Puppet MastersS


Sherlock

'Robocall' Probe Puts Tory Campaign in Guelph, Ontario Under Microscope

Image
© Postmedia News/The Windsor StarElections Canada is investigating whether robocalls in dozens of ridings across Canada, but mainly in southern Ontario, mislead voters.
Canada, Ottawa - An Elections Canada investigation into black ops "robocalls" was focused on a Conservative party campaign in Guelph, Ont., documents obtained by Postmedia News and the Ottawa Citizen show.

A court order executed on an Edmonton call centre in November specifically refers to records related to the campaign of Conservative candidate Marty Burke in Guelph, where many voters reported receiving pre-recorded messages that falsely claimed their polling stations had moved.

Since reports of that investigation came to light last week, Liberals and New Democrats have reported fraudulent calls in dozens of ridings across the country and the Conservatives have called on anyone with information to send it to Elections Canada - but the documents suggest any such investigation was more narrowly focused, at least in November.

A production order executed on RackNine Inc. in Edmonton compelled the company to turn over all emails, billing records and other correspondence between it and "the Conservative party general election campaign in Guelph."

The court order also required the Conservative-connected company to hand over the user names, passwords and IP addresses of anyone associated with the Guelph campaign who used RackNine between March 26 and May 31.

The order also required RackNine to release records of calls that used the number 450-760-7746. The Bell Canada phone number in Joliette, Que., appeared on call displays of some recipients of the fraudulent election day calls in Guelph.

Whistle

Big Farma Once Again Walking All Over Your Safety - and the Constitution

Image
© Alliance for Natural Health
The agriculture industry is trying to make it a crime to be an undercover investigator at a factory farm. Goodbye, whistle blowers! Farewell, freedom of speech!

Last year, "ag gag" bills were introduced in a number of states. Happily, most were defeated due to overwhelming opposition from our grassroots activists, concerned citizens, and organizations of all political stripes. Unfortunately, many of these bills are back this year, and the dangers are even greater.

The bills introduced last year would have made it illegal to videotape or take a picture on a factory farm - even when an an illegal act was occurring. This is obviously unconstitutional; Iowa's attorney general even told their legislature so.

Bad Guys

Crony Capitalism, Repression, and the Police State

Image
Police violence at Occupy Oakland
The current crony capitalist system in place since the Reagan Revolution dismantled the New Deal consensus that capitalism had to serve both labor and capital is requiring ever-increasing levels of repression to milk additional increments of wealth out of labor for the benefit of capital. Currently almost 5% of the U.S. population is either in jail, on probation, or otherwise involved in the correctional system. We have more people in prison both as a percentage and as a sum total than Stalin had in his gulags.

It was amazing to see the amount of police state brute force used against the Occupy movement. We're talking about a movement that, if it had been ignored, would have simply faded away within a few weeks because people would have gotten bored and moved on. Instead it was in the headlines for weeks because of the level of brutality used to suppress it. Why in the world were the oligarchs so panicked? It's because they have just about reached the end of the amount of force they can apply to eke out tiny increments of wealth out of the labor of the 99%. When you're already applying as much force as Stalin applied, you're reaching the point where it costs more to apply additional force than you'll get as a return on that additional force.

Arrow Down

Japan's Economy Contracts as Exports Plunge

Image
Japanese Autoworkers
Japan's economy contracted in the fourth quarter of 2011 by an annualised 2.3 percent, resulting in an overall yearly contraction of 0.9 percent. The country also recorded its first trade deficit in 31 years, reflecting sharply falling demand in its key exports markets in China, Europe and North America.

Significantly, the trade deficit continued in January. Japan's exports to China took a 20 percent dive compared to last year, recording the fourth straight month of decline on a year-on-year basis. China accounted for 40 percent of January's trade deficit. These results point both to the slowdown in China and its implications for the Japanese and global economy.

Japan's current account remained in surplus, but suffered its biggest yearly loss in history, threatening to undermine the government's ability to service the public debt, which stands at about 230 percent of gross domestic product.

Japanese manufacturing is being hit particularly hard. Falling sales in Europe and North America, the high value of the yen and increasing competition, especially from East Asian rivals, are threatening the very viability of basic industry.

