Puppet MastersS


Attention

Allegations of Election Fraud Demand Serious Response


The Calgary Herald
Mon, 27 Feb 2012 00:00 UTC
Stephen Harper
© Chris Wattie/Reuters
Some of the Conservative reaction to the growing robocall scandal reminds us of Leslie Nielsen standing in front of an exploding fireworks factory in Naked Gun while telling a gathering crowd, "Move on. Nothing to see here."

On Monday, Tory Senator Mike Duffy blamed it on third parties. Conservative strategist Tim Powers called it opposition hysteria. On the weekend, Defence Minister Peter MacKay called it an isolated incident. In question period Monday, the unflappable Stephen Harper gave them all a lesson in crisis communications, saying that anyone with evidence of illegal acts should notify Elections Canada, as Harper says his party has done, so the agency can investigate and report back to the House of Commons. It's the only credible response.

With staff at a Thunder Bay call centre admitting they made live calls scripted by the Conservatives to mislead voters about polling station locations in hotly contested ridings, dismissing the allegations merely reinforces the reputation that this is a bullying, stop-at-nothing government that has muzzled everyone from scientists to veterans' advocates.

The Conservatives, after all, once hired a polling company to spread the false word that Liberal MP Irwin Cotler of Montreal intended to resign from Parliament - a tactic that Commons Speaker Andrew Scheer later called "reprehensible." Election fraud is serious. This is not Zimbabwe. If Harper doesn't want to be perceived as Canada's version of Robert Mugabe, he and his party have no choice but to co-operate fully with the joint Elections Canada-RCMP investigation currently underway.
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Bizarro Earth

Best of the Web: Wyoming Narrowly Defeats Measure to Prepare for Apocalypse

Ruffin Prevost
Reuters
Tue, 28 Feb 2012 00:00 UTC
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© unknown
US: Cody, Wyoming - In a sign of rising consumer confidence prevailing over go-it-alone pessimism in the Cowboy State, Wyoming lawmakers on Tuesday narrowly defeated a "doomsday bill" to help the state prepare for a total collapse of the U.S. government and economy.

The bill, rejected on a 30-27 vote by the state House of Representatives, would have allocated $16,000 for a panel of legislators and emergency managers to study various measures, including a new state-issued currency, for handling a range of apocalyptic scenarios.

The bill's chief sponsor, Republican Representative David Miller, originally had sought $32,000 to fund the task force, but the Joint Appropriations Committee later cut that amount in half. Republicans control both houses of the state Legislature.

House members on Monday had given the bill their initial backing after striking a "poison pill" amendment that mockingly asked whether Wyoming should purchase its own aircraft carrier and fighter jets.

"I guess a lot of people think if you're trying to prepare for a disaster, it makes you seem crazy," co-sponsor Kendell Kroeker said. "I was interested in it mainly because I don't think there's any harm in being well-prepared."
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Handcuffs

Interpol Says 25 Suspected Anonymous Hackers Arrested

Greg Keller
The Associated Press
Wed, 29 Feb 2012 00:00 UTC
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© Jean-Philippe Ksiazek/AFP/Getty Images
Paris - Interpol said that 25 suspected members of the loose-knit Anonymous hacker movement have been arrested in a sweep across Europe and South America.

The international police agency said in a statement Tuesday that the arrests in Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Spain were carried out by national law enforcement officers working under the support of Interpol's Latin American Working Group of Experts on Information Technology Crime.

The suspects, aged between 17 and 40, are suspected of planning coordinated cyberattacks against institutions including Colombia's defense ministry and presidential websites, Chile's Endesa electricity company and national library, as well as other targets.

The arrests followed an ongoing investigation begun in mid-February which also led to the seizure of 250 items of IT equipment and mobile phones in searches of 40 premises in 15 cities, Interpol said.

In Chile's capital, Subprefect Jamie Jara said at a news conference that authorities arrested five Chileans and a Colombian. Two of the Chileans are 17-year-old minors.
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Chess

Barack Obama Waives Rule Allowing Indefinite Military Detention Of Americans

Michael McAuliff
Huffington Post
Tue, 28 Feb 2012 19:28 UTC
obama
© Getty

Washington -- The White House released rules Tuesday evening waiving the most controversial piece of the new military detention law, and exempting U.S. citizens, as well as other broad categories of suspected terrorists.

Indefinite military detention of Americans and others was granted in the defense authorization bill President Barack Obama signed just before Christmas, sparking a storm of anger from civil libertarians on the left and right.

The new rules -- which deal with Section 1022 of the law -- are aimed at soothing many of their gravest concerns, an administration official said. Those concerns are led by the possibility that a law that grants the president authority to jail Americans without trial in Guantanamo Bay based on secret evidence could easily be abused.

"It is important to recognize that the scope of the new law is limited," says a fact sheet released by the White House, focusing on that worry. "Section 1022 does not apply to U.S. citizens, and the President has decided to waive its application to lawful permanent residents arrested in the United States."
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Dollar

Warren Buffett Says High Corporate Taxes Are An American 'Myth'

Bonnie Kavoussi
The Huffington Post
Mon, 27 Feb 2012 16:10 UTC
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© Associated PressBillionaire investor Warren Buffett speaks in Omaha, Neb., Monday, Nov. 14, 2011, at an event to raise money for the Girls Inc. charity organization.
Corporations, like the rich, aren't paying their fair share in taxes, billionaire investor Warren Buffett told CNBC on Monday.

Even while enjoying record profits, corporations last year paid just 12.1 percent of those earnings in taxes, their lowest tax rate since 1972, according to the Congressional Budget Office. At least thirty of the country's most profitable companies had a negative tax rate between 2008 and 2010.

Buffett, for one, says it's time to take notice.

"It's a myth that American corporations are paying 35 percent or anything like it," Buffett said, referring to the top marginal corporate tax rate. "Corporate taxes are not strangling American competitiveness."
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Sherlock

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

Stephen Maher and Glen McGregor
Edmonton Journal
Mon, 27 Feb 2012 00:00 UTC
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© 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.
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Whistle

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


Alliance for Natural Health
Tue, 21 Feb 2012 16:12 UTC
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© 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.
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Bad Guys

Crony Capitalism, Repression, and the Police State

Eric L. Green
Badtux the Snarky Penguin
Tue, 28 Feb 2012 17:12 UTC
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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.
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Arrow Down

Japan's Economy Contracts as Exports Plunge

John Watanabe
World Socialist Web Site
Tue, 28 Feb 2012 16:52 UTC
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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.
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War Whore

US, Britain Gear Up For War on Iran

Bill Van Auken
World Socialist Web Site
Tue, 28 Feb 2012 16:46 UTC
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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."
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