Murdoch's KGB-Friendly Series

In August, Rupert Murdoch's FX picked up a Cold War series set in the 1980s titled "The Americans." Liberals might have braced themselves for the worst. It sounded like some kind of Chuck Norris-style "jingoistic" homage to freedom-loving intelligence agents. But this is Hollywood, so the show instead focuses on KGB spies who speak perfect English, working to destroy Reagan-era America, which is not altogether a bad thing to people in Hollywood.
Joe Weisberg, who worked for more than three years at the CIA, first wrote a script about two CIA case officers stationed in Bulgaria. Fox bought that script, too, but that project was deep-sixed. Boring. But exploring the daily joys and sorrows of undercover Soviet agents, that just thrills the Hollywood Left. Some things never change.
FX couldn't create a series based on real history because that would entail real heroes, and real villains, like CIA traitor Aldrich Ames, who was a drunk who took on a feverishly overspending second wife, and for enough pieces of silver, he sold state secrets to our mortal enemy. There's plenty of drama in that real-life story, but instead FX set out to find nice-looking fictional Marxist-Leninists that Americans could learn to love.
TV Guide previewed the new series, which debuts Jan. 30, like this: "It's the early 1980s, the Cold War rages and President Ronald Reagan's sabre-rattling has the Soviet Union really nervous." The show's writer, Joe Weisberg, let his radicalism out: "Most of us in the U.S. thought Reagan was just being bombastic, but the Soviets thought he was crazy and feared he would initiate a nuclear strike ... This series, to a large extent, is told from the perspective of the KGB and the Soviets. We're making them the sympathetic characters. I'd go so far as to say they're the heroes."
"The Americans" isn't about Americans. It's about heroic defenders of expansionist communist tyranny. The "heroes" are those who killed tens of millions. That's morally sick. But at FX, sickness sells.
The main characters, who are given the names Philip and Elizabeth Jennings, were trained since their teenage years to be communist spies and were placed in an arranged marriage and run a travel agency in northern Virginia as a front. Once placed in America, they have children who have no idea of their treasonous double lives. There's tension in this arranged marriage, since TV Guide explained "she's passionately loyal to the motherland, while he's starting to prefer the American way of life."
FX president John Landgraf sounded apolitical about it: "We're proud to welcome 'The Americans,' a taut series that crackles with incredible performances rooted in character perspectives never explored on a U.S. television series." But focus on the phrase "character perspectives never explored" as code for "sympathetic communist spy characters," words they cannot bring themselves to say.
This is not the first FX series to deal with spies, only the first drama. The animated adult comedy "Archer," soon to launch its fourth season, is centered on Sterling Archer, a vaguely 1960s-era American spy with the International Secret Intelligence Service. Naturally, this agent is comically inept. Last season, Archer was assigned to guard a prominent KGB defector, but the high-value asset was killed in an explosion while Archer left the building for a sexual encounter with a co-worker.
FX is a network stuffed with antiheroes. It has thrived on dramas that glorified corrupt cops ("The Shield"), unethical, oversexed plastic surgeons ("Nip/Tuck"), firemen who rape their wives and pressure their teenage daughters to have sex ("Rescue Me"), mutilating and murderous motorcycle gangs ("Sons of Anarchy") and now domineering, perverted nuns ("American Horror Story: Asylum").
They are not alone. NBC has closed a deal for a pilot about Soviet spies in Israel titled "M.I.C.E." The title is an acronym for Money, Ideology, Coercion and Ego, factors in understanding the motives of spies who betray their own countries.
The show is copied from an Israeli series called "The Gordin Cell." In that show, set in the present, a patriotic and decorated Israeli Air Force officer has no idea his parents were Russian spies. Their handler then appears, demanding they recruit their son into betraying Israel. The officer is left to choose between his family and his country.
Producer Peter Berg (who made "Friday Night Lights" for NBC) said the original plot "lends itself very easily to an American reinvention" as a drama set in the United States. "There are still real issues between the U.S. and Russia — they're spying on us, we're spying on them."
Somehow the Left can never acknowledge the horrors that the Soviet Union visited upon its own people and the people in its puppet states. No network would ever consider a drama about sympathetic Nazi spies undermining America during World War II. Nazi genocide is inhuman. Communist genocide is not.

Read More..

