Venezuela on Notice

"[Cartels] have engaged in historic violence and terror throughout our hemisphere -- and around the globe -- that has destabilized economies and internal security of countries but also flooded the United Sates with deadly drugs, violent criminals, and vicious gangs." 

"[The Defense Department would] undoubtedly play an important role toward meeting the president's objective to eliminate the ability of these cartels to threaten the territory, safety and security of the United States and its people." 

Sean Parnell, chief spokesman, U.S. Defense Department

Republican Senator Lindsay Graham has defended the strikes   Getty Images

 

"[While not a signatory to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, the American military's legal advisers have nonetheless stated that the U.S. should] act in a manner consistent with its provisions." 

"[Countries, under the convention are not to interfere with vessels in international waters, with limited exceptions, where a state is permitted to seize a ship ['hot pursuit'] chasing a vessel from a country's waters into the high seas]."

"Force can be used to stop a boat but generally this should be non-lethal measures. [The use of aggressive tactics must be] reasonable and necessary in self-defence where there is immediate threat of serious injury or loss of life of enforcement officials. [The U.S. moves were indubitably] unlawful  under the law of the sea."

Prof Luke Moffett, Queens University Belfast  

 

"The fact that U.S. officials describe the individuals killed by the US strike as narco-terrorists does not transform them into lawful military targets. The U.S. is not engaged in an armed conflict with Venezuela or the Tren de Aragua criminal organization."

"Not only does the strike appear to have violated the prohibition on the use of force, it also runs afoul of the right to life under international human rights law."

"[The use of force in this case could amount to an] extrajudicial arbitrary killing [and] a fundamental violation of human rights."

"Labelling everyone a terrorist does not make them a lawful target and enable states to side-step international law." 

Professor Michael Becker, Trinity College Dublin   

Donald Trump posted a video on social media which he said showed the moment of the strike           Donald Trump/Truth Social

On Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump revealed that American forces under his command carried out a strike that destroyed a vessel which he claimed had sailed from Venezuela on an illicit mission. The boat operated by the Tren de Aragia cartel, he contended, was carrying a shipment of drugs...destination United States. This, in relation to a strike that occurred by American forces on a boat sailing in the Caribbean Sea. That strike, according to the White House, killed 11 drug  traffickers whose deaths may have violated international human rights.

No details were available from U.S. defence officials respecting the strike. Footage of the strike was shared by Mr. Trump on Truth Social; legal authority relied upon to justify the strike was included in Trump's footage. "What we have seen so far suggests that the U.S. armed forces did something that it has never done, to our knowledge, in more than 35 years of military involvement in drug interdiction in the Caribbean Sea: an instant escalation to disproportionate lethal force against a civilian vessel without any apparent self-defence justification", stated the Washington Office of Latin America (WOLA), a non-governmental organization.

 

The U.S. action "violates the letter and spirit of more than a century of international standards and the United States's own regulations for maritime operations against civilian vessels in international waters", WOLA claimed. That was a kind of prelude, a warning shot across the bow of Venezuala's government led by Nicolas Madura. It has become clear of late that the Trump administration has been aggressive in raising tensions between Washington and the Venezuelan president. Grooming a situation that holds promise of developing into a direct kinetic confrontation.

 

American naval forces have been building a presence outside Venezuelan waters, while the administration increases its belligerent rhetoric on fighting drug cartels. Mr. Trump spoke of Maduro as a leader of a terrorist cartel, leading some to suspect whether the end goal is really to counter drug-smuggling at sea, or is equally ambitious on helping to stage a regime change conflict. 

 

Sr. Garcia  El Pais International

 

A still-secret directive was signed by Mr. Trump in July with instructions to the U.S. Defense Department to make use of military force against some Latin American drug cartels  his administration has labelled 'terrorist' organizations. Simultaneously the administration declared a Venezuelan criminal gang to be a terrorist organization, and that the Venezuelan president is its leader, as an illegitimate government led by a terrorist-drug-running enabler. 

 

In response to the U.S. Defense Department moving Navy assets, including warships into the southern Caribbean Sea, Mr. Maduro announced he was deploying 4.5 million militiamen around his country, vowing to "defend our seas, our skies and our lands" from American incursions. 

