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Five of the seven leadership campaign teams wrote to the party on Jan. 5 alleging they found memberships that appear to contravene the rules.

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Top B.C. Liberal party brass insist their internal auditing process will address concerns raised in a scathing letter signed last week by a number of leadership hopefuls warning that up to half of new party memberships may be fraudulent and could cause catastrophic reputational damage to the party if not properly investigated.

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Five of the seven Liberal leadership campaign teams wrote to the party on Jan. 5 alleging they found membership documents that appear to contravene the rules, and they suggested that the partys current audit process is not robust enough to properly investigate their claims. A separate but similar letter was sent by a sixth leadership campaign team.

The campaigns said they found some new members whose addresses were recorded as being in ridings where they do not live. In other instances, some addresses were not residences, but businesses and in one case, a forest service road. They reported that follow-up phone calls found that some people listed as new members had no idea they had been signed up, while others had never heard of the B.C. Liberal party.

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We are collectively concerned about the potential for voter fraud, the current audit process, and the risk of catastrophic reputational damage to the party, party staff, (the leadership committee), the executive and all of us if this race is perceived as anything less than free and fair, said the letter to the Liberal Election Organizing Committee.

Postmedia made several requests for interviews with the party executive and its election organizing committee chairs, Colin Hansen and Roxanne Helme.

Instead, the partys director of communications, David Wasyluk, provided a written statement expressing confidence in the audit process.

This system identified some members who need additional follow up to meet our audit standards. Our registration and voting systems are designed to ensure that members who do not satisfy our audit standards will not be able to cast ballots, it said.

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The statement did not answer whether it will audit 20,000 memberships as requested by the campaign teams. It also did not confirm how many memberships are under review.

Wasyluk said the party does not rely on telephone alone to confirm the identity and addresses of its members.

The party uses multiple methods to confirm member information including but not limited to direct communication via phone and email. This includes cross referencing information from publicly available sources.

Kevin Falcons leadership team is the only one that did not sign the letter or express concerns over potentially fraudulent memberships.

Falcon, a former minister under both former premiers Gordon Campbell and Christy Clark, is considered by some to be the frontrunner in the leadership race. Last month, his campaign manager, Kareem Allam, tweeted the Falcon campaign signed up the most new party members.

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On Monday, Allam told Postmedia he is satisfied with assurances by party brass that it has not found abuse in the membership process.

We have been assured by the party that the things those other campaigns have alleged, have not occurred, he said. We have seen individual errors, like typos or the wrong postal codes. Weve seen a case where a community that was flooded, a lot of members are in the same hotel and have the same address, so it may raise a red flag, but these are not fraudulent memberships.

The issue of residency could play a decisive role in who will become the next Liberal leader.

Under the partys voting rules, each electoral district is awarded 100 points, which are divided among the candidates according to how many votes they get in each electoral district. That means it takes fewer votes to win in districts where there are fewer Liberal memberships, so campaign teams may target new memberships in districts where they need fewer votes to win.

The letters from the campaign teams for Michael Lee, Gavin Dew, Renee Merrifield, Ellis Ross, Stan Sipos, and Val Litwin cast doubt on how many new members live in the ridings where they are signed up and whether the partys audit system is able to catch that.

B.C. Liberals are set to vote for a new leader on Feb. 5, but the campaign teams have asked that registration for the vote be delayed until the concerns can be adequately addressed and mitigated.

The party has not answered questions about any possible delays to the registration process.

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B.C. Liberal party insists its vetting process will catch fraudulent memberships - Vancouver Sun

Democrats, Big Tech social-media companies and the mainstream liberal media have spent two years raging about the spread of coronavirus misinformation, pointing their fingers at conservatives resisting government efforts to curb the diseases spread via lockdowns, mask requirements and vaccine mandates.

But it turns out the source of some of the worst pandemic myths wasnt right-wing podcasters booted from Twitter for the sin of disagreeing with Dr. Anthony Fauci.

They came from liberal Supreme Court justices.

On Friday, the high court heard oral arguments about the Biden administrations push to impose vaccine mandates on private employers. The case involves a dubious effort to twist Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulations meant to prevent health hazards specific to the workplace to include diseases that can be caught anywhere. But this problematic expansion of government power over the private sector and the rights of individuals to govern what is put into their bodies the mantra of My body, my choice apparently only applies to abortions was not the main takeaway.

Instead, it was the whoppers about the COVID threat from the three members of the courts liberal faction.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor falsely asserted that COVID deaths are at an all-time high and the Omicron variant, which produces mild symptoms, is as deadly as Delta. Most egregiously she claimed, We have over 100,000 children, which weve never had before, in serious condition, and many on ventilators.

As even CDC chief Rochelle Walensky later conceded, fewer than 5,000 children are in hospitals with COVID. Many, if not most, were not hospitalized for COVID but merely tested positive on admission for another ailment. And children are, as they have been throughout the pandemic, the least affected by the virus.

The same is true for hospitalized adults, with Walensky admitting that at least 40 percent of all cases counted as COVID are not people who required hospitalization because of the virus. Most of those who have died have had up to four comorbidities that were responsible for their plight.

Sotomayor was not alone in spreading misinformation.

Justice Elena Kagan claimed vaccines and masks prevent the spread of the disease: Workers, she said, have to get vaccinated so that youre not transmitting the disease that can kill elderly Medicare patients, that can kill sick Medicaid patients. I mean, that seems like a pretty basic infection-prevention measure.

Unfortunately, this isnt true. The vaccine reduces the seriousness of COVID in those afflicted, but it doesnt stop the vaccinated from catching or spreading it.