The Truth About Bin Laden

At the very beginning of Kathryn Bigelow's "Zero Dark Thirty," the audience is told that the movie they are about to see is "based on firsthand accounts of actual events." Then we hear tapes, terrifying if familiar, of those final calls being made by those trapped on 9/11.
Then comes the torture.
Bigelow has defended the scenes, which leave audience members rooting for our heroes (who are doing the torturing) as a "part of our history." If you believe the movie (and you shouldn't), torture was key to finding and killing Osama bin Laden.
Except it wasn't. This is a movie masquerading as a true telling when in fact what it tells is a lie.
Others, including Jane Mayer in The New Yorker and Glenn Carle on the Huffington Post, have detailed what's wrong in "Zero Dark Thirty" — what's wrong about the efficacy of torture (which tends to produce false information or none at all) and what's wrong about the role of torture in the killing of bin Laden. (The key name did not come from a detainee in CIA custody, according to former CIA Director Leon Panetta, who knows more about the "actual events" than Bigelow or screenwriter Mark Boal.)
And contrary to the defense being offered by the filmmakers in the aftermath of such criticism, the film does not, in Boal's words, "show the complexity of the debate" about torture. There is no "debate" in the movie. Everyone in it — hero and heroine and their bosses — is for it. The only contrary voice is a clip of President Obama in the background, whose condemnation of torture seems, while you're watching it, to be the voice of a legalistic priss.
But the problem with this movie isn't just that it's wrong. Plenty of movies are wrong. Oliver Stone's movie about President Kennedy's assassination is wrong.
The problem is that it's dangerously wrong, and not simply because it is distorting the debate here at home about torture ("Look, Mom, it works," you'll hear some conservatives boast.), but potentially and much more seriously because it could endanger the lives of Americans who are already risking their lives for our country.
This movie won't be seen only by those who know that what they're seeing is fiction. It won't be seen only by Americans. Entertainment is America's biggest export. The myth that Americans support torture, that we depended on it for our greatest military operation, will be seized upon not only by those in the world who already hate us but also by those who might grow up to hate us and those who are still not certain about how much they hate us. Just as we are lulled into supporting torture, they will be lulled into hating us for it.
The "myth" — and that is what this movie is selling, pure and simple — that torture is what allowed us to kill bin Laden insults the hard work of the Americans who risked their lives and also endangers those who follow in their footsteps. It arms the extremists with far more powerful propaganda than anything their own machines are capable of producing. It cements the view that there is no limit to the evil we will engage in to suit our goals, and that in this respect we are no different from our enemies.
At one point, one of the heroes/torturers tells the detainee that if he doesn't cooperate, we can send him to Israel. Even in the midst of the film's drama, I cringed. The point was: We'll send you to Israel, and they'll kill you. The danger of gratuitous lies is not limited to Americans.
Another scene in the movie, one of the doctor knocking on the door of the "safe house" in the hopes of collecting information under the guise of giving polio vaccines, provoked a collective chuckle in the theater. Except that there really isn't anything funny about it. There was, reportedly, such a doctor, who is being held in a Pakistani prison. But the myth that polio programs were created by the CIA to gather intelligence has led to the suspension of such programs in Pakistan and elsewhere and has blocked efforts to wipe out that scourge. And we're laughing? We are better than that.
The First Amendment protects the right to make movies, including this one, not because words are harmless but because they aren't. They have power. With power should come personal responsibility for how it is used.
I wanted to see a movie about the hunt for bin Laden. I wanted to feel proud of the Americans who risked their lives to hunt him down. If it's just a movie, as its defenders have urged, it should not pretend to be based on "actual events." It isn't. But God help us if it leads to them.

Read More..

Are We Becoming European?

