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The Liberals seem to think they have a surefire wedge issue against the Conservatives: their hardhearted opponents want to snatch away free dental care from the nations kids and seniors.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was on the offensive in late May, talking at some length about the threat the Tories pose to programs such as dental care.

These measures are based on the idea that everyone in this country should have access to the care they need no matter where they live, or how much money they have in their bank account, he said during a news conference in Truro, N.S. And yet, the Conservative Party of Canada opposes this idea at every turn. They opposed free dental care for kids and now for seniors, including pushing on dentists across the country to not sign up to offer free dental care to vulnerable seniors.

Its a great line of attack, except for one minor detail: almost nothing that the Prime Minister said is true, starting with his characterization of the federal dental benefit.

For a start, there is no free dental care, despite Mr. Trudeaus repeated assertions to the contrary. (He made the same claim in the House of Commons on March 20 and May 22.)

Sure, there is a Canadian Dental Care Plan. And yes, that plan does currently cover dental services for children, seniors and adults with disabilities. But there are still out-of-pocket expenses. One is the co-payment required for any recipient whose adjusted net family income is higher than $70,000.

Even those with family incomes below $70,000 will still have to pay for dental care, since dentists fees can exceed the amount that government pays out. The official description of the program is perfectly clear on that question perhaps the Prime Minister should bookmark the page.

Then there is the conspiracy-theory-tinged accusation that the Conservatives are somehow manufacturing dissent among dentists. When asked for proof of that assertion, the Prime Ministers Office deferred to the Health Ministry, which dispatched boilerplate language that did not answer the question. So, no proof, then.

For its part, the Canadian Dental Association is quite insistent that its concerns are largely rooted in the mistaken belief, and resulting ire, of some patients that the federal program is free a misperception amplified by Mr. Trudeau, among others.

The pity of it is, the Liberals have a perfectly good sales pitch to make on their new dental program. As this space has previously said, the design of the dental care plan is a blueprint for a modernization of social programs.

The benefits are targeted to those most in need, rather than diffused to higher earners who dont really require Ottawas help. The co-payments are part of that targeting, and are an excellent innovation.

The programs design recognizes the importance of the private sector. It does not displace existing private-sector dental plans. And rather than hire a slew of bureaucrats, the government chose to outsource the administration of the program to a private company with expertise in the area.

Then there is the latest innovation which Mr. Trudeau studiously ignores that allows dentists to charge more than the reimbursement amounts set by the government. Patients will end up paying something for services rendered, but the subsidies from Ottawa will substantially defray those costs.

The decision to not attempt to cap dentists fees avoids recreating the artificial scarcity that has left millions of Canadians without a family doctor.

The Liberals could take that policy success and brandish it as evidence of pragmatic innovation, and lay out a contrast with the Conservatives. That should be an easy debate to win, particularly since the Conservatives voted against the interim dental plan, and have yet to say what they would do with the current plan if they were to form government.

But that would require a Liberal Party that embraced the political centre, a party that was not afraid to talk about the virtues of the private sector, a party that was happy to highlight its enthusiasm for limiting costs to the public purse and to talk about its blueprint for modernizing social programs.

Instead, Mr. Trudeau is busy trumpeting a badly distorted version of that policy, preferring progressive fantasies to the reality of his governments own handiwork.

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A Liberal attack line on dental care that has no bite - The Globe and Mail

Its time to stop fucking around, Mr. Reiner posted on X yesterday. If the Convicted Felon wins, he said, referencing President Trump, we lose our Democracy. Joe Biden has effectively served US with honor, decency, and dignity. Its time for Joe Biden to step down.

As far as shoves out the door go, this one viewed more than 5.2 million times was gentle. The reaction of Mr. Reiners followers was not. While its wise not to overstate the importance of posts on social media, that few of the more than 29,000 comments are supportive indicates that the outrage carries weight.

