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Chrystia Freeland deserves a lot of credit for saving Canada from Donald Trump. Can she save the Liberals from Doug Ford, Jason Kenney and Franois Legault?

That may sound facetious, but it is, in essence, the task shes been given in her position as minister of intergovernmental affairs. If Octobers election proved anything, its that Canada is a country in which the bonds of unity can never be taken for granted. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau let them fray badly in his first mandate. In the opinion of many, he contributed substantially to the fraying. Its never clear how deeply this prime minister absorbs any of the lessons hes been offered since first taking office, but the voting results, and the growing cacophony of provincial acrimony, have evidently made him aware at some level that something serious needs to be done to bring calm to the provinces. So hes turned to Freeland.

Perhaps thats a sign that he understands Freeland has skills he lacks. It is no small achievement to have gone head-to-head with the White House over Canadas most vital trade relationship and emerge with a deal that protects Canadas interests while allowing the vainest and most self-centred of presidents to claim victory. The new NAFTA is a true rarity of the Trump administration, a complex accord that satisfies all three signatories, and has the backing both of the Oval Office and a divided Congress that has been at war with itself since the day Trump took office. Even as one wing of Congress is trying to oust Trump on impeachment charges, legislators on all sides are working hard to find a way to approve the pact so they can prove theyre capable of something besides partisan bloodshed.

Perhaps thats a sign that Trudeau understands Freeland has skills he lacks

Outside the U.S., Freeland helped nail down a trade deal with the European Union that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson cites as his goal if and when Brexit is achieved. Shes also handled the task of dealing with Chinas leadership at a time when its abandoned diplomacy for a nationalistic megaphone.

Given her record, it might seem that finding harmony with a handful of provincial premiers would be an easier task. Obviously it wont have the international implications, but thats no reason to underestimate the ability of Canadas political class to pick fights with one another. Kenney might not be in office now if Rachel Notley hadnt underestimated the pig-headedness of her fellow premiers, not to mention members of her own party. And Kenney has plainly decided that doing battle with Ottawa is to be a core part of his governments identity. The combative address he delivered a week ago in Red Deer was nothing if not fair warning to the new minority government that he sees it as a major impediment to the pursuit of Albertas best interests, and hes far from alone in that view: Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe left his post-election confab with Trudeau looking downcast and predicting more of the same tone deafness from an Eastern-oriented administration fixated on its same old obsessions.

Freeland will also have to find a way to make nice with Ontarios Doug Ford, who spent much of the federal election in hiding but was nonetheless treated to a startlingly aggressive series of insults and attacks. Fords first year in office was filled with stumbles, and it may be that Trudeaus people assume the remainder of his term will prove as self-destructive, but there are signs that Ford isnt planning to go along with that scenario: his walking time-bomb of a chief of staff has been dumped, rhetoric has been toned down, contentious policies have been softened or re-thought and Ford made a point of congratulating Trudeau on his re-election while stressing the strains on national unity, which he likely doesnt believe are the fault of the provinces. Hes offered to host a gathering of the premiers to discuss the unity problem, an offer that won the praise of Toronto Mayor John Tory, who hasnt always been a fan of the Ford family.

There is one near-certain means to put smiles on faces at Queens Park, and thats to trundle Ottawas cash-dispensing machine into the province and set it on high. The Trudeauites have never demonstrated a reluctance to spend money in bulk, and would have been lucky to place a distant second in October if not for the voters in and around the Toronto megalopolis. The region desperately needs money for a vast expansion of public transit, and transit fits nicely into the Liberal climate change agenda, so if Freeland finds herself spending a lot of time championing the delivery of large cheques to grinning Tories, it wouldnt be a total surprise. It cant hurt that shes also now the deputy prime minister, and represents a downtown Toronto riding, quite near that of Finance Minister Bill Morneau. So while the Liberals may not fathom Western alienation, they should certainly grasp what makes Toronto happy.

