Archive for the ‘Liberals’ Category

Larry Elder Slams Liberals With ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’ – Fox News Insider

Radio host Larry Elder took aim at three liberal commentators who made controversial statements about President Trump this week, saying the trio had "Trump Derangement Syndrome."

Responding to comedian Whoopi Goldberg's characterization of Trump as "The New Guy," in what has beenongoing criticism of the president, Elder said he would not be surprised if there was a tweet with her name on it.

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"It's just a matter of time before Trump tweets that she is 'a former A-lister'," Elder said.

He added that Goldberg sees herself as speaking up for the underprivileged and questioned why she cannot see Trump's economic policies as a boon for the inner cities.

Elder said Goldberg and MSNBC pundit Chris Matthews have "Trump Derangement Syndrome" after Matthews compared Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner's new roles in the White House to Uday and Qusay Hussein.

Elder called Matthews unhinged and said he also hasn't gotten over the fact Trump further reddened the electoral map, winning Wisconsin, Michigan and Matthews' home state of Pennsylvania.

He also criticized liberal documentarian Michael Moore for predicting the twilight of human existence on Earth, apparently because of the rigor with which Trump has nullified EPA regulations.

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Larry Elder Slams Liberals With 'Trump Derangement Syndrome' - Fox News Insider

Montreal Gazette poll: Tax-cut budget gives Quebec Liberals a boost – Montreal Gazette

Quebec Finance Minister Carlos Leitao's third consecutive balanced budget has given Premier Philippe Couillard government a boost in the polls. But Quebecers want more money invested in education and health. Jacques Boissinot / THE CANADIAN PRESS

Quebecs Liberal government isenjoyinga post-budget honeymoon but most voters say the provincestill isnt doing enough to fund schoolsand hospitals.

And amajority of Quebecers 62 per cent thinkthe tax cuts in the March 28 budget were a politically motivated effort to woovoters in advance of the next election, due in October 2018.

Those are some of the conclusions of a poll conducted afterthe budget for the Montreal Gazette and Postmedia. Mainstreet Research surveyed 2,520 respondents on March 29 and 30.

The Quebec Liberals seem to be receiving a post-budget bump, theyre getting a nice honeymoon bump, but people are actually quite divided on thebudget, said Mainstreet executive vice-president David Valentin.

I expected stronger numbers for the budget given that there weretax cuts but a lot of people are still not convinced. The number of people who are not sure what the actual impact is going to be for themselves and/or their family is quite high.

After years of reining in spending, Finance Minister Carlos Leito loosened the purse strings slightly in a budget that included modest taxcuts and more cash for education and health care.

In the poll, 39per cent of respondentssaid they would vote forPremier Philippe Couillards government,five percentage points more than said they would do so in a surveytwo weeks earlier.

Support for theParti Qubcois dropped five points to 26 per cent, and the Coalition Avenir Qubec fell four percentage points to 23 per cent. Buoyed by the arrival of star candidate Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, Qubec solidaire saw support jump four points to 12 per cent.

Among francophones, who make up the majority of voters in most ridings, thePQ was first with 31 per cent, followed by the Liberals (30 per cent), the CAQ (26 per cent) and QS (14 per cent).

Quebecers seemed uncertainabout the budget.

When asked whether they approveor disapprove, Quebecerswere almost evenly split 30 per cent gave it a thumbs-up, 29 per cent a thumbs-down and another 29 per cent werent sure. Twelve per cent said they hadnt paid attention.

Non-francophones were the most likely to approve of the budget (43 per cent).

Respondentswere also undecided about whether the budget is in Quebecs long-term interest.

Thirty-six per cent of those polled said it was, 30 per cent said it wasnt and the remaining 34 per cent were notsure.

Valentin said the fact that support for Couillards governmentwent up, despite ambivalence about the budget, indicates that the Liberals have been able to convey the message that they are good economic managers.

Peoplemay not know the specifics (about the budget) but they do know they likethe general direction.

It was the governments third consecutive balanced budget.

In at least two areas, however, Quebecers think the government should be doing more.

Most respondentssaid the governmentis not adequately funding health care (53 per cent) and education (56 per cent).

On voting intentions, the poll suggests the Liberals lead comfortably in their traditional bastion of greater Montreal regionand are statistically tiedwith the PQ in the rest of Quebec.

In Quebec City,the CAQ leads (36 per cent), with the Liberals second at 28 per cent.

Valentin noted that theLiberals and Qubec solidaire each have fresh selling points.

The arrival of former student leader Nadeau-Dubois Qubec Solidaires candidate in a by-election in Gouin for which a date has not been set has reinvigorated the party, he noted.

And the Liberals may be able toleverage the budgeteven more and do a persuasive sales job to all those people who are undecided about what this budget means right now.

