Free Republic

Stimulus: Obama says jobs from the Keystone project aren't permanent and it's just one pipeline that will move foreign oil to foreign markets. But fixing the bridge he once used as a prop didn't create permanent jobs either. 'Let's set our sights above a single pipeline," the leader of the party of infrastructure told Congress in the State of the Union. But this Congress has 80 more Republicans than when he took office, and on Thursday the Senate rejected his admonition by a 62-36 vote. Eight Democrats crossed the aisle after a series of amendment votes, a process that had...

Sweeping new anti-terrorism powers introduced by the Conservative government Friday include giving Canadian spies police-like powers to disrupt terrorist operations, allow authorities to remove terrorist propaganda from the internet and make it a crime to promote or to advocate others to engage in terrorism. Many of the measures will affect the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service. The plan to boost CSIS’s ability to counter terrorist threats flows from a federal review of fatal attacks on two Canadian soldiers last October. As expected, the bill would also make it easier for the RCMP to obtain a peace bond to restrict the...

Canada will introduce new anti-terror laws that will make it a crime to promote terrorism against Canadians online or elsewhere, a senior government official said Friday. The laws will also allow anyone suspected of being involved in a terror plot to be detained without charge for up to seven days, and empower Canada’s spy agency to thwart attacks directly in a significant expansion of their mandate. The official provided details to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak ahead of Friday’s announcement. …

Haider Eid, an associate professor at al-Aqsa University in the Gaza Strip, who also has a blog with Al Jazeera, pre-recorded his remarks to the Modern Language Association (MLA) convention in Vancouver, Canada. Eid apologized for not being able to attend the convention:“Unfortunately, I have not been able to leave Gaza” for at least eight conferences. He even remarked that he “had to think twice about participating in your extremely important panel” at the MLA, which had less than a dozen people in the audience. He then blasted Israel, “Gaza has been under a medieval siege by apartheid Israel since...

The newly GOP-controlled US Senate has approved the Keystone XL Pipeline in a 62-36 vote, with three Democrats joining all 53 Republicans. However, the issue is far from over. Now the White House will be in an embroiled battle with the US Congress, as the Senate and House versions of the Keystone legislation must still be synchronized. The White House and liberal Democrats have been fighting the Keystone Pipeline for years now. Notable Democrats opposed to the energy project are Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA). Boxer told the AP that passing the Keystone Pipeline...

The two culprits who broke into a Calgary casino Wednesday morning and made off with an ATM are in for a surprise. “There’s no money in the machine,” said Staff Sgt. Travis Baker. “If they haven’t gotten into it yet, I’m sure they’re fairly disappointed right now.”

“He cannot stand people challenging him. And right now we have a council that has people who have a lot of common sense,” Mr. Chu said. “I think that really bothers him a lot.” Mr. Nenshi has been embroiled in a number of feuds and bizarre Twitter exchanges ... Muslim mayor represents about the city.

Sometimes it looks like the Canadian economy is unraveling like a giant surprise package right in the face of economists and the Bank of Canada. We’ve got big data revisions, shock bank rate cuts, a falling Canadian dollar. Through it all, nobody saw it coming. They didn’t see a thing. Statistics Canada’s labour force data are notoriously wonky and revision prone. Still, Wednesday’s revamp wiped out 50,000 jobs that economists had assumed had been created during 2014. In an economy with almost 20 million employed, the revisions are small, but they cast doubt on the state of the economy and...

When professors do pay attention to religion, they usually get it wrong. “Conservatives would rather have [social welfare] provided by religious organizations, which is incompatible with other aspects of Catholic social teaching,” Robin Sowards, an adjunct professor at Duquesne University told an audience at the Modern Language Association (MLA) convention in Vancouver, Canada. Here are a few highlights from the history of Catholic Charities: October 24, 1727—“Ursuline sisters arrive from France to open an orphanage, school for street girls, and health facility in New Orleans. It is the first formal Catholic charity in the present United States.” January 1, 1845—“The...

A Lubbock Texas judge made international headlines earlier this year for his prediction that if President Obama is reelected on Tuesday, it will open the door for a United Nations invasion. Judge Tom Head told a local radio station in September that the president will: “Try to give the sovereignty of the United States away. He’s going to call in the UN troops, personnel carriers, tanks and whatever.” The proclamation drew widespread scorn and ridicule both at home and abroad. Even the office of the Secretary General weighed in on Head’s prediction. “It’s absolutely ridiculous,” said a spokesperson for UN...

The future of the United States lies in North America. This is not a geographic truism, but a strategic imperative. Generations of Americans, distracted by far-flung crises, have long taken our own region for granted. This must change if the 21st century is to be an American century. The United States, Canada and Mexico are bound by a shared economic, environmental, demographic and cultural destiny. How we move forward together is key to our success. In recognition of our shared destiny, the three countries should create a North American passport that would, over time, allow their citizens to travel, work,...

