On a cloudy day in early November 1979, a caravan of Nazi and Ku Klux Klan members careened into Greensboro, North Carolina, winding toward a local Communist Workers Party protest that had gathered in the city to march against the states white supremacists. The communists, wearing berets and hard hats, spotted the fleet and taunted the new arrivals with chants of Death to the Klan! The KKK convoy slowed, and stopped. Far-left protesters, bearing both wooden planks and concealed pistols, began surrounding the motorcade, beating the doors. As TV cameras rolled, the trunk of a Ford Fairlane, stuffed with shotguns and rifles, popped open. Someone yelled from one of the cars, You asked for the Klan! Now you've got em!

Eighty-eight seconds and 39 shots later, five communists lay dead. Eight other demonstrators were wounded, some permanently paralyzed. For a brief moment, the Greensboro Massacre became one of Americas most notorious acts of political blood-letting. And yet, unlike Wounded Knee or Selma before it, Greensboro has over the decades largely faded from memory.

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Except in Portland.

Among the fringe political groups currently waging battle in the City of Roses, Greensboro is well-remembered, even idealized. It is increasingly seen as the inevitable end of the escalating violence that has rocked this city since President Trumps election in November. Leftwing antifas, wearing red bandana masks alongside other far-left protesters, have rioted multiple times and caused millions of dollars of damage, with threats from leftwing groups even forcing the cancellation of a parade because it featured a float from the local Republican Party. Eager to push back against the opposition, white nationalists have begun mixing with anti-government militia members for free speech rallies. A man who attended one of these rallies would later stab to death two men on a train when they intervened to stop his anti-Muslim rants against two young women. The norms of protest and counterprotestmostly verbal shouting and sign-wavingare quickly crumbling in Portland. The leftwing antifa have even threatened pre-emptive violence in the name of the defending the city from groups they say promote violence.

In Portland, Greensboro isnt a past mistake to be avoided, but a future clash to be courted. Both sides mention Greensboro in conversation. Both sides know the details and the death toll. And both acknowledge Greensboro as an event that may well serve as a model for whats just around the corner. My big concern is sooner or later is that were going to have another Greensboro Massacre type of event, Mark Pitcavage, who researches domestic political extremism with the Anti-Defamation League, added. This is so unlikely to end well.

***

The fact that Portland erupted as the epicenter in Trump-era political violence in the U.S. is, in a certain sense, surprising. A liberal nirvana, a crunchy, weed-and-hops city where Republicans and plastic bags alike have been all but evicted, Portland has embodied and outpaced many of the urban trends of the early 21st century: gentrification and co-ops, food trucks and foot-bridges, transitions to a bike-and-pedestrian economy. It is, as a conspicuous show has encapsulated, a progressive paradise.

And yet, as many within and without the city have begun realizing, Portland is a town leavened with a history of rampant racial strife. As the whitest major American city, Portland blossomed in the lone state that constitutionally barred blacks from living there through the 19th century, that acted as one of the primary concentration centers for incarcerating American citizens of Japanese ancestry during World War II, that redlined as severely as any major metropolis elsewhere. That in 1922 saw its chief of police posing alongside hooded Ku Klux Klan members. That brought Jim Crow to the Pacific shoreline.

Its the type of legal legacy, the type of nod-and-wink encouragement of white supremacy, that not only welcomed any number of Confederate families to relocate to the region in the aftermath of the Civil War, but that, toward the close of the 20th century, saw neo-Nazi and skinhead groups begin to extend their tendrils through the area. Before Portlandia, there was Skinhead City. In the mid-1980s, skinheads began marching through downtown, hauling bats, pipes, and axes. Not long after, the city birthed Volksfront, a neo-Nazi contingent that eventually expanded internationally. In 1988, a trio of skinheads bashed Mulugeta Seraw, an Ethiopian student, to death; the three all received prison sentences, with one tabbed as a prisoner of war by other white supremacy groups.

Locals began pushing back. In 2007, a group called Rose City Antifa took form, borrowing the shortened form of antifascist for its name. The crew pointed to similar European movements, which had, in places like Germany and Italy, arisen in response to the fascist movements that would eventually crater Europe in World War II. It also tapped into regional currents of anarchism and latent communism. These were the political strains that had sparked, among other things, the 1999 Battle of Seattle protests against the World Trade Organization, which resulted in millions of dollars worth of property damage in the city.

From its inception, Portlands antifa contingent cloaked itself in anonymity; as a 2009 story in Portlands Willamette Week noted, Little is known publicly about Rose City Antifa. And little seems to have changed in the decade since. Its unofficial uniform comprises blood-red and black bandanas and hoods, but the group doesnt keep any official membership rolls, let alone share last names with anyone outside of its circle. Why do we wear masks? Because [of] instances of antifa people [who] have been assassinated, says David, a member of Rose City Antifa who, like all group members before him, declined to share his last name with POLITICO Magazine. The historical examples are not recent, but they are well-known in the group: Skinheads murdered a pair of anti-racist activists in Nevada in 1998, luring them to the desert outside Las Vegas, and local antifa have claimed that a 2010 incident in Portlanda shooting that left a self-described anti-racist skinhead in critical conditionwas also politically motivated.

For much of its existence, the group largely relied on shout-downs and public displays of force as their primary tactics. Recently theyve added the cyber weapon of doxxingexposing personal information such as addresses, places of employment, and dates of birth and schools, even if it means innocent families mistakenly targeted by antifa begin receiving threats. Such tactics have been effective because they raise the cost of participation, Stanislav Vysotsky, who researches political extremism with the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, told POLITICO Magazine.

