Leaked Wal-Mart videos; Hilary Clinton on Wal-Mart Board

Interesting story I came across tonight. According to this news article, a company called Flagler Productions was on contract for three decades to video tape a bunch of Wal-Mart meetings and whatnot, including stockholder meetings. In 2006 they lost the contract, and in an act of revenge capitalism (likely due to the fact they nearly went out of business after losing their biggest client – sounds familiar!) they made all thirty years of tapes available for a fee – one of the more interesting clips is of Hilary Clinton’s tenure on the Wal-Mart Board!

NAFTA-gate, the NDP, presidential dynasties, and neoliberalism

Canadian (and possibly American) readers may be familiar with ‘NAFTA-gate’, whereby the news networks reported on supposedly leaked information from a Canadian governmental meeting with one of Barack Obama’s advisors. Apparently, Obama’s advisor was largely sent to reassure the Canadian government that recent criticisms of NAFTA made by Obama (also made by Clinton) were more political maneuvering than a genuine belief. Harper claimed, at the time, that he did not believe that either Clinton nor Obama would be genuinely interested in ‘re-opening’ NAFTA.

The reaction of the Canadian opposition, both the Liberal and NDP, was to attack Harper on the leak from his office presumably intended to influence the elections of a foreign country. It’s quite irritating to see Layton fawning over Obama and trying to accuse the Harpercons of trying to sabotage his campaign; it goes to show how it’s not easy to make easy comparisons of political ideology across borders.