 

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has regularly clashed with the Trump administration   Getty

 

Three guided-missile destroyers are being deployed to the region. The warships have been tasked, according to U.S. officials, to target  boats operated by drug cartels transporting fentanyl to the United States. Additionally the Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group that includes the U.S.S. San Antonio, the U.S.S. Iwo Jima and the U.S.S. Fort Lauderdale, carrying 4,500 sailors along with the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit, itself with 2,200 Marines are being deployed, according to Defense Department officials. Additionally several P-8 surveillance planes and a submarine are deploying to the region.

 

The warships are guided-missile destroyers, Arleigh Burke-class, equipped with over 90 missiles including surface-to-air missiles which can conduct anti-aircraft and anti-submarine warfare, and shoot down ballistic missiles. All this might and power to counter the drug-running boats of drug cartels.  

A few days back it was revealed by a CBS news report and confirmed by the Defense Department that two Venezuelan aircraft "flew near a U.S. Navy vessel in international waters." The Defense Department issued a statement to the effect that..."This highly provocative move was designed to interfere with our counter narco-terror operations. The cartel running Venezuela is strongly advised not to pursue any further effort to obstruct, deter or interfere with counter-narcotics and counter-terror operations carried out by the US military."

The US has moved additional warships into the Caribbean   Getty Images

Trump's Personal Quest For American Dominance

"Let's be real about this; the rhetorical attacks on Canada have not actually resulted in a net good for the United States."

"[The White House habit of] yelling at Canada [helped to install a] far left-leaning internationalist [government] hostile to American interests."

"All of this started off as a joke, and I think President Trump is so committed to the bit at this point that he couldn't get off the train [repeated pledges to turn Canada into the '51st state']."

Conservative U.S. podcaster Ben Shapiro

 

"[Poilievre would have been] Canuck DeSantis [Ron DeSantis, Republican governor of Florida who challenged Trump for the 2024 Republican nomination]."

"Trump will [and has already] weirdly get on with Carney."

"Trump  vibes with the smart, hyper-machievellaian center-left type."

Curt Mills, editor, American Conservative

Mark Carney with supporters at a victory party in Ottawa, 29 April 2025. Photograph: Dave Chan/AFP/Getty Images

 

U.S. President Donald Trump is smirking triumphantly. It has been his very direct interference in Canadian affairs that succeeded in upsetting the trajectory of the April 28 general election. A situation where the Liberal Party of Canada succeeded in gathering a greater number of votes, sufficient to form a minority government, than the Conservative Party which had been surging in the polls before Mr. Trump introduced the shock of  his announced trade tariffs targeting first Canada and Mexico and China, before he included much of the rest of the world.

The Canadian public was well and truly sick of the Liberal government, its never-ending ethical scandals, its impoverishment of the Canadian economy, its massive annual deficits and a debt larger than anything any previous government had ever attained. The federal government estrangement from the Western provinces linked to its green agenda of refusing to exploit the generosity of natural resources in the energy field, has caused a rift between the provinces themselves, favouring the east and damning the west.

 

Runaway rising costs of food and lodging, a failing universal health system overburdened by an unsustainable and indiscriminate surge in immigration, refugee and migrant intake, along with other social services strained to their limits, including insufficient and prohibitively costly housing stocks, rising crime rates that a soft judiciary intent on giving bail for the most serious criminal offenders leading to a steadily rising crime rate. The twin problems of growing homelessness among whom people in mental distress loom large, along with an ever-widening circle of drug dependent, overdose-prone addicts.

@PierrePoilievre

President Trump, stay out of our election. The only people who will decide the future of Canada are Canadians at the ballot box. Canada will always be proud, sovereign and independent and we will NEVER be the 51st state.

Factor in ethnic/religious communities that no longer adapt to the Canadian way of life, its social contracts, its value system, its laws and regulations, and you have a restive population, resentful of a government whose policies and idiosyncracies in social engineering and race and gender politics have created deep divisions within society. All of which soured the public on the Liberal government headed by Justin Trudeau, the very embodiment of an entitled, sociopathic, deceitful, manipulative and narcissistic personality.

