Category Archives: Liberal

So it looks like there really was a post-Brexit realignment just not in the way pundits expected. Theresa May really did make inroads into the Leavey north and Midlands (for instance,taking Stoke South). And Remainers may have taken the election as a second referendum, coalescing around the choice they thought would ensure the softest Brexit.

But why was that so overwhelmingly Labour, rather than the Lib Dems? Aren't many Remainers supposed to be free trade centrists, not socialists? Part of the answer is surely that Labour seemed more likely to win, Beyond that with the disclaimer that this is all very early and tentative I canthink of two main possibilities.

The first is that all the vagueness and vacillation that fascinated political observers about Mr Corbyn either escaped or did not bothermost voters. Perhaps that's because Labour's pre-existing reputation for Europhilia trumped the minutiae of its positioning (once upon a time focus groups regularly said they had no idea what Labour's policy on Brexit was). Or perhaps Mr Corbyn's vagueness was successful in letting everyone read into his words what they wanted. He was therefore perceived as the Remain candidate by those who were looking for one.

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Was this the revenge of the liberal metropolitan elite? - Telegraph.co.uk

Some political moves are complex, requiring a delicate balancing of competing interests and priorities. Some are tough moral calls, with reasonable people disagreeing over the right course.

And then are those political moves that should be the equivalent of empty net goals. Theyre supposed to be an easy score. Theyre supposed to be hard to miss.

And yet, faced with such opportunities, the Trudeau government has often displayed a remarkable ability for seeing an open net, misfiring and instead scoring an own-goal.

Theres a discernable pattern of unforced errors, lapses in judgment, self-harming secrecy and worse. Coming from a PMO that sees itself as Mensas gift to Ottawa, its more than a little puzzling.

Consider the botched appointment of Madeleine Meilleur to the post of Official Languages Commissioner.

As a Franco-Ontarian and former Ontario cabinet minister, Ms. Meilleur is arguably well qualified for the position. But shes also a just-retired Liberal politician, being offered what is supposed to be a non-partisan job. And most importantly, the job the government tried to give her wasnt its to offer.

Read more: Madeleine Meilleur drops bid to be Canadas languages commissioner

The Official Languages Commissioner is an officer of Parliament. She reports to Parliament, not the government of the day. Traditionally, the appointment is made by across-the-aisle consensus, or something close to it. That the government didnt clear Ms. Meilleur with the opposition before announcing the appointment is hard to understand and impossible to justify which is why it provoked such an outcry.

Heritage Minister Mlanie Joly, who is ultimately responsible for putting forward a nominee and conducted the final round of interviews with prospective candidates, is surrounded by people who used to work for or with Ms. Meilleur. It turns out that Ms. Meilleur also spoke prior to her nomination with senior staff in the Prime Ministers Office, who also used to work at Queens Park.

The process that led to the appointment initially held in secret; later revealed amid public pressure has even drawn fire from minority language groups who fear the office has been tainted.

Theyre not far wrong; this has every appearance of a Liberal government looking after a member of its political family, while undermining its own claims to believe in greater parliamentary accountability and transparency.

This week, faced with the ongoing outcry, Ms. Meilleur withdrew her name from contention.

This should have been a simple, non-controversial, non-partisan appointment. The government transformed it into an own-goal.

And remarkably, this is not the Trudeau governments first such hubris-driven, self-inflicted wound.

There were those attempts plural to rewrite the rules of parliamentary procedure without all-party consensus.

There was that time the Liberals presented draft legislation clearly aimed at undermining the arms length Parliamentary Budget Officer.

And there is the ongoing controversy over the Prime Ministers Christmas vacation on the Aga Khans Caribbean island. The story began when the government refused to tell the media, and Canadians, where the PM was. The move was pretty much the definition of self-defeating: A sure sign that you have something to hide is that you are very visibly hiding it.

More recently, an entire Question Period was devoted to Mr. Trudeau repeatedly refusing to say whether hed been interviewed by the federal Ethics Commissioner about the trip.

In a related vein, the obvious solution to the controversy provoked by Liberal ministers holding secret pay-to-play fundraisers involving people who do business with his government would have been to stop them, immediately.

The newly-introduced Bill C-50 is an important step forward, as was the Liberal Party decision earlier this year to make its fundraising more transparent. Both go a long way to removing the secrecy around party fundraising. The government has ultimately moved in the right direction but first, it spent months exhausting all other options, while denying there was a problem.

