Details Emerge On Canada Trade Negotiation Breakdown

Let's recall that a week ago,

President Donald Trump late Tuesday stateside paused imposing 50% tariffs on certain Canadian imports, shortly before the duties were set to kick in at midnight.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump said that this was “based on the fact that Canada and the U.S.A., subject to the finalization of documents, have a DEAL!”

This announcement comes after Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney held trade talks on Tuesday.

In his post, Trump also suggested that the Keystone XL pipeline could be “awoken from the grave!” The pipeline refers to an extension of a pipeline system in Canada and the United States.

as of yesterday,

The [Canadian] government announced counter-tariffs on American goods worth about $27.6 billion on Tuesday, in retaliation for U.S. tariffs on Canada that came into effect on the weekend after trade talks broke down.

The Canadian measures, which are set to come into effect on Sept. 8, will affect a range of products including seafood, furniture and tools.

Ottawa also unveiled a $7.5 billion support package to help Canadian workers and businesses weather the trade war with the U.S.

In response, U.S. President Donald Trump again hit out at Canada, saying he wants to change the name of Lake Ontario to "Lake America" and accusing Mark Carney of lying when the prime minister said the rejected U.S. trade proposal would have threatened Canada's French-language regulations.

Later Tuesday, the White House released a statement titled "President Trump Is Finally Ending Canada’s Free Ride" that listed what it described as "Canadian abuse" of its trade relationship with the U.S.

The details of the breakdown in talks are slowly starting to emerge:

This gives the game away.

To Carney, building a pipeline to export Alberta oil is a burden, something he needs to be convinced to do by America. They have to give him something to do it.

Alberta's interests don't matter. Alberta is simply a bargaining chip. https://t.co/vfPK6WVmof

— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) August 25, 2026

Conservative Treehouse has many more details:

There are many people in Canada demanding to see the rough draft proposals of the U.S-Canada trade agreement so they can judge for themselves the issues that Carney claimed were irreconcilable. For those people this interview today by Canadian Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc will only embolden those requests.

. . . Essentially, it boils down to four issues. !1) Removal of tariffs on Canadian assembled Semi-Trucks. (2) U.S. streaming services writing code for “search engines” in the French language. (3) Canada demanding 5% of gross revenues from U.S. tech platforms, and the last one is silly because it already exists: (4) the U.S. having a right to reject a trade deal made by Canada with a non-market economy, ie. CHINA.

. . . Canada wanted tariffs on Big Rigs removed. The U.S. said no.

The reason is simple. Big Rigs assembled/built in Canada are falling apart in the USA. Why? Because they are full of cheap Chinese component goods and parts that wear out quickly. The U.S. wants two things on this issue. Either: (1) Make them in the USA, or (2) stop using cheap Chinese component parts. The parts that Canada are using are not even available in the USA because we tariff and reject them, so why should we accept them when Canada installs them? Either quit using Chinese parts (hence, the trade alignment against Chinese imports), or accept a tariff equal to the rate we would apply if the product was coming directly from China.

♦The Stupid French Language thing. The French language stuff was an ancillary aspect where the Canadian Cultural Police were demanding that all U.S. streaming platforms (YouTube, Netflix etc.) must have search engines using the French language so Canadian users can search for stuff to watch using the French language. A ridiculous issue that was not part of the trade discussion, but Mark Carney saw political value in blowing up the issue.

♦Intellectual Property. Canada was demanding 5% of U.S. tech platform gross revenue (not profit, gross), they call it a tax. Canada then uses the “tax revenue” to subsidize Canadian media and information platforms that promote the approved government message. In essence, Canada demands that information providers pay them 5% of their revenue so that Canada can subsidize information providers they approve of. This is what the Canadian government calls “cultural protection.” In reality it is state-run media using a financial system that would make Vladimir Putin blush.

♦U.S. Right to Limit Canadian Trade Deals. This point is exponentially ridiculous for Canada to be upset about because the current USMCA/CUSMA already has that clause. The U.S (or Mexico) can exit the USMCA if Canada enters into a trade agreement with a “non-market” economy, ie China. [USMCA Sec 32:10]

What puzzles me is how wimilar the Canadian negotiating strategy is to Iran's -- both pretend the sides are this close, Trump pauses retaliation, and suddenly Canada or Iran says no deal, for the same reasons they always say it. I simply don't see what they think they're accomplishing, either Canada or Iran. The White House position, in short, is this:

Canada has been ripping off the United States for decades — and President Donald J. Trump is done letting them get away with it. Last week, the U.S. offered Canada the most preferential market access of any country on Earth, with deep cuts on steel, aluminum, autos, lumber, and more. Instead of partnership, Canada chose unreasonable demands, walk-backs, and flat-out rejection. . . . President Trump said it best: “Canada is easily the most difficult and unreasonable. They feel entitled, but they are not a State, and will be entitled no longer!” Canadian leadership chose retaliation over partnership — and America is no longer willing to carry them.