It cant hurt that shes also now the deputy prime minister

That leaves Quebec, where Legault has spent much of the past year inviting Ottawa to keep its nose out of local affairs. Should the courts fail to derail Bill 21, the contentious provincial secularism law, Trudeau could find himself forced to keep his heavily-hinted-at plan to intervene, an act that would impact unity like an improvised explosive device. Add to that the fact that some concessions likely to make Jason Kenney happy like a radical change in equalization are just as likely to inspire outbursts of political outrage from Quebec, and the traditional demands for redress. It wont help to have newly-empowered Bloc Qubcois leader Yves-Franois Blanchet tossing out separatist complaints about any federal action that isnt wholly and completely designed for the sole benefit of Quebec, as he has shown great skill in doing.

Freelands political skills are such that she managed to emerge from the SNC-Lavalin affair unscorched, despite her bosss ugly display towards two serious-minded and intelligent women. Shell need that and more if she hopes to keep four grumpy premiers happy, at which point shell probably face a chorus of complaints from the other six that they werent getting equal attention. Its the nature of Canadian federalism, a perpetual effort to test the strength of the bonds that hold us together.

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Kelly McParland: Can Chrystia Freeland save the Liberals? (And Canada, while she's at it) - National Post

William F. Buckley Jr. was born ninety-four years ago today [Nov 24]. He started the Conservative Movement. The Conservative Movement elected Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan won the Cold War, freeing millions from tyrannical slavery. And Ronald Reagan won an economic war at home, and then abroad, teaching the nations free market principles, which lifted billions of people out of poverty.

God moves in mysterious ways, and reminds us, by having given us Bill Buckley, that each individual, made in His image, can move mountains.

Bill (I knew him well: I was executive editor of National Review and subsequently chairman of its board of directors; and skied and sailed with him for forty years) burst onto the American scene, like the Fourth of July, with his first book, God and Man at Yale, published in 1951 when he was only twenty-six. Bill wasted no time: the polemics began on the dedication page:

For GodFor Countryand for Yale in that order

Bill kept his priorities straight for his whole careerwriting 56 books, 400 hundred articles and book reviews, 2,000 speeches, and 4,000 columns, more or less, along with founding his magazine, National Review, and Young Americans for Freedom and the New York Conservative Party and The Philadelphia Society and his television program Firing Line and The Fund for American Studies. With toil and labor he worked night and day. He was doing Gods work, with his own right handbut unlike God, he didnt seem to rest.

Its not a stretch to say that Bill forewarned, in God and Man at Yale (68 years ago!), the end of colleges and universities, and education, as we knew them. With a few exceptions, Hillsdale being one, college education has completely collapsed. Its mostly a package of woke, snowflakery nonsense todaywith a $60,000-debt attached. In a day not too far away now, and right here in the land Bill loved, young people will stop going to colleges with their safe spaces, stop wasting two or four years of their lives, and engage in better pursuitsfor themselves surely, and perhaps in service to their country and their fellow countrymen as recommended in Bills book Gratitude.

Bills best book was probably Up From Liberalism, which is a romp through the Liberals1 giant sandbox, sand kicked exuberantly into their eyesbut only to scrub away their blindness. The book ends with a list of conservative proclivities and a paean to localism, which we might call federalism. And then let us see whether we are better off than we would be living by decisions made between nine and five in Washington office rooms, where the oligarchs of the Affluent Society sit, allocating complaints and solutions to communities represented by pins on a map. Thats still true enough to have been written yesterday.

Life with Bill Buckley was also a hoot. I remember a dinner with Mayor Bloomberg. It must have been the mayors first encounter with Bills wife, Pat, a formidable force he no doubt remembersand if he doesnt, hes certainly not fit to be president. The mayor was droning on about the dangers of secondhand smoke. Pat was all over him, mercilesslyand having a whale of a good time. The mayor sought to buttress his case by quoting from a study from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, then recently renamed, as Pat, er, forcefully told the mayor (Pats voice rising, the mayors stature shrinking), the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Did he expect them to produce (voice rising higher) a result he didnt like?

