At the height of the riots in Portland over the past several months, the actual mayor of the city had to flee his home. Riots made it too dangerous for him and his neighbors.
France bomb plot: Iran diplomat Assahollah Assadi sentenced to 20 years
An Iranian diplomat has been convicted of a plot to bomb a big French rally held by an exiled opposition group.
Assadollah Assadi, 49, who worked at the Iranian embassy in Vienna, was given a 20-year jail term by the court in Antwerp in Belgium.
It was the first time an Iranian official had faced such charges in the EU since the 1979 revolution.
Three others were also convicted. They were arrested during a joint operation by German, French and Belgian police.
No. It’s because you really are an anti-semite.
Ilhan Omar accuses ‘Looney Tunes’ Republicans of using her as a scapegoat by calling her anti-Semitic to distract from calls to fire QAnon Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene – and says ‘it’s because I’m a black Muslim woman’
Shutting down Keystone XL shows Biden’s preference for symbolism over substance on environmental policy.
Biden’s Empty Environmentalism
For at least the past two decades, the American environmentalist movement has been split into two camps. On one side, less conspicuous, are the conservationists—dedicated to working with public and private actors to keep our air and water clean, preserve America’s natural beauty, and advance common-sense solutions to pressing issues like climate change. On the louder and more flamboyant side are the progressive activists, who prioritize heated rhetoric, symbolic measures, and political purity tests over practical solutions.
Symbolism over substance? Boy does that sound familiar.
Chasing the Dragon
On his first full day in office, President Joe Biden signed a massive executive order that, among other things, killed the Keystone XL pipeline project. Buried in that same order were two short sentences that will allow the Chinese government to get into the American electrical grid.
Located at Section 7(c), the order reverses a previous directive by the Trump administration last May, which found that “foreign adversaries are increasingly creating and exploiting vulnerabilities in the United States bulk-power system, which provides the electricity that supports our national defense, vital emergency services, critical infrastructure, economy, and way of life.”
Fired Parler CEO: I Tried To Warn Them To Crack Down
Let the recriminations begin! Parler CEO John Matze announced that the board has fired him as of Friday, not long after the social-media company got deplatformed by Google, Apple, and finally Amazon. Matze tells NPR that majority investor and conservative rainmaker Rebekah Mercer gave him the boot, and while he wasn’t given a specific reason, Matze says that a fundamental clash over Parler’s direction may have been the issue.
Special Forces pulls new SIG Sauer P320 pistols from service after soldier injured in misfire
… The incident raises troubling questions about the due diligence conducted by the military and defence officials when they went shopping for a new handgun, in light of the fact that misfires involving the weapon have been the subject of multiple lawsuits in the United States over several years, including at least one class action case that was settled last summer.
I bet it’s a glitter problem. This is what happens when you buy armaments to match your “combat boots.”
What happens when Google hides the news? … What do you mean “When?”
Early in January, the Guardian Australia published alarming reports of a bushfire ravaging vast areas of the southern continent.
Three fires moving rapidly across New South Wales and Victoria had merged to create one gigantic “megablaze,” the news outlet reported, forcing midnight evacuations and the deployment of thousands of firefighters across the region.
Some Australians who rely on Google’s search engine for news might have missed this.
At the time of the bushfires, the multinational technology company was “running a few experiments” that removed some media sites from its search results, it told the Guardian a few days later.
Liberals likely to be re-elected even though Trudeau messed up badly on vaccines
You watch, despite Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s total train wreck on acquiring COVID vaccines, Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal voters will ensure his Liberals win re-election — perhaps even this spring.
Until this week, Trudeau had been claiming Canada’s current two-week pause on vaccine shipments is immaterial.
Trudeau government passes decision on participation in Beijing Games to Canada’s Olympic Committee
OTTAWA – Despite the nearly 800-day arbitrary detention of two Canadians and a “genocide” of Uyghur Muslims in China, the Trudeau government is allowing the Canadian Olympic Committee to make the decision alone on participation in the 2022 Beijing Olympics.
Gutless suck ups.
Jewish baker forced to withdraw candidacy for Dutch Muslim political party that couldn’t stomach her X-rated cakes
An attempt by a controversial Dutch Muslim party to sweeten its image backfired when a Jewish baker who was set to stand for the group refused to stop selling X-rated cakes and was forced to withdraw.
Jolisa Brouwer, a baker from the town of Waalre in the southern Netherlands, was expected to take the number-three slot on the Party of Unity’s ticket for the national election in March. The party has been accused of radicalism and anti-Semitism in the past.
Ontario reports 1,563 new Covid cases … and the WHO says everything Hunky Dory in Wuhan
Ontario is reporting 1,563 cases of #COVID19 and nearly 64,500 tests completed. Locally, there are 584 new cases in Toronto, 265 in Peel and 132 in York Region.
As of 8:00 p.m. yesterday, 355,055 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered.
— Christine Elliott (@celliottability) February 4, 2021
Wanna a good laugh?
WHO team in Wuhan says discussions open, meetings frank
WUHAN, CHINA — One of the World Health Organization investigators looking for clues into the origin of the coronavirus in the central Chinese city of Wuhan said that the Chinese side has provided a high level of co-operation.
In a tweet, zoologist and team member Peter Daszak praised Wednesday’s meetings with staff at the key Wuhan Institute of Virology, including with Deputy Director is Shi Zhengli, a virologist who worked with Daszak to track down the origins of SARS that originated in China and led to the 2003 outbreak.
BBC Headline: Canada defends taking vaccines from scheme for poor
Canada has defended its decision to draw on a supply of coronavirus vaccines from a global inoculation-sharing initiative known as Covax.
Covax pools funds from wealthier countries to help buy vaccines for themselves and low-income nations.
The scheme has announced a plan to deliver more than 330 million vaccine doses in the first half of 2021.
Canada is the only member of the G7 group of rich countries listed as a Covax beneficiary at this stage.
There’s A Glaring Unintended Consequence For Democrats Impeaching Trump
Democrats could open a Pandora’s box of unintended consequences by going forward with impeachment and bringing former President Donald Trump back into the limelight.
GOLDSTEIN: Why did Trudeau trust China on vaccines?
One of the outstanding questions regarding Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s efforts to secure COVID-19 vaccines for Canadians is why his government put so much faith in a now-cancelled deal to develop them with China?