Wednesday Night #2263

Leaving aside the increasingly grubby news of the Wall Street Journal  Trump-Epstein saga crusade,
the big items on tonight’s menu are the rapidly evolving situation in US-Israel relations , Gaza humanitarian crisis, and the move to recognize Palestinian statehood,  including the late-breaking news that Canada intends to recognize a Palestinian state at the United Nations in September, Prime Minister Mark Carney said on Wednesday, saying his goal was to preserve the possibility of a two-state solution (Canada says Palestinian recognition designed to save two-state solution). Also amidst the rift between Trump and Bibi, comes the announcement that Trump says US will partner with Israel to run additional food centers in Gaza, but details are scant – do we believe it?
At least there is now acknowledgement by the Trump administration that there is starvation -if not a policy of genocide by starvation (Leading genocide scholars see a genocide happening in Gaza)

A propos, we highly recommend The Only Information Source Trump Trusts
The president responds more to mass media than to the substance of underlying events.
By David A. Graham

Trump’s Tariffs and Trade

US-EU trade agreement
US and EU avert trade war with 15% tariff deal
Deal includes $600 bln EU investments in US, more EU energy, defence purchases
15% tariff better than threatened 30%, in deal mirroring Japan’s
EU says rate extends to cars, pharmaceuticals, semiconductors
US steel and aluminium tariffs stay at 50%, but could fall later
The Mafioso Tariff Doctrine: Trump’s Free-Money Fantasy and the Epstein Anchor
Mary Geddry
(Substack) Let’s begin with the delusion now enshrined as Trump’s “historic” trade deal with the EU, a deal so loaded with inconsistencies, half-baked numbers, and bald-faced lies that even the EU negotiators appear to be holding their noses while calling it “the best we could get in bad circumstances.” Trump crowed that it was the “biggest deal ever made,” which is odd considering it’s still just a framework and not a finalized agreement. The key feature? A 15% tariff on EU imports, down from the 30% he threatened weeks ago, but still a massive tax hike, especially for a man who thinks tariffs are “free money.”

Inside the unfolding drama of Canada-U.S. trade talks.
Despite months of back and forth in rooms ranging from mountainous Kananaskis, Alberta, to steamy Washington, D.C., Canada has not managed to secure final terms of an economic and security deal with the U.S.
Behind closed doors, Canadian and U.S. officials have spent months circling the same unresolved issues, with Trump’s team sidestepping specifics…
Tell Me How This Trade War Ends
Trump’s approach to trade “has been needlessly chaotic,” write Emily Kilcrease and Geoffrey Gertz in a recent essay for Foreign Affairs [see Long reads below]. “Yet there is a kernel of truth in the president’s insistence that the international trade system needs a reset.” The United States, they argue, must “build a new set of rules and norms that facilitate integration among like-minded states and that disentangle them from adversarial ones, especially China.” Trump’s methods “may not be pretty,” but they “could open the way for a much better system.”
Trump’s trade deals and tariffs are on the chopping block in court. What happens next
A federal appeals court will soon hear oral arguments in a high-profile lawsuit challenging Trump’s authority to impose sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs.
The case is the furthest along of more than half a dozen federal cases targeting Trump’s imposition of tariffs using an emergency-powers law known as IEEPA.
Piper Sandler analysts said Trump will “probably continue to lose in the lower courts” and at the Supreme Court, rendering his recent trade deals “illegal.”

