Questions linger about secret panel for Marc Nadon's appointment

It's been three weeks since the Supreme Court told the government its nominee, Justice Marc Nadon, is not eligible to sit as a member of the court.

Not only is little known about how he was chosen, there's also no new candidate in sight.

Nadon's name was on a list of three potential candidates. That list of three, which had been drawn up by a selection committee made up of MPs, was then sent to the government. That means two other candidates are presumably available to fill the empty Quebec seat on the top court. But it's not known who they are, or whether a new batch of candidates will be drawn up.

RIP people killed by Flaherty's policies

Former federal finance minister Jim Flaherty died an early death at 64, causing the business community, the Tories and Liberals—but also NDP leader Tom Mulcair—to choke back tears. We mourn instead the thousands whose untimely deaths were brought about by the policies of Flaherty and the cabinets in which he served.

Flaherty was part of Mike Harris’ government in Ontario, whose cuts to water inspection services led to an E.Coli outbreak that killed seven people in Walkerton, Ontario. The same government imposed massive cuts to welfare and social housing, killing Kimberly Rogers in the process, and years later people continue to die from homelessness.

Russia Wants To Annex The Moon

Because Russia hasn't been accused of imperial behaviour quite enough lately, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin announced on Friday that the nation plans to carve out an area of operations on the moon.

According to Voice of Russia, Rogozin explained to government daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta on Friday that since Russia is "going to come to the moon forever," it doesn't make much sense to keep making trips back and forth. Instead, Rogozin says, Moscow will plan on establishing a permanent base on the moon, which could mean that as its sole human occupants they'd essentially be in control up there.

South Carolina Panel Approves Expansion Of 'Stand Your Ground' Law To Include Unborn Children

The South Carolina Senate Judiciary Subcommittee voted 3-2 Thursday to approve the "Pregnant Women's Protection Act," a measure that would expand the state's "Stand Your Ground" law to permit pregnant women to use deadly force in defense of an unborn child, beginning at conception.

Opponents of the bill, sponsored by state Sen. Katrina Shealy (R), said the legislation is redundant under the state’s existing "Stand Your Ground" law, arguing that no situation exists in which an unborn child would be threatened when the mother was not.

Social Security, Treasury target taxpayers for their parents’ decades-old debts

A few weeks ago, with no notice, the U.S. government intercepted Mary Grice’s tax refunds from both the IRS and the state of Maryland. Grice had no idea that Uncle Sam had seized her money until some days later, when she got a letter saying that her refund had gone to satisfy an old debt to the government — a very old debt.

When Grice was 4, back in 1960, her father died, leaving her mother with five children to raise. Until the kids turned 18, Sadie Grice got survivor benefits from Social Security to help feed and clothe them.

Big G.O.P. Donors Stir Senate Runs

Democrats in races that will help determine control of the Senate are rapidly burning through their campaign cash, whittling away their financial advantage over Republican opponents as they fend off attacks from conservative groups, according to figures released through Friday.

The spending on both sides underscores the critical role that outside conservative groups are playing as Republicans try to retake the Senate. In state after state, organizations like Americans for Prosperity, the nonprofit linked to the conservative billionaires David H. and Charles G. Koch, have kept Democrats on the defensive with a barrage of negative ads while establishment-backed Republican candidates raise money and navigate their way through primaries.

In the Tories’ partisan Bizarro World, every critic of Fair Elections Act is biased

Conservatives at their best disdain the lazy moral relativism that passes for sophistication in some corners of the left. There are such things as right and wrong, they insist, not right for some and wrong for others. Some absolutes remain.

Conservatives at their worst espouse their own brand of relativism, with its own slipshod reasoning and its own situational ethics. It is the achievement of this government to have relativized a number of what were once considered absolutes: whether the census should be accurate, for example, or whether governments should be answerable to Parliament. And, now, whether elections should be fair.

Very little ‘fair’ about how Conservatives are pushing controversial Elections Act

It is coarse to imagine the Conservatives are conspiring to fix the next election, in plain sight of everyone. If you were bent on suppressing the opposition vote, evading spending limits, and otherwise participating in electoral fraud, presumably you would not take the trouble to advertise this in legislation.

On the other hand, if they are not up to no good, they are doing their best to convince people they are. The secrecy surrounding the Fair Elections Act, the failure to consult in advance of its drafting, the curtailment of debate after, the supreme indifference to legitimate criticism, all under the chilling oversight of the Minister for Democratic Reform, Pierre Poilievre, would be enough to make anyone nervous.

Why 'Fair Elections Act' Means the Death of Reason

The "Fair Elections Act" is the ultimate battle of rhetoric versus reason. In response to weeks of credible, objective, unanimous expert committee testimony opposing this bill, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Minister Pierre Poilievre and their MPs consistently repeat evidence-free talking points.

Non-partisan civil society groups, respected academics and chief electoral officers warn that the removal of vouching and voter information cards will disenfranchise tens or hundreds of thousands of marginalized Canadians despite individual voter fraud being virtually non-existent.

Harper’s idea of ‘fairness’ belongs in Arizona

Stephen Harper would make a good governor of Arizona.

In addition to the lies and sleaziness his government has been serving up during its majority, its sickening reliance on marketing over truth, its dishonest use of technology in political matters, and its shameful abuse of language, the prime minister is blighting democracy in the name of political advantage.

When Stephen Harper gave Canada fixed elections dates, no one expected a whole lot more “fixing” was still to come. There was; Bill C-23. By potentially removing hundreds of thousands of voters from the next election, Canada could now have elections with fixed dates and fixed results.