The paradox is that this is a government that has at times demonstrated flexibility and shown a willingness to change its mind. Reversing course on the PBO legislation was the right thing to do, even if it required last-minute amendments in committee to do it.

But why not just take the right course, first?

The Liberals came to power promising radical transparency, and a clean break with practices they decried under former PM Stephen Harper. And yet, for all the Sunny Ways branding and all the carefully curated photo-ops, there are too many moments when the Trudeau government comes across as puzzlingly, insistently Harper-esque.

It is not a good look.

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Globe editorial: Another case of Liberal hubris and self-harm - The Globe and Mail

BBC News

No Liberal MP in Wales for the first time since 1859 BBC News There is no Liberal MP in Wales for the first time since the party formed. The only Lib Dem MP Mark Williams was defeated by 23-year-old Ben Lake, who stood for Plaid Cymru in Ceredigion. Mr Lake, the country's youngest MP, defeated the Lib Dem's ... and more »

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No Liberal MP in Wales for the first time since 1859 - BBC News

Wayne Allyn Root, a right-wing commentator and conspiracy theorist, has a warning for anyone in his audience who might date a liberal, cat-loving, Donald Trump-hating, feminist woman: RUN!

Not because the two people might disagree over important issues, but because shell eventually pull a Lorena Bobbitt.

He made the comments on his show Wednesday:

Find me a woman who is a feminist and a liberal and likes cats and I will find you someone who ought to be in an insane asylum every single time, Root bellowed. Hey guys, if any of you out there are single and you ever meet a woman who admits to being a liberal and hating Trump and when you get to her house, shes got cats, run for your life. Run, run, run. Like those ads in Britain, run and hide and tell other men to run and hide.

No man can ever live with a liberal woman with cats, he continued. Shell cut your pee-pee off, I promise you. Liberals are mentally unstable and mentally insane. Theyre unhinged.

Thats not how it works. Everyone knows liberal women who hate you will just pour poison in your kale smoothie.

And Im amazed by how Root says the most offensive things he can think of to describe liberal women but feels the need to sanitize the word penis. As if thats the worst part of his little monologue. Either that, or he took abstinence-only sex education and doesnt know the proper anatomical term.

Since many readers of this site have probably dated liberal women before, feel free to tell us all in the comments what life is like post-castration.

(via Right Wing Watch)

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Religious Right Activist: Don't Date Liberal Women or They'll Cut Your Pee-Pee Off - Patheos (blog)

He had previously ruled out a coalition deal with other parties after warning their positions on Brexit could not be reconciled.

Speaking about the loss Mr Clegg said the next parliament will preside over a deeply, deeply divided and polarised nation.

We saw that in the Brexit referendum last year and we see it again tonight, he said, adding that the most grave gulf of all in society is between the young and the old. Accepting his defeat, he said that in politics You live by the sword and you die by the sword.

It came after the former leader warned he had seen an "uptick" in support for Jeremy Corbyn's party in his seat, which has a high student population.

The former Lib Dem leader ruled out a coalition between his former party and Labour or the Conservatives, addingthere is no "meeting point" between them because of their views on Brexit.

Speaking to ITV MrCleggsaid: "It's clearly a complete boomerang election for the Conservatives who when they started out in this election campaign were treating it as something of a coronation and clearly it's going to be a much tighter fought contest."

Asked about the possibly of a coalition with either Labour or the Tories he added:"There's no meeting point between the Conservatives and the Labour parties and the Lib Dems."

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Liberal Democrats rule out coalition with Labour as former leader Nick Clegg loses seat - Telegraph.co.uk

'A Proud Liberal' Engages 'a Proud Deplorable' New York Times Dear Friend: I write as a proud liberal with an open mind. Though there is much we disagree about, there is one thing you and I agree on: We live in a dangerous world. One of the greatest risks we face is our belief that those who disagree with us have ...

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'A Proud Liberal' Engages 'a Proud Deplorable' - New York Times

Christy Clark reiterated that she doesn't expect to be B.C. premier much longer, while addressing media at today's Liberal MLA swearing-in ceremony.

"There is a very strong likelihood that the government will be defeated on a confidence motion, and I think that's a fair assumption to make," she said.

"We are in an unusual place in the province," she said. "It's an unusual situation when the party that gets the most seats does not govern."

The NDP and Greens won a combined 44 seats in last month's election and have agreed to work together to unseat the Liberals and form a minority government. The Liberals won 43 seats.