Mr. Reiner is the son of actor Carl Reiner. The son became a fixture on TV in the 1970s and later transitioned into directing such classic films as This Is Spinal Tap. With the advent of social media, he fashioned his fame into a platform for left-wing rage and a bullhorn for its conventional wisdom.

The privileges of wealth and fame mean Mr. Reiner can to speak his mind without fear. Mr. Bidens loyalists made clear that they have voices, too, and theyre going to use them to shout against friend or foe who rebels against him.

Stop panicking and show some guts, a civil rights attorney, Andrew Laufer, replied to Mr. Reiner. Vote for Joe. Many said they were unfollowing or even blocking the actor, who on X dropped overnight to 2.3 million followers from 2.4 million followers.

Others called Mr. Reiner Meathead, his nickname on TVs All in the Family, so branded by Archie Bunker because he was dead from the neck up. One responder, Resistance Sister, reposted Mr. Reiners post-debate tweet, where he cast the choice as between a good decent man and a Convicted Felon who will destroy our Democracy, and asked what had changed.

In calling for Mr. Bidens ousting, Mr. Reiner forgot a rule from his sitcom days. Whenever producers changed the actor portraying a character, fans revolted. Take Michael Evans, who portrayed Lionel Jefferson on All in the Family and its spinoff, The Jeffersons.

Viewers loved Michael Evans, and when he was replaced by Damon Evans, to whom he bore no relation and little resemblance, the new actor was rejected, prompting the originals return. Audiences are no more favorable to recasting candidates and thousands of them voted to put Mr. Biden on the stage.

If Mr. Reiner thought his post would be a Nixon-goes-to-China moment rallying others to his banner, it backfired. Only one fellow celebrity jumped out in immediate agreement: Sean Lennon, son of the late singer and one-time Beatle, John, and his wife, Yoko Ono.

Im really surprised it took you this long, sir, Mr. Lennon responded. It has been obvious for years that Biden is cognitively unfit to serve. It was backhanded support, and in a thread that gave the impression Mr. Reiner is on an island, it was among the most positive.

The left wing has long cheered Mr. Reiner, who has equated Republicans with Nazis and Trump with Adolf Hitler. That the actor-director came out against Mr. Biden and faced what the elder Lennon called Instant Karma in his song of that name demonstrates that the president has more staying power than the party sachems seem to think.

After Mr. Bidens appearance on MSNBC this morning, Mr. Reiner addressed those who think hes strayed. If we see the Joe Biden that appeared on Morning Joe today every day until Nov. 5, he tweeted, hell be able to shut up people like me who think he should step aside.

Mr. Reiner may wish for someone new at the top of the Democratic ticket, but Mr. Bidens fans find the idea odious and disloyal. Expect would-be Democratic defectors to take notice of the backlash. A substantial chunk of the party base still bets on their old warhorse, and theyll revolt against anyone who tries to put him out to pasture.

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Hollywoods Rob Reiner Tweets Biden Should Step Down and Liberals Lose Their Minds - The New York Sun

We are witnessing the formation of an anti-liberal alliance against the West. For years, Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea have been trying to shape a multipolar world order, which would put an end to the Western-led unipolar one.

As explained by the anti-liberal philosopher Alexander Dugin, the 20th century was characterized by three political theories: liberalism (the first theory), communism (the second theory), and fascism (the third theory). Fascism emerged later than the other major political theories, and disappeared before them. The alliance between the first political theory (liberalism) and the second political theory (communism) and Adolf Hitler's geopolitical miscalculations were responsible for the demise of the third political theory. Fascism's disappearance cleared the battlefield for the first and the second political theories (liberalism and communism), which during the Cold War created a bipolar world that lasted nearly half a century. The 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union signaled the victory of the first political theory (liberalism) over the second (communism). Thus, by the end of the 20th century, the only theory left standing was liberalism.

However, the defeated forces did not accept liberal democracy's victory. Furthermore, new poles rejecting the "Western hegemony" emerged, among them Islamism, an anti-liberal force headed by Iran and Qatar; it has been strengthening itself since the 9/11 terror attacks.