Following the fiscal cliff melodrama, Senator Richard Shelby appeared on television to declare that we are becoming European. "We're always wanting to spend and promise and spend and borrow but not cut. We've got to get real about this. We're headed down the road that Europe's already on."
There's no "heading" about it. We're there. Prof. John J. DiIulio, writing in "National Affairs", outlined the true size of American government. When state and local government expenditures are added to federal outlays, government spending as a share of GDP easily competes with European nations. In fact, per-capita government spending in the U.S. is higher than in France, Germany and the United Kingdom, and our debt to GDP ratio is higher than most European states.
The Obama administration has set records for deficit spending in peacetime, but there is no question that the growth of government at all levels has been a decades-long process. In 1960, total government spending (local, state and federal) amounted to 27 percent of GDP. In 2010, it was about 42 percent. State spending has been almost as irrepressible as federal, leaving only nine states that can now boast AAA credit ratings. Many states are facing crises over unfunded pension liabilities that have the capacity to engender strikes and social unrest in the not too distant future.
Though President Obama and the Democrats are fond of citing the "two wars on a credit card" and the Bush tax cuts as drivers of our debt, the truth is that the first Obama term added $4.5 trillion to the national debt in just three years — more than the total debt amassed by the United States government in two centuries. DiIulio writes: "Add our annual debt per capita (about $49,000 in 2011) to total annual government spending per capita (about $20,000 in 2011), and we have a rough 'big government index' of nearly $70,000 for every man, woman, and child in this country."
The difference between Americans and Europeans is that we aren't honest about our appetite for big government. We hide it through a variety of proxies, private contractors, and public/private partnerships. Leaving aside the Department of Defense, which employs 3.2 million Americans, government employs more than 20 million civil servants. Only 2 million of those are full-time federal workers. The Department of Homeland Security, for example, employs 188,000 federal bureaucrats, but also 200,000 privately contracted employees. Medicaid doesn't employ an army of civil servants but instead pays private employees of medical practices, hospitals, and nursing homes.
The EPA employs between 16,000 and 18,000 full time personnel. It has been able to expand its regulatory reach though by cooperating with 50 state EPA equivalents and by hiring tens of thousands of private contractors.
Most non-profits receive few government subsidies. But the largest ones with the biggest budgets are heavily government-dependent. One-third of all non-profit dollars come from government. Catholic Charities USA, for example, a marquee "private-sector" charity, received two-thirds of its funding in 2009 from Uncle Sam.
Americans prefer small government to big government — in the abstract. But 60 million receive Medicaid benefits, 54 million collect Social Security, 48 million participate with Medicare, 45 million receive Food Stamps, 7 million are in prison, jail, or on parole/probation, more than a million have de facto government jobs working for defense contractors, nearly a million children participate in Head Start and about 40 percent of K-12 students receive free or reduced price meals. There's some overlap in those categories, but it still adds up.
Taking a government check goes down much more easily when you can persuade yourself that you're only withdrawing money that you have faithfully paid in over the course of a lifetime. Indignant elderly callers to C-SPAN constantly invoke the "I paid for my Social Security" myth.
They didn't. The average beneficiary will receive far more in Medicare and Social Security benefits than he paid for in taxes.
We are, in short, a socialist-style society just like Europe. And Obamacare has yet to kick in.
The road to recovery begins with admitting you have a problem.

Read More..

Can John Boehner regain control of the GOP?

Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) narrowly won a second term as Speaker of the House on Thursday, with 12 of his fellow Republicans either voting for somebody else or abstaining from supporting anyone. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) fared much better with her Democratic caucus, says Libby Spencer at The Impolitic, and during the roll call she "was actually tied with Boehner several times and at least once was briefly in the lead before he managed to lock down his win" with a bare 220 votes, teasing the improbable spectacle of "a total GOP meltdown with Nancy winning the gavel by default."
Some commentators, like Doug Mataconis at Outside the Beltway, dismiss the failed conservative coup against Boehner as "nothing more than a disorganized rant by petulant children." But the defection of a group of vocal conservatives almost sent the House Speakership election to a second round, something that hasn't happened since 1923, and it marks an ominous change from two years ago, when Boehner received all 141 Republican votes. Boehner is well-liked within his caucus but not feared, and this "warning shot from conservatives," says Sheryl Gay Stolberg at The New York Times, was "a sobering reminder that while he may hold one of the most powerful jobs in Washington, his power is greatly diminished. His Republican ranks are thinner in the new Congress, and many of those who retired or were defeated are moderates who ordinarily backed him."
SEE MORE: The culture war is over, and conservatives lost
That raises an important question, with broad implications for the next two years, and not just in Washington: Will Boehner, the country's highest-ranking Republican, be able to control his majority in the House?
No. The Speaker is now toothless: Boehner's pledge to not negotiate with President Obama sounds principled, but it's mostly just a reflection of the new reality, says Greg Sargent at The Washington Post. Combine his narrow speakership victory and humiliating fiscal cliff "Plan B" flop in December, and its clear that Boehner "can't get enough support from within his caucus for negotiating with the president." In practical terms, that means when it comes to big votes on big issues like deficit reduction, immigration reform, and tax reform, Boehner will have to rely on "large blocs of Democratic support" to pass legislation — a big no-no in the GOP. And that will just weaken him further.
"Weakened Speaker Boehner means tough governing road ahead"
SEE MORE: Tim Scott: A 'token' black senator for the GOP?
Boehner will be much stronger this time around: The decision to "stop negotiating secret, back-room deals" is the best thing Boehner has done in two years, says John Hinderaker at Power Line. That bodes well for his future. Forging closed-door compromises with Obama and his Democrats just let them off the hook and blurred the ideological differences between the parties, to the GOP's detriment. Boehner should have realized in 2011 that his Republican-led House should only pass Republican bills, but "let's let bygones be bygones. As far as Speaker Boehner is concerned, better late than never."
"Better late than never: Boehner swears off secret deals"
Check back two months from now: You have to feel a little bad for Boehner, say Chris Cillizza and Aaron Blake at The Washington Post. "A pragmatist and institutionalist at heart," the GOP leader "is naturally drawn to making a deal." But as we've learned over the past two years, "he 'leads' a group that is simply not interested in compromise" — the very "definition of a no-win situation." His allies insist that he wanted a second term to get big things accomplished regarding America's fiscal fix, and if that's true he may well "stick around to see if he can regain control of what is a decidedly unruly House conference." But if that fails — and watch what happens in the looming debt-ceiling battle — Boehner might find it more rewarding to "step aside before the next election to pursue a lucrative post-congressional career as a lobbyist/rainmaker.