When he met with Trump just before he resigned as prime minister, Justin Trudeau is reported to have said that putting Canada on an even tariff basis, along with requiring it to meet its NATO commitments, would be the end of Canada. It's hard to avoid thinking Carney agrees.

Warning, Canadian Psyops!

"WE DON'T NEED CANADA, THEY NEED US!"

President Trump announces tariffs on Canadian cars, trucks, automotive parts and steel will jump to 50% on January 1, 2027, accusing Canada of "ripping off" the United States for years.

Trump points to Canada's tariffs on American farmers… pic.twitter.com/a3DvYZNEnJ

— Fox News (@FoxNews) August 24, 2026

Via Conservative Treehouse:

[Former Canadian Finance Minister Chrystia] Freeland calls in from Kiev to remind the Bloomberg audience that Canada’s best next steps will be to conduct targeted narrative operations against the American people in order to retain the Canadian parasite position. Rather than accept reciprocal terms for fair trade, Freeland notes the best strategy is to deliver targeted propaganda directly to American voters against President Trump. This was the approach Freeland, and former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took in 2018.

I asked Chrome AI mode, "What moves would Canada make in directing propaganda toward American voters in the trade war?" It answered,

Canada and its provincial governments are executing localized media buys directly in American media markets, particularly along the border and in key electoral districts.

The Move: The Ontario provincial government launched a television ad campaign in U.S. border markets invoking the legacy of Ronald Reagan to criticize modern protectionism. By using a conservative icon, the ad specifically targets right-leaning and moderate American voters, warning that tariffs on Canadian goods will ultimately hurt American consumers and destroy local automotive and agricultural jobs.

The Impact: These ads have directly provoked the White House, with President Trump publicly condemning them as "foreign-funded propaganda" at campaign rallies.

However, the cases AI cites are all from 2025. Whatever effect they may have had a year ago, they haven't deterred Trump from renewing his campaign. On the other hand, a paper from Carleton University in Ottawa outlines Canadian weaknesses vis-a-vis US strategy: Grey Zones Undermine Canadian Autonomy.

However improbable a war with America might be, the reality is that the U.S. already has in place a number of strategies that can and will be leveraged to its advantage to achieve its strategic objectives.

These levers of influence fall within the grey zone of conflict and render the need to formally occupy Canada redundant. The grey zone refers to coercive statecraft that operates between war and peace, using ambiguity, incrementalism, and unconventional tactics to achieve strategic objectives without triggering full-scale military responses.

One thing that annoys Canadians is when US residents refer to the US as "America", which they feel reflects the view that the US is the only important country in North America -- but here, some Canadians are reflexively doing it themselves. I love it when Canadians get annoyed.

We have already witnessed how the U.S. leverages shared institutions, such as NORAD and CUSMA, to its advantage. With 76% of its exports going to the U.S., Canada’s heavy reliance on the U.S. market is a source of leverage. The threats of trade disruption pressure Ottawa to adopt U.S.-aligned positions on third countries, a dynamic evident during NAFTA/CUSMA renegotiations.

. . . Ambiguity undermines public trust when citizens perceive their government as unable to protect national interests from a supposed “ally”.

. . . Grey MAGA Funding & Disinformation: A plausible scenario involves U.S.-based “grey MAGA money” fuelling independence movements (e.g., in Alberta) or anti-government protests. If Washington provides tacit approval or refuses to acknowledge these as foreign interference, it creates a “grey zone” where the Canadian government looks ineffective in managing its own borders and internal cohesion.

The “Border Crisis” Rhetoric: Continued negative rhetoric from Washington about the security of the Canada-U.S. border is predicted to lead to a “thickening” of the 49th parallel in 2026. This gradual increase in inspections and delays at crossings like the Windsor-Detroit Ambassador Bridge makes the Canadian government appear incompetent at managing the country’s most vital economic artery. Forced Policy Shifts: Under the pressure of incremental border slowdowns, the Canadian government may be forced to adopt U.S.-style immigration or security policies, making it look like a “vassal state” in the eyes of the public.

