Democracy gone Astray: Friday, December 09, 2011

Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.

This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Friday, December 09, 2011

Respect mah authoritah!

Like Eric Cartman, the obnoxious 8-year-old traffic cop on a tricycle in the classic South Park cartoon, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives seem to be hollering Respect mah authoritah! at every turn and hauling out the billy club to make their point.

In the past few days alone they’ve clubbed a Cree community in crisis, dissed the Federal Court of Canada and shrugged off a dirty tricks campaign. This arrogance may come back to bite them.

Consider the Attawapiskat fiasco.

When Chief Theresa Spence declared an emergency in the remote James Bay community because families with young children were facing the winter ice-up in rotting sheds and flimsy tents, many Canadians reacted with shock, shame and compassion. Not the Harper government. It held the band council responsible. Harper told Parliament that Ottawa had pumped millions into the town, and promptly put its finances in the hands of a federal manager. He’ll be paid $1,300 a day … with band money.

“Their solution is to blame the victim,” Spence and the band council said. They accused Ottawa of colonialism, bullying and sheer ignorance. One resident called Harper “a schoolyard bully.”

If you knew a woman who lived alone and had a lingering illness, and if you had known about her illness for a long time but done nothing, and if it finally dawned on you that the woman needed help, would you break her arm in order to get her an ambulance?

That is, in effect, what the Toronto Community Housing Corporation is doing to my friend Anne. She lives at 40 Asquith. No, TCHC did not break her arm; they did, however, send her a letter telling her that her tenancy will end on Dec. 25.

Get the hell out.

And have a Merry Christmas.

I talked with Anne the other day; and when I say we talked, I mean I wrote questions and she wrote answers. Anne is deaf.

She is also 86 years old, and she has been deaf since she was in her teens. She is tiny and sweet and fierce, and she retains the posture of a ballet student, but — brace yourself for some jargon — she has clutter issues.

Her apartment is hip-deep in stuff: odds and ends of books, magazines, toys, games, dolls piled here and scattered there. She apparently has bedbugs, although I could see no sign that she herself is being bitten.

Stomping on Israel's liberal values

An ill wind is blowing through Israel’s Knesset. If passed, a spate of bills sponsored by the governing coalition will have a chilling effect on freedom of speech and compromise the judiciary’s independence.

The laws on the table include the imposition of draconian taxes to impede foreign funding of NGOs, a politicization of the selection of judges and a loosening of libel laws that will have the effect of curbing investigative journalism. They follow previous laws that also restrict open dissent, especially by citizens who aren’t Jewish.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has done little to stop this disturbing trend. Driven by a desire to keep his government intact and to undermine what’s left of Israel’s liberal social and political elites, he’s enabling a process that, if successful, will reshape the country’s institutional values.

Mr. Netanyahu targeted the “old elites” when first elected prime minister in 1996. Defeated three years later, he blamed what he believed was a biased establishment. When re-elected in 2009, he again formed a coalition of religious and nationalist interests. This time, he’s determined to complete his project by ensuring long-term Likud dominance in pivotal decision-making junctures.

A northern regulator has approved a controversial lead-zinc mine in a national park reserve and world heritage site.

The Mackenzie Environmental Impact and Review Board has recommended federal Northern Development Minister John Duncan give the final okay to Canadian Zinc Corp. (0.760.068.57%)’s Prairie Creek mine in the Nahanni National Park Reserve.

“I'm very happy,” said Canadian Zinc president John Kearney.

“We hope with this positive report that the timelines can now move quickly.”

Mr. Kearney said he didn't anticipate any problems meeting the conditions recommended by the board, which involve improving water storage, tailings management and ore concentrate transport.

The mine in the Northwest Territories has been bitterly opposed by environmentalists and the board's approval was not unanimous.

Critics say the situation has taken a turn for the worse under the current government

Anthony Lacavera arrived on Canada’s wireless scene with a sunny attitude and a promise to shake up the industry. But after spending the past two years bogged down in regulatory and legal proceedings, the once-optimistic CEO of Globalive Communications is beginning to sound like a different man. Though he remains “bullish” on upstart Wind Mobile’s chances, Lacavera says he’s been forced to abandon his original game plan as dark clouds begin to gather over Wind and other new entrants.

It’s been a long, see-saw battle: Industry Canada, which paved the way for new wireless start-ups by preventing giants like BCE Inc., Telus Corp. and Rogers Communications Inc. from bidding on certain licences during a 2008 auction, approved Globalive’s corporate structure only to have the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission reject it over concerns that the involvement of a giant multinational telecom and its Egyptian billionaire founder violated foreign ownership laws. Embarrassed, then-industry minister Tony Clement scrambled to have cabinet overrule the regulator and then promptly lost a legal challenge in federal court. The decision was later reversed on appeal and could possibly be overturned yet again if the Supreme Court of Canada decides to look at the case.

“It’s a ridiculous set of events,” a weary-sounding Lacavera says. “And it was all very high profile. So now any investor thinking of investing in Canada sees that on the radar screen and would be saying, ‘Do I really want to risk my money?’ ”

DURBAN, South Africa — Canada lacks "credible scientific information" to support its claims that oilsands development is environmentally responsible, putting the industry's economic future in jeopardy, says newly-released briefing material prepared for Environment Minister Peter Kent and senior management in his department.

The background notes, emailed to Environment Canada's top bureaucrat, Paul Boothe, cast doubt on the integrity of environmental assessments on new projects exploiting Alberta's natural bitumen deposits, also known as the oilsands.

They also noted that the regulatory shortcomings have left the industry ill-prepared to defend itself from foreign environmental policies, such as proposed climate legislation in Europe to reduce pollution from transportation fuels, as well as criticism on the international stage at events such as the global warming summit in this coastal resort town.

"National and international concern over the environmental footprint of oilsands production represents a growing threat to the economic future of the industry," said the briefing material, sent on June 4 by Assistant Deputy Minister Michael Keenan and released to Postmedia News on Thursday evening through access to information legislation. "Governments need to provide assurance that oilsands production is environmentally responsible in order to secure the industry's social license to operate."

NDP blames Tory ‘Grinch’ as EI offices buckle under overtime cuts

The federal New Democrats say the Human Resources Minister is acting like the Grinch who stole Christmas for refusing to approve overtime pay to employment-insurance processing agents who normally work extra hours in December to deal with a seasonal spike in claims.

“Officers processing EI claims will not be able to put in overtime over the holiday season, unlike previous years, thanks to this government,” Alain Giguère, the NDP MP for Marc–Aurèle–Fortin told the House of Commons on Friday.

“This is, however, the season when Service Canada needs to deal with an increase in the number of claims from unemployed people – mothers and fathers who won’t be able to pay their bills and offer their children some gifts,” Mr. Giguère said. “Has this government become the Grinch who stole Christmas?”

Human Resources Minister Diane Finley replied that Mr. Giguère has facts wrong.

“There is a rise in EI at this time of year and that’s why we have a long-standing tradition of adding extra resources in order to process them and we will continue to respect that tradition,” she said. “We will be adding additional resources.”

OTTAWA - The troubled native community of Attawapiskat says it has major problems with the federal government's offer of evacuation and 15 new modular homes, and is countering with its own proposals.

