Coulter Counters CNN: 'Liberals Are Violent Animals' CNSNews.com (blog) Conservative pundit Ann Coulter blasted CNN Correspondent Jake Tapper for his attack on President Donald Trump on Wednesday. In a commencement speech at the Coast Guard Academy in Groton, Conn., Trump cited himself as an example of someone ... |
Read the original post:
Coulter Counters CNN: 'Liberals Are Violent Animals' - CNSNews.com (blog)
The federal Liberals are looking to push more of the billions they plan to spend on infrastructure in the next decade directly into flood mitigation, hoping to avoid repeats of disasters in Quebec and Ontario this month.
Infrastructure Minister Amarjeet Sohi said the idea the Liberals will promote to provinces, territories and cities is to agree to spend the money over and above the $2 billion already set aside to help local governments defend against natural disasters like fire and flooding.
The move could potentially save the government hundreds of millions annually in disaster relief payments, which are expected to rise over the coming years.
In a report last year, the parliamentary budget officer estimated that payments through the disaster financial assistance arrangements could increase to more than $900 million a year over the next five years, including $673 million a year for flooding. Both costs are well above past averages paid out from the fund.
Through funding agreements with provinces and territories, Sohi said the government wants to negotiate language around dedicating resources towards flood mitigation and other disasters.
Its a concern and we definitely want to have those conversations with provinces and territories.
The push for more disaster funding will be part of what Sohi calls a green lens that local, provincial and territorial governments will use on proposed infrastructure projects before they can be approved for federal funding.
Sohi said the lens puts the focus on reducing greenhouse gas emissions during and after construction, as well as mitigating the impact of severe weather to reduce the cost of disasters on communities.
Not only the human cost and the pain, the anxiety that it causes and the disruption of life for people, but also the economic cost to clean up afterward and the impact on the overall economy. This is part of our broader infrastructure plan.
Sohi made the comments during a roundtable interview this week with The Canadian Press.
The green lens will be part of the second phase of the Liberals infrastructure plan, which is to dole out $81.2 billion on new, large-scale projects in cities and provinces over the next 10 years.
The money will flow only after provinces and territories sign funding agreements with the federal government, which will take months to conclude because of the size and scope of the plan.
The Liberals are banking on the infrastructure spending to prod economic growth to help boost federal finances that have been plunged into years of deficits partly because of the infrastructure plan.
Federal officials have been wrestling with how to frame the requirements in the upcoming funding agreements to make sure the money spurs more projects, known as incrementality in federal parlance, and not have provinces and cities replace planned spending with federal dollars.
Internal government documents show that municipalities in Ontario in particular have pushed the government to recognize their long-term capital plans as meeting the federal requirement for incrementality.
A January briefing note to Sohi ahead of a meeting with the Association of Municipalities of Ontario recommended the minister reiterate the governments position that federal funding should not have the unintended negative consequences of displacing investment by the provinces or municipalities over time.
The Canadian Press obtained a copy of the document under the Access to Information Act.
Sohi said the Liberals may provide some flexibility in the funding to allow for refurbishment projects, rather than new builds.
Under Phase 2, the long-term plan, we will be supporting more new infrastructure. There will be some flexibility to rehabilitate the existing infrastructure, but these will be new plans or plans that they (cities) have in place, but there is no funding attached to it. These will be the new projects that we will fund.
Originally posted here:
Liberals want to put infrastructure cash into flood mitigation: Sohi - The Globe and Mail
OTTAWA Federal Conservatives will seek today to find out why a request for $3.8 million a year to help families with autism is being ignored by the Liberals.
The Tories are set to use time set aside for opposition motions to call on the government to come through with moneyfor the Canadian Autism Partnership.
The funding would be used for a more co-ordinated approach to research, early detection, diagnosis and treatment for the estimated 1 in 68 Canadian kids with the neurological disorder.
The Liberals had received a pitch for the cash $19 million over five years ahead of this year's budget, but turned it down much to the disappointment of autism advocates and affected families.
Among them is Conservative MP Mike Lake, whose son has autism, and who has raised the issue in the Commons repeatedly over the years.
In the House of Commons Wednesday, he pressed the Liberals anew but Health Minister Jane Philpott said the government already supports autism research.
"One of the best ways that the federal government can support advancements in autism spectrum disorders is to support research and we have done so in a significant way," she said.
The day the Tories are using to pressure the Liberals on the subject is called an "opposition motion" in official Parliamentary parlance. The motions are often used to push the government to come around to the Opposition's point of view.
But it's not the only pressure Lake and others are applying.
Their campaign is also been helped by an advocacy group called Global Citizen, which uses social media to try and convince governments to act on social issues.
The group put out a call to action on the autism partnership and thousands of tweets have followed, directed at both Philpott and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Among those lending their name to the cause are Hockey Night in Canada's Elliotte Freidmen andhockey star Hayley Wickenheiser.
While the Conservative motion will be debated today, it not expected to be voted on until the Commons returns from a one-week break on May 29.