Justice Stephen Breyer also falsely asserted that the vaccine prevents infection, hospitals are overflowing with COVID patients at deaths door and the country reported 750 million new cases the day before though Americas total population is around 330 million.

Its fair to ask how three of the people who are supposedly among the smartest in the land could be so poorly informed. But it also speaks volumes about the way the mainstream media has helped spread COVID dishonesty intended to fuel the kind of fear of the disease that lies behind these fibs.

Misinformation has come from those who dwell in the fever swamps of the far right and the far left. But some of the worst of the fallacies about the pandemic have come from public-health officials and their dutiful enablers in the mainstream media.

Bent on scaring people into compliance with arbitrary rules that have changed continuously as theyve reacted to a crisis for which they were unprepared, the experts have often encouraged the kind of exaggerations and mistakes that the three Supreme Court liberals repeated.

The high-court hearing wasnt just fodder for a fact check that earned liberal judges scorn. It should be a wake-up call for the rest of us to understand that the real problem here isnt a disease. Its the way those who ought to know better have gone along with fearmongering intended to quash opposition to the most heavy-handed COVID regulations regardless of the truth.

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor in chief of JNS.org.

Twitter: @jonathans_tobin

Excerpt from:

The liberal justices lies reveal the lefts addiction to virus fears - New York Post

Harry Reids death may mark the end of the liberal Mormon tradition.

Thats the headline of a recent op-ed in the Washington Post. The former Nevada Democratic Senator and Latter-day Saint died last week at age 82.

The one-time Senate majority leader held steadfast to his party roots, despite the Churchs strong ties to Republicans.

But Benjamin Park writes that we may have seen the last of his kind. Park teaches American Religious History at Sam Houston State University in Texas. Pamela McCall spoke with him about Reids brand of faith and politics.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Pamela McCall: In your op-ed in The Washington Post, you cite Harry Reid's 2007 speech at Brigham Young University, where he said, "I am a Democrat because I am a Mormon, not in spite of it." What principles did he believe connected his political views to his religious beliefs?

Benjamin Park: In that speech itself, and in several other of his addresses to Latter-day Saint audiences, he would often reference Book of Mormon scripture [themes] that would say there shall be no poor among them, or that helping out the least of your brethren is aiding your God. So he believed that the communitarian impulse that comes through in LDS scripture was something that correlated with the Democratic message of trying to build the community all around, rather than a libertarian impulse of everyone fighting for their own.

PM: Why do you think Harry Reid held to those views when so many members of the Church became steadfast Republicans?

BP: Especially post-World War II and notably after the 1960s culture wars, many Mormons came to embrace a demographic politics that was pretty typical of the Mountain West in America during that time, that was much more libertarian, much more conservative [which] saw Mormonism as the fulfillment of an individualistic ethos. Whereas those like Harry Reid, who saw Mormonism more as a communitarian impulse, became more and more in the minority. So by the time Harry Reid died, he was one of the last few public Mormon politicians who leaned to the Democratic side.

PM: I want to go back a bit. You state that, historically, it was thought that when Latter-day Saints did seek federal political affiliation after dissolving their own People's Party in 1891, the year after they renounced polygamy, that it would be the Democrats that they would align with. What actually happened and why?

BP: The federal government basically told Utah, if you want to become a state, one, you need to give up polygamy, and two, you need to participate in our two-party political system. And most of the anti-Mormons living in Utah were Republican. The Republican Party was founded on opposing the twin pillars of barbarism: slavery on one hand, polygamy on the other. So it was very common to expect the Mormons to reject republicanism, even as they embraced the two-party system. But starting in the 1880s, the Democrats have resurging power on the national sphere. So the Republicans are like, our only future is if we dominate the American West and turn all these western territories into Republican-leaning states. And they tried to do that with Mormons in Utah in general to great success.

PM: You note that during that talk at BYU in 2007, Harry Reid said it wouldn't be long before Latter-day Saints returned to the Democratic Party over issues like global warming, economic inequality and civil rights. Fast forward to 2022, those issues are perhaps even more pronounced today. What do you think it would take, one day, to move Latter-day Saints, or a greater percentage, back into the Democratic Party, like Reid predicted?

BP: If you look at the younger generations of Mormons, they often lean Democrat. But the problem is many of those liberal Mormons end up leaving Mormonism altogether or, in order to fit into the Latter-day Saint tradition, they embrace more conservative ideals. What it would take for that to change is a change at the institution, because the institution needs to be able to demonstrate that these more liberal leaning [Latter-day] Saints have a place within their congregations. And as long as the LDS church maintains its rigid exclusion of LGBT people within its ranks, I don't think you're going to see the left-leaning younger generation remain in the faith as much as it would take for them to structure the Church in the future.

PM: What must it have been like for Harry Reid in his later years to be a Latter-day Saint and a Democrat in a deeply Republican faith?

BP: The interviews that he gave often showed him being quite beleaguered and tired and frustrated that the Latter-day Saints did not take the call that he issued in 2007. He did a Salt Lake Tribune interview earlier in 2021 where he basically said the harshest criticisms that he receives are from his fellow Latter-day Saints. And I think he took that personally, because he saw in Mormonism the principles that he believed could shape the modern world through progressive values. And the fact that his fellow [Latter-day] Saints chose not to follow that quest, I'm sure he found as a disappointment.

Harry Reids funeral will be held in Las Vegas on January 8.