In a letter to the minister of aboriginal affairs, Attawapiskat's chief, Theresa Spence, says the 15 homes offered are not enough; her community needs 22.

Spence is demanding that Minister John Duncan rescind his decision to place her reserve under third-party management � a decision that removes the band's power over its finances and usually indicates deep financial problems.

And she says there is no way her band will pay such a third-party manager to take over, although they will agree to a full audit going back five years as requested by Duncan.

The Canadian Press revealed Thursday that the government appointee will be paid about $1,300 a day, with the money coming from the band's administration budget.

"My community will not consider third party managers nor pay for them out of our already depressed band support funding budget," Spence writes in all caps to stress the band's adamance.

The total cost of the House of Commons to taxpayers was approximately $424 million from April 1, 2010 to March 31, 2011, according to numbers in a report tabled by Speaker Andrew Scheer on Friday.

That's actually less than was anticipated. The $424,264,000 spent over the year was $16,514,000 less than was planned. In every category of spending, from standing committees to benefit plans, final costs were either less than estimated or exactly on target.

The estimates are adjusted and revised over the course of the year, which may contribute to how closely the final numbers match the projections.

The largest share of that money, 55 per cent, went to costs associated with House members and officers.

The total cost of the House in 2009-10 was actually slightly more than in the past year. The total cost that year was $427,692,000.

The information was published in the annual Report to Canadians. The non-partisan report also details the activities and initiatives undertaken by the House over the year.

Origin
Source: Huff

OWS Occupies Movie-Set Replica of Itself, for Real

It's straight out of a Don DeLillo novel: A few hours after television producers set up a replica of Occupy Wall Street for the filming of a new episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, the real Occupy Wall Street announced plans to occupy the fake one. At 11:30 p.m. the call to occupy the set went out on Twitter with the hash tag #Mockupy. Located at nearby Foley Square, the fake camp includes a replica of the OWS kitchen and library as well as numerous tarps, tents, and signs. "They've delivered us this perfectly wrapped Christmas present with a bow on top: They rebuilt our camp," OWS organizer Jake DeGroot told me shortly before the announcement went out. "How could we not go and take it?"

Here's video of the fake Zuccotti Park being occupied by the real occupiers:

As of about 1:00 a.m., the police had begun to push protesters out of the park and dismantle the set. "NYPD does not respect Law and Order," the crowd chanted cheekily. At one point, an occupier asked an officer, "Are these real barricades, or a set piece?"

Within about an hour police had cleared out the protesters, which was less time than it took clear the real Zuccotti, but probably more than they'd need on a TV show. "You guys just cleared a fake Zuccotti Park," the tweeter @NewYorkist told a police officer, who countered that they'd done no such thing: "We didn't clear a fake Zuccotti," he insisted. "They're taking the set down."

A few minutes later, the occupiers regrouped on a nearby set of steps for an impromptu general assembly. "This is beautiful, and this points out to us a more clever way to fight the struggle," someone said, echoed by the people's mic.

"Whose park?" another man yelled.

Everyone knew their lines. "Our park!"

Origin
Source: Mother Jones

Out of Step With the Flock: Bishops Far Behind on Birth Control Issues

Last month, the Vatican issued a clarion call to all people of conscience. It wasn't about contraception or masturbation or gay marriage or any of the other aspects of peoples' love lives have drawn religious ire through the ages. Instead, the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace stepped forward to question the morality of a global economic system that relentlessly enriches a privileged few while the rest of humanity struggles to keep their heads above water.

The council reaffirmed the notion highlighted in Pope Benedict XVI's 2009 encyclical on the economy, arguing that open markets -- usually the engines of prosperity -- can foster poverty and inequality when unscrupulously exploited for selfish ends. As a counterbalance, the council called for international standards and safeguards to stem the world's worsening inequities in the concentration of wealth.

With millions of Americans looking for jobs and struggling in this economy, you might expect the nation's Catholic bishops to join the Vatican's quest to level the economic playing field. However, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) have other priorities. They are consumed just now with the subject of birth control. The bishops' leadership is unhappy about a new national policy that includes birth control under preventive health care: a designation that requires new health plans to cover it in full, without the co-payments and deductibles that keep many women from using it effectively. This policy, which was adopted last summer and goes into effect next August, is both laudable and common-sense.

HHS: Let's Treat ALL Women Like Children

Did you assume the politicization of science was gone with the Bush administration and the reality-based community was back in charge? Think again. In a surprise move that has outraged women’s rights activists, HHS head Kathleen Sebelius overruled the FDA’s proposal to make Plan B One-Step, a single-pill form of emergency contraception, available over the counter. According to the New York Times, this is the first time in our history that a health secretary has overruled the FDA.

Sebelius claims that her reason is that the FDA didn’t show that 11-year-old girls, some 10 percent of whom are fertile, understand how to follow the EC directions. Here are the instructions, courtesy of an alert commenter at www.nytimes.com:

“Plan B One-Step dosage consists of a single tablet taken once. A second tablet or dose is not required. The Plan B One-Step tablet should be taken as soon as possible and not more than 72 hours (3 days) after unprotected intercourse or contraceptive failure."

If a sixth grader can’t understand those elementary, crystal-clear instructions, we should just move back to the caves, because civilization is finished. As has been pointed out, we assume middle-schoolers can handle Tylenol, which is not only easy to overdose on but has been used in suicides. If Sebelius is really worried about what kids can purchase at Duane Reade, she should start with products that actually can be used dangerously.

It's not only one percenters that Americans consider rich.

More than half of those recently polled by Gallup said an income of no more than $150,000 would qualify that person as rich. When asked how much money per year would be necessary for them to consider themselves "rich," 53 percent mentioned an income of $150,000 or less, and 71 percent said an income of $300,000 would be enough.

Wealth marketing HNW Inc. considers an income of more than $350,000 per year enough to push someone into the one percent. But they also say most one percenters aren't aware of their exceptional status.

That may be because of extreme levels of income inequality among the richest of Americans. Steeper inequality exists among those in the top tenth of the income scale than elsewhere in the income spectrum, leading to a comparative sense of poorness for many wealthy Americans, according to an analysis by the Tax Policy Center cited by The New York Times.

Overall income inequality has spiked over the past three decades. While incomes of the poorest Americans grew by only 20 percent between 1979 and 2007, the incomes of the top one percent skyrocketed by 275 percent, according to a recent report by the Congressional Budget Office.

WASHINGTON -- Newt Gingrich loves selling himself - both as a presidential hopeful and as a for-profit author.

As he seeks the GOP nomination, the former House speaker frequently combines traditional political campaigning with the sales job for his books and films that has earned him millions. As his rivals on Friday scheduled busy days with voters in early nominating states such as Iowa and New Hampshire, Gingrich planned a single public event: a book signing in the nation's capital.

Gingrich, enjoying a surge in the polls just a month before the first contests are held, prides himself on his non-traditional campaign style. It isn't clear whether it will pay off politically. But it certainly has not hurt his own income.

Gingrich's personal financial disclosure form shows that he and wife, Callista, reported between $500,000 and $1 million in assets from Gingrich Productions, the couple's media company that produces books and films. The filings also list a promissory note worth between $5 million and $25 million owed to the production company, records show, although details of that asset are unclear.

