A Crisis Like no Other in our Lifetimes

 

Andrew Coyne of the Toronto Globe and Mail

MJ Taylor 

It takes the courage of a Canadian Journalist to really tell it like it is. Apparently, no journalist in the U.S. has the courage to say these things this clearly: I don't think any US journalist has written as tough (and spot-on) a portrayal of the threat facing us as this Canadian, Andrew Coyne of the Toronto Globe and Mail.

>>Nothing mattered, in the end. Not the probable dementia, the unfathomable ignorance, the emotional incontinence; not, certainly, the shambling, hate-filled campaign, or the ludicrously unworkable anti-policies.

The candidate out on bail in four jurisdictions, the convicted fraud artist, the adjudicated rapist and serial sexual predator, the habitual bankrupt, the stooge of Vladimir Putin, the man who tried to overturn the last election and all of his creepy retinue of crooks, ideologues and lunatics: Americans took a long look at all this and said, yes please.

There is no sense in understating the depth of the disaster. This is a crisis like no other in our lifetimes. The government of the United States has been delivered into the hands of a gangster, whose sole purpose in running, besides staying out of jail, is to seek revenge on his enemies. The damage Donald Trump and his nihilist cronies can do – to America, but also to its democratic allies, and to the peace and security of the world – is incalculable. We are living in the time of Nero.

The first six months will be a time of maximum peril. NATO must from this moment be considered effectively obsolete, without the American security guarantee that has always been its bedrock. We may see new incursions by Russia into Europe – the poor Ukrainians are probably done for, but now it is the Baltics and the Poles who must worry – before the Europeans have time to organize an alternative. China may also accelerate its Taiwanese ambitions.

At home, Mr. Trump will be moving swiftly to consolidate his power. Some of this will be institutional – the replacement of tens of thousands of career civil servants with Trumpian loyalists. But some of it will be … atmospheric.

At some point someone – a company whose chief executive has displeased him, a media critic who has gotten under his skin – will find themselves the subject of unwanted attention from the Trump administration. It might not be so crude as a police arrest. It might just be a little regulatory matter, a tax audit, something like that. They will seek the protection of the courts, and find it is not there.

The judges are also Trump loyalists, perhaps, or too scared to confront him. Or they might issue a ruling, and find it has no effect – that the administration has called the basic bluff of liberal democracy: the idea that, in the crunch, people in power agree to be bound by the law, and by its instruments the courts, the same as everyone else. Then everyone will take their cue. Executives will line up to court him. Media organizations, the large ones anyway, will find reasons to be cheerful.

Of course, in reality things will start to fall apart fairly quickly. The huge across-the-board tariffs he imposes will tank the world economy. The massive deficits, fueled by his ill-judged tax policies – he won’t replace the income tax, as he promised, but will fill it with holes – and monetized, at his direction, by the Federal Reserve, will ignite a new round of inflation.

Most of all, the insane project of deporting 12 million undocumented immigrants – finding them, rounding them up and detaining them in hundreds of internment camps around the country, probably for years, before doing so – will consume his administration. But by then it will be too late.

We should not count upon the majority of Americans coming to their senses in any event. They were not able to see Mr. Trump for what he was before: why should that change? Would they not, rather, be further coarsened by the experience of seeing their neighbours dragged off by the police, or the military, further steeled to the necessity of doing “tough things” to “restore order?”

Some won’t, of course. But they will find in time that the democratic levers they might once have pulled to demand change are no longer attached to anything. There are still elections, but the rules have been altered: there are certain obstacles, certain disadvantages if you are not with the party of power. It will seem easier at first to try to change things from within. Then it will be easier not to change things.

All of this will wash over Canada in various ways – some predictable, like the flood of refugees seeking escape from the camps; some less so, like the coarsening of our own politics, the debasement of morals and norms by politicians who have discovered there is no political price to be paid for it. And who will have the backing of their patron in Washington.

All my life I have been an admirer of the United States and its people. But I am frightened of it now, and I am even more frightened of them.<<

Posted on FB by The Problem With Jon Stewart

LINK

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U.S. completes strikes on Iran nuclear sites, Trump says

 

June 21, 20258:04 PM ET // NPR

The U.S. military has joined with Israel to launch military strikes against Iran, a dramatic escalation in the years-long effort by both nations to prevent Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

"We have completed our very successful attack on the three Nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan," President Trump wrote on Truth Social on Saturday.

"All planes are now outside of Iran air space. A full payload of BOMBS was dropped on the primary site, Fordow. All planes are safely on their way home. Congratulations to our great American Warriors. There is not another military in the World that could have done this. NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE! Thank you for your attention to this matter."

Trump said in a subsequent post that he would address the nation at 10 p.m. ET.

Saturday's attack marks the first act of direct military involvement by the U.S. in the rapidly escalating conflict between Iran and Israel.

