Why liberals just love to set terrorists free New York Post What is it about progressives like President Obama and even pretend progressives like Gov. Cuomo that makes them so forgiving of terrorists? Obama, on his way out the door, Tuesday commuted the effective life sentence of Puerto Rican ... |
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Why liberals just love to set terrorists free - New York Post
By Raynard Jackson (NNPA Newswire Columnist)
Last week, I was forced to call out the radical liberal group the NAACP, or as l like to call them the National Association for the Advancement of Certain People. Obviously, that column didnt get through to the members of the Congressional Democratic Black Caucus (CBC). Many of their members and staffers read my columns, but I guess their radical partisanship blinds them to the truth in my writings.
During Senator Jeff Sessions confirmation hearing last week, three members of the CBC totally embarrassed themselves and brought discredit to the Black community: Senator Corey Booker, Congressman John Lewis, and Congressman Cedric Richmond, the chairman of the CBC.
Booker, the camera chasing polemicist, whose presidential aspirations are so obvious that even Stevie Wonder can see it, basically accuses Sessions of being the reincarnation of Adolph Hitler. No U.S. Senator has ever testified against a fellow Senator up for a cabinet position in the history of the country. He testified, Senator Sessions has not demonstrated a commitment to a central requirement of the jobto aggressively pursue the congressional mandate of civil rights, equal rights and justice for all. In fact, at numerous times in his career, he has demonstrated a hostility toward these convictions, and has worked to frustrate attempts to advance these ideals.
Congressman Lewis, bless his heart, was totally disappointing to me. He was interviewed on NBC and called into question Trumps legitimacy as our next president. He said, You know, I believe in forgiveness. I believe in trying to work with people. It will be hard. Its going to be very difficult. I dont see this president-elect as a legitimate president.
If Congressman Lewis doesnt see this president-elect as a legitimate president, please allow me to provide a pair of journalistic eyeglasses.
Obviously, Lewis is so blinded by his liberalism that he cant see the rampant racism perpetuated by former White House chief of staff, and current mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel.
Congressman Lewis, you are universally loved, revered, and respected, but you have lost your moral high ground because the arc of your moral judgement has bent towards partisanship, not fairness.
Congressman Richmond, you are such a great disappointment, so early in your political career. I was hoping that you would not allow yourself to be pimped into slinging the drug of liberalism to the Black community.
You have too much education to equate your position as the last group of speakers on the panel that opposed Sessions nomination to Rosa Parks being asked to sit at the back of the bus. Cmon man!
What do these three politicians, who claim to represent Black folks, have in common? Last week they were all diagnosed with laryngitis. Not just them, but ALL members of the so-called civil rights community who have become the media appointed leaders of the Black community.
Last Friday, the Obama Justice Department, issued a scathing report on the Chicago Police Departments treatment of Blacks. The report says in part, The Justice Department announced today that it has found reasonable cause to believe that the Chicago Police Department (CPD) engages in a pattern or practice of using force, including deadly force, in violation of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. The department found that CPD officers practices unnecessarily endanger themselves and result in unnecessary and avoidable uses of force. The pattern or practice results from systemic deficiencies in training and accountability, including the failure to train officers in de-escalation and the failure to conduct meaningful investigations of uses of force.
What was the White Mayor of Chicagos response? Emanuel said, While the Chicago Police Department has made real progress and achieved meaningful reforms, the incidents described in this report are sobering to all of us. Police misconduct will not be tolerated anywhere in this city and those who break the rules will be held accountable for their actions. WTF?
Emanuel has been mayor for almost eight years. Chicago has not had a Republican mayor since 1931. This blatant racism towards Blacks from the Chicago Police Department has been around as long as I have been alive, perpetuated all by Democrats!
To Booker, Lewis and Richmond: where is your moral outrage at this? NAACP when are you going to stage at sit-in protest at Emanuels office?
The Black lawmakers who testified against Sessions, have prostituted the legacy of King. King was committed to a cause, a set of principles; not a party or organization. That is why his moral compass could not be bought.
