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When the pandemic hit, the centre-left never forgave Kenney for tailoring his policies to the libertarian-right. The latter, meanwhile, never thanked him. This fact must give pause to every right-of-centre politician in the country.

Jason Kenney drove his famous blue pickup truck on to the Alberta stage, and, Wednesday night, off a political cliff, thus becoming not the Conservative wunderkind, the next federal leader-in-waiting, but a cautionary tale for Conservative politicians in Alberta and indeed across the country.

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His pivot to provincial politics, eschewing a crowded and convoluted field to replace Stephen Harper, had been triumphant. Having so skilfully and affably created the conditions to eat the federal Liberals lunch in the early 2000s by literally eating lunch with minority voters in every gurdwara, mosque and church to which he was sent (voraciously courting a base oft-ignored by the right), he would now unite the fractured right in Alberta, fix the provinces economic woes, restore pipeline supremacy and equally triumphantly return to Ottawa, rescuing the federal movement from its time in time-out.

But if Kenney could do little wrong in Ottawa, his time in Edmonton represented a case of reverse-Midas touch, as if every issue, everything he came into contact with turned to well, not gold.

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It started out well enough. In an election that drew 64 per cent voter turnout, his United Conservative Party earned 55 per cent of the popular vote. Three-in-five Albertans approved of Kenney back then. But by last fall, Kenneys approval had sunk to just 22 per cent. Pretty bad for any politician. Really bad for one facing a mutiny in his own caucus. Rachel Notley and the NDP were now finding a second wind competing with and in some polls pulling ahead of the UCP. (Shell miss him dreadfully, no doubt). In March, the Angus Reid Institute found Albertans dissatisfied with Kenneys government on more than a half-dozen metrics of provincial management, including stewardship of the economy, health care and COVID-19.

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Ah, the coronavirus. Kenneys bte noire. At the height of the troubles, while other provinces closed businesses, instituted mask mandates and insisted on vaccination, Kenneys government resisted and resisted, infuriating massive segments of the Alberta population wanting more protection, all to protect itself from the fury of the libertarian, restriction-resisting factions of its own base. In the end, Kenney pleased no one. Then came last years best summer ever, a premature end to the pandemic declared in Alberta which resulted in a surge of infection.

The centre-left never forgave him. The libertarian-right never thanked him. This is the important point that must now give every right-of-centre politician in the country pause.

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Kenneys successor in Alberta, Doug Ford in Ontario, those vying for control of the federal Conservative party each will continue to grapple with a base that has moved if not farther to the right (after all, Kenney has arguably been one of the most hawkish among them), then to a place more stubbornly resistant to authority, rules or a sense of common care. A place of extremes, felt most keenly by people in Alberta and next door in Saskatchewan but with pockets of growing resonance across the country.

While years of the Trudeau government have left those two western provinces, in particular, feeling profoundly alienated, this resentful disengagement has been more vociferously fed by six years of Trump and Tucker Carlson-style politics an ugly, gaslighting brand of misinformation combined with social media and two years of a pandemic that have legitimized all kinds of anti-government, anti-truth, conspiracy-minded kooks.

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The results? The Ottawa occupation. A front-runner for the federal Conservatives (Pierre Poilievre) who decries racism while at the same time using nativist, dog-whistle-style language in a widely shared video. And a splintering even further of the political right. If the Conservative Party of Canada doesnt go far enough, there is the Peoples Party of Canada federally, the New Blue Party in Ontario and any host of independence-minded parties in Alberta.

By no means am I suggesting all these parties or their supporters subscribe to or amplify toxicity, but some do. The more practical reality is that right-leaning parties must decide if they want to chase some voters farther and farther down a rabbit hole, or remain mainstream enough not to alienate everyone else.

It was the political problem that undid Jason Kenney. He wont be the only one.

Shachi Kurl is President of theAngus Reid Institute,a national, not-for-profit, non-partisan public opinion research foundation.

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Kurl: COVID, conservatism and the downfall of Alberta's Jason Kenney - Ottawa Citizen

Tuesdays primary elections in Kentucky reflected increasing polarization of the two political parties.

The Republican Party kept moving right, with the victories of several candidates who campaigned primarily on cultural issues and against government overreach.

