The Law Schools With The Most Conservative And Liberal Students (2020) – Above the Law

(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

The country has never been more divided politically, and whether theyre strongly in favor of or adamantly opposed to President Trumps policies, people have been inspired to go to law school to somehow save America.

As our readers know, the latest Princeton Review law school rankings are out, and today, well be focusing on what are perhaps the most important rankings of them all: the law schools with the most conservative students and the law schools with the most liberal students. During these times of political division and strife, why not attend a law school where theres a high likelihood that your classmates will share your political ideology?

Which law schools do you think came out on top of these lists?

First, well begin with the methodology Princeton Review used to determine which law schools had the most conservative and liberal students. A single question was asked of respondents to determine the political bent of each schools student body: If there is a prevailing political bent among students at your school, how would you characterize it? Answer choices were: Very Liberal, Liberal, Middle of the Road, Somewhat Conservative, Very Conservative.

Per Princeton Review, these are the law schools where you can wear your MAGA hats with pride, otherwise known as the law schools with the most conservative students:

Note that the majority of these law schools are in Southern states. You can pwn those libs and discuss the latest witch hunt here. And always remember, NO QUID PRO QUO!

According to Princeton Review, these are the law schools where youll be able to plan how youre going protect Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg at all costs and stop the country from being ripped apart at the seams the places that are also known as the law schools with the most liberal students:

Note that the majority of these law schools are on either the East or West coasts, and one of them is a T14 institution. These damned liberal elites.

Did your law school or alma mater make the cut? If it did, do you think it was ranked fairly? If it didnt make the list for best career prospects, do you agree with that assessment? Pleaseemail usor text us (646-820-8477) with your thoughts. Thanks.

Most Conservative Students 2020 [Princeton Review]Most Liberal Students 2020 [Princeton Review]

Staci Zaretskyis a senior editor at Above the Law, where shes worked since 2011. Shed love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

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The Law Schools With The Most Conservative And Liberal Students (2020) - Above the Law

Liberals Hate the Police – Townhall

There was a time when any candidate for any office with a background in law enforcement would proudly talk about their record and make it a cornerstone of their campaign. In the last few years, however, the Democratic Party has not only moved away from this former truth, but theyve actually embraced an anti-police hatred that is dangerous and destructive.

It started on a large scale in Ferguson, Missouri, with Michael Brown. This was the guy, who all the evidence showed was the aggressor who went after officer Darren Wilson, who was shot and killed while charging the officer for round two. The death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore, Maryland, sped up the process. From there, no incident involving police was too insignificant to make national news, as long as the victim was black. White or Hispanic confrontations with police, regardless of fault, dont register.

From this, the police are racist and hunting young black men mantra was born. And the birth of a liberal narrative is the only birth they dont want to abort.

It led to the Ferguson Effect; police doing the bare minimum required of their job because they know if things go sideways, even if its not their fault, politicians and the media will demonize them if the circumstances fit their narrative.

This caused countless lives to be damaged, as police defensively ignored obvious signs of crimes because they werent called in to dispatch. But its not the only damage liberal policies and attitudes have done.

Confronting police which is the polite way of pointing out people being complete a-holes to cops is now a point of pride on the left. Why not? When youve been told police are racist monsters who start their shifts hoping to be able to harass minorities, why wouldnt you view them as the enemy?

In the last few years, videos have gone viral countless times with some leftist screaming in the face of police, calling them every name you can imagine, launching projectiles toward them at a tantrum described as a protest, and worse. None were followed by mass condemnation in the media. Antifa, the Brownshirts of the Democratic Party, regularly attacks police and everyone else and is met with praise from the likes of CNN.

No interaction with police is beyond turning into an outrage. The latest happened in feces and needle covered streets of San Francisco.

A man reported as D. McCormick was found to be eating on a commuter train, which is against the law. Rather than simply acknowledge he was wrong and apologize, an argument ensued with a string of profanities tossed at the officer. Of course, it was filmed.

Liberals immediately sided with McCormick.

Anti-Semitic professor and cable news talking head Marc Lamont Hilltweeted, Police stopped this man for eating a sandwich. How can anyone defend this? Homophobic MSNBC host Joy Reiddeclared, We really need to address the overpolicing of people of color in this country. Seriously.

The problem isnt over-policing and has nothing to do with race, it has to do with what most problems have to do with liberal lawmakers.

Democrats love creating new laws. As the saying goes, whatever they dont want to ban they seek to make mandatory. And theres a problem with rodents in big cities, people dont want rats on public transportation, so they saw an opportunity to ban eating food. McCormick was unambiguously breaking the law. But because of the narrative the left constructed, aside from the liberal outrage, the incident sparked an independent review.

The officer could face discipline, not the lawbreaker dropping f-bombs on the cop. By the way, he was arrested for resisting arrest, not for the eating. His attitude got him arrested. Had he not been a jackass he likely wouldve just been warned.

But the main point is the police officer was enforcing the law. Elected officials, who will probably exploit the video to further advance their fraudulent narrative, passed the law. If they didnt want it enforced, why did they pass it?

That question could be asked of every law Democrats gleefully cheer the breaking and ignoring of. (Immigration comes to mind.) Liberalsdecriminalize crime and criminalize enforcing the law They pass laws so they can tell voters theyre doing something about whatever any particular problem is, then condemn it when the people charged with enforcing their laws actually does their job. Police take the heat, politicians and media figures condemn the police, the angry mob gets angrierand they vote, which is why the cycle exists in the first place. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Democrats are responsible for most of the problems they claim exclusive domain over solving. Keep that in mind next time you see one of these outrage-spirals. And thank a cop. Lord knows liberals wont.

Derek is the host of a free daily podcast (subscribe!), host of a daily radio show onWCBM in Maryland, and author of the book,Outrage, INC., which exposes how liberals use fear and hatred to manipulate the masses.

Originally posted here:

Liberals Hate the Police - Townhall

Liberals have public support for both TMX pipeline and carbon tax, suggests new poll – The Globe and Mail

Pipeline pipes are seen at a Trans Mountain facility near Hope, B.C., Thursday, Aug. 22, 2019. Justin Trudeau will hold individual meetings with the four opposition leaders between Tuesday and Friday of this week to hear their priorities for Canadas new minority Parliament.

JONATHAN HAYWARD/The Canadian Press

A new poll suggests the Liberal government has support for its pipeline and climate-change strategy as the Prime Minister prepares a legislative agenda that will factor in the views of the opposition parties amid a growing sense of western alienation.

Justin Trudeau will hold individual meetings with the four opposition leaders between Tuesday and Friday of this week to hear their priorities for Canadas new minority Parliament, which is expected to focus much of its attention on environmental and economic issues. The meetings will come after Alberta Premier Jason Kenney ratcheted up his calls over the weekend for greater autonomy for his province in response to increasing separatist sentiment.

The Liberal Party of Canada came under fire in the last election for its position in favour of the expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline, which earned the rebuke of progressive voters, and for the carbon tax, which was vigorously opposed by conservatives.

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Still, a new poll by Nanos Research suggests that going forward with both projects is the most popular option across the country. The polls found that 46 per cent of Canadians are in agreement with the governments plan to continue with the pipeline expansion and to continue imposing a carbon tax in provinces that dont have an equivalent measure in place.

By contrast, 25 per cent of Canadians want the government to only stick with the pipeline project, and 20 per cent would cancel the pipeline project while forging on with the carbon tax.

Support for the cancellation of the carbon tax is highest in the Prairies (45 per cent), while support for the cancellation of the pipeline expansion is strongest in Quebec (37 per cent). Ontarians are the strongest proponents (55 per cent) of continuing with both the tax and the pipeline.

Its pretty clear a significant proportion of Canadians just want to move forward on this. For many Canadians, there is probably a sense of fatigue on both issues, pollster Nik Nanos said.

The poll also found that 59 per cent of Canadians were pleased or somewhat pleased with the results of the Oct. 21 election. The poll showed a polarized country, with residents of Quebec (68 per cent) and Ontario (66 per cent) being satisfied with the outcome of the election, compared with only 34 per cent of residents of the Prairies.

The Liberals won a minority with 157 seats, ahead of the Conservatives (121 seats). The Liberals will mostly rely on the Bloc Qubcois (32 seats), the NDP (24 seats) and the Greens (three seats) to win confidence votes.

The poll of 1,017 Canadians was commissioned by The Globe and Mail and conducted between Oct. 27 and Oct. 30. It has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

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Mr. Nanos said the Prime Minister will have to tread carefully in coming months to deal with anger over his governments policies in Alberta and Saskatchewan. Mr. Trudeau is set to meet Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe in Ottawa on Tuesday.

He is facing a country with more significant regional divisions than we have seen in the past, he said. If there is one clear message for the Liberals, it is that Canadians dont want the same as they saw in the first mandate of Justin Trudeau.

The federal government has imposed a carbon tax, which comes with a tax rebate for consumers, in Ontario, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and New Brunswick. The measure is scheduled to be imposed in Alberta in January.

On Saturday, Mr. Kenney appointed former Reform Party leader Preston Manning to a new panel that will consider a wholesale rewriting of the provinces relationship with Canada.

The Premier said the Fair Deal panel will now consider the establishment of a provincial revenue agency, withdrawing Albertas workers from the Canada Pension Plan and removing the RCMP in favour of a provincial police force. Alberta will even consider whether it should write its own constitution. Mr. Kenney laid out his vision during a speech in Red Deer, saying the move toward greater autonomy is needed owing to increasing separatist sentiment and the re-election of Mr. Trudeaus Liberals.

With a report from Justin Giovannetti

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Liberals have public support for both TMX pipeline and carbon tax, suggests new poll - The Globe and Mail

Liberal official admits Chinese language signs were meant to look like they came from AEC – The Guardian

The former acting Victorian state director for the Liberal party has admitted in court that signs written in Chinese at polling booths on election day were designed to look like official Australian Electoral Commission signage.

The full federal court is hearing the challenges to the elections of Liberal MP Gladys Liu in Chisholm and the treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, in Kooyong over three days. The cases have been brought against the two candidates by climate campaigner Vanessa Garbett and unsuccessful independent Kooyong candidate Oliver Yates.

On Wednesday, Simon Frost, who authorised the signs, said under questioning from Lisa De Ferrari, the barrister for the applicants, that the two signs one in traditional Chinese characters, and one in simplified Chinese characters were intended to appear as though they were AEC corflutes.

The signs that were used in seven electorates in Victoria said, according to an English translation, that the correct way to vote was to put 1 next to the Liberal candidate.

You intended to convey the impression that this was an AEC corflute, didnt you? De Ferrari asked.

Frost, now an adviser to Frydenberg, took a long pause before replying: It was similar to the AEC colours, yes.

So the answer to my question is yes? De Ferrari pressed.

Yes, Frost replied.

Frost had already confirmed that the signs were intended to say to make your vote count but the meaning was lost in translation to the correct way to vote. He said on Thursday it could be a problem that the signs said different words than he authorised.

He also conceded he had not thought at the time about whether the signs were likely to mislead or deceive voters.

He told the court that the signs were proof-read the day before the election in May but the mistake was not picked up. He indicated the Liberal candidate for Hotham, George Hua, also proof-read the signs before the election.

On the day of the election, Frost said he became aware of concerns about the signs once the AEC tweeted replies to people raising issue with the signs, but decided the Liberal partys opponents were merely making a political point out of the signs.

He said at no point on election day did Frydenberg or Liu contact him about the signs, and there would have been no time to print off and distribute more than 500 of the new signs with the correct wording through seven Victorian electorates on election day.

De Ferrari said the ruling being sought is to void the election result in both electorates, causing byelections, which would come at a cost, but the principle was more important.

[It] would put a stop to a developing and illegal practice that is really troubling, she said. The principle is too important to have those considerations of practical inconvenience take over.

The hearing continues.

