News roundup, 24 Feb 2026

- Most folks associated with the Republicans will vehemently deny any Nazi sympathies. Maybe some of them are even telling the truth and are just extremely ignorant, but it's getting harder and harder to give them the benefit of the doubt. The Trump regime seems to be very clearly copying Nazi aesthetics and phrasing, for instance. It's getting to the point where thoughtful, reasonable conservatives like the author of this article - of whom there seem to be fewer and fewer these days - are leaving the Republican Party in disgust.

- The Conservatives have introduced several proposed amendments to the Carney government's budget implementation bill, which would impose limits on the government's proposed power to exempt corporations from some regulations. Perhaps the only thing more surprising than the Conservatives proposing something half-decent is the fact that the Liberals have accepted the amendments. Maybe politics in this country isn't quite as far gone as it is in the US.

- The would-be assassin who was killed by security at the Mar-a-Lago compound appears to have come from a family of Trump supporters in North Carolina, but left behind a bunch of writings expressing rage over the Epstein files. 

- The Macron government issued a summons to US ambassador Charlie Kushner (father of Jared) following comments regarding the killing of far-right activist Quentin Deranque in Lyon. Kushner, however, refused to attend and has had his access to French officials blocked in response.

- An 11 year old boy in Perry County, Pennsylvania apparently was displeased when his parents took away his Nintendo Switch. Police believe he was so displeased, in fact, that he shot his father to death. Interestingly, in Pennsylvania minors charged with murder are tried as an adult by default, though the case can be moved to juvenile court under some circumstances. In Canada he couldn't even be charged criminally, though one would hope other measures would be taken.

News roundup, 14 Nov 2025

- A full vote in the House of Representatives on the full release of the Epstein files appears imminent after Donald Trump failed to convince Republican representatives Nancy Mace and Lauren Boebert to remove their names from the discharge petition. Of course, a yes vote in the House won't force the release; it would still have to be voted on in the Senate, where it is expected to be blocked, but some in the Trump camp fear that this could open divisions in the Republican Party that might get out of control. In other Epstein-related news, Steve Bannon reportedly sought advice on political messaging from him during a pro-Trump media campaign in 2018.

- Lawyers for New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI director James Comey are arguing for the dismissal of charges against their clients on the grounds that prosecutor Lindsey Halligan's appointment was illegitimate. Halligan was installed on an interim basis without Senate approval after her predecessor, Erik Siebert, resigned after refusing to proceed with the prosecutions.

- Saab CEO Micael Johansson has confirmed that his company is in talks with the Canadian government as well as with Bombardier for a licensing deal to build the Gripen fighter in Canada. There are suggestions that this could not only provide fighters for Canada, but also for Ukraine, who have announced the intention to buy at least 100 of the aircraft.

- Winnipeg's 2026 budget is expected to include a 3.5% increase in property taxes. The city has a lot of catching up to do, given that taxes were frozen for many years while expenses kept creeping up, and time is running out for upgrades to the North End Water Pollution Control Centre, among other things.

- Toronto's city council has voted to relax zoning restrictions that prevented new retail stores and cafes from opening on residential streets, despite the best efforts of NIMBYs like these people. There will still be restrictions; for instance, they can only open on corner lots, or lots next to parks or locations that are already zoned commercial. Food services will be limited; while cafes and the like are OK, large commercial kitchens will not be allowed. And councillors will have a veto on new facilities in their wards.

- The Silicon Valley crowd is apparently looking for ways to get around legislation prohibiting genetic engineering of human embryos. I guess we can add Gattaca to the list of science fiction dystopias that the techbros see as utopias.

- Sonder, a chain of boutique hotels, suddenly went bankrupt on Monday after defaulting on payments and losing their licensing deal with Marriott, stranding thousands of guests in over 40 cities around the world.

