Money talks, and when the sum being discussed is $175 million it starts speaking the language of common sense.

The University of Pennsylvania has — finally — been forced to see reason over Lia Thomas, the controversial transgender athlete who was allowed to compete against female swimmers.

In an embarrassing climbdown, the university has settled a civil rights case with the Department of Education by: apologizing to female athletes “disadvantaged” by Thomas taking part in swimming competitions; restoring individual records and titles to female athletes who lost to Thomas; sending a personalized apology to each of those female swimmers; agreeing it will not allow males to compete in female athletic programs and adopting a “biology-based” definition of male and female.

It was total capitulation.

“The University will not — on the basis of sex — exclude female students from participation in, deny female students the benefits of, or subject female students to discrimination under, any athletics programs,” reads a

statement

posted to the university’s website on Tuesday.

Crucially, it went on to say, “In addition, in providing to female student-athletes intimate facilities such as locker rooms and bathrooms in connection with Penn Athletics, such facilities shall be strictly separated on the basis of sex and comparably provided to each sex.”

Great, female locker rooms for women. Why was that ever a battle?

The issue of transgender athletes competing against women was always so much more than that, although that in itself mattered. It opened the door not just to unfairness in sport, but access to female spaces like locker rooms, prisons and rape shelters.

This wasn’t just about discrimination, but about how half the population was suddenly vulnerable to the depredations of anyone who wished to declare themselves a woman.

That’s not to accuse transgender people of being sex pests. It is, unfortunately, a recognition that too many predatory men will use whatever means necessary, even posing as a woman, to put themselves in a position where they can abuse women.

If the debate about transgender people had been less strident from the beginning, if supporters had adopted less of an all or nothing principle — all trans women are women — we might have come to a compromise or a reasonable accommodation.

But for trans activists, a simple misgendering was grounds to label you some kind of vocal terrorist.

Moved by “compassion” some people lost their collective minds.

In Scotland, they sent a double

rapist

to a women’s prison. That’s not compassion, that’s being willfully blind to the danger of putting such a dangerous criminal in the presence of women prisoners. It is the triumph of culture war activism over the virtue of common sense.

The University of Pennsylvania was able to parade its transgender credentials by allowing Thomas to compete against women. But it was always unfair.

Thomas went from a

ranking

of 554th in the 200 men’s freestyle in the 2018-19 season to being one of the top-ranked female swimmers in that event.

In 2022, Thomas won the women’s 500 freestyle at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) championships, finished fifth in the women’s 200 freestyle and eighth in the women’s 100 freestyle.

While the transgender athlete had supporters, there were also detractors who complained about Thomas competing as well as using the female

locker rooms

.

Why is it always the women who have to suffer? The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) is now

investigating

because a school in Denver converted a female restroom into an all-gender restroom. Boys, however, still get exclusive use of a male restroom.

Under the Biden administration, academia could get away with such conduct. But the Trump administration was always going to be different.

U.S. President Donald Trump has pledged to crack down on diversity, equity and inclusion policies and use Title IX (which prevents sex discrimination in education) to support women.

It was Title IX that landed Penn university in trouble. The Education Department threatened to withhold $175 million in federal funds from the university unless it complied with the law.

In a

statement

in March, Penn President Larry Jameson pledged, “We expect to continue to engage with OCR, vigorously defending our position.”

But he folded almost as fast as Prime Minister Mark Carney on the Digital Services Tax.

This week, the university said it would comply with two executive orders from Trump. The first,

Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government

, decries “efforts to eradicate the biological reality of sex” because it deprives women “of their dignity, safety, and well-being.”

The second,

Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports

, states, “It shall also be the policy of the United States to oppose male competitive participation in women’s sports more broadly, as a matter of safety, fairness, dignity, and truth.”

In a statement, Jameson said the institution was only following the rules at that time, but would now, “apologize to those who experienced a competitive disadvantage or experienced anxiety because of the policies in effect.”

It was a craven statement that sought to deflect responsibility to those damnable rules at the time. It’s a pity Jameson didn’t have the courage just to admit that what happened was wrong.

Still, Jameson will now get the $175 million that Trump was threatening to withhold. And if he had to throw Lia Thomas under the bus to get it, so be it.

National Post

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JERUSALEM — Life in Israel has returned to normal following the

ceasefire with Iran

. Yet, amid this abrupt peace, many Israelis are now demanding that their government go a step further and end the war in Gaza, too, so that the hostages held by Hamas can be brought home safely.