Cleo Paskal alerts us to the alarming -and neglected- situation in the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) “Spoke with Steve Bannon about urgent need for an FBI/Treasury strike force to investigate goings on in [CNMI] – home to Saipan and Tinian – and one of the most strategically important parts of the United States.
“This isn’t just me. On April 24, 2025, then Governor Arnold Palacios, again asked for federal help. When he heard the CNMI Representative to Congress was going to be meeting with FBI Director Kash Patel, Gov. Palacios asked her in a letter to please ask Director Patel to do “intensive investigations of public corruption” in CNMI, mentioning he has “considerable evidence to provide”. A sitting U.S. governor was offering to open up all his books (and more) because of how concerned he was for CNMI and for U.S. national security.
She adds: “[For those twitching about the interview being with Steve Bannon, who else is covering this? What major U.S. media is covering the passing of a sitting U.S. Governor, in a part of the U.S. where hundreds of millions of dollars is going in to build U.S. military facilities and at the same time is the only part of the U.S. where Chinese can arrive without a visa? No wonder some people in CNMI feel vulnerable.]
Steve Bannon on how his War Room is shaping Republican narratives: ‘We’re relentless. I will never back off’
More FBI WALKS AWAY FROM THE SAIPAN CASINO UNKNOWNS.

Jeremy Kinsman: 40 Years After Live Aid: Has Compassion Collapsed?
The international protective and remedial system in which Canada has believed for three quarters of a century is collapsing. Vital relief programs like the World Food Program or the UNHCR or the WHO that have lost US backing can’t cope with the global emergency affecting hundreds of millions.
Where is the remedy? We could start by to reviving the lost spirit and solidarity of Live Aid.
Leadership counts. We need strong leaders who will speak truth to publics rather than pander to a wayward, bullying, and chaotic US President. But to save the world, they need to lift the confidence of their publics that it is doable and that it matters to them. They need to answer Pierre Trudeau’s timeless query, “Who is my neighbour?” by looking to the human condition, and not just playing against the bully next door.

Judy Roberts has returned from Paris -where she was overwhelmed by the beauty of the detail of reconstructed Notre Dame- and Newfoundland, where, she recounted last week, Justin Trudeau was spotted with a ‘blond bombshell’, but he was subsequently reported to have cancelled that relationship. No doubt, all will be fascinated by the news that Justin and Katy Perry were spotted dining together in Montreal – Restaurant Le Violon confirms former Canadian prime minister and singer visited but saw ‘no signs of PDA’
Peter Frise is in St. Anthony’s Newfoundland on his motorcycle trip. “We are near the fantastic L’Anse-aux-Meadows site where the first European settlement in North America has been discovered and reconstructed. No trouble at all staying cool here.”
Sandy is back from South America and enjoying a reunion in the Finger Lakes with college friends. Pity, would have enjoyed her comments on the latest Palestine- Israel developments.

Andrew Caddell‘s column this week The Power of Canada’s many “Senates” strikes a nostaligic note – would he consider WN a Senate’?
You see them everywhere across the country. They might be in the local Tim Hortons, an independent coffee shop in the middle of town, a social club, a shopping mall, or, as in Kamouraska, down by the wharf.
They are the faithful, the friends, the former work colleagues, the civic-minded, some politically engaged, some not, who gather to discuss the issues of the day. It could be for breakfast or lunch, or an afternoon coffee break. I have joined many of them in their conversations in both official languages. Once, the other four people in the booth at the Smitty’s in Saskatoon were wearing their Order of Canada pins.

Last Wednesday ended with a discussion of the anticipated decision in the Hockey Canada sexual assault trial.
As forecast by several, All 5 former Hockey Canada players were found not guilty and divided public reaction was swift.
Court worked as it’s designed to in the Hockey Canada case. That’s the problem, survivors and lawyers say – Survivors, lawyers say complainants always lose something in court, even when they ‘win’
Gary Bettman holds NHL fate of five acquitted former junior stars in his hands
Jack Todd’s Gazette column points to the difference between the courtroom decision and the actions of the NHL: Bettman understands that in this case, there is a wide gulf between “not guilty” and “innocent.”

Heather Cox Richardson: July 26, 2025
As Trump’s popularity falls, Republican lawmakers are having to confront the reality that the Project 2025 program the administration is putting into place is deeply unpopular not just with Democrats and Independents but also with Republicans. They appear to be trying desperately to shore up some of the damage the administration has done. And the White House seems to be concerned enough about the 2026 midterms that it’s listening.