 

His government was in tatters; the antithesis of all that it represented was seen in the Conservative government with its leader, Pierre Poilievre prepared, given the Conservative-approving soaring polls, to win the next election. And then along came Donald Trump. And along came an international banker set to replace Justin Trudeau, boasting a record of accomplishment as former Governor of the Bank of Canada and of Great Britain. A man every bit as narcissistic as Trudeau, given to stretching the truth to suit his agenda, a man for whom plagiarizing and claiming as his own the intellectual work of others, slid by his supporters.

 

 

On the campaign trail Mark Carney who was elevated into the role of Prime Minister by the simple (and unprincipled) expedient of being voted in as leader of the Liberal Party in place of Justin Trudeau, and who then went on to boast of his professional expertise and successes in the world of finance, with no experience whatever in politics, and no seat in Parliament, to promise that he, and only he could lead Canada in its battle against an American president determined to economically ruin Canada and annex it into American territory.

 

Canadians in enough of a majority voted for the man who promised he would be Donald Trump's worse nightmare. A man who charged his Conservative competitor Pierre Poilievre of being just like Trump. When the truth is that Trump saw Poilievre as an impediment to his plans of absorbing Canada, and Carney as a useful tool in his extortion and coercion plans. Immediately after the election, US. President Trump spoke of Mark Carney as a "very nice gentleman" and their latest telephone conversation "couldn't have been nicer and I congratulated him". 

 

On Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump weighed in on the federal election, offering advice to Canadians about how they should vote. (Balce Ceneta/The Canadian Press)

 

He plans, he stated, to meet with Carney "within the next week or less" in Washington, and expects to have a "great relationship" with Canada. "I actually think the Conservative hated me much more than the so-called 'Liberal'", Mr. Trump admitted. White House spokesperson Anna Kelly asserted to the Associated Press that the Canadian election "does not affect President Trump's plan to make Canada America's cherished 51st state". And his press secretary, Karoline Leavitt reinforced that message; that Trump's calls for Canada to become the 51st state were "Trump truthing, all the way".

 

The Canadian election outcome was heavily weighed by the antagonism seen from Trump against Canadian sovereignty and his disdain for the role of any Canadian prime minister whom he preferred to call a 'governor'. Trump made no secret of the fact that he planned to ruin the Canadian economy, as additional pressure to have Canada accede to his plans of being absorbed into the United States;  his personal quest for American dominance.  

Denying The Denials

"[You are acceding to pressure from] left-wing activists and former prosecutors in your office."

Moreover, you are apparently attempting to upgrade a misdemeanor charge to a felony using an untested legal theory."

Republican Jim Jordan James Comer, Bryan Steil letter to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg

 "It's a very sad time for America to go through what we're going through now. People are being divided, and they think that justice might be biased."

"We have to make sure that we wait to see what comes out next week, and I hope they do their job. And I’ve said this, no one's above the law, but no one should be targeted by the law, especially through the political process."

"So we'll just wait and see next week. I hope they are very thorough."

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va

New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg had been investigating former President Donald Trump for alleged hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels. (Shane Bevel/NCAA Photos via Getty Images | Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The disintegration of non-partisan cooperation and mutual respect in the United States is continuing on its dysfunctional trajectory with the historic indictment proceeding apace of a former president, one who foresees no impediment in his fraught position as the Republican candidate challenging the Democratic incumbent for the presidency in 2024. The more he portrays himself as an innocent who is being relentlessly pursued in a partisan vendetta, the greater his public appeal to Republican voters in a polarized country.

Prosecutions await Donald Trump at both the State and Federal level. In New York -- politically and legally dominated by Democrats -- the former President, detested by as many as admire and support him, will face a weighted partisan divide where every state judge with the potential to hear his case was elected on a partisan vote. "It would take a lot of courage for a judge to apply the law fairly and potentially ignore the voters desire for vengeance", Henry Olson wrote in the Washington Post.

In some arcane cases prosecutors are known for a tendency to expose jurors to a plethora of charges to present an aura of suspicion that with anyone who might have criminally offended the law in so many ways, there must be fire to cause the smoke alerting justice to wrongs that require righting. In the subtle influencing of jurors this produces the belief that with so many criminal charges the defendant must surely be guilty -- of something. Making conviction on one or a few of the charges a likelihood waiting to happen.

