Mike Bloomberg “spent $500 million in his bid for a Super Tuesday blitz” — and “came away with . . . American Samoa,” snorts Reason’s Eric Boehm. He didn’t win a single state, a “major disappointment for the billionaire who dumped nine figures of his personal fortune into the race” and “saturated airwaves with his ads.” The same thing happened to billionaire Tom Steyer, who exited after “spending more than $250 million and winning exactly zero delegates.” So much for complaints from Democrats and many Republicans about “the supposedly intolerable influence of money in American politics.” The moral: “Money, at best, buys you a ticket to the dance. It cannot make you the prom king.”
Bernie Bro: Don’t Buy the ‘Electability’ Con
The reason Joe Biden got a “flash coronation” after “a sudden burst of coordinated support from the Democratic establishment” is simple, argues The Week’s Ryan Cooper: “He is not Bernie Sanders.” It isn’t that “Biden convinced his competitors” who dropped out and endorsed him, like Pete Buttigieg, “that he had the best policies or the best temperament to take on Donald Trump.” No, “propping up Biden was a desperate reaction” to Sanders’ popular-vote wins in the first three primary states. Elites think Biden is more electable — even though the ex-veep is “clearly suffering some sort of cognitive decline” and has an “appalling record” that’s “utterly at odds with the modern Democratic Party’s branding.” The Democratic establishment “hates and fears” Sanders so much, Cooper sighs, it is working to elect a “fading, washed-up operator with decades of baggage.”
From the left: Biden, Sanders & Dems’ Future
If Joe Biden does go on to win the nomination, asks John Judis at Talking Points Memo, “what does that mean for the future of the Democratic Party?” Sanders “has attracted young voters . . . who understand democratic socialism could actually be something good, who in the absence of union protection on their jobs, and union-negotiated insurance and pensions, look to the federal government to do something about these things — and also want the government to do something about access to higher education, student debt and climate change.” Democrats can “be optimistic that you may have a candidate who can beat Donald Trump” but should worry that if they “can’t hold onto the Bernie generation of voters,” the future may belong to Republicans who speak to “the economic nationalism that Sanders also promoted.”
Refugee: Castro’s ‘Education’ Was Brainwashing
At NBC News Think, Yuri Pérez answers Bernie Sanders’ question — was it “a bad thing” that Fidel Castro “had a massive literacy program”? — with a resounding “Yes.” Cuban-born Pérez, who “came to the United States as a political refugee in 2009,” was “brainwashed” by educators who used “Che Guevara’s teaching” to make students “hate different ideas, looks and behaviors.” The “Cuban educational system is not a ‘literacy program’ but a tool of indoctrination, designed” to create “intolerant” citizens “ready to kill in order to impose the revolutionary ideology.” Indeed, “the ‘education’ under a socialist regime is probably the most malicious of their programs, because it is — to the eyes of people like Sanders — an unalloyed, irreproachable social good” but really “the most essential tools of indoctrination and repression.”
Surveillance beat: Watch the Watchmen
“The FBI improperly spied on the Trump campaign in 2016,” thunders Sen. Mike Lee at Fox News — and if it can do that, “imagine what it can do to regular Americans.” Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz revealed more than “a dozen ‘serious performance failures’ ” with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants the FBI used to “intercept the communications of President Trump’s campaign supporters.” The “Founding Fathers knew well the danger of a government with the power to snoop through the private communications of law-abiding Americans,” yet “abuse of the government’s surveillance powers is all too common.” Congress must reform FISA, requiring warrant-seeking agencies to show “probable cause” and “be fully honest” with the court. We can’t let these “violations of United States citizens’ civil liberties” ever happen again.
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the NDP is caving to political pressure from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre when it comes to their stance on the consumer carbon price.
Trudeau says he believes Jagmeet Singh and the NDP care about the environment, but it’s “increasingly obvious” that they have “no idea” what to do about climate change.
On Thursday, Singh said the NDP is working on a plan that wouldn’t put the burden of fighting climate change on the backs of workers, but wouldn’t say if that plan would include a consumer carbon price.
Singh’s noncommittal position comes as the NDP tries to frame itself as a credible alternative to the Conservatives in the next federal election.
Poilievre responded to that by releasing a video, pointing out that the NDP has voted time and again in favour of the Liberals’ carbon price.
British Columbia Premier David Eby also changed his tune on Thursday, promising that a re-elected NDP government would scrap the long-standing carbon tax and shift the burden to “big polluters,” if the federal government dropped its requirements.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Simon Jolin-Barrette, minister responsible for consumer protection, has tabled a bill to force merchants to calculate tips based on the price before tax.
That means on a restaurant bill of $100, suggested tips would be calculated based on $100, not on $114.98 after provincial and federal sales taxes are added.
The bill would also increase the rebate offered to consumers when the price of an item at the cash register is higher than the shelf price, to $15 from $10.
And it would force grocery stores offering a discounted price for several items to clearly list the unit price as well.
Businesses would also have to indicate whether taxes will be added to the price of food products.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
Quebec legislature member Youri Chassin has announced he’s leaving the Coalition Avenir Québec government to sit as an Independent.
He announced the decision shortly after writing an open letter criticizing Premier François Legault’s government for abandoning its principles of smaller government.
In the letter published in Le Journal de Montréal and Le Journal de Québec, Chassin accused the party of falling back on what he called the old formula of throwing money at problems instead of looking to do things differently.
Chassin says public services are more fragile than ever, despite rising spending that pushed the province to a record $11-billion deficit projected in the last budget.
He is the second CAQ member to leave the party in a little more than one week, after economy and energy minister Pierre Fitzgibbon announced Sept. 4 he would leave because he lost motivation to do his job.
Chassin says he has no intention of joining another party and will instead sit as an Independent until the end of his term.
He has represented the Saint-Jérôme riding since the CAQ rose to power in 2018, but has not served in cabinet.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
