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Bad Guys

Ontario premier declares state of emergency in response to protests


National Post
Fri, 11 Feb 2022 19:52 UTC
doug ford
Ontario's premier declared a state of emergency Friday in response to ongoing blockades in Ottawa and Windsor, Ont., warning of "severe" consequences for protesters who don't leave.


Comment: Ok, tyrant.


Doug Ford said he will enact orders making it "crystal clear" that it is illegal and punishable to block and impede the movement of goods, people and services along critical infrastructure, including international border crossings, 400-series highways, airports, ports, bridges and railways.


Comment: It's ok when government does all the above, not when ordinary citizens do.


Fines for non-compliance will be up to $100,000 and up to a year imprisonment.

The announcement comes as a protest against COVID-19 measures has immobilized Ottawa's downtown core for nearly two weeks while another on the Windsor side of the Ambassador Bridge has blocked Canada-bound vehicles from using the key border crossing for days.

At the bridge, protesters cleared vehicles from one lane of a street connecting to the bridge on Friday morning, but a few dozen people stood blocking that lane in the afternoon, waving Canadian flags and hoisting anti-vaccine mandate signs.

Windsor police and Ontario Provincial Police were on site and closed all roads that connect to the protest location, allowing people to join the demonstration on foot, but not in their vehicles.
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Eye 1

Declassified documents claim CIA secretly collected Americans' private data

Mary Rooke
Daily Caller
Fri, 11 Feb 2022 19:55 UTC
CIAlogo
© Washington Post
Two Democratic U.S. Senators on Thursday accused the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of collecting Americans' private data without official oversight meant to protect against civil liberties violations.

Democratic Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden and Democratic New Mexico Sen. Martin Heinrich wrote a letter in April 2021 demanding CIA director William J. Burns and the U.S. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines declassify a study into the CIA's secret procedure for gathering data on U.S. citizens, according to a joint press release.

The CIA's Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) commissioned the study to "conduct in-depth examinations" of the data collection process, according to the declassified report.

The PCLOB is an independent agency within the executive branch created to ensure intelligence agencies don't violate Americans' privacy and civil liberties while collecting data during terrorism investigations, explained the study's report.
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Toys

UK's gaff-prone Liz Truss strikes again: Thatcher tribute act falls flat in Moscow

Paul Robinson
RT
Fri, 11 Feb 2022 18:23 UTC
liz truss lavrov russia UK britain
© Sputnik / Russian Foreign MinistryRussian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and UK Foreign Secretary Elizabeth Truss bump pose for a photo during their meeting, in Moscow, Russia.
A visit to Moscow turned into a widely mocked disaster for Britain's gaffe-prone Foreign Secretary

Instead of well-informed diplomatic give-and-take, Western foreign policy towards Russia too often takes the form of ignorant grandstanding and threats. As British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss's trip to Moscow earlier this week has shown, this approach is both unsuccessful and irresponsible.

In Moscow on Thursday for talks with her Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov, London's top diplomat demanded that Russia withdraw the troops it has allegedly assembled near the Ukrainian border. Lavrov objected. The troops were on Russian territory, in the Rostov and Voronezh provinces, he said. It was not for the UK to tell Russia what to do on its own soil.

Truss was insistent. Russia must withdraw, she repeated. At this point, according to the newspaper Kommersant, Lavrov asked her, "do you recognize Russia's sovereignty over Rostov and Voronezh provinces?" "Great Britain will never recognize Russian sovereignty over those regions," Truss replied instinctively.

Comment: Lavrov gives his assessment of the meeting:



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Chess

Perfect timing: Dems are 'done' with Covid just in time for 2022 midterms

Eddie Scarry
The Federalist
Fri, 11 Feb 2022 18:03 UTC
biden pelosi
© Official White House Photo by Adam SchultzPresident Joe Biden, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi engage in a bit of hygiene theater.
Democrats are relaxing the Covid restrictions noose in hopes that after November, they can tighten it all over again.

Now that we're in an election year where Democrats see their political fortunes slipping away in real time, they and their co-conspirators in the media have decided we should all take a quick break from "The Science."

