Blazingcatfur – Page 4518

Ford government appeals to Canada’s top court to keep premier’s mandate letters secret

The Ontario government has asked Canada’s top court to weigh in on the province’s nearly four-year fight to keep Premier Doug Ford’s mandate letters to his cabinet ministers secret.

Mandate letters traditionally lay out the marching orders a premier has for each of his or her ministers after taking office — and have been routinely released by governments across the country.

Ford’s government, however, has been fighting to keep his mandate letters from the public since shortly after the premier took office in June 2018.

by Blazingcatfur•March 30, 2022March 30, 2022•0•WTF?

Amy Schumer ‘triggered and traumatised’ by Will Smith Oscars slap incident

Two days on from Will Smith slapping presenter Chris Rock at the 94th Academy Awards, following a joke about his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, and Hollywood appears united in feeling Smith deserves substantial reprimand for his actions.

One of the three hosts for this year’s ceremony, Amy Schumer, has said she is still “triggered and traumatised” by the incident, and “waiting for this sickening feeling to go away from what we all witnessed”.

by Blazingcatfur•March 30, 2022March 30, 2022•0•Celebrity Idiots, WTF?

W.H.O. Demands Increased Social Surveillance as Coronavirus Cases Plunge

The number of new coronavirus cases fell globally last week including in the Western Pacific region where they had been rising since December, the World Health Organization (W.H.O.) reported Wednesday.

That unalloyed good news was tempered by a caution for governments everywhere to maintain strict social surveillance levels to thwart any possible resurgence — now and into the future.

by Blazingcatfur•March 30, 2022March 30, 2022•0•"China eats weird animals disease"

El Shafee Elsheikh: Opening statements in ISIS Beatle jihadist trial

Opening statements take place on Monday in the US federal trial of an ex-British jihadist accused of hostage-taking and conspiracy to commit murder.

El Shafee Elsheikh, 33, is the last of a group of Islamic State militants – known as the Beatles for their British accents – to face justice.

The group is said to have tortured and beheaded hostages in Syria, including several journalists and aid workers.

The trial, in Virginia, is expected to last three to four weeks.

by Blazingcatfur•March 30, 2022March 30, 2022•0•"Islamophobia", Islam, Islam and violence, Islamization of the West, UK, USA

Rupa Subramanya: Canada’s woke Liberal government is driving immigrants away

Canada’s self-image is that of a country welcoming to immigrants, where newcomers are tightly woven into the national fabric. But, results of a recent survey suggest that at least some new immigrants are souring on Canada. A Leger poll commissioned by the Institute for Canadian Citizenship (ICC) found that 30 per cent of new Canadians aged 18 to 34 said they were likely to move to another country within the next two years. Even for new Canadians who are university graduates, the percentage of those saying they wanted to leave was 23 per cent. ICC CEO Daniel Bernhard said that he believes some new immigrants are experiencing a “crisis of confidence” in their new country. Ironically, while 72 per cent of new Canadians thought that Canadians as a whole don’t understand the challenges new immigrants face, only 54 per cent of Canadians shared this opinion.

by Blazingcatfur•March 30, 2022March 30, 2022•0•"Mass Immigration - Follow the money", Canada's Corrupt Liberal Government

Gen. Jonathan Vance pleads guilty to obstruction of justice charge

Gen. Jonathan Vance, the country’s former chief of the defence staff, pleaded guilty on Wednesday morning to one count of obstruction of justice laid against him following an investigation into allegations of inappropriate behaviour first published by Global News last year.

Appearing virtually before an Ottawa courtroom, Vance entered the unprecedented plea following a year that saw the Canadian Forces embroiled in what experts have called an existential crisis over multiple allegations of sexual misconduct against senior leaders.

by Blazingcatfur•March 30, 2022March 30, 2022•0•Canada

Germany close to gas rationing as it activates emergency fuel plan

Germany moved closer to gas rationing on Wednesday, after activating an emergency plan designed to help it cope with any disruption in supplies from Russia.

Amid fears of a looming showdown with Vladimir Putin over gas flows, Germany’s economy minister, Robert Habeck, convened a crisis team and warned consumers and businesses to reduce consumption, telling them “every kilowatt hour counts”.

Europe’s largest economy is also one of the EU members most reliant on supplies from Kremlin-controlled reserves, making it particularly vulnerable if the taps are turned off.

by Blazingcatfur•March 30, 2022March 30, 2022•0•"Ukraine - Russia"

CIA Officer Who Signed Hunter Biden Laptop Letter Claims Credit for Trump Loss

One of the former CIA officers who signed a letter claiming stories about a laptop allegedly belonging to Hunter Biden were disinformation says he helped swing the 2020 election away from former President Donald Trump.

