Aren't They Playing A Dangerous Game?

46DegreesNorth

9DegreesEastVille

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Update at bottom of post

Like many others, one of the games I find myself playing these days is "Can you believe people actually believe this stuff?"

Case in point, one of the main takeaways from Abacus Data's latest polling effort:

37% (or 11 million) think “there is a group of people in this country who are trying to replace native born Canadians with immigrants who agree with their political views. This is an articulation of what is commonly referred to as replacement theory.

Scary stuff, and it tracks closer to US'ian preferences than many Canadians (maybe) previously thought.

But still, the notion of that our immigration policy has been designed to replace old stock Canadians to win elections for the Laurentians is so ludicrous that we can rest easy that the other 63% of us will keep things on the rails for the duration, right?

Sure thing.

However, when it comes to the other main takeaways the fine folks at Abacus are trumpeting things get a little murkier:

44% (the equivalent of 13 million adults) believe “big events like wars, recessions and the outcomes of elections are controlled by small groups of people working in secret against us”. Almost as many agree “much of our lives are being controlled by plots hatched in secret places.

Whoah!  I thought at first.

That one is super scary, both the number and the 'belief'.

But then I thought about it a little more...

Of course big deals are ultimately decided by a few people who often meet behind closed doors to discuss things frankly and, presumably, openly.

After all, that's why we elect leaders and stuff.

But that wee bit of pushing in the Abacus polling about the hatching of secret plots makes it sound like everything, regardless whether or not it is above board, is designed to screw us over.

And when you get people to that place it's not too difficult to conclude that those folks willing to step out onto the ledge of the cliff marked autocracy may not all be ultra-reactionaries.

And then there's this one, also from Abacus:

20% believe it is definitely or probably true that “the World Economic Forum is a group of global elites with a secretive strategy to impose their ideas on the world.” Another 37% think it is possibly true or aren’t sure either way.

Now,  just hang on a second there...

I, myself, think, despite the fact that the they now apparently support trade unionism, that the WEF's penchant for pushing a 'stakeholder capitalism' agenda often results in an over reliance on public-private-partnerships that ultimately corrode the common good.

Thus, I am not fully down with Davos man.

And, despite the fact that I consider myself a pretty reasonable fellow, what if I was to start believing that all of this secret plotting and will imposing by the elites has left me and mine powerless to affect change?

In other words, what if all of this flooding of the zone with sh*t, and that includes push polling designed to win social media friends and influence legacy media uncles, gets me to thinking that I don't actually live in a liberal democracy anymore?

Well...

Do you see the potential for real danger in their game?

 

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Update: Monday afternoon...And the legacy media uncles have taken the bait...

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Blame Canada (Again).

OwnThe(EntireCountryOf)

LibsVille

It would appear that the Ohio state legislature is filled to bursting with sh*t posting trolls:

The Ohio House passed a resolution (House Resolution 194) late Wednesday night that urges the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom to add Canada to a religious freedom watch list.

Republican Rep. Tim Ginter (R-Salem) backed the resolution for the way Canada handled lockdowns of churches and actions it took against religious leaders during the pandemic.

“This resolution is not the result of a singular incident or even a handful of incidents. It's a persistent pattern of religious rights violations that has driven us to this point,” Ginter said...

Yes.

You read that right.

The Republican-led house 'passed' the resolution because, apparently, 'China':

...Rep Reggie Stoltzfus (R-Paris Township) said religious leaders who violated COVID protocols in Canada were jailed. And he says that's not a behavior Ohio should condone. He said this resolution would send a strong message to Canada.

"While Ohio has stood up for religious freedom and protected the right to attend religious services, it is clear Canada has not done the same," Stoltzfus said.

Stoltzfus said this behavior is "very similar to what we see in Communist-controlled China."...

As for kangaroo courts, state-sanctioned enemies lists, and palace guard quislings vying to catch the eye of dear leader and his media dung flingers (careful: link is Krakatoa crazy crackers east of Columbus)?

Well...

