254 Comments

"In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act."

George Orwell

Expand full comment

We need to remind people that if you can’t plainly say what you are trying to say you are either lying or stupid or both.

Expand full comment

There are entire occupations and industries devoted to feeding people manipulative BS in an attempt to alter their behavior (advertising, public relations, lawyers, salesmen, etc.). In every case the goal is the same, persuade people to behave in a manner they wouldn't normally to advance someone else's interests. Is anyone surprised politicians do it too?

In more honest times we'd call these people out as the shills or hired guns that they are, now we act as if these are noble professions to make a living. Dirtbag politicians are a symptom of the age, they do this stuff because it's been normalized and it works. It's no different from a defense attorney manipulating twelve dolts on a jury to get his client off, or some PR firm sending out a press release filled with lies defending the indefensible. Yet these people make six or seven figure salaries doing this and its somehow an honest living?

We live in the Age of Lies, the best thing is to recognize this and reject it everywhere it occurs. The ballot box is just a start. How many people have called out their physician for pretending he/she was an expert on the vax when they were actually just parroting pharma talking points? Do you tell salesmen to get lost when approached, or do you listen to their BS out of "politeness"? Do you take PR releases seriously or laugh in their face when spouting obvious nonsense?

Danielle Smith is a breath of fresh air not just for her honesty as a politician, but for her honesty period.

Expand full comment

It will be even better if the people of Alberta show that they welcome this attitude.

Expand full comment

I, for one, am an Albertan resident and welcome this attitude with open arms. Now, if appropriate actions follow the rhetoric, she's got my undivided attention and unmitigated support!

Expand full comment

Honesty, and humility. Her response was welcome and refreshing.

Expand full comment

Maybe not "called out", but I asked. My doc took the 5th. Wisely so as here in California he can lose his license for giving any answer other than the one approved by the state. Really, it's the law now.

Before 2020 we talked about flu vaccines each year, and my set of risk factors (none other than having the genes and luck to live past 60), and deemed it not good risk/reward. When COVID hit, early on when the vaccine was first made available, he noted my risk factors were the same, but that I should take the vaccine because if I needed any kind of medical care in a hospital, I'd be subject to a lower standard of care without vaccine proof. He noted the risk of the vaccine as we knew it at the time was greater than my risk of serious harm from COVID but both were very low (oh what we didn't know then).

Fast forward to 2022. Asked him about "boosters" and related stuff. He simply said "I am not ready to retire and so I can not respond".

Welcome to 2022. I'm not sure even Orwell would have written it this way!

Expand full comment

All his answers were political, not medical. A sad state of affairs.

'if I needed any kind of medical care in a hospital, I'd be subject to a lower standard of care without vaccine proof.' This should raise all sorts of alarms. It's appalling.

Expand full comment

I believe it is prudent to be cynical until proved wrong when it comes to anybody in public life. Anybody who has ever walked into an organization that is a mess knows that the first things you do are 1) cop to the problems (the more the better) that pre-dated you 2) apologize and 3) promise transparency going forward.

Your honeymoon period is likely to be short-lived, so the sooner and more completely you toss out the garbage the better. The problems are all somebody else's at that point so it costs little and garners good will.

The real proof is what happens going forward. Encourage her with modest praise--but hold the glowing encomiums until she has earned them for her own work.

Expand full comment

I agree. We should find some satisfaction in any apologies coming from people representing the organizations that trampled all over us during this whole thing. However, the apology was much easier for her than it would be for anyone actually culpable.

Expand full comment

I don't want apologies. I don't want promises. I want to see real accountability for the actions taken. I want to ensure it doesn't happen again.

And in can happen - in the reality in which I ride a Unicorn to work every day ;-)

Expand full comment

In my daily world, where problems actually need to be solved instead of perpetuated, I have a trite saying: "It's OK to be wrong, it is not OK to stay wrong".

That's how we get things done. Politicians have nothing to gain from solving problems. They have everything to gain from fear, panic, and uncertainty. Perpetual promises are what politicians need to run campaigns. And stuff to blame on "the other guys". So the savvy politicos realize that when they have the opportunity to create new crisis, it's not something to pass up.