Read More..

5 hopeful signs the 113th Congress will be better than the last

Dispirited Americans don't appear all that optimistic that the new Congress will get much done, either. Well, buck up, America!
With some pomp, a bunch of cute kids, and plenty of entertainment from Vice President Joe Biden, the new Congress was gaveled into session on Thursday. "Welcome 113th Congress!" says Chris Cillizza at The Washington Post, summing up the conventional wisdom: "Here's the first thing you need to know: People hate you." Or rather, people really hated the 112th Congress — The Week rounded up 10 of the best insults heaped upon the historically unproductive 112th, and Gallup records it as the most unpopular in modern history — and "there's every reason to believe things in Congress will get worse in the next few months." Public Policy Polling has this bracing reminder, from its new (ongoing) survey:
 PublicPolicyPolling@ppppolls
Congress is less popular than colonoscopies, used car salesmen, and Nickelback but it's at least beating out Gonorrhea and N. Korea so far
4 Jan 13 ReplyRetweetFavorite
But America is not, by nature, a pessimistic nation. We fervently believe in new beginnings. And the incoming freshman lawmakers — 82 new members of the House (47 Democrats, 35 Republicans) and 13 new senators (eight Democrats, four Republicans) — are upbeat about the 113th Congress' ability to work together to solve America's problems. Here, four reasons for optimism about the near-term future on Capitol Hill:
1. The Tea Party era is at an end
There's "rational reason for optimism" that "the ideological excesses and obstructionism of the Tea Party class of 2010 are over," says John Avlon at The Daily Beast. The Do-Nothing 112th "was elected by a narrow but intense slice of the electorate — the anti-Obama, recession-fueled rage of the 2010 midterm election landslide," but this Congress was ushered in with a message from voters to "stop fighting and start fixing." And by all appearances, they got the message. That doesn't erase the stark ideological differences in Washington, but the tone and approach of the Class of 2012 "is likely to be very different from the radioactive 'us-against-them' rhetoric we heard from departing Tea Party stars like Allen West."
SEE ALSO: To boldly slice...
2. Unprecedented diversity makes for less rigidity
"If there is reason for optimism that this Congress might be able to get beyond a 12 percent approval rating and record lows of bills passed, it might rest in the fact that the incoming class is more diverse than any other in history," says Allen McDuffee at The Washington Post. Any way you slice it — religion, gender, sexual orientation, age — "the 113th Congress will be the closest to resembling American diversity thus far." This remarkable shift in demographics, says The Daily Beast's Avlon, "is a good thing in terms of bridging all our interesting differences to find a way to work together based on our shared civic faith as Americans first."
3. The Gingrich crash suggests a coming détente
Perhaps the best reason for "cautious optimism" about the 113th Congress is a look back at the 104th Congress, says Greg Sargent at The Washington Post. Like the just-finished Congress, the 104th (1995-1997) featured "dozens of self-styled revolutionary Republicans, bent on bulldozing a Democratic President of the United States for whom they had little if any respect." Led by then-Speaker Newt Gingrich, they shut down the government — and suffered "a total defeat" to Bill Clinton. The 105th Congress? "The revolutionaries were mostly quieter and almost tamed." Here's hoping that the diminished House GOP "rejectionist caucus" similarly starts to see "that losing symbolic votes, or winning them in the House only to see bills die in the Senate, is pretty much a waste of time," and the lower chamber's larger number of "mainstream conservatives finally decide that the cost of making the House — and the GOP as a whole — an object of ridicule is higher than the cost of risking a RINO label."
SEE ALSO: Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf: Remembering a distinctive military career
4. Numerology
"It has been two centuries since the United States had a Congress enumerated with lucky 13," says Michael Koenigs at ABC News. That would be the 13th Congress, which served 1813 to 1815, during the James Madison administration. That Congress was mostly notable for ratifying the Treaty of Ghent, ending the War of 1812, but the number 13 is considered charmed in the sports world and in Italy (even if Friday the 13th is considered unlucky by most Americans). As the 113th Congress kicks into gear, says Koenigs, let's "ask ourselves something Clint Eastwood said before he started talking to chairs, 'Do I feel lucky?'"
5. It would be hard to be worse than the 112th
This is the safest reason to expect better things from the 113th Congress: "With only about 10 percent of Americans approving of their lawmakers, there's not much room left to go down," says Taegan Goddard at The Week. The fiscal-cliff battle may have sent the 112th out on an especially low note, says Walter Shapiro at Yahoo News, but actually, Congress' top two Republicans — House Speaker John Boehner (Ohio) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) — "deserve credit for the last-minute fortitude they displayed in ending the dispiriting deadlock over extending the Bush tax cuts." Their courage wasn't on par with Lincoln saving the Union, but Boehner and McConnell put "legislating over posturing" and they "deserve muted, but sincere, applause" for giving us hope for more rational days ahead.

