Democracy gone Astray: Thursday, July 30, 2015

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.]

Thursday, July 30, 2015

Court Smacks Down Pharmacy That Refused To Fill Prescriptions On Religious Grounds

Pharmacy owners do not have a constitutional right to refuse to dispense medicines that they object to on religious grounds, according to a decision handed down Thursday by a federal appeals court. Had the plaintiffs in this case prevailed, it would have not only permitted them to refuse to fill many birth control prescriptions (which is what these particular plaintiffs hoped to achieve), but it could have also potentially enabled pharmacists to refuse to fill a long list of prescriptions, including “diabetic syringes, insulin, HIV-related medications, and Valium.”

At the south end of Queen's Park stands a statue of John A. Macdonald, a Father of Confederation. Late on the afternoon of Saturday, June 26, 2010, before the police decided to push protesters out of the so-called "designated protest area" during the G20 Summit, his finger pointed right to the epicentre of the crowd. It seemed less an accusation than an open question to all parties: the police assembled from all over Canada, the summit leaders, the Canadian government, the city of Toronto, protesters, media - even casual bystanders. It asked, "What now?"

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is expected to release a ruling within the coming months that will affect some 85 percent of all calls from prisons and jails.

If the FCC takes bold action to limit how much the prison phone industry can charge incarcerated people and their families for talking on the phone, the decision could help out thousands of families, many of whom are already living paycheck to paycheck. But it remains to be seen whether the FCC will bow to the pressure of the telecom industry with its large coffers of cash.

The FCC took a historic first step in 2014 to rein in the huge profits the prison phone industry makes from incarcerated people and their families. Its February 2014 decision to cap the cost of interstate calls came after a decade-long campaign involving dozens of organizations across the United States that mobilized thousands to testify about the exorbitant fees they pay to talk to their incarcerated loved ones.

Turkey launched overnight airstrikes against several positions of the outlawed Kurdistan Worker’s party (PKK) in northern Iraq for the first time in four years, the country’s government has said.

The air raids put an end to a two-year ceasefire between the Turkish government and the PKK, severely endangering the already fragile peace process started in 2012 in an attempt to end a bloody conflict that has killed more than 40,000 people over 30 years.

The independent agency tasked with policing Chicago cops hasn’t released findings on several unjustified police shootings, and its leaders are more concerned with protecting officers than investigating citizen complaints, a fired employee said.

Lorenzo Davis, an Independent Police Review Authority supervisor who was fired this month, said Chief Administrator Scott Ando asked him to change his findings in three police shootings in which he had determined officers committed wrongdoing.

As immigration and incarceration issues become central to the 2016 presidential campaign, lobbyists for two major prison companies are serving as top fundraisers for Hillary Clinton.

Corrections Corporation of America and the Geo Group could both see their fortunes turning if there are fewer people to lock up in the future.

Legal opposition to the Site C hydroelectric dam in northern British Columbia is ramping up just as BC Hydro and the province are announcing their first collaborative contract related to the megaproject.

Farmers and ranchers in the Peace River area are appealing a decision by B.C. Supreme Court last month to reject a bid to quash the proposed dam, which they say would flood large portions of prime agricultural land.

The Universal Child Care Benefit (UCCB) couldn’t be a more blatantly political ploy if the Prime Minister was driving down Main Street tossing hundred-dollar bills out of the official government limousine.

(The heavily armoured Cadillac, by the way, was recently shipped to India for $1.3 million of taxpayers’ money because Stephen Harper refused to trust Indian security forces.)

Mother Canada is turning into the mother of all controversies.

An expert forum on the controversial Mother Canada memorial was canceled after Parks Canada and the engineering consulting firm Stantec Inc. refused to attend.

The memorial for the war dead continues to polarize Canadians, many of whom object to its proposed location in one of Canada's stunning national parks and who fret that, despite assurances, it will end up costing taxpayers money.

OTTAWA — The opposition parties want to call Finance Minister Joe Oliver before a parliamentary committee for an emergency meeting to discuss the weakening of the Canadian economy and the government’s plans to return to a balanced budget.

In July 23 letter to Conservative MP James Rajotte, chair of the Commons finance committee, NDP finance critic Nathan Cullen noted that a recent report by the Parliamentary Budget Officer revised the Tories’ budget projections and calculated the federal government would post a $1 billion deficit in 2015-2016. The Conservatives’ spring budget projected a $1.4 billion surplus.