Read more:

After Harry Reid's death, will the LDS Church ever see another liberal leader? - KUER 90.1

Conservative and liberal female figures came to varying conclusions on the validity of Vice President Kamala Harris' reported belief that she's treated worse by the press because of her race and gender.

A recent report by The New York Times suggested Harris, who is the first Black, South Asian or female vice president, has been privately complaining to her allies that the media's coverage of her would be better if she were any of her 48 White, male predecessors.

"Ms. Harris has privately told her allies that the news coverage of her would be different if she were any of her 48 predecessors, all of whom were white and male," the report read.

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at the Tribal Nations Summit in the South Court Auditorium on the White House campus, Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

NY TIMES: KAMALA HARRIS GRIPES HER MEDIA COVERAGE WOULD BE BETTER IF SHE WAS WHITE MAN

Liberal radio host and Fox News contributor Leslie Marshall found truth in those claims, arguing that race and gender likely leave the VP vulnerable to "extra scrutiny."

"Yes. I do believe thatWomen are definitely held to a different standard," Marshall said in an interview with Fox News Digital. "I dont think its whether youre a Democrat or a Republican, though I think it happens whether youre a Democrat or a Republican. So when you have the first woman, and the first woman of color also, who happens to be the vice president, I do think that those thingslead toextra scrutiny."

Yet conservative female leaders all pointed to policy. TheNew York Times report read that Harris had been reaching out to her predecessors about "the difficulties she is facing with the intractable issues in her portfolio, such as voting rights and the root causes of migration."

Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., argued it was that latter assignment, as Biden's border czar, that can account for any untoward media representations about the vice president, and less about her background or appearance. Last year, it took Harris 90 days to make a trip to the U.S.-Mexico border since being appointed as lead on the border crisis. Tens of thousands of migrants, including thousands of unaccompanied minors, have streamed across the border in recent months. When NBC's Lester Holtpressed Harris about the delay and why she had never been to the border as vice president, Harris laughed and responded, "I haven't been to Europe."

"There is nothing sexist or racist stating the fact that Kamala Harris has been an absolute disaster on every policy issue in her portfolio - especially the border crisis," Stefanik told Fox News Digital. "There is nothing sexist or racist about the fact that if you put Kamala Harris on the congressional ballot in any district across America, she would lose because she cant conduct a basic interview without embarrassing herself and Joe Biden."

Harris has also faced historic low approval ratings in recent months, numbers which liberal late-night host Jimmy Kimmel first and foremost blamed on "sexism and racism." But like Stefanik, Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., evoked Harris' failure to secure the border as a likely reason for any negative coverage or poor approval ratings.

"Conservative women trailblazers have been mocked and maligned by the liberal press for years," Blackburn said. "You learn to deal with it and not make excuses. When Vice President Kamala Harris took office, she knew she was charting a new path and would have to prove herself at every step along the way. She could have used her platform to protect the women and girls in Afghanistan, secure the southern border, or reduce crime in our cities. Instead, she tossed aside the historic opportunity she had been given to criticize the tough media environment conservative women have been successfully navigating for decades."

Democratic U.S. vice presidential nominee Senator Kamala Harris tours the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) training facility in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Sept. 7, 2020. (REUTERS/Alex Wroblewski)

Her gender, Blackburn added, "is no excuse for her disastrous performance."

Felecia Killings, founder and CEO of FeleciaKillings.org and the Conscious Conservative Movement, also expressed her disappointment in how Harris has responded to any perceived challenges. Killings said it would be "reckless" to think that women from all backgrounds do not experience hardships throughout their careers - something she says she knows from personal experience. But it's how women respond to those challenges, she suggested, that matters just as much.

"Many women have taken these challenges and converted these obstacles into stepping stones towards greatness," Killings told Fox News Digital. "In other words, our results speak for themselves. Vice President Harris, like any other politician, has something to prove to the American people. She is not exempt from any scrutiny. Her work must align with the bill of goods she sold to her voters."

"Citizens have every right to hold her accountable," she added. "If she's not doing her job, it has nothing to do with her race or gender. It has everything to do with her ineptitude."

MSNBC GUEST CLAIMS OFF THE CHARTS CRITICISM OF VP HARRIS ON BORDER FROM LEFT AND RIGHT IS SEXIST AND RACIST

Other critics have taken issue with Harris' reported complaint to argue that she has received much better media treatment than some of her predecessors or conservative female lawmakers. She had been placed on the cover of Vogue Magazine and sometimes enjoyed an assist from the press in fueling the narrative that Harris' naysayers are sexist and racist.

NBC's Peter Alexander was criticized for asking Harris' husband, Doug Emhoff, if race and gender had played into criticism of the vice president.

"Youre a husband. When you see the attacks, when you see the criticism, what do you think?" Alexander asked.

"As the first woman, Black, South Asian vice president, do you think that your wife is treated differently because shes a woman and a woman of color?" he asked in a follow-up.

A person holds a sign as others celebrate after media announced that Democratic U.S. presidential nominee Joe Biden has won the 2020 U.S. presidential election, on Times Square in New York City, Nov. 7, 2020. (REUTERS/Carlo Allegri)

Journalist Anushay Hossain penned a USA Today piece defending Harris, writing, "as the first black and first Asian and first woman to hold the second most powerful job in the country, she can't keep anybody happy. It's not possible."She expanded on that assumption during an appearance on MSNBC.

"Women and men aren't assessed through the same lens, and that's one thing we have to keep in mind whenever we're talking about the vice president," Houssain said, later adding, "But because she is a woman and a woman of color, the level of scrutiny that she is getting from both the left and the right is really off the charts."