But now, for antifa, its not enough to simply out-scream their opposition; rather, those far-right forces must, in a bizarre nod to the Bush Doctrine, be preemptively denied a voice from the outset. We are unapologetic about the reality that fighting fascism at points requires physical militancy, Rose City Antifas Facebook page reads. Anti-fascism is, by nature, a form of self-defense: the goal of fascism is to exterminate the vast majority of human beings. The group does not specify what physical militancy means, but their page makes clear that the definition includes any means necessary.

Were seeing more people be like, Whats antifa actually about? Do you just like going and smashing Starbucks windows? David says. And no, we dont smash Starbucks windowsmost of the time. Or as one of the Rose City Antifas Facebook profile pictures read, Set phasers to kill.

***

Unsurprisingly, antifas assault-related tactics, despite their continued usage, have proven less than effective, according to those who closely follow political extremism in the U.S.

It just makes [antifa] feel goodthey think they made a point, the ADLs Pitcavage said. But their tactics are counterproductive. They havent made any dent over the years with those tactics. And it gives the white supremacists an unbelievable amount of publicity. After all, a lack of anti-Nazi brawl-and-bash protests werent the reasons fascists rose to the fore in Germany and Italyand theres little reason to think that depriving neo-Nazis of their First Amendment rights will prove any more successful than the myriad pre-WWII street brawls that failed to slow the rise of fascism in Europe. Pitcavage points out that the far-right has been far deadlier, far more corrosive, than any American antifa contingents over the past few decadesbut antifa tactics have only exacerbated and inflamed far-right rosters: All the antifa tactics do is give extremists more attention, make extremists feel good, feel like warriorsand give them an opportunity to recruit.

Its impossible to tell whether the antifa protests have boosted the recruitment efforts of nationalists and white supremacists, but the groups tactics have not endeared them to mainstream critics on either the right or left. Shortly after Trumps election, anarchist and far-left protesters rioted in Portland, bringing at least a million dollars worth of damageand resulting, in the eyes of the Department of Homeland Security, in domestic terrorism. Further riots followed Trumps inauguration, and more in the months thereafter. Their actionsconducted anonymously but brutallyshow them to be punk fascists, wrote an editorial in The Oregonian, slamming those leading the greatest political violence Portland had seen in a generation.

Then, in late April, organizers behind the 82nd Avenue of Roses Paradea spectacle through one of the more multi-racial neighborhoods in Portlandreceived an email ratcheting tensions even further. Sent from an anonymous account, the email targeted the inclusion of a Multnomah County Republican Party float: You have seen how much power we have downtown and that the police cannot stop us from shutting down roads so please consider your decision wisely. This is non-negotiable. Shaken, organizers canceled the parade; The Atlantics Conor Friedersdorf wondered who this faction on the left will next label a Nazi or a fascist in order to justify their own use of fascistic tactics. Or as James Buchal, the Multnomah County Republican Party chair, told POLITICO Magazine, The real concern going forward is that its a totalitarian sort of mindset, where basically [theyre] not going to tolerate Republicans in our city.

When asked about the threats made to parade organizers, Rose City Antifa didnt blame right-wing provocateurs posing as local leftists, although they did note that no one knows who sent [the email]. Rather, the groups spokesman characterized the cancellation as an overreaction. The email had some sort of oblique promise of some sort of altercation, they shut down the entire parade, and then acted as if it was a whole big deal, David says.

Shortly thereafter, alt-right actors organized a free speech rally near the parades canceled routea rally attended by a man, Jeremy Christian, who donned an American flag cape, gave Nazi salutes to passers-by, and, a few weeks thereafter, allegedly killed two Portlanders defending a pair of teenagers from Christians Islamophobic slurs on a train.

The stabbings of Ricky Best, 53, and Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche, 23, only emboldened the antifa protesters, who saw Christians ability to speak publicly as a precursor to his violence. Having a place where you can feel free to express these sorts of racist, bigoted beliefs enables you to go and make rants on a train, David claimed. It makes you want to defend yourself when people in the community step up against you.

One week after the murders, antifa and far-right actors clashed once more, this time at a Trump Free Speech rally. Epithets soon transformed into the kind of physical violence antifa had advocated earlier: Portland police said that counter-protesters at the alt-right rally sparked the violence by slingshotting bricks, rocks, and feces alike, forcing officers to unleash pepper spray on the crowd. As Portland Police Bureau spokesman Sgt. Pete Simpson told local Willamette Week in late May, It's never been as vocal as it has been in recent months. While they're not street gangs, the threat of violence is there. Or as Kyle Chapman, one of the alt-right spokesmen at the rally, said about the possibility of advocating violence, Its not such a bad idea, is it? This, after Chapman Tweeted that it was open season on antifa.

And the likelihood of a confrontation may increase if Buchal, the head of the local GOP, follows through on his plans to hire militiasOath Keepers and Three Percentersas security at future events, a development he told POLITICO Magazine hes still considering. What were really seeing are these very strong alliances being forged between Oath Keepers, Three Percenters, and white supremacists and white nationalists, Vysotsky said. Added Pitcavage, the Oath Keepers especially have really, really come on strong against the antifa. So now into the equation you not only have antifa versus white supremacists, but now you have antifa versus a much larger swath of the far-right, which really increases the possibility for all sorts of things going on.

As of now, any possibilities of dialogueof a negotiated off-ramp to de-escalate tensionsseem negligible. When somebody is threatening you with bodily harm, as many of these groups are, sitting down for a conversation is not really something you want to do with somebody like that, David said. Thats the unfortunate truth.

