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Many colleges brag about how diverse they are, but the faculties are mainly staffed by an overwhelming majority of liberals who contribute mainly to the Democrat Party, no diversity there. Photo credit Shutterstock licensed

DELRAY BEACH, FL First off, lets define what we mean by diversity. According to Merriam-Webster, diversity is the inclusion of different types of people (such as people of different races and cultures) in a group or organization it also includes a diversity of opinion,

Now, with that definition in mind, lets see how the liberals use it in trying to further their political agenda.

It seems that the Democrats (a/k/a liberals, Progressives) think that diversity is the be all and end all that should happen in our society, not the intelligence, the work ethic, or the experience of the person, but whether or not he/she fits the diversity parameter that they constantly use in what they think is good for our society. According to the liberals, they want us to look different but think the same. You see this in college campuses around the country.Many colleges brag about how diverse they are, but the faculties are mainly staffed by an overwhelming majority of liberals who contribute mainly to the Democrat Party, no diversity there. Also, many of these colleges give preference to enrolling students with diversity in mind, rather than accepting prospective applicants on the sole basis of their academic credentials.

Giving preference to one group over another, to me, is un-American and contrary to the principles set forth by our Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. Shouldnt everyone be judged as an individual and not as part of a group? That doesnt mean we shouldnt encourage people from some group from gaining credentials and experience to be able to compete for admission to aschool or college, but by blatantly discriminating in favor of a person from a certain group, that should be considered unfair, especially to the other person being denied even though better qualified.

Our founding fathers, in their eminent wisdom, have written that everyone should have the opportunity to better themselves, not the guarantee of success. Thats what they stated in our Declaration of Independence that we, as citizens, are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness as you can see they did not say the guarantee of happiness (or in other words, success), because when you give something to someone you have to take something from somebody else.Thats what seems to happen when someone gets accepted (because of diversity) for a slot in a college admission over someone who doesnt fall into that diversity category. That is called reverse discrimination and should not be tolerated.

The diversity goal is also used in the business world as the government has set up rules and procedures that authorize companies and businesses to hire people, not on the basis of merit for performing the job, but on the basis of their ethnicity, race, or gender. Should the government be the arbiter as to who some business should (or must) hire or should that be left to the business itself?Liberals, in the main believe that the government should get involved, whereas the Conservatives, in the main, say the government should stay out. Yes, there may be some who might discriminate on the basis of ethnicity, race, and gender, but most businesses are in business to make a profit so they will hire the person who will be the most productive for their business and will add to the bottom line (a/k/a profit).

So, the idea that diversity can be the be all and end all of how we run our lives, it can work in ways that bring more problems to society than in solving the problems of society. Forcing people to do or not to do certain things, in the name of diversity is never the way to go.Educating the people to do the right thing might take some more effort than passing a law, but in the long run it will create less animosity among the citizens who think that they are being discriminated against in the name of diversity.

Chuck Lehmann is a graduate of St. Johns University with his graduate work done at Hofstra University. He has an illustrious journalistic career, writing editorials for the Canada Free Press, Delray Sun and Boca Forum, supplement publications in the Sun-Sentinel newspaper and has been the editorialist-in-chief at the Chuck on the Right Side blog for the past 10 years.

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The Liberals and Diversity The Published Reporter - The Published Reporter

Progressives are embracing super PACs with newfound vigor as they look to put their political influence and organizing tactics to use in the aftermath of Sen. Bernie SandersBernie SandersBiden wins Oregon primary Joe Rogan announces exclusive deal with Spotify Author: Biden 'completely different' from FDR MOREs (I-Vt.) presidential campaign.

A handful of new liberal outside groups have cropped up in recent weeks, many of them founded by former aides and allies of Sanders and other prominent progressives. Their goals range from boosting the presidential campaign of former Vice President Joe BidenJoe BidenPro-Trump outside groups raise .8 million in April Biden wins Oregon primary Graham to release report on his probe into Russia investigation before election MORE to patching what they see as electoral holes in the Democrats organizing strategy.

But the proliferation of super PACs has come at a cost for some in the progressive movement, which has long denounced the existence of such groups and the influence of money in politics.

