Abbas Rana’s revelation that the Cons have decided to protect all of their incumbent MPs from any internal accountability seems to have received relatively little attention. But it’s particularly worth paying attention to it given how many Cons have gone out of their way to demonstrate they’re not up to
Continue readingTag: unfitness for office
Accidental Deliberations: On points of agreement
Let’s see if we can turn Stephen Harper’s otherwise laughable spin on his PMO’s widespread cover-up into a couple of points we can all agree on. First, the ultimate responsibility for lies and cover-ups lies with superiors rather than subordinates – in Harper’s own words: Second, exactly one person fits
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Vanessa Houlder reports on the OECD’s call for countries to make far more of an effort to ensure tax compliance among their wealthiest individuals. – Scott Gilmore discovers the abusiveness of the payday loan industry by accident due to a lender’s confusion
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Dennis Raphael and Toba Bryant write about the devastating health effects of income inequality in Canada: Imagine the response, from industry, government and the public, if a plane was crashing every day. If there were something that killed as many people in a
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Chris Matthews takes note of the gross growth of inequality in the U.S. Dean Baker notes that much of the wealth built on what’s branded as “innovation” reflects little more than successful attempts to evade health, safety and consumer protection laws. And Mike
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Michal Rozworski responds to idealized views of Canadian equality with the reality that we fall well short of the Scandinavian model: Canada appears on many accounts much closer to the US than Sweden, the stand-in for a more robust social democratic and
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Polly Toynbee writes about the continued spread of privatization based solely on corporatist dogma even in the face of obvious examples of its harm to the public: In the Royal Mail debacle, shares sold at £1.7bn rose to £2.7bn. The 16 investors
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – David Atkins highlights how public policy and corporate strategy have both instead been directed toward squeezing every possible dime out of the public: The less noticed but potentially more consequential way that policymakers across the industrialized world set about accomplishing this goal was
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – The Star-Phoenix discusses how the Cons are systematically attacking the independent institutions which are necessary to ensure a functioning democratic system: When a handful of Conservative MPs from Saskatchewan attacked the integrity of the province’s electoral boundaries commissioners last year in an attempt
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your weekend. – Nick Kristof writes that the growing gap in income reflects a similarly growing gap in social perception – and that there’s plenty of need to reduce both: There is an income gap in America, but just as important is a compassion gap. Plenty
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
Assorted content to end your weekend. – Lana Payne highlights the Harper Cons’ culture of hate with just a few recent examples: Veterans. Informed-debate. People’s right to a union and free collective bargaining. Voting rights. These are all under threat in Harper’s Canada. This really is a government that hates;
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Lynn Stuart Parramore offers five convincing pieces of evidence to suggest that the U.S.’ plutocrats are losing their minds in their effort to set themselves apart from the rabble. Kevin Roose tells a story about some awful, awful (and disturbingly wealthy and powerful)
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Andrew Coyne highlights the ultimate issue in the Cons’ Senate patronage, scandals and cover-ups: (I)f the prime minister sets the standard, then we are entitled to ask: Why has this standard been so inconsistent? On essentially the same set of facts, the senators
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Accountability for thee, not for we
Marjory Lebreton makes clear that as far as she’s concerned, accountability begins where partisan Con affiliation ends: Senator Wallin is no longer a member of the Caucus and must be held accountable for her actions. And needless to say the converse is also true as far as Lebreton and the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Henry Blodget recognizes that the systematic corporate squeeze on mere workers represents a deliberate choice rather than an inevitability: One of the big reasons the U.S. economy is so lousy is the American companies are hoarding cash and “maximizing profits” instead of investing
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Dean Beeby reports on the utter uselessness of the latest set of publicly-funded Con propaganda. But more importantly, John Ibbitson notes that most of the provinces have little use for the lone new announcement – meaning that it’s for the best if Canadians
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Making a list, checking it twice
Not surprisingly, the revelation that the Cons have assembled official enemies lists has given rise to some call for those lists to be made public. But I’ll take a quick look at why that process is bound to take at least some time – as well as the considerations involved
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Plenty more commentators are weighing in on the Harper Cons’ enemy list, including the Star, the Globe and Mail, and Lawrence Martin. But Robyn Benson makes the most important comment about the Harper with-us-or-against-us mentality that’s being applied to the federal government
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Upworthy and the Equality Trust both provide fascinating examples of greed in action. – Rank and File discusses the relentless wage-slashing that has led to a perpetually smaller number of workers with sole responsibility for dangerous cargo, while Leo Panitch makes a similar
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Michael Harris nicely describes what the Cons are actually doing with power while pretending to be innocuous fiscal managers: The PM and his government are not good managers. The nauseating repetition of the claim that the Tories know what they’re doing with
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