S15 EP151: Hour 2 - Hating Canada

Erick confesses he has been an original, card-carrying Canada hater since a French teacher at his school in Dubai told the class that real Americans should call themselves "United Statesians." He then turns hard on President Trump for launching a trade war with America's largest trading partner 70 days before the midterms, explaining that the entire trade deficit with Canada is heavy crude oil and lumber and that Howard Lutnick reportedly blew up a finished deal from trade representative Jamieson Greer. Then Erick, an elections lawyer by trade, cuts through the panic over the Supreme Court and Trump's mail-in ballot executive order, showing that all the Court allowed was Homeland Security and the Postal Service to build citizenship lists while the lower court injunction blocking enforcement stays fully in place. The hour ends with breaking news from Variety that Dolly Parton has died at 80.

Topics:

• Why the U.S. trade deficit with Canada is really about oil: American fracking produces light sweet crude our heavy crude refineries cannot process, so we import Canadian oil and now gas prices go up
• Howard Lutnick blows up the Jamieson Greer trade deal per the New York Times, Steve Moore concedes on Fox that the pain is not worth the gain, and Trump spends the day trying to rename Lake Ontario "Lake America"
• Canadian lumber, electricity, and the housing affordability crisis, plus the political cost to Mike Rogers in Michigan and Susan Collins in Maine 70 days before the midterms
• What the Supreme Court actually ruled on the mail-in ballot executive order: DHS and USPS may compile lists, but the injunction barring the Postal Service from blocking absentee ballots was never touched
• Erick's elections-lawyer verdict: Article 1, Section 4 gives the president no role whatsoever in election law, and why American federalism is exactly why China's much-hyped election-shaping AI got the swing states wrong