NPR Outpaces Babylon Bee NPR (being totally serious): “Some white people may choose 👍 because it feels neutral — but some academics argue opting out of 👍🏻signals a lack of awareness about white privilege, akin to society associating whiteness with being raceless.”
Rebel News: “In an article written by not one, but three separate authors, the piece on publicly-funded NPR argues that your failure to use the right colour emoji in text messages could make you a racist.”
Twitchy: “Since the tech companies are behind emoji, they’ve been at the forefront of woke. They added different skin colors. They added families with same-sex parents. They added a pregnant man. But if you’re one of those white people who uses the default yellow thumbs-up sign, academics say you might be signaling a lack of awareness about white privilege.”
“Government-funded clickbait.”
Lauren Chen: “Measuring ‘privilege’ through emoji usage is the most privileged thing I’ve ever heard of”
Miranda Devine: “Defund NPR… NPR ignored Hunter Biden but sent three reporters to investigate how the ‘thumbs-up’ emoji is racist”
The Reviews Are In Bowtie Guy: “This is a good emoji for @NPR🖕🏾 Tired of hearing the opinions of ‘academics.’”
Krystal: “Those who wrote this really only need one emoji 🤡”
Laura: “please. i’m begging you. shut the fuck up”
Mixed Virtue Signals Townhall: “”NPR itself has not been careful about its evidently problematic use of emojis”
“✌🏻 rosanna arquette“: “I am white but I always choose a Black emoji🙏🏿 because black has always been beautiful to me since I was a child and I honor Black human beings.”
Donna: “By ‘always’ she means since yesterday’s NPR emoji tweet.”
Okay, I am now joining the defund NPR movement. They have been a waste of taxpayer money for quite a while; however, this is beyond idiotic!
The long awaited war between Russia and Ukraine kicked off tonight. Vladimir Putin just gave a televised speech announcing the commencement of Special Military Operations against Ukraine. His stated reasoning is to disarm and de-nazify Ukraine.
Missile strikes have been reported in almost every major city. Russian troops have moved across the line of demarcation between Crimea and Ukraine.
This is a fluid situation, look for a more indepth piece in the morning.
It looks like Prime Minister Justin Trudeau just blinked big time in his fight with the Freedom Convoy over COVID mandates.
Trudeau is now backing down and has revoked the Emergencies Act that he called on Feb. 14, and that he just asked the House of Commons to pass on Monday. As we reported earlier, he needed approval from the nation’s Senate and it looked like a lot of the senators had big questions about passing it. I’m thinking it means that he got tipped that he wasn’t going to get it past the Senate, so it was better to revoke it rather than be embarrassed when they shot it down.
As we also noted , he was getting a lot of criticism from around the world, such as from the Romanian member of the European Parliament Cristian Terhes who called him a “tyrant,” and compared him to a Communist dictator.
https://youtu.be/ODKsHDKdlYY
Trudeau’s polls had also gone straight into the toilet. A poll from four days ago found more Canadians opposed the Act than were for it, and the Conservatives have gained 10 points in polling because they have been against it and for the rights of the protesters.
The Emergencies Act measure included things like freezing people’s bank accounts for the ‘crime’ of donating 20 dollars to the Freedom Convoy, and conscripting tow truck drivers, forcing them to work for the government to clear out the protesters in Ottawa.
Trudeau now said that he no longer thought it was necessary because the standing Ottawa protests have largely been cleared out. But the standing protests had been largely cleared out on Monday, when he was pushing the measure to be passed in the House. “We are confident that existing laws and bylaws are now sufficient to keep people safe,” Trudeau said during a press conference.
If you are in the Hagerstown Maryland area, consider paying respects to one of our WWII brothers. Thomas Harold Gilliam passed on 20 Feb at 101 years old.
Screenshot of Tamara Lich talking about GiveSendGo fundraiser for Canadian Truckers. Credit: @ChrisJo00291974/ Twitter
Duke/RedState
I have to give it to “Star Wars” creator George Lucas, being he got a couple of things right in the middle, three movies of the Skywalker saga. Well, actually the first three, which depends on if you start at the beginning of all nine films or go by release date — but more on that in a minute.
Earlier on Tuesday, I had written about a bail hearing to happen this morning for Canadian Trucker Protest Organiser Tamara Lich. She had been sitting in jail since her arrest on Thursday, and her bail and release should have been a matter of dotting some I’s and crossing some T’s. Here is that article.
As we are finding out here in the States, the Canadian system has a lot of checks but no balances.