Meanwhile, the next round of protest is scheduled for Friday in downtown Portland. The right-wing Patriot Prayer group has organized a freedom march that is expected to attract white nationalists, neo-Nazis, militia and white supremacists. The antifa have pledged to block them. The Rose City Antifa wrote on its Facebook page, that, this time, enough is enough.

Casey Michel is a writer living in New York, and can be followed on Twitter at @cjcmichel. This article is adapted from a forthcoming report, entitled The Rise of the Traditionalist International: How Moscow cultivates American white nationalists, domestic secessionists, and the Religious Right, from People For the American Way.

Originally posted here:

How Liberal Portland Became America's Most Politically Violent City - POLITICO Magazine

Former prime minister Tony Abbott watches on as Malcolm Turnbull delivers an address at the Liberal party federal council meeting in Sydney on 24 June. Photograph: Dan Himbrechts/AAP

The Liberal senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, a former one-time ally of Tony Abbotts, has joined the defence minister Marise Payne in publicly rebuking Abbott for his latest undermining of Coalition policy.

She joins the growing pushback from Liberal moderates, including the social services minister, Christian Porter, who this week rubbished claims the Coalition government had lurched to the left under Malcolm Turnbull.

The Liberal partys factional brawling has continued to spill into the open on Friday, sparked by a leaked recording of Christopher Pyne revealed on the weekend caught bragging to colleagues about the influence of the moderate faction in the government.

Conservatives have reacted furiously to Pynes claims, with calls for him to be dumped as leader of the government in the House.

Abbott told 2GB this week Pynes remarks were a very, very ill-advised speech and I can understand why some of my colleagues might be saying his position as leader of the House is now difficult to maintain.

But moderates are now increasingly rounding on Abbott, with Fierravanti-Wells and Payne publicly criticising him for attempting to rewrite history from his time as prime minister.

It comes after Abbott delivered two controversial speeches this week in which he criticised government policy.

Three days ago, he delivered a speech to the Institute of Public Affairs in which he dusted off his conservative manifesto for government, and said the only way to take pressure off power prices was to have a moratorium on new windfarms, stop any further subsidised renewable power and freeze the renewable energy target at 15%.

On Thursday, he delivered a second high-profile speech in which he called on his government to explore the option of nuclear submarines.

Not more robustly challenging the nuclear no-go mindset is probably the biggest regret I have from my time as PM, Abbott said in his speech on Thursday.

Fierravanti-Wells slammed Abbott on Friday, telling the ABC that he was trying to rewrite history.

As a prime minister, Tony had the opportunity to do a whole range of things ... if now he says that he was wrong when he was prime minister, well thats a matter for him, she said.

In relation to climate issues, the renewable energy target came in under Tony, [the Paris agreement] was signed under Tony.

The 26% [renewable energy target] was an iron-clad commitment. Yes, up to 28% there was some flexibility in relation to that, but to actually now say it was an aspiration, when clearly his words, the documentation and everything, clearly demonstrate that it was an iron-clad commitment, you cant rewrite history.

I would urge Tony not to try to rewrite history, because all its doing is damaging his credibility, Fierravanti-Wells said on Friday.

Payne told the ABC the Turnbull government was doing exactly what the Abbott government intended with submarines.

What we are in fact doing, which accords very much with the former prime ministers position, is delivering the plan to acquire our future submarines as was set out, and agreed, by then-prime minister Tony Abbott and his team in February 2015, she said.

They established a competitive evaluation process which was designed to assure that as a nation we acquired the most capable conventional submarines in the world, she said.

We dont have a civil nuclear industry, we dont have the personnel, or the experience or the infrastructure, we dont have the training facilities, or the regulatory systems, that you would need to design, to construct, to operate and maintain a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines.

So the decisions were made in that context. The process was started by the former prime minister and his defence ministers, and it was completed under prime minister Turnbull and myself and announced in April 2016.

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Liberal senators round on Abbott, criticising him for trying to 'rewrite history' - The Guardian

British Conservatism with both a big and small c is once again feeling the pangs of crisis. Tory optimists might be hanging on to the fact that their party has just scored its highest vote share since 1983; as Brexit grinds uncertainly on, Britain remains in the grip of an avowedly rightwing vision. But the last time a Tory government was elected with a convincing majority was 1987. The UKs big cities seem more impervious to Conservative politics than ever. The fact that the Tories did so badly among people under the age of 45 55% of whom backed Labour, while only 29% voted Conservative underlines the sense of slowly gathering twilight.

What has happened? Conventional political commentary quite rightly points to the aftershocks of the EU referendum, and younger remain voters being shocked into action. But beneath that immediate development are much deeper factors, bound up with 50 years of cultural change, and millions of peoples embrace of the permissive, live-and-let-live set of values highlighted by this weeks publication of the latest British Social Attitudes Survey.

Moreover, in what the survey said about peoples views of the welfare state and public spending, there was a sense of something equally important: a fuzzy collectivism that stops well short of any kind of hardened socialism, but that defines a whole swath of the country that has not soaked up Thatcherism and its legacy to anything like the extent that the Tories would have liked.

On the face of it, it should not be beyond the wit of modern Conservatives to embrace those shifts. But ingrained Tory instincts seem to always get in the way: the overriding tendency of the partys individualism to turn cruel and cold; its attachment to moralism and the manipulation of base prejudice; and, in the case of Theresa May, a fusty, back-to-the-1950s spirit that arguably sealed her electoral fate (and is now symbolised by the governments dependence on the reactionary DUP).

Meanwhile, despite the support for the Tories politics from the Mail and the Sun, something much more powerful seems to be driving Britain somewhere else: the onward march of post-Elvis pop culture, and the way it now sits at the heart of a majority of peoples lives, along with a set of values that Conservatism still seems unable to convincingly accommodate.

