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Starting Wednesday, March 31, Port, who is widely known for his conservative views on North Dakota and national politics, will be hosting weekly shows on InForum that will feature rotating guest hosts with more liberal takes on the issues. The Plain Talk segments will be live every Wednesday at 2 p.m. and include a live blog where readers and listeners can "join the conversation" by submitting questions and comments in real time.

"My goal is to leave the audience feeling like the issues covered are better illuminated for them, however they might feel about the views I or my guests express," Port said. "Maybe they'll feel persuaded. Maybe they'll feel more committed to what they already believed. Either way, that's a win in my book."

Port's first rotating guest host will be Jonah Lantos, a Minot-based talk show host with the podcast "The Good Talk Network." The idea is to provide a platform on InForum where civil dialogue can happen between two people with opposing views on some of the most hotly debated topics, all while allowing InForum readers to join the conversation.

"I don't want it to be another political cage match," Port said. "We have so much of that these days. Cable news might as well be professional wrestling. I want thoughtful, passionate conversations about news, culture and policy among people who can smile at each other at the end and agree to disagree.

Port, who was a guest on a livestreamed event with OneFargo activist Wess Philome to talk about race, said these kinds of conversations require a willingness to acknowledge that nobody is going to "win."

"In nearly two decades of covering politics, the most concrete thing I've learned is that nobody ever really 'wins' a debate," said Port. "One side may be ascendant for a while, but there are no permanent victories in politics. Time marches on. Attitudes evolve. There's always another election looming. All we can really do is listen and try to understand."

Parts of these livestream shows will be available on Plain Talk with Rob Port, which can be found on InForum or on a variety of podcasting services.

In addition to the Wednesday livestream shows, Port will also begin adding "newsmaker" video interviews with some of his columns, where he'll speak with state leaders and various newsmakers throughout North Dakota. His first is being published this Friday, April 2, with Lt. Gov. Brent Sanford as they talk about the potential sale of the Coal Creek Station.

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Conservative opinion columnist Rob Port to begin new livestream show with liberals - Grand Forks Herald

For a brief, shining moment after Donald Trump incited an insurrection on the Capitol on January 6, it seemed that the forces of rising authoritarianism in America might be curtailed, shamed by the violence thathad been unleashed by their lies and bitterness over losing the election. But nope, Republicans have quickly reverted back. After all, the fundamental problem facing the Republican party and the larger American right hasn't been resolved. They still know full well that their ideology is unpopular, their arguments are indefensible, and that the only way they can hold onto power is by gutting the ability of the voters to throw them out.And so, as the past month has shown, conservatives are not only becoming more fascistic in the aftermath of the riot but more shameless about their intentions.

The GOP war on voting has become the number one priority, with a bevy of conservative groups reorienting their organizing around keeping Americans away from ballots.Republicans are leaning into the racist signaling around the voter suppression efforts, and when confronted with it, they barely bother to defend themselves, mainly because there is no moral defense possible. There's lip-smacking from the right about "voter fraud" which they continue to fail to show is a problem, much less one that voter suppression efforts will fix but these excuses are pro forma, and you can tell their hearts aren't in it.

Instead of trying to sell their behavior as good and righteous, instead, conservatives are coalescing around a different excuse: The liberals are making them do it! They don't want to be fascists, you see, but gosh darn it,they have no choice!

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This excuse was most clearly articulated for a large audience on Tucker Carlson's Fox News show last week. His guest, Jesse Kelly, ranted that he is "worried" and by "worried", he means he's threatening that the "right is going to pick a fascist" because "if we're going to be all treated like criminals and all subject to every single law, while antifa/Black Lives Matter guys go free andHunter Bidengoes free, then the right's going to take drastic measures."

Carlson, far from pushing back on this "don't make us hit you" threat, performed his idiotic mouth-open fake serious face, as if this was an intellectual discussion about something happening beyond his control. Inreality,his show is a nightly blast of encouragement at his fans to embrace their more fascistic yearnings.

