Archive for the ‘Liberals’ Category

Sears Mess Shows How Little Liberals Think Of Working Canadians – Huffington Post Canada

Canadians are justifiably appalled by the plight of thousands of employees and pensioners who are being victimized by the bankruptcy protection manoeuvring of Sears Canada. Thousands have been laid off and even more stand to lose the severance, benefits and pensions that they earned, while Sears pays millions in bonuses to executives and managers.

Sadly, however, Canadians should not be surprised by the Sears scandal and the scope of the devastation that so many will suffer. Successive Liberal and Conservative federal governments have allowed such scenarios to occur by repeatedly rejecting legislative reforms that would protect employees, pensioners and their families.

Members and retirees of my union, the United Steelworkers, know all too well the pain and anguish caused by unfair bankruptcy and insolvency laws that Liberal and Conservative governments have steadfastly maintained for decades.

Some of the most recent victims include more than 20,000 U.S. Steel Canada retirees whose crucial health benefits were eliminated and thousands of former employees and retirees of Cliffs Natural Resources who lost their health benefits and suffered deep cuts to pensions they earned over a lifetime of work.

Imagine a terminally ill pensioner who loses health benefits overnight and is forced to choose between buying food or potentially life-saving medication. Or retirees whose pensions were abruptly cut by $1,000 a month because their governments quite intentionally ensure they remain at the back of the queue in corporate insolvency cases, while the claims of big banks and wealthy investors come first.

Even the Supreme Court of Canada has noted that successive governments have made a deliberate choice to favour creditors such as banks and major investors over vulnerable pensioners and employees.

In a case that my union fought in the courts for several years, the Supreme Court sympathized with pensioners from the insolvent Toronto operations of multinational corporation Indalex. However, in its 2013 ruling, the Supreme Court determined that, under the terms of existing legislation, cuts to the Indalex retirees' pensions were lawful.

It was also noted that during the Liberal government regime of the early- and mid-2000s, Liberal-dominated committees in the House of Commons and in the Senate took turns studying reforms to bankruptcy and insolvency legislation. In both cases, the Liberals opted not to stand up for the interests of workers and pensioners.

But after being turfed from office, the same Liberals changed their tune. Then-Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff vowed that his party, if re-elected, would change the law to protect workers and pensioners and ensure they would no longer be "left at the back of queue in insolvency and bankruptcy."

"It's not right. We agree with you," Ignatieff famously told thousands of laid-off Nortel workers in 2009. Following the Liberals' return to power in 2015, that promise appears to have been all but forgotten.

So it is particularly galling to hear the current Liberal government express sympathy for "the difficult circumstances" now faced by Sears workers and retirees. At least one Liberal MP has unabashedly chastised Sears and publicly called on the company to "do the right thing" for pensioners.

Of course, there is no acknowledgement from the Liberal government that, with its overwhelming majority in Parliament, it actually could "do the right thing" by enacting legislative reforms to better protect Canadians' wages, pensions and benefits.

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Experts in bankruptcy and restructuring law have put forward practical and realistic legislative reforms that would protect employees and pensioners, without causing economic upheaval.

For example, amending the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act (BIA) to give priority to severance packages, retirement benefits and money owed to pension plans "would be the easiest thing in the world" and would not result in undue harm to the business climate, says one expert on pension and benefit issues in insolvency cases.

Ultimately, reforming laws such as the BIA and the Companies' Creditor Arrangement Act is primarily a political choice. In other words, whose interests does the government of the day truly want to serve? That is the question facing the current Liberal government.

Canadian workers and pensioners want more than hollow words of sympathy when their money is diverted from their pensions and benefits in favour of banks and wealthy investors.

Canadians rightfully expect their government to "do the right thing."

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Sears Mess Shows How Little Liberals Think Of Working Canadians - Huffington Post Canada

Hollywood liberals deliberately denigrate rise of conservative millennials – Washington Times

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

The Hollywood narrative of liberalism, pushed by the most vocal celebrities and Democrats, was a large focus of the mainstream media throughout Trumps campaign and has continued on throughout his presidency.

From Beyonc and Jay-Zs support for Hillary Clinton in 2016 to celebrity endorsements of resistance, and sometimes even violence, throughout 2017, they have made it seem as if there is little worse than being a conservative in the twenty-first century.

According to those that have dominated the airways, conservatives are old, unreasonable and lack diversity. As a result of this false narrative that has been pushed in the mainstream media, conservatives have been plagued with a very inaccurate stereotype.