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Harris' political allies have also suggested she's been victim of a double standard.

"I know, and we all knew, that she would have a difficult time because anytime youre a first, you do," Rep. Karen Bass, D-Calif.,said. "And to be the first woman vice president, to be the first Black, Asian woman, thats a triple. So we knew it was going to be rough, but it has been relentless, and I think extremely unfair."

Harris has not only been burdened with poor polling numbers. In recent weeks, high- profile members of her staff have announced their departures, fueling speculation that the vice president oversees a toxic work environment.

Originally posted here:

Conservative, liberal female figures weigh in on VP Harris report that her race and gender affect headlines - Fox News

Suspicious of the liberal agenda? Good for you! After all, in 1776, they started a treasonous revolt against the king in the name of natural rights, not the least of which was the freedom for people to choose their own leaders.

Then they saddled the country with freedom of religion, freedom of the press, the freedom of people to speak out against authority without fear of punishment quite radical things at the time!

They coddled evil-doers with the 4th-8th Amendments!

They ended slavery, supported racial integration, supported voting rights for all citizens (in a democratic republic), and equal protection for all under the law (14th Amendment).

Theyve been terribly anti-business, getting the eight-hour workday, weekends (Saturday used to be a workday for all), overtime pay, paid sick leave, family medical leave, the end of child labor, equal pay regardless of race or gender, wages beyond hand-to-mouth bare subsistence, and direct aid should one become too ill or physically unable to work.

They push regulations for clean air and clean water and have been responsible for purity laws for food, drugs, and other forms of consumer protection (bad for profits).

They slapped us with free public education and financial aid for people who wish to improve themselves via a college degree. Yes, nefarious agenda indeed! Truly nasty, nasty people. How dare they try to make the country a better place for everyone? Thats not the American way!

Jay Gillispie

Stephens City

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Letter to the editor: Have suspicions of the liberal agenda? - The Winchester Star

Dear Editor,

In an editorial published in its September 12, 2021 edition, Stabroek News challenged the PPP/Cs commitment, or non-commitment, to the fundamentals of a liberal democracy. The lengthy editorial was rather weighty on contemporary ideological issues, something that is rare for SN. The thrust of the editorial was to juxtapose authoritarian rule versus liberal democracy. Subliminally, the editorial suggested that given its structure and penchant for control the PPP is more inclined to autocratic rule but that it is constrained to do so because the social circumstances do not provide fertile ground for anything encompassing. Some examples were given to justify its observations, claiming that globally, liberal democracy had trumped authoritarianism and that the PPP/Cs actions are at variance with liberal democracy. Anyone acquainted with world history, would not have any difficulty recognizing the similarities in language, in some sections of the editorial, to be reminiscent of the Cold War era. That aside, historical experience shows that the social circumstances referred to, never existed in British Guiana, nor Guyana, for the establishment of a communist or sustained autocratic rule of any kind. And if it did, it was just the figment of the imagination of those who plotted and planned to keep the PPP out of government. Political developments, over the past year or two in the bastions of liberal democracy, as well as experiments with liberal democracy in a number of developing countries, demand that the issues raised in the SN editorial be revisited.

Contrary to the notion that it is the PPP/Cs failure to commit to a liberal democracy that is a cause for concern, it was the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement in the US, and the assault at the Capitol in Washington DC, that should be a cause for concern as regards the real meaning and efficacy of liberal democracy in todays world. Thirty years ago, the PPP/C came to power against the backdrop of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the socialist countries in Eastern Europe. Those epochal developments were followed by regime change in a number of countries, including Guyana. At that time, liberal democracy and neo-liberalism were viewed by many as panacea and models not to be followed, save and except by governments in some countries who chose a different path not consistent with the right to self-determination. For its part, the new PPP/C administration, and successive ones thereafter, supported by friendly and successive administrations in the US, Canada, the UK and the EU, declared in favour of, and embarked on, a path of national democracy. The PPP/Cs model of democracy for Guyana envisaged the establishment of a National Democratic State. SNs editorial claimed that Rohee does not flesh out exactly what he means by National Democratic nor do the old hands see this (Guyana) as an open society reflecting liberal values and that it is uncertain what exactly they intend The editorial further declared that: The social policy referred to by Messrs Ramotar and Rohee is important, but that is a content issue and does not in and of itself say anything about formal provisions which go to make up the framework of the state. For the avoidance of doubt, and since the editorial seemed concerned more about form than content, it is important to point out that the National Democratic States mission envisaged representation of the interests of all classes, groups and social strata. Further, it envisaged an inclusive state with a multi-ethnic, multi-class and plural government whose task is to prevent foreign domination of any kind and to preserve the full democratic rights of all Guyanese.

The PPP/Cs model of national democracy, save for a few mild passing turbulences, was never viewed by successive friendly governments in the US, Canada, the UK nor the EU as antagonistic, nor contradictory to liberal democracy practiced in those countries. Suffice it to say, at the domestic level, there will always be Gordian knots between democracy and good governance just as there will be with politics and economics. Incidentally, not all Gordian knots can be untied in the same way. The editorial went on to state that One might have hoped that the PPP/C would be proceeding more deliberately towards a society reflecting the character of a liberal democracy with its associated values. With that in mind, it is important to point out that liberal democratic tenets including; representative democracy, a recognition of civil and human rights, freedom of speech, the press and religion, an independent judiciary, a market economy and the need for the rule of law, are not at variance with, nor in contradiction to, the principles of national democracy that includes: good governance, democracy in all its aspects political, economic, industrial, social and cultural; empowerment of people at all levels; the fullest exercise of human rights civil and political as well as economic, social and cultural in keeping with the UN Covenant on Human Rights; economic growth with social and ecological justice; a mixed economy; balanced agricultural/ industrial and rural development and multi-culturalism unity in diversity. Throughout the 1992 to 2015 period, questions as to whether liberal democracy was being practiced in Guyana never arose. Now, after twenty three years in office, and its return to government, the SN editorial has put the matter on the agenda. The editorial claimed that the PPP/Cs commitment to liberal democracy would have been clear had it implemented the following sprawling measures: dismantled its party structure; loosened its penchant for control; met with the opposition; relinquished its dominance of local government bodies; discussed constitutional reform and appointed a permanent Chief Justice and Chancellor.