The more "intellectual" version of this argument was rolled out by Glenn Ellmers at the American Mind blog of the Claremont Institute, a fairly prestigious conservative think tank that is oriented around the task of putting an intellectualized gloss on the reactionary impulses of the right. In the piece, Ellmers argues openly that "most people living in the United States today" by which he clearly and explicitly means Democratic voters "are not Americans in any meaningful sense of the term."

Defining most Americans as non-American, of course, is about justifying an all-out assault on their rights and freedoms. As progressive writer John Ganz wrote in his lengthy rebuttal to Ellmers,this is a "radically anti-democratic conceit of delegitimizing the citizenship of the majority of the country."But Ellmers, like Kelly, pretends to say this more in sorrow than anger, claiming that the left has forced this turn towards fascism (though he pretends it isn't fascism) because the liberal majoritydoes "not believe in, live by, or even like the principles, traditions, and ideals that until recently defined America as a nation and as a people."

In this argument, of course, only the right gets to decide what counts as a legitimate American value. It's closed-loop logic: You are technically free, but only if you live your life in a way prescribed by the religious right.You're allowed to vote, but only if you vote for Republicans.But can freedom really be freedom if it's stripped away from you the second you actually use your freedom? Of course not.This kind of illogic allows authoritarians to claim to be "pro-freedom" while refusing people real freedom.

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On his recent call to Laura Ingraham's Fox News show, Trump understandably made headlines with lies about the Capitol insurrectionists, who he falsely claimed were "zero threat", even though they killed on Capitol police officer, traumatized two to the point of suicide, and left 140 injured. But equally disturbing was the way Trump justified the violence, even as he pretended not to see it.

"When I look at antifa and what they did to Washington," he whined, "and what they did to other locations, and the destruction, and frankly the killing and the beating up of people, and nothing happens to them whatsoever? Why aren't they going after antifa?"

Of course, this is more lies. Research shows that 98% of the Black Lives Matter protests were peaceful, and that police were often the instigators of the violence. But Trump's lie serves a purpose. Like Kelly and Ellmers, Trump is setting up the claim that violence and fascism are not something that conservatives are choosing willingly, but something they've been forced to embrace. You know, because "antifa" and the "beating up of people," most of whichresidesin the fevered conservative's imagination rather than reality.

As Adam Serwer at the Atlantic recently noted, from the very beginning of Trump's presidency, conservatives perceived him as "a punishment" and would "respond to any perceived liberal excess witha simple phrase: 'This is why Trump won.'" They knew that it was wrong to vote for Trump, that it made them bad people to do it, but insisted that they were forced into this immoral position by alleged liberal excesses, most of which were silly, made up entirely or wildly exaggerated. (Literally, conservatives justified the immoral choice to vote for Trump by citing the existence of veggie burgers, gay rights demonstrators twerking, and Disneyland removing a "humorous" display about selling women into prostitution.)Now that logic has exploded all over the right, being used to justify all their own grotesque, fascistic, or anti-democratic behavior.

In a sense, nothing is new about this.

Despite all the chest-thumping authoritarians do, they're all cowards at heart, prone to whining and playing the victim, no matter how silly the pretense. Nazis had their own version of this, with their false "stabbed in the back" narrative they used to justify their genocidal desires. From the very beginning of Trump's presidency, groups like the Proud Boys would openly trawl through liberal cities, trying to provoke a fight, so they could claim victimhood and use that as justification for violence. They can never just admit that they want to be fascists. Instead, they whine and blame someone else for their own immoral desires.

What's scary about this particular moment is that kind of illogic is starting to spread even more rapidly through conservative media. Trump's two-and-a-half-month-long coup effort may have failed to secure him a second term, but it did instill a widespread sense on the right that they were entitled to win the election. Since other voters "stole" the election by voting for Joe Biden, conservatives increasingly claim justification for ending democracy. If you reject people's right to prefer one candidate over another, however, you never believed in democracy in the first place.