So, now when many people think about conservatives, they dont think about people that are young. They dont think about people that are diverse. They dont think about people that are reasonable. And, they certainly dont think about people that are cool.

But, of course, this is all very wrong. In fact, Im sure many people would be surprised to find out that more young people are conservative now than in previous decades. Thats right, conservatives are not just white men over the age of 70.

As a conservative myself, Im proud to be a millennial from a diverse background. Im proud to work to help break the stereotype that Hollywood liberals have helped push.

You know, part of what made our country so great is our ability as everyday citizens to voice diverse beliefs without fear of retaliation. As millennials, we should never be pressured to feel that there is only one way of thinking or one set of political beliefs that are acceptable.

Diversity should not stop at the way people look on the outside, but should continue into thought and opinion. Due to the current political climate, I know there are many young conservatives out there, from all different backgrounds and parts of the country, who have felt afraid to speak up.

Now, more than ever before, we must empower these millennials to help break the inaccurate stereotypes by being more vocal in their support of the conservative movement. Together, we can show people that being young, cool and politically interested is not just for liberals.

You can be young, you can be cool and you can be conservative! Spread the word.

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Hollywood liberals deliberately denigrate rise of conservative millennials - Washington Times

Liberalism created Donald Trump – Fox News

Eight months have passed since the election, but on the Left the shock has not abated. For them, each new week brings fresh revelations why Donald Trump shouldn't be president.

I've stopped trying to convince them that Trump isn't the monster they think he is. Instead, though I disagree,I go along with all their judgments and add, "But it's your liberalism that put him there." Huh?

The conversation continues.

Liberalism has fallen into a position in which it can make few moral arguments against the other side. Thats the real frustration liberals have with President Trump.

"Yes," I say, "you call him vulgar and crass, but youve praised vulgar and crass characters from George Carlin to Madonna nonstop. You celebrate them as groundbreakers and boundary-pushers. Well, now youve got someone taking it all the way to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

The guy is sullying the dignity of the office, they charge.

But you love edgy counter-cultural gestures, the CEO who shows up to meetings in a t-shirt, the lefty rock star who shouts at the Golden Globes This is f------ brilliant. Remember how you labeled Tipper Gore an uptight Puritan after she led the charge against indecent rock lyrics? Well, now youve got a president who is no Puritan."

"Yeah, he's nothing but a reality TV star," they grumble. "He's a braggart and a bully."

"Wait a minute," I reply. "You ate up the braggadocio of Muhammad Ali. And just listen to the liberal ESPN and note how often it showcases trash-talkers and the 'swagger.' Ill take Joe Frazier any day, but you put the strong, silent type away long ago with your Sixties anti-hero."

"Look at how he talked about women on that bus!" they charge.

"C'mon," I remind them, "President Obama toldRolling Stonethat he was hip to the rappers Nas ("see that p----y, they hand it to me") and Lil' Wayne ("I love a cute ho"). And dont forget Maureen DowdsNew York Timescolumn Dirty Words from Pretty Mouths (Feb 28, 2015), which praised female writers and actresses for their own version of male raunchiness. Thats the feminism that said women can be just as sexually aggressive as men.

The Left has forgotten the link between political and cultural liberalism. Political liberalism, broadly speaking, seeks state solutions to private problems. Cultural liberalism operates on one principle: Do your own thing. The error is to believe that the two can remain separate. Liberals thought that they could create a culture of individual freedom, but keep politics on the straight and true line of progressive change. But rampant individualism was bound to erode public manners and mores; we see the moral anarchy of our world every time we turn on the TV. It was inevitable that the deterioration would filter into American politics, too.

Why, then, should people who voted for Donald Trump pay any attention to liberal criticisms of his lifestyle and language, his divorces and reality-TV celebrity? Everything liberal opponents attack him for on cultural grounds could be turned right around on themselves. When Robert De Niro told Brown University graduates that in four years the United States has gone from an inspiring uplifting drama to a tragic dumbass comedy, Trump supporters remembered that Black Lives Matter, Jon Stewart, The View, and a hundred other left-wing voices have never treated America as uplifting and inspiring.

Liberalism has fallen into a position in which it can make few moral arguments against the other side. Thats the real frustration liberals have with President Trump. He is the ultimate realization of liberal cultureand yet he still (rightly) believes in God and country.

Mark Bauerlein is Professor of English at Emory University and Senior Editor at First Things magazine.