Expand full comment

"Has anyone seen my keys?"

Joe Biden

Expand full comment

“My butt’s been wiped!”

-Joe Biden

Ugh… 🤦🏽‍♀️🤮

Expand full comment

Oh, how I pray for that. --- But there seems to be nothing any better, than the excrement we have already. 😞

Expand full comment

I bought the shirt and hat "Make Orwell Fiction Again".

Had to support that.

Expand full comment

Canadian born and raised in Alberta here. For our US friends, our former, quite unpopular Premier Jason Kenney, announced he was stepping down earlier this year when he only got 51% of the United Conservative Party's support to stay on. During the pandemic he first said he would never impose a vax mandate, but locked the province down HARD, jailed pastors, and the also imposed a vax mandate, thereby managing to piss everybody off- those who said he did too much and those who said he didn't. So, a few weeks ago, Danielle was elected by the same party membership in 6 rounds of voting, with 53% of the vote. She very much supports the unvaccinated. Another position of hers is that if Trudeau imposes something on Alberta that is not good for Alberta, that we should be able to reject its imposition- she is calling it the Alberta Sovereignty Act. She also wants blanket amnesty for those who broke 'C 19 rules', and to disentangle us from agreements signed with the WEF. Her primary opposition is the NDP party- our version of your 'radical left' arm of the Dems and proud standard bearers of the Branch Covidians. ( NDP leader Rachel Notley, once Premier herself, actually pushed a door to door vaccination campaign and recently said publicly that "there is no evidence the vaccines are unsafe") The NDP is the MSM media darling, of course, so Danielle is being called 'far right', if not fascist, by most media outlets for her views, as you have correctly guessed. Problem is she faces a general election next spring, so she has about 7-8 months to turn the narrative- a HUGE task given we have many many lunatics whose hair is currently on fire about Danielle and her positions. The question now is will she be Kari Lake or will she cave to the pressure? She has already apologized for saying the unvaccinated are the most discriminated group of her lifetime and the country went bananas: " the First Nations, the gays, the muslims " etc etc. I am a staunch supporter of Danielle's, but I don't know if we will be able to outnumber the left in 7 or 8 months.

Expand full comment

As a fellow Albertan, I fully agree with your description of current events here.

Expand full comment

Thanks Tim, glad I accurately portrayed them.

Expand full comment

Yes, the Hair On Fire set of course includes our Government-propped up Captured Broadcast Corporation, the CBC.

Who today presented another obsequious interview with, wait for it.....Nuval Noah Harari. I guess they’ve had declines from the over-interviewed Bill Gates and Fauci.

Expand full comment

Wow Turdo and the CBC are really all in.

Expand full comment

Overflowing in excrement to the tops of their jackboots.

Expand full comment

She didn’t apologize for the unvaxed comment, she merely repeated what she said in the initial press conference to “clarify” her comment. Unfortunately she did apologize for a comment about the Ukrainian war, comment made some time ago.

Expand full comment

Correct.

She said Ukraine should chill...

Expand full comment

It reminds me of how MSM and even some conservatives react to Poilievre. They speak about him like he's Canada's Trump, or some kind of fascist. Your hear him speak, he sounds like a normal old-school conservative.

Expand full comment

I MSM loves to paint anybody that isn't their choice ... with "trump" or "racist" or "misogynist" or whatever is the woke-derog term of the day. The good news is that more people see through it. The bad news is there are many who still are fed MSM and believe ... (and agreed, he sounds normal to me).

Expand full comment

I don't know what the law is in Canada. Here in the US, we have laws and this constitution which limits the powers of government. Well in theory. Then president Trump's administration refused to issue federal mandates to shutdown, lockdown, shutdown schools and so on. Because it would have been illegal to do so. Instead it was state governors who did so. Issuing nearly identical orders, based on generally non-existing "emergency powers", ignoring both law and constitution. Those orders were illegal, too, simply put. But The Party knew it could, and so it did.

