King Harper Goes the Extra Millimeter

It was widely reported last week that King Steve made an angry phone call to King George demanding that the U.S. "come clean" on what it knows and didn't share about Maher Arar.

It made Harper look like he had something that might resemble a spine. Or did it? It was good politics for Harper, who is increasingly looked at in Canada as a Bush lapdog/wannabe. The phone call seemed almost Rovian in timing. Harper's numbers are falling in Canada. He hasn't delivered on promises to his base and the rest of the country has never really warmed to him.

Harper's phone call seems to indicate that the U.S. has information which wasn't part of the completed Arar inquiry in Canada. Harper's phone call seems to indicate that he believes that the U.S. has information which it believed made Arar a candidate for torture. Harper is whistling into the wind on this one.

The U.S. doesn't need a REASON for torture. It just needs a body. Just look at the Bush Administration's No-Fly Lists and other terror laws. The recent terror detainee law passed in the U.S. is a prime example. Detainees have no right to Habeas Corpus or due process. The U.s can hold someone indefinitely without charging the detainee with anything. Further, it is the Executive Branch's sole discretion as to what to do with detainees and when. Despite all of George Bush's proclamations that all life is precious, he and his administration certainly treat human life callously and cavalierly.

I'm not sure why Harper won't apologize to Arar. It's an easy thing to do. He looks compassionate and he can blame the previous Liberal government for letting such a thing as this happen to a Canadian. It wasn't, after all the Harper government that was in charge when Arar was sent on his little Syrian hiatus. Harper seems to think that if he apologizes, that his administration will be blamed for something that happened before he ascended to his throne. That doesn't make sense....unless there have been other Canadians taken into custody since Harper took office, shipped them to the U.S. who, in turn has shipped them to other countries for torture. Is that why Harper won't issue an apology? Because he's afraid that he'll be doing it a lot more later on?

The entire Arar situation is disturbing. The fact that the international community hasn't stood up against the U.S. breaking any number of international laws and treaties by sending someone to another country for the purpose of torture is galling.

So Harper's pathetic little phone call to his "frat buddy" Bush was the least he could do. I guess it's surprising that he even did that.

Contagious Amnesia

Let’s put two and two together on a couple of things. The entire Bush administration is running around saying they were never briefed and had no advance knowledge that an attack by al Qaeda was emminent. At every turn, they have always pointed the fingers at others, George Tenet and the CIA dropped the ball, they weren’t briefed by the people who should have briefed them, and lately it was all Bill Clinton’s fault.

This dog just doesn’t hunt. There is now plenty of evidence to show that they DID know; that they WERE briefed and that they did nothing. Bob Woodward’s latest book claims that Condi Rice was briefed. She, like everyone else in the Bush administration on this topic, has completely no knowledge of anything ever. Is there such a thing as contagious amnesia? If so, there is a terrible outbreak in D.C. right now.

But back to our math problem. It has been shown that the outgoing Clinton administration did brief the incoming administration on the al Qaeda threat and even left them an action plan (which the Bush administration quickly threw away). Despite Condi’s failed memory and her denials last week, State Department spokesman Sean McCormick on October 2nd said that a review of White House records indicate that the briefing did happen on July 10 as George Tenet has said it did. Whether Woodward’s claim that Condi brushed them off isn’t the point. Condi didn’t say that last week. She categorically denied having any memory that any meeting or briefing ever occurred. I can’t remember where I put my keys half the time. But I do remember the big things. It’s quite unbelievable that the National Security Director would forget that she was told that a major terrorist attack on U.S. soil was emminent. I may lose my keys, but I’d remember that. It doesn’t end there.

White House lap dog/media whore Judith Miller, revealed in May of 2006 that she had been given a secret NSA intelligence report months before the September 11 attacks indicating that there was an imminent attack on the U.S. According to Miller, the security and counter-terrorism communities were concerned that it was going to happen over the 4th of July weekend in 2001. She went to Washington and was told by a credible source that they had an intercept of two al Qaeda operatives complaining that the U.S. did not respond strongly enough to the attack on the USS Cole and that something was going to happen in the U.S. to force the government to respond. Both Miller and her editor confirm that Miller had the story; had a credible source and they knew who the source was inside the White House.

