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Saturday, May 16, 2026

Links - 16th May 2026 (2 - Canadian Politics)

Alex Zoltan on X - "HAPPENING NOW: More from the 2026 NDP leadership convention. A young woman wearing an oversized keffiyeh makes an impassioned speech against involvement in the Iran conflict, but is quickly rebuked and reprimanded for misgendering the chair who self-identifies as "non-binary.""
Élie Cantin-Nantel on X - "The NDP is cooked. They will never win back the working class. No blue collar person will watch this charade and think that it is normal yet alone think that they belong in it. This is all a bunch of leftist academic gobbledygook."

Collin Rugg on X - "NEW: Far-left Canadians start arguing over "Equity Cards" at the 2026 NDP Leadership Convention.
Woman 1: I was standing here with my gender equity card before you called on the previous speaker. That's my point of privilege...
Woman 2: I want everyone to be mindful that these cards for individuals like myself who identify as a black woman have no value outside of this space.
Good to see Canada arguing over the issues that matter.
Video: @AmazingZoltan"

The NDP’s past, present, and future: renewal challenged as even past voters are unfamiliar with leadership field - "New data from the non-profit Angus Reid Institute examines the views of more than 1,100 Canadians who voted for the NDP at least once in any of the past four federal elections, finding 44 per cent of them say they don’t know any of the leadership candidates, and another one-in-five are uncertain who would make the best leader... Fully one-quarter of these past New Democrat voters say the party is irrelevant (24%). More say its best days are in the past (40%). Whomever is tasked with the job of rebuilding will likely be focused on returning to the party’s roots as the federal avatar for the working class, something it spent decades building through cooperation with organized labour. One-quarter of past New Democrats in this survey disagree that the NDP is the party of the working class (23%)... While he had garnered some good will, Singh’s leadership marked a clear shift away from the class-first, labour-oriented politics that had long defined the party. While traditional economic priorities such as affordability and pharmacare remained, the party increasingly framed its agenda through lenses of identity, representation, and systemic inequality, with a growing focus on urban, diverse, and younger voters. That evolution broadened its appeal in some metropolitan areas but came at a cost. The party lost support in resource regions and among parts of its traditional working-class base... While 25 per cent of current Canadian voters have supported the party in one of the past four federal elections, just 13 per cent of say they are likely to give them a look in the next one"

Amy Hamm: Avi Lewis claims NDP leadership in front of waving Palestinian flag - "Lewis identifies himself as a proud anti-capitalist and eco-socialist. He has never held elected office... Standing behind Lewis during his speech were at least three people in keffiyehs, symbolic of Canada’s disturbing and growing antisemitism problem. As broadcast on CPAC, one person began to wave a large Palestinian flag behind Lewis about two minutes into his address. Another waved a “renters over landlords” protest placard — held upside down. There was not a single Canadian flag in sight on stage. Lewis’ promise about building a new foundation for the party is at odds with his leadership campaign slogan, which was “return the party to its roots… for the many, not the money.” This weekend’s convention made it clear that the party has little to do with its trade unionist roots: it’s now a party of far-left grievance culture and niche political obsessions. From the “equity cards” handed out to convention delegates, which allowed for persons with various “oppressed” or “equity-seeking” identities to jump to the front of the line and speak before other, lesser-oppressed delegates, to the wild screams of the audience, appearing rapturous after leadership-hopeful Rob Ashton shouted “Eat the damn rich!” in the volume and tone of a 1990s WWE fighter — this weekend revealed that the NDP is comprised of the dregs former NDP leader Jagmeet Singh left behind after consuming the party to support Justin Trudeau . Despite any talk about nationalized grocery stores, electoral reform, expanding (or at least maintaining) the public service sector, and unionizing every single employee in the country, petty squabbles between convention delegates made it clear that party principles will always take a back seat to identity politics and virtue signalling. On day two, a transgender-identified male insisted on speaking after a policy vote (on rescinding the Charter’s notwithstanding clause) had already passed. The delegate complained that a “cisgender woman” spoke first , despite this delegate having held out an equity card based on their gender identity. “Hey, this pertains to multiple intersecting parts of my lived experience. I’d like to speak, I was rejected,” said the delegate. The chair, lawyer and trans activist Adrienne Smith , responded apologetically before smirking about a request to have delegates form a “straight” line, so equity cards were more visible from the stage. Similarly, on day three, the convention chair and a delegate, both of whom identify as non-binary, got into a tiff over the delegate using the term “madame chair.” After a keffiyeh-adorned delegate ranted about how there should be “no debate” over Canada’s non-involvement in the current Iran conflict, Smith, appearing on the verge of tears, replied with: “I’ll thank delegates not to call me ‘madame chair,’ I’m a non-binary person, my pronouns are they, them, and their.” Watching the convention felt like watching sketch comedy from 15 years ago. But this is real life. This is the federal NDP. What isn’t clear just yet is how many Canadians are paying attention to how outrageous the NDP has become. It’s possible that there are disillusioned (with Carney) Liberal voters who will be willing to move — or move back to — the NDP as they perceive Carney’s government shifting ever more to the right. But I suspect that number will be insignificant. Unless and until the NDP purges its ranks of ideological extremism, it won’t regain relevance. And with Avi Lewis at the helm, this is unlikely to happen."

Ben Woodfinden: Dear Supreme Court, you don't have to do this - "If the Supreme Court of Canada uses this case to limit or defang Section 33 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (the notwithstanding clause), as the federal Liberals and progressive activists groups are asking, it will be doing something extraordinarily dangerous and anti-democratic, judicially rewriting a foundational provision of our constitutional order and reading things into the Charter that simply don’t exist. And it will be detonating a political earthquake whose aftershocks could rip the country apart... If the Court decides to invent substantive limits on Section 33, it would be a judicial amendment to the Constitution. The text is clear, it imposes only one requirement: that a legislature expressly declare that a law shall operate notwithstanding specified Charter provisions, and that it has to be renewed every five years. There is no requirement that the invocation come after a court ruling. There is no cap on renewals. There is no proportionality test. As the court itself unanimously wrote in 1988 in Ford v Quebec, “the essential requirement of form laid down by s. 33 is that the override declaration must be an express declaration that an Act or a provision of an Act shall operate notwithstanding a provision included in s. 2 or ss. 7 to 15 of the Charter.” For the court to now discover additional requirements would be judicial invention, not interpretation. If various groups and governments want to change this, make the democratic case and use the amending formula. But the argument for Section 33 goes deeper than textual fidelity. The notwithstanding clause was the condition upon which the provinces agreed to the Charter. Alberta’s Peter Lougheed and Saskatchewan’s Allan Blakeney championed it during the patriation negotiations of 1981 because they understood that entrenching a bill of rights without some sort of legislative tool for democratic officials to have a say would hand the final word on the most contested questions of public policy to an unelected judiciary. Without Section 33, there would have been no Charter at all. It was a distinctively Canadian solution: neither the American model of judicial supremacy nor the British model of unfettered parliamentary sovereignty, but something in between. But more basically, judges are not infallible, especially on contested topics like rights. A democratic society needs a mechanism to step in when a court makes an egregious decision. And the track record of our courts proves the point... there is Cycle Toronto, in which an Ontario judge struck down the Ford government’s legislation to remove three Toronto bike lanes as a violation of Section 7 of the Charter, effectively constitutionalizing a right to bike lane infrastructure. The judge denied this is what he was doing, but by essentially using the Charter to weigh in on a public policy question he made himself a legislator and not a judge. These are matters for legislators and the voters who ultimately elect them, and hold them accountable through elections, not matters for judges to decide. These are not aberrations. They are the pattern, and precisely why Section 33 is so important. Quebec goes to the polls in October with the Parti Québécois leading and Paul St-Pierre Plamondon promising a sovereignty referendum within his first term. For the Supreme Court to hollow out the notwithstanding clause in this context would be a massive gift to the separatist cause. Quebec has understood the clause as a guarantee of parliamentary sovereignty, and its ability to defend and assert its distinct values since 1982. To defang it from the bench would confirm every argument the PQ has ever made about the possibility of Quebec protecting its values and culture within Canada’s constitutional framework. Nor would the reaction be confined to Quebec. Saskatchewan and Alberta have both invoked and vigorously defended the notwithstanding clause in recent years, and neither province’s government would accept a judicial narrowing of it quietly. A ruling that weakens the override would unite sovereigntists in Quebec and provincial autonomists in the West in common cause against Ottawa and the court, an unlikely and dangerous coalition that would exist only because the Bench created the conditions for it to arise. A ruling may not come for months, but the justices should be under no illusions. They are being asked to claim a power for themselves that the Constitution does not give them, to rewrite a provision whose plain text admits of no ambiguity, over the objections of the provinces whose agreement made the Charter possible. Please don’t do anything stupid, leave Section 33 alone."

