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Hello Reader,
This week, I'm covering Canada first to welcome our many new Canuck readers. Unfortunately, I'm bound to piss off half of them—which sucks since Canadians are genuinely the friendliest people on earth. My peace offering: I'll record a video rendition of "O Canada" if anybody changes my mind.
The Global Fight for Freedom
- Albertans Decry "Hostile Federal Government"
- Mexico's Iron Lady Crushes Little Chapos
- Western Greed Fuels African Upheaval
- Mossad: Freedom's Most Relentless Guardian
- Iran Seeks to Annihilate, Gets Annihilated
Country names are followed by their 2025 freedom scores according to Freedom House.
Premier Danielle Smith declared Albertans have "had enough of having their livelihoods and prosperity attacked by a hostile federal government” as she paved the way for a separation referendum last week. Polling shows separatist sentiment has surged to 36% in Alberta and 34% in Saskatchewan — record highs as these Conservative strongholds face another Liberal federal government.
Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's decade fueled legitimate grievances: Bill C-69 erected massive barriers to energy projects. The cancelled Energy East pipeline severed Alberta's dreams of reaching eastern markets. Now an emissions cap threatens to strangle the oil and gas production that sustains Western Canadians’ livelihoods.
Yet Alberta's quiet revolt is conditional. Majorities of separatist supporters would vote to stay if Ottawa eased these policies. Liberal Prime Minister Mark Carney now attempts damage control, promising "energy corridors" and faster approvals. Yet he won’t repeal Bill C-69 and pledges to maintain the emissions cap.
Fortunately, the referendum is unlikely to pass. Canada boasts one of the world's strongest records defending human rights and democracy. Its fracture would delight at least a few dictators. The question remains whether Carney will heed Alberta's cry, as he damn well should.
In 1985, Rafael Caro Quintero tortured DEA agent Kiki Camarena for thirty hours before crushing his skull with an iron bar. Forty years later, the cartel kingpin was loaded onto a plane from a Mexican prison to face American justice—one of 29 of the world's most wanted drug lords delivered to U.S. custody on a single day in February, marking the largest handover in years.
It’s a seismic shift from her predecessor's "hugs not bullets" strategy. Andrés Manuel López Obrador severely curtailed Mexican cooperation with the DEA, leaving extradition requests stuck for years.
Now Sheinbaum is systematically dismantling Los Chapitos—the cartel run by El Chapo's surviving sons that dominates fentanyl trafficking to the U.S. Her forces are seizing their labs, raiding their safe houses, and building Mexico's own elite force to reclaim sovereignty from criminal overlords. As America announced $10 million bounties on "the little Chapos" this week, their empire crumbles under Sheinbaum’s relentless pressure.
While questions remain about her commitment to democratic institutions, one thing’s certain: whether it’s against murderous cartels or Trump’s bullying, this woman can fight — and win.
Sometimes the fight for freedom defies simple narratives. This week, a reader correctly challenged my framing of Western involvement in Africa as inherently beneficial as I cast Russian and Chinese engagement as purely exploitative. Thank you for the critique, you-know-who!
The evidence for her claim is damning. British company Endeavour Mining extracted gold worth hundreds of millions from Burkina Faso while its citizens remained impoverished despite sitting atop Africa's fourth-largest reserves. French companies have dominated uranium mining in neighboring Niger for decades, paying below-market rates. Now Trump pursues deals that extract wealth but offer little to citizens, taking a page out of China's playbook.
Under Ibrahim Traoré, Burkina Faso has launched aggressive nationalization, seizing five major mining assets this week and declaring "sovereign ownership of mining resources." Similar moves across Mali and Niger signal a broader rejection of neo-colonial extraction.
Yet concerns about the region remain. All three countries, partly reacting to this exploitation, are now coup-born military regimes courted by Russia and China. I still believe Western democracy offers a better path to prosperity than alignment with dictators. But as my astute reader argues, any American engagement must champion true African sovereignty—not exploitation under a different flag.
I may take issue with Israel's war in Gaza and its authoritarian drift under Netanyahu, but there is no denying the stunning success of its intelligence service, Mossad.