Two days after the ceasefire took hold, I wandered the streets of Jerusalem

on behalf of The News Forum

and found them bustling, as though Iran’s missile barrages had only been a fever dream. Pop-up markets had already returned, with vendors hawking clothes, books and esoteric miscellanea in white tents beneath the withering sun.

“Everybody’s having fun. It’s amazing right now. You know, it’s getting back to normal,” said Obada, a 21-year-old service worker, as he smiled behind a pair of sunglasses: “You can come over here, give us a visit. You’re all welcome.”

Down the street, four young religious students were chatting over plates of food. “Two days ago, this place was empty. Everything was closed. It was basically a ghost town,” said Isaac Blau, one of the boys, gesticulating wildly. Although he was “extremely happy” with the ceasefire, he remained nervous about the possibility that Iran had retained some its enriched uranium.

“There was no point of the war if they didn’t destroy the nuclear sites,” he said, adding that, if Tehran was not properly defanged, then Israel’s soldiers “still have more work to do.”

Aran, a restaurant owner, was eager to see his business fully reopen. “I think it’s enough. We did the damage that we needed to do. We showed them that we won’t accept any nuclear program over there,” he said.

In contrast, Yair, a merchant who sells touristic trinkets, wanted the war to continue, arguing that it was shortsighted to prioritize economic revitalization if that allowed Iran to develop nuclear weapons. He emphasized that Iranians are “very good people” whom he loves, but condemned their fundamentalist government as “crazy.”

“It’s a ceasefire, not the end of the war,” said Elisheva Klein, a middle-aged Israeli-American woman, as she finished eating a hamburger. She was “shocked” and “not happy” about the ceasefire, and said that her grandchildren were finding it difficult to return to school after living in fear of Iran’s attacks. “I believe that we have to finish this, and we’re going to because we’re united and we’re strong, and we’re going to get rid of every evil that comes against us and the whole free world,” she said.

A group of teenagers hanging out on a restaurant patio were eager to share their opinions.

“The attacks were 100 per cent right, because we want to be safe from Iran, and we also want the Iranian people to be free from their very oppressing government,” said 16-year-old Yotam. He had initially assumed that the ceasefire was “fake news,” given a

recent deluge of online disinformation

, and, although he was happy to see hostilities end, he nonetheless felt “very angry and sad that the war in Gaza is still going.”

14-year-old Tania also supported the strikes on Iran, but worried that they had made people “kind of forget about the war in Gaza.” She was concerned about the

hostages still being held by Hamas

, and was distressed about the well-being of Palestinian civilians who “are getting hurt and killed every day.” Her friend, Masha, concurred: “It’s not gonna be normal until the hostages will come back from Gaza.”

They directed me to a table crowded with older students, where I met 18-year-old Itamar, who will soon be commencing his mandatory military service. “We did what we have to did, and we did it fast. We did it quickly. We didn’t hurt that much people, and we stick to the mission,” he said proudly. Yet, he believed that the Islamic Republic would inevitably attack again — perhaps in 20 or 30 years.

“If Iran stops all the war all over the world, the civilians in Iran can live a wonderful life, and they can do whatever they want. They have a lot of money. They have a big space. They have good people — very smart people. If they want, they can live a wonderful life,” he said.

Two days later, tens of thousands of Israelis gathered in

Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square

to rally in support of Hamas’ captives. These weekly demonstrations had begun shortly after October 7th, but were paused during the conflict with Iran, when public gatherings were banned. The crowds this evening were noticeably larger than they

had been a month earlier

— an ocean of discontent that stretched as far as one could see.

“We were patient for two weeks, and now that the threat is gone, we know that this is the time to fight back as hard as we can and demand that all the hostages be back and to end the war,” said Lee Hoffmann Agiv, a social activist.

According to her, many volunteers who normally advocate for the hostages temporarily pivoted towards helping families impacted by the Iran war instead — for example: by gathering essentials for those who’d lost their homes. However, Agiv and her colleagues tried to keep the hostages on the national agenda during this period, often by using social media. “We did our best in making the families feel like they’re not forgotten, and to be with them and to send the message that we think about them all the time,” she said.

Or Keshet, another demonstrator, found it “depressing” that no Gazan ceasefire had been signed, and believed that “political, cynical motivations” were causing the Israeli government to unnecessarily prolong the war. “You know, the Iran war took 12 days, and after 12 days, the war was finished. The war in Gaza is lasting already, you know, 631 days. It doesn’t make sense,” he said.