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HST Fridays...Mr. Nixon's Minions.

Who'sBoohooWasItReally

MankVille



Apropos of nothing at all, except, perhaps, the absence of 'big lie' Republican lawmakers on the US'ian January 6th Committee:

...As usual, the pace picks up at the end. These buggers should be forced to keep at it for 15 or 16 straight hours — heavy doses of speed, pots of coffee, Wild Turkey, etc., force them down to the raving hysterical quick. Wild accusations, etc …

{snip}

Jesus, this waterhead (Republican Senator Ed) Gurney again! You’d think the poor bugger would have the sense to not talk anymore … but no, Gurney is still blundering along, still hammering blindly at the receding edges of (John) Dean’s “credibility” in his now-obvious role as what Frank Reynolds and Sam Donaldson on ABC-TV both described as “the waterboy for the White House.”

Gurney appears to be deaf; he has a brain like a cow’s udder. He asks his questions — off the typed list apparently furnished him by Minority (GOP) counsel, Fred J. Thompson — then his mind seems to wander, his eyes roam lazily around the room while Thompson whispers industriously in his ear, his hands shuffle papers distractedly on the table in front of his microphone … and meanwhile, Dean meticulously chews up his questions and hands them back to him in shreds; so publicly mangled that their fate might badly embarrass a man with good sense …

Hunter Thompson: Fear and Loathing At The Watergate

Mr. Nixon Has Cashed His Cheque; Sept. 1973

From Time magazine's archives on the good Senator Gurney:

A strong Nixon supporter, Gurney served on the Senate committee that investigated the Watergate scandal but was later indicted in 1974 for lying to a grand jury and for bribery in a case involving influence-peddling. He chose not to run for re-election in '74, though he was eventually acquitted of all charges.

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Subheader?....This.


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Establishing A Spine.

PZ Myers, this F-Troop list blogs favourite arachnologist, figures that establishment Democrats in his home country received a spine transplant from an unlikely source last night:

...I’ve seen a bit of the hearings on video, and caught up with summaries in the newspapers. At least I’ve confirmed that Liz Cheney has a spine, I guess my party had to import a Republican to get one...

****

Marcy Wheeler has an interesting take on last night's first episode of the January 6th hearings show:

...Perhaps the most striking part of the hearing was the degree to which, aside from the two live witnesses, Capitol Police Officer Carolyn Edwards and Nick Quested, the hearing relied exclusively on Republicans to make their case...

{snip}

...In short, this was directed at Republicans and relied on Republicans to make the case for democracy...

A most interesting, and potentially effective, strategy indeed. 

The question is, will it even be seen or heard by said Republicans?

After all, while the hearing was being broadcast last night the good Mr. Carlson, man of the trust fund people, was running his show on the Fox Network sans commercials in an apparent effort to make sure that no one being bamoozled reflexively hit the remote button out of gold bond boredom:

...Fox News opted not to air the hearing, which was broadcast live on ABC, NBC, CBS, and most cable news stations. Instead, they ran their two premiere evening programs, Tucker Carlson Tonight and Hannity. But (Stephen) Colbert found it particularly odd that neither show cut away to commercials.

“Do you understand what that means?” he asked the audience. “Fox News is willing to lose money to keep their viewers from flipping over and accidentally learning information… I'm really not surprised — that's the first rule of any cult: never leave the compound.”...

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And, as a side note, do not ever forget, as Driftglass likes to remind those paying attention, repeatedly, that the overwhelming majority of the fine folks behind never Trumper initiatives like the 'Lincoln Project' were the ones that actually recruited the members and built the compound...


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Your Evening Audio... Ballad Of Lou The Welterweight (Felice Brothers Cover)

JustABigDumbKidFrom

FlushingVille

I have no idea why, but this magnificent Felice Brothers tune seems to be a favourite of the Irish.

Go figure...

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Poor, Poor Pitiful He...