The current prosecution is that of a $130,000 payoff to adult film actress Stormy Daniels to prevent a scandal prior to the 2016 presidential election; "hush money" to ensure the woman was silent about an affair with Trump. The money, according to Trump, was meant to put a halt to "false and extortionist accusations". The payment itself is not illegal but the breaking of campaign finance laws relating to the payout makes it a problem of criminal intent.

Falsifying business records is also a criminal event and the hush money had been recorded as "legal fees". Still not a felony in New York, unless it can be linked to a plan to shield discovery of a true crime; possible violation of campaign finance laws. The letter forwarded to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, responsible for prosecuting the charges, criticized him as well for pursuing a claimed federal campaign finance violation federal prosecutors had refused to prosecute.

The case rests solely on the evidence given by onetime Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, the go-between who handed the hush money to Daniels and for which he was later reimbursed partially by the Trump organization. Brag is viewed as a crusading Democratic district attorney who has targeted Trump and who boasted of his success in going after Trump during his campaign for election to the district attorney position.

Depending on the testimony of Michael Cohen, once Trump's trusted personal lawyer. to now sink the man he worked for will be a tricky sleight-of-hand operation. How credible can a man be who has spent time in prison for admitting to breaking campaign finance laws, along with tax evasion and fraud. A man who first denied paying Daniels, then denied being reimbursed, denied Trump was involved with the payment, all of which denials were subsequently backtracked. Denying the denials.

Donald Trump addressing supporters during a rally in Waco, Texas, in March.   Credit...Christopher Lee for The New York Times

Vendetta, or Justice? A Nation Divided

"I believe this Witch-Hunt will backfire massively on Joe Biden,."

"The American people realize exactly what the Radical Left Democrats are doing here. Everyone can see it. So our Movement, and our Party – united and strong – will first defeat Alvin Bragg, and then we will defeat Joe Biden, and we are going to throw every last one of these Crooked Democrats out of office so we can MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!"

Former U.S. President Donald Trump

Donald Trump has been considered the man to beat for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024  Getty Images

"The Manhattan DA's crusade against President Donald J. Trump is nothing more than political persecution and, just like with every other hoax that President Trump has been targeted with, there is no crime whatsoever, except for election interference by radical Democrats through weaponization of our justice system against President Trump and his supporters."

Steven Cheung, Trump campaign spokesman

"We urge you to refrain from these inflammatory accusations, withdraw your demand for information, and let the criminal justice process proceed without unlawful political interference." 

Leslie Dubeck, general counsel in the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg

 

"Officers have been cautioned to remain vigilant and maintain situational awareness, both inside courthouses and while on perimeter patrols, as evidenced by the incident on Tuesday afternoon outside of Manhattan Supreme Court."

Manhattan Court

Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at Waco Airport on March 25, 2023Waco, Texas. AP

"I am not afraid of what's to come", Trump said in a fundraising email. In fact, 24 hours after his NY indictment a whopping $4 million in donations reached his campaign coffers, and another million the following day. "It's politics, I think they're just dying to find a way to keep him from being eligible for running for re-election", one of his supporters, 58-year-old Mark Funk opined at a beer garden in Houston. 

Yet 44 percent of Republications feel that Donald Trump would do best to drop out of the race should he be indicted, a Reuters/Ipsos poll released last week indicated. "He's ready to fight. He's gearing up", stated one of Trumps lawyers, Joseph Tacopina who added that his client would not be expected to wear handcuffs at his Tuesday court appearance. Bail would not have to be posted on his release, he said.

But he is due to be fingerprinted and photographed in the New York courthouse, the first ex-president to ever face criminal charges, in a notorious case that involves hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, in 2016. Which brings to mind the Watergate scandal that caught then-President Richard Nixon in unsavoury criminal revelations. The only reason he escaped indictment in that case was because the prosecutor argued only when a president leaves office can he be indicted.

This is a country that has divided itself on either side of an agonizingly wide trench separating Republicans from Democrats, a polarization of venomous dissonance. Accusations passing back and forth between the two solitudes, each hissing the hot breath of a fire-breathing dragon of hatred and suspicion. The country itself is aflame with vehemence, one against the other. The nation's president just chided Israel for its disruptions and divisions caused by a move to modify its judicial system.

