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Clark warns of divisive politics, slate candidates during campaign launch – CKOM News Talk Sports

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Saskatoon incumbent mayor Charlie Clark is getting a late start on the fall election campaign trail, and he doesn’t like what he’s hearing so far.

Clark warned of division and mistrust creeping its way into Saskatoon’s municipal politics during his campaign launch in downtown Saskatoon Friday.

He said the American-style “politics of fear” have already appeared in the campaign, something he hasn’t seen during his five elections on the ballot dating back to 2006.

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“I’ve seen name-calling, I’ve seen attempts to use crises in our community to attract attention on Facebook,” Clark said, offering two examples of negativity he’s seen from other candidates so far.

“When people are driven by fear or the us versus them mentality, it’s much more difficult to pull the community together and find solutions together, and it can create political gridlock if that’s what’s happening within a council or within a community.”

While Clark did agree that a council known for its 6-5 votes under his leadership may not be synonymous with unity, there were no personal attacks, no decisions made to pin councillors against one another or undermine each other.

Clark said he has concerns about fellow candidate Rob Norris’ attempts at organizing a slate of candidates for council.

“As a mayor, you don’t get to decide who you end up with on council,” Clark said before mentioning Norris has actively participated in other council candidates’ campaigns.

“You can make whatever promises you want, but good luck getting (councillors) to vote for your proposals if you make it on the other side.”

Clark said Norris has been door-knocking with other candidates and that “it has the clear indication that there are some allegiances.”

With a collage of his 80 volunteer campaign workers behind Clark’s podium as a backdrop, he drew on his four years of experience and his unfinished business in the future to move away from undermining other candidates and avoiding division to bring people together and last another term at city hall.

Clark spoke of being a champion of Saskatoon’s tech and agriculture, leading an economic growth strategy and a downtown safety strategy as just some of the ways he’s improved life in Saskatoon.

Clark’s mantra for his campaign is to keep people working, keep people safe and to keep strengthening quality of life.

Moving forward, Clark intends to improve infrastructure, keep taxes low while maintaining activities and services and to keep reconciliation, inclusion and sustainability a major focus.

With other candidates looking to axe the new downtown library project, get out of two-year budget cycles and limit or eliminate property tax increases, Clark said undoing years of progress can be dangerous.

“If a mayor or a future council wanted to spend their time, in the middle of a pandemic, revisiting a decision that’s already been there, it will create huge political challenges, potentially financial risk to the city and it’s very unclear if that could legally be undone,” Clark said, pointing to candidates attacking plans for a new library.

The new $134-million New Central Library is controlled by the library’s board of directors, not the City of Saskatoon.

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Federal politicians get pay bump, PM salary tops $400k – CBC News

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Canadian MPs will now make over $200,000 per year, thanks to a pay bump that goes into effect Monday.

Additional salaries for special offices like ministers, parliamentary secretaries, the Speaker and the prime minister will also go up. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s salary will now top $400,000 per year, as a result of the increase.

Parliamentarians of all stripes will receive a salary bump because of the annual increases written in to the legislation governing politicians’ pay. The precise number of the increase each year comes from tracking an index of increases from settlements in the private sector, according to the House of Commons.

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For this year’s bump, that figure works out to 4.4 per cent, meaning the standard salary for a backbench MP will increase by $8,500.

Trudeau will now earn $406,200, Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre will take in $299,900 and cabinet ministers will also be paid just under $300,000.

Those who hold special offices, such as federal party leaders, parliamentary secretaries, house leaders and whips, will also receive pay boosts.

Salaries will also go up $8,500 for senators, increasing to $178,100.

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation, an advocacy group dedicated to lowering taxes and scrutinizing government spending, has already criticized the increase.

“MPs are taking more money out of Canadians’ pockets and stuffing more money into their own and that’s wrong,” Terrazzano said in a release. “MPs should be providing tax relief, not hiking taxes and their own pay.”

The federal government is set to release a budget on April 16.

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Opinion | A no-joke case for disengaging from politics – The Washington Post

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You’re reading the Today’s Opinions newsletter. Sign up to get it in your inbox.

In today’s edition:

Political ignorance, social bliss?

It’s a pretty risky proposition to read anything online on the first day of April. So you can’t be blamed for skipping to the bottom of a piece questioning the value of an engaged, informed, politically confident citizenry to see whether a “gotcha!” awaits.