Obama, your former chief of staff governed during at time when CPD was found to discriminate against minorities and you too have come down with a severe case of laryngitis. Really?
So, if President-elect Trump and Senator Jeff Sessions are racists, what does that make the mayor of Chicago?
In the past three years, the Obama Justice Department has accused and proven rampant racism in the police departments of Chicago, Baltimore, and Ferguson; all controlled by liberal Democrats and in Baltimore a Black mayor.
The arc of moral outrage by liberals in general, and Black liberals in particular, bends towards hypocrisy.
Raynard Jackson is founder and chairman of Black Americans for a Better Future (BAFBF), a federally registered 527 Super PAC established to get more Blacks involved in the Republican Party. BAFBF focuses on the Black entrepreneur. For more information about BAFBF, visit http://www.bafbf.org. You can follow Raynard on Twitter @Raynard1223.
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Senator Jeff Sessions and Black Liberals' Moral Arc of Hypocrisy - Black Press USA
The Progressive Conservatives raised $12.6 million last year twice as much as the governing Liberals by exploiting a double-dip loophole that was closed after a Star probe.
According to the latest Elections Ontario data, Patrick Browns Conservatives outperformed Premier Kathleen Wynnes Liberals, who collected $6 million, and Andrea Horwaths New Democrats, who raised $3.6 million.
All parties note their 2016 results will rise once final tallies are filed by May 31. The Liberals say theirs will be closer to $6.4 million after all the cheques are processed.
The Tory advantage stemmed from maximizing fundraising during byelection periods, a practice the Liberals mastered over the years until promising to stop because reforms were coming.
Under the old law, amended as of Jan. 1, parties could ask donors to double up and contribute an extra $9,975 in a byelection contest.
Last week, the premier insisted she has no regrets about stopping the byelection cash grab.
We thought it was the principled thing to do, she told reporters on Jan. 10.
We were changing the rules and the rules have now changed and we thought that knowing that that was happening it made good sense that we would take a principled stand and we would start to change our practices.
That said, Wynne acknowledged the Liberals had the luxury of being in better fiscal shape than the Tories, who were saddled with a large campaign shortfall from the 2014 election.
We werent dealing with the same debt. I mean, we had a different financial situation. Were going to continue to work to have a strong financial position as a party as we go into the election, she said.
The Tories, who have not won a provincial election since 1999, made no excuses about playing by the old rules right down to the wire, especially since it enabled them to clear a $7-million debt.
I have worked incredibly hard to eliminate the partys debt, but this is also very much the dedication of a huge number of enthusiastic supporters from every corner of Ontario, Brown said in an email Wednesday.
In a message to supporters last week, Tony Miele, the PC Ontario Fund chair, noted that in just 16 months, we paid off and eliminated the partys debt.
Whats more, we did this outside of an election year and we fundraised and helped finance four byelections. Simply outstanding. These types of numbers have never been achieved. Ever, Miele wrote.
This is the sign of a party that is on the right track youre going to see that trend continue. Patrick Brown will be the next premier of Ontario.
The Elections Ontario filings show, outside of the byelection periods, the Liberals took in $3.5 million from 18,498 donors; the Conservatives raised $3.1 million from 2,502 donors; and the NDP $3.2 million from 30,090 donors.
During the Nov. 17 byelections in Niagara West-Glanbrook and Ottawa-Vanier, the Tories collected $3.6 million from 1,983 contributors while the NDP brought in $54,675 from 118 donors.
Similarly, in the Sept. 1 Scarborough-Rouge River contest, the Tories raised $3.9 million from 2,998 donors and the NDP $60,106.55 from 162 donors.
Refraining from the now-banned double-dip loophole in those byelections was costly to the Liberals.
In the Feb. 11 Whitby-Oshawa race, they raised almost $2.5 million from 870 donors compared with the Tories $2 million from 3,214 donors and the NDPs $264,410 from 98 donors.
Under the new legislation, now in effect, corporate and union donations are banned, MPPs and candidates cannot attend fundraisers and the individual contribution limit has dropped to $1,200.