“I take special pride in personally swinging the election away from Trump,” John Sipher, who served for decades as a senior operations officer at the CIA, wrote in a recent post on Twitter. “I lost the election for Trump? Well then I [feel] pretty good about my influence.”

by Blazingcatfur•March 30, 2022March 30, 2022•0•"Joe Sleazebag Biden", Trump Derangement Syndrome

GOLDSTEIN: Environment minister’s climate math doesn’t add up

Federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault on Tuesday unveiled a $9.1-billion climate change plan he says will achieve Canada’s 2030 greenhouse gas emission reduction target, despite the fact it shows the Trudeau Liberals failed to meet their 2020 target.

by Blazingcatfur•March 30, 2022March 30, 2022•0•Canada's Corrupt Liberal Government, Canada's Corrupt Political Class, Green-Scam

More corruption among Canada’s predatory public service unions….

Toronto city workers’ union rocked by president’s resignation after OMERS payments probe

The head of the union representing 20,000 city of Toronto workers has resigned amid allegations he received payments from his second-in-command after helping him get a prime position on an outside board.

The turmoil in Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 79 comes after OMERS, the municipal employees pension fund, probed concerns that one union official had paid another for the local’s spot on its board, which pays $46,000 a year, the Star has learned.

The revelations are the latest in a string of problems for Local 79 — which has been grappling with infighting and other issues, including grievances over members being fired by the city for not being vaccinated against COVID-19 — and for Canada’s labour movement more broadly, as an unrelated scandal rocks the country’s largest private-sector union, Unifor.

HMA

by Blazingcatfur•March 30, 2022March 30, 2022•0•"Progressive Paradise", Canada's Corrupt Political Class, Canada's Public Service Union Predator Class

Threats Within: More make believe reasons why Justin Trudeau must control the internet

Threats Within: Canada’s spy service boosts attention to ‘ideological’ domestic extremism

… “Ideologically” motivated violent extremism (IMVE) — the service’s catch-all term, which includes far-right and white supremacist-motivated violence — is “fast approaching parity with the threat from religiously-motivated violent extremism in terms of investigative resources deployed” in Canada, CSIS Director David Vigneault wrote in late 2021.

“The pandemic has been seized upon by extremists, who are exploiting the situation to spread disinformation, amplify anti-authority narratives, and promote acts of violence,” Vigneault wrote in a letter to Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino in late 2021, adding IMVE “disproportionately targets equity-deserving groups in Canada.”

“CSIS is actively investigating IMVE threats, and when appropriate, mitigating these threats through the use of threat reduction measures.”

by Blazingcatfur•March 30, 2022March 30, 2022•0•"Surveillance Society"

Canada headed towards 6th COVID-19 wave this spring, experts warn! OMG! Ontario is already toast!

Canada is heading towards a potential sixth COVID-19 wave, experts say, as cases and hospitalizations have started to creep back up again across the country.

While average daily case counts have levelled off nationally, there continues to be regional variability across the country with several jurisdictions reporting increases, said Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer in her latest weekly update on Friday.

Ontario has entered the sixth COVID-19 wave, doctors say

After more than two years fighting COVID-19, some medical experts in Ontario say the province has entered a sixth wave.

“There are more cases now than there were a week ago and two weeks ago,” infectious disease expert Dr. Isaac Bogoch said Tuesday.

“We can call this a wave. We just don’t know the size of the wave. But it’s here.”

by Blazingcatfur•March 30, 2022March 30, 2022•0•"China eats weird animals disease"

War in Ukraine: Russia launches new attacks after peace promise

The governor of Ukraine’s Chernihiv region says there is no let-up in attacks by Russia, despite its pledge to reduce military activity there.

The governor, Viacheslav Chaus, told the BBC that he did not believe Russia’s promise.

“We’ve already seen that there wasn’t even a single time when their military forces kept their word,” he added.

Russian and Ukrainian negotiators made no “breakthroughs” in Tuesday’s peace talks, the Kremlin has said.

#Ukraine: A totally destroyed Russian T-80U; footage is new but we cannot verify precisely when it was hit.

If you look closely, you can observe that the turret is leaning against the trees in the forest. pic.twitter.com/bq0PRvBSSo

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) March 30, 2022

The T-80 is a new tank for the Russians, getting its butt kicked by a guy with a shoulder fired missile.

by Blazingcatfur•March 30, 2022March 30, 2022•0•"Ukraine - Russia"

Is Russia Just Not That Good at Cyberwar?

With events developing rapidly in the Ukraine war, some of the more interesting questions revolve around what has not happened. Why did Russia think Ukraine would not seriously resist? Why did Russia not coordinate its forces better? And why did Russia not use its vaunted cyberattack capabilities against Ukraine and its Western backers?

It is possible that Russia is not as capable as we feared. However, that does not mean we should neglect better preparation and defenses.

by Blazingcatfur•March 30, 2022March 29, 2022•0•"Ukraine - Russia"

What happened to the jihadists known as the IS Beatles?

A British-born man who was one of the so-called Islamic State Beatles is on trial in a US federal court, accused of hostage-taking and conspiring to murder several Western journalists and aid workers.

El Shafee Elsheikh is alleged to be one of a group of IS fighters from Britain who tortured hostages in Syria and posted execution videos.

He is the last of the group to be brought to justice.

by Blazingcatfur•March 30, 2022March 29, 2022•0•"Islamophobia", Islam, Islam and violence, Islamization of the West