Varia
While the death of Ozzy Osbourne has attracted world-wide attention, -we were not a fan of heavy metal and never got over the infamous antics — the bat saga, biting the head off a dove, pissing on the Alamo- but instead, we choose to mourn the extraordinarily gifted jazz singer Dame Cleo Laine and Singer-songwriter Tom Lehrer, the satirist who gained prominence in the 1950s and 1960s for his acerbic take on politics and social life. His songs were an integral part of our teen and university years. We and our peers knew almost all of them by heart and quoted them for many years.

Chris Neal asked last week what Wednesday Nighters are reading this summer and mentioned that he is currently editing the forthcoming book version of Guy Rogers’ What We Choose To Remember. Filming began on the 50th anniversary of the October Crisis to capture eye-witness accounts of seminal events that shaped modern Quebec. During the second half of the previous century hundreds of thousands of Anglophones left Quebec. This is the story of those who stayed and the subsequent waves of immigrants who chose to make this colourful, quirky place their home.
Responding to his challenger, we have just started Homelands, Timothy Garton Ash’s personal history of Europe.
To add further spice to the discussion: What are the best adventure novels? Let’s add a hidden gem to the list.
“The Rose of Tibet” by Lionel Davidson is an unsung classic of the genre. It’s up there with “Treasure Island,” “The Scarlet Pimpernel” and “The Princess Bride.”

Pets are still being rescued from Texas floods. This 11-year-old is helping.
“Everybody can make a difference, even if they’re a little kid like me,” said Kamryn Balfour, 11, who has raised more than $4,000 for animal organizations in Texas.

Philosopher Charles Taylor offers routes back to an enchanted existence
The Canadian scholar insists poetry persuades us through the experience of connection
“His new book, Cosmic Connections: Poetry in an Age of Disenchantment, tells a story of how poets, beginning in the Romantic period, found a new avenue to pursue meaning in life.”

Breathtaking and rare images of a red panda in the depths of the Himalayas (long)
The film follows a female who has given birth to her cub well protected in a tree hollow. This is the first intimate portrait that exists of the red pandas.

Who knew the story of Paradigm Spirits
Trump’s tariffs are promoting free trade — in Canada
Politicians and industry leaders have long pushed to remove barriers to interprovincial trade. Trump’s tariffs are giving the effort new momentum.

Long reads
Tell Me How This Trade War Ends
The Right Way to Build a New Global Economic Order

Five members of Canada’s 2018 world junior team were acquitted after a judge ruled the complainant’s evidence was not credible in a case that sparked national debate

Carney, Sabia, and a New Bureaucratic Ethos
Rhetoric on the campaign trail is one thing. Implementing big promises is altogether another. Pulling it off will require a unity of purpose and tolerance for risk at odds with the current culture of the federal public service.
The public service will need to take on a new ethos inspired by the reality that Canada’s sovereignty and self-sufficiency depend on it. Instilling in the bureaucracy a sense of accountability, renewed focus, and more nimble response time will be priorities for the new Clerk of the Privy Council, Michael Sabia, as he acknowledged in his July 7th open letter to the public service.
Canada has an excellent bureaucracy, despite all the derision it endures. The reality is that Canadian public servants are, on the whole, smart, talented, dedicated people who give effect to the will of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. Like any complex organization, however, the federal public service has developed tendencies that undermine its own reason for being.
Put simply, too much of the bureaucracy exists for the sake of the bureaucracy. Too often, process becomes the end rather than a means; announcements have become a stand-in for action.

Trudeau radically overhauled the Senate — will Carney keep his reforms?
New government weighing changes to appointment process
Former prime minister Justin Trudeau upended 150 years of Canadian parliamentary tradition when he dumped Liberal senators, named Independents to the upper house and generally stripped the place of partisan elements.