Sanders himself has privately expressed frustration with one such super PAC, originally called Future to Believe In PAC after the Vermont senators campaign slogan. The group was formed late last month by a handful of former aides to Sanderss campaign, including senior adviser Jeff Weaver, to boost Biden among progressives.

Sanderss displeasure with the formation of the super PAC prompted its founders to change its name this week to Americas Promise PAC to avoid the appearance that it is tied to Sanders or his campaign.

For Weaver and others, the decision to form a super PAC appears to stem more from a sense of urgency than a genuine comfort with such groups, which can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money so long as they do not coordinate with a candidate or campaign.

In a memo issued on Friday, Weaver warned that lagging support and enthusiasm for Bidens candidacy among progressives has the potential to sink the former vice presidents chances of ousting President TrumpDonald John TrumpPro-Trump outside groups raise .8 million in April Biden wins Oregon primary Graham to release report on his probe into Russia investigation before election MORE in November. Americas Promise PAC, he wrote, could help Biden make up that ground.

[D]espite best intentions, the Biden campaign and the [Democratic National Committee] are far behind on digital organizing, Latino outreach and progressive coalition building all critical to reaching and winning over Sanders supporters, Weaver wrote.

Chuck Rocha, a former senior adviser to Sanders who is involved in Americas Promise PAC and is spearheading the creation of another group, Nuestro PAC, said that super PACs are simply a means to an end: helping Democrats and progressives win up and down the ballot.

Unlike traditional political action committees and political nonprofits, super PACs can act as a partisan hammer, Rocha said, a role that traditional campaigns and PACs cant necessarily fill.

I am anti all this money in politics and if we can operate without super PACs, I would vote for that everyday, Rocha told The Hill. But Ive got to do something right now. I dont have the privilege to be able to wait around until there arent super PACs on either side.

Rocha and his political consulting firm Solidarity Strategies launched Nuestro PAC last month to turn out Latino voters in the fall using the same playbook that helped Sanders win broad support among Latinos during his primary campaign. Rocha himself is currently the largest donor to the super PAC. He said that hes courting other progressive and Democratic-leaning groups to help fund the effort.

Rocha said he wont accept contributions from corporate interests or business executives.

Super PACs arent the problem. The problem is corporate money in super PACs, he said. I dont know any corporations who would give Chuck Rocha or Nuestro Pac any donations anyway.

Still, the move towards super PACs has received blowback from some progressives. Rocha said he has lost thousands of followers on Twitter since started Nuestro PAC last month. And after Americas Promise launched in late April, the grassroots collective The People for Bernie Sanders advised its followers: Dont give them a dime.

One of the basics of the Bernie campaigns was a refusal to go there in terms of anything like a super PAC, Norman Solomon, a longtime activist and the co-founder of the progressive online initiative RootsAction.org.

I think thats in harmony with the politics that if youre opposed to huge money running the political show then you dont take huge money in super PACs.

Solomon is among a group of advisers to the newly-formed Once Again PAC, a traditional political action committee focused on helping Sanders win delegates in upcoming Democratic presidential primaries in order to exert influence over the partys platform and rules at its national convention this summer.

Also involved in that effort is Nina Turner, a former co-chair of Sanderss presidential campaign, and Winnie Wong, a former adviser to Sanders.

While Solomon said that most activists on the left share Bernies detest for super PACs in general, he also emphasized that progressive super PACs are a relatively small part of the terrain, especially given the massive outside groups funded by ultra-wealthy donors that often back Republicans or more centrist Democrats.

Its David vs. Goliath, he said. Even David needed a slingshot and I think thats how some people see it.

Sanderss former aides arent the only ones formingoutside political groups. Earlier this month, Justice Democrats, the progressive groupaligned with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-CortezAlexandria Ocasio-CortezOvernight Defense: Pentagon memo warns pandemic could go until summer 2021 | Watchdog finds Taliban violence is high despite US deal | Progressive Dems demand defense cuts The Hill's Campaign Report: Biden leads Trump by 6 points in new poll Ocasio-Cortez primary opponent Caruso-Cabrera goes on fierce attack in online debate: 'AOC is always MIA' MORE (D-N.Y.), filed paperwork with the Federal Election Committee (FEC) to create a hybrid PAC also called a Carey Committee similar to a super PAC.