My colleague Nick Arama covered Tuesday morning that vote that took place in the Canadian House of Commons Monday night, essentially giving Justin Trudeau UNLIMITED POWER, until they decide not to rubber-stamp Prime Minister Comrade Emergency Act and put him back in a box.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau grabbed extraordinary powers on February 14 by invoking the Emergencies Act, claiming it was necessary to do so because of the blockades and the occupation of Ottawa by protesters. The Act — which came into being in 1988 — had never been invoked before. There was a good reason why that’s the case — because to invoke it would require an emergency the nature of which doesn’t exist and the invocation a suspension of civil liberties. But that didn’t stop Trudeau who declared the unmitigated right not only to stomp all over people’s rights, but to freeze their bank accounts if he so chose, or even conscript people to work for the government. He admitted he had forced tow truck drivers to work against their will to clear out the protest.
As we reported yesterday, the invocation of those powers was so concerning, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association came out against it, calling for Parliament to reject it. They noted that the alleged excuse for the Act no longer even existed — the blockades (without the need for the Act), even the occupation in Ottawa were over.
The measure passed 185 to 151, giving Trudeau and his brown shirts in training another 30 days of romping the countryside, looking for people to jail who oppose their mandates. Of course, they only do this because they care so damn much.
Well, Tamara Lich did have her bail hearing, and the judge denied it. So, Ms. Lich will sit in jail until her next court date in early March.
Tamara Lich, a major organizer of the so-called Freedom Convoy, was denied bail Tuesday morning in Ottawa.
Lich, the Alberta woman behind a now-halted GoFundMe campaign that raised over $10 million to support the protest in Ottawa, was arrested and charged Thursday with counselling to commit mischief.
Before her arrest, she told journalists she wasn’t concerned about being arrested, didn’t think the protest was illegal and also said her bank account was frozen.
On Tuesday, the judge said she was not convinced Lich would go home, stay there and stop her alleged counselling.
“This community has already been impacted enough by some of the criminal activity and blockades you took part in and even led,” said Ontario Superior Court Justice Julie Bourgeois.
“You have had plenty of opportunity to remove yourself and even others from this criminal activity but obstinately chose not to and persistently counselled others not to either.
“In Canada, every citizen can certainly disagree with and protest against government decisions but it needs to be done in a democratic fashion in abidance with the laws that have been established democratically.”
Can’t you just read the nitpickiness dripping from this judge and, really, from the writer of this article? I get that the CBC is essentially Canadian government-sponsored Pravda, but chill out. What the truckers and those supporting them have done is not a so-called freedom convoy, kiddies; it is.
So in Canada, if you are counselling to commit mischief, you can be held in jail for a certain period of time, and if your Prime Minister is ticked that you didn’t roll over and die with all of his mandates, you can be held hostage until you do so.
Once again, I know that the Canadian and American systems of justice are different, but think about this.
Mischief in Canada means…
*Peacefully protesting in your capital city. Sorry if horns bug you, but mandates from the government based on feelings bug even more people.
*If you help raise money for those protestors that are, once again, peacefully protesting, you can have your bank account frozen. If you even donate to that cause, you can have your banks account seized.
* If you choose to disagree with the government, do it in the way the government says you must do it. What that means, of course, is not doing it at all.
All mischievous things indeed.
All the judge here has done and by extension, Prime Minister Castro Trudeau, is making people like Tamara Lich famous. Much more famous than they were about a day ago. And their overreaction to this is 100 percent the reason why. Even the people who are online cheering this result are just aiding her cause with their misplaced glee. I would chastise you, but I’m good with you continuing this because history is replete with how these things turn out in light of this type of government idiocy.
In the meantime, let’s revisit a famous scene from the third or sixth film in the “Star Wars,” nine-movie set (depending which way you look at it), which the liberals and progressives always love to post. The fear of democracy dying by some strong-armed dictator like Donald Trump, or in Canada, a conservative like Stephen Harper. We always hear about how rights are being taken away by these folks, yet I’m not recalling any of the moves Trudeau has just done being done before in Canada, or here in the States during Trump.
So, here ya go, you, silly fascist lovers. Just remember you won’t like it when it is you on the other end of this stick.
Emperor Trudeautine:
In order to ensure the security and continuing stability, the republic will be reorganized into the first galactic empire. For a safe and secure society.
The rest of the world:
So this is how liberty dies, with thunderous applause.
The FBI Seized Almost $1 Million From This Family—and Never Charged Them With a Crime
“It’s completely changed my belief in fairness,” says Amy Sterner Nelson.
