Pence Won't Hold Trump To 'Same Standard' As Democrat He Once Voted To Expel

Former Vice President Mike Pence dodged when asked if he would apply the “same standard” to Donald Trump that he used when he voted to expel a Democrat from Congress two decades ago. (See the video below.)

Pence, who is now running for the Republican presidential nomination against his former boss, was responding to a question from co-host Jonathan Karl on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday.

Warren Report Criticizes Obama Administration's Failure to Prosecute Corporate Crimes

Controversy erupted after the recent Democratic presidential debate when Hillary Clinton accused Bernie Sanders of criticizing President Obama. However, Sanders is hardly the only prominent Democrat to have recently questioned some of the president's actions. In January, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) released a 12-page booklet titled "Rigged Justice," which highlights 20 cases of lax corporate law enforcement in 2015, saying:

    The Obama Administration has made repeated promises to strengthen enforcement and hold corporate criminals accountable, and the DOJ [US Department of Justice] announced in September that it would place greater emphasis on charging individuals responsible for corporate crimes. Nonetheless, both before and after this DOJ announcement, accountability for corporate crimes is shockingly weak.

Tories hope ads aimed at U.S. lawmakers will win support for Keystone pipeline

OTTAWA — The Conservative government has launched a public relations advertising offensive on American lawmakers ahead of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s trip this week to New York, selling Canada as an environmental leader in hopes of winning U.S. political support for the Keystone XL oilsands pipeline.

The federal government ran ads Monday in Washington D.C. newspapers, along with the launch of a new government website, trumpeting Canada as a reliable energy supplier to the United States and “world environmental leader” on oil and gas development.

The Commons: The Real Senators of Parliament Hill

And so we return to the existential question of Mike Duffy’s place in this world.

“Even the bogus investigation by his hand-picked cronies in the Senate,” Thomas Mulcair charged, rather audaciously and perhaps imprudently, in the Prime Minister’s direction this afternoon, “found that Mike Duffy does not maintain a primary residence on Prince Edward Island. The Constitution requires that a senator ‘be a resident of the province for which he is appointed.’ The Conservatives now admit, through their own bogus investigation, that Mr. Duffy is not a resident of PEI, yet still say that he is qualified to be a senator from PEI. Why is the Prime Minister allowing this continuous fraud by the Conservatives in the Senate?”

Stephen Harper takes partisan politics abroad

OTTAWA — Stephen Harper was representing Canada at the funeral of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher in London this week.

Was this the proper time and place to try to score partisan political points back home?

Many of our allies have hard and fast protocols about taking domestic fights abroad — U.S. Democrats will not criticize Republican Middle East policy, or vice versa, during a visit to Israel. Woe to the U.S. politician who ignores this unwritten rule.

Jason Kenney's censorship problem

There's something about the free speech debate that makes everyone act as if they have one of those long white body worms in their brains, writhing to get out through the thinnest pore possible.

It makes people state things as fact that would normally only be appropriate in a George Orwell novel.

Take, for example, the statement made by Jason Kenney on Israeli Apartheid Week.

Kenney, a member of cabinet and the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, issued a statement warning the public about university activists who were trying to censor supporters of Israel on campus during IAW events.

Stephen Harper lists his government’s priorities, doesn’t say a word about aboriginals despite Idle No More movement

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Stephen Harper signalled Wednesday that the economy and criminal justice reform are at the heart of his government’s priorities, but improving the lives of aboriginals didn’t merit a single word in a speech to his MPs and senators.

The prime minister’s office allowed journalists in to the normally closed session of the Conservative caucus to hear Harper deliver an address about the upcoming session of Parliament.

Religious Liberty Double Standards Indicated In New Poll

WASHINGTON (RNS) Half of Americans worry that religious freedom in the U.S. is at risk, and many say activist groups -- particularly gays and lesbians -- are trying to remove "traditional Christian values" from the public square.

The findings of a poll published Wednesday (Jan. 23), reveal a "double standard" among a significant portion of evangelicals on the question of religious liberty, said David Kinnaman, president of Barna Group, a California think tank that studies American religion and culture.

Before championing human rights abroad, Canada needs to look closer to home

On December 10th, the world celebrated Human Rights Day. Of course, I didn't expect this celebration to be a joyful or a rosy one. Canada, with the trembling voice of its Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, added its fading voice to the international scene.

In his press release, Baird reminded us of Malala Yousfai, the Pakistani teenager who was shot by the Taliban, of the religious persecution of minorities in Iran, of political prisoners in North Korea, and of political activists in Hong Kong. As a human rights activist, I didn't expect Baird to raise all cases of abuses, human rights violations and injustices. This is simply impossible. Nevertheless, as a Canadian, I would assume that his press release would show more subtleties, courage and admit some mea culpa. Clearly, I was dreaming, as I would be ignoring the strong ideology tainting the Conservative government and its highly partisan approach to politics.

