In the midst of the vindictive, mean, immoral, unconstitutional, illegal under both national and international law, threatening, and insane beginning of the Trump administration, millions of Americans have mobilized to oppose Trump and his actions and, we hope, to limit the damage to people in the United States and everywhere in the world; we appreciate the support from all our friends and allies and I personally want to thank my Canadian friends who have reached to me in solidarity.
One of the outrageous lines of comment that Donald Trump has hammered recently is that the United States should take over various places, including Greenland, Canada, and the Panama Canal. He seems to think he can do this by buying them or attacking them economically, diplomatically, or militarily.
This is totally unacceptable and violates both national and international law and treaties.
Greenland is a self-governing territory of Denmark, one of our NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) allies. Both the leadership of Denmark and the mostly indigenous government and population of Greenland have made it clear that Greenland is not for sale.
Like Denmark, Canada is an original 1949 member of NATO. They are consistently one of our top five trading partners. They are a nation with a long, storied history and diverse cultural influences and heritage. Canadians do not want to be part of the United States. They value their own democracy with its own laws, freedoms, and ways of doing things.
While the Panama Canal Zone was a US territory under a 99-year lease, it was returned to Panamanian sovereignty in 1999, in accord with the Torrijos-Carter Treaties, negotiated by the administration of President Carter, whose state funeral was on Thursday, which was ratified by the Senate in 1978. Panama has made it clear that they will remain in control of their sovereign territory.
So, no, Trump cannot add to the United States in violation of law and treaty. Any members of the military, Congress, or executive branch who are asked to assist in these efforts must reject those requests or orders because they violate their oaths.
If Donald Trump wants to expand the number of states, he should concentrate on granting statehood to the District of Columbia and to Puerto Rico, if their citizenry votes to change their status. He should also work toward granting House voting status for the remaining US territories and our indigenous nations. As Delegate Stacey Plaskett of the US Virgin Islands pointed out during the selection of the Speaker of the House earlier this month, 4 million Americans had no vote for Speaker because they have no votes in Congress.
I call on Donald Trump and the Republican majorities in Congress to prioritize full recognition of those living in current territories and our nation’s capital, not trying to take away the sovereignty of citizens of other nations. ***** Join us for Linda’s Just Jot It January! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2025/01/12/daily-prompt-jusjojan-the-12th-2025/
B took this photo in front of our house yesterday morning (June 7, 2023) as the early morning sun tried to break through the wildfire smoke coming down from Quebec, several hundred miles away.
Things got worse as the day went on.
The air at ground level smelled like a campfire and an orange-tinged haze reduced visibility so that you couldn’t see the hills or tell where the horizon was. You could see smoke in the air just looking across the street. You needed indoor lighting even with the drapes pulled back on the windows.
We were keeping a watch on the air quality index numbers from airnow.gov. By mid-afternoon, they reached 460, well into the hazardous category. At that level, people should stay indoors with filtered air. If people have to be outdoors briefly, they should wear masks that are good at filtering out particulates, such as N95 or Kf94. Fortunately, many people still have some on hand from our pandemic experience.
B came home from work early because the smoky air began penetrating the stairwells in his building. It became quite windy. I was hoping that there were some rain clouds up above the smoke but no precipitation fell.
We aren’t alone in this phenomenon. Much of the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions of the US are having significant smoke impacts, sometimes even worse than areas in Canada that are much closer to the fires, due to a stationary low pressure system that is circulating in such a way that it draws smoke in our direction. It’s been a dry spring, so there are hundreds of wildfires in Canada right now, with over two hundreds that are considered out of control.
That’s a lot of smoke.
We need rain to help quell the flames and to prevent even more fires from erupting. Also, the plants and animals need more water. We are getting to what should be peak strawberry season here but the crop is expected to be low due to lack of rain, although a late freeze in May didn’t help matters.
As frequent readers may recall, I’ve been active around environmental issues for a number of years, particularly around climate change. I know that the extra carbon people have put into the air through fossil fuel extraction and use, deforestation, unwise agricultural practices, etc. has increased the risk of all kinds of extreme weather events. It makes the likelihood of heat waves, droughts, and wildfires higher and the changes in the air, land, and ocean temperatures make severe storms and stalled weather systems more likely.