There is no gainsaying that these are topical issues indeed, however, bold and quick actions on these matters will not see the APNU+AFC backing off from confrontation politics, nor will they bring about a resolution of bigger economic and political questions facing the nation. Practical elements associated with a liberal democracy should not be confused with larger questions, the answers to which would, cumulatively, lay the basis for a new social order in which the threat for electoral subversion and profound internal divisions could be removed or reduced significantly. Big ticket issues such as: implementation of the mechanism for the use of the countrys oil wealth; the preservation and consolidation of the fragile democracy we live in, pursued within the meaning of One Guyana with a view to facilitating the rapid and balanced agricultural and industrial development of our countrys huge potential is where our focus should be. The domestic considerations apart, what the editorial failed to recognize is that the very survival of liberal democracy is now at issue in the light of political developments in the US and elsewhere. The threat to liberal democracy is so grave that President Biden recently declared that, Those who stormed this Capitol and those who called on them to do so held a dagger at the throat of America and American democracy. Compounding the situation is the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic that has brought the efficacy of liberal democracy into bolder relief as manifested in many European countries, where their citizenries have responded hugely and angrily against lock-downs and tougher measures. The call to uphold the values of liberal democracy comes at a time when, on the one hand, liberal democracy itself is on trial globally, and, on the other, there is a failure to recognize the efforts being made on the domestic front by the PPP/C to create a more meaningful and vibrant national democracy with its complex tapestry and imperfections.

Sincerely,

Clement J. Rohee

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During 1992-2015 the question whether the PPP/C was practicing liberal democracy never arose - Stabroek News

One of the most useful qualities of labor unions is their ability to force Good Liberals to actually demonstrate their principles in a tangible way. It is easy for a self-proclaimed progressive business owner to say all the nice things about how they believe in equality and fair wages and worker rights but when their employees unionize and come to claim those rights, those nice bosses must stop talking about how nice they are, and prove it. For limousine liberals, dealing with unions is where the rubber hits the road.

Needless to say, many Good Liberals turn out to be charlatans. There is a saying in the union world: A boss is a boss. This is a more pithy way of saying: A boss is kind of a greedy jerk, no matter how many Nevertheless, she persisted bumper stickers they have plastered on their Volvos.

The New York Times is one of Americas most vital totems of mainstream liberalism, right up there with expensive coffee and defensive explanations for sending your kids to private school. The New York Times is also, it turns out, one of Americas very best examples of how a boss is a boss. Because even as the paper pontificates about the dangers of inequality and gives sympathetic coverage to major union drives, the leaders of the companys business side are busily trying to undermine their own unions.

Last April, 650 tech employees at the New York Times announced that they were unionizing. Rather than applauding them and proceeding to negotiate a contract, the company instead refused to voluntarily recognize the union. This is despite its own editorial board supporting a bill that would have made it legally binding for employers to voluntarily accept union requests when they are backed by a majority of the staff.

As the papers own editorial explained: Under current law, an employer can reject the majoritys signatures and insist on a secret ballot. But in a disturbingly high number of cases, the employer uses the time before the vote to pressure employees to rethink their decision to unionize. Now, this is what the New York Times company is accused of doing to its own employees.

Since last year, the Times has been accused of trying to scare workers into changing their minds to sow division among the employees, divide the unit, and erode support for organized labor. Last week, federal labor regulators claimed that the company had broken the law by telling large swaths of employees that they were actually managers, and that they were therefore prohibited from publicly supporting the union. (A hearing is scheduled for this March. A spokesperson for the Times said they strongly disagree with the unions allegations.)

If you find this sort of anti-union behavior from the New York Times surprising, remember that another unit of unionized workers at the paper, those who worked for the product review section Wirecutter, had to go on strike during the busy Black Friday shopping weekend in order to secure a minimally fair contract. So while most of the editorial employees at the Times have been unionized for decades, the company is still exhibiting a chesty commitment to doing everything possible to keep any more of its workers from securing the same sort of benefits.

I dont want to get caught up here in the details of labor regulations and lose sight of the big picture. Which is this: the New York Times Company, which makes its money by branding itself as the foremost defender of liberal American values, is fighting against its own workers pursuing their right to organize a union and bargain collectively.

To me, that makes the New York Times an anti-union company. I can say this with no qualms. Companies that are not anti-union will honor a formal request from their employees for voluntary union recognition; they will bargain fair contracts that include pay equity for all; and they will certainly not run internal messaging campaigns trying to convince their employees that unionizing is a bad idea.

The New York Times has done all of these things, quite recently. This means that it can stand proudly with its dishonorable peers across corporate America in that regard. While its writers editorialize against the deep political and economic problems plaguing our country, its management is very much a part of those problems.

