Democracy gone Astray: Saturday, May 18, 2013

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.]

Saturday, May 18, 2013

French President Signs Gay Marriage Into Law

PARIS -- French President Francois Hollande has signed a law authorizing gay marriage and adoption by same-sex couples, after months of nationwide protests and wrenching debate.

His signature means the first gay marriages may be celebrated in France within about 10 days. Hollande's office said he signed the bill Saturday morning, a day after the Constitutional Council struck down a challenge to the law.

Hollande, a Socialist, had made legalizing gay marriage one of his campaign pledges last year. While polls for years have shown majority support for gay marriage in France, adoption by same-sex couples is more controversial. The bill prompted months of widespread protests, largely by conservative and religious groups. Some were marred by clashes with police. It became a flashpoint for frustrations at the increasingly unpopular Hollande.

Original Article
Source: huffingtonpost.com
Author: AP

North Korea Missile Launch: 3 Short-Range Guided Weapons Fired Into Sea, South Korean Officials Say

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea fired three short-range guided missiles into its eastern waters on Saturday, a South Korean official said. It routinely tests such missiles, but the latest launches came during a period of tentative diplomacy aimed at easing tensions.

The North fired two missiles Saturday morning and another in the afternoon, South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said by phone. He said the North's intent was unclear. His ministry said it is watching North Korea carefully in case it conducts a provocation against South Korea.

Secrecy, Surveillance, and Public Safety

Three scandals have converged in the past week to preoccupy Congress and the press. Benghazi was the first to come, and it has surprised by its staying power. The larger issue in the background -- the wisdom of the NATO destruction of the government of Libya which left an open field for anti-American militias -- will probably never be discussed; and within the bounds of the intervention policy, it is unlikely that a satisfying American culprit will emerge. The abuse of power by the IRS may be, in the long run, the most damaging of these cases for the Obama presidency, but its outlines are only beginning to emerge. It is possible that IRS functionaries acted as they did without any systematic guidance from the top of the service; and possible, too, that over the many months of the harassment of anti-Obama groups, the executive branch never caught wind of the trouble and is as stunned as the rest of us. But the ugliest of the scandals has come from the revelation of the justice department's seizure of two months of phone calls by 100 Associated Press reporters. This was done to investigate the leak of a thwarted terrorist plot which the government itself had already decided to disclose in public.

KABUL, Afghanistan — Conservative religious lawmakers in Afghanistan blocked legislation on Saturday aimed at strengthening provisions for women's freedoms, arguing that parts of it violate Islamic principles and encourage disobedience.

The fierce opposition highlights how tenuous women's rights remain a dozen years after the ouster of the hard-line Taliban regime, whose strict interpretation of Islam once kept Afghan women virtual prisoners in their homes.

The Conservative Party pulled out of popular political talk shows on CBC and CTV on Friday in what appears to be a response to heavy news coverage of the Senate expenses story.

The hosts of CBC’s Power and Politics and CTV’s Power Play – two competing programs that feature commentary and political panels – both announced that Conservative MPs cancelled their appearances at the last minute.

CBC and CTV did not comment when asked about it by The Globe and Mail. Neither did the Prime Minister’s Office, the Conservative Party or Conservative MP Michelle Rempel, who was scheduled to appear on both shows.

Original Article
Source: theglobeandmail.com
Author: Bill Curry

December 22, 2008 — a day Prime Minister Stephen Harper might like to forget

December 22, 2008 — it’s a day that Prime Minister Stephen Harper might like to forget.

It was on that day that Harper filled a whopping 18 Senate vacancies with partisan Conservative appointments. The list of “distinguished Canadians” appointed by Harper to the Upper Chamber that day included senators Mike Duffy, Patrick Brazeau and Pamela Wallin.

Another week in Toronto, and another scandal involving our sideshow of a mayor, Rob Ford.

This latest one, in case somehow you have not heard, involves an apparent video of the mayor allegedly not only smoking crack cocaine but also using homophobic language to disparage Justin Trudeau and describing the players of the high school football team he coaches as "just fucking minorities".

