USA

US added to list of ‘backsliding’ democracies for first time

‘Visible deterioration’ in US civil liberties began in at least 2019, says international thinktank

The US has been added to an annual list of “backsliding” democracies for the first time, the International IDEA thinktank has said, pointing to a “visible deterioration” it said began in 2019.

Globally, more than one in four people live in a backsliding democracy, a proportion that rises to more than two in three with the addition of authoritarian or “hybrid” regimes, according to the Stockholm-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance.

“This year we coded the United States as backsliding for the first time, but our data suggest that the backsliding episode began at least in 2019,” it said in its report.

Share
by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inUSA

China Mocks Joe Biden for Mulling Fake ‘Diplomatic‘ Boycott of Genocide Olympics

Chinese state propaganda newspaper Global Times published a dismissed editorial on Sunday in response to President Joe Biden saying he was considering a diplomatic “boycott” of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, noting that, as long as athletes from America participate, such a move is not a real boycott.

It is cowardly and stupid. Perfect for our sleazebag politicos.

Share
by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"China - Communist Slave State", USA

Why America can’t kick its opioid addiction

Naive policies can’t compete with today’s drugs

It’s tempting to think about America’s opioid crisis in the past tense. The Sackler name — which belongs to the family that owned and ran Purdue, the pharmaceutical company that flooded America with addictive painkillers — has long been removed from the walls of the art galleries and museums they showered with money. Lawsuits have been settled. Dozens more are ongoing. Stories of addiction in Appalachia and rustbelt overdose deaths fill bookshop shelves. You can watch the same tale play out on Hulu’s TV series Dopesick.

Share
by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inUSA

Police: `Some fatalities’ when SUV hits Wisconsin Christmas parade

WAUKESHA, Wis. (AP) — The police chief in Waukesha, Wisconsin, says there were “some fatalities” when an SUV sped into Christmas parade.

Chief Dan Thompson said more than 20 people were injured Sunday. Thompson said he doesn’t have an exact number of fatalities. He said a “person of interest” is in custody.

A live video feed of the parade from the city of Waukesha, as well as videos taken by parade attendees, showed a red SUV breaking through barriers and speeding into the roadway where the parade was taking place.

Twitter – Wisconsin Christmas Parade

More … ‘Multiple people dead’ and 23 injured – including 12 children – after red Ford SUV plows into Wisconsin Christmas parade sending ‘bodies flying everywhere’: Person of interest in custody

h/t rm

Share
by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inUSA, WTF?

America on the Verge

One day, when sufficient distance has been gained from the Current Year to permit sober reflection on our own era, the recent past will no doubt be seen as a watershed in American political history. The election of Barack Obama in 2008 gave politics a religious sheen for Millennials just coming of age, and for Boomers hoping to avoid confronting the wreckage left in the wake of their rule. The election of Donald Trump in 2016 gave the new religion its devil. From Russia collusion to #MeToo, from Covington Catholic to Judge Kavanaugh, American culture and politics in the years since has been an unbroken series of witch crazes, lynch mobs, and human sacrifices (some successfully carried out, others not). The Democratic Party, the corporate press, and progressive activists openly embraced political violence as a means to achieve policy goals, block political appointments, and now, to attempt to affect court decisions.

Share
by Sarcasticat••0•Posted in"Disinformation", "extremists", "Justice", "Peak Woke", "racial justice", Batshit crazy lefties, Batshit Crazy Racists, Cultural Marxism, USA

Trudeau claims moral victory despite Biden’s refusal to budge on $12,500 EV tax incentive

Trudeau left behind an American administration determined to focus its efforts on selling American-made cars and trucks built with U.S. union labour

WASHINGTON — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tried to claim a moral victory Thursday after his day at the White House did little to defuse an escalating continental dispute over President Joe Biden’s plans to encourage Americans to buy more electric vehicles.

Share
by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCanada, USA

Trudeau goes to Washington, and finds that Canada is mostly an afterthought for the U.S.

The helicopter buzzing overhead was just one sign during Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s trip to Washington of a tough new reality Canadians face.

Trudeau’s failure to persuade Americans to ease up on Canada in a landmark electric-vehicle plan capped a visit that served a long, loud wake-up call to this new reality.