Clearly, the country we live in is no idyll. Inequality is rampant; racism and bigotry have hardly gone away; there is a coarseness and impatience at the heart of everyday living that was not there 30 years ago. The country that voted for Brexit is hardly at ease with itself. But at the same time, when I think back to my early upbringing in the 1970s when the second world war was still a conversational commonplace, and my grandparents hung on to an essentially Victorian view of the world and compare Britain then and now, the sense of a quiet revolution seems pretty much inarguable.

Again, this is less about politics than values. British people are more liberal on such issues as same-sex relationships and abortion than they have ever been. At the last count, one in 10 people in couples in England and Wales were in what the official statistics call an inter-ethnic relationship. Cannabis smoke regularly wafts around our town and city centres; Glastonbury is as much a part of the national calendar as Wimbledon or the Grand National. And throughout our waking hours, there is one constant above all others: what the dictionary still calls pop music, probably the most potent means of communication human beings have ever come up with, now the lingua franca of all but the oldest generations, defined by a tangle of non-conservative ideas, and right at the centre of our everyday experience.

Cynics might point to the times when pop culture has seemed anything but progressive, from the time when Britpop spawned the oafishness of lad culture, back through the flimsy materialism that ran through the 1980s (watch any Duran Duran video for the proof), to the thuggish, nasty turn quickly taken by punk rock. But by far the strongest philosophical thread in pop culture has been there for around six decades, and steadily moved from the countercultural fringe to the very heart of national life. It is internationalist, open, permissive, implicitly anti-racist and, as evidenced by the modern festival crowd, as much communal as individualist.

By way of proof of all this, after years of people proclaiming the death of ideology, pop still steers well away from the political right. Aside from Gary Barlow of Take That, I cannot think of a single high-profile modern musician who has officially endorsed the Tories, nor of any moment in the past 10 years when a Tory politician appearing at Glastonbury would have been greeted with anything other than boos.

Clearly, attitudinal shifts do not happen by accident. Our culture has long privileged musicians with a pre-eminent importance, to the point that their views still make headlines. Fifty years ago, the Beatles played a huge and leading role in pulling down the walls of class-based deference. A little later, David Bowies defiance of the conventions of gender and sexuality changed tens of thousands of lives. The arrival after punk of 2 Tone, the genre-cum-movement that made a stand against insurgent racism via the simple idea of black and white musicians updating Jamaican ska, was another huge breakthrough. And so the list goes on: the global sensibilities embodied by Live Aid; more recently, the anthems to confidence and assertiveness that have made Katy Perry the latest embodiment of pop feminism (or, as the Spice Girls used to call it, Girl Power).

Thirty years after it first stirred, we also need to talk about acid house, which began on the fringes in the late 1980s, symbolised a massed upending of that decades individualist attitudes, and then bled out into everyday life. Matthew Collins definitive book on the subject, Altered State, rightly says that acid house was the most vibrant, diverse and long-lasting youth movement that Britain had ever seen, built on deeply felt desires for communal experiences. For all that it also involved the cheap and nasty entrepreneurialism that inevitably came with illegally organised parties and drug dealing, its legacy was pretty obvious: the imperative, simply put, to be nice kind, caring, open, accepting.

Earlier this week, the Daily Telegraph published a letter from Marianna, Viscountess Monckton of Brenchley. She furiously claimed that Jeremy Corbyns appearances at Glastonbury were an utter disgrace, little realising that the festival is the perfect example of the way that ideas that are still anathema to far too many Conservatives have gone from the countercultural margins into the mainstream, and that Corbyns presence made perfect sense.

I first went 27 years ago, when the Pyramid Stage was adorned with a huge CND symbol, the organisers would not let the police in, the BBC was nowhere to be seen, and there was a clear break between the outside world and the festivals licentious wonders. These days, by contrast, one blurs into the other, which highlights the Tories big problem: the fact that even when the tents have been packed up and the comedowns have kicked in, millions of us still live in a reality in which the politics of parochialism, nostalgia and moralism make precious little sense.

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How pop music built liberal Britain - The Guardian

Stevie Wonders call to say I love you to black Americans was rejected by black and white Leftists. Leftists were outraged over Wonders compassionate message to his fellow blacks, It is in your hands to stop all the killing and shooting wherever it might be. Because you cannot say Black Lives Matter and then kill yourselves.

Leftists view Mr. Wonder as an uppity n***** who wandered off their Liberal plantation. Yes, Leftists do freely use the n-word. Repeatedly, Leftists have called me a stupid n word for refusing their chains on my brain. My singing performance at the 2010 rally opposing Obamacare in DC was broadcast on C-span. Leftists across America called me the n word and worse; including death threats.

Black overlords were immediately dispatched to drag back their musical-icon run-a-way slave. After a high-tech whipping in the media public square, emotionally bloody and repentant, Mr. Wonder dialed back his truthful comments.

As a black conservative activist, my frustration is getting fellow black Americans to see the light of how Leftists and Democrats are using them. My black daddy raised me to believe Democrat is the party of the little guy/working man. Republicans are for the rich. Most blacks do not realize the Democrat party leadership has been hijacked by extreme liberal radicals (Leftists). At their core is a hatred for America as founded, traditional values of hard-work, individuality, self-reliance, independence and faith in the God of Christianity.

In simple language, liberals believe in spreading mediocrity equally. Liberals believe no one should have more than someone else. Beginning in kindergarten, liberals teach their hatred for achievers disguised as social justice and the evils of white privilege.