President Biden has chosen to leave Washington temporarily rather than embroil himself personally in the indictment against his ideological adversary.  As for Donald Trump, he has been busy drumming up support for his party's nomination to challenge President Joe Biden in the 2024 election. And even as he faces charges he will continue his campaigning.

The indictment brought against Mr. Trump lacks information on the specific charges which remain under seal. Reports from CNN reveal there are 34 counts related to business fraud -- to all of which the former president plans to plead not guilty. Trump holds he is "completely innocent", accusing Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, of planning to damage his electoral opportunities.

Former vice=oresident Mike Pence spoke of the charges against his former boss as a "terrible message to the world surrounding U.S. justice. I'm very troubled by it", said Mr. Pence, himself a possible 2024 candidate. Similarly, senior Republicans in the House of Representatives plan to investigate Prosecutor Bragg, demanding he reveal the documents involved, along with other confidential material that led his investigation. 

"You and many of your colleagues have chosen to collaborate with Mr. Trump's efforts to vilify and denigrate the integrity of elected state prosecutors and trial judges", District Attorney Bragg wrote to Republican lawmakers, in response to their threats. Security has been stepped up around the courthouse, reflecting Trump's March 18 call to his supporters to protest any arrest. 

It will take at least over a year before any potential trial is scheduled, according to legal experts. The trial, in other words, could take place during or following the presidential campaign. The indictment against Trump does not necessarily preclude him from running for re-election. And he has appealed for nationwide protests, warning of "death & destruction" should he be charged.

Defending Against The Enemy Within

Met Police Dept Narc officer Michael Fanone  ABC News

"It looked like a medieval battle scene. Some of the most brutal combat I've ever encountered."

"There’s no longer any police lines. There's just chaos. Rioters running rampant across the Capitol grounds, fatigued, you know, injured officers everywhere."

"[Officers who were in the tunnel defending the Capitol were] fighting like lions."

"Some guys pulled me out into the crowd and some were yelling something ... they were beating me."  "At one point, I got tased, people were yelling out, 'We got one. We got one'."

"Individuals in the crowd tried to get my gun. At one point, people started chanting, 'Kill him with his own gun'. I remember at one point, you know, some of the people in the crowd while I was getting tasered, they were stripping my gear off of my vest, my badge off my radio. They started grabbing ammunition magazines from my belt."

"I remember yelling out, not to anybody in specific, 'I have kids' and it seemed to work."

Michael Fanone, 20-year narcotics officer, Washington, D.C.'s Metropolitan Police Department

 

Met Police Dept Officer Daniel Hodges ABC News

"Some of them were absolutely crazed -- I would  call them zealous true believers. They would let nothing stop them from getting inside. And it didn't matter, what they had to do to get inside."

"I thought, 'this could be the end,' or 'I could not get out of this completely intact'."

"The guy in front of me, that guy, he was  practically foaming at the mouth. He was screaming and just grabbed my arm, grabbed my filter on my masks, started beating my head against the door frame and ripping it off as best he could."

"Once he got my mask off, he also was able to rip away my night baton from me and started beating me in the head with it."

"Once they ripped my mask off, I was sucking in pepper spray, OC spray and tear gas the entire time. Obviously, that many people yelling in the tunnel is extremely loud. It was just a sensory overload. But all I know is that no one was getting by me."

“They were waving the 'thin-blue-line flag' while they were assaulting us."

"It’s not an exaggeration to say that we defended a democracy, that everyone's duly-elected representatives were in that building and the mob outside was not." 

Metropolitan Police Department Officer Daniel Hodges

Trump supporters clash with police and security forces as they push barricades to storm the Capitol  
Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images

 

Washington, federal District of Columbia is preparing to inaugurate a new president, the 46th President of the United States of America. The inauguration will take place during a time of great internal division, the polarization of America between left and right, Democrat and Republican. Bipartisan reconciliation at this time in the history of the United States appears exceedingly remote. Americans failed to see any measure of agreement, only dissonance and hostility between those they elected to the House of Representatives and in the Senate in the past four years, and what they saw instructed them on how to react.