Shai and Gil Dickmann — a brother and sister duo whose cousin remains in captivity — were similarly disapproving of the government’s prosecution of the war. They believed that if Israel could sign a ceasefire with Iran, wherein the Ayatollah remained in power, then

the same could be done in Gaza

, too. Perhaps fully eradicating Hamas was not strictly necessary.

“For 12 days, the square was empty, and people were focused on the war with Iran, and right now to see it full of people, that means that we hadn’t forgotten about the hostages, and they should know that we will not give up until they’re all home,” said Gil.

In the rally’s epicentre was a stage where the family members of the remaining hostages, bearing photos of their loved ones, gave speeches condemning the ongoing war in Gaza. Their words were broadcast on large screens dispersed throughout the area. Attendees watched intently, sometimes with tears in their eyes.

A father of one of the remaining hostages took to the stage, lambasting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: “The history books will not forget if you do not bring back all the hostages, even if you think victory of Iran will supersede your responsibility to October 7th and the death of 1,000s of Israelis and hundreds of hostages. We want all of them now! Bring them home, now!”

The Trump administration has since

pushed for a ceasefire

as well, which would see most of the hostages returned and control over Gaza transferred to a consortium of Arab states. While Israel has accepted these terms, Hamas reportedly remains undecided, lest it lose its grip on power.

National Post

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On Monday, as the Prime Minister pulled the plug on the controversial Digital Services Tax one day before the deadline for the first payment, he proudly declared that this was a matter of

providing desirable regulatory certainty

for the dozen or so U.S.-based mega-businesses (Amazon, Uber, Meta, Google, et al.) targeted by the tax. Which raises a question: are pitiless algorithmic corporate giants capable of laughter, and, if so, can they laugh

bitterly? 

The law implementing this tax was passed one year ago, and the entities subject to it were asked to provide special returns supported by vast quantities of accounting documentation. The deadline for the first payment was June 30 of this year. And on June 29

everyone was told, eh, don’t bother

. The new tax had become an inconvenient obstruction in trade negotiations with the United States, and the PM decided to instantaneously halt collection of the tax revenue — an action which the text of the law does provide for. He added that “It doesn’t make sense to collect tax from people and then remit [those payments] back.”

This is, as it now turns out,

exactly what will now have to happen

. The Canada Revenue Agency admitted on Wednesday that some companies foolishly submitted returns and payments before D-Day minus one—and the agency confirmed that it will stop demanding and collecting payments now. (Or “forthwith.” Why do I feel like I should say “forthwith”?)

But those who have already paid, it turns out, will have to wait for full parliamentary repeal of the DST legislation before they can get their money back. That relief, in turn, cannot be provided until Parliament comes back from summer vacation in mid-September.

This will come as something of a surprise to assiduous readers of this column, who will recall that when the (minority) Liberal government proposed to increase capital-gains taxes late last year, RevCan was quite content to start collecting the increased sums

in the absence of any legislation at all

. In this case they have collected money according to the terms of a proper, legitimate statute — which was intentionally written so as to be capable of immediate guillotining of this kind, but not to provide for repayments of sums kindly contributed before the deadline. There will, of course, never be any refund of the money spent on researching and filling out DST returns, or on the prospective DST returns that will never be filed.

Perhaps this is the sort of sharp practice that is necessary in a world of whimsical changes in trade policy largely caused by an implosion of the U.S. Constitution. Elbows up! And of course it’s hard to feel ordinary sympathy for the Amazons and Googles of the world, or even the accountants and lawyers who work for them, in the way that one would feel for a taxpaying Canadian physician or electrician. But it still seems a touch gratuitous for our head of government to play these sorts of games while explicitly celebrating Canada’s reputation as a place to do business, a place with a super-stable regulatory environment.

National Post

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Canada is at a crossroads. In the face of growing hatred and escalating threats toward the Jewish community, we must confront a difficult truth: antisemitic violence is no longer a fringe concern — it is now a coordinated and dangerous threat to public safety and national values.

Over the past year, antisemitic incidents have surged. In cities like Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver, Jewish schools, synagogues, and community centres have been targeted with threats, vandalism, arson, and even gunfire. These are not isolated events — they reflect a disturbing pattern of extremism taking root in the public square, online spaces, and protests where hate speech and glorification of terrorism go unchecked.