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But Jason Willick’s column mulling the virtues of a more disengaged average voter is no April Fools’ Day prank. Examining new research, he writes that “the optimal relationship between politics and good citizenship might be due for an update.”

The data show that the more confident people are in their understanding of the issues facing the country and their own qualifications to participate in the political process, the fewer warm fuzzies they have for members of the opposite party — surprise! It stands to reason, Jason writes, that if we all knew and cared a bit less, we might get along better.

This feels … antidemocratic. No?

Jason anticipates that quibble — and writes that it depends on what you think democracy is for. If democracy is about turning the will of the voters into policy, then sure.

But “if democracy is a mechanism for ensuring social stability in societies with a wide range of views,” well — let the people second-guess!

Enough about the disengaged; let’s check in on the disillusioned.

Heather Long’s column is about the under-40 crowd’s “harsh introduction to capitalism” and the inexorable anxiety over their economic footing. Millennials got the Great Recession, then a sluggish recovery, then the pandemic, all while Social Security dried up and pensions headed for extinction.

Alas, when Heather suggested a fix to the disenchantment — “treat workers better” — at a conference of business executives looking for answers, she might as well have been telling her own joke. Execs rushed to explain how good things are.

Heather has her eye on one improvement in particular that would boost the outlook of workers: securing their retirement.

Chaser: Jen Rubin writes that Supreme Court Justices Sam Alito and Clarence Thomas are behaving fine after all. Okay, ha, that one really is a joke — but you might do a double take at Jen’s actually sincere appraisal of Amy Coney Barrett’s “surprising independence.”

From the op-ed by gender equality scholars Melanne Verveer, Karima Bennoune and Lina Tori Jan ruling the Taliban’s policy “gender apartheid.” Their working-women stat is accompanied by galling data on girls’ education, female leadership, gender-based violence and women’s health care: An Afghan woman dies in childbirth every two hours.

The dire status and de jure subjugation of women in Afghanistan are on a par with other countries’ past policies of racial apartheid, Verveer, Bennoune and Tori Jan write, which necessitates international recognition of a gender-based version, first generally and then specifically applied here.

This wouldn’t be just a rhetorical charge, they explain; international law makes ending any instance of apartheid an international obligation. Thus, the “apartheid framework could fend off any further slide” of international normalization of the Taliban, they write, and meaningfully protect women along the way.

Chaser: Only a fearless peacemaker in the mold of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat of the 1970s can end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Max Boot writes.

Less politics

Have a Beyoncé fan in your life? Cartoonist Edith Pritchett has just the right gift guide for helping them commemorate the release last week of Bey’s country album, “Cowboy Carter.”

If $9,000 for a few head of cattle is outside your price range, however, take comfort knowing that the album itself is a present — a welcome-back-to-country gift for Black Americans, Brian Broome writes.

Brian recalls the cardinal musical rule of his childhood: “Anything sung by a White person was White people’s music. Anything sung by Black people was Black people’s music.” He also recalls some furtive jam-outs to Duran Duran.

“Cowboy Carter” is Beyoncé’s permission slip to appreciate songs across racial lines, Brian writes. But what are those lines, anyway? And haven’t they long been much more permeable than playground rules would have you believe?

Smartest, fastest

It’s a goodbye. It’s a haiku. It’s … The Bye-Ku.

Slim music silo

Until Bey makes everything

Bigger in Texas

***

Have your own newsy haiku? Email it to me, along with any questions/comments/ambiguities. See you tomorrow!

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Biden campaign accuses Trump of plans for ‘formalizing white supremacy’ – as it happened – The Guardian US

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The co-chair of Joe Biden’s re-election campaign Cedric Richmond said that “formalizing white supremacy” will be a priority of Donald Trump, if he is returned to the White House.

His statement came after Axios reported that Trump’s allies are planning to fight “anti-white racism”, and dismantle efforts to promote diversity and combat discrimination against people of color and other minorities.

Richmond pointed to Trump’s promotion of the baseless conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was not born in the United States, and his equivocation over condemning the violent 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia:

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Trump couldn’t care less about Black and brown communities – he never has. Now he’s making it clear that if he wins in November, he’ll turn his racist record into official government policy, gutting programs that give communities of color economic opportunities and making the lives of Black and brown folks harder. Already, his Project 2025 allies have blocked billions of dollars in support for women and minority-owned businesses, and if he wins a second term they’ll take their divisive agenda even further. It’s up to us to stop him.

