Cathie from Canada: Catching up with the News: Carney in Europe, Trump failing, Laughing at Alberta separatists, Canada good news, World Cup stories

A map of Washington state that Seattle Tourism is handing out to World Cup visitors – isn’t it great?

First, some cartoons about Trump’s weekend and the week coming up:

And no wonder — his stupid birthday fighting event on the White House lawn will be remembered only for the gratuitous insult delivered against Michelle Obama:

Josh Hokit just ended his post-fight speech at the White House UFC event by yelling “Michelle Obama is a man!”
A disgraceful spectacle through and through
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) June 14, 2026 at 8:53 PM

The misogynistic smearing of a former First Lady at a White House event sanctioned by a President … is a stain that will not be removable

– Scott MacFarlane

Read on Substack

Even right-wing sportscasters are embarrassed

Many Americans are furious.
Remember 27 years ago, when Washington high society decided that the Clintons were beyond the pale because Bill had an affair? “He came in here and he trashed the place,” says Washington Post columnist David Broder, “and it’s not his place.” Well, look at the mess on the White House lawn now:

The Clintons are appalled:

Remember, during today’s literal cage match on the White House grounds:
No matter what, it’s not his house. It’s our house.
Get a hat, coaster, or sticker to support groups and candidates who will respect the form AND the function of the people’s house. shop.onwardtogether.org/collections/…
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— Hillary Rodham Clinton (@hillaryclinton.bsky.social) June 14, 2026 at 8:49 AM

Not to mention the mess he is making everywhere else:

Another example of Trump’s lazy and incompetent staff:

Trump has now almost reached the “Crazification Factor” AKA “Alan Keyes Constant” of 26 per cent. I think once America understands how badly he lost the Iran War, he will go down even further than that.

In The Daily Beast on Saturday, Global Affairs Columnist David Rothkopf writes

…The Iran war is one of the greatest fiascos in modern U.S. foreign policy history. It has cost billions of dollars, thousands of lives, disrupted the global economy, punished our allies and diminished America on the global stage. The Middle East is less stable than it was. Iran, though badly damaged by attacks, has identified new important points of leverage—from the Strait of Hormuz to regional deployment of drones and missiles against key U.S. allies—and in the eyes of anyone with an interest in the truth, Trump has been humiliated, spanked like a baby by a much weaker, smaller adversary (but really mostly because he compounded major blunder with major blunder in an unprecedented series of self-inflicted wounds.)
Rather than continue the war, Trump concluded that he would rather just use the bully pulpit of the UFC arena formerly known as the White House to attack not Iran but Democrats and Republicans who call out the truth, who point out Obama’s deal was better, who mention that Trump’s decision to tear it up was catastrophically dumb, who note the lies and mismanagement of this conflict and our inability to control the one ally that goaded Trump into this, Netanyahu’s Israel.
He would rather lie about the outcome of this embarrassing chapter of truly spectacular, profoundly damaging presidential incompetence and related war crimes than continuing the tired old lies that his unnecessary conflict was actually succeeding. Which may, in retrospect, have been the best option available to him.
Indeed, giving up, paying off Iran and lying about it for the rest of his life may indeed have been the one comparatively sound decision Trump has made with regard to this idiotic misadventure.
What it is not, however, is a victory. Nor is what is being announced… maybe, possible, we’ll see about what happens over the next few days and weeks… anything like a “peace deal.” And it does the American people and our victims worldwide a huge disservice for the media or Trump’s enablers to pretend otherwise.

Trump got rolled and our ass-kissing media are too chickenshit to say it.

– Adam Parkhomenko

Read on Substack

If this is true,: WTF?
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— ML (@mlpoole.bsky.social) June 14, 2026 at 5:30 PM

In The Globe and Mail, staff columnist Tony Keller asks How high a ransom is Trump paying Iran to escape from his own misbegotten war?

…If you want more proof of who won the war, consider what has happened to the relationship between the U.S. and Israel.
The war started with their interests aligned, and Mr. Trump saying that his war aims included freedom for the Iranian people, curbing Tehran’s missile program and limiting its ability to back proxy forces such as Hezbollah.
None of that appears to be part of the ceasefire or the framework for future negotiations.
Instead, Tehran has insisted that, in return for a ceasefire, Mr. Trump compel Israel to stop its attacks on Iranian-back Hezbollah in Lebanon – even though Hezbollah, earlier this month, rejected a ceasefire agreed between Lebanon and Israel.
In response, Mr. Trump has publicly and repeatedly put pressure on Israel in pursuit of an Iranian policy goal.
Who has won the war and who has lost will become clearer as the 60-day ceasefire comes to its end in August.
If Iran is being intransigent or making new demands in two months, will Mr. Trump dare restart an unpopular war in the run-up to the U.S. midterm elections? Or will he offer Iran another ransom in order to avoid a spike in oil prices?
I know which outcome I’m betting on.