The activists clamouring for us to be ruled by a woke juristocracy - "The Supreme Court held hearings last week regarding Bill 21 — Quebec’s secularism law, which prohibits religious dress and symbols from the province’s public-sector workplaces. The ban flouts the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but Quebec, so far, has gotten around that by invoking Section 33, the constitutional override known as the notwithstanding clause. Section 33 was Quebec’s last secure line of defence against cultural annihilation. Indeed, it’s a release valve for any province where the morality of the courts has become detached from that of the people. If you take it away, judges become the highest authority in Canada — which is why legal activists intervening in the case have been trying to convince the Supreme Court to do that all week. In its submissions, the Ontario Human Rights Commission said that Section 33 should not be invoked in a way that “fundamentally undermines the multicultural heritage of Canadians,” which, effectively, would prevent any province from asserting its own identity. The Public Interest Litigation Institute, in conjunction with an omnicause activist, argued that Section 33 can only be invoked in response to court judgments with which a legislature disagrees. The Canadian Labour Congress took that same position — and ended on an even more radical argument: that a legislature’s decision to invoke Section 33 must have a “rational basis” and should be reviewable by the courts, and should not stand where the court finds a “bad faith or animus towards a particular group.” This would defang the notwithstanding clause, potentially allowing judges to bar its use whenever they felt a government didn’t justify their choices with enough evidence. Remember when Ontario Superior Court Justice Paul Schabas ruled that removing bike lanes from a road without evidence was a violation of cyclists’ Charter rights? You could expect the same logic to stand in the way of any provincial government that doesn’t adopt the progressive politics now held by most judges in the country. The South Asian Legal Clinics of B.C. and Ontario, joint with the South Asian Women’s Community Centre, told the Supreme Court that the use of the notwithstanding clause should have to follow international law — such as the prohibition on racial discrimination. This should even include “laws with discriminatory effects of which the state was aware before enacting them but did nothing to address,” they argued. This would apply to practically every law on the books, because just about every rule in existence affects different racial groups to different degrees. Chinese and Indian taxpayers are some of the highest earners in Canada, for example, and are thus most affected by taxation. Asylum seekers are largely non-white, and thus, any benefit for Canadians that isn’t offered to asylum seekers ends up having a discriminatory effect. Submissions by the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights encouraged the court to subject the notwithstanding clause to international law — another direct request that the court undermine the sovereignty of the country. We could see courts barring democratic legislatures that don’t totally submit to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) for Charter challenges involving Indigenous individuals, and whatever else comes down the pipe. Considering how the UN is now talking about ordering western countries to pay reparations for slavery to Africa (but of course not the African and Arab nations that also participated in slave trading), this could go very poorly for us. If some enterprising Black advocacy group used the Charter to try to extract benefits from the state on the grounds that a few slaves existed in Canada in the 18th century, and if a court was sympathetic, the public could find itself without the tool to say “no.” Meanwhile, the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF) argued for a complete Section 33 bypass. The notwithstanding clause, you see, can be used to “override” rights that are set out in Section 15 of the Charter: race, sex, gender, religion, etc. But it cannot be used to override Section 28, which, confusingly, also protects gender equality. Because Bill 21 disproportionately affects women — not all women, but Muslim women — it should be struck down because it violates Section 28. LEAF was making an argument about intersectionality: any gender protection should apply not just to preserving the balance between men and women, but specific racial and religious subgroups, as well as those who identify as transgender and non-binary. This would be the end of Alberta’s sex-based protections for female sport and female-only spaces, because laws that preserve these discriminate against other gender identities, particularly men who identify as women. LEAF also said that Section 28 should guarantee what’s called substantive equality — that is, equal outcomes between groups. As an example of this, the Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic, a legal service for minority women, and a group called Women in Canadian Criminal Defence pointed to niqab- and hijab-wearing Muslim lawyers: Bill 21 would infringe on their equality by barring them from working in legal aid. That violation would trickle down to their clients, who might be “women who face intersectional and systemic barriers,” and would be disproportionately harmed by not being able to use their services. It’s a very bad sign that the Supreme Court decided to run a legal appeal like a committee in the House of Commons, giving the illusion of fairness when it was really anything but. This could be the case that ends parliamentary supremacy — the thing that makes Canada a democratic country — and it’s been spammed by interest groups snapping like piranhas for even more race-based law."

Sam Cooper on X - "REPOST: Indicators of Corruption in RCMP, CBSA, and Canadian Government Preceded Toronto Police Narco-Corruption Scandal ⁦@CBCNews⁩ ⁦@globeandmail⁩ ⁦@csiscanada⁩ ⁦@Nat_Div_RCMP⁩"
cbcwatcher on X - ""Our sources revealed that American agencies, including Homeland Security and the DEA, had effectively sidelined Canadian law enforcement from sensitive investigations due to suspected infiltration and corruption. They described intelligence-sharing cutoffs, blocked investigations into Asian organized crime networks, and concerns that reached into the Prime Minister’s office itself. Most significantly, they warned that the Cameron Ortis case—Canada’s convicted intelligence leaker—was not an isolated incident but evidence of systemic compromise.""
Damn Trump blowing up the bilateral relationship!

Charestiste🇨🇦🍁 on X - "53% of Canadians who feel very financially stressed vote for Conservatives while 55% of those who feel very financially comfortable vote for Liberals"

Daniel Foch on X - "Canada has observed the largest decline in happiness in the world (along with the UK)" Wesley Yang on X - "Why is the political party that imposed a decade of economic stagnation, rising crime, spiking housing costs, dysfunction in the healthcare system, overt anti-white discrimination in hiring, a two-tier criminal justice system, the largest wave of mass immigration in the world, and the largest decline in happiness in the world on Canada more popular than ever before?"
Patriotism isn't always good

John Carter on X - "The collapse in the happiness of Britain and Canada has been particularly rapid, and both countries have moved almost in lockstep. That isn't accidental. Canada is culturally joined at the hip to the UK. We're formally politically independent, but the Canadian political elite takes a lot of its cues from Britain. Both countries are under the thumbs of a constipated managerial class religiously dedicated to third world replacement migration, Net Zero sabotage, and social engineering in service of the great goddess Safety, and whose idea of economic growth is inflating real estate assets with money laundering and global favela biopressure."

Mike Lake on X - "Today in Question Period, a member of the Liberal leadership team accused me of misinformation... after I quoted from the 2025 Liberal election platform! Bottom line: the Liberals promised the "strongest economy in the G7." Today, we found out that Canada's economy is actually shrinking - the only G7 economy in that position. The Liberals, apparently, don't appreciate that being pointed out."
Misinformation is whatever left wingers don't like

John Robson: In Mark Carney's Canada, nothing matters - "our record non-pandemic deficit of $78.3 billion piled onto a runaway national debt will be even higher due to blithe fiscal incontinence that sees a parade of press releases cross my screen about subsidizing every possible applicant as an “investment,” as if not even words matter. (A real example from last week: “$797,557 for Eviance (Canadian Centre on Disability Studies Incorporated) for their project, Spotlight on Women Entrepreneurs with Disabilities in Canada. With this federal investment…”) The police also treat policing hate crime as a part-time job while the politicians treat boasting of compassion as a full-time one. And we act as if prosperity didn’t matter.  The prime minister may promise to sweep aside internal trade barriers, and build things at speeds thought impossible. But when he doesn’t actually do it nobody cares. Not even that he’s spent over $300,000 on in-flight catering alone since taking office, plus nearly half a million on hotels. We don’t even care about his attitude of detached entitlement or his carbon hypocrisy, let alone that instead of going to the office to battle a stack of tricky files, he basically spends all his time gallivanting about internationally and exchanging clichés with Keir Starmer. (Of course one could argue that given what he achieves while at his desk he might as well be abroad.)  Or take housing policy… please. It blights lives and menaces social cohesion if the dream of home ownership becomes a nightmare. But we get endless windy press releases and speeches about the government “supercharging” it using its magic powers we all secretly know it hasn’t got, then housing starts go down, and nobody cares. It doesn’t dent the popularity of the politicians who promised it. It doesn’t prompt policy changes. It doesn’t even stop the press releases.  To be fair, as I recently cast onto X about the PCO flubbing access to information, “when rank incompetence meets raw partisan advantage, it’s hard to know which is leading the dance.” But either way, they promise openness by default, then hide everything, and we reelect them so it doesn’t matter.  Also, journalists are hyperventilating about a built-in-Canada mega-defence spend-fest. But I also know defence procurement has been a hopeless mess for decades (DND even spends hundreds of millions renting transport services because it lacks basic logistics) yet nobody is punished and nothing changes because we think planes and ships don’t matter. Or national security. Hence given firm evidence that Chinese Communists are subverting our elections, penetrating our institutions and intimidating our citizens, we do nothing whatsoever. The police don’t swoop. The promised foreign agent registry never materializes. Politicians don’t stop flying to Beijing. Exactly as if being conquered doesn’t matter.  It might seem mild by comparison. But note also that no matter how much evidence accumulates that our health-care system, far from being the envy of the world, is unreasonably expensive while condemning large numbers of Canadians to pain, suffering and even death while on waiting lists, there is absolutely no discussion of repealing the Canada Health Act, as if all that suffering didn’t matter.  By the same token, it doesn’t matter how badly our school system underperforms, or how much emphasis politicians and pundits place rhetorically on preparing the youth of today for the world of tomorrow, nobody is seriously interested in vouchers, charter schools or anything else that might actually improve outcomes. Instead it’s all DEI, which rather obviously makes things worse.  Speaking of woke over worthwhile, what Selley thought might actually jolt us out of Neverland in December was a guy charged with stalking Jewish women being denied refugee status over seven years ago but not deported. And nobody cared. Not about security, not about the rule of law, nothing."
Canadian Complacency means the only thing that matters is spiting the US

Carney definition of 'capital' recognized by nobody else on earth: PBO - " B.C. Premier David Eby was just about to sit down with his fellow premiers on Thursday when he declared that Alberta separatists are “traitors.”  He might have been able to dismiss it as an intemperate aside, but he soon reiterated the comment on social media, writing “there is an old word to describe going to a foreign power and asking for their assistance in breaking up a sovereign country — it’s treason.”  The word “treason” has been getting a lot of play in Canadian politics of late. But the crime is a very high bar under Canadian law.  As per the Criminal Code, “high treason” applies only to those who “levy war against Canada,” or assist someone else who does. And even the crime of regular treason requires some element of violence. It’s defined as using “force or violence for the purpose of overthrowing the government of Canada or a province.” Or, failing that, you can be convicted of treason for giving secrets to a hostile power that are “prejudicial to the safety or defence of Canada.”  All of this is why the only convicted traitors in Canadian history (and there’s only been a handful) are people who participated in armed rebellions against state authority. Métis leader Louis Riel being the most famous.  Eby was responding to reports that members of the Alberta Prosperity Project, one of the main proponents for Alberta independence, had been meeting with officials from the Trump White House.  However, the discussions don’t appear to have veered past the treason threshold of plotting a foreign-backed armed insurrection. APP co-founder Jeffrey Rath said they’d primarily been sussing out the idea of securing a $500 billion line of credit from the U.S. government if secession is successful."