Renewal

SchmewnewalVille

It would appear that, now that he and his can no longer pin the 'Dr. No' moniker on John Horgan, that playing the party name change game for all it's worth is pretty much the only thing left for Kevin Falcon.

Katie de Rosa has the story, such as it is, in the Vancouver Sun:

Hundreds of B.C. Liberal members will have their say Saturday on whether the party should change its name, a key plank of Leader Kevin Falcon’s promise to renew a party criticized as out-of-touch with everyday voters in the 2020 election...

{snip}

...If a majority of delegates (at this weekend's BC Liberal Party convention in Penticton) endorse changing the name, Falcon will embark on a provincewide tour this summer to talk to party members in-person and online about a new name. All 45,000 B.C. Liberal party members will have a final vote later this year on whether to go with the new name or stick with the current one...

Gosh.

Can't they just settle on SoCredKingdomComeSuperFunConPeople'sPatriarchalBigTentPoleParty, or some reasonable facsimile thereof, and just get on with it?

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Of course,  if they were to decide on the name sooner rather than later it would deprive Mr. Falcon and all his Snowmen of any chance at a sustained PR bounce over the summer regardless how  Linda Ronstadtian that ultimately proves to be in the end...

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This Is A Public Service Announcement....From Mr. Woodward.

ThisIs(Not)

OnlyATestVille

"I think the evidence is overwhelming that Trump and the people around him were involved in a criminal conspiracy. And as we know, it is a crime to obstruct or attempt to subvert the lawful business of government. I mean, there's no ambiguity in the law. If you bear with me, I wrote down some of the things that actually the Supreme Court has held about somebody who tries to interfere with the necessary, lawful functions of government."...

{snip}

..."What the Supreme Court has held, going back 100 years, that it is a crime if there's deceit, craft, treachery, dishonesty, misrepresentation, overreaching and overt acts," said Woodward. "This is exactly what Trump and these people have done. The task the Jan. 6 Committee has, I think, they're going to have to present new evidence to convince people, because lots of people are not convinced of this, that this was a crime. I think many more are. So, they have a monumental task. It's going to be riveting."...

Bob Woodward, June 7, 2022

****

Have fun watching the public hearings....And, if you need more background details and/or reference materials to refer to, I suggest you have a look at the Brookings Institution's report together with Marcy Wheeler's latest primer.


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Earworm rising from the header/sub-header fog?...This!

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Did The Deep (Trump) State Have A Back-Up Mike Pence Removal Plan?

Yesterday, in the comments to a post on the Trump campaign's concerted, conspiratorial and secretive efforts to generate alternative state elector slates designed to usurp the will of the American people, longtime reader Lew noted that it was Mike Pence who ultimately did the right thing and stopped the attempted Trump State steal on January 6th, 2021.

Specifically, Mr. Pence made it very clear that he would not block the Electoral College certification using the elector slates that were based on actual vote counts within each state, many of which had been confirmed either by recount or court decision.

Mr. Trump was not amused, tweeting the following while the insurrection raged on:

...Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!...

At the same time, Mr. Pence's security detail was attempting to whisk him away from the beseiged Capitol building.

However, it appears that at least one person was concerned that the desire to remove Mr. Pence from the scene before the Electoral College certification took place was not motivated by safety concerns alone.

And who was that person?

Apparently, it was none other than Mr. Pence himself:

Former Vice President Mike Pence reportedly pushed back on orders from his security detail to leave the Capitol on Jan. 6 as supporters of former President Trump stormed the building in protest of Congress’s certification of President Biden’s election win....

{snip}

...With some of those marching through the Capitol chanting, “Hang Mike Pence,” Tim Giebels, the lead special agent in charge of the vice president’s protective detail, asked Pence twice to evacuate the building, according to the (Washington) Post reporters Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker).

Pence reportedly declined, telling Giebels, “I’m not leaving the Capitol.”

According to the book (by Leonnig and Rucker), Giebels then said, “They’re in the building. … The room you’re in is not secure. There are glass windows. I need to move you. We’re going.”