Miller gets the NSA document but never writes the story. This is probably payback to the White House for putting her up in some nice hotel or palace somewhere. And the New York Times track record on the Bush administration is pathetic. Really, Steve Engelberg? You didn’t think this story qualified as “all the news thats fit to print?” After the Sept. 11 attacks, both Miller and her editor “regret” not running the story. That’s nice. That makes me feel better about the 3,000 lives that were lost, the thousands more military lives that have been lost in Afghanistan and Iraq even though neither of those countries were involved in the attacks. Their simple regret makes me think it was worth losing our civil liberties and now habeas corpus and due process.

But I’m off track here. So we have part of our equation. Let’s add it up. Who was head of the NSA at the time? Condoleeza Rice. Condi’s denials about what she knew and when she knew it have always been eye-rollingly unbelievable. She told Congress there had been chatter but no credible evidence. Really, Condi? This document that Ms. Miller has certainly would seem to refute that. And it’s certainly not outside the realm of believability that Condi herself gave Miller the document. Miller hasn’t said that, but Miller didn’t deal with underlings in the Bush administration.

So they did know. They all knew. This isn’t a collective memory lapse. It’s pathological lying. Whenever anyone in the Bush administration is cornered in their lies, they immediately pull a Mission Impossible style memory clear and the tape in their brains that held that information self-destructs.

But what is more distressing is the mainstream media focusing on who is the father of Anna Nicole Smith’s baby and not doing the math. Can we get someone to send the Bush administration and the media a truckload of Focus Factor?

Turtlelus Republicanus

I've noticed that Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert has no neck any more. It's almost as if his head is trying to sink into his own body. Every day, he looks more and more like a turtle. With the relevation this past weekend that a Florida congressman had sent inappropriate emails to, not one, but several, underage Congressional Pages, Haster got a whole lot more turtle-lier. Then, it was revealed that Republican leaders, including Hastert, have known for some time about Congressman Foley and his internet activities. Did it take long for the word cover-up to arise? No. Nor should it. Hastert denies he new anything at all ever until last week. Then he said his staff knew. Then he denied remembering any meeting with another representative about the issue.

It's amazing. Every Republican in Washington seems to have been hit with a bout of amnesia. Condi Rice evidently doesn't remember any meetings with Tenet or anyone else in which she was told anything about immenent attacks on the U.S. Rummy doesn't remember meetings with generals that they say happened. No one in the administration has any memory at all of anything. They deny they knew anything.....ever.

It seems we have a new species of turtle. Turtlelus Republicanus. When convenient, duck your head inside your shell and deny everything. Perhaps this is why Hastert's neck seems to have disappeared. The titele of Woodward's new book, State of Denial, seems to be more of a mantra for the Bush's administration these days. Deny the war is going badly. Deny that you knew anything. Deny. Deny. Deny.

But is Foley's Folly the real story?

Virtually on the same day that the Foley story was breaking, the U.S. Congress was dealing a body blow to what's left of the U.S. Constitution. Congress doesn't believe that the right of habeas corpus needs to exist in the U.S. anymore. Since the government no longer needs to present evidence against someone, or even file charges and can imprison them in perpetuity as an "enemy combatant" (a term that has no legally defined meaning), doesn't that mean that in one swift move the Republicans, with the help of 12 Dumb-O-Crats in the Senate and 34 in the House. Habeas Corpus. A concept that has been part of law since the 12th century. Congress, in their infinite stupidity have in one vote turned America from a democracy into an oligarchy. They have abdicated their constitutional mandate for checks and balances over the executive branch; they have obliterated the need for a federal court system. The president, and the president alone, has the right and insight to determine who is a threat. Not a court. Not a judge or jury. Due process is a quaint concept of the past. The Executive Branch can declare you an enemy combatant and there is nothing that can be done.

One Republican senator remarked that the Supreme Court would likely overturn the law but he voted for it anyway. I'm not so sure. Both Alito and Roberts have, in their writings, stated that they believe in a supreme presidency. They will likely uphold the law. Scalia, who has been off his rocker for some time and done the administration's bidding time and time again, will also vote for it. Clarence Thomas does what Scalia wants him to do. That means, if either Kennedy or Stevens vote to uphold this odious law, the United States, as a democracy, is no more.

