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America - its all a bit odd...

Pandemic or no pandemic, the annual Port Huron Float Down is going ahead this weekend.
Closed border, COVID-19 restrictions cloud already-rebellious Port Huron Float Down event

This is an annual, unofficial, "nobody is in charge of this" event where Americans will round up inner tubes, air mattresses, inflatable boats, and large quantities of alcohol, wade into the St. Clair River at Port Huron Michigan, and set themselves adrift on a major river that both forms the border between the US and Canada, and is also a shipping channel.

They depend more on luck than planning to avoid disaster. The US authorities tell them not to do it and the Canadian authorities repeat the warning, but they do it none the less. Four years ago unfavourable winds sent 1,500 of them adrift across the border to Canada where they turned up in their swimsuits sans passports and relied on the Canadian authorities (and tax payer) to send them back home again.

This year they're going ahead again, despite the pandemic. Most will likely be crammed close together in small inflatable boats or similar conveyances.

With the border being closed this year, Canadian authorities have promised unspecified penalties if they set a toe across the line, although that's probably not going to pose much of a deterant.

It's Michigan mate, say no more.

Herself is from Michigan, we lived there for the first couple of years when we moved over here, I couldn't get out of that State fast enough.
 
It's Michigan mate, say no more.

Herself is from Michigan, we lived there for the first couple of years when we moved over here, I couldn't get out of that State fast enough.
Normally it wouldn't be a big deal, but this year neither set of coast guards are looking forward to getting breathed on by inebriated nit-wits who need rescuing, not when Michigan are one of the hot spots for infection in the US.
 

Amen boys. Evil is evil and comes in all colors. When it shows itself, it should be punished swiftly and fairly. As tragic as this case is though, there is a greater evil with slanted reporting (of this case and others like it) with the intent to divide us. That should be punished rigorously as well.
 
Normally it wouldn't be a big deal, but this year neither set of coast guards are looking forward to getting breathed on by inebriated nit-wits who need rescuing, not when Michigan are one of the hot spots for infection in the US.

Well this year I reckon (and hope) that the Michigan DNR, the US Coastguard and the Canadian authorities hammer them for any transgressions. I do know that if they are on the water and they are pulled while out on the water and smell of booze they will be breathalyzed and if over the limit, it carries the same penalties as a DUI.

They will lose the right to register a boat or take one out on the water.
 
The chances of getting dodgy revolutionary regimes to respect private property and to pay their acknowledged debts are not that great though when the regime in question is in Washington.
Tell me about it - only the head crook in charge during our forced eviction from our lands was named Jackson, not Washington.
Jaxkson Tin Type.jpg
 
Amen boys. Evil is evil and comes in all colors. When it shows itself, it should be punished swiftly and fairly. As tragic as this case is though, there is a greater evil with slanted reporting (of this case and others like it) with the intent to divide us. That should be punished rigorously as well.

What better way than making them shed the salty tears for another 4 years come November.
4 years of conspiracy theory and fear-mongering are about to come home to roost for companies like CNN/MSDNC
Race-baiting, democracy hating, shitweasels, the lot of them.
Oh, and removing the legal protections that biased and censoring social media companies hide behind...make them all editors in 2020 and let the lawsuits steamroll and shame the woke mob into obscurity, let them reap what they sow.
 
Meanwhile, this from the Dems presidential candidate.

It may be of interest to observers of the perennial see-saw of American Engagement/Isolationism with that dangerous, unpredictable world outside their own borders:

SOURCE: Why America Must Lead Again

--------------- - -------------- extract ---------------- -----------------
As a nation, we have to prove to the world that the United States is prepared to lead again—not just with the example of our power but also with the power of our example. To that end, as president, I will take decisive steps to renew our core values.
  • I will immediately reverse the Trump administration’s cruel and senseless policies that separate parents from their children at our border;
  • end Trump’s detrimental asylum policies;
  • terminate the travel ban;
  • order a review of Temporary Protected Status, for vulnerable populations; and
  • set our annual refugee admissions at 125,000, and seek to raise it over time, commensurate with our responsibility and our values.
  • I will reaffirm the ban on torture and restore greater transparency in U.S. military operations, including policies instituted during the Obama-Biden administration to reduce civilian casualties.
  • I will restore a government-wide focus on lifting up women and girls around the world.
And I will ensure that the White House is once again the great defender—not the chief assailant—of the core pillars and institutions of our democratic values, from respecting freedom of the press, to protecting and securing the sacred right to vote, to upholding judicial independence. These changes are just a start, a day-one down payment on our commitment to living up to democratic values at home.

