Friday, June 24, 2022

Today's News: Pushing back

FreeDumb Convoy:
First, here's some actual news from the real world - Covid vaccines saved 20 million lives: Next, we are finally seeing some push-back to that awful meeting held yesterday that Conservative MPs held on Parliament Hill: In this Star column, Arthur writes: 
These are neither serious nor reasonable people. And while they are free to express themselves, they should not be welcomed within what should be accepted standards of shared politics, or reality.
Andrew Coyne says: From the NDP: Here's an interesting development -- it appears Ottawa citizens are again preparing to defend their city: Never forget the Battle of Billings Bridge! Finally, check out the replies to this tweet: #FreeDumbConvoy gets the most votes but here are some more suggestions from the comments: 
#Clownvoy 
#ChristofascistCrusades 
#Omicronvoy 
#PlagueInc 
#IvermectinInsurrection 
#TaliBanjo 
#Yeehawdists 
#trucklodytes 
#TreasonTruckers 
#RedneckTaliban 
#VictimhoodExpress 
#TonkaTantrum

 Finally, this one:
Portapique Massacre: 
Still some flap today about Bill Blair, Commissioner Lucki and Nova Scotia RCMP. 
But media outlets are also starting to wonder why the RCMP were being so uncommunicative, considering that the shooter was already dead. In the Globe and Mail today, Canadian Press reporter Tim Krochak writes about the RCMP tradition to tell the public as little as possible: 
A.J. Somerset, author of the 2015 book, “Arms: The Culture and Credo of the Gun,”... said the real problem is that law enforcement agencies in Canada have grown accustomed to using the jeopardized-investigation argument as a crutch.
...“In Canada, there’s a cultural difference around the idea of who the police are working for,” the author said. “Police in Canada, in general, don’t view themselves as accountable to the public … We saw this in (the Nova Scotia mass shooting case). Warnings weren’t sent out to the public and the police appeared to be acting in their own interest.” 
 The public inquiry investigating the murders, known as the Mass Casualty Commission, has heard that police knew about an active shooter on the night of April 18, 2020, but no public warnings stating that fact were distributed until the next day – 10 hours after the killing started. 
 On Aug. 12, 2020, RCMP Sgt. Angela Hawryluk told a court hearing that search warrants used by the Mounties had to remain heavily redacted to ensure the investigation into the mass murder was not compromised.
... At one point, Hawryluk told the court, “I had no intention of any of the (search warrants) being revealed to the public.” 
... [Saint Mary's University history professor Blake Brown says]"One of the themes of the Mass Casualty Commission has been highlighting the tendency of the RCMP to hand out very little information and to treat the public like they don’t need to know much.” 

Jan 6 Committee:
Fascinating testimony again today - but why oh why didn't a single one of the esteemed lawyers who sat in the Oval Office arguing with Trump about his attempt to overthrow the election then decide to testify at Trump's second impeachment just a week later? 
Oh yeah -- they were all Republicans! US Supreme Court: 
Here's something I learned today -- when SCOTUS issues a poorly-written and overly-broad ruling, like the one today from Thomas on New York's gun permit requirement, that isn't necessarily the last word on the issue. 
Two of the majority justices, Kavanaugh and Roberts, also issued what is called a "pivotal concurrence" which will actually impose significant restrictions on the overall ruling. And it is pivotal because without these two, there would not have been a majority vote -- hey, maybe those recent threats near  Kavanaugh's house made him think twice about just discarding gun laws, eh? It made me wonder whether Alito's upcoming opinion striking down Roe V Wade may also be hemmed in or limited by "pivotal concurrences".

Ukraine update: 
Here's some good news:
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