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The federal Liberals are using Andrew Scheer's change of heart about The Rebel as an opportunity to data mine and to throw a few jabs at the Tory leader.

The party sent out an email blast to supporters Thursday night calling out the Conservatives for maintaining what it says are "close ties" to the controversial far-right website.

"As Justin Trudeau said this week, we know that Canada is not immune to racist violence and hate. Liberals and all Canadians condemn it in all of its forms," the party said in the email.

"For Andrew Scheer though, this condemnation has been harder to come by with his Conservative Party maintaining close ties with the far-right Rebel Media organization."

On Friday, the Liberals sent out a similar email declaring that 5,000 Canadians had "spoken up" and called on the Tories to cut ties with Rebel Media.

Scheer gave interviews to The Rebel during the Conservative leadership race, as did other candidates and Tory MPs.

But on Thursday, Scheer issued a statement announcing he would be no longer granting interviews to the website, citing their Charlottesville, Va. coverage as the reason.

The Rebel's reporting on the "Unite the Right" rally that descended on the college town was seen by some as sympathetic to white nationalist organizers and speakers.

Scheer said his boycott would continue until The Rebel's "editorial directions" change.

"I am disgusted by the vile comments made by hate groups this past weekend," Scheer told HuffPost Canada in a statement. "I believe there is fine line between reporting the facts and giving those groups a platform."

The Tory leader stopped short of explicitly condemning the outlet, which The Liberals noticed.

"Canadians are deeply concerned that the Conservative Party and the Rebel Media are still struggling to part ways," reads the email blast. "Andrew Scheer has refused to denounce and end all ties with the organization."

It then asks the recipient to add their name email and postal code, too to call on Scheer to cut all ties to The Rebel.

"Tell the Conservative Party what the rest of Canadians already know: Hate has no place in Canadian politics," it states.

The Rebel has been reeling from a sudden implosion of resignations and explosive allegations.

The site's co-founder, Brian Lilley, was the first to announce his departure this week. He said he was concerned about the "harsh tone" the website had taken on certain issues.

National Post columnist and Rebel contributor Barbara Kay followed shortly after. Media news site Canadaland reported that Gavin McInnes, a Rebel host and a Vice Media co-founder, is also leaving the outlet.

Following the Charlottesville violence, the outlet's "commander" Ezra Levant tried to distance himself from the so-called alt-right, an umbrella term used by white nationalist groups motivated by racism, white supremacy, and populism.

Levant himself says the term has become synonymous with "racism, anti-Semitism and tolerance of neo-Nazism.''

He took another step Thursday to address criticisms firing Faith Goldy, a Rebel reporter who had gone to Charlottesville. She was let go because of appearance on a podcast hosted by a neo-Nazi group where Goldy and the hosts mocked Levant's Jewish background.

With files from Ryan Maloney and The Canadian Press

Also On HuffPost:

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Liberal Party Jumps On Rebel Media Fallout To Collect Emails, Jab At Tories - Huffington Post Canada

Updated August 18, 2017 13:22:37

Being forced to relive your worst nightmare over and over, as a punishment for your sins, is a staple of film and literature the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Bill Murray in Groundhog Day and then the South Australian Liberal Party's sagas in Mount Gambier.

Thanks to the shock resignation of MP Troy Bell, what should be a blue ribbon seat and a nice neat predictable win for the Liberals has instead turned into the political equivalent of a teenager's bedroom God knows what you'll find there, and do be careful where you step.

Bell is facing multiple charges of theft and dishonestly dealing with documents following an investigation by the state's Independent Commissioner Against Corruption.

Mount Gambier voters have a long history of thumbing their nose at the Liberals' preferred candidates and picking independents.

One senior south-east Liberal has told the ABC it's the spectre of that history that now haunts the party.

"The upshot of this is the Liberal Party is now unprepared in what should be a safe seat," the source said.

"Troy got preselection uncontested for both the 2014 election and the one next March. That means there's no one waiting in the wings to represent the Liberal party in Mount Gambier at short notice."

"Troy had consolidated the seat well and was expected to win comfortably. The Liberal party now cannot assume it will retain the seat of Mount Gambier."

It would be unfair to characterise the Bell situation as an entirely self-inflicted wound, but there's no justification for a generous interpretation of how the Liberals have managed their past affairs in Mount Gambier.

It has contributed to the extraordinary time they have spent wandering the wilderness of opposition.

The independents Mount Gambier voters have chosen have been disaffected Liberals, bruised by the pre-selection process.

It started in 1997, when Rory McEwen lost a pre-selection battle he was widely expected to win.