She cut off his arguments at every turn. Louder and louder. Bill, trying vainly to keep order (the mayor was their guest) was saying, Ah, Ducky, I think what the mayor was trying to say Bill, came the response even more forcefully, I can hear what hes saying. Ah, er, Pat, the point BIIILLL, WHY ARE YOU SUPPORTING HIS RIDICULOUS POSITION?

Why indeed?

Pat was right. The danger of secondhand smoke was always overrated, and still is, by the trendy medical community and others stillalwaysallocating solutions to communities represented by pins on a map.

At the end of Up From Liberalism, Bill wrote: I mean to live my life an obedient man, but obedient to God, subservient to the wisdom of my ancestors, never to the authority of truths arrived at yesterday at the voting booth. That is a program of sorts, is it not? It is certainly program enough to keep conservatives busy, and Liberals at bay. And the nation free.

Yes. But the forces of evil itself, not just of the affluent society facisti, are everywhere. Even so, we can be of good cheer. As Bill said in 1959 at the end of his speech in Madison Square garden at a rally opposing the visit of Nikita Khrushchev (the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union) to the United States: In the end, we will bury them.

And so we did. God does perform wonders. One of those was, ninety-four years ago, giving us Bill Buckley.

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Today Is Bill Buckley's Birthday: Tease A Liberal - The Federalist

The Partnerships first tax filing, obtained this week by Andrew Perez of Maplight, details how the organization has embedded itself within a network of Democratic shit-hawking shops to conduct its work against health care reform. Its biggest vendor was consultancy Forbes Tate, whose relationship with the organization is well known: The Partnerships operations are run out of the firms office, according to Politico. Shaver is a partner at Forbes Tate; before that, she worked for Hillary Clintons 2016 campaign and Obamas Department of Health and Human Services. Forbes Tate received $1.7 million for this work last year, a third of the Partnerships total income. (We are not informed who donated to the Partnership, because it is a 501(c)(4).)

The second-biggest winner from the Partnerships activities: Bully Pulpit Interactive.* It has, according to its website, worked with clients ranging from the Democratic Party and Tammy Duckworths campaign to such society-ruining, law-flouting tech giants as Airbnb and Uber. In 2016, the firm was a major vendor for Hillary Clintons campaign, collecting more than $10 million for its work handling digital advertising and digital media buying for both the Hillary Clinton campaign and its joint fundraising organization with the Democratic National Committee. Bully Pulpit Interactives clients include some of the biggest center-left advocacy joints in town, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the Human Rights Campaign, Emilys List, and Everytown for Gun Safetythough these are just the clients it makes public. For some reason, its site doesnt list its work for the National Collegiate Athletic Association, a cartel dedicated to exploiting the labor of student-athletes, which was worth $12 million in 2017. Who knows what other clients the firm services but doesnt publicizeas it chose not to do for the Partnership? Thanks to our feeble transparency laws, it doesnt have to tell us. Public relations work doesnt count as lobbying for the purposes of lobbying disclosure rules.

The firm Seven Letter, formerly Blue Engine, made $140,000 off the Partnership last year. The Intercept reported that Seven Letter handled the Partnerships interactions with the media. Its staff includes prominent spin doctors such as Brendan Buck, who has previously worked for Paul Ryan and Americas Health Insurance Plans, and Adam Abrams, who used to work for the Obama White House. (If you long for a lost era of bipartisan comity, youll find it thriving on K Street.) According to a tax filing viewed at ProPublica, in 2014 Blue Engine worked for a group called Reforming Americas Taxes Equitably, a coalition of some of Americas biggest corporations that exists to push for lower corporate tax rates; it would go on to celebrate the 2017 Trump tax bill.

The New Republic asked Karthik Ganapathy, a former Bernie Sanders campaign staffer who recently founded MVMT Communications, which bills itself as primarying the consultant class: What is the deal with these firms? A lot of people come into politics to make peoples lives better, he said. Somewhere along the way, though, those folks get ground down by its institutions and start to understand that politics is a business just like any other, run by really rich folks who call the shots, and begin to see a lot of potential money on the table. So they start to work for and with people that the 25-year-old version of themselves would have thrown tomatoes atand thats just really sad to me. It is worthy of lament: Youll meet very few young people who moved to Washington for the purpose of feathering the nests of petrochemical corporations.

