We've been witnessing something really strange over the last three weeks. Trump has been ... silent. OK, only about one thing, but even so. He's been wholly quiet on the subject of Canada, and his previous expressed desire that it should become the 51st state of the USA. The silence can mean only one thing - he actually really does understand how m…

The Supreme Court ruled decisively 9-0 that the man incorrectly removed from the USA to one of the most notorious prisons in El Salvador, Abrego Garcia, that he should be returned to be afforded the due process any human being should expect. The Trump Administration has, instead claimed the ruling vindicated their position, and in a set-piece in fr…

The Trump / China Trade War enters its third week, and the stakes are only getting higher and the measures more intense. While Trump is busy pulling various other countries into the White House to beat them down in negotiations in the face of their tariffs, Xi Jinping is conducting a charm offensive to the countries he trades the most with, and wit…

If the Trump administration is taking the United States in the direction of autocracy, there are certain steps that you would commonly expect to see being taken, in common with other countries that have taken this journey over the last couple of decades. So what steps HAVE we been seeing that are compatible with the idea that future elections, thou…

Trump reversed course, and the stock market flowered in response, and everything's now OK, right? Well, except that a lot of damage has been done, most of the tariffs actually still remain, and there's no sign that the administration really has learnt the lessons of what just happened. As a result of that sinking in, the stock markets have been sli…

The news is just in - after all the bluster and the boasting, Trump finally noticed that not all was going swimmingly with his tariffs on the entire world, and he has hit the pause button. For everyone save China, because he can't abide the idea of backing down. But this comes just a day after the full ugliness of this extortion attempt was on show…

When President Trump announced his tariffs to the world, China was right at the top of the list, and it was hit with one of the largest tariffs of the day. This was supposed to get Beijing to the negotiating table to beg for tariff relief, but instead Xi Jinping declared a trade war, and said that China would win this, and any other sort of war Tru…

Trump is at the centre of things - throwing the global economy into turmoil in the aim of reshaping everyone's relations with the US, as well as reshaping geopolitical alliances and introducing autocratic measures into the federal government. While all that is going on, the signs are being picked up of how GOP senators and others are preparing the …

President Trump wanted to invoke the Insurrection Act back in 2020, but he was prevented by the opposition of his then-defence secretary and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But now those people have been replaced with loyalists, and there's nobody around him who is going to tell him it's a bad idea. On his first day, he inserted a ticking time bomb into…

I've been talking about the likelihood of the US heading towards a second civil war for some time on this channel. Patreon supporter Peter asked me if I still felt that to be the case, with everything that's been happening recently with the Trump 2.0 administration. It's a good question, and certainly bears some further exploration - so let's discu…

The recent Signalgate text messages leak gave us a real insight into just how much JD Vance really actually hates and despises Europe - much more than had previously been stated in public. We'd seen him argue that Europeans should care more about free speech, and we'd seen him wish for more of the far-right populist parties on the Continent to be e…

President Trump called it 'Liberation Day' - but that's not what many others were calling it. Instead, the wide-ranging raft of tariffs levied on imports to the US, which seemed based on wholly fictitious claims of how much other countries levied against the US, has thrown the stock markets, the leaders of all other nations, and even some Republica…

Health researchers, climate scientists, and more - they are finding significant projects being axed for what appear to be purely ideological grounds. This can include projects you would think would be immune to such factors, such as cancer research. The US has had the benefit of cutting edge research and technology for many decades - it has been on…

Elon Musk has been all over the Federal Government for the last ten weeks. But his original term of office is coming to an end, and both Trump and Musk himself are now talking as though that will be it. He has to get back to his businesses, they say, which have been suffering. But he does not want to stop playing this fun political game - and so he…

The front-runner for the next French Presidential elections, according to current polls, Marine Le Pen has been sensationally barred from standing by a judge who was sentencing her in an embezzlement case. The verdict had expected to be less severe, and to be no block to her challenging the political establishment as the potential first far-right c…

In their book 'How Democracies Die', Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt identify the four tells for a despot-in-waiting, the democratic guardrails that all dictators-in-progress seek to dismantle, and how they go about it - and the two other essential ingredients that protect a system that people often underestimate, or even miss entirely. And it w…

So the visit to Greenland of the Vice President JD Vance finally happened. Originally intended to be a 'charm offensive' to the population, eventually the Americans could find no Greenlanders who wanted to talk to them or who wanted them there at all, so they flew into the US base and stayed there. And slated Denmark for being a bad ally. And said …