This story was amended on 7 November 2019 to correct the name of the petitioner Vanessa Garbett. The petition was originally lodged under a different name.

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Liberal official admits Chinese language signs were meant to look like they came from AEC - The Guardian

Implementation of new NAFTA will be ‘important priority’ for Liberal government as U.S. negotiations progress – The Hill Times

With MPs set to return to Ottawa on Dec. 5, progress is being made towards implementation of the new NAFTA south of the border, highlighted by the recent visit to Parliament Hill of the chairman of the important U.S. House Ways and Means Committee.

The implementation is viewed as an important priority by Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland (University-Rosedale, Ont.), according to a spokesperson for her office.

Liberal MP Wayne Easter (Malpeque, P.E.I.) said the new NAFTA should be implemented as soon as possible.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, right, is pictured with U.S. Vice-President Mike Pence on May 30. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade

The signing of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA)called the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) in Canadawas signed on Nov. 30, 2018, after being agreed upon two months earlier. It has yet only been implemented in Mexico, as U.S. House of Representatives Democrats are in the midst of negotiations with U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Robert Lightizer before the pact is brought to the House floor for a vote. The Canadian government has maintained it will proceed with implementation in tandem with the U.S. The agreement doesnt come into force until all three countries have implemented it.

Ive been in some meetings with the Americans lately and CUSMA is on their agenda as well, and I think were trying to find ways to ensure that they move ahead on it and we dont want to move in advance of that, said Mr. Easter, chair of the Canada-United States Inter-Parliamentary Group and chair of the House Finance Committee in the last Parliament, but we should have this implemented as soon as possible.

Adam Austen, press secretary for Ms. Freeland, wouldnt say the level of legislative priority of the implementation bill in the coming Parliament, but said Ms. Freeland and the government as a whole view the ratification of the trade deal as an important priority.

The future of implementation in Canada, Mr. Austen said, will become clearer once the new cabinet is sworn in on Nov. 20.

Before Parliament was dissolved at the call of the election, the USMCA implementation bill had passed at second reading and was referred to the House Committee for International Trade.

Brian Kingston, vice-president of international and fiscal policy at the Business Council of Canada, said Canada should wait until there is a clear signal that there has been an agreement between the House Democrats and Mr. Lightizer in order for Canada to make the necessary changes needed before tabling a new implementation bill.

He added that tabling the bill would have no impact on the speed in which the process unfolds on Capitol Hill.

Canada moving now wont do anything and, if anything, it actually just complicates the process, because if we move ahead with the implementation bill as it exists and changes are made at a later date, we would have to go back and amend the agreement, Mr. Kingston said.

Sarah Goldfeder, a former U.S. diplomat and current Earnscliffe principal, said the Americans are going to move at their own pace.

Theyre not going to get sped up by anything [that Canada would do]. The Mexicans passed it and the Americans still didnt move, she said.

The recent visit of U.S. House Democrat Richard Neal, chair of the powerful Ways and Means Committee which has jurisdiction over trade agreements, to Ottawa is a sign that progress is being made towards ratification, trade specialists say.

The new NAFTA was signed on Nov. 30, 2018. White House photograph by Shealah Craighead

The chairman wouldnt take the time to come up to Ottawa unless there is genuine progress being made, and a real sense that theyre getting to a place that there may be an agreement between House Dems and the USTR, said Mr. Kingston.

Democrat Collin Peterson, chair of the House Agriculture Committee, told U.S.-based agriculture-focused podcast D.C. Signal to Noise last week that Mr. Neal told him that the implementation may be forwarded when the House sits this week or next.

[Mr. Neal] told me he is going to try and move it when we get back, Mr. Peterson said on Nov. 7. The U.S. House of Representatives is sitting from Nov. 11 to 15 and 18 to 21. It will return in December to sit from Dec. 3 to 6 and Dec. 9 to 12.

The question [is if it is] going to get done in those two weeks or it gets down in December. I think its going to get down by the end of the year barring some other thing that comes along and blows it up outside of the USMCA, Mr. Peterson said.

Eric Miller, president of the Rideau Potomac Strategy Group and a former senior policy adviser at the Canadian Embassy in Washington, D.C., said the visit signifies that the deal is coming into the home stretch and the House Democrats are making sure that the changes being agreed to in D.C. are agreeable to the Canadian government.

This is essentially signal checking that what they would see as more or less the outlines of the final agreement are acceptable to Canada, Mr. Miller said, who serves on the external advisory committee on international trade policy to the deputy minister of international trade.

Mr. Neal and a Congressional delegation made a similar trip to Mexico last month.

The sticking issue from getting a U.S. House vote on the USMCA is the labour issue, Ms. Goldfeder said.

Ms. Goldfeder said a goal of Mr. Neals Ottawa trip was to make enforcement provisions less about Mexico and more about all three partners, and to find out if Canada could be helpful resolving outstanding issues between the U.S. and Mexico on labour.

The white smoke signalling a deal is close to completion, Mr. Kingston said, will be the words of AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka.

In an October speech to the University of the District of Columbias law school, Mr. Trumka questioned, according to Politico, the need to have a House vote before the end of the year. Politico reported that support of Mr. Trumka and other U.S. labour leaders is key to getting enough Democrats to vote for the new NAFTA.

nmoss@hilltimes.com

The Hill Times

Neil Moss is a reporter at The Hill Times covering federal politics, foreign policy, and defence.- nmoss@hilltimes.com

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Implementation of new NAFTA will be 'important priority' for Liberal government as U.S. negotiations progress - The Hill Times

Why the next Liberal leader faces a daunting task of historic proportions – TVO

For much of the past three and a half decades, being the permanent leader of the Ontario Liberal Party has been a pretty good gig. In fact, David Peterson, Dalton McGuinty, and Kathleen Wynne all became premiers. Only Lyn McLeod didnt.

But the next Liberal leader, wholl be crowned at a convention on March 7, 2020, will undoubtedly take on the most daunting mission of any leader the party has had since George Brown became its first standard bearer in 1857.

The most obvious headache will be money. The party is pretty much broke. And, thanks to the more restrictive fundraising rules put in place by Wynnes government, its become significantly harder to raise cash if youre not the government (with only five seats in the Ontario legislature, these guys are a long way away from being government). Theres only so much begging head office can do with party loyalists, of whom there are now precious few. The last estimate put the Ontario Liberal membership at 10,000 hardy souls. Compare that to the reigning Progressive Conservatives, who may no longer have the 200,000 the party boasted of two years ago but are surely miles ahead of the Grits.

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One way the parties can stay relevant on the ground is by putting in place a permanent organization attached to the local riding association. Thats another problem the Liberals have. There are 124 ridings in Ontario, and Ive heard estimates that the Liberals are just plain dead in one-third to one-half of those ridings. That means no riding association president, no treasurer, no money in the bank, no volunteers. The situation is dire.

The next Liberal leader will also have the most difficult job ever finding candidates. Even when parties lose elections, they tend to elect a decent-sized caucus. In 2011, the PC official Opposition had 37 MPPs; in 2014, it was 28 MPPs; in 2018, the New Democrats elected 40 MPPs to become the official Opposition.

The point is, the more members you elect, the fewer candidates you have to find the next time. The Liberals have five MPPs today. That means finding 119 people who are prepared to put their lives on hold for a year to run in the 2022 election. No Liberal leader has had to find that many candidates before. Ever.

So, thats what the inbox for the next Liberal leader looks like. And whats worse, they will have to accomplish all that at a time when politics in the nations capital is very much uncertain. The lifespan of a minority parliament is, by definition, unknowable. Who knows when the fragile truce that currently exists among the national parties could come apart, sending the whole gang back onto the hustings and into another election? That would further strain the resources the provincial party needs in order to rebuild, because all the interest would shift to their federal cousins.

Whats perhaps startling is that, at the moment, there are five people who actually want this job: current MPPs Michael Coteau and Mitzie Hunter, former MPP Steven Del Duca, and defeated 2018 election candidates Kate Graham and Alvin Tedjo.

The cutoff to join the Liberal party to vote for one of these contenders is December 2. After that, party members will have some huge questions to answer:

I cant recall a leadership contest in which the winner wound up envying the losers. But this may turn out to be just that.

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Why the next Liberal leader faces a daunting task of historic proportions - TVO

Back to a liberal future or forward to progress with Labour? – Morning Star Online

EVER since Jeremy Corbyn was first elected as leader of the Labour Party, so-called centrist columnists and politicians in Scotland and across Britain have sneered at the very idea of an avowed socialist holding that position.

In 2018, a columnist in The Herald denounced Labour as the fruitcake opposition without any apparent need to justify this. Jo Swinson, the new Liberal Democrat leader, recently deployed the term socialist against Jeremy Corbyn as an insult and declared that the left-right divide is no longer relevant.

There is a persistent reflex from the centrist tendency to deny the legitimacy of the very expression of socialist thought. History, from this perfunctory glance, is an Eraflix platform with passing fads through the ages. The old tales of struggle and socialism are so passe when the Lib Dems have a flashy new drama to sell.

Even a passing acquaintance with the real world shows that history, on the contrary, is embedded in the social landscape which is the constant backdrop to our lives. The legacy of that history is continuing struggle and the continually renewed relevance of socialist ideas to support us through this.

The town of Boness in east central Scotland is a classic example of this. The timelines of history converge on the town, leaving behind evidence of how we reached the present. The central point of this temporal vortex is the Kinneil Estate in the town.

The route of the Antonine Wall runs right through the estate. This northern border wall of the Roman empire was made up mainly of soil held in place by turf so the wall has long since returned to the earth from which it came. Whats left of a global empire built on conquest and held together by force is trampled underfoot.

Nearby a section of the old wall stands the grand Kinneil House. The Kinneil Estate was granted to Sir Walter Fitz Gilbert as a reward for switching sides to Robert the Bruce. The bold Walter was great at social climbing, a skill that was passed down to his descendants who became the dukes of Hamilton, a title harking back to their ancestral plot down south.

The family built a small tower house on the estate in the 15th century. The building was improved on by subsequent generations until it reached palatial proportions in the 17th century. Behind the stately pile lay the humble village of Kinneil. All that remains of the village now is a gable end of its 12th-century church. The Hamiltons were profiting from developing the nearby Boness from a once sparsely inhabited area to a major harbour town.

Much of the population of the village had already been pushed to move to Boness for work but the road to what was left of the village was a frightful impediment to the landscaping of the grounds in front of the house.

In the latter half of the 17th century, the Hamiltons enlisted Parliament to put an end to the parish of Kinneil and incorporate it into a new united Boness parish. By 1691, the village was formally at an end. The road to Kinneil was closed and the Hamiltons could landscape to their hearts content. And they also had the old church as their private chapel.

The Hamiltons eventually repaired to even plusher premises in Lanarkshire, letting out the estate to rich industrialists. Some distance north of the estate today lies the site of the old Kinneil coal mine. In 1858, workers from the pit formed their own brass band, using their own savings. Miners emerged from the hard slog of underground toil to don elegant uniforms and play beautiful music.

In 1894, the Kinneil Band led a march of striking miners. The mine owners were affronted at the gall of those miners and banned them from practising in a hall belonging to the owners. The miners shook the coal dust from their feet and built their own hall.

More than a century earlier, James Watt came to Boness to work on improving the steam engines used to pump water from the mines in the town. One mine was known as The Schoolyard Pit, for obvious reasons. The pupils used to complain about steam coming in through the school windows.

Real life history like this can be found across Scotland and the rest of Britain. This history demonstrates that the most significant factor influencing the nature of society is the question of who holds the major share of wealth and power, a question that is still highly relevant.

Boness today, like many areas up and down Britain, has a busy foodbank serving people on inadequate benefits and those in paid work but on unfair contracts with low pay and limited employment rights.