FEMEN, Ukrainian Women's Rights Group, Protests Russian Elections

Russians aren't the only people protesting the allegedly rigged parliamentarian elections held earlier this month.

Turns out FEMEN, a Ukrainian feminist group, is also up in arms about the win of Vladimir Putin's United Russia party in the Dec. 4 elections.

To show their disapproval, FEMEN protesters stripped down in front of The Cathedral Of Christ The Savior in Moscow on Friday, holding signs that said, "God Get Rid Of The Czar,' AGI reports.

The women were detained by security guards and taken into police custody, Reuters reports. The women were released shortly after being detained.

In an effort to explain their stance, the the FEMEN protesters wrote about the Moscow demonstrations today on their website. They noted that during the protests, one of their activists dislocated her arm as a result of a scuffle with the guards.

This isn't the first time the Russian prime minister has motivated women to show skin. According to the New York Post, an Internet campaign kicked off on YouTube in July invited Russian women to strip to show their support for Putin's presidential campaign.

Putin, who became prime minister in 2008 after serving two presidential terms, this week filed his application to once again seek Russsia's highest office in the March presidential election.

Check out the below images capturing FEMEN protesters stripping down in Moscow Friday.

Origin
Source: Huff

Elizabeth Warren Blasts Karl Rove-Linked Crossroads GPS Ad As 'Factually Wrong And Morally Wrong'

Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren struck back at former Bush White House senior adviser Karl Rove Thursday, after an ad by the Rove-linked group Crossroads GPS attacked her for overseeing "bailouts that helped pay big bonuses for bank executives while middle-class Americans lost out."

"Congress had Warren oversee how your tax dollars were spent, bailing out the same banks that helped cause the financial meltdown, bailouts that helped pay big bonuses to bank executives while middle-class Americans lost out" says the narrator in the ad, referring to her position as chair of the congressional oversight panel on the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Crossroads GPS attacked Warren, a professor at Harvard Law School who has long advocated for financial reforms, last month for being too close to the Occupy Wall Street movement, directly contradicting the group's most recent ad suggesting that she is too close to Wall Street.

"I can't find the right words to describe how wrong that is. Factually wrong and morally wrong," said Warren of the ad to the Boston Herald. "Karl Rove is not telling the truth, and I think anyone who is not telling the truth shouldn't be running ads in this race," she continued.

"Karl Rove was part of the inner circle when President Bush pushed for TARP bailouts," she added. "Now he's using Wall Street money to attack me for being too cozy with Wall Street? I was calling out Wall Street over the TARP bill from the beginning."

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- When the Democratic National Committee picked Charlotte to host its September 2012 convention, city leaders saw it as a boost to the local service economy. Hotels would be filled, restaurants would be booked, and party spaces would be rented. Up until a few months ago, officials only had to worry about the would-be traffic congestion on Trade Street as lobbyists shuffled to the next cocktail party. But now, they have to be concerned about feistier visitors known as Occupy Wall Street.

If Charlotte officials fear having another Chicago '68 on their hands, they're hoping to take one essential weapon out of the hands of activists: their tents. On Oct. 27, the Charlotte city manager released a draft ordinance that makes camping on public property a "public nuisance" and would prohibit "noxious substances," padlocks and other camping equipment that city officials fear could impede traffic and create public safety issues.

The Charlotte City Council has not yet voted on the ordinance, and some argue its language is vague and may violate First Amendment rights. "If the ordinance is passed, it is possible that its constitutionality will be challenged," wrote Isaac Sturgill, director of the Charlotte School of Law chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, in an editorial that will run in the Charlotte alternative weekly Creative Loafing on Dec. 13. "There is also the potential for increased confrontation between protesters and police."

BEIJING -- Two exchange students accepted a Chinese peace prize Friday on behalf of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who was honored for enhancing Russia's status and crushing anti-government forces in Chechnya, the prize organizers said.

The Confucius Peace Prize was hastily launched last year as an alternative to the Nobel Peace Prize which had just honored imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo. The 2011 prize ceremony took place a day before this year's Nobel prize is awarded in Oslo, Norway, and as Nobel made new calls for China to release Liu from prison.

The Confucius Peace Prize organization announced last month that Putin had been chosen to receive this year's award, saying that during his 2000-2008 tenure as president Putin "brought remarkable enhancement to the military might and political status of Russia." It also cited Putin's crushing of anti-government forces in Chechnya.

The justification seems slightly dubious given authoritarian trends in Putin's policies and his reputation for jailing political rivals and cracking down on government critics. Ongoing protests in Moscow over a parliamentary election believed marred by fraud have raised the biggest ever challenge to Putin, who is seeking to return to the presidency next year.

Mayor Bloomberg is still defending the NYPD's raid on Occupy Wall Street in November.

In two separate incidents this week, the Mayor addressed criticism from journalists who say they were "roughed up" and blocked from covering the raid, forcibly enforcing a media blackout on police activities.

During his weekly radio appearance on Friday morning, Bloomberg insisted:

We didn't keep anybody from reporting, you just had to stand to the side. You don't have a right as a press person to stand in the way just in the interest of getting the story...(regarding the clearing in general) the police show amazing restraint. This is the greatest police department in the world. The number of times police fire their weapons here is so much less than any other police department.

Following the raid, the Society of Professional Journalists condemned the city's actions and went on to say that the Mayor's efforts insinuated what "would seem to be a strategic decision to cloak potentially volatile police activity from the public."

Earlier this week, congressman Jerrold Nadler called for an investigation into the NYPD's conduct during the highly criticized raid and cited the especially disconcerting accusations of blocking journalists from properly reporting the events that ensued.

On Thursday, Mayor Bloomberg took a rather bitter shot at Nadler and dismissed any need for an investigation. He told reporters at an appearance in Brooklyn, "If (Nadler) would spend more time getting us homeland security money, maybe he’d make the streets safer."

Nadler responded to the scathing remarks:

It is precisely my job, as the ranking member on the House Judiciary's Constitution Subcommittee, to ensure that the constitutional rights of all Americans are respected...Perhaps the mayor should review his own past comments lauding my success in securing needed federal funds for our city — from the $20 billion post-9/11 monies to the Zadroga Act to critical transportation funding — before spewing nonsense and so wildly contradicting himself.

Origin
Source: Huff

Why Immigration Is a Feminist Issue

Alicia Arriaga arrived in the United States almost eight years ago from Honduras, settling in Atlanta. Four years later she had a daughter (also named Alicia). Soon after, the child began experiencing mysterious convulsions that, although not yet clearly diagnosed, can stop her breathing in her sleep. When the problem started, the Arriagas would drive the five minutes from their home to a nearby hospital, thankful that they lived close enough to arrive in time. But today they fear that the short trip could be catastrophic, not just to Alicia’s health but to her family’s future.