With the legislature set to berecalled June 22, there is growing intrigue over who will be elected Speakerand whether or not it will throw the legislature into gridlock.

Normally, the Speaker comes from the party forming government, which would have the effect of reducing the combined NDP-Green seat total to 43, tied with the Liberals.

Parliamentary convention has it that in the event of a tievote, the Speaker would continue debate and maintain the status quo. However, in the matter of a confidence vote, the speaker could cast the tie-breaking vote.

LiberalGovernment House Leader Mike deJongcautioned it would be dangerous to go against custom and politicizethe Speaker's position.

NDP leader John Horgan is introduced to his caucus in advance of the NDP swearing-in ceremony. (Mike McArthur/CBC)

"Whoever that person ends up being, there are parliamentary conventions in place for the approach the Speaker takes when called upon to cast a deciding vote," he said.

"To begin to amend the rules simply to buttress or make life easier in a precarious minoritysituation isfraught with problems."

The 41-member NDP caucus was sworn in this afternoon, one day after thethree elected members from theB.C. Green Party.

Clark said her party would be willing to support the NDP-Greens on issues they agree on, but that major decisions on Liberal-backed Kinder Morgan and Site C need to be pushed forward.

Clark and NDP Leader John Horganhave been waging a public letter-writing battle over the massive Site C hydroelectric dam, sparked by Horganadvising BC Hydro to not sign any new contracts related to the $8.8 billion project.

And the NDP-Green alliance has said it will attempt to stop the twinning of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline, which has federal approval and is slated to begin work in September.

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Liberal, NDP MLAs take part in swearing-in ceremony - CBC.ca

Liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org called for President Trumps impeachmentThursday after the release of former FBI Director James Comeys opening testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee.

In the United States, no one is above the law. The testimony that former FBI Director James Comey is expected to deliver today makes clear that Congress must begin impeachment proceedings immediately, the statement reads.

Todays testimony puts us in fundamentally new territory. This is no longer about our opposition to Trumps policies and rhetoric.

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MoveOns call for Trumps impeachment is not the only one. Democratic Reps. Al GreenAl GreenRyan denies GOP would try to impeach Dem accused of same actions as Trump Liberal group MoveOn calls for Trump to be impeached Second Dem joins effort to impeach Trump MORE (Texas) and Brad Sherman (Calif.) have also called for the presidents impeachment.

Sherman said he was drafting a single article of impeachment due to Trumps firing of Comey. This would be the first step in any congressional bid to oust the president.

However, House Democratic leaders have pushed back on calls for impeachment,saying the efforts could undermine the congressional and federal investigations into alleged ties between the Trump campaign and Russian election meddling.

MoveOns statement comes hours before the former FBI chief will testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee. The former FBI head put out his opening own opening statement on Wednesday, in which he says the president said he expected Comeys loyalty and that Trump wanted him to lift the cloud surrounding the Russia investigation.

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Liberal group MoveOn calls for Trump to be impeached - The Hill (blog)

Project Veritas, the conservative activist group famous for damaging undercover videosthat recently forced two Democratic operatives out of their jobs, has been hit with a potentially expensive problem a $1 million conspiracy lawsuit.

The allegations: Project Veritas infiltrated a Democratic consulting firm under false pretenses, secretly recorded private conversations and published deceptively edited footage all to mislead the public and hurt former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's chances of winning the White House.In doing so, Project Veritas violatedfederal and Washington wiretapping laws, among other things, said attorney Joseph Sandler, a former Democratic National Committee general counsel who represents the plaintiff, Democracy Partners, a consulting group working with the Clinton campaign.

Project Veritas's founder, James O'Keefe, hasdenounced the lawsuit as an intimidation tacticto impedeProject Veritas's army of guerrilla journalists and their pursuit of the truth.

The lawsuit, which comes at a time of strong political divisiveness,will not be without significant challenges, legal experts say.

For one, pretending to be someone else to expose something that might be of public interest is hardly new. And courts in the pasthave protected constitutional rights to gather and publish news, whether by the institutional press or the average citizen, said David Heller, deputy director of the Media Law Resource Center.

[Two Democratic operatives lose jobs after James OKeefe sting]

Secondly, although wiretapping laws make it illegal to secretly tape conversations, they also say that it's okay to do so as long as one party knows about the recording and had consented to it. The exception, known as the one-party consent, is the reason why, for example, President Trump wouldn'thave broken any laws if he did tape conversations with former FBI director James B. Comey.

