Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Jason Warick reports on Steven Lewis' blunt conclusion that Scott Moe and his government have been "really stupid" in taking "half-assed" steps in response to the fall wave of COVID-19. And Adam Hunter contrasts Moe's refusal to consider any meaningful steps to control the spread of COVID-19 in the name of the economy against the recognition by actual economists that nobody benefits from uncontrolled outbreaks.

- Patricia Treble points out the consequences of Alberta's failure to accept the advice of doctors that the province needed a "circuit breaker" to avert what's now the worst outbreak in Canada. Susan Wright takes note of Jason Kenney's choice to hide as case loads explode under his failed leadership. And Taylor Lambert discusses why Kenney is fixated on a provincial contact tracing app which has produced virtually no results at a cost of a million dollars and counting, rather than the federal one which is fully functional and free for his province to use. 

- Michael Laxer writes that while Doug Ford is using the language of a "lockdown" to try to claim credit for action, he's actually doing little more than allowing big business to keep operating while shutting down anything smaller and locally owned. And PressProgress documents Brian Pallister's apparent belief that the media should do his job in developing a pandemic plan.

- And with conservative premiers showing their utter inability to deal with problems which require effective government action, Tom Parkin makes the case for the federal government to step into the breach.

- Finally, Ian Welsh discusses the crucial difference between enemies and friends in the political sphere. And that distinction maps closely onto Luke Savage's warning that the Biden administration can't repeat Barack Obama's errors in primarily serving and appeasing the corporate class, rather than fighting for the people whose interests have long been neglected in the halls of power.