this column from @RickBellwrites, which is his usual sycophantic stenography, speaks to a real desire of certain right wing political elites in alberta to have a referendum on independence. let's get into why. the first and foremost thing to understand is that these conservative political elites are essentially having a temper tantrum. their guy, pierre polievre, was supposed to win. now it looks like he's going to lose. that's not fair.

an interesting wrinkle to the Dodgy Contracts Scandal is the relationship between MHCare and outgoing EPS police chief and incoming deputy minister of executive council Dale McFee. MHCare was a title sponsor to Dale's "Safety In Our Cities Conference" last year. i don't have the exact numbers of what that sponsorship would cost but it would be findable. that conference was an excuse for dale to fly in police buddies and pliant academics from around north america to talk about how great a job they're doing at harassing unhoused people.

A very ill 72 year old man ended up at the Sundre Health Centre in Sept. 2022. He was seeing things that weren't there and was also dealing with chronic kidney stone issues. Shortly after arriving at the hospital he was dead due to the actions of an RCMP officer (thread) All of this comes from an ASIRT report released on Nov. 14. All quotes further down in the thread are from the report. open.alberta.ca/dataset/deb50b…

the city of edmonton and the edmonton police held a pep rally today to try and convince themselves, the public and the media that the healthy streets operations centre is doing a great job. after the presser was an immediate example of why more policing will never be a solution. a team of peace officers left the hsoc hq with the media in tow and pretty much immediately came upon a man lying on the ground. surrounded by cameramen, peace officers check in on him. he's not very coherent, barely rousable. he refuses assistance.

just got off the phone with vince byfield who was making calls for take back alberta (sometimes i get on weird lists). they're a third party advertiser registered with elections alberta and it was an interesting phone call. they took credit for taking out kenney. he described it as a group, a 17,000 strong freedom loving group, that functions like a party within the party of the ucp. likened it to how unions function within the ndp. said the mastermind was someone named david parker.

i know why jean charest is running for leader of the conservative party, it's his last chance to be prime minister and he'd never rise to the top of the liberal party in time. but let's be real here... charest is not going to win and and in the process he's going to face a ton of abuse from right wing nut jobs within the conservative party in the process. and for what? what are the functional ideological differences between charest and chrystia freeland?

i'm listening to kenneys radio show for work reasons. anyone else a glutton for punishment like me? wayne nelson wants everyone to know that he is the decider. the goa and kenney aren't screening calls

researching the evils of the apartheid south african regime for a podcast i'm recording with @mbueckert tomorrow. turns out they were very evil and bad folks. a nasty chemical/biological warfare division, targeted assassinations of anti-apartheid activists around the world... a literal plan to try and sterilize black south africans with a fake vaccination program, abroad they were early adopters of modern propaganda methods like astroturfing, and using wedge groups and figures as well as infiltration and spying on anti apartheid groups and activists

so i'm walking to work with bruce (my dog) and i see a woman in obvious mental distress, screaming, crying etc. without a hat, scarf or gloves and just a thin jacket. she's not doing great but we chat and go into the subway on jasper to get her a sandwich and to warm up. it takes 15 minutes on hold before i get the chance to talk to someone on the 211 crisis diversion line. after i tell them the details they says it's 45 to an hour before the crisis diversion van can get there.

The child is napping and I have some thoughts on this news given my familiarity both with the folks breaking elections financing law and the elections financing laws themselves. #ableg

https://twitter.com/edmontonjournal/status/1086432642583744512

Both the Alberta and federal governments have introduced laws to regulate elections advertising. This is, by and large, a good thing. We don’t want billionaires buying elections.

Can we take a minute to talk about how messed up Alberta's opinion media landscape is and how it consistently gives a platform to extreme far-right positions
(Thread) This piece by Danielle Smith is absolutely breathtaking. In it she argues for we should abolish all universal social programs - healthcare, education, old age security etc etc. "Maybe none of our programs should be universal," she says globalnews.ca/news/4210573/d…