Ryan Kelpin

NEW: A UN report found Israel is committing "mediacide." A fundamental aspect? Western news helped. "Canadian news media has not only helped Israel commit mediacide and covered for their genocide of Palestinians, they refuse to report that their role in doing so has been established by the UN."

NEW: Can Bradford Be Trusted with the Strong Mayor Powers? With veto power over many city council decisions and the ability to set the budget, appoint civil servants and restructure committees, Bradford could remake Toronto’s government in his image, writes Ryan Kelpin.

Interested in urban neoliberalism? Here's a new peer-reviewed journal article from Carlo Fanelli and me on the structural limitations of Toronto's governance within the creatures of the province provision and capitalism. #toronto journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

My newest article on the issue of strong mayor powers in Toronto (particularly veto power) and the potential for Brad Bradford to use them to overrule the will of council and Torontonians more widely. @progresstoronto.bsky.social @desmondcole.bsky.social www.thegrindmag.ca/can-bradford...

Really need to use Bluesky more adequately as part of my research and workflow. PREPARE FOR SOME LINK DROPS.

Canadian Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre recently appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience. He offered a blend of anti-government populism and free-market triumphalism in a pitch that was aimed at US capital as much as Canadian voters.

This seems to get what to think about Chomsky and Epstein more or less right. canadiandimension.com/articles/vie...

Quite a few articles out for peer review right now. Hopefully expect some stuff on Peter Brimelow, Pierre Poilievre/Milton Friedman, James Buchanan/Canadian Taxpayers Federation in 2026. Have others nearly finished and in the tank. Plus my book manuscript is at UofT Press... Hopefully a good year.

It's kind of an amazing level of corruption because many leaders in the last 100 years have been overthrown for this kind of shit.

She's been upgraded from grifter to right wing propagandist POS

It’s sorta funny that people still deny that Medea Benjamin isn’t a red/brown when she shouts it from the rooftops

Well that is a reason to unionize and unionize immediately.

Half of us are depending on an ever-expanding real estate bubble to sustain our financial wellbeing while the other half faces a life of precarity until the bubble deflates. Restoring affordability means rebuilding the economy on something other than housing speculation, writes James Hardwick.

Folks, I'm hoping to go to the NDP leadership convention in Winnipeg in March to cover it for The Orchard. In order to do so, I need 16 new paid subscribers by the end of the year. Who's gonna help me? www.readtheorchard.org

Don't miss your least-favourite notorious podcast has-been finally taking some hard questions in this critical conversation on accountability and Canadian media with your pal @youcaughtscott.com! readthecatch.ca/accounts-and... 🔶

Cross correlate this data with canceled programs at these universities

RFK Jr: "Two weeks ago we ended, under your leadership, a twenty year war on women". Three out of five men in this shot have been accused of sexual misconduct, harassment or abusive behaviour towards women. A fourth signed into law a near-total abortion ban in his state as governor.

Bingo

This is wonderful

"Society pushing the lie that there are multiple genders and everyone should be whatever they want to be is demonic and severely harms American youth." This passage is objectively "offensive" as the instructor noted, and given the instructor is trans, likely discriminatory!

Charlie Kirk was a champion of free speech and anyone who says otherwise will be fired

An easy story for reporters in tech and extremism right now might be to ask major music streaming platforms why they quietly let Skrewdriver back on some time this year

For fucksakes. Can prominent pro Palestine Canadian leftist journos stop making friends with the far right? First Lascaris praising Candace Owens and now this shit. Not exactly being good allies to the LGBTQ community...

Alberta teachers are compiling lists of the books in their classrooms so the #ABGov can tell them which ones to toss. On a related note, Parkland Institute will be releasing a new report on the "Parental Rights" movement in AB next week. ualberta-ca.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Ughhh. You were so close. 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️ "Bad political instincts." No!! Carney is a central banker! Buddies with Trump! Oligarchs on the same side of the class war against us! Wake the fuck up!

My newest piece for Jacobin traces the ideological inheritances of Danielle Smith. jacobin.com/2025/08/albe... @johncke.bsky.social @charlieangus104.bsky.social @dgrdon.bsky.social @nolore.bsky.social @youcaughtscott.com @desmondcole.bsky.social @temcd.bsky.social @dillonwamsley.bsky.social

Think about every pro-Israel person who denied this was the plan for the past 22 months; who gaslit you; denied this to you; pretended this wasn't the plan. And then never believe those liars about anything ever again.

So... according to Greenblatt, Elon doing the Nazi salute wasn't so bad. But students protesting... What a fucking disaster the ADL is. What a joke.

Never in my lifetime has the Democratic Party been as much as a ghost ship as it is today. Incredible there aren't more insurgent primary campaigns. Power is just sitting there and the only thing guarding it is fossils like Chuck Schumer

Pierre Poilievre, speaking to caucus yesterday, referred to what I can only assume are the anti-genocide protests as “rampaging antisemitic riots.” He got a standing ovation. For seemingly pledging to crack down on people who want a genocide stopped. Very “free speech” of him. Fucking foul

Notice that they're now shifting from "we need our parking spots" to "transit gets in the way of cars" type arguments.

I live in Alberta and I have no words to tell how much I respect and LOVE this!!! Thank you #FirstNations 🪶🍁

Far right extremists, inspired by Trump per Whitmer herself, tried to kidnap her. Trump himself later suggested it was a fake plot and mocked it. He called her ‘that woman in Michigan’ and led a crowd that chanted ‘lock her up.’ Today Whitmer hugged him on the tarmac. This is why Dems lose. 🤷🏽‍♂️👇🏽

Appropriate energy when dealing with brown shirts.

According to three members of Congress, Rumeysa Ozturk has been repeatedly denied access to her lawyer, refused asthma medication despite attacks, forced to endure extreme temperatures, and denied religious accommodations. Her ‘crime’? An oped in a school newspaper. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/25/o...

History books will barely be able to cover the montrous depravity of Trump's actions, since we can barely cover it in daily news accounts to imagine having to pick just a few examples to summarize his evil on a page in a HS text. But this could make the cut.

Two North State episodes in one week? That’s what you get when it’s election time. @nolore.bsky.social joined me to review how journalism has performed during the federal election. We have notes. Check it out.

Bill Maher has the behavior of a very specific band of boomer white guy: an "equal-opportunity offender" perfectly willing to weaponize identity politics and cry like a baby the second anyone gives back to him even 1/8 of what he dishes out. I guessed his birth year (1956) instantly and correctly