Those weasely MAGA types, deliberately making the Canadian government seem incompetent! And Trump just won't stop annoying Canadians!

President Donald Trump escalated his war of words with Canada on Tuesday morning, floating a U.S. push to rename Lake Ontario "Lake America" and accusing Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney of lying about the Trump administration's position on French-language protections.

"The United States is giving serious consideration to changing the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America in that we don’t expect to [sic] doing much business with Ontario any longer," Trump wrote Tuesday morning on Truth Social.

Trump followed with another broadside aimed directly at Carney, rejecting claims the U.S. had sought concessions affecting the French language during the countries' recently collapsed trade negotiations.

"I would never interfere with Canadians speaking French!" Trump wrote. "In fact, I have never even thought of doing such a stupid thing."

"This lie was made up by a weak and ineffective Prime Minister in an attempt to gain political support, which he has totally lost, from the people of Quebec," Trump added. "I love French Canadians!"

Yup, those Canadians are gonna run rings around us bumpkins down here south of the border. We're gonna have to brace for their psyops, you can be sure.

Ceuta Update

The migrant invasion of Ceuta was briefly in the news on July 31 and a few days afterward, but the Spanish government declared that they all went home again, and everything was back to normal. Subsequent reports indicate this was never the case.

It's been 15 days since tens of thousands of migrants from Morocco began flooding across the border into the Spanish North African enclave of Ceuta. Because the shocking images of the influx of mostly men of military age faded from international headlines after a few days, the casual news observer outside of Spain might think the situation in Ceuta is under control. In fact, the most recent videos coming out of the Spanish city are in some ways even more alarming than those documenting the initial invasion.

. . . While no official data has been released, a spokesperson for the police union JUPOL claims there is now a rape every day in Ceuta. Euronews reports that three Moroccan nationals were arrested this week for sexual assault offenses. El País describes the disturbing reason why another man was returned to Morocco (translation with the aid of AI): "A fourth detainee accused of entering a private residence and getting into the bed in which a woman was sleeping, wearing only his underwear, was also returned to Morocco after being charged with unlawful entry into a dwelling.”

A week ago,

Failing Spanish Prime Minister, the Socialist Pedro Sánchez declared the invasion crisis of Ceuta over, and flew off to vacation in the Canary Islands.

But the reality in the North African enclave is much different.

Thousands upon thousands of invaders are still there – a group almost entirely made of military-aged males, as befits an invasion.

The beaches of the territory have become an unmistakable tragedy, a slum made up with shacks made with straw and cardboard.

The sand is strewn with garbage and human waste, turning the once-touristic spot into a third-world hellhole.

More recently,

Attempts by authorities to clear Ceuta’s Trampolín beach and create a foothold for a return of the area to normality failed this week, as the remaining illegal migrants immediately re-established a tent city.

Less than 24 hours after the Spanish exclave city government attempted to clear the thousands of migrants from the encampment established on Trampolín, the local Ceuta Actualidad reported that the coastline was already covered in “kilos” of garbage.

“Not even a day. Not even a day has passed before Trampolín beach and its surroundings have become a dump again,” the local outlet reported.

The beach has been home to thousands of illegals who flooded across the border from Morocco last month in an apparently coordinated effort that saw around 80,000 migrants storm the border of Spain’s North African territory.

While Madrid and Brussels were quick to claim that all such illegals would be returned home, several thousand illegals remained within the city.

Just this past weekend,

The far-from-resolved invasion of Ceuta has plunged the city into a dramatic emergency marked by growing insecurity, surging crime, and warnings of a possible “sanitary catastrophe” by local healthcare professionals.

. . . El Español reports that local hoteliers have lost half of their usual restaurant clientele over the past weeks since the invasion. The outlet spoke with Gema Molina, a woman who has lived her whole life in Ceuta and who has been the owner of a local downtown restaurant over the past 15 years. She affirmed to the outlet that locals are now hesitant to go to a restaurant or club out of fear — a sentiment also shared by its owners who feel “abandoned” and not represented by the Spanish government.

. . . Molina further denounced that restaurants have suffered attacks by migrants who “enter in packs” to ask for food and drinks — becoming hostile should the restaurant refuse to comply with their demands. In other instances, she told El Español, it is the clients who are harassed by the migrants into compliance instead.

“The problem with all this is that if you don’t give them anything, there’s a confrontation. But I’ve also found bags of their feces outside my restaurant, as well as countless puddles of urine,” she denounced.

