Friday, 29 August 2025

TREE HOUSE NEWS 🏡

Land of Whispering Pines 🌲

Good morning! May the Great Spirit bless you 🙏

Had some good old-fashioned heavy rain last night, not a breath of air movement, and only the sound of the raindrops. I loved it; it brought me to other times and places.

Life can be so wonderful when one is not feeling any discomfort; it's like heaven. So, I take advantage of doing things that I would otherwise find tedious and even laborious. Or if it's too much hurting, I just sit around like a twitching bag of pain. That hasn't happened for a while, thank the Great Spirit. I am doing just fine at the moment, like, "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah" 🤣😇😂😉✌️👍🙏☀️🌈🙇‍♀️

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bWyhj7siEY

There are times when I feel good, I test myself to see if I can still dance, Hell! Once I get the momentum and balance going, I can still spin dance. I love hearing and feeling the air rush past me, that free feeling. The adrenaline is like the feeling in your stomach when leaving the ground in a bush plane for the first time.

🙏Prayer For The Day:🙏

Let us all pause for a moment for all of our North American friends, regardless of which side of the border. I pray, Great Spirit, that you guide and show the people the way.

~ VIVE LA RESISTANCE ~

TODAY'S DISCUSSION:

WE THE PEOPLE

AMERICA

The lawmakers with a backbone, ethics, and values, to work for WE, THE PEOPLE, not how much money you can stuff your pockets to keep your mouth shut and continue getting paid for doing a non-job. Instead of doing what is the RIGHT AND HUMANITARIAN THING TO DO, WE the People First, Then, DO IT! Or you have a non-government with no laws, a land of greed, gangsters, drug lords, and drug pushers, thieves, brigands, highwaymen, bandits, telemarketers, con artists, crooks, and pirates running the country and the six shooter is the law.

As it stands in America, we, the People, and the federal government, which is the Orange Pus Bag, are at a stalemate with the world of sanity. But then, how much sanity is there left in the world? Two dictators, Putin and Netanyahu, actually four if China and North Korea join in the circle jerk. All appear to be intent on committing genocide, and neither the UN nor NATO seems to give two rusty screws 🔩🔩 about it except to squawk the word genocide, THEN DO NOTHING. It's starting to sound more like an attempt to reduce the world population—just my opinion, of course. Indigo Adults in Yahoo Groups way back in early 2000 were correct about the internment camps and population control. I bow down and say, 🙇‍♀️ "Yas gots dat one right, Doc! 🐰

SO! Just what is going on? Reshuffle the deck of cards? I'm getting a little old to play those cards; they're meant for the next generation, but if I'm still here, I will do everything I can to contribute to the building of new nations. I just pray I don't come up with the joker again.

BREAKING NEWS:

Science or Trump? The impossible choice faced by the ousted CDC chief

The purge at the top of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention crystalizes the dilemma facing many professional officials across the US government.

Is their duty to medical science, economic data, or the best possible conclusions to be drawn from intelligence? Or should they reflect the world as President Donald Trump wants it to be?

The White House on Thursday laid out the choice after the firing of CDC Director Dr. Susan Monarez after she clashed with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over vaccine policy and declined to dismiss top agency officials...

The CDC is being ‘shredded’: Top health expert:
CDC drama will have serious political consequences:

Read More:

PUBLISHED Aug 29, 2025, 12:00 AM ET - 9 hr ago

- CNN -

Gabbard abruptly ousted CIA Russia expert days after Trump-Putin meeting

Shortly after President Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard abruptly ousted a CIA expert who had helped brief Trump’s team in the lead-up to the meeting, according to several people familiar with the episode.

By naming this person in a memo last week announcing she was revoking the security clearances of several current and former intelligence officials, Gabbard appears to have identified a CIA officer who was operating under cover, according to a source with direct knowledge of the matter. Although the employee, who CNN is not naming for her protection, has been publicly affiliated with the CIA in the past, she was under cover at the time Gabbard named her in an X post, the source said.

A person close to Gabbard disputes that the employee was under cover, citing her past public affiliation with the agency...

Some details related to the CIA employee’s ouster were first reported by the Washington Post.

