By Audrey Huntley - rabble.ca

...[A]ll of the family members and friends I spoke to...had lost a loved one. Not only had they all experienced the devastation of loss by violence of someone precious, but they had also suffered from the treatment they experienced at the hands of those they went to for help. They were received with blatant racism at worst, passive indifference at best. Fearful and desperate for help in their search for their missing friend or family member, they had instead to endure insult upon injury.

In this interview, author J. Patrick O’Connor discusses his newly released book Scapegoat: The Chino Hills Murders and The Framing of Kevin Cooper, explaining why he is convinced of Kevin Cooper’s innocence. O’Connor asserts that the police and prosecution orchestrated an obvious frame-up that continues to be upheld by federal appeals courts, albeit with the blatantly unfair rulings by US District Court Judge Marilyn Huff blocking critical forensics tests that had been ordered by the US Ninth Circuit Court in 2004.

February 7th, 2012

Jason Kenney...is making headlines again with yet another parliamentary scandal...Kenney’s office organized a bogus citizenship ceremony broadcast on Sun Media...This is the latest in a series of political scandals surrounding Kenney...While these news-worthy scandals highlight the wheeling-and-dealing and corruption within Kenney’s office, we are troubled by the lack of anger and outrage at the real scandal in Kenney’s office: the racist tokenization of immigrant communities to mask increasingly repressive anti-migrant policies.

By Dave Zirin - February 6, 2012

Seeing the arrogant and the entitled get knocked down a peg is always welcome. But in the real world it doesn’t mean a damn just because one arrogant and entitled owner’s box cheers, while another weeps. It happens because people around the country are standing up and saying, "Enough is enough." In Indianapolis, it happened because people heroically dared to be heard on a day when everyone told them to just shut up and watch the game.

By Danny Lucia - Znet

OVER A million Iraqis are dead from America's war...One million is a "Grandpa, what did you do to stop it?" number. It's a number that undeniably puts the American state among history's villains. Those who are not willing or able to accept this are physically unable to retain the fact that over a million Iraqis are dead. Their brains expel it like a foreign germ.

By Amir Alwani
Potent News
January 28, 2012

I have a right to ingest/smoke whatever I want and to explore the contents of "my own mind" in the process, so long as I am not hurting anyone else, even if it kills me. This is a human right, albeit one that few people think of.

By Jack Hood - WSWS

Hundreds of police clad in riot gear and wielding a variety of weapons attacked a procession of protesters in Oakland, California, on Saturday. It was the largest altercation between police and protesters in Oakland since the October 25 confrontation that left several wounded...More than 400 protesters were arrested over the course of the evening, with marches continuing late into the night.

By Syed Hussan - January 29, 2012

On Friday, in a grand, sweeping, blustering speech...Harper has laid out his vision for the future. It is imperative that we understand it, to fight it...Harper's speech brushes over two areas: (1) job creation and economic stability through corporate tax cuts, free trade agreements, further investments in energy and oil production and cuts to pensions and (2) dealing with 'demographic challenges' by managing immigration. These are all connected and should be scrutinized as such.

By Krystalline Kraus - January 28, 2012

A 174-page report by the Office of the Independent Police Review Director (OIPRD) released on Friday January 20, 2012, recommended that five Toronto police officers should face criminal charges for using unnecessary force against activist Adam Nobody.

By Chris Hedges - Monday 23 January 2012

I do not know how long it will take to dethrone the corporate state, but I do know it is a dead and terminal system of power. As the global economy deteriorates and climate change causes greater disruptions, these corporations will be increasingly discredited. I know the iron grip of corporations over our lives will, eventually, be broken. The corporate state will, like all wounded animals, lash out with a blind fury...It will increase pressure to become crueler and more callous at the base of the columns it depends on for survival. And eventually it will break.

By Jack Hood - WSWS

Protesters blockaded parts of California Street — the epicenter of the west coast’s financial industry. Many banks, including Citibank, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America, were forced to close early or shut down entirely as protest participants locked arms around bank entrances and ATMs...Police in riot gear made their presence known as early as 9:00 a.m. Several protesters were hit with batons throughout the day.

By Emma Pullman - January 20, 2012

Just over a week before the Northern Gateway Pipeline hearings began, EthicalOil.org and its allies launched a pre-emptive PR offensive on environmental and First Nations groups who oppose the pipeline. Their new website...and ad campaign are an attempt to invalidate opposition to the pipeline by pointing to the small amount of American funding going to some environmental groups...Sun News was first to promote the campaign, and by the end of the week, numerous papers across Canada were repeating the story.

By Amir Alwani
Potent News
January 21, 2012

[UPDATE: Someone asked me exactly where I witnessed this so I've now added pictures I took from Google maps to clear things up.]

Yesterday morning (January 20th, 2012), around 4AM I stumbled upon 20-30 tanks on train cars here in Halifax, Canada (at a train stop beside Fairview Cemetery).

Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera with me at the time and when I came back to film no more than 15 hours later, the tanks had apparently already been transported away.

By Justin Saunders - Toronto Media Co-op

Approximately two hundred people were in chambers for the vote; almost ten times that number remained outside, prevented from entering by a line of police officers mixed with City Hall security. Attempts to enter the building for the vote were met with violence, as a number of individuals were hit and pepper sprayed. A small horse-mounted riot squad moved on the crowd. Several arrests were made, people were beaten and choked, and an elderly man was thrown to the ground. At least one person was taken to...hospital.

By Matt Reichel - January 16, 2012

Ahead of the overlapping G-8 and NATO summits in Chicago scheduled for May 19th-21st, Mayor Rahm Emanuel has ramped up the repression of principled dissent in a city that has quite the history of it...“Rahmbo” has introduced two new ordinances that would overhaul the city’s existing laws dealing with protests and parades...[T]he measures include increased fines for resisting arrest, reduced opening hours for public parks, and much stricter parade regulations. Together, they appear to be an effort to stifle free speech under the guise of defending the public from unwieldy “anarchists.”