(Source: CCP mouthpiece Global Times)

The West's Naivet About The CCP

Yet, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the West naively thought that the "end of history" as predicted by Francis Fukuyama had materialized, and that it no longer had any major enemies. Hence, after defeating communism, the West thought that everyone would willingly join liberalism and capitalism.

This was one of the main mistakes made by President Bill Clinton, who brought China (or, more accurately, the People's Republic of China, PRC) into the World Trade Organization, thinking that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) would abandon its Maoist principles. However, as explained by Andrew J. Masigan, special advisor to the MEMRI China Media Studies Project and Philippine Star columnist, the PRC just "bided its time until it became wealthy enough to challenge the US." Hence, after defeating communism in 1991, the United States funded a new communist pole (with Chinese characteristics, as the CCP calls it) that wants to destroy the current world order.[1]

China's economic growth also helped North Korea (the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, DPRK), which is economically dependent on Beijing. It is worth noting that the DPKR is a socialist state led by the Juche idea (Juche, , means "sovereignty," "self-sufficiency"), which promotes sovereignty and rejects the collective West (which includes South Korea), capitalism, and Western liberalism. Thus, it establishes the foundation for a multipolar world, in which the West-led unipolarity is defeated and the "end of history" does not happen.[2]

Renowned Russian academic Sergey Karaganov, who has been the Kremlin's advisor on foreign policy for 12 years, explained that for many years the economy was the central factor for countries and societies ("it's the economy, stupid"[3]). However, history proved something else. "Yes, people are driven by economic interests, but when they are partially satisfied, when at the bare minimum no one starves, they turn to other interests like security, national pride, ideological views, cultural stereotypes and needs - that is, phenomena and values of a higher order," Karaganov stated.[4] Hence, the CCP had no interest to embrace the West liberal-democracy but rather it used the West's naivet to get stronger economically in order to replace the West-led unipolar order with a multipolar one that serves the CCP's interest.

Russia's Revanchism

Meanwhile, the West did not learn from history, and, specifically, from what happened in World War I, which was one of the greatest geopolitical disasters of the 20th century. After WWI, four empires, representing part of the world order of those years, were eliminated: the Russian, Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian and German empires. The drama of WWI was that it generated the strengthening of two totalitarian ideologies of the 20th century: Nazism and Communism. The main mistake of those who won the war was their inability to build a system, or, rather, a new world order, in which even the losers would play a dignified role. Because of this inability, after the war, revanchist sentiment developed in Germany, and Adolf Hitler used this in his rhetoric to rise to power. WWI created all the conditions for the beginning of WWII.

Seemingly, after the end of the Cold War, the West acted like it was the only victor, forgetting that the Russians themselves had participated in the collapse of the Soviet Union by mounting "the greatest bloodless revolution in history," as stressed by George Kennan, Sovietologist and the architect of U.S. Cold War policy. It is notable that Russian statesman Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, stated: "In international affairs, there is a collapse of trust. I think that if you ask people on all the continents 'Is the world going in the right direction?' most will say 'No.' This all began when 'the victory of the West' in the Cold War was proclaimed. Our shared victory in the Cold War was declared a triumph of one side only [i.e. the West], which now thinks that 'everything is permitted.' This is the root from which today's global unrest has sprung."[5]

According to Dugin, the West's "unipolar moment" (a term coined by Charles Krauthammer, due to his uncertainty about whether it would last), which began in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union ended between 2000-2001 with the rise to power of President Putin and with Islamic terrorists' attacks on the U.S. on 9/11.[6]

Concerning modern Russia, the process of shaping this new anti-West ideology began with Putin's landmark 2007 Munich speech, in which he challenged the U.S.-led unipolar world order. Putin said: "What is a unipolar world? However, one might embellish this term, at the end of the day it refers to one type of situation, namely one center of authority, one center of force, one center of decision-making... It is a world in which there is one master, one sovereign. And at the end of the day, this is pernicious not only for all those within this system, but also for the sovereign itself because it destroys itself from within... I consider that the unipolar model is not only unacceptable but also impossible in today's world... What is even more important is that the model itself is flawed because at its basis there is and can be no moral foundations for modern civilization."[7]