BERLIN -- During the long night of negotiations over Greece on July 12-13, something fundamental to the European Union cracked. Since then, Europeans have been living in a different kind of EU.

What changed that night was the Germany that Europeans have known since the end of World War II. On the surface, the negotiations were about averting a Greek exit from the eurozone (or "Grexit") and the dire consequences that would follow for Greece and the monetary union. At a deeper level, however, what was at stake was the role in Europe of its most populous and economically most powerful country.

President Obama's recent statements about mass incarceration, together with his decision to commute the sentences of 46 people serving lengthy and life sentences in federal prison on drug charges, treat "nonviolent drug offenders" as the symbolic figureheads of America's prison problem. This framing seems to imply that everyone else actually deserves to be in prison.

But the world's biggest prison system is not filled with nonviolent drug offenders alone. Before and alongside the war on drugs, mass incarceration was built through the wholesale repression of radical movements - especially in communities of color.

What factor is common to Canada, Sweden and Denmark? The snow, perhaps? The cold weather? The social programs? Or maybe smoked salmon?

How about rendition to torture? And how about cooperation with the intelligence authorities of countries which practice torture with total impunity? These may be some of the darkest common factors shared by the three countries, ones that not everyone is aware of.

WASHINGTON -- Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush said Wednesday that we ought to phase out Medicare, the federal program that provides health insurance to Americans once they're 65.

"We need to make sure we fulfill the commitment to people that have already received the benefits, that are receiving the benefits," Bush said. "But we need to figure out a way to phase out this program for others and move to a new system that allows them to have something, because they're not going to have anything."

The big headline arising from a decision handed down by a federal appeals court on Wednesday is that abortion rights in North Dakota are saved. The court struck down the most stringent abortion ban in the nation — a restriction so stringent that significant numbers of pregnant women would find it impossible to exercise their right to choose in North Dakota if the provision had gone into effect.

Yet, while the three members of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eight Circuit that heard MKB Management Corp. v. Stenehjem — all of whom are George W. Bush-appointees — reluctantly concluded that existing Supreme Court precedent requires them to strike down the North Dakota law, they devoted the bulk of their opinion to an extended attack on what remains of Roe v. Wade. Indeed, much of the opinion does little more than repeat arguments commonly found in anti-abortion literature.

In the dash-cam video of the arrest of Sandra Bland, Officer Brian Encinia can be heard telling Bland that he’s made the stop because she changed lanes without using her turn signal. Soon after, when asked why she’s so irritated, Bland points out that the stop seems unnecessary and unfair: She changed lanes in an effort to get out of the officer’s way because he’d been tailing her so closely.

We know that Bland was soon tackled by police on the side of the road and found dead in her jail cell three days later. Authorities deemed the cause of death self-inflicted asphyxiation. Bland’s family insists that she was not depressed or suicidal. After sustained public outcry, the FBI, Texas Rangers, and Waller County officials launched an investigation into her death.

Let’s start with the geopolitical Big Bang you know nothing about, the one that occurred just two weeks ago. Here are its results: From now on, any possible future attack on Iran threatened by the Pentagon (in conjunction with NATO) would essentially be an assault on the planning of an interlocking set of organizations—the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), the new Chinese-founded Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), and the BRICS’ New Development Bank (NDB)—whose acronyms you’re also unlikely to recognize. Still, they represent an emerging new order in Eurasia.

Was your California orange irrigated with wastewater from oil wells? Quite possibly yes.

Under a 20-year-old water recycling program, wastewater that is generated as a byproduct from oil extraction is treated and sold to some 90 Southern California landowners—including one with certified organic operations—which use it to grow crops such as citrus, almonds, apples, peaches, grapes, and blueberries sold in major grocery chains around the country.

The prime minister of Malaysia, who is central to British Columbia's liquefied natural gas development ambitions, is the subject of a major financial corruption scandal rocking his country.

Earlier this month The Wall Street Journal, citing documents from government probes, reported that investigators suspected that almost $700 million in cash had been wired through state agencies, banks, and companies linked to 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).

"Every, single, day, black bodies in this city face violence," Rodney Diverlus declared, pausing between the first words for emphasis, as he and others from Toronto's Black Lives Matter coalition brought the Police Services Board meeting to a halt.

They'd marched into the July 16 session to demand accountability for the death of Andrew Loku, the 45-year-old father of five shot by police on July 5, after officers arriving at his west-end apartment complex found the reportedly distressed man holding a hammer.