Erskine-Smith says he’ll resign as MP when Ford calls provincial by-election - The Globe and Mail - "Liberal MP Nate Erskine-Smith says he’ll resign his federal seat as soon as a provincial by-election is called in the Toronto riding of Scarborough Southwest, although Ontario Premier Doug Ford hasn’t yet set a date for the race.  Mr. Erskine-Smith’s leap into provincial politics sets the stage for his presumptive run to lead the Ontario Liberal Party – a move that will have reverberations at Queen’s Park, where Mr. Ford hopes to win a fourth term.  The provincial vacancy in Scarborough Southwest was triggered by the surprise resignation of Doly Begum, who was the Ontario NDP’s deputy leader. Ms. Begum was named on Tuesday as the Liberal candidate in the federal riding of the same name, which was vacated this week by ex-minister Bill Blair, who resigned to become Canada’s next high commissioner to the United Kingdom."
Damn Poilievre wasting money on an unnecessary by-election, money that could be used for healthcare!

Ottawa travel warning puts workers, travellers in Mexico on high alert - "Cartel violence, kidnappings and tougher federal advisory turning business trips and mine rotations into high‑risk assignments for workers in Mexico "
Meme - "Just a reminder that the media told Canadians over & over again to avoid traveling to the US & to choose Mexico instead."
"Better golf! Better weather! Why Canadians should go to Mexico instead of Florida"
"More Canadians head to Mexico for winter getaways"
Left wingers are still deluded that they are in more danger from ICE than the cartels

Notalia on X - "The fact that I see Liberal signs on lawns is astonishing.  It advertises that you think the state of Canada is not only acceptable but preferable.  It means you accept out of control immigration from countries that hate women, you accept endless Liberal scandals, you want housing costs to remain out of reach for anyone born after about 2000, you think giving the government money will fix the climate scam you've been sold, you want food prices through the roof, you think tampons should be in men's washrooms, you think men should be in women's sports.  You're advertising you're a fucking moron.  That's astounding."
Plus no GDP per capita growth

Black Fathers Weren’t Removed from the Home; They Left.

Black Fathers Weren’t Removed from the Home; They Left.

"We can no longer blame systemic shadows for the internal work Black men are unwilling to do...

I’d always blamed the United States government for the fatherless experience of so many Black children, people like my cousin and his four siblings. I was raised hearing that it was the crack epidemic of the ’80s that ripped so many Black men from their families, that mass incarceration separated innocent men from their children, and that the unavoidable allure of a life of poverty anchored with the welfare system was too good to be true to some Black women. My childhood was full of fables about the Black welfare queen, a woman who willingly excommunicated the devoted Black man in her life in exchange for government cheese and a subsidized studio in a project dwelling. 

Somehow, my uncle hit the victim lottery all three times, even doubled back a few times to be sure. He was another Black man denied the freedom to father, victimized by his own Black woman working in conjunction with an unjust system. 

I was an adult before I learned the length of these lies. In reality, parental absence was never as taboo as I was taught, particularly of the paternal variety. From 1880 through 1960, the rate of paternal absence averaged around 30% for black children ages 0 to 14, in comparison to 10% for white children over the same years. Now, we can attribute a great deal of this to the migration patterns of Black people post-slavery, where millions left the South, lured by the prospect of financial prosperity, mainly the Northern migration (1840–1890), Western migration (1840–1970), and Great Migration (1916–1930). Additionally, parental mortality was common in the nineteenth century, the assumed life expectancy of Black adults was just shy of 35. 

However, with geographical and medical stability came further familial destabilization. Paternal absence among black children rose from 32% in 1960 to 53% in 1980. On the heels of the 1965 Moynihan report, “The Negro Family: A Case for National Support”, which critics felt fingered the single mother as both the victim and the villain in the growing absence of black fathers, social commentators were hesitant to hand the blame over to black men. Instead, sociologists sought culprits outside the community, i.e., white supremacy, which was an easier evil to explain. It was obvious that this system was squeezing the life out of black fathers; where were the jobs; what about police brutality; not to mention child support, another name for the war on Black men. However, timelines fail to support the assertion that the phenomenon was a recent one...

Before Reagan ever took office and took up the task of doubling prison populations, before the first reports of crack emerged in cities like Los Angeles in 1981, half of all black children lived in single-parent homes, the gross majority of those homes headed by women. This number continued to climb, in 1990 reaching 63%, and even increased throughout the early 2000s despite record low unemployment rates for Black men and prison admission rates declining upwards of 24%. At the same time, the myth of the welfare queen was being taken to task by decades of research debunking the rumored welfare-loving single mother mockup. Not only did single black mothers experience shorter stints of government dependence than recipients of other races, but their children were no more likely than anyone else’s to enter the welfare system themselves, challenging the depiction of the single-family government-funded home complete with three generations of Black women and children. For years, we faced Washington while Black men packed their bags behind our backs...

It became clear to me that this was a matter of shitty men and the circles that surrounded them, not some secret system holding Black men’s arms behind his back...

The same data that speaks to high mass incarceration rates speaks to the fact that most Black incarcerated individuals had absent fathers. The same data that speaks to the prevalence of inner-city violence indicates that most perpetrators and their victims share the experience of fatherlessness. The same research that speaks to mass illiteracy, high school dropout rates, and underperforming Black students in the classroom indicates that most children with academic and behavioral struggles are raised in fatherless homes with limited parental input, involvement, and supervision. 

Our focus is so much on defending the imaginary morality and poor decisions of men, we can’t be bothered to see how the children are suffering. Our response to this growing phenomenon has been just as troubling as our accountability avoidance; complete with an odd argument suggesting that absent black fathers, unlike those of other races, were somehow absent yet extremely active. So active, in fact, that we could contend their absence wasn’t really all that relevant to begin with, just another ploy by the white man to tarnish Black men’s reputations. However, the 2013 CDC report cited in this argument doesn’t say anything remotely suggestive of that...

Black non-coresidential fathers, i.e. those who lived apart from their children, were less likely to see or speak to their children regularly, host their children in their homes, eat meals with them, ask them about their day, take them to activities, or help with homework. The report ended with a poll asking these absent Black fathers to rate their own parenting, the majority answered with “very good job”. The cognitive dissonance is deafening...

Black men weren’t removed from the homes, they got up and left. They made the same choice in the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, ’90s, and 2000’s that they continue to make today...

There is no Black anti-father task force picking the world’s best Black dads up from soccer practice, never to be seen again. The real conspiracy is they simply don’t desire to be there."

Links - 16th May 2026 (1 - Voting & Elections in the US)

@amuse on X - "FLASHBACK: One single bureaucrat working in the Census Bureau rigged the 2020 Census to give Democrats more than 10 additional seats in Congress. Shockingly Congress has done nothing to fix the corrupted system."
@amuse on X - "The Algorithm That Rigged the Census: How One Bureaucrat Stole the House and Billions in Funding
The 2020 census was marketed as an “actual enumeration,” a neutral count of people for apportionment and funding. It was not. The same official who helped block a basic citizenship question in 2018, John M. Abowd, then the Census Bureau’s Chief Scientist, pushed through a new, opaque methodology in 2020 called differential privacy. The new system deliberately injected mathematical noise into every block count in America, turning the census from a headcount into a model with knobs. The knob that mattered most was a single parameter, epsilon, a secrecy shroud known only to a small inner circle. Abowd argued that a single added question about citizenship posed an intolerable risk to data quality because there was, he said, not enough time to test it. Then he rushed an untested algorithm that altered every count in every neighborhood. The irony is so sharp it cuts: the man who warned that one question might distort the census approved a method that guaranteed distortion."

Meme - Steven Eisenberg @SteveEisenb...: "@Delta @AmericanAir - if I ever fly with you again, I will not show ID."
americanair @AmericanAir: "Adults 18 and over are required to show identification at the airport."
Dark Discourse @DarkDiscourse: "I'm black and don't have the knowledge or ability to acquire an identification. What would you recommend?"

Fox News on X - "Pennsylvania Democrats openly admit to counting illegal ballots in McCormick-Casey race"
Elon Musk on X - "The radical left is at it again. Same playbook:
1. They accuse anyone who says illegal votes are being counted of being a far right wing conspiracy theorist.
2. It turns out to be happening …
3. They AGREE it’s happening, but now that’s actually GOOD!!
4. They use lawfare and Dem election officials to force illegal votes to be counted.
This needs to stop."

Bucks GOP on X - "🚨🚨🚨#BucksCounty Democrat Commissioners violate the rule of law and ignore PA Supreme Court ruling!  Democrat Commissioners Diane Marseglia and Bob Harvie voted today to count illegal ballots, against PA Supreme Court ruling, in an attempt to aid former Senator Bob Casey.   "...precedent by a court doesn't matter anymore in this country. And people violate laws anytime they want. For me if I violate this law, it's because I want a court to pay attention to it." - Diane Marseglia   Thank you to Republican Commissioner Gene DiGirolamo for making a motion to uphold the law!   Our attorneys are working with attorneys from the PAGOP and RNC to address this matter."

Brits shocked after realising how Americans actually place their election votes - "Brits are 'shocked' to learn how some American's can deposit their vote in the street, after Selena Gomez demonstrated in a viral video... Upon seeing the video, one British viewer noted: "I’m sorry do Americans just..drop their ballot into a random box on the street????"  And it seems as though in some states, it's absolutely a thing!"
Why do the racist Brits believe in voter suppression?!

Meme - Pop Crave @ @PopCrave: "Selena Gomez has voted early in the 2024 Election."
@WZG1889: "I'm sorry do americans just..drop their ballot into a random box on the street????"
Batersky @SilkyStrzalek: "ive seen news of one being burned down so apparently yes?"
@WZG1889: "can't tell if i'm being dumb but surely anyone can just...fiddle with the ballots then??"
Matthew (votes Labour) @matthew1471: "They solved this problem.. there's a warning sticker on it saying not to do that.. cmon"
Dan @DaddyDjenepo: "Can't wait to put a sticker on myself that says "stabbing me is a felony". That'll stop them."