The 2007 speech was Putin's first political manifesto that determined, and continues to define, the general outline of Russia's policy, which is aimed at bringing about an end to the West's unipolar world order. It should be stressed that Russia has not yet managed to shape an ideology, or, more accurately, an "offensive ideology."[8] Nevertheless, it knows exactly what is fighting in Ukraine: the collective West.

The Islamist Pole

As mentioned, the unipolar order began to erode with the 9/11 attacks by Islamic terrorists on the U.S. The need for shaping an Islamist pole is better understood by Iran and Qatar, as both sponsor Islamist groups in the Middle East that aspire to Islamic hegemony. Hamas, sponsored by Qatar and Iran, is now on forefront of the battle for the establishment of an Islamist caliphate. Hamas official Fathi Hammad said: "We shall liberate our Al-Aqsa Mosque, and our cities and villages, as a prelude to the establishment of the future Islamic Caliphate. Therefore, brothers and sisters, we are at the threshold of a global Islamic civilization era."[9]

It should be noted that the Hamas covenant strongly opposes the "Crusader West." Since it was written in 1988, before the collapse of the Soviet Union, the charter also counters the "Communist East." However, in recent decades, since liberal democracy became the main enemy of all the anti-liberal forces, Hamas and its patrons have joined not only modern Russia but also the communist PRC and DPKR, in order to shape a multipolar world order in which the collective West, which includes Israel, will be defeated.

South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS) has reportedly confirmed that Hamas is also using North Korean-made weapons to fight Israel in the war in Gaza. Earlier, in November 2023, media reported that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had ordered officials to come up with ways to "comprehensively support Palestine."[10]

Newsweek, quoting Guermantes Lailari, a scholar at National Chengchi University in Taiwan and a retired U.S. Air Force officer, also noted that the IDF had found massive amounts of advanced Chinese military equipment and weapons technology in Gaza. Newsweek further wrote: "Chinese tunnel warfare specialists helped design and build the Hamas tunnels... [T]wo tunnel engineers from China's People's Liberation Army were discovered by the IDF, meaning that China helped Hamas significantly in its construction of the massive tunnel networks under the Gaza Strip."[11]

Conclusion

As Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea forge closer ties (Putin recently visited China and North Korea), the alliance of the anti-liberal forces is also trying to gain momentum with the help of progressive liberals, or, more accurately, woke supporters, who are being used as a fifth column to defeat the West from within. As mentioned in a previous MEMRI analysis, "liberal democracy" was the concept that was understood by Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan, while "progressive liberalism" has nothing to do with classical liberalism and more to do with a new totalitarian Marxist-inspired ideology.[12] It is therefore no coincidence that TikTok, owned by the Chinese internet company ByteDance, is spreading woke ideology in the West.

Hence, anti-liberal forces are preparing militarily and ideologically for the final battle against liberal democracy.[13] However, one question strongly resonates: Is the collective West ready for this fight?

*Anna Mahjar-Barducci is a MEMRI Senior Research Fellow.

[3] See Nytimes.com/1992/10/30/opinion/on-my-mind-it-s-the-economy-stupid.html, October 30, 1992.

[11] Newsweek.com/china-waging-proxy-war-israel-opinion-1910156, June 17, 2024.

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The Formation Of The Anti-Liberal Alliance But Liberal Is Not A Synonym Of Woke - Middle East Media Research Institute

Prestigious universities are overwhelmingly liberal by virtually every measure, but they are failing to produce many students who can think critically and articulate opposing viewpoints.

In fact, conservative students fare much better in this regard than their liberal peers.

Those are the preliminary findings of Dr. Lauren Wright, who is nearly a quarter of the way through the 200 student interviews she hopes to complete for her planned book Tested: Why Conservative Students Get the Most Out of Liberal Education.

