Russian Agent in the Oval Office?

 

Pretty hard to believe, given the decades of anti-Soviet, Red-Scare crap that came out of the US, but the question is being asked, and recent comments from the main characters aren't very reassuring.

This all goes back quite a few years, close to 40, to be exact.  For example, The Guardian had this story, written in 2021.

'The perfect target": Russia cultivated Trump as an asset for 40 years - ex-KGB spy

During tЯump's first term as President, there was this exchange (Trump sides with Russia against FBI at Helsinki summit) 

"At a news conference after the summit, President tЯump was asked if he believed his own intelligence agencies or the Russian president when it came to the allegations of meddling in the elections.

"President Putin says it's not Russia. I don't see any reason why it would be," he replied.

US intelligence agencies concluded in 2016 that Russia was behind an effort to tip the scale of the US election against Hillary Clinton, with a state-authorised campaign of cyber attacks and fake news stories planted on social media."

tЯump has also parroted Russian nonsense about the war, claiming that Ukraine started it.

Even more recently (basically yesterday, in the United Nations) the US sided with Russia on two different resolutions.

US Sides with Russia in UN Resolutions on Ukraine

So the question has to be asked.... is there a Russian Agent in the Oval Office?

More to come, I'm sure.

An Alternative to Retaliatory Tariffs

 Much air time over the past two months has been taken up with talk about tariffs.  Trump has threatened Canada (and other countries) with import tariffs, seemingly believing that those tariffs will be paid for by the exporting country.  Just one of many things that Trump doesn't understand.

In Canada, all levels of government are looking at ways to retaliate if those tariffs are put into place.
One problem with those strategies is simply that if we place a tariff on items coming into Canada, that will increase prices for Canadian consumers.  That assumes, of course, that Canadians consumers are willing to have anything to do with American imports.  Anti-American sentiment recently has been almost instantly negative in a way that I think has surprised many of us.
Tech writer Cory Doctorow wrote an article on January 15th, 2025, suggesting a different approach, one that seems to have merit.  If adopted, it would save Canadians money AND it would hurt the huge tech companies in the USA who have mostly all decided to stand with Trump.
The whole article can be read here:  

Canada Shouldn't Retaliate with US Tariffs 

As a background, around 2000, the USA, Canada and Mexico, negotiated a replacement to NAFTA, which became known as USMCA, although it wasn't really much different from the agreement it replaced.  Trump boasted how it was a "big, beautiful" trade agreement.  It would appear it only took 5 years for his opinion to change.
Part of the agreement included "anti-circumvention laws" which make it illegal to tamper with digital locks on a whole range of items, from tractors to iPhones.  Mexico was brought in under those new laws through the USMCA; Canada had already capitulated.  We can blame two Canadian Conservative politicians for that, Tony Clement and James Moore, who sold Canada out back in 2012.
What it means, in practice, is Canadian owners of a whole range of items end up not really "owning" what they purchased and so are forced to buy proprietary ink for printers, parts for cars and other machines (like tractors) and any apps written for iPhones MUST go on the Apple Store minus 30% skimmed off the top by Apple.
Doctorow goes into a bit more detail, but basically, since Trump is tearing up the USMCA, Canada should go ahead and develop a Canadian App Store and provide jailbreaking kits to enable Canadian owners could put what apps they want on their phones, Canadian developers would receive more money for their work and Canadian farmers would gain the ability to increase the operability of their tractors by bypassing John Deere's digital locks.  Canadian farmers (and farmers around the world) would acquire the right to repair and modify their own equipment.
He concludes his article by saying:
"What’s standing in the way of a Canadian industrial policy that focuses on raiding the sky-high margins of American monopolists with third-party add-ons, mods and jailbreaks?
Only the IP laws that Canada has agreed to in order to get tariff-free access to American markets. You know, the access that Trump has promised to end in less than a week’s time?
Canada should tear up these laws — and not impose tariffs on American goods. That way, Canadians can still buy cheap American goods, and then they can save billions of dollars every year on the consumables, parts, software, and service for those goods."

Costs of Climate Change - Chocolate

 

It might seem a minor issue, but chocolate is an important food commodity and most of us REALLY like it.  Chocolate in drinks, chocolate in baking, chocolate as, well, chocolates.  In 2022/23, global production of chocolate was around 5 million metric tonnes.  Most of that production comes from a few countries in Africa (about 70%).

Climate Change is Coming for Your Chocolate

Unfortunately, Africa is also suffering from the effects of human-driven climate heating.  A number of adverse conditions are on the rise in parts of Africa, such as Ivory Coast, Ghana, Cameroon and Nigeria.  All have experienced increased heat, unusual rainfall and increases in plant diseases.  Cocoa production has suffered and prices have increased as a result.