Still a battle is not the war, and in the state election itself, Mr McEwen won the seat with the help of Labor preferences.

Incidentally, the adjacent south-east seat of MacKillop voted for a conservative independent too.

That left a wound, but there was a big serve of salt just waiting to be rubbed into it.

Mr McEwen won a thumping victory in 2002, standing as a conservative independent.

He then went on to join the Rann Labor government as a minister. Mr McEwen contested the 2006 election, and despite a swing against him, retained the seat.

Mr McEwen resigned in 2010 and the seat was expected to go back to the Liberals.

Except being Mount Gambier, it didn't.

A bruising preselection contest saw Mount Gambier mayor, Steve Perryman, win over another strong contender, the mayor of nearby Grant council, Don Pegler.

By now you've probably guessed the pattern. Mr Pegler, unhappy with the outcome, stood as an independent and won.

Mr Pegler served one term and was defeated by Bell.

Interestingly, Bell had been selected by the Liberals unopposed no nasty preselection battle, or cranky independent, to dog his campaign.

It would be premature to say, once again, the South Australian Liberal Party has managed to snatch a glorious defeat from the jaws of victory.

But the Bell situation unquestionably complicates things.

It's more than a simple distraction of resources and attention to a seat the party should be able to count on. It makes the potential path to power for another independent, or a Nick Xenophon candidate, just a bit easier

The frustrated Liberal couldn't have put it better.

"Now we face that challenge again to fend off independents and a Xenophon candidate. To be back in that position is astonishing."

Topics: states-and-territories, government-and-politics, liberals, state-parliament, law-crime-and-justice, mount-gambier-5290, adelaide-5000, sa

First posted August 18, 2017 12:49:06

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South Australian Liberals left to fend off rivals as Mount Gambier nightmare continues - ABC Online

I resign! This is the only thing President Trump could say to please the press. There are no words to soothe them, no debates to sway them, because they are dishonest. We do not have a racial problem in America. This is multiculturalism, which separates us, and diversity, which divides us. This is the old separate but equal crowd.

Everyone relax. We are not heading for a civil war unless you mean true Americans getting tired of being manipulated and bullied. Black folks are killing each other in the streets every night, and you want to take down a Confederate monument? Symbolism over Substance is getting psychotic.

Lets back up a step for a reality check. Why should it be illegal to be a racist? What can a racist do to me? Why should it be my business if a racist wanted to walk down the street and express hatred for me? And why on earth should the government make them stop?

Hey, liberals, black folks are NOT the pets of America. You cannot make us sit up and bark by pulling our chains. We are NOT The White Mans Burden, and you are NOT responsible for us. I know you liberals think you are superior but nice, and just want to help the underprivileged slaves be more comfortable in their misery. I know how much you hate me and other independent, free-thinking black men who arrogantly reject your care. Its OK, white liberals, you need not protect me from a statue. I can handle being in the shadow of a monument.

The real racists are those Americans, white and black, who believe I am helpless, defenseless and incapable to stand in the presence of racist white people unless I have my white handlers and black tribal chiefs protecting me. To believe I cannot stand the pressure of being spoken to with hate, to think I cannot survive competing or standing up to mean white people, is condescending, racist and arrogant. Who determines whats mean, hateful, harmful or intolerant? This unnatural fear of others has given us safe spaces, the thought police and weak citizens.

I know what a racist is. One tried to kill me 47 years ago. That attack left me permanently disabled and in constant pain. I have seen the face of real racism, and I know how dangerous racists are. But a racist being a racist is no threat to me. If the racist tries to burn a cross on my lawn, I would not need police protection he would. I am not a helpless man requiring my government mandate you treat me nicely. That would only result in all of us being treated harshly by our government.

I did not protest, demonstrate or write the book Its OK to Leave the Plantation to bring more Americans under the government slave-management system. We should not be better managed; we should be free to hurt each others feelings.

Most of us go about our daily lives around each other with no racial problems. We work together, shop, have lunch, ride the bus and live with each other. All day long we see each other and witness no racial tension. So why, after a full day of seeing the opposite, do we go home, turn in the television and witness a nation we have not recognized all day? Why would we believe the news instead of our own eyes?

Racial tensions only exist on the evening news. You will see reality tomorrow as you go about your day. They want us afraid to speak to each other, distrust the motives of each other and prejudge the character of each other based on the news, instead of our personal experiences with each other.