“And I’m the one who has to clean it up. Imagine walking up to a business that has human feces outside. No one is going to want to go in,” she continued.

It appears that the sanitation and crime problems are too big for the local government to handle -- the solution would mainly involve the mass removal of the remaining migrants, which estimates number about 10,000 of the possibly 80,000 at the start. But the national government is apparently unwilling to admit there's a problem at all, which is something we're seeing in the UK as well, and so far, legacy media is complicit.

The UK Rape Pamphlet Misses The Point

Via Breitbart News:

The British government has issued a guide to alleged asylum seekers to teach them the customs of the United Kingdom, such as not raping women or engaging in sexual acts with children.

In an apparent tacit admission of the backwards cultures being allowed into Britain, the Home Office — the government department tasked with controlling immigration — has published a nine-page booklet for new arrival migrants who apply for asylum, as is the case for most illegal boat migrants as soon as they set foot on English shores.

In a section on rape, migrants are told that both parties must consent to sex “without threat or pressure” and that it is not acceptable to have sex with someone who is “asleep, drunk, or unable to respond”.

“If you have sex with someone without their consent, this is called rape. Rape is a serious crime in the UK. You could go to prison, lose your support and accommodation, and it will affect your asylum claim,” the booklet explains.

The first question I have is whether the booklet will be published in Arabic, Urdu, or whatever languages the migrants actually speak, but it turns out this is a sensitive issue:

Home Office officials are preparing to translate guidance telling asylum seekers not to rape or beat women into multiple languages. The shocking literature – which was signed off by Home Office ministers - will be translated to “ensure there are no barriers to comprehension”.

But the Government is refusing to say which dialects the guidance, first revealed by the Express, will be adapted into. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch warned the official document effectively confirms some arrivals pose a danger to women and girls, saying: “Anyone needing this leaflet does not belong in Britain”.

Analysis of Government records show asylum seekers from Pakistan, Eritrea, Iran, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Sudan, India, Somalia, Nigeria and Vietnam make up the top 10 nationalities seeking sanctuary in the UK.

. . . Shadow Home Office Minister Katie Lam said: “Despite telling the public that illegal migrants pose no risk to the public, it's beyond telling that the Home Office feels the need to release a leaflet telling illegal migrants that rape is wrong, that sex with children is wrong, and that men and women are equal.

So the best we can gather is that the booklet has in fact been published in English -- it's online here -- but it has yet to be fully translated into any language the migrants actually understand. In other words, the booklet isn't intended for migrants, it's intended for UK natives to give the impression that the government has good intentions -- except it would be embarrassing to list the exact languages into which they intend someday to translate it.

But the problem goes beyond recent migrants/asylum seekers, to whom the booklet is putatively addressed, although not in their languages. "Grooming gangs", which is a polite term for rape gangs, have been a problem in the UK for generations:

Several government reviews have reported failures by British institutions in preventing, identifying and prosecuting the widespread cases of group-based child sexual abuse and exploitation that mostly occurred between the 1990s and 2010s. Allegations of governmental and institutional failures to respond to the problem or to downplay or cover up the issue have been described as a grooming gangs scandal.

Media coverage and political discourse around these crimes has especially focused on the ethnic and religious background of perpetrators in high-profile cases, most of whom were Muslim men of Pakistani descent, and whether this prevented proper investigation. Data in Greater Manchester, South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire shows that, in the 2020s, men of an Asian ethnic background are disproportionately represented among perpetrators in those areas, but there is insufficient data to draw conclusions about ethnicity of perpetrators across the UK.

Note on one hand the extreme delicacy with which the subject is addressed at all, combined with the reluctant acknowledgement that the problem has been minimized for decades. I strongly suspect that rape gangs originated with the systematic importation of Pakistanis to the UK from the 1950s onward:

Migration from regions that now form Pakistan began in small numbers during the 1950s and 1960s, facilitated by Pakistan’s membership of the Commonwealth. Many migrants were recruited to address labour shortages in industries such as textiles, steel, engineering, manufacturing, while others, including doctors, contributed to the development of the National Health Service.

It used to be taught in Economics 101 that "labor shortage" is another way of saying "rising wages". It's hard for me to avoid thinking that the first wave of Asian migration came at the same time as the postwar Labour government's nationlization of the transport, coal, and steel industries and socialized medicine, which the link above effectively acknowledges. The Pakistanis were introduced more or less specifically to keep UK working-class wages down, at a time when, in contrast, the US working class became much more prosperous.