Out here in California more than a couple police chiefs and county sheriffs refused to enforce these illegal orders - but others did. People who had "essential jobs" were stopped and made to show documentation ("your papers please"). No joke. Many ordered to return home, and some even jailed for being outside the home without "good cause" and proper documentation.

Expand full comment

10-24-22 Just got this article (url below) which includes an Easton Spectator piece about Danielle Smith written by The Honourable A. Brian Peckford:

https://www.thelibertybeacon.com/alberta-is-deliberately-erasing-hospital-records-of-vaccine-injury/

Expand full comment

Thanks for this!

All Canadians should be following this story. And NOT through the captured voice of the msm , esp

the Captured Broadcast Corporation.

Expand full comment

hi Martha, regarding the FB post that alleges that AEFI records are being erased, I managed to contact the author of this post and invited him and the coworker he identifies to come forward and present facts corroborating the story to Danielle Smith ( I am part of a group who will be making a presentation to her) He has not gotten back to me, so I can't help but wonder now if the story is true.

Expand full comment

Disappointing to hear that Steve Kirsch, Mark Crispin Miller, and the The Liberty Beacon might not have done their due diligence. I hope you do hear back. Does your presentation include more data/record issues than just the one covered in the FB post?

Expand full comment

yes; I was asked to contribute suggestions for some priorities Ms t of her agenda over the next months, all having to do with how C 19 was handled in the province of AB. An important piece of my submission was an analysis of case, hospitalization and death stats by a third party, which shows how the stats were manipulated to fit the narrative.

Expand full comment

That is incredible! It must be exciting to be "exposing" the facts about C 19 maladministration and data manipulation to someone who can possibly do something about it. I see many similarities between AB/Smith and Florida/DeSantis in my country. Hopefully, each can accelerate breaking the flow of disinformation in our respective nations. Best of luck to you and your courageous group!

Expand full comment

Is this video old or new? How long after this did Danielle apologize for it?? Or did I misunderstand you?

Expand full comment

This video is from a press event at her (our) party's Annual General Meeting yesterday.

Expand full comment

Danielle apologized for saying the unvaccinated are the most discriminated group of her lifetime, not for this.

Expand full comment

She did? I though she REAFFIRMED her original statement, clarifying that it was not meant to undermine other marginalized and discriminated against groups.

Expand full comment

Well let's say she had to 'clarify' by dropping her assertion that the unvaccinated were the most discriminated- against group in her lifetime to, " I didn't intend to trivialize the discrimination of other groups".

Expand full comment

"She has already apologized for saying the unvaccinated are the most discriminated group of her lifetime..."

Didn't realize she had apologized for her apology! Will she go the way of Liz Truss?

Expand full comment

I think this clip here is AFTER the OTHER apology. She had given a prior speech wherein she said the unvaccinated were the most discriminated she’d witnessed in her lifetime. She apologized for the extremity of that statement a day or two later (caved!!) and then this incident in the stack happened after. So, she’s at least good at apologizing!!!

Expand full comment

Far right extremist, misogynist, racist, antivaxxer, covid denier, fascist, transphobic....did I miss one?

Expand full comment

Domestic terrorist.

Expand full comment

election denier, climate change denier, nazi (actually far left but who cares when name calling)

Expand full comment

The reason they lie is because it works. Telling the truth is an expedited ticket to being unemployed in the private sector. Remember Ghostbusters: "You don't know what it's like out there! I've worked in the private sector. They expect results."

Expand full comment

Dont forget "small fringe minority"

Expand full comment

And anti-science. With unacceptable views

Expand full comment

grandma killer

Expand full comment

Yeah, but face it. She deserved it.

Expand full comment

MEGA MAGA!!!!

Expand full comment

In Canada, ‘this is not who we are’.

Expand full comment

islamophobe

Expand full comment

Bigot, deplorable

Expand full comment

Anti-Semitic.

Expand full comment

Threat to democracy

Expand full comment

How could I forget that one, my favorite!

Expand full comment

Regular person with common sense?

Expand full comment

Basket of deplorables

Expand full comment

Putinist, russian collusion, nazi, populist...

Expand full comment

Gotta work in something about capitalism.

Expand full comment

White supremacist.

