Yesterday, right as negotiations with our closest ally were collapsing, Donald Trump appeared to have no cares in the world as he posed for glamour shots for his new presidential headshots. In a compilation video posted by “TeamTrump” on social media, the President of the United States wrapped himself around an American flag, pressed a finger against his temple, stared intensely down at a table, and leaned forward with both fists clenched as if he was forcing a bowel movement while a photographer captured him in these different poses and from different angles. Across the video were the words, “Nobody has more aura than President Trump.” The caption underneath asked, “How does he do it?🤣📸”
Heather, you are great! Your relentless, considered commentary together with your source links are outstanding. Thank you for your work, and your commitment to your country.
I agree with you wholeheartedly, except for our becoming the true America AGAIN. I'm reminded that America has always broken its word... with the indigenous treaties, with its promise not to expand NATO, and a thousand other broken words.
What we can thank Trump for is his embodiment of every single thing that has been rotting in the underbelly of American society from the beginning... in spite of the ideals many of us hold.
I hope with all my heart that we won't bury it again, but rather that we excise it for all time so that the ideals set forth in the beginning finally take deep root and bear fruit.
As always we miss Mark Carney in UK because he was a born statesman, but he has returned to his native country and with pride and dignity is keeping Trump in his place and at bay.
I have also just watched Rosie O’Donnell on her last night on the Jimmy Kimmel show and she summed up what Donald Trump truly is in her rewrite of “Oh Donnie Boy” really worth a watch.
USA is in such a bad place because Trump really thinks he is a king, his idiot underlings don’t rate him but they don’t deny him because they are all lining their pockets. Well I hope their comeuppance is around the corner and there are enough secure jail spaces for them all.
I entirely agree with you Charlotte. I'm a Brit too and Carney's speech was a stunning example of his articulateness, unlike Trump's childish vocabulary.
Same here—a Brit who lived in the U.S. for 57 years, married to an American of Mexican descent who died six years ago, and still have much-loved in-laws there.
Tho I live in London & am British, I've lived in the US in the 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s & 2012-2018. I will not be visiting now til this nightmare is over. I love your writing Heather hence subscribing. I could see what was coming by how Zelensky was treated by Trump & Vance back then. It's still one of the most shocking spectacles I've ever witnessed & we knew then Trump could just renege on any & everything ever agreed, twisting history to fit his narrative. It's beyond shocking. Well done keeping this up.
I'm an American living in the UK for the past 15 years and even *I* won't go back there until that orange polyp is out of office. I miss my kids; I have grandchildren I've never even met because of trump. I refuse to even renew my American passport because I will not willingly give my own government any information about me until he's gone. If I decided to actually go for British citizenship so I could use a British passport to go back for a visit, I'm sure I'd be met by ICE and thrown into a detention center as soon as I stepped off the plane.
Like Heather, I love my country. I love what it stood for. But these days, when people ask me if I'm Canadian, I say "yes" (where I come from, our accents are quite similar).
I fully understand and support your position. I would not visit this country either if I did not live here. Thankfully people abroad understand that we are not all of the ilk that chose this miscreant. I hope, come November, we can turn the tide...call me Pandora!
Carney's speech was a master class in political analysis on what every country in the world is thinking about our country today. It should be viewed in its entirety by anyone who believes that we need to turn the ship of state around. Thanks for posting a link to it Heather!
From Vancouver Island, BC. Do not feel embarrassed or ashamed, Heather. We are appalled and as good neighbours feel your pain because it feels like our pain too. I have very dear friends in the US who I cannot visit because I am afraid to cross the border. I read you every day and I value your insights and, most of all, your courage. This is like some horrid nightmare that we all must want to wake up from. I send appreciation, solidarity and a big hug. Come visit Nanaimo soon!
In October 2025, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney delivered a speech to address the Canadians he said, — “The US has fundamentally changed its approach to trade, raising its tariffs to levels last seen during the Great Depression. We have to take care of ourselves because we can’t rely on one foreign partner.”