Sanders himself has benefited from super PACs in the past. Vote Nurses Values PAC, the super PAC funded by the nurses union National Nurses United, spent more than $700,000 in support of the Vermont senator during the 2020 presidential primaries.

To me, theres a big difference between a labor lobbyist who is an advocate for working people versus a corporate lobbyist for Goldman Sachs or General Electric, said Jonathan Tasini, a progressive strategist and former surrogate for Sanderss 2016 presidential campaign. I sort of see super PACs the same way.

Tasini said that the end goal for Democrats should be to get rid of all this money in the U.S. political system. But he added that progressives should be practical in their approach to super PACs.

I dont think we should be so ideologically rigid about this, he said. Everyone would love to get rid of all this money. But that isnt the reality today.

One of the draws of super PACs in addition to being allowed to raise and spend unlimited sums of money is that they promise political operatives freedom that they often dont get within the rigid and bureaucratic structure of traditional campaigns, said Linh Nguyen, a former presidential campaign staffer for Sen. Cory BookerCory Anthony BookerBipartisan Senate group offers new help to state, local governments Liberals embrace super PACs they once shunned Trump and Biden signal bitter general election with latest attack ads MOREs (D-N.J.) and former New York City Mayor Michael BloombergMichael BloombergLiberals embrace super PACs they once shunned .7 billion expected to be spent in 2020 campaign despite coronavirus: report Bloomberg wages war on COVID-19, but will he abandon his war on coal? MORE.

Nguyen and other former campaign staffers filed paperwork with the FEC late last month creating PAC That A$$ (PTA), a super PAC aimed at boosting Democrats up and down the ballot, while aggressively mocking GOP incumbents. The group isnt tied directly to the progressive movement, but is "very much anchored in the idea that we are trying to fix the system," Nguyen said.

In an interview this week, Nguyen said the group isnt only going to be run by political operatives, but is also hiring writers and comedians particularly black and brown creatives with the goal of reaching young voters and communities of color online ahead of the 2020 election.

Our donors that are funding this have specifically said we want you all to try different things, Nguyen said. Experiment and figure out how to break through the noise.

Nguyen said that PTA is built around the notion that super PACs are detrimental to the political process. The groups website touts that if their efforts to get Democrats elected are successful, there wont be any more Super PACs.

We want to fight fire with fire. This is something that Republicans are very, very comfortable in, and as Democrats, we shy away from it or we take the higher road, she said. We want to lean into it. Were going to get a lot of criticism, but we dont want to shy away from it.

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Liberals embrace super PACs they once shunned | TheHill - The Hill

Its a Cottage Life government in a Brady Bunch Parliament.

It is something of a curiously unasked question why the prime minister has continued his near-total self-isolation for over two months now, and exercises his function as leader from the bottom step of his residence. I have no problem believing there are serious reasons behind it. We are in a pandemic. One prime minister, Boris Johnson, was actually hit by the COVID-19 virus, and set Britain somewhat a-tremble for a couple of weeks. In Trudeaus case it could and likely is his idea that setting an example, being a role model as he put it several weeks back, is behind his own practice of making his announcements from the cottage and largely eschewing travel anywhere else.

Yet the combination of a leader mostly removed from the country, and a Parliament that steps away from its supreme function during the greatest crisis in 50 years, strikes me at least as unnerving. The isolation of the leader, and the removal of parliamentary debate and scrutiny, simultaneously leave a great void in the flow of necessary information we used to call it accountability during a most anxious time, with previously unthinkable expenditures being made every day on the fly with little or no detail about the amounts being sent out and the various groups to receive them.

We know so little of what is being decided

We know so little of what is being decided, the protocols under which massive expenditures are being decided on, why X group receives money and Y group does not, why $9 billion for students and $2.5 billion for seniors. There should be questions and answers for every amount.

All we really do know is that the deficit is inflating at a prodigious rate and that the resources for keeping track of it all are thin to woeful.