The pressure on all sides in this towninstitutional, ideological, financialto accept the broad status quo is immense; candidates who make a habit of challenging the established order are rare. Many of the firms that work for the Partnership were started by or staffed with former members of Obamas Yes, We Can brigade, with others going on to work for Amazon or Uber (or Theresa May). The ability of people who come to public service as righteous, justice-and-fairness-seeking liberals to transform themselves into dedicated laborers against the goals they once espoused is astounding, but every road in Washington is laid to funnel people toward that stupid, cynical end.

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The Lucrative Liberal Business of Killing Health Care Reform - The New Republic

Back Johnson or Corbyn? Thats not necessarily the right question. Photo: Aaron Chown/PA Wire/PA Images

Every general election presents the Liberal Democrats with a challenge. How should they position themselves against Labour and the Conservatives? Over the years they have tried a variety of tactics. A glance back at them helps us to understand the way Jo Swinson is wrestling with that question today.

In February 1974, the Liberals argued that they were Britains only radical party. They asked of their two rivals: Which twin is the Tory? Their vote more than doubled to 19 per cent, but they won only 14 seats.

In 1983, the Liberal/Social Democratic Party Alliance sought to break the mould of British politics by replacing Labour as Britains main progressive party. They came close in votes (Labour 28 per cent, Alliance 26 per cent), but Labour still won almost ten times as many seats (209 versus 23).

In terms of seats gained, the Lib Dems most successful election by far was 1997. They jumped from 20 MPs to 46the largest third-party number since 1929. Actually, the partys vote share slipped slightly, from 18 to 17 per cent; but tactical voting by Labour supporters helped Lib Dem candidates defeat more than two dozen incumbent Tories. It helped that Paddy Ashdown, the Lib Dem leader, abandoned the partys policy of equidistance between Labour and the Conservatives, and moved closer to Tony Blair and New Labour.

There is one obvious example of the Lib Dems co-operating with the Toriesafter the 2010 election. Nick Cleggs party paid the price: it lost 49 of its 57 seats.

Today, Swinson finds it far easier to say what she doesnt want than what she does. She hates Boris Johnsons Brexit, and Jeremy Corbyns far left prospectus. She says she wants to be prime minister; but she knows that this is nonsense. Corbyn is more likely to become Chief Rabbi.

More relevantly, she says that if we end up with another hung parliament, she wont prop up either Johnson or Corbyn. This leads to the obvious follow-up point: since one of them is almost certain to be prime minister after the election, she really should tell her voters what she would do.

Here is my suggestion. It is not to change her stance but to make it more credible.

Swinsons starting point should be to acknowledge that, in a hung parliament, the initiative will not lie with her. Either Johnson will try to soldier on without a majority or he will step down. If he tries to stay in Downing Street, Ed Davey, Swinsons deputy, has told Andrew Neil on his BBC show that the Lib Dems might be up for discussions with Johnson on a new Brexit referendum. I doubt Johnson would agreetoo many of his MPs hate the ideabut it would not be crazy for the Lib Dems to make the offer.

What, though, if Johnson decides that there are too few Tory MPs for him to carry on? He will then resign, and the Queen will invite Corbyn to try to form a government. The assumption that pretty well everyone makes in discussing what happens next is that the Tories, who will almost certainly still be by far the largest party in the new House of Commons, will oppose Corbyns Queens Speech. The decision of the Lib Dems to vote for Corbyn, or against him, or abstain, could be vital to what kind of government, if any, Britain has at the start of 2020.

Is that assumption correct? Twice in the past century, a Conservative prime minister has resigned following an inconclusive election. In January 1924 Stanley Baldwin made way for Ramsay MacDonald, even though the Tories had 67 more MPs than Labour. In March 1974, Edward Heath resigned after failing to do a deal with the Liberals, and Harold Wilson returned to office.