On January 20, 2026 in Davos Switzerland at the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting this is but a sentence that was in the speech delivered by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said, — “Today I will talk about a rupture in the world order, the end of a pleasant fiction and the beginning of a harsh reality, where geopolitics, where the large, main power, geopolitics, is submitted to no limits, no constraints. Over the past two decades, a series of crises in finance, health, energy and geopolitics have laid bare the risks of extreme global integration. But more recently, great powers have begun using economic integration as weapons, tariffs as leverage, financial infrastructure as coercion, supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited. We must act together, because if we're not at the table, we're on the menu. Stop invoking rules-based international order as though it still functions as advertised. Call it what it is – a system of intensifying great power rivalry, where the most powerful pursue their interests, using economic integration as coercion. It means building what we claim to believe in, rather than waiting for the old order to be restored. It means creating institutions and agreements that function as described. And it means reducing the leverage that enables coercion – that's building a strong domestic economy. It should be every government's immediate priority. And diversification internationally is not just economic prudence, it's a material foundation for honest foreign policy, because countries earn the right to principled stands by reducing their vulnerability to retaliation.”
August 22, 2026 Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney delivered his address on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario. — “We’ve recognized from the start that America has changed, We recognize that sometimes, its signature is written in pencil.”
“We cannot accept what they offered and we will not give what they asked. We were not prepared to compromise Canada’s sovereignty or undermine our key industries.”
En tant que Canadien et Américain, je suis très fier de votre Premier ministre Mark Carney. Courage ! J'espère qu'un jour vous nous pardonnerez. Nombreux sont ceux qui détestent Trump et espèrent le voir partir bientôt.
[Canada as an American so very proud of your Prime Minister Mark Carney. Keep your "elbows up". Someday hope you will forgive us. Many of us hate Trump and hope to see him gone soon.]
Canada has tried a number of times to continue to work with this regime without sacrificing their citizens. Carney knew from the start you don’t negotiate with a bully..
There are 71 days, until midterms. It will be rougher seas ahead. They know they are loosing. Make it Count — Vote
From Europe, I read all your articles and this one summed up so clearly the state of affairs in the USA, especially in relation to its allies.
I keep compulsively reading about what’s going on in the USA, mostly because I’m still baffled that one person, the current felon-potus, seems to have (been given?) so much unchallenged power in a (formerly?) democratic country; a country that we in the rest of the world saw as a friend and looked up to.
All destroyed in less than 18 months only by an uneducated, incompetent, ignorant, corrupt person, who is sadly also devoid of integrity or even empathy, supported by a bunch of cronies and cult followers.
Heather I'm in awe of your extremely comprehensive reporting of the economic fallout between the US and Canada. Well done Mark Carney for expressing your position regarding the tariffs. Carney is a former Governor of the Bank of England and is twice as smart as the orange Hitler. Bearing in mind what Trump's professor at Wharton College(?) saying that Trump was the dumbest student he'd ever taught, does he actually understand economics?
You have phrased your words & sentences better than so many others. I don’t understand how such honest emotions can become so valuable, honest & comforting. Keep up the great work. You score each time you put your thoughts & opinions down on paper or verbally express yourself. Think you might have a future! 😉 A fan, Teresa
Heather, I wanted to thank you for your wonderful writing. I look forward to reading it every night. I also was cheering for Canada when they walked away from the negotiations. Maybe if more people stood up to Trump we should actually get back on track to some degree. It's going to take years and years for the US to gain back even a fraction of what Trump has destroyed. I won't be around to see it but that doesn't mean I can't fight right now.
Written from the heart. Great introspection and direction.
Two things:
Trump has said States should do more, so call his bluff: Do more welfare, infrastructure and taxing the wealthy on the principles of fair share.
Secondly, coordinate opposition to Citizens United and the Heritage Foundation and work to undo that damage.
As you have identified, there is a horror in Republican Trump, his sycophants and his puppet masters, whether that be the Republican Oligarchs or Putin.
Heather, you are great! Your relentless, considered commentary together with your source links are outstanding. Thank you for your work, and your commitment to your country.
Well, trump IS a pathological liar and CAN’T be trusted, we know that, so- good on you, Canada. 💕
I take offense to everything he does, but especially with the flag!! He did it in his 1st term.
I agree with you wholeheartedly, except for our becoming the true America AGAIN. I'm reminded that America has always broken its word... with the indigenous treaties, with its promise not to expand NATO, and a thousand other broken words.
What we can thank Trump for is his embodiment of every single thing that has been rotting in the underbelly of American society from the beginning... in spite of the ideals many of us hold.
