‘Seismic shift’: driving unaffordable for many in US amid push toward SUVs

At the start of the pandemic, Ceola Luna, a 45-year-old Lyft driver in Los Angeles, bought a 2005 Saturn Vue crossover, after her new Dodge Caravan (a minivan) was wrecked in a crash. The Vue wasn’t nearly as nice, but it was affordable at $4,000 – including rust, engine issues, and a dashboard full of warning lights.

With no other income to support herself and three children, driving was an economic lifeline for Luna. But much of what she made ended up going to car mechanics as the small SUV kept breaking down. Then last year, Lyft informed Luna that her Vue had gotten too old for the platform, leaving her jobless. So she scrambled to find a new gig as a care worker for autistic children, and then the car failed again. To save up for another mechanic appointment, Luna has been taking the bus to her clients – sapping her earnings with hours of unpaid commute time.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inUSA

Intelligence Reveals Details of U.N. Agency Staff’s Links to Oct. 7 Attack

TEL AVIV—At least 12 employees of the U.N.’s Palestinian refugee agency had connections to Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel and around 10% of all of its Gaza staff have ties to Islamist militant groups, according to intelligence reports reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Six United Nations Relief and Works Agency workers were part of the wave of Palestinian militants who killed 1,200 people in the deadliest assault on Jews since the Holocaust, according to the intelligence dossier. Two helped kidnap Israelis. Two others were tracked to sites where scores of Israeli civilians were shot and killed. Others coordinated logistics for the assault, including procuring weapons.

Of the 12 Unrwa employees with links to the attacks, seven were primary or secondary school teachers, including two math teachers, two Arabic language teachers and one primary school teacher.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Oct 7 2023"

Biden’s Border Catastrophe

The president’s recent pledge to “shut down” the border suggests that, if nothing else could, his political survival might finally motivate him to enforce the law.

Immigration was already bound to be a pivotal issue in this year’s elections. The standoff between Texas and the federal government, however, emphasizes just how egregious the problem has become—and highlights an especially glaring vulnerability for President Biden in November.

Here’s a recap of the escalating standoff. Last week, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the Supreme Court’s liberal minority in a 5-4 ruling that allows U.S. Border Patrol agents to dismantle razor wire along the river in Eagle Pass, Texas, which the state had built to prevent illegal border crossings. The federal government claimed that the razor wire prevented Border Patrol from aiding migrants in distress, including three who recently drowned. Texas governor Greg Abbott responded that Border Patrol was never denied access and blamed the Biden administration for the migrant deaths. Abbott has said that he will continue defending the state’s border despite the Court’s ruling.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Mass Immigration - Follow the money", USA

The deluded tears of Taylor Lorenz

American media’s preeminent Mean Girl, Taylor Lorenz, would like all us plebs to know that things are, like, really, really hard for her and her fellow mainstream-media journalists right now.

Earlier this week, in a video breathtaking for its profound lack of self-awareness, Lorenz decried a ‘really dark’ period of mass lay-offs throughout the media industry. ‘Tens of thousands of journalists have been laid off in the past year’, she said. ‘Pretty much the entire digital media ecosystem which myself and a lot of other millennial journalists came up in, has been completely hollowed out.’ ‘If you’re a young journalist today’, she continued, ‘there’s almost no on-ramp to traditional journalism’.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inThe Media

Epiphanies on Islamic Ethics

Muslim societies do not just breed violence and poverty, but also a dogmatic sense of superiority grounded on nothing but wishful thinking.

Most criticism of Islam focuses on violence sanctioned and promoted by Islamic teachings and on rampant disrespect and oppression of women, and sexual and religious minorities.

These attitudes, as hateful as they are, are not the real reasons hindering progress (other than military efforts) in the Islamic world. After all, Wilhelmine Germany and Meiji Japan also held power and military strength in high regard, relegated women to a secondary role and denied sexual and religious minorities equal rights.

Yet both Wilhelmine Germany and Meiji Japan developed rapidly and contributed important scientific and intellectual discoveries to mankind.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Islamophobia", Islam, Islam and violence

Squad member Ilhan Omar slammed for ‘disgraceful’ speech

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) is being accused of ‘treason’ and calls to be removed from Congress she faces fierce opposition for a speech where she unapologetically declared she is ‘Somalia first.’

