DynamicSloth posted:

The point isn't to win a defamation suit, it's to bring Scheer into the scandal. That doofus is so starved for attention he was happy to play right into it.

DynamicSloth posted:

Yes but the Liberal messaging right now is mostly "What do you want, Scheer to be Prime Minister?" it's not an accident that they want him more involved in the story.

This is an all Liberal scandal, there's no need for him to pipe up and extra seriously demand Trudeau resign some more.

Fashionable Jorts posted:

If only he had a gun to protect himself with.

BGrifter posted:

Postess with the Mostest posted:

"Failing" kind of implies that it was possible that it was out of their control. What's a word for intentionally keeping a system less democratic in order to prevent parties to the left of you from getting any power?

apatheticman posted:

https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1186271922377543681?s=20

Thoth! posted:

I don't understand how the gently caress so many nonessential public sector employees I meet are conservative and want to cut govt service spending.

Like I get the whole fygm thing runs deep but lol

vyelkin posted:

and meanwhile capitalism has determined that the optimal use of housing in many large urban centres is to sit empty accumulating value for overseas investors, or to be used as short-term airbnb rental housing for rich tourists lmao just lmao at how our lovely civilization deals with climate change the same way it deals with all other problems, by just shaving off the unlucky parts of society and deciding we don't care what happens to them as long as the rest of us keep living comfortably

Virtual Russian posted:

I feel like the Irvings owning like 10% of New Brunswick is pretty tangible and un-inflated.

Also hell yeah declare war on the number

Virtual Russian posted:

I've got a nine hour shift tomorrow, just dreading working all day for next to nothing. It makes a crappy job excruciating.

Dreylad posted:

Thinking about all the times the modern US army crushed insurgent militias and won a war.

DariusLikewise posted:

https://twitter.com/trapdinawrpool/status/1221817845165842433?s=20

oh yea, the green party is truly the bastion of progressiveness in canada

Virtual Russian posted:

Cross-posting from covid thread cause my day was bad. gently caress Grocery Stores

Horrible day at the grocery store. We had a bunch of rules on customer conduct to make things safe, but a few customers complained about the restrictions. So head office repealed these restrictions, its just a free for all now. Total chaos, no one knows what to do, morale plummeted. Even the store's second is openly talking about how the company is putting profits ahead of our safety. Someone brought up a walkout, but generally people need to work to survive.

Had a boy and girl come in today that couldn't be more than 6 and 10, telling us they were 10 and 14 (I work with kids a lot normally, they were not as old as they said), said they had to go for groceries alone, in PJs, because their whole family was sick and no one else could go. I dealt with them, and got management involved, as it sounded horrific. I was assured something would be done, but I later saw them walk out with bags of junk food. Another employee told me they helped them shop and pay, and then we just let them walk out of the store and walk home alone. Can't believe that was allowed to happen. The whole situation sounded hosed.

Just kinda haunting me right now.

night danger posted:

It looks like it was abandoned in 1967 but some kindly neighbor kept up the lawn maintenance.

quote:

Toronto city council votes against cutting 2021 police budget by 10 per cent

City council rejected a move to ask the Toronto police to cut its budget in 2021 by at least 10 per cent, following weeks of protests calling on them to defund the police.

Motions poised to be approved at the request of Mayor John Tory, which include requests for future alternative community responses to calls that don’t involve weapons, will actually see the police budget increase in the short-term by an annual $5 million in 2021 — if police fully implement body-worn cameras for all officers.

“What I’m asking you to do is show courage,” Coun. Josh Matlow said before most of his colleagues — 16 of 24 — voted to reject his motion to ask the police to cut its budget by at least 10 per cent in 2021.

“The evidence demonstrates that by investing proactively into the resiliency of our communities by helping our kids avoid picking up a gun in the first place rather than funding ways to arrest them and incarcerate them afterwards, by focusing on alternatives to policing where we can actually have trained professionals who know how to care for and support individuals who are in distress rather than escalate those situations like police officers can when the arrive with their uniforms and their weapons, is a better way to make our communities safer,” he said. “It protects people. It serves them better.”

Coun. Kristyn Wong-Tam, who worked with and backed Matlow’s motion, noted the increased likelihood of being shot or killed by police as a person of colour or with a mental illness, saying a system of anti-Black and other racism needs to be addressed and calls to defund the police have been misunderstood.

“The defund movement is really about asking all of us to re-imagine what public safety looks like,” she said.

Transformational change has not come despite a task force to reform the police under Tory’s administration, said Coun. Joe Cressy, who also supported Matlow’s motion. He said he was concerned the mayor’s motion contains “no clear targets” for the re-allocation of funds.