I hope with all my heart that we won't bury it again, but rather that we excise it for all time so that the ideals set forth in the beginning finally take deep root and bear fruit.
Thanks for your incredible dedication and labor.
Comment of great clarity and knowledge of our shared history. Appreciate your honesty!
Thank you, Joni. 🤗
Yes, I was thinking the same.
🩵
Thank you Heather
As always we miss Mark Carney in UK because he was a born statesman, but he has returned to his native country and with pride and dignity is keeping Trump in his place and at bay.
I have also just watched Rosie O’Donnell on her last night on the Jimmy Kimmel show and she summed up what Donald Trump truly is in her rewrite of “Oh Donnie Boy” really worth a watch.
USA is in such a bad place because Trump really thinks he is a king, his idiot underlings don’t rate him but they don’t deny him because they are all lining their pockets. Well I hope their comeuppance is around the corner and there are enough secure jail spaces for them all.
I entirely agree with you Charlotte. I'm a Brit too and Carney's speech was a stunning example of his articulateness, unlike Trump's childish vocabulary.
Same here—a Brit who lived in the U.S. for 57 years, married to an American of Mexican descent who died six years ago, and still have much-loved in-laws there.
“We recognize that sometimes its [the United States'] signature was written in pencil.”
--Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney
Trump and his cabal have destroyed the honor and reputation of the United States worldwide. The US will never fully recover that standing.
Devastating
Sadly, I believe you are correct in your assessment.
Tho I live in London & am British, I've lived in the US in the 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s & 2012-2018. I will not be visiting now til this nightmare is over. I love your writing Heather hence subscribing. I could see what was coming by how Zelensky was treated by Trump & Vance back then. It's still one of the most shocking spectacles I've ever witnessed & we knew then Trump could just renege on any & everything ever agreed, twisting history to fit his narrative. It's beyond shocking. Well done keeping this up.
I'm an American living in the UK for the past 15 years and even *I* won't go back there until that orange polyp is out of office. I miss my kids; I have grandchildren I've never even met because of trump. I refuse to even renew my American passport because I will not willingly give my own government any information about me until he's gone. If I decided to actually go for British citizenship so I could use a British passport to go back for a visit, I'm sure I'd be met by ICE and thrown into a detention center as soon as I stepped off the plane.
Like Heather, I love my country. I love what it stood for. But these days, when people ask me if I'm Canadian, I say "yes" (where I come from, our accents are quite similar).
*Orange polyp* is the perfect clinical definition of Donald J. Trump.
He is a cancer within America’s body politic.
It requires a skillful surgeon and OR team, tough medicine, courage, and endurance to restore health and vitality after a malignancy is destroyed.
America’s body politic is prepping for surgery in November 2026.
I hope with all my being the "surgery" is successful and removes the cancer and rot.
Love your description..."orange polyp"! So fitting!
I fully understand and support your position. I would not visit this country either if I did not live here. Thankfully people abroad understand that we are not all of the ilk that chose this miscreant. I hope, come November, we can turn the tide...call me Pandora!
Same here!🇬🇧
Carney's speech was a master class in political analysis on what every country in the world is thinking about our country today. It should be viewed in its entirety by anyone who believes that we need to turn the ship of state around. Thanks for posting a link to it Heather!
His speech brought tears of pride to my eyes and warmth to my heart! Never prouder to live in this True North Strong and Free!🇨🇦❤️
From Vancouver Island, BC. Do not feel embarrassed or ashamed, Heather. We are appalled and as good neighbours feel your pain because it feels like our pain too. I have very dear friends in the US who I cannot visit because I am afraid to cross the border. I read you every day and I value your insights and, most of all, your courage. This is like some horrid nightmare that we all must want to wake up from. I send appreciation, solidarity and a big hug. Come visit Nanaimo soon!
Thank you Heather…
In October 2025, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney delivered a speech to address the Canadians he said, — “The US has fundamentally changed its approach to trade, raising its tariffs to levels last seen during the Great Depression. We have to take care of ourselves because we can’t rely on one foreign partner.”