Read More..

Aboriginal leaders to launch national protest in Ottawa today demanding change

OTTAWA - Aboriginal leaders are set to march through the streets of Ottawa today after meeting with a chief who is on a hunger-strike.
The leaders are taking part in a national protest march and rally organized by the movement dubbed Idle No More, which opposes the Harper government's omnibus budget legislation, Bill C-45.
On the eve of the protest, Attawapiskat First Nation Chief Theresa Spence repeated her call for a meeting with the prime minister and Canada's governor general.
Spence, who started a hunger strike this month, issued an open letter yesterday to Stephen Harper and Gov. Gen. David Johnston.
In it, she urges them to embark on a national discussion about the state of poverty among First Nations communities.
Spence says many communities face impoverished conditions, despite assurances from the government that progress is being made to alleviate poverty.
"Land and natural resources continue to be reaped by the federal and provincial governments through taxation of corporate resource companies with little compensation to First Nations for use of our traditional territories," Spence wrote.
"Trilateral discussions and financial action plans must be committed to in order to alleviate the existing state of poverty."
Spence said this week she has been growing weaker after living mainly on water and fish broth since Dec 11.
A spokesman for Aboriginal Affairs Minister John Duncan voiced frustration Thursday at being unable to speak with Spence about her concerns.
"Since she began her hunger strike the minister has expressed his concern for Chief Spence’s health and he has indicated several times his willingness to meet with or talk to her," said Jason MacDonald.
"Unfortunately he has been unable to reach the Chief, and her colleagues have been unwilling or unable to share an alternate phone number where she might be reached."
Assembly of First Nations National Chief Shawn Atleo and up to five other chiefs are expected to take part in today's march and rally, along with a number of opposition politicians.
There will also be protests in a number of other Canadian cities.
Protests and marches have been held country-wide in recent weeks to demand the Conservative government reverse legislation that First Nations say will affect treaties and traditional land use.

Read More..