A judge or a jury will have to answer these questions: Do Project Veritas's undercover investigations serve the public interest? Or are they a smear campaign disguising asjournalism?

In the current environment of 'fake news' and hyper partisanship, it won't be surprising if judges struggle over what is or isn't for the good of the public, Heller told The Washington Post.

It all started in June 2016, when a man named Daniel Sandini introduced himself to Democracy Partners's founder, Robert Creamer. Using a false name, Sandini connected Creamer tohis niece who he claimed was interested in advocacy and political work, according to the complaint, which was filed last week. That niece, Allison Maas, used a false name and a fabricated resume to secure an internship at Democracy Partners.

Both Sandini and Maas are Project Veritas operatives, the lawsuit states.

During the course of her internship, which started in September, Maas wore a hidden camera and audio recording devices. Sherecorded conversations made with clients in person or via conference calls, the lawsuit states. Shehad access to confidential emails and documents and was present at confidential meetings.

Creamer had told her not to share information with anyone, the lawsuit states, although Maas never signed a nondisclosure agreement with Democracy Partners. Sandler said that even without a nondisclosure agreement, Maas owed it to Democracy Partners to not steal information.

[James OKeefe says CNN is the target of his next sting]

You essentially sign up for an internship and become part of an organization, Sandler said. You owe a basic duty of loyalty to that organization that you are not going to that you haven't deceived them, defrauded them. That's what she breached here.

Mason Kortz, an instructional fellow at Harvard University's Cyberlaw Clinic, said what will likely be a hurdle for Democracy Partners is the manner in which the conversations were recorded. Was Maasa bystander recording other people's conversations? Or was she a part of the conversations? If it's the latter, federal andWashington wiretapping laws' one-party consent couldgive Maas some reprieve, Kortz said.

But the laws also provide another exception that could help Democracy Partners, Kortz said.Secret recordings are illegal in Washington if they were done to purposely damagea person or an organization.

They would have to provide proof of what(Maas's) purpose was, her state of mind, Kortz said.

According to O'Keefe, his organization's purpose is investigative journalism that exposes malfeasance and corruption of certain organizations. Sandler calls it political espionage.

In the weeks leading up to the presidential election, Project Veritas released videos, some of which were from footage taken by Maas. The series, called Rigging the Election, purport to prove that Democracy Partners, including Creamer and a Democratic activist from Madison, Wis., had committed voter fraud and conspired to disrupt campaign ralliesof Trump, who was then a Republican presidential candidate.

Creamer announced that he was stepping back from his work for the Clinton campaign shortly after the videos were published. Scott Foval, the activist who contracted with Democracy Partners, was laid off. Democracy Partners and a consulting firm owned by Creamer also lost clients and contracts.

The lawsuit alleged that the videos, some of which Trump mentioned at presidential debates and which have been viewed millions of times on YouTube, were selectively and heavily edited and contained false commentary by O'Keefe.

[James OKeefes CNN Leaks are totally overrated]

Yael Bromberg, a supervising attorney for the Institute for Public Representation at Georgetown Law, said the videos gained widespread criticism across the political spectrum.

We're in an era of unprecedented hyper partisanship and fake news, and the integrity of the public domain is critical to the practice of democracy, said Bromberg, who's also representing Democracy Partners and Creamer. What's more is they degrade public discourse during a time of heightened importance, which is when the public is most in tuned into politics just before the election.

In an earlier statement, Democracy Partners denounced both Project Veritas and the statements caught on camera.

Our firm has recently been the victim of a well-funded, systematic spy operation that is the modern-day equivalent of the Watergate burglars, the firm said. The plot involved the use of trained operatives using false identifications, disguises and elaborate false covers to infiltrate our firm and others, to steal campaign plans and goad unsuspecting individuals into making careless statements on hidden cameras. One of those individuals was a temporary regional subcontractor who was goaded into statements that do not reflect our values.

O'Keefe saidthat he and his group are on the right side of the law.

This lawsuit further justifies the need to drain the swamp. We will not be intimidated. We will not be silenced. We will find out who is funding this lawsuit. We will never stop exposing the truth. We will not back down,said O'Keefe, whose organization received $10,000 from the Trump Foundation in 2015 before heannounced his candidacy.