The case for a national response is stark. After the Hamas-led October 7th massacre in Israel, Canada experienced a sharp rise in antisemitism. Toronto

recorded

443 hate incidents in 2024 alone — 40 per cent targeting Jews. Across Canada, there was a

670 per cent

increase in antisemitic incidents since the attack. In Vancouver, Jewish institutions were threatened and set on fire. Most shockingly, a Jewish girls’ school in Toronto was shot at three times. These are not abstract statistics — they reflect a wave of hate crossing into real-world violence.

In response, I’ve begun writing a White Paper for a new national conversation — working with friends and leaders in government and law enforcement to explore concrete actions that protect the Jewish community and reinforce the values of our democracy. The response to having the conversation has been overwhelmingly positive across the country.

One of the greatest concerns is deterrence. Hate groups and extremists feel emboldened, often because they believe they can act with impunity. This must change. Deterrence theory offers a clear path forward: offenders must know they will be caught swiftly. In other words, the response must be immediate and the severity must be strong and unambiguous, with meaningful penalties that reflect the seriousness of these crimes.

In order for this to succeed, first, we must reform how hate crimes are prosecuted. In Canada, charges require the consent of the Attorney General — a political hurdle that delays justice. That requirement should be removed, allowing police to lay charges based on evidence and the courts to determine outcomes.

Second, existing hate crime laws must be applied consistently as the law of the land. Canada already prohibits hate speech, incitement to genocide, and the promotion of violence, but enforcement appears to be timid and selective. These laws must be used fully and without hesitation.

Third, we need a dedicated national enforcement unit focused on antisemitic and ideological hate. Canada has long had units to combat organized crime — this is no less urgent. Hate groups are becoming more coordinated and violent against Jewish citizens. Law enforcement must be equally coordinated in its response.

Fourth, I’m proposing a new national security strategy — S.N.A.P.: Share, Notify, Act, Protect. It calls for improved intelligence sharing across agencies, real-time alerts for Jewish communities, swift legal action, and visible protection of high-risk institutions. This model moves us from a reactive stance to a proactive one.

Fifth, we must modernize protest laws. Inspired by recent U.K. reforms, Canada should adopt clear rules: require and enforce advance notice of protest marches; place limits on time, location, and methods; prevent seriously disruptive protests; and restrict demonstrations near Jewish events. Issue immediate and heavy fines. These measures preserve freedom of expression while safeguarding public order and safety.

Sixth, legal definitions must be updated to reflect modern threats. Online radicalization, glorification of terror, and hate propaganda must be addressed with new legislation, including reinstating

Section 13

of the Canadian Human Rights Act curtailing hate online and digitally.

Canada also rightly recognizes that free speech has limits — especially when it infringes on the safety and rights of others. Pro-Hamas groups may have the right to protest peacefully, but they are not free to block Jewish Canadians from attending events or entering synagogues. They are not free to harass, intimidate, or chant genocidal slogans. This is not free speech — it is hate speech. And under Canadian law, it is not protected.

These ideas are drawn from my extensive consultation with political leaders and law enforcement leaders. They are not the final word — but the beginning of a critical national conversation. In the 1980s and 1990s, it was primarily the Jewish community that helped

shape

Canada’s hate crime laws in response to a rising Neo-Nazi threat. Today, the threat is more lethal, more ideological, and more public — and reforms must rise to meet this moment.

The Jewish community, like all Canadians, deserves to live in peace. That requires courage, clarity, and coordinated action. The time to act is now.

Avi Abraham Benlolo is the CEO and Chairman of the Abraham Global Peace Initiative, a Canadian think-tank.

National Post

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American politics often seem to balance themselves out in the worst possible way. Even as the GOP

sheds its last vestiges of affection for limited government and free markets

, the opposition Democrats openly embrace bigotry and crazy economic nostrums. Case in point: the rise in New York City of Zohran Mamdani, an avowed socialist who flirts with antisemitism, to represent the Democratic Party in this year’s mayoral election.

The primary race in New York was a snapshot of the Democratic Party’s woes. Despite the presence of other candidates seeking the mayoral nomination, the race ultimately came down to two candidates: Mamdani and Andrew Cuomo, the disgraced former governor of New York.