 

The United States Congress is so fundamentally at odds it seems to have disintegrated into a heckling, jeering high-school chorus of juvenile delinquents at times. The Democrats turned sharp left, their junior members calling for a version of America that would reflect their social values and they would accept nothing less. The Republicans remained wedded to their version of America the Great, the showpiece of world order and Democracy in Action. And their choice for president of that great country astonished the world. And the world watched as the United States retreated from its position of eminent leadership.

 

When Donald Trump was elected president, Democrats refused to accept that this was their new democratically elected president, that a majority of Americans saw promise in this man and opted to bring him to office. Rallies were organized post inauguration, conspiracy theories were given prominent and official status, and for the length of his stay in office until he was thwarted for a second term, he was considered by Democrats to be an illegal resident of the White House. Now, with the ascension of Joe Biden it is the Republicans' turn to refuse acknowledgment of his legitimacy -- with a vengeance, rude and violent.

There are now more troops stationed in Washington and around the 50 states than the collective of U.S. servicemen in Europe, Iraq or Afghanistan. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, the federal body that serves as the internal monitor of criminal investigation in the United States, along with the Department of Homeland Security has warned lawmakers of the presence of radicalized followers of President Trump in dangerous insurrection mode, planning ongoing violent attacks against the nation in their zeal to promote overturning of the election results that rejected Mr.Trump and won the presidency for Mr.Biden.

 

Protesters climbed the bleachers that were erected for Biden's inauguration   Getty Images

Countrywide, armed attacks by radicalized militants for whom the prospect of President Trump leaving the White House for a Biden/Democratic occupancy motivates them to threaten the stability and security of the nation by an armed insurrection of hostile far-right and nationalist elements, among the 76 million loyal Americans who voted for a man who promised that their working-class rights would be upheld against the elites and the capitalists entrenched in Washington who look after their own well-being, disinterested in the needs of the greater population. They believed him then, and believe him still.

With the president's second impeachment, and his loyal followers' display of hostile, derogatory and violent reactions -- with the current of viral disaffection still on display as Internet communications continue to recruit and build on the violent disruption that took place on 6 January, the country is on virtual lockdown, not because of the coronavirus sweeping maliciously through the country, but martial law resulting from the malevolent violence of mob action in support of a disgraced president.

"Lacking designations for initiating a nationwide case for pursuing connected violence, federal law enforcement largely pursues cases reactively after an attack."

"Individual cases are pursued across dozens or even hundreds of jurisdictions even though subjects congregate, communicate, and collaborate with each other in online environments. Domestic terrorism's lack of designation also results in no effective measure for understanding the size, shape, and scale of each violent extremist threat."

Clint Watts, cybersecurity and counterterrorism expert

 

The FBI appears to believe that the riot in Washington was an "inside job" aided and abetted by a few members of Congress or their aides, along with some police. Last year a report emerged stating that supremacists and neo-Nazis had infiltrated security, military and police forces nationwide. Two known radical members of Congress appear to be under investigation. Unless these claims too, are part of a wider web of conspiracy theories. As though the entire nation has become the victim of fallacious demagoguery, suffering from a mass psychosis. 

That President Donald Trump in his dwindling days in power, incited thousands of his faithful followers to embark on a trajectory of violent dissent, disrupting the transition between administrations, casting aspersions on the kind of democracy they see playing out no longer favouring their version of events is beyond question. His speech furthermore -- hours before the mob's descent on the Capitol -- primed the mob to action, urged them to flood the Capitol, to leave no doubt that he and he alone is fit to govern the United States of America.

 

Michael Fanone, a DC detective, was dragged into the crowd and beaten   Reuters

A Pox On Both Their Houses

"Armed protests are being planned at all 50 state capitols from 16 January through at least 20 January, and at the U.S. Capitol from 17 January through 20 January,"

"While our standard practice is to not comment on specific intelligence products, the FBI is supporting our state, local, and federal law enforcement partners with maintaining public safety in the communities we serve."

"Our efforts are focused on identifying, investigating, and disrupting individuals that are inciting violence and engaging in criminal activity."

FBI Bulletin

 

"We're keeping a look across the entire country to make sure that we're monitoring, and that our Guards in every state are in close co-ordination with their local law enforcement agencies to provide any support requested."  