Somaliland Ambassador Rhoda Elmi reposted video of Omar’s speech on X and called it ‘regrettably unbecoming’ and ‘lacking in common decency.’

The leaked video of Omar’s speech on January 27 quickly went viral and garnered widespread criticism, including from far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) who accused her colleague of using her position to protect people who ‘hate America’ and also said she’s clearly admitting to putting another country ahead of American interests.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Islamophobia", Islam, Islam and violence, Islamization of the West, USA, WTF?

Top Liberal ministers duck questions about replacing Trudeau as Parliament returns

With polls suggesting the Liberal Party’s support is still in freefall, some of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s top ministers were asked Monday whether they’re angling to replace him as Liberal leader.

Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, Treasury Board President Anita Anand, Housing Minister Sean Fraser and Industry Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne were all asked if they’re considering leadership bids.

Freeland, who has been floated as a possible successor for years, said Trudeau has her “full support.”

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCanada, Canada's Corrupt Liberal Government

Ottawa’s next immigration emergency

A pattern has emerged in Liberal immigration policy over the past year: Ignore mounting evidence of trouble, dismiss rumbles of criticism and, finally, take the smallest possible action to avert an all-out calamity.

There was abundant evidence for months that the pace of new arrivals, particularly temporary migrants, was putting unacceptable strain on housing in big cities and other social infrastructure. But it was not until November that the Trudeau government took the tentative step of tamping down the growth in permanent immigration – misleadingly referred to as “stabilizing” by the government. Even with the change, permanent immigration targets will rise this year and next, with an extra 55,000 people admitted over that two-year span.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Mass Immigration - Follow the money", Canada's Corporate Welfare Class, Canada's Corrupt Liberal Government

Muslim council cancels meeting with Trudeau over Liberal stance on hate crimes, Gaza

crying muslim

OTTAWA – The National Council of Canadian Muslims has cancelled a scheduled meeting today with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, saying there’s no point in speaking with him.

Chief executive Stephen Brown says that’s because of Trudeau’s response to the situation in the Gaza Strip and his government’s failure to deliver legislation and funding to prevent hate crimes.

Brown says Trudeau has not followed through on promises he made to the Muslim community in the 2015 election that brought him to power.

I love how identity politics is biting him in the ass.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Islamophobia", "Oct 7 2023", Canada, Islam, Islam and violence, Islamization of the West

Canadian Hells Angels members implicated in U.S. case against Iran for assassination attempts on U.S. soil

U.S. prosecutors allege that the government of Iran recruited two Canadian men associated with the Hells Angels to assassinate Iranian defectors in Maryland as part of an international scheme meant to silence dissidents abroad.

A federal indictment unsealed on Monday says that Naji Sharifi Zindashti, an Iranian drug trafficker operating under the orders of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security, recruited Damion Patrick John Ryan, 43, a Canadian full-patch member of the Hells Angels, to carry out a hit on two Iranians in Maryland in December of 2020. Mr. Ryan in turn hired Adam Richard Pearson, 29, a Canadian Hells Angels affiliate then living illegally in Minnesota, to carry out the plot, prosecutors say.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCanada, Iran, WTF?

Is This What Biden Meant By ‘Unity’?

The only thing Americans are unified about is that Biden needs to retire.

During President Biden’s inaugural address, he used the word “unity” at least a dozen times. He told us, “Today, on this January day, my whole soul is in this: Bringing America together. Uniting our people.” Three years later, his irresponsible policies and incendiary rhetoric have rendered the nation more divided than at any time in recent memory. Nowhere is this more evident than at the southern border where Biden has created a humanitarian crisis by ignoring federal immigration law and suing the state of Texas for exercising its constitutional right to defend itself from what its governor accurately describes as a foreign invasion.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Joe Sleazebag Biden", USA

Trump is right – the world is less stable under Biden

Donald Trump said yesterday that we’re ‘on the brink of World War III’ after a suicide drone killed three US soldiers and injured a further 34 in Jordan. ‘This attack would never have happened if I was president, not even a chance – just like the Iranian-backed Hamas attack on Israel would never have happened, the war in Ukraine would never have happened, and we would now have peace throughout the world,’ said Trump. ‘Our country cannot survive with Joe Biden as Commander in Chief.’

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inUSA