Meme - Jamie Hinkle @jamiehinkle_: "In #loudoncounty VA/ from a parent:  Is it strange that a teacher in the hallway gave my daughter  a voter registration form and told  her to fill it out on the spot and give it back to her? It has highlighted sections to complete. She told the teacher she is only 16, and she said she needed to do it anyway. My daughter told her she wanted to take it home first, and the teacher said she had to bring it back today. I have serious trust issues with LCPS and election integrity. Am I just being crazy to think this is not right?"

Shaun Maguire on X - "Didn’t every single long vote count go towards the Democrats? At least one of which had ballots disappear?"

Paul A. Szypula 🇺🇸 on X - "Stacey Abrams admits the $2 billion Joe Biden’s EPA gave her was used to buy votes of people in Georgia by purchasing them new appliances. MSNBC does their best to whitewash this but can’t hide the huge pile of fraudulent spending Abrams facilitated."

Election 2024: Cybersecurity head says there's no chance a foreign adversary can change results - "Nearly a month out from Election Day, the head of the nation’s cybersecurity agency is forcefully reassuring Americans who have been swept into the chaotic churn of election disinformation and distrust that they will be able to feel confident in the outcome.  State and local election officials have made so much progress in securing voting, ballot-counting and other election infrastructure that the system is more robust than it has ever been, said Jen Easterly, director of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. As a result, she said, there is no way Russia, Iran or any other foreign adversary will be able to alter the results.  “Malicious actors, even if they tried, could not have an impact at scale such that there would be a material effect on the outcome of the election,” Easterly told The Associated Press"
Cyber-Security Experts Warn Election Was Hacked - "Cyber-security experts across America are raising the alarm of wide-scale election fraud securing Trump’s victory — and the data is compelling.  Two open letters penned by computer scientists and hacking experts have detailed how the USA’s election software was compromised and the relatively simple hack which could have then been used to fix the results in the seven swing states"
It's only a hacked election if the left loses. Election denial is only wrong and Dangerous to Democracy when the left wins

Libs of TikTok on X - "BREAKING: New York’s highest court just STRUCK DOWN the NYC law that would’ve let over 800,000 noncitizens vote. The court rejected Democrats’ argument 6–1, declaring voting is a right reserved for U.S. citizens only."

Governor Tina Kotek on X - "Our immigrant communities are Oregon communities. Immigrants are integral to the culture and success of Oregon. I will uphold Oregon's sanctuary promise laws -- laws that were passed with almost unanimous bipartisan support in the 1980’s."
Updated findings show nearly 1,260 possible noncitizens were registered to vote in Oregon since 2021

Libs of TikTok on X - "Mesa County, Colorado Postal worker Vicki Lyn Stuart and an accomplice were arrested on voter fraud charges. They allegedly stole ballots, forged signatures, and illegally cast them. But Democrats say voter fraud in mail-in voting is impossible…"

Sheri™ on X - "“I’m black. I’m a veteran and I have 6 FORMS of ID. “The idea that a black or brown person can not get an ID to vote, is insulting” “I refer to this as a Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations” ~Wesley Hunt~"

How non-citizens are getting voter registration forms across the US — and how Republicans are trying to stop it - "Welfare offices and other agencies in at least 46 US states are providing voter registration forms to migrants without requiring proof of citizenship, leading Republicans and conservatives to call for swift federal action to stop the handouts.  Every state but North Dakota, New Hampshire, Wisconsin and Wyoming gives applicants for either welfare benefits, driver’s licenses, or in some cases, mail-in ballots federal voter registration forms without demanding proof of citizenship.   There is currently no requirement on federal voting forms to provide proof of US citizenship, though it is illegal to falsely claim one is a citizen or for a non-citizen to cast a ballot in a federal election.  But millions of migrants with humanitarian parole, refugee or asylum status are eligible for benefits that would bring them to the offices where voter registration takes place...   The left-leaning Campaign Legal Center has opposed the SAVE Act as a “shameful” measure that will “undermine trust in the electoral process,” dismissing concerns over non-citizen voting and declaring it has not taken place “at any meaningful level.”...  federal prosecutions, state investigations and audits have shown in recent years that thousands of non-citizens are being registered...   Hundreds of non-Americans have since been caught after casting ballots in races ranging from the local to the presidential, and subsequently purged from voter rolls."
I like how making voting more secure is supposed to undermine trust in the electoral process

ONLY IN AMERICA 😀 on X - "Democrats want ICE agents to present ID to ensure they’re actually agents… But don’t want voter ID to make sure voters are actually American? Rotflmao! 🤣"

Meme - "How conservatives deny people their right to vote:
Require Citizenship
Require Identification
Can only vote 1 time
Must be alive"

Libs of TikTok on X - "So lemme get this straight… In August, 2020 The FBI had documents detailing how the CCP created fake ID’s to cast fake mail-in ballots for Biden and then FBI Director Chris Wray covered it up then testified there were no plots of foreign interference ahead of the 2020 election?"

Meme - "REMEMBER THERE ARE NO BLUE STATES
STATES HARRIS WON VS. ID REQUIREMENT
ONLY STATES THAT DON'T CHECK ID"

Arnold on X - "My plan would restore power to the people and restore confidence in our democracy.
74% want Election Day to be a holiday.
75% believe gerrymandering is a major problem.
83% support requiring an ID to vote.
Get to work, Congress. Give the people what they want and need."

Dustin Grage on X - "🚨 BREAKING: Minnesota Elections Director Paul Linnell admits that illegal aliens can vote in state elections with a driver’s license.
REP. ANDERSON: “So the answer to my question is yes. Under that scenario, someone could. They get their driver’s license, again, because we give them to anybody here. They register to vote, it doesn’t match with the Social Security number, so they’re flagged. But they come in as long as they have an ID, which is that driver’s license, and they sign that they are, you know, eligible to vote, they can vote, and they’re then no longer flagged.”
PAUL LINNELL: *word salad*
REP. ANDERSON: “Okay, so the answer is yes to my question.”"

Charlie’s Voice Rising on X - "🚨 CAUGHT ON CAMERA — AGAIN. Michigan State Police just confirmed what everyone suspected:  A Hamtramck councilman — Abu Musa — was filmed handing bundles of absentee ballots to a driver… who then tried shoving them into a dropbox like nobody would notice.  The dude literally stood there jamming stacks of ballots that didn’t fit, glancing around every two seconds like a guilty kid caught in the cookie jar.  And here’s the wild part: 🔁 FOUR days later… it happened" again.  Now look at the numbers: On August 5th, Musa “won” his primary with 1,129 votes. But get this: 843 were absentee. Only 286 came on Election Day.  Remove those questionable absentee ballots and… he drops all the way to 5th place in a 12-person race.  Oh — and Musa is already under investigation for not even living in Hamtramck… Plus he was named in the 2023 election-fraud probe but somehow never charged.  This looks worse every time new footage surfaces."

Democrats Declare Gerrymandering Bad Until They Need To Gerrymander Again | Babylon Bee - ""Sure, California, Illinois, and other deep blue states have been gerrymandering Republican voters out of power for decades, but this is bad because now Republicans are doing it, and we just hate it when they do stuff we've been doing forever," Wu said.  "NO CAP!" shouted Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett."

New York Democrats Gerrymandering Elections - The Atlantic
From 2021. Of course, the writer is ignorant about how much gerrymandering Democrats already did at that point, because gerrymandering is only bad when Republicans do it

Andrew Follett on X - "Democrats currently enjoy VERY favorable maps. No federal judges care! New England states vote about 40% Republican and the region has literally 0 GOP US House members. Republicans send fair-minded judges to courts, bc we're good. Dems send partisan hacks, bc they're evil."
Physics Geek on X - "I'll repeat: Dems gerrymander maps to their hearts content when they have control and judges say "Hey, it's within their power, no problem." GOP gerrymanders maps when they have control and judges say "THE HORROR! THE HORROR! STRUCK DOWN!""

Blake Neff on X - "If you need to grasp why civil rights law is such a disaster, this is a good start: California changing its House maps to elect Democrats will be fine, because it just targets Republicans, while Texas's new House map is getting thrown out, because it's "racist." Repeat this reasoning, thousands of times, in courts all over the country. Turns out, the Constitution just mandates left-wing victories on everything. Who knew!"

Praying Medic on X - "The Supreme Court has handed Republicans in Texas a win by striking down lower a court block on the state's new congressional district map. Kagan, Sotomayor & Jackson dissented."
Theo Wold on X - "All three of the liberal justices dissented from the order allowing Texas to use their new congressional map.  But these same justices all voted with a unanimous court back in February to allow California to use its new maps.  The three liberal justices are simply progressive activists wearing black robes."

The Associated Press on X - "BREAKING: A judge says that Trump can’t require citizenship proof on the federal voter registration form, siding with Democrats and civil rights groups."
Ron DeSantis on X - "You have to be a citizen to vote but you can’t verify the citizenship of a voter? Make it make sense."

Ohio uncovers over 1,000 noncitizens 'appearing' registered to vote, sends cases to DOJ for prosecution
Mike Lee on X - "Noncitizens sometimes vote Far more often than many on the left have been willing to admit Congress must address this by passing the SAVE Act—now! Spread the word if you agree"

🇺🇸RealRobert🇺🇸 on X - "And here it is:  Twenty years in the making.  The State of Georgia:  Dominion Rigging Systems declared the wrong winner for the May 22, 2024, DeKalb County, Georgia, District 2 Commission primary.  The election board decided to conduct a hand recount to ensure accurate results.  The issue only came to light because a candidate received no votes, not a single one in the precinct where she and her husband lived and voted. When she reported the problem to the DeKalb Election Board, they ordered a machine recount, which produced the same results once again.  A subsequent hand count revealed that the voting system had shorted the candidate 3,049 of her actual 4,078 votes—over 74% of her total. The system had given 1,456 of her votes to one opponent and failed to count another 1,805 votes.  “Play it again, Sam.”  📝 Dominion Rigging Systems sold and renamed as "Liberty Vote" doesn’t mean shit. Ban, dismantle, eliminate, and excommunicate every single voting machine across America."
Bob Mck on X - "Doesn’t somebody need to refund Fox News their lawsuit $ for saying those Dominion machines were rigged."

