This blog writer is concentrating today mainly on Donald Trump’s ongoing bombast, such as when he ordered the bombing of Iran with B2 Stealth bombers and then declared “Congratulations World; It’s Time for Peace.” However, another event involving a key spokesperson for the Trump administration, shows how some of the U.S. President’s highly negative attitudes affect other leaders as far away as West Africa.

Karoline Leavitt, the president’s sharp-tongued press secretary uttered those racist and condescending words, “Sit down boy”, at a forum where the special guest was Capt. Ibrahim Traore, the 34-year-old President in Transition of the West African nation of Burkina Faso.

Meanwhile, President Trump, having pronounced that it is “time for peace” was  furious and dropped the “F” bomb when Israel and Iran were obviously not following his declaration of a ceasefire.

As it turned out, Trump’s ordered bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities had not “obliterated” the installation, as he had claimed. In fact, media outlets, including the New York Times and CNN, had access to intelligence that said the bombing mission was far from complete and would only set back the nuclear development by a few months.
 
Then, when the ceasefire finally was taking hold, Trump said in an interview with NBC News “I think the ceasefire is unlimited. It’s going to go forever.” He added that the war is now completely over and that he does not believe Israel and Iran “will ever be shooting at each other again.”
 
There is much more to relate of Trump’s praise for his own actions, but first we need to go back to the beginning of this Against the Flow column.
 
Ms. Leavitt, trusted by Trump to convey all his thoughts to the media, made her unfortunate put-down of the up-and-coming African leader at a forum in New York City. If Traore was very upset with Leavitt, he did not let it show.

He calmly told Leavitt about his young brother, just a boy, killed in a street Demonstration in Burkina Faso.
 
A champion of an eventual United States of Africa, Traore clearly does not have a very favorable view of today’s United States of America.
 
In the forum with Ms. Leavitt, when Americans in the room applauded when Traore demonstrated his dignity in responding to Leavitt’s demeaning comments, Traore urged the Americans present: “Don’t just clap, change.”
 
Captured by cameras, that exchange soon went viral in the USA and in much of the world.
 
This writer has not spoken with a single Canadian who does not cringe on hearing Ms. Leavitt’s blindly loyal defenses of President Trump from her White House podium.
 
Of course, things have changed drastically for Canadians since Trump began his second term as President. His tariffs and his talk of making Canada the 51st state have resulted in a deep groundswell of patriotism in this until-now quiet and polite northern nation.
 
Like Americans, Canadians would no doubt be happy if the Iran regime would cease its effort to develop the nuclear bomb. But is there no answer in negotiation, short of sending in the B2 bombers?
 
Trump is not one to take advice on the Iran war, even from some members of his MAGA base. Yet, Trump’s delusions of grandeur took several knocks this week as a result of the Iranian escapade: his rosy portrayal of his accomplishment in the Iran bombing, the overstated ceasefire, and his conclusion that he believes that Iran and Israel will never be “shooting at each other again.”
 
Canada’s Prime Minister, Mark Carney, and his ministers have wisely been urging restraint in the Israel-Iran situation.
 
Despite his challenging week, Trump had an opportunity to do a victory lap at the NATO Summit this Tuesday and Wednesday. Canada and most other NATO member countries have struggled for years to bring up their military spending to two per cent of GDP. Prime Minister Carney has said Canada will reach the two per cent mark next year.
 
But Donald Trump has long been pushing for NATO members to vastly increase their military spending to 5 per cent. All members this week declared their intention to reach this level within 10 years. For Canada to reach that goal, the country would have to increase defense spending by $150 billion per year. Carney noted that included in this figure could be funding for infrastructure such as upgrading the country’s ports, or pathways to critical minerals.
 
Regardless, Trump glowed with his victory.
 
As for his White House Press secretary Leavitt, she did not fare so well in her encounter with Capt. Traore. The calm, dignified African leader concluded:           
“I never asked for pity, I asked for eyes that truly see.’

Newly elected Prime Minister Mark Carney appears to have done well in hosting his first G-7, at Kananaskis, Alberta. Carney first had his private meeting with U.S. President Trump and there was progress on bilateral trade, although the two leaders differ on the value of tariffs.

Then, with Trump’s early departure to address Middle Eastern matters, the atmosphere at the conference became positively convivial, with several leaders going for a glass of wine together…

Meanwhile, President Trump has been keeping the world guessing about whether the United States will join Israel’s bombardment of Iranian nuclear sites. He told reporters “I may do it. I may not do it.” In speaking so casually about war in this way, Trump simply adds worries to a worrying world situation.

For the U.S. to enter an all-out Middle Eastern war would be foolhardy, particularly as Trump has billed himself as the omnipotent leader who could stop all wars including the bloody Ukraine-Russia war in a matter of days of assuming his presidency. That did not happen.
 
Despite great concern in Canada’s Sikh community over Carney’s  invitation to the G-7 of Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, there was an overall positive result with the restoration of diplomatic relations between the two countries, and Carney’s commitment that the RCMP investigation of the actions in Canada of Indian agents would continue, regardless.

On less solid ground is PM Carney’s method of launching economic recovery in Canada by encouraging the provincial Premiers to bring forward their projects of “national importance.”

Just last week the Against the Flow blog likened the Premiers to young kids lining up happily at the mall to meet Santa Claus to present their wish list for Christmas.

Now that process has soured somewhat, particularly for small provinces like New Brunswick.

Premier Susan Holt, still relatively new on the job after being elected with a majority government in November, has been placed in an awkward position in the new Carney process of choosing projects of national importance. One of the early projects she put forward was a good package giving a further boost to the spectacular resurgence of the Port of Saint John.

That sounded like very good proposal from the Premier. The Port now has upwards of five container cranes, those giants that look great blue herons hanging over their cargo.