Mossad emerged in 1949 from David Ben-Gurion's vision that for a nation surrounded by enemies, intelligence would be "the first line of defense." It now stands unrivaled as the world's most innovative and audacious spy agency.
This month, its legacy reached new heights with Operation Rising Lion—a masterclass in strategic deception and operational audacity. For years, Mossad agents operated deep inside Iran, establishing its own "Tehran branch". They smuggled precision weapons, deployed commandos throughout central Iran, and secretly built a drone base near the capital. The head of Iran's anti-Mossad unit was recently revealed to have been an Israeli double agent.
When the operation launched Friday, Mossad quickly eliminated Iran's top military commanders—including the heads of its Revolutionary Guard, Armed Forces, and Intelligence branches—as hidden drones destroyed missile launchers and nuclear facilities with surgical precision.
From dismantling Iran's nuclear program to destroying its proxy network, Mossad may now have prevented three countries from becoming nuclear powers—Iraq in 1981, Syria in 2007, and now possibly Iran. Even Gulf states quietly celebrate Iran's weakening, as Mossad does the dirty work for a free world unwilling to face these existential threats itself.
"This barbaric, wolflike regime has no cure but to be annihilated," Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei once tweeted. It was a clear statement of intent to end the lives of 9.5 million Israelis.
For decades, Iran defied the international community. Six UN Security Council resolutions—passed with support from surprising allies like Russia and China in early votes—demanded Tehran halt uranium enrichment. All enforcement attempts have failed.
Iran came perilously close to nuclear weapons. The IAEA has spent twenty years seeking answers about Iran's secret nuclear activities, while its recent report revealed uranium traces at undeclared locations and a pattern of systematic site destruction to evade inspections. By June, Iran possessed enough fissile material for fifteen nuclear bombs and was racing toward weaponization.
Iran catastrophically underestimated American and Israeli resolve. Tehran believed Trump's desire for diplomacy meant weakness and dragging out nuclear talks would provide immunity from attack.
Israel's strikes were devastating. The underground Natanz complex—Iran's largest enrichment site—suffered severe damage, with some reports indicating an "implosion". Over 120 missile launchers were destroyed. As many as 15 nuclear scientists were killed.
Despite Israel's precision targeting, many innocent Iranians were killed in the airstrikes as well. Death on this scale is nothing to celebrate. But Khamenei's regime now stands utterly isolated—its proxies decimated, its nuclear dream shattered, its military leadership dead. This brutally oppressive regime has never been weaker.
Our American Democracy
No Thrones. No Crowns. No Kings
The phrase “largely peaceful” (more on this later), can legitimately be applied to the massive "No Kings" demonstrations that erupted across 2,000 sites nationwide on Saturday as up to 5 million Americans rejected Trump's authoritarian overreach. The protests, organized by progressive groups led by Indivisible, strategically avoided Washington DC to deny Trump an excuse to crack down during his military parade and birthday celebration.
Indivisible emerged from a simple Google Doc written by congressional staffers Ezra Levin and Leah Greenberg after Trump's 2016 victory. Their guide, detailing how progressives could use Tea Party tactics to pressure lawmakers, went viral and sparked a grassroots movement. Today, nearly 2,000 active chapters fight against what they see as constitutional crisis through mass peaceful resistance. The organization specifically targets Trump's defiance of court orders, mass deportation campaigns, systematic attacks on civil rights, and slashing of essential services.
I may not agree with all of Indivisible's platform, but I agree with enough to be inspired by the sight of millions of Americans waving their flag and peacefully exercising their constitutional right to dissent in democracy's most beautiful expression. When power overreaches, the people rise. No thrones. No crowns. No kings.
Trump Shatters Half a Million American Dreams
With the stroke of a pen, the Trump administration shattered the dreams of 530,000 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela— stripping their legal status and transforming these law-abiding residents into deportable "illegals".
The development comes 13 days after the Supreme Court lifted a lower court’s order blocking the Trump administration from ending the program.
These are not border-crossers or asylum seekers. They entered America legally through Biden's CHNV parole program, which aimed to encourage legal, orderly pathways into the U.S. Participants passed rigorous security vetting, secured American sponsors, and have been working and contributing to communities for years. Many fled socialist oppression, violence, and economic collapse—the very tyranny America once proudly opposed.