Originally posted here:
Republicans have become more fascist since Jan. 6 and they blame liberals for it - Salon

OTTAWA Opposition members shut down a parliamentary committee hearing Wednesday after the Liberal government once again refused to let a political aide appear to answer questions about the now-dead deal with WE Charity.

Members of the House of Commons' ethics committee had asked Amitpal Singh, a senior adviser to Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, to testify after a majority of MPs passed a Conservative-sponsored motion to that effect last week.

The motion allowed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to appear before the committee in his place.

But the Liberal government, which has ordered political staff not to appear before committees, deployed Associate Finance Minister Mona Fortier to instead appear for Singh, who worked for Bill Morneau when he was finance minister.

It was the second time a minister appeared instead of a ministerial aide after government House leader Pablo Rodriguez took the place of Trudeau's director of policy earlier this week.

While the committee ultimately decided to hear what Rodriguez had to say on Monday, opposition members refused to do the same with Fortier and instead used their majority to adjourn the meeting after only 20 minutes.

"By blocking witnesses from testifying ... against an order of the House of Commons, the government is devaluing and disrespecting Canada's Parliament," Conservative ethics critic Michael Barrett told the committee before asking that it adjourn.

The motion passed in the House of Commons last Thursday called on Singh, Trudeau policy director Rick Theis and the prime ministers senior adviser, Ben Chin, to appear before the ethics committee to answer questions on the WE deal.

It also called for Defence Minister Harjit Sajjans former chief of staff, Zita Astravas, who now holds the same position in Public Safety Minister Bill Blairs office, to appear before the Commons defence committee to discuss sexual misconduct in the military.

Trudeau was invited to attend on their behalf if the government wanted.

The government has in turn accused opposition members of trying to intimidate and mistreat non-elected political staff and argued that ministers are ultimately responsible for those who work in their offices.

Rodriguez and Liberal committee members have also accused the opposition of trying to score cheap political points by dragging out the ethics committee's study on WE, suggesting there was little more to learn about how the deal came together.

Prior to the committee adjourning, Bloc Quebecois MP Rheal Fortin accused the government in French of "blatantly defying" the House of Commons by ignoring the motion calling for senior political staff or Trudeau to appear.

"I always thought that Canada was supposed to be a democratic country where decisions were taken democratically and where a decision by the House held some value," he said. "And yet members of the government side are blatantly defying the House."

The sole-sourced deal with WE was announced last spring and would have seen the Toronto-based youth organization paid $43.5 million to run the Canada Student Services Grant program, which was designed to reward students who volunteered during the COVID-19 pandemic.

WE later backed out of the agreement following questions and concerns about its close ties to members of the prime ministers family, before the $543-million program was cancelled entirely.

The Liberals and WE co-founders Craig and Marc Kielburger have insisted that it was non-partisan civil servants who came up with the idea of having the organization run the grant program.

But the Conservatives have held up some of the thousands of email exchanges and other documents released by the government in August, after Trudeau testified, as evidence the arrangement was directed by the Liberals.

The ethics commissioner is currently investigating both Trudeau and Morneau, who abruptly resigned as finance minister and left federal politics in August, for potential conflicts of interest in relation to the deal.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 31, 2021.

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Opposition shuts WE hearing as Liberals again refuse to let staffer testify - Kamloops This Week

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'If the liberals don't want to play fair game, be transparent and be responsible, voters will eventually have to remind them about that,' NDP MP Alexandre Boulerice said

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OTTAWA Opposition MPs once again lambasted the Liberals for devaluing, disrespecting and being in defiance of Parliament after blocking a second staffer from testifying in front of the federal ethics committee on the WE Charity scandal.

