First, a few shorter observations, to which I can only respond "Wow!":
Fighting Back
An inspiring Toronto Star article from Richard Warnica
Donald Trump sent ICE to Minnesota. This is what it looks like on the ground (gift link)
Alberta separatism
The Northern Variables substack writes
i hope all the people resisting ICE on the ground know how fucking inspiring they are. minneapolis right now, and chicago and LA and charlotte and DC and portland before them, you’re setting the blueprint for the future battles sure to come. thank you.
— Marisa Kabas (@marisakabas.bsky.social) January 12, 2026 at 7:54 PM
Premier Wab Kinew expressed solidarity with Minnesotans Monday, following days of protests in the U.S. state where a federal immigration officer fatally shot a woman in the head last week.
— Winnipeg Free Press (@winnipegfreepress.com) January 12, 2026 at 3:52 PM
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Kim: I was having a conversation with someone within his administration, we were talking about something we disagreed with the president on. And they were just like, “Let’s just not talk about this and keep it quiet, and maybe he’ll forget about it.” Literally—someone on his own team was saying this
— Acyn (@acyn.bsky.social) January 11, 2026 at 11:17 AM
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A reason I get sort of annoyed by the “this is part of a plan” stuff—besides these guys lacking enough foresight to find their own dicks—is that they are so totally disconnected from reality that any plan they could actually make would be useless
— Vituperative Erb (@vituperativeerb.bsky.social) January 10, 2026 at 3:03 PM
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There is no attitude for which legacy journalists are more often rewarded by their bosses than "Everybody needs to calm down." It is a preening announcement that you are the adult in the room, immune from emotion or overreaction or "hysteria." And it is the worst imaginable priority for this era. >
— Mark Harris (@markharris.bsky.social) January 11, 2026 at 11:23 AM
What more proof do you need that they are Nazis !!! ???
— JeffTrnka (@jefftrnka.bsky.social) January 12, 2026 at 5:03 PM
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Fighting Back
An inspiring Toronto Star article from Richard Warnica
Donald Trump sent ICE to Minnesota. This is what it looks like on the ground (gift link)
... “We came out because we felt like it’s impossible to sit at home and not participate when the federal government’s engaging in a hostile takeover of the city,” said Gregory Smith, who was at the demonstration with his wife, Rebecca Heidenberg, and their five-year-old son Ezra.About Disinformation
“In the past, we have been nervous about taking him, and I was even today,” Heidenberg said. “But it just feels like the point at which we cannot just stand by and watch. I mean, it’s just horrifying.”
....It’s hard to describe the level of anti-ICE sentiment here in Minnesota. I’ve seen bowls of free whistles — used to alert neighbours if ICE officers are near — at coffee shops across the city. Scores of local businesses have signs up claiming to bar federal agents from coming inside.
I spent several hours Friday night at a protest outside a downtown hotel where ICE agents were reportedly staying. For hours, hundreds of people blew whistles, bashed drums and blared on tubas, saxophones and trumpets. At one point, I saw a man playing a trombone while chasing a row of police cars down the road.
Advocacy groups, meanwhile, are organizing near-daily training sessions for people interested in becoming ICE observers. Yusra Mohamud, a community activist and small business consultant, had just come from one such meeting when I met her Sunday morning.
I asked her if Good’s death — she was killed while apparently acting as an ICE observer not far from her son’s school — was scaring off any of the activists and advocates Mohamud knows. Just the opposite, she replied. “People are feeling a lot more, you know, revolutionized.” ...
Alberta separatism
The Northern Variables substack writes
Alberta Separatism and the Grievance Loop That Never Quite Grows Up
Canada is getting shit done
At The Line, Matt Gurney writes
...Canada is not an abstract arrangement dreamed up by policy analysts. It is the product of three foundational peoples and legal traditions: Indigenous nations, the French, and the English. Every province in Canada emerges from this same constitutional inheritance in different combinations.
Alberta is no exception.
Separatist narratives quietly suggest something else. They imply that Alberta constitutes a distinct political nation within Canada, one that entered Confederation under fundamentally different terms and has been wronged ever since.
That story does not survive contact with history.
Alberta was not a sovereign entity. It did not negotiate entry into Confederation. It did not possess a colonial legislature or an independent constitution. It was created in 1905 by federal statute, carved out of the North-West Territories.
Its formation took place on land already claimed by the Crown and governed through treaties with Indigenous nations.