Centrists like the Liberal Democrats are culturally incapable of grasping the fact that there are poor people because there is a division between those with the majority of wealth and power and those without it. Those without include not just people in crisis now but the mass of people who depend on a salary or whose seemingly reasonable income would be wiped out if they had to pay for health services.

The heirs of the old Liberals, whose mine-owning financiers suppressed any radicalism in the party, cannot perceive this divide. They are prepared to tinker with late and modest offerings to the workers after colluding with the Conservatives in coalition to impose the extremism of austerity.

Labours programme of making wealthy individuals and corporations pay a greater share of tax, giving all workers the right to a 10 an hour minimum wage now, giving workers improved rights and a share of the wealth of their companies, public ownership and investment in public services and infrastructure is about giving all of us a share of wealth and power.

Such a programme is not worthy of a centrist scream of horror but, rather, three cheers from the people and a celebratory blast from a brass band.

Thomas Lewis Russo is a public-sector worker who has assisted community projects across the Central Belt of Scotland.

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Back to a liberal future or forward to progress with Labour? - Morning Star Online

Diamond and Silk decry alleged liberal war on Thanksgiving – Salon

Diamond & Silk decried the so-called war on Thanksgiving with Ainsely Earhardt on President Donald Trumps favorite morning show Fox & Friends, a continued battleground for the conservative culture wars.

Social media personalities and political activists Lynnette Hardaway and Rochelle Richardson, who go by the names Diamond & Silk, told Fox and Friends they were upset by a recent HuffPost editorial, which called on Americans who celebrate Thanksgiving to do so in a way that reduces their carbon footprint in order to account for climate change.

I get tired of people that have lived their life and have eaten meat telling us not to eat meat, Hardaway said. Dont tell us what we can and cannot eat. If you have a problem with climate change, stop driving cars ride on your horse to work. You do everything you can to fix the climate, but dont infringe upon my right to have Thanksgiving with my family.

The Fox News personalities were criticizing a HuffPost article titled "The Environmental Impact Of Your Thanksgiving Dinner," which was written by Alexandra Emanuelli. In the op-ed, Emanuelli gave various advice for reducing ones climate footprint on the annual holiday, including replacing meat and meat byproducts with plant-based alternatives, purchasing ingredients from vendors who provide local materials, not wasting food and traveling shorter distances for Thanksgiving dinner.

Despite characterizing the article as an attempt to cancel Thanksgiving, Emanuelli writes that no one should be discouraged from enjoying the holiday or celebrating with family and friends, but were here to provide insight into the ingredients and dishes that have the largest ecological impact. The researchers we interviewed shared suggestions and alternative ingredients that cause less environmental damage.

A separate reason why some Americans have criticized Thanksgiving through the years is because of the holidays problematic roots. Thanksgiving celebrates a feast between the Puritan colonists of Massachusetts and the Wampanoag people whose land they colonized. However, the Fox News talent altogether ignored the issues of race and imperialism.

Salon spoke with David J. Silverman, the author of the new book This Land Is Their Land: The Wampanoag Indians, Plymouth Colony, and the Troubled History of Thanksgiving last month about the true story of the first American Thanksgiving.

I'm placing Wampanoag people at the very center of the story, Silverman explained. Typically in the Thanksgiving myth, the identity of the native people goes unremarked. They're just the Indians, and they're torn out of their long historical context. They seem like people without history until the English arrive. What's more is, after the famous feast between the Pilgrims and the Indians, the Indians then somehow disappear, and the entire point of the myth is to make it seem as if native people voluntarily ceded their country to colonists.

In terms of what they ate, Silverman said that it included mostly wild foods: venison, which the Wampanoags contributed, eel, various fish. It's quite possible that they were eating turkey, but we're not sure about that. What we do know is that they were eating fowl. He said that his guess would be that they were eating turkey, duck, goose and the like. And then there would have been some basic crops that the English raised: corn, beans, fundamentally Indian crops rather than English crops. There was no sugar so there were no desserts.

You can watch the segment below via Twitter:

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Diamond and Silk decry alleged liberal war on Thanksgiving - Salon

Trudeau likely to face more assertive caucus in first meeting with Liberal winners, losers – National Post

OTTAWA Re-elected, newly elected and defeated Liberal MPs will gather Thursday on Parliament Hill for the first time since Canadians clipped the wings of Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus government in the Oct. 21 election.

The two-hour get-together is not a formal caucus meeting, just a chance to congratulate winners and commiserate with losers.

Nevertheless, it will doubtless give Trudeau a taste of the mood in what is likely to be a more assertive Liberal caucus, one less inclined to obediently follow the lead of a prime minister who no longer exudes an aura of electoral invincibility.

Trudeaus reputation as a champion of diversity and tolerance took a beating during the bruising 40-day campaign when it was revealed hed donned blackface repeatedly in his younger days.

His grip on power was ultimately weakened; the Liberals won 157 seats 13 shy of a majority in the House of Commons and were shut out entirely in Alberta and Saskatchewan, where Trudeaus name is now political poison.

Unlike Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, Trudeau does not face a potential revolt over his leadership but returning Liberal MPs do expect him to make some changes.

Among them: pay more attention to the views of caucus, bring more diverse voices into his inner circle, drop the nasty personal attacks that dominated the campaign, return to more positive messaging and, in particular, concentrate more on communicating the Liberal governments successes on the economic front.

I really think theres an opportunity here for caucus maybe to be heard more, Prince Edward Island veteran MP Wayne Easter said in an interview. We were four years in government and the strong voice of caucus and avenues for caucus to be heard maybe in a more substantive way must be found.

Vancouver MP Hedy Fry said the people who have their finger on the pulse of the nation are the MPs.

As a physician, I can say if you dont take vital signs, you make mistakes. The centre isnt getting that.

Montreal MP Alexandra Mendes hopes the minority government, which will require more collaboration with opposition parties, will result in all parliamentarians, not just cabinet ministers, getting more input into bills during Commons debates and committee study.

Many of us were elected on our merits, and not just because of the party, and people expect us to prove that trust is warranted, she said in an interview.

I really think theres an opportunity here for caucus maybe to be heard more

Along with the demand to engage more with backbenchers is a widespread feeling that Trudeau can no longer rely solely on advice from his tight inner circle what one MP refers to as the triumvirate echo chamber of Trudeau, chief of staff Katie Telford and former principal secretary Gerald Butts.

Telford is staying on as chief of staff. However, Butts, who resigned in the midst of the SNC-Lavalin affair, has no plans to return to the PMO, although he was a key player during the campaign. That leaves an opening for a new principal secretary and some LiberalMPs see that as an opportunity to bring in a senior adviser from the West and maybe also from Quebec, where a resurgence of the separatist Bloc Quebecois is cause for concern.

I do think that there have to be more diverse voices around the PM, in terms of not just having a very Ontario-centric team, said Mendes.

A number of Liberal MPs bemoan the nasty tone of the campaign, including the Liberal attacks on Scheers social conservative values rather than a more positive campaign promoting the Liberals economic record: robust growth, historically low unemployment, 900,000 lifted out of poverty as a result of the Canada Child Benefit.

Fry, who just won her ninth election, said she never saw such a nasty campaign that revolved so heavily around personal attacks on the leaders.

The result was that people didnt know who to vote for because they thought they were all scoundrels, she said. And they didnt know what the government had done on big issues like affordable housing because the leaders were too busy screaming at each other about how terrible the other human being was.

Easter said all leaders have to give our head a shake and stop this political rhetoric. The elections over, lets get on with governing like Canadians expect us to do.

Like other MPs, Easter believes the government must do a better job of communicating its accomplishments on pocket-book issues, which he said nobody seemed to know about when he knocked on doors during the campaign.

One of Trudeaus difficulties is, he so wants to do the right thing and so wants to see the political correctness and so wants to do right on the gender balance and Indigenous (reconciliation) that he puts himself in such a position that it maybe compromises his leadership position, Easter said.

Hes out there on those issues and maybe not out there on the bread-and-butter issues and I think he has to emphasize the other side more.

The rest is here:

Trudeau likely to face more assertive caucus in first meeting with Liberal winners, losers - National Post

Liberal Policy Failures Are the Reason for Socialism’s New Appeal – Daily Signal

Multiple forms of socialism, from hard Stalinism to Europeanredistribution, continue to fail.

Russia and China are still struggling with the legacy ofgenocidal communism. Eastern Europe still suffers after decades ofSoviet-imposed socialist chaos.

Cuba, Nicaragua, North Korea, and Venezuela are unfree, poor, and failed states. Baathisma synonym for pan-Arabic socialismruined the postwar Middle East.

The soft-socialist European Union countries are stagnant andmostly dependent on the U.S. military for their protection.

In contrast, current American deregulation, tax cuts, and incentives, and record energy production have given the United States the strongest economy in the world.

So why, then, are two of the top three Democratic presidential contendersBernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warreneither overtly or implicitly running on socialist agendas? Why are the heartthrobs of American progressivesReps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.; Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich.; and Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.calling for socialist redistributionist schemes?

Why do polls show that a majority of American millennialshave a favorable view of socialism?

There are lots of catalysts for the new socialism.

Massive immigration is changing the demography of the United States. The number of foreign-born U.S. residents and their children has been estimated at almost 60 million, or about 1 in 5 U.S. residents. Some 27% of California residents were born outside of America.

Many of these immigrants flee from poor areas of Latin America, Mexico, Africa, and Asia that were wrecked by statism and socialism. Often, they arrive in the U.S. unaware of economic and political alternatives to state socialism.

When they reach the U.S.often without marketable skills and unable to speak Englishmany assume that America will simply offer a far better version of the statism from which they fled. Consequently, many take for granted that government will provide them an array of social services, and they become supportive of progressive socialism.

Another culprit for the new socialist craze is the strangeleftward drift of the very wealthy in Silicon Valley, in corporate America andon Wall Street.

Some of the new progressive rich feel guilty about theirunprecedented wealth. So they champion redistribution as the sort of medievalpenance that alleviates guilt.

Yet the influential and monied classes usually are so welloff that higher taxes hardly affect them. Instead, redistributionist taxationhurts the struggling middle classes.

In California, it became hip for wealthy leftists to promote socialism from their Malibu, Menlo Park, or Mill Valley enclaveswhile still living as privileged capitalists. Meanwhile, it proved nearly impossible for the middle classes of Stockton and Bakersfield to cope with the reality of crushing taxes and terrible social services.

From 2008 to 2017, the now-multimillionaire Barack Obama,first as candidate and then as president, used all sorts of cool socialistslogans, from spread the wealth around and now is not the timeto profit to you didnt build that and at a certainpoint youve made enough money.

Universities bear much of the blame. Their manipulation ofthe federal government to guarantee student loans empowered them to jack upcollege costs without any accountability. Liberal college administrators andfaculty did not care much when graduates left campus poorly educated and unableto market their expensive degrees.

More than 45 million borrowers now struggle with nearly $1.6 trillion in collective student debt, with climbing interest. That indebtedness has delayedor endedthe traditional forces that encourage conservatism and traditionalism, such as getting married, having children, and buying a home.

Instead, a generation of single, childless, and mostly urban youth feels cheated that their high-priced degrees did not earn them competitive salaries. Millions of embittered college graduates will never be able to pay off what they oweand want some entity to pay off their debts.

In paradoxical fashion, teenagers were considered savvy adults who were mature enough to take on gargantuan loans. But they were also treated like fragile preteens who were warned that the world outside their campus sanctuaries was downright mean, sexist, racist, homophobic, and unfair.

Finally, doctrinaire Republicans for decades mouthed orthodoxies of free rather than fair trade. They embraced the idea of creative destruction of industries, but without worrying about the real-life consequences for the unemployed in the hollowed-out, red-state interior.

Add up a lost generation of woke and broke college graduates, waves of impoverished immigrants without much knowledge of American economic traditions, wealthy advocates of boutique socialism, and asleep-at-the-wheel Republicans, and it becomes clear why historically destructive socialism is suddenly seen as cool.

