[DrCaleb]

$1:

Irregular votes, panicked moves, kiosks

Insiders detail the last days of Jason Kenney’s campaign to be leader of Alberta's United Conservative Party

It was fall of 2017. Jason Kenney, former prime minister Stephen Harper's chief lieutenant, and Brian Jean, who had led Alberta's recently dissolved Wildrose Party, were vying to lead the newly created United Conservative Party. On the second day of the three-day leadership vote, a panicked call came from Kenney's campaign in Calgary ordering his team in Edmonton to shut down a voting kiosk they had set up in an empty storefront in a strip mall.

The location on Ellerslie Road quickly emptied. By the next day, volunteers huddled in a private home in southeast Edmonton, where one insider alleges they cast votes from their mobile devices using PINs collected from registered voters.

While Kenney's team worked in that Edmonton home, the online dashboard used by Jean's campaign to track the number of votes coming in had gone dark. The UCP was no longer feeding the campaign updated stats on how many members had voted and which PIN had been used.

By the time Jean's dashboard fired back up, the number of ballots cast had skyrocketed. Ultimately, Jean lost the race by 30 percentage points and Kenney went on to oust Rachel Notley's NDP in a provincial election.

A CBC News investigation lifts the veil on what happened inside voting kiosks set up by the Kenney campaign. It’s part of a larger story about allegations of wrongdoing by the team behind Alberta’s current premier that one longtime conservative operative says is the focus of an ongoing RCMP investigation and an expert says undermines the credibility of Canada’s democratic system.

The Kenney campaign is also accused of using fraudulent emails to cast ballots and of collaborating with another leadership contender who attacked Jean in a “kamikaze” campaign.

. . .

Each UCP member could vote online or by phone using a unique PIN that was supposed to be used only by that person. The UCP rules for the vote say: "Contestants, their staff and volunteers may not collect, utilize or deal with an elector's PIN in any fashion. Breach of this rule will result in disciplinary action that may include disqualification of a leadership contestant."

Chaudhry says his job at the voting kiosks was to phone UCP members in the Pakistani-Canadian community and ask for their PINs — although he claims he didn't manage to get many. He says he would pass the PINs to Tim Uppal, a former Conservative MP who played a key role on Kenney's campaign. Uppal shared the PINs in turn with volunteers who used them to cast votes for Kenney, Chaudhry says.

Uppal, who had previously worked with Kenney on Harper's cabinet, is currently running in this fall's federal election as the Conservative candidate in Edmonton Mill Woods.

Chaudhry points to Uppal as one of the people in charge of the Kenney voting operation, as did another insider whom CBC News has agreed not to identify because he fears repercussions in his tight-knit ethnic and political communities.

"There was two or three guys with a computer. If somebody was getting a PIN, they were giving to one of these guys, or Tim Uppal… then they were voting by themselves," Chaudhry said of the Ellerslie Road location.

Chaudhry says he initially didn't think he was doing anything wrong, simply helping voters who couldn't navigate the online or telephone voting process. He said he put his faith in Uppal, who he thought would know more about what was allowed and what was not.

https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/longfor ... son-kenney

[DrCaleb]

$1:

Political Operatives Are Faking Voter Outrage With Millions Of Made-Up Comments To Benefit The Rich And Powerful

Sarah Reeves sat on her couch in Eugene, Oregon, staring at her laptop screen in furious disbelief. She was reading the website of a government agency, where her mother appeared to have posted a comment weighing in on a bitter policy battle for control of the internet. Something was very wrong.

For a start, Annie Reeves, who loved to lead children’s sing-alongs at the Alaska Zoo, had never followed wonky policy debates. She barely knew her way around the web, let alone held strident views on how it should be regulated — and, according to her daughter, she definitely didn’t post angry comments on government websites.

But Sarah Reeves had a more conclusive reason to feel sure her mother’s name had been taken in vain: Annie Reeves was dead. She died more than a year before the comment was posted.

In the spring of 2017, a virtual war was raging over the future of the internet, much of it through comments on the website of the Federal Communications Commission — the government agency responsible for regulating the broadband industry. Reeves wasn’t the only ghost to get sucked in from beyond the grave to do battle on behalf of giant telecommunications companies such as AT&T and Comcast.