Army Gen. Daniel Hokanson, chief of the National Guard Bureau

 

"A lot of people were energized by what happened last week, State capitals are a natural place where people might want to show up, especially assuming that they think there might be a huge presence of police and military in D.C. because of what happened last week."

"[The Capitol siege demonstrated the emergence of a new movement of] Trumpist extremists, so caught up in the cult of personality around Trump that they may be willing to break the law or engage in violence purely in support of Trump and whatever he wants."

Mark Pitcavage, senior research fellow, Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism

 

"The FBI just can't passively sit in websites and forums and social media platforms, waiting to see who's going to present a direct threat versus just someone who is being highly radicalized."

"There has to be an investigative predicate for the FBI to then start even the lowest form of an investigation."

Javed Ali, former FBI senior intelligence officer

A team of FBI agents gather as demonstrators rally outside of the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

"In light of events of the past week and the evolving security landscape leading up to the inauguration [the Secret Service has been instructed to begin security operations on January 13 rather than January 19]."

"[Federal, state, and local agencies] will continue to coordinate their plans and position resources for this important event."

Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf

Warning that "armed protests" could arise around events linked to the January 20 presidential inauguration in Washington, the FBI made it clear that all fifty state capitals in the U.S. will be susceptible to the potential for rampaging mobs to make their dissatisfaction with the removal of President Trump from office clear, in a nation bifurcated by toxic left-right disagreement. A totally polarized population has resulted from suspicion, fear and anger, well nourished by both the Democratic and Republican parties' elites.

The National Guard has been authorized to ensure that up to 15,000 troops will be on hand in Washington. Tourists are to be barred from access to the Washington Monument until January 24. The theme of the January 20 ceremony to inaugurate Joe Biden, the president-elect is to be "America United", as absurd and tone-deaf a chosen theme under the current toxic circumstances as any that might be imagined. The Democratic Party is playing nice now that one of their own is moving into the Oval Office.

When the Republican choice for president of the United States was elected four years earlier, the Democrats incited their faithful to demonstrate long and loud against an admittedly flawed personage with no experience, yet the choice of a majority of voters. Donald Trump, like him or loathe him, was duly, democratically elected. Indignant crowds of faithful Democrats came out to express their disgust that the White House would be ruled by a crass and crude man for the next four years, and they wanted him removed.

 

 

The Democratic Party itself did all it possibly could to restrain President Trump, to portray him as inept and disloyal to the country, themselves unwilling to sit as lawmakers under a man whom the world viewed askance and whose volatile and ill-chosen statements struck doubt in the hearts of allies. Yet, the democratic process so allegedly dear to Americans' hearts elected the unelectable fairly and squarely. America is decidedly anything but united. Over 70 million Americans voted for a candidate they held trust in and whom senior Democrats slurred. Wounding their own institutions in the process.

The country remains aghast that the bastion of democracy in the United States was attacked. No less so that the man who is their outgoing president did his best to incite the rioters to their task after having built their belief in a 'stolen' election both prior to and following the election that left him a one-term president. Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser is anxious that last week's "unprecedented terrorist attack", not be repeated.

State capitals are preparing for the possibility of virulent protests disturbing the peace of the presidential transition at a remote on and around January 20. To that possibility they have responded by taking proactive, preventive measures of their own. On Monday the Michigan State Capitol Commission unanimously voted on banning the open carry of firearms inside the state capitol building, voting 6-0 for the measure.

 

"Given what's going on across the country, we moved up our meeting to consider the issue. It's now done and will be implemented by Michigan State Police", announced John Truscott, vice-chairman of the commission. No one wants a repeat of an event that sent lawmakers into fearful hiding, a riot, invasion and threat to America's democracy that took the lives of five people. Dozens who were part of the rampaging mob have been charged in the violence they took part in, with many more yet to be arrested.