Large containers are stacked along side the shipping berths, symbolizing the great importance of the port for trade with the world. The port also has important rail links via the N.B. Southern Line and CP Rail through the state of Maine and on to the province of Quebec. That is a great deal better for the environment than sending the large containers via transport truck.

Saint John has also become an important stop for major passenger cruise ship lines, with a whole infrastructure developed to accommodate these shipping giants.

Now though, it appears, at the urging of Dominic LeBlanc, the senior federal minister for New Brunswick, Holt has cooled on the port development support project. She has even floated the idea of building a second nuclear generating station at Point Lepreau.

A word of caution for Premier Holt, Point Lepreau One glittered for former Premier Richard Hatfield, because of all those construction jobs, but it was a financial boondoggle for the province and the already debt-ridden N.B. Power.

The original cost of Point Lepreau in the 1970’s was $480 million. That ballooned to $1.1 billion by the time it was completed in the early 1980’s. That perhaps does not sound like a huge amount in today’s dollars, but back then it was a very big number.

Lepreau was the largest construction project in the history of the province. Unfortunately, it fostered various forms of corruption for the then Conservative government and various Lepreau construction contractors.

Now, both the federal Parliament and the New Brunswick Legislature are on summer break, and there has yet to be a federal budget since the Carney government was elected.

It would certainly be premature for governments to commit to a very large project like Point Lepreau Two which would require full public debate, and a decade of planning, environmental assessment, ingenious financing, not to mention construction time, to put in place.

On television Tuesday night, there was a symbolic image of the Edmonton Oilers bench during the last and ill-fated game in this year’s Stanley Cup finals, won by a great team, the Florida Panthers.

Corey Perry, the player they call The Worm because of his ability to squeeze into impossible spaces in front of the opposing team’s net, patted Oilers Number two star, Leon Draisaitl, on the leg while they were seated on the bench, trying to get him motivated during what would be the Oiler’s final game.
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Draisaitl had had a low key and disappointing final series, with two goals and four assists. In later games, he appeared sluggish and was possibly fighting an injury. 

But it was left to Perry, jersey Number 90, to take it upon himself to egg on Draisaitl.
 
The veteran of five teams in the Stanley Cup Finals in the past six years, Perry played for the Dallas Stars, the Montreal Canadiens, the Tampa Bay Lightning, and the last two years with the Oilers.

All these lost series could be viewed as a negative for Perry’s career, but on the other hand, it is quite an achievement that he helped all those teams make it to the Stanley Cup finals.
 
Perry’s career has been checkered, but also durable, with dashes of brilliance. He helped the Anaheim Mighty Ducks win the Stanley Cup in 2007. Also, with the Mighty Ducks, in the 2010-11 season he scored fifty goals and won the league’s Maurice Richard Trophy as the number one goal scorer. Impressively, that year he won the Hart Trophy as the league’s most valuable player.
 
He has had success, too, at the international level, winning Gold for Canada at the 2010 and 2014 Olympic Winter Games. He also took Gold at the IIHF World Hockey Championships. 

But in 2013, his then team, the Chicago Black Hawks, placed him on indefinite leave for personal reasons. An internal investigation soon found that Perry was engaged in conduct that was “unacceptable and in violation of his contract and team policies.” Perry said he was seeking professional help for “substance abuse.” Accordingly, he took a year off from the game.
 
Despite his troubles, he bounced back and eventually signed with the Edmonton Oilers. In his two years with the Oilers, Perry gradually built himself into a team stalwart. In this year’s final playoff run, he scored three goals against the Florida Panthers. That is the same number as superstars Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl had combined, proving, once again that he is the comeback kid. Next year, Corey, The Worm may turn.

Protests are spreading across the USA against heavy-handed action by the Trump administration to stamp out “illegal immigration” into the country. Donald Trump has activated more than 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 U.S. Marines, over the objections of Los Angeles and California state leaders.

Trump credited his action as preventing a “great City” from “burning to the ground.” He repeatedly signaled his willingness to invoke the Insurrection Act if protests continue to escalate.

For his part, California Governor Gavin Newsome has asked the courts to put an emergency stop to the U.S. military helping enforce the work of the Immigration & Enforcement (ICE) agents. The judge in the case is to rule on Thursday.

The protests in Los Angeles and other US cities, including Chicago, New York City, Denver, Atlanta, Austin, San Antonio, and Las Vegas, coincide with “No Kings” rallies, in the country, events designed to ridicule President Trump’s seeming desire to rule like a King rather than respect the norms of a constitutional democracy.

This Against the Flow blog has already commented on the dictatorial tendencies of Trump regime and its determination to stamp out any sort of
dissent.

Hope was in the air on Tuesday at the First Ministers’ Meeting in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

Perhaps the Premiers knew in their hearts that Prime Minister Mark Carney could not give them everything they wanted following their meeting. But one after the other the Premiers shamefacedly put forward their priorities for projects of “national significance” in their province and Santa Carney had them dancing and smiling.

Never one to have much good to say about a federal government, let alone a Liberal federal government, Premier Danielle Smith said she was encouraged by the new tone at the meeting. Despite the wildfires causing devastation in his province, the host Premier, Scott Moe was all smiles sitting beside Carney at the “Knights of the Roundtable” meeting.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford said this was the best meeting in ten years, and the best in his seven years as Premier.

New Brunswick was well represented at the table, with Dominic LeBlanc, minister responsible for Canada-US Trade, and Premier Susan Holt who put forward development of Saint John’s bustling port, including the realignment of the famous Simms Corner to accommodate increased rail traffic to the port from city industries. Holt is also making a priority of a new East-West oil pipeline through Quebec into Saint John with its largest oil refinery in the country.