The other week Brian Lilley and I engaged in a video debate about lockdowns that was posted to YouTube.
My perspective was, broadly speaking, that many of the current restrictions in Ontario aren’t really necessary and they need to be rolled back. I won’t speak for Brian — you can find the video online to hear what we both had to say — but he had a differing opinion from some of the points I made.
A Biden administration policy of weak policing and lax prosecution would be a disaster for the nation’s cities.
Criminal justice in America is at a crossroads. The ongoing debate about racial justice in policing, incarceration, and prosecution became a national fixation following the May 2020 death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis. Since then, it has remained a flash point in our politics.
The election of Democrat Joe Biden, whose party is aligned with Black Lives Matter, who called Antifa “an idea,” and who cites “systemic racism” as the major problem facing black Americans, will make the next four years challenging for proponents of effective policing. This challenge will be felt not only by those on the thinning blue line but also by those living in deteriorating urban enclaves that saw homicides and shootings spike in the second half of last year.
From infrastructure development to trade, film, and education — there’s no doubt China’s presence in Africa is having a significant influence on the continent.
But how has China been winning the so-called ‘war of hearts and minds’ of more than one billion Africans?
“For China, propaganda has positive connotations, it is seen as a proactive tool in educating and shaping opinions to contribute to a ‘harmonious society,'” Ivana Karaskova, an expert on Chinese foreign and security policy, said during a virtual panel discussionon Friday. The event, dubbed ‘Telling China’s story well — Beijing’s attempts to reign into media in Africa and Europe,’ was organized by the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS).
A Christian organization has been suspended from the Twitter social media platform for stating Dr. Rachel Levine’s, assistant secretary for health at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), biological sex.
The images are striking, and the communication polished. This Sunday, January 31, in the morning, about thirty feminist activists from the Némésis collective gathered on the Place du Trocadéro, in Paris. Notable detail: the thirty young women all wore the “niqab”, the full Muslim veil. The event was organized on the occasion of “No Hijab Day”, a day without the veil created by an English feminist in February 2020 to protest against … the “hijab day”, a day promoting the Islamic veil. In addition to wearing the niqab, the Némesis activists displayed a banner “The French in 50 years? #NoHijabDay ” directly referring to the Islamization of France.
Le collectif @NemesisNemesi18 mène une action #nohijabday et l’islamisation au Trocadéro Alice, présidente du groupe, est interpellée par la police. #hijabday pic.twitter.com/zrbZKQfs6n
— Valeurs actuelles ن (@Valeurs) January 31, 2021
Bravo Ladies! – Note Google translate.
Les Flics try to make an arrest but are chased away.
La #Police fait respecter les lois de la #République!
Des #policiers qui veulent faire leur job, tentent d'interpeller des individus.
Ils sont pris à partie par une horde d'individus déterminés à en découdre.
Ils s'échapperont in extremis, sans être blessé.
Jusque quand? pic.twitter.com/qsAg2ToYUu— Commissaires de Police SICP (@SICPCommissaire) January 30, 2021
France is Le Fecked!
Remember last May when the Trudeau Liberals used the Nova Scotia mass killing as an excuse to ban 1,500 models of “military-style” rifles and shotguns owned by law-abiding Canadians? (That number has since crept up to 9,500 models and perhaps 400,000 individual guns.)
The justification given for this largest firearms confiscation in Canadian history was public safety. Somehow taking long guns away from hunters, farmers and skeet shooters was going to encourage drug dealers and gang members to stop using handguns to kill one another.
OTTAWA — Taxpayers will continue paying Julie Payette a generous pension and an even heftier expense account for the rest of her life, even though she served just three years as governor general and resigned under a cloud.
As a former governor general, she’s entitled to an annual pension of nearly $150,000.
And she’s entitled to claim up to $206,000 a year — for life and even six months after — to cover expenses incurred as a result of ongoing responsibilities related to her former office.
The horrible January 6 riot on Capitol Hill provided grist to the most fervent Trump haters to want to take everything away from him that they can. Washington Post architecture critic Philip Kennicott fulminated on the front page of Sunday’s Arts & Style section under the headline “Trump wants a presidential library. He must never have one.”
As this choleric “Critic’s Notebook” article went inside the paper, the headline was “A Trump presidential library is a terrible — and dangerous — idea.”
Beijing’s announcement that it will no longer recognize the British national (overseas) passport as a valid travel document will send chills through Chinese-Canadians living in Hong Kong.
But the broader context is a delicate political game over the future of millions of Hong Kongers who hold dual nationality. At least one Chinese-Canadian has already been caught up in the political intrigue.
The United States is about “We the People,” not “We the Minorities”. Democracy is a melting pot, not a salad bar.
Last month, as he started shaping his future Cabinet, President-elect Joe Biden promised to form a team that offers a better representation of America as it is. Judging by the welcome that his Cabinet has received across the globe, one may conclude that he has delivered on his promise.
According to media reports, the Biden team has been “warmly received” in Canada, Mexico and Western Europe, among other places. Radio France Internationale even reports “a sense of jubilation” in Abuja because Biden’s team includes several Nigerian-Americans at its second tier. In Tehran, the media take note of the inclusion of five or six Iranian-Americans in the new team with the hope that their presence would help change Washington’s policy towards Iran.
Biden’s team includes a number of “firsts”.
Butch Bowers, the lead attorney who was slated to represent former President Trump during his second impeachment trial in just more than a week, has left the legal team along with four other members, according to multiple reports.
Last week, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). announced that Bowers, a South Carolina attorney, would act as the Trump legal team’s “anchor” during the trial.
One of The Lincoln Project’s co-founders, John Weaver, stepped down from the Never Trump organization earlier this month after admitting that he sexually harassed young men and promised them a job in politics in exchange for sex. The New York Times did a bit of digging and talked to a few of Weaver’s accusers, most notably, Cole Trickle Miele, who was 14 when Weaver allegedly harassed him.
A new visa scheme offering millions of Hong Kong residents a pathway to British citizenship will go live on Sunday as the UK opens its doors to those wanting to escape China’s crackdown on dissent.
From Sunday afternoon, anyone with a British national overseas (BNO) passport and their dependents will be able to apply online for a visa allowing them to live and work in the UK. After five years they can then apply for citizenship.
