Despite the Ottawa Police briefly raising the possibility of a military intervention to clear a stubborn holdout of Freedom Convoy truckers blockading their downtown, the Canadian Armed Forces have been quick to say they will be doing no such thing . A spokesperson for the Minister of Defence told the Wall Street Journal on Thursday, "The Canadian Armed Forces are not involved in law enforcement in this situation, and there are no plans for such CAF involvement."
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also said Thursday that a military response is "not in the cards right now." "One has to be very, very cautious before deploying military forces in situations engaging Canadians," he said. (First Reading would also recommend caution before deploying the military against non-Canadians.)
There have only been two prior incidents in modern times of the Canadian military being called in to quell civil unrest. The first, the 1970 October Crisis, actually worked great at stamping out Quebec separatist terrorism. But the sight of armed soldiers detaining even peaceful Quebec nationalists en masse has always been a mark on the legacy of then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau. The second, the 1990 Oka Crisis, had a much more checkered legacy . The military did eventually compel a Mohawk-led protest to stand down their blockade of a disputed golf course expansion, but the whole thing was so messy it's mostly become a template for what not to do. The experience of Oka is arguably a key reason why Canadian law enforcement is hesitant to bring the hammer down on blockades of any kind - even when they completely seize the country's rail lines for days on end.
Spotify has pulled more than 100 episodes of embattled podcaster Joe Rogan's show, according to a web site which tracks the podcast.
JREMissing reported Saturday that 113 episodes of The Joe Rogan Experience, many of them older and recorded before his recent COVID-19 controversy, had been yanked.
Among the missing shows are those featuring well-known conservatives, far-right pundits or conspiracy theorists, including Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes, Michael Malice, Alex Jones and Milo Yiannopoulos, as well as comedians like Rich Vos and Little Esther and Bulletproof founder Dave Asprey.
Rogan has been off Spotify's airwaves for a week. The podcaster apologized and pledged more balance on his wildly popular but controversial podcast on Jan. 30, after a rush of rock legends quit Spotify and accused him of spreading COVID-19 misinformation.
Among Joe Rogan's missing podcast episodes are featuring Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes, Michael Malice, Alex Jones and Milo Yiannopoulos.
Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, singer/songwriter India Arie, Mary Trump and writer Brene Brown are among those who have pulled their work off the platform.
Rogan was forced to apologize a second time Friday, after Arie showed a now-viral clip of Rogan uttering the n-word numerous times in his podcast over the years. Rogan called the instances of him saying the n-word "regretful and shameful."
Upon his return to the platform Friday, Rogan, 54, slammed a 10 p.m. curfew which had been enacted in Montreal last month as COVID infections surged, calling the restriction, "wild."
"It's been pretty clear up until this point that all these lockdowns don't work. They don't stop the spread," he said.
A recent study released by experts at Johns Hopkins backed up Rogan's assertions, finding that lockdowns and other restrictions in the first wave of the pandemic reduced COVID deaths by just .2 percent.
"Again, the District would hope that it isn't forced to consider these admittedly more drastic alternatives, but what action the District ultimately is forced to take is dictated by your actions in this regard."
Comment: Programming pre-schoolers to take on radical activist causes. How 'progressive'.
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