Mid-Week Updates

Canada in China Trouble, Biden, US Elections, a Heart Transplant and a bit of Obama

A few years ago I got the chance to meet and chat with Canadian conservative member of parliament Michael Chong. An incredibly nice guy and the sort of right leaning politician that they don’t make anymore: decent, moderate, well-spoken and above all reasonable. He tried to become leader of Canada’s conservative party at one point, lost the vote for that, but has remained a valued and very active member of parliament. That has not gone unnoticed in Beijing where Chong’s criticism of his ancestral grounds (Chong can trace his roots back to Hong Kong) has not been taken kindly as was reported yesterday. In particular his stance on the Uyghur genocide was what prompted action from Chinese authorities.

So this is what happened. Media got hold of reports from Canada’s security services (CSIS) that a Chinese diplomat in Toronto, Wei Zhao, was actively seeking information on Chong’s relatives in Canada and abroad (most likely in Hong Kong) to impose sanctions on them. We know by now that Beijing has different operations across the globe to carry out this sort of dirty work, ranging from actual police stations to embassies and consulates that run the most egregious security operations. In plain language: they engage in intimidation and threats.

Chong was rightly not too happy about it as it created a direct security threat to his entire family and his tweet about it on Monday went viral. And rightly so. The Trudeau government not only failed to inform him, they also did not bother to expel Zhao which would be the standard and most direct approach to sanction diplomats engaging in such activity. It is once more evidence of how Canada’s current government is totally indifferent to these direct security threats and that is actually a quite generous explanation. Ignoring all these warning signs of interference in domestic politics might well be deliberate. Or deeply incompetent. Or both.

The Uncle Joe Show

So I have a bet outstanding over a really good bottle of wine with one of my friends who has maintained that Joe Biden would be gently pushed aside in favour of Kamala Harris during his first term. At least that’s what he thought when we made the bet back in 2020 and it seems I am on track of winning this thing with Biden announcing his candidacy for the 2024 presidential elections last week. No president Harris just yet, far from it.

In short, Uncle Joe is running by a sort of default. He is not doing well in the polls, he is indeed almost too old to effectively handle the most demanding job on the planet, but he is the one and only Democrat who can defeat Donald Trump. That is pretty much why he is running again with broad-based support from his party, even the Clintons and Bernie Sanders are going along with it. This has two important implications. First, if the Republicans nominate someone other than Trump - with Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley still viable options - there is a good chance Biden will lose. You have to wonder why the GOP is doubling down on a potentially losing and divisive 2024 strategy, but such are the Trumpian power dynamics right now. Secondly, with Kamala Harris again on the ticket there is of course a much higher likelihood that she will become president with aging Joe running out of steam, retiring either voluntarily or possibly die in office during his second term.

And no, there is no ready-to-go alternative among the Democrats. The likeable Marianne Williamson is running but at 9% is not a serious contender. Robert Kennedy Jr. however can stir up the party with his anti-vaccine, anti-corporate and pro-environmental stance and is polling close to 20% at the moment. Not enough to threaten and topple Biden, but enough to create some noise in the party and push a counter-establishment narrative.

An Unusual Heart Transplant

A few weeks ago I wrote about the murdered women in Israel, the Dee family, a mother and two daughters. A lot of readers responded to me directly, all of course shocked and struggling to find the words. Well, the mother that got killed donated her organs and a 51-year old mother of two is now the beneficiary of Lucy Dee’s heart. Yesterday the surviving Dee family members met with the recipient of their mother’s heart and you can see how that emotional moment unfolded here.

There is little that I will add here. But in every loss there is a journey to find meaning. It is hard to comprehend how the Dee family will do this, but to know that someone is alive and able to carry on with your mom’s heart taking care of that, is an emotion that must at some place create, despite the extreme loss and sorrow, a level of gratitude and perhaps even some happiness.

Obama does Amsterdam

Yes, the speaking gigs for ex-presidents are a global thing and yesterday Barack Obama was in Amsterdam. Even out of office, he is still getting a pretty decent motorcade to tour him around:

That’s it, see you later this week.