Roundup: Not calling out the obvious lies

Posted on by

It seems that Pierre Poilievre and Leslyn Lewis have been hyping up a Substack post by a National Post columnist who has been falsely claiming that court documents say that vaccine mandates don’t work. It’s not surprising that they would amplify this garbage, or that said garbage completely misrepresents the studies in question, which provided proof that vaccine mandates do work. Of course, there has been little-to-no denunciation of said lies being propagated by these candidates, nor has the mainstream media done their own fact-checking on the claims (which was done by PressProgress, which is not actually a media organization but a partisan oppo-research outlet that masquerades as journalism). This is not a good thing. This is a sign that things are very broken, and that we are headed to a very dark place. Our media need to step up and start calling this stuff out for what it is, and to stop both-sidesing it out of an exaggerated sense of “fairness.” Lies are lies. There are not two sides. You don’t need to have their political opponents say that they’re lies because that simply provides fodder for the true believers to swallow the lies, because it’s their opponents denouncing them. This is corroding our democracy, but nobody seems to care enough to do something about it.

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1557412067572858886

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 169:

In the aftermath of that massive explosion at a Russian base in occupied Crimea, nine Russian warplanes have allegedly been destroyed, and Kyiv continues to deny official responsibility (though it may have been the result of sabotage by Ukrainian partisans in the area). Meanwhile, Russians have been shelling the central region of Dnipropetrovsk, as well as continuing to shell the eastern city of Bakhmut in the Donetsk region, while Ukrainians have hit the city of Donetsk, which is controlled by Russian separatists.

Good reads:

  • The federal government has signed a deal with Manitoba to become the first province to get federal funds for crisis hotlines for gender-based violence.
  • The Canadian Forces’ Snowbirds are being grounded once again after a crash last week, and their air-worthiness is being reassessed.
  • Two containers of food aid bound for Afghanistan from World Vision were cancelled because they feared it would contravene laws banning dealings with the Taliban.
  • A consortium of plastic manufacturers are asking the Federal Court to quash the government’s plans to ban several single-use plastic items.
  • A Federal Court judge ruled that the government mishandled 108 immigration cases of mostly Iranians when they changed the standards for approval mid-process.
  • Here is a look inside the get-out-the-vote drive in the various Conservative leadership camps, and why the name of the game is point efficiency.
  • Some Conservative party members are conflicted because the leadership process is scrutinized by Deloitte, which is a WEF partner, and cripes, this is pathetic.
  • The Green Party is planning “unconventional” leadership contest events, like open mic nights and an online video game session.
  • Unsurprisingly, Quebec’s Law 21 is having a demonstrably negative impact on religious minorities, especially Muslim women. Imagine that!
  • Ontario’s health minister won’t rule out privatisation as part of her response to the healthcare crisis in the province.
  • The Ford government also tabled their “strong mayor” legislation that lets the mayors of Ottawa and Toronto veto bylaws that conflict with Ford’s priorities.
  • Taylor Owen and Supriya Dwivedi explain the online news bill, how it evolved from Australia’s model, and offers helpful suggestions to improve the legislation.

Odds and ends:

Want more Routine Proceedings? Become a patron and get exclusive new content.

2 thoughts on “Roundup: Not calling out the obvious lies”

  1. I read this post every day so I could suppose that my comments get read by the author once in a while….perhaps you read all comments which is why you ask for them, so you will note over the past years that I have written many times about the lack of pushback by the Liberal government and its members. Also I have decried the lack of pushback by the mainstream press who for years would not for instance explain that the gas tax was not a tax but a levy which was designed to change behaviors in the societal use of hydo-carbons and is refunded at least on the Federal side through rebate checks or tax benefits.
    Of course, one would never see any fact checking by the National Post whose sole purpose is to shred Liberal and particularly Trudeau with lies and non sequiturs on a daily basis. Having said that, in the current state of political affairs, lying being the driving force, I do not expect the usually distracted and ignorant sheep that make up the Canadian electorate to have any more education than a child confronted by the flavor of the day at an ice cream van.

    • The government’s inability to communicate and push back is a problem that is hurting them, and they refuse to change.
      And I will note that there are good people at the National Post who do a good job in their reporting, thought the vast majority of their columnists leave much to be desired.

Comments are closed.