Sólionath on X - "The 14th Amendment was proposed for the purpose of giving citizenship to former slaves, and the senator who introduced the amendment explicitly stated that it would not apply to the children of aliens."

Governor Gavin Newsom on X - "Donald Trump's puppet DOJ has no business screwing around with next month's election. Sending the feds into California polling places is a deliberate attempt to scare off voters and undermine a fair election. We will not back down. Californians decide our future — no one else."
AAGHarmeetDhillon on X - "Lol calm down bro. The @TheJusticeDept under Democrat administrations has sent in federal election observers for decades, and not once did we hear that this was voter intimidation from states such as California. Do you really want to go there? Isn’t transparency a good thing?"

Right Angle News Network on X - "BREAKING - A video of Democrat Katie Porter handing out free stuff to young students waiting in line to vote at UC Irvine is trending, showing exactly why California Democrats like Gavin Newsom oppose having people monitor their polling locations."

Texas flags 2,700+ potential noncitizens registered to vote on state voter rolls
"This never happens"

Dustin Grage on X - "THEN: Tim Walz signs “Driver’s Licenses for All” law, allowing illegal aliens to obtain free government-issued photo IDs.
NOW: Minnesota election officials confirm that illegal aliens can vote in state elections using those driver’s licenses.
But I was told this can’t happen?"

Study: 10% to 27% of Non-Citizens Are Illegally Registered to Vote - "In the 2008 presidential election, 82% of non-citizens who admitted that they voted stated that they voted for Democrat Barack Obama, while only 18% said they voted for Republican John McCain. Showing this was not a fluke, Richman found in multiple surveys conducted from 2006 to 2022 that 73% to 82% of non-citizens supported Democratic candidates.  Those outcomes accord with the promises and actions of Democrat politicians to give wide-ranging welfare and full amnesty to people who immigrate to the United States legally or illegally"

~~datahazard~~ on X - "Low IQ republicans flooded the 2020 zeitgeist with stupid conspiracy theories instead of the real problem of unprovable mail-in ballots. Homelessness NGOs harvested hundreds of thousands of mail-in ballots from transients in 2020. This one single-site NGO in Philly had thousands  of hobo-ballots delivered to their single downtown Philadelphia address.  No one knows who filled out those ballots."

Crémieux on X - "Between 2004 and 2014, nine American states implemented strict voter ID laws. Voter turnout was not affected."

End Wokeness on X - "Dems: "Requiring ID to vote is insane!!"
Countries that require an ID to vote: UK Italy Chile Spain Malta Brazil Israel Latvia Russia France Mexico Austria Ireland Poland Greece Croatia Finland Estonia Belgium Sweden Bulgaria Portugal Hungary Ecuador Slovenia Slovakia Romania Denmark Germany Lithuania Argentina  Columbia Botswana Zimbabwe Luxemburg Netherlands South Africa Czech Republic (Just to name a few)"
Left wingers want to emulate Europe and other left wing countries after all

MAZE on X - "Before the 2016 election Obama repeatedly said that you're not supposed to cast doubt on the legitimacy of an election. Right after the election Obama launched the Russia hoax to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the election. Perhaps the biggest scandal ever in American politics."

Links - 16th May 2026 (0.66)

Ed: This was previously unpublished due to "spam" so I split it into 2 posts to try to narrow the problem down. This post was again flagged, but was reinstated on appeal (but apparently got hidden again). This was originally from 21st May 2025 (2). This was probably not the text that tripped the spam filter:

Paul Labana: Ex-doctor fined $2000 for Dicey Riley's nipple assault - "A former Wollongong Hospital ED doctor will cough up $2000 in fines for nipple crippling a police officer and punching a security guard after being kicked out of an Irish pub.  "Let go of my f---ing nipple you c--t," the cop said to Paul Surrinder Singh Labana as he escorted him to the police station... Defence lawyer Patrick Schmidt said there was no doubt the security guards were operating under law and that this whole incident could have been avoided by letting his client use the bathroom.  Mr Schmidt noted Labana had also suffered PTSD and anxiety."

I replaced the URL with an archive.ph URL, so it should work. It seems Blogger hates the Illawarra Mercury.

Links - 16th May 2026 (0.33)

Ed: This was previously unpublished due to "spam" so I split it into 2 posts to try to narrow the problem down. This post was again flagged, but was reinstated on appeal (but apparently got hidden again). This was originally from 21st May 2025 (2). This is to split it again to confirm what has tripped the filter.

Meme - cubs @cubsjaw: "I told my IRL friends about African dry sex and it seems to have been the final nail in the coffin for the one non-racist friend in the group. Successful convert"
iver - lavabit.com: "You told them about African what now?"
CentrismBestrism @probablycenter: "In Africa, Wet pussy is considered whorish. So they make it dry with sand. Sand causes tears that transmit aids."
The high rate of AIDS in Africa is the fault of colonialism and white supremacy

Meme - Bessie Braddock @BraddockBessie: "The difference is, we don't venerate Henry III.  We don't revere him as holy & beyond reproach.  We don't think it's acceptable to kill people for drawing or sharing pictures of him.  There are no countries passing pro-paedophile laws based on what Henry III did.  Shit analogy 👇"
Lily @unejam_: "Muhammad married Aisha when she was six years old and the marriage was consummated when she was nine"
CremantCommunarde #Resist...: "And Eleanor of Provence (aged 12) was married to Henry Ill of England (aged 28) in January 1236."
This was in response to Iraq allowing 9 year olds to marry

Meme - "so horny i let him explain his PC build
wow your solid state hard drive is so cool let me suck your dick"

Meme - doomer @uncledoomer: "our grandfathers would see maybe one woman this hot in a lifetime, and paint her on the side of a plane and carpet bomb the shit out of each other. you see a dozen stepsisters stuck in dryers hotter than her before breakfast and wonder why nobody wants to die in a trench anymore"

Meme - "Ugly sweater: *Feel the joy* *two hands below breasts*"

Meme - "Why does the bear have absolute bazookas??"
"cleans better *breasts*"

Meme - RazörFist @RAZ0RFIST: "Politics from 2015-2025. Distilled to a single King of the Hill scene."
"Hey, can you give me some money?"
"No"
"Fascist"

Links - 16th May 2026 (0)

Ed: This was previously unpublished due to "spam" so I split it into 2 posts to try to narrow the problem down. This post was again flagged, but was reinstated on appeal (but apparently got hidden again). This was originally from 21st May 2025 (2). This is to split it again to confirm what has tripped the filter.

Travel news: Want to join the Mile-High Club? This company encourages it - "A California-based hot-air balloon company is offering mile-high flights – with amorous Mile-High Club privileges – over the Temecula countryside.  Guests can enjoy the views with a whole basket to themselves – and a privacy screen separating the pilot compartment from the passenger cabin.  The pilot, who Magical Adventure Balloon Rides promises will be wearing protective hearing gear and focused solely on flying, ascends the balloon to 5,280 feet (about 1,610 meters), which is about 2,000 feet higher than a typical recreational flight.   While intimate clinches are usually thoroughly discouraged in the skies, the company invites you to bring your own bedding and music playlist. A complimentary Champagne breakfast is included to fuel your frolics, of whatever sort.   Pricing for two passengers starts at $1,400. If your mantra is “the more the merrier,” each additional adult in the larger 10-person basket is $159."

What to do if you wake up with a Banksy on your wall - "if Banksy chooses your wall for one of his drawings, you could be seriously in the money."

Suspect in 14-year-old Jackie Strahle's death arrested in Illinois - "A man facing initial charges in relation to the homicide of a 14-year-old girl that occurred at the end of January is in custody after more than a weeklong search.  Evrinn "Zo" Worlds, born in 2006 and from Springfield, is charged with the felony of abandoning a corpse and a misdemeanor charge of tampering with physical evidence. According to a Greene County Sheriff's Office news release Friday, Worlds has been taken into custody and is awaiting extradition in Madison County Jail in Illinois.  On Jan. 28, deputies discovered the body of a young girl, later identified as Jackie Strahle of Springfield, at 5622 W. Farm Road 140... a witness said Worlds lived at the Farm Road 140 address and was believed to be in a relationship with Strahle. The document recounts the discovery of Strahle's body wrapped in large sheets of insulation, with a large black trash bag around the top of the body and black sleeping bag, black sheets and a red sheet around the lower body. According to an autopsy report, it is believed Strahle was shot one time.  A second witness mentioned in the probable cause statement arrived at the house the evening of Jan. 27 and found a "frantic" Worlds, who allegedly said he had shot Strahle and didn't know what to do. The second witness called a ride to leave the residence and advised Worlds to report the incident, though not before allegedly observing the body in the upstairs of the house... The abandonment of a corpse charge is punishable by up to four years imprisonment and/or a fine of up to $10,000. The tampering with evidence charge stems from Worlds allegedly concealing the body with the purpose of obstructing the investigation. This charge is punishable by up to one year imprisonment and/or a fine up to $2,000."

Meme - "Not sure if this is the correct forum, but I heard a rumor years back that the ZANU and ZAPU rebels in Rhodesia often were found to have the rear sights on their AK's maxed out to 1,000 meters, thinking this would give them "more power". I never really paid much attention and just filed it away along with all kinds of other gun myths. However, today I was reading on the history of interarms and saw the picture below, with the biafran soldier apparently having his K98 set to 2,000 meters. It brought that story back and I had to ask: does this story have any sand? Are there any cases of poorly-trained armies getting confused with sight settings?"