Mandatory minimums may face tough year in the courts with various challenges

TORONTO - The coming year could bring some clarity to the murky legal waters of the federal Conservatives' law-and-order agenda, particularly mandatory minimum sentences, even as new complications are added to the mix.
One of the government's omnibus crime bills churned through the courts in 2012, with several planks falling victim to declarations of unconstitutionality. Meanwhile, a new slew of provisions entered the fray in the form of a second omnibus bill.
Major players in the legal community are predicting 2013 will bring even more questions about the constitutional validity of the two bills, both heavy on mandatory minimum penalties and tougher rules for violent offenders.
But at least some of the questions already raised will be answered by Ontario's highest court early next year as it is set to convene a special five-judge panel for February to rule on mandatory minimum sentences for gun crimes.
Several different judges in Ontario this year had to consider the constitutionality of those firearm laws. Their differing decisions left a fragmented landscape. Hearing six of those cases at the same time gives the Court of Appeal for Ontario the opportunity to deliver a uniform ruling.
The mandatory minimums were upheld in most of the cases the panel will hear. The case in which the law was struck down is that of Leroy Smickle — a man who very well demonstrates the problems with the legislation, said his lawyer.
The "very foolish" Smickle was alone in his boxers in his cousin's apartment posing with a loaded handgun while taking pictures of himself to post on his Facebook page, the judge found.
Unbeknownst to him, members of the Toronto police Emergency Task Force were amassing outside to execute a search warrant in relation to Smickle's cousin, who they believed had illegal firearms. Smickle was caught red handed.
Ontario Superior Court Judge Anne Molloy convicted Smickle of possessing a loaded illegal gun, but found that sending the first-time offender to prison for three years was cruel and unusual punishment. She struck down the mandatory minimum, declaring it unconstitutional.
The government is appealing, and at the special hearing in February both federal and provincial Crowns are set to make arguments.
The Department of Justice said no one was available for an interview, and sent a statement touting its tough-on-crime agenda.
But critics of mandatory minimum sentences say they don't actually help reduce crime and do more harm than good.
"In terms of reducing crime they're usually thought of as having a possible general deterrent effect," said Anthony Doob, a criminology professor at the University of Toronto.
"There's been so much research on this that I don't think that's really a question anymore. Anybody who looks seriously at the effect of mandatory minimums...would know that they're not going to reduce crime in that way."
Having mandatory minimum sentences means more people will end up in prison, and putting a first-time offender through the paces of prison culture can leave them at the end of their sentence more likely to re-offend, Doob suggested.
"So what you may be doing in these circumstances... is in the long term an increase in crime," he said.
Mandatory minimums are nothing new — both Liberal and Conservative governments have enacted them. Commissions looking at the issue going back several decades have called for mandatory minimums to be abolished.
Court decisions striking them down aren't new either. One of the biggest cases was from 1987, when the Supreme Court of Canada struck down a seven-year minimum sentence for importing a narcotic.
But this year saw a torrent of new legal challenges as the provisions from the 2008 legislation finally made their way through the backlog of the courts.
And those court delays will only get worse with the flood of new mandatory minimums, suggested Rick Woodburn, the president of the Canadian Association of Crown Counsel.
He wouldn't comment on the validity of the legislation, but said "a bill like this increases the workload."
Crowns typically offer plea bargains with conditional sentences to less serious offenders, but with more lenient sentences for certain crimes gone, guilty pleas — which save court time and resources — are drying up, Woodburn said.
"We're seeing that the delays are starting to get longer and longer in a very short period of time. There's no coincidence that delays across the country can be directly linked to the omnibus bill."
Another frequent criticism is that mandatory minimums strip discretion from judges, who know all the facts of a case and are the best equipped to determine an appropriate sentence. It's a blunt instrument to deal with a complex problem, said Smickle's lawyer, Dirk Derstine.
"Our judges know perfectly well that possession of firearms is a very, very serious thing," he said. "Really, what this indicates is a lack of trust in the judiciary."
Derstine also represents Hussein Nur in another case that will go before the Appeal Court panel in February. In that case, which came a few months before the Smickle decision was issued, the trial judge found merit to the constitutional challenge, but dismissed it.
Superior Court Judge Michael Code found that there were many circumstances in which a three-year sentence could end up being cruel and unusual, such as in the case of John Snobelen, a former Ontario cabinet minister who never got around to registering a gun in Canada after buying it among the contents of a ranch in the U.S. His wife told police about its existence during marital difficulties.
But the judge said the Crown, as it did in the Snobelen case, can decide to proceed to a summary conviction, which is treated less seriously and with less jail time than indictable offences. Snobelen was granted an absolute discharge.
That option in the firearms offence saves the law from being declared unconstitutional, Code said. But, he warned, "one unwise Crown election" may invalidate the whole sentencing scheme.
Nur also argued that the difference in penalties for summary conviction and indictment is arbitrary and Code agreed.
The government raised the mandatory minimum sentence for possession of a loaded prohibited firearm from one year to three years as part of the 2008 omnibus bill. But it didn't change the sentencing options for the same charge under a summary conviction.
The maximum sentence on a summary conviction for the crime remained one year. That has left a two-year gap that "makes no rational sense," Code said. It appears as though it happened by mere oversight, not by some advertent decision, he said.
He found that Nur's charter challenge of arbitrariness had merit, saying the gap "emasculates" the sentencing provisions and "will inevitably lead to unfit sentences" for less serious firearm cases. But Code found that he had to dismiss the challenge on a technicality.
In Quebec, the provincial bar association launched a legal challenge last month seeking to strike down sections of the 2012 omnibus bill involving mandatory minimums. The bar association said mandatory minimums don't protect the public and represent an unconstitutional interference from one branch of government, the legislature, in the business of another, the judiciary.
There will be more challenges to the new sentencing laws in the new year, professors, lawyers and other legal experts predict. University of Ottawa professor Carissima Mathen suggested that minimum sentences for some drug laws that came into effect this year are vulnerable.
Some experts say the new provisions mean that someone growing six marijuana plants in their own home could be sentenced to six months, but a person growing the same amount in a rental unit could get nine months.
Enacting mandatory minimums is an easy way to appear tough on crime, critics say.
"The reality is, if you don't care about sentencing policy but want to show some activity...you can pick a random offence and give it a mandatory minimum," Doob said.
Francoise Boivin, the NDP justice critic in Ottawa, said many problems will arise from the fact that the raft of new sentencing laws were enacted as part of omnibus bills.
"This is a huge, huge overhaul of the whole system to really implement your ideology on the issue," she said. "It's scary to know that you've changed so many laws — and not simple laws. Each one would have deserved a long and hard look. You're talking about child pornography in one minute and then you're talking about terrorism the second half of the meeting. It's completely nuts."
Many of the constitutional challenges, including the one being heard en masse in Ontario in February, are expected to eventually be heard by the Supreme Court of Canada.