Most blacks do not realize that Leftists believe implementing their extreme liberal agenda trumps everything, including black lives. Leftists deem blacks, women, homosexuals and all minorities useful idiots to be used to implement their anti-American and godless agenda. Speaking of godless, if you list Leftists sacred cow issues, they are all against biblical teachings.

Stevie Wonder stating the obvious that blacks should stop killing each other was not good for furthering Leftists agenda. Leftists want blacks to believe America is a hell-hole of racism where cops murder them on sight. This lie helps Leftists sell their lie that the only way to save black lives is for the federal government to takeover police departments. This would further Leftists agenda of government repealing our freedoms and controlling every aspect of our lives. Most blacks do not realize that Obamas government controlled health-care gave them power to decide who lives and who dies.

You may be scratching your head wondering why black leaders were outraged over Mr. Wonders attempt to save black lives. The truth is black Democrat leaders are Leftists first and black second. Most black so-called civil rights groups want to keep blacks down, dependent on big daddy government. They want blacks engaged in poverty producing behaviors; dropping out of school, having babies out of wedlock and killing each other.

If this was not true, how would you explain black Leftists anger over real common sense solutions offered by successful blacks; Stevie Wonder, Herman Cain, Justice Clarence Thomas and Dr Ben Carson to name a few?

Civil rights icon, Dr Martin Luther King, Jr is rolling over in his grave over the betrayal of black leaders. Dr King made the ultimate sacrifice for blacks to strive for excellence and have a fair shot at achieving their American dream. Dr King did not die for blacks to be eternally enslaved by the federal government; monolithic voting for Democrats to get just enough free-stuff to get by.

Dr King had no idea his movement would be transformed into a grievance industry which keeps Al Sharpton, Jessie Jackson, the Congressional Black Caucus, the NAACP and the Obamas fat, happy and rich. Meanwhile, urban blacks continue in a downward spiral of black-on-black crime and generational poverty. Stats prove that blacks actually moved backwards during the 8 year reign of the first black president. Why arent most blacks questioning why? Or, will blacks stay stuck on stupid, believing Leftists lie that all their problems are the fault of white American racism, Republicans and now Donald Trump?

I was disappointed when Mr. Wonder walked back his statement of truth. However, I understand the pressure on Mr. Wonder must have been tremendous. Leftists attack with furious anger, seeking to destroy anyone who dares to speak truth contradicting their narrative.

Hey boy, sing your pretty songs. But, dont you never ever again speak out against the family!

###

Lloyd Marcus, the Unhyphenated American, is Author of Confessions of a Black Conservative: How the Left has shattered the dreams of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Black America.

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Stevie Wonder Dragged Back To The Liberal Plantation - The Daily Caller

Marc Thiessen, the George W. Bush speechwriter who now writes a column for the Washington Post op-ed page, is aghast at the Senate GOPs health care bill. Paying for a massive tax cut for the wealthy with cuts to health care for the most vulnerable Americans is morally reprehensible, he says.

If Republicans want to confirm every liberal caricature of conservatism in a single piece of legislation, they could do no better than vote on the GOP bill in its current form.

But at what point do we admit that this isnt the liberal caricature of conservatism? Its just ... conservatism.

Though Republicans had long promised the country a repeal-and-replace plan that offered better coverage at lower cost, the House GOPs health care bill cut hundreds of billions of dollars in taxes for the rich and paid for it by gutting health care spending on the poor. It was widely criticized and polled terribly.

Senate Republicans responded by releasing a revised health care bill that also cut hundreds of billions of dollars in taxes for the rich and paid for it by gutting health care spending on the poor. It has also been widely criticized, and it also is polling terribly.

Donald Trump, who ran on a platform of covering everyone with better health insurance than they get now, has endorsed both bills.

Republicans, in other words, have repeatedly broken their promises and defied public opinion in order to release health care bills that cut spending on the poorest Americans to fund massive tax cuts for the richest Americans. (The Tax Policy Center estimates that 44.6 percent of the Senate bills tax cuts go to households making more than $875,000.)

If they would simply stop doing that, their health care problems would vanish: They could craft a bill that would rebuild the health care system around more conservative principles and do so without triggering massive coverage losses. But at some point, we need to take them at their word: This is what they believe, and they are willing to risk everything their reputations, their congressional majorities, and Donald Trumps presidency to get it done.

And its not just health policy. Though Trump said he would raise taxes on people like himself during the campaign, the tax reform plan he released amounted to a massive tax cut for the richest Americans. That cut will ultimately have to be paid for, and because Republicans refuse to increase taxes to close deficits, and because they support increasing spending on the military, the only plausible way to pay for their tax cuts will be by slashing programs that serve the poor and/or the elderly. (This isnt just hypothetical: Trumps budget relies on massive cuts to programs that serve the poor.)

Like Thiessen, I want to see a better, more decent conservatism drive the Republican Party. I dont want to believe that this is the bottom line of GOP policy thinking. But this is clearly the bottom line of GOP policy thinking.

See the original post:

It turns out the liberal caricature of conservatism is correct - Vox

Nothing short of open warfare has erupted in the federal Liberal Party. This once great political party resembles nothing so much as a pub brawl.

For anyone who's followed Liberalism closely and enthusiastically in this country, as I have for more than a quarter of a century, these are dark days. There is widespread talk of knives being sharpened and coups being hatched. Senior party figures are retreating from the past week's dramas in disgust and horror. At the grassroots, Liberal membership is in decline, and those remaining activists are angry at the policy direction in Canberra.

