For a Monday

Happening now:

Donald Trump Jr.'s wife was taken to a New York City hospital as a precaution Monday after she opened an envelope addressed to her husband that contained an unidentified white powder, police said.

A preliminary test indicated the substance wasn't dangerous, police said.

Vanessa Trump, 40, opened the letter addressed to the president's son Monday morning at their midtown Manhattan apartment, investigators said. She called 911 and said she was coughing and felt nauseous, police said.

The New York Fire Department said it treated three patients who were then taken to a hospital for what it considered minor injuries. The identities of the patients were not revealed.

Police said the envelope contained a letter but provided no other details.

Oh, for the love of pie! :

Colten Boushie's family members say they feel more hopeful following meetings with federal ministers Monday, after a not-guilty verdict in his shooting death sent shock waves throughout Canada.

"This is only the beginning of the conversation and calls to action," said Boushie's cousin, Jade Tootoosis.

"We have little to no faith in the justice system and we're here to talk about that."

I have no faith in people who cannot accept that the most impartial methods we have at our disposal of determining guilt or innocence and assigning verdicts on what they see and hear become irrelevant the second one is displeased with the outcome.

Typical selfish whining oafs with an undeserved sense of entitlement!

Perhaps Miss Tootoosis could answer two things: why was her cousin on Mr. Stanley's farm and what would she say if an all aboriginal jury found Mr. Stanley innocent?

Facts:

Colten Boushie, along with four companions, had been drinking and got a flat tire. They drove onto a farm where they attempted to steal a vehicle they found on the property by smashing the window with a .22 rifle they had with them. They then drove to the Stanley farm where one of the number attempted to steal a quad that then drove into the SUV. It was then that - in Mr. Stanley's words - the gun he used to frighten off the would-be thieves "went off".

What verdict could the jury come up with?

Also:

Debbie Baptiste, the mother of Boushie, was angry and defiant at a rally on Saturday in North Battleford. After the verdict was read into the record on Friday, Baptiste screamed as family members restrained her.

“White people — they run the court system. Enough. We’re going to fight back,” Baptiste told a crowd of roughly 100 people at the Saturday rally. “They’re not sweeping us under the carpet. Enough killing our people. We fight back.”

Yes, about that:

A Saskatchewan man whose two young daughters froze to death when he took them into a snowstorm while he was drunk has been sentenced to three years in prison.

Christopher Pauchay pleaded guilty to one count of criminal negligence causing the deaths of Kaydance, 3, and Santana, 15 months, on the Yellow Quill First Nation, about 230 kilometres east of Saskatoon in January 2008.

Pauchay, 25, was drunk when he took his two girls outside in blizzard-like conditions. The girls, who weren't dressed for cold weather, were later found dead of hypothermia.

**

June 11, 2005. Phoenix dies after a final violent beating on the basement’s concrete floor. McKay and Kematch bury her near the reserve’s landfill. They continue to pretend she is alive and collect welfare benefits with her listed as a dependent.

**

The RCMP said Friday that female victims, regardless of their ethnicity, continue to be targeted most often by men within their own homes and communities.

**

Perpetrators of violence against Aboriginal people are most often other members of the Aboriginal community such as spouses, relatives, or friends of the victim, and as such, victimization among Aboriginal people in Canada is often regarded as a mirror image of Aboriginal offending.  

So there's that.



And - one would think that he would shut his fool mouth after that "people-kind" crap.

Nope:

“Saying anything that amounts to commenting on the correctness of the verdict, to improve your public image or ensure an appropriate approval rating, should be criticized in Canada,” said Michael Lacy, a partner in the criminal law group Brauti Thorning Zibarras LLP in Toronto.

On Saturday, federal Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould said in a tweet that Canada “can and must do better,” after a jury found Gerald Stanley not guilty of second-degree murder in the shooting death of Colten Boushie.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also weighed in at a news conference in California, saying Canada has “come to this point as a country far too many times.”

Edmonton-based criminal lawyer Tom Engel said when politicians, especially the justice minister, appear to criticize verdicts, the public may believe that future decisions by the courts are influenced by the remarks.

Or verdict by fiat.

**

Justin Trudeau says much needs to be done to fix the way First Nations people are treated within Canada's criminal justice system.

But the prime minister says it would be "completely inappropriate" to comment on the specifics of last week's acquittal of a Saskatchewan farmer in the killing of 22-year-old Colten Boushie.

That Justin opened his mouth in the first place is bad enough.

Why not just get rid of juries, Justin? Your judicial activist friends won't let you down!

**

The federal Conservatives are accusing Justin Trudeau of “political interference,” after the prime minister responded to the acquittal of a white farmer in the death of a young Indigenous man by saying the criminal justice system has to “do better.”

Oh, really? :

Federal Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer called Boushie's death "tragic," but said the independent judicial process must run its course without political intervention.

"It's appropriate to show concern and support... for the family of the victim, but I think it is important that we remember that politicians don't decide these types of things," Scheer told reporters in Halifax.

That's right, Andy. They don't.

Did anyone show "concern and support" the now-ruined Stanley family? Is that inappropriate as well?







Moving on ...