In the immediate aftermath of the debacle in the Oval Office, it was reported that Trump wanted the minerals deal toughened up to 'punish' Ukraine. This week we got first news that this is exactly what has been done - the Ukrainians were presented with a full proposal that reportedly gives America 100% control of all of its resources in perpetuity!…

After various members of the senior Trump administration stated flatly that no classified information was revealed in the group chat on the bombing of Yemen, The Atlantic went ahead and published the entire chat thread, showing clearly the detail of attack plans, precise timings, weapons and systems to be used, that were added to the thread by Secr…

Convention would have you believe that the most classified American secrets - such as live military operations to strike at targets abroad - are handled with total security and professionalism. There are strict protocols and any security professional is thoroughly briefed and trained in them from the beginning. And yet in the Trump 2.0 administrati…

If the people of Greenland thought they would get a respite while they engage in the slow negotiations to form the next government following their recent election - they were wrong. The surprise announcement that top US officials, along with the wife of the Vice President, would be visiting the country this week sent shockwaves to every level. Cond…

Over the last few years, the rise of populist and far right parties in a number of key European countries has been a feature of the changing political landscape. With the emergence of Giorgia Meloni into the mainstream, and others like Farage and Le Pen similarly seeking to 'detoxify' their parties to make it as potential parties of government, it …

One of the key guarantees against authoritarian rule in the United States is the independence of a number of key institutions, especially the judiciary, but also academia, the press, and legislators. We know that President Trump is keen to maximise executive power - but is it simply a case of testing the boundaries and pushing them as far as they w…

A new report about the state of democracy in the world makes for sobering reading. But the most striking thing about it is that it adds additional content to note that, since the date of the report deadline, the first weeks of the Trump Administration have seen the US autocratising - becoming more autocratic and less democratic - is happening at a …

So President Trump finally held his call with Russia's President Vladimir Putin. And for all his advance pronouncements that they would be carving up the assets of Ukraine in this call, it seems as though they got nowhere close. Instead, as the read-outs show, Putin agreed to nothing that Trump wanted him to do - at least with regard to Ukraine - a…

The Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch has announced an end to her party's support for the previously consensus climate change policy target of net zero by 2050. In a speech that has created shockwaves through the UK parliamentary system, she said that the target was impossible to achieve, and policy debate would be better served by being real…

President Trump and President Putin have a direct call scheduled to take place tomorrow (Tuesday 18th Mar). In talking about it, Trump said that part of the discussion would cover the division of assets, including land and energy infrastructure. This, along with several other indicators that have emerged today, suggest that Trump remains of a mind …

The awkward pause continues, with Russia's President Putin keeping the world, and specifically President Trump, waiting and guessing about his ultimate response to the Ukraine ceasefire proposal. But while Trump continues to talk the process up, almost unnoticed signs are emerging that Putin is preparing his population for the contingency that it's…

Nobody has been so embedded with the Trump operation as Elon Musk has been over the last couple of months. And it's fair to say he's been everywhere - every government department, all over social media, in the faces of various world leaders and other figures. Energetic, rude, abrasive, headline grabbing. But his popularity has plunged. His business…

Putin has said he accepts Trump's unconditional ceasefire agreement ... with some conditions. In this video, we look at the game of chess that's being played out, the complementary objectives Putin is trying to achieve, while seeking to manage the unpredictability and thin skin of the US president. And why Ukraine is worried, and probably should be…

Trump had a dream of the Gaza Riviera, where the Palestinians had been cleared from their own country and resettled in neighbouring Egypt and Jordan, leaving a redeveloped paradise for the beautiful people to enjoy. Unsurprisingly, the Arab states were not on board with this vision, and so Egypt has delivered its very own plan. The Arab states have…

So the US - Ukraine talks in Saudi Arabia conclude with a proposal for a 30-day ceasefire. A full ceasefire, not the partial one the Ukrainians had initially wanted. Why is the distinction between the partial and total ceasefire important - and how did the Ukrainians manage to get a clause inserted that potentially side-steps the trap that Russia a…

Various people have been asking if the radical new type of government the US has found itself with - undoubtedly more authoritarian by instinct than previous incumbents - should be labelled with one of the big ugly words of history - fascism. Various people do - but in this video we highlight exactly what that label describes, why it shouldn't be d…

The US-Ukraine talks begin tomorrow in Saudi Arabia, and Ukraine at least will find out then just how ruthless the US intends to be in threatening to let Putin overrun their country unless they agree to cede territory to him in the negotiations. Ukraine is going still with an agenda that assumes there will be a process where someone meets them half…