"Black lives matter!" the activists chanted, before soon filing out.

The United Nations Human Rights Committee has accused Canada of failing to take effective action on a range of issues, including missing and murdered aboriginal women, political audits of charities, and the federal government's anti-terror legislation.

The report, published Thursday, is the first substantive review of the country’s human rights record under Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government.

When he kicked off his presidential bid by referring to immigrants as “killers” and “rapists,” Donald Trump set the tone for what’s been characterized as an aberrant sideshow. Reince Priebus, chair of the Republican National Committee, called to ask him to “tone it down a little bit.” That was unsuccessful, as well as ironic: Back in 2012, it was Donald Trump who argued that Mitt Romney lost his bid for the White House because of his “maniacal” immigration rhetoric.

After Dylann Roof allegedly opened fire on worshippers gathered inside the historically black Emanuel A.M.E Church in Charleston, South Carolina last month, killing nine congregants and claiming that they “rape our women” and “are taking over our country,” a disturbing image circulated online. A Facebook picture of Roof sitting on top of his car and straddling a license plate celebrating the “Confederate States of America” went viral, stoking an outrage that prompted the South Carolina government to permanently lower the Confederate flag that had long flown over the State House.

Four years ago, I was among tens of thousands of Wisconsinites who made their way to Madison every weekend to march against Scott Walker and his attacks on public education and on unions. We were all ages, ethnicities, political persuasions, chanting: "This is what democracy looks like!" Homemade signs sprouted amidst the snowflakes. My favorite: "He's not a Packer, he's a Steeler." (The Packers had just triumphed over Pittsburgh in the Super Bowl.)

Turns out what Scott Walker set out to steal was democracy itself.

ANZAC, Alta. - Nexen Energy said Wednesday it can narrow down when a pipeline ruptured in northern Alberta to a two-week period, something that one environmental group said is cause for alarm.

Ron Bailey, the company's senior vice-president of Canadian operations, said officials still don't know precisely when the pipeline began leaking after a five million litre spill was discovered last Wednesday in Anzac, about 35 kilometres southeast of Fort McMurray.

It was actually painful to watch Employment Minister Pierre Poilievre stand in front of a Government of Canada backdrop and behind a Government of Canada podium — wearing a Conservative-branded golf shirt — as he announced the largest one-time payout to taxpayers in Canadian history Monday.

In case you missed it (and that barely seems possible, given how much time and energy the government has dedicated to promoting it), the federal government has increased the Universal Child Care Benefit for parents of children under six from $100 to $160 and created a new $60 stipend for parents of children between the ages of six and seventeen.

Foreign Affairs bureaucrats were told this spring to produce three terrorism-related statements for minister Rob Nicholson to make to the media each week, ahead of a fall election in which security and Canada's response to terrorism are expected to be key issues.

The email, dated April 24 and obtained by CBC News Network's Power & Politics, suggests the regular ministerial statements should be crafted from an event reported by the news media, such as developments in the fight against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau says the email is an example of the way the Conservatives choose to engage with the public.

Open Letter to Ryan Leef, Member of Parliament for Yukon

Dear Ryan,

Recently, a German dinner guest boasted about the superiority of the German electoral system.

So I did some research to see just how superior Germany's system was to other systems, including Canada's First Past the Post, (FPTP), electoral system.

Austerity is practiced by people on a spiritual path. It involves turning inward, seeking the source of creation within one's self. In meditation and yoga, the attachment to external sensory inputs is dropped. The "outside world" is accepted as it is, but no particular importance is given to it.

Austerities such as a simple diet and clothing, an unadorned living space, fasting, or sitting motionless for prolonged time periods may be helpful in attaining a deeper inner calm.

[Yesterday, The Tyee published a story detailing various credit card transactions of the B.C. Ministry of Children and Family Development, including purchases at golf and country clubs, spa resorts and five-star hotels, and bills for helicopter rides and gourmet chocolates. The story included the responses of advocates to the publicly disclosed transactions, including one from the province's Representative for Children and Youth, who said the expenses merited review.

The Tyee asked for an interview with Minister Stephanie Cadieux for her perspective before publication, but the minister was unavailable, and a spokesperson instead supplied responses to questions, which were included in the story. Yesterday, after the story was published, the minister sent a letter to the editor with her perspective. We publish it in full here.]