As a nation, we have to prove to the world that the United States is prepared to lead again.
I will enforce U.S. laws without targeting particular communities, violating due process, or tearing apart families, as Trump has done. I will secure our borders while ensuring the dignity of migrants and upholding their legal right to seek asylum. I have released plans that outline these policies in detail and describe how the United States will focus on the root causes driving immigrants to our southwestern border. As vice president, I secured bipartisan support for a $750 million aid program to back up commitments from the leaders of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras to take on the corruption, violence, and endemic poverty driving people to leave their homes there. Security improved and migration flows began to decrease in countries such as El Salvador. As president, I will build on that initiative with a comprehensive four-year, $4 billion regional strategy that requires countries to contribute their own resources and undertake significant, concrete, verifiable reforms.

I will also take steps to tackle the self-dealing, conflicts of interest, dark money, and rank corruption that are serving narrow, private, or foreign agendas and undermining our democracy. That starts by fighting for a constitutional amendment to completely eliminate private dollars from federal elections. In addition, I will propose a law to strengthen prohibitions on foreign nationals or governments trying to influence U.S. federal, state, or local elections and direct a new independent agency—the Commission on Federal Ethics—to ensure vigorous and unified enforcement of this and other anticorruption laws.

The lack of transparency in our campaign finance system, combined with extensive foreign money laundering, creates a significant vulnerability. We need to close the loopholes that corrupt our democracy.

Having taken these essential steps to reinforce the democratic foundation of the United States and inspire action in others, I will invite my fellow democratic leaders around the world to put strengthening democracy back on the global agenda.

Today, democracy is under more pressure than at any time since the 1930s. Freedom House has reported that of the 41 countries consistently ranked “free” from 1985 to 2005, 22 have registered net declines in freedom over the last five years.

From Hong Kong to Sudan, Chile to Lebanon, citizens are once more reminding us of the common yearning for honest governance and the universal abhorrence of corruption.

An insidious pandemic, corruption is fueling oppression, corroding human dignity, and equipping authoritarian leaders with a powerful tool to divide and weaken democracies across the world. Yet when the world’s democracies look to the United States to stand for the values that unite the country—to truly lead the free world—Trump seems to be on the other team, taking the word of autocrats while showing disdain for democrats.

By presiding over the most corrupt administration in modern American history, he has given license to kleptocrats everywhere.

---


The wrong thing to do is to put our heads in the sand and say no more trade deals. Countries will trade with or without the United States. The question is, Who writes the rules that govern trade? Who will make sure they protect workers, the environment, transparency, and middle-class wages? The United States, not China, should be leading that effort.

As president, I will not enter into any new trade agreements until we have invested in Americans and equipped them to succeed in the global economy. And I will not negotiate new deals without having labor and environmental leaders at the table in a meaningful way and without including strong enforcement provisions to hold our partners to the deals they sign.

China represents a special challenge.


I have spent many hours with its leaders, and I understand what we are up against.
China is playing the long game by extending its global reach, promoting its own political model, and investing in the technologies of the future.

Meanwhile, Trump has designated imports from the United States’ closest allies—from Canada to the European Union—as national security threats in order to impose damaging and reckless tariffs.

By cutting us off from the economic clout of our partners, Trump has kneecapped our country’s capacity to take on the real economic threat.


------------------------- ends extract ------------------------------

All good campaign speechifying. The article is worth a leisurely read.
[ QV some of the more bizarre promises made by the British Labour Party under Corbyn ]

It will be intriguing to see how some of these lofty aims translate into action on the ground.

I wonder whether the indolent laissez-faire-rs currently infesting HMG have been pondering the practicalities of dealing with a post-Trump White House....you can bet good money the Chinese are taking a good hard look at a potential Dems-lead administration right now....
 
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I will secure our borders while ensuring the dignity of migrants and upholding their legal right to seek asylum.