War Whore

US, Britain Gear Up For War on Iran

Image
The military commands in both the US and Britain have sought increased funding and stepped up deployments of arms and personnel to the Persian Gulf in preparation for an anticipated war against Iran.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Pentagon, acting on the request of the Central Command, which oversees US military operations in the region, has requested the re-allocation of some $100 million in military spending to ratchet up war preparations.

The Journal cast these preparations as defensive measures aimed at countering an Iranian threat to close the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway through which some 20 percent of the world's exported oil flows. Iran's threat came in response to trade sanctions and embargoes imposed by the US and Western Europe that amount to a blockade, an act of war, as well as open Israeli threats to bomb the country.

"The US military has notified Congress of plans to preposition new mine-detection and clearing equipment and expand surveillance capabilities in and around the strait, according to defense officials briefed on the requests," the Journal reports. "The military also wants to quickly modify weapons systems on ships so they could be used against Iranian fast-attack boats, as well as shore-launched cruise missiles, the defense officials said."

Arrow Down

Mass Layoffs Expose Myth of US Economic "Recovery"

Image
The recent announcements of mass layoffs by the US Postal Service, Procter & Gamble, and Archer Daniels Midland, together with the bankruptcies of Fuller Brush and American Airlines, have upended claims that the United States is in the midst of an "economic recovery."

In fact, the US economy remains mired in mass unemployment, with falling real wages and growing poverty a fact of life for millions of people. Small and medium businesses, facing immense pressures to cut costs, are collapsing by the tens of thousands.

The worst of the recent job cuts was conducted by the government itself: the US Postal Service announced last week that it would wipe out 35,000 jobs by the end of September, part of a longer-term plan to eliminate 150,000 jobs.

One well-known corporate name after another has joined the procession of bankruptcies and layoffs, eliminating tens of thousands of jobs combined: Sears, Procter & Gamble, American Airlines, Kodak, Fuller Brush Company (which filed bankruptcy last week), Archer Daniels Midland, IBM.

Attention

US Snubs Out Legal Cigar Transaction

Cuban Cigars
© ColourboxDue to the trade embargo, the trade in Cuban cigars is illegal in the USA.

Foreign minister intervenes after Danish man loses appeal to have 137,000 kroner returned to him by the Americans

Authorities in the US have refused to return 137,000 kroner that was confiscated from a Danish policeman who attempted to legally purchase Cuban cigars from Germany.

Torben Nødskouv intended to resell the cigars through his small business Cigarhuset and made the transaction in dollars with a Hamburg-based distributor. But the transaction, which was automatically routed through the US, was picked up by American authorities who froze the money, arguing that the transaction violated the American trade embargo with Cuba.

Nødskouv appealed after the $20,000 transaction was frozen last autumn, but the money may be permanently lost after he was recently informed that it would not be returned to him.

MIB

2012 Election Rigged


Nuke

Report: Japan's Government "Collapsed" During Fukushima Nuke Crisis

Members of Japan Self-Defense Force
© APMembers of Japan Self-Defense Force practice during a decontamination exercise at the Yokota Air Base in Tokyo.
The one year anniversary of the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan is less than two weeks away, but details about the nuclear meltdown that happened that tragic day are just beginning to emerge.

On Feb. 27, a news helicopter was allowed close enough to get a good glimpse of the crippled Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant. Today, a report revealed the chaos between Japan's leaders during the crisis.

"The normal lines of authority completely collapsed," Tetsuro Fukuyama, the prime minister's adviser, told investigators.

CBS News correspondent Lucy Craft reported that in the hours after the tsunami struck the nuclear plant, Japanese officials huddled in an emergency bunker struggled to grasp the size of the catastrophe.

"As we listened to our top nuclear experts, we politicians had no idea what they were talking about. Was anyone going to suffer radiation contamination? Would this be another Chernobyl or Three Mile Island? No one could give us a straight answer," Fukuyama recalled in the report.

Heart

Best of the Web: Asma Al-Assad, Diana of the Middle East: Syria's First Lady on Gaza

Wife of Syrian President, Asma Al-Assad, speaks out about the despicable Israeli abuses against Palestinians in this interview with CNN, recorded three years ago. Are we beginning to see why the Al Assads have been targeted for elimination? Conscientious leaders of just societies must be removed to make way for barbaric 'democrazi' and total world domination of, by and for psychopaths.