- After an intoxicated woman fell while disembarking from a carnival ride in Port Hardy, BC, sustaining significant injuries, investigators learned that the ride attendant had left his nine year old child in charge of operations while he went to "wash up". The company involved is no stranger to such investigations; earlier this year one of their employees was killed when he was hit by the same ride involved in the most recent incident.

News roundup, 10 Oct 2025

- The Israeli government has ratified a ceasefire agreement with Hamas, calling for a "suspension of hostilities" between the two regimes within 24 hours, and the release of 20 Israeli prisoners as well as the remains of 28 others. Of course, Gaza is pretty much uninhabitable now, which presumably suits the Israelis fine, since they'll probably just send in a bunch of settlers to rebuild the place for themselves. Trump is of course talking a lot about this, presumably hoping to convince the Nobel committee to give him the Nobel Peace Prize. Speaking of which, many Norwegian politicians and journalists are seriously concerned about how Trump will react to not receiving the prize, now that it's been awarded to someone else. One columnist and analyst doesn't even rule out the possibility of Trump declaring Norway an enemy.

- Mark Bray, the Rutgers University historian who is moving to Europe to escape death threats, showed up at Newark International Airport with his family on Wednesday night, only to be told at the boarding gate that their flight had been cancelled. They were able to rebook a flight for Thursday night, which suggests that this was not the action of the regime but of one of its overly enthusiastic supporters. No doubt the MAGA crowd would still like us to believe that they aren't fascists, but they aren't making a very good case for themselves.

- FBI director Kash Patel has disbanded a working group studying corruption and fired several agents, saying that they had "weaponized law enforcement against the American people". This comes after the group had placed several Republican senators under investigation.

- Vyacheslav Leontyev, a former editor of the Russian newspaper Pravda, has died after falling from his fifth floor apartment in Moscow. Authorities have ruled his death a suicide; as we know, depression is a very common affliction among those with insider knowledge of the Russian state.

- Elections BC has ruled that signs that billionaire Chip Wilson, founder of Lululemon, violated third-party advertising rules when he posted signs in front of his Vancouver mansion declaring the NDP to be "Communist" during the last election campaign. He was fined $600; for perspective, the signs themselves cost him over $1,600 and the maximum penalty for a violation is $10,000.

- A licensed counsellor in Colorado is challenging the state's ban on "conversion therapy" for LGBT* minors on "free speech" grounds. Not surprisingly, the Supreme Court is widely expected to rule in the counsellor's favour.

- Researchers in Switzerland are growing human neurons from stem cells in order to make artificial brains that can be integrated into computer systems.

- The mayor-elect of the German town of Herdecke suffered serious injuries in a stabbing on Tuesday. Given the current political climate around the world, an assassination attempt is the first thing that comes to mind, however she has apparently pointed the finger at her adopted daughter.

News roundup, 31 Jan 2025

- No survivors have been found in the midair collision near DC, and none are expected. For his part, Donald Trump is blaming diversity efforts at the FAA. I'm sure Germany's leaders probably cast a few similar aspersions about the blame for the Hindenburg disaster as well. In actual fact, the FAA may well deserve some of the blame, not because of diversity but because of short-staffing - there was only a single controller working that night in one of the busiest and most complicated airspaces in the country.

- Trump is accusing the Federal Reserve and its chair, Jerome Powell, of causing inflation after the Fed decided to keep interest rates at their current level. On cue, he's also blaming DEI policies for the matter. No doubt Trump's supporters in Congress will be all too willing to pass the necessary legislation to weaken the independence of the central bank, assuming of course that Trump's attention span is long enough to keep him from moving on to something else before acting.

- One of Trump's executive orders mandates schools, among other things, to provide "patriotic education". The order even goes so far as to provide a definition:

(d)  “Patriotic education” means a presentation of the history of America grounded in:
(i)    an accurate, honest, unifying, inspiring, and ennobling characterization of America’s founding and foundational principles;
(ii)   a clear examination of how the United States has admirably grown closer to its noble principles throughout its history;
(iii)  the concept that commitment to America’s aspirations is beneficial and justified; and
(iv)   the concept that celebration of America’s greatness and history is proper.