Read More..

The Note's Must-Reads for Friday, December 21, 2012

The Note's Must-Reads are a round-up of today's political headlines and stories from ABC News and the top U.S. newspapers. Posted Monday through Friday right here at www.abcnews.com
Compiled by ABC News' Amanda VanAllen, Ben Waldron and Jordan Mazza
COREY BOOKER ABC News' Sarah Parnass and Shushannah Walshe: " Newark Mayor Cory Booker to Explore Run for Senate in 2014? Popular Newark Mayor Cory Booker is "exploring the possibility" of running for the U.S. Senate rather than governor, the social-media-savvy Democrat posted on his website today.
FISCAL CLIFF/PLAN B The Hills' Russell Berman: " House GOP pulls 'Plan B'; Boehner says 'cliff' up to Dems" Short of votes, House Republicans pulled Speaker John Boehner's "Plan B" tax bill from the floor late Thursday, testing the Ohio Republican's hold on his conference and throwing year-end efforts to avoid the fiscal cliff into further chaos. Party leaders had voiced confidence throughout the day they had enough Republican votes to pass the measure over unified Democratic opposition, but amid mounting defections, they announced shortly before 8 p.m. that the vote would be canceled.
The Los Angeles Times' Michael A. Memoli: " House Republicans call off vote on 'Plan B' fiscal cliff plan" House Republican leaders abruptly called off a vote Thursday night on their "Plan B" tax proposal to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff, which ran into stiff resistance from the party's right flank. A tight vote on a preliminary measure that had been expected to pass with ease led House Speaker John A. Boehner and his lieutenants to cancel the vote on legislation that would have extended the George W. Bush-era tax rates only for those making less than $1 million.
The Washington Times' Stephen Dinan: " Boehner's 'Plan B' to avoid 'fiscal cliff' ? fails to win ? over GOP" House Republicans' "Plan B" to avert the "fiscal cliff" came crashing down Thursday night after party leaders realized they didn't have the votes to pass it, and pulled it from the floor - leaving the country poised on the edge of massive tax increases and spending cuts. House lawmakers are now headed home for Christmas, though they vowed to return if there is any progress on talks.
The New York Times' Jonathan Weisman: " Boehner Cancels Tax Vote in Face of G.O.P Revolt" Speaker John A. Boehner's effort to pass fallback legislation to avert a fiscal crisis in less than two weeks collapsed Thursday night in an embarrassing defeat after conservative Republicans refused to support legislation that would allow taxes to rise on the most affluent households in the country. House Republican leaders abruptly canceled a vote on the bill after they failed to rally enough votes for passage in an emergency meeting about 8 p.m.
The Washington Post's Paul Kane, Ed O'Keefe and Lori Montgomery: " How Boehner's Plan B for the 'fiscal cliff' began and fell apart " John A. Boehner's week on the brink ended in a painfully familiar place. It began last week when President Obama delivered a stern message to the House speaker: If there was going to be a deal to tame the nation's debt, it had to happen now. If they went over the "fiscal cliff," it would only become harder to reach a deal, Obama said.
Politico's Jake Sherman and John Bresnahan: " Boehner's Toughest Hour" Things were so bad for Speaker John Boehner Thursday night, support for his Plan B tax bill so diminished, the limits of his power with his own party laid bare, that he stood in front of the House Republican Conference and recited the Serenity Prayer. "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."
USA Today's Susan Davis: "Speaker Boehner plan to avert 'fiscal cliff' fails." House Speaker John Boehner was handed a stunning defeat late Thursday by members of his own party who refused to support his "Plan B" to avoid the year-end "fiscal cliff" that threatens to send the economy in to a recession.
BENGHAZI The Wall Street Journal's Jay Solomon and Siobhan Gorman: "In Benghazi Hearings, Partisan Politics Play Out" Congressional hearings to help unravel details behind the September consulate attack in Benghazi, Libya, morphed into a political face-off Thursday as Democrats and Republicans sought to position themselves and their parties for the months and years ahead-possibly including 2016, the next presidential election year.
ABC NEWS VIDEOS " Fiscal Cliff Countdown Inches Closer to Cut-Off Date"
BOOKMARKS The Note:  The Must-Reads Online:  Top Line Webcast (12noon EST M-F):  ABC News Politics:  The Political Punch (Jake Tapper):  George's Bottom Line (George Stephanopoulos):  Follow ABC News on Twitter:  ABC News Mobile:  ABC News app on your iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad:

Read More..