Democrats in New Jersey, New York, California, Oregon, Delaware, Connecticut, Illinois, and Rhode Island in recent days have said to heck with the CDC and are beginning to loosen up their beloved restrictions and mask mandates.

Less than a month ago, the U.S. was averaging more than 800,000 new Covid infections each day, the highest number seen during the entire pandemic, and quadruple the rate of infections that occurred during its peak under President Trump. But because case numbers are finally falling, New York Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney on Wednesday credited "Democrats' plan to fight COVID," which he said is "working." Therefore, he said, "It's time to give people their lives back."

Comment: Scarry's clear case of covidiocy aside, his assessment is correct. The relaxation (not the scrapping) of mandates is a purely political decision driven by polls, and perhaps even more importantly, by the fear that the "Canada Trucker Virus" will spread south. There are rumblings already.





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Mr. Potato

New nation of Ukraineiraqafghanistan? Biden confuses three countries in three seconds

Ilya Tsukanov
Sputnik
Fri, 11 Feb 2022 17:43 UTC
Biden confused
© Reuters/Kevin LamarqueJoe Biden
Reports about the deterioration of the US president's mental faculties has been a subject of concern not only for ordinary Americans, but for foreign nations whose national security or general well-being may depend on decisions made in Washington.

President Joe Biden appeared to have temporarily lost his train of thought while discussing the crisis in Afghanistan and his administration's decision to withdraw last spring.

"There is no way we were ever going to unite Ukraine -I mean excuse me Iraq -Afghanistan," Biden said, speaking to NBC News' Lester Holt in an interview taped Thursday.

"Look, there is no good time to get out, but if we had not gotten out, [the generals] acknowledged we would have had to put a hell of a lot more troops back in," Biden added, saying that the pullout was "a much wiser thing to do."
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Eye 1

Well imagine that: Senators say CIA has secret program that collects American data

Nomaan Merchant
The Washington Post
Fri, 11 Feb 2022 01:28 UTC
cia symbol american flag
© AP Photo/Carolyn KasterThis April 13, 2016, photo, shows the seal of the Central Intelligence Agency at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. Two Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee say the CIA has a secret, undisclosed data repository that includes information collected about Americans. While neither the agency nor lawmakers would disclose specifics about the data, Sens. Ron Wyden and Martin Heinrich allege the CIA has long hidden details about the program from the public and Congress.
The CIA has a secret, undisclosed data repository that includes information collected about Americans, two Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee said. While neither the agency nor lawmakers would disclose specifics about the data, the senators alleged the CIA had long hidden details about the program from the public and Congress.

Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico sent a letter to top intelligence officials calling for more details about the program to be declassified. Large parts of the letter, which was sent in April 2021 and declassified Thursday, and documents released by the CIA were blacked out. Wyden and Heinrich said the program operated "outside the statutory framework that Congress and the public believe govern this collection."

There have long been concerns about what information the intelligence community collects domestically, driven in part by previous violations of Americans' civil liberties. The CIA and National Security Agency have a foreign mission and are generally barred from investigating Americans or U.S. businesses. But the spy agencies' sprawling collection of foreign communications often snares Americans' messages and data incidentally.

Comment:


See also:

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Flashlight

Trudeau's own party is starting to turn on him over Covid restrictions

Andy Blatchford
Politico
Tue, 08 Feb 2022 00:01 UTC
Joël Lightbound
© Adrian Wyld/The Canadian PressJoël Lightbound delivered the stunning, scathing assessment Tuesday in Ottawa with the big rigs of the so-called Freedom Convoy just outside the door.
A backbench lawmaker from Justin Trudeau's own caucus is accusing the prime minister of dividing and stigmatizing Canadians by politicizing vaccine mandates and Covid-19 restrictions.

Joël Lightbound delivered the stunning, scathing assessment Tuesday in Ottawa with the big rigs of the so-called Freedom Convoy just outside the door. The convoy protests against Covid measures have grabbed global attention and paralyzed the Canada's capital city for more than a week.