Setting aside the fact that any characterizing of America's founding that is accurate and honest is almost certain not to be "unifying, inspiring, and ennobling", this whole thing sounds like it could have come straight out of the Chinese Communist Party.

- A bill before the Tennessee legislature would make make it illegal for legislators to vote in favour of immigration policies opposed by Trump, punishable by up to six years in prison and/or a $3,000 fine.

- Trump has purged the National Labor Relations Board; not only has he removed the board's general counsel (which is legal, since that is an "at pleasure" position), but he has also removed a board member who, according to legislation, has a fixed term. As a result, the board lacks a quorum and is unable to make rulings or certify union representation. Worse, since Trump is almost sure to get away with this, it is expected that he will take similar measures with other ostensibly independent government agencies.

- FCC chair Brendan Carr, appointed by Trump during his previous term (and notably not removed by the Biden administration) has ordered an investigation into NPR and PBS, with the ultimate goal of slashing funding for the broadcasters.

- A priest in an Anglican splinter group has been defrocked after giving a Nazi salute during a speech at the National Pro-Life Summit in Washington. Worth noting is the fact that the church in question, the Anglican Catholic Church, had actually split from the main Anglican communion because the latter wasn't sufficiently socially conservative. I guess even they have standards, though.

- Hot on the heels of one of those Dec. 6 rioters pardoned by Trump dying in a confrontation with police, it turns out that another of them is wanted for soliciting sex with a minor.

- A woman who recently died in Taber, Alberta turned out to have been a longtime fugitive from American and Mexican authorities. She was suspected of killing two people in Missouri, then after fleeing to Mexico was jailed for killing a man in a botched robbery but escaped from prison in 1969 and remained at large for the rest of her life.

News roundup, 23 Jan 2025

- Many of Donald Trump's promised changes would require a major overhaul of how government works. In particular, the political independence of various government agencies is in the firing line, including the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, and the Federal Trade Commission, and potentially the military as well. This could potentially enable the Trump regime to, for instance, follow through on hints that he might get the FCC to pull the licenses of broadcasters that are insufficiently loyal to the regime (which might explain why a CBS affiliate in Wisconsin just fired their meteorologist for calling Musk out on his Nazi salute), or to purge the military of generals that are too "woke". And, of course, Trump has ordered all federal staff devoted to anything that he lumps under "DEI" to be put on administrative leave (with permanent dismissal expected to follow).

- One of the prisoners pardoned by Trump is Ross Ulbricht, the creator of the Silk Road website on the "dark web". Ulbricht had been sentenced to life in prison in 2015 on charges related to facilitating drug trafficking, hacking, and money laundering; he was also alleged to be involved in up to six homicides. But he's a hero to the crypto bros, so obviously he had to be released.

- The White House has removed the US Constitution from its website; they insist that it will be back soon. No word on whether the new page will say "no animal may kill another without cause", though.

- Despite the new administration's attack on clean energy, many in the industry say that progress is unstoppable. Whether this is true or just an attempt to put on a brave face, one thing is clear - China is moving full steam ahead on solar and wind power in any case; in addition to the climate costs of delays in the US, the Americans will risk permanently ceding the industry to the Chinese if they don't change course.

- Germany's parliament will be debating a bill to ban the far-right AfD. Under Germany's constitution, for such legislation to be legal it must be shown that the party is "aggressively opposed" to the constitution itself. The bill is supported by the Social Democrats, Greens, and Left Party. Some members of the centre-right Christian Democrats also favour the move, but not all - one senior CDU MP fears that this could "allow the AfD to represent itself as martyrs".

- The ceasefire in Gaza was followed shortly thereafter by a major military operation in the West Bank; in addition to the above-board operations there are reports of rampages by Israeli settlers in Palestinian villages in the territory.

- A planned ecological corridor along the Little Saskatchewan River in western Manitoba has been cancelled following an outburst of populist rage from the locals.