UK banking review urges 'electrified' ringfence

LONDON (AP) -- The U.K. government needs to get tougher in its proposals to isolate banks' high-street activities from their riskier business, Britain's Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards says.
The commission reported Friday that the government's proposals for a "ring-fence" to protect retail banks needs to be "electrified."
Commission chairman Andrew Tyrie says that would mean giving regulators the power to force a complete separation of a lender's retail business from its investment banking. Risky investments including exotic derivatives undermined banks' stability in 2008, prompting taxpayer bailouts of two big U.K. banks.
Tyrie says the government's proposals would be "tested and challenged by the banks". The report will be a disappointment for Treasury chief George Osborne, who had warned it against proposing significant changes to the banking reform bill.

Read More..

Iraq's Sunni leaders accuse PM of crackdown

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's Sunni leaders accused Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki of a political crackdown after troops raided the finance minister's office and home, threatening to reignite a crisis a year after the last American troops left.
The raids and detention of the Sunni minister's staff came hours after President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd who often mediated among the fractious Sunni, Shi'ite and Kurdish blocs, left for Germany after suffering a stroke that could end his moderating influence in Iraqi politics.
Politicians and authorities gave conflicting accounts of the incident, but it was reminiscent of a year ago when Iraqi authorities sought the arrest of Sunni Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi and his bodyguards, accusing them of running death squads just as U.S. troops packed up.
Finance Minister Rafie al-Esawi, a member of the Sunni-backed Iraqiya bloc, said late on Thursday that more than 100 bodyguards and staff were snatched illegally by militias, and blamed Maliki for orchestrating the raids to target opponents.
Maliki's office said only six bodyguards were arrested under counter terrorism laws.
The Hashemi case plunged the fragile power-sharing deal among Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims and Kurds into turmoil, with Sunni politicians boycotting parliament. Hashemi later fled to Turkey and was sentenced to death in absentia.
"This confirms there is continued systematic targeting of the Sunni symbols and leaders participating in the political process," Iraqiya leaders said in a statement.
They called on their supporters to protest peacefully after Friday prayers. Esawi said lawmakers would seek a vote of no confidence in Maliki.
A U.S. embassy spokesman said: "Any actions from any party that subverts the rule of law or provokes ethnic or sectarian tension risks undermining the significant progress Iraq has made toward peace and stability."
Ali al-Moussawi, Maliki's media advisor, said the judiciary had issued arrest warrants for six of the minister's bodyguards and accused rival politicians of trying to stir tensions by linking the case to the premier.
"The law and judiciary for them have no value, they see only political differences," Moussawi said. "They blame Maliki for everything."
STEADYING HAND GONE?
Violence in Iraq is down from the days of intercommunal slaughter that erupted soon after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein.
But many Sunni leaders feel they have been sidelined from power-sharing by Maliki as he consolidates his authority under a constitution that grants the premier wide powers.
Talabani, 79, a former guerrilla who was admitted to hospital on Monday, had often mediated among Shi'ites, Sunnis and Kurds, and in the growing dispute over oil between Baghdad and the autonomous Kurdistan region.
His illness has fuelled concerns of a succession crisis and tension between Arabs and ethnic Kurds spilling into violence.
Maliki, an ally of Iran who spent years fighting against Saddam's rule, is struggling with Sunni, Kurdish and even Shi'ite rivals over the power-sharing agreement meant to balance posts among religious sects and ethnic Kurds.
The PM's rivals tried earlier this year to organize a vote of no confidence against him. It failed because Talabani did not back the vote and because of splits among Maliki's foes.
Before the raids, most politicians were publicly wishing Talabani a speedy recovery. But behind the scenes, some senior Sunni political leaders suggested they may present their own candidate for the presidency in a challenge to the Kurds.
Under the constitution, parliament elects a new president and a vice president takes over in the interim. The power-sharing deal calls for the presidency to go to a Kurd while two vice president posts are shared by a Sunni and a Shi'ite.
The Sunni vice president, Hashemi, is a fugitive. The other vice president is Khudair al-Khuzaie, seen by some as a hardline Shi'ite from Maliki's alliance.
Among Kurds, former Kurdistan Prime Minister Barham Salih is favoured as a leader with ties across Iraq's sectarian divide. But there could also be a struggle within Iraqi Kurdistan, where Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party shares power with the Kurdistan Democratic Party.

Read More..