For anyone who paid close attention during the chaotic period when Rob Ford was mayor of Toronto, then you know that what led to Rob's downfall was the news media. Doug Ford has clearly learned that the media, when it is doing its actual job of digging up evidence of politicians engaged in corruption or unsavory activity, can destroy a politician. Bev, below in her tweet sums it up nicely:



Rogers owns CityTV. Ted Rogers is also a well known supporter of Doug Ford (wait... a rich billionaire supporting a right-wing politician? Shocking I know). I'm sure Rogers also wouldn't want a Liberal or NDP government in power since they'd likely raise corporate taxes. I already mentioned earlier about the power of blackmailing a TV network by threatening to yank tens of millions of dollars of taxpayer-funded self-congratulatory TV ads. We'll see what Tina has to say herself as she's promised to talk more about her dismissal but I definitely don't think she was fired for stealing staplers out of the station's supply room.



More damning is the fact that at least two of her stories vanished off CityNews's site after her firing, both related to Ford and Calandra. In particular the one where viewers are informed that Ford is paying insane amounts of over $250,000 to insiders to take over director positions. Marit Stiles today posted about other cushy jobs handed out by Ford that pay even more than that $300,000 to $400,000. And for the record, Ford started hiring friends with huge salaries just prior to the last provincial election, probably to lock in their reward in case the PCs didn't get re-elected. How badly do you think he doesn't want the news media to report on this? 



Or that Tina reported on the

I think you're the one who has his head in the sand and just don't want to even consider anything other than what you've ingrained into your thought process. You have links from the most legitimate sources around, not screenshots, enjoy the read.
 

It's always a "highly questionable" source when it's something you disagree with, I'll just say that. But that is what the right-wingers always say isn't it? "Fake news." "Didn't happen. Next question." "You're a liar, you're a bad journalist." "You're a radical lefty." Dismissiveness is part and parcel of that ideology these days (it didn't used to be, again I remember Brian Mulroney not shying away from hard questions asked of him by journalists.)

There's a reason why both the federal and provincial PCs (post Mulroney and starting with Harper) have either silenced the news media, or limited their questions, or literally run away from the reporters (see: Tina Yazdani recently having to chase the Ford team to get them to answer questions).  It's why Trump calls a female reporter "Piggy" or Doug Ford tells (mostly the female politicians) to "stay in their lane".  They can't stand to be shown that they are in the wrong; they can't stand to be called out on their blatant attempts to a) invade a country solely for its oil, b) privatize the entire province's healthcare system so their donors can profit off it, c) pass along taxpayer money to their friends and donors though slush funds, and so on.






They get rich off being in charge and they don't want to be questioned about their own hypocrisy about gravy trains that they railed against when they were the little guy (Doug Ford, Toronto city council), or backroom deals being made (Doug Ford and the Greenbelt scandal), or going on and on about incompetence. Because just like Trump, they need to live in a bubble that preserves their own sense of immaculate perfection. This is called cognitive dissonance, you can google it. It also affects MAGA supporters when they don't want to believe that their chosen leader has been lyin

I guarantee you that Carney doesn't want a pipeline built and he is only placating that imbecilic woman who leads Alberta. It will not bring the kind of prosperity that you have been told to fantasize about. And in case it isn't clear from this thread, the seizure of Venezuela's oil, is going to drastically affect the price of oil going forward assuming what Trump says he is going to do, is true.

Both Alberta and Venezuela produce heavy oil. Currently Canada supplies 60% of US crude oil imports. But if Trump gets what he wants, all of those US refineries will be flooded with cheaper Venezuelan oil, not Canadian. Oversupply and higher production costs means a bad time for Alberta's economy. Once the US locks in Venezuela as a supplier, it will be very difficult to invest in new pipelines because it's now even more financially unviable, and no company is going to step up to make that investment. We no longer have the US as our biggest customer, so why pay billions to build a pipeline?

Now you say that pipeline is so you can sell the oil to China? How long do you think China is going to need oil for? Unlike the west, they've made a major push towards green energy (especially solar) and are getting off oil because of all the geopolitical risk that it entails (example: see Venezuela this weekend). There is one advantage to being an authoritarian government and not a democracy, they can do what's right for their country and their people, rather than have their right-wing politicians be bribed by a desperate oil & gas industry, to push for a fuel source that should've been moved away from a decade ago.



The world is going to care less and less about fossil fuels as time grows on; while Alberta keeps dreaming of the good old days, other countries are increasingly going towards renewables.


