Harper's fixes aren't for the long term

Does anyone else find it odd that Stephen Harper should choose to go to a high town in Switzerland to deliver a speech from the Throne?

At least that's the way the prime minister's address to the other movers and shakers of the world at Davos seems to have been perceived by a good chunk of the Canada's news media.

"Harper's Grand Plan" proclaimed one front-page headline. Many others predicted "major changes" are ahead for a lot of us, bad ones for old-age pensioners, the sick, the halt and the lame, and good ones for those who seek to profit from Canada's natural wealth.

Harper sometimes has to try hard to overcome his natural humility. It took a special effort from him to leave Parliament Hill (elevation 70 metres) to climb to Davos (1,560 metres) to deliver his sermon from a more appropriate mount.

It was clear his message was meant for home consumption. Other concerns of world leaders at Davos, such as the Euro rot, seemed hardly worth mentioning.

The Conservative Death Wish

That large smacking sound you hear is the Liberals and NDP licking their lips as Prime Minister Stephen Harper at the Davos Economic Forum discussed reforming the Old Age Security pension, possibly raising the age at which seniors receive the payment to 67.

The Old Age Security only consumes about 2.41 per cent of GDP, much lower than in most countries. In 2031 at the top of the baby boom retirement demographic, the OAS will consume only 3.14 per cent of GDP. That’s a lot of money, but it is not a catastrophe.

So generations of Canadians have been promised pensions under certain conditions and now the ground is being taken out from under them by Harper. Pension reform is just unnecessary yet Harper is not proceeding on logic, but ideology. First Harper caps federal health payments, now he wants to reform promised pensions. The large senior boomer demographic is unlikely to approve.

That allows an opportunity for the Grits and the NDP. “Would you rather have your pensions and health care or a bunch of new fighter jets?” you’ll be able to hear them cry on the hustings.

Harper let ideology triumph over logic in crime legislation. Now he’s doing the same thing with pensions and health care.

Good luck, Prime Minister, in the next election.

Original Article
Source: ottawa citizen 
Author: Ken Gray 

Violent Occupy Oakland protest results in 300 arrests

About 300 people were arrested Saturday during a chaotic day of Occupy protests that saw demonstrators break into City Hall and burn an American flag, as police earlier fired tear gas and bean bags to disperse hundreds of people.

Dozens of police officers remained on guard outside City Hall around midnight following the most turbulent day of protests since November, when Oakland police forcefully dismantled an Occupy encampment. An exasperated Mayor Jean Quan, who faced heavy criticism for the police action last fall, called on the Occupy movement to "stop using Oakland as its playground."

"People in the community and people in the Occupy movement have to stop making excuses for this behaviour," Quan said.

Protesters clashed with police throughout the day, at times throwing rocks, bottles and other objects at officers. And police responded by deploying smoke, tear gas and bean bag rounds, City Administrator Deanna Santanta said.

"These demonstrators stated their intention was to provoke officers and engage in illegal activity and that's exactly what has occurred today," Santana said.

At World Economic Forum, Fear of Global Contagion Dominates

DAVOS, Switzerland -- They came, they feasted on smoked sturgeon and black truffle risotto, drank liquor paid for by global banks, endured dozens of security checks, and tried not to fall down in the snow. They talked about the perilous state of the global economy and the future of capitalism. Then, they headed back to their home countries -- many in chauffeured limousines, some by private jet.

But as the people who run much of the planet wrapped up the annual festival of influence known as the World Economic Forum on Saturday, any sense of achievement was hard to discern. The participants arrived amid elevated unemployment in many economies, worries about government budget deficits, and fears that contagion from a financial crisis in Europe could infect the rest of the world. They went home with all of these worries intact, and perhaps reinforced.

Nouriel Roubini, the economist who -- not for nothing -- is known as "Doctor Doom," noted that world leaders are divided on a great array of crucial issues, from arguments over trade imbalances and currency valuations to the threats posed by Iran and North Korea and the challenge of climate change.