The New York Times gets away with a lot. They are the journalism equivalent of the supreme court. They offer prestige, big budgets and job stability at a time when those things are in short supply in this industry. The half of our country terrified by Trump sees them as an army of truth, and everyone in media wants to work there. (Call me!) But lets be honest: the people who control the New York Times company are acting like real weasels.

Its not just that they are hypocritical, yammering about the public good while acting from pure selfishness its that they want to have it both ways. While more outwardly evil media bosses like Rupert Murdoch may be proud to embrace their Ayn Randian reputation, those who lead the Times want to be accepted as good people on the Brooklyn-brownstone cocktail party circuit, even as they quietly try to stop those who work for them from having an equal seat at their tastefully appointed table. Screw that.

I have covered hundreds of anti-union campaigns. No matter where they happen, they are all based on lies and fear. Whether they happen at an Amazon warehouse or at the New York Times, they are a demonstration of contempt for the idea that an employee may deserve to be treated as someone whose humanity is just as real as that of an employer.

Respectable people dont engage in union-busting. People who run anti-union campaigns are not Good Liberals. Hundreds of workers raising their voices have not been enough to convince the New York Times executives to act right. Maybe its time to stop inviting them to the cocktail parties.

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The New York Times is a reminder: good liberals often oppose unions - The Guardian

When, after 9/11, the neocons agitated for regime change in the Middle East, they believed that history was on their side: so they conjured up the existential threat ofweapons of mass destruction, just in case history had other ideas. More than a decade later, this tactic has found favour with a wholly different tribe: Americas liberal establishment.

Just like the neocons before them, they are bewitched by the prospect of war with an enemy they believe poses a threat to their way of life. The only difference is that this deadly menace doesnt live in some far-off land, but right at home. They might even live next door.

As The New York Times put it in an editorial last week, the Republic faces an existential threat from a movement that is openly contemptuous of democracy and has shown that it is willing to use violence to achieve its ends. And there is only one way to survive this threat: to mobilise at every level. The NYT was, of course, referring to the attack on the Capitol last January: Jan. 6 is not in the past, were warned. It is every day.

It is hard to exaggerate the feverish excitement with which many progressives responded to the Capitol riot. While the spectacle of hundreds of Trump supporters smashing their way into one of the sacrosanct sites of American democracy generated widespread condemnation, for many progressives the dominant emotional register was one of apocalyptic disgust and arousal.

Here, finally, was irrefutable proof that they had beenrightall along: that Trumps hateful rhetoric would finally become a hateful reality. Here, finally, was a war that could give their livesmeaning. There were now Right-winginsurrectionists among them, and they would need to be fought. It was almost as if, on some deep level, they had wantedthe Capitol siege to happen.

By Edward Luttwak

Every group that spoils for war needs a wound or trauma to mobilise around. For the neocons and the liberal hawks who supported them, it was the destruction of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. That wound would take a lifetime to heal; but it was also massively generative, filling a spiritual void at the heart of American life at the End of History.

In the half-decade prior to 9/11 one of the biggest political stories in America centred on President Clintons marital infidelity with a 22-year-old intern. Was ablowjob really an act that existed outside of the realm of sexual relations, as Clinton had sought toclaim? And should his receiving them in the Oval Office warrant his resignation? In America, the period leading up to 9/11 was, in other words, one of monumental banality and puerility.

The instant the second plane hit the south tower of the World Trade Centre on 9/11 that period came to an abrupt end. America had entered, in Martin Amissexpression, the Age of Vanished Normalcy: idle talk about illicit blowjobs would no longer cut it. This was a time of war, aclash of civilisations. Such was the level of danger that we could no longer wait for threats to gather, but would need topre-emptivelyact to stop them from emerging.

It was all very dramatic and clarifying, asChristopher Hitchens acknowledged from the very start: I am not particularly a war lover, and on the occasions when I have seen warfare as a travelling writer, I have tended to shudder. But here was a direct, unmistakable confrontation between everything I loved and everything I hated. Hitchens, who confided that he felt exhilarated at the prospect of this confrontation, would soon go on to insist that it was a matter of moral principlefor the US to topple the Saddam Hussein regime. He was less rousing and persuasive on whether it was theprudent thing to do, but prudence was never Hitchenss metier.

The storming of the Capitol was to elite liberals what the destruction of the World Trade Center was to the neocons: a bracing vindication that they had been right all along, and a pretext for engaging in a battle that would give their lives a greater meaning and a chance to prove their virtue. What could be more exhilarating than taking on the historic forces of white supremacy now threatening to destroy the republic? And what could be more virtuous?

None of this is to deny the vast ideological differences between the neocons and modern progressives, the most salient of which is that the latter would never support an American-led occupation of a Muslim-majority country. Nor is it to make a false moral equivalence between the events of 9/11, where more than 3,000 civilians were murdered in carefully coordinated attacks, and the events of January 6, where the only person who was shot and killed was one of therioters.

Yet the parallels between these two political tribes are striking. So keen were the neocons to invade Iraq that they had to drastically inflate the threat-level of the Saddam Hussein regime. They did so by arguing that the threat was existential: that if Saddam were to remain in power, he would not only continue to amassWMDs, but would likely use them to attack America. It later transpired that this argument was based onunreliable evidence: no major stockpiles of WMD were ever foundand Saddams relationship with al Qaeda wasoverblown. But such was the war fever that had gripped the neocons that they were apt to ignore any evidence that contradicted their conviction.

