Canada

It’s thanks to good old Yankee bravado that baseball’s most important fixture is called the "World Series," even though it’s a thoroughly North American affair. Yet Major League Baseball, like the National Hockey League, is not restricted to the US – Canada joins in, too. Tonight, for instance, the Toronto Blue Jays will compete against the Los Angeles Dodgers in the first game of what should be a thrilling World Series, and the now-familiar Canadian-American sporting rivalry has been given added spice thanks to a certain man who happens to be President of the United States. Last night, Donald Trump, who relishes abrupt announcements, abruptly announced that he was suspending trade negotiations with Canada. The reason?

Justin Trudeau has finally found something he can’t bankrupt – a washed-up pop star. The former prime minister, now liberated from the burden of office, was recently spotted aboard Katy Perry’s yacht in California, sharing a kiss so theatrical it would have been cut by a good director.   But Trudeau was always drawn to drama. The kind with lighting, makeup and someone else footing the bill. His life has become a soap opera, though not the kind with decent writing or respectable ratings. There was the recurring racist phase, the peace-and-love phase, the power-and-profit phase and now the Malibu make-out phase. Once hailed as the fresh-faced heir to liberal idealism, Trudeau swiftly dissolved into a puddle of melodrama and moisturizer.

In a disgraceful conclusion to a disgraceful trial, Freedom Convoy organizers Tamara Lich and Chris Barber have been sentenced to 12 months of house arrest and 6 months of curfew (with credit for the 49 days Lich has already spent in jail) – plus 100 hours of community service. An ironic addendum. For in the packed courtroom on October 7, there was likely not one person who has served the community with greater generosity than the two defendants. Tamara Lich and Chris Barber, organizers of the most successful protest in Canadian history, kept their cool, kept the peace and brought national unity, patriotism and common sense back to Canada after the pandemic – this, despite the sustained efforts of the most aggressively controlling, divisive government the nation has ever had.

“Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments,” William Shakespeare wrote in Sonnet 116, and he appears to have been prophetically talking about the very special relationship between President Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.  The first meeting between the two leaders a few months ago was friendly. But today’s press conference, before a tariff negotiation lunch, was essentially a cuddlefest. Carney called Trump a “transformative president.” Trump joked about the upcoming “US/Canada merger,” and said the two countries had “natural conflict and natural love,” like in any marriage.  The problem, Trump said, “is that they want a car company, and we want a car company. It’s a natural business conflict… nothing wrong with it.

Empire has always been part of the American tradition. We are a sequel state to the greatest empire in world history. Our period of colonial tutelage under that empire taught the lessons of legitimate territorial expansion against French and Spanish rivals. Our continental aggrandizement after independence was necessary. Later overseas expansion, including periods of imperial apprenticeship in places such as Liberia, the Philippines and Panama, was further evidence of our colonial métier. Like it or not, imperialism and colonialism are congenital to the American experiment. This has been the case since 1779, when the Continental Congress branded a proposal to limit westward expansion an “intolerable despotism.

At long last, the Ontario government’s drawn-out legal proceedings against the organizers of the Freedom Convoy is winding to a conclusion. In a move seen as surprisingly vindictive, the Crown is seeking minimum sentencing of seven and eight years of jail time respectively for leaders Tamara Lich and Chris Barber.As Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre posted on X, “Let's get this straight: while rampant violent offenders are released hours after their most recent charges and antisemitic rioters vandalize businesses, terrorize daycares and block traffic without consequences, the Crown wants seven years prison time for the charge of mischief for Lich and Barber. How is this justice?

As the annual G7 Summit kicks off in Canada, President Trump told reporters that removing President Vladimir Putin from the group was a mistake, and had they not done so, the Kremlin's over two-year war against Ukraine would not have happened. "They threw Russia out, which I claimed was a very big mistake, even though I wasn’t in politics then. I was very loud about it," Trump said. He reasoned, "You spend so much time talking about Russia, and he’s no longer at the table. So it makes it more complicated – but you wouldn’t have had the war." Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney appeared somewhat disengaged next to Trump and gazed off into the distance when Trump said the war would have never happened.

Donald Trump has declared war on the cartels. The southern border is now patrolled by the military, the wall is rapidly expanding and US intelligence is helping to target crime bosses on Mexican soil. Illegal crossings and drug seizures at key points have dropped by more than 70 percent in the last year.But, contrary to appearances, the cartels have not surrendered – instead, they have pivoted, applying Sun Tzu’s principle: attack your enemy's weaknesses, not his strengths.Led by the blood-soaked and ultra violent Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation Cartel they are exploiting the soft 5,525-mile long northern border with Canada and its sparse surveillance, dense forests, inadequately staffed crossings and neglected checkpoints.

Historically, ex-presidents spend their golden years on the speaking circuit, writing their memoirs or planning for the inauguration of their presidential libraries. What they don’t do is lash out at their successors when they disagree with a policy or decision. Joe Biden, however, has no intention of keeping quiet. A little more than three months after vacating the White House, Biden is unencumbered from conventional decorum and feels free to speak his mind. Last month, he gave his first post-presidency speech in Chicago, where he blasted the Trump administration for taking a sharp hatchet to the federal workforce, including the Social Security Administration.