"The report calculated that over the last decade, climate change had added an extra three weeks of above 32C heat in Ivory Coast and Ghana during the main growing season between October and March.

Last year, the hottest year globally on record, they found that climate change drove temperatures above 32C on at least 42 days across two thirds of the areas analyzed."

Book Burning 21st Century Style

 

The metaphorical book burnings have started, just with a 21st Century twist.  But first, some history, lest we forget.

Germany in Olden Times

In the 1930s, there were a well-documented series of ritual book burnings carried out by the German Student Union, targeting books deemed subversive or deemed to represent ideologies opposed to Nazism.  The burnings included books written in English, French, Jewish authors, people like Albert Einstein and Helen Keller.

As with any good, well-planned authoritarian campaign, the Nazis compared this to Luther's ritual burning of the papal bull.  As with many authoritarian comparisons, it wasn't similar, the Nazis engaging in cultural genocide which later morphed into actual genocide.

Canada in More Recent Times

Canada had a short-lived brush with the attempted authoritarian control of science, in our case.  The government of Stephen Harper engaged in a campaign to close and/or destroy research libraries and research documents.  His government also tried to muzzle scientists, especially any who were engaged in climate and/or environmental research.

I was told of a personal situation where a National Park Interpreter (Park interpreters give guided walks and presentations about the natural world as it exists in Canada's National Parks) was smacked down for presenting a comedic scene between a caribou and a pika that asked "why do people do what they do".

In and around 2013, the Harper government conducted what has been described a chaotic series of closures of federal research libraries and the destruction of research material.  This sad time in Canadian history has been told in many ways from many sources, such as:

Federal Library Closures and the Harper Government's Monoculture of the Mind.

What's Driving Chaotic Dismantling of Canada's Science Libraries?

"Libricide": Harper Government Closing and Junking Environmental Libraries

The conclusion quickly reached was that the Harper government was engaging in a long-term strategy to suppress Canadian science, a story documented here.

Book Burnings 21st Century Style

Fast forward to the past two weeks.  The Trump administration has seemingly engaged in the removal of research files and data related to public health, environmental research and other related areas.

There's a Canadian connection here, interestingly.  A Canadian researcher was contacted by a colleague to see if she was aware of the imminent destruction of key data sets held by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  In a matter of hours, a number of archivists managed to download and save the entire CDC website.  The story first appeared here:

Canadian Residents are Racing to Save the Data in Trump's Crosshairs.

Some studies that could inform future decisions about the H5N1 virus (bird flu) also appeared to be at risk.  Also disappearing was a website containing the names of the January 2020 insurrectionists, and websites that monitor HIV infections.

There is an Internet Archive, but it could become a target of the Trump Administration and his Brown Shirt goons.  However, the Internet Archive is backed up here in British Columbia as well, putting it beyond the reach of the aforementioned goons.

This campaign of destruction might seem puzzling, but keep in mind two things.  First, the Republican Party in the USA has become increasingly antagonistic towards science, a fact that should be apparent to pretty much anyone.  Second, Trump is the one quoted saying: "If We Stop Testing, We'd Have Fewer Cases".  

No Donald.  If you stopped testing, you'd have the same number of cases, you just wouldn't know about them and wouldn't know enough about what was happening to make sensible public health decisions.  Which, I suppose is exactly the problem Trump was having.  This is one more reason why the USA had one of the highest death rates during COVID.  Poorly informed and proud of it.

Trump idiotic claims have been retold and refuted in many places, such as here, and here, and here.

One Final Note

It's worth remembering these stories and what happened here in Canada around 2013/14.  One of the future contenders for Prime Minister in an election that will likely take place this spring, was a Cabinet Minister in Harper's government.  Pierre Poilievre has provided no reassurance that any future government of his won't engage in the same kind of tactics we're seeing south of the 49th.  I wouldn't trust him as far as I could spit.

A Developing Kakistocracy

 

Kakistocracy -  is a government run by the worst, least qualified, or most unscrupulous citizens.  The word was coined as early as the seventeenth century.

Donald Trump's "Kakistocracy" is not the first, but it's revived an old word. (an article from 2018, but even more appropriate now)

RFK Jr - proposed to oversee the Health Cabinet portfolio - Confirmed anti-vaxxer, profits by selling useless health products.  Refuses to say if he'd stop saying vaccines cause autism if he was given suitable proof.  Calls fluoridated water toxic.

Tulsi Gabbard - Republicans and Democrats on the Intelligence Committee repeatedly asked Gabbard — in sometimes fiery exchanges — about her past praise for National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden and comments that appeared to sympathize with Russia on matters involving Ukraine.

Pete Hegseth - defense secretary - known for sexual misconduct, alcohol abuse and mismanagement in previous jobs.

And, to summarize his first week back in office, we have this article:

FACT FOCUS: A look at false and misleading claims made by Trump during his first week back in office