I find it fascinating that the question of migration in the UK is treated with the level of delicacy, even prudery, that was once attributed to Victorians over sex. Of course, sex is involved here, too, but the official line is that the problem is new, and it can be solved by telling tne new migrants not to rape -- except the migrants who've been in the UK since the 1950s, the vast majority of whom were born there, have been doing the same th9ng all along, but it's not polite to say this.

An At Best Obtuse Piece By Harold Myerson

I've been noting the peculiar incongruity of Real Clear Politics's opinion choices, especially its frequent platforming of far-left figures like Harold Myerson and Robert Reich, while they seldom publish conservatives much to the right of Victor Davis Hanson and Roger Kimball, who at this stage are just mainstream Republicans and boring ones at that. The other day, RCP ran this Myerson piece, The Democrats’ On-Again, Off-Again Class Politics.

Myerson argues that the New Deal-Fair Deal politics of FDR and Truman were "class-based", but the later politics of Adlai Stevenson and John Kennedy were not.

[W]hile working in John F. Kennedy’s White House, [Arthur] Schlesinger [Jr] comes away from a meeting with UAW President Walter Reuther and Sen. Hubert Humphrey, noting that both of them still spoke in “the New Deal’s distinctive rhetoric. Walter and Hubert could talk about ‘the people,’ about their ultimate wisdom, and the importance of doing things for them, in a way quite alien to the New Frontier”—the not particularly class-based perspective of the Kennedy administration. “I wish I could figure out,” Schlesinger laments, “the terms in which the idealism and imagination of the New Deal could be infused into the anti-sentimental, anti-rhetorical, understated mood of the New Frontier,” whose leaders he terms “technocrats.”

Read today, these passages illuminate the links between the shifting shapes of American liberalism—and, for that matter, American socialism—and the American economy. Writing at a time when New Deal reforms had produced an economy of opportunity “as secure and unalterable” as the landscape, when, as historian Nelson Lichtenstein recently noted in our pages, the real wages of working-class Americans doubled in a single generation, the postwar Democratic establishment had abandoned the class politics of its predecessors, whose victories had appeared to create a permanent middle-class majority.

Reuther and Humphrey, by contrast, were at that point semi-social democrats who were concerned about those who either didn’t make it into that middle-class majority or whose membership therein was precarious.

He then says that the resurgence of the Democratic Socialists of America is a return to "class-based" New Deal liberalism.

There are virtually no young people today who view their economic prospects as “secure and unalterable,” a view we now know was peculiar to the boomer generation. Is it any wonder that DSA, despite the fierce moral commitments of its founders, stayed a small organization of several thousand until the crash of 2008 and its prolonged and incomplete recovery made clear to young people, then and since, that the economy—deregulated and all but devoid of unions—was anything but secure? Is it any wonder that this year’s Democratic primaries, including this week’s in Florida, are defined by the precinct-walking and phone-banking of the young, class-based left, while the Democrats opposed to them can mobilize money but few if any volunteers?

But if the new DSA liberalism is "class-based", which class are we talking about? According to Nate Silver,

As a result of contentious Democratic primaries in Michigan, Maine, and New York, I’ve been reading a lot of conversation about the role that class plays in voting patterns in the United States. In these primaries, candidates like Graham Platner and Abdul El-Sayed who are associated with democratic socialism often claim to have the mandate of the working class. But in practice, their strengths tend to be with college-educated voters.

. . . I’m reminded here of Peter Turchin’s elite overproduction hypothesis. It basically argues that America is producing “too many” college graduates relative to the number of high-prestige, well-paying jobs available to them. People who wind up in this situation often carry heavy student loan burdens or other sorts of debt. Even if their material situation is objectively “just fine,” it’s rarely great. They’re gloomy about their own financial prospects, and feel aggrieved about the state of the country. Their class status is ambiguous: privileged in some senses, but they’re part of the “have-nots” in other meaningful ways.

. . . [W]hat is the most Democratic voting group in America? It’s voters with postgraduate degrees but lower-to-middle household incomes of $30K to $60K per year.

This is very much also the sweet spot for the DSA. In the group’s most recent member survey in 2021, 80 percent of members aged 25 or older had bachelor’s degrees, but 45 percent had household incomes below $60,000 per year.