Expand full comment

Antifa

Expand full comment

I've never heard that one in the standard string of MoveOn hate words.

Expand full comment

Antifa calls white hats "Antifa" to confuse the libs.

Its gaslighting at its worst.

Expand full comment

Finally something good out of Canada. After years of abuse here, I’m cautiously optimistic. Time will tell…

Expand full comment

Am watching to see what happens with the Alberta Sovereignty Act:

Alberta Sovereignty Act: Trudeau’s Woke Empire Falling Apart

https://www.hungarianconservative.com/articles/politics/alberta-sovereignty-act-trudeaus-woke-empire-falling-apart/

Expand full comment

After Trudeau’s first couple of years I said ‘if he can have this kind of first term and win a second term then he can be PM for 25 years. If he wins a second term Alberta will be gone within five years. BC will follow.’

Expand full comment

Some of us "south of the border" would gladly offer New York State to Canada in exchange for Alberta.

Expand full comment

Good one

Expand full comment

Some of us "north of the border" might disagree with that exchange, especially Alberta!!

Expand full comment

Actually it's just NYC and the upstate cities that we should send. The rest of the state is SOLID conservative with somewhat common sense.

Expand full comment

Give us Texas and maybe we can make a deal.

Expand full comment

Another election is near. April, I think. If she has enough support to win the People, not just The Party, I'll consider moving there, which would take a year to organize. And yes, time will tell. Many dissidents are already heading that way.

Expand full comment

Same. We have a daughter still in school - it’s the only thing keeping us here atm.

Expand full comment

I'm may be heading that way after I plunk a sign on Parliament Hill and do a sir in for 5 weeks. Or until the Emergencies Act Public Inquiry is completed.

If things go south in Alberta in April, I will too, because that will be the end of the line for a lot of Canadians who are on their last legs.

Expand full comment

On the signage/penalty, thank you for your service. The questionnaire for public impact statements was impressive, IMHO. Asking real questions with a generous qualifier box to say what must be said is not the norm for such things, usually multiple-choice irrelevancies.... Still clinging to hope on the inquiry with CSIS, RCMP and police evidence all clear on the illegality and non-necessity for such an action. Not holding any breath on any of it, just deep breathing to stay calm. Moving to Mexico is so complicated!

Expand full comment

Fingers crossed

Expand full comment

El Gato wrote “ perhaps if governments would like to win the trust of the people, they should consider this crazy idea called “not lying all the time” and “speaking to the people as though they were not idiots.””

The US federal government along with many states currently believe that they can mandate their way to way to whatever actions they deem necessary, they don’t need our trust. They will never change until we change them.

Expand full comment

And with the elections coming up in a couple weeks, this is the MOST they will pretend to care.

Expand full comment

Mandates, schmandates - according to our liar-in-chief, his student loan relief was a LAW and passed by two votes. Nobody seems to remember it was an executive diktate. Mandates are now laws - covid freakout taught us that.

Expand full comment

I'm down with unelecting them.

Expand full comment

'we get in to the political fray of trying to determine if teachers did a good job or not. and i dont think thats fair'

yea its not fair to be called out on the fucking shitty job you did over the last 2+ years

Expand full comment

Public sector. No accountability.

Expand full comment

I know, I was all, seriously? Like, "fair"? She wants to go there?

Oh honey, have a I got a list for you....

Expand full comment

They've been doing a "shitty" job for decades!

Expand full comment

They joined in politically and now they don’t want to be joined in? Too late.

Expand full comment

The Alberta Sovereignty Act is making people very uncomfortable around here, and I cannot wait until the incompetent, human rights trampling, Federal government tries to challenge it! Alberta is about to become the Florida of the North in terms of freedom, and politicians genuinely speaking about the issues facing citizens from woke-Liberal policies!

Expand full comment

It’s such low hanging fruit, it’s a wonder not more leaders are reaching for it. 🍊

Expand full comment

Saskatchewan Premier Moe

Expand full comment

I don't trust Moe. He's way to flexible. He was in favour of vaccine passports which is one reason he needs to be replaced.