Todays liberals are similarly flushed with ideological fervour, believing that they are in a cosmic struggle of Manichean proportions: they are the elect, the chosen ones, and they believe that their responsibility to purge all traces of white supremacy and hateful extremism is a grave one. Indeed, such is their keenness to root out white supremacy that they are apt to find it everywhere, even where it patentlydoesnt exist. They are equally apt to inflate its threat where it does exist, likecomparingthe storming of the Capitol on January 6 to the terror attacks of 9/11.

Note my use of inflate: no one would deny that there is a white power movement in the US, and there is much evidence to suggest thatfar-Right terrorismin America has increasedmarkedlyover the last few years. It is, however, important to maintain a sense of proportion: America is intensely divided right now, but the idea that the country is in the grip of aperpetual far-Right insurgency is catastrophicto a pathological degree.

In his 1989 article The End of History?, Francis Fukuyama declared that the great ideological battles of the 20th century were over and that Western liberal democracy had triumphed. This, he argued, was a good thing. But, concluding his essay, he lamented: The struggle for recognition, the willingness to risk ones life for a purely abstract goal, the worldwide ideological struggle that called forth daring, courage, imagination, and idealism, will be replaced by economic calculation, the endless solving of technical problems, environmental concerns, and the satisfaction of sophisticated consumer demands.

More than two decades later, people in liberal democratic societies such as America enjoy a level of freedom, opportunity and material wealth unmatched anywhere else. And yet, as the response to the Capitol riot shows, they suffer from a deficit of meaning and spiritual fulfilment. This, as Fukuyama observed, fuels a sense of nostalgia for history and all its dramatic entanglements. Such nostalgia, henoted, will continue to fuel competition and conflict even in the post-historical world for some time to come.

So whenThe New York Timespublishes an editorial on how every day is Jan. 6 now, it is hard not to see this as a form of nostalgia for the kind of historical drama and contention that is clearly missing from the lives of the comfortable, Ivy-League educated, New-York based journalists who wrote it and who represent the vanguard of what Wesley Yang calls the successor ideology.Their hysteria, then, says more about themselves than the events of last year.

In hismemoir, the Vietnam War veteran Philip Caputo reflects on his motivations for enlisting in the war. Preeminent among them was the desire to prove something: my courage, my toughness, my manhood, call it whatever you like. For those Western liberals who secretly wish for animpending civil war at home, the thing they most want to prove is not their courage, and it certainly isnt their toughness or manhood, something which they would no doubt contemptuously regard as toxically heteronormative. Rather, what they desperately want to prove is their virtue even if it means engaging inirresponsible fear-mongeringand flagrant exaggeration.

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The liberal fantasy of the Capitol coup - UnHerd

Beset by a seemingly never-ending pandemic, soaring economic insecurity and inequality, widespread distrust of government, and Trumpist efforts to subvert election boards and amass power locally, the US is hurtling towards catastrophe.

Joe Bidens election victory bought time. Given Barack Obamas 2016 assessment that Donald Trump was a fascist, Hillary Clintons recent warning that Trump is an aspiring tyrant, and Bidens declaration that the 2020 election was a battle for the soul of the nation, you might have imagined that, upon achieving a congressional majority and the presidency, Democrats would have seized the opportunity to pass an emergency package of reforms to protect American democracy. Sadly, you would have been wrong.

A year on from the 6 January Capitol riots, the US seems to be further than ever from resolving its political crises. Neo-Nazi extremists are regrouping and continuing to organize. The archaic, anti-democratic filibuster stymies progress by effectively requiring a 60-vote Senate supermajority for most legislation. Rather than jettisoning the filibuster posthaste, the Democrats equivocate. As late as July 2021, Biden nonsensically defended the filibuster. It took until October for the president to cautiously support a limited exception for voting rights reforms. Only now are the Democrats inching towards rule changes that might allow them to actually get things done.

Then there was the episode with Elizabeth MacDonough, an unelected Senate parliamentarian, who torpedoed a minimum wage increase that would have materially improved millions of peoples lives, and the Democrats kowtowed to her rather than firing her. Most critically, they have failed to enact the For the People Act, a desperately needed overhaul to the creaky machinery of American politics which would enhance election security; strengthen ethics requirements for officials; and introduce voluntary public campaign financing, same-day voter registration, and automatic voter registration.

If enough of us speak up, we'll be able to protect honesty in public life.

Trumps election was devastating. I knew his administration would be disastrous. But I was skeptical of centrist hand-wringing about Trump being a wannabe Mussolini, despite reports that Trump kept a copy of Hitlers speeches by his bed and allegedly praised Hitler in 2018, as well as repeated accusations that various Trump advisers had ties to neo-Nazis. Ive studied Hannah Arendt and Erich Fromm and Theodor Adorno extensively. Ive read It Cant Happen Here and The Plot Against America. Ive watched The Man in the High Castle. Im largely immune to the rhetoric of American exceptionalism. I even analyzed political violence in Trumps speeches. Despite all this, it was hard to imagine the US succumbing to authoritarianism. The banality of evil is easy to pay lip service to; fully internalizing the idea that evil may masquerade as buffoonery is challenging.

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Liberal fecklessness: The US is on a precipice and time is running out - Open Democracy

Party encourages Progressive Conservatives not to contest election either out of respect for the late NDP MLA Danielle Adams.

Manitobas Liberal party says it will not run a candidate in an upcoming Thompson byelection resulting from the death of Thompson NDP MLA Danielle Adams in December.

Out of respect for the memory of Danielle Adams, the Manitoba Liberal Party will be standing down in the upcoming Thompson byelection, said party leader Dougald Lamont in a Jan. 6 statement. If it were not for this tragic accident, Danielle would have held the seat until the next election. Given the tragic circumstances of Danielles passing, we believe that this is the right and honourable thing to do. We encourage the PCsto consider doing the same.

