- The severe neglect of affordable housing in Manitoba is a grave problem for the next government to address. It won't be easy, or cheap. Some action is being taken in BC, though the success of this remains to be seen.
- There appear to be links between Mash Strategy, a PR agency hired by the Manitoba Tories, and the Canada Growth Council, a third party advertiser that has been attacking the Manitoba NDP for some time and which the Cons claimed to have nothing to do with. Funny that.
- In other Manitoba election news, isn't it kinda funny that the health minister is nowhere to be seen in the campaign? Couldn't have anything to do with what a lousy job she did handling COVID-19, could it?
- The Hunka affair continues to reverberate through the halls of Parliament. Trudeau has apologized; the underlying issues have a long history that people (especially, but not limited to, the now former Speaker and his staff) need to be paying more attention to. The issue dates back to the early days of the Cold War, when there was a tendency not to ask too many questions of prospective immigrants from Europe as long as they were sufficiently anti-Communist. Worth noting too is that while Conservative MP Stephanie Kusie is rightly calling for a House of Commons committee to investigate the matter, she did not include Rota or his staff among the witnesses she thinks should be called, even though they would be best qualified to answer the question of how the invitation to Hunka came about. Now I'm not saying that covert Tory operatives made a recommendation to the Speaker that he honour Hunka, but I'm not saying that they didn't either.
- On the same subject, the University of Alberta is returning endowment funds for a scholarship named after Hunka. Strange that it took a national scandal to motivate them to do this, no?
- The superintendent of the Central Okanagan School District in BC is the latest to report receiving violent threats fuelled by the rightwing disinformation campaign surrounding the teaching of matters related to sexual orientation and gender identity in schools.
- In the States, Republicans are moving ahead with their impeachment inquiry against Joe Biden, and they aren't going to let a lack of evidence stop them. Awkward for them is the fact that one of their own witnesses doubts the merits of impeachment. When Congressman Jason Means, chair of the Ways and Means Committee, was asked about the evidence, he didn't handle the questioning very well.
- Biden has vetoed an attempt by Republicans to remove legal protections for the threatened Greater Prairie Chicken and Northern Long-eared Bat. Presumably the Republicans were trying to protect the interests of the fossil fuel and livestock industries, both of which are a factor in the decline of these animals.
- Republicans have gone absolutely mad about the fact that Taylor Swift is encouraging voter registration among her fans, presumably because they're actually listening. Some think the fanbase's reaction could make things even harder for the Republicans; I say bring it on.
- The Pentagon seems just a wee bit too enthusiastic about autonomous killer robots for comfort.
- Travis King, the American soldier who tried to defect to the DPRK in July, has been unceremoniously handed back to the US. I can't see his military career having much of a future.
- A British teenager has been arrested for cutting down an iconic 300 year old sycamore tree near Hadrian's Wall. Also in Britain, two adults have been charged with torching a famous pub.
No comments:
Post a Comment