Generally speaking, the Sunday article’s topic is the biggest story in American politics of the week just ended. This week I have three in mind. Two of them are taking place outside of the United States. To make it even more complicated two if not all of them may well be in a very different state in the hours between when I pen this and when it is published, let alone when you read it. All that said, let’s take a brief look at them together.
Canada
While far from an expert I feel comfortable commenting on Canada. I spent the first 47 years of my life living basically on the Canadian border. Over those years I spent a pretty decent amount of time in Canada. It is never completely accurate to stereotype or generalize but I found Canada a very nice place inhabited by really nice people. I like to describe Canada as basically America with a better health care delivery system and generally more polite people.
As I write this a very small group of Canadian truckers occupy the Ambassador Bridge which is the main crossing between Windsor, Ontario and Detroit, Michigan. I crossed that bridge many times going to Tigers’ games from Buffalo (by far the quickest route is cutting across the Ontario Peninsula.)
The protestors are a misguided fringe. They are protesting vaccine requirements and one of their demands is that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau resign. Trudeau is not going to resign so that demand is idiotic. Many of the vaccine related restrictions they are protesting (in Canada) are in fact American regulations. Maybe it’s just me but I fail to see the genius in that.
Vaccination rates are much better in Canada than the U.S. About 80% of the population is vaccinated and over 90% of the truckers. These truckers are the fringe of the fringe. About 75 truckers are tying up the Ambassador Bridge. That is a very small protest that is getting a lot of international press.
Canada is not nearly as much of a police state as the United States and again nicer people at large. There has been a long effort to avoid confrontation. As I pen this it appears the patience of the authorities has about ended and the protestors are going to be cleared by any means necessary.
This effort has been fueled largely by the American radical right wing. Fox News is all but cheerleading for it as well as asking for American copycat actions. The money behind the protest is largely American.
Bottom line: clear the rift raft out! Democracy and commerce cannot be held hostage by a small handful of idiots.
Ukraine
What we don’t know is more fascinating than what we do know!
This is what we do know: Russia has positioned more than sufficient military assets to invade Ukraine. The buildup continues. Russian President Vladimir Putin is calling the shots. At least publicly, we do not know if he has made a final decision on military action.
Now to my guesses: Sorry, but I have no more of an idea than you do if Putin will invade. However, if he does, (going against a lot of people who have better information and are more knowledgeable on the subject than me), I do not believe he will do it before the end of the Olympics.
Based on TV ratings it appears Americans are not that interested in the Olympics but both Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping are. They recently formed an alliance and Putin will not attempt to steal any thunder from his athletes or China who is taking great pride in hosting the event.
The last word I will have in this brief comment is that Ukraine is a really, really big deal!
Trump
Trump is like the injury you just can’t seem to recover from. One baseball season I pulled a groin muscle. To my knowledge the only “cure” is rest and the passage of time. I kept coming back too soon and I was never really 100% until the next season. (The good news is that it never effected my hitting and nobody played me for my glove.)
Today I’m going to limit my Trump comments to documents.
I find a certain irony in the fact that a major component of Watergate was Nixon’s employment of a group of thieves that was known as The Plumbers. It has been reported that Trump flushed documents down the White House toilet on multiple occasions clogging it. In this case could plumbers be part of the solution?
Call logs for January 6th have very suspect gaps. I have never accused Trump of being a genius, criminal or otherwise, but many of the people around him are smart. Does anyone really believe that they were above using burner phones?
OK, I touched on a lot today albeit briefly. Now if you choose go watch the Super Bowl and certainly don’t look for any betting advice here.
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