Grain prices hurt two ways. Wheat prices push up bakery expenses while high corn prices boost cost of hog and chicken feed
Go to Toronto Star original
Canada's largest food processor says it will raise its prices next month – for the second time in six months – as it attempts to offset the impact on its bottom line of soaring grain costs and a rising Canadian dollar.
Maple Leaf Foods Inc., whose brands include Maple Leaf fresh poultry and pork as well as Dempster's bread, didn't rule out another price hike later this year if costs keep escalating.
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Friday, February 22, 2008
U.S. secretly moved suspects via British isle
CIA admits it was wrong when it told ally Diego Garcia wasn't used for renditions
Go to San Francisco Chronicle original
In an embarrassing reversal, Britain admitted Thursday that one of its remote outposts - the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia - had twice been used by the United States as a refueling stop for the secret transfer of two terrorism suspects.
The CIA admitted that previous data given to America's strongest ally "turned out to be wrong." British Foreign Secretary David Miliband told Parliament that recent talks with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice showed that two suspects had been on flights to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and Morocco in 2002 that stopped on Diego Garcia, a U.S. base on British soil.
Former Prime Minister Tony Blair came under heavy criticism for Britain's close alliance with Washington in the war in Iraq and its part in the U.S.-led war on terrorism. The latest disclosure could pressure the United States to identify other countries used in extraordinary renditions, a practice of transferring suspects without formal extradition proceedings that human rights groups say opens the door for third-party countries to torture and interrogate suspects outside international standards.
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Go to San Francisco Chronicle original
In an embarrassing reversal, Britain admitted Thursday that one of its remote outposts - the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia - had twice been used by the United States as a refueling stop for the secret transfer of two terrorism suspects.
The CIA admitted that previous data given to America's strongest ally "turned out to be wrong." British Foreign Secretary David Miliband told Parliament that recent talks with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice showed that two suspects had been on flights to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and Morocco in 2002 that stopped on Diego Garcia, a U.S. base on British soil.
Former Prime Minister Tony Blair came under heavy criticism for Britain's close alliance with Washington in the war in Iraq and its part in the U.S.-led war on terrorism. The latest disclosure could pressure the United States to identify other countries used in extraordinary renditions, a practice of transferring suspects without formal extradition proceedings that human rights groups say opens the door for third-party countries to torture and interrogate suspects outside international standards.
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Many McCain Advisers Also Lobbyists
Candidate's Rhetoric Seemingly At Odds With Their Role In His Campaign
Go to Hartford Courant original
WASHINGTON — - For years, Sen. John McCain has railed against lobbyists and the influence of "special interests" in Washington, touting on his campaign website his fight against "the 'revolving door' by which lawmakers and other influential officials leave their posts and become lobbyists for the special interests they have aided."
But when McCain huddled with his closest advisers at his rustic Arizona cabin last weekend to map out his presidential campaign, virtually every one was part of the Washington lobbying culture he has long decried.
His campaign manager, Rick Davis, co-founded a lobbying firm whose clients have included Verizon and SBC Telecommunications. His chief political adviser, Charles R. Black Jr., is chairman of one of Washington's lobbying powerhouses, BKSH and Associates, which has represented AT&T, Alcoa, JP Morgan and U.S. Airways.
Senior advisers Steve Schmidt and Mark McKinnon work for firms that have lobbied for Land O' Lakes, the UST Public Affairs, Dell and Fannie Mae.
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DemocracyNow.org Radio: Behind the John McCain Lobbying Scandal
From DemocracyNow.org A Look at How McCain Urged the Federal Communications Commission to Act on Behalf of Paxson Communications
On Thursday, the New York Times revealed McCain repeatedly wrote letters to government regulators on behalf of Paxson Communications and other clients of the telecommunications lobbyist, Vicki Iseman. We speak to Angela Campbell, the attorney for the Alliance for Progressive Action and QED Accountability Project, the community groups that sought to block Paxson’s takeover of a Pittsburgh public television license.