This isn't the working class. But I decided to do some research on Harold Myerson. Originally, I wondered if he was a "red diaper baby", but it turns out that strictly speaking, he isn't, if the term is used exclusively to mean a child of Communist Party USA members. Instead, according to Wikipedia,

Meyerson was born to a Jewish family in Los Angeles. He was educated in the Los Angeles public schools and at Columbia University. The son of long time leaders in California of the Socialist Party of America, he was active in the 1970s in the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee.

So this led me to look into the Socialist Party of America, whose most prominent member was Norman Thomas, definitely not a member of the working class:

Thomas was the oldest of six children, born November 20, 1884, in Marion, Ohio, to Emma Williams (née Mattoon) and Weddington Evans Thomas, a Presbyterian minister. . . . The summer after he graduated from high school his father accepted a pastorate at Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, which allowed Norman to attend Bucknell University. He left Bucknell after one year to attend Princeton University, the beneficiary of the largesse of a wealthy uncle by marriage. Thomas graduated magna cum laude from Princeton in 1905.

He went on to become a socially active Presbyterian pastor, but the denomination found him a little too socially active, and by the 1920s, he'd become editor of The Nation and had begun running for president as leader of the Socialist Party of America. With an Ivy League degree from the era when the Ivies were class-based institutions, he was a bourgeois socialist along the lines of the UK Fabian Society. We may assume Harold Myerson was brought up in a family with similar views, and he went to an Ivy in the 1960s when these views were typical, if inchoate.

So neither Norman Thomas nor Harold Myerson had a working-class background, and neither do the vast majority of DSA members. And this is nothing new, it goes straight back to Norman Thomas. I think this is related to another trend I've been noting for a while, the alliance between the upper bourgeoisie and Marx's Lumpenproletariat, petty criminals, addicts, idlers, sexual deviants, and undocumented migrants. The DSA romanticizes the Lumpenproletriat, apparently out of guilt and perhaps envy that the underclass is somehow more authentic than the upper bourgeoisie, and they want to claim that they're the real working class, not, say, the prosperous union workers whom David Brooks derides as "patio man" in the pages of The Atlantic, The New york Times, and The Washington Examiner:

Certain profound questions flow through his mind. Is a 542-square-inch grilling surface really enough, considering that he might someday get the urge to roast an uncut buffalo steak? Though the matte steel overcoat resists scratching, doesn’t he want a polished steel surface on his grill so he can glance down and admire his reflection as he is performing the suburban manliness rituals, such as brushing tangy sauce on meat slabs with his right hand while clutching a beer can in an NFL foam insulator ring in his left?

Myerson is having a hard time getting his head around the idea that these are the people that Walter Reuther, Hubert Humphrey, Harry Truman, and FDR represented.

Eric Swalwell Can't Win For Losing

Here's what puzzles me about Eric Swalwell. He's a major pretty boy, a very good-looking guy who should have no trouble with the ladies, but somehow, he's been repeatedly brought down by trouble with the ladies. The long-running saga of his affair with the Chinese spy Fang Fang began in 2014 while Swalwell had a seat on the House Intelligence Committee:

The FBI assessment, which later became a full-fledged investigation, centered on allegations that Swalwell awarded internships at his offices in exchange for campaign contributions. The FBI identified Fang “Christine” Fang, a Chinese national, as the alleged facilitator of this exchange and alleged she employed conduits to route illegal donations.

Swalwell also admitted that he had “physical relations with Fang” on multiple occasions, according to the FBI summary of his 2015 interview with agents. In a subsequent interview in 2016, Swalwell detailed one incident where Fang showed up at his door, after which Swalwell said they “hooked up,” according to the second interview summary released by the White House.

This guy could dance with just about any lady he wanted, but he's got to get it from a spy? But the Democrat establishment covered for him over another dozen years, until new allegations broke earlier this year:

A former staffer of Rep. Eric Swalwell, a leading Democratic candidate for California governor, says that the congressman raped her when she was heavily intoxicated and left her bruised and bleeding, an allegation Swalwell strongly denies.

“I was pushing him off of me, saying no,” the woman told CNN of the incident, which she said happened in 2024 after she had stopped working in Swalwell’s office. “He didn’t stop.”

She said it was the second time Swalwell had nonconsensual sexual contact with her while she was drunk. In 2019, when she was still working for him, she said she woke up naked with him in a hotel room after a night of heavy drinking. She said she had no memory of what happened but could feel physically that they’d had sexual contact.

Three other women who spoke with CNN also alleged various kinds of sexual misconduct by the Democratic congressman – including Swalwell sending them unsolicited explicit messages or nude photos.