We can see it with our own eyes.
I’m frustrated that corporations, politicians, and world governments did not make this a priority years ago. We might have averted some of the impacts we are experiencing now and reduced our future risk. I’m grateful that some action is coming on line now, but we need to make changes more quickly and more universally to reduce the severity of hurricanes/typhoons, wildfires, droughts, floods, sea level rise, biodiversity loss, heat waves, coral bleaching, etc.
In my little corner of the word along the New York/Pennsylvania border, we have a bit of improvement today. For the last few hours, our air quality is rated as “unhealthy for sensitive groups” rather than hazardous for everyone, although I know that, in the New York City area, airports have had to suspend service due to lack of visibility from the smoke. Washington, DC is having a purple alert for air quality, which is one level higher than red alert. The upper level winds have shifted enough that we aren’t in the worst sector today, but others are suffering higher levels than yesterday.
My fear is that a report that I heard today will come true – that this pattern will repeat itself throughout the summer.
It’s hard to predict.
A moment ago, I saw a bit of sunlight break through. I looked out the window and can see the sky with some clouds.
I haven’t seen the sky for a couple of days because of the smoke.
The clouds don’t look like rain is imminent, but I will try to have hope.
I have lived in the Northeast United States for my whole life and soon my thoughts will turn to sap.
Maple trees are plentiful here and are often used for maple syrup production. The sap flows in the spring and is tapped, usually now with lines rather than with spigots and covered buckets as it was done traditionally.
At least, it used to be done in spring when I was a child. What you need for a good flow of sap is days above freezing and nights below freezing. This used to be early spring weather, but now, with climate change and increased volatility of weather, those conditions sometimes happen as early as February.
February is not spring.
Some years, the sap starts to flow in February, but then it gets colder again and stops. If we are lucky, it stops before the trees actually start to bud as the cold weather can then damage the buds and affect the tree for the year.
When I was a child, we used to go to a local sugarhouse during sugaring off and watch as they evaporated the water out of the sap to leave maple syrup. I always liked the lighter, more delicate syrup. The sugarhouse had an attached dining room where you could order great pancakes and waffles, which were served with fresh syrup. Then, my sisters and I would order sugar-on-snow for dessert. They would bring us cake tins full of snow and a pitcher of warm maple syrup. We would drizzle it over the snow and it would instantly congeal into a candy which you could pick up with a fork. You could sometimes even twirl it around the fork like spaghetti. It was delicious, but super sweet, so they would serve it with homemade dill pickles, which were also really good.
It has been many years since I had sugar on snow, but I always keep a supply of real maple syrup at home. I refuse to eat “pancake syrup” which is usually just corn syrup with some maple flavoring thrown in.
In my area now, I usually buy maple syrup from a farmers’ market rather than directly from a sugar house. When I go back to Massachusetts or Vermont, I will sometimes buy syrup there to bring home. Right now, I have a gallon that was made in B’s hometown and about twelve miles from my hometown.
It’s all good.
I do worry, though, about the future of our sugar maples. They are stressed by climate change and the range of the trees is moving north. In the coming decades, we may need to import our maple syrup from Canada. I’m sure it would be as delicious, but probably in short supply, which would be very sad.
Apologies to the people of Canada, especially Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. I am very sorry about the way President Trump and some members of his administration have treated you and spoken disrespectfully about you.
I have always lived in the Northeast United States and think of Canada as a close neighbor who shares our values. I have Canadian friends. My spouse B has a French-Canadian surname and relatives in Canada.
It makes no sense for the Trump administration to violate current, ratified trade treaties with additional tariffs and I am disappointed that Congress has not stepped in to stop it. Many Americans have been speaking out and preparing for the Congressional election in hopes of electing representatives who will uphold our values and laws on both the national and international level.
While I am apologizing, I would also like to express regret about how the President is treating our allies in the G7, the European Union, and NATO. I also am appalled with how DT insults developing countries in both hemispheres. And how his announced withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement in November, 2020 has negatively impacted the world community. Many cities, states, companies, and individuals are continuing to work to keep our climate commitments despite the current administration.