Like all undocumented immigrants in Georgia, the Arriagas must drive without a valid license. The state has long forbidden licenses for undocumented residents, and lawmakers have repeatedly tightened penalties for driving without one. In 2009 the first communities in Georgia enrolled in the federal Secure Communities Program, which deputizes local police to act for federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Earlier this year Georgia passed HB 87, its own version of Arizona’s infamous “stop and check” law, most of which went into effect in July. Taken together, these steps have turned a routine traffic stop into a potential disaster for undocumented Georgians. The new law permits police to check the status of anyone they stop on suspicion of any crime or minor traffic violation. If arrested, detainees can be turned over to ICE and held while their fingerprints and papers are checked against a federal registry. Even if all charges are dropped, getting pulled over can lead to deportation.

These days there’s usually a police checkpoint between the Arriagas’ home and the hospital, and another on the way to Alicia’s school. “We walk together, every day, an hour each way,” says Arriaga. But the hospital? “I’ll drive if I have to.” Not long ago, she says, police stopped the family on an emergency run, even though a licensed citizen was driving. The Arriagas were held by the side of the road, says Alicia, until a stranger with papers agreed to drive the child to the emergency room. (HB 87 criminalizes “harboring” or “transporting” undocumented immigrants, but exemptions exist for driving those in need of emergency medical care.)

Eye of Newt

Ron Paul is right, of course: Newt Gingrich is a serial hypocrite and a vicious one at that. (What I like best about the ad is how each phrase flashed on screen fades at the end, suggesting that Newt, like Cain, Perry et al. will, too.) But he’s here now, his numbers are busting out just as the holidays eclipse politics until the January 3 Iowa caucuses, and that leaves a lot of us—Dems and moderates, naturally, but also most of Newt’s former colleagues in movement conservatism—absolutely dumbstruck.

Gingrich, if you remember,was not only fired as Speaker of the House by his own party, but became the face of an intransigent and bullying faction so full of its own sense of self-importance that he was depicted on the cover of the New York Daily News as a wailing, red-faced baby. And among Republican leaders, if not the base, that’s still how Newt registers. Former New Hampshire governor John Sununu, a Romney surrogate, said this morning, “I don't think Newt Gingrich cares about conservative principles. He cares about Newt Gingrich.”

And while Gingrich now says, “I’m much more mature than I was as Speaker” (being third in line under the Constitution for the presidency being a mere break-in cruise for Newt’s personal development), there’s really very little to show of a “New Newt.” For every moment of restraint he’s displayed during a debate, like saying the party of family values shouldn’t break up immigrant families who’ve been here for a quarter-century, there’s been an equally outlandish comment on the trail, like suggesting that poor children work as school janitors or that poor kids have never known anyone who works for a living (!?!).

The Koch Brothers, ALEC and the Savage Assault on Democracy

Billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch finally got their way in 2011. After decades of funding the American Legislative Exchange Council, the collaboration between multinational corporations and conservative state legislators, the project began finally to yield the intended result.

For the first time in decades, the United States saw a steady dismantling of the laws, regulations, programs and practices put in place to make real the promise of American democracy.

That is why, on Saturday, civil rights groups and their allies will rally outside the New York headquarters of the Koch brothers to begin a march for the renewal of voting rights in America.

For the Koch brothers and their kind, less democracy is better. They fund campaigns, with millions of dollars in checks that have helped elect the likes of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and Ohio Governor John Kasich. And ALEC has made it clear, through its ambitious “Public Safety and Elections Task Force,” that while it wants to dismantle any barriers corporate cash and billionaire bucks influencing elections, it wants very much to erect barriers to the primary tool that Americans who are not CEOs have to influence the politics and the government of the nation: voting.

That crude calculus, usually cloaked in bureaucracy and back-room dealmaking, came into full view in 2011.

Think back to December 10, 2002 -- nine years ago this weekend, International Human Rights Day.

Perhaps on that day you were aware of the human rights significance, and perhaps not. But more importantly, what were you doing with your life back then? Were you in a different job? A different city? Perhaps in the interim you earned a post-secondary degree or diploma, or possibly more than one. How many job interviews did you attend in those nine years? How much money have you earned? Did you have children? Did you visit relatives in another province? Perhaps take a honeymoon? Travel abroad?

None of these things have been possible for Mohamed Harkat. This weekend -- International Human Rights Day -- marks the ninth anniversary of the detention of Mohamed Harkat under a security certificate -- a draconian detention under the so-called Immigrant and Refugee Protection Act for which no charge is laid, and the information on which the allegation is based is kept secret from the detainee and their lawyers. The five Muslim men who have been detained since 2001 have been jailed in isolation or, at best, released under strict house arrest conditions -- the strictest in Canadian history.

University Of California Campus Police Have History Of Excessive Force Against Protesters

When students at the University of California, Berkeley, attempted to set up an Occupy Wall Street encampment, campus police answered on Nov. 9 with their batons. But witnesses captured the beating of students on video, and the violent response to a peaceful protest sparked a national outcry.

For nearly an hour last week, UC Berkeley faculty grilled Chancellor Robert Birgeneau and administration officials about the incident. Executive Vice-Chancellor George Breslauer admitted that, in retrospect, "tactically, it would've been better to wait, to wait perhaps until the middle of the night to minimize the number of encounters between police and protesters and observers."

But it wasn't just the recent heavy-handed response by campus police that outraged the faculty members. It was the fact that University of California police have been aggressively attacking students for years. And, despite independent commissions telling them repeatedly to clean up their act, seemingly nothing has changed.

"[Birgeneau's comments] do not negate the repeated pattern of the use of excessive force against non-violent protests," Berkeley sociology professor Barrie Thorne said at the Monday meeting.

Professor Anaya Roy criticized the administration for ordering police to clear out the protesters, and for blaming students for the clashes.

Whistleblower watchdog attacked her own staff, Auditor-General finds

Christiane Ouimet was supposed to shield federal whistleblowers from reprisals and expose government employers who were operating outside the lines.

But Auditor-General Sheila Fraser says Ms. Ouimet, Canada’s first public-sector integrity commissioner, instead engaged in the very activities she was hired to prevent, berating and marginalizing her staff while seeking vengeance against those she suspected of reporting her misdeeds.

Beyond that, Ms. Fraser said in a scathing report released Thursday, Ms. Ouimet did little if anything to help the federal employees who came to her office with complaints of wrongdoing.

“Files were closed without any review or serious inquiry. There wasn’t enough documentation and also the nature of the work that was done wasn’t appropriate,” Ms. Fraser told a news conference.

“I find this obviously very troubling and, I think, very disappointing.”

During her time in office, Ms. Ouimet received 228 disclosures of wrongdoing or reprisals from public servants. Seven were investigated. Five were closed with no finding of wrongdoing and two remained under investigation at the time of Ms. Fraser’s audit.

Harper’s nominee to replace disgraced integrity czar draws fire

The federal government is proposing to replace the disgraced Public Sector Integrity Commissioner with the man who has been doing her job on an interim basis.

But three groups that work to promote accountability and fairness in government say the nomination of Mario Dion to fill the shoes of Christiane Ouimet proves Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives have little interest in protecting whistleblowers in the public service.

The Federal Accountability Initiative for Reform (FAIR), which aims to help bureaucrats speak out without fear of reprisal when they encounter wrongdoing, was joined by Democracy Watch and Canadians for Accountability in denouncing the decision to give the job to Mr. Dion. The groups want to appear before MPs at committee to give their opinions about Mr. Dion’s suitability for the position.