One headline from the National Post tells of the auditor general lamenting that his office simply does not have the resources to execute its essential duties. Let me cite it: House committee unanimous in petitioning Morneau to cover auditor generals funding shortfall. In the jargon of the noble trade, the sub-head gives the alarming information that he told the committee in May that his office had no choice but to cut five planned audits for the current year. This is worrisome stuff. The one parliamentary office set to watch over the public treasury is being forced to amputate the offices oversight. There is a further lament: Government expenditures are increasing, which amplifies the challenges we are facing. Ill say.

However. It might add a touch of piquancy to know that this is not a story or report from this year. Its from last year. And at that time, when audits were being shelved or cut the AG was asking then for a $10.8-million addition to his budget. An amount, which in comparison to the billions upon billions that are gushing out of Cottage Life is a trinket, a smudge, a jot and a tittle, a whispering breeze in a howling hurricane.

If the AG was weeping in 2019, when times were good, people were out and about, when hundreds of thousands were not forced into idleness, when businesses by the tens of thousands were not closing or closed, and the economy doing well if he was weeping and having difficulty keeping track of the public purse, in what state of lamentation must the poor AG be in the 2020 of today?

There has been much chatter about what is or is not an essential service. Shall we not all agree that not since the invention of the pencil has there been a more essential service in the context of todays Canadian non-parliamentary governance than that of the public accountant. There has not been a budget. There has not been a fiscal update. And of course there has been stalling and non-response to this years request from the AG to supplement the ability to get some independent measure of the tidal flow of daily spending.

Not since the invention of the pencil has there been a more essential service than that of the public accountant

It is almost comedic to watch the various clips of Pierre Poilievre, who is the leader of the opposition (de facto) in our Brady Bunch Parliament, trying to get Finance Minister Bill Morneau to answer, with any specifics, when there will be updates, whether fraudulent claims for benefits are being made, whether prisoners are receiving some of the CERB payments, and finally whether he will grant the requested supplements to the auditor generals office.

Morneaus shameless and bland non-answers, his tranquil recital of the talking-points of the day, almost equal Trudeaus sublime ability in the same department. Poilievre asks. Morneau does not answer.

Where has accountability gone is the question of the day.

But there is no reason, on this end of the holiday weekend, not to offer a little diversion. I think one of the best headlines in recent days, when so much is sombre and tense, was this one, also from the Post: Canadas road to UN Security Council seat runs through Fiji.

This is geopolitics as it is played by the masters. Do we have Fiji on our side?

We do know that despite the great demands of governing during a crisis, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has spoken with 28 world leaders since the pandemic crisis began in early March as he continues to pursue a temporary seat on the UN Security Council.

Come to think of it, this may explain the self-isolation mystery. It could just be simple embarrassment.

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Rex Murphy on the COVID-19 crisis: The opposition asks. The Liberals do not answer - National Post

A Liberal government will reduce the deficit. We will implement new programs only if they can be funded within existing expenditures. We will exercise unwavering discipline in controlling federal spending . Expenditure reductions will be achieved by cancelling unnecessary programs, streamlining processes and eliminating duplication.

Its hard to imagine the Liberals making such a promise in this day and age, but that is what they pledged to do in their 1993 Red Book. Contrast that to the 2015 election, when the party campaigned on the idea of running $10-billion deficits for three years, for a total of $30 billion a limit they blew through (and it wasnt even close). Or the 2019 election, when it gave up on balancing the books altogether and introduced a plan to run yearly deficits of $20 billion over its four-year mandate.

The coronavirus, however, changes everything. Those deficits now seem like chump change in the face of the Parliamentary Budget Officers (PBO) April 30 forecast of a $252.1-billion deficit in 2020-21 a number that, given the spate of spending announcements since then, he now says is likely to prove very optimistic.

As a percentage of the economy, even the optimistic number would be the highest on record. And that doesnt include the provinces, which have also seen their expenditures balloon. All told, a National Bank Financial report this week estimated that combined federal and provincial deficits could reach a staggering $350 billion, which represents about 20 per cent of gross domestic product.

