Pugnacious Pete Is Snarling Again

 

The above is the result of my supplying Chat GPT with a shot of a pitbull, directing A.I. to put Pete Hoekstra's face on it. The picture seems appropriate, given that it is eminently clear whenever he opens his mouth, he is acting as Trump's attack dog.

The latest drool from Hoekstra's mouth, of course is that we are actively interfering in the American mid-term elections.That claim is especially rich, coming from the emissary of a country that is known far and wide for interfering in many countries' democracies, and even facilitating their leaders' overthrow. Closer to home, there has been widespread reporting of American meddling in the recent Alberta referendum. No so-called fact sheet can deny these truths.

Given their self-proclaimed status as the greatest country in the world, nay, in all of history, egregious hypocrisy is not something that troubles America. Those of us who have not consumed that particular  kool-aid see things differently, and are deeply offended by Hoekstra's latest salvo.

During an interview on The Really Big Show podcast posted last week, Hoekstra said political ads run by the province of Ontario last year could be interpreted as political interference.

Hoekstra also cited recent comments by Industry Minister Mélanie Joly and former prime minister Justin Trudeau and suggested they also could amount to interference.

Hoekstra warned Canadian politicians to keep their "nose out" of American politics in the weeks before the midterm elections.

Trudeau criticized the Trump administration during a discussion at Brown University on Sept. 22.

"There is a pattern here of doing things that are driving up prices for your consumers and not necessarily making anything better for America, by fighting with one of your oldest and best allies," Trudeau said during the conversation.

Apparently, the freedom of speech the Americans claim to revere does not extend to non-citizens, nor does sovereign action taken by another country sit well with Hoekstra and his master.

In the interview, Hoekstra said Joly made comments about targeting retaliatory tariffs at "politically sensitive states."

Joly pushed back on Wednesday, telling reporters that Canada would never engage in election interference and would "never accept that also being done to us in Canada."

Perhaps former American ambassador to Canada, James Blanchard, puts things into a perspective that most Canadians can agree with.

 The Star's Justin Ling sees method in all of this Trump-inspired madness:

[I]t is a pretty naked attempt to sow distrust ahead of the coming midterms. Trump is on track for a brutal drubbing at the ballot box — and we don’t yet know if he’ll try to pull a last-minute disenfranchisement of Democratic voters, or how he’ll contest the results. 

The midterm American elections are fast approaching. Soon, one way or the other, Canada and the world will know the truth. 

Freedom's Cost

Americans are a strange and contradictory lot, to put it mildly. They claim (not unlike a certain candidate running for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada) to love freedom, yet that love of freedom clearly has its limits. For example, many of them exult in the recent decision of the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v Wade, claiming a victory for the unborn and the sanctity of life. Yet that same reverence for life apparently ends at birth, if you consider even one of several metrics, not the least being the fact that they have the highest incarceration rate in the world. If that isn't an indictment of an uncaring society, I don't know what is. And don't get me started about gun rights vs. the killing of school children.

But instances of their hypocrisy/contradictions abound. Another is the the crazed right-wing, of which America seems to have an unusual concentration, and its hatred of regulations or, as they view it, government intrusion in their lives (see the above for a glaring exception). The latest example is reflected in the Supreme Court decision to neuter the Environmental Protection Agency.

... the court released a ruling in West Virginia v EPA limiting the Environmental Protection Agency’s power to regulate emissions from fossil fuel-fired power plants, in a major environmental case with far-reaching impacts. This has been classified a “devastating” outcome by environmental lawyers, climate scientists and activists alike. One with far-reaching implications for the future of the country, and world.

Despite Americans' professed reverence for life, this ruling will have the opposite effect:

“At this point, for those in positions of high power to deny the urgency and the stakes of the climate crisis is to condemn everyone alive today and generations to come to life in a sick and impoverished world,” said Ginger Cassady, executive director of Rainforest Action Network.

Distilled to its essence, the Court decision removes much of the EPA's regulatory power to limit pollution, the argument being that only Congress has such power. Given the partisan dysfunction of Congress, this means a major brake on greenhouse gas emissions has been removed. leaving it up to states to determine their own rules. It would therefore appear that any national climate goals Joe Biden has are now impossible to achieve.

Regulating emissions from power plants is a vital piece of climate mitigation, as the power sector is the second largest planet-warming polluter in the US, making up about 25% of national emissions. 

In the meantime, experts noted the domino effect of not rapidly eliminating national greenhouse-gas emissions will disproportionately fall to Black, brown and Indigenous communities, as worsening climate crisis deepens racial and social divides.

“There are so many paths to climate justice still, but what we’re seeing is a supreme court that is, I would call them ‘Supreme Climate Deniers’, that are trying to put themselves in a decision-making position,” said US Climate Action Network’s executive director, Keya Chatterjee. “That sends a signal that they will want to make it hard for the federal government to protect people in communities where right now the fossil fuel industry is running the show.”

“Decisions like WV v EPA make it clear just how much the system is rigged against us. A supreme court that sides with the fossil fuel industry over the health and safety of its people is anti-life and illegitimate,” wrote the Sunrise Movement, a youth-led climate organization.

I sometimes think that the Ugly American would be far more tolerable were they to cast aside their cloak of self-righteousness, false piety, hubris, over-the-top patriotism and jingoism and admit to themselves and the world exactly what they really are.

But a capacity for self-reflection and honesty really isn't the American way, is it?

 

 

Too Good Not To Share

 

H/t Mary McCasey Kearney