Roundup: Fetch the fainting couch for a naughty word

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It is now on or about day seventy-two of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and things appear to be heating up even more in Mariupol, with reports that Russians have started storming the tunnels under the steel plant where civilians and soldiers are holded up, thanks to information from a traitor. There are particular concerns about the capture of Ukrainian soldiers because we are days away from May 9th, which is Victory Day in Russia, where they celebrate their defeat of the Nazis in World War II. The fear is that Russians will cage these captured soldiers and parade them around for Victory Day as a propaganda coup. This means that we may see fights to the death in Mariupol, so that they aren’t captured, not to mention fear that Russians won’t respect the Geneva Conventions or other international law when it comes to those who surrender, given their record of war crimes and atrocities thus far.

Closer to home, if you didn’t catch it earlier, the Deputy Speaker reviewed his recordings and didn’t find any evidence that Justin Trudeau uttered the phrase “fucker” during Question Period on Wednesday, and our long national nightmare is over. But seriously, I am getting very, very tired of the amount of pearl-clutching that this received in the media when they said absolutely nothing about the fact that the questions Trudeau was receiving at the time were from Conservatives who were building a conspiracy theory in real time about that special forces surveillance plane that flew over the occupation during a training flight. The media also doesn’t blink at the rank disinformation that is being disseminated during QP, other than to occasionally both-sides it, but an obscenity? Quick, get me to my fainting couch! Pass my smelling salts! We have a very twisted set of priorities in our national discourse, and it’s absolutely smothering our democracy.

Good reads:

  • Mélanie Joly says that Canada will help investigate sexual violence by Russian troops against women and girls in Ukraine as war crimes.
  • Joly also hosted her Swedish counterpart and pledged support for their likely application to join NATO later this year.
  • As oil executives cry for richer tax credits for carbon capture and storage, Steven Guilbeault says they should be reinvesting their record profits into climate action.
  • Mary Ng hosted her US counterpart, and they once again vowed to strengthen our trading relationship, in spite of Buy American policies and the like.
  • Omar Alghabra says that logistical challenges are delaying charter flights for Ukrainians to Canada, largely that they aren’t where they made their applications.
  • Groups trying to counter online hate are demonstrating that it is being monetised by those who know how to work the algorithms on social media platforms.
  • Mary May Simon is on an official visit to Quebec City, where François Legault panned her French. She will visit her home town in Nunavik this week.
  • That anonymised mobile location data that PHAC was examining during the pandemic showed people’s trips liquor stores and pharmacies. Oh noes!
  • Five Conservative leadership candidates attended an unofficial debate last night, and the big drama was the no-holds-barred attacks between Poilievre and Charest.
  • Chris Selley hopes that perhaps the current focus on the abortion debate will force Canadians to deal with our actual situation and not the imported culture war.
  • Paul Wells reflects on the dumb promises leading off the Ontario election, and the broader political malaise that they signal.

Odds and ends:

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3 thoughts on “Roundup: Fetch the fainting couch for a naughty word”

  1. The conservatives in their current iteration are the meanest, most crass and vindictive bunch and their idiocy was on full display yesterday in their “debate.” They are so disrespectful, they can’t even summon any polish when addressing their adversaries. Canadians had better think long and hard about considering a vote for this mob. The CPC has revealed its quest for an autocracy for Canada. Like the Republicans in the United States we see a white dominated, evangelical movement that clings to the past through a fear that they will be overwhelmed by others unlike them, a paranoid mindset that will say anything and eventually do anything to achieve their ends. Whether Justin muttered it or not they are acting like a bunch of fuckers. If the CPC ever regains power, Canada will melt away in the coming heat waves.

  3. PM JT obviously took it in stride by the fact that he invoked his old man. If you listen closely to the clip, at the end of the mini-scrum someone hollers out “oh yeah!” when he references the Fuddle Duddle incident. The priority-wacked press gallery was probably disappointed that he didn’t say Just Watch Me when invoking the emergencies act, so he must have figured, why not, I’ll shut them up by throwing them a nostalgic bone.

    But now it should be perfectly clear what folks on the innertubes mean when they hashtag #CdnMediaFailed. We’re not “Trudeau groupies.” We just want actual fair journalism instead of Hillary’s Emails/Obama tan suit clickbait that manufactures outrage for Liberals and barely utters a peep about cons. Thus putting their thumb on the scale as they maintain they’re being “objective” and “holding the government to account.” We’ve been saying this about their obsession with nontroversies ever since they beat the SNC dead horse into glue and then repeated their abysmal performance with We-Ghazi. Only to then score a hat trick with the utter idiocy that was “Tofino-gate.” Really, who cares?

    Unfortunately it’s all but a foregone conclusion that they won’t listen and won’t change. They’ll just circle the wagons, convinced of their righteousness and block everyone who criticizes their high school slam-book excuse for “journalism.” What’s even worse is that after reviewing the clip of PET’s scrum in 1971 it’s apparent that political journalism hasn’t improved one bit in more than fifty years. If anything, it keeps deteriorating to the quality of TMZ or Jerry Springer. Democracy dies in derpness. Fuddle duddle!

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