How's he going to do that, build a wall? It's an interesting statement, because when Trump came to power and proposed building the wall to "secure the southern border", most of the noise from the Dems was around allowing free passage of illegal immigrants, and preventing law enforcement from arresting and deporting illegals.

And now here's sleepy joe saying something that could be interpreted the same way.
 
Meanwhile, this from the Dems presidential candidate.

It may be of interest to observers of the perennial see-saw of American Engagement/Isolationism with that dangerous, unpredictable world outside their own borders:

SOURCE: Why America Must Lead Again

--------------- - -------------- extract ---------------- -----------------
As a nation, we have to prove to the world that the United States is prepared to lead again—not just with the example of our power but also with the power of our example. To that end, as president, I will take decisive steps to renew our core values.
  • I will immediately reverse the Trump administration’s cruel and senseless policies that separate parents from their children at our border;
  • end Trump’s detrimental asylum policies;
  • terminate the travel ban;
  • order a review of Temporary Protected Status, for vulnerable populations; and
  • set our annual refugee admissions at 125,000, and seek to raise it over time, commensurate with our responsibility and our values.
  • I will reaffirm the ban on torture and restore greater transparency in U.S. military operations, including policies instituted during the Obama-Biden administration to reduce civilian casualties.
  • I will restore a government-wide focus on lifting up women and girls around the world.
And I will ensure that the White House is once again the great defender—not the chief assailant—of the core pillars and institutions of our democratic values, from respecting freedom of the press, to protecting and securing the sacred right to vote, to upholding judicial independence. These changes are just a start, a day-one down payment on our commitment to living up to democratic values at home.


I will enforce U.S. laws without targeting particular communities, violating due process, or tearing apart families, as Trump has done. I will secure our borders while ensuring the dignity of migrants and upholding their legal right to seek asylum. I have released plans that outline these policies in detail and describe how the United States will focus on the root causes driving immigrants to our southwestern border. As vice president, I secured bipartisan support for a $750 million aid program to back up commitments from the leaders of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras to take on the corruption, violence, and endemic poverty driving people to leave their homes there. Security improved and migration flows began to decrease in countries such as El Salvador. As president, I will build on that initiative with a comprehensive four-year, $4 billion regional strategy that requires countries to contribute their own resources and undertake significant, concrete, verifiable reforms.

I will also take steps to tackle the self-dealing, conflicts of interest, dark money, and rank corruption that are serving narrow, private, or foreign agendas and undermining our democracy. That starts by fighting for a constitutional amendment to completely eliminate private dollars from federal elections. In addition, I will propose a law to strengthen prohibitions on foreign nationals or governments trying to influence U.S. federal, state, or local elections and direct a new independent agency—the Commission on Federal Ethics—to ensure vigorous and unified enforcement of this and other anticorruption laws.

The lack of transparency in our campaign finance system, combined with extensive foreign money laundering, creates a significant vulnerability. We need to close the loopholes that corrupt our democracy.

Having taken these essential steps to reinforce the democratic foundation of the United States and inspire action in others, I will invite my fellow democratic leaders around the world to put strengthening democracy back on the global agenda.

Today, democracy is under more pressure than at any time since the 1930s. Freedom House has reported that of the 41 countries consistently ranked “free” from 1985 to 2005, 22 have registered net declines in freedom over the last five years.

From Hong Kong to Sudan, Chile to Lebanon, citizens are once more reminding us of the common yearning for honest governance and the universal abhorrence of corruption.

An insidious pandemic, corruption is fueling oppression, corroding human dignity, and equipping authoritarian leaders with a powerful tool to divide and weaken democracies across the world. Yet when the world’s democracies look to the United States to stand for the values that unite the country—to truly lead the free world—Trump seems to be on the other team, taking the word of autocrats while showing disdain for democrats.

By presiding over the most corrupt administration in modern American history, he has given license to kleptocrats everywhere.

---


The wrong thing to do is to put our heads in the sand and say no more trade deals. Countries will trade with or without the United States. The question is, Who writes the rules that govern trade? Who will make sure they protect workers, the environment, transparency, and middle-class wages? The United States, not China, should be leading that effort.

