BROKEN COUNTRY, BROKEN FOOT

and the most important interview this year.

The well wishes, personal notes, flowers and medical advice are uplifting and very much appreciated as the saga of My Left Foot continues. Six more weeks of non weight bearing which essentially means trapped at home — on the couch watching Succession reruns and titrating pain meds. Intermittently, day to day, I feel like each of Logan Roy’s banged up children. Bewildered, trapped and downtrodden — but without the agony-easing trappings of the one percent. I would accept a lot of abuse if only I could fly private. Who wouldn’t given the state of air travel.

Vulnerability is not my thing, as you might have noticed but the persona of the tough, relentless reporter has evaporated into the reality of helplessness. I am torn between leaning into it while waving the white flag of surrender or pushing the boundaries of what is medically permissible.

The biggest surprise for me is the exhaustion that accompanies physical calamities like my fall, three weeks ago. Looking back, it is a miracle more serious damage wasn’t done. This aging body makes sure I know how lucky I was. Small pockets of discomfort roll across my physical landscape without rhyme or reason. A sore knee turns into an aching wrist which the next day gives way to a squirrelly right ankle. Is this normal?

Wearing the plastic ortho boot makes me feel like a giant oaf and so all vestiges of femininity are erased. A growing fleet of medical devices turn our otherwise stylish apartment into a depressing old age home diorama — but without the urine smells. I highly recommend something call the Knee Rover in lieu of crutches, as gliding down our hallways, like a carefree kid on a scooter provides some joy throughout the day. So there is that. But enough about me. Below photo from the Knee Rover site.

My predicament is piffling compared to that of our country’s trucker/protestors who are bearing the full brunt of the elites’ revenge against the unwashed masses. Intrepid journo Mocha Bezirgan broke the story that three of the Coutts, Alberta protestors charged with mischief — not the same group as the Coutts Four — were found guilty on Tuesday by a jury. My heart sank.

Obviously the unfairness of it all clouds the story. The jury verdict speaks to a war against our working class and normal citizens who just want to be heard in this great, unravelling democracy. The decision made me worry for the first time about what might happen to Tamara and Chris. From the Globe and Mail:

The three men on trial in Alberta for their roles in the highway blockade in protest of government-ordered restrictions during the pandemic have been found guilty on a charge of mischief over $5,000.

The jury convicted Marco Van Huigenbos, Alex Van Herk and George Janzen around 8:30 p.m. in a Lethbridge courtroom. The six men and six women deliberated for a little more than four hours Tuesday evening. The trio were free to leave and will be sentenced at a later date. They face up to 10 years in jail.

Justice Keith Yamauchi, prior to the jury delivering its verdict, warned the gallery to maintain decorum and cautioned he would have anyone disrespecting his order escorted out. The men’s supporters stayed silent as the jury foreman delivered the three guilty verdicts

I had a long conversation with Marco Van Huigenbos yesterday afternoon. He is resigned to the idea that we’ve reached a point where challenging the government in meaningful ways means you might have to accept a prison sentence. He feels it is likely in his case.

The Crown had prosecutorial discretion. A fully functioning democracy holds high the principal of fostering a vibrant public square. But that’s not where we are.

Then there is jury nullification — voting to acquit despite the crown proving the elements of its case. But that didn’t happen either.

Jury nullification refers to the behaviour of a jury that votes to acquit a defendant of criminal charges despite believing that: a) the defendant did in fact commit the actions with which she is charged; and, b) such actions are, indeed, prohibited by law. While there are many objections to this practice, the most striking thing about jury nullification is that nothing is done to actually prevent or punish jurors who behave this way. In this paper, I explore three rationales for why jury nullification is an officially tolerated, if not necessarily welcome, element of Anglo-American criminal law jury trials. All three of these rationales centre in one way or another on the idea that the very concept of a jury trial necessitates allowing the jury to extend its traditional purview in such a manner.

Marco believes the real possibility of prison time is an outcome now palatable and even acceptable to a country with no working news media and an elite class whose edicts are above criticism — no matter how dangerous they are. He made me realize, as have the trials of Tamara and Chris — that we are already in a new phase of history.

Coutts and Ottawa were separate protests. In the Trudeau World Order, dissidents, no matter how righteous the cause, are fair game. We have become what we feared. Our diplomats scold other countries about poor human rights records while protestors here are incarcerated.

This is one of the most important conversations you will hear and so I am hauling my butt into our little home studio at noon, eastern to record for a pared-down, show drop tonight. Our future scheduling is still up in the air but I couldn’t let this story pass.

Do support Mocha Bezirgan, the only journalist consistently witnessing for us at the trials of the Coutts accused. And include Roxanne Halverson, Gord McGill and Ray McGinnis who are also all over it. Meanwhile the pre-trial for the Coutts Two, still behind bars is continuing under a publication ban.

The tide is turning on Gaza - prompted by the gruesome and apparently targeted attack on seven staffers of World Central Kitchen who were in the process of setting up a feeding operation. Their little convoy, which had alerted the IDF to its route, was well-marked with WCK logos. Even so it was hit three separate times.

I will be writing more on where we are but I can say without any hesitation that my early reporting on this, starting on October 13th has been born out. The shooting of white-flag waving escaped Israeli hostages. The killing of Hindi, a young girl, who’d spent days trapped in a car with the dead bodies of her family; shot along with her rescuers from the ambulance service. The destruction of virtually all medical infrastructure. The slaughter of journalists and aid workers and the ever climbing civilian casualty numbers. Over 34 thousand now, and yes some of those will be Hamas fighters but given that two thirds are women and children — and that MOST are children, that argument falls flat. Plus it doesn’t include the poor souls who died under the rubble. Some questions have been raised about the accuracy of these numbers and we will deep dive them soon.

War crimes, dangerous escalation, atrocity propaganda, free speech clampdowns and of course the exposure of some of our heroes as pure partisans who are sacrificing our hard fought battles. In their world, free speech and the ability to protest are only valid if those engaged in it agree with our views. Thank God big voices like Matt Walsh and Tucker Carlson are speaking up. Bari Weiss, Ben Shapiro, Douglas Murray and the rest should hang their heads in shame. This morning on Fox, Newsweek’s Batya Ungar-Sargon did not correct one of its hosts who was still shilling the oven-baked infant propaganda story which was thoroughly debunked two months ago. Is she an Israel-supporter before she is a truth-seeking journalist? I believe she has an obligation to correct propagandistic falsehoods. But that’s just me.

My thank-you gift to you is this debate in which a comedian bests Ungar-Sargon and Dennis Prager — purely by having done the kind of research a good journalist does. Do watch the whole thing when you have time.

Some journalists and influencers who were silent when it was dangerous to speak up are now sensing a change in the weather and are beginning to call for a ceasefire. But that’s not courage, it is calculation.

Maybe the only oath we should honour these days is:

#truthovertribe

See you later on the pod with Marco.

Stay critical!