Introduction
Welcome to The Cameron Journal Newsletter!
Each week, I send out the latest headlines, the latest videos from The Cameron Journal, and commentary about the week’s events. If you’re new here, my name is Cameron Lee Cowan, and I’m the Creative Director here at The Cameron Journal. You can learn more about me on the about page. I do research and commentary on politics, culture, and the world around us. Remember, The World is Hard, This is Not.
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Updates
We’re going to have a bit of a short newsletter this week because I am exhausted today. It has been a long week with much progress on many fronts. We had two great interviews this week and I have scheduled out new interviews all the way until April. I’m really excited for what is coming up. The Cameron Journal is busy right now as well. We have taken on so many new contributors. We do have the Executive Contributor Program if you’re interested in growing your thought leadership.
I am getting my speaking schedule ready for 2025. This means updating my speaking packet, which is always a pain but necessary work. If you are hosting an event where I can come talk about current events, politics, society, and so on, please feel free to reach out! I do in-person and virtual events, so feel free to invite me to come speak!
In any case, it has been a busy week in the news. I’m mostly focus on the Department of Government Efficiency (still not a department) and the remarks of Hegseth and Vance on their little Euro-trip together. Let’s turn to the headlines.
Maybe it’s time to write that book?
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The Latest
Let’s dive into the stories I’m following this week!
Ukraine Peace Deal?
One of the big stories this week was the Ukraine peace deal. It is basically a surrender for Ukraine. Secretary Hegseth announced that the 1991 Ukraine borders were off the table. Russia will likely keep all the territory it is currently holding, while Ukraine will surrender territory to Russia. The only victory for Ukraine will be their continued existence…for now. The rebuilding effort will need to be massive, and the EU is supposed to take the lead on that. NATO membership for Ukraine is off the table too, although they may still be able to join the EU one day.
Obviously, Trump wants to resolve this war as quickly as possible, however, the complicity Trump has in basically forcing Ukraine to surrender has certainly done nothing to tamp down the long-standing issues between him and connections to Russia/Putin. Look for a Russia 2.0 narrative in the media.
While Hegseth was in Europe, along with Vance, they basically announced to Europe that Europe needed to take its security seriously and that the US would not be coming to the rescue. Never mind that the entire point of NATO is to create a strong alliance system to counterbalance threats, and that the US has used NATO to get assistance for the Global War on Terror. Obviously, this has left an altogether unpleasant taste in Brussels.
This goes along with what Secretary Rubio has said about the end of American hegemony and how the US is shifting away from being the planetary caretaker. I will talk more about this on Monday during the Newshour, but it is clear that the multipolar world that we’ve been talking about for the past several years is here, and it is here to stay.
DOGE Goes to Court
I wanted to highlight this tweet as a symbol of the times we are in. The link also has a clip of the presser Elon did with Trump’s attendance in the Oval Office. It was rather interesting to watch Trump sit there passively while Elon addressed the media. But most importantly, the Wall Street Journal has a new opinion piece out that Trump and Elon have done more to shrink government in the past month than Reagan did in 8 years. We saw how Reagan’s changes turned out, haven’t we? What will be the downstream effects of this?
The other half of this is the general attitude that because Congress is impotent, they must be excluded from their Constitutional duty. This is dangerous but not quite as dangerous as Vice President JD Vance hurtling us toward a constitutional crisis when he remarked this week that judges should not be able to stop the Executive branch from doing its “duties.” Much of what DOGE has done (USAID funding, research grant freezes etc.) has been stayed by the courts.
These legal challenges have made many in the Trump administration, but especially Elon and Vance, unhappy. If you were wondering what they wanted, it is quite simple: unlimited power. It is quite obvious that they don’t want to be accountable to anyone for what they do. They want to crash through the government and re-make it as they see fit with no input from anyone else. That is no republican democracy, that is, at best a monarchy, and at worse, a dictatorship. If they begin ignoring court orders, then we are headed to a crisis. Trump has announced that he will always follow the courts but it is also obvious that Trump is not exactly in charge.
From The Cameron Journal
From my new collection: What the Hell is Going On?
Articles of interest from the week:
Dr. Ogsbury chimes in with his recent installment of his journey to becoming a doctor as we get ready for his book, About Not Losing, to launch on March 3rd:
Keep up with The Cameron Journal Podcast
The Interview:
The Cameron Journal Newshour:
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