You've b

Let's go back to talking about the Epstein Files, because it's likely that a big reason why the attack on Venezuela happened is to serve as a distraction from the huge topic that was trending on the internet for several days around Christmas. It had many people disgusted and it's not something I wanted to post about until after we got into the new year since it's better to enjoy your family holiday time and not think about the level of evil some people will stoop to in order to cover up their pedophilia.

This is the Lake Michigan FBI tip which was found in the Epstein Files that were recently released:







Read the redacted FBI file here:




The young woman feared for her life if she reported the rape. Her baby was already dead, which suggests that these were people who likely had no compunctions about killing children.





Now a tip is just that, it doesn't have to be true. It's in the Epstein Files because it was related to Epstein and was se

Let me offer up my own view of where we are on the road to the future here, starting with a few assumptions:

- Trump is a Russian stooge, a "useful idiot" that Putin has cultivated since the 1980s and has mostly relied on flattery to keep Trump as his pawn in US politics. More recently, with Russia facing huge looming economic devastation due to the ongoing invasion of Ukraine, I suspect Putin has finally shown Trump that he has damning evidence of Trump's pedophilia (Putin is running out of time, so he's using his "trump" card so to speak to compel Trump to do whatever is needed to force Ukraine to surrender, no more flattery or being Mr Nice Russian Guy)








- Putin has no interest in taking over America or Canada, he mainly wants control of the territories lost when the Soviet Union dissolved AND Putin wants to regain control of the UK, where, prior to the Ukraine invasion, Russian money poured into the area and was used to buy influence for Russian interests. The Russians love bribing right-wing politicians and podcasters to spread their messaging and propaganda.

- with Trump or some other right-wing stooge (JD Vance) as US president, Putin can rest easy as he goes after even more territory once he gets Ukraine (and all of Ukraine's rare earth minerals). More importantly, right-wing politicians work well with dictators: you bribe them with money, they leave you alone to do your conquering elsewhere in the world. That applies to Canada as well, especially the Federal conservative party, formerly the Reform Party, a group of Christian white nationalists who kept failing to get elected after years of always being caught spewing

Nowadays, it will be China that will deliver the counter-response. Russia is on the brink of economic collapse due to  its struggles with its (thankfully) failed invasion of Ukraine. More on that later this month too...
 

JFC, so the US basically just replicated what Russia was trying to do with Ukraine, but did it successfully.
- Putin declares that Ukraine has been infiltrated by Nazis, vows to take over the country to "de-Nazify" Ukraine

- Trump declares that Venezuela is trafficking drugs into the US, will attack the country and its leader to put an end to the drug smuggling.

Most notable quotes from this article:
https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/venezuela-us-military-strikes-maduro-trump/

U.S. strikes Venezuela and captures Maduro; Trump says "we're going to run the country" for now

Trump says U.S. is "in the oil business" and will sell Venezuelan oil

More than once in his press conference, Mr. Trump mentioned Venezuela's oil. The country has the largest proven crude oil reserves in the world.

Asked by reporters about how the country would be run, Mr. Trump replied, "We're going to be running it with a group and we're going to make sure it's run properly."

In other words, someone from the Trump family, probably Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, will be involved and will get filthy rich from the oil sales. The people on Twitter predicted last fall that this was the reason for his attacks on Venezuela, and they were absolutely correct. Now again, if you're Greenland or Canada, ask yourself just how safe you feel right now, when Trump can use any fake justification to take over your country and install his own people to sell off your resources?





Of course, there's another reason he invaded Venezuela...





More on this later because the details are gruesome that I actually wanted to wait until after New Years to pos

Trump warning his followers that his plans to give them a $2000 tariff rebate is in jeopardy if they don't give him some money to stop the Democrats. The grift is real, folks:





But then again, how trustworthy  is the president when last year, his government promised migrants that they'd be paid $1000US if they leave the USA of their own free will. Big shock: they don't seem to have gotten any money whatsoever from the Republicans. Well, why would they? You've left the country, you can't get back in to complain or sue, the GOP laugh all the way to the bank.



Meanwhile, TIME Magazine reports that Trump's own wealth has again skyrocketed while president...





Maybe he just needs the money to pay for his ailing health. After a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal where he was asked again about the bruising on his hands and his swollen ankles, he made his usual claims that the internet quickly pointed out were lies...

From Occupy Democrats:

The Wall Street Journal publishes an explosive story on Trump’s failing health with stunning revelations about his disgusting diet and extremely dubious medical choices!

The stunning revelations confirm what we already know: that not only is Trump a very, very unhealthy man, he is also incredibly stupid.

The article kicks off with the reveal that Trump takes much more aspirin than his doctors say is safe, because…he wants nice, thin blood: “They say aspirin is

…