NYT: President Blames D.E.I. and Biden for Crash Under Trump’s Watch
President Trump’s remarks, suggesting without evidence that diversity in hiring and other Biden administration policies somehow caused the disaster, reflected his instinct to immediately frame major events through his political or ideological lens.
NYT: Trump Kicks Congress to the Curb, With Little Protest From Republicans
The administration is showing it doesn’t view the House and Senate as equal partners. So far, Republicans, who hold both majorities, are accepting their new status.
Globe: Lawrence Martin: A message from the Americans: Quite frankly Canada, we don’t give a damn
There’s long been an assumption, for about a century anyway, that as a nice neighbour, ally and friend, Canada has had a special relationship with the United States.
You can go through the speeches of almost every American president and find testimony to that. We’ve had lots of quarrels but we’ve remained America’s closest companion. The two countries, as Pierre Trudeau once put it, set the standard for enlightened international relations.
Not now.
Trump is burning bridges.
Guardian: FBI pick Kash Patel refuses to answer if he would target Trump opponents at hearing
Kash Patel sought to allay concerns about his fitness to serve as the FBI director at his Senate confirmation hearing on Thursday, but declined to engage with questioning that explicitly asked whether he would use his position to investigate some of Donald Trump’s top political opponents.
The hearing revolved around Patel’s provocative public remarks attacking the FBI and his ability to resist political pressure from the White House, a topic that has come to the fore with the justice department rocked by the ouster of prosecutors who worked on cases against Trump.
Globe: Andrew Coyne: No traitors in the House, but foreign interference, and the Liberals’ non-response to it, is still a serious concern
Which brings us to the final report of the public inquiry into foreign interference in Canada’s democracy, led by commissioner Marie-Josée Hogue. The report is already being portrayed in some quarters as having suggested the whole issue was overblown, wildly exaggerated, misreported – as if to suggest that, if it were, foreign interference is not an issue, or not a serious enough one that it should have troubled the Liberal government unduly.
Thus, because the judge did not find that MPs were selling top secret defence plans to the Russians, there is no need to be concerned that some of our elected representatives have been playing footsie with agents of foreign governments. Because the Prime Minister was not found to be an actual Chinese asset, his government’s remarkable and sustained inactivity in the face of repeated warnings of the efforts of hostile foreign powers to interfere in our elections can be ignored. And because these powers did not succeed in determining the outcome of an election, it doesn’t matter that they tried.
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That does not mean, however, there were no such individuals. With the help of the intelligence agencies, the judge was able to reverse-engineer the names, working backward from the allegations in the report to the intelligence on file. And far from exonerating them, she finds evidence of conduct that is “troubling” and “questionable.”
“Some elected officials,” the judge writes, “have maintained relationships, or had interactions, with foreign officials that may have crossed the line beyond normal diplomacy. The intelligence also indicates that some elected officials may have knowingly received support from foreign officials or proxies.”
Globe: Editorial Board: The sobering cost of Doug Ford’s bar tab
Ontario’s push to speed up making it easier to buy beer and wine comes with a tab that leaves a bad taste in the mouth.
Allowing residents to buy these products in more locations is sound policy. But having the public purse take a $600-million hit to accelerate this change by only 17 months is, well, spending money like a drunken sailor.
Last Updated: 30.Jan.2025 23:48 EST
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