Now they face an impossible choice: abandon the lives they've built or risk deportation raids. Families are torn between self-deportation and staying in the shadows. Workers who paid taxes and followed every rule suddenly live in fear.
This betrayal strikes at America's moral core. We promised these people safety and opportunity. Donald Trump has heartlessly broken that promise.
Chaos In L.A. Part 1 - The Match
L.A. descended into chaos last week, igniting what will be an historic battle between federal and state authority. While many blame Trump's aggressive ICE tactics, decades of progressive leadership helped light this match.
Biden's open border policies flooded America with 2 million illegal immigrants yearly—triple the prior rate. California's politicians welcomed them with sanctuary laws and lavish benefits. Passed in 2017, the California Values Act (SB 54) bars state resources from assisting federal immigration enforcement. AB 450 requires employers to notify workers of ICE raids and prohibits verifying immigration status.
Meanwhile, LA's police force has collapsed. The LAPD has 1,300 fewer officers than a decade ago. When officers under assault called for backup, local police took nearly an hour to respond. Mayor Bass's solution? Cut another 400 positions to close an $800 million budget hole from ballooning pensions and lawsuit payouts.
Progressive prosecutors refuse to enforce basic laws. Shoplifting, vandalism, disorderly conduct and trespassing go unprosecuted, with shoplifting surging 81% in 2023. Public sector unions who press politicians to ignore immigration law win full Medi-Cal benefits to all illegal immigrants at $8.5 billion annually.
This progressive dystopia created the perfect storm.
Chaos In L.A. Part 2 - The Explosion
Last week, ICE agents executed federal search warrants at three Los Angeles locations as part of criminal investigations into money laundering, tax evasion, and document fraud. The raids netted significant results, with over 100 detentions citywide. Among those captured were convicted murderers, child molesters, armed robbers, and drug dealers —including an illegal immigrant serving 37 years for sexual assault.
But chaos erupted immediately. Rioters hurled Molotov cocktails, concrete chunks, and electric scooters at police. Cars burned, businesses were looted, and federal buildings were vandalized—before the feds arrived. Over 500 were arrested, with 20+ officers injured. One mob even ran over two LAPD officers with motorcycles.
Some reports suggest ICE may have detained people beyond warrant scope, and agents used aggressive tactics that pushed legal boundaries. Disturbing footage showed a journalist deliberately shot with a rubber bullet while clearly identified as press.
By Saturday evening, Trump made an unprecedented decision to federalize 2,000 California National Guard troops without Governor Newsom's consent, later adding 700 Marines.
Media coverage followed the familiar script. "Largely peaceful" declared The New York Times while cars burned. NPR called it "mostly peaceful." The 2020 playbook resumed: whitewash the chaos, ignore the successes, and blame an unjust society.
Chaos In L.A. Part 3 - The Overreach
Trump's disregard for due process while enforcing immigration law has been indefensible, and his $1 trillion mass deportation fantasy ignores economic reality. But LA's events demand dispassionate legal analysis as both sides decry lawlessness.
ICE agents executed judicial search warrants for criminal investigations, though some reports indicate they may have detained people beyond warrant scope. But their use of administrative arrest warrants—standard practice requiring no judicial review—appears legally sound despite activist claims.
The real constitutional clash centers on Trump’s deployment of the National Guard. A law dryly titled Title 10, Section 12406 of U.S. Code, most recently modified in 1994 under Clinton, allows federal control of a state’s National Guard during invasion, rebellion, or when "regular forces" cannot execute federal law.
Governor Newsom challenged this interpretation, and Federal Judge Charles Breyer agreed, ruling Trump failed the procedural requirement that states orders must go "through governors." More significantly, Breyer found sporadic protest violence did not qualify as a "rebellion". The Tenth Amendment, he argued, reserves police powers to states.
The Ninth Circuit stayed Breyer's order pending a hearing scheduled for today. While courts rarely overturn presidential national security judgments, procedural violations and federalism principles favor Newsom. The appeals court will likely uphold Trump’s deployment authority while requiring procedural compliance—enabling both sides to claim victory by which time the question may be moot.
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