"Both the tone and the policies of my government changed drastically on the eve and during the last election campaign," said Lightbound, who convened a press conference to deliver his message. "A decision was made to wedge, to divide and to stigmatize. I fear that this politicization of the pandemic risks undermining the public's trust in our public health institutions."

Comment: See also:

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Star of David

Former AG of Israel: With great sadness I conclude that my country is now an apartheid regime

Michael Benyair
The Journal
Fri, 11 Feb 2022 08:44 UTC
Michael Benyair
© Yossi Gurvitz
Over the last year, there has been an ongoing public debate as to whether the actions the Israeli government is enacting in the Occupied Palestinian Territories can be classified as apartheid under international law.

On 1 February, Amnesty International became the latest NGO to class it as apartheid, calling it 'a cruel system of domination and a crime against humanity'. This followed earlier declarations of apartheid by fellow human rights groups, Yesh Din, B'Tselem and Human Rights Watch.

As the former Attorney General of Israel, I have spent my career analysing Israel's most pressing legal questions. Israel's occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem was a fundamental dilemma during my tenure and beyond.

Comment: Finaly someone to publicly speak about Israelis atrocities against Palestinians. The words possess even more weight since they came from a former Attorney General, a man who knows very well the system from the inside.

See also:

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Arrow Down

Poll: Most Biden detractors say he's done nothing they like since becoming president

Jennifer Agiesta and Ariel Edwards-Levy
CNN
Thu, 10 Feb 2022 17:09 UTC
Joe Biden
President Joe Biden deliver remarks about project labor agreements at Ironworkers Local 5 on February 4, 2022, in Upper Marlboro, Maryland.
Nearly 6 in 10 Americans disapprove of how Joe Biden is handling his presidency, with most of that group saying there's literally nothing Biden has done since taking office that they approve of. The finding, from a CNN Poll conducted by SSRS in January and February, highlights the entrenched politics driving the nation at the start of the midterm year, with little agreement across party lines on priorities for the government or how to handle the coronavirus pandemic.

The President's ratings have fallen across the board, the survey found. Just 41% approved of the way he's handling his job while 58% disapproved, a significant drop from his approval numbers in CNN polling last year. Just 36% of independents and 9% of Republicans approved. Although his approval rating still stood at 83% among Democrats, that was down from 94% late last summer. Biden also continues to have more strong detractors than he does fervent supporters: 41% of Americans disapproved strongly of his performance as President versus 15% who strongly approved. Some of the shift in Biden's numbers comes from a change in Americans' partisan tilt: Republicans and Democrats were about at parity in the new poll, with fewer identifying as Democrats than in other recent CNN polling.

When those who disapproved of Biden's overall performance were asked to name a single thing he'd done that they did approved of, 56% had nothing positive to say. "I'm hard pressed to think of a single thing he has done that benefits the country," wrote one survey respondent.

Of those who generally approved of Biden, a smaller 26% couldn't find anything negative to say. "I totally believe that he has the best interests of the American [p]eople in mind," wrote another respondent. "I think he understands the severity and importance of his job and is doing the best he can."
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Stop

Ukraine splits with Biden - media


RT
Thu, 10 Feb 2022 07:56 UTC
Zelensky
© Fenya Savilov/Getty ImagesUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky does not think a Russian invasion of his country is likely in the near future, and has told US President Joe Biden that American warnings of an attack are destabilizing the economy, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

The New York [Times] daily wrote on Wednesday that Washington officials have claimed that during a recent telephone call between the two leaders, when Biden warned that the US believed the threat of an invasion had grown, Zelensky replied that there had been a threat since 2014. Biden reportedly answered that the presence of Russian soldiers in Belarus, where they have been dispatched for joint military drills, could increase the chance of aggression.

According to the newspaper's sources, the Ukrainian president continues to doubt the likelihood of an imminent invasion, and has expressed fears that the stream of American warnings about Russian aggression have actually made an increased buildup of Russian forces more likely, and have helped to destabilize Ukraine politically and economically.
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