Cue the outrage machine — Fox News is paying attention to Canada

 https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2022/02/18/cue-the-outrage-machine-fox-news-is-paying-attention-to-canada.html

Trump and Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene have already long since weighed in. Fox News is running wall-to-wall commentary: one Fox host called Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “a wannabe emperor, a haircut with an ego.” A gelato truck operator who was harassed after donating to the convoy made an appearance, as did the interim leader of the Conservative party. Tucker Carlson called Trudeau a “Stalinist dictator” who “suspended democracy and declared Canada a dictatorship.”

Analysis of records purportedly hacked from a crowdfunding website revealed more than half of the donors to the protest — and a little less than half of total funds raised — are from the U.S., including from members of far-right groups such as the Oath Keepers.

Trudeau wins House vote on Emergencies Act

 https://www.politico.com/news/2022/02/21/trudeau-wins-house-vote-emergencies-act-00010474

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has said the threat posed by the so-called Freedom Convoy justified use of the act. “They came here to overthrow a democratically elected government,” he said last week. “It is a movement funded by foreign influence, and it is fed on disinformation. Its goal is to disrupt our democracy.”

“Hurtful and racist symbols were everywhere … the incessant honking was unbearable,” Ottawa Centre MP Yasir Naqvi told POLITICO over the weekend. “Nearby parking lots were used as urinals, our skies were filled with firecrackers as they were hurled down streets every night, and the air was thick with diesel fuel.”

Protesters also shut down key trade corridors for a time along the U.S.-Canada border, including at the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor, Ont.

Once the Emergencies Act was invoked, police created a perimeter around key blocks in downtown Ottawa and established checkpoints to control entry into the area.

New York Jewish group slams AOC after she accused Israel of caging Arab kids

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/322624

Following comments by pro-Palestinian protesters at the event, Ocasio-Cortez accused Israel of putting Arab children in Judea and Samaria in cages, saying: “I don’t believe that a child should be in a cage on our border, and I don’t believe a child should be in a cage in the West Bank.”

On Sunday, the Queens Jewish Community Council responded to Ocasio-Cortez’s comments, accusing her of smearing the Jewish state.

“The Queens Jewish community is concerned when a local elected official makes spurious and reckless suggestions aimed at Israel,” Michael Nussbaum, president of the Queens Jewish Community Council, told The New York Post.

“Bombastic suggestions and lies are dangerous when spewed by sitting politicians anywhere on the political spectrum. When the far left mimics the far right in lies and exaggerations, democracy and dialogue suffers.”

AOC’s newest cage complaint: Now it’s Israel ‘locking up kids’

 https://thejewishvoice.com/2022/02/aocs-newest-cage-complaint-now-its-israel-locking-up-kids/

Far-left Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, D-N.Y., has come up with a new complaint about kids being locked up in cages, but if this talking point is anything like her last on the topic, it won’t end well for her.

In fact, her claim that now Israel is locking Palestinian kids in cages already has brought a backlash against her.

It’s from World Israel News that at a rally of the Democrat Socialists of America in Texas, Cortez complained, “I don’t believe that a child should be in a cage on our border, and I don’t believe a child should be in a cage in the West Bank.”

Jesse Watters spins facts beyond recognition with claims that Hillary Clinton paid to hack and frame Trump

 https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2022/jesse-watters-spins-facts-beyond-recognition-with-claims-that-hillary-clinton-paid-to-hack-and-frame-trump/

Watters said, “Durham’s documents show that Hillary Clinton hired people who hacked into Trump’s home and office computers before and during his presidency, and planted evidence that he colluded with Russia … fabricated evidence connecting Trump to Russia.”

None of that is backed up by Durham’s filing, a motion over a conflict-of-interest matter in the case against an attorney linked to the Clinton campaign who was charged for lying to the FBI.

We rate Watters’ claim False.

In filing, Durham appears to distance himself from far-right theories

 https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/filing-durham-appears-distance-far-right-theories-rcna16784

What’s more, while the details get a little complicated, one of the key elements that’s emerged this week is that Trump and other GOP conspiracy theorists had a calendar problem: The relevant White House network data appeared to come from the Obama era, before Trump even took office. Durham’s filing from last week didn’t acknowledge this timeline, which led Republicans and conservative media to make assumptions that were wrong.

According to the special counsel’s new filing, Durham was exploring Mr. Sussmann’s potential conflicts of interest, one of which involved a lawyer who worked for the White House “during the relevant events that involved” the White House.

That lawyer worked in Barack Obama’s White House, not Trump’s.

Former top Trump Russia adviser details the sharp contrast between the former President and Biden

 https://edition.cnn.com/2022/02/20/politics/fiona-hill-donald-trump-joe-biden/index.html

Fiona Hill doesn't know whether President Joe Biden can lead Western allies to ward off Russia's threat to Ukraine. But unlike his predecessor, he's trying.

At home, Trump softened Republicans' once-hawkish approach to Russia. Today, the leading Fox News hosts and other conservative voices -- "the ultimate stooges," as Hill calls them -- buttress Russian arguments as armed conflict looms.