Harper won’t honour stance on jumbo omnibus bills, says opposition

OTTAWA — Opposition MPs are calling Prime Minister Stephen Harper a hypocrite and urging him to follow his own advice on curtailing the use of omnibus bills to pass controversial government legislation.

As the Conservative government prepares to table its second sweeping budget implementation bill, MPs debated a Liberal party motion Tuesday that called for a House of Commons committee to examine what “reasonable limits” should be placed on omnibus legislation and for the committee to report back by December.

Study Finds U.S. Drone Strikes in Pakistan Miss Militant Targets and "Terrorize" Civilians

A new report on the secret U.S. drone war in Pakistan says the attacks have killed far more civilians than acknowledged, traumatized a nation and undermined international law. In "Living Under Drones," researchers conclude the drone strikes "terrorize men, women, and children, giving rise to anxiety and psychological trauma among civilian communities." The study concludes that most of the militants killed in the strikes have been low-level targets whose deaths have failed to make the United States any safer. Just 2 percent of drone attack victims are said to be top militant leaders. We’re joined by report authors James Cavallaro, director of the International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic at Stanford University, and Sarah Knuckey, professor at New York University School of Law and former adviser to the U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions.

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Harper Government Can't See the Forest for the Trees

I've started to have a repetitive nightmare.

The light in the hearing room is bright, hot and pointed right at me. The heat is suffocating, and I am visibly sweaty, the senator leans over, taps his microphone and begins to read questions from a typed sheet.

"Mr. Fenton, Have you ever donated to or been a member of the Sierra Club of Canada?"

"Do you own a book or books written by Dr. David Suzuki?"

"Did you or did you not write blog posts that were critical of the oilsands?"

That's usually about the time I wake up, but instead of relief that my nightmare is over, I make the mistake of turning on the radio or picking up the paper to find my speculative fiction becoming more and more real.

Environmental groups in Canada are in the crosshairs of the government, not simply under investigation for fiscal mismanagement, but the targets of criminalization, misinformation and a smear campaign.

Soldier defies order and speaks up over military health services

A Canadian soldier based in Shilo, Man., says he will keep speaking out about what he sees as a lack of medical and mental health services in the military, despite an order from a superior to be quiet.

Cpl. Steve Stoesz said his fight to get proper health services for injured soldiers is worse than the battle he endured in Afghanistan.

Stoesz had been ordered by a Canadian Forces superior not to do media interviews, but he said he is devastated by the lack of support.

"They broke me in the fight after, in the dealing with my own country," he told CBC News on Monday.

"The country that I fought for now has broken me."

Stoesz returned to Canada in 2008 after surviving three bomb attacks in Afghanistan and suffering speech and balance problems.

How Stephen Harper learned to love the omnibus bill

Stephen Harper must wish all his old speeches had been burned. A lament from his opposition days about the former Liberal government’s use of omnibus bills was cast up by NDP House leader, Nathan Cullen, Thursday, in protest at the government’s decision to pile everything but the kitchen sink into its 421 page budget implementation bill.

At that time, the Prime Minister considered the use of omnibus bills undemocratic and “a contradiction to the conventions and practices of the House.”

Now the 2005 Liberal omnibus is a model of governance to be admired and aped.

Such is the Harper government’s contempt for normal process, it announced Thursday that it will limit debate on the bill to six more sitting days before it is sent to committee. There is simply no way that MPs will be able to give the budget bill the scrutiny it deserves.

It makes you wonder: What is the point of Parliament? Why not have one whopper of a bill once a year, allow MPs to give it a cursory skim and then send them back to their constituencies to do the ceremonial work of opening supermarkets and attending Rotary barbecues?

“Lumping it together in an omnibus bill like this is undermining the very institution that we all represent, and our ability to hold government to account,” said Mr. Cullen in the House.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is the king of the omnibus bill

OTTAWA—For all the noise and high dudgeon belatedly coming from the opposition side of the House of Commons this week you would think Stephen Harper had invented the omnibus bill.

He hasn’t.

But he has pushed the envelope like no one ever before on a process that many believe is contemptuous of the role of Parliament.

More remarkably, he has been doing it for years, blatantly, right under the nose of successive oppositions that chose to look the other way and are only now crying foul.

His budget implementation bill may be, as Liberal MP Irwin Cotler called it “ a sad chapter in Canadian Parliamentary history,’’ but it really is just a chapter in the Harper book.

Under the guise of implementing its budget, the Conservatives have dumped 425 pages of legislation on the Commons and allowed 28 1/2 hours to debate everything from an overhaul of environmental regulations, to changes in employment equity, to the elimination of an oversight position in Canada’s spy agency to provisions that give cabinet more power over employment insurance rules.