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Liberalism created Donald Trump - Fox News

The Christian Right Is Finally Taking Liberals’ Advice – National Review

Editors Note: This piece was originally published by Acculturated. It is reprinted here with permission.

Everyone knows Donald Trumps approval numbers are in the toilet he has an approval rating of only 37 percent, according to an ABC poll taken a couple of weeks ago but many observers are baffled about why the president still seems to be doing well among evangelicals. Sixty-one percent of them approve of the job the president is doing.

During the election, observers marveled that this voting bloc was willing to rally around a man whose personal life was hardly a model of Christian virtue. But evangelical leaders said it was more important to them to ensure a Supreme Court pick they would like, for example, than to worry about how many times Trump was married or whether he spoke respectfully about other people.

A PRRI poll taken during the election found that more than six in ten (61%) Americans say immoral personal behavior does not preclude public officials from carrying out their public or professional duties with honesty and integrity. And researchers also noted that no group has shifted their position more dramatically than white evangelical Protestants. More than seven in ten (72%) white evangelical Protestants say an elected official can behave ethically even if they have committed transgressions in their personal life a 42-point jump from 2011.

Some might say this is simply political expediency. And I wrote a piece during the election comparing what I saw as the more principled reaction of Mormons to the Trump candidacy compared to evangelicals. But it is odd that Trumps liberal opponents would take evangelicals to task for the divide between their views on a persons personal behavior and public life.

After all, this is what liberals have been advocating for generations that evangelicals should be able to separate these things. From the moment it was decided that prayer no longer belonged in public classrooms, the liberal message to traditional Christians has been that they should keep their beliefs to themselves. That message extended to abortion, where Christians were told that choice was the name of the game. Sure, you have your beliefs, but you cant impose them on others. The same was true for gay marriage and just about every other culture-war issue of the past several decades. Most recently, evangelicals have been told to put aside any personal objections they have to transgender rights and accommodate people of either sex into their bathrooms and locker rooms.

One would think the Left would be celebrating the fact that evangelicals are finally acknowledging that politicians shouldnt be judged by their personal actions (as Democrats argued ad nauseam during President Bill Clintons years in the White House).

Its odd, then, that at the same time liberals have tried to wrest conservative Christians away from their notion that personal beliefs must determine views about public policy, liberals have come to enthusiastically embrace the idea that the personal is political. Its not simply that being a woman now means you have to advocate a feminist agenda that includes abortion on demand. Its that being a racial minority means you should be pushing for less police intervention in low-income neighborhoods and opposition to school choice, among other issues. Abandonment of these policy views is seen as a betrayal of ones personal commitments (not to mention ones race or sex).

Does this mean that liberals will leave evangelicals alone if they return to their roots fighting the culture wars both personally and politically? Not likely. Because if theres anything weve learned from the sanctimonious efforts at resistance coming from the left these days, its that the personal is political only so long as your politics conform to theirs.

Naomi Schaefer Riley is a weekly columnist for the New York Post.

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The Christian Right Is Finally Taking Liberals' Advice - National Review

Pro-Trump Super PACs Already Have Edge Over Liberals in 2018 … – NBCNews.com

President Donald Trump speaks during a "Made in America," product showcase featuring items created in each of the U.S. 50 states, at the White House on July 17, 2017, in Washington. Alex Brandon / AP

But with the 2020 election more than 39 months away, what's the hurry?

"The entire Democrat political machine is solely focused on blocking the President's agenda and defeating him and other conservatives in the next two election cycles," said Ed Rollins, lead strategist at Great America PAC. "Given this reality, it's essential for us at Great America PAC to work twice as hard to help ensure the president's short-term success and create a more favorable environment for his re-election campaign."

By early May, these super PACs had together

Another pro-Trump super PAC active in 2017 is Rebuilding America Now, which reported income of $1.15 million during the first half of 2017 almost all coming in the form of "media." The PAC has largely spent its cash on food, travel, legal fees, and $35,000 a month to one of the

Meanwhile, Ronald Weiser, founder of architecture firm McKinley Associates, gave

Florida-based America First Agenda, yet another new pro-Trump super PAC,

Make America Number 1, the pro-Trump PAC

Future45, another pro-Trump super PAC largely funded last year by casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and Linda McMahon, who Trump appointed to head the Small Business Administration, secured $105,000 from only two sources so far in 2017.

Nearly all the money this year, $102,500, came from super PAC Liberty 2.0,

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Pro-Trump Super PACs Already Have Edge Over Liberals in 2018 ... - NBCNews.com