By blocking witnesses from testifying, ordering witnesses to testify against an order of the House of Commons, the government is devaluing and disrespecting Canadas Parliament, an outraged Michael Barrett, a Conservative MP, said during the Wednesday meeting.

NDP and Bloc Qubcois MPs were equally vocal in their critiques of the Liberals decision to send Associate Finance Minister Mona Fortier to testify instead of the finance ministers Senior Policy Advisory, Amitpal Singh.

This is serious Were talking about a decision to oppose an order from the House of Commons. This is defiance, said Bloc Qubcois MP Rhal Fortin.

If I was one of the ministers who had ordered one of my staff not to testify, I would be very uncomfortable. Id even be uncomfortable in front of my family, he added.

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In an interview after the 20-minute meeting, which oppositions MPs voted to end before Fortier could say a word, NDP MP Alexandre Boulerice said the Liberals decision meant they had something to hide from Canadians.

Its completely ridiculous and ludicrous. If the liberals dont want to play fair game, be transparent and be responsible, voters will eventually have to remind them about that, he said.

The latest clash between opposition parties and the Liberal government stems from a Conservative motion passed by the House of Commons last week that summoned a series of Liberal staffers to testify during the ethics committees WE Charity study (as well as another to the national defense committee on an unrelated topic).

The ethics committee study has largely focused on the Liberal governments and Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus familys close ties to WE Charity, to which Ottawa sole-sourced a $912-million student volunteer grant program last summer before the charity organization pulled out of the deal.

Rick Theis, director of policy to the prime minister, was scheduled to testify on Monday, and Singh was slated by the committee to appear on Wednesday.

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Both were directly involved in the creation of the Canada Student Service Grant and subsequent deal with WE last spring.

But last Sunday, Government House Leader Pablo Rodriguez wrote to the committee informing them that Theis was instructed to ignore the summons.

Staff are not elected members of the House, they do not have the same rights and privileges as MPs. Calling staff to testify at committee is at odds with the long-standing principle of ministerial responsibility, Rodriguez wrote.

Accordingly, Mr. Rick Theis, director of policy to the prime minister, has been instructed to not appear before the committee. In his place, I will attend the meeting on behalf of the government.

The decision was ill-received by opposition members at the time, but they still accepted to grill Rodriguez, who ultimately deflected most questions on the WE deal because he was never involved in it.

Then, on Tuesday, Minister Mona Fortier wrote a similar missive to members regarding Amitpal Singhs planned Wednesday appearance, all the while accusing opposition parties of playing political games.

Cabinet ministers are accountable to the House of Commons for the decisions of the government, and of their trusted political staff, Fortier wrote. Mr. Amitpal Singh has been instructed to not appear before the committee. In his place, I will attend the meeting.

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She also argued that multiple federal committees had already held countless meetings over the last nine months and received thousands of pages of documents regarding the WE Charity deal.

An order from the House is serious, Bloc MP Rhal Fortin retorted to the letter Wednesday, while noting the irony of how the Bloc a Quebecois separatist party was defending the authority of the federal parliament.

Democracy is a cardinal value, he continued. I always thought that Canada was a democratic country in which decisions were taken in a democratic way.

In the wake of the governments refusal to allow Theis and Singh to testify, Fortin brought forward a new motion Wednesday that would advise the speaker of the house of commons of both mens absence, despite the will of the committee.

Members of the ethics committee are expected to vote on the motion during their next meeting.

Email: cnardi@postmedia.com | Twitter: ChrisGNardi

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Opposition MPs blast Liberal 'defiance' after second staffer blocked from testifying on WE - National Post

If prime minister Scott Morrison wants a circuit-breaker for the gendered political turmoil besetting his precarious Coalition government, unilaterally declaring gender quotas for federal Coalition MPs would be a masterstroke.

Even Coalition voters on balance now support quotas for women (48% supporting and 43% against) according to the latest Essential poll, with net support among voters overall doubling from +6% in 2019 to +12% in this weeks poll.