After 40 hours of sniping, I just now learned you can zero your scope. : r/BattleBitRemastered - "This reminds me of something I read from the Bush War
> Rhodies recover enemy rifles after each engagement
> They keep finding rifles with the rear sight dialed in to the highest setting, practically fucking indirect fire
> They are extremely confused by this
> Eventually they ask a prisoner about it during interrogation
> Literally none of them know what the sights are for, they think that choosing the bigger number makes the gun shoot harder
Warfare in Africa is truly unbelievable"

Thread by @SirEvanAmato on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "This stuff drives me up the walls.  American couple visits Europe and thinks 2 weeks is enough to accurately glimpse local life.  They then return to the US, complaining about why it sucks and how Europe is so much better.  DELUSIONAL thinking on all accounts 🧵
I used to be all for people traveling, but unless you do it for genuinely EXTENDED periods of time, it’s impossible to get a glimpse of real culture.  My first time in Europe, I lived in Spain for 6 months.  I came back to the US totally convinced Europe was heaven on earth… Later, I spent about two years in France.  First 6 months, great.  The latter year and a half, the cracks started to show…  To be clear, I didn’t travel or sight-see barely at all during this period.  I stayed pretty much in one place, spoke the language, and had a real job that felt truly local.  It was as “authentic” as you could get. The more time you spend actually living real life in Europe though, the more you realize how much American “freedom” is actually legit.  For ex, say you want to throw something in the trash.  In the US, you just throw it in the trash.  In Italy, you have to do the “raccolta differenziata” and divide waste into paper, plastic, organic, or tin/glass.  This then gets collected in small bags administered to you by the gov  (which are tracked by RFID so you can be fined if you put the wrong thing in the wrong bag). Have something bigger that won’t fit? Like a Swiffer mop? You’ve got to drive to the dump — but not just any dump, the local dump assigned to you based on your legal place of residence (which you must register with the gov).  But even THEN, it’s not easy… Many dumps still do a version of the “raccolta differenziata”, so you still have to divide things even there! I chose the Swiffer ex for a reason — I once saw a man forced to break it up (idk how) into the rubber handle, the small metal pole, and the dust-collecting piece itself
So in America, you can say “I need to throw away this Swiffer” and do just that.  In Italy, you have to load it into your car, drive through traffic to the dump (bringing your gov-issued medical card to access it, not just your ID), take it apart by hand, and then drive back home. I know this is just one silly example, but it perfectly demonstrates the sort of thing you’d never experience even if you came to Europe for 6 months.  Don’t get me wrong, I love Europe  BUT… You are absolutely delusional if you think even 6 months here gives you an accurate view of local life.  I’ve lived here for the better part of the past decade — in Spain, France, the UK and Italy.  I worked here.  I got married here.  I had a child here.  And I’m STILL learning…
It is peak American arrogance (and unironically, privilege) that makes something think they “get it” after such a short trip  (fwiw, the couple in question also believes the US is “descending into fascism”…)
But it also makes you reconsider the “importance” of travel. While OF COURSE travel opens up your eyes to other parts of the world and ways of doing things, it’s largely overrated.  Precisely bc it makes you *think* you understand, when it reality you don’t… Want study abroad students to become socialists?  Send them to Europe for 3 months.  Want them to join the “far-right”?  Send them to Europe for 3 years.
Again, to be clear, I LOVE Europe.  I love foreign languages.  I love the beauty and charm of the Old World.  And I love the people who live here.  BUT (as obvious as it should be) everything comes with trade-offs. There are great things about living in the US. There are not so great things about living in the US.  Same goes for Europe.  But in either place, you can find abundant reason to be happy.  Neither the US nor Europe provides the magic bullet to happiness …and I guess that’s the point of this schizo thread.
 Travel (and the idea of moving abroad) promise to bring you happiness.  They promise to provide the right conditions in which you can be happy.  But in reality, no country can do that for you. Your happiness doesn’t depend on the country you live in.  It’s determined by how you choose to live life where you’re at.  So love your hometown a little bit more.  Invest in your local community.  And above all, understand that YOU are responsible for your own happiness"

Friday, May 15, 2026

Links - 15th May 2026 (2 - Trans Mania)

Janet Murray on X - "I didn’t really get the problem with gender ideology at first.  I’m liberal-minded about most things. 'Live and let' live has generally been my motto. I believed inclusion mattered. I believed in being kind. In not using language that might upset people unnecessarily.  I knew people who identified as transgender. I knew some adults chose medical treatments or surgery to resemble the opposite sex. That seemed to me a matter of personal autonomy. Adults can do what they wish with their own bodies.  What I hadn’t realised - and I feel slightly embarrassed admitting this - was that I’d misunderstood what was being claimed.  I thought “transgender” meant a form of self-expression. A man who liked wearing women’s clothes. Someone changing their name. Gender non-conformity.  What I hadn’t grasped was that some activists weren’t just asking for tolerance. They were asserting that declaring yourself the opposite sex made you the opposite sex. Not metaphorically. Literally.  And that this wasn’t just cultural. It had legal consequences.
- It meant men who said they were women were demanding access to women’s sports, prisons, domestic violence shelters and hospital wards
- It meant the rewriting of healthcare language - “pregnant people”, “bodies with cervixes” - to avoid saying “women”
- It meant children struggling with identity being affirmed onto medical pathways with lifelong implications
And also redefining same-sex attraction. Lesbians called 'bigoted' for not wanting relationships with men who identify as women. Gay men accused of prejudice for saying they're not attracted to female bodies. None of which made any sense.  But I'd also overlooked how far this had travelled - into HR policies, professional bodies, schools, political parties and public institutions.  And how easily disagreement was framed as cruelty. Speaking up felt risky - because others were being publicly humiliated for doing so.  None of this is abstract.  Because sex is the basis on which safeguarding works. On which data is collected. On which cancer screening programmes run. On which fair sport and single-sex spaces depend. It’s written into law - including the Equality Act - because material differences matter.  If sex becomes a 'feeling' rather than a biological category, those protections become unstable.  And once reality becomes negotiable, everything does.  Once I saw it, I couldn’t unsee it. But I needed to be sure.
So I read. Books, research papers, policy documents. When I finally spoke publicly, there was backlash from all directions.  Many women thanked me - both quietly and publicly. But some feminists criticised me for speaking too late.   Others were angry about a past interview I’d done with the parent of a transgender person, accusing me of promoting harm.  It takes courage to change your mind publicly.  It takes courage to speak when you know your reputation, friendships or livelihood may be on the line - when you know raising your voice could strain, or even end, relationships you value.  Once I understood what was at stake, staying silent was no longer an option. I lost my livelihood simply for saying I didn’t like the phrase “pregnant people”. That alone tells you something is deeply wrong. It shouldn’t be this way.  I will never judge any woman for when she finds her voice.  Because every voice adds value - whenever it is raised. And I know how persuasive this ideology can be. I know how easily it bypassed me. And I know how much courage it takes to admit, publicly, that you got something wrong."
Grok_Slow on X - "Trans rights are NOT human rights. They already have human rights. What they want is privilege - to commandeer women's spaces, to mentally kidnap and sterilize children, to force the world to ignore objective reality in favor of whatever makes them feel good."

Meme - Medeya Espina: "Just found a wallet on a ground at Macy's . Found the cashier and together we tracked down the owner. They were so happy that I returned their wallet that they tried offering me cash. Of course I refused bc it's not their fault that they lost their wallet. Anyway the moral of this story is... you do understand the use of They/Them pronouns to refer to a singular person. YOU DO VERY CLEARLY AND SO DOES EVERYONE ELSE all"
Gender Inclusive Schools: "You do understand."
Shane DeVon: "The moment you looked at the id, you knew the the gender of the owner. At which point none of your statement makes sense, it would have to say his/her. Nice try though."
Matthew Taylor: "You mean when you don't know someone's gender based upon little to information, including visual, auditory, and social cues? Because that is actually how that works."
Left wingers are forever conflating unrelated issues

Man stabbed after denying sex to adult content creator ‘because she was not Jewish’: Miami Beach PD - "An online adult content creator from Atlanta stabbed a man in a shower in Miami Beach on Thursday after he denied her sex “because she was not Jewish,” police said he told officers. Authorities arrested La’Rose Sainte, a 30-year-old transgender woman who advertises explicit profiles on the Fansly and X platforms, on a felony aggravated battery charge and three misdemeanors.  Police said the stabbing happened just before 9:30 p.m. at the Edwards Apartments, located at 953 Collins Ave. on South Beach.  According to an arrest report, the victim told officers he met Sainte, whose full name is listed as Larose Angel Sainte, three weeks ago and invited her to his apartment on Thursday. “The victim explained after (Sainte) arrived, he informed her they would not engage in sexual intercourse because she was not Jewish,” the report states. “(She) then became upset and requested his car keys and money.”  Police said the man told officers that as he tried walking to the bathroom, Sainte pushed him and caused him to fall toward the bathtub; Sainte, he said, then punched him several times in the face.  Authorities said he left the apartment but came back after hearing Sainte breaking his property. According to the report, Sainte grabbed “a piece of glass from a shattered mirror” and caused “several minor lacerations” to his left hand as she stabbed him.  Sainte, after fleeing, was seen on a police drone getting into an SUV and officers pulled over the vehicle, taking her into custody, the report states. The victim told police that Sainte ultimately destroyed two pairs of sunglasses, a mirror and a refrigerator door handle."
Damn transphobic hate crime!

