hearst, was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army.  After a period of captivity, she wound up sympathizing with her captors and acted on their behalf in committing various crimes.

Just a few years ago, Trudeau’s government imprisoned citizens daring to protest his Covid mandates, sending the police in to forcefully break them up, arrested organizers of the trucker’s convoy, garnished their bank accounts and labelled them enemies of the state for not complying with unjust vaccination mandates. Court cases surrounding this exist to this day.  In addition, Canadians were prevented from entering or leaving the country and made to walk only in the direction of arrows in grocery stores.  Some may also recall Trudeau proudly declaring Canada a post national state and that allegiance to the pride flag was more important than the maple leaf.

Suddenly as the nation is soon to be under the pressure of US tariffs, he invokes the patriotism flag….and the quadruple vaccinated are falling for it.

What is the tariff?  The tariff will be 25% on all goods entering the US unless the border issues are addressed.  People with short memories are reminded that the Liberal government themselves had plans to implement a carbon tax of at least that much to ALL Canadians in a few weeks time in order to fight the quixotic battle against climate change.  This was the entire reason for the unpopularity of the governing Liberals in the first place.  I’m convinced that Trudeau is annoyed that tax money would go to Americans instead of their own coffers.  As we know, all socialist regimes only use taxation in the most creative ways to fund their existence. Recall that the mayor of Toronto wanted to tax rain.

Like all demagogues, he invokes the classic “we’re all in this together” bleat to signify solidarity with all Canadians. Nothing says “in it together” like having your food, shelter, travel, vacation  and alcohol paid for by the taxpayers while also enjoying pay increases at will. This is reminiscent of Oprah Winfrey, a billionaire, imploring the little people to donate money to help re-build Maui… since they’re in it together.

The financial and cultural lives of Canada and the US are inextricably tied together. Are Canadians not going to use Amazon? Netflix? NFL? Trash TV? McDonald’s? Not travel to Palm Springs and Hawaii and Florida?

This tariff battle is the equivalent of staying with one card in blackjack when the dealer has a face card showing.  He cannot win. The good consequence of this period of stupidity is that now the conversation will be re-ignited on the larger issue of nationhood. The regions of the nation will have to consider in greater depth the terms of the confederation and the distribution of power….or even if Canada continues as a nation.  If a visionary cannot make the case for nationhood but only demagogues continue to be elected pushing the latest shiny thing, there is no future as a nation.

link: https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/01/politics/hunter-biden-joe-biden-pardon/index.html

By now we all know that the defining event of Joe Biden’s troubled presidency was the 11^th hour and 45th minute of his regime; that is the revelation of the list of people being granted the Presidential pardon.  Biden’s action is hardly unique in history as every parting President has granted such courtesies at the end of their tenure.

However, Biden’s list is a bit different than all previous pardons.  Doing his best Oprah Winfrey imitation, he granted a total of over 2500 presidential pardons, essentially declaring, “and you get a pardon and you get a pardon”.  He tossed them out like nauseating accolades at the Oscars.

In total, Biden pardoned or commuted over 2500 individuals from their transgressions.  Upon performing this fact check on Bing Copilot, even this AI platform commented that “this seems a lot, don’t you think?” In fact, these pardons are the most ever in US history. Among those pardoned were family members; not unprecedented given that Bill Clinton and Donald Trump did the same for their relatives when they were leaving office.

What was most interesting this time however was that he gave pre-emptive pardons to a large list of people who could be in trouble in the future, including of course, his entire family.  As far as anyone knows, this has never happened before and I’m sure the brilliant legal machinery will argue over its legality.  It’s essentially a blanket ‘get out of jail free’ card.  Even though the named individuals including Liz Cheney, Adam Schiff, Mark Miley and Anthony Fauci are not currently under any indictment or yet in prison, they have been given a federal immunity card; just in case.  Nothing says you’re probably guilty than to require a shield of immunity from future legal culpability.

When you research the criteria for presidential pardons, there are supposedly guidelines on who may be eligible.  I wouldn’t get all excited over legal agreement on this since they’re still fighting over what a man or a woman is.  Suffice to say, the President has enormous latitude on who he excuses from legal punishment. The left leaning website, “Protect Democracy” wrote in 2020 when President Trump was leaving the top office:

“…In practice, as president, Trump also supercharged abuses of the pardon power, twisting a power intended to serve the public interest into a tool for self-dealing. As a Washington Post investigation of all clemency acts during his tenure concluded: “Never before had a president used his constitutional clemency powers to free or forgive so many people who could be useful to his future political efforts.” This included a record number of pardons for white-collar criminals who would go on to provide political and financial support to the former president…”

We won’t hold our breath waiting for their snarky commentary on Biden’s phone book list of pardonees.

The implication of this pre-emptive pardon is clear.  If this stands, it will give any future president a tool in which to oppress and terrorize citizens without exposing their foot-soldiers to any culpability.  If means that there is no rein on what political acts can be performed even and including treasonous acts and conspiracies against citizens.

According to the Supreme Court, the pardon power is intended as a tool for justice and mercy (an “act of grace”) and to further “the public welfare.” As one federal court has held: “The President, who exercises that power as the elected representative of all the People, must always exercise it in the public interest.”  It will be amusing to see how the pre-emptive pardoning of people yet to be charged with a crime is in the public interest.