Regrettably, sometimes the naive and disaffected mustrelearn that their pie-in-the sky socialist medicine is far worse than theperceived malady of inequality.

And unfortunately, when socialists gain power, they dont destroy just themselves. They usually take everyone else down with them as well.

(C) 2019 TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

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Liberal Policy Failures Are the Reason for Socialism's New Appeal - Daily Signal

Liberal Democrats explain why they aren’t standing down in East Devon as part of Unite to Remain pact – Devon Live

Liberal Democrats have said thatthere could be no guarantee of how Independent candidate Claire Wright would vote regarding Brexit if she were elected in East Devon.

Unite to Remain last week identified 60 seats where a deal had been struck between the Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru and the Green Party, in a move to defeat Conservative candidates, including in Exeter and Totnes.

The non-party campaign group has revealed that it also proposed Claire Wright and whose 21,000 votes in 2017 make her the clear challenger to the Tories but were unable to persuade the Lib Dems or Greens to stand aside.

Unite to Remain director Peter Dunphy said the organisation had not included East Devon in the list of candidates but urged Remain voters to back Claire Wright as the best chance to wrest the seat from Tory control.

He said: It was not possible to gain cross-party agreement for a single candidate in every key constituency that we considered.

Ultimately it has been up to the political parties in consultation with local members to make these tough choices.

Sadly, we were unable to gain Unite to Remain all-party agreement in East Devon where we had proposed Claire Wright as the clear challenger to the Conservatives.

Our suggestion therefore is to follow the excellent tactical voting advice of Best for Britain and Gina Millers Remainunited to support the Remain candidate with the best chance of victory, which in the case of East Devon is the Independent Claire Wright.

Both the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party though have announced candidates for the East Devon seat. Eleanor Rylance, who represents Broadclyst on East Devon District Council, is standing for the Lib Dems, while Henry Gent, a Broadclyst parish councillor, will stand for the Green Party.

Explaining why the Lib Dems have not stood aside, Stuart Mole, Media Relations Officer, said that it was important that all who wish to vote Lib Dem should have the chance to do so and that there could be no guarantee of how Ms Wright would vote regarding Brexit if she were elected.

Mr Mole said: The Unite 2Remain national agreement covers around 60 constituencies. In England, this involves the Lib Dems, the Greens and prominent parliamentary campaigners currently without party affiliation who have a proven track record in campaigning for Remain.

At no time has it been proposed to local Liberals by the Liberal Democrats, by Unite2Remain or indeed by Claire Wright that the agreement should be extended to East Devon. Nor, to our knowledge, has the local Green Party been approached either.

Claire Wright has been a low-key supporter of Remain up to now and the fuller statement of her views on Brexit, promised some weeks ago, has yet to materialise. There could also be no guarantee of how she might specifically vote on Brexit, were she to be elected to Parliament.

The Liberal Democrats are fighting a vigorous national campaign with a charismatic new Leader, in Jo Swinson, who we would like to see as prime minister.

We offer a strong and distinctive message on remaining in the European Union by revoking Article 50 but we also are offering a raft of important policies on climate change, the economy and public services, to name a few.

It is important that all who wish to vote Lib Dem should have the chance to do so. Eleanor Rylance was unanimously reaffirmed as our candidate for parliament in East Devonlast month and we have high hopes of her doing very well.

On Ms Wrights website, under her views on Brexit, it says: The government should offer the people a democratic say on the agreement by way of a confirmatory vote. I would campaign to remain.

At the 2017 General Election, Wright, received 35 per cent of the vote compared to the Lib Dems two per cent.

She said that she had never approached any of her rivals or asked them to give her a free run but welcomed the Unite to Remain endorsement and insisted voters could make their own decisions about whether to vote tactically based on past results.

Ms Wright, who is also a Devon County councillor for the Otter Valley ward, said: I have never asked for any favours from my rivals and I respect their decision to stand and fight for the seat.

Of course, running as a sole candidate against the Conservatives would appear to give me a better chance but I am not asking anyone for an easy ride.

I have fought a fair and positive campaign twice, without assistance, increasing my share of the vote without resorting to personal attacks and I dont intend to start now.

I would now urge my supporters to concentrate all of their energy on getting this people-powered campaign over the line.

And, of course, we must avoid the danger presented by Boris Johnsons withdrawal agreement which could condemn us to years of trade negotiations and threaten the NHS by offering the public a democratic vote which includes the option of Remain.

She is set to launch her manifesto atTheInstitute in Yonder Street in Ottery St Mary on Wednesday night, from 7.30pm to 9pm.

She added: My manifesto is based on the issues the people of East Devon have told me matter most. The past few years have demonstrated that the party system is broken. It is time for change.As an Independent, I would have exactly the same rights as other MPs and would work cross-party to achieve my manifesto pledges.

I am different. I have no party whip to tell me how to vote. I am free to speak and free to act. And free to fight for the issues that the people of East Devon care about the most.

This election is very unpredictable and presents a rare opportunity for residents to elect an MP who truly cares and puts them first.

The seat has only ever been held by the Conservatives, but the previous MP for the area, Sir Hugo Swire, is standing down.

Simon Jupp was chosen at a selection meeting at Exmouth Community College on Saturday as the new Conservative candidate for the area.

The former journalist, who has worked on local radio across Devon before moving to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, was born in Plymouth.

The 34-year-old started his broadcasting career aged 15 before moving to the Afternoon Show at Plymouth Sound and later launching Radio Plymouth and presenting on Radio Exe.

He said: Im very proud to be selected as the Conservative Parliamentary candidate for East Devon.

Im determined to ensure the democratic will of East Devon is delivered and Im looking forward to continuing to knock on doors, listening to local people and addressing their concerns.

Sir Hugo Swire has done so much over the past 18 years for East Devon. The community hospital at Ottery St Mary would not have been saved without his intervention.

Most recently Mr Jupp has worked as a Special Advisor to the Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab.

Michael Amor, of the Brexit Party, had previously announced that he was going to stand in East Devon.

But today, Nigel Farage, Brexit Party Leader, announced that it will not stand candidates in the 317 seats won by the Conservatives at the 2017 general election, so it is expected that Mr Amor will no longer contest the seat.

Daniel Wilson, 37, from Exmouth, is also standing for the Labour Party.

Candidates have until 4pm on Thursday, November 14, before nominations close, so additional candidates may also be contesting the seat.

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Liberal Democrats explain why they aren't standing down in East Devon as part of Unite to Remain pact - Devon Live

Liberals regroup in Ottawa, trying to reconcile climate action with western alienation – CBC.ca

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is meeting with incoming and outgoing Liberal MPs in Ottawa today to talk about approaches tothe issueof climate change on one hand and to growing tensions over the stalled western energy economy on the other.

Making his way into the informal meeting in OttawaThursday afternoon, Trudeau said giving Alberta and Saskatchewan avoice after a Liberal electoral shut-out is a "significant" matter for him.

"I've been reaching out to premiers, to mayors, to business leaders, to colleagues and former colleagues," he said. "There's a lot of work to do to make sure that we're governing for the entire country."

Trudeau described today's meeting as an opportunity to reflect on what they heard from Canadians during the 40-day election campaign, and to discuss how to respond to those concerns going forward. He said it's also achance to talk about how defeated MPs can play a continued role, and to express gratitude for their past efforts.

Trudeau's Liberals went from third-party status to a landslide majority in 2015. This time, the party was reduced to a minority, with157 seats.

Two top cabinet ministers were defeated on Oct. 21. Saskatchewan's Ralph Goodale and Alberta's Amarjeet Sohi werevoted out in the two-province shut-out a damning indictment of the Liberals' response togrowing economic uncertainty in the region.

Goodalesaid Trudeau isnow examiningevery procedural and structural option for dealing with the lack of Liberal MPs in the region, but added the more important task is addressing the underlying roots of western discontent.

"The more critical thing is the substantive issue of understanding, clearly and deeply, what the issues were and are that are deepest concerns to western Canadians, and to make sure those issues are addressed in a conscientious way that builds Canadian unity," he said.

Goodale said it's crucial for the government to offer reassuranceto those worried about economic security so theycan "enjoy and celebrate (prosperity)just like everyone else across the country."

The outgoing minister acknowledged that pushing ahead with a robust climate changeagenda will be challenging in the face of mounting frustrations in the West over the carbon tax and the lack of adequateoil pipeline capacity to the coast.

"There's a very challenging circle to square here. A majority of Canadians on election night voted very clearly for the completion of the Trans Mountain expansion. A very strong majority of Canadians also voted for more vigorous ambition with respect to climate change," he said.

"And finding the ways to bring all of that together, as the government and the prime minister [have] said for years proper policy with respect to the economy and energy need to go hand-in-hand with proper policy with respect to the environment."

After the meeting,Catherine McKenna, who held the environment minister when the election started, said finding that balance is possible if the country comes together.

"When we talk about the environment and the economy going together, we actually mean it. Of course we need to figure out how to bring the country together. There is no bigger issue than national unity. But we also need to tackle climate change and we can do this," she said.

Returning Liberal MPFranois-Philippe Champagne said Canadianssent the Liberals a "message of humility"and they heard it loud and clear.

"We're not here boasting. We're here humble. We're here listening, we're here making sure that we plan the future together," he said.

Another minister, Jim Carr who was recently diagnosed with blood cancer said the message he heard repeatedly at the doorsteps during the campaign is that Canadians are seeking unity in the country.

"There isn't muchof an appetite for division, and for division politics. People are searching for common ground and that's a very important message," he said. "We can have our disputes and we ... are robust in the way we articulate those disputes. But there is a time for a nation to come together, and that time is now."

Marc Garneau, the transport minister when the election began, said the reunion with outgoing MPs was an emotional one.

"It's not easy to be a politician. And when you put your heart and soul into something and it doesn't work out, it's not easy to take," he said. "But they were all very, very proud.

As McKenna left the meeting, she was asked if she expectsto remain in the environment portfolio. She said that she serves at the pleasure of the prime minister and will do "whatever is required."

"Climate change is not a one-portfolio issue. It's everything. It's the economy, it's transportation... It's how we build our houses, it's reconciliation with Indigenous peoples," she said.

"I am happy to do whatever I am asked. It is a real honour and privilege to be in this job."

Trudeau will swear in his new cabinet on Nov. 20. He will set the date for the new Parliament to begin after meeting with opposition leaders next week.

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Liberals regroup in Ottawa, trying to reconcile climate action with western alienation - CBC.ca

The Liberal Democrats’ Skills Wallets will help people thrive in the modern economy: here’s why – FE News

The economy is changing fast but successive governments have not prepared people for the challenges ahead.

As technology improves and our population ages, almost half of workers today will have to retrain in their lifetime.

You would think that addressing these economic challenges would be central to any political partys manifesto.

But instead, the Conservatives and Labour will fight this election justifying the economic damage they will do with their competing versions of Brexit.

By contrast, Liberal Democrats will stop Brexit altogether and invest in our public services.

But we also want to build a brighter future by tackling these longer-term economic challenges too.

Thats why our former leader, Sir Vince Cable, created an Independent Commission on Lifelong Learning.

It would consider how we can remove the barriers that stop people getting the education, skills and training they will need to thrive in the future economy and take the next step on the career ladder.

Under our proposals, every adult in England would be given an online Skills Wallet, giving people the power to decide what, how and when they earn:

Study one module or an entire course the choice is up to you.

Learners would be given free careers guidance to help them pick a course that will meet their personal or career development aims, and the Office for Students would be given an expanded remit to monitor course quality.

This is a matter of fairness. Anyone could need to go back to education, to change careers, get a promotion or pick up a new hobby.