I know the Confederacy is part of the Southern Culture, and I admit not knowing what that really means. Why would poor white men fight for a system that kept them broke and unemployed? The Civil War was the North against poor white people trying to save the lifestyle of rich white people. With slaves doing most of the work, having most of the jobs, skills and expertise, it seems strange to get so many hard-working white Southerners to support their own poverty. But not understanding it does not make me want to restrict it.

So, Trump has not used media-approved language? It is obviously a hyped-up attempt to continue branding Trump. It is frustrating, but not effective. The general public is not concerned that Trump did not please the press. The general public is upset about the organized attacks on our culture and the make believe issues fueling them.

Mob rule will NOT dictate policy. Gang violence will NOT silence speech! The corrosive, bullying media will NOT shame us. However, you do NOT have freedom of speech at my doorstep. There is no right for you to protest me as a citizen. It is illegal for you to conspire to close down a freeway in protest, keeping me from getting to work. You should be arrested for planning to attack citizens with clubs. Paying someone to burn State and private property is criminal.

The police are hired to protect, enforce and guard over society. Any order to stand down for political reasons should be dealt with as a criminal manner. I call on President Trump to withhold federal funds from municipalities that order police to retreat or simply stand by and watch as citizens are being attack and property is being destroyed. Rioters and looters should be arrested, covicted and sentenced to jail. Civilians should be able to sue organizers for damages, and the funding sources of these groups should be investigated as a criminal organizations.

Fly your Confederate flag, salute your Nazi heroes, and honor your past slave holders. It has no effect on me because we won. WE THE PEOPLE defeated every foe with ideas, principles and force, not by taking down symbols.

Original post:
Liberals: I don't need your protection from a statue - WND.com

Id like to share the story of a good friend of mine. Its a Canadian success story. What is happening to his family, and others like them, should concern all of us.

The story

Warren owns a successful business in Burlington, Ont., and employs 125 people. He has poured his blood, sweat and tears into the business since starting it 25 years ago.

He has sacrificed much. He didnt spend enough time with his children when they were younger, because the business demanded his attention. Further, he put all his assets at risk over the years by making personal guarantees to borrow the funds necessary to grow the business. The early days were tough. He reminded me of a time when he had to take cash advances on his credit cards just to pay his staff. He took no salary for the first two years the business was in operation.

Warrens wife, Jeanie, made sacrifices, too. She gave up her full-time job to focus on their children and household, allowing Warren to focus on the business. Warren is the first to acknowledge that Jeanie has been as critical to the success of the business as he has been. Shes been a rock of stability at home. More than this, the equity in their home, which she helped to build while she was working, enabled Warren to borrow enough money to create a business that provides its employees with growing incomes, and has made many of them very well off financially.

Today, Warren and Jeanie are reaping the rewards of the risks and sacrifices theyve made. With the success of the business, Warren now has a good income. Jeanie shares in this success by receiving dividends from the company, as do the children, who have also made sacrifices over the years. None of the employees begrudge this familys financial success. On the contrary, they are grateful to be beneficiaries of the hard work and risks that started the business, which now provides them with good incomes.

The problem

Warren is irate. Tim, there is no way I would make the same sacrifices all over again if I were starting the business today. I simply wouldnt bother.

I asked him why he felt this way. The government today has changed the tax system so much, and is planning to change it again to stack the odds against the small-business owner. If I did this all over again, Id move to the United States first.

When the Liberals won the last federal election, they quickly increased personal tax rates on the financially successful often business owners to give more to others. Although Warren wasnt happy about the tax-rate increases made effective in 2016, he tolerated them because he believes he should pay a higher percentage of tax than people with lower incomes. He buys into the idea of a progressive tax system.

This Liberal government, however, seems so focused on the idea of redistribution of wealth that it completely fails to recognize that when a business owner becomes successful, and increases their income and net worth in the process, those employed by the business become better off as well. Successful businesses produce more, and more highly paid, employees.

When a business owner risks everything they own, is it so terrible that they should, say, triple their income and net worth, especially if it means the employees of the business double theirs, over time? Apparently this is a problem for the Liberals.

Proposed tax changes introduced on July 18 are designed to reduce the ability of business owners such as Warren to split income with family members, unless those family members have contributed meaningful labour and capital. I guess Jeanies sacrifices dont count here. I think Finance Minister Bill Morneau needs to explain that to her personally.

The proposals also will restrict Warrens ability to save money for retirement inside his corporation. The Liberals want Warren and Jeanie to be treated exactly like any employee who hasnt started an active business and owns a corporation. Perhaps Mr. Morneau should explain to Warren why the risks and sacrifices he made to create 125 jobs shouldnt provide him with any benefits greater than what his employees receive.

