March 11th, the Old "In-Out" and A Truly Useless Article

First up. I've heard there was a protest in Vancouver calling for an independent inquiry into the possible election fraud that gave harper his majority. On March 11th, two further protests are being called for Ottawa and Toronto. I'll be at the Toronto rally:

TORONTO – A Canada-wide protest against fraudulent and voter-suppressive ‘Robocalls’ during the 2011 election campaign will take place March 11, 2012, and the logistics-planning for Toronto’s rally is happening 6 p.m. Friday, March 2nd, at Trinity-St. Paul’s United Church’s Garden room. Various people from community organizations and online activist groups, including Canadians Against Fraudulent Elections, Occupy Canada, and Democracy Canada are endorsing the national rally campaign.

Ordinary people not generally associated with, or even aligned with, the activist community have expressed a desire to see the resignation of Stephen Harper, along with by-elections in each riding affected by the nefarious “RoboCalls” (automated phone calls intentionally meant to steer voters to non-existent polling stations). This initial planning meeting is expected to draw people from across the political spectrum.

The anti-democratic tactics of marketing companies RMG and RackNine, both of which worked for the Conservative Party during the 2011 election campaign, might have suppressed and otherwise obstructed voters from reaching their actual voting stations. Such actions are punishable by up to five years in prison.

As such, Canadians would like to see accountability, up to and including the firing of the Prime Minister.

Toronto rally organizer Jon Allan is deeply concerned about the ramifications about these calls, saying “Harper has lost the confidence of the country. His government has lost legitimacy; he has not been legitimately bestowed with the authority to govern. He stole the 2011 election."

When responding to the charge that the harpercons are already seasoned election fraudsters given their having pleaded guilty to violating election spending laws with the old "in-out" scandal, the harpercons respond with a statement like: "We honestly thought that what we were doing was permitted by the legislation. It was a mistake, not a deliberate crime."

Now, I think that's bullshit. Because harper and his crew are shameless, lying scuzz-balls. They knew it was wrong/illegal at the time and they're lying now (obviously). They're the guilty ones in this voter suppression effort. They know it. WE know it. The question is what are we going to do about it?

But here's something that people might have missed. There's a possibility that they were up to the same shit in 2011.

"La campagne de Bertin Denis dans Rimouski-Neigette-Témiscouata-Les Basques a versé 15 000,01 $ à la firme torontoise Responsive Marketing Group (RMG) pendant la dernière campagne électorale. Le hic? L'équipe conservatrice locale ignore à quoi a servi cet argent."

Now that's not news to a lot of you. BUT it does put the lie to the harpercon's protests that they weren't knowingly committing electoral fraud in 2006. MAYBE they didn't, but having paid a $52,000 fine for what they did, they should know NOW that it's illegal. But it appears they went and did it again anyway, probably thinking that a small fine was an acceptable price to pay for the benefits of further voter-suppression calls.

Lies, lies, lies, shameless lies. Fraud. Anti-democratic fraud. Enablers of torture. Attackers of public health care. Homophobes. Religious con-men. Hypocrites. Scum.

Okay. So what about that useless article? It was in the Toronto Star a couple of days ago: "Wealth tax: Why it may not be a good idea" and it's just a pointless, easily-demolished set of clee-shays:

In Canada, which faces deficits and entitlement program pressures, a temporary high income surtax or new ultra-high tax bracket for those earning above roughly $200,000 can’t be ruled out, said Jamie Golombek, tax and estate planning managing director at CIBC Private Wealth Management.

“That being said, the wealthy already pay a disproportionate amount of the total tax bill so taxing them even further seems unfair. Perhaps a better solution would be to raise consumption tax by 1 per cent, at least until the budget is balanced.”

Sorry Jamie. But the rich pay more tax BECAUSE THEY MAKE MORE INCOME!!!! A LOT more! And we gave them tax cuts for decades not because we love them, but because we were told that they'd invest it and create jobs. They didn't. Time to put the tax rates back where they were because the tax-cut policy FAILED.

Along with discouraging corporate investment, high taxes have been shown to drive off productive individuals. To combat this, Spain in 2005 enacted the “Beckham Law,” which eases taxes for foreign workers and has had the effect of attracting top sporting talent.

Raising marginal tax rates is a straightforward way to extract more revenue from the rich but a large body of research suggests the effect is to shift income offshore or into less-taxed vehicles such as capital investments. Jurisdictions could hike the tax on capital gains but economists say that tends to stifle job-creating investment and entrepreneurial risk-taking.

And on and on it goes. WHAT job-creating investment are you talking about? What corporate investment has been discouraged? What risk-taking? Mortgage Backed Securities, Collaterallized Debt Obligations or Certified Debt Swaps? Jesus Christ! How many times can an economic theory fail before it stops being repeated respectfully?

Political fraud. Economic fraud. Time to end it.

p.s. What the fuck is wrong with Blogger's formatting???? Stupid piece of shit.