The academically free have different ideas of what free speech means than the rest of us do. At the Modern Language Association’s 2015 convention in Vancouver, Canada, Rosaura Sanchez, a former protester-and-activist-turned-Latin American and Chicano literature-professor at UC-San Diego, claimed that professors do face “consequences to speaking out on campus” She went on to allege that she has been “surveilled and recorded” while at protests by campus administrators. Most people do not use freedom of expression in order to keep the expressed thought a big secret. Sanchez asserted that on her campus “dissenters names are placed in a black book,”...

Target Corp. Chairman and CEO Brian Cornell said Thursday that the company was unable to find a realistic scenario in which the 133-store Target Canada would become profitable before at least 2021. It is Cornell's first major move since becoming CEO in August. Cornell, who's been tasked with maintaining the retailer's momentum and reclaiming its image as a purveyor of cheap chic fashions and home decor, said it was a difficult decision "but it was the right decision for our company." "We have determined that it is in the best interest of our business and our shareholders to exit the...

The Black Lives Matter protest movement, found its way to the Modern Language Association (MLA) convention in Vancouver, but failed to attract much support from the left wing attendees. With an estimated 7,000 left-wing professors and their protégé’s in attendance the protest managed to only attract about 150 people or so who listened to a litany of speeches vilifying police actions against blacks across the country. After the speeches it was time to actually march and more than half of those assembled apparently decided that their dedication to this issue didn’t extend to spending any time in the 40 degree...

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between Canada, U.S. and Mexico, signed by President Clinton encourages graphic posts of murders of Mexicans by cartels and corrupt officials, panelists on a panel at the Modern Language Association (MLA) meeting in Vancouver, Canada claimed. Professor Hilda Chacon, Nazareth College of Rochester, said the graphic images of executed Mexican students and other civilians were due to the emergence of the Internet and cyberspace. This creation of “a complex, mirage of images of violence” has created “an exoticized good for violent consumption…[in]…post-NAFTA Mexico.” Ignacio Corona of Ohio State University, said, “There is no...

It has become a scary time to be a Christian professional in Canada. In 2014, lawyers and doctors were targeted by their own professional associations for direct attack because of their religious beliefs. For Christian lawyers, the first salvo was fired at Trinity Western University’s law school. TWU, which exists to “develop godly Christian leaders” in a variety of marketplaces, requires its students and staff to sign a Community Covenant. This pledge, based on religious beliefs, to abstain from certain activities and behaviours during their time at TWU, includes the use of alcohol on campus, viewing pornography, and “sexual intimacy...

Ottawa cops have sealed off an area in the east end due to a “possible threat” involving chemicals and/or explosives. Cops say they are at the scene at St-Laurent Blvd. and Joseph Cyr Street and asking the public to avoid the area. The original call came in at about 10:15 p.m., involving a vehicle possibly connected to an investigation in Nova Scotia, sources tell the Sun. “CBRNE and HAZMAT attended the scene to investigate a threat made by a suspicious male who had possibly checked in at the Chimo Hotel located in the 1100 block of Joseph Cyr,” police said...

A Canadian company that expanded into South Texas in 2012 with a pioneering waterless technique to fracture shale rock has filed for bankruptcy protection as it seeks to reorganize. The company, GasFrac Energy Services Inc. of Calgary, Alberta, may be the first firm to seek bankruptcy protection among those that established a South Texas presence as drilling in the Eagle Ford Shale boomed. GasFrac filed Chapter 15 bankruptcy in Canada on Thursday and later that day in federal bankruptcy court in San Antonio. A U.S. Chapter 15 case is ancillary to a primary filing in the debtor’s home country. GasFrac...

It was only a matter of time before Western soldiers serving as advisors to Iraqi troops began to take on a role more closely resembling conventional ground forces. Any soldier or journalist who has served as a combat advisor or alongside one knows that, when the gunfire starts, the distinctions between advisor and combatant quickly blurs. That blurring has begun. On Monday, a Canadian brigadier general confirmed to reporters that Canadian troops were recently engaged by forces loyal to the Islamic State in Iraq and they returned fire. Via The Lebanon Daily Star: Canadian special forces exchanged gunfire with...

Canadian special forces got into a firefight with Islamic State fighters last week while on a training mission with Iraqi forces. Special forces commander Brig.-Gen. Mike Rouleau said Canadian snipers took out an ISIS mortar position after coming under fire near the front lines last Monday. "(We) were fired upon and returned fire by sniper positions," Rouleau told reporters. He said it was the first time Canadian trainers have come under fire, and he still considers the risk to the 65-70 Canadians on the ground in Iraq to be low. SNIP--- In December, the defence department denied Canadian snipers armed...