Former U.S. president Donald Trump’s protectionist impulses were no aberration: this era is vastly different from the one that produced the 1965 Auto Pact and spurred decades of Canada-U.S. economic integration.

Share
by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCanada, USA

‘I don’t know’: Biden noncommittal on including Canadian vehicles in EV tax credit

WASHINGTON — U.S. President Joe Biden isn’t making any promises about whether he’s willing to alter his controversial tax credit proposal for new electric vehicles.

Biden, meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in the Oval Office, says that’s one of the issues the two leaders will talk about.

“I don’t know,” the president said, Trudeau seated to his right, when asked whether he might consider amending the proposal to avoid harming the Canadian auto industry.

Share
by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCanada, USA

Biden fails to mention top fentanyl exporter China in comments on 100K US drug overdoses

President Biden on Wednesday released a statement mourning the more than 100,000 Americans who died last year from drug overdoses — without mentioning China’s leading role exporting fentanyl, which drove the 29 percent annual increase in deaths.

Nearly two-thirds of deaths were caused by fentanyl and related synthetic opioids that can kill a person at extremely low doses. Fentanyl is increasingly added to non-opioid drugs such as cocaine and counterfeit prescriptions.

Share
by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"China - Communist Slave State", "Joe Sleazebag Biden", USA

Feds Indict Iranians For Election Interference Effort To Pose As Proud Boys Engaged With Trump Campaign & Threaten Democrats

Federal agents say hackers pretended to be Proud Boys in messages to Republican lawmakers and targeted Democratic voters with threats.

Two Iranians ran a “targeted, coordinated campaign to erode confidence in the integrity of the U.S. electoral system and to sow discord among Americans,” a top Justice Department official said Thursday.

Seyyed Mohammad Hosein Musa Kazemi, 24, and Sajjad Kashian, 27, were charged in an indictment unsealed on Thursday.

The indictment alleges that the hackers got information off of state voter information websites, pretended to be “Proud Boys volunteers” in sending messages to Republican elected officials and members of Donald Trump’s campaign, and intimidated Democratic voters. They also tried to use stolen credentials to get into an American media company’s system.

Sure this wasn’t Comey?

Share
by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inIran, USA

John Ivison: Why the U.S. doesn’t take us seriously

 

One early December morning in 2016, Joe Biden got up, inquired into President Barack Obama’s health, and set off for a snowy Ottawa.

The lame duck vice-president was feted at a ritzy state dinner in the capital, where he called on Justin Trudeau to be a defender of the international “rules of the road” during the period of deep uncertainty he predicted would follow Donald Trump’s inauguration as the 45th president of the United States.

Share
by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCanada, USA

Three Amigos summit: Awkward conversations for US with its neighbours

There may be less drama in this relationship since Mr Biden took office but it hasn’t been smooth sailing and there are rough seas on the horizon.

One observer has said what was once a strategic partnership has become a “largely transactional” relationship.

A big bone of contention is Mr Biden’s embrace of “Buy American” which has become central to his trade agenda.

Critics argue such protectionist policies would increase the costs of goods to consumers and potentially shut out Canadian companies from lucrative US contracts. Alarm bells are ringing “a little louder right now for me”, Flavio Volpe, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association, told the BBC.

I don’t think Biden is driving the electric bus on trade issues, likely not on any issue for that matter. His handlers are and they need to please Big Labour.

Share
by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCanada, USA

The Collapse of Kamala Harris

Last week, a poll by Suffolk University revealed that just 28 percent of American voters approve of the job Vice President Harris is doing. That result is shocking . . . ly high.

That America’s voters disdain Harris as much as they obviously do gives me an extraordinary amount of hope for our future. In December of 2019, I celebrated Harris’s departure from the presidential primary with a “good riddance” that turned out to be woefully premature: “May Harris’s failed attempt,” I hoped, serve to “destroy her career and sully her reputation for all time.” Alas, the first part did not happen; on the contrary, Harris was springboarded up to within a heartbeat of the most potent office in the land. But the second part? Well, I got that in abundance. We are now ten months into this baleful presidency, and already Harris is the most unpopular vice president in history. And they say Christmas doesn’t come early!

Share
by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inUSA