Expand full comment

Quebec has already passed something very similar. And was allowed to do so. I don’t see how this can be declared unconstitutional.

Expand full comment

Ah, but Québec is such a "distinct society." They are not governed quite the same way as the rest of Canada. For starters, they are governed by Napoleonic Code, and not common-law system as the rest of the country. This very distinction might make a difference in passing laws that would affect Québec, and Québec only.

Expand full comment

I’m sure that will be the pretext for Ottawa to fight Albertas Sovereignty Act. But it shouldn’t fly. The Administrative code versus common law shouldn’t have anything to do with it. Quebec’s Law says it can opt out of whatever Federal program it wishes to. It doesn’t say only those pertaining to its unique character or difference in legal systems.

Expand full comment

You see, I grew up in Quebec. That makes me able to comment on its dystopian nature. I used the "distinct society" loosely and a little on the sarcastic side. All their posturing for independence and "patrimoine" is all fluff to agitate the populace. I don't think they would be able to make it on their own just with their hydroelectric grid and asbestos(!) if they did separate. The politicians are so corrupt that they produce several prime ministers of choice, some of them better than others, but not in the current era. I wonder if people will ever wake up to the shenanigans and stop giving them special status. IMO, nobody is deserving of special status. Period.

Expand full comment

To the representative of the ATF: Can you name me any other industry in life where we do not judge whether someone or some entity does a good job or not? Yet for teachers it is not fair 🤪 to judge them? Ooookaaaaay. With that one comment you see the corruption of the teacher's unions on full display.

Expand full comment

I was just thinking about the kind of game being played now. On one side, it's straightforward obscuration and confusion (even in CDC's data), while on the other there's a mix of cranks and clear-thinkers and data.

Is the 32% increase in US working age deaths between 2019 and 2021 just chopped liver? Why isn't anyone (besides me) focusing on that particular statistic?

Expand full comment

On the obscurantism point, there was a story on Mark Crispin Miller’s Substack this week about a man in Alberta who was pushed into taking the shot who subsequently had a heart problem that resulted in hospitalization for several days. A year later when he returned to the same hospital for a check-up the doctor asked him what he was doing there. He told the doctor about the heart attack the year before and the doctor said that there was no admission record from the incident and that this was the fifth time he had seen a similar wiping of the record in a similar case.

Expand full comment

woah

Expand full comment

Was that Alberta? I read that post.

Know there's a data purge afoot

Expand full comment

Why am I not surprised?! They are working overtime to destroy the medical system, and they are succeeding in flamboyant fashion.

Expand full comment

I think you'll find a pretty active and growing subset of us 'cranks ' following Ed Dowd, and Dowd has been on not only Gettr, but WarRoom and other alternative sites speaking for the numbers of not only deaths, but disabilities stats.

Expand full comment

By "cranks" I was referring to the covid skeptics and the virus skeptics.

Expand full comment

There is no evidence COVID ever existed. The CDC approved 59 different PCR tests with 59 different protein sequences in March of 2020 as they had not isolated it. They changed that in 2022. They canceled them all and approved 14 more, thinking one of those might be closer to being real. Most places in the world, BC for one, which has a ton of China Canadian traffic, showed a lighter death year than usual in 2020. So, we were in the worst health crisis in 100 years and far fewer people were sick? Is that reasonable? You think skepticism makes us cranks? Prove COVID ever existed. You can’t.

Expand full comment

Here I was polishing my tinfoil so that I could represent 😂

Expand full comment

So you classify Dr. Thomas Cowan as a crank or as a “clear thinker about data”?

Expand full comment

Cowan is confused. He claims that 5G is causing disease, yet there is no evidence of any mechanism for that from the appropriate field in physics--classical optics. And he's out of field to discuss physics, so he can only rely on anecdotes and epidemiology--and epidemiological evidence runs contrary to 5G. There has been 5G in areas without widespread incidence of covid and there has been covid where there was no 5G.

I myself believe that pathogens tend to be opportunistic, but some pathogens seem to be able to overwhelm even a strong immune system.

