More Than 180 Arrested on Occupy Wall Street's First Anniversary

In the early morning hours Monday, Occupy Wall Street activists marked the first anniversary of the movement by protesting in the financial district. Hundreds gathered on Water Street and hundreds more in Zuccotti Park, the birth place of the movement, before marching through Lower Manhattan, occasionally pausing to occupy intersections and protest financial institutions like Chase and Bank of America.

It was one of the largest turnouts since the early days of Occupy, but Monday was also exceptional because of the high arrest figures. More than 180 people, including journalists, were arrested, and in at least some of these cases, the police were arresting individuals arbitrarily and without cause.

Voting’s Outcasts: Why One in Five Blacks in Kentucky Can’t Cast a Ballot

One of every thirteen African-Americans are already disenfranchised, and it’s not because of voter ID laws, voter purges or cut-offs to early voting but because they’re caught up in the criminal justice system. According to a new study released this summer by the Sentencing Project, in 2010, 5.85 million otherwise eligible voters were disenfranchised because they’re current or former felons. Of these, a full 75 percent were already out on parole or probation or had already completed their complete sentence. Nationwide, nearly 8 percent of African-Americans have lost their right to vote, compared to nearly 2 percent for non-African-Americans—illustrating the lasting effects of a racially biased criminal justice system.

Stop denying and show the proof, Mr. Mayor

‘If the facts are against you, argue the law. If the law is against you, argue the facts. If the law and the facts are against you, pound the table and yell like hell.” – Legal adage

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The Ford brothers did not actually pound the table in their Newstalk 1010 radio studio on Sunday, but there were angry words and raised voices as they lashed out at their tormentors in the football affair. The way they put it, the whole controversy over the mayor’s use of city staff to help coach his football team is a creation of lazy reporters and “left-wing elitist socialists.”

Isn't Mitt Romney a Member of the 47 Percent?

Mitt Romney, a son of privilege who used family connections and family advantages to accumulate a “vulture capitalist” fortune, and who now collects multimillion-dollar checks for doing absolutely nothing, claims to have identified 47 percent of Americans “who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them.”

The 47%: Who They Are, Where They Live, How They Vote, and Why They Matter

In secretly recorded comments, Mitt Romney told a private fundraiser that the 47% of American who pay no federal income tax "dependent on government" and predicted they will "vote for the president no matter what."*

Let's not talk about what the comments mean for Romney's election chances. Let's talk about everything we know about "The 47%."

Quebec Long-Gun Registry: Feds Will Appeal Court Ruling

OTTAWA - The federal government is making good on its promise to appeal a Quebec court ruling that blocked the destruction of gun-registry records and ordered the data handed over to the province.

The government plans to challenge last week's decision by Quebec Superior Court Judge Marc-Andre Blanchard, who voided two sections of the Conservative government's legislation to scrap the long-gun registry.

Carbon emissions estimates vary wildly at Northern Gateway hearings

EDMONTON - Carbon emissions from the proposed Gateway pipeline could cost $742 million a year by the time the bitumen in the pipeline is refined and burned as gasoline, engineer Chris Peters, told a federal hearing into the proposed 585,000 barrel-a day pipeline to the West Coast.

But pipeline proponent Calgary-based Enbridge stressed Monday only a fraction of those emissions — about $4 million worth a year — come from the construction and operation of the pipeline.

Two models of Chinese 5th-Gen fighter in works

The Chinese military has leaked first photos of a brand new lightweight fighter with external characteristics that allow the jet fifth-generation attribution. Some pictures suggest it could be used on future Chinese aircraft carriers.

Shenyang Aircraft Industry Group (SAC), one of the leading aircraft design and manufacturing corporations of China’s aviation industry, has rolled out a prototype that might eventually become Chinese analogue to America’s F-35.

Poilievre slams union for using cash for politics

Nepean-Carleton MP Pierre Poilievre has ratcheted up his war of words against unions, saying they’re overstepping their boundaries when they wade into the political sphere.

Documents provided to the Sun show Canada’s largest union representing public servants spent nearly $2 million on political action last year.

“That raises a lot of questions,” said Poilievre. “That money belongs to workers, not the union bosses and it’s being spent on radical, divisive political causes that workers don’t support.”

Conservatives call it a carbon tax. NDP call it cap and trade. Which is it?

The federal Conservatives who were, by their own standards, relatively gentle with the opposition New Democrats throughout the spring have returned to the fall sitting with their messaging set on “carbon tax” and specifically the NDP’s alleged support for such a levy.

The New Democrats deny they have ever favoured such a tax – though they do argue for a cap-and-trade system to force polluters to pay for their carbon output. But an NDP news release issued Monday saying the Conservatives just “love to lie about carbon taxes” did nothing to stop the onslaught.