Stop the Idiocracy: Ottawa

Showing posts with label Ottawa. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 30, 2022

Wednesday morning: Self-proclaimed ‘people’s’ convoy runs out of gas, President Biden signs historic legislation that would have been the news of the day back in more normal times, the real COVID-19 fraud, and more. Nothing about Will Smith and Chris Rock

Leah Millis/Reuters

D.C. ‘people’s’ convoy calls it quits after three weeks of largely being ignored - Of two minds here: Why would anybody show up for them now, when everyone has caved to the Covidiots and few mandates or lockdowns are in place anywhere outside China? That said, I am surprised the D.C. convoy wasn’t more successful, given how these types never miss an opportunity to cause a scene and wave their Trump and ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ flags. Or Confederate flags, or Russian flags. The convoys in Ottawa and elsewhere in Canada were very successful and galvanized the base, but this fell flat. Trump apparently had a rally this past weekend that drew only a few thousand in Georgia. I’m not really sure how to explain the low attendance at these events, given that public opinion appears to be moving the GOP’s way and away from President Biden and the Democrats. (Daily Beast 3/27)

AP/Evan Vucci

‘President Biden on Tuesday signed a bill to make lynching a federal hate crime, which came after Congress failed more than 200 times to pass anti-lynching legislation.’ - Over 200 times, and the United States Congress could not agree that lynching is a hate crime? What does anybody think lynching is, an act of love? Another big achievement for President Biden. (CBS News 3/29)

Breathless MSNBC reports President Biden’s approval rating at new low - Screw you and your phony poll, MSNBC. Which is to say, I do believe the majority of Americans have gone cold on President Biden, and even in its better days Americans have always tended to petulantly believe public opinion is the be-all/end-all of everything. In the age of social media and hyper-tension, that tendency has been sacred, unwritten law. Says to me President Biden is doing what I voted for him to do if he is violating such absurdity. Says to me Americans do not want a leader, they want a cheerleader and enabler. 44 f**king years on this planet, I well remember the final years of the Cold War, and then the halcyon days of the '90s. Nothing was ever perfect, but the collective psyche of America was in a much better place. It was the peak of post-war prosperity and global power. Everything has changed because people have changed. For the worst. I don't see that in Joe Biden, though; he served 36 years in the Senate, and certainly wasn't ready for the presidency, or the man he is today, in 1988. He grew as a man, while too many of us regressed in our humanity. Maybe that is the real, subconscious reason why so many are so determined to hate him. He is a relic of a past we venerate for its entertainment, but are collectively ashamed of politically, socially, and culturally. That, and the media is leading them on, resentful he won in 2020 and took their cash cow/blood rival out of the direct spotlight, hurting MSM profits. Yeah, I stand with President Biden, full stop with the garbage. (Do not actually click on the above link as MSNBC so desperately wants, only there for reference.)

Adobe Stock

Nebraska lawmaker backtracks after spreading an unproven allegation that schools were putting litter boxes in bathrooms for students who identify as cats - The Republican Party, at all levels, is not putting its best and brightest out there. The dumbing down and the gullibility, is deliberate, and exactly what their base demands. Vladimir Putin and this country’s enemies are delighted. (Washington Post 3/29)

‘(T)he largest fraud in American history.’ The looting of the COVID relief plan, PPP, by individuals and businesses for anything and everything but COVID relief - Remember when we used to talk about things like fiscal responsibility? (NBC News 3/28)

Enrollment in skilled-trades programs up, enrollment at community colleges down - More Americans learning real skills is an absolute positive. Ideally, enrollment at colleges and trade schools alike would be thriving. (NPR 3/28)

Saturday, February 19, 2022

Trudeau finally shows some backbone, as police clear Ottawa of belligerent truckers protesting vaccine mandates

Reuters

Disrupting industry, blocking critical infrastructure, and threatening violence against anyone opposed to their agenda will never be legitimate forms of protest, and the police should have authorized to suppress this insurrection from the very first day the convoys began amassing. The protests against COVID mandates and the Capitol Hill insurrection of January 6, 2021 are emboldening nationalist populists (also known as Fascists) the world over to impose their anti-intellectual, anti-science, and various other deluded beliefs onto others. It is America – the nation that once brought down European Fascism and liberated millions – that is leading the world into a new totalitarian nightmare. It is the ones who shout the loudest about their ‘freedom’ that are most set on bending society to their will, by any means necessary. Via the New York Times -