 

Neither Face Very Commendable

"At a time when Canada needs strong relationships more than ever, Justin Trudeau's poor judgement, lack of professionalism and love of drama continues to weaken Canada's position on the world stage."
"We saw this just yesterday at the NATO summit."
Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, Parliamentary Opposition

"He's not paying two percent and he should be paying two percent. It's Canada. They have money and they should be paying two percent [in military preparedness]. So I called him out on that and I'm sure he wasn't happy about that, but that's the way it is."
"And honestly, with Trudeau he's a nice guy, I find him to be a very nice guy but you know the truth is, that I called him out on the fact that he's not paying two percent and I guess he's not very happy about it. [Canada is] slightly delinquent."
"Trudeau is two-faced."
U.S. President Donald J. Trump

"I think he hit a nerve. If you look a the tape and you look at the reaction, it was hard not to think about high school where you have the two good-looking rich guys gossiping about the big powerful other guy."
"The relationship is deeper and has guardrails around it, in a sense, that doesn't allow that sort of stuff to happen easily [actual damaging fall-out or related consequences]."
Eric Miller, global fellow, Canada Institute, Wilson Centre, Washington, D.C.

President Donald Trump meets with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at Winfield House, Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2019, in London. (The Associated Press)

As a judge of good character it's hard to credit President Trump with a keen objective sense of what even constitutes good character. He is not himself an example by any means. And he's cut Justin Trudeau a lot of slack; generous to a fault. But it is a faulty conclusion. He's not a nice guy by any means, but rather a pretentious, egotistical, vain, entitled charlatan. Oops, that is Trudeau, but those traits also echo Trump, so little wonder he approves of the former's persona.

There were serious issues to be discussed at the NATO conference, even if it purported to be a celebration and consolidation of its 70 years of international cooperation among NATO allies. One issue that failed to pass the test of serious consideration was the appropriateness of Turkey's half-century of membership that might have been countenanced when it was an Ataturkian-secularist-reform-governed proto-democracy, an entirely different administration than the current Islamist autocracy headed by Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Turkey now shares none of the concerns of NATO. Its ruling Justice and Development Party, which proves more than adequately that words have lost their intrinsic meaning to be manipulated by tyrants and autocrats to serve their personal purposes, has an agenda that is abhorrent for many reasons to other NATO members. With the sad exception of the U.S. whose president gravitates happily to strongmen since he models himself as one. Turkey's membership in NATO, an unspoken grievance by many members, should be under discussion.

Emmanuel Macron was a little precipitate in declaring NATO 'brain dead' on the basis of having been abandoned by Trump, whose volatile, puzzling and intemperate statements and choices have suddenly resurrected U.S. interest in NATO. Donald Trump imagines himself the elder statesman of NATO by virtue of his powerful country's having created the union as a bulwark against the-then Cold War with the Soviet Union and its powerful Eastern European bloc. As the most influential, wealthiest country on the globe, he is conferred with exceptional status.

His pique is spontaneous, his decision-making lacking deep knowledge to guide him, his arrogance is monumental, and defying the man when for a change he has a legitimate point to make in holding other NATO members to the agreed-upon pact all made to spend 2 percent of GDP to acquiring and sustaining a robust national military complete with military hardware in the interests of unity and a reliable military capacity both singly and collectively in an increasingly unsettled world order, can be given the respect it deserves.

When President Trump chastised Prime Minister Trudeau for Canada's lack of commitment to acquiring adequate military hardware, and for failing to live up to its troop-number commitment to NATO, he had a legitimate point to make in urging Canada to follow the example of less-wealthy NATO members who do take their commitment seriously. That Justin Trudeau was incapable of responding like a mature adult and chose instead to mock the president of the United States speaks to a monumental failure on Trudeau's part in representing the best interests of the country he governs.

Choosing to behave like an adolescent rather than an adult to anticipate the frisson of pleasure he would experience in making himself yet again the centre of amused attention by his political international peers, he once more disgraced himself, pandering to his theatrical, drama-princeling aptitude and greed to be the centre of notice, while enjoying the opportunity to laugh at someone he grovels before in face-to-face contact.

On the other hand, Trudeau happened to be in the company of heads of government who chose themselves to behave like adolescent clowns. It is most unfortunate, but Trump seems to have this effect on people who consider themselves to be superior to a man whose manners and values are deplorable and in their distaste for him and choosing to demean the man who holds the position of the most powerful man on Earth, however temporarily, they more or less reflect some of his unsavoury attributes....

PM Justin Trudeau, France's Emmanuel Macron, UK PM Boris Johnson and other VIPs shared a few words at a Buckingham Palace reception Tuesday - and seemed to be talking about U.S. President Donald Trump's lengthy impromptu press conferences earlier in the day.  CBC