O'Keefe first gained notoriety in 2009,when Project Veritas's undercover sting led to the destruction ofthe Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN. Another sting in 2011 led to two resignations at NPR, although subsequent investigations found discrepancies between what NPR executives actually saidin taped conversations and what was shown in the sting video.

In 2013, O'Keefe agreed to pay $100,000 to a former ACORN employee who said he was illegally recorded.

David Weigel contributed to this report.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly characterized Shane Bauer's reporting when he worked as a prison guard for a Mother Jones expose. The article has been updated.

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James OKeefe finally realized that people will develop conspiracy theories all on their own

The left jousts with James OKeefe

New James OKeefe video: Clinton campaign allowed a foreigner to acquire official swag

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James O'Keefe's undercover video stings damaged liberal icons ... - Washington Post

The review of Canadas defence policy took more than a year to assess the potential threats in the world and came back with one real priority: wed better figure out a way to pay for a military.

There are some new things in the Liberal governments blueprint: more drones, surveillance, cyberdefence and special forces.

But the big thing is an admission a rare one that Canada must spend more to have an army, a navy and an air force.

Read more: Ottawa lays out $62-billion in new military spending over 20 years

Its going to be a lot more, $7-billion a year more a decade from now, in 2027, on an accrual-accounting basis. And it wont really buy a bigger or flashier fighting force. Mostly, the extra money is needed because there wasnt enough set aside for the long-planned buys of essential equipment, such as fighter jets and warships.

The policy issued Wednesday was supposed to take stock of the challenges the military will face in the coming world, but the assessment was groundbreaking: The job is still to protect Canadian territory, work with the United States in North America and NORAD and join with allies in global security, either in NATO missions or UN peacekeeping. Theres terrorism and theres cyberthreats. Thats not news.

The real issue was cost. And on that score, the Liberals were refreshingly realistic. They dispensed with some of the perennial flim-flam of Canadian defence policy, which involves underestimating what the military needs and low-balling costs, then shifting budgets around to make do.

This was a Liberal defence policy for the harder realism of 2017, when the Liberals have been forced to face the fact that there isnt enough money set aside for the planes that make the air force an air force and the ships that make the navy a navy. Theres a new U.S. President, Donald Trump, who demands allies bear a greater share of the defence-spending burden. Plus, theres concern, outlined in a speech by Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland on Tuesday, that the United States might shrug off the burden of world leadership, requiring other countries to do more.

But it was a long way from the way Justin Trudeaus Liberals talked about defence when they ran for office in 2015, or even last year. This was a good defence policy, but for the Liberals, the snag is that it clashed with so many of the things they said about military matters in the past.

Remember how Mr. Trudeau talked about pulling CF-18s from air strikes in Iraq and Syria, as he suggested a Liberal government would be less combat-minded? He emphasized a return to Pearsonian peacekeeping. Last year, he tasked Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan with preparing a deployment to a UN peacekeeping mission; thats still on hold.

Instead, Mr. Trudeau is proposing to devote the kind of money to defence that his Conservative predecessor, Stephen Harper, was unwilling to spend.

Even if the biggest bumps in spending are slated to come five years from now, the increases start this year and will see the defence budget rise from $17.1-billion to $24.6-billion in the 2026-27 fiscal year, in accrual accounting terms.

Is that what Liberal voters expected? A Justin Trudeau government spending billions more on the military? No.

Mr. Sajjan said Canadians want the government to equip the military properly. But the price tag alone means increased defence spending is a new Liberal priority and that will be a surprise to many of those Liberal voters.

In 2015, he promised to save by ordering cheaper fighter jets than the F-35s that Mr. Harpers Conservatives planned to buy. Now, his Liberal government says the military needs 88 fighter jets, not the 65 Mr. Harpers government planned to buy at roughly double the cost estimated by the Tories. Similarly, the Tories promised to buy 12 to 15 warships and now, the Liberals say it will be 15, period but theyll cost $30-billion more.

Give Mr. Sajjan credit for that. It was always widely believed that 65 fighter jets would be too few the last time Canada bought fighters, it ordered 138 CF-18s. The cost estimates for planes and ships were low-balled. Thank goodness Mr. Sajjan did away with that guff.

The Liberals say they were surprised at the extent of the budget shortfall for big equipment buys. In the harder world of 2017, they chose to look past their campaign rhetoric and face the real cost of a military. The political question is still whether Liberal voters of 2015 want to pay it.

Follow Campbell Clark on Twitter: @camrclark

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A Liberal defence policy could cost you - The Globe and Mail