San Diego Man In Women's Clothes Scolds Woman For Native American Costume

Meme - *Dylan Mulvaney* "MANY BELIEVE IF TRANS WOMEN COULD ACTUALLY GET A PERIOD THAT THEIR NONSENSE WOULD END IN 28 DAYS"

Meme - "POV: you realized that taking an unscheduled work break after you got misgendered is NOT an inconvenience to a good manager. you are valid <3"
"la.mia.caffe: caught this lil vid during one of my panic ..."
Time to go on about "straight fragility"

Dr. Kristina Rizzotto | Facebook - "The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention and Human Security has released its third Red Flag Alert on the current state of trans rights in the United States under the trump administration. The institute issues Red Flag Alerts when developments occur in countries and regions that exhibit red flags with “potential to radicalize and/or bring together destructive historical trajectories and move a society further towards a mass atrocity event aimed at destroying one or more collective identities”. It released its second alert eight months ago, but has now said that “the Republican Party’s anti-trans agenda has radicalized and continued to intensify”. The Lemkin Institute noted that there was a 45 percent increase in what it deems to be anti-trans bills between 2024 and 2025. Last year also became the sixth record-breaking year for the number of anti-trans bills that were considered in the country. The US military’s bans and restrictions on trans service members was also cited as a reason for the Red Flag Alert. In a statement published to the Lemkin Institute’s website on 11 March, it said: “Given these ideological developments, especially coupled with the increasingly hostile and draconian legislation against trans identities, the Lemkin Institute believes that the United States is squarely within the early to middle stages of a genocidal process against trans people, the goal of which is to completely erase transgender people not only from public life but also from existence in the US and globally.” Source: PinkNews"
Good reminder that you can't take left wingers seriously when they go on about "genocide"

TheRoadknight on X - "The ABC tale of two trans.  Four weeks ago, this story it was revealed that, despite being warned of the dangers, Clinton Rintoull, a male-born transwoman was transferred to a Victorian women's prison where he sexually assaulted a young woman.  The ABC did not report this.  The ABC did, however, report the assaults on Marjorie Harwood, a man who identified as a woman, in a male prison (link below).  So, when the victim of a crime, the ABC reports. When the perpetrator of a crime, the ABC doesn't report.  But this is standard practice for the ABC and its treatment of its 'pets', especially Aboriginal people.  When the victim of a crime or grievance, the ABC ensures it reports that the person is a 'proud member of a tribe or tribes'. When the perpetrator, they do their best to ensure that the person's race isn't mentioned.  If race is not a motive in a crime, there is no need to mention it - unless, of course, it perpetuates and seeks to over-represent Aborigines as victims.  Portraying any race as perpetual helpless victims is racist, since it positions that race as weak.  The ABC, with their smug, sanctimonious finger-wagging over racism, is the most racist organisation imaginable - and also projects this onto other classes of minorities, such as trans people."

Bernie on X - "There are no words! according to reports the NHS is PAYING children, including those with learning difficulties, to be part of the NHS puberty blockers trial! Paying them £500 vouchers to spend at Uber Eats and on XBOX games, whilst sterilising them. Read that again."

NHS halts gender-affirming hormone prescriptions for under-18s - "Meanwhile, a separate clinical trial examining puberty blockers has been suspended due to concerns regarding potential long-term biological damage.  The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency intervened last month, requesting additional safeguards and proposing a minimum participant age of 14.  Dr Alice Hodkinson, founder of the campaign group Biology in Medicine, welcomed the announcement whilst cautioning that the dangers do not diminish once a patient reaches adulthood. "Cross-sex hormones do not become any less harmful on a patient's 18th birthday," she warned.  "There is mounting evidence of the long-term adverse effects, which include heart disease, stroke and early mortality."  She raised particular concerns about vulnerable individuals obtaining prescription hormones through private channels and EU regulatory gaps, specifically citing access from Spain and Ireland.  Dr Hodkinson urged ministers to address these alternative supply routes, including illegal anabolic steroids purchased directly from websites, to safeguard young people from exploitation."
Weird. TRAs claim this never happened. Surely they weren't lying as usual?

possum faerie 🏴🏳️‍⚧️ 🇵🇸🔻 on X - "Forcing trans people to revert gender markers means they will immediately be outed in any interaction that requires an ID- renting an apt, starting a job, applying for a bank account, every interaction w police. This enables discrimination+can put trans people in physical danger"
Claire 🦎 on X - "the number of people who are so passable as the opposite sex that being "outed" could be a genuine concern is so miniscule that I dont see this as in any way an effective argument. 99.9% of the time you will be "outed" as soon as you walk into a room or speak. anyway, its not the government's job to facilitate you more effectively lying about your sex. government documents should document reality, not the feelings in your brain."

Meme - Wesley Yang @wesyang: "Chase Strange explained this in Slate magazine in 2016, noting that "a penis is not a male body part. It's just an unusual body part for a woman" This proposition was the start of an internal neocolonial nation-building project the imposition of a Schmittian friend-foe dynamic that would march relentlessly to encompass the whole of institutional America and the ruling institutions of the Western world. If you don't believe this, if you don't publish it, if you don't say it you are an enemy whose speech can be suppressed. In the past few months we've seen in what ways this suppression can happen: through censorship, through criminal prosecution, and through shooting you dead mid-sentence."
Chase Strangio @chasestran...: "Abigail Shrier's book is a dangerous polemic with a goal of making people not trans. I think of all the times & ways I was told my transness wasn't real & the daily toll that still takes. We have to fight these ideas which are leading to the criminalization of trans life again. Also stopping the circulation of this book and these ideas is 100% hill I will die on:"
Left wingers love censorship, because they know their ideas can't stand scrutiny

Wesley Yang on X - "When the ACLU's lead trans right litigator Chase Strangio tweeted a promise to stop the circulation of a book chronicling the online social contagion driving trans identification in young people, Strangio was being true to the intrinsic nature of the movement.   The movement eschews deliberation and debate on principle because deliberation would instantly expose the reliance of the movement on an act of faith in a false claim that any bright nine-year old who hadn't been propagandized from the earliest age could dismantle in five minutes.   The movement relied on state and societal coercion from the first instance to enforce a top-down astroturfed pseudo-consensus because it had no chance to compete in any arena where reason, logic, and evidence held sway.   Do not listen to anyone purporting to critique the "strategic missteps" an otherwise righteous movement made on its path to claiming the arc of justice. The recourse to lies, bullying, skullduggery, medical and legal fraud, propagandizing children, campaigns of cancellation, and punishment of truth tellers was by far the best chance it had for success.   A movement aimed at attempting to enshrine a falsehood as the only truth cannot withstand any world where free speech, open exchange, pluralism, liberalism, and democracy convert the will of the people into policy. It can only succeed by the systematic dismantling of all of the above, as it has moved to do wherever it obtains power.   The fatal debility of the movement is that it is based on metaphysical propositions that 1.) aren't true and 2.) inflict massive risks, harms, cruelties, and absurdities on the whole population. It is not salvageable with better messaging, tactics, or strategy. It simply needs to be scrapped."

Wesley Yang on X - "Strangio's tweet is a key moment in an ongoing dialectic wherein transgender activist are constantly lying and engaging in petty and grand frauds within the various professions -- but also periodically blurting out the discrediting truths. Strangio made it as plain as it can be that the ACLU had become a key vector of the most illiberal and authoritarian social movement in recent American history."

Lord Ashcroft’s collection of medals rehomed after museum row - "Lord Ashcroft’s collection of Victoria Crosses (VC) was given a new home following a row with the Imperial War Museum.  The Tory peer who owns the “rare and expansive” VC collection called the museum “beyond parody” over its decision to replace the collection with an exhibit on transgender history"

Meme - "Troon Wheel of Reactions
"Fictional character says troon rights"
shitty Lowtiergod reaction image
*locks replies*
"wuhhh" "what does this mean" "did you just-"
"you talk about troons so you must want to fuck one"
"Erm.. rent free lol"
*violent power fantasy about killing le bad transphobes*
"literally just porn addiction*"

Diana Alastair💚🤍💜 ⚢ ❌❌ on X - "If you constantly have to remind people that you’re a woman, you aren’t one."

Meme - "Play pretend all you want... just don't expect me to play pretend with you."

PragerU on X - "If a man wants to pretend he's a woman, that's up to him. But if he wants us to pretend he's a woman, that's up to us."

7NEWS Melbourne on X - "An international student who was busted filming up to 150 Melbourne women in toilets has walked from court scot-free. The 23-year-old avoided a conviction and can now freely pursue his dream of becoming a doctor. @georgia_bm_"
The Heretical Liberal 🇨🇦 on X - "This man filmed 150 women while using the bathroom. When he got caught, he was naturally charged with a crime. But when he went tk court, he told them the main reason he was in the womens bathroom was become he was "confused about his gender"  The result? He was let go scot free.  This is everything weve been warning about. It isnt even about "trans ppl" in womens bathrooms. Its about predators, pedophiles and sex pests who clearly understand that IDENTIFYING as trans is a get out of jail free card to shield them from social and legal consequences of their predatory behavior. How the fuck are so many unable to see this horrific movement for what it is?"

Public restrooms should always be broken into multiple, small single-toilet ones - "You can fit more stalls/spaces in the same amount of space compared to individual rooms. In high traffic areas, that means more throughput and shorter lines."
"Individual rooms are actually very expensive from an infrastructure level; urinals and stalls are much cheaper."
"Urinals are so much nicer to use if u just need to pee. I know a guy who installed one in his home even."
This is suggested as one way around TRA demands, but accommodating mental illness is expensive

Katherine Deves Morgan 🇦🇺🚺 on X - "Australia - something is rotten in the state of Victoria and the House of Trans  Man repeatedly filmed himself raping his 5 year old daughter   “Hilary Maloney” justifies this by saying he thinks he is a woman   Judge Nola Karapanagiotidis accepted this excuse & he is incarcerated in Dame Phyllis Frost prison for women   He is put in solitary due serious safety & security concerns   Taxpayers now paying his legal fees so he can sue the government for unfair treatment   Also in Victoria, Premier Jacinta Allan makes a “secret payout” to a female prisoner after she is locked in a cell & sexually assaulted by a convicted male murder who claimed he was a woman during his 20 year sentence   He was released in 2024, do we think he is still “identifying” as a woman & intruding into female spaces or was it a convenient case of Prison Onset Gender Dysphoria?   A “trans” identity gives a free pass to male sexual offenders"

Meme - "AUTOGYNEPHILIA: FOUR TYPES
AGPs fit into one or more of the following categories:
#1 TRANSVESTIC. Erotic arousal associated with the act or fantasy of wearing women's clothing.
#2 BEHAVIORAL Arousal associated with the act or fantasy of engaging in female-typical behavior.
#3 ANATOMIC Arousal associated with the fantasy or reality of having female anatomic features.
#4 PHYSIOLOGIC Arousal associated with the fantasy or simulation of being pregnant, menstruating, or lactating."