"On all these issues that require international coordination, there is no agreement," he said during a Saturday morning panel. "It's a world of chaos that can lead to potential conflicts."

The Man Behind Gingrich’s Money

The trip to Jordan by a group of United States congressmen was supposed to be a chance for them to meet the newly crowned King Abdullah II. But their tour guide had a more complicated agenda.       

The guide was Sheldon Adelson, a Las Vegas casino magnate who helped underwrite trips to the Middle East to win support for Israel in Congress. On this occasion in 1999, as the lawmakers enjoyed a reception at the Royal Palace in Amman, Mr. Adelson and an aide retreated to a private room with the king.

There, the king listened politely as Mr. Adelson sat on a sofa and paged through his proposal for a gambling resort on the Jordan-Israel border to be called the Red Sea Kingdom.

“This was shortly after his father, King Hussein, died, and he was grateful to me,” Mr. Adelson explained later in court testimony, recalling that he had lent his plane when the ailing monarch sought treatment in the United States. “So they remembered.”

The proposal never went anywhere — Mr. Adelson later said he had feared that a Jewish-owned casino on Arab land “would have been blown to smithereens.” But his impromptu pitch to the Jordanian king highlights the boldness, if not audacity, that has propelled Mr. Adelson into the ranks of the world’s richest men and transformed him into a powerful behind-the-scenes player in American and international politics.

God rules all in 2012 Israel, even the state

Israel: Not what you thought, not what the world thought, not what Israelis imagine themselves to think. Israeli society isn't secular, it isn't liberal and it isn't enlightened.

God exists. Eighty percent of Israeli Jews can't be wrong. And it is precisely for that reason we must say: God protect us from the results of the poll (conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute's Guttman Center for Surveys and the Avi Chai Foundation ). While it is conceivably possible to deal with that burning, wholesale belief in the divine, what do we do with the "You chose us" part? Seventy percent of respondents said they also believed Jews are the Chosen People - and that frightening parameter is only on the rise.

You have to give it to the pollsters. They let the cat out of the bag. To paraphrase the Haaretz advertising slogan from the 1990s - Israel: Not what you thought. Not what the world thought, not what Israelis imagine themselves to think. Israeli society isn't secular, it isn't liberal and it isn't enlightened. Were they permitted to respond freely, it's doubtful that 80 percent of Iranians would say they believed in God; it's doubtful there is any other free nation on the planet, with the possible exception of the Americans, that would produce the same results. But there surely is no other nation on the planet that is so secure in its arrogant certainty that it was selected from all the other nations and raised above them.

The findings of this powerful poll are the most important key to understanding Israeli society and the conduct of its governments. It is the only prism through which it is possible to comprehend the occupation, the racism, the Haredization and the capitulation to the settlers. In our hearts, we think: This is our destiny. If in any enlightened society settlers and the ultra-Orthodox would be treated as marginal, eccentric, messianic groups, the attitude toward them in Israel comes from a very deep place within the "secular" society. If in any enlightened society the occupation stirs protest and revulsion, the attitude to it here is based in a religious belief that justifies all its iniquities.

Allen West To Liberals: Get the Hell Out Of The U.S.

Speaking to a Lincoln Day Dinner in West Palm Beach for the Palm Beach County GOP, Rep. Allen West (R-Fla) fired off a humdinger of a line that within minutes drew recriminations from Democrats on Twitter.

"We need to let President Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, (audience boos) and my dear friend the chairman of the Democrat National Committee, we need to let them know that Florida ain't on the table," West said. "Take your message of equality of achievement, take your message of economic dependency, take your message of enslaving the entrepreneurial will and spirit of the American people somewhere else. You can take it to Europe, you can take it to the bottom of the sea, you can take it to the North Pole, but get the hell out of the United States of America."

Following cheers, West added, "Yeah I said 'hell.'"