In his Persuasion substack, Francis Fukuyama writes:

…This “deal” was nothing of the sort. If the reports are accurate, it instead represented a total U.S. capitulation to Iran. It basically set the clock back to February, when the Strait was open and the United States and Israel had not yet started bombing the Islamic Republic. It merely solved a problem that Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had themselves created by launching the war in the first place.

Bob Rae agrees:

Francis Fukuyama has it right. This “agreement” is not “brilliant diplomacy”. It is an admission that the original attack by both the United States and Israel was ill conceived, a blunder that has cost lives, badly hurt the global economy, and actually strengthened the Iranian regime. The American people know this full well.

– Bob Rae

Read on Substack

In her substack, Heather Delaney Reese relates Trump’s anger about Sunday’s weather to his lies about Iran:

…The forecast was right. The storms came, and the cage fights on the South Lawn were delayed by roughly 45 minutes. The administration spent part of Flag Day attacking an accurate weather report and the person who delivered it for describing the sky. Then the sky did exactly what he said it would do. That is the whole presidency in a single morning. He can insult the forecast. He cannot move the clouds. And tonight, we’re watching him try the exact same thing with his war in Iran.
Because almost nothing Trump or his enablers say is true. Not the small things, and not the enormous ones. They make announcements, they declare victories, and they hope we never stop long enough to check whether any of it was actually true or even happened….

And as for what the Gulf states are thinking now:

The Gulf just learned what an American security umbrella is worth when the rain comes in sideways, and the answer is less than advertised.

A hundred days of Iranian missiles hit every GCC state. Qatar lost nearly a fifth of its LNG output at Ras Laffan and declared force majeure for the first time in its history. The US bases meant to protect the Gulf were the very things that painted targets on it.

So now, with the ceasefire signed, the headline writes itself: Gulf pivots to Tehran. That is too neat. What is really happening is a hedge. New defence pacts with France and Canada, deeper GCC cooperation, and pragmatic channels reopened with the same Iran that just bombed them, on the theory that money might deter where missiles did not.

The mood is not warmth, it is resignation. “Iran is here to stay,” one Qatari official told CSIS.

And here is the tell for Washington: the Gulf still wants America. It is quietly pushing for a treaty-level pact to shore up ties it no longer fully believes in. That is not loyalty. It is a customer who finally read the warranty and saw how much of it was decorative.

– Gandalv

Read on Substack

Now here’s an idea we should try.

Laughing at Alberta separatists

Moving on, I think all we can really do about those Alberta separatists is laugh at them now, because their goofy ideas are just totally self-serving and unserious.

The Hill Times is reporting that former Alberta Conservative MPs LaVar Payne, Art Hanger, Rob Anders and Eric Lowther want Alberta to separate from Canada.

…Anders said Alberta should seek independence only if Ottawa refuses to provide the province with greater autonomy, and if a majority of Albertans vote in favour of separation. If those conditions are met, he said Alberta should become an independent country and explore a range of options for a future with the U.S.
One possibility, he said, could be joining America as its 51st state, under which Albertans would have to pay U.S. taxes, which he argued are generally lower than Canadian income taxes but would still be a tax burden. Another option, he said, would be for Alberta to become a U.S. territory similar to Puerto Rico or Guam, pointing out that residents of those territories generally do not pay federal income taxes, with exceptions for those employed by the federal government or if the income is earned from the U.S. mainland.
He said that regardless of the outcome of this October’s separation referendum, Alberta would be in a stronger position to negotiate with Ottawa.

Yeah, I’m sure Alberta would just love to be treated like Puerto Rico or Guam…
Dan Gardner and Paul Wells are not impressed either:

Fun fact: The highlight of Rob Anders’ time as Member of Parliament was when he blocked unanimous consent to give Nelson Mandela honourary Canadian citizenship. Why? He said Mandela was “a communist and a terrorist.”

Put all the Alberta separatists in a blender, hit “puree,” and the resulting smoothie would contain fewer brain cells than some frogs.

– Dan Gardner

Read on Substack

Canada Good News

Interesting comments here from Jean Chretien:

World Cup stories
I’m not really following the World Cup scores and schedules, but great posts and stories are coming from it. and so I am sharing some that I like:

It is the individual World Cup stories that are exceptional:

Cape Verde keeper Vozinha in TEARS after holding Spain 0-0!
**What a night!** Cape Verde – the second smallest nation in the 2026 FIFA World Cup – hold Spain to a 0-0 draw.
And now 40-year-old goalkeeper **Vozinha** (Josimar Dias) is in tears… and going viral
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— Steve Brewer (@sjbrewer.bsky.social) June 15, 2026 at 3:23 PM

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