I know I am just one voice and alone have little impact, but there are many others speaking out and together we will eventually reassert our best American values.
Sending out best wishes to Linda, who brings all of us together for One-Liner Wednesday, Stream of Consciousness Saturday, and Just Jot It January and delights and entertains us with her other blog posts, fiction, and books! She had a bit of a health scare earlier in the week but was able to get to prompt care, thanks to the Canadian health care system.
She is doing better, although dealing with some of the aftermath and waiting for test results to determine if further treatment is required. Let’s all send out good thoughts, prayers, and/or positive energy to Linda, who is intrepidly continuing with Just Jot It January in the midst of it all!
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Join us for Linda’s Just Jot It January! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2018/01/19/jusjojan-daily-prompt-january-19th-2018/
My regular readers know that I only occasionally look at my stats, but WordPress has helpfully compiled an annual report for me to share with all of you. https://topofjcsmind.wordpress.com/2015/annual-report/
All of you stats fans can read it! I would like to point out that, while it looks like I do not follow the blog of Ellen, one of my top commenters, I actually do. It isn’t a WordPress blog, though, so it isn’t showing up as followed on the list. I wouldn’t want anyone to think I was dissing Ellen’s lovely blog!
I was chuckling over the map. While it says that Canada and the UK are not far behind the US in blog visits, they really are far behind. US has 5,676, while Canada has 512 and the UK has 218. Interestingly, India has 218 also but didn’t show up in the caption.
Thank you all for your visits and comments in 2015! I hope I will write interesting posts to keep you coming back in 2016.
I would say that Donald Trump has gone too far this time, were it not for the fact that he has gone too far so many times before.
Yesterday, he proposed that no Muslims be allowed to enter the United States, even if they are US citizens, or tourists, or diplomats, or refugees, or young children, or US military personnel.
Apparently, Representative Keith Ellison of Minnesota, who became the first Muslim in Congress in 2007. wouldn’t be allowed to drive back into the US if he traveled across his state’s border into Canada. Would Trump try to have him removed from his seat?
The United Nations would have to re-locate, as many of its Ambassadors are Muslim.
Muslim members of our military deployed overseas would not be allowed to then post back to the US or to come home on leave.
He has also said that all Muslims in the US would need to register as Muslims and that mosques would be surveilled.
It is ridiculous and against our values as a country.
This flies in the face of our Constitution, which promises free exercise of religion.
It harks back to some of the shameful actions of the United States during World War II, when Japanese-Americans on the West Coast were interred in camps based only on their ethnicity, along with some Italian- and German-Americans in the East.
The only positive aspect of this is that leaders across the political spectrum are publicly condemning Trump for this viewpoint.
It is hard to say whether or not Trump’s supporters will leave his camp over this. Many of them are scared and believe that Trump would protect them by this action.
I can only say that Trump’s supporters are a very small proportion of the population. With so many candidates in the Republican primary, having 30% support looks like a large percentage, but because Republicans are only a fraction of all US citizens, it only equals about 8% of the voters in the United States, some of whom may not support all of Trump’s platform.
Jay Dee Archer of “I Read Encyclopedias for Fun” is hosting a meet and greet to celebrate reaching the 1,000 followers milestone! Jay Dee is an author, teacher, spouse, and dad, currently living in Japan but planning a return to Canada next year. He blogs about writing, life in Japan, being a dad, geography, astronomy, and much more. Go check out his blog, introduce yourself on his meet and greet thread, and have fun!
I love milestones, and this is a big one. This blog has finally achieved 1,000 followers! So, I thought, what could I do for this occasion? Well, some other people have done something similar, one for a 500 follower milestone, and another who just does it to bring bloggers together.
Let’s have a good old meet and greet! It’s very simple, just leave a comment with a link to your blog (the main blog or a single post, it’s up to you) and say something brief about your blog or yourself if you like. If you have a book, tell us about it, too. I’d also like to ask you to do one other thing: share this post as much as you like and anywhere you like. Tell other bloggers you know about this post so they can also find some great blogs to follow.
Joanne Corey 