That's the real story here. Not the show of three allegedly firebrand Republicans disagreeing with the Administration on torture. Torture is bad and wrong. But there is something much more fundamental at stake here. And once again, Congress has failed to realize that it's quickly legislating itself out of existence. Or perhaps, Turtleus Republicanus is affecting everyone in Washington.

Cutting a Budget that Doesn't Need Cutting

The Harper government announced massive cuts to many social programs at a time with there is a huge surplus. If this sounds familiar -- it's straight out of the Bush-Rovian playbook. I guess this means that King Steve got his orders on his recent trip to D.C. So, in his on-going quest to be Bush-lite, Harper cut programs that really didn't need cutting. Harper's droids lamely made the argument that these programs were ineffecient but offered no real evidence as to how.

Bush did the exact same thing. He took office with a huge budgetary surplus. His program cuts were allegedly designed to save the taxpayers billions of dollars and make the country more fiscally sound and responsible. What does the U.S. have today? The largest debt of any country in the history of mankind. By some estimates, the U.S. taxpayers will never finish paying off this debt. It's amazing that Harper and Bush can't find the empathy to fund things like school lunches, aid to the poor, etc. Bush has found the compassion to fund a corporate welfare program for "poor" companies like Halliburton and its subsidiaries to the tune of, by some estimates, over $60 BILLION dollars. This despite the fact that Halliburton has never once fulfilled a government contract without charges of overbilling and fiscal mismanagement.

The important point that no one seems to have made in the recent coverage of this is that cutting budgetary programs doesn't necessarily translate into a healthier bottom line. For example, it has been rumoured that Harper is eyeing cutting arts councils and grants out of the federal budget. This is a stupid idea. It's economically unsound. The argument that was used in the U.S. to do this was that taxpayer money shouldn't be used to fund art that some people find objectionable. Harper hasn't gone that far. He's tried to keep on the message that it's just about the budget. But, is it?

In the U.S., a small pitence of the federal budget is spent on the National Endowment of the Arts. But, to hear the Bushniks tell it, if congress eliminated this program, the federal budget would balance itself in a matter of seconds. Yes, a couple hundred million dollars will make up the trillions of dollars of fiscal imbalance. However, if you look at the program, for every federal dollar that is used in NEA grants, approximately $20 is returned into local economies. For every dollar that is spent, local communities get $20 back. That means money that is spent at local businesses, hiring local workers, boosting local economies. This doesn't even consider the tax revunues generated. How many government spending programs can the conservatives point to that make a return like that? Certainly not any involving Halliburton, Enron, ExxonMobile, Shell or other fat multi-national companies that are now sucking the American taxpayer dry.

Harper's next step will no doubt be to start awarding contracts to politically connected companies that will feed his election campaign coffers while he feeds them with bloated federal corporate welfare programs.

It is interesting that the conservative cabal can rationalize corporate welfare but not social welfare.

What Does "Canadian" Mean?

As I am still adapting to my new homeland and since we just celebrated Canada Day, I pause to wonder: just what defines Canadian? Canadians have a lot of national pride. They should this is not only a beautiful country, but the people here seem genuinely friendly. They seem to have a common sense of decency and fairness. But is that it?

John Grierson, the father of documentary filmmaking and founder of the National Film Commission (later the National Film Board) of Canada, founded that institution on the premise of "talking Canada to the Canadians." I think there is something to that. But it is also a double-edge sword. On the one hand, I think it is important for Canadians to define what it means to be Canadaian. The Star recently published lists of music, writing, etc. that they felt was distinctly Canadian -- a Canadiaun Cultural Hall of Fame, if you will. It has generated quite a bit of heat. Why are certain things on there and others not? That sort of thing.

Since I've been looking for work, it seems that there is still a bit of "talking Canada to Canadians." I have received Landed Status and, therefore, am legal to work in Canada. The problem is that no one wants to hire an immigrant over a Canadian. This means that I can apply for jobs below my skill set and have the employer reject me because I'm overqualified or I can apply for jobs that I am qualified for and be rejected because I'm not Canadian -- I'm just a faux Canadian at this point. Or, finally, I can look for work outside my field. I realize that no one wants to be seen as giving a job to an immigrant that should go to a qualified Canadian if that person is applying from outside the country, but the way I interpret the government's giving me Permanent Residency is that they are saying, "Hey, this guy could actually contribute something to our country and economy." Which is what I want to do.

