Category: 47

Let That Sink In

The US State Department said Tuesday it would deny visas to a former EU commissioner and four others, accusing them of seeking to “coerce” American social media platforms into censoring viewpoints they oppose.

“These radical activists and weaponized NGOs have advanced censorship crackdowns by foreign states — in each case targeting American speakers and American companies,” the department said in a statement announcing the sanctions.

The measure targeted Thierry Breton, the former top tech regulator at the European Commission, who often clashed with tech tycoons such as Elon Musk over their obligations to follow EU rules.

Breton was described by the State Department as the “mastermind” of the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA), a major piece of legislation that imposes content moderation and other standards on major social media platforms operating in Europe.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on X his country “strongly condemns” the visa restrictions, adding that Europe “cannot let the rules governing their digital space be imposed by others upon them”.

Where do I submit nominations?

A world wide system of censorship: Here is the full length video report into the mysterious ‘Global Disinformation Index’ and how it censors political speech across Europe and the US.

Thank You For Your Attention To This Matter

“President Donald Trump revealed the Trump-class battleships Monday at his Palm Beach estate, joined by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Navy Secretary John Phelan, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. These 30,000-ton vessels upgrade from current destroyers with more missile tubes, space for hypersonics, railguns, and lasers, aiming to build two initially and scale to 20-25 amid China’s naval growth. The White House calls it a Golden Age for defense to modernize the aging 287-ship fleet, though critics like former Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery question the $5 billion-plus designs’ focus on aesthetics over lethality against China.” – Grok AI

More at Naval News. John Konrad reacts.

Reporter: “What are you doing with the [Venezeulan] oil you seized?”

“We’re going to keep it.”

Related.

Coulda Had A Pipeline

“years of mismanagement and underinvestment have seen exports crater” – that’s the CBC unmentioning that Hugo Chávez stole billions in investment when he seized US oil assets.

Interesting hypothesis: Why has the US assembled the largest naval force in the Caribbean since 1962? It’s not about drugs. It’s not about oil.

Better late than never: “I will approve a pipeline”

Indeed

Christopher Landau is the US Deputy Secretary of State.

Related: The money sent to Russia is in blue; the money sent to Ukraine is in orange.

Trump’s New National Security Strategy

Zerohedge;

The Trump administration’s just published new National Security Strategy has generated a lot of ‘shock’ and discussion since it appeared online early Friday. One of its more ‘controversial’ elements is the stark contrast in outlook on Europe in comparison with prior years’ national security strategy documents.

It warns that some of America’s oldest allies in Europe face “the real and more stark prospect of civilizational erasure” as a result of unchecked immigration, as well as the erosion of democratic principles. Alongside calling out irresponsible unchecked EU immigration policies, it further cites the curbing of free speech – also with the support for EU censorship excesses by transnational elite institutions, describing that “should present trends continue, the continent will be unrecognizable in 20 years or less.”

Matt Gurney and Jenn Gerson discuss implications for a similarly compromised northern free rider.

Some of what the document lays out is simply true, and Canadian and other allied politicians, especially on the left, have ignored those realities at their peril. Some of it is debatable, or at least worth taking seriously. And some of it is outright nuts, pulled straight from the conspiratorial anxieties of America’s far-right social media ecosystem. But whether reasonable, arguable, or deranged, it is now official White House policy — and the rest of us are going to have to learn to live with it.

From there, the conversation turns to how Canadians are, or aren’t, learning to live with it. There is still very little evidence that anyone here grasps the scale of the threat or the urgency involved. Jen introduces a new theory: Canada as a nation is increasingly resembling the federal New Democrats — and that’s not good news for anyone.

Then they get angry that the document treats us like a bitter underachiever, before going full CBC derangement.

How High, Senor Maduro?

Everything about Venezuela is explosve these days: Maduro’s Ex-Insider Turns Snitch, Sends Trump an Explosive Letter

Related.

Collateral Damage?

Needless prosecution of a victimless crime, or a case of “the law is the law“?