Carl Nelson and Amy Sterner Nelson’s pre-pandemic lives look a lot different than the ones they live now. There are the obvious ways, and then there are the not so obvious ways, like the fact that they sold their house and their car, liquidated their retirement funds, and moved their family of six from a comfortable West Seattle home to Amy’s sister’s basement after the FBI seized almost $1 million from them in May 2020.
“We went from living a life where we were both working full-time to provide for our four daughters to really figuring out how we were going to make it month to month,” Amy tells me. “It’s completely changed my belief in fairness.”
The bureau took funds from nearly every corner of the Nelsons’ world, including, for instance, the savings Amy racked up from her decade as a practicing attorney and her later efforts as head of The Riveter, the co-working start-up she founded. But the FBI never even suspected Amy of committing any crime. It was Carl they were investigating—a probe that has not resulted in a single charge against him almost two years later.
In April 2020, agents showed up at the Nelsons’ home and informed them that Carl—a former real estate transaction manager for Amazon—was under investigation for allegedly depriving the tech behemoth of his “honest services.” In plainer terms, they accused him of showing favor to certain developers and securing them deals in exchange for illegal kickbacks. “That never happened and is exactly why I’ve fought as long and hard as I have,” he says. “It’s that simple.”
Whether or not the FBI has come to that conclusion is still a mystery; its years-long investigation into Carl’s alleged fraud has not yielded an indictment. Yet no such thing was necessary for the federal government to wreck the Nelsons’ lives, costing them their home, their community, their jobs, their girls’ place in their Seattle school, and their security for the future.
Perhaps more vexing: The FBI has, in some sense, subtly conceded that it didn’t need to do any of the above to complete their investigation or to hamstring any supposed criminal operation run by Carl. Last week, the government agreed to a settlement: Of the original approximately $892,000 it seized, it will return $525,000, while Amy and Carl forfeit about $109,000. (The remaining sum has been depleted by court fees.)
“It’s hard,” says Amy, who is trying to recoup some lost assets via a GoFundMe. “Not much has changed for us.” She notes that Carl is still a defendant in a massive federal lawsuit against Amazon, and they accepted the deal so that they’d have money for attorneys’ fees. She adds that “it feels like the beginning of some justice.” In their case, justice looks like losing hundreds of thousands of dollars.
They’re not alone. There was the Indiana man whose car was seized. And the Kentucky man whose car was seized. And the Massachusetts woman whose car was seized. And the Louisiana man whose life savings were seized. And the Texas man whose life savings were seized. And the countless Californians whose money and random personal possessions were seized. Sometimes the money is returned—often only when a defendant manages to lawyer up for a civil suit. Sometimes only part of it is. Sometimes none of it is. “Civil forfeiture is quite common,” says Dan Alban, an attorney at the Institute for Justice (IJ), a public interest law firm that often litigates similar cases. “The fact that the government can do this can obviously ruin lives, and it can ruin lives without anyone being convicted of a crime, without anyone even being charged with a crime.”
Alban calls civil forfeiture a “high-pressure tactic.” It’s one of many the government uses, paralyzing defendants and sometimes stripping them of any ability to stick up for themselves. This is something Amy knows first-hand now. “If you can’t afford to defend yourself, let alone feed yourself,” she says, “it becomes complicated.”
It’s also lucrative. State, local, and federal governments have seized $68.8 billion via civil forfeiture over the last 20 years, according to a recent report by IJ. “The vast majority of seizures and forfeitures…are driven by the profit incentive,” says Alban. “In most states and at the federal level, police and prosecutors get to keep up to 100 percent of the proceeds. So they just have a very strong incentive to go out and seize whatever they can and try to forfeit it so that they can supplement their budget.” Those assets then find their way into police slush funds, where they may be spent on things like submachine guns, parking tickets, or cash withdrawals that no one seems to be able to explain. They’re also sometimes used illegally on things like gym equipment and Fitbits.
The forfeiture isn’t the only thing that the Nelsons feel they’ve lost, nor is it the only intimidation tactic they believe the government has used in an attempt to strong-arm Carl into buckling. During our conversation, the only time Amy cries is when recounting the months she spent waking up before sunrise, getting her four young daughters ready, and driving them for an hour each morning to a faraway park. The reason: In the case that the government made good on the criminal indictment it had threatened, Carl asked if he could turn himself in so his daughters wouldn’t see the arrest. The FBI refused.
Comment/Opinion: “State, local, and federal governments have seized $68.8 billion via civil forfeiture over the last 20 years, according to a recent report by IJ.” These rate as two of the most terrifying words in US law “civil forfeiture“.