Many grievances depend on the idea of a broken original bargain.
There was no such bargain.
Alberta became a province in 1905.
That is less than 130 years ago. For most families in the province, this is not ancient history. It is great-grandparent history. Three generations, maybe four.
The grievances that animate Alberta separatism are not the accumulated injuries of a people over centuries. They are the frustrations of settlers and their descendants navigating boom cycles, rapid growth, and political disappointment inside a very young province.
Confederation did not absorb an ancient polity and strip it of sovereignty. It created a province, governed it imperfectly, and watched it grow wealthy at a pace that would have startled much of the world....
Acknowledging that history does not diminish Alberta.
It clarifies the foundations on which it stands.
What remains is not oppression.
It is politics.
Canada is getting shit done
At The Line, Matt Gurney writes
At least by our standards? Is ... is this what hope feels like?
....Last week, Canadian shipyard Seaspan announced that it had signed agreements with both Finland and American shipyards to licence its design for Multi-Purpose Icebreakers to the U.S. Coast Guard’s Arctic Security Cutter Program. And while the “Elbow’s Up” crowd may look askance at the prevalence of the word “American” in that sentence, this is damned interesting — not only are we continuing to show interest in the Arctic, but we’re also trying to sustain real shipbuilding in this country...
...the Irving Shipyards have begun work on the final Arctic Offshore Patrol Ship of the Harry DeWolf class. Irving is also getting started on the next generation of Canada’s main warships, the River-class destroyers. Canada is actively seeking a replacement, in far greater numbers, of its current fleet of problematic submarines. And there’s also growing talk about a new smaller, mid-range class of Canadian warship, dubbed, for now, the Continental Defence Corvette....
Reverting to a pre-1945 geopolitical reality isn’t going to be an exercise in vibes. It’s going to be an exercise in power — or at least attempts to wield power. Air forces matter, cyber matters, drones matter and Lord knows armies matter. But they matter locally. True global power, or at least the ability to give a global power some pause before they decide to whisk your el jefe off to a Manhattan courtroom in a tracksuit, requires the ability to control your coasts and all the ocean approaches to them.
Canada doesn’t. Canada can’t. But if we actually pull off what we’re talking about doing, we’ll be putting a much stronger foot forward on that metric than we have in a very, very long time. And while a relatively robust Canadian fleet procurement program isn’t as exciting as helicopter raids and special forces attacks, I’m starting to wonder if it’s not actually one of the better indicators that we have very much indeed stepped into a bold new era that’s going to look, sound and feel an awful lot like some of what many of you have read in your history books....
More good news here too:
A Starlink rival largely owned by the French and U.K. governments is pitching Canada on a roughly $250-million plan to provide the military with secure satellite broadband coverage in the Arctic, CBC News has learned. www.cbc.ca/news/politic...
— Andrew Kurjata (@akurjata.ca) January 9, 2026 at 4:35 PM
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Canada is walking a tightrope between Trump and Greenland
On his Unscripted substack Black Cloud Six writes
... We’re left with an uncomfortable truth. Trump wants Greenland because it is another means of displaying American dominance, because it demonstrates his vision of a world in which the great powers rule over “spheres of influence”, and because his ego and hubris have decided that he – personally – deserves it. This worldview is incompatible with NATO by definition, not just in practice. There is no grand strategy; this is Trump having an idea and now trying to follow through on it. In Trump’s new world, might makes right, allies are expendable, and every move is a transaction. If Greenland can’t be bought, it’ll be taken simply because the United States can.
The danger is very real, perhaps acute. Trump has been emboldened by his “victory” in Venezuela and has demonstrated increasing disdain for multilateralism and for international norms. This especially extends to Europe for some reason and he may view his Greenland gambit as an easy way to discredit both the European Union and NATO. He may be making a grave error. The language coming out of Denmark and the EU (and, somewhat later, Canada) has become increasingly firm and tolerance for American threats is vanishing quickly. There are now reports via the Daily Telegraph that the EU is considering drastic sanctions should the US launch a military incursion into Greenland, including bans on US tech firms and the eviction of US military installations.
Further, Denmark has stated that a military operation against Greenland would destroy NATO, a point which is undoubtedly true. It’s easy to anticipate NATO being reconstituted as an organization without American participation.