For readers who saw David Ball's July 22 column about expenditures for "luxury" items at the Ministry of Children and Family Development (MCFD), it is important to note that every purchase that ministry staff make must be pre-approved by their delegated spending authority. Ministry financial staff also review all transactions and follow up on any expense that seems unusual.

In 1991, Stephen Harper wrote a graduate thesis for the University of Calgary detailing how the holders of government purse strings were liable to use their power to budget for their own interests, rather than those of the public, often as elections approached.

Harper's economics thesis addressed the political business cycle, a concept related to how governments spend money to boost their popularity.

As controversy surrounds Canada Revenue Agency audits of social justice and environmental charities, experts are raising questions about Conservative MP Wai Young's controversial remarks at the Harvest City Church in June.

While the Vancouver South MP's 17-minute speech made national headlines for its unorthodox statements mixing the Harper government, Jesus, CSIS and Air India, Canadian charity and philanthropy leaders noted the Tories' double standard:

What was supposed to be a short, celebratory legislative session for a multibillion-dollar liquefied natural gas deal eroded for Premier Christy Clark’s government amid a horrific child abuse case and a long-running scandal involving her government’s firing of eight health researchers.

But in the end, lawmakers wrapped up the legislative session late Tuesday by passing the Liquefied Natural Gas Project Agreements Act.

OTTAWA - The Bank of Canada's latest economic forecast puts the federal government on track to run a $1-billion deficit in 2015-16, casting doubt on the governing Conservatives' promise to balance the election-year books, says a new analysis by the parliamentary budget office.

The results of the calculations, based on the downgraded projection released last week by the central bank, also trim the government's expected surpluses over the next two years.

WASHINGTON -- Nasser Nawajah was 4 years old the first time Israeli forces expelled him from his home in Susiya, a village in the southern part of the West Bank. In the 29 years since, Israeli forces have destroyed Nawajah's home -- and those of his neighbors -- countless times. Now, they’re threatening to do it again.

The Palestinian village of Susiya currently consists of over 300 people and over 100 structures -- the latter of which are subject to demolition by the Israeli government because they were all erected without proper building permits.

It could take months for Nexen to fully understand what caused a pipeline leak that spilled five million litres of bitumen and water into muskeg near Fort McMurray, Alta., the company says.

Nexen CEO Fang Zhi, who spoke to the media Wednesday at the site of the spill, personally apologized for the damage.

Months after the Harper government released its delayed budget for 2015 showing that Canada had cobbled together a $1.4-billion surplus, the Parliamentary Budget Officer has wiped it away.

The office, an independent oversight bureau, released a report this morning saying that due to the economic slowdown in Canada, government finances are likely headed for a $1.5-billion deficit.

The very worst was feared well before the Canadian Energy Strategy summit even kicked off.

On the Monday July 13, prior to the premiers meeting in St John's, The Globe and Mailreporter Adrian Morrow published details about the then-confidential document that would guide proceedings -- the draft featured lots of talk about pipelines and plenty of vagaries about climate change.

On Friday (the second and final day of the negotiations), Morrow tweeted: "Final version of the Canadian Energy Strategy is weaker on climate change than the draft I saw." The commitment to reducing emissions by an "absolute" amount -- as opposed to by per-capita intensity -- was scrapped. The plan was essentially gutted.

There was supposed to be a silver lining to the oil price collapse that has devastated Western Canada’s economy. Lower energy prices would lead to lower gas prices, which would put more money in consumers’ pockets and help Canada’s economy avoid a recession.

But if you’re a regular driver, you’ve likely noticed that gas prices have been creeping up, even though oil prices have been falling again in recent weeks.

As the Black Lives Matter movement continues to grow, many activists within the mainstream immigrant rights movement are beginning to acknowledge how their embrace of the refrain "immigrants are not criminals" and their framing of immigration as a "new civil rights movement" have created a damaging immigration narrative that is largely predicated on anti-Blackness. However, recent attempts to discuss immigration in a way that is inclusive of the Black immigrant experience have continued to allow for the erasure of Black immigrants and collusion with the criminal legal system.

There have been calls not to just decrease but to abolish immigrant detention. This is a clear nod to the prison abolition movement. On its face, employing the language of abolition presents a departure from the conservative and assimilationist tone that has dominated the conversation around immigration for years. Still, the emerging rationale for dismantling the immigrant detention system threatens to undermine the political vision of prison abolition.