Once Pence was brought down to an area where his armored limousine was waiting, Giebels reportedly told Pence, “We can hold here.”

However, Pence responded, “I’m not getting in the car, Tim,” according to the book.

“I trust you, Tim, but you’re not driving the car,” he added...

Hmmmm...

One can only wonder if, perhaps, we are going to hear about Trump State back-up plan(s) during the January 6th public hearing run.



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Things To Do With Your Dad...

ItWillSoundLikeFinal

JeopardyVille

Because...This!

Which, if my kids are paying attention, has been thematically twisted and stretched to fantasmagorical effect in one of the Felices' latest...

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One somewhat snarky commenter on the Twittmachine noted that, if you squint and look quick, Ms. Roach's Dad looks a little like the good Mr. Jennings...

If you want to hear how smart Ms. Roach really is, check this bit of back and forth with a pre-Glavin-baiting podcast called Canadaland.

And this just in...The Brothers doing Frankie's Gun recently in which, no word of a lie, young Ian actually cracks a smile or two!


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The Deep (Trump) State Machinery In Action.

HidingTheReal

StealVille

From Amy Gardener et al., writing in the Washington Post yesterday:

A staffer for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign instructed Republicans planning to cast electoral college votes for Trump in Georgia despite Joe Biden’s victory to operate in “complete secrecy,” an email obtained by The Washington Post shows.

“I must ask for your complete discretion in this process,” wrote Robert Sinners, the campaign’s election operations director for Georgia, the day before the 16 Republicans gathered at the Georgia Capitol to sign certificates declaring themselves duly elected. “Your duties are imperative to ensure the end result — a win in Georgia for President Trump — but will be hampered unless we have complete secrecy and discretion.”

The Dec. 13, 2020, email went on to instruct the electors to tell security guards at the building that they had an appointment with one of two state senators. “Please, at no point should you mention anything to do with Presidential Electors or speak to the media,” Sinners continued in bold.

The admonishments suggest that those who carried out the fake elector planwere concerned that, had the gathering become public before Republicans could follow through on casting their votes, the effort could have been disrupted... 

Remember, this all happened after Mr. Trump attempted to bully the Georgia Secretary of State to find him the 11,000, plus votes to beat Joe Biden in that wee bit of Electoral College real estate.

It also occurred after Mr. Biden's win in Georgia had been formally certified by the state, re-certified  after a recount, and re-re-certified by the courts.

So, what was the plan of Trump State Machinery, writ large?

To have Mike Pence nullify the legitimate elector slates from swing states won by Biden and install the fake slates ready to flip/steal the Electoral College for Trump on January 6th, 2021.

Imagine that.

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The former Trump State quisling quoted in the piece above has since gone to work for the Republican Secretary of State in Georgia...

If you want to listen to a great podcast on how and why regular folks were bamboozled and/or bludgeoned by the Trump State Machinery on January 6th, 2021 itself,  the eight part podcast 'It Will Be Wild' by Andrea Bernstein and Ilya Marritz (formerly of WNYC) is really good...

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But What About The Pointed Sticks?

NeitherInNor
OutOfLuckVille


We were on the receiving end of the peer review process today and, from a scientific point of view, it was truly satisfying.

Essentially, a band of fellow geeks with true expertise in what we do came to town to grill us about a pending group grant that my lab is playing a small part in. 

The project is exciting and our goal is to go from the bedside to the lab bench and back again in an effort to better the standard of care in a specific disease type that is currently under served.

Given the multidisciplinary nature of the project most of the geeks in the group are clinician-scientists.

These particular folks are really sharp and we are really happy to be helping out with the functional lab bench testing of genes, including one we know well, that they they think are worth considering.

But here's the thing...

Clinician's like to start working really early.

And while I can make a 6:45 am start time once in a while (as was the case this morning), I would rather poke myself with pointed sticks than do that every single day of the working week.

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Don't get me wrong...We bench jockeys are happy to work long and/or weird hours, especially when time on shared equipment gets tight or the mania of chasing a good idea takes hold.... It's just that, on balance, we prefer to work late rather than starting ridiculously early...

