Russia’s invasion revealed big differences in how politicians deal with threats.
The president of Ukraine, when offered evacuation, said, “I need ammunition, not a ride.” He’s a leader.
By contrast, in Canada a few weeks before, when truckers staged a protest against COVID-19 rules, the cowardly Prime Minister Justin Trudeau felt so threatened by the peaceful protesters that he went to “a secret location.” Then he invoked Canada’s Emergencies Act.
TikTok isn’t just for dances anymore.
The White House briefed 30 high-profile creators on the popular app Thursday about key details of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Washington Post reported.
According to the outlet, the briefing took place over Zoom and was led by White House press secretary Jen Psaki and National Security Council special communications adviser Matt Miller.
This is one of the TikTok stars that the White House invited on a zoom call to get briefed on Ukraine.
Her channel, which is just hundreds of videos of her dancing, is definitely the first place I would go to get Biden approved news on the war 🤡
The adults are back in charge. pic.twitter.com/yzxiPOsZ22
— Libs of Tik Tok (@libsoftiktok) March 11, 2022
Jean Charest launched his Conservative Party leadership campaign on Thursday. There had been plenty of anticipation over this announcement from the former Quebec Liberal premier and federal PC leader.
Several commentators had encouraged him to jump in and make it a competitive race. There’s been some analysis of the diminished role of moderate Conservatives in the party, and how his campaign could help correct this. National Post columnist Tasha Kheiriddin, who opted not to run for the party leadership this week, threw her support behind Charest as “the candidate that I believe can best unify the party and win the next election.”
“Adopting babies is selfish and unethical” 🤯 pic.twitter.com/cXgLYYiMEB
— Libs of Tik Tok (@libsoftiktok) March 11, 2022
… Dozens of Muslim Canadian organizations are now urging the sympathetic Trudeau government and the “president of the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) to intervene on behalf of Egyptian refugee claimants in Vancouver,” who are deemed security risks due to their MB links. The argument of the Muslim groups manifests complete disregard for Canadian national security. Since the MB groups are not listed as “terrorist entities,” these groups expect Canada to turn a blind eye to all rational concerns and risks, and give these entities a big welcome.
It is not the most pressing question to emerge from Russia’s onslaught on Ukraine, but I have nonetheless found myself wondering – what will happen with the word ‘erasure’ following this war? Ukraine’s heroic president Volodymyr Zelensky used the e-word last week. Russia, he said, is out to ‘erase our history’. The Putin regime and its marauding forces want to ‘erase our country, erase us all’, Zelensky cried, aptly, given the vigour and bigotry with which Putin has mocked and violently undermined Ukrainian sovereignty. Putin clearly sees Ukraine as a joke nation that can casually be erased from the map.
Well, if this isn’t the most hypocritical thing:
Vladimir Putin has given the green light for up to 16,000 volunteers from the Middle East to be deployed alongside Russian-backed rebels fighting in Ukraine, doubling down on an invasion that the west says has been losing momentum.
The move, just over two weeks after Putin ordered the invasion, allows Russia to deploy battle-hardened mercenaries from conflicts such as Syria without risking additional Russian military casualties.
An American school has been “downgraded” by officials. The cause? The school is accused of “placing more weight on teaching social justice than on subject-specific knowledge.” So apparently, pupils at the school spent more time being taught about “social justice” than tedious old skills like reading, writing and math. Teachers, meanwhile, were accused of clogging up lessons with “stridently expressed views on social justice” and creating a culture “where alternative opinions are not felt welcome.” All the time, educational standards have slipped.
Cook County State Attorney Kim Foxx penned an op-ed in the Chicago Sun-Times expressing her outrage over the conclusion of actor Jussie Smollett’s sentencing hearing on Thursday after being found guilty of staging a hate crime in 2019.
Foxx accused Smollett’s trial of being “damaging, costly, and disingenuous criminal prosecution” that showed “the system can be easily manipulated in furtherance of thinly veiled political agendas.”
Russian citizens have been at the center of their government’s propaganda campaign to twist the events of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in a way that makes Russia look like the hero and Ukraine look like the aggressor.
Even before the war began, the government and state-run media in Russia were showing a distorted view of reality by painting a false narrative of the Ukrainian government.
An attorney for Dolloff told the newspaper prosecutors informed him they plan to dismiss the second-degree murder charge during a pretrial conference on March 21.
“I’m just really happy for Matt and his family that the DA finally realized what we’d known all along,” attorney Doug Richards told the newspaper.
Richards and a public defender who previously represented Dolloff, who was at the rally to protect a KUSA-TV producer, have insisted the fatal shooting was clearly self-defense.
A Canadian marketer who had planned to raise a humble few hundred dollars for a charity helping relief efforts in Ukraine has found himself the creator of a viral marketing campaign that has so far earned well over C$1m ($783,000; £600,000) using the unlikeliest of images – a rocket-armed saint.
Christian Borys helped develop the image – known as “Saint Javelin” – which depicts the Virgin Mary cradling a US-made FGM-148 anti-tank weapon. These missiles are among the arms being sent by Western allies to Ukrainian forces to aid in their fight.
The identity and legal fate of nearly all of the arrested Freedom Convoy protesters remain shrouded in secrecy.
Police laid 393 charges against 122 people, charges that include assault, assaulting a police officer, possession of a weapon and dangerous operation of a motor vehicle, according to a police update on Feb. 21.
Igor Gavrylko was at his home in west London when the Russian bombs began to fall on Ukraine. A British citizen originally from Ukraine, he had lived in the UK since 1996, working most recently for Nissan as a forecourt salesperson. He rang his boss. “I knew a Russian invasion was going to happen,” he said. “My Ukrainian grandfather fought against the Red Army and the Nazis in world war two. Now it’s my turn to help.”
Alec Baldwin claimed that he was following Halyna Hutchins’ directions when he pointed what turned out to be a gun loaded with live rounds at her on the set of the movie ‘Rust’ and pulled the trigger, killing the cinematographer, according to a new court document.
The actor made this allegation in an arbitration demand that his lawyers filed on Friday against his fellow producers. The document also maintains that Baldwin’s contract protected him from financial responsibility related to Hutchins’ death.
Baldwin has been named as a defendant in multiple lawsuits that have been filed in connection with the fatal shooting.