“We are not surprised, but we are deeply disappointed and we vigorously oppose this nomination” David Hutton, the executive director of FAIR, said in a news release. “How can the government claim to be revitalizing Christiane Ouimet’s discredited agency when it appoints another career insider – and not just any insider but a veteran of the Justice Department, which has a fearsome reputation as the scourge of whistleblowers.”

Mayor Rob Ford’s office is continuing to thwart efforts to get a peek at his daily itinerary, raising questions from Ontario’s information and privacy watchdog about his commitment to transparency and accountability.

The mayor has denied a request from The Globe and Mail to obtain his schedule within 30 days. The reason given was that meeting the time limit would bog down the Office of the Mayor.

The request under Freedom of Information legislation was supposed to be met by Dec. 2. The city’s privacy office has extended the deadline to Dec. 22.

Such requests can be delayed if they involve an onerous volume of documents.

“I haven’t seen the record, but I don’t understand how that explanation would fit in this case, that there would be a large number of records to be searched through for this request,” said Brian Beamish, assistant commissioner of access in the office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario.

Income inequality: deep, complex and growing

Good for the NDP leadership candidates for talking about income inequality in Canada.

At their first leadership debate last weekend, and on their websites, some of the candidates have made proposals about reducing it. The ideas are broad brush, of course, although Brian Topp has a detailed list of big tax increases proposed for the wealthiest people and corporations. But at least the candidates are willing to underscore what has been a frequently ignored challenge.

During the last campaign, the NDP preferred to talk mostly about the “middle class,” which is fine in and of itself but risks ignoring the least affluent. After all, that group ought to be front and centre for a social democratic party, although getting a grip on inequality is harder than the candidates’ early proposals suggest.

Inequality has been growing in Canada for many years; correcting for it will not be easy or fast. The factors making Canada a less equal society are deep and complex. Some are beyond the reach of government.

Canada is not alone in becoming more unequal. A comprehensive report by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development has just explained how inequalities have been widening in almost all of its member countries, even the Scandinavian ones.

So here’s the deal. The Federal Court has ruled in no uncertain terms that the Conservative government broke the law in introducing a bill to strip the Canadian Wheat Board of its powers.

In response, the Conservatives are moving to pass the bill anyway.

Question. How do you pass legislation that the courts have ruled to be illegal?

I asked around legal circles and, though there could well be one, no one seemed to be able to find a precedent for this. In a banana republic maybe, but not in a modern democracy.

“How is this acceptable to have a minister of the Crown act in this way,” said National Farmers’ Union President Terry Boehm, “and then say to hell with the Courts. This is reflective of the attitude that they have towards the democratic process in this country.”

But the Conservatives have not only, to use the gentleman’s terminology, said to hell with the Courts. Last night the news arrived that they are also saying to hell with the normal legislative process. To get the unlawful legislation through parliament quickly, they are invoking closure, as in cutting off debate with a sledgehammer.

Mayor Ford ends the 'war on the car' and starts one against motorists

Don Cherry has a lesson to teach Toronto Mayor Rob Ford.

Cherry has spent a career promoting the hockey fighter, sometimes known as the enforcer or goon. The problem is that the science of brain injuries has caught up with (and passed) his assertion that the violence of these bare-knuckle encounters doesn't really hurt anyone, and helps the game. Indeed, the very fighters whose role Cherry has championed are increasingly turning out to be the game's victims.

The cause that Ford championed most loudly during the election was that of motorists. On taking office he declared that the war on the car was over. He eliminated a small vehicle registration tax, then moved forward on his congestion relief plan by getting transit out of the way of motorists. Two of three streetcar lines approved by the previous administration were shelved and a third line would go underground at significantly higher cost. He even promised to build a new subway line. Cyclists, too, were targeted. The council he leads voted to eliminate three bike lanes at a projected cost of $400,000.

Science, and experience, makes it clear that Ford's solutions won't work -- and the main victim will be the motorist.

First, our roads are not congested because of too much transit and cycling; they are congested because of too little of it. Putting 20-50 people in a streetcar or bus takes up far less road space than the same people in single-occupant cars. Cyclists take up only an invisible part of the street, or, on the two per cent of Toronto roads that have bike lanes, a fraction of a car lane. Blaming cyclists for congestion and expanding roads by gobbling up the slivers of roadway dedicated to them confirms that the car-based transport model is out of gas.

Why I Oppose Financial Stability

Financial Stability became a topic in the late 1990s, at a time of peak laxity in international financial supervision. The same minds which promoted the Financial Stability Forum (now the Financial Stability Board) also crafted the deeply flawed and destructive Basel II.

I have never understood why Financial Stability should be an objective of public policy. Desirable, measurable outcomes of benefit to the public should be the objectives of public policy. Stability is a silly and impractical goal in a capitalist economy. Success and failure of competitive firms are the basis for economic progress, capital allocation and market pricing. Capitalism requires recognition of failure, and failure always causes economic loss and some instability as past assumptions are re-examined and re-assessed more objectively in light of current painful reality.

The management of failure can contribute to better future outcomes, but only if the costs of failure are born by those who caused the failure and not by those innocent of it. The 1990s policies promoted by regulators during the Great Moderation aimed to forestall failure by disguising it, delaying it, and subsidising it. Since the collapse of securitisation and inter-bank credit markets in 2008, governments have been too willing to socialise the costs of failure (by then magnified with leverage) to taxpayers through serial bailouts.

Obama’s campaign for class resentment

In the first month of his presidency, Barack Obama averred that if in three years he hadn’t alleviated the nation’s economic pain, he’d be a “one-term proposition.”

When three-quarters of Americans think the country is on the “wrong track” and even Bill Clinton calls the economy “lousy,” how then to run for a second term? Traveling Tuesday to Osawatomie, Kan., site of a famous 1910 Teddy Roosevelt speech, Obama laid out the case.

It seems that he and his policies have nothing to do with the current state of things. Sure, presidents are ordinarily held accountable for economic growth, unemployment, national indebtedness (see Obama, above). But not this time. Responsibility, you see, lies with the rich.

Or, as the philosophers of Zuccotti Park call them, the 1 percent. For Obama, these rich are the ones holding back the 99 percent. The “breathtaking greed of a few” is crushing the middle class. If only the rich paid their “fair share,” the middle class would have a chance. Otherwise, government won’t have enough funds to “invest” in education and innovation, the golden path to the sunny uplands of economic growth and opportunity.

The Occupy Wall Street movement has brought increased focus on the disparity between the top one percent of earners and everyone else in the United States. But one American family paints a particularly stark picture of the country's wealth gap.

The six children of Walmart's founders, Sam and James "Bud" Walton, had the same net worth in 2007 as the entire bottom 30 percent of American earners, according to an analysis from Sylvia Allegretto, a labor economist at University of California-Berkeley's Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics.

Though the 2007 figure is striking, the gap between the Walmart heirs and the rest of the country may get even bigger -- the Walton's combined fortune has grown by more than $20 billion, according to data compiled from the Forbes 400 this year.

Allegretto compared the Waltons' net worth in 2007, according to Forbes magazine, to the Federal Reserve's 2007 Survey of Consumer Finances.