The polls margin of error is plus or minus 1.95 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

ariga@postmedia.com

twitter.com/andyriga

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Montreal Gazette poll: Tax-cut budget gives Quebec Liberals a boost - Montreal Gazette

Liberals Are Extreme And Irrational – The Chattanoogan

Liberals Are Extreme And Irrational
The Chattanoogan
Trump handily beat Clinton in part because a lot of decent moral people are getting really fed up with liberal judgmentalism, liberal self-righteousness, liberal name-calling, liberal violence and hate, liberal intolerance, liberal bullying, liberal ...

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Liberals Are Extreme And Irrational - The Chattanoogan

Liberals taste victory no matter Gorsuch outcome – Politico

After weeks of publicly complaining that Senate Democrats were going easy on Neil Gorsuch, liberal activists are close to securing a successful filibuster of President Donald Trumps Supreme Court pick. But theyre not stopping there.

Activists are now vowing to make Republicans pay a political price if they decide to rip up Senate rules to push Gorsuch through with a simple majority vote. And if Majority Leader Mitch McConnell does kill the Supreme Court filibuster to confirm Gorsuch, liberals say theyll still come out on top having further emboldened a base that wants Democrats to brook no compromise with Trump.

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Democrats showing they can unify [against Gorsuch] helps energize the grass roots, MoveOn.org Washington director Ben Wikler said in an interview. If Republicans decide to go nuclear, that will further energize the resistance movement. The only bad path here is for Democrats to flee the fight.

Simply getting to this point is a victory for the left, which began the Supreme Court battle frustrated with Senate Democrats and bluntly urging them to "do better" as Gorsuch appeared on track for easy confirmation. But over the past two weeks, as liberals kept nudging Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer's caucus to push back harder, Democrats have abandoned their reluctance to commit to a filibuster.

The shift can be largely credited to the aggressive campaign from liberal groups, though a number of Democrats also became inclined to favor a filibuster after they found Gorsuch's answers far too noncommittal during his marathon confirmation hearing.

Most GOP senators have signaled theyre ready to back McConnell on a critical vote to unilaterally change Senate rules. But a handful have remained skeptical enough to fuel speculation among Gorsuch foes that the Kentucky Republican may be short of the votes.

Amid continuing talk of a last-minute deal to preserve the filibuster for Supreme Court picks, liberals are starting to publicly prod Republicans to explain why they would change the Senate rules.

I dont always see eye to eye with these folks, but some of them are expressing caution about changing the norms of the Senate, said Ilyse Hogue, president of the abortion-rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America. So well see. I dont know that they have 51 votes yet but thats on them to prove, not me.

As the Senate drew closer to a possible "nuclear option" scheduled for the end of next week, few Republicans were optimistic about defusing the tension.

The Democrats, they know better, Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) told reporters. But their base, you understand, wont allow them to do the right thing.

Corker referenced liberal protesters gathering outside Schumers Brooklyn apartment earlier this year as a reason that hes making these arguments about [Gorsuch] being extreme. We all know thats not true.

Senate Democrats don't share some liberal activists' skepticism that McConnell will muscle through a rules change that promises to further poison relations in the polarized Senate and which could spark blowback for his party when the GOP next loses the White House.

But Democrats do agree with one strategic move by their base: They're starting to press Republicans to own their decision to end filibusters for Supreme Court nominees, not just talk about it.

Everybodys talking about whether Gorsuch gets confirmed and thats essential and right in front of us, Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) said in an interview. But the broader question, in the sweep of history is: What happens to the Senate? And thats in the hands of just a handful of Republicans, not us.

"There are enormous implications of changing the rules of the Senate in order to force an unpopular Supreme Court justice through," adds Chris Murphy (D-Conn.). "I hope Republicans think about the consequences of what theyre thinking about doing."

For the moment, Democrats' progress towards a viable filibuster is attracting outsized attention on Capitol Hill. Politico's count stood at 36 Senate Democrats ready to block Gorsuch after Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri made a pivotal announcement of her opposition on Friday. Sens. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Joe Manchin of West Virginia are the only Democrats in the yes column.

On Monday, left-leaning groups, including Sen. Bernie Sanders' Our Revolution, plan to send a message to Democrats who are considering joining Heitkamp and Manchin. They have organized a petition publicly imploring the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee to withhold support from any Democratic senator who backs Gorsuch.

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Once Schumer's caucus gets to 41 confirmed votes to block Gorsuch, the focus will shift to Republicans who remain less than publicly committed to supporting the so-called nuclear option to change the rules including Corker and Sens Susan Collins of Maine and John McCain of Arizona.

Liberal activist groups are pushing as hard as possible to move scrutiny to the GOP whip count, touting a poll they commissioned that shows 69 percent of all voters and even four in 10 Trump backers oppose Republican changes to Senate filibuster rules.

"McConnell has very cunningly kept all the attention off his conference for this whole arc," said one liberal strategist working on the Gorsuch nomination, describing moderate Republicans as "leaning into it, bluffing" on where they stand. "He does an excellent job of giving the impression that getting the votes to change the rules isnt a problem."