Before resigning over

allegations of sexual harassment

, Cuomo, the 67-year-old son of another former governor, was best known for a “controversial directive that told nursing homes they couldn’t deny patients coming from hospitals admission based on a COVID-19 diagnosis,”

according

to StatNews. He then covered up the large number of ensuing deaths. He was the favoured candidate of the Democratic establishment and the early front-runner for the nomination.

Standing out from the pack of political hopefuls facing Cuomo was Zohran Mamdani, the 34-year-old son of an Oscar-nominated filmmaker and a Columbia University political science professor. Before being elected to the state legislature as a Democrat and a socialist, Mamdani tried his hand as a government employee and a rapper. His musical output included the song “Salaam,” which, as The Independent

put it

, “praised the ‘Holy Land Five’ — five men convicted in 2008 of donating over $12 million to Hamas.“

To say that New Yorkers are tired of Cuomo is a wild understatement. Like most Americans, New Yorkers are deeply sick of the old party establishment that rallied around Cuomo as well as the man himself. Yet, he was expected to walk away with the nomination and then cruise to victory in a largely one-party city.

But Mamdani sweetened the pot in the expensive metropolis with

promises

to freeze rent, make buses free, offer no-cost childcare, lower grocery prices with city-owned grocery stores, and use “public dollars” to build 200,000 apartments. He swears that he “knows exactly how to pay for it, too” with higher taxes on those making more than $1 million per year. Not explicitly part of his campaign, but

on the record

as his intention, is “the end goal of seizing the means of production.”

In the 2021 recording in which he advocated seizing the means of production, Mamdani endorsed BDS as an issue “that we firmly believe in.” The BDS movement — shorthand for “

Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions”

— aims to economically pressure Israel into withdrawing from so-called “occupied territories” and allowing Palestinians to settle throughout Israel. At its extremes, BDS seeks to eliminate the world’s only Jewish-majority state. It’s inspired by the movement against South Africa’s old apartheid regime.

In his

formal response

as a New York State Assemblyman to Hamas’s bloody October 7 attack on Israel, Mamdani commented: “the path toward a just and lasting peace can only begin by ending the occupation and dismantling apartheid.” He also frequently accuses Israel of engaging in “

genocide

” in its response to Hamas and

refuses to condemn

calls to “globalize the intifada” which many view as targeting Jews outside Israel with attacks such as we’ve seen in

Boulder

,

Montreal

, and

Washington, D.C

.

New York Democrats ate this stuff up and, in an upset,

gave Mamdani their party’s nomination

.

In an

analysis of voting data

, Bloomberg found that — contrary to socialists’ claims of representing the working class — Mamdani’s votes were concentrated at the higher end of the income spectrum. He edged out Cuomo for the votes of those making more than $150 thousand per year and romped to victory among middle-class voters who earn between $50 thousand and $150 thousand per year. “The former governor, however, outperformed Mamdani in low-income neighborhoods by a 13-point margin.”

Cost of living is a major concern for New York City residents,

topping issues in polls

. The wealthy can insulate themselves from the problem and the poor have programs that ease their burdens. That leaves middle-income voters — especially renters — as the most anxious in a pricey city. “High costs of living are pushing middle-income families out of New York City,”

commented

the Bloomberg analysts.

That’s true, but socialist math doesn’t add up in any way that will lower the cost of living. A New York University Stern School of Business

annual survey

shows a net profit margin of 1.97 per cent for retail grocery stores. Mamdani’s city-owned grocery stores aren’t going to squeeze a lot of savings out of that — especially given the sad history of government-owned businesses, and

especially grocery stores

.

Mamdani doesn’t help his case when he bases his proposal for funding the grocery scheme on a misreading of the city’s books. Mamdani’s plan assumes the city is subsidizing private grocery stores with $140 million that he wants to divert to socialist markets. But as the Washington Examiner’s Timothy Carney

points out

, “Mamdani is counting the $140 million in private spending as government spending.”

Mamdani’s rent freeze also runs into math problems. New York City already

limits rent increases

for many units, and

its famous bureaucracy

puts barriers in the way of constructing more. A rent freeze would

further reduce incentives

to build housing — or even to maintain existing stock.

“It’s regulation on top of regulation, rather than addressing the root cause of housing undersupply and just making it easier to build housing of all types at all price points,” Emily Hamilton, director of the Urbanity Project at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center,

commented

.

Mamdani also forgets that the wealthy people he wants to tax the hardest are the most mobile. Put the screws to them and they can choose to keep their money in Florida —

already a popular destination

.