This is what everyone should be doing:

In the wake of Justin Trudeau’s widely-condemned town hall comments – where he said Canadian Veterans are asking for more than the government can give – two Canadian Vets are camping out on the streets of Ottawa to demand better treatment for Veterans.

According to a recent report, “Trevor Sanderson and Dick Groot arrived in Ottawa Friday after driving from Winnipeg. Since then, they’ve spent their days and nights in the tents they’ve erected at the corner of Wellington and Lyon streets, near the East and West Memorial Buildings.”

They say they will be camping outside until a planned rally on Thursday, where people will gather on Parliament Hill to call for better services for Canadian Veterans.

Justin will try to be away on those days. He doesn't like confrontation.





Finally:

Under relentless pressure from the Conservatives who were looking out for Canada’s national interests, the Trudeau government will subject China’s attempted takeover of Canadian construction giant Aecon to a national security review.

As reported by BNN, “Aecon Group. Inc. has extended the timeline of its proposed takeover by a Chinese buyer, saying Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet is reviewing the deal on national security grounds.”

The Chinese firm seeking to buy Aecon (CCCC), is majority-controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, which has raised serious concerns.

Also:

U.S. President Donald Trump delivered a vague jab at Canadian trade practices on Monday.

“We lose a lot of money with Canada. Canada does not treat us right in terms of the farming and the crossing the borders,” he said at a White House event on his new infrastructure proposal. 

“So they’ll either treat us right or we’ll just have to do business a little bit diff… really differently,” he said. “We cannot continue to be taken advantage of by other countries.”

That's not a vague jab; that's a veiled threat.



And:

International Trade Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne told the Senate trade committee last week that Canada won its greatest market access ever into the Japanese market when it signed on last month to the new 11-country version of the Pacific Rim pact that was salvaged after the Trump administration pulled the U.S. out last year.

Champagne said the agreement between Canada and Japan is contained in a side-letter, not in the text of the agreement, which he told senators is nonetheless “enforceable.”

That’s not possible, say representatives from the auto workers union and two trade associations representing Canadian automobile manufacturers.

They said side agreements are not enforceable unless they are part of an actual trade agreement.

That's what some call "smoke and mirrors".





Good:

David Manley says he agrees women have the right to have an abortion under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms — but thinks he shouldn't have to in order to access federal funding.

The Saskatchewan bakery owner has written to federal Labour Minister Patty Hajdu to oppose a clause in the Canada Summer Jobs program funding application that requires groups say they respect reproductive rights.

The form asks applicants to attest that their "core mandate" respects charter rights.

The program will not consider applications unless the box is filled out.

Although it does not specifically ask the applicant to mark that they personally agree with reproductive rights, Manley said the form's specific reference to certain types of rights makes it "feel" like it asking him to do so.  

"Just ask me to respect the Charter of Rights and Freedoms; that's not a problem," said Manley.

(Sidebar: it's toilet paper. Treat it as such.)

"But then when they specifically identify other things — 'these include' — it feels like they are asking me to endorse, and that's the way that that thing's written."

Oh, my:

It is a “complete betrayal of both the people Oxfam were there to help and also the people that sent them there to do that job,” Britain’s international development secretary, Penny Mordaunt, told BBC News, which noted that the nonprofit received $44 million in government funds last year.

Mordaunt spoke Sunday — three days after a Times of London investigation accused Oxfam’s then-director in Haiti, along with other workers, of running an illegal makeshift brothel after a 2010 quake devastated the country.

Oxfam has admitted to at least some of the wrongdoings alleged in the report, and the organization has promised an internal review and overhaul. “We are ashamed of what happened,” the nonprofit’s chair wrote in a statement Sunday. “We apologize unreservedly.”

Oh, popular press. Has Walter Duranty taught you nothing?

North Korea has emerged as the early favorite to grab one of the Winter Olympics‘ most important medals: the diplomatic gold.

That is the assessment of a former South Korean government minister and political experts who say the North has used the Games to drive a wedge between South Korea and its U.S. ally and to potentially ease pressure on its sanctions-crippled state.

It is a troubling assessment at that. The unabashed gushing over Kim Yo-Jong and petty digs at Vice-President Mike Pence have become the staple of news agencies that still regard themselves as respectable. The love-fest continues with noted pro-North Korea Moon promising to visit Pyongyang at Kim Yo-Jong's request.

But did everyone forget this? :

North Korea’s political prisons are just as bad as — and perhaps even worse than — the Nazi concentration camps of the Holocaust, a renowned judge and Auschwitz survivor has concluded after hearing from former North Korean prisoners and guards.

Thomas Buergenthal, who served on the International Court of Justice, is one of three jurists who have concluded that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un should be tried for crimes against humanity for the way his regime uses brutal political prisons to control the population.

“I believe that the conditions in the [North] Korean prison camps are as terrible, or even worse, than those I saw and experienced in my youth in these Nazi camps and in my long professional career in the human rights field,” said Buergenthal, who was in Auschwitz and Sachsenhausen as a child, as well as the ghetto of Kielce, Poland.

I suppose everyone was too preoccupied with Kim Yo-Jong's stunning features to remember.