Liberal Democrats are putting education at the heart of this election campaign, with a plan to provide free childcare, reverse school cuts, invest in colleges and boost the quality and quantity of apprenticeships. Everyone, no matter their age or background, has the right to an education, to learn new skills, nurture creativity and develop their talents.

With Skills Wallets, everyone will have the power to learn new skills and develop existing ones, so that they feel happier, healthier and have the knowledge they need to thrive in the modern economy.

Layla Moran is the Liberal Democrat Shadow Education Secretary

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The Liberal Democrats' Skills Wallets will help people thrive in the modern economy: here's why - FE News

Liberals gather en masse to honour Tony Abbott’s 25 years in politics – Sydney Morning Herald

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During the event, Mr Abbott said he and Malcolm Turnbull owed Mr Morrison a "tremendous debt" after this year's election victory.

He said Mr Morrison had saved the federal government from being judged "an embarrassing failure" with his "near miraculous" win in May.

"Had we lost this election, this government would have been judged an embarrassing failure," Mr Abbott said.

"So I might have started it - but frankly Scott, you have saved it.

"And for that, I do not normally bracket myself with Malcolm Turnbull, but Malcolm Turnbull and I both owe you a tremendous debt."

The $175-a-head dinner ($130 for members) was held at the sprawling Miramare Gardens estate in Terrey Hills, just outside Mr Abbott's former electorate of Warringah. Last year the venue featured in the pages of Vogue magazine when former Miss Universe Australia Monika Radulovic married artist Alesandro Ljubicic.

Every member of the NSW Liberal Party was invited, including Mr Turnbull, although senior party sources indicated the former member for Wentworth was not called upon to speak.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton, former speaker Bronwyn Bishop and Liberal MP Craig Kelly arrive at the dinner.Credit:AAP

Selected attendees were invited to a private pre-dinner drinks function at 6.15pm. Liberal Party state director Chris Stone asked them to please "share only the dinner details" with their guests.

Big names on the guest list were NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian, federal cabinet ministers Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton and Energy Minister Angus Taylor, Mr Abbott's former chief-of-staff Peta Credlin and Liberal vice-president and Q&A star Teena McQueen.

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Seated at the head table with Mr Abbott, Mr Morrison and Mr Howard were Liberal MP Kevin Andrews, Liberal senator Eric Abetz and former deputy prime minister Warren Truss, among others.

It was a decidedly cross-factional evening in attendance if not in spirit. Mr Abbott's conservative allies were joined by a healthy contingent of NSW moderates including Families Minister Gareth Ward, federal MP for Mackellar Jason Falinski, Manly state MP James Griffin and North Shore state MP Felicity Wilson.

Numerous business figures from the northern beaches were also there, including former Woolies boss Roger Corbett (who is also president of the Liberal electorate conference in Warringah), former Sydney Airport chairman Max Moore-Wilton, UNICEF boss and former NRMA head Tony Stuart and philanthropist couple Kay van Norton Poche and her husband Greg, who founded Star Track Express.

The invitation went out to every member of the NSW Liberal Party.

Mr Abbott's wife Margie was forced to miss the celebration as she was in hospital recovering from a lumpectomy, but the former PM was joined by his sister Christine Forster who praised her brother as "an amazing asset to our country" despite their documented differences on marriage equality.

NSW Liberal Party president Philip Ruddock - who will be returned to that position unopposed at Saturday's state council meeting - was due to give the vote of thanks. He said members' interest in the sold-out event was unprecedented.

"We've had an enormous number of people who wanted to be there but couldn't people who recognise [Mr Abbott's] very significant and outstanding contribution to Australia," he said.

"People don't always agree on every issue, but they recognise that his service has been unique and extraordinarily special."

Guests gave Mr Abbott a standing ovation when he entered, and the 1000-strong crowd sang Advance Australia Fair before tucking into an entree of carpaccio di bresaola and mains of braised beef cheeks or crispy skin salmon fillet.

Mr Abbott was also bestowed with a lifetime service award, the highest award that can be given to a member of the NSW Liberal Party.

He entered Parliament in 1994 at a byelection and held the seat of Warringah for 25 years. During that time he served as a minister in the Howard government, including in the health portfolio, and then led the Liberal Party into government in 2013 with a decisive victory over Kevin Rudd's Labor.

But he was deposed when Mr Turnbull challenged him for the top job in 2015, following a period of instability in the government and backbench dissatisfaction with his judgment and his office. At the May election, Mr Abbott lost his seat due to a massive swing to independent Zali Steggall, a former Olympic skier.

Michael Koziol is a political correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

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Liberals gather en masse to honour Tony Abbott's 25 years in politics - Sydney Morning Herald

Liberals told to be more humble, address Western Canada concerns, as caucus meets – National Post

Liberal MPs were sounding a more conciliatory tone Thursday as they gathered for the first time since losing 20 seats and their parliamentary majority.

The party went from 177 MPs to 157 in the last election and were shut out of two western provinces. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the meeting was an opportunity to hear from MPs and think about the next steps.

This a moment to gather, amongst friends, to reflect on the experiences we have had over the last few months.

Heritage minister Pablo Rodrguez said the party was given a mandate but also has to reflect on what went wrong.

We have to look at the results, some of our colleagues are not here anymore and we have to understand why, he said.

He said the party will have to be, more humble, listen more and have a lot of corroboration with other parties.

We have a mandate to govern Canada but that mandate also comes with the necessity to discuss, to negotiate with other parties.

Quebec MP Steve MacKinnon said the partys starting point is going to be the platform it ran on but they will also have to be flexible.

Clearly, we dont have the majority of votes and so we are going to have to talk to our friends across the way and see where we can find common ground.

He said the party will approach negotiations with the glass half full.

You start from the belief that everyone wants the right outcomes for Canada and for Canadians, believe in peoples good faith and stick to your principles. Principles cant be negotiated.

Trudeau said he will wait until after he meets with opposition leaders next week to decide when parliament will resume. He has scheduled meetings with every opposition party leader and has announced he will reveal his cabinet on Nov. 20.

He also said he is still working to address how the government will manage the lack of MPs from Saskatchewan and Alberta when putting together the cabinet.

There is a lot of work to do to make sure we are governing for the entire country.

Ralph Goodale, who lost the seat in Saskatchewan he had held for more than two decades, said Trudeau would find ways to have those provinces represented but more importantly is addressing the issues.

The more critical thing is the substantive issue of understanding, clearly and deeply, what the issues were, and are, that are of deepest concern to western Canadians.

Goodale said people in his riding are concerned about the economy.

That was the issue that was raising the anxiety level across western Canada and it will be very important for the government to provide the necessary reassurance.

Outgoing Natural Resources minister Amarjeet Sohi, who lost his seat in Edmonton, said getting the Trans Mountain pipeline done is essential.

Having the construction underway and completing that project on time, absolutely is important to responding to western Canadian concerns, he said.

He also said the government should emphasize what the energy industry has done for Canada.

One way for us to move forward is to continue to stress the importance of oil and gas to Alberta, to Canada. And how oil and gas and the whole energy sector has contributed to the prosperity of every Canadian.

Email: rtumilty@postmedia.com | Twitter:

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Liberals told to be more humble, address Western Canada concerns, as caucus meets - National Post

Is This the Future Liberals Want? – Jacobin magazine

The following is a preview from the forthcoming print issue of Jacobin, on populism. Subscribe to Jacobin today and get it when its released in November!

October 2040: an exhausted nation readies itself for the third and final presidential debate of a grueling campaign season. Across Americas living rooms, bars, basement shelters, and prisons, augmented reality devices light up with images of the two contenders.

First-term California governor Malia Obama, vaulted to the Democratic nomination after her heroic response to the devastating Central Valley flood of 39, introduces her Green Forward agenda. This ambitious plan, developed in partnership with Harvard University and the Bezos Foundation, aims to relocate 20 million workers from environmental and economic brownfields to productive metropolitan cores, where they can apply for federal grants, providing the displaced with access to education and skills training, along with civic engagement and entrepreneurship programs.

The proposal brings a throaty sneer from Republican president Allen Jones, the retired professional wrestling star formerly known as A.J. Styles. The elite wants to make you move to Portland, Oregon, and eat plastic hamburgers in a cubicle until you die, he says, referring to the citys recent ordinance banning the consumption of animal products. In contrast, Jones pledges to protect Judeo-Christian values by building the largest military drone fleet in world history, implanting microchips in illegal immigrants (just stamp em!), creating a million new American jobs in ocean-floor mineral mining, and cutting taxes.

As the debate ends, pundits remark that the country is more polarized than ever. Earlier in the campaign, Joness son Ajay, a freshman congressman from Georgia, made headlines by performing his fathers signature move, the Styles Clash, on longtime Texas senator Beto ORourke; images of bleeding Beto have featured prominently in campaign ads on both sides. But it is not clear how many Americans are really paying attention. One hundred and thirty million people sat out the last election, including a record share of lower-income and working-class voters. Even as wealth and income inequality soar to new highs, experts predict that less than a quarter of Americans without college degrees will cast a ballot in 2040.

For socialists, this may be a dystopian vision, but this is the future many liberals want or, at least, the future that professional Democrats have been aiming at for some time.

Chuck Schumers notorious boast about trading blue-collar Democrats for college-educated Republicans accurately captured the strategy that produced both the Democratic Partys disastrous 2016 defeat and its limited victory in 2018. But the comment was not just an unusually candid confession of the partys strategic priorities; it was also a neutral description of a much larger process that began long before Schumer reached the Senate.

Since the 1970s, parties of the left center have bled working-class support all over the industrialized world, with millions of blue-collar Democrats, Social Democrats, and Labor voters giving way to a new class of highly educated professionals. Schumers own political career, which began at age twenty-three, when he graduated from Harvard Law School and won election to the New York State Assembly in the same year (eat your heart out, Pete Buttigieg!) is just one illustration of this shift. In fact, Schumer-like politicians, and the professional-class voters they represent, have become the active leadership and core constituency within center-left parties from Brooklyn to Berlin to Sydney.

Thomas Piketty has dubbed this new configuration a clash between the Brahmin Left educated professionals, defined by their cosmopolitan virtues and the Merchant Right business leaders, committed to the ruthless maximization of profit. Under this arrangement of forces, working-class voters have either dwindled into quiescent adjuncts of the professional-class left, gravitated toward right-wing populism, or dropped out of politics altogether.

It wasnt always this way. Even in the United States, where racism and the two-party system have always sapped working-class solidarity, politics in the mid-twentieth century was polarized firmly along class lines. From the 1930s to the 1960s, if you were a working-class voter a mail carrier in Harlem, a miner in West Virginia, a farm laborer in New Mexico, a garment worker in Cleveland you were very likely to vote Democrat. If you were a manager or professional outside the Solid South from Vermont to California you were very likely to vote Republican. At its peak, in the era of Franklin D. Roosevelt, class voting was nearly as robust in the United States as anywhere in the industrialized world.

Across the twentieth century, it was this politics of class that structured the great and lasting achievements of European social democracy, from Britains National Health Service to the Scandinavian welfare state. In the United States, class voting produced the political coalitions that delivered the New Deal and the Civil Rights Acts. Here, as elsewhere, the decisive energy for reform came about through working-class organization, chiefly in labor and social movements.

But a key ingredient in the mix was a partisan alignment that allowed, and in some ways even encouraged, the success of class-based demands for economic redistribution and democratic equality. Unexceptional New Deal Democrats like Hubert Humphrey, pushed by organized labor and confident in the knowledge that they spoke as clear representatives of the working people, could denounce scabs and defend vigorous labor laws while calling for national health insurance, an end to Jim Crow, unprecedented mass transit and eldercare projects, and a stabilized economy of full employment.

There is no need to romanticize such mid-century Democrats, who also presided over the expansion of the security state and the murderous war in Vietnam. Yet neither can we afford to dismiss the victories in this era of class voting, which dwarf anything either Democrats or American leftists have won in the last fifty years. The Democratic Party was never truly a workers party, but its major achievements of the twentieth century were possible only because it was a party of workers.