- Amazon is closing its warehousing facilities in Quebec and laying off around 1,500 people. The company is returning to the contracted-out delivery model that they used in the province before 2020. They insist that it's not because the facility recently unionized, but not too many people believe them.

- A US border patrol agent was fatally shot in Vermont close to the border with Quebec during a traffic stop; the killing is under investigation.

News roundup, 21 Jan 2024

- Well, it's now official - Donald Trump is President of the United States once again. In preparation for this, Joe Biden issued last-minute preemptive pardons to public health physician Anthony Fauci and former Joint Chiefs of Staff director Mark Milley, as well as all of the members of Congress who served on the Jan. 6 committee, some staff of said members of Congress, and some DC police officers who testified at committee hearings. He also pardoned members of his own family, suspecting (probably rightly) that there's no limit to how low the Trump administration will go to exact revenge on their perceived enemies. In addition he has commuted the sentence of Leonard Peltier to house arrest, much to the annoyance of outgoing FBI director Christopher Wray.

- Trump, for his part, seems to be following through on his promise to be a dictator; he has a huge number of executive orders lined up already. Among these are withdrawing (again) from the Paris climate agreement, declaring a "national energy emergency" in order to get around environmental legislation, an attempt to find a workaround for the 14th Amendment to the Constitution in order to end birthright citizenship for those born in the US to undocumented parents, and cancelling the TikTok ban. This last order evidently did not come soon enough for one teen in Wisconsin, who is accused of torching the office of a congressman who voted for the ban. In so doing the lad inadvertently made one of the best arguments in favour of the ban.

- One executive order that Trump did not issue on the first day was his threatened 25% tariff on Canadian goods. He's still saying, though, that tariffs could come shortly.

- Elon Musk was not subtle in how he expressed his enthusiasm in the leadup to Trump's inauguration. The crowd were evidently unfazed by this - to the contrary, they seem to have been swept up in his enthusiasm. The ADL, usually the first to fulminate about the slightest whiff of antisemitism, seem strangely reluctant to condemn him for this; perhaps they hope the Trump administration will be useful to them in their efforts to defend the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. On the other hand, maybe they (like so many others) just terrified of what will happen if they cross him.

- Scientists are calling for the United Nations to take on the space junk problem, as it is a matter of critical importance to humanity as a whole. Of course, you can be sure that Elon Musk will resist this by any means necessary, and acting against the perceived interests of their biggest source of funding has not historically been one of the UN's strengths.

- The International Criminal Court fears an intensive sanctions regime by the new administration, possibly including a prohibition for American companies to do business with the court. This could include banking, but also IT - and like most large organizations, the ICC is highly dependent on Microsoft software. In an ideal world, of course, this would be resolved by a comprehensive switchover to open-source software, but (as recent events make apparent) this is not an ideal world. Such a shift is not the sort of thing that can be done overnight, and depending on the whims of Trump, "overnight" could well be what is needed to keep the court functioning. Of course existing software would continue to work, but security updates might well not be forthcoming - and without security updates, state-sponsored hackers (whether from the US, China, Israel, Russia, or goodness knows where) would have a much easier time at, say, finding the identity of witnesses.

- Donald and Melania Trump each launched their own cryptocurrencies, a day apart. The website of the company that has the largest holdings in these products has an interesting bit of fine print saying that they are not an investment or security but "an expression of support for, and engagement with, the ideals and beliefs embodied by the symbol '$TRUMP'." Of course, it's a safe bet that most of the rubes who buy these products don't read this, and moreover that they will believe Trump when he inevitably says that the only reason they're losing value is because the evil globalists are shorting them. Interestingly, this is a source of alarm to serious crypto enthusiasts, who fear that the reputation of cryptocurrencies in general could suffer; if that does come to pass I'll file it under "silver linings", though.