Could the frozen negotiations on passing aid to Ukraine, Israel and other American allies finally be unthawing? Yesterday, the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, laid out some potential concessions he may demand of Democrats in exchange for putting the measure up for a vote when Congress returns to work next week. We don’t know what Joe Biden, the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, or other top Democrats think of this proposal, though California senator Laphonza Butler signaled that Johnson’s call to restart the permitting of new natural gas export projects may prove controversial. Meanwhile, Biden and Johnson are feuding over the White House’s declaration of 31 March as Transgender Day of Visibility – which also happened to be Easter Sunday.

Here’s what else happened today:

  • The president will on Friday visit the site of the collapsed Francis Scott Key bridge in Baltimore, as efforts to reopen the city’s vital port continue.

  • Johnson downplayed rightwing congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene’s attempt to remove him from office, but acknowledged it was a “distraction”.

  • Biden gave a brief interview where he sounded upbeat about his prospects of winning re-election.

  • Donald Trump’s campaign also attacked Biden for recognizing transgender people, while reportedly stretching the truth about the rules for the annual Easter Egg Roll.

  • John Avlon, a former CNN anchor and Daily Beast editor, released impressive fundraising numbers as he runs for Congress in New York.

A victory by Donald Trump could also imperil efforts to fight the climate crisis worldwide, a former top UN official warns. The Guardian’s Fiona Harvey has the story:

Victory for Donald Trump in the US presidential election this year could put the world’s climate goals at risk, a former UN climate chief has said.

The chances of limiting global heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels are already slim, and Trump’s antipathy to climate action would have a major impact on the US, which is the world’s second biggest emitter of greenhouse gases and biggest oil and gas exporter, said Patricia Espinosa, who served as the UN’s top official on the climate from 2016 to 2022.

“I worry [about the potential election of Trump] because it would have very strong consequences, if we see a regression regarding climate policies in the US,” Espinosa said.

Although Trump’s policy plans are not clear, conversations with his circle have created a worrying picture that could include the cancellation of Joe Biden’s groundbreaking climate legislation, withdrawal from the Paris agreement and a push for more drilling for oil and gas.

The co-chair of Joe Biden’s re-election campaign Cedric Richmond said that “formalizing white supremacy” will be a priority of Donald Trump, if he is returned to the White House.

His statement came after Axios reported that Trump’s allies are planning to fight “anti-white racism”, and dismantle efforts to promote diversity and combat discrimination against people of color and other minorities.

Richmond pointed to Trump’s promotion of the baseless conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was not born in the United States, and his equivocation over condemning the violent 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia:

Trump couldn’t care less about Black and brown communities – he never has. Now he’s making it clear that if he wins in November, he’ll turn his racist record into official government policy, gutting programs that give communities of color economic opportunities and making the lives of Black and brown folks harder. Already, his Project 2025 allies have blocked billions of dollars in support for women and minority-owned businesses, and if he wins a second term they’ll take their divisive agenda even further. It’s up to us to stop him.

Speaking of the November elections, Donald Trump’s allies are putting together plans to fight racism against white people, should be elected again. Here’s more on that, from the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly:

The former Trump White House adviser, anti-immigration extremist and white nationalist Stephen Miller is helping drive a plan to tackle supposed “anti-white racism” if Donald Trump returns to power next year, Axios reported.

“Longtime aides and allies … have been laying legal groundwork with a flurry of lawsuits and legal complaints – some of which have been successful,” Axios said on Monday.

Should Trump return to power, Axios said, Miller and other aides plan to “dramatically change the government’s interpretation of civil rights-era laws to focus on ‘anti-white racism’ rather than discrimination against people of colour”.

Such an effort would involve “eliminating or upending” programmes meant to counter racism against non-white groups.

The US supreme court, dominated 6-3 by rightwing justices after Trump installed three, recently boosted such efforts by ruling against race-based affirmative action in college admissions.

America First Legal, a group founded by Miller and described by him as the right’s “long-awaited answer” to the American Civil Liberties Union, is helping drive plans for a second Trump term, Axios said.