Listen to Segment now...
On Thursday, the New York Times revealed McCain repeatedly wrote letters to government regulators on behalf of Paxson Communications and other clients of the telecommunications lobbyist, Vicki Iseman. We speak to Angela Campbell, the attorney for the Alliance for Progressive Action and QED Accountability Project, the community groups that sought to block Paxson’s takeover of a Pittsburgh public television license.
Listen to Segment now...
NAFTA Superhighway: Real or Myth
Go to Oakland Press original
While facets of a proposed NAFTA Superhighway may indeed fall within the myth category, the idea is not really a laughing matter.
Certainly, anything that prompts 43 congressmen, including three presidential candidates, to co-sponsor a resolution decrying it must have a grain of truth to it.
History is replete with examples of far-fetched notions -- like putting a man on the moon -- turning into reality.
And the idea of seamless travel encompassing the United States, Mexico and Canada is anything but fanciful.
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While facets of a proposed NAFTA Superhighway may indeed fall within the myth category, the idea is not really a laughing matter.
Certainly, anything that prompts 43 congressmen, including three presidential candidates, to co-sponsor a resolution decrying it must have a grain of truth to it.
History is replete with examples of far-fetched notions -- like putting a man on the moon -- turning into reality.
And the idea of seamless travel encompassing the United States, Mexico and Canada is anything but fanciful.
more...
Texas' complicated rules may favor Obama
Go to AP original
DALLAS - Hillary Rodham Clinton has been waiting to get to Texas to begin her comeback against a surging Barack Obama. She might be more careful about what she wishes for.
Clinton has been banking on the state's large Hispanic population — typically about a quarter of the turnout in Democratic primaries — to give her a victory on March 4. But the Democratic Party in President Bush's home state has a complicated, hybrid primary-caucus that might just be better suited for Obama.
"I had no idea how bizarre it is," Clinton told reporters this week. "We have grown men crying over it."
Unlike other states that allocate delegates by congressional districts, Texas distributes 126 of its delegates among its 31 state Senate districts using a formula based on Democratic voter turnout in the 2004 and 2006 general elections. The 31 districts contain from two to eight delegates. The March 4 primary vote in each Senate district will allocate that district's delegates.
The turnout formula has assigned more delegates to urban centers with a lot of young or black voters that tend to favor Obama and fewer delegates to poorer Hispanic areas expected to favor Clinton. Austin, which includes the University of Texas, gets eight; Houston gets seven and Dallas gets six.
Clinton has spent most of her time so far in the southern, largely Hispanic part of the state. She has made two trips to Hidalgo County, where the Senate district awards just four delegates. She has left the rest of the state to her husband, former President Clinton, who appeared in a dozen cities in East and West Texas in the last week.
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Thursday, February 21, 2008
McCain's Affair with Lobbyist: Legal? Ethical? Damaging?
Go to US News original
Hints of a campaign scandal involving Sen. John McCain and a female telecom lobbyist broke into the open today, with the New York Times running a front-page story that features unnamed McCain aides' suspicions of a romantic relationship between the Senator and Vicki Iseman. Some details of the story reports of an improper relationship between McCain and a lobbyist had appeared on the Drudge Report earlier in the primary season. The NYT story says that in 2000, "waves of anxiety swept through" McCain's "small circle of advisers" because "a female lobbyist had been turning up with him at fund-raisers, visiting his offices and accompanying him on a client's corporate jet. Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself - instructing staff members to block the woman's access, privately warning her away and repeatedly confronting him, several people involved in the campaign said on the condition of anonymity." After media reports that McCain "had written letters to government regulators on behalf of the lobbyist's client, the former campaign associates said, some aides feared for a time that attention would fall on her involvement." McCain, 71, "and the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, 40, both say they never had a romantic relationship. But to his advisers, even the appearance of a close bond with a lobbyist whose clients often had business before the Senate committee Mr. McCain led threatened the story of redemption and rectitude that defined his political identity."
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