If the Liberals are trying to build a stronger middle class, as they claim, they will be doing exactly the opposite by penalizing small-business owners for their success.

Tim Cestnick, FCPA, FCA, CPA(IL), CFP, TEP, is an author and founder of WaterStreet Family Offices.

Click here for a detailed analysis of what the proposed tax scenarios will cost small business owners.

Follow us on Twitter: @GlobeMoney

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The Liberals will only weaken the middle class if they proceed with proposed tax changes - The Globe and Mail

President Trump first asked reporters to define the "alt-right," before saying members of the "alt-left" were also to blame for violence in Charlottesville, while taking questions from reporters on Aug. 15 at Trump Tower in New York. (The Washington Post)

In a chilling Tuesday news conference, President Trump named one of the many sides he has said are to blame for the weekends violence in Charlottesville: the alt-left. But as much as white supremacists rejoiced at his use of the term, they did not invent it. Liberals did.

The term alt-left has become a recent favorite of neo-Nazis, and Trumps embrace of the phrase is likely to propel it into his broader bases vocabulary. Yet its unlikely anyone wearing a Make America Great Again hat saw the term where it first caught attention in the news media: in the March edition of Vanity Fair magazine, atop an essay by James Wolcott titled Why the Alt-Left Is a Problem, Too. Or where it had already been springing up with surprising frequency: on the Facebook pages and Twitter feedsof movers and shakers closely associated with Clintonworld.

The 2016 Democratic primary exposed a long-brewing schism in the liberal order. Supporters of Bernie Sanders were fed up with the status quo and sought to tear it apart, while Hillary Clintons cohort preached a more pragmatic progressivism. The best hope of the Clintonites was to cast Sanders supporters as not just unreasonably radical but also a bit sexist and racist too hence the Bernie bro, their caricature of a childish white man who just cant bear the thought of a female president.

The Bernie bros were exactly the people center-left Democrats were describing when they first said alt-left. They didnt just mean the antifa, or anti-fascists. Thats an amorphous enough term already, encompassing both the black bloc and other groups devoted to denying neo-Nazis a public platform but less inclined to set limousines on fire. They didnt even just mean those who fit the technical definition of socialist, communist or anarchist. They meant anyone who wanted to push the political conversation beyond the boundaries of the 2016 Democratic Party platform: anyone who advocated for universal health care, free college or a $15 minimum wage.

Heather Heyer, according to that definition, belonged to the alt-left.

Its easy to see why alt-left was the perfect phrase for the job Clinton Democrats set out to accomplish. Because it sounded so much like alt-right, it made Sanders fans seem too extreme to stomach even violent. It also made them seem more sexist (that explains their lack of enthusiasm for Clinton, those using the term might say), or racist (now we know why theyre disillusioned with Barack Obama, or why they wont come around to Kamala Harris, theyd argue).

And its not as though the far left doesnt do the same sort of labeling of Clintonite Democrats calling them centrists as a veiled insult even when their views are measurably more progressive than the average Americans, or deeming them neoliberal to establish distance between them and what hardcore leftists see as the true liberal cause.

The alt-left label, as it turns out, is much more insidious. It creates a false equivalence at the extremes and plays into racists hands. White supremacists want the far left to look more sexist and racist the same way center-left Democrats want them to it gives them a foil. Of course they greeted Trumps Tuesday proclamation with glee: While alt-right is designed to make neo-Nazis look more mainstream, alt-left is designed to make their enemies look less so. White nationalists had already pulled off a remarkable trick by bringing a moniker that obscured their hateful worldview into the national lexicon. And theyve achieved another coup by snatching alt-left away from the Democrats and pushing it so hard that it eventually made its way out of the presidents mouth.

This is far from the first time a clever center-left coinage has flipped sides remember when fake news was a cry of liberal outrage against the glut of online conspiracy theories that culminated in a gunman traveling to a D.C. pizzeria to take out a nonexistent Clinton-connected child sex ring?

The left is eating itself alive. Fake news at least was designed to delegitimize a dangerous enemy. The center-lefts use of alt-left demonizes people who, when it comes down to it, should be their allies. Theres a real debate to had about health care, free college and the $15 minimum wage. Its happening now, and it will continue to happen through 2018 and beyond. But the right way to have that debate has never been by playing semantic tricks to score points. Its by being honest about the policies both we and those we disagree with stand for. Weve just learned how perilous the alternative can be.

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The alt-right didn't invent 'alt-left.' Liberals did. - Washington Post