I get off on this digression because it does seem that Canada is a bit protectionist in this regard. There seems to be a want to keep Canada inside the borders of Canada. But then, I look at Harper and he seems more intent on playing the provinces against each other (I think they call that "divide and conquer") than uniting them. (It's also important to note here that George Bush ran saying that he was a "uniter" and not a "divider" -- look what's happened there.)

One of Harper's latest plans is to make federal funding to the provinces contingent on doing what Ottawa (i.e., King Harper's administration) wants. If you don't agree to that, then those equalization payments will go to your provincial neighbor. This is dangerous. It's also a method that Bush/Rove have used quite successfully in the U.S. to get their odious agenda through. Remember Bush's famous "if you're not with me, you're with the terrorist's" speech? Harper's plan seems to be just an economic form of the same type of blackmail. And, it seems, distinctly un-Canadian.

Give Canada Your Huddled Masses

Liberal leadership candidate, Maurizio Bevilacqua, proposed a major expansion to the immigration policy. It's certainly an interesting idea. But, as a new immigrant, let me give you my perspective on what changes should be made.

I'm not certain that opening the doors to Canada is the answer. One of the things I've confronted so far is that, while the government has given me permission to enter the country and that status has given me permission to work, It's difficult to find a job that is in line with my qualifications. I have two masters degrees and nearly 25 years as a professional in my field. I can't get a nibble. I'm not applying for the heads of companies either. I'm more than willing to start at the bottom rung and work my way up. I'm applying for low-level entry positions and internships. Nothing. Zip. Nada. And, from what I understand, my experience is not uncommon. There seems to be almost a pathological fear on the part of employers that if they hire someone with Landed Status that they will be charged with some sort of crime by the government. Where does that come from? Is that the law that really needs to change?

One of the arguments for expanding the immigration policy is to attract the best and the brightest from other countries. But, if you're not going to allow them to work in their fields once they get here, what's the point?

I would also say that the government needs to look at the process itself. The immigration form is quite lengthy and, in some cases, downright silly. One part of the application asks you to list every address you've lived at since you were 18. If you're in your 20s, that's probably pretty easy. However, if you're in your 40s (the age group that gets the most "points" in terms of selection criteria for skilled workers), this become quite problematic. Had I not been a pack rat and found a box of old tax records, I wouldn't have been able to do this. I'm still not clear as to how where I lived twenty years ago would either qualify me or disqualify me to live in this country. There are a couple other things like that. It took me two months to fill out the application. I have a feeling that it's this type of unnecessary data which then, presumably, some immigration officer somewhere has to sort through has contributed to the backlog of applications. One question Mr. Bevilacqua doesn't address is how an already backlogged system will handle and process more applications. Right now, it seems like the system is trying to force a beach full of sand through a pin-hole. Could it really handle more?

Then, once the application is in, you wait. And wait. And wait. There is supposedly an on-line system where you can check the status of your application, but it isn't updated until after you've been notified by mail of what is going on. I was lucky. From the time my application was received until the time I received my Confirmation of Permanent Residency was only 18 months. Most people from the U.S. wait more than two years. In fact, Sharon Gless (of Cagney & Lacey and the U.S. verison of Queer as Folk) had applied under the Business Immigration class. This meant that she was going to come to Canada and start a business which would create jobs and employ Canadians. It was reported that she had spent of $100,000 trying to get this application processed. She hired and immigration attorney; filed her papers and heard nothing for nearlly three years. There has got to be a better way than this.

I think that fixes in the the system need to come before Canada flings open its doors to more applications.

It does seem a bit like Bevilacqua is trying to court the immigrant population in light of Harper's recent head-tax apology. Both, however, seem like they're trying to do the same thing Bush has been trying to do with the latino-immigrant voting block in the U.S. with his broken Spanish (and English, for that matter).

Run, King Harper, Run!