The key point is this. On both occasions, the Conservatives did not try to stop Labour governing. They voted against specific measures, but not to bring the new government down. Their reason was that, having acknowledged that they could not carry on, they would risk a huge public backlash should they seek to prolong political deadlock and intensify a great national crisis.

The same logic would apply this time. Indeed, one could go further. Neither Baldwin nor Heath faced an immediate challenge to their party leadership. In contrast, Johnson, having lost his election, would face a Conservative Party in turmoil. It is likely to retreat in order to sort outfight overits own future.

In practice, then, Swinson would not have to decide what to do. Corbyn would survive as prime minister thanks not to the Lib Dems or SNP but to the Conservatives. However, he would be a prime minister without the power to do anything much, apart from sort out Brexit and legislate for a new referendum. Parliament wouldnt turf him outbut nor would it vote for any of his more radical policies. He would probably get through a modestly expansionary budget, with more for health, schools, welfare, police etcbut not much more than the Tories have promised. But rail nationalisation? Free monopoly state broadband? Workers on boards? Big jump in corporation and income taxes? Forget them.

So Swinson should not tie herself in knots fretting over the Johnson-or-Corbyn question, for she will have no real power to answer it. Instead, should simply say: a) my MPs will oppose both a hard Brexit and a vast increase in the power of the state; and b) in a hung parliament, the more Lib Dem MPs there are, the more certain it is that we can, with other MPs, block either form of madness.

Sorted. Pleased to help.

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What everyone has missed about the position of the Liberal Democrats - Prospect

One of the key architects of President Donald Trumps domination of Facebook in 2016 has joined a progressive group leading the counterattack.

James Barnes, a Facebook employee embedded with the campaign and who was once called its MVP, took his digital talents to the liberal group Acronym. He came to the organization as it charts out a $75 million plan to help liberals close the gap with Trump online.

I was absolutely crushed the morning after the election, Barnes said on Acronyms podcast, FWIW. I knew my life, personally and then the path our country was on was changed fundamentally. And I knew that I was going to have to come to terms with what happened and chart a path going forward.

Barnes, previously a Republican, supported Trumps campaign through Facebooks program to help political candidates use the platform. Hillary Clinton also had support from Facebook. Tatenda Musapatike, a staffer who worked with Democrats' campaigns, has also joined Acronyms 2020 ramp-up.

READ: The GOP's impeachment defense all tracks back to these 2 journalists

It just was not adopted on the left as it was on the right, Musapatike said of Facebooks efforts. There were established ways of doing things and I think Democrats were really, really cautious to change to, I think, our detriment.

The boot-strapped Trump campaign, however, embraced Barnes guidance. It pumped out torrents of cheap, at-times divisive ads to highly targeted audiences, spreading its message and culling small-dollar fundraising.

We hadspent years mapping out what is the strategy that we think the ideal candidate would use, using all the products we have, using all of the thinking that weve done, Barnes said. We kind of came ready with that playbook. Wed written it.

READ: Elizabeth Warren needs to win over young black women. Here's how that's going.

Gary Coby, then a Trump fundraiser and now the digital director of his reelection effort, went so far as to call Barnes the campaigns MVP.

Facebook will be even more central to the 2020 contest. Trump has vastly outspent his Democratic rivals so far, crushing fundraising records and enticing users to share all-important personal data.

Now working for the lefts primary answer to that digital strategy, Barnes said that hes conflicted about his work at Facebook to help create it in the first place.

One thing I want to be really clear on is that I voted for Hillary Clinton, he added. I despised Donald Trump from the moment I learned of him. And my commitment in the 2016 election had much less to do with supporting him or his platform and a lot more to do with supporting Facebooks commitment to democracy.

Cover: President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Bossier City, La., Thursday, Nov. 14, 2019. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

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The 'MVP' of Trump's 2016 Facebook Campaign Just Joined a Liberal Group Trying to Take Him Down - Motherboard