Notwithstanding Christopher Pyne's ugly triumphalism, small-l liberals feel betrayed. Conservatives either vent their anger and or place their hopes in a Tony Abbott comeback, which much to the angst of metropolitan sophisticates and the Canberra press gallery now looks conceivable. In between, there is much sighing and shaking of heads.

It was not meant to be like this. And the fact that it is calls for some explanation.

The temptation, scarcely resisted, is to blame it all on the Prime Minister and his circle. This interpretation has a lot going for it. I have lost count of the number of times I have been regaled by Liberal MPs with anecdotes about snubs by Malcolm Turnbull.

To be sure, backbenchers always feel that their leader does not pay them much attention: the stories about John Gorton's contempt for his colleagues in the late '60s and early '70s, for instance, are legendary. But there is a striking malice about the way some Liberal MPs spit about this prime minister. To paraphrase Paul Hasluck, the longer one is associated with Turnbull, the deeper the contempt for him grows and they find it hard to allow him any merit. So much for the vision, unity and leadership that was supposed to characterise this prime ministership.

Another shortcoming is policy. The Liberal Party purportedly stands for individual freedom and the right to make your own way in life. It sides with people against government. There is very little of that philosophical mindset evident in recent government decisions, from energy and education to spending and superannuation.

And yet it is facile to just blame Turnbull and his lot for today's widespread discontent. After all, if everything is the fault of a sub-par prime minister and a bunch of under-performing cabinet ministers, it suggests this is a temporary problem that can be fixed with comparative ease. It is an explanation that distracts us from contemplating a more uncomfortable possibility, one that might cast doubt on the nature of public-policy making in this nation. I am referring to what the distinguished journalist Paul Kelly has called a political crisis.

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Australia, Kelly argues, is suffering a malaise in its political decision-making that goes beyond partisan politics. The origins of the crisis are deep-seated, which means the crisis is unlikely to be easily reversed. Just ponder how increasingly poll-driven our political climate has become. Or how the relentless 24/7 news cycle, together with noisy and polarising social media, has fostered the growth of so-called "infotainment" and sensationalism in political news. Or how a hostile upper house of Parliament all too often blocks important legislation.

This portends grave consequences for the body politic. It means politics as reported is a question of who is up or down rather than of policy and political debates. It means that any prime minister will struggle to implement a long-term productivity reform agenda that might kickstart a new era of prosperity. It also means constant changing of leaders: during the past decade, we've had six prime ministerships, seven defence ministers and six NSW premiers.

We are on borrowed time and living beyond our means: growth is sluggish and our debt-to-GDP ratio is escalating. We are now in a phase very much different from 1983 to 2007 the golden era of economic reform one where the pace of the news cycle is faster, and the media beast has to be constantly fed.

Selling sound free-market reform in such a volatile political environment is more difficult than ever. It is destabilising for a prime minister to be all too often looking over his shoulder for the flash of daggers. This undermines his authority and makes governing even more fraught. At the turn of the decade, Labor learned the hard way that fratricidal governments do not win elections. How quickly today's Liberals have forgotten.

I don't know how to resolve this crisis, but I suspect leadership changes however justified they may seem in the short term will only prolong the problems bedevilling Australia's political system. For the MPs who sack Turnbull, the moment will feel cathartic, the relief of having defenestrated a traitor totheir cause and ended a rush of bad polls and bad-news stories.

But there is every likelihood his successor will face the same problems that every leader since John Howard has faced. The present troubles will start all over again. And our political crisis endures.

Tom Switzer is a presenter on ABC's Radio National.

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Federal Liberal Party in-fighting threatens to destroy it - The Sydney Morning Herald

It was in the year 2000 that David Staeglich, one of the organizers behind Berlin Pride and Pride Germany, first got involved in LGBTactivism. A year later, the movement won a major victory when the governmentthen a center left-green coalitionlegalized civil unions for same-sex partners.

At that time I thought, OK, this year we have the civil partnerships, and maybe in three or four more years there will be marriage equality, he tells Newsweek .

But it didnt turn out that way. It was only this Friday morning, over 15 years later, when Germanys parliament finally voted in favor of allowing gay couples to wed by 393 votes to 226.

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The intervening years, Staeglich says, were frustrating: It turned out [that] there are no reasons to be proud about Germany and the German government because all the countries around [us] changed a lot [but] Germany stood on the same place.

Germany follows the United Kingdom (2013), France (2013), the United States (2015), and a host of other nations that have agreed marriage euqality between heterosexual and same-sex partnerships.

Staeglich, who was speaking while meeting other LGBTactivists from across the world in Madrid a day before the result, coincidentally on the last day of Pride month, said hed be celebrating: I think I will... drink as much champagne as possible. We will have the party of my life here in Madrid.

The fact that it took so long for relatively tolerant Germanywhere 83 percent of Germans back gay marriage, according to a recent pollto equalize its marriage laws is in a large part down to politics. In 2001, the country was run by the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) and the environmentalist Greens.

But since 2005, Germany has been led by Chancellor Angela Merkel and her center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party, at the head of a series of coalitions.

Merkel may now have a reputation is a liberalon the world stage, thanks largely to her 2015 speech welcoming refugees and her regular rhetorical sparring sessions with U.S. President Donald Trump, but her political grounding is firmly conservative.

People dance in front of the Victory column as they participate in the annual Gay Pride parade in Berlin, Germany July 23, 2016. Germany's parliament just voted to allow same-sex couples to wed. Stefanie Loos/Reuters

The chancellor, like many in her party, is a committed Christianand an often cautious politician. In 2005 she said in an interview: man and wife, marriage and family, stand at the centre of our social model, so other lifestyles should not receive comparable constitutional protections, according to The Economist.