It really is one thing after another with Ford. For example, very shortly after entirely credible claims were made regarding apparent drunken sexual misconduct by Ford by Sarah Thomson back in March, new allegations that the mayor, prior to this, was asked to leave a different public social function also due to apparent intoxication burst onto the headlines.

Canada's northernmost research lab won't have to shut down after all and will be able to resume year-round operations, with the help of a new grant from the federal government.

The Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory (PEARL) in Eureka, Nunavut, will receive $5 million over five years, Minister of State for Science and Technology Gary Goodyear announced Friday.

The defenestration of Mike Duffy followed all of the rituals prescribed for such events.

First, a party consigliere, in this case Tim Powers, is sent out in public to suggest the condemned man should do some “soul-searching,” and look at “how he can remedy this situation.” There follows the official finding of suicide (“Senator Duffy has informed me that he has resigned from caucus”), ending with a statement from the corpse himself, in which he expresses a desire to avoid being a “distraction” (“my presence within the Conservative caucus only contributes to that distraction”), predicts ultimate vindication (“I look forward to all relevant facts being made clear in due course”), and invokes the suffering of his family (“this has been a difficult time for me and my family”). Check, check and check.

I hope you had better things to do with your Friday morning that watch the members of the House Ways and Means Committee berating Steven Miller, the acting head of the Internal Revenue Agency, who was recently forced to resign. Even if the unfortunate Miller hadn’t been on the way out the door, the hearing would have largely been a charade—an opportunity for Republicans and Democrats to try and outdo each other in expressing their outrage at an institution that, even in normal times, is roundly loathed. But with President Obama having just fired Miller on Wednesday evening, there wasn’t anyone else in authority for the elected representatives to rail at.

France may have taken a big step forward with parliament's decision to legalize gay marriage, but according to the results of a European Union survey, discrimination against the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community is still widespread in Europe.

Released Friday, the online survey of more than 93,000 LGBT people in 27 EU members states and Croatia found nearly half the respondents said that in the previous year they had "felt personally discriminated against or harassed on the grounds of sexual orientation." Two-thirds of those polled also indicated they were afraid to hold hands with their same-sex partner in public; the percentage was even higher for gay or bisexual men.

A commissioner at the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission has left his post after five years to join Sun News, as the broadcaster seeks “must carry” status.

Marc Patrone’s contract with the CRTC ended on March 18. He is now the Sun News Network’s director of news operations for Western Canada.

The Chronicle Herald reported Patrone’s new job Friday, and CTV confirmed the move.

Notwithstanding his defiant assertions to the contrary, Mike Duffy will almost certainly never set foot in the Conservative caucus room again. But it will take more than his departure to clear the air.

The former journalist is still drawing a Senate salary but his days as a political insider are over.

The same cannot be said of his or the government’s troubles.

The Senate’s internal economy committee sanitized the original audit of Sen. Mike Duffy’s expenses to remove damning findings, documents obtained by CTV News show.

A confidential report obtained by CTV’s Ottawa Bureau Chief Robert Fife shows the original version of Duffy’s audit found that the senator broke the Senate’s “very clear” and “unambiguous” residency rules.

The report found that Duffy stayed in his Prince Edward Island cottage mostly during the summer months. He had listed it as his primary residence, which allowed him to claim an annual housing allowance given to senators who live more than 100 kilometres from Ottawa.

The great satirists running our government continue the joke with Mike Duffy's implosion.

Connoisseurs of schadenfreude -- those who take joy in others' misery -- have had a wonderful week.

First the B.C. New Democrats, singing "Jerusalem" as they marched to the polls, were left for dead by the Liberals. They now have four more years to reflect on why they remain out of power: however nice they may be, their adversaries are simply smarter than they are.

OTTAWA—Stephen Harper’s Conservatives were hit with another political body blow Friday as Senator Pamela Wallin left caucus, the second high-profile senator in as many days to leave under a spending cloud.

Wallin’s travel expenses have been under examination by outside auditors since January and she opted to quit the Tory caucus until the probe is complete.

This week, it was revealed that the Department of Justice secretly seized two months' worth of private phone records from Associated Press reporters and editors. As this decision comes under increasing scrutiny, press freedom advocates say it's just part of a larger battle for control of information – one that they've been trying to sound an alarm on for a long time.