It included a strike on the heavily-fortified Fordo nuclear site, according to Trump, which is located roughly 300 feet under a mountain about 100 miles south of Tehran. It's a move that Israel has been lobbying the U.S. to carry out, given that only the U.S. has the kind of powerful "bunker buster" bomb capable of reaching the site. Known as the GBU-57 MOP (Massive Ordnance Penetrator), the bomb can only be transported by one specific U.S. warplane, the B-2 stealth bomber, due to its immense 30,000 pound weight.

READ MORE:

https://www.npr.org/2025/06/21/nx-s1-5441127/iran-us-strike-nuclear-trump

Trump Backs Down on Deportation

Orders Miller to pull back his operation.

Trump Shifts Deportation Focus, Pausing Most Raids on Farms, Hotels and Eateries

The abrupt pivot on an issue at the heart of Mr. Trump’s presidency suggested his broad immigration crackdown was hurting industries and constituencies he does not want to lose.

NYT, June 14th

By Hamed Aleaziz and Zolan Kanno-Youngs

Reporting from Washington

The Trump administration has abruptly shifted the focus of its mass deportation campaign, telling Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to largely pause raids and arrests in the agricultural industry, hotels and restaurants, according to an internal email and three U.S. officials with knowledge of the guidance.

The decision suggested that the scale of President Trump’s mass deportation campaign — an issue that is at the heart of his presidency — is hurting industries and constituencies that he does not want to lose.

The new guidance comes after protests in Los Angeles against the Trump administration’s immigration raids, including at farms and businesses. It also came as Mr. Trump made a rare concession this week that his crackdown was hurting American farmers and hospitality businesses.

The guidance was sent on Thursday in an email by a senior ICE official, Tatum King, to regional leaders of the ICE department that generally carries out criminal investigations, including work site operations, known as Homeland Security Investigations.

“Effective today, please hold on all work site enforcement investigations/operations on agriculture (including aquaculture and meat packing plants), restaurants and operating hotels,” he wrote in the message.

The email explained that investigations involving “human trafficking, money laundering, drug smuggling into these industries are OK.” But it said — crucially — that agents were not to make arrests of “noncriminal collaterals,” a reference to people who are undocumented but who are not known to have committed any crime.

The Department of Homeland Security confirmed the guidance.

“We will follow the president’s direction and continue to work to get the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens off of America’s streets,” Tricia McLaughlin, a department spokeswoman, said in a statement.

READ MORE:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/13/us/politics/trump-ice-raids-farms-hotels.html

EO that Would Eliminate 100 Years of Environmental Regulations

A new Trump executive order waiting in the wings. 

Executive order that would eliminate 100 years of environmental regulations 

including the Endangered Spp Act. 

No shit.

Executive Orders
April 9, 2025

ZERO-BASED REGULATORY BUDGETING TO UNLEASH AMERICAN ENERGY

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered:

Section 1.  Purpose.  In our country, laws are supposed to provide the certainty and order necessary to foster liberty and innovation.  Instead, our vast regulatory structure often serves to constrict ordered liberty, not promote it.  The United States Code itself is more than 60,000 pages.  But unelected agency officials write most of the complex, legally binding rules on top of that, often stretching these statutory provisions beyond what the Congress enacted. 

In particular, the previous administration added more pages to the Federal Register than any other in history, with the result that the Code of Federal Regulations now approaches a staggering 200,000 pages.  These regulations linger in such volume that serious reexamination seldom occurs.
This regime of governance-by-regulator has imposed particularly severe costs on energy production, where innovation is critical.  The net result is an energy landscape perpetually trapped in the 1970s.  By rescinding outdated regulations that serve as a drag on progress, we can stimulate innovation and deliver prosperity to everyday Americans. 

This order directs certain agencies to incorporate a sunset provision into their regulations governing energy production to the extent permitted by law, thus compelling those agencies to reexamine their regulations periodically to ensure that those rules serve the public good. 

Sec. 2.  Definitions.  For the purposes of this order:
(a)  “Conditional Sunset Date” means the date a regulation will cease to be effective and be removed from the Code of Federal Regulations, if the agency does not extend the Sunset Date pursuant to section 4(d) of this order.
(b)  “Covered Agency” means one of the agencies listed in section 3(a) of this order.
(c)  “Covered Regulation” means a regulation issued in whole or in part pursuant to a statutory authority listed in sections 3(b)-(j) of this order. 
(d)  “DOGE Team Lead” means the leader of the DOGE Team at each agency as described in Executive Order 14158.
(e)  “Regulation” means each part, subpart, or individual provision of the Code of Federal Regulations promulgated under an agency rule as defined in 5 U.S.C. 551(4).