The Canadian Press
Read the original:
Conservatives merge old, new tactics to pressure Liberals over autism funding - rdnewsnow.com
To the editor: President Trump saying to FBI Director James Comey, I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy, is the cause of all the hysteria? (Comey memo says Trump asked him to drop FBI investigation of Michael Flynn, May 16)
It sounds like something I would say about a likable coworker who found himself or herself in trouble.
Trumps use of the word hope would indicate that it was not an order but rather an expression of concern. The president obviously understood that it was up to Comey to determine whether or not the investigation into former National Security Advisor Michael Flynns contact with Russian officials should continue.
As Flynn is still under investigation, we can assume that no great injustice has occurred. People need to get a grip.
Nathan Post, Santa Barbara
..
To the editor: So here we go again. We have elected a president who has no idea of how to go about the job, and we are aghast when he demonstrates it.
Enough of our electorate, a minority strategically located in certain states, participated in a knee-jerk decision to bring in an outsider, and we are now in a dangerous mess. Our members of Congress are ill-equipped and disinclined to do anything about it. In a Groundhog Day existence, they wake up each day either looking for blood or looking the other way, depending on their party affiliation.
Dont expect anything to change, because our dangerously deficient leader is far too narcissistic to seek competent help, assuming he even knows where to look for it.
Alan Abajian, Alta Loma
..
To the editor: Despite his administrations descent into incompetence, Trump continues to enjoy the support of most people who voted for him. Its almost as if they take pride in remaining deluded.
Still, I predict that Trumps credulous base inevitably will succumb to what might be termed the Nixon distancing syndrome.
In 1972, President Nixon won reelection by 18 million votes, the largest ever margin of victory. Yet after Nixon resigned in disgrace two years later, voters who would admit to having backed him were difficult to find.
Once Trump leaves office, it may be even harder to find someone who voted for him.
Gene Martinez, Orcutt, Calif.
..
To the editor: Sometime last week, my stomach quit churning with worry about what the Trump presidency means for the country and the world.
Now Im queasy contemplating what Mike Pence can accomplish as president with the Republican Congress.
Carole Cooper, Manhattan Beach
..
To the editor: Thank God for the free press. Its taken on the job that the other branches of government should be doing: protecting the Republic.
Nato Flores, Los Angeles
Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook
See the original post:
Get a grip, liberals the Comey memo does not show Trump committed obstruction of justice - Los Angeles Times
Talk of impeaching Donald Trump began only a couple of months after he declared his candidacy for president in 2015. Former Obama speechwriter Jon Lovett, in a dispatch from the future for The Atlantic, wrote that theres no need to belabor the details of how the next four years unfolded: the budget crisis, President Trumps impeachment, Vice President Cruzs inauguration, the second budget crisis. But the subject didnt truly gain steam until Trump won the Republican nomination and then the general electionwith Mike Pence, rather than Cruz, as his running mate.
The impeachment fantasywhich was confined to Democrats, journalists, and anti-Trump conservatives like New York Times columnist David Brooksspawned a new genre of concern trolling on the left: that Mike Pence would be a worse president. With Trump now an increasingly scandalized president, and impeachment being discussed openly by elected Democrats and even some Republicans, the aforementioned liberals have returned to warn that kicking Trump out of the White House would not be an improvement over our current situationthat, in fact, a President Pence would be a bigger disaster for the progressive project than Trump has been.
If Trump were impeached and convicted, Vice President Mike Pence, a right-wing, evangelical ideologue, would be a much more reliable and competent rubber stamp for the conservative policy agenda, wrote Jeff Alson at In These Times. Megan Carpentier, writing at Dame, argued that Pence may not tweet like a Ritalin-addicted teenager with an impulse-control problem, a deep sense of entitlement, and something to prove, and he probably has the good sense not to yell at other world leaders and constantly publicly praise the most murderous ones ... but in terms of actual, actionable policy decisions, the idea that Mike Pence would somehow be preferable to the man who is enacting every policy Mike Pence would himself enact is, and always was, the product of a fevered imagination.
But Cliston Brown, a columnist at the Observer (which is owned by the family of Jared Kushner, Trumps son-in-law and a senior adviser), offered the most apocalyptic take on a Pence presidency. While Pence clearly has more self-control and self-awareness than Trump, thats exactly what makes him more dangerous. He has all the same ideas and goals as Trumpand, as an added bonus, a religious-right agenda thats even worseand a much better chance of actually implementing them, Brown wrote. Trumps presidency will continue to be a smoldering ruin, allowing Democrats to retake the House in 2018 and the White House in 2020 and putting the party in a position to control the country for a decade. By contrast, Brown argued, President Pence would win broad approval, cementing Republican control of government until 2024 at which point the Republicans could have a 7-2 Supreme Court majority that would cast a reactionary shadow for the next half-century.
Excerpt from:
Don't Fear President Pence, Liberals. Welcome Him. - New Republic