The Liberals finished fourth in the Thompson electoral division in the 2019 general election with less than 200 votes. The party says it is committed to running strong candidates and strong campaigns in every Manitoba constituency in the next general election.

A date for the Thompson byelection has not yet been set.

Under the Legislative Assembly Act, a byelection must be held to fill a vacancy in the Manitoba legislature within 180 days of the vacancy starting, which means the first week of June would be the latest that a Thompson electoral division byelection could be held.

The only circumstances in which a byelection does not have to be held within six months of the vacancy occurring is if a set date general election is less than a year away.

The byelection will be the 10th in Manitoba resulting from the death of a sitting MLA. The vast majority of the other 163 byelections dating back to 1870, the year Manitoba became a province, were brought about by resignations.

The byelection will be the first for the Thompson electoral district, which was created in 1968. Adams is the third person who served as Thompson MLA to die, along with Joe Borowski and Ken Dillen, each of whom died decades after leaving office, with Dillens death the most recent, having occurred in 2020.

The last Manitoba byelection resulting from the death of an MLA was in 2009, when The Pas MLA Oscar Lathlin died. Prior to that, there had not been a byelection resulting from the death of an MLA in the province since 1985.

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Manitoba Liberals say they won't field candidate in Thompson byelection - Thompson Citizen

TORONTO Ontario Liberal Leader, Steven Del Duca has invited healthcare and political leaders to a nonpartisan virtual summit on addressing the hospital staffing crisis, and to discuss a unified plan on how to immediately shore up capacity.

The crisis in our hospitals requires an all-hands-on-deck approach, stated Ontario Liberal Leader, Steven Del Duca. I sincerely hope all political leaders will attend this summit to hear from those on the frontline of our hospitals. Our vaccine certificate summit in August helped guide the province in the right direction on that issue, so its time to put partisanship aside and work together.

Hospitals have never been as full and staff have never been stretched as thin, added Del Duca. We need to listen to Ontarios best and brightest doctors and nurses, and those with healthcare expertise, who understand whats happening on the frontlines.

Ontario is currently suspending 8,000 to 10,000 surgeries every week due to the crisis. Ontario Liberals recently called for a number of constructive emergency measures to address the staffing shortage, and hope to build on that list using suggestions from the healthcare leaders in attendance.

This is about being collaborative and constructive to get us out of this crisis. I have written to each of the three other party leaders and I sincerely hope they attend on Monday. Ontario families need us to work together during these difficult moments.

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Ontario Liberal Leader Invites Health and Political Leaders to a Virtual Summit on the Escalating Hospital Crisis - Ontario Liberal Party

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The Pacific may well be the part of the world most likely to see "strategic surprise," the US Indo-Pacific coordinator Kurt Campbell says, apparently referring to China's ambitions to expand its influence and establish bases there. Campbell told an event hosted by Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies the Pacific was a region where the United States has "enormous moral, strategic, historical interests" and where it had not done enough, unlike countries such as Australia and New Zealand. "If you look and if you ask me, where are the places where we are most likely to see certain kinds of strategic surprise - basing or certain kinds of agreements or arrangements, it may well be in the Pacific," he told an Australia-focused panel on Monday. "And we have a very short amount of time, working with partners like Australia, like New Zealand, like Japan, like France, who have an interest in the Pacific, to step up our game across the board," Campbell added. Campbell did not elaborate on what he meant by bases, but lawmakers from the Pacific island republic of Kiribati told Reuters last year China has drawn up plans to upgrade an airstrip and bridge on one its remote islands about 3000km southwest of the US state of Hawaii. Campbell said ways the United States and its allies needed to step up their game in the Pacific included in countering COVID-19, over the issue of fishing, and in investment in clean energy. Campbell also followed up on remarks he made last week in which he said the US needs to "step up its game" on economic engagement in Asia. He said Australia had privately urged the United States to understand that as part of its strategic approach, "we have to have a comprehensive, engaged, optimistic, commercial and trade role". Australian Associated Press

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January 11 2022 - 11:49AM

The Pacific may well be the part of the world most likely to see "strategic surprise," the US Indo-Pacific coordinator Kurt Campbell says, apparently referring to China's ambitions to expand its influence and establish bases there.

Campbell told an event hosted by Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies the Pacific was a region where the United States has "enormous moral, strategic, historical interests" and where it had not done enough, unlike countries such as Australia and New Zealand.

"If you look and if you ask me, where are the places where we are most likely to see certain kinds of strategic surprise - basing or certain kinds of agreements or arrangements, it may well be in the Pacific," he told an Australia-focused panel on Monday.

"And we have a very short amount of time, working with partners like Australia, like New Zealand, like Japan, like France, who have an interest in the Pacific, to step up our game across the board," Campbell added.

Campbell did not elaborate on what he meant by bases, but lawmakers from the Pacific island republic of Kiribati told Reuters last year China has drawn up plans to upgrade an airstrip and bridge on one its remote islands about 3000km southwest of the US state of Hawaii.

Campbell said ways the United States and its allies needed to step up their game in the Pacific included in countering COVID-19, over the issue of fishing, and in investment in clean energy.

Campbell also followed up on remarks he made last week in which he said the US needs to "step up its game" on economic engagement in Asia.

He said Australia had privately urged the United States to understand that as part of its strategic approach, "we have to have a comprehensive, engaged, optimistic, commercial and trade role".

Australian Associated Press

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US call for allies to lift game in Pacific - Daily Liberal