- American activists are seriously wondering if mass protest has any future as a tactic against the Trump regime. As one activist wondered, "Is the goal to demonstrate you are an activist and to self-actualize, or is the goal to actually effect change?" Many are seeing the need to "get creative" and work on a smaller scale. Not sure what "getting creative" might entail, but given that this is the US we're talking about there's a good chance that at least some of these measures will involve violence.

The degeneration of America continues

Matt Tiabbi in Rolling Stone (h/t oddlots in this iTulip thread) has some scary things to report:

In fact if you follow Fox News and the Limbaugh/Hannity afternoon radio crew, this summer’s blowout has almost seemed like an intentional echo of the notorious Radio Rwanda broadcasts “warning” Hutus that they were about to be attacked and killed by conspiring Tutsis, broadcasts that led to massacres of Tutsis by Hutus acting in “self-defense.” A sample of some of the stuff we’ve seen and heard on the air this year:

• On July 12, Glenn Beck implied that the Obama government was going to aid the New Black Panther Party in starting a race war, with the ultimate aim of killing white babies. "They want a race war. We must be peaceful people. They are going to poke, and poke, and poke, and our government is going to stand by and let them do it." He also said that "we must take the role of Martin Luther King, because I do not believe that Martin Luther King believed in, 'Kill all white babies.'"
• CNN contributor and Redstate.com writer Erick Erickson, on the Panther mess: "Republican candidates nationwide should seize on this issue. The Democrats are giving a pass to radicals who advocate killing white kids in the name of racial justice and who try to block voters from the polls."
• On July 6, the Washington Times columnist J. Christian Adams wrote an editorial insisting that "top [Obama] appointees have allowed and even encouraged race-based enforcement as either tacit or open policy," marking one of what would become many assertions by commentators that the Obama administration was no longer interested in protecting the rights of white people. "The Bush Civil Rights Division was willing to protect all Americans from racial discrimination,” Adams wrote. “During the Obama years, the Holder years, only some Americans will be protected."
• July 12: Rush Limbaugh says Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder “protect and represent” the New Black Panther party.
• July 28: Rush says Supreme Court decision on 1070 strips Arizonans of their rights to defend themselves against an “invasion”: "I guess the judge is saying it's not in the public interest for Arizona to try to defend itself from an invasion. I don't know how you look at this with any sort of common sense and come to the ruling this woman came to.” That same day, Rush says this: "Muslim terrorists are going to have a field day in Arizona. You cannot ask them where they're from. You cannot even act like we know where they're from. You cannot ask them for their papers. We can ask you for yours. Not them."
• July 29: The Washington Times asks “Should Arizona Secede?” and says the Supreme Court "is unilaterally disarming the people of Arizona in the face of a dangerous enemy” with the aim of creating a “socialist superstate.” The paper writes: "The choice is becoming starkly apparent: devolution or dissolution."
• July 29, Fox and Friends host Steve Doocy continues the Radio Rwanda theme, saying, "If the feds won't protect the people and Governor Brewer can't protect her citizens, what are the people of Arizona supposed to do?"

There’s nothing in the world more tired than a progressive blogger like me flipping out over the latest idiocies emanating from the Fox News crowd. But this summer’s media hate-fest is different than anything we’ve seen before. What we’re watching is a calculated campaign to demonize blacks, Mexicans, and gays and convince a plurality of economically-depressed white voters that they are under imminent legal and perhaps even physical attack by a conspiracy of leftist nonwhites. They’re telling these people that their government is illegitimate and criminal and unironically urging secession and revolution.

This is scary stuff, because that's exactly how fascism gets going. Whether this is as unprecedented as Tiabbi suggests isn't clear; I'm told it was pretty crazy in the early 1960s too. But this could be extremely dangerous. Stories like this are likely to become more common, for instance... and that's nothing compared to what will happen if too many of these people win political office.

The teabaggers show their true colours

I've often used Blaque's Blog of Horrors as a source for this stuff, since being an American he's much more attuned to this stuff than I am (indeed, by the look of things it would be difficult to avoid seeing it). This weekend he (and his regular commenters) have found some dandy examples as the vote on the health care package approaches.