A senior civil servant with the Canadian International Development Agency is moving to the Privy Council Office to take the reins on Canada’s border action plan.

David Moloney, currently executive vice-president at CIDA, will become a senior adviser on implementing the new border deal with the United States beginning in January.

The deal, reached this week between Prime Minister Stephen Harper and President Barack Obama, seeks to create a common security perimeter around North America by harmonizing screening protocols for visitors and increasing intelligence sharing between the two countries.

Canada hopes the changes will result in a smoother flow of goods and people across the border, boosting trade and job opportunities for Canadians.

Mr. Harper announced the new Privy Council Office position on Thursday afternoon.

In addition to his work at CIDA, Mr. Moloney has held positions with Industry Canada, the Treasury Board Secretariat and Finance Canada. He worked in the Privy Council Office from 2000 to 2003 as an assistant secretary and liaison secretariat for macroeconomic policy.

Origin
Source: Globe&Mail

The border two-step

EVER since an unsuccessful attempt by the United States to conquer Canada in the war of 1812, Canadians have worried that Americans harbour ambitions to control, if not to own, their territory. This means that bilateral accords, of which there are some 698 on file, are jealously examined for their impact on Canadian sovereignty. The latest deal, called Beyond the Border and announced by Stephen Harper, Canada’s prime minister, and President Barack Obama in Washington on December 7th, will attract particular scrutiny, because it involves not just trade but the sensitive issue of shared security.

Mr Harper’s aim in seeking the deal was to dismantle at least some of the restrictions that have piled up at the border in the name of security since the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001. The United States has agreed to do so if Canada meets its security concerns by providing more information on travellers, adopting US methods of baggage screening and exit controls, and harmonising a host of other security measures. A separate deal on regulations commits the two countries to work toward common standards on everything from food safety to locomotive emissions. “These agreements represent the most significant step forward in Canada-US co-operation since the North American Free-Trade Agreement (NAFTA),” says Mr Harper, whose goal was to protect Canada’s access to the American market.

The Harper government has sent strong signals to the federal spending watchdog that his presence won't be required in future at as many Commons committee meetings, sources say.

Five different individuals – inside and outside Auditor-General Michael Ferguson's office – told The Canadian Press this week that officials there expect the opportunities for him to testify on his quarterly reports will be reduced.

“The Auditor-General is a sovereign of Parliament and, if Parliament is not receiving his work, it's very troubling,” said one insider with specific knowledge of the issue.

But the Conservatives are denying the move, saying nothing has changed.

“That's absolutely false. We respond to the Auditor-General, that's our principal purpose at public accounts [committee]. We have in the past and we will in the future,” said Daryl Kramp, Conservative vice-chairman of the committee.

The Auditor-General is an officer of Parliament, reporting directly to the House of Commons rather than to the government.

Crime bill to make matters worse for mentally ill, expert says

OTTAWA - At least one group that never got a chance to make its pitch before a Commons committee reviewing the omnibus crime bill is now coming forward to voice its concerns after Conservatives used their majority Monday night to push the bill through the House of Commons.

Forensic psychiatrist and Canadian Psychiatric Association board member Gary Chaimowitz will be in Ottawa Wednesday to put forward a series of recommendations aimed at addressing the problem of mental illness in provincial and federal prisons - something critics have argued is completely ignored in Bill C-10.

``The issue exists notwithstanding this bill, but the bill will likely exacerbate the crisis for patients with mental illness in the criminal justice system,'' Chaimowitz said in an interview Tuesday, noting that in some parts of the country as much as half the inmate population could be suffering from mental illness and not receiving proper treatment.

``It is timely.''

Crime bill will put more natives in prison, chiefs predict

OTTAWA - With its focus on incarceration instead of rehabilitation and traditional healing practices, the federal government's omnibus crime bill will put more native people behind bars, says a group of chiefs from Manitoba.

The grand chiefs of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs spoke on Parliament Hill Wednesday against the bill, asking all Canadians to unite to stop it from passing into law.

The Safe Streets and Communities Act, which has passed the House of Commons and is now before the Senate, will not address the underlying problems that lead to crime, said Grand Chief Derek Nepinak, who pointed out that one in five inmates in Canada is Metis, Innu or Aboriginal.

``It is better to address the poverty which is the underlying cause of many offences than to spend billions putting more Canadians in jail,'' said Grand Chief David Harper of the Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak.

QUEBEC — It will cost Canadians some $19 billion to build prisons to put more offenders behind bars for longer periods of time as part of the federal government's new tough-on-crime legislation, according to a report released Thursday.

The study, by the Quebec Institute for Socio-economic Research and Information (IRIS), also notes the provinces are expected to shoulder the majority of the extra costs associated with the legislation, which it estimates at $14 billion.

The left-leaning public policy research group says that, using "the most conservative estimates," it pegs the costs of the plan to end the practice of judges handing offenders time credits — on a two-for-one basis, to compensate for time spent in pre-sentence custody — at $16.5 billion for the country as a whole, with the provinces footing $12.6 billion.

The costs associated with the omnibus Bill C-10 — providing for mandatory prison sentences for drug-related crimes and child sex offenders — are estimated by the researchers at $2.3 billion.

On top of that, the study argues annual maintenance and operation costs for prisons will reach $1.6 billion for the federal government and $2.2 billion for the provinces.

The Scene. She is a pair of dimples in a room full of jowls.

Meet Michelle Rempel, the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of the Environment. She is short and smiley and perfectly patronizing. She speaks without holding a script, gestures with confidence and seems even to listen to what her counterparts are saying (even if only in search of a turn of phrase she can turn back on her opponent). Only 31 and barely six months into her first term in Parliament, she is already feigning indignation like she was born here. And so the government side is surely thankful that Peter Kent has been out of town this last little while.

For much of the fall, the Minister of the Environment had been struggling to keep up with the NDP’s Megan Leslie. Mr. Kent glowered and Ms. Leslie mocked. Mr. Kent grumbled and Ms. Leslie sighed. He was one of several grumpy old men lined up at the far end of the room, she was quick and snappy and a bright face that stood each day in obvious contrast.

Then, with Mr. Kent’s departure to Durban, along came Ms. Rempel. She stood confidently and sneered cheerfully. She accused the other side of plotting to devastate the national economy and questioned their patriotism. She spoke of “real action” and “strong action” and having not only a “strong action plan,” but also an “action-focused plan.” She was sarcastic and caustic without all the gloom. ”Mr. Speaker, imagine a place where 75 per cent of our electricity is generated by sources that do not emit greenhouse gases, or where a government invests billions of dollars in clean energy technology, or where there is one of the most stringent regulatory frameworks in the world,” she mused one day. “Wait a second; that is Canada.”

Prison policy and tough-on-crime laws under the majority-governing Conservatives have Canada’s federal penitentiaries overcrowded—with prisons for women using treatment and counselling space for cells—and a controversial crime mega-bill the government is forcing through Parliament will only make it worse, the federal prison ombudsman says

PARLIAMENT HILL—Prison policy and tough-on-crime laws under the majority-governing Conservatives have Canada’s federal penitentiaries overcrowded—with prisons for women using treatment and counselling space for cells—and a controversial crime mega-bill the government is forcing through Parliament will only make it worse, the federal prison ombudsman says.