Note, Im suggesting he should bring in gender quotas, not quotas for women. Benefits flow from diversity, not women. If three-quarters of Coalition MPs in Canberra were women instead of men as is the case today, gender quotas would rebalance things in the direction of men.

Changing the rhetoric from quotas for women to gender quotas makes it harder for troglodytes to block this sensible extension of the quota approach the Coalition routinely uses elsewhere for example, the longstanding quota ensuring the Nationals get a fair share of ministers on the frontbench.

Quota opponents could be further disarmed if the policy applied only to winnable seats as they open up in the future, making sitting members safe from change.

Morrison could also take up the shift evident internationally from 50/50 quotas to the more flexible 40/40/20 approach adopted, for example, by global law firms Baker MacKenzie in 2019 and Norton Rose Fulbright in 2020.

This 40% women, 40% men, with 20% open approach to leadership appointments not only gives organisations a bit of elbow room in achieving gender diversity but makes room for other kinds of diversity too.

The Male Champions of Change group of Australian business leaders advocated this in its 40:40:20 For Gender Balance report in 2019, aimed to help organisations reap the diversity dividend now clear in management research.

The report provides hard numbers on the superior results achieved by organisations not dominated by one gender. It shows how to overcome the problem of merit being defined by, and reinforcing, the status quo.

Crucially, this is a report endorsed by 255 leading Australian directors and chief executives, including Commonwealth Bank CEO Matt Comyn, Wesfarmers managing director Rob Scott and Golf Australia CEO James Sutherland to name a few.

There would be a fair degree of overlap between the Male Champions of Change group and the Coalitions donor list come election time. If gender quotas are good enough for them and their organisations, why not for the federal Coalition?

Finally, this is a change which can be picked up and announced right away. Morrison has an action deficit. Declaring the beginning of the gender quota era in the Coalition, using the Male Champions of Change report as his template, would show him actually doing something, not just dodging, delaying and announcing another process.

Stubbornness stands in the way of Morrison making this necessary and politically sensible move.

Guardian Australia political editor Katharine Murphy last week noted the prime ministers practice of almost exclusively addressing men at risk of voting Labor in his public rhetoric. It is reminiscent of former US president Donald Trumps 2020 presidential election tactic. Trump lost.

As with Trump, its unlikely to be enough for Morrison to hold on to men at risk of voting Labor when he is at risk, because of his one-sided handling of the last few weeks, of losing an equal or bigger number of women who voted Liberal at the 2019 federal election.

Nor is it as though this is a new problem. The broad church Liberal party of which John Howard used to boast even as he worked to narrow it, is no more.

Instead of being Liberals, small l liberal moderates now sit as independents between government and opposition MPs on parliaments crossbench: Helen Haines (Indi), Zali Steggall (Warringah) and Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo) so far. Similar moderates are eyeing Wentworth, Hughes, Calare and Groom.

A contemporary Robert Menzies would do a strategic appreciation of the situation and realise he had to bring the small l liberals back into the tent before the cumulative seat loss became fatal.

Looking back on the formation of the Liberals in 1944, Menzies singled out two people for special praise. One was May Couchman, Victorian president of the Australian Womens National League whose members Menzies said did far more electoral work than most men. Over a six-month period, Couchman folded the League into the Liberal Partys Womens Section, significantly strengthening Menzies fledgeling political creation.

Morrison may be no Menzies but, as a former state party secretary and in 2019 victor in an apparently unwinnable federal election, he is not without some political smarts.

Putting his prime ministerial prestige on the line to get the Liberal partys state branches to adopt 40/40/20 gender quotas, and to urge the Nationals to do the same, is not just the right thing to do. It would be very smart politics too.

Chris Wallace is an associate professor at the 50/50 Foundation, Faculty of Business Government and Law, University of Canberra. She tweets at @c_s_wallace

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Bringing in gender quotas in the Liberal party is not just right it's smart politics too - The Guardian