At issue was a rule from the Obama era known as “net neutrality.” It was designed to protect the open web by requiring internet providers to treat traffic from all sites equally — and under Trump, the FCC was planning to scrap it. Conservatives had long branded the regulation as an assault on free enterprise, but advocates warned that its repeal would allow the broadband giants to manipulate traffic in favor of the highest-paying platforms, crowding out competition and stifling free speech. The stakes were high, and the public comment period attracted a staggering 22 million submissions.

The problem was, many of the comments were fake.

. . .

The anti–net neutrality comments harvested on behalf of Broadband for America, the industry group that represented telecommunications giants including AT&T, Cox, and Comcast, were uploaded to the FCC website by Media Bridge founder Shane Cory, a former executive director of both the Libertarian Party and the conservative sting group Project Veritas. Cory has claimed credit for “20 or 30” major public advocacy campaigns in recent years, including, he says, record-setting submissions to the IRS, Environmental Protection Agency, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, and “probably a handful of others.” On Media Bridge’s website, the company has described itself as having expertise in “overwhelming government agencies” with avalanches of public submissions, and has publicly dubbed its approach to marshaling comments the “Big Hammer.”

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/js ... ersonation

[DrCaleb]

$1:

Vegreville layoffs raise fears of further privatized health care, union says

More than 50 people being laid off from a privately run health-care home in Vegreville will be able to reapply for similar positions — for a lot less money, the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees says.

Licensed practical nurses, health-care aides and cooks will be out of their jobs by Oct. 31 at the 40-space Century Park home, operated by Optima Living.

The company sent a letter to 52 employees last month saying the decision was made after "careful deliberation," with a focus on enhancing "residents' experience at the facility."

The letter also says the change "offers the prospect of a greater return to our shareholders."

Rod Feland, a vice president of the AUPE, said the members were still negotiating a new contract with the company and likened the layoffs to an illegal lockout.

"It's almost like residents, seniors, in this community are being held hostage by a private company that just wants to make money off of them," Feland told CBC News Monday.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton ... -1.5312807

[DrCaleb]

$1:

Toronto restaurant closes after death threats arise from relative's involvement in Bernier protest



A Syrian family says it is shutting down its Toronto restaurant after receiving death threats, a week after a relative was involved in a protest at a Maxime Bernier speaking event in Hamilton where a senior was blocked from entering.

The Al-Soufi family, owners of Soufi's located on Queen Street West near Tecumseth Street, said Tuesday they are "heartbroken" about the decision.

"However, we could not put our family members, staff, and patrons in danger," they said in a statement. "The magnitude of hate we are facing is overwhelming."

The family also released some of the racist and violent messages they have received.

"Your going back in a box," read part of one message.

"Keep it up and your family, and those who defend your family's terrorist actions will suffer immensely," reads another.

Other messages and posts provided by the family advocate extreme acts of violence against them.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ ... -1.5313443

[DrCaleb]

$1:

Two killed in shooting in front of synagogue in Germany on Yom Kippur



BERLIN — Two people were killed in a shooting in the eastern German city of Halle on Wednesday and police said they had detained one person.

Mass-selling daily Bild said the shooting took place in front of a synagogue, and that a hand grenade was also thrown into a Jewish cemetery.

An eyewitness told n-tv television that a perpetrator had also fired shots into a kebab shop in Halle.

The violence occurred on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year in Judaism when Jews fast for more than 24 hours, seeking atonement.

https://nationalpost.com/news/world/two ... y-of-halle

[Thanos]

At the moment it looks like another alt-right white guy who did it. Could just as easily have been a Muslim, given they usually say the same sort of things about Jews when they do an attack, but the shooting at the kebab shop put a stop to that possibility. Apparently the apes on 4Chan are giving the shooter "bad reviews" for not killing more victims.

[DrCaleb]

Most random shootings, at least in North America, have been by alt-right nutbars. It only makes sense that trend continues in Europe.

I also took exception that the alt-righties would harass a good example of a great refugee - one who has built a successful business out of nothing - and cause them to close down because of a remote association with a protest they didn't agree with.

[DrCaleb]

$1:

'White Power Barbies' preach hate and a lux life

$1:

Daughters of darkness. Extreme right wingers Lauren Southern and Brittany Sellner are drawing women to the alt right. INSTAGRAM

The oldest adage in marketing is that sex sells.

Extreme right-wing groups in the UK are using hate “Barbies” to lure in young men, the UK Sun reports.

Traditionally, the extreme right has been nearly exclusively the sole domain of men.

No more.