TEL AVIV -- The nuclear agreement reached by Iran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (China, France, Russia, the United States and the United Kingdom), plus Germany, is not about Iran's capitulation, as Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu wished. And it is about as imperfect as any negotiated agreement between disputing parties can be. Nonetheless, it creates a solid framework to prevent Iran from producing nuclear weapons for the next 10-15 years -- and that is a very positive development.

ATHENS, Greece (AP) -- Greek lawmakers launched a late-night debate Wednesday on further reforms demanded by international creditors in return for a third multi-billion-euro bailout, with attention focusing on government dissenters who have vowed to reject the measures.

Despite the revolt in Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras' own party, parliament is expected to approve the draft legislation in a vote early Thursday - the second such crucial test in a week - again with broad support from pro-eurozone opposition parties. Failure to do so would derail the bailout and rekindle fears over Greece's future in the shared euro currency.

An unarmed black man was shot and killed on Sunday by a white police officer after he was pulled over for a missing front license plate.

Samuel Dubose, 43, was stopped by University of Cincinnati officer Ray Tensing on Sunday evening, according to CNN. Tensing repeatedly asked Dubose for his driver's license, but according to the Cincinnati Police Department, he refused and instead handed the officer a bottle of alcohol.

Citibank will be required to pay $700 million to 8.8 million customers for illegal credit card practices, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said Tuesday.

Between 2002 and 2013, Citibank sold its credit card customers add-on services that deceptively promised to add payment flexibility by deferring or canceling payments during hard times, and to protect against fraud and identity theft.

More U.S. Children Are Living In Poverty Than During The Great Recession

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) -- A new report on child welfare that found more U.S. children living in poverty than before the Great Recession belies the fanfare of the nation's economic turnaround.

Twenty-two percent of American children were living in poverty in 2013 compared with 18 percent in 2008, according to the latest Kids Count Data Book, with poverty rates nearly double among African-Americans and American Indians and problems most severe in South and Southwest.

The New York-based National Children's Leukemia Foundation made many promises to its donors over the years: it would use funds to conduct cancer research, locate bone marrow donors, and run a “Make a Dream Come True” program to help kids with cancer fulfill their bucket list.

Donors were evidently moved and impressed by the organization’s appeals for help. Between 2009 and 2013, $9.7 million was generously donated to the foundation.

Meagan Taylor, a 22-year-old transgender woman of color, has been sitting in an isolated Iowa jail since last Monday simply because she was profiled for her identity.

Taylor was visiting Des Moines with a friend from Illinois, where she lives. She works in a beauty salon and goes to cosmetology school. But when she noticed hotel staff at the Drury Inn “acting really funny,” her suspicions proved correct. They reported her and her friend, who is also transgender, to the police, describing “two males dressed as females” and expressing concern about “possible prostitution activity.”

Missouri state Rep. Paul Joseph Wieland (R) does not want his daughters’ health plan to cover birth control — even though two of those daughters are adults. So he and his wife sued the Obama administration. Though this lawsuit was rejected on jurisdictional grounds by a federal trial court, a panel of three appellate judges reinstated the suit on Monday. Should the Wielands ultimately prevail in their effort to deny birth control coverage to their daughters, the decision could have implications far beyond the Wieland family, potentially forcing insurance companies to maintain elaborate records to track many of their customers’ views on religion and sexual morality.

In her latest solo show, “Notes From the Field: Doing Time in Education, the California Chapter” at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre through Aug. 2, Anna Deavere Smith looks at the “school-to-prison pipeline.” The term refers to how kids—mostly poor and nonwhite—are being pushed out of school into the criminal justice system through such means as expulsions or suspensions for minor infractions, more police presence in schools, and school-based arrests.

A Calgary cab driver says she's still trying to recover from the emotional wounds of a vicious verbal attack that happened almost two years ago.

Global News released a video Monday that shows an unidentified man unleash a long and abusive racist tirade against Checker Cab driver Sardar Qayyum.

According to Global, Qayyum picked up the passenger from downtown Calgary on a November night in 2013. The man wanted to stop for fast food on his way home, but the taxi chit expired in 13 minutes.

The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), a proposed trade agreement that encompasses nearly 40 per cent of world GDP, heads to Hawaii later this month for ministerial-level negotiations. According to media reports, this may be the final round of talks, with countries expected to address the remaining contentious issues with their "best offers" in the hope that an agreement can be reached. Canadian coverage of the TPP has centred primarily on U.S. demands for changes to longstanding agricultural market safeguards.