Conservative students experience what higher education has long claimed to offer: exposure to different perspectives, regular practice building and defending coherent arguments, intellectual challenges that spur creativity and growth, the author writes in a preview of her research for The Atlantic.

Liberal academia has largely robbed liberal students of these rewards.

Wright should know. She teaches political science at Princeton University, where she says conservatives represent just 12% of the undergraduate student body. Her research includes interviews with students from her university and other competitive schools.

Throughout college, [conservative students] hear alternative perspectives and hone their own arguments, anticipating opposition, says Wright. Of the 28 conservatives Ive spoken with so far, more than 90% report attending events featuring speakers with whom they disagree, compared with less than half of the 15 liberals Ive interviewed.

Nearly all of the conservatives said theyve been challenged by professors or other students in classroom discussions, but just two of the liberals said the same.

Thats in line with national surveys, she says.

Wright says conservative students tend to understand weak points in their own arguments, in addition to their opponents views. Liberal students, on the other hand, often were ignorant or refused to engage with the arguments of their opponents when asked about them.

For example, when prompted by Wright, pro-Israel conservative students were able to articulate pro-Palestinian arguments, even though they disagreed with them. But liberal Palestine supporters often didnt even want to engage.

She also asked students about abortion and found a similar pattern. A pro-life student from the University of Chicago, for example, was able to identify the strength of the personhood argument made by abortion advocates.

But the pro-choice students I interviewed hadnt thought much about the other side, Wright says, before quoting a rather dim reply from a pro-abortion student at Wake Forest:

I think pro-life people are just pro-life because thats what their family believes.

But some of Wrights examples indicate conservative students may experience something much more intense than what might be imagined by intellectual challenges that spur creativity and growth.

In one shocking example she shares, two Jewish student journalists covering pro-Palestine protests received no-communication orders university directives that bar students from communicating with one another [initiated by] pro-Palestine Princeton students

One of those students, Danielle Shapiro, responded with a fiery op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, headlined I Committed Journalism, and Princeton Told Me Not to Communicate.

Shapiro understandably tells Wright her freshman year was like boot camp.

These examples and others from her 43 interviews (and counting) lead the professor to the conclusion that conservative students are better prepared for life after college.

Liberal academia has largely robbed liberal students of these rewards, Wright posted to X about her research. They emerge from college much the same way as they came in, having experienced few of the challenging but ultimately beneficial scenarios conservatives have.

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Colleges robbing liberal students by having their views go unchallenged, says Princeton prof - The Lion

The summer began with a high-stakes byelection that the Liberals lost, sending them into a vortex of self-reflection and internal dissent.

What if the summer ends with another one?

The TorontoSt. Pauls byelection went worse than the Liberals could have hoped. They had pulled out all the stops to win it, sending cabinet ministers out to go door-knocking in a riding the party hadnt lost in over 30 years. While the margin was close, the loss stung. It was the first defeat the Liberals have suffered in Toronto since Justin Trudeau became leader of the party in 2013.

It wont be the last test the Liberals will face before the next general election. At least three more byelections have to be held within the next six months. CloverdaleLangley City in British Columbia doesnt need to be called before the end of November, while ElmwoodTranscona in Manitoba can wait until the end of September (and is an NDP riding, anyway).

The deadline to set the date for LaSallemardVerdun is fast-approaching, however. Trudeau has to call it by July 30.

(As of writing, Andy Fillmore hadnt vacated his Halifax riding yet. If he doesnt officially resign in the next few weeks, the Liberals might not have to call the byelection as the six-month window will overlap with the prohibition on byelections held within nine months of a fixed election date.)

A byelection in LaSallemardVerdun would not normally make the Liberals uneasy. Its a safe Montreal seat for the party.

But, then again, TorontoSt. Pauls was supposed to be a safe Liberal seat.

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LaSallemardVerdun: The Liberals' next test - The Writ