That ended his California governor campaign, and it forced his resignation from Congress. Again, there should have been no obstacle to him having consensual sex with any number of women who didn't work for him, much less needing to rape anyone, but he had to go out and deliberately seek extra trouble. But that wasn't enough. Last week,

FBI agents confronted Eric Swalwell with a search warrant when he landed at San Francisco Airport Saturday and seized the former congressman's electronic devices, including his cell phone, as part of a federal criminal investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct, the Daily Mail can exclusively reveal.

Swalwell's MacBook Pro, charging cable, and wall charger were also seized during the search, which was conducted at 8.25pm, according to a warrant obtained by The San Francisco Standard.

The search warrant, filed on August 13, was filed under a federal statute (Section 242 of Title 18) which prohibits officials, including law enforcement, from abusing their authority to deprive someone of their constitutional rights - though it is unclear how the law applies to Swalwell's case.

This piece provides more insight:

The Swalwell search warrant was apparently issued under 18 U.S.C. § 242, a federal civil-rights statute that applies when someone uses their governmental authority to deprive another person of rights provided to them either through the Constitution or by federal law.

That statute is often used against law-enforcement officers who are accused of abusing their authority. For example, the Standard points out, the officers involved in George Floyd's death were charged under that same statute, which is not strictly limited to police.

. . . The Standard also referred to the case of former Waterbury, Connecticut, Mayor Philip Giordano, who was convicted under the §242 statute back in 2003 for using the power of his office – and his connections to police – to intimidate two girls he had sexually abused into not ratting him out.

It's important to note here that authorities have not accused Swalwell of doing anything similar, nor does the reference to the statute on the warrant indicate that he committed a similar crime.

. . . Tony Brass, a former federal prosecutor who spoke to the Standard, said the statute could potentially come into play if investigators believe Swalwell used his position in Congress to intimidate witnesses or somehow interfere with another person's rights.

Between the involvement of the FBI's Public Corruption and Civil Rights Squad and the statute that's cited in the warrant, this may turn out to be about more than just the sexual misconduct allegations.

So the implication here seems to be that not only did he get a thrill from being a good-looking guy who nevertheless raped and sexually harassed women, we might surmise that he also got a thrill out of intimidating the same women to keep them from blowing the whistle on him. I asked Chrome AI mode, "Why do good-looking, sexually attractive men need to resort to rape and sexual harassment?" It answered,

Sexual violence and harassment are motivated by power, control, and entitlement, not by a lack of sexual access or physical attraction. Research in psychology and criminology consistently demonstrates that perpetrating sexual assault is a behavioral choice driven by a desire to dominate, demean, or exert authority over another person. /p>

For many perpetrators, the primary gratification comes from the act of forcing compliance and overpowering a victim, rather than the sexual act itself. /p>

Highly attractive or socially successful individuals may possess a distorted sense of privilege, believing they are inherently owed attention, compliance, or sexual gratification.

The problem is that Swalwell is starting to look like a serial loser, along with his bros Kevin Morris and Hunter Biden. They should really start a 12-step program for losers.

Don't Tell This Guy About Cell Phone Tracking!

A Florida man found a legal loophole to block a Flock surveillance camera using a 12-foot-tall protest sign.

77-year-old Carl Gunn legally blocks a Flock license plate camera in St. Petersburg, Florida, by sitting on a public sidewalk and holding a 12-foot pool skimmer pole with… pic.twitter.com/x3iMcU37RZ

— Historic Vids (@historyinmemes) August 19, 2026

If this guy ever finds out about cell phone tracking, he'll need to cover his umbrella with tinfoil. I'm amazed at the level of paranoia about automated license plate readers, especially Flock cameras, since all they do is trace the location of automobiles. Your cell phone can trace where you are, in a car or not, and GPS is only one way it does this. Nevertheless,

A Wisconsin woman was pulled over at gunpoint twice in one week after Milwaukee Police Department staff failed to remove a vehicle alert from the Flock license plate camera system. TWICE it happened.

Years ago, in the NCIC(National Crime Information Center) files there was a BIG problem that cost the city of Los Angeles millions because- again, short version- they found out that the Police Department, after finding out the description they'd used in the original stolen car/wanted person entry, was not valid, they re-entered the stuff WITH THE SAME INFORMATION. Which led to the poor bastard being pulled out of his car at gunpoint several times. When he filed a case, the judge read that, said "You have no excuse after the first mistake" and awarded the guy a big settlement.Now we have effing Flock cameras being used as if they're part of the LE network, and getting people pulled out of their cars at gunpoint. And, similar to the NCIC problem, if people don't make damn sure information is cleared out when it should be, sooner or later some poor bastard pays the price.