In John Avlon’s Vanity Fair interview, the former CNN anchor and Daily Beast editor turned Democratic candidate for a US House seat in New York says his party has a problem when it comes to “obsessing about culture-war issues”.

“I think Democrats often get spun around the axle when they start obsessing about culture-war issues,” Avlon says, offering as an example, “Defund the police, one of the worst, most self-defeating political slogans imaginable.

“But in reality, in the last Congress – I counted this up – there were seven members of the Democratic House who supported the policy known as ‘Defund the police’. There were 139 members of the Republican House [and eight senators] who voted to overturn the election after the attack on the Capitol. That’s asymmetric, that’s not the same moral universe.

“As I wrote in my book Wing Nuts over a decade ago, the far right and the far left can be equally insane, but there’s no question who’s far more powerful and more dangerous in our time.

“I mean, the Democratic party nominates and elevates centrists, right? The party is evenly divided between liberals and moderates. The Republican party is nominating Donald Trump for a third time after he tried to destroy our democracy on the back of a lie, with totally fact-free rants that are contrary to everything that party allegedly once believed. So there’s just no equivalence at all. The problem is, it distracts from a lot of the issues that we really need to deal with that are right in the Democrats’ sweet spot.”

Vanity Fair’s interviewer, Joe Pompeo, asked Avlon “for his centrist view on Israel and Gaza”.

Avlon said: “As someone who was formed by 9/11, fundamentally, in the wake of the absolute horror of the October 7 attacks, our impulse should be to stand with the victims of terrorism and not blame the victims of terrorism … It’s absolutely legitimate to not only defend yourself, but to ensure that Hamas leadership is taken out. You’re dealing with terrorism, but you’ve got to maximise humanitarian aid and minimise civilian casualties, because that ends up playing into the terrorist narrative. I think the Biden administration is walking a difficult line well.”

Here, again, is the Guardian’s John Avlon interview, from the launch of his campaign in February:

John Avlon, the former CNN anchor and Daily Beast editor running for the Democratic nomination in New York’s first US House district, is heralding an impressive fundraising effort in his first month-and-a-bit in the race.

I’m honored and humbled to have received so much support in so short a time,” Avlon said in a statement accompanying news of more than $1.1m raised so far.

“To raise over a million dollars in the first 40 days of the campaign is a measure of the excitement we’ve unleashed. Democrats understand that we can’t afford to lose this fight … Together, we’ll fight the good fight by defending our democracy, defeating Donald Trump and winning back the House from his Maga minions, who aren’t trying to solve problems in the national interest anymore.”

Avlon, 51, has also spoken to Vanity Fair, describing the “moral urgency” he feels running for office with Trump at the head of the Republican ticket, as a determined centrist, calling for an end to partisan extremities.

“This is a swing district,” he told Vanity Fair, “but when you look at the battleground maps in New York, it wasn’t being treated as one. We just got the new district registration numbers, and in New York one, we have the highest number of independent voters in the state. That’s prime for swing.”

That could be vital in a close House election.

Here’s our own interview with Avlon, from February, when he announced his run:

When Joe Biden visits Baltimore on Friday, he is expected to meet with Maryland governor Wes Moore and Baltimore mayor Brandon Scott as he tours the area where the Key Bridge collapsed last week, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said a little earlier in the media briefing in the west wing.

She noted that the administration has already worked with local leaders to secure barges and a crane for the scene, along with an early influx of money, Reuters reports.

Meanwhile Jean-Pierre condemned racist attacks on Moore and Scott from the right-wing in the wake of the bridge catastrophe. Both men are Black. Such attacks are “wrong”, she said.

An Israeli air strike has hit Iran’s consulate in Damascus, Syria.

Israeli warplanes destroyed the consulate, killing several people including a senior commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).

Among those killed was Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a senior commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Iranian state media reported. Iranian state television said several Iranian diplomats had been killed.

The Guardian is live blogging this in a separate blog and you can follow all that news as it happens, here.

The White House spokesperson, Karine Jean-Pierre, said moments ago that if reports are true that Israel is trying to shut down the Qatari news network Al Jazeera in Israel, it would be “concerning”, Reuters reports.

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, revived moves on Monday to shut down Qatari satellite television station Al Jazeera in Israel, saying through his party spokesperson that parliament would be convened in the evening to ratify the necessary law.