But all of that is for New Yorkers to consider as they decide who to put in the mayor’s office — and to confirm as the new face of the Democratic Party. A young-ish socialist who dislikes Israel and is iffy about his opinion of Jews in general is a dangerous bet in a country where

socialism remains unpopular

with the majority and

most Americans are concerned about antisemitism

.

Scandal-ridden incumbent Mayor Eric Adams remains on the ballot as an independent, as do Andrew Cuomo and former prosecutor Jim Walden. They’re joined by Republican Curtis Sliwa. But NYC is a Democratic town, and Zohran Mamdani is favoured to win.

National Post

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There is little question that Diddy — the mono-monikered rapper and producer whose trial for sex crimes concluded in New York yesterday — is a violent and despicable man. One look, which is all any decent person can stomach, at the

2016 video of him assaulting his then-girlfriend

Cassie Ventura and Diddy’s innate odiousness becomes impossible to deny.

But the trial of Sean “Diddy” Combs wasn’t merely about determining whether the man was distasteful or deplorable — but whether he had broken the law. And which laws, exactly? A jury found him guilty on two lesser charges related to prostitution, but failed to convict him on the far more serious allegations of sex trafficking which could have sent Combs to prison for life. Instead,

say sentencing experts

, he will probably serve just a handful of years behind bars — possibly even less — most likely at some sort of minimum-security facility, much like convicted securities felon Martha Stewart more than two decades ago.

Of course, Diddy is no Martha Stewart, the goddess of expertly curated elevated living who has managed to remain relevant for nearly half a century through shrewd business moves, cleverly-calculated reinvention and sheer hard work.

Diddy, too, has been a master of reinvention, literally renaming himself — from Sean to Puffy to P. Diddy and finally just Diddy — as he aged out of conventional pop culture coolness. But this is where the similarities to Stewart end. As his trial so luridly detailed, every stage of Diddy’s public persona masked a parallel existence laden with the most extreme intersections of sex, drugs, money and often violence. Fueled by power and wealth — and the impunity both afford without measure — Diddy raped and beat, and bought libidinous satisfaction with craven disregard for compassion or consequence.

But again, we know all this — we’ve known it for years. After all, Diddy’s crime-adjacent rap sheet is decades long; remember the infamous New York City nightclub shooting during

his Jennifer Lopez-period back in 1999

. Lopez, then equally shrewd and famous, summarily dropped Diddy after the gun shots quieted — one of the few lucky enough to escape his orbit.

But as Diddy’s acquittal of the most severe charge illustrates, a lack of luck isn’t necessarily criminal. Particularly when so much of Diddy’s deviousness was known for so long — and by so many. The botched —

or at least bungled

— trial of Diddy confirms yet again that you can’t litigate morality and good behavior. Or in this case, a clear lack of both.

This was essentially what the #metoo movement tried to accomplish — a very public reckoning of often very private misdeeds. And as we saw this week in a Manhattan courtroom, yet again such efforts have failed. True, Harvey Weinstein — #metoo’s most-infamous predator — remains behind bars, as he should, for life. But nearly 20 years after it first entered the public consciousness, the Diddy trial could mark the end of #metoo, or at least its ability to manifest in the courtroom.

So much of the Diddy trial focused on the performer’s distinct sexual depravity — most notably those lotion-filled “freak-offs” described in nauseating ad nauseam. But this was a case

equally defined by a pathological consumption of drugs

. Indeed, as the proceedings revealed, Diddy had a constant supply of narcotics on hand: marijuana, ecstasy, Klonopin — which he fed to girlfriends like Cassie and their revolving door of hired and acquired paramours.

Drugs complicate, well, everything and they complicated the Diddy case even as they took a backseat to sex. So much of the proceedings — along with the roots of #metoo —

were wrapped up in consent

, and nothing warps consent more than days-long binges of narcotics. This helps explain why Combs was exonerated on the most serious charges of “sex trafficking” and racketeering conspiracy. His defense claimed the debauchery — the freak offs — were merely amped-up versions of old-fashioned swingerism, set — much like with Weinstein — against a backdrop of luxury yachts and five star hotels.