With the government under fire Thursday over its decision to continue pushing legislation through Parliament to dismantle the Canadian Wheat Board, despite a court ruling against it, Correctional Investigator Howard Sapers told The Hill Timesthat, despite a similar rush with the crime legislation, Bill C-10, there has been no “roll up” of costing or implications of a range of crime and penal measures the Conservatives have already overseen since 2006.

“There have been a host of regulatory policy and legislative changes that have altered the way corrections is being done in Canada,” Mr. Sapers said in an interview after testifying at the Commons Public Safety and National Security earlier in the week.

Some councillors lash out during budget hearings

Tempers flared as the city's budget committee continued hearing from residents on Thursday about the proposed operating budget for 2012.

Mayor Rob Ford tabled a proposed budget late last month that includes a 2.5 per cent property tax increase - along with increases in TTC fares, cuts to childcare space and the closure of some homeless shelters.

For the most part committee members have been hearing from people opposed to the budget, though there have been some supporters.

On Thursday the atmosphere inside the second floor hearing room grew tense when some of the councillors began pushing back.

When one speaker suggested that most Torontonians don't support the cuts, Coun. Doug Ford — the mayor's brother — shot back, "Do you realize in Etobicoke people are saying 'Stay the course, keep going.' Do you realize in the suburbs that's what they're telling us?"

The silence of Yad Vashem and other Holocaust memorial institutes to the recent rash of anti-democratic legislation is deafening

Hillary Clinton had not yet finished voicing her concern about what is happening in Israel before that industrious Knesset member from the Likud, Danny Danon, started rattling off another version of the list of bills about loyalty to the state (which have meanwhile been dropped ): "Every certificate issued by the state will oblige [the recipient] to sign a document with a clause declaring loyalty to the State of Israel."

An explanation was offered by Arutz Sheva, the settlers' news website: No declaration - then no driver's license, no identity card, no passport. Speaking to Razi Barka'i on Army Radio, Danon explained that this was indeed not enough for - watch out! - "the total solution." Even Barka'i almost choked at the phrase.

For one optimistic moment it was possible to think that Danon does not make distinctions on the basis of religion or nationality. "There are many people who act against the State that protects them," he said. "Anyone who is not faithful to the State should not be a citizen." That is to say, even kosher Jews whose loyalty is in doubt. However, a second later he clarified his intention: "The data about crime make it clear without any doubt that the Arabs in Israel treat the laws of the country with contempt. They have much higher crime rates than any other segment of the population."

After a day of unexpected drama at the UN climate change talks, a historic deal on greenhouse gases looked tantalisingly within reach on Thursday night – but with a handful of major economies holding out, the end result could still be discord and the death of the Kyoto protocol.

One hundred and twenty countries, led by Brazil, Japan, Canada and many African nations, threw their weight behind a proposal from the European Union for a roadmap towards a new global agreement on climate change. Under the plan all the world's major emitters – both developed and developing countries – would negotiate a new pact in 2015 to cut emissions substantially from 2020.

The US also appeared to soften its approach, with its negotiating chief mentioning the "roadmap" twice with approval without actually signing up to it. His apparent support was tempered by caveats that could render it toothless, however.

All eyes are now on China, the world's biggest emitter, which has not decided its position on the EU roadmap, and according to some insiders has been giving conflicting signals. "China desperately does not want to be seen as the villain here, the wrecker of agreement," said a diplomat from a developed nation. "But they also have serious problems [with the roadmap]."

“There’s going to be another major failure,” says enviro commish, of Lib negligence on the environment file

“Malaise” is not a word you’d expect to find on the Liberals’ environmental report card, given the McGuinty government’s laudable efforts on green energy.

But Environmental Commissioner Gord Miller in his annual report released last week suggests the province has lost momentum on the file to the point that a Walkerton-like crisis is inevitable. Here’s a detailed snapshot of Miller’s findings.

The not so Great Lakes

Seventy per cent of Ontarians rely on the Great Lakes for drinking water. Efforts to clean up the planet’s largest source of fresh water date back to the early 70s, when the two key pacts with the U.S. focused largely on fixing trouble spots contaminated by pollution.

A major problem: the 580,000 tonnes of nitrogen and phosphorous that find their way into the Great Lakes annually.

Chronic underfunding, a recurring theme in Miller’s report, has been a key weakness of cleanup efforts. So far, only three of 17 areas of concern have been restored. Cleaning up the remaining sites will cost an estimated $3.5 billion.

The Obama administration has put $8 billion on the table for Great Lakes remediation, but the province has yet to respond in kind.

Vladimir Putin accuses Hillary Clinton of encouraging Russian protests

Vladimir Putin has accused Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, of fomenting an increasingly vociferous opposition movement in Russia, threatening to derail the two countries' fragile resetting of relations.

The accusation builds on months of Russian statements and media coverage blaming popular uprisings around the Arab world on western scheming. It comes as Washington and Moscow tussle over a host of disagreements, from missile defence to Syria.

Speaking to supporters on Thursday, Putin accused Clinton of giving "the signal" to opposition leaders, who are expected to gather with tens of thousands of supporters for a protest on Saturday. He rejected Clinton's repeated criticism of a parliamentary vote last weekend that gave Putin's United Russia party nearly 50% of the vote amid widespread reports of fraud.

"[Opposition leaders] heard the signal and with the support of the US state department began active work," Putin said during a meeting of the All-Russia People's Front, a new political movement set up to support his presidential candidacy in a 4 March election.

"We are all grownups here. We all understand the organisers are acting according to a well-known scenario and in their own mercenary political interests," he said.

A solicitor at HM Revenue & Customs who turned whistleblower to disclose that senior managers had quietly let off Goldman Sachs from paying millions of pounds in tax penalties is facing disciplinary procedures and possible prosecution for speaking out.

Osita Mba has worked within the Revenue for at least four years and claimed to have personal knowledge of the deal that allowed the bank to write off a £10m bill.

He told the National Audit Office and two parliamentary committees the bank's settlement had been agreed with a handshake by Dave Hartnett, the permanent secretary for tax at HMRC.

Mba believed the deal might be illegal and told them he was making the disclosure under whistleblowing legislation. His evidence led to Hartnett being accused of lying to parliament over his role in the Goldman Sachs deal, which he denied. But he admitted his organisation had made a mistake by approving the deal.

Now Revenue & Customs managers have launched an inquiry into Mba's conduct that could lead to his being sacked or face prosecution for disclosing sensitive information.

Facing demands from Mayor Rob Ford to slash a further 4.3 per cent from her budget, Toronto’s chief librarian is proposing new fines and a slate of service cuts that would terminate literacy and school outreach programs.

Jane Pyper’s new recommendations would carve $7.3-million from the library budget and avoid a heavy reduction in branch hours currently being debated at city hall.

The Toronto Library Board has already made it clear that it wants to avoid branch closures and reductions in hours at all costs as it navigates the mayor’s cutback requests and public demand to maintain service levels.

At a meeting in November, the board approved a 5.7-per-cent budget cut, well short of the 10-per-cent trim Mr. Ford has imposed, and asked Ms. Pyper to come back with suggestions for cutting the remainder without branch closings.