Israel has previously accused the station of agitating against it among Arab viewers.

Netanyahu indicated that the Israeli parliament would be convened this evening to ratify the necessary law. Neither the station’s main office in Israel nor the Qatari government in Doha immediately responded to a request for comment.

Al Jazeera has previously accused Israel of systematically targeting its offices and personnel. Israeli officials have long complained about Al Jazeera‘s coverage but stopped short of taking action, mindful of Qatar’s bankrolling of Palestinian construction projects in the Gaza Strip – seen by all sides as a means of staving off conflict.

Since the Gaza war that erupted on 7 October with a cross-border killing and kidnapping rampage by the enclave’s dominant Hamas Islamists, Doha has mediated ceasefire negotiations under which Israel recovered some of those taken hostage. However, talks on a second proposed truce appear to be going nowhere.

An Israeli government spokesperson, Avi Hyman, was asked if the threat against Al Jazeera might be part of pressure by Netanyahu publicly called for the Qataris to be pressed into applying more pressure on Hamas. Qatar hosts the group’s political office and several top Hamas officials.

Hyman, did not answer directly, though he did describe the station as “spouting propaganda for many, many years”.

Joe Biden plans to visit Baltimore on Friday in the wake of the catastrophic collapse last week of the landmark Francis Scott Key Bridge after a massive container ship collided with one of the main supports of the bridge.

The White House secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, is briefing now at the White House and gave the new detail, that the US president will be heading to the Maryland city, with its huge port, where the shipping channel has been blocked since the incident, which also killed six people who were working on road repair when it happened.

The wreckage of the huge bridge, which served as a road artery, fell into the Patapsco River in the early hours of last Tuesday morning, and the steel debris and the stricken container ship are still jamming the main entry and exit for the port.

Jean-Pierre had few details of the visit so far and said she couldn’t add any information about whether Biden will be reviewing the site of the bridge collapse by air, land or sea, or whether he will meet the relatives of victims.

The huge salvage operation on the bridge is under way.

Could the frozen negotiations on passing aid to Ukraine, Israel and other American allies finally be unthawing? Yesterday, the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, laid out some potential concessions he may demand of Democrats in order to bring the measure up for a vote when Congress returns to work next week. We don’t know what Joe Biden, the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, or other top Democrats think of this proposal, though California senator Laphonza Butler signaled that Johnson’s call to restart permitting new natural gas export projects may prove to be the most controversial aspect. Meanwhile, Biden and Johnson are feuding over the White House’s declaration of 31 March as Transgender Day of Visibility – which also happened to be Easter Sunday.

Here’s what else is going on today:

  • Johnson downplayed rightwing congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene’s attempt to remove him from office, but acknowledged it was a “distraction”.

  • Biden gave a brief interview where he sounded upbeat about his prospects of winning re-election.

  • Donald Trump’s campaign also attacked Biden for recognizing transgender people, while reportedly stretching the truth about the rules for the annual Easter Egg Roll.

Here’s more on the kerfuffle over Easter and Transgender Day of Visibility that has managed to suck in Donald Trump, Mike Johnson and Joe Biden:

A Joe Biden White House spokesperson said Republicans who have spent the Easter weekend criticizing the president for declaring Sunday’s annual Transgender Day of Visibility “are seeking to divide and weaken our country with cruel, hateful and dishonest rhetoric”.

“As a Christian who celebrates Easter with family, President Biden stands for bringing people together and upholding the dignity and freedoms of every American,” the White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said. “President Biden will never abuse his faith for political purposes or for profit.”

Bates’ statement came as the president faced criticism from the campaign of his Republican presidential challenger Donald Trump – along with religious conservatives who support him – for going through with issuing the annual proclamation recognizing 31 March as Transgender Day of Visibility even though that coincided with Easter Sunday.

The Democrat issued the proclamation Friday, calling on “all Americans to join us in lifting up the lives and voices of transgender people throughout our nation and to work toward eliminating violence and discrimination based on gender identity”.

But Republicans objected to the fact that the Transgender Day of Visibility’s designated 31 March date in 2024 overlapped with Easter, among the holiest celebrations for Christians. Trump’s campaign accused Biden, a Roman Catholic, of being insensitive to religion. And the former president’s Republican allies piled on.

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