It will then send the bill to a committee and a specially struck subcommittee and have the provisions passed before Parliament recesses for the summer.

Judge 'unreservedly rejects' clawbacks of disability benefits for veterans

HALIFAX - A Federal Court ruling that directs Ottawa to stop clawing back disability benefits from veterans restores a degree of dignity for former military personnel, the lead plaintiff in the case said Tuesday.

Dennis Manuge wiped a tear from his eye upon hearing the decision, which dismissed the federal government's position as harsh, particularly for Canada's most gravely injured veterans.

"Today's ruling provides hope for Canada's disabled veterans," said Manuge, who led a five-year-old class-action lawsuit against the federal government.

"We saw them in court and we won."

Lawyers representing Manuge and other veterans argued last November that the veterans' benefits were being unjustly clawed back because the payments were unfairly deemed as income.

The lawyers said that veterans' long-term disability benefits were being reduced by the amount of their disability pensions, with some of the most seriously injured not receiving any of their pension. In some cases, Ottawa's policy cost some veterans as much as $3,500 per month, they argued.

Lawyers for the federal government cited other cases that have found such benefits to be income, adding that the definition of income can include a broad array of monies that are coming into a veteran's household.

The government’s selective defence of freedom

When Conservative MP Stephen Woodworth introduced a private member’s bill on the status of the fetus last week, the government was expected to distance itself. But when Conservative whip Gordon O’Connor stood to deliver the government line, he did far more than that.

“I can confirm that as a member of the Conservative caucus for nearly eight years, the prime minister has been consistent with his position on abortion,” O’Connor said. “As early as 2005 at the Montreal convention, and in every federal election platform since, he has stated that the Conservative government will not support any legislation to regulate abortion. While the issue may be debated by some, as in the private member’s motion here tonight, I state again that the government’s position is clear: It will not reopen this debate.”

It was a surprisingly sweeping and categorical pledge. And we can be sure it was crafted in the prime minister’s office, or at a minimum, personally approved by the boss.

But that was just the beginning of the surprises.

“The decision of whether or not to terminate a pregnancy is essentially a moral decision,” O’Connor declared, “and in a free and democratic society, the conscience of the individual must be paramount and take precedence over that of the state.”

Stephen Harper’s attack on charities doesn’t go far enough

When Prime Minister Stephen Harper says charities that engage in too much politicking should be denied tax subsidies, he’s right.

There’s no good reason why environmental groups that oppose oil pipelines should be able to finance their activities, in part, on the backs of the general taxpayer.

The problem with Harper’s dictum, however, is that it’s not broad enough. He’s only putting the boots to charities that his Conservatives don’t like.

Parliament should end the tax subsidies going to all charities. Period.

That would include cutting off not only dubious charities, such as the right-wing Fraser Institute, but organizations that probably do some good, like the United Way.

The original idea of having the public subsidize charitable organizations was well-meaning.

Charities used to be organizations that engaged in uncontroversial good works, such as helping widows and orphans.

Ending Canada's 'benign dictatorship'

hereHere's a little test: what would the Conservatives do if they found a clip of Michael Ignatieff calling Canada a "benign dictatorship?"

Right: they'd put it in an attack ad.

Another test: what would the Liberals do if they caught Stephen Harper saying that?

Right: nothing. At least, that's what they've done with it so far.

So, let's consider that obscure but intriguing article, written in 1997 by two brainy conservatives, Tom Flanagan and Stephen Harper. Yes, it calls Canada "a benign dictatorship."

Oh, and it's a passionate defence of coalition governments.

That's right: the whole article is a detailed, persuasive and deeply-researched plea for governments to be forced to compromise with opposition coalitions. That's the only way, said Harper and Flanagan, to curb the tendency to a "one-party state" induced by Canada's "winner take all" system.

Feds discreet about foreign funding of climate skeptics

OTTAWA — While it has aggressively slammed environmental groups for using foreign dollars to finance a small portion of their budgets, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government is being tight-lipped about revelations that climate change skeptics in Canada are getting money from an American think-tank with corporate funding.

Newly released documents have revealed three Canadians were part of a network of academics receiving monthly payments from the Chicago-based Heartland Institute as part of its advocacy work to cast doubt on scientific evidence linking human activity to global warming observed in recent decades.

Two of the three Canadians mentioned in the internal records have confirmed they were getting paid by the Heartland Institute.

"There's nothing secret about it," said Madhav Khandekar, a retired meteorologist based in the Toronto region who was getting about $1,000 per month from the think-tank. "This is a sort of stipend that I get for doing the literature review and providing commentaries on the website. It is posted for people to read."