The administration’s sudden expansion of immigration arrests in Chicago meant Guzmán was in the government’s custody for about 34 hours. She was kept in a holding facility that was intended to house people for only a small fraction of that time… Even though she was still trying to produce breast milk for her daughter, Guzmán had limited access to food and water at the Broadview Processing Center and was never provided a breast pump. She said she was never assessed by a medical professional while in the government’s custody. Guzmán was left to manage the pain of her C-section recovery as well as her Type 1 diabetes with the supplies she had in her backpack at the time of her arrest.

 

Thank You For Your Attention To This Matter

Democrats’ll be wishing they’d just let him have that damned wall.

Reddit threads are popping up with people confused after receiving cancellation notices for their U.S. citizenship ceremonies.

But Orange Man Bad

The massive propaganda campaign launched by the Liberals has proven to be very successful. They’ve convinced a vast number of Canadians that all of their problems are the fault of President Trump rather than anything else.

Update: JD Vance has just chimed in:

And with all due respect to my Canadian friends, whose politics focus obsessively on the United States: your stagnating living standards have nothing to do with Donald Trump or whatever bogeyman the CBC tells you to blame.

The fault lies with your leadership, elected by you.

Dissension In The Ranks?

If you take a gander at the conversations on Twitter today, Trump’s apparent endorsement of the H1-B visa program in an interview with Laura Ingraham doesn’t seem to be going over so well. My earlier understanding was that there was going to be a $100,000 fee applied to those visas. Does anyone know what’s happening with that?

More Twitter opinions from Yahoo news.

“This is insane—we are going to lose the mid-terms so badly,” Anthony Sabatini, a vocal pro-Trump county commissioner in Florida with a large online following, wrote on Tuesday on X, where the president’s remarks quickly went viral.

 

Is the New Boss Not Altogether Different than the Old Boss?

A lifelong criticism I have of Leftists is that they refuse to criticize their own side … ever.

While the Trump Administration is clearly a whole lot better than the Biden Administration, there is growing concern that not all members of his cabinet are paddling the boat in the same America First direction. I don’t trust most political pundits, because I feel that many of them are compromised in one way or another. But I do trust Taibbi & Kirn, Megyn Kelly and also David Freiheit and Robert Barnes. Yesterday’s episode of the latter podcast made me very depressed. Watch a few minutes of this segment and share your thoughts. Is Barnes wrong with his analysis of Kash Patel and Pam Bondi? If so, please explain why.

Thank You For Your Attention To This Matter

The BBC’s director general Tim Davie and head of news Deborah Turness have resigned after criticism that a Panorama documentary misled viewers by editing a speech by Donald Trump.

Davie, in the job for five years, had faced increasing pressure over a series of controversies and accusations of bias that have dogged the public broadcaster.

The Telegraph published details of a leaked internal BBC memo on Monday that suggested the Panorama programme edited two parts of the US president’s speech together so he appeared to explicitly encourage the Capitol Hill riot of January 2021.

UK political leaders expressed hope the resignations would lead to change, while Trump welcomed the decision.

Seth Mandel: The BBC’s Threat to British Democracy

More: Four years ago, I gathered all the evidence from an antisemitic attack against a bus full of Jewish teens celebrating Chanukah. I spoke to victims, had Hebrew audio verified and translated by linguistic experts, and presented it to the BBC whose reporters and editors decided to completely invent a falsehood that blamed the Jewish teens.

Thank You For Your Attention To This Matter

Stephen Green: Trump Just Gave the Finger (Again!) to the Space Establishment

Space fans, rejoice — President Donald Trump just brought back the one man who might actually save NASA. Here’s the best news since last May, when Trump withdrew his nomination of astronaut/billionaire Jared Isaacman to head up NASA: Trump nominated him again. […]

Long story short, Athena was Isaacman’s plan for cutting costs at NASA and restoring the agency’s “mission-first” culture — and getting us back to the Moon, at a price we can afford and before China does. Needless to say, Athena involved upsetting an awful lot of well-anchored apple carts and taking way some gold-plated iron rice bowls.

Navigation