Despite observers who insist there

can never be consent when abuse is involved

, Diddy’s lawyers reiterated that consent was ever-present and implied. Folks freaked-off because they were being loved or paid — whether in cash or via career boost. Such combustible overlaps shadow many of the highest-profile #metoo-styled cases, which is why so few of them have resulted in actual jail time. Indeed, Weinstein is a rare movement outlier — imprisoned likely for life when men like Kevin Spacey, Matt Lauer and Charlie Rose merely languish behind the bars of ruinous disgrace and irrelevance.

Such a future is unlikely to await Diddy, who as the

New York Post

noted on Wednesday could

emerge from the trial as a “martyr.”

And why not (besides his clear cravenness)? In the near year since his arrest, article after article has appeared detailing some former friend, colleague, or interviewer recounting Diddy’s alleged sexism or

hypocrisy

or

penchant for violence

.

Yet besides Cassie, almost no one stepped forward. Many, as in many other #metoo cases, claimed fear — of his power, his proximity to guns and those who use them. Only Shyne, the Belize-born rapper who served nearly a decade in jail for that infamous 1999 nightclub shooting,

had the guts to speak out

. And perhaps only because he is now back in Belize serving as the Opposition Leader of its House of Representatives.

As they say on billboards across New York City’s subway system — “if you see something — say something.” But when it came to Sean “Diddy” Combs, almost no one said anything. For years, decades even. And the results speak for themselves: Diddy is likely to walk free, exonerated by a soft-on-crime New York City judicial system failing their soft-on-crime citizens.

Social justice movements like #metoo are rooted in accountability — particularly from the alleged perpetrators. But accountability also extends to those who remained silent — or stoned or paid — at the sidelines. Because without their willingness to also demand justice, the actual justice system can only go so far. As Diddy prepares for likely bail and, ultimately, release, his trial may not officially kill #metoo off. But its already dwindling momentum is unlikely to ever recover.

David Christopher Kaufman is a columnist and editor at the New York Post.

National Post

One funny thing about the “elbows up!” slogan of the New Canadian Nationalism is that in real life it’s pretty hard to hit yourself with your own elbow. But in the actual policy sphere, most of what we might do to put our elbows up against the United States involves self-harm or, at a minimum, self-denial.

On Sunday the Department of Finance issued a terse circular announcing that the Digital Services Tax announced in 2021 would not, as originally planned, begin to be collected on Monday. The DST (R.I.P.) was designed to exclusively target Canadian revenues of American “web giants” that provide online services, advertising, or streaming content.

As the Finance memo observes

, it is being dropped at the last minute in the hope of restarting negotiations with the U.S. on an updated version of continental free trade.

The idea of a DST was framed by the Trudeau government as a moral necessity of the 21st century: something had to be done about foreign vampires like Netflix and Google which had built businesses with millions of Canadian customers out of digital ether, but paid no tax in Canada. Everybody recognized, however, that much of the cost of the tax was bound to come out of the pockets of the customers rather than the vampires.

It’s inherently difficult to know how the tax incidence would have worked out, because the process of digital price discovery isn’t especially mature: some of these companies are still figuring out their own optimum, revenue-maximizing price points in plain sight. But from a selfish point of view, Canadian consumers, considered strictly as such, can only feel relief at the sudden abandonment of the DST.

Is this a craven surrender on the part of the post-Trudeau Liberals? Well, this is the problem with interpreting everything in brute terms of animalistic personal combat, isn’t it? The governments of the developed nations largely agree (perhaps against the interests of their own citizens) that there ought to be an international framework for digital-services taxation, and the OECD reached an agreement that nobody would run wild and introduce their own digital taxes until the issue could be sorted out collectively.

From that neoliberal-nerd point of view, Canada went rogue when it announced a homebrewed DST — one that would have had a nasty retroactive effect, that was designed specifically only to collect from large American companies with recognizable names, and that didn’t address double-taxation issues. And let’s recall that Joe Biden was still president when this happened.

It’s worth noting that this isn’t just a question of playing chess against Donald Trump. Canada was really forced to withdraw the DST by the terms of the Trump-designed One Big Beautiful Bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in May, and now before the Senate. The OBBB reflects the fact that there’s genuine bipartisan distaste in the U.S. toward the digital taxes hypothecated by Canada and already in effect in some other countries; it allows for 

tax-withholding countermeasures against countries that impose “unfair” taxes on U.S. digital companies

, countermeasures whose size could easily have dwarfed the relatively meagre revenues from the DST. In other words, if the government hadn’t pulled the plug on the DST, we might have quickly found out how a one-armed man does in a battle of elbows.

National Post

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