The Democratic Party kept moving left, with the U.S. Senate primary victory of former state Rep. Charles Booker of Louisville, probably the most liberal nominee for major statewide office that Kentucky has ever produced.

Booker vowed on election night, Were gonna blow Rand Paul out, but defeat of the two-term libertarian Republican would be one of the greatest upsets in American political history, given the strong Republican trend in Kentucky.

A more likely impact is that of the wins of seven or so Republican primary candidates who emphasized personal liberty (the major exception being a womans right to an abortion), showing that voters GOP primary voters, at least care less about the status and influence of their state legislators than the lawmakers would like to think.

NKyTribune is the anchor home for Al Cross column. We offer it to other publications throughout the Commonwealth, with appropriate attribution.

That was obvious in Northern Kentucky, which saw three of its four state House committee chairs defeated: Reps. Sal Santoro (Transportation), Ed Massey (Judiciary) and Adam Koenig (Business Organizations and Professions). Respectively, they lost to Marianne Proctor, Steve Rawlings and Steven Doan. One common theme was opposition to Democratic Gov. Andy Beshears pandemic restrictions.

In a region where legislative district lines cut across municipalities and even neighborhoods, the liberty candidates consistent cultural themes may have created a tide that lifted all their boats, former Kentucky secretary of state Trey Grayson of Northern Kentucky said on KETs election-night show (where I was also a panelist).

Northern Kentucky also drove the result in an open state Senate race, in which former senator Gex (jay) Williams of Verona, endorsed by libertarian U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie, defeated three more mainstream candidates: well-funded Phyllis Sparks, also of Boone County; and Calen Studler and Mike Templeman of Frankfort.

Williams, who gave up a Senate seat to run for Congress in 1998, is now in an interesting match-up with Teresa Barton of Frankfort, who was unopposed for the Democratic nomination. After serving as Franklin County judge-executive, Barton ran the state Office of Drug Control Policy for Republican Gov. Ernie Fletcher and supported him for re-election but didnt change parties. She may be Democrats only hope to pick up a state Senate seat, in a newly drawn district that is 5 to 4 Democratic in voter registration but seems clearly Republican in recent voter performance.

Several liberty candidates lost. The biggest failure was Andrew Cooperrider of Lexington, who led protests against Beshears restrictions and petitioned the legislature to impeach him. He lost to Sen. Donald Douglas of Nicholasville, who was propped up financially and legislatively by Republican leaders who didnt want another liberty fire-breather like Sen. Adrienne Southworth of Lawrenceburg in the Senate. Two other impeachment petitioners also lost, to Reps. Samara Heavrin of Leitchfield and Kim King of Harrodsburg.

Kentucky Republican leaders have tried to steer the state party away from the national partys growing fever swamps of conspiracy theories and misinformation; they know that the hundreds of thousands of Kentucky Democrats who joined the GOP officially or unofficially because of Donald Trump may not want to go as far as the liberty candidates and culture warriors would go. Perhaps the best example of that is how the Republican-controlled General Assembly soft-pedaled the pseudo-issue of critical race theory in the last legislative session, passing a bill that only alluded to it.

Still, candidates who campaigned against pandemic restrictions and other alleged government overreach had enough success Tuesday that they may lead Republican candidates for governor to double down on the issue as they run against Beshear next year, even though the governor built his strongly positive rating during the crisis period of the pandemic. The Williams-Barton race could be a strategic indicator of just how far right you can go and still win.

Republicans are beginning a crowded and potentially fractious primary for governor, in which the nuances of cultural issues could be decisive. Attorney General Daniel Cameron and Agriculture Commissioner Ryan Quarles are running partly on their active opposition to Beshears pandemic mandates, and former U.N. ambassador Kelly Craft has indicated that she will do likewise if she runs, as expected. The liberty candidates success will surely encourage like-minded Rep. Savannah Maddox of Dry Ridge to run.

As the GOP sorts itself out, opposition to Beshear will be the glue that holds the party together in Kentucky through 2023, Republican consultant and commentator Scott Jennings said on KETs primary coverage. (Jennings says hes neutral in the governors race.) But looking a year ahead, Beshears pandemic-driven approval ratings appear to be holding steady, and what works in Republican primaries will not necessarily work in general elections. Voters in November should give us a clearer picture.