This leaves Canada in an incredibly difficult position. Canadians will, by a large majority, expect the country to stand with Denmark. Indeed, Ottawa was uncharacteristically clear in denouncing US threats and reiterating Greenland’s right to self-determination. Should the US persist with the unthinkable, Canada’s situation will become much more complex. It is virtually impossible for Canada to pivot away from the US to the extent required in the time available. Moreover, our defence system is completely intertwined with that of the United States through NORAD. As I’ve maintained for some time, NORAD exists primarily to defend the US and no American government would take a Canadian withdrawal lightly.
It is difficult to predict how this will play out. Canada is likely to try to walk a tightrope, adopting increasingly pro-Denmark and NATO positions publicly and diplomatically while trying to keep economic and defence relations with the US on an even keel. This will not sit well with the still vocal minority that either supports Trump or cannot conceive of a hostile United States. Worse, there is serious potential that the US will attempt to leverage the Alberta separation movement to destabilize Canada in combination with economic coercion. Indeed, we already see reports of separatist leaders visiting Washington, cap in hand. Even attempted US interference would have chilling effects, regardless of success.
There is one saving grace: even the US isn’t omnipotent. Trump is threatening military action across the globe and the US military is seriously stretched. It is maintaining a full Carrier Strike Group in the Caribbean, troops in Europe, threatening Iran with strikes, conducting airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, launching missiles against (somewhat suspect) targets in Nigeria, conducting a shadow campaign in Somalia, and maintaining thousands of troops in East Asia. Combine this with reports that the Joint Chiefs of Staff are uneasy with the legality of unprovoked aggression against Denmark and Greenland, and the picture isn’t as simple as some in the US would have it.
Unfortunately, Trump is a linear, simple thinker who thinks in terms of dominance and ego. If US Generals don’t go along with his plans for Greenland, he’ll undoubtedly find some who will. Forces for a Greenland operation will be dug up, likely from the Special Operations community. And Trump will have his way. But getting his way means he will destroy the international order as we’ve known it since 1945 and he will make the US into a pariah state.
The problem is that he doesn’t care.
Trump thinks NATO can be bullied to go along. I don't think so:
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It was time to build this weekend (with LEGO). Thanks to Ambassador Harris for the gift. Solidarity with Denmark. 🇨🇦🇩🇰
— Mark Carney (@mark-carney.bsky.social) January 12, 2026 at 8:41 PM
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Venezuela isn't working out very well for Donny either
Americans are getting worried about whether the nation will survive until the Mid-Term Elections next November, and whether the elections themselves will be run properly and openly.
Today the Washington Post published a major article
...The administration has gutted the role of the nation’s cybersecurity agency in protecting elections; stocked the Justice Department, Homeland Security Department and FBI from top to bottom with officials who have denied the legitimacy of the 2020 election; given a White House audience to people who, like the president, promote the lie that he won the 2020 election; sued over state and local election policies that Trump opposes; and called for a new census that excludes noncitizens. The wide-ranging efforts seek to expand on some of the strategies he and his advisers and allies used to try to reverse the 2020 results that culminated in the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
“I’m concerned about chaos and uncertainty in the administration of the 2026 election,” said Nathaniel Persily, a Stanford Law School professor who specializes in democracy and elections-related law. “There is a kind of avalanche of potential changes that are being proposed, and it’s at a time when people have lost trust in the election infrastructure and everybody’s on edge.br> In a statement, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said the administration is focused on ensuring that only citizens vote and criticized Democratic-run states for how they maintain their voter rolls. “President Trump’s only motivation is doing what’s best for the American people and ensuring each of their votes count,” Jackson said.
Trump can’t cancel elections and he lacks the authority to carry out some of his most far-reaching plans because local and state officials oversee elections, rather than the federal government. Trump has already ignored those constraints and signaled he will continue to do so, which means courts will probably have to determine what rules are in place for the midterm elections....
All last year I thought Trump would likely declare martial law to cancel the Congress and Senate elections completely, as Stephen Miller wants him to do. But because elections are run state-by-state, and there are so many state and local positions also being voted on, I suspect now Trump is thinking he can just order his ICE Gestapo goons to march into polling places and take the federal ballots before the counts begin, pretending he needs to do this to "keep them safe", and then after a few weeks the DOJ will just "announce" the results, and surprise surprise the Republicans will win!!!
Maybe its too cynical to think this way. I hope I'm wrong.
We're finally on our own
As seen in a college dorm window after the Kent State killings:
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