Moments after the quote was mentioned on Twitter, former Reid spokesman Jim Manley responded via his own Twitter feed: "Me to allen west. You first asshole."

And they say politics is getting more acrimonious.

Original Article
Source: Huff 
Author: - 

Oakland Police Department Only Weeks Away From Being Placed Into Federal Control

Nearly a decade after the city of Oakland was first threatened with losing control of its police force, Judge Thelton Henderson has severely curtailed the independence of the Oakland Police Department, saying that it could placed under federal receivership as soon as this March.

In 2000, a group rogue of Oakland police officers, calling themselves the "Rough Riders," were found to have planted evidence, used excessive force and falsified police reports. As part of a negotiated settlement three years later, the city was ordered to take 51 specific steps toward reform or else lose operational control of the department. Despite numerous deadline extensions, Oakland has failed to make significant progress on said reforms.

"The court remains in disbelief that Defendants have yet--nine years later--to achieve what they themselves agreed was doable in no more than five years," Henderson wrote in his decision earlier this week.

Henderson's order prevents both department brass as well as embattled Oakland Mayor Jean Quan from making any significant changes--such as granting promotions--without first getting approval from independent monitor Robert Warshaw. Warshaw, a former Drug Enforcement Agency official, has been overseeing the OPD for years; however, his role had solely been in an advisory and reporting capacity.

Occupy Oakland: Police Teargas Protesters, Use Flash Grenades

OAKLAND, Calif. — Police were in the process of arresting about 100 Occupy protesters for failing to disperse Saturday night, hours after officers used tear gas on a rowdy group of demonstrators who threw rocks and flares at them and tore down fences.

Police Sgt. Christopher Bolton said the arrests came after protesters marched through downtown Oakland a little before 8 p.m. Saturday, with some of them entering a YMCA building.

Meanwhile, about 100 police officers surrounded City Hall while others were swept the inside of the building to see if any protesters broke in.

More help from other police agencies was also on the way, with busloads of Alameda County sheriff's deputies arriving in the downtown area late Saturday.

The nighttime arrests came after 19 people were taken into custody in Occupy Oakland protests hours earlier.

First the powwow – now what?

The Prime Minister and the chiefs of Canada's first nations left on Tuesday from their first meeting in six years with symbolic gifts and expressions of goodwill. The only stated objective of the gathering had been to ‘reset the relationship,' which has deteriorated over centuries of misunderstandings and broken promises. As Gloria Galloway reports, the stakes are high for everyone involved

Stakes for Shawn Atleo

Shawn Atleo, the soft-spoken and cerebral man who has led the Assembly of First Nations for three years, has only just begun his efforts to improve the quality of education on reserves, where a mere 40 per cent of students nationally are graduating from high school.

If he intends to run again and keep his job for another three years, he must survive a vote of 663 chiefs at a convention in July. Mr. Atleo's chances of winning that election are probably no better now than they were going into the Tuesday meeting. There are factions within the AFN who would like to see him replaced.

But a complete failure at the meeting could have caused serious damage to any re-election bid. And, with preliminary expectations set low, Mr. Atleo cannot be said to have failed.

The chiefs arriving from across Canada were infuriated to learn that Prime Minister Stephen Harper planned to be in the summit room for just a small portion of the full-day event.

Sensing catastrophe, Mr. Atleo persuaded Mr. Harper to meet 30 chiefs at a hastily organized roundtable late Monday afternoon and then urged him to stay at the following day's gathering for as long as possible, as a demonstration of his commitment to the first nations.

The Prime Minister, a man not given to changes of plan, altered his schedule and remained at the Tuesday meeting until the closing prayer.

Some chiefs will interpret that as further proof that Mr. Atleo is too close to Mr. Harper.

But there had been threats of a first-nations walkout if the Prime Minister departed too soon. Mr. Atleo's powers of persuasion prevented the conference from collapse – something that could have irreparably damaged the relationship with the government that he says needs to be reset.