statism watch

Eric Black, MinnPost.com
March 11, 2009

Warrantless arrests. Secret hearings. This is what a police state looks like. The sad thing, really, is that if you let your children grow up thinking this is normal, not only will they never know the liberty you enjoyed and failed to defend – but your generation’s death will herald the extinction of freedom in Canada for a very long time.

Flashback: More secrecy added to already secret process | Charkaoui set to fight new security certificate law | New security certificates issued | The New Security Certificate: Rushing injustice through the Senate | You Are a Suspect

CBC News
March 11, 2009

The Conservative government will again try to bring in two controversial elements of an anti-terrorism bill that would extend police and judicial powers.

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson gave parliamentary notice late Tuesday that he will attempt to bring in the provisions, which could be introduced in the House of Commons as early as Thursday.

The measures would give police the power to make preventive arrests, without a warrant, of anyone suspected of planning a terrorist attack.

They would also require anyone with information relevant to the investigation of a terrorist act to appear before a judge in secret for investigative hearings. Witnesses could go to jail if they don’t comply.

The provisions were part of the Liberal government’s Anti-Terrorism Act, which went into effect in December 2001 following the Sept. 11 hijackings in the United States.

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If the Reserves’ esprit de corps is eviscerated, then the natural coherence Lt.-Col Selkirk speaks of below will be destroyed. And make no mistake – that’s the intention. The Canadian Reserves must be turned inside out in order to effectively turn them into a regularized domestic occupying force. Otherwise the internal resistance to assuming a domestic policing role within the Reserves might well be insurmountable – which would effectively put the brakes on the agenda to militarize Canadian society itself.

Flashback: Military readies reservists for threats to ‘domestic front’ | Military may patrol bar zone in Barrie | British Secret Service, Army Alert on Bank Riots | US Urban Warfare Drills Linked To Coming Economic Rage | Military and police practice integration during Olympic security exercises | Canadian military getting 1,300 new heavily armoured trucks for ‘domestic use’ | Army ‘Strategic Shock’ Report Says Troops May Be Needed To Quell U.S. Civil Unrest | Troops in the Streets: Army Brigades Standing By to Assist in Disasters, Help Quell Dissent | Canada, U.S. agree to use each other’s troops in civil emergencies

CBC News
March 11, 2009

The Canadian Armed Forces are set to amalgamate some of the current 140 regiments into a smaller number of bigger units, CBC News has learned.

The changes would come into effect after Canada concludes its combat mission in Afghanistan in 2011.

“We are going to mess with the basic structure of the army reserve,” Brig.-Gen. Gary O’Brien, the head of the army reserve, told CBC News in an interview. “It isn’t about closing more locations or getting smaller — it’s about getting more efficient.”

Many of the army’s reserve units have about 100 soldiers each, and those regiments are often too small to train for large operations, O’Brien said.

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Reading this article, are you not given the impression that the derivatives crisis scandal is essentially going to be Europe’s fault somehow if they don’t follow the glorious leader? How about we try you for treason instead, Geithner? How does that sound?

Flashback: CFR-Brookings to Dominate Obama Strategy | Obama appoints architects of economic collapse, financial globalism to economic team | Obama, like McCain, surrounds himself with elite CFR, Brookings powerbrokers | Sitting US Congressman: Expect shift towards world government under Obama

Jennifer Loven, The Associated Press
March 11, 2009

WASHINGTON — U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner says the global recession is deepening.

He called for strong actions by all major countries to combat the economic downturn.

His comments echoed those of President Barack Obama, who asked other countries to take more aggressive steps to jump-start their economies.

Mr. Geithner says the Obama administration believes it is essential for other major countries to commit to substantial and sustained efforts to bolster their economies.

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Hopefully we don’t have to deal with this continuous level of propaganda between now and April.

BBC News
March 11, 2009

US President Barack Obama has said that countries must take concerted action to spur global economic growth.

President Obama was speaking ahead of this weekend’s meeting of G20 finance ministers in West Sussex near London.

He said the US had two goals at the G20 – to ensure joint action to jump-start economies and to move forward on a regulatory reform agenda.

He added that he was optimistic about the meeting’s prospects. “We are in this together,” he said.

Earlier, UK Chancellor Alistair Darling had also called for co-ordinated global action.

“We must work together not as a small group of advanced economies but globally, including the emerging and developing economies,” he told reporters in London.

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Result: Inflation and increased government debt sold to – whom? Blank out.

BBC News
March 11, 2009

The Bank of England has launched its latest attempt to boost the supply of credit and stimulate the UK economy, using £75bn it has, in effect, created.

It has bought £2bn of government bonds from financial institutions and funds, in the first of a series of auctions designed to help troubled banks.

The aim is to get the Bank’s newly created cash out into the wider economy and encourage greater lending.

The Bank said last week it would pump £75bn into the economy.

Using a reverse auction, the Bank bought just under £2bn of the bonds, known as gilts.

The amount of offers the Bank received from commercial banks was about £10.5bn, meaning that financial institutions wanted to sell five times more debt than the Bank had offered to buy.

There were no bidders for the non-competitive portion of the auction, where bidders commit to selling the debt to the Bank without setting a price.

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Heather Scoffield, Globe and Mail
March 11, 2009

OTTAWA — Canada’s economy will likely contract rapidly in the next few months, putting pressure on bank credit, especially in the West, the International Monetary Fund warns in its latest report card on Canada.

In a thorough assessment of how the country’s policy makers and financial institutions are handling the global financial crisis, the IMF gives the federal government and the Bank of Canada glowing reviews.

But it also warns of dangers ahead, and tells policy makers not to rest on their laurels.

“Be watchful and prepared to respond as necessary,” said Charles Kramer, division chief of the IMF’s Western Hemisphere Department and mission chief for Canada.

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