... the said the United States would hit its statutory debt ceiling around the middle of January, at which point the Treasury would resort to “extraordinary measures” to prevent the government from defaulting on its obligations. While it may not feel like it, we are now in mid-January, and late on Friday, Janet Yellen, in what is almost certainly the last ever official announcement of her long and undistinguished political career, said that the US would hit its debt ceiling the day after President Trump is inaugurated, and that the Treasury will launch “extraordinary measures” to stave off the threat of a national default. https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/her-last-official-act-yellen-warns-us-will-hit-debt-ceiling-one-day-after-trump

THERE CAN DO THIS TO CANADA TOO ! .The Biden administration and Tom “Mr. Monsanto” Vilsack have emerged victorious in their effort to use the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) to force Mexico to accept U.S. grown genetically engineered corn. On Friday, an international trade panel ruled in favor of the United States in their ongoing dispute with Mexico over an attempted ban on imports of American genetically modified (GM) corn. https://activistpost.com/2024/12/biden-administration-and-mr-monsanto-continue-to-bully-mexico-into-accepting-gmo-corn.html

On Friday we featured a tongue-in-cheek headline, but which is sadly all too literal and true: Syrian Leader With $10M Bounty On His Head Meets With Delegation From Country That Put The $10M Bounty On His Head. US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf led the delegation along with Daniel Rubenstein, who is expected to stay in Damascus as America's top diplomat there, as they met with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani in Damascus. "The US has scrapped a $10m (£7.9m) reward for the arrest of Syria's de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, following meetings between senior diplomats and representatives from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)," BBC wrote just on the heels of the talks. https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/us-scraps-10m-bounty-aq-linked-jolani-after-merely-one-visit-state-dept-officials

Canadians are less proud of and less attached to their country than they ever have been, with levels plummeting in recent years. Poll results released by the Angus Reid Institute on Friday highlighted that the years following the pandemic have muddied the waters. In 1985, 78% of Canadians said they were “very proud” to be Canadian. This saw a slow but consistent fall between 1985 and 2003 to 68%. By 2016, the year after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took office, the percentage had fallen to 52%. By 2024, this value fell off a cliff, reaching a mere 34%. https://tnc.news/2024/12/15/canadian-pride-national-attachment-erode/

Liberal MP allegedly THREATENED to ‘f*ck up’ caucus colleague! ‘On the way out of this chamber the member [Sukh Dhaliwal] threatened that I would be f—d up,’ MP Chandra Arya told Parliament on Friday. 🇨🇦#NoMoreLiberalsAndNDP🇨🇦 🇨🇦#SayingTheQuietPartOutLoud🇨🇦 🇨🇦#resigntrudeau🇨🇦 🇨🇦#JustSayNoMore🇨🇦 https://www.rebelnews.com/liberal_mp_allegedly_threatened_caucus_colleague

OTTAWA, Dec 6 (Reuters) - Canada's unemployment rate rose more than expected to 6.8% in November, a near-eight-year high excluding the pandemic years, even as the economy added a net 50,500 jobs, data showed on Friday, boosting chances of a large interest rate cut next week. Currency markets increased the bets for a rate cut of 50 basis points next week to 68% from 55% before the employment report was released. A rate reduction of 25 basis points is fully priced in. https://www.kitco.com/news/off-the-wire/2024-12-06/canadas-jobless-rate-jumps-68-bets-50-bps-rate-cut-next-week

The joint lawsuit, filed on Friday in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, follows similar suits brought against OpenAI and Microsoft in 2023 by the New York Times, which claimed copyright infringement of news content related to AI systems. The Canadian outlets - which include the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), are seeking what could amount to billions of dollars in damages, as they have demanded 20,000 Canadian dollars (US$14,700) for each article they claim was illegally scraped and used to train ChatGPT. "OpenAI is capitalizing and profiting from the use of this content, without getting permission or compensating content owners," the group said in a Friday statement, adding that they're responsible for the "bulk of Canada’s journalistic content." https://www.zerohedge.com/political/its-illegal-canadian-media-sues-openai-scraping-large-swaths-content-train-chatbot

OTTAWA, Nov 29 (Reuters) - Canada's budget deficit for the first six months of the 2024-25 fiscal year jumped by more than a half to C$13.01 billion ($9.28 billion) as program expenses and debt payment costs rose faster than the gain in revenues, the finance ministry said on Friday. The deficit in the same period a year earlier had been C$8.17 billion, it said in a statement. Program expenses rose 11.2% on increases across all major categories of spending. Public debt charges jumped by 22.5% largely because of higher interest rates, the ministry said. On a monthly basis, Canada posted a deficit of C$3.17 billion in September, slightly narrower than C$3.88 billion deficit seen in September 2023. https://www.kitco.com/news/off-the-wire/2024-11-29/canadas-budget-deficit-first-six-months-202425-expands-c1301-bln

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau travelled to Palm Beach, Fla., to attend a dinner Friday night with U.S. president-elect Donald Trump. The visit comes amid Trump's threats to impose steep tariffs on Canadian products entering the United States. Pennsylvania senator-elect Dave McCormick posted a photo to social media platform X late Friday showing Trudeau sitting beside Trump during dinner at the Florida estate. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-meets-trump-tariff-1.7397564

Anti-NATO and pro-Palestinian riots broke out in Montreal this week, and on Friday night, things got violent. Police report that the protesters were smashing windows out of buildings, setting cars on fire, setting off smoke bombs, and throwing metal barriers at cops who tried to intervene. They marched through the streets with Palestinian flags and burned an effigy of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The rioters chose Montreal because the city is currently hosting delegates for the annual NATO parliamentary assembly. You might be thinking that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was on top of things immediately, working with local officials to calm the situation. Just kidding -- I know our readers are smarter than that. Trudeau was actually about as far away mentally as one can get; he was dancing the night away at a Taylor Swift concert in Toronto. https://pjmedia.com/sarah-anderson/2024/11/24/trudeau-dances-while-montreal-burns-n4934590