To offset the loss of revenue, parties have started receiving $2.71-per-vote public subsidies based on the results of the 2014 election.
The Liberals, with 1,863,974 votes, will get $5.06 million this year; the Tories, with 1,508,811 votes, $4.09 million; the NDP, with 1,144,822 votes, $3.1 million; and the Greens, with 232,536 votes, $630,000.
Officials say the first quarterly installments of those public subsidies have already been paid to the parties.
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Tories double Liberals' fundraising tally - Toronto Star
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Im going, he said of Fridays inaugural ceremonies for President-elect Donald Trump.
I want to be there, Brown said. His presence would remind Trump and other Republicans of the fights ahead on banking, civil rights and other issues on which there is a deep divide with Democrats.
I will be there, as well, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., chimed in during a conference call Tuesday about the potential for Trump to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Those views, from two Democrats considered for the 2016 vice-presidential nod, have been echoed by other leading Senate liberals. Over the weekend, Sens. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., also pledged to attend Trumps inauguration while vowing to keep up the fight against his policies in the Capitol.
So far, not a single Senate Democrat has joined nearly 60 House Democrats, almost a third of their entire caucus, who have vowed to boycott Trumps swearing-in. Those House Democrats have pledged solidarity with Democratic Rep. John Lewis (Ga.), who prompted a Twitter war with Trump over the weekend after declaring that Trump will not be a legitimate president in part because of Russian interference in the 2016 campaign.
Lewiss declaration became a galvanizing call on the left, for whom the civil rights icon has always been a hero. Liberal activists vaulted Lewiss autobiography up the charts of online book merchants. They jeered Trump. They cheered for the boycott.
But none of it has translated into similar action at the other end of the Capitol.
Senate Democrats represent far broader numbers of people and have to be respectable and responsive to, in most cases, millions of their constituents who voted for Trump. And 25 of them are up for reelection in 2018. So there are 25 senators who probably think its risky, said Rep. John Yarmuth, D-Ky., who will join Lewiss boycott.
Brown plans to be a loud voice opposing Trumps efforts to dismantle key portions of the Dodd-Frank law regulating Wall Street but he also hails from Ohio, where Trump routed Democrat Hillary Clinton in the largest victory in the Buckeye State since 1988. To be reelected, Brown will need to win over voters who cast ballots for Trump.
The issue is trickier for Senate Democrats with clearer national ambitions. Last week, Booker sat next to Lewis as both testified against Sen. Jeff Sessionss nomination to be attorney general, citing the Alabama Republicans record on civil rights issues. Senate colleagues accused Booker of launching his 2020 presidential campaign.
Yet he wont be at Lewiss side on Friday; he will be on the Capitol terrace not far from President Barack Obama and Trump.
I respect everybodys choice in this, Booker told reporters in New Jersey. My personal feeling is this is the peaceful transition of power.
Warrens most extensive public comments came with members of the Boston press corps after an event honoring Martin Luther King Jr.s birthday. She reiterated her plan to attend the inaugural but ducked the issue whether Trump was a legitimate president.
What I agree with is that John Lewis is a man who has earned the right to have his view of Donald Trumps presidency and legitimacy, she said.
House Democrats have joined Lewis for a variety reasons. Yarmuth said Trump was legally elected and would be a legitimate president, but he could not support Trumps behavior before and after the election.
You have to show respect for the office, he said.
Its not the first time this month that Senate Democrats have disappointed their more activist House colleagues.
Just two weeks ago, during the official tally of the electoral college, House Democrats repeatedly lodged complaints regarding Russian interference, voter access to polling places and other allegations.
But no senator joined the protest; as a result, the objection could not even be considered under the complex rules of the electoral college. Its over, said Vice President Joe Biden, who presided at the event.
Lewis took the attack on Trump to a higher level during an interview taped Friday with NBCs Meet the Press.
The Russians participated in helping this man get elected. And they helped destroy the candidacy of Hillary Clinton. I dont plan to attend the inauguration, Lewis told host Chuck Todd.