Serious work on this particular group grant began about six months ago...Despite the fact that the day of in-person grilling went well and the early reviews were solid, we'll be in limbo about whether the work will be funded for a few weeks longer given that there are a number of really strong groups that are still in the running on this call.

Subheader?...This!

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A Non-Story Story In The Baltic.

TheSwedishNavyIsNoSandpiper

JimmyMcGillVille

Yesterday the AP ran a story by Jari Tanner about NATO-led naval exercises in the Baltic Sea under the following headline:

"NATO holds Baltic Sea naval exercises with Finland, Sweden."

Now, that seems like a super big (not to mention potentially provocative, poke the bear in the eye-type) deal, especially given the earlier announcements by F & S that they intend to join NATO.

There were even veiled rattles of the sabre coming from the likes of Mark Milley, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff in the piece:

“...It is important for us, the United States, and the other NATO countries to show solidarity with both Finland and Sweden in this exercise...”

Except it turns out that, in this case at least, it was little more than kabuki theatre-based wand waving given the following from deep with the piece's buried lede:

...As NATO’s close partners, Finland and Sweden have participated in the naval drill since the mid-1990s...

All of which begs the real (snark-laden) question based on the image at the top of the post...

What the heck was Kim Wexler doing in Stockholm with General Milley, shown in uniform on the right, over the weekend just past?

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The (Young Musical) Kids Are Alright.

TheyDoWayMoreThanLizzy

SingerSongwriterVille

I listen to a whole lot of podcasts in which the host(s) talk to musicians who are camped out on just about every rung on the ladder of 'success'. 

And, almost invariably (good example here), the talk turns to how there is no way for anybody to make a living these days because of the demise of 'industry'.

But here's the thing...

There are young folks out there, like the two young women in the video above, who are making it.

And they're doing it on their own terms without any of the trappings or constraints of an exploitative big money record/conglomerate/streaming industry sucking the life blood out of them. 

In the case of 'Reina del Cid' and others like them, they have hit on a musical formula, that if they clearly weren't enjoying themselves so much, might seem a bit cynical. 

Essentially, these kids have built a fanbase by playing to the Olds with really excellent covers of tunes like the one above.

And the Olds reciprocate by supporting the kids monetarily on Patreon and by buying tickets to their shows, worldwide.

On the flipside, because they are making a reasonable living off their cover work, the kids have the time and the resources to create and play new music of their own.

How do I know about these kids like these and their so-called 'strategy'?

Well, if you haven't figured it out already, I'm one of the Olds who are happy to be hooked on it.  

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Bigger E. works her own version of the strategy, albeit more live and in person than online, these days...At the moment she and her partner are off to Montreal to do their thing for the month of June...Reports of their musical exploits are (very) likely to follow...

Subheader?...When the guy and the girl in 'Once' go looking for players to take into the recording studio to do their 'singer songwriter stuff' they find a band of reprobates on Grafton Street in Dublin who tell them 'We Only Play (Thin) Lizzy.'



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It's Not Over 'Till It's Over.

WhyPublicHealthMandatesMatter

PopulationVille

From Erig Ting writing for SF Gate on Thursday:

Last month, (San Francisco) Bay Area counties announced that were opting not to mandate masks indoors amid the current uptick of COVID-19 cases, citing low hospitalization numbers, as well as the fact that the highly vaccinated region is well-protected against severe illness and death.

On Thursday, Alameda County broke ranks by once again implementing an indoor mask mandate "to limit the impact of increasing COVID-19 cases on hospitalizations." The mandate, which takes effect June 3, applies to most indoor settings, save K-12 schools and the city of Berkeley, which sets its own health protocols...

An indoor mask mandate. 

It's easy, and, if everyone partakes, it works.