Heroines like blond Canadian one-time media personality Lauren Southern are rock stars in the alt-right movement. She has a whopping 170,000 followers on Instagram.

And women like Southern are luring in female believers, the newspaper reports.

For some disaffected young women, Southern, et al. have become role models and promising lots of male attention, a lux lifestyle and a community of like-minded “sisters.”

https://torontosun.com/news/world/white ... a-lux-life

[llama66]

All while wearing a soviet style Ushanka complete with the Red Star,

[DrCaleb]

Right?

[BeaverFever]

$1:

Fake video of Trump shooting media and opponents 'shown at president's resort'

Josh Taylor

A mocked-up video depicting US president Donald Trump stabbing and shooting his political opponents and the media has reportedly been shown at a meeting of the president’s supporters at his Miami resort.

The New York Times reported on Sunday that the video, which has since been posted on Twitter, shows a scene from Kingsman: The Secret Service, edited to appear as though Trump is stabbing and opening fire on people and news organisations in a church.

The targets include CNN, Politico, Black Lives Matter, the BBC, the Guardian, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, Hillary Clinton, the late senator John McCain, Bernie Sanders, Barack Obama and others inside the “Church of Fake News”.

Since his 2016 election win, Trump has frequently described media outlets reporting on him as the “fake news media” and the “enemy of the people”.

The video appears to be created by TheGeekzTeam on YouTube, a pro-Trump channel that has a long history of creating video mashups in support of the 45th president. The video in question was posted to the channel in July 2018.

According to the Times, the video was shown last week at the American Priority conference at Doral Miami resort. Speakers at the event included Donald Trump Jr and former White House spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

One of the event organisers, Alex Phillips told the Times that he denounced the video and was looking into how it was played at the event.

In a statement on Thursday, CNN said the video was “vile and horrific”.

“Sadly, this is not the first time that supporters of the president have promoted violence against the media in a video they apparently find entertaining – but it is by far and away the worst,” CNN said in a tweeted statement.

“The president and his family, the White House, and the Trump campaign need to denounce it immediately in the strongest possible terms. Anything less equates to a tacit endorsement of violence and should not be tolerated by anyone.”

The White House Correspondents Association said it was “horrified” by the video and “all Americans should condemn this depiction of violence directed towards journalists and his political opponents”.

“We have previously told the president his rhetoric could incite violence. Now we call on him and everybody associated with this conference to denounce this video and affirm that violence has no place in our society.”

Beto O’Rourke condemned the video on Twitter, saying: “This video isn’t funny. It will get people killed.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... nts-resort


The hateful anti-democracy Right Wing keeps sinking to new lows in their quest to groom Americans into accepting political violence as a normal behaviour.

[BartSimpson]

llama66 llama66:

All while wearing a soviet style Ushanka complete with the Red Star,

This is a 'thing' with the actual Fascists where they wear Soviet gear as a trophy of having conquered Soviet Communism.

There's all sorts of things wrong with their sense of history but since the public schools don't care to teach kids about the facts concerning global communism then it's of no surprise.

[DrCaleb]

'This is oil country': Newly painted Greta Thunberg mural gets defaced, covered in slurs

[Thanos]

Desperate people do ugly things, especially when they're consistently being demonized by those who have it easy.

[DrCaleb]

$1:

An unprecedented number of Montreal tenants are being evicted, QS says

Tenants are losing their homes on an unprecedented scale as owners evict them for renovations, Québec solidaire MNAs and housing organizations said at a press conference Sunday.

Landlords are exploiting loopholes in the housing law to get rid of occupants so they can jack up rents, repurpose apartments as short-term tourist rentals or turn them into condos, said Ruba Ghazal, member of the National Assembly for Mercier, which includes the sought-after Plateau-Mont-Royal and Mile End districts.

“It’s a real housing crisis,” said Ghazal, who was accompanied by the party’s housing critic, Andrés Fontecilla, as well as some displaced tenants and housing advocates.

The MNAs called on the Coalition Avenir Québec government to declare a moratorium on evictions for the purposes of altering or repurposing housing units in areas where the vacancy rate is under three per cent.

They also want the government to set up an emergency committee to help displaced tenants find homes and to tighten the rules on evictions in Quebec’s Civil Code.

Tenants facing eviction have flooded MNAs’ offices and tenants’ organizations with calls, Ghazal said.

https://montrealgazette.com/news/local- ... re-qs-mnas