Yesterday was inauguration day in the US, and it was pretty much as horrible as you can imagine, with the pardoning of insurrectionists, and the executive order that made a full-on assault on the rights of trans people (which is always the first target of authoritarian regimes, followed by the rest of the queer communities). Oh, and Elon Musk threw a Nazi salute. So yeah, it was pretty much everything you thought it would be.

The world's richest man gave a Nazi salute at the inauguration of a felon as president (who is making billions grifting with a cryptocurrency). That's oligarchy, authoritarianism, criminality, and corruption all in one

— Thomas Juneau (@thomasjuneau) January 20, 2025

You'd think a party that casts itself as "law and order/tough on crime" and the bulwark against rising antisemitism in Canada would speak out about the blanket pardon of violent seditionists and the throwing of a Nazi salute. cc @PierrePoilievre @MichelleRempel

— Alheli Picazo (@a_picazo) January 21, 2025

What didn’t happen on day one was the tariffs on Canada and Mexico. Instead, word came out early in the morning that Trump wouldn’t sign them on day one, and he would instead order an investigation into trade imbalances, and so on. So that was a reprieve, or a stay of execution, right? Danielle Smith certainly thought so, and started taking credit for it. Her followers and media apologists quickly amplified that self-praise. And then, after a few hours, Trump said that yes, the tariffs would be coming as of February 1st. Oops.

That was day one, and we can only imagine what worse predations are to come. There will be a number of demands for retaliation, but the government is keeping their powder dry for the moment, as is probably best. This may yet come to nothing, because Trump believes he’s an ace negotiator and these are his usual tactics to extract some kind of “win” from us, because that’s who he is. It may yet come to naught, but it could still be a kneecapping of our economy. It’s still too early to say, but nobody should be doing victory laps right now—especially those who tried to obey in advance.

https://bsky.app/profile/jrobson.bsky.social/post/3lg7y2jnygs2t

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukraine’s state investigation bureau has detained two generals and a colonel accused of negligence in failing to adequately defend the Kharkiv region last year.

Communication between captured North Korean soldiers and SSU investigators continues.

Intelligence data on the movement of such troops to Russian territory, their training and complete information isolation have been confirmed by the prisoners.

All the facts about North… pic.twitter.com/E2wiFlPBiw

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) January 20, 2025

Despite glide bombs being one of the most primitive and numerous weapons in the Russian Air Force's arsenal, Ukraine's sophisticated air defense systems are still ill-equipped to deal with the threat they pose.https://t.co/Bq0q6WWrpG

— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) January 20, 2025

Good reads:

• The Cabinet is on a retreat in Montebello to firm up plans for dealing with Trump.
• Citizenship and Immigration is looking to cut jobs over the next three years as they transform their operations.
• Chrystia Freeland gave a media interview where she roasted Trudeau over his decision to fire her as finance minister, in order to create distance from him.
• The leader of the Parti Québécois has been scrapping with Poilievre online after he claimed that Harper “obliterated” separatism and that Trudeau brought it back.
• Jagmeet Singh is still trying to playact being tough about a non-confidence vote.
• Doug Ford is trying to justify calling an early election by claiming he needs it to have a ‘clear mandate” to deal with Trump (which is bullshit).

Odds and ends:

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