Sec. 3.  Covered Agencies and Regulations.  (a)  This order applies to the following agencies and their subcomponents:  the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); the Department of Energy (DoE); the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC); and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).  It further applies to the following agency subcomponents:  the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE), the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), all within the Department of the Interior; and the United States Army Corps of Engineers (ACE), within the United States Army.
(b)  For the DoE, this order applies to all regulations issued pursuant to the following statutes and any amendments thereto:
(i)    the Atomic Energy Act of 1954;
(ii)   the National Appliance Energy Conservation Act of 1987;
(iii)  the Energy Policy Act of 1992;
(iv)   the Energy Policy Act of 2005; and
(v)    the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007.
(c)  For FERC, this order applies to all regulations issued pursuant to the following statutes and any amendments thereto:
(i)    the Federal Power Act of 1935; 
(ii)   the Natural Gas Act of 1938; and
(iii)  the Powerplant and Industrial Fuel Use Act of 1978.
(d)  For the NRC, this order applies to all regulations issued pursuant to the following statutes and any amendments thereto:
(i)    the Atomic Energy Act of 1954;
(ii)   the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974; and
(iii)  the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982.
(e)  For the OSMRE, this order applies to all regulations issued pursuant to the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 and any amendments thereto.
(f)  For the BLM, this order applies to all regulations issued pursuant to the following statutes and any amendments thereto:
(i)    the Mining Act of 1872; 
(ii)   the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976; and 
(iii)  the Energy Policy Act of 2005.
(g)  For the BOEM, this order applies to all regulations issued pursuant to the following statutes and any amendments thereto:
(i)   the Outer Continental Shelf Act of 1953; and
(ii)  the Energy Policy Act of 2005.
(h)  For the BSEE, this order applies to all regulations issued pursuant to the Outer Continental Shelf Act of 1953 and any amendments thereto.
(i)  For the FWS, this order applies to all regulations issued pursuant to the following statutes and any amendments thereto:
(i)     the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act;
(ii)    the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918;
(iii)   the Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act of 1934;
(iv)    the Anadromous Fish Conservation Act of 1965;    
(v)     the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972;
(vi)    the Endangered Species Act of 1973;
(vii)   the Magnuson–Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 1976; and
(viii)  the Coastal Barrier Resources Act of 1982.
(j)  For the EPA and ACE, within 30 days of the date of this order, the Administrator of the EPA and Secretary of the Army shall provide to the President, through the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB Director), a list of statutes vesting EPA and ACE with regulatory authority that shall be subject to this order.   

Sec. 4.  Zero-Based Regulating.  (a)  To the extent consistent with applicable law, each of the Covered Agencies shall issue a sunset rule, effective not later than September 30, 2025, that inserts a Conditional Sunset Date into each of their Covered Regulations.
(b)  The sunset rule shall provide that each Covered Regulation in effect on the date of this order shall have a Conditional Sunset Date of 1 year after the effective date of the sunset rule, subject to the process set forth in subsection (d) of this section.  Unless the extension condition specified in subsection (d) of this section is satisfied, agencies will treat Covered Regulations as ceasing to be effective on that date for all purposes.  An agency shall not take any action to enforce such an ineffective regulation and, to the maximum extent permitted by law, shall remove it from the Code of Federal Regulations. 
(c)  In any new Covered Regulation, to the maximum extent consistent with law, the relevant Covered Agency shall include a Conditional Sunset Date that is not more than 5 years in the future.  Amendments to any Covered Regulation shall provide that they do not reset that regulation’s Conditional Sunset Date and shall be subject to the same Conditional Sunset Date as the amended regulation.  The OMB Director may exempt a new regulation or amendment from the requirements of this paragraph if he determines that the new regulation or amendment has a net deregulatory effect.
(d)  The sunset provision added to existing and new Covered Regulations shall provide that the agency will offer the public an opportunity to comment on the costs and benefits of each regulation, such as through a request for information, prior to a rule’s expiration, and following such opportunity the Conditional Sunset Date for that Covered Regulation may be extended if the agency finds an extension is warranted.  A request for information shall not automatically extend the Conditional Sunset Date.  A Covered Agency may extend the Conditional Sunset Date for a particular Covered Regulation as many times as is appropriate, but never to a date more than 5 years in the future.

Sec. 5.  Implementation.  (a)  Neither a determination to extend the Conditional Sunset Date of a particular regulation, nor a regulation that expires as a result this order, shall count towards the ten-for-one regulatory requirement in Executive Order 14192 of January 31, 2025 (Unleashing Prosperity Through Deregulation).
(b)  Agency heads shall coordinate with their DOGE Team Leads and the Office of Management and Budget to implement this order.
(c)  This order shall not apply to regulatory permitting regimes authorized by statute.

Sec. 6.  Severability.  If any provision of this order, or the application of any provision to any agency, person or circumstance, is held to be invalid, the remainder of this order and the application of its provisions to any other agencies, persons or circumstances shall not be affected thereby.

Sec. 7.  General Provisions.  (a)  Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
(i)   the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or
(ii)  the functions of the OMB Director relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.
(b)  This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.
(c)  This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/zero-based-regulatory-budgeting-to-unleash-american-energy/