dailynewsnblog
Getting a Grip on all of Trump’s Wars?
Our son follows a “This Week in World War 2” podcast and when I hear it I am struck by the scattered complexity of that war – events going on simultaneously in theatres in Europe, Ukraine, Greece, the Baltics, Libya, Africa, Europe, the Philippines, India-Burma, Hong-Kong, on the Atlantic and Pacific.
I’m feeling like that now — we seem to be reaching a level of scattered complexity in today’s conflicts too, where I find it all too nonsensical and its increasingly hard to keep track of how they affect Canada in some manner or that Canada is dealing with– we have the Russia-Ukraine War, Israel-Hamas/Gaza War, Trump’s tariff wars, US-Venezuela War, the US-Israel-Iran War, Lebanon-Israel War, and the US blockade of Cuba.
I also think that America’s ICE Gestapo are making war on the American people, with raids, arrests with no warrants, disappearances, and concentration camps now being built across the United States.
And Trump seems to be declaring war against the Pope now too.
So maybe its just me, but I am finding it increasingly difficult to get a grip on what is going on with all of Trump’s wars — I don’t spend all day on social media, so when I open it up I often see that he has announced something, or lied about doing something else, then I realize it already got changed, or everybody just ignored it, or something just fell apart again.
When it comes to the Iran War, I can’t follow whether Hormuz is open, or closed, or partly open, or closed for some countries, or open only for China, or something else. And I don’t know if the Houthis are also blocking Red Sea shipping. According to Phillips P. OBrien – see the illustration above – the financial markets aren’t taking Trump very seriously anymore.
Is Venezuela OK? Is anyone helping Gaza now? Is Cuba getting any supplies? Will American concentration camps be operational before the midterms or can individual communities stop them? Will American immigrants try to escape to Canada, and will the Carney government be merciful or cruel?
I just read in the New York Times that there is going to be a cease-fire between Israel and Lebanon (gift link) and maybe also Hezbollah. And talks are on-going between the US and Iran, I guess, though Hegseth is still blustering about bombing.
I’m pretty sure Trump or Hegseth can screw this up somehow:
And about those financial markets:
Apparently the dudes behind the biggest financial institutions in the world follow absolutely no news except the few Truth Social posts that make it to Fox.
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— 🗽LOLGOP🗽 (@thefarce.org) April 16, 2026 at 7:33 PM
It also came out on Thursday that US troop ships going to Iran aren’t getting supplies so the troops can’t get enough to eat.
Not gonna lie, I saw the picture before reading the post and assumed this was something they were feeding prisoners and was thinking Jesus Christ that’s gotta be a human rights violation, before realising they’re feeding this to their troops!?
What even is that grey strip?
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— Casey Explosion (@caseyexplosion.bsky.social) April 16, 2026 at 8:11 PM
The commenters to this post suggested that grey stuff might be a slice of baloney. Or a pickle.
This brings us to the terrible stories I saw this week about the US ICE and Border Patrol facilities, as they continue to wage Trump’s war against America itself.
We have updated DetentionReports.com with ICE detainee population averages for the interval of Feb. 6-Apr. 2, 2026.
detentionreports.com
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— Adam Sawyer (@adamjst.bsky.social) April 13, 2026 at 6:20 AM
ICE has held more than 6,200 children in private detention since 2025, many far beyond the legal limit. Kids as young as five have spent months without school, toys, or safety. After children’s drawings exposed conditions, guards confiscated their art supplies. Defund CoreCivic!
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— Peggy Stuart (@peggystuart.bsky.social) April 15, 2026 at 11:42 AM
Ordinary Americans are fighting back:
it just lifts my heart to feel heard. thanks, ICE lawyer. 💜
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— neuse river hag (@neuseriverhag.bsky.social) April 14, 2026 at 1:35 PM
The cruelty is pointless:
Miller convinced tRump to get rid of the immigrants that PAY TAXES then kick low wage earners off govt. support, and they will replace the farm workers that ICE just threw into PRIVATE detention centers where tRump’s friends make $$$. www.yahoo.com/news/article…
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— George (@retiredsurgassist.bsky.social) April 12, 2026 at 4:48 AM
And by the way, for fuck’s sake, why don’t we know more about all of the Canadians trapped in these hell holes?
Since Jan. 2025, there have been more than 200 Canadians (including children) held in ICE detention facilities for extended periods of time, under deplorable conditions.