Exhibit A:

This is actually relatively benign as these things go, since the protesters are relatively civil there, but have a look at what happens when they try to answer simple questions about why they're there. It would be amusing if that were all there was. Unfortunately, it gets worse. Exhibit B:

The way they treated that guy is horrible. And this isn't the only example of their true colours coming to the surface, as this HuffPo story shows:

A staffer for Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) told reporters that Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) had been spat on by a protestor. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a hero of the civil rights movement, was called a 'ni--er.' And Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) was called a "faggot," as protesters shouted at him with deliberately lisp-y screams. Frank, approached in the halls after the president's speech, shrugged off the incident.

But Clyburn was downright incredulous, saying he had not witnessed such treatment since he was leading civil rights protests in South Carolina in the 1960s.

"It was absolutely shocking to me," Clyburn said, in response to a question from the Huffington Post. "Last Monday, this past Monday, I stayed home to meet on the campus of Claflin University where fifty years ago as of last Monday... I led the first demonstrations in South Carolina, the sit-ins... And quite frankly I heard some things today I have not heard since that day. I heard people saying things that I have not heard since March 15, 1960 when I was marching to try and get off the back of the bus."

Just in case you didn't already know that. And check out some of the pics in that story too (particularly the "If Brown can't stop it, Browning can" placard). These people are potentially very dangerous. A commenter on one of the YouTube videos above suggested that if Fox News told them to start killing everyone except white conservatives, a Rwanda-like massacre could result, and I don't think that's so implausible anymore. Especially considering who else is getting involved:

It’s no secret that conservatives have a hard time keeping racism out of their ranks (airwaves), and now it seems it has surfaced in even their grassroots (astro turf) movements. The whole tea party thing (except with representation and a high income bracket this time) is being organized by conservative corporate lobbyists, Freedom Works and Americans for Prosperity, who are no doubt milking this all the way to their billion dollar bank accounts.

If that wasn’t hard enough for real [sic] conservative activists to swallow, they are really going to hate showing up at rallies only to rub elbows with white nationalists. Kris Kobach got the party started in Kansas on April 4th when he hosted a joint tea party/anti-immigrant rally with Billy Gilchrist, Topeka chapter leader for the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps. In 2004 Kansas Republican leader Timothy Burger wrote in response to Kobach’s failed congressional run, “It doesn’t help matters that Kobach was hired by FAIR, widely perceived as a racist anti-immigrant group during the campaign.” But that stinging accusation hasn’t stopped Kobach from working for the John Tanton network ever since, or from dipping his tainted toes into anything that smells ripe for manipulation and publicity.

Blaque has suggested in an earlier post on his blog that lefties (at least in the US) should start buying guns, because the righties already have them. I hate to advocate that, given how arms races generally end up, but if any First World country is headed for civil war, America is probably the prime candidate.

Italian army sent on to the streets

I thought their prime minister's name was Berlusconi, not Mussolini:

The Italian government has deployed 3,000 soldiers in cities across the country as part of a plan to fight street crime.

In the capital Rome, about 400 soldiers were stationed at underground stations and at an immigrant centre on Monday.

"This morning we have deployed about 350-400 soldiers of the Italian army at institutional sites and sensitive sites," Lieutenant Colonel Claudio Caruso said.

The Italian opposition and police unions have criticised the use of troops, accusing the government of seeking to "militarise" city centres and using the measure to mask budget cuts in the security forces.

One opposition MP expressed fears that the move at the height of the tourist season could alarm visitors to the city.

But Gianni Alemanno, the mayor of Rome, said no soldier would patrol in the historic centre where most tourists are concentrated.

Roberto Maroni, the interior minister, told reporters in Rome last week that he wanted to "give the public a better perception of security".

From here. Between this and the mass fingerprinting of the Roma, fascism seems to be on the resurgance in that country.