Trans woman given lobbyist role at endometriosis charity - "Steph Richards, who was born male but identifies as female, will represent the charity in talks with MPs as the parliamentary engagement officer for Endometriosis South Coast.  Gender-critical campaigners have described the choice as “deeply offensive” because transgender women cannot suffer from endometriosis. Endometriosis, a painful chronic disease linked to the menstrual cycle, is diagnosed when tissue similar to the lining of the uterus grows outside the uterus. Many women who suffer from the condition struggle for years to get a diagnosis... Responding to renewed criticism of Ms Richards’s position, Endometriosis South Coast insisted that it was “scientifically inaccurate” to suggest endometriosis was a condition that only affected women.  A spokesman for the charity said: “It affects people of all genders, including trans men, non-binary and intersex individuals.”"

‘Misogyny is at the heart of gender ideology’ - spiked - "Harris: When people say there is no ‘LGB’ without the ‘T’, they should look at the history of gay rights. Stonewall was a gay-rights movement until 2015. After that, I and other ex-trustees of Stonewall became worried that it was going off-piste. It was awful, because we had all come from Stonewall. We had all given our blood, sweat and tears to it. We felt we couldn’t criticise it because we had made it. We didn’t know what to do. So we asked for dialogue. We at the LGB Alliance are not anti-trans. If we were, why would we have trans people at our meetings? Why would we have speakers who are trans? Being trans is incredibly difficult. I think it must be one of the hardest conditions to have. And I do call it a condition, when you have such severe gender dysphoria that you need to have body parts removed. We fully support the rights of trans people. But there is no visible link between us and them. We could just as easily be linked with any other group with protected characteristics...
spiked: What do you make of the rise of ‘trans-inclusive’ language? What does it tell us that some institutions are now referring to women as ‘bodies with vaginas’?

Harris: It shows how successful gender-identity ideology has been. At its very heart is misogyny. It’s so regressive, so misogynistic and so homophobic. It reinforces all the old stereotypes that we thought had gone. The insult ‘TERF’ gives men the perfect opportunity to let out their hatred of women. This is the real danger – that it gives them a free pass. ‘You’re a transphobe’ covers more or less any woman in the UK who decides to speak up. We want every single child to grow up being what he or she wants to be, not tied down by pink or blue gender roles. I have fought for 50 years for people’s right to do what they want. Wear a dress! Call yourself Ariadne! But don’t say you are a woman. And don’t say that I am transphobic if I don’t want to have sex with you because you’re a man with a penis wearing a dress... One of the difficulties we have is getting heard. We can’t get on the BBC. We can’t get on ITV. We can’t get on Sky News. Free speech means the right to offend people. I’m even happy to talk to someone who says they think lesbians are disgusting. It’s no good going through life being offended. This is how Stonewall used to be – we talked to people. There’s no point in only talking to people who agree with you."

Robert Sterling on X - "The idea that one out of every 33 high school kids is trans is patently absurd.  The DSM-IV, which psychologists used from 1994 until 2013, estimated the prevalence of transsexualism to be 1 out of every 30,000 males and 100,000 females. You really mean to tell us all that researchers just 30 years ago were off by a factor of 1000x?  I’m sorry but it’s not bigotry to call this a social contagion, and we’re doing our kids a disservice by pretending otherwise."

Human rights advocates sound alarm as court documents reveal extent Chinese police harassed Canadian residents

William Majcher trial: Advocates demand RCMP-China MOU (aka "Human rights advocates sound alarm as court documents reveal extent Chinese police harassed Canadian residents")

Security experts, human rights advocates and politicians are sounding the alarm about the renewal of a co-operation agreement between the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and China’s Ministry of Public Security as troubling details surface at a foreign interference trial.

Court documents filed at the trial of alleged double agent William Majcher reveals that at least 25 Canadian residents were targeted by Chinese police under an anti-corruption program, which doubled as a tool of transnational repression. The affidavit shows that the Chinese nationals may have been forced to return to their homeland against their will to face punishment for alleged financial crimes.

Some of them would have faced life imprisonment, or even a death sentence.

The 63-year-old Majcher, a former RCMP officer, is accused of illegally participating in an international anti-corruption campaign launched by Chinese President Xi Jinping called “Operation Fox Hunt,” which was later followed by a similar campaign known as “Operation SkyNet.” The judge’s verdict is expected on Wednesday.

Majcher is charged with preparing materials to compel a Vancouver man, Kevin Sun, to return to China. The court heard that Sun, if repatriated, would likely have faced a death sentence for allegedly stealing more than $100 million from the Chinese government. Sun denies any wrongdoing. 

China says Fox Hunt and SkyNet seek to repatriate economic fugitives, but human rights organizations say, in reality, the campaigns target Chinese nationals living abroad who are political rivals, dissidents and critics of Beijing.

Research from the Spain-based NGO Safeguard Defenders found that China’s Ministry of Public Security, or the MPS, operated at least 102 illegal police stations in 53 countries around the world, including Canada.

In January before Majcher’s trial began, Prime Minister Mark Carney signed a new strategic partnership with Xi to jumpstart trade and usher in Chinese EV’s in exchange for lowering punishing tariffs on Canadian canola.

The agreement signed in Beijing also included a memorandum of understanding (MOU) titled “Cooperation in Combating Crimes between the RCMP and the MPS.” In the joint statement, the two sides “committed to strengthening law enforcement co-operation to combat corruption and transnational crimes, including telecommunication and cyber fraud and illegal synthetic drugs in accordance with their respective laws.”

On Tuesday afternoon, Vancouver NDP MP Jenny Kwan wrote an open letter to express serious concerns about the government’s lack of transparency in signing the MOU.

Kwan wrote that it is “troubling” that the federal government has “declined to proactively disclose the police co-operation agreement, despite its significant implications for public safety, civil liberties, diaspora communities and national sovereignty.”

In a social media post, she noted that other agreements the prime minister signed while in Beijing were released publicly, such as an economic and trade co-operation roadmap.

The RCMP says the agreement signed in January is a renewal of an MOU previously signed by former prime minister Justin Trudeau in 2016.

Under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Canada and China first began exploring options for reaching an agreement on how to deal with the proceeds of crimes committed by foreign nationals.

The Chinese embassy did not answer if Fox Hunt or Sky Net was still in operation, but in an email to CTV News, an embassy spokesperson referred to the joint statement signed by Carney and Xi.

Both sides are committing to continuing their “annual meeting mechanism and dialogue and securing more concrete achievements to ensure the security and safety of the two peoples,” the spokesperson reiterated.

Critics say the federal government should disclose the text of the MOU, given the evidence presented at Majcher’s trial, which shows Chinese police acted outside of Canadian laws, as well as threatened and harassed permanent residents in Canada.

Lansdon Chan, an advocacy officer with Hong Kong Watch, says the expansion of official engagement with China’s police is alarming, given what was revealed at the Majcher trial.

“The least the government can do is disclose fully what is in the agreement for transparency and public confidence,” said Chan. “The Hong Kong community does not have confidence they will be protected if they speak out against China.”

One example of Chinese police violating human rights that was cited in the Majcher trial involved a former Chinese Supreme People’s Court Judge who moved to Canada in 2014.

Xie Weidong criticized Beijing’s justice system and was accused of corruption. To pressure Xie to return home, the MPS imprisoned his sister and kidnapped his son from an underground garage in China. Beijing also sent agents to Toronto to threaten and harass Xie, according to an RCMP affidavit.

During Majcher’s judge-only trial, the court also heard from RCMP Supt. Peter Tsui, who previously worked as a liaison officer at the Canadian embassy in Beijing. He was involved in bringing together Canadian and Chinese officers to work on “mutual files” related to market fraud, money laundering and economic fugitives.

He testified that during an RCMP-escorted visit to Vancouver in 2018, three of 14 MPS officers went “missing” for six hours. Tsui testified there were concerns that they could be trying to illegally repatriate someone.

Chan says Hong Kongers, some who are Canadian citizens, have faced surveillance, intimidation and pressure directed at themselves and their families by Chinese authorities. He wants to see if the text of the MOU contains oversight mechanisms to limit the reach of China’s security apparatus.

Parliament approved the appointment of Anton Boegman as the new foreign influence transparency commissioner in April. While Bill C-70, an act “respecting countering foreign interference,” became law in June 2024, a foreign agent registry has yet to be created. Chan worries the fighting foreign interference is taking a back seat to increasing economic ties with China.

Concerns about the “slow process” are echoed by Kent Roach, who researches counter-terrorism at the University of Toronto. The law professor says he was surprised the RCMP would renew the MOU previously signed in 2016, given the security concerns the Mounties have raised about using Chinese drones and the human rights situation in China.

“There needs to be in place robust safeguards. And without actually seeing the agreement, we’re really left to guess what the safeguards are and whether they are sufficient,” Roach said. 

If the government is unwilling to release the full agreement, Roach says it should have a national security committee of parliamentarians with top secret clearance examine the MOU and publish it with redactions.

When asked what safeguards are in the new MOU that would prevent China from threatening and harassing Canadian residents, RCMP spokesperson Robin Percival said that “mutual respect for sovereignty is a foundational principle” of the agreement.

Percival wrote in an email to CTV News that co-operation between China’s MPS and the RCMP will be “in accordance with the Foreign Criminal Investigators in Canada Protocol that governs when and how foreign law enforcement officials may conduct criminal investigative activities on Canadian soil or targeting persons in Canada.”

 

 

 

 

 


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