It has been announced that King Harper will not attend the World AIDS Conference in Toronto. I can't believe in this day and age and this far into this epidemic that we have a leader so clueless that he won't even put in an appearance. It is truly reminiscent of Ronald Reagan's refusal to admit there was a problem in the 1980s. Some have speculated that it's Mr. Harper's homophobia because he isn't going to attend the Outgames either. Well, duh!!! Is there anyone that expected HRH to suddenly embrace the gay community once he annointed himself king? No. Mr. Harper still has the ideology to ignore and avoid ANYTHING that could remotely be construed as him accepting anything or anyone gay -- including AIDS. Even though AIDS is not a "gay disease," now approaching three decades of the epidemic, most conservatives still view it as such.

I also don't see Harper coming to Toronto all that much. After all, it was the mean, evil and sin-laced Torontish that denied him a majority government. They must be punished. So, my guess is that anytime he can avoid Toronto, he will.

But Mr. Harper's refusal to attend the conference and the games, I think, is laced with something even more pathetic. By taking this stance, it plays well into the hands of the ultra-conservatives who would love to see the Canadian take on the same moral and theological bent as the so-called "religious" conservatives in the U.S. have been able to forge in the U.S. It's about playing to his base. But sadly, if his government takes the same approach to AIDS as it has to the environment, many will die. He won' be able to run from that.

I've often said that he looks like the Stepford candidate. The dull vacant look in his eyes is eerily like the look of the automatons of the fictional town of Stepford. Who could be pulling the strings? Karl Rove? In some ways, it almost feels like he's running for office in the U.S. and not Canada. My perception of Canadians has been that they are infinitely sensible people who do not like the government to make moral or personal decisions for them. In Harper's actions, I see him setting up the same "wedge issues" for Canada that the zealots in the U.S. did. And look what's happened there. One thing is clear, though, actions like this prove that he is not a leader for all ofCanada. Just those people who support him. Look for him to continue to cut Toronto and other places which are heavily liberal out of the picture.

"Al Qaeda Inspired": The New Terrorism Buzzwords

The FBI arrested seven people in Miami on a purported attempt to attack the Sears Tower. The evidence against these guys seems to be that they told people they were muslim; they were black and spoke with Jamaican accents; they wore turbans and they had pictures of the Sears tower. There is no link between this group and Al Qaeda. In light of the recent major terrorism bust in Toronto, it bears looking into. No longer do authorities need to tie alleged terror suspects to the boogey man. Now, they just need to be boogey-man inspired. Under this kind of thinking, it would be easy for any government to claim that anyone who disagrees with them as being "Al Qaeda inspired."

Evidently, the case in Miami was in such early stages that they really have no other evidence of a plot. A few months ago, several men parked their car in an illegal zone near the Sears Tower; got out and started taking pictures and, when confronted by a security guard got back in their car and sped away. The guard got the license plate and found that it was a rental which had been rented under an alias or false name. Seemed like a terrorist plot in the making. Except the FBI the next day came out and said that the incident never happened. It was very X-Men. I kept expecting the FBI to pull out those little wands; flash a bright light in our eyes and erase our memories. Perhaps they did. The story was dropped and never pursued in the media.

Seems like something like this would warrant a terror investigation. But no, guys who exercise at night instead of the heat of the Miami mid-day sun, are now considered suspects.

I have long maintained that Bush knows he, his adminstration and the Republicans stronghold on the US Congress are in danger in the fall election. I believe that the Bush administration has started their summer-long campaign to pound the terrorism drum so that they can either allow or execute a terror attack in the US just prior to the fall mid-term elections so that, one more time, they can use the "stay the course" logic. And since, the "Al Qaeda inspired" bullet point worked so well in Canada, why not try it out in the US?

What's the Real Story?

A couple of contradictions in the news leave me wondering what's the real story:

A report on global warming asked for by the US Congress was reported in the US media as "Earth hottest in 400 years. In the Canadian press, it was "Earth hottest in 2,000." That's quite a little difference. Is the Bush-controlled media in the US trying to dampen the report?

In the Canadian press, The Globe and Mail reported that the Conservatives bill raising the age of consent was hailed by police and child-advocacy groups alike. In the Star, the story was that the bill was met with mixed reviews. uhhhhhm.....