Even before the board meets to discuss Ms. Pyper’s new cuts next week, some members are vowing to vote them down.

The bank bailouts of 2008 created a firestorm of public anger in the United States. Now European leaders are trying to avoid the same fate. It's not looking good.

European Central Bank President Mario Draghi on Thursday denied the possibility that the ECB would bail out European banks by buying large amounts of troubled government bonds. Yet many economists and observers believe the central bank ultimately will have to give in.

For a while it seemed like Europe was going to take a hard line against banks. In November 2010, at Germany's urging, European leaders agreed that they would pursue "haircuts" instead of bank bailouts, essentially forcing the banks holding troubled government debt to take a loss. This past October government leaders forced banks to swallow a 50 percent cut on the value of their Greek government bonds.

European leaders agreed to force a haircut on Greek government debt because it had become simply unsustainable, and some sort of partial default was necessary, said Michiel Bijlsma, program leader of financial markets at the CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.

The move was a last-resort effort to rescue the Greek government from default, but it was also a victory for Germany. German Chancellor Angela Merkel had been insisting that banks take part of the loss. "Have politicians got the courage to make those who earn money share in the risk as well?" Merkel said in November 2010, according to Reuters.

Merkel's tough talk played well at home, particularly as the foil to the United States' bank bailouts. Many in the U.S. believe banks got off easy and blame the government for bailing them out.

"There's an electoral price to be paid for bailing out banks," said Bo Becker, assistant finance professor at Harvard Business School. "Merkel and her party have ridden somewhat high in the last few years on the claim that German responsibility and so on is better than the United States' easygoing financial system. So she especially has a lot to lose."

But recently Germany has been forced to change its stance. The country agreed earlier this week to eliminate the possibility of any more haircuts on government debt. European leaders are hesitant to force more haircuts since banks are now in a weak position, and more haircuts could trigger a collapse of the the European banking system, some economists say.

Back in 2008, when the United States banking system was similarly on the brink of collapse, the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve acted quickly and decisively. The federal government took ownership stakes in banks and the Fed loaned money to them. Meanwhile, the Fed also bought large amounts of mortgage-backed securities when no other investors would touch them.

"Americans are more pragmatic and less ideological when it comes to emergency action," said Harvard economist Richard Cooper. Though part of the eurozone's slow response to the crisis can be attributed to Europe's "exceptionally clumsy" decision-making apparatus, he said, the delay can be in part attributed to the German perception that they should cast blame for the crisis as it is being solved. In contrast, he said, "Americans say, 'Let's get the problem behind us, and we'll decide who goes to jail later.' "

A full U.S.-style bailout isn't necessarily an option for Europe, however. The European Central Bank can't buy government bonds directly, as the Fed does routinely. Since the European Central Bank legally cannot bail out governments, bailing out private banks seems less justifiable, Paris-based economist Gael Giraud said. "That's why the banks were partially convinced to accept to pay something," he said of the Greek haircut.

But more haircuts would not by themselves dig Europe out of this hole. Because if over-leveraged banks are forced to reduce the value of their assets, en masse, they could fail. That could either blow up the economy or force European countries to do what the United States did three years ago: Bail out their banks. It's just taking longer.

"Unless the Europeans can solve the sovereign debt crisis," Cooper said, "there will certainly have to be some form of support for the European banks."

Origin
Source: Huff

Conservatives to invoke closure on Wheat Board bill in Senate

The Conservatives say they will invoke closure in the Senate to ensure a bill to end the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly on grain sales passes next week.

The move came as the Liberals tried to freeze the debate, citing a Federal Court ruling this week that said the government broke the law by bringing in the legislation without a plebiscite of grain farmers.

Directors of the Canadian Wheat Board, meanwhile, pleaded with senators to stop the legislation.

Tory Senator Claude Carignan, the deputy government leader, said his closure motion, to be moved Friday, would force a vote by next Thursday at the latest.

The Conservative majority in the Red Chamber ensures the passage of both the motion and the legislation.

Liberals on the Senate agriculture committee urged that the bill be dropped, saying consideration of the matter might be in contempt of court.

Senator Percy Mockler, the Conservative committee chairman, rejected their arguments. He said the committee was obligated to follow the Senate motion ordering it to examine the bill and report back by Tuesday.

The perennial story of the race for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination has been and may always be that GOP elites are not happy with the choices they've been given. Like the periodic flare-up of a particulary itchy rash, a new clutch of headlines attesting to this fact has popped up every fortnight from the late spring up until this week, when The Hill's Molly Hooper reminded us that "influential conservatives are clearly expressing their dissatisfaction" with the current slate of candidates.

The only variation on the dissatisfaction theme now is the fact that the race has seemingly crystallized into a two-man show between Mitt Romney -- who GOP elites find to be a mealymouthed, inconstant conservative they can't quite trust -- and Newt Gingrich -- who they hold to be gaseous, grandiose, and divisive. (It's actually fairer at this point to consider this a three-man race with Ron Paul in the mix, but Paul is the candidate that establishment GOP types typically try to wish out of existence.) George Will summed up the current thinking again this week in a column that cast a pox on the houses of Romney and Gingrich, in which he decried the former a "conservative of convenience," the latter the embodiment of "the vanity and rapacity that make modern Washington repulsive," before declaring both to be "too risky to anoint today."

WASHINGTON — Americans' wealth last summer suffered its biggest quarterly loss in more than two years as stocks, pension funds and home values lost value.

At the same time, corporations raised their cash stockpiles to record levels.

Household net worth fell 4 percent to $57.4 trillion in the July-September quarter, according to a Federal Reserve report released Thursday. It was the sharpest drop since the tumultuous period after the September 2008 bankruptcy of investment bank Lehman Brothers. And it was the second straight quarterly fall.

Household wealth, or net worth, is the value of assets like homes, bank accounts and stocks, minus debts like mortgages and credit cards.

Lower net worth can hurt the economy. When people feel poorer, they spend less. That slows growth. Businesses typically then cut back on hiring and expansion.

Stock market declines, in particular, have held back Americans' quest to recover losses from the 2008 financial meltdown. The Standard & Poor's 500 stock index tumbled about 14 percent in the July-September period, ending a streak of four quarterly increases. The decline was driven by worries about Europe's debt crisis and the U.S. economy.

Jay Carney, Despite Evidence, Says Economists Didn't Know How Bad The Recession Would Get

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney made a surprising assertion on MSNBC Wednesday, saying that in early 2009, as Barack Obama was taking office, there weren't any major economists who understood just how bad the recession was.

The problem is that the evidence doesn't support his claim.

"There was not a single mainstream, Wall Street, academic economist who knew at the time, in January of 2009, just how deep the economic hole was that we were in," Carney told Morning Joe hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough on Wednesday's program.

Scarborough had asked Carney how President Obama might respond to accusations that the stimulus act passed in February 2009 failed to prevent unemployment from climbing.

In response, Carney pointed out that at the time, economists believed the economy had shrunk only 3.8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008 -- but that experts now believe the contraction was much worse, approaching 9 percent for the quarter. This reflects the larger narrative of the Great Recession: Many initial assessments missed the scale of the problem, and it wasn't until later that the official statistics more closely described the damage done to the economy.