Coun. Gord Perks challenged the criticism that Matlow’s request was arbitrary.

“Every budget this mayor has brought forward started out with an arbitrary number — we will only increase property taxes at the rate of inflation, all of the services have to be adjusted to match that number,” said Perks. “And the reason given is that if we allowed any other number it would become unaffordable for homeowners who pay property taxes.

“So we’re prepared to use an arbitrary number to protect homeowners from property taxes, but we’re not prepared to do it when the issue is anti-Black racism, anti-Indigenous racism and the effects of policing on racialized Torontonians.”

Ahead of the vote, Tory said his proposals were meant to be a “comprehensive” series of reforms that if approved would “set in motion a process that should bring about the kind of change at the pace of change that is needed in response to the people who have marched in the street and have been in touch with us in our offices and so on.”

He characterized his recommendations as a more careful and thoughtful way of eventually reducing the police budget and achieving “fair change.”

The mayor’s allies largely backed him on his proposals and rejected Matlow’s requests.

“I don’t believe that this arbitrary cut to the police services board will get us to where we need to go,” his budget chief Coun. Gary Crawford said Monday, repeating a suggestion made by the mayor’s allies that a 10-per-cent cut would inevitably lead to more than 1,000 service members being laid off — despite layoffs not being the only way to cut costs.

Another executive member, Coun. James Pasternak, called the mayor’s plan “a roadmap for getting stuff done.

a primate posted:

he had earlier complained that cutting the budget would mean they can’t roll out body cameras to all officers so expect to hear that a bunch more

quote:

Ultimately, what was needed to win this lockout was escalation with the help of the broader labour movement. Unions and labour federations could have mobilized their members to create a massive blockade with thousands of people, not just members of Unifor. Sympathy strikes could have put massive pressure on FCL and energized workers across Canada, recognizing that the fight of the refinery workers to defend their pensions was a fight of the entire working class.

By bringing in workers not directly involved, the movement could have become a broader political struggle. In this way, it might not only have ended the lockout on terms favourable for Unifor 594—but increased class consciousness and made workers more aware of their own power. It could have inspired workers to fight back against attacks in other sectors, to go on the offensive against the bosses, and even to build general strikes to bring down unpopular governments.

The lack of such concrete measures to widen the struggle can be laid at the feet of the right-wing leaders of unions and labour federations, who lacked the perspective and will to escalate the fight. But as bosses ramp up their attacks against workers in the future, such ineffectual labour leaders will be pushed aside. The growing militancy of rank-and-file workers, exemplified by the members of Unifor 594, will inevitably find its reflection in a new generation of radical labour leaders.

mila kunis posted:

hmmmm

https://twitter.com/MykaConners/status/1232521581014011904

WHO IS JOE ROBERTS?

The domain owner of democraticsocialists.ca is listed as Joe Roberts, resident of London, having created the website January 15th of 2020.

On his Twitter page, Roberts is a vocal fan of Bernie Sanders’ candidacy for US president. His pinned tweet is an endorsement for Kate Graham, a candidate for the leadership of the Ontario Liberal Party. His profile picture on LinkedIn is himself, wearing a poppy while speaking from a lectern, with the American and Israeli flags behind him.

Roberts moved to Washington, DC in 2017, where he began working as Global Chief Advancement Officer for The Israel Project, a pro-Israel non-profit. (The Israel Project was formed in 2002 during the second intifada, in order to manage Israel’s public image while Palestinian rights were being violated. It closed in 2019.) Presumably while working for TIP, Roberts replied to a tweet by the State of Palestine twitter account. On June 22, 2017, @Palestine_UN tweeted: #Palestine elected vice-chair of Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination election! #CERD” Roberts, in his reply, said “#Antisemitism not high on their list of priorities.”

Virtual Russian posted:

I'm with everyone else that is skeptical, but I also always make a point of meeting people on the left no matter the org. I once sat through a Socialist Fightback meeting that included in an official capacity a twenty minute misinformed rant about the evils of post-modern theory.

Reality Protester posted:

COMPAGNIE TOMMY posted:

Making it about what you are vs what you believe in is the kind of purity test that only serves to cleave people away from common cause, which the left time and again is wont to do

Killin_Like_Bronson posted:

Realize means receiving money. You've described a situation where I should feel happy for no reason other than abstract feels towards number up. Lmao.

Killin_Like_Bronson posted:

Those are really not analogous, but to give you an answer, I think that we give insurance companies free money to invest with as exchange for a service of providing coverage in case of calamity.

Killin_Like_Bronson posted:

How many Hail Marx's do I say in pennance for a home value of $200k in Alberta for a wage of $25/hour?