PM Mark Carney Says Tyrant Has Lost Interest In Annexing Canada

No word on Greenland, Panama, Iran.

(Photo: Maxine Wolph/Pixabay)

The world is on fire but at least Canadians got a bit of unexpected good news before the country’s 158th birthday on Tuesday, which will not be marked by an embarrassing military parade.

While it was pretty sweet Canadian point guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was named the NBA’s most valuable player this year — a feat from a nation of hockey players whose only other baller to swing it was so rare as to be name-dropped in homegirl Nelly Furtado’s sexy banger “Promiscuous” — it was reassuring to hear from Prime Minister Mark Carney that Donald Trump appears to have lost interest in his “51st state” shtick.

At least for now as he’s busy starting wars both at home and in the Middle East.

Carney was asked by CNN’s Christiane Amanpour at last week’s NATO meeting in the Netherlands, which was shortened to two and a half hours instead of the usual two to three days in order to accommodate the goldfish attention span of the military alliance’s most powerful member, if he was still arglebargling in private about annexing Canada. (You will recall that a dictator deciding to take over a neighbor is what led to the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in the first place.) “He is not,” the PM replied with a chuckle. “He admires Canada, I think it’s fair to say, maybe for a period of time [he] coveted Canada. [...] We’re two sovereign nations who are discussing the future of our trade relations, our defence partnership, which has been very strong in the past. How is that going to evolve?”

Or devolve, as the case may be, since the mad king announced on Friday the termination of trade discussions “effective immediately” due to Canada’s new plan to tax his beloved tech bro donors just as some European countries do. The latest development in the Forever Trade Wars was announced, as usual, on sad Temu Twitter:

We have just been informed that Canada, a very difficult Country to TRADE with, including the fact that they have charged our Farmers as much as 400% Tariffs, for years, on Dairy Products, has just announced that they are putting a Digital Services Tax on our American Technology Companies, which is a direct and blatant attack on our Country. They are obviously copying the European Union, which has done the same thing, and is currently under discussion with us, also. Based on this egregious Tax, we are hereby terminating ALL discussions on Trade with Canada, effective immediately. We will let Canada know the Tariff that they will be paying to do business with the United States of America within the next seven day period. Thank you for your attention to this matter!

So that happened, but at least there wasn’t a stupid new nickname for Marky Mark, who Amanpour said has a growing reputation as a “Trump whisperer among leaders” and who communicates with him more often than others do. Certainly saying the annexation threats are over for now carries a lot more weight from him than it did last month coming from our new US Ambassador Pete Hoekstra, a lickspittle so shameless he’ll lie to your face about lying to your face.

Republicans Extend Olive Branch To (Certain) Canadians

Cornelis Piet Hoekstra, who was born in the Netherlands before moving to Holland, Michigan (no, really), as a child and anglicizing his name to seem like less of a filthy foreigner, was Grampa Hitler’s widely despised ambassador to his home and native land during the first round. When confronted by journalist Wouter Zwart, the US correspondent for Dutch broadcaster NOS, with remarks he made about there being “no-go zones” where politicians had been set on fire, he called it “fake news” and then denied saying the words “fake news.” I wish I was making this up:

Zwart: Speaking of threat, at one point you mentioned in a debate that there are no-go zones in the Netherlands and that cars and politicians are being set on fire.

Hoekstra: I didn't say that. That is actually an incorrect statement. Yeah, we would call it fake news.

So the reporter plays the shifty bastard a clip from a Republican conference of him saying: “The Islamic movement has now gotten to the point where they have put Europe in chaos. Chaos in the Netherlands, where there are cars being burned, there are politicians that are being burned. And yes, there are no-go zones in the Netherlands.”

This is gotcha journalism at its finest, although Zwart seemed more bewildered by the denials than aggressively challenging him as 2017 was a more innocent time when Republicans were still expected to put a little effort into their bullshit.

Zwart: Is that fake news? Because that's what you really said.

Hoekstra: I didn’t call that fake news. I didn’t use the words today. No, I don’t think I did.

Propaganda Piet eventually apologized under duress after it created a Dutch Oven of stench although nowadays he’d probably claim it was made by a senile Joe Biden using AI. He’ll likely also deny ever saying 51st state threats were “over” last month as soon as his lunatic boss starts making them again.

[CNN / All of us on Bluesky]