The US is a good place to avoid right now.— Bobby Angelini 🇨🇦🇺🇸 (@bobbyangelini.bsky.social) April 13, 2026 at 2:20 PM
ICE deports Canadian with green card—after smoothie shop goes in debt after Covid.
Agents tricked him into coming in for a fake drug test—then tackled him against wall of the bathroom.
“I was shaking like a leaf because I wasn’t expecting this.”
Locked up at Alligator Alcatraz first.
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— LongTime🤓FirstTime👨💻 (@longtimehistory.bsky.social) April 16, 2026 at 3:13 PM
Overall, these pointless wars will be a disaster for the United States.
I don’t believe it’s begun to synch in for people what a trap Trump has bungled (perhaps) us into
www.patreon.com/posts/155768…
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— 🗽LOLGOP🗽 (@thefarce.org) April 16, 2026 at 12:37 PM
Trump is flailing now — the Pope is against his wars, so he wants to attack the Vatican too. No wonder Italy and all of Europe (except for Rutte, I guess) have turned against the United States now.
The Pope doesn’t back down:
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— George Conway ⚖️🇺🇸 (@gtconway.bsky.social) April 16, 2026 at 9:23 PM
But of course now MAGA is targeting the Pope’s family, as they always do:
So I guess I will have to keep reading substacks and blogs that cover Trump’s wars and economic chaos, and discuss Canada’s options for response — some of the most useful:
Dale Smith – Canadian politics, Ukraine update nightly
Adam Silverman – Ukraine update nightly
Phillips P OBrien – Ukraine update weekends, Iran update mid-week
Paul Krugman – US and world economy
Rudy Martinez – Iran update twice daily
Shankar Narayan – international politics
Black Cloud 6 – Canadian military
Phillips P OBrien might explain better than anything else, the confused mess we are now seeing:
The USA is facing a serious crisis in its analytical understanding of war…. Fundamental mistakes are being made continually, as we see in the present war with Iran.
… What we have seen repeatedly is a desperation to hold onto past, failed notions of how US policy makers and analysts believed war should be fought. They first kept assuring us that tank-led assaults were the key to military success, even when tanks were getting massacred by their thousands by cheaper systems. Then they assured us that Ukraine really did not need ranged systems, F-16s, etc, etc, all of which, once deployed have turned out to be vital to Ukraine’s war effort.
While these were all bad, maybe the most catastrophic US error, one that had Ukraine listened to it could have led to Ukrainian defeat, was the widespread insistence that to deal with personnel shortages, Ukraine needed to draft its 18-24 year old males in mass and send them to the front. This was a widely spread narrative, from the top of the USG through the think-tank community. Indeed, it was regularly used to cast aspersions on Ukraine’s war strategy and even to try and press Ukraine into ceding more territory.
Well, thankfully Ukraine disagreed. It protected its younger population and instead invested heavily across society in drones, UGVs, and other unmanned systems to try and reduce the number of soldiers on the front and save their population. That effort is now paying massive dividends and the world is sitting up and taking notice. In the last week, the Ukrainians even seized a Russian position using machines alone, and more and more European leaders are talking about the war heading in Ukraine’s favor.
Quite why the US has failed repeatedly to understand war is one of the greatest questions/problems we face. Instinctively I believe that fighting a war is too easy for the US, but that means the US has lost the ability to distinguish between fighting and winning. At the same time, the US with its massive military machine, huge IC and inflated think-tank community, has confused being big with being smart…. If the US does not improve its understanding of war, it will continue to fail in the terrible ways that it has now for decades.
Getting a grip on the Liberal majority
It will be easier, or at least more straightforward, to monitor and evaluate how Carney is doing with his new majority.
Here is Thursday night’s At Issue panel:
TL,DW (too long, didn’t watch):
The panelists tut-tutted about whether the Liberals will get too big for their britches now that they have a majority. They agreed that genuine concensus is important particularly if Canada has separation referendums coming up in Quebec and Alberta. For Conservatives, the floor-crossings say more about Poilievre’s leadership than Carney’s supposed sneaky deals. There are rumours of a Conservative caucus vote on leadership, and the strategy of repeatedly smearing Carney’s credentials isn’t going to broaden the base.
I didn’t hear the At Issue panel mention the extra NDP caucus funding when they were talking about the importance of collaboration in Parliament, but I suspect Carney engineered it:
It means the NDP can continue to employ researchers and analysts to support the caucus in the House and in committees. I would like to see the Greens get a little more help too.
Avi Lewis hits the right tone here and I hope he keeps it up:
