statism watch

Flashback: Wall Street’s Big Takeover | Geithner Said to Have Prevailed on the Bailout | Bilderberg Seeks Bank Centralization Agenda

Rana Foroohar, Newsweek Web Exclusive
Apr 10, 2009

Why American financial institutions will survive the crisis and competition from China.

I recently had a fascinating conversation with Ann Lee, a former Wall Street investment banker and derivatives trader now teaching economics at New York University who believes that the major American banks will rise from the ashes of the credit crisis stronger and more globally dominant than ever.

Lee’s take isn’t so much that U.S. banks will repent and rebuild their balance sheets more sensibly and sustainably, having learned important lessons about overleveraging. It’s more that they are cleverly gaming the government’s new Public-Private Investment Program to their own advantage. Citibank, for example, has been one of the most active buyers of toxic assets such as retail mortgage-backed securities. According to Lee, these products might be marked at 80 cents on the dollar on Citibank balance sheets, even though the bank can buy them at about 40 cents on the dollar in the secondary market. Eventually, the bank will be able to sell such assets back to the government under the program for about 60 cents on the dollar, making a tidy profit at the expense of taxpayers. It’s what economist Joseph E. Stiglitz calls “American socialism”—socialize the losses, privatize the gains.

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Flashback: U.N. ‘Climate Change’ Plan Would Likely Shift Trillions to Form New World Economy | U.N. Environment Head Wants Global Warming Tax | Scientists warn global warming accelerating | Top Japanese Scientists: Warming Is Not Caused By Human Activity | EU calls for global carbon trading system to fight climate change | IPCC caught with false figures, doubt cast on accuracy of global temperature record | B.C. carbon tax kicks in on Canada Day | Every adult in Britain should be forced to carry ‘carbon ration cards’, say MPs | CEOs call for ‘aggressive’ action on climate change

Joan Bryden, The Canadian Press
April 10, 2009

Dion may be gone but his much-maligned Green Shift lingers on agenda for Vancouver convention

Stéphane Dion may be gone but his much-maligned carbon tax proposal lingers on among Liberals.

The idea was a flop with voters during last fall’s federal election but it has popped up again in priority policy resolutions to be debated later this month at a Liberal convention that will officially crown Michael Ignatieff as Mr. Dion’s successor.

One resolution, proposed by the Quebec wing of the party, calls on a Liberal government to unconditionally commit to meeting the Kyoto Protocol targets, enacting legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that would include “establishing a carbon tax, a cap and trade system or a combination of both.”

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Note that the real story here is the stripping of intent (‘mens rea’ is the legal term) from considerations under the Terrorism Act.

Flashback: Crown seeks lengthy sentence for Khawaja | Khawaja radicalized by insurgent dreams, convicted on terror connections but not intent | ‘Mens rea’ intention test questioned prior to Toronto 18 terror verdict | Crown can’t tie Khawaja to British bomb plot, lawyer argues | Trial of Canadian charged in UK fertilizer bomb plot gets underway

CBC News
April 10, 2009

The first person sentenced under Canada’s Anti-terrorism Act, Mohammad Momin Khawaja, will appeal his conviction, says his lawyer.

Lawrence Greenspon served notice Thursday asking the Ontario Court of Appeal to overturn a finding that his client aided a group of British extremists.

Greenspon told the Associated Press there were gaps in the Crown’s evidence during the Ottawa trial.

“The judge was aware of them, made a decision despite them, and that’s one of the grounds for the appeal,” he said.

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Flashback: Schreiber Inquiry: Premier’s wife testifies bank account was to be hers, not Mulroney’s | Mulroney-Schreiber inquiry steers clear of ‘Airbus affair’ on first day | Mulroney-Schreiber probe has no jurisdiction to find liability | Mulroney confidant knew about Airbus commissions: CBC News investigation | The Mulroney Affair: Why politicians seek out the rich | The Fifth Estate: Money, Truth, and Spin

CBC News
April 10, 2009

Flashback: U.S. ’stands in solidarity with people of Georgia’: Cheney | Russia: US delivering weapons to Georgia under cover of humanitarian aid | How Russia clobbered Georgia – and fell into America’s trap | The Puppet Masters Behind Georgian President Saakashvili | US military advisers arrive in Georgia

Samantha Shields, Wall Street Journal
April 10, 2009

TBILISI, Georgia — Tens of thousands of opposition supporters on Thursday held a protest in the Georgian capital aimed at forcing President Mikheil Saakashvili to resign.

A coalition of parties accuse Mr. Saakashvili of betraying the principles of the 2003 “Rose Revolution” that brought him to power, by concentrating too much power in his own hands and clamping down on media freedom. They also charge he allowed himself to be provoked into last year’s disastrous war with Russia.

“We have no other way but to stand here until the end, until the Judas of Georgian politics resigns,” Levan Gachechiladze, an opposition leader, told the flag-waving crowd outside Parliament. Mr. Gachechiladze ran against Mr. Saakashvili in last year’s presidential election.

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The legal question is this: ‘is a swat or a spank an assault?’ It is not, ‘is spanking moral’. The law certainly overlaps issues of morality, but only those pertaining to breaches of individual right. Regardless of what you think of the morality and efficacy of spanking, is it the state’s job to protect you from drinking too much, from swatting a child as a punitive action, from not cutting your front lawn, or any of these overly enthusiastic applications of the law. If you slap someone on the back, is that an assault? Is it not an assault if the person knows you? Some consideration of intent and the infliction of harm must be applied to this legal calculation.

Flashback: Woman swats children on plane, charged with Terrorism | In the new Canada, we are all wards of the state | Senators approve anti-spanking bill

Luke Salkeld, Dail Mail

April 10, 2009

A mother had her eight-year-old son taken into care after she smacked him with a hairbrush for refusing to get ready for school.

The 42-year-old was forced to give him up to social services after what she described as a ‘moment of madness’.

She was holding a hairbrush at the time and when her son refused to dress after a bath, she struck him with it twice on the shoulder to hurry him up.

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