The Fair Elections Act Is Republican-Style Cheating

The CPC's push for its absurdly named Fair Elections Act would make infamous Republican strategist Karl Rove proud. At best, it has been a campaign to mislead the public, at worst, an attempt to rig the electoral system to favour the Tories in 2015.

Last week, Conservative Senator Linda Frum, sister of former George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum, launched an attack against Elections Canada on the grounds that its efforts to promote voter turnout constitute a "conflict of interest."

Fair elections act: 7 things you may not know

Most of the debate about the changes the government wants to make to how Canadians vote and run elections has centred around vouching. But there are many more controversial measures inside Bill C-23. Here are seven things you may not know about the proposed fair elections act.

Bill S-4, Tories' Digital Privacy Act, An Attack On Digital Privacy: Critics

The Harper government’s Digital Privacy Act is being billed as “protection for Canadians when they surf the web and shop online,” but critics say it amounts to a wholesale threat to the privacy rights it ostensibly aims to enshrine.

Bill S-4, as the proposed legislation is officially known, would allow internet service providers to share subscriber information with any organization that is investigating a possible breach of contract, such as a copyright violation, or illegal activity, writes digital law professor Michael Geist.

Fair Elections Act: Senators Call For 9 Major Changes To Bill

OTTAWA - The Harper government is getting some serious push-back from Conservative senators on its controversial overhaul of elections laws, with a Senate committee unanimously recommending nine major changes to the legislation.

In an interim report to be tabled Tuesday, the Senate's legal and constitutional affairs committee recommends that the government drop provisions to muzzle the chief electoral officer and the elections commissioner, The Canadian Press has learned.

Ukraine Gives Rebels Deadline To Disarm Or Face Military Operation

KIEV/SLAVIANSK, Ukraine, April 13 (Reuters) - Ukraine has given pro-Russian separatists a Monday morning deadline to disarm or face a "full-scale anti-terrorist operation" by its armed forces, raising the risk of a military confrontation with Moscow.

Angered by the death of a state security officer and the wounding of two comrades near the flashpoint eastern city of Slaviansk, acting president Oleksander Turchinov gave rebels occupying state buildings until 0600 GMT to lay down their weapons.

U.N. Climate Panel Highlights Lack Of Action On Rising Temperatures

BERLIN (AP) — The cost of keeping global warming in check is "relatively modest," but only if the world acts quickly to reverse the buildup of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere, the head of the U.N.'s expert panel on climate change said Sunday.

Such gases, mainly CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels, rose on average by 2.2 percent a year in 2000-2010, driven by the use of coal in the power sector, officials said as they launched the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change's report on measures to fight global warming.

IPCC climate change report: averting catastrophe is eminently affordable

Catastrophic climate change can be averted without sacrificing living standards according to a UN report, which concludes that the transformation required to a world of clean energy is eminently affordable.
“It doesn’t cost the world to save the planet,” said economist Professor Ottmar Edenhofer, who led the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) team.

The cheapest and least risky route to dealing with global warming is to abandon all dirty fossil fuels in coming decades, the report found. Gas – including that from the global fracking boom – could be important during the transition, Edenhofer said, but only if it replaced coal burning.

A FOUR-DECADE TAX WAR

The nearness of April 15th is enough to remind us of the words of Jimmy Carter, who, when he accepted the Democratic Party’s nomination for President, in 1976, said, “It is time for a complete overhaul of our income-tax system … It is a disgrace to the human race.” Perhaps that was a bit hyperbolic in a world with so many people and events in the running to represent disgraces to humanity. But, in spirit, Carter was not wrong. The tax system is disgraceful, and what amazes is that, despite wide agreement on that point, and despite so many good intentions, so little has been done to fix it.

Nevada Rancher Warns Land Dispute With BLM 'Could Turn Into' Next Waco

Carol Bundy, the wife of a Nevada rancher locked in a tense standoff with federal rangers, warns the ongoing dispute could escalate to the point of a confrontation similar to those at Ruby Ridge and Waco.

"If you saw the artillery and their presence -- the intimidation they are trying to put on us -- it could turn into that," Bundy told The Huffington Post.

The Government Listens To Lobbyists And The Wealthy, Not You And Me

When organized interest groups or economic elites want a particular policy passed, there’s a strongly likelihood their wishes will come true. But when average citizens support something, they have next to no influence.

That’s according to a forthcoming article in Perspectives on Politics by Martin Gilens of Princeton University and Benjamin I. Page of Northwestern University. The two looked at a data set of 1,779 policy issues between 1981 and 2002 and matched them up against surveys of public opinion broken down by income as well as support from interest groups.