If theres any good news, its that the massive increase in government spending that weve witnessed since the start of this pandemic will (hopefully) be temporary. Yes, COVID-19 has exposed critical holes in our health-care system, long-term care facilities and supply of critical goods that will require long-term expenditures in order to address. But the vast majority of the spending the financial support for workers who have lost their jobs and companies that have lost their revenue streams can easily come to an end once the health threat subsides.

Thats not to say that it is inevitable, though. We have already heard calls for the government to transform the Canada Emergency Response Benefit into a universal basic income program, for the state to use this crisis as an opportunity to replace fossil fuels with green energy pick your pet cause and chances are that someone is using the coronavirus as an excuse to push it.

But the Liberals must resist these calls, because the fact is that we will not be able to afford any of it. We wont even be able to afford any of the programs, like universal pharmacare, that Parliament was considering at the beginning of the year.

The Liberals justified their deficit spending before the pandemic by citing Canadas relatively good debt-to-GDP ratio, the amount of government debt relative to the size of the economy. Yet the PBO estimates that the national debt will hit $962 billion this year, up from $685 billion in 2018, and could easily top $1 trillion thats a one with 12 zeroes the year after.

Meanwhile, Statistics Canada released a flash estimate last month, which suggested that real GDP shrank nine per cent in March. The PBOs scenario estimates that real GDP will decline by 12 per cent this year, which would be four times worse than the worst year since we started keeping records in 1961.

Divide those two numbers and we could be looking at a debt-to-GDP ratio of nearly 50 per cent by the end of the year. This, however, would not be unprecedented: it stood at a whopping 66.6 per cent in 1995.

That was when Prime Minister Jean Chrtien and Finance Minister Paul Martin launched an aggressive effort to balance the budget that still makes conservatives jealous. They did so not by massively increasing taxes, but by cutting federal spending by 14 per cent between 1995 and 1998. Thanks to these austerity measures, the economy prospered, growing between four and five per cent a year between 1997 and 2000. Accordingly, our debt-to-GDP ratio dropped to 29 per cent by 2009.

Barring a sudden end to their minority government, when the current crisis abates, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Finance Minister Bill Morneau will face a similar situation. It has always seemed somewhat paradoxical that Chrtien and his American counterpart, President Bill Clinton, were able to balance their budgets in the 90s, while their conservative successors watched them balloon once again. Yet centre-left governments often find it easier to drastically reduce spending, because people tend to believe that they are doing it out of necessity, rather than ideology, and therefore are more inclined to give them a pass.

Will this current crop of Liberals follow in the footsteps of their predecessors and do what needs to be done to stabilize this countrys finances, retaining the prosperity that sustains our way of life and preserving it for future generations? We certainly hope so, but their own recent history is cause for concern.

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NP View: Will these Liberals be willing to do what Chrtien and Martin did? - National Post

Opposition transport spokeswoman Libby Mettam said the Liberal Party was still committed to Roe 8 and the Perth Freight Link.

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If necessary it is a decision we would most certainly reverse and we are comfortable fighting the government on this issue given it has the support of the community of the southern suburbs, she said.

Ms Mettam said WA needed big ticket infrastructure projects to help the state recover from the coronavirus pandemic and with $1.2 billion in federal funding still on the table, now was the time to get it started.

Were finding it is quite extraordinary that 62,000 people have lost their jobs in the past four weeks and the McGowan government would come out with a plan to block Roe 8, she said.

The Perth Freight Link was envisioned to connect Fremantle Port with Perths southern suburbs but it was scrapped after the Labor party won the 2017 election in a landslide with stopping the road as a headline commitment.

The Liberal Party maintains the road would reduce congestion and remove trucks from Leach Highway while future proofing the Fremantle port.

Ms Saffioti said the McGowan government had been given a clear mandate to stop the freight link.

It was a deeply flawed, controversial project that I am pleased has now been laid to rest, she said.

Environment Minister Stephen Dawson said the land that was cleared to make way for the freight link was already being rehabilitated which would ensure the Beeliar Wetlands and its conservation values would remain for future generations.

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Liberals vow to resurrect Roe 8 if elected next year - WAtoday