Not Just 2014: How To Beat Liberals Every Time
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Not Just 2014: How To Beat Liberals Every Time - Video
Building the Keystone XL pipeline, to speed the flow of crude from Canadas oil sands to refineries in Texas, would be game over for the climate, says NASA-scientist-turned-climate-activist James E. Hansen. Heeding Hansens words, environmentalists have sworn to stop the project, which requires U.S. government approval.
Yet large, bipartisan majorities of the House and Senate support Keystone XL, as does 60percent of the American public, according to the latest USA Today poll.
Today, it is still on hold, because Tuesday night 41 Senate Democrats voted against ending debate on a bill to green-light Keystone XL, thus thwarting what might have been a disastrous exercise of democracy.
In short, the filibuster may have just saved the planet, at least for now.
Or so it must be believed by Keystone XLs opponents even though they include some of the same people who decried the filibuster, not unreasonably, as an obstructionist, anti-majoritarian evil when Republicans employed it against President Obamas health-care reform, cap-and-trade and other progressive legislation.
Majority rule is not the only progressive principle some progressives seem ready to sacrifice on the anti-Keystone altar.
Remember the corrupting influence of money on politics? Billionaire Tom Steyer has spent millions on TV ads backing environmentalist Democrats and trashing the pipeline itself, thus purchasing outsize influence in the White House and the Democratic Party.
On issues as critical as climate change, we will take action and work within the system that weve got until we can change it, Steyer pragmatically told Forbes magazine.
Most of the time, liberals tout the job-creating potential of critical infrastructure projects, based on the indirect multiplier effect that even short-term construction can have on economic growth.
For Keystone XL, though, different rules apply. We are instructed, by Daniel Weiss of the Center for American Progress, among others, that the $8 billion project will create only 3,900 direct one-year construction jobs and a mere 50 permanent ones. Forget the 42,000 jobs that a State Department analysis said would be supported by the project.
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Lane: Liberals are violating their principles on Keystone XL
Ontario Liberals $500-million to make peace with school teachers last year, according to a new report. (Chris So/Toronto Star via Getty Images) | Chris So via Getty Images
The provincial government spent nearly $500-million to buy labour peace with school teachers in 2013.
That figure comes in a new report from the auditor general, released on Wednesday.
The provincial Liberals took on teachers back in 2012, imposing contracts that, among other cutbacks, ended payouts for unused sick days. The government said those measures would save nearly $2.5-billion.
Auditor general Bonnie Lysyk was asked to investigate if the Liberals were exaggerating that amount.
"We have concluded that the estimate was reasonable," she said in her report.
However, after the contracts were imposed amid labour unrest the Liberals made new deals with teachers. At that time, they promised the deals would not cost taxpayers anything.
But the auditor tallies those deals at $468-million.
So the governments original cost reduction estimate of $2.4-billion, made in August 2012, was revised to $2.1-billion after the contract negotiations. Lysyk repeated that was reasonable.
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Liberals Pay Nearly $500-Million For Labour Peace With Teachers: Auditor General
Former Liberals in the Senate are offering up ready-made legal arguments to anyone willing to take the federal government to court in order to force a national inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women and girls.
They say they are taking the legal route because Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government refuses to heed the calls of aboriginal groups, civil-liberty organizations and opposition parties to hold an inquiry.
"I think that there is no other choice than to go to court," said Sen. Serge Joyal, who wrote the legal argument.
"This is a way to press upon the government in a more efficient manner, so the government will have to defend its stance in court and be shamed by public opinion. That, I think, might compel the government to act, finally."
Joyal, a lawyer by training, cites sections of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, other legal cases and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to buttress his argument for an inquiry.
He and his Senate colleague Lillian Dyck are in the early stages of finding someone who will take the case to Federal Court.
"The first party to launch an action is normally a person who is directly aggrieved or a person who has a direct interest," Joyal said.
Such a case could be before the courts for years.
But Joyal and Dyck say a court case would put pressure on the Conservative government to call an inquiry, something it has so far refused to do.
"It could be an aspect of shaming," Dyck said.
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Senate Liberals offer legal arguments for missing, murdered women inquiry
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) Rand Paul of all people is enjoying a kind of a honeymoon with some on the left.
Yes, the Republican senator from Kentucky backed by the Tea Party and openly aspiring to run for president has fans among progressives who otherwise have nothing good to say about Republicans.
One of the things they like is Pauls opposition to knee-jerk military intervention. It is a stance he inherits from his libertarian father, former Texas Rep. Ron Paul, but which distinguishes him from most other Republican candidates as well as hawkish Democrats like Hillary Clinton, the putative frontrunner for her partys presidential nomination.
Liberals also like Pauls opposition to the war on drugs and along with it his advocacy for criminal-justice reform, including restoring the right to vote to convicted felons. Too often, Paul says, drug-related convictions disproportionately falling on young people of color ruins their lives.
After a recent interview with Paul on his program, the liberal Bill Maher said the conversation left him unsure about 2016. I think its only a good thing for America, the comedian said with his typical modesty, when Im not sure who I am going to vote for next time.
For the time being, at least, these liberals seem willing to forget or overlook Pauls opposition to gay marriage, his defense of personhood, his feeling that private enterprises should be able to discriminate against whoever they choose, and his willingness, at least in the past, to share fringe conspiracy theories.
Pauls successful charm offensive, if that is what it is, prompted Time magazine to feature him on the cover last month with the headline The Most Interesting Man in Politics.
And this week, Salon and Huffington Post blogger H.A. Goodman posted a piece: Im a liberal Democrat. Im voting for Rand Paul in 2016. Here is why.
For Goodman, in addition to Pauls stance on military intervention and criminal-justice reform, it is the Kentucky senators unflinching criticism of domestic spying by the government that puts him at the head of the pack. Neither Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush, nor any other candidate in 2016 has made this a top priority in their campaign, Goodman says.
He also notes that Paul was the first 2016 contender to visit Ferguson, Mo., the site of racial disturbances this summer after a white policeman shot and killed a black teenager. For some reason I just cant imagine Hillary Clinton or Jeb Bush taking a moment to find out why Ferguson took place, Goodman says, and what steps are needed to solve that intractable situation.
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Darrell Delamaide's Political Capital: Liberals crush on Rand Paul says more about Clinton