This alignment has been under stress since the 1960s. Today, it is officially dead. The Democratic Party of our own decade, as New Americas Lee Drutman writes with palpable excitement, has become an unequal partnership between highly educated professional whites and minority voters, in which wealthy cosmopolitans play a role of increasing significance, not least as fundraisers and donors, but also in the party primaries, where the affluent disproportionately participate.

The Republican Party, meanwhile, has sharpened its identity as an alliance of bosses, cultural conservatives, and white nationalists. With a working class divided by race, and a managerial class divided by culture, more than ever it is education and moral values rather than material interests that form the battleground on which Americas two parties collide.

The causes of this broader shift, of course, transcend the conscious maneuvering of center-left party leaders. Racist backlash in the postcivil rights era served to undermine class solidarity everywhere. More broadly, globalization, financialization, automation above all, the political victories of capital over organized labor in the late twentieth century have combined to create a social reconstitution of the American working class. Its representative figure today is not a General Motors line-worker, close to the centers of power, but a home health aide (or atomized gig worker) whose labor, however necessary to society at large, does not always generate obvious leverage over capital or natural opportunities for collective action.

In the same decades, the rise of the knowledge economy swelled the numbers of credentialed professionals especially in law, medicine, education, and engineering and cemented their influence on American politics. With organized labor in decline, Democrats increasingly sought and often won this professional-class support, often clustered in affluent suburbs near universities, hospitals, and technology centers.

In the 1970s, the practitioners of the New Politics gave this process a progressive sheen, seeking to build a constituency of conscience in the era of George McGovern and Watergate. In the 1980s and 1990s, New Democrats in the mold of Michael Dukakis and Bill Clinton tacked to the right, promising to rein in big government, forge public-private partnerships, and get tough on crime. But what both party movements shared was a laser-like focus on white-collar voters, accelerating the decline of class voting and paving the way for todays even more comprehensive dealignment.

This fundamental shift from the party of Humphrey to the party of Schumer remains the most important American political development that confronts the Left today. It is no accident that the decline of class voting has corresponded with fifty years of retreat for American workers: stagnant wages, accumulating debt, and increasing precarity, even as corporate profits have soared. Nor is it a coincidence that even popular two-term Democratic presidents in this era, elected by such dealigned class coalitions, have proven unable or unwilling to push for structural reforms on anything like the scale of the New Deal era, even after facing the biggest economic crash since the Great Depression.

This is the heavy undertow that churns beneath the apparent rising tide of the American left. Yes, the 2016 Bernie Sanders campaign helped bring social-democratic ambition back to national politics, revealing mass support for once-marginalized ideas like single-payer health insurance and free public college. Yes, the overwhelming popularity of these and other proposals from debt cancellation to a Green New Deal has encouraged mainstream Democrats to ride the wave the best they can, accepting some limited demands (a $15 minimum wage) while attempting to dilute others (Medicare for All Who Want It). And yes, by appearing to embrace most of Sanderss platform, Elizabeth Warren has vaulted to the front of the 2020 primary race, leaving more cautious contenders like Kamala Harris and Beto ORourke far behind.

In one sense, these are cheering ideological victories, and a testament to the ongoing appeal of class-based politics. But the truth remains that all this has come about almost entirely within a political party whose own professional-class character, in the same years, has only grown stronger than ever. The 2018 midterms, after all, were won in the affluent suburbs; Democrats now control every single one of the countrys twenty richest congressional districts.

Warren, meanwhile, has broken away from the Democratic primary pack with the unmistakably enthusiastic support of voters making over $100,000 a year, among whom she leads in almost every poll. A recent California survey showed Warren winning more voters making over $200,000 than her next two rivals combined.

Is this a reliable base on which to challenge the power of capital or even to fight for basic social-democratic reforms? The experience of the last fifty years suggests otherwise.

For some liberal-left commentators, the decline of class voting and the rush of rich professionals into the Democratic Party is not a problem, but an opportunity. Matthew Yglesias and Eric Levitz, among others, have assembled all their cleverness to make the case that these new affluent voters so-called Patagonia Democrats are not an obstacle to economic populism, and may even be an asset.

As should be obvious, this is a deeply counterintuitive argument you see, wealthy people want to have their wealth redistributed! for which the burden of proof should be very high. Yglesias and Levitz do not reach it with either of the two major points they make.

First, they contend, the leftward shift within the professional class reflects a sincere ideological response to empirical reality that is, the shocking inequality of our era. Surveys show that upscale voters are increasingly willing to support redistributive ideas, including new taxes on the rich and increases in health-care spending. Even the professional establishment of the Democratic Party, Levitz notes, has moved dramatically leftward why else does the Center for American Progress now propose a federal job guarantee and a universal health-care plan?

Why now, indeed? Inequality yawned just as grotesquely ten years ago, under the presidency of Barack Obama and a filibuster-proof Senate, when the Center for American Progress supported no such things. The American health-care system was no less revolting in 2014, when the words Medicare for All did not appear in a single New York Times news article. Nor did this great leftward turn of the establishment make much of an impact on the 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign, which won Patagonia Democrats in droves while fiercely resisting most of Bernie Sanderss social-democratic platform.

Might it be that the Democratic establishments recent leftward movement does not represent a sudden ideological conversion, but a tactical response to a rather different empirical reality the militant economic populism unleashed by the Sanders campaign, whose base was anything but Patagonia Democrats? In that case, the way to further advance the shift is not by congratulating professional-class elites on their progress much less building a political strategy centered around them but by making bolder and broader demands for change from outside the system.

Abstracted opinion polls, in any case, are an unreliable index of political behavior, especially when material interests become involved. After all, surveys show that most millionaires and tech CEOs also support various redistributive measures; a number of billionaires, including Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, have consistently expressed support for higher taxes on the rich. Does this mean that literal millionaires and billionaires are also not an obstacle to waging class war on millionaires and billionaires? Obviously not.

Yglesias and Levitzs second point is that the material interests of the professional class diverge sharply from the true 1 percent, which has hogged nearly all the economic growth of the last three decades. This is surely true, to an extent, and a major reason why many six-figure earners support taxes on seven-figure earners, while seven-figure earners support taxes on eight-figure earners, and so on and so on. But what does such modest and selective backing for redistribution look like in political practice?

One clue comes from Democratic governments in deep-blue states. Levitz optimistically cites Californias new bill to protect gig workers, but for every such example, there are several more discouraging ones, most of them concerned not with the regulation of a particular sector, but with the red meat of budgets and taxation. In New Jersey, new millionaire governor Phil Murphy failed to persuade a Democratic legislature to pass a millionaires tax. In Connecticut, governor Ned Lamont made good on his major campaign promise by passing a budget without any income tax raises. In Washington State, meanwhile, the new Democratic House speaker recently ruled out a new state income tax. This years California budget, purposefully light on tax increases, can hardly be considered a serious effort at economic redistribution.

Even New York, where a new progressive majority won a number of significant victories in the State Senate, the budget itself remained very much in Patagonia, prioritizing historic tax cuts on incomes up to $323,200 over urgently needed funding for education, public transit, and social programs. The New York Health Act, a single-payer bill that had passed the State Assembly in four straight sessions, was deemed untouchable in the Senate. New Yorks legislative session may suggest the arrival of a better Democratic Party, but it hardly suggests the second coming of social democracy or even the second coming of Hubert Humphrey.

At the national level, it may be that Patagonia Democrats prove more willing, as Levitz says, to pay modestly higher taxes for the sake of fortifying Americas social safety net. But this formula is neither new nor inspiring its a rerun of the Obama presidency, which let the Bush tax cuts expire, passed the stimulus, and expanded Medicaid, thus proving to captive observers like Paul Krugman that progressive policies have worked. Meanwhile, in the real world, the housing crisis destroyed working-class wealth, inequality kept soaring, and poverty remained entrenched.

Democrats should take the class warfare message to upscale suburbs Yglesiass argument is a sentence that makes sense only if your idea of class war is a few tweaks to the tax code, and your ultimate political horizon stretches no further than a third Obama administration.

Elizabeth Warren is the ideal general to fight just this kind of class war. A university law professor for forty years, thirty of them inside the Ivy League, Warren would be the most academic president since Woodrow Wilson, and she is already the most influential scholar to mount a serious presidential campaign. Her impressive credentials and technocratic sensibility have made her catnip for affluent professionals including, of course, some journalists who have become her most enthusiastic supporters.

Ideologically, Warren is no centrist New Democrat. Nor is she a lofty neoliberal triangulator in the mold of Obama or Pete Buttigieg. In her determination to fight corruption, and her fondness for clear rules and fair regulations, she may most resemble the progressive reformers of the McGovern era.

Yet while she is sometimes described as an economic populist, Warrens chief function in the primary race against Bernie Sanders has been to take the populism out of progressive economics. While formally embracing much of Sanderss 2016 platform, the Warren campaign distinguished itself not by underlining the necessity of popular struggle, but by advertising the comprehensive wonkery of her policy agenda: She has a plan for that! Warrens planfulness is Democratic savior politics in the style of Obama or Hillary Clinton. It does not summon the will of the masses; it says, Chill out, shes got this.

The emphasis here is on the reasonableness of the plans, not the boldness of the demands. Even Warrens most daring stroke on this front, a 2 percent tax on fortunes over $50 million,elicitschantsoftwo cents, two cents! withthe campaign and its supporters alike practically fetishizingthe modest limitsof the request.

When Warren does vow to challenge the power the wealthy, her rhetoric often works not to stoke the popular mind against Americas inequality but to naturalize it as a fact of national life: In America, there are gonna be people who are richer and people who are not so rich. And the rich are gonna own more shoes, and theyre gonna own more cars, and they may even own more houses. But they shouldnt own more of our democracy.

This isnt economic populism; its closer to a folksy progressive riff on there is no alternative. Nor does such a cabined understanding of democracy a question of fair procedures, walled off from the world of material goods open much room for questioning the tyranny of bosses under capitalism.

Having assembled a scrupulously conventional campaign staff, loaded with veterans of the DNC and Hillary for America, Warren has made it clear through careful primary endorsements that she remains an institutional player within the Democratic establishment, not an insurgent aiming to transform the party itself. Even in her scattered and vague references to the need for a grassroots movement, what she appears to mean, when she doesnt mean selfie lines, is nothing more revolutionary than electing more Democrats.

Rhetorically, Warrens stress on corruption the malfeasance of individual bad actors in Washington further channels legitimate complaints about a rigged system away from a confrontation with class power (as Sanders intends) and toward a search for better rules. It is perfectly suited to the spirit of todays proceduralist progressives Rachel Maddow Democrats whose first and strongest instincts are to outlaw, invalidate, or somehow disqualify their opponents rather than to defeat them in popular struggle.

In occasional populist moments, as in her recent speech at New York Citys Washington Square Park, Warren talks about the need to put economic and political power in the hands of the people. But the technocratic style of her politics hardly works to close the distance between political professionals and the people even her own supporters. I havent specifically pored through her policy proposals, said one New York University student in Washington Square Park, with what one imagines was a mixture of shame and awe, because there are a hundred thousand of them.

In fact, Warren lacks detailed plans for K12 education and health care. In Washington Square Park, while Warren talked about big structural change, comparing herself to the workers rights advocate Frances Perkins, she devoted just two formulaic sentences to contemporary labor politics. Although 2018 saw the most labor strife in over thirty years, with nearly half a million workers involved, Warrens speech barely mentioned the word strike.

The question here is not simply whether a Democratic candidate nominally supports unions, but where labor stands asa priority within the party. Memorably, Barack Obama supported the union-backed Employee Free Choice Act on the campaign trail, but after his election, he let the proposal die in Congress with barely a sound.