On January 20, 2026 in Davos Switzerland at the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting this is but a sentence that was in the speech delivered by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said, — “Today I will talk about a rupture in the world order, the end of a pleasant fiction and the beginning of a harsh reality, where geopolitics, where the large, main power, geopolitics, is submitted to no limits, no constraints. Over the past two decades, a series of crises in finance, health, energy and geopolitics have laid bare the risks of extreme global integration. But more recently, great powers have begun using economic integration as weapons, tariffs as leverage, financial infrastructure as coercion, supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited. We must act together, because if we're not at the table, we're on the menu. Stop invoking rules-based international order as though it still functions as advertised. Call it what it is – a system of intensifying great power rivalry, where the most powerful pursue their interests, using economic integration as coercion. It means building what we claim to believe in, rather than waiting for the old order to be restored. It means creating institutions and agreements that function as described. And it means reducing the leverage that enables coercion – that's building a strong domestic economy. It should be every government's immediate priority. And diversification internationally is not just economic prudence, it's a material foundation for honest foreign policy, because countries earn the right to principled stands by reducing their vulnerability to retaliation.”
August 22, 2026 Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney delivered his address on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario. — “We’ve recognized from the start that America has changed, We recognize that sometimes, its signature is written in pencil.”
“We cannot accept what they offered and we will not give what they asked. We were not prepared to compromise Canada’s sovereignty or undermine our key industries.”
En tant que Canadien et Américain, je suis très fier de votre Premier ministre Mark Carney. Courage ! J'espère qu'un jour vous nous pardonnerez. Nombreux sont ceux qui détestent Trump et espèrent le voir partir bientôt.
[Canada as an American so very proud of your Prime Minister Mark Carney. Keep your "elbows up". Someday hope you will forgive us. Many of us hate Trump and hope to see him gone soon.]
Canada has tried a number of times to continue to work with this regime without sacrificing their citizens. Carney knew from the start you don’t negotiate with a bully..
There are 71 days, until midterms. It will be rougher seas ahead. They know they are loosing. Make it Count — Vote
From Europe, I read all your articles and this one summed up so clearly the state of affairs in the USA, especially in relation to its allies.
I keep compulsively reading about what’s going on in the USA, mostly because I’m still baffled that one person, the current felon-potus, seems to have (been given?) so much unchallenged power in a (formerly?) democratic country; a country that we in the rest of the world saw as a friend and looked up to.
All destroyed in less than 18 months only by an uneducated, incompetent, ignorant, corrupt person, who is sadly also devoid of integrity or even empathy, supported by a bunch of cronies and cult followers.
So worrying and so sad …
Heather I'm in awe of your extremely comprehensive reporting of the economic fallout between the US and Canada. Well done Mark Carney for expressing your position regarding the tariffs. Carney is a former Governor of the Bank of England and is twice as smart as the orange Hitler. Bearing in mind what Trump's professor at Wharton College(?) saying that Trump was the dumbest student he'd ever taught, does he actually understand economics?
Janet, I agree entirely with your sentiment, but am afraid your math ("twice as smart") is off by an order of magnitude and then some. 🫡
No, he doesn't understand economics, starting with the actual definitions of "trade deficit" and "tariff."
Would you say 10 times smarter then?
Heather,
You have phrased your words & sentences better than so many others. I don’t understand how such honest emotions can become so valuable, honest & comforting. Keep up the great work. You score each time you put your thoughts & opinions down on paper or verbally express yourself. Think you might have a future! 😉 A fan, Teresa
What a crock of 💩 he looks decidedly uninspiring he looks like he’s almost comatose ready for his every 20 mins nap. A hunched over joyless old man
Yes—a man so full of hate and spite, he would be willing to bring the whole world down just to satisfy his ego.
Heather, I wanted to thank you for your wonderful writing. I look forward to reading it every night. I also was cheering for Canada when they walked away from the negotiations. Maybe if more people stood up to Trump we should actually get back on track to some degree. It's going to take years and years for the US to gain back even a fraction of what Trump has destroyed. I won't be around to see it but that doesn't mean I can't fight right now.
Yes, thank you, Heather! So well said.
Written from the heart. Great introspection and direction.
Two things:
Trump has said States should do more, so call his bluff: Do more welfare, infrastructure and taxing the wealthy on the principles of fair share.
Secondly, coordinate opposition to Citizens United and the Heritage Foundation and work to undo that damage.
As you have identified, there is a horror in Republican Trump, his sycophants and his puppet masters, whether that be the Republican Oligarchs or Putin.
I like these ideas for states.