Expand full comment

It shocked me to find out recently NO virus has ever been isolated. HIV hasn’t. I knew COVID hasn’t. Have you read how viruses are supposedly isolated? It’s ridiculously stupid. I like most people believed they had a lot of knowledge about viruses. It turns out they don’t. All theory. And lousy theory at that. You’ve not looked into it if you’re NOT a skeptic.

Expand full comment

Perhaps you don't know what it means to isolate a virus. The ignorance of the virus skeptics is shocking.

Expand full comment

One of the interesting thing about those tragic numbers is that they are the people who would be paying Social Security taxes into retirement trust funds for benefits to older Americans.

Expand full comment

Lots of us are. But no one in power seems to be

Expand full comment

When the USA continues its draconian mandates against the unvaxxed entering the USA, and its health agencies FDA and CDC voting unanimously to put covid vaxxes in the childrens immunization schedule, I do wonder who,is running the show in the country? We know Brandon is not smart enough to make any kind of healthcare decision, he simply is not.

It may take a change of leadership around the country, not just in Florida, to witness a honest approach to Americans well being. I am hopeful, as more and more quadruple vaxxed gov’t officials become infected with covid, go onto to take antivirals and then rebound with covid, the truth cannot be far away.

Expand full comment

The scary thing is, that if he is not smart enough to make presidential decisions, then those decisions are actually being made by an unelected party who was not even on the ballot, and whose identity is unknown to most of the country.

Expand full comment

Can I get out in front of this & say Danielle Smith did not hang herself?

Expand full comment

As a Canadian residing in the province next door to Alberta, it almost made me weep to hear their Premier apologizing to Albertans. It is a start in the right direction, one whose endgame is a renewed Charter that is *GUARANTEED*.

Expand full comment

I'm a Canadian residing in Ontario and it actually made me weep to hear her. The average Canadian (the great majority which are vaccinated) have absolutely no idea what these past 2 and a half years have been like for us, the unvaccinated.

Expand full comment

I made the same remark to my brother when I linked him to this post, via email.

He's right upstairs, having arrived from the coastoday t to "celebrate" my mother's 90th birthday "festivities" this week.

100% chance that email won't be read. Like the thousands ignored in the past.

Fyi: He blocked me on Messenger months ago. That's the sas state of affairs in my fractured B.C. family. "Them" vs "Us".

Irreparable damage.

Expand full comment

Our local county executive in Texas was a huge proponent of lockdowns and masks early on. He stated recently that he has "no regrets".

He literally threatened the school board if they tried to go back to school in the fall of 2020 and only had to back off because the attorney general of Texas issued an opinion saying he had no authority over the school districts as independent government entities.

He also tried to deflect responsibility for his local mask mandate (before Abbott panicked and issued one of his own) by issuing a rigged "internet survey" with preordained outcome.

Unfortunately, it looks like he is going to win reelection strictly along partisan lines and I cannot believe all of the immigrants and democrats who are going to vote for him think that what he did was wise or beneficial. Makes me sick.

Expand full comment

I hope she is sincere, but isn't the definition of "politician": can lie the most convincingly?

Expand full comment

If we refuse to accept someone trying to do better there is no reason for anyone to try and do better............

Expand full comment

I said I hope she is sincere. But extreme skepticism is necessary when the government is involved.

Expand full comment

Agree with the skepticism but we should celebrate progress. Whatever her intent, this was a good move based on reality. We should encourage more of it even while maintaining healthy skepticism

Expand full comment

She is sincere. She was as shocked and appalled by the tyranny of the last few years as the rest of us. I’m honestly worried what “they” will do to her now she has some power.

Expand full comment

🙏🏼

Expand full comment

There is strong "breakaway from Canada" movement within Alberta. Not sure if many people outside Canada are aware of that.

I'd love to see States here begin to seriously discuss such measures. I could picture a large swath of the central states unite in a single, breathtaking breakaway campaign. Starting in Florida, tracing along the gulf into Texas and straight north from there. It be epic and beautiful and full of problems and dangers but oh so worth the effort.

Expand full comment

"Let's not bicker and argue about who killed who...."

Expand full comment

‘At this point what difference does it make?’

Expand full comment