Author: Blazingcatfur

Germany’s HateAid: Portrait of a ‘Trusted Flagger’

The role assigned to ‘trusted flaggers’ under the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) has been a target for criticism from Republican lawmakers in Washington, who have argued that the legislation risks making Europeans and, more specifically, European governments the arbiters of what even Americans can and cannot say online. The DSA requires online platforms, like Facebook or X or TikTok, to maintain “notice and action” mechanisms that allow “individuals and entities” in the EU to flag content for suppression, and it empowers EU member state governments to appoint organizations whose notices the platforms are required to give priority treatment. These are the ‘trusted flaggers.’

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Surveillance Society"

BORG: Divided loyalties — Freeland has no business cashing a paycheque from another government

A sitting Member of Parliament (MP) should not be serving a foreign government. That principle ought to be uncontroversial in a parliamentary democracy.

Yet it is now being tested by Chrystia Freeland’s decision to accept an advisory role with the Ukrainian government while continuing to hold a seat in Canada’s House of Commons.

It’s so shady but so normal for the Liberal Party.

More … Canada co-signs pledge to secure Ukraine under future peace deal

(Incognito)

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Ukraine - Russia", Canada's Corrupt Liberal Government

What the raid on Venezuela teaches us about the Trump administration

The U.S. raid-and-capture operation in Venezuela that ended the rule of Nicolás Maduro and upended power politics in the Western Hemisphere was unusually complicated. The motivations behind it were perhaps even more complex – and so are the lessons that the Delta Force blitz provide for Americans and for governments across the globe.

Here are some of the important political currents running beneath the surface of the astonishing episode, which has provided a template for evaluating the early 21st-century Trump Corollary to the early 19th-century Monroe Doctrine – two policies that have no legal basis but still establish distinct American spheres of influence and behaviour and enforce them …

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCanada, USA, Venezuela

US discussing options to acquire Greenland, including use of military, says White House

US President Donald Trump has been discussing “a range of options” to acquire Greenland, including use of the military, the White House said.

In a statement, the White House told the BBC that acquiring Greenland was a “national security priority”.

It comes after Trump repeated over the weekend that the US “needed” Greenland – a semi-autonomous region of fellow Nato member Denmark – for security reasons.

Update: Rubio Tells Lawmakers Trump Wants to Buy Greenland

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has told lawmakers that President Trump plans to buy Greenland rather than invade it, while Mr. Trump has asked aides to give him an updated plan for acquiring the territory, U.S. officials said on Tuesday.

Mr. Rubio made his remarks in a briefing on Monday with lawmakers from the main armed services and foreign policy committees in both chambers of Congress. The same day, Mr. Trump told aides to deliver an updated plan.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inGreenland, USA

LILLEY: Mark Carney doesn’t have time to move slowly on new pipeline

 

Donald Trump said the Venezuelan oil industry could be booming again in 18 months. Here in Canada, we might have finished the first round of consultations on a new pipeline, but we won’t have concluded the court challenges to it.

This is the dilemma Canada is facing: We are still moving at Ottawa speed, meaning slow, while the Americans are talking about a breakneck pace in restoring Venezuela’s oil industry.

Carney has not changed his spots.

Venezuela: Trump announces plan to get up to 50M oil barrels

US President Donald Trump has announced that “interim authorities in Venezuela will be turning over” between 30 to 50 million barrels of sanctioned oil to the US.

“This ​oil ​will be sold at its market price, and that money will be controlled by me, as ‍president of the United States of America, to ​ensure it is used to benefit the ⁠people ​of Venezuela and the United States!”

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCanada, Canada's Corrupt Liberal Government, USA, Venezuela

Ukraine’s security guarantee is a paper tiger with crucial details missing

Coalition of the delusional

Progress. Success. A “very big milestone”.

For the first time in more than a year, Ukrainians, Americans and Europeans seemed to be singing from the same hymn sheet.

Peace, they say, is closer than ever, because they are on the brink of agreeing to a security deal to deter a new Russian attack on Ukraine after a ceasefire.

No Carney at the signing?

Coalition’s Ukraine security guarantees include deploying troops if ceasefire is reached

Canada has promised a substantial ongoing commitment to the force that would backstop the peace deal. Precisely what kind of forces Canada would deploy is unclear, partly because the military, short of personnel and equipment, is in rebuilding mode.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Ukraine - Russia", Canada, USA

The Toppling of Villains Has Begun in Earnest. It Must Continue.

A little while ago, I had a column in this space that challenged the groupthink wisdom that assumes 2026 is going to be a bad year for President Trump and Republicans on Capitol Hill. One of the items on which I rested my challenge is worth repeating today.

What I predicted was that the ruling regimes, both Iran and Venezuela, would go by the boards, and the benefits coming to everybody in America not affiliated with the Democrat Party would be manifold.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inUSA

AI deepfakes of Nicolás Maduro flood social media — depict Venezuelan dictator in jail with Diddy, among other vids

Within hours of President Trump’s announcement of the dramatic weekend capture of Nicolás Maduro, social media was flooded with AI-generated deepfakes showing the captured Venezuelan dictator in handcuffs and even sitting alongside Sean “Diddy” Combs, who was previously locked up in the same jail where Maduro now is in real life.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inUSA, Venezuela

GUNTER: Citizens don’t make distinction between crime and social disorder

You can’t reduce crime simply by redefining what is and isn’t a crime. Many actions that were once crimes are now chalked by city bureaucrats up to “social disorder” and no longer show up in crime stats.

In other cases, crimes are so common and police response to them is so indifferent — like theft of bikes and tools and law furniture from private yards — that many victims no longer bother to report them.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCrime

The Iranian Uprising: The Time to Plan for This Potential Regional Conflict Is Before the Boats Leave Qeshm

On December 29, protests erupted among shopkeepers in Tehran, Zanjan, and Hamadan — all clustered in Iran’s north and west. Then came Qeshm, isolated on the southern coast.

That location matters. Qeshm Island sits just 60 kilometers across the Strait of Hormuz from the United Arab Emirates (UAE). That is roughly the distance from Manhattan to Philadelphia, and far shorter than most successful Mediterranean crossings from Syria to Europe.

If Iran’s current instability deepens into a full crisis, Iranians may well attempt these crossings by boat. The proximity of Iran to the UAE makes it virtually inevitable.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inIran

A Toronto man was nearly beaten to death in Sri Lanka. Authorities now say the attack was ordered in Canada

For months after his father was beaten to near death by a group of armed assailants while visiting his home village in Sri Lanka, Ganesh Subramaniam was left asking himself: who would do such a thing, and why?

It took more than a year for Sri Lankan authorities to offer a shocking theory: the attack on Ganesh’s father — who founded the Sri Ayyappan Hindu Temple in Scarborough more than 40 years ago — was allegedly ordered on Canadian soil, by the man serving as the temple’s president.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Diversity Crime"

US justice department has released less than 1% of Epstein files, filing reveals

The Department of Justice has released less than 1% of the so-called Epstein files, a court filing has revealed, as Democrats step up criticism of the Trump administration’s “lawlessness” for keeping records under seal.

The department conceded that only 12,285 documents, totalling 125,575 pages, relating to the disgraced financier and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein have been published to date, despite a federal law requiring the vast majority to be released by 19 December.

Pam Bondi, the US attorney general, wrote a five-page update to Paul Engelmayer, the federal New York judge overseeing the case, on Monday, asserting that efforts to protect the identities of Epstein’s victims were a priority, and had slowed the process.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inWTF?