"I've been saying for years that this is a backdoor way to go after journalists," says Jesselyn Radack, a former DOJ employee and whistleblower who is now director of national security and human rights at the Government Accountability Project.

We're going to get into this more at a later date, but there was some interesting late-breaking news yesterday.

According to numerous reports, the European Commission regulators yesterday raided the offices of oil companies in London, the Netherlands and Norway as part of an investigation into possible price-rigging in the oil markets. The targeted companies include BP, Shell and the Norweigan company Statoil. The Guardian explains that officials believe that oil companies colluded to manipulate pricing data:

The commission said the alleged price collusion, which may have been going on since 2002, could have had a "huge impact" on the price of petrol at the pumps "potentially harming final consumers".
Lord Oakeshott, former Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman, said the alleged rigging of oil prices was "as serious as rigging Libor" – which led to banks being fined hundreds of millions of pounds.

Can't balance your cheque book? Want to get really depressed about your negative bank balance?

Why not check out Bloomberg's interactive ranking of the world's richest people. The news agency has put some thought into this ranking, listing the top 100 of the 1 per cent by country, gender, industry, ages and sources of wealth.

To find out who is worth what, all you have to do is scroll over the sketches of the billionaires faces. The graphic even links to relevant news stories.

Art and jewelry sales hit record high prices today as a stack of paintings and stones sold for a total of almost $1 billion at auctions around the world.

A contemporary art sale at Christie’s in New York sold $495 million worth of paintings, including Jackson Pollock's "Number 19, 1948," which sold for $58.4 million. Christie’s said in a statement the sales showed “a new era in the art market." Which is another way of saying there are a lot of very rich people out there who can pay a lot of money for some art.

Elijah Harper has died at the age of 64. Elijah Harper served as both an MP and MLA for Manitoba, and was an honorary chief for life of the Red Sucker Lake First Nation.

Harper reportedly died of heart failure related to complications from diabetes.

His family made a brief statement today: "He will have a place in Canadian history, forever, for his devotion to public service and uniting his fellow First Nations with pride, determination and resolve. Elijah will also be remembered for bringing Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people together to find a spiritual basis for healing and understanding. We will miss him terribly and Love him forever."

OTTAWA - Canada's inflation story is fast becoming one about disinflation.

Statistics Canada reported Friday that the annual rate fell an astonishing six-tenths of a point to 0.4 per cent last month, the lowest it's been since October 2009, as gas prices plunged by six per cent — also the biggest drop since October 2009 — and many other consumer goods registered outright declines.

The Justice Department's seizure of call logs related to phone lines used by dozens of Associated Press reporters has provoked a flurry of bipartisan criticism, most of which has cast the decision as a disturbing departure from the norm. AP head Gary Pruitt condemned the decision, part of an investigation into leaks of classified information, as a "massive and unprecedented intrusion." Yet there's plenty of circumstantial evidence suggesting the seizure may not be unprecedented—just rarely disclosed.

Karl Rove is offering America a super-sized serving of political cynicism.

Since the controversy over the targeting of grassroots tea party groups for extra scrutiny by the Internal Revenue Service arose, Rove has engaged in the sort of political sleight of hand that could only be practiced in a country where elite media have no skepticism—and no memory.

President Obama announced his Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) memo late into last year’s election season, which allows certain undocumented immigrant youth to apply and obtain renewable two-year work permits. While some lawmakers responded favorably, others reacted with vitriol. In Arizona, Governor Jan Brewer made clear that DACA youth would not be eligible for driver’s licenses. A federal court has now ruled there’s no rational basis for her decision—but refused to issue an injunction as the case moved forward.

Patriot Majority USA, a social welfare nonprofit, told the Internal Revenue Service that its mission is “to encourage a discussion of economic issues.” In exchange for keeping its donors private and paying fewer taxes, it must limit its involvement in politics.

Yet last year Patriot Majority, run by Democratic operative Craig Varoga in Washington, spent at least $7.5 million on TV ads attacking Republican candidates on issues such as women’s health screenings and equal pay. With the Nov. 6 election over, the nonprofit shows signs of going dormant with e-mails bouncing back unopened and phone calls unanswered.

Democracy gone Astray