OTTAWA — Police officers on Saturday cleared out the central area of a sprawling demonstration in Ottawa, moving from truck to truck and arresting protesters as they continued to subdue the occupation that has disrupted the Canadian capital for weeks.
Starting about 10 a.m., police advanced on trucks that had been parked on Wellington Street, the thoroughfare in front of the Parliament building, drawing guns on some vehicles and banging on doors as they searched for any people inside. They arrested several as other demonstrators shouted “Shame on you!” from nearby. In the heart of the main encampment on Saturday, the police pushed people back with batons and irritant spray and made more arrests.
One demonstrator, David Paisley, a HVAC technician who has spent the protest broadcasting updates from a fishing shack on the back of a flatbed truck known as “the shed,” described the moment an officer entered the vehicle to arrest him.
“He had a big military rifle, he pointed right at my chest, he yelled at me to get down, on the ground,” said Mr. Paisley, 33, who captured the moment of his arrest on a recorded livestream. “It was like a movie scene.”
A recording played in French and English, as the police advanced. “You must leave,” it said. “Anyone found in the zone will be arrested.”
The police operation appeared to be a final salvo in the government’s belated effort to break up the occupation. In recent weeks, the demonstrations, which began with truckers rallying against vaccine mandates, have attracted a variety of protesters airing grievances about pandemic restrictions, claims of government overreach and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s stewardship of the country.
By midmorning, police had cleared the demonstrators from what had been the occupation’s core, Wellington Street, and set up barricades. The Ottawa Police said that as of Saturday evening, 170 people had been arrested and that 46 vehicles had been removed. The police declined to discuss their tactics but in a tweet on Saturday, they asked the public to stop calling emergency phone lines “to express displeasure about the police action” to end the protest, noting that making unnecessary calls to 911 was a crime.
While significantly throttled, the protest was not completely disbanded. As police pushed demonstrators away from Parliament, some congregated on side streets while police warned that there were children in the crowd. “We are seeing young children being brought to the front of the police operation,” the Ottawa police said on Twitter. “This is dangerous and it is putting the children at risk.” (Read more)

Friday, February 11, 2022

The White House puts the screws to weakling Justin Trudeau, demands Canada crackdown on trucker blockades at the border

Cole Burston/Getty Images

Disrupting the lives of ordinary citizens is not a legitimate form of protest. Rather, it is terrorism, and these truckers ought to be treated as terrorists. But pretty boy Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has his thumb up his ass, sitting back and doing nothing. These petulant bullies are already causing great harm to the economies of both Canada and the United States, and they are beginning to inspire copycat protests in the U.S. and around the world. It has to be stopped. -

The Canadian government is coming under increasing pressure from the United States to resolve anti-vaccine mandate protests that are impacting the economy in both countries with border blockades, including a 5-day shutdown of the vital Ambassador Bridge.
The “Freedom Convoy” by Canadian truckers opposing a vaccinate-or-quarantine mandate for cross-border drivers, mirrored by the U.S. government, began with the occupation of the Canadian capital, Ottawa. The truckers then blocked the Ambassador Bridge earlier this week, and shut down two other smaller border crossings.
The closure of the bridge, North America’s busiest international land border crossing and a key supply route for Detroit’s carmakers, has halted some auto output and left officials scrambling to limit economic damage. (Read more)

Saturday, February 5, 2022

Memo to Canadian PM Justin Trudeau: Stop being a coward, take charge of your country, and crack down on the convoys

Reuters/Mathieu Belanger

Fascists continue to disrupt life in Ottawa and other Canadian cities with almost complete impunity, while nurses who are counter-protesting are being told they cannot wear their scrubs in public, and ordinary citizens are being physically assaulted for wearing masks. Justin Trudeau is a weakling if I ever saw one. Declare Martial Law, send in troops and clear the streets by whatever means necessary. Do you, Mr. Trudeau, want your country to be a right-wing s**thole as America has become in the Trump era? Take it from an American, Canada should not want to emulate us. It’s time to bring a full stop to all this Covidiocy everywhere. From Reuters -

TORONTO/OTTAWA, Feb 5 (Reuters) - Thousands of people demonstrated in Canadian cities, including the financial hub Toronto, on Saturday as mostly peaceful but noisy protests against vaccine mandates spread from Ottawa, the capital.
The "Freedom Convoy" began as a movement against a Canadian vaccine requirement for cross-border truckers, but has turned into a rallying point against public health measures and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government.
“We're all sick and tired of the mandates, of the intimidation, of living in one big prison,” said Robert, a Toronto protester who did not give his last name. "We just want to go back to normal without having to take into our veins the poison which they call vaccines.”
Protesters have shut down downtown Ottawa for the past eight days, with some participants waving Confederate or Nazi flags and some saying they wanted to dissolve Canada's government.
"The protesters in Ottawa have made their point. The entire country heard their point," said Transport Minister Omar Alghabra, who urged protesters to "go home and engage elected officials."
Ottawa police said hate crime charges were laid against four people and they were investigating threats against public figures jointly with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The well-organized blockade, which police say has relied partly on funding from sympathizers in the United States, saw protesters bring in portable saunas on Saturday to combat frigid temperatures.
One man rode through the area on horseback, carrying a Trump flag, social media videos showed. Former U.S. President Donald Trump has spoken out in support of the truckers against "the harsh policies of far-left lunatic Justin Trudeau who has destroyed Canada with insane COVID mandates." (Read more)