Yes, mistakes get made, and as the case above shows, they were made before Flock cameras, but why is everyone in such a snit? This may come a little closer:

Back in 2013 and 2014 we shared the story of a man returning to Florida was stopped by police in Maryland who asked him for his firearm. When the Floridian asked the Maryland police how they knew he owned a firearm, things got sketchy. {Go Deep} The event kicked off a constitutional discussion.

A few years later in 2015 the Wall Street Journal reported on a national federal database that was using Automatic License Plate Readers (APLRs) to capture and store the travel of millions of Americans {SOURCE}.

Now we fast-forward a decade and that federal database is now being exploited by local police around the nation to keep track of ordinary persons of interest to their community who travel outside their jurisdiction. This is where the Flock Cameras come into the discussion.

The same government interests who dismiss our concerns about privacy are the same govt interests who point out how horrible China and Iran are for monitoring their citizens on CCTV systems.

And now, vigilantes are taking matters into their own hands:

🚨#BREAKING: An Arizona man says he has, "absolutely zero regrets" after he was arrested for using his work truck to bend a Flock camera pole backwards until it faced the sky.

"I kept backing up, saw it bend back, I saw it looking at the sky... and said,

‘That’s good enough." pic.twitter.com/Edtc3LdnVi

— Matt Van Swol (@mattvanswol) August 13, 2026

Did somone say vigilante?

he first time that “NoMark” tried to knock out a Flock camera feed, he waited an hour for the perfect moment – pacing in and out of bushes that towered over him, a few feet behind a pole holding up the device.

. . . These black cameras, which are hooked up to a rectangular solar panel and typically mounted on a pole, snap photos of passing vehicles and run the pictures against large databases. They have sparked nationwide backlash from pro-privacy critics, who point to public records suggesting that these devices can help law enforcement keep tabs on specific license plates and the people driving these cars. That they can sweep in so many people’s location from an innocent act in a public space – regardless of whether the target is a suspect in a crime, and without a warrant – has led to fears of mass surveillance.

And oh, my, the libertarians! Call the intellectual welterweights at Instapundit! They're in a lather because some Iowa sheriff deputies have been advised not to mention Flock cameras to drivers, but the only sane comment in the thread is:

Did you have an expectation of privacy in public spaces before this? If so, why?

So why aren't the same people smashing their cell phones, or at least warning everyone that their cell phones can track them even when they aren't in their cars?

Many assume that turning off location services on their cell phone will prevent their location from being tracked. However, this is only partially accurate, as there are several other ways that your cell phone can still track your location, even when location services are turned off.

Location tracking is a feature that is essential to the functionality of our cell phones. This feature allows us to use various apps and services, such as maps, ride-sharing apps, and weather services, which require location information to provide accurate and personalized results. The location data is recorded by the phone using GPS, Wi-Fi, and cellular data.

Cell phones use a combination of GPS data, Wi-Fi data, and cell tower data to track location.

When you turn off location services on your phone, you are disabling the ability of apps on your phone to access your precise location data. This means that apps that rely on GPS, Wi-Fi, and cellular data to provide location-specific services will not be able to access your location. However, the cellular system must know where you are, so while your apps may no longer be able to access your cellular data, it is still being recorded.

. . . CDRs are a type of telecommunications data that provides detailed information about calls made and received on a mobile phone. These records contain a wealth of information, including the time and date of the call, the duration of the call, the number dialed, and the location of the cell tower that was used to transmit the call. CDRs are primarily used for billing and customer service purposes, but they can also be used to track the location of a mobile phone. Over time, this creates a historical record of the phone's location, which can be used to track its movements and determine where it has been at different times.

CDRs are mainly used by law enforcement and private companies, like Envista Forensics, when conducting investigations to determine the historic location of a person's phone or if someone was potentially distracted while driving by texting or talking on the phone.

Another reason the cellular system continuously tracks you is that cell phone providers are required by law to track your phone's location for emergency services. This means that even if you've turned off location services on your device, your phone is still communicating with nearby cell towers, allowing your provider to pinpoint your location in the event of an emergency. While this information is not available to third-party apps or advertisers, it is still collected and stored by the service providers. This means that even if we are not being actively tracked in real-time, our historic location is still being recorded in CDRs.

So why isn't there a much greater public panic over cell phones?