In Fridays vote, where lawmakers were allowed to vote with their conscience rather than along partylines, the Chancellor herself opposed the move.

Jens Spahn, Germanys Deputy Finance Minister, himself a gay man and a proponent of gay marriage within the CDU, admits in an interview before the vote that his party is still coming to terms with the issue, and that many within it still oppose it.

Die Welt reported that at least 70 of the lawmakers representing the CDU and its smaller sister party the CSU, roughly a quarter of the total, backed the change. I just realize that there is an ongoing process right now, Spahn says.

But should Merkel have spotted the public mood and moved earlier? Well actually I didnt expect it to happen this week, not before the election, Spahn says. (Germans will vote in September.) We can argue now if it should have been done earlier, if it should have been done after the election, whenever, theres never the right time.

Merkel said on Monday that she had begun to change her mind on the issue of gay marriage after an invitation to dinner in her constituency at the home of two gay women who were caring for eight foster children. But the move was read in Germany as pre-election positioning.

Two rival parties and potential coalition partners, the SPD and the centrist Free Democrats (FDP), both back the change, and by allowing a vote without a party whip Merkel could neutralize the policy as an issue for the general election without having to fight her partys more hardline conservative members.

Spahn, though, quotes British Conservative ex-Prime Minister David Cameron, who once said: I don't support gay marriage despite being a Conservative. I support gay marriage because I'm a Conservative.

Backing the change is logical for right-wingers, says Spahn: Its because of values. When two peoplewant to stay to each other, they want to actually care for each other, before asking society to help them they will help each other first, then that is a value that we as Christian Democrats should cherish.

It isnt just the ruling party that has opposed the shift. However tolerant the majority of Germans,divisions remain.

If you go into the countryside being a lesbian girl or a gay boy in a small village, says Staeglich, it is still not that easy to call themselves a gay person, or a queer person.

In the Catholic state of Bavaria, the largely Protestant CDU is represented by its sister party the CSU, which remains staunchly opposed. And there are differences in the perception of homosexuality between men, which was decriminalized in East Germany in 1968 and in the West in 1969, but still partly criminalized until 1994 (when the age of consent was equalized), and between women, which was never technically illegal.

Staeglich hopes that gay people being able to marry like anyone else will change the minds of some traditionalists: From that point on you can just argue and say: Well, hello? I have the same life, so why are you discriminating [against] me? Because now, our parliament took the decision that we are the same, he says. And to give further cause for hope, even the hard-right populist Alternative for Germany party, which opposes gay marriage, elected a gay woman as its leader in May.

As elsewhere, there are many battles still to fight for Germanys LGBT community, but the shifts are palpable and dramatic.

But aside from all of that, one choice remains for gay people in Germany: Now they have the right, will they take the plunge and pop the question? Until now I always told my partner, as long as it is not officially allowed why should we marry, jokes Spahn, now I have to think about a better phrase. We will see. He laughs: I would never say never.

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Same Sex Marriage: Why Liberal Germany Took So Long To Give Gay Couples Equal Rights - Newsweek

Almost two months after a provincial election, British Columbians will have a new government, following a tense evening in which the provinces Lieutenant-Governor spent hours in deliberation with the leaders of the governing Liberals and Opposition New Democrats.

Finally, NDP Leader John Horgan emerged from Government House to announce that he had been invited to serve as B.C.s next premier after offering assurances to Lieutenant-Governor Judith Guichon that he could provide continuity of government.

We discussed the configuration of the legislature, he told reporters waiting outside, while supporters cheered. I think this is an extraordinary opportunity for a new legislature to work co-operatively.

Gary Mason: NDP waited 16 years for this. Now comes the hard part

Premier Christy Clark ended 16 years of Liberal rule when she tendered her resignation on Thursday night after she lost a vote of confidence in the legislature. The vote was tied to her governments Throne Speech.

The NDP have not won an election in B.C. since 1996, but will seek to govern with a minority of seats, buttressed by the three Green MLAs who have pledged support on key legislative measures, including budgets.

The New Democrats and Greens voted together to defeat the Liberals. A hush fell over the packed House as the roll call was read. Afterward, Ms. Clark emerged from the chamber to applause from staff, MLAs and other supporters who lined the halls of the legislature.

Inside the legislature, Mr. Horgan embraced former NDP leader Carole James in a bear hug. In the floor seats behind his caucus were retired NDP cabinet ministers Moe Sihota and Sue Hammell.

Im excited now, seven weeks after the election, we can get going on a government that works for the people, he said in an interview.

Mr. Horgan said he will take the Liberals up on their promise, contained in their recent Throne Speech, to work with all parties to craft legislation.

Theres an enormous amount of work to do, he said outside Government House. Its been 16 years since theres been a transition of government, theres been 16 years of challenges that have been created for many, many people. These challenges wont be fixed overnight.

Mr. Horgan said he would turn his focus to putting together a cabinet and preparing for the transition.

As premier-designate, Mr. Horgan and his team will have access to government briefing documents and deputy ministers. Mr. Horgan is expected to be sworn in with his new cabinet in late July. After that, they would spend some weeks drafting a Throne Speech, a budget, and several pieces of legislation that they have promised to immediately introduce as part of their agreement with the Greens.

Ms. Clark told reporters she had asked the lieutenant governor to trigger a new election.

She has chosen another path... And I respect that, said Ms. Clark, who remains premier until Mr. Horgan is sworn in.

However Ms. Clark maintained that she believes the new government, with its narrow balance of power in the House, poses a risk to really bend the rules of democracy.

Ms. Clark also said the new premier will inherit an excellent fiscal situation. He is inheriting the best balanced books in the country... I hope he finds a way to preserve that.