Excerpt from:
Al Cross: As primary voters move GOP farther right, will others follow? - User-generated content

Its voting season in the District. Heres what you need to know.

This years city-wide general election will be November 8. Contests will be for the mayors office, six D.C. Council seats, and for the first time a chance to pick a new D.C. Attorney General, as Karl A. Racine (D) the citys first elected AG is not running for a third term. The D.C. Council Chair position will also be on the ballot in addition to the D.C. Delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives and the citys shadow representative to the U.S. Senate.

The District will hold a party primary on June 21 to determine finalists on the November general election ballots. Given how heavily Democratic the nations capital is, the results of the Democratic Party primary tend to be decisive in the November elections.

According to the D.C. Board of Elections (DCBOE), primaries are held only for partisan offices (such as Delegate to the House, Mayor, Councilmember, and Senator and Representative). Therefore, only the following recognized parties will be holding primaries on June 21: Democratic, Republican, D.C. Statehood Green, and Libertarian. In the District only voters registered with one of these parties may vote in their partys [primary] election.

DELEGATE TO THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES FROM THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

Democratic Party: Wendy Hope Dealer Hamilton, Eleanor H. Norton and Kelly Mikel Williams

Republican Party: Nelson F. Rimensnyder

MAYOR OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

Democratic Party: James Butler, Muriel E. Bowser, Trayon Washington DC White and Robert White

Republican Party: Stacia R. Hall

CHAIRMAN OF THE COUNCIL OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

Democratic Party: Erin Palmer and Phil Mendelson

Republican Party: Nate Derenge

AT-LARGE MEMBER OF THE COUNCIL OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

Democratic Party: Lisa Gore, Nate Fleming, Anita Bonds and Dexter Williams

Republican Party: Giuseppe Niosi

ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

Democratic Party: Brian Schwalb, Ryan L. Jones and Bruce V. Spiva

LOCAL PARTY OFFICES DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA DEMOCRATIC STATE COMMITTEE

NATIONAL COMMITTEEMAN: Kevin B. Chavous

NATIONAL COMMITTEEWOMAN: Denise L. Reed

AT-LARGE COMMITTEEMAN: Charles E. Wilson, James S. Bubar, Dave Donaldson, Keith Hasan-Towery, James J. Sydnor, Matt LaFortune and John Green

AT-LARGE COMMITTEEWOMAN: Monica L. Roach, Linda L. Gray, Dionna Maria Lewis, Patricia Pat Elwood, Andria Thomas, Maria Patricia Corrales and Chioma J. Iwuoha

WARD TWO COMMITTEEMAN: John Fanning and Brian Romanowski

WARD TWO COMMITTEEWOMAN: Janice Ferebee and Meg Roggensack

All other positions on Republican Party ballots are write-ins. There are only write-ins on ballots for the DC Statehood Green Party and the Libertarian Party.

Beginning on May 16, voter ballots will be sent to all registered D.C. voters giving citizens a chance to vote by mail. Ballot drop boxes may be used beginning May 27. Early voting in D.C. runs from June 10 through June 19. On June 21 Primary Election Day polls open at 7 a.m. and close at 8 p.m.

Registration is required to vote in the District. However, the DCBOE must receive your Voter Registration at least 21 days prior to Election Day. So, the deadline to register for this years party primaries is: Tuesday, May 31. However, if you miss the deadline, the DCBOE website says, Same-Day Registration is available at Vote Centers during the Early Voting period [June 10 through 19] and on Election Day.

According to the Washington Post, a voter registration application swearing or affirming voting qualifications and a valid proof of residence is required. D.C. residents who are U.S. citizens ages 16 and older can register to vote online, or in person at the DCBOE office (1015 Half St. SE, Suite 750, Washington, D.C. 20003) or any voter registration agency, by mail, email or fax. Residents can call (202) 347-2648 for more information.

A list of answers to Frequently Asked Questions from the D.C. Board of Elections can be found here. Voting sites and locations can be found here.

Stay tuned for Election 2022 campaign profiles, updates and news in upcoming newsletters and our June print issue. For our recent exclusive interview with D.C. mayoral candidate Robert C. White, Jr. (D), see here.

Excerpt from:
Election 2022: Who's on the Ballot? - Georgetowner

This fall I participated in the annual Frankel Lecture symposium at the University of Houston Law School. The topic was on academic freedom and diversity, and the lecture was delivered by Jeannie Suk Gersen of Harvard Law School. I provided a response, along with Khiara M. Bridges of Berkeley Law School.