Lewis, an original Freedom Rider who was beaten and arrested during civil rights protests in the 1960s, has long been considered a moral compass for House Democrats, if not the entire chamber.
When Democrats faced thousands of protesters over the Affordable Care Act in 2010, they put Lewis at the front of their line, a gavel in hand, and marched from an office building into the Capitol for the final hours of debate.
Last summer, as House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., held off on debate over gun legislation, Lewis became the emotional leader of an overnight sit-in that still angers Republicans.
The response didnt slow him down.
Todd asked Lewis whether Democrats should work with Trump on any issue. Well, its going to be very hard and very difficult, he said. Almost impossible for me to work with him.
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Senate's liberals appear loath to join the inaugural boycott - Albuquerque Journal
For a man seeking to mobilise a new mass movement on the right of Australian politics, the normally outspoken ultra-conservative South Australian Senator Cory Bernardi has gone strangely quiet.
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The Liberal Party has paid the price for turning its back on its conservative base and Malcolm Turnbull bears much of the responsibility, says the right-wing South Australian senator.
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It looks like something out of the 1970s. A world that many Australians thought had disappeared. Think again.
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Advocate Andrew Denton speaks about Australia's role in spreading euthanasia laws around the globe.
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Journalist and author Malcolm Brown speaks frankly about his friendship with Michael Chamberlain, who died recently aged 73.
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Who won the most? Who was the youngest? The oldest? Get your Australian Open stats here.
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Following days of intense scrutiny over her expense claims, Sussan Ley has resigned as Health Minister with Malcolm Turnbull announcing changes to the MP entitlements system. Courtesy ABC News 24.
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Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has accepted Sussan Ley's resignation from his frontbench amid revelations of her travel to the Gold Coast and use of expensive charter flights. Vision courtesy ABC News 24.
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Independent MP Andrew Wilkie wants the parliamentary entitlements system overhauled and thinks the current crop of politicians should have better judgement when claiming expenses. Courtesy ABC.
The Liberal Party has paid the price for turning its back on its conservative base and Malcolm Turnbull bears much of the responsibility, says the right-wing South Australian senator.
It is just over a month since he announced via a blog entry on July 6 that he was kick-starting an outfit dubbed the Australian Conservatives "to help change politics and give common sense a united voice".
On August 1, he emailed supporters saying he had "registered" more than 50,000 people and welcoming what he described as "the financial support of so many individuals".
He promised a new website was on its way using "some of the best communication technology available" and that an as yet unnamed communications officer had been hired.
But when Fairfax Media put questions to his office this week about what his plans were for the nascent movement, and whether his 50,000-plus recruits had done anything more than register an interest, Senator Bernardi did not respond.
More worrying for a number of his Liberal Party colleagues is that they have no idea where he is heading either. And their unease is growing.
"The feeling is that these guys, led largely by Cory Bernardi, are ready to do something that is quasi-separate," said one senior Liberal this week.
"But what does that mean? No one really knows. I think he wants to create a political force and the starting point is the Tea Party-type potential in Australia. The big question is whether it's something that could ultimately split from the Liberal Party. That's the great fear. For someone who really wants to roll their sleeves up and try to harness that untapped conservative force, you don't actually have to do too much to do it, and the Liberal Party itself certainly isn't doing it."
Another senior Liberal source told Fairfax: "Time, effort and energy are going into it and there are some very confidential conversations that are happening at a federal level, with people discussing whether to embrace what Cory and others are putting together."
This source says while there is growing recognition of the need to match the kind of activist network that GetUp! has achieved on the left of politics, there is confusion and disquiet over Bernardi's initiative.
"Do we bring him into the tent or does he want to run his own race? And do you decouple it from the Liberal Party, or try and keep it under the Liberal brand? That's the critical question."
I kind of love fighting ... Yeah, in a metaphorical sense I love the battle as much as anything else.
Bernardi has made no secret of the fact that his Australian Conservatives are in large part a response to the July 2 election result, which he has branded a "disaster".