As president, I will not enter into any new trade agreements until we have invested in Americans and equipped them to succeed in the global economy. And I will not negotiate new deals without having labor and environmental leaders at the table in a meaningful way and without including strong enforcement provisions to hold our partners to the deals they sign.

China represents a special challenge.


I have spent many hours with its leaders, and I understand what we are up against.
China is playing the long game by extending its global reach, promoting its own political model, and investing in the technologies of the future.

Meanwhile, Trump has designated imports from the United States’ closest allies—from Canada to the European Union—as national security threats in order to impose damaging and reckless tariffs.

By cutting us off from the economic clout of our partners, Trump has kneecapped our country’s capacity to take on the real economic threat.


------------------------- ends extract ------------------------------

All good campaign speechifying. The article is worth a leisurely read.
[ QV some of the more bizarre promises made by the British Labour Party under Corbyn ]

It will be intriguing to see how some of these lofty aims translate into action on the ground.

I wonder whether the indolent laissez-faire-rs currently infesting HMG have been pondering the practicalities of dealing with a post-Trump White House....you can bet good money the Chinese are taking a good hard look at a potential Dems-lead administration right now....

Hows Jim Crow Joe going to appeal to the victims of BLM antics.




The way I see it old Joe is just projecting everything he is himself guilty of, Quid pro-Joe!
As for illegal immigration and kids, Maybe he will mention the fact some of these kids weren't coming with parents, but minders and a child trafficking rings were being broken up.


Oh and remember the old chestnut of the caged kids pictures that were from the Obama years, peddled as Trump's immigration policy fault.


Oh there is so much more.

We need election debates...YESTERDAY!




check this out




Wheres the mask joe?

 
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Is the apparently widespread confrontation in the USA coming to a head, or will (relatively) low-level violence continue until the election, with each side hoping for 'their' result? THere's certainly enough loony groups out there!

'Right-wing demonstrators have clashed with leftist counter-protesters in Georgia, Michigan and Oregon, drawing in riot police and SWAT teams.

'Groups including anti-government patriots and the alt-right Proud Boys battled anti-fascists and Black Lives Matter activists as months of anti-racism protests increasingly pitted Americans against one another.

'Several dozen demonstrators, many armed and carrying Confederate battle flags, on Saturday staged a rally in the Atlanta suburb of Stone Mountain next to a park famed for its giant monument to leaders of the breakaway slave-holding states.

'A mix of militia members, Confederate followers and supporters of President Donald Trump faced off against more than a hundred left-wing protesters, some armed, many carrying signs or wearing T-shirts supporting Black Lives Matter.

'After hours of shouting, and the burning of a Confederate flag, the protest devolved into scuffles and fist fights, drawing in police backed by a SWAT team.

'In Kalamazoo, the all-male Proud Boys group staged a rally in support of police, clashing with members of the anti-fascist Michigan People's Defence League and other counter protesters, leading to several arrests, according to a statement by the city's Department of Public Safety.

'Several dozen right-wing demonstrators, some of them armed, also gathered in Portland on Saturday to oppose anti-fascists and back police after 80 days of protests against racism and police violence in the Oregon capital, local television station Koin 6 News reported.

'Scuffles broke out between the Portland-based Patriot Prayer members and Black Lives Matter activists, with a Koin 6 photographer tweeting that he heard gunshots.

'Portland Police did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

'A pattern among the clashes was rising tensions between right and left wing groups after nearly three months of protests over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody and President Donald Trump's "law and order" response to demonstrations.'


 
Errm - point of order: if the strap line is 'Right wing groups have battled AntiFa and BLM activists . . .', in the Land of Lazy Reporting, that must make it Right Wing v Left Wing, shirley?
 
Errm - point of order: if the strap line is 'Right wing groups have battled AntiFa and BLM activists . . .', in the Land of Lazy Reporting, that must make it Right Wing v Left Wing, shirley?
When dealing with foreign publications, our left is not left enough for them. The bias shows and instead of calling them out as the radical left they try to normalize those positions. Which outside of the big cities is anything but normal or tolerated.
 
When dealing with foreign publications, our left is not left enough for them. The bias shows and instead of calling them out as the radical left they try to normalize those positions. Which outside of the big cities is anything but normal or tolerated.
How very socialist of you.
 
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