The following is from the synopsis and abstract of a study by Laurence Aitchison et al. from the University of Bristol published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences  last Tuesday:

We resolve conflicting results regarding mask wearing against COVID-19. Most previous work focused on mask mandates; we study the effect of mask wearing directly. We find that population mask wearing notably reduced SARS-CoV-2 transmission (mean mask-wearing levels corresponding to a 19% decrease in R[eproduction number]). We use the largest wearing survey (n = 20 million) and obtain our estimates from regions across six continents. We account for nonpharmaceutical interventions and time spent in public, and quantify our uncertainty...

{snip}

...In light of these results, policy makers can effectively reduce transmission by intervening to increase mask wearing.

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And for those wondering (including, I suppose, the trolls who have been filling the comment inbox to bursting with unread dross that I refuse to wurlitzer), unless a population is past the point of no return (i.e. an R of 5 or greater) a 19% reduction in R is significant.

Image at the top of the post: Case count per 100K population in Alameda County via the NY Times.

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When, Exactly, Did Grover Norquist Move To Saskatchewan?

"I'm not in favor of abolishing the government. I just want to shrink it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."

Grover Norquist, 2001

Mr. Norquist is a long time US'ian Republican operative going all the way back to the days when he helped Oliver North raised the funds to supply arms to the Contras.

Norquist is also the person most responsible for pushing the Republican mantra of tax cuts and austerity designed to shift government resources from the public to the private realm.

This is a doctrine that has spread throughout the Western world as a tsunami of so-called public-private partnerships in which the public takes on all the risk and private companies rake in all the profit, often with cronies standing just off stage as they fill their boots.

But what does that have to do with current day Saskatchewan?

Well, it turns out that the province has a real problem with surgical backlogs.

As you might expect, a lot of that is due to the shifting of resources away from elective surgeries, especially knee and hip replacements, during COVID times.

However, after getting to a really good place in 2015, backlogs in Saskatchewan have been increasing steadily since 2016:

Link

And what happened back then?

Well, in 2016 Premier Brad Wall signalled that huge cuts in government spending were coming before he unveiled a budget of extreme austerity in early 2017.

Mr. Wall promptly quit and Scott Moe became the premier that oversaw all the bathtub drowning to come.

So...

How does Mr. Moe plan to deal the backlog program that he and his helped generate over the last six years?

I think you already know the answer to that one:

Saskatchewan’s government plans to hire a private company to help clear a backlog of surgeries that ballooned during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Ministry of Health confirmed it’s in talks with the Saskatchewan Health Authority on hiring a new third-party provider, days after Premier Scott Moe hinted the government wants to pay a private company to perform procedures such as hip and knee replacements for people on the long public waiting list...

{snip}

...Moe alluded to an “active” formal procurement offer for such a service. A government spokesman confirmed the government has actually yet to launch such a bid and said Moe was referring to a different, less-formal document. The Ministry of Health confirmed that a formal procurement offer is coming this summer...

{snip}

...The province already has an agreement with Calgary-based Surgical Centres Inc., which performs cataract, ear, nose, throat and other surgeries at facilities in Regina and Saskatoon. The SHA paid that company more than $10 million in 2021, according to public accounts.

The company has hired a consulting firm to lobby Saskatchewan’s government with a stated goal of “work(ing) with the Ministry of Health to assist in the surgical backlog.”

Kevin Doherty, a former Sask. Party cabinet minister who currently works for Prairie Sky Strategies in Alberta, registered as a lobbyist for SCI last Friday...

{snip}

...The government has indicated it’s interested in a dedicated private facility for orthopaedic surgeries like hip and knee replacements, which make up a disproportionate share of the more than 35,000 surgeries on the waiting list as of late April...

It's all there...Austerity that cripples the public system which justifies the need to go private aided by cronyism followed by a guaranteed market share for the favoured saviour(s) with little or no risk.

A sweet deal, indeed, for the chosen few that, in the end, is doomed to go sour for everyone else.


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The piece quoted from above is really an excellent one, with a sharp-eyed look at the issue from all angles, by Zak Vescera in the Saskatoon StarPhoenix.

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