Pauline Hanson's resurgent One Nation has bagged four Senate seats. And "over 1.7 million votes were cast for right-of-centre or conservative parties rather than the Liberal Party", he wrote in his July 6 blog post.
"From my perspective, that was the Liberal base expressing their unhappiness with past events ... The clear mission now is to bring people together for the good of the country. That is going to take the formalisation of a broad conservative movement," Bernardi said.
So far his chosen battlegrounds are, as they have been in the past, overwhelmingly on social issues: pushing back against same-sex marriage, the Safe Schools program, and Islam's interface with the West. Bernardi will be stoking the fires of conservative resistance on all these fronts. In a blog post two weeks ago, he called on the government to rethink accepting extra 12,000 refugees from Iraq and Syria, and renewed his call for a ban on the burqa.
Bernardi has twice leftthe Liberal frontbench: sacked by Malcolm Turnbull in 2009 for "disparaging" fellow South Australian Liberal Christopher Pyne, and resigning from the shadow ministryin 2012 after the furore over his linking same-sex marriage and bestiality. But as he told journalist Sally Neighbour in 2011:"I kind of love fighting ... Yeah, in a metaphorical sense I love the battle as much as anything else."
It's not the first time there has been open speculation about whether he might leave the Liberal tent. He quashed it in June 2014, when he addressed the National Press Club in Canberra. Last December he declared, again: "I think people want to make the Liberals work."
As recently as two days after the election, he was telling ABC's 7.30 that "what is best for the Australian people is a strong, cohesive and sound Liberal Party".
Still the subterranean talk of a possible splintering of conservatives from the main body of the party continues, driven by the shock of the election result and a deep sense of grievance among the religious right and their fellow conservatives who argue - as Abbott did on ABC's Four Corners this week - that the Liberal Party is being hollowed out by factionalism and careerism.
ABC election analyst Antony Green says "there is clearly room in the Australian political spectrum for a party to the right of the Liberals, a right-wing version of the Greens" which could have a "serious impact in the Senate".
And preference whisperer Glenn Druery - the man behind the stunning success of micro-parties in the Senate in 2013 - thinks a splinter conservative party "could potentially, if they're clever, pick up a Senate seat in every state and some lower house seats".
"Certainly some of the drift to Hanson by the conservative right is because they see the Liberal Party has walked away from them," Druery adds. He points to the government's wafer-thin one-seat majority in the lower house: "As in life, so in politics - timing is everything, and with the numbers as they are now, the timing would be perfect for a split."
A splinter party "would effectively be holding a conservative gun at the Liberal Party's head [because] the party would be obliged to accommodate their views on many issues".
Much as Bernardi appears to relish his semi-renegade status, he's an organiser as much as a "bomb thrower", concedes one party colleague.
In 2009 he set up the Conservative Leadership Foundation, to nurture promising young right-wingers and promote "the development in each person of the virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance, faith, hope and charity." His latest brainchild, the Australian Conservatives, is billed as an "initiative" of the CLF, and both organisations appear to be headquartered at premises at 28 King William Street in the suburb of Kent Town, in his home town of Adelaide. Company and property records show the building, now named CLF House, was bought for a million dollars in February last year by Twenty-Eight KW Pty Ltd, a company owned by Bernardi and his wife, Sinead. As of last month, it carries a substantial mortgage of $750,000.
Bernardi declined to answer questions about the ownership and acquisition of the property, including whether his company was receiving rent from any party.
"The Senator has asked me to tell you that the only relevant information you need to know is that he has fully complied with his parliamentary obligations," a spokeswoman said. Asked specifically if any money from the Australian Conservatives was goingtowards funding the building, she replied: "Your questions are not related to the Senator's parliamentary responsibilities and he has no intention of discussing any non-parliamentary matters with you."
The building appears well-equipped, boasting state-of-the-art audio and video production facilities, and the ability to host "around 120 students with theatre-style seating or upwards of 150 in a cocktail format".
If nothing else, the significant investment it represents suggests Bernardi harbours substantial and long-term ambitions for his new political force.
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Cory Bernardi keeps Liberals guessing about his Australian ...