We may choose to regard this as a shameful presidential betrayal, but like many Obama-era failures, it revealed far less about Obamas personal views than about an institutional Democratic Party dominated not by labor advocates but by professional-class politicians highly attentive to their professional-class constituents. (The rise of the broader Patagonia left, as a study of fifteen European countries has found, tends to produce a less pro-worker welfare state.) As an individual Democrat, Warren may be to the left of Obama, but there is little reason to believe that she has the capacity to change this larger state of affairs.

Warrens most enthusiastic left-liberal supporters seem to regard her as a kind of sleeper agent within the system who can heroically cajole or hypnotize establishment Democrats into backing big, structural change, purely on the strength of professorial persuasion. Such faith, if sincere, is almost touching. But the record of Warrens own private battles with the Obama team hardly suggests that transformational change can be achieved through such a deeply institutional politics.

Warren will surely aim to craft better rules for Washington and Wall Street, but is this really structural reform? Her campaign has already announced that the first legislative priority of a Warren administration is nothing more architectural than a suite of strict lobbying regulations, most of them already passed by the Democratic House, along with the creation of a US Office of Public Integrity. Naturally, Vox calls this agenda ferocious.

Even in the best-case scenario, politics under a President Warren would almost surely resemble politics under Obama: careful negotiations between progressive professionals and stakeholders in Washington, in which the president seeks the least-worst outcome in a world of narrow and fixed constraints. An infinite variety of Yglesiases and Krugmans will luxuriate in the nuance, integrity, and ferocity of Warrens bold progressive agenda, even as fundamental economic structures remain unchanged. And then they will be shocked, just shocked, when the next Donald Trump swaggers into the White House and blows it all to bits.

Above all, it is hard to see how Warren can address the dealignment of class voting, or the ongoing evolution of the Democratic Party into the party of Fairfax County, USA. More than likely, Warrens nomination would only accelerate the trend. It is not a coincidence that by far her strongest support comes from Democrats with six-figure incomes and postgraduate degrees: in style and in substance alike, she offers a version of progressive politics as professional politics.

Theres a reason, as the journalist Krystal Ball has pointed out, why Warren and Buttigieg appeal to the same class of voters, despite the considerable differences in their platforms. Both candidates Harvard folk, of course rely heavily on individual stories of meritocratic achievement, along with an appeal to white papers, intellect, and resume items. This has worked and may continue to work wonders for Warren in a Democratic primary, where Patagonia Democrats predominate; how it would fare in a general election is much less clear.

In a campaign against Trump, of course, Warren would win many of the same votes that Hillary Clinton won, including black, Latino, and Asian workers who see no real alternative in the Republican Party. But a Warren nomination also clearly sets the stage for another dreary cultural clash between elite progressivism and Trumps fake populism. In such a battle, earnest liberal hymns to Warrens 100,000 plans no matter how many wealth taxes they propose are not likely to fare much better than 2016 pleas for voters to visit http://www.HillaryClinton.com/Issues.

Ultimately, there is little sign that a Warrenite politics of strict rules, detailed plans, and careful procedures can break the grip of this new cultural polarization never mind inspire the multiracial working-class coalition necessary for big, structural change, both inside and outside the Democratic Party.

More than a hundred years ago, Engels mocked the faddishness of elite interest in left-wing economics, and even socialism itself:

There is indeed Socialism again in England, and plenty of it Socialism of all shades: Socialism conscious and unconscious, Socialism prosaic and poetic, Socialism of the working class and of the middle class, for, verily, that abomination of abominations, Socialism, has not only become respectable, but has actually donned evening dress and lounges lazily on drawing-room causeuses. That shows the incurable fickleness of that terrible despot of society, middle-class public opinion, and once more justifies the contempt in which we Socialists of a past generation always held that public opinion.

In the last fifty years of American history, elite Democratic support for economic redistribution has proven no less fickle. The carousel of professional-class opinion spins on and on last week, McGovern; yesterday, Dukakis; today, Warren; tomorrow, Buttigieg? all while the right wing grows ever uglier and workers, as a class, drop ever further from view.

In a 2020 campaign against Donald Trump, a bet on Warren is a risky wager on its own terms. But over the next twenty years, the politics of Patagonia liberalism is not a bet at all its an unconditional surrender to class dealignment.

Bernie Sanders offers a fundamentally different path forward and not only due to his domestic, foreign, and planetary policy ideas, his ideological roots, his theory of change, or his relationship to the Democratic Party. All these differences are important, but Sanders also points to an alternate future for class politics itself.

To be sure, the Sanders campaign in the United States, like the Corbyn movement in Britain, has benefited, too, from the professional-class vogue for left-wing politics. (Thus Engels mocked the rise of respectable socialism, but admitted that we have no reason to grumble at the symptom itself.) Sanders supporters, much younger than average, are hardly a perfect cross section of Americas working class.

Yet neither is Sanders the creature of drawing-room progressives. From the beginning, Bernies campaign in 2015 attracted a coalition that looked very different from any primary insurgent in Democratic Party history. While McGovern, Gary Hart, Bill Bradley, Howard Dean, and now Elizabeth Warren won their first and fiercest support from wealthy professionals, Sanders in 2016 won more than 13 million votes from a much younger, less affluent, and less educated swath of the electorate.

In this years primary, the Sanders coalition remains young and relatively lower income, while it has grown more racially diverse. Bernies large, enthusiastic, and disproportionate support from Latino voters who form by far the fastest-growing segment of Americas working class must be one of the most underreported political stories of 2019.

The gaps between Warren and Sanders supporters are stark, especially considering their purported similarities in policy and ideology. According to Politicos September poll averages, Warren underperforms with voters making less than $50,000 by a greater margin than seven of the top eight Democrats in the race; Sanders overperforms with the same group by the highest margin the field.

When it comes to Patagonia Democrats, especially, the differences are unmistakable. A recent YouGov poll showed that just 13 percent of Democrats making $100,000 or more would be disappointed if Warren were nominated, the lowest share in the entire field, aside from Pete Buttigieg. Over a third of the same affluent group was opposed to Sanders, by far the highest of the top five leading Democrats.

In California, meanwhile, a UC Berkeley poll showed Warren far ahead of the pack among postgraduates (at 39 percent) and voters making over $200,000 (35 percent). Sanders, meanwhile, earned the backing of just 12 percent of postgrads and 9 percent of highest earners.

If the Sanders platform is in the objective self-interest of virtually all affluent suburbanites, as Eric Levitz argues, why do so few of them seem to know it?

The point is not thatSanders or his agenda is incapable of winning professional-class votes. In a general election, as dozens of polls have made clear since 2016, these affluent Democrats will almost certainly come around if the alternative is Trump. But while some upscale Democrats may benefit from Bernies platform, they are not drawn to his populism or his class politics. Sanders, unlike Warren, will never be their top choice.

In fact, the core of Bernies support comes from voters with a far more urgent material interest in the social-democratic programs he proposes, and a far clearer position in the class struggle that he has helped bring to the fore. Among California voters making under $40,000, Sanders had more support than Warren and Joe Biden combined; he also led both rivals among all voters who didnt go to college.

Bernies call for wealth taxes is not a modest plea for two pennies from Jeff Bezos, but a cry to abolish Jeff Bezos, and billionaires writ large. His support of Medicare for All is not a pledge to find the best policy framework, but a vow to fight the private insurance industry until every American has health care as a human right.

This is the kind of class politics that has won Sanders the support of 1 million small donors, faster than any candidate in history (and twice as many as the Warren campaign). An OpenSecrets review of campaign donations found that while Warren was naturally the top recipient among scientists and professors, Sanders led by far among teachers, nurses, servers, bartenders, social workers, retail workers, construction workers, truckers, and drivers. Of all the money going to 2020 Democrats from servers one of the lowest-paying jobs in the country more than half went to Sanders alone.

This is just what is required to challenge the power of the ultrarich: a politics that does not treat lower-income voters as a kind of passive supplement for professional liberals, but one that can put the new working class itself at the center of the action.

A professional-class left, as scholars of European politics have noted, may be trusted to safeguard the bare bones of existing welfare states programs that are themselves the legacy of much older working-class struggles. But in the United States, with our barbarously incomplete provision for basic social needs, the necessary struggle is not just to defend existing social democracy, but to build it from the ground up.

This is not the work of a single election cycle or a single presidential administration. Nor is it exclusively, or even primarily, the work of electoral struggle itself. But if we want to build anything like a halfway decent, free, or fair democracy, we should remember that the only politics that have ever achieved this or can ever achieve this are the politics of class voting, led by an organized working class. Bernie Sanders, all by himself, will hardly bring about the movement we need. But unlike every other Democrat in the field, at least he points in the right direction.

Continued here:

Is This the Future Liberals Want? - Jacobin magazine

A Liberal Uneasy in the World of #MeToo Feminism – The New York Times

THE PROBLEM WITH EVERYTHINGMy Journey Through the New Culture WarsBy Meghan Daum

Heres the problem with Meghan Daums electrifying new book, The Problem With Everything: My Journey Through the New Culture Wars. Its a critique of feminisms fourth wave, a social media-driven movement articulating not just the rights of women, along with microaggression concepts like mansplaining, but also the fuzzier tenets of intersectionality, a hitherto hidden matrix of privilege and oppression. But trickily for readers in todays age-striated world, three (approximately) generations encounter this feminist movement and the broader culture wars of which it is a part in at least three different ways.

First, baby boomers. Think someone 70-plus, like my friend Peggy, comfortably retired, living in a leafy enclave, who wears Native American jewelry without irony (shes from Pennsylvania). She sends her grandchildren Apple products and money for their college tuitions from a comfortable distance. Typical gently amused exclamation, regarding nonbinary pronouns: They, them, their? Please. Its not even grammatical!

Second, Gen Xers. Around 50, or about Daums age, theyre the sweet spot for this collection. Or sweet-sour, if you will, caught as these aging Gen Xers are in the culture wars saw blades. Many have children in their teens and 20s, so they mis-gender at their continual peril. Their workplaces, particularly if at cultural institutions, have become professional minefields: In these fraught times, linguistic slips involving any kind of race or sex or otherness can trigger a layoff. (One radio producer remarked, over his barely touched quinoa salad: Im 61 if I can just hang on for four more years.)

These beleaguered, not-yet-retired middle-agers might want to discuss The Problem With Everything with the third generation: the millennials and Gen Zs. Thirty-five and younger, this cadre occupies a new world, particularly if culturally woke. Their social media teems with hashtags (#DGAF Dont Give a [expletive]), eye-rolling GIFs (Emma Stone), raw outrage (I. Cant. Even.). In 280 characters, Twittering S.J.W.s (social justice warriors) call out and cancel their oppressors. Daum acknowledges such behavior is understandable, even necessary: Trumpism has made us feel that the world is out of control. However, she insists, the migration of #MeToo to #BelieveWomen also fundamentally flew in the face of innocent until proven guilty.

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A Liberal Uneasy in the World of #MeToo Feminism - The New York Times

This Polarizing Liberal Zionist Group Is Growing. Can It Overcome Its Past? – Forward

Carly Pildis is a progressive activist and writer who frequently speaks out about anti-Semitism on the left as well as the depredations of the right. Every day, she says, she gets messages from American Jewish women who tell her theyre scared of expressing their support for Israel, or even their Jewish identities, in progressive spaces.

She tried to support the women, advising them and amplifying their concerns in her writing , but there wasnt much more she could do.

Now Pildis, who worked on the 2012 Obama campaign, is taking action on the issue. She has joined the staff of a Jewish not-for-profit called Zioness as its director of organizing and second full-time employee.

I dont want people to feel afraid, said Pildis. I want them to know they are powerful, and I joined Zioness to teach them how to grab that power.

Zioness was founded in 2017 to serve people like Pildis - feminists and liberals who dont want to denounce the Jewish state as the price of entry among progressives. Now its expanding its staff and ambitions.