GOP plays Ukraine blame game as pundits criticise ‘tyranny’ in Canada

 https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-news-today-truth-social-jan-6-latest-b2020155.html

With Vladimir Putin taking his most concrete steps yet towards a full-on invasion of Ukraine, many Republicans are seeking to blame the crisis on Joe Biden, arguing that Russia did not invade any countries while Donald Trump was president – despite the fact that Mr Trump repeatedly sided with Mr Putin over the US’s military and intelligence agencies, disdained Nato, and attempted to extort the Ukrainian government into investigating the Biden family.

Meanwhile, many right-wing pundits are increasingly incensed by the march of “tyranny” in another country: Canada, where prime minister Justin Trudeau is cracking down harshly on truckers his protesting Covid-19 policies. Far-right agitators like Candace Owens have gone so far as to call for American intervention, while a similar trucker convoy is reportedly planned to descend on Washington in time for Joe Biden’s State of the Union address.

The Post says: Putin must be stopped NOW

 https://nypost.com/2022/02/21/the-post-says-putin-must-be-stopped-now/

If a chance for peace was possible with Vladimir Putin, it vanished Monday with his recognition of two “breakaway” states in eastern Ukraine and his sending of “peacekeepers” — read: Russian troops — into the region.

There are no niceties here: He’s invading Ukraine.

President Biden sanctioned any investment or trade with the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, but he should pull the trigger on that “mother of all sanctions” he has promised before. There is no leverage with a madman. Punishment is now the only way.

Canadian parliament approves Trudeau's emergency powers

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/322681

Lawmakers voted 185 to 151 in favor of Trudeau’s invocation of the Emergencies Act, with Trudeau’s Liberal Party gaining a majority with the support of the New Democrats.

Trudeau invoked the 1988 Emergencies Act last week, claiming authorities required it to empower them to forcibly end the Freedom Convoy protests which had shut down parts of downtown Ottawa for three weeks, and blocked land crossings to the US – including some primary trade routes – for six days.

Ahead of the parliament vote, Trudeau told reporters he still needed the emergency powers, citing “real concerns” over threats in the coming days.

"This state of emergency is not over. There continue to be real concerns about the coming days.”

A presidential loathing for Ukraine is at the heart of the impeachment inquiry

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/a-presidential-loathing-for-ukraine-is-at-the-heart-of-the-impeachment-inquiry/2019/11/02/8280ee60-fcc5-11e9-ac8c-8eced29ca6ef_story.html

Trump then peppered Volker with his negative views of Ukraine, suggesting that it wasn’t a “real country,” that it had always been a part of Russia, and that it was “totally corrupt.”

Inside the administration, Trump’s top advisers debated the origins of his ill-feeling. Some argued that Trump saw Ukraine as an impediment to better U.S. relations with Russian President Vladi­mir Putin, who was angry about U.S. sanctions imposed on Moscow for its annexation of Crimea and for the Kremlin’s ongoing support of pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.

“There is no Ukraine”: Fact-Checking the Kremlin’s Version of Ukrainian History

 https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lseih/2020/07/01/there-is-no-ukraine-fact-checking-the-kremlins-version-of-ukrainian-history/

The frontlines of the frozen conflict between Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed separatists are criss-crossing the plains of the Donets Basin, but they are also running right through the region’s past. Russia’s incursions into Ukraine have enjoyed tremendous support at home and, in some quarters, abroad. Many have been slow to denounce them – or quick to embrace them – out of a conviction that the Kremlin has history on its side; that Ukraine has never been a ‘real’ country in its own right and that its south-eastern territories in particular are primordial Russian lands. Russia’s political top brass, including Vladimir Putin himself, appear to subscribe to this belief as well, and by all appearances it has directly informed their policy towards Ukraine. But as much as these assumptions may resonate with ordinary Russians, as well as some foreign leaders, a glance into Ukrainian history reveals that they are based on a dangerously distorted reading of the past. Ultimately, by redrawing borders and rewriting history the Kremlin is unlikely to have done itself a favour. Through its intervention in Ukraine it has galvanised most Ukrainians in their aversion to Russia and has thereby done a great deal to demarcate the perceived differences between Ukrainians and Russians more clearly than ever before.

Man hallucinates and 'hears God' while on antibiotics. What happened?

 https://www.livescience.com/antibiotics-give-man-mania

Doctors diagnosed the man with antibiomania, a rare side effect of treatment with antibiotics, according to the case report, published in the journal BMC Psychiatry in August 2021. The term "antibiomania" was coined in a 2002 review published in the Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology that examined case studies involving antibiotic-related mania.

Lindsey Graham Calls Vladimir Putin a 'Thug,' Says 'Enough is Enough'

 https://www.newsweek.com/lindsey-graham-calls-vladimir-putin-thug-says-enough-enough-1681191

"Putin's decision to declare eastern Donetsk and Luhansk as independent regions within Ukraine is both a violation of the Minsk Agreements and a declaration of war against the people of Ukraine," the senator continued, although an official war declaration has yet to be made by either country. "His decision should immediately be met with forceful sanctions to destroy the ruble and crush the Russian oil and gas sector."

The sanctions that Graham is asking for might be coming soon. According to a new statement from White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, the White House is expected to announce a new Executive Order that blocks "new investment, trade, and financing by U.S. persons" into Donetsk and Luhansk.

"To be clear: these measures are separate from and would be in addition to the swift and severe economic measures we have been preparing in coordination with Allies and partners should Russia further invade Ukraine," she wrote.