The articles from the symposium have now been published online and printed in the latest issue of the Houston Law Review. The full symposium can be found here.

My article, "Academic Freedom and the Mission of the University," focuses on the relationship between the mission of the university and the commitment to and value of academic freedom to that university. A university dedicated to truth-seeking needs robust protections for academic freedom in order to properly fulfill that mission, and American universities embraced those protections as they reoriented themselves to that mission in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. To the extent that universities deviate from that mission and prioritize other values and commitments, then academic freedom protections will seem less valuable and even counterproductive.

I particularly consider three competing understandings of what universities should be seeking to prioritize and show that in each case academic freedom will likely suffer. The article explores the implications of committing the university to a "patriotic" mission of promoting a rich set of substantive values seen as central to the nation, committing the university to a "neoliberal" mission of preparing students for career success, and committing the university to a "creedal" mission of promoting a rich set of substantive values seen as important to the campus community such as inclusivity or social justice.

From the conclusion:

Modern American universities have struggled to live up to their own ideals, and our current polarized environment will make living up to those ideals harder rather than easier. The educational reformers of the late nineteenth century understood that if universities were to serve their proper purpose of bringing the benefits of knowledge to society, the experts that the university had to offer would have to be broadly trusted. They could not be perceived as just another set of partisans entering into familiar political battles. That is a hard position to achieve. To the extent that society is divided into distant warring camps, it is all the more difficult to bridge that divide. Scholarly judgment might be vilified and dismissed rather than welcomed. But modern universities were launched with a goal of standing above such divides. Their best chance of doing so requires taking scrupulous care to be intellectually open and nondogmatic, standing above the fray rather than diving into it, and protecting dissident ideas rather than suppressing them.

Read the whole thing here.

Khiara Bridges' article ends on a particularly intriguing note. A critical race theorist, she worries about pressure on academic freedom currently coming from the political left and from the political right. Notably, she emphasizes to the left that universities should not be places that prioritize "student comfort," as some diversity, equity and inclusion offices are wont to do. More curious is her discussion of the threat from the political right. There she notes that conservatives responded to critical race theory arguments about free speech in the 1990s by embracing a more libertarian view of free speech principles. She seems wistful that the political right now seems to be abandoning that libertarianism and adopting a more censorious attitude that more closely mirrors CRT.

She writes:

And what is the best way to respond to pressures on academic freedom generated from the right? It seems like the right might need to remind itself of the claims that it made in the 1990s, when self-identified critical race theorists argued that the First Amendment should not be interpreted to protect racist hate speech. During that historical moment, many conservatives (and liberals) rejected these theorists' claims, arguing that the First Amendment was incompatible with protections against injurious speech. They contended that the best response to harmful speech was not to limit speech but rather to ensure that everyone could speak.

In the 1990s, conservatives wanted more speech. In the 2020s, they want less. If conservative pundits, activists, and scholars really value the First Amendment as much as they claimed just three decades ago, then they should recognize the bans on "Critical Race Theory," "divisive concepts," and the like as the wildly unAmerican efforts that they are.

Is the implication here that CRT was wrong about free speech and that everyone should embrace the civil libertarian position on speech? That in hindsight it was a mistake for the left to have spent the last few decades advocating for a more restrictive understanding of the First Amendment and free speech principles? Indeed that CRT principles regarding free speech were "wildly un-American"? Or that it would be convenient for left-leaning academics if the right were to continue to adhere to liberal speech ideals while the left continues to embrace illiberal speech ideals? That the left should censor but the right should tolerate? Free speech for me but not for thee?

I'd like to think that my colleagues on the left are starting to see the light when it comes to free speech principles and realizing that they were playing with fire in urging an illiberal vision of free speech, but we are not there yet. Instead some are doubling and tripling down on theories about how to restrict speech they do not like. And meanwhile, Bridges is right that some conservatives are turning to the dark side when it comes to free speech. Things are likely to get worse before they get better, and the truth-seeking mission of the university might be curtailed, if not abandoned entirely.