But as the group tries to grow, it is facing distrust from other liberal Jewish organizations that would presumably be its natural allies. The divide reflects the tension many American Jews face as they struggle to balance their liberal leanings with their desire to support what they see as an increasingly illiberal Israel.

The suspicion goes back to Zionesss founding two years ago. The group was born after employees of the Lawfare Project, which fights the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel, learned in 2017 that the Chicago Slut Walk had banned Zionist symbols. Outraged, they flew from New York to Chicago to participate anyway, waving banners proclaiming themselves part of the Zioness movement.

The group reached its highest profile as a critic of anti-Semitism within the Womens March. Executive director Amanda Berman got invited to speak at synagogues. Chapters now more than 30 were formed across the country.

But many prominent Jewish progressives were skeptical, especially about the Lawfare connection. Berman worked there until this January, and Lawfare founder and executive director Brooke Goldstein, who went with Berman to Chicago, is a Trump supporter and a frequent Fox News guest.

Berman insisted at the time and maintains now that Zioness was independent from Lawfare.

Still, some on the Jewish left wondered if Zioness was a bid by right-wing Zionists to co-opt their movement, claiming to be progressive only to cover up their true goal of defending Israel.

Now it seems that IfNotNow and others were right to be skeptical.

Last month, Goldstein wrote on Facebook that Lawfare funded and incubated Zioness and that she had used [Berman] as the face of the movement as she wasnt a public figure and not identifiable as conservative. Goldstein did not respond to interview requests.

Whats more, Berman admits now that her Lawfare connections helped Zioness get right-wing funding. She secured a $25,000 donation when she spoke about Zioness in 2018 to the Merona Foundation, a Jewish donor network run by the wife of the controversial conservative Jewish philanthropist Adam Milstein.

Yet Zionesss relationship with Zionist conservatives soured after the group issued a statement calling Trumps policies of detaining migrant children and separating families heartless and contrary to Zionist values.

We felt betrayed, basically. And angry, said former donor Rita Emerson.

These days, Goldstein claims that Zioness is now too anti-Trump. Berman claimed that Milstein used to donate to them but no longer does because its actually progressive. A spokesperson for Milstein said that was not an accurate characterization but declined to say whether Milstein gave or is still giving to Zioness.

Support on the right has withered but will progressive groups step in as allies, given that their early suspicions seem to have been well-founded?

If the answer is no, Zioness work will be harder at the beginning, said Shaul Kelner, a professor at Vanderbilt University who studies social justice movements.

One such progressive Jewish group is Truah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights. Truah is Zionist they support a Jewish state alongside a Palestinian one and also campaigns against mass incarceration and family separation, partnering with major organizations like the ACLU.

Truah executive director Rabbi Jill Jacobs said she was still skeptical of Zionesss strategy.

My perception of Zioness is about showing up at protests with the signs, not around long-term relationships, she told the Forward. Its those relationships that allow you to have complicated conversations around Israel.

Zionesss board features Jewish liberals, such as former Clinton White House communications director Ann Lewis and onetime Democratic congressional candidate Erin Schrode. But its impossible to know whos funding it now. Since its so new, its not yet required to share financial records.

Other progressive groups are going to be looking at [the funding,] and that will probably influence whether theyre going to work with them or not, Kelner predicted.

Berman said that the money to hire Pildis came from an anonymous liberal Jewish philanthropist. She refused to disclose their identity because she didnt want Pildis to find out. Pildis said she didnt know who it was.

Zionesss next stage, Berman said, involves helping members advocate for specific issues they care about - providing them with policy memos and campaign strategies.

Some chapters are already active. One has joined the Florida Hate Crime Coalition.

Pildis has been hired to train Zioness members to be activists on domestic issues like gun control and reproductive rights. She will teach them how to engage with elected officials and form partnerships with other advocacy groups.

But what Zioness wont do, say Pildis and Berman, is advocate for Israel unless someone else brings it up first.

Weve been really clear from day one we dont exist just to debate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Berman said.

Kelner said Zioness has a chance to be a long-term success even if other liberal groups keep their distance.

Its a matter of doing the hard organizing work to transform the base level of demand into people actually signing up, he said. Then it doesnt matter what the origin story is, because they have the power of numbers behind them.

Aiden Pink is the deputy news editor of the Forward. Contact him at pink@forward.com or follow him on Twitter @aidenpink

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This Polarizing Liberal Zionist Group Is Growing. Can It Overcome Its Past? - Forward

Q&A: Western Liberal pres on why you should vote to re-elect – The Gazette Western University’s Newspaper

Elections always centre around the incumbent especially this year, after photos appeared of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in blackface and brownface.

It was another controversy for the Liberal leader, whose platform pledges a number of supports for students.

The president of the Western Liberals club, Robert Belanger-Polak, spoke with Gazette Opinions Editor, Hope Mahood, about how students should think about the PM. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How did you react when you found out Trudeau did brownface?

Just the brownface? Well, I did find it disappointing. It was an unfortunate thing to have had happen. Personally I dont agree with it at all. But I do think the Prime Minister has done a pretty good job with diversity and inclusion and promoting values within the last four years.

And it seems like its going to be a big push in the current iteration of the Liberal platform, which should be good. I think there will be a net positive, for lack of a better word, in opposition to what he did previously.

What do you think of his apology then?

Well I cant recall his apology word-for-word, which is too bad, but its one of those scenarios where an apology cant really suffice. Its one of those things that you have to, I think, prove different with actions.

Im sure you know the liberals are being attacked on two fronts right now when it comes to climate change. Theres the NDP whore mad with them for buying the trans-mountain pipeline, and then theres the Conservatives who are upset with the carbon price.

Yep.

Which of these criticisms do you think is more valid?

So I think, in a way they both have validity. And I think theres probably more validity from the left criticisms we need to do more, and I think thats something myself and the party agrees with. I think were taking steps to get there, but its also a matter of making sure our climate plan is feasible, so appeasing the criticism from the right. And also making sure that we move forward with the necessary precautions.

So making sure that the plan will have tangible effects making sure that Canada has net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. And you know there are other things the Liberals are doing that I think make them pretty good for the climate change plan.

And Trudeau announced that hed make changes to student loans in light of Ontarios OSAP cuts. Should the Federal government be inserting itself into provincial policies?

I think thats a good question. I dont know if its inserting though Id say that the Liberals are covering up where they believe there to be deficits theyre not taking over it or anything, right?

But theyre going ahead and saying things like theyll provide 1,200 more in student grants and were going to make the loans you receive from us so that, if youre making under 35 thousand, you wont have to pay them back until you are making above that or if after two years of graduation you have to start paying them back and its all interest free. I do think it is a positive policy to implement.

I guess there is an elephant in the room question then can Canada afford all this?

I guess that is a common criticism when we have a bunch of fun, good policy proposals where is the money coming from? how are we going to pay for everything? One of the fun things in the platform well, I guess its not fun, but its cool you can see the platform is actually fully costed.

I dont know how tax is going to come into play but I do know the platform does have a breakdown of everything so I think it will be cool. I guess the flipside is with other parties policies cutting things, like when you have one party proposing $41 billion in cuts you have to ask where are the cuts coming from what services are not going to be provided?

Read more from the original source:

Q&A: Western Liberal pres on why you should vote to re-elect - The Gazette Western University's Newspaper

Can American Jews Be Both Liberal and Pro-Israel? – The New York Times

The Oldest Hatred

To the Editor:

It was with great interest that I read Hillel Halkins review of Bari Weisss How to Fight Anti-Semitism (Sept. 29). Halkin writes with characteristic clarity, force and knowledge, and I concur with his judgment that her book is a brave one in the current political and cultural climate. Her stance as a proud Jew and lover of Israel is one that I, like Halkin, applaud.

However, I find his disappointment and critique of Weisss identification with the liberal values that dominate the contemporary American Jewish community rather narrowly construed historically. The alliance between Jews in the modern Western world and political liberalism predates the 19th century and German reform and unquestionably has its origins in the writings of Baruch Spinoza and Moses Mendelssohn that called for separation between religion and state during the 17th and 18th centuries. These stances were part and parcel of Enlightenment thought and allowed for a neutral or at least semineutral public sphere to emerge that permitted the political emancipation of the Jews. Virtually all modern religious and secular Jews applauded this development. It was a stance that was born both out of one reading of a multivalent Jewish tradition that championed such values and of a self-interested Jewish judgment that such liberal values were in the best interests of the Jewish community. Many if not most American Jews including Weiss and myself still believe this to be the case.

Indeed, in championing a liberal reading of Jewish tradition, Weiss and other American Jews are allowing values of the larger culture to inform their reading of the tradition no less than Jews have for thousands of years. As the historian Gerson D. Cohen pointed out in his memorable 1966 commencement address, The Blessing of Assimilation in Jewish History, Jews throughout history have assimilated teachings from the surrounding world to inform their own understanding of an ever-evolving Judaism.

This was true when the Bible employed the political lexicon of the ancient Near East to describe the relationship between a sovereign and his subjects and transformed the Akkadian word biritu (clasp or fetter) into the Hebrew term berit (covenant) to describe the relationship between God and the Jewish people, or when the medieval philosopher Moses Maimonides internalized and applied the teachings of Aristotle to explicate the nature of Judaism to his contemporaries. I fail to see why modern Jews like Weiss should not possess the same right as their ancestors to interpret Jewish tradition through the wisdom and insights provided by a surrounding culture.

Halkin may not agree. Nevertheless, I do not see why Weiss has any need to apologize for her advocacy of a liberal stance or why such a stance is any less legitimate than a neoconservative reading of Jewish tradition.

David Ellenson New York

The writer is chancellor emeritus and former president of Hebrew Union College and professor emeritus of Near Eastern and Judaic studies at Brandeis University.

To the Editor:

In his review of Bari Weisss book, Hillel Halkin tries to deride the position of those who are liberal and pro-Israel as a seemingly contradictory notion in this day and age a position not unlike that of President Trump, who recently accused Jews who are Democrats of being disloyal. The question is not whether democracy is compatible with the stance of liberal Jewish Americans who are pro-Israel but whether social justice, which is the foundation of the Jewish religion, is compatible with being a Republican.

Diane Burstein Jamaica, Queens

To the Editor:

Has Judaism been influenced by the American milieu? Yes, of course. But Judaism has likewise been influenced by every diaspora Jews have lived in. Throughout its long history Judaism has evolved as it interpreted and reinterpreted its foundational sacred writings in light of the times and communities in which Jews have lived.

In his attempt to strip love and compassion from its rightful place in the Jewish tradition, Hillel Halkin seems to have forgotten about the teachings of the biblical prophets.

The lines from Isaiah, read in every synagogue on Yom Kippur, to let the oppressed go free share your bread with the hungry and take the wretched poor into your home, sound an awful lot like American liberalism to me.

Barry W. Holtz New York

The writer is Theodore and Florence Baumritter professor of Jewish education at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York.

To the Editor:

Hillel Halkin asserts that the tradition of Judaism does not support democracy or gay rights. Apparently these were created by the deplorable Greeks and picked up by the Reform Jews.

Halkin, like Bari Weiss, is entitled to his interpretation of his religion. The problem arises when anyone asserts their right to rule a nation-state according to their religious interpretation. That is why the United States began with separation of church and state. There should be no Jewish state, no Christian state, no Muslim state, no Hindu state and not even an officially atheist state. If such a view leads to a rejection of Zionism, then so be it. Democratic anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitic.

Wayne Price Bronx

To the Editor:

The headline (The Oldest Hatred) on Hillel Halkins review of Bari Weisss book got it dead wrong.

The oldest hatred is of women. Period.

Caroline Gaudy Salt Lake City

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Can American Jews Be Both Liberal and Pro-Israel? - The New York Times