I've had a couple of YouTube comments recently asking if the slightly different tone of videos in the last few weeks means that the non-partisan position of the channel has been put aside. In other words, am I now 'off the fence' - at least when it comes to Donald Trump? This doesn't quite catch the whole point of non-partisanship as practiced on t…

When he first said it, everyone thought he was joking. It was a joke that Canadians found insulting, but even so. But then in subsequent discussions, Canadian prime minister Trudeau and his officials found that Trump was getting very specifically detailed in the treaties and historical agreements that defined Canada's border - documents he feels ca…

The current European leaders, along with the NATO Secretary General, are all agreed that NATO remains solid, the United States partnership likewise, the mutual defence promise at the heart of the Treaty has the full commitment of President Trump. And we all know that they don't believe that at all. They say it because they hope that they can buy ti…

Today it was revealed that senior members of the Trump administration have been talking to the political opposition in Ukraine, seeking to find who would be the alternative leader to Zelensky who would be more palatable to Vladimir Putin, and who would embrace America's help to get them elected? This is all in line with the plan we know the US and …

Zelensky has sent the letter to president Trump that was demanded - agreeing to sign the one-sided minerals deal, to put himself 'under Trump's strong leadership' and to agree to an early ceasefire. This is what Ukraine's European allies, such as Keir Starmer from Britain, and Emmanuel Macron from France, have urged him to do. But it's a trap. He k…

In spite of Europe's hopes that somehow there would be a path to keeping Trump onside with supporting Ukraine, the inevitability of the dashing of those hopes is now plain to see. Trump has pulled military support for Ukraine - including weapons that were agreed before he came to office that were literally in the process of being delivered. The int…

Europe and Ukraine's desperate plan is to win back Trump to the cause of supporting Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression. But while they work on the details of that, the US is relaxing more of its measures against Russia and signalling a ramping up of the normalisation of relations. The Kremlin is delighted - and a Putin Trump summit is now be…

Europe has been regrouping with president Zelensky and trying to come to terms with the fallout from the massive meltdown in the Oval Office on Friday. And British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is primed to act as a key facilitator to bring Ukraine and the US together - putting together an alternative peace plan that Trump can support, which will hav…

Macron and Starmer had had visits to the White House that had been described as triumphs, simply because they avoided humiliation. In other words, they avoided exactly what then happened with President Zelensky at the end of the week. But he had a much harder job than they did - they had been able to fail on Ukraine gracefully, but he did not have …

We are being told that UK prime minister Keir Starmer's visit to Trump in the White House was a 'triumph'. On one level - that of managing a potential unpredictable encounter that could have spiralled off into embarrassment at any point - I suppose it was. But in terms of the real meat of the discussion - the clash between the new Trump 'might-make…

For the last couple of years, it has looked a foregone conclusion that Justin Trudeau's Liberal Party was going to go down in flames at the next election, and Trump-aligned Pierre Poilievre would rise in his place, bringing the MAGA revolution north of the border. But Trump's jibes, his threats of 25% tariffs and his desire that Canada should becom…

Ukraine has negotiated a form of Trump's critical minerals deal that it is prepared to sign. We haven't seen it yet, but it's clear that it has been nudged just over the line with the removal of the most egregious demands, rather than sailing triumphantly over the line as a well-crafted vehicle for mutual benefit. The truth is that the mere fact of…

For the last few weeks, all we've been hearing about has been Doge! According to some, it's slashing through government bureaucracy spectacularly laying waste to fraud and mismanagement. According to others, it's thrashing about randomly causing immense damage to everything it touches. But there are signs growing that maybe it has over-reached, and…

Germany elected a new government yesterday, and the new chancellor led off with his ambition to make Europe and Germany independent of America. As if to highlight this, the anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine was marked by various European leaders (and Canada) travelling to Kyiv. The US was not present. And also at the same time, a fight is ragi…

February 24th is the anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and - as with the previous years, Ukraine and co-sponsors has put a motion to be voted on by the UN general assembly condemning Russia's actions and abuses of human rights, and calling for Ukraine's territorial sovereignty to be upheld. This year, underlining again the complete chang…

Zelensky's refusal to sign an apparently absurdly one-sided deal where Ukraine hands over half of the value of its resources for nothing in return from the USA, has led to pressure being applied. Previously, it was pressure in the form of Trump apparently gearing up to give Putin everything he wants, and at the same time labelling Zelensky "a dicta…