Continued here:
Academic Freedom and the Mission of the University - Reason

Samuel Corum/Getty Images News

One of the fallouts from the Federal Reserve's period of monetary expansion during the 2020-2021 period may be connected with the regulation of cryptoassets.

The pricing of cryptoassets had been very uninteresting until the Federal Reserve started to flood the banking system with liquidity.

This was true of what was going on in many other financial markets.

Well, the Fed saved the economy, at that time, from any serious economic catastrophe, but it generated many, many financial bubbles that it is now having to deal with as the Fed reverses its actions.

As the Fed moves to tighten up on its monetary policy so as to fight the current rise of inflation, one by one, we are finding adjustments taking place in the economy to deal with the monetary buildup that took place in various sectors of the financial world.

And, we are finding outcomes that make many uncomfortable.

The initial surge of support for cryptoassets that came from libertarian-thinking individuals has now receded somewhat.

More and more, as evidence grows of misuse or misapplication of the free-market program, we find the other side of the argument taking up more aggressive positions.

For example, columnist Greg Ip, of the Wall Street Journal, writes this morning about how "Crypto Meltdown Exposes Hollowness of its Libertarian Promise."

Mr. Ip writes,

"unable to displace the dollar, crypto became just another asset without traditional markets' guardrails."

Furthermore, the lead editorial in the Financial Times, written by Jemima Kelly, claims, in bold letters, "There is a moral case against crypto."

Ms. Kelly writes,

"it seems more appropriate to use the latest market crash as an opportunity to make the moral argument against crypto. Because it's not just that we should not treat it as a serious asset class; we also need to stop imagining that it is just all a bit of harmless fun."

So, some of the weaknesses of the Libertarian case have come to light.

But, we should not overreact and move too far in the opposite direction.

Yes, crypto markets have lost more than $1.0 trillion of value over the past six months.

The price of one Bitcoin (BTC-USD) was just over $67,000 on November 10, 2021.

Today, the price is right around $30,000, where it was below $26,000 several days ago.

TerraUSD (UST-USD), a token whose price was supposed to remain pegged to the dollar, suddenly dropped, along with the coin (LUNA-USD) that was meant to back it.

We have not fully experienced the full fallout of the recent collapse and await the further ramifications of the unregulated space.

Gary Gensler, Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission has seen it as his mission to bring regulation to these cryptoassets.

Mr. Gensler is building his case.

After testifying in front of the House Appropriations Committee panel hearing on Wednesday, he told reporters,

"I think a lot of these tokens will fail."

"I fear that in crypto...there's going to be a lot of people hurt, and that will undermine some of the confidence in markets and trust in markets writ large."

Mr. Gensler has his mission set out for him.

Others, like Rostin Behnam, chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, are right there with him.

The pieces are all coming together.

Earlier this month, the SEC stated that it plans to add 20 investigators and litigators to its unit dedicated to cryptocurrency and cybersecurity enforcement, nearly doubly the unit's size.

Still, Mr. Gensler does not feel that this is near enough and that more will be added later.

Mr. Gensler, and his predecessor, Jay Clayton, believe that most cryptocurrencies meet the legal definition of a security and thereby should be registered with the SEC,

"There is a path forward," Mr. Gensler claims.

Mr. Gensler is in the process of constructing that path. He is receiving more and more support for this effort these days, and the number of advocates seems to be growing.

To me, this battle is going to grow and grow.

I lean to the side of less regulation than more. But, I believe that one should not just dismiss the need for regulation out of pure philosophical thought.

People cheat. People cut corners. People have incomplete knowledge. Bad things happen. Markets, in general, seem to need to have some kind of a watchdog.

It just makes common sense. In this, I am more of a pragmatist. And, like Cass Sunstein, I believe that the regulation of markets should be done incrementally. That we should work through "nudges."

The problem is, too often, that we wait too long and major problems occur.

In order to put things back into order, we must make major movements.

These major adjustments tend to create their own 'unintended consequences."

And, thus, more problems are introduced into the picture.

Markets need to be regulated.

My old Libertarian days are behind me.

We have a major correction taking place. Many, many people are getting hurt in the adjustment.

We need to have Mr. Gensler and others moving to bring more regulation into the area of cryptoassets so as to avoid even further pain.

The regulation is coming. Let's get on with it.

Read the original post:
More Crypto Regulation: Thank The Federal Reserve - Seeking Alpha