Read More:

PUBLISHED Aug 28, 2025, 3:33 PM ET - 17 hr ago

- CNN -

Not dumb and crooked enough to fit through Trump's worm holes 🪱 in his neurosyphilis-infested brain, I guess.

Former FEMA leaders have a warning: Lessons from Katrina are being forgotten under Trump

When Hurricane Katrina crashed into New Orleans on August 29, 2005 – first with heavy rain, then winds so strong they shattered glass in window frames and a flood that washed away everything in its path — the city was ill-prepared.

The waters breached the city’s levees, the concrete canals that were New Orleans’ main defenses. Floodwalls snapped under the pressure, spilling Lake Pontchartrain into the streets. Buildings washed off their foundations; the flood turned toxic with streaks of fuel; lifeless bodies floated by in the water as those who managed to break through the roofs of their homes waited desperately for help.

But that was slow in coming. A bungled local, state and federal emergency response to the hurricane contributed to the nearly 1,400 deaths, more than 1 million people displaced and over $125 billion in damages. After the storm, it was a second catastrophe...

Failures after Katrina:
Reforming FEMA:
A president changes his mind:
‘A culture of fear’:
FEMA’s diminished authority:
Preparing the nation:

PUBLISHED Aug 29, 2025, 4:00 AM ET - 5 hr ago

- CNN -

CANADIAN NEWS:

Small businesses that relied on duty-free U.S. shipping wonder if they can survive without it

De minimis exemption ends Friday, hitting Canadian mom-and-pop shops hard

As of Friday, Canada's small businesses can no longer ship small packages to the U.S. duty-free — and some online sellers are worried that their companies won't survive the hit. The nearly century-old de minimis exemption, which in recent years allowed goods under $800 US to enter the U.S. without extra fees, is ending as a July executive order by U.S. President Donald Trump takes effect.

That means those shipments will now be subject to duties of up to $200 US, depending on the country of origin, and Canadian small businesses with American customers will be smacked with extra costs that eat into their profits.

For years, the U.S. government had expressed concern that de minimis shipments were being used to smuggle deadly opioids into the country, because they're not inspected as closely by U.S. Customs. It first suspended the exemption for shipments from China earlier this year, a policy change that hit big e-sellers like Shein and Temu...

The U.S. tax exemption that made Shein and Temu rich is changing. What will happen to the brands now?

A tale of two Canadian businesses:

Canadian online sellers brace for elimination of duty-free shipping to United States

Northern Ontario illustrator stops shipments to U.S. customers as tariff exception ends

'Double-edged sword':

Read More:

Posted: Aug 29, 2025 4:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 1 hour ago

- CBC -

Canadian economy shrinks 1.6% in 2nd quarter as U.S. tariffs squeeze exports

Contraction was much larger than expected, but higher spending softened blow

Canada's economy shrank in the second quarter by a much larger degree than expected as U.S. tariffs squeezed exports, but higher household and government spending cushioned some of the impact, Statistics Canada said on Friday.

The GDP for the quarter that ended June 30 slowed by 1.6 per cent on an annualized basis, while first-quarter growth was downwardly revised to two per cent, the data agency said. The latest figures show that Canada's economy grew at an annualized rate of 0.4 per cent in the first six months of the year. The second quarter contraction was the first quarterly slowdown in seven quarters...

Exports mainly responsible for sinking economy in Q2:

Canada's economy contracted by 0.1% in May, but showed signs of a rebound

Small businesses that relied on duty-free U.S. shipping wonder if they can survive without it

Read More:

Posted: Aug 29, 2025 8:39 AM EDT | Last Updated: 12 minutes ago

- CBC -

International student at Western 'completely stuck' waiting months for study permit amid new Canadian rules

Ottawa says permit demand high for fall but processing times are within service standards

Less than one week before the fall semester starts, Western University graduate student Yixuan Peng still hasn't learned if he'll be able to attend his orientation or classes in London, Ont. The international student from China was accepted to Western's master of science business analytics program in early May but has yet to get the new study permit he applied for that month...

New limits on international students are causing turmoil among colleges, universities