McConnell, for his part, is well aware of the pressure Democrats are facing from liberal groups opposed to Gorsuch.

"This isnt about the nominee at all," McConnell said on the floor earlier this week. "Its about a few on the left whose priority is to obstruct this Senate and this president, whenever and wherever they can. Months after the election, theyre still in campaign mode calling for Senate Democrats to obstruct and resist."

But with McConnell's guarantee that Gorsuch will be confirmed by April 7, liberals are warning Republicans of the potential midterm-election ramifications of jamming Gorsuch onto the court.

Hogue, of NARAL, said anti-Gorsuch rallies spearheaded by her group on Saturday would be aimed as much at Republicans as at Democrats.

"Its really important for people to remember that if this judge is confirmed, especially if Republicans change the rules to get Trumps guys in, it wont be theory in 2018," Hogue said. "This guy will have ruled. It will be a Gorsuch court and it most likely will have ruled on some of Trumps agenda."

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Liberals taste victory no matter Gorsuch outcome - Politico

Liberals are losing their minds over Trump and Russia – The Week Magazine

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An awful lot of American liberals have become rather possessed by the possibility that President Trump is somehow in league with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The circumstantial evidence that there is some sort of connection is rather strong Putin very probably helped Trump win in 2016, some Trump associates have a rat's nest of connections with Russia, and Trump himself has been relying on financing from Eastern Europe for many years.

But definitive proof has yet to surface. So in their quest to find a connection particularly some sort of direct conspiracy between Trump and Putin some liberals are abandoning good sense and becoming credulous toward nutty thinkers.

It's important to avoid this not only because clear thinking is important, but because it is the best way to root out the truth.

I'm reminded in a way of the Second Red Scare. The era of Joseph McCarthy is rightly remembered as a time of deranged witch hunts and fevered anti-Communist paranoia. Something that is a bit less remembered is that the Soviet Union did indeed have extensive espionage success within the American government, particularly during the Second World War. They penetrated the Manhattan Project, they scooped up all manner of non-nuclear weapons technology, they recruited one of the very top economic policy officials in the country, and on and on.

In other words, the defining characteristic of McCarthyism was not a false belief that KGB spies had infiltrated the government, because they had. It was paranoia and hysterical panic about such spying, especially in how it was used to further partisan Republican ends. McCarthy was a fool and an incompetent drunk, but other Republican elites tolerated him and his accusations because he whipped up unhinged outrage against Democratic Party elites and policies. They loved it when he was falsely smearing Dean Acheson and George Marshall as secret Soviet sympathizers, or slagging public housing bills as the first step to Communism. It was only when McCarthy's erratic, diseased thinking, his constant lying and fabrication, and his utter investigative incompetence became undeniable that they began to desert him.

A corollary of this is that McCarthy was an active impediment to anti-espionage efforts. During the Red Scare, it's possible his various lists of supposed Communists included a small fraction of actual Soviet spies. But what tiny truth was there was swamped by the huge number of innocents caught up in the panic. What's more, after McCarthy's downfall the whole idea of Soviet infiltration of the American government was badly tainted by association with his vile methods.

(As an aside, it's important to note that all of this is orthogonal to the question of whether Soviet spying necessitated a hyper-belligerent diplomatic stance towards the USSR. All countries spy, America very much included, and in the end all the espionage probably didn't amount to much indeed, it may have actually calmed tensions somewhat.)

Now, liberals' Trump-Russia fever is not remotely as bad as what struck Republicans during the McCarthy era. There is no full-blown panic, nor any show trials. Yet there is an echo of the basic mechanics. Instead of a Wisconsin senator, we have Louise Mensch, a former Conservative MP and bug-eyed conspiracy hound who has been all over cable news making one unsubstantiated accusation after another and even somehow got a piece in The New York Times. And she is only the most prominent of a cottage industry of instant Russia "experts" who have sprung up to write long tweet threads and create infographics in Microsoft Paint validating liberals' darkest suspicions about Trump.

Again, it's important to emphasize, it really is possible Putin and Trump did collude somehow, or had some other connection. Liberals are right to smell blood in the water, and as I've argued before, it's only right and proper for a full investigation to be conducted. Ideally Congress would serve its constitutional duty, but with Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee, especially Chairman Devin Nunes, giving every sign of working hand-in-glove with the Trump administration to quash the ongoing investigation, that route may be closed off for the time being.

In the meantime, outside investigations and journalism are all that we have. But it's still critical for liberals to maintain a grip on reason, and require proof for extraordinary accusations. Even if Democrats manage to take back the House in 2018 and mount a true investigation, they can't assume that a smoking gun particularly one proving direct Trump-Putin collusion will be found.

In the meantime, there are plenty of horribly unpopular things Trump is doing, and horribly unpopular policies his party supports, to use as political weapons.

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Liberals are losing their minds over Trump and Russia - The Week Magazine