The legislature is not expected to be recalled until after Labour Day in early September, and the legislation would include campaign finance reform and would launch a referendum on electoral reform.

The moment was weeks in the making; however, the outcome was anything but certain.

Voters in the May 9 election delivered an inconclusive verdict on B.C. politics: The governing Liberals were reduced to 43 seats, the NDP took 41 seats and the Greens won three.

Once the final ballots were counted, the Greens began negotiations with both the Liberals and NDP to determine which they would support, and eventually reached an accord with the NDP.

The Liberals argued that the NDP and Greens together do not have enough seats to provide stable government, as they will have to provide a Speaker of the House. That leaves the legislature in a perpetual deadlock of 43 votes on each side, and Liberals say the non-partisan role of the Speaker will be eroded by having to constantly vote to break ties.

The premier had said she would not ask Ms. Guichon to dissolve the current House and trigger another election. But she told reporters on Wednesday she would if asked offer the opinion that the legislature could not function, even with the NDP-Green agreement in place.

However, the Lieutenant-Governor chose to give the NDP a chance.

Mr. Horgan said issues that will require his governments immediate attention include the fentanyl crisis, the softwood lumber dispute, and the public education system.

As well, the New Democrats plan to launch a review of the $8.8-billion Site C dam, which could lead to the cancellation of the provinces most expensive public infrastructure project in history.

In the May election campaign, the New Democrats promised to raise taxes on the wealthy and real estate speculators to pay for promises that include $10-a-day daycare, building 114,000 housing units over a decade and annual $400 subsidies for renters, as well as the elimination of tolls on two bridges in the Lower Mainland.

The Liberals had attacked the NDP platform as unaffordable, but they have since introduced a Throne Speech that offered many of those commitments and more, including an ambitious $1-billion daycare program.

In a fiscal update earlier this week, Finance Minister Mike de Jong said the Liberals new promises are affordable, as the economy is performing better than expected. That will provide the NDP more flexibility in the budget they will table this fall.

However, the NDP and Green pact could face challenges.

The two parties will find points of discord. The Greens say they will vote for the NDP budgets but they oppose the lifting of tolls, because the policy would run counter to their climate action agenda. The Greens have also signalled that they will oppose the changes to the Labour Code that the NDP have promised to their labour supporters.

The success of any NDP government could hinge on the continual and unconventional support of the Speaker.

The Speaker, who must enjoy a level of respect from all parties to keep order in the House, has traditionally been detached from regular votes. But that position is challenged with a legislature evenly divided, because the Speaker is, by convention, elected from the government benches.

Under this NDP minority, barring a change in the numbers, the Speaker would regularly be voting to break ties, which some observers have warned would turn it into a highly partisan role.

This happened in New Brunswick in 2003, where a Progressive Conservative government survived on a one-vote margin for three years.

A government in perpetual survival mode put great stress on the Speaker and led the public to become deeply cynical of the politicians in power, according to Shawn Graham, who was Liberal leader at the time.

Mr. Graham, who formed government after beating the Progressive Conservatives in 2006, said the actions of the Conservative Speakers damaged democracy at the time, but had little lasting effect to the role of Speaker as later elections have been won by larger margins.

Philippe Lagass, an associate professor and constitutional scholar at Carleton University, said an NDP Speaker breaking ties is no more partisan than the Liberal Speaker resigning his post after his party loses government.

If impartiality was the pre-eminent concern, then that Speaker wouldnt resign, he said.

As well, the coming legislative sessions will be trying for all members of the House. The opposition Liberals will have 43 seats, and absent the Speaker, the governing NDP will have 40 votes. They will need the Greens, at the least, to support any legislative changes. There will be no margin for MLAs to be absent for travel or illness, unless they can find a degree of goodwill which has been markedly absent in recent weeks to agree on pairing up absences on both sides.

Follow us on Twitter: Mike Hager @MikePHager, Justine Hunter @justine_hunter

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BC NDP to form government, ending 16 years of Liberal rule - The Globe and Mail

Greta Van Susteren is out at MSNBC less than six months after she started at the cable channel.

Van Susteren broke the news of her own ouster Thursday, tweeting "I'm out at MSNBC" shortly before the network issued its own announcement. Van Susteren's husband, John Coale, told CNNMoney, "They let her go," and added that she and MSNBC were "working out contract issues now."

CNNMoney also reported that Van Susteren was given no prior notice of the decision and was told her on-air presence was not "confrontational enough."

MSNBC said that Van Susteren's nightly 6 p.m. show would be replaced with one hosted by Ari Melber, MSNBC's chief legal correspondent who also hosts his own weekend show, "The Point."

The reliably liberal Melber worked on John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign and also served as a legislative aide to Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., before attending law school and moving into media work.

Van Susteren's Washington-based show, "For the Record," debuted on Jan. 9. Her 14-year run at Fox News ended this past summer. Before that, she had her own show at CNN.

The program was the least-watched show on MSNBC between 5 p.m. and midnight both Monday and Tuesday of this week, according to the Nielsen company.

On Monday, for example, MSNBC's "Meet the Press Daily" at 5 p.m. had 970,000 viewers, and Van Susteren's show dipped to 797,000. When Chris Matthews' "Hardball" started at 7 p.m., the network's audience jumped to 1.45 million, Nielsen said.

The show is ending despite the public backing of Van Susteren's friend and MSNBC's most popular host, Rachel Maddow.

In a note to staff, MSNBC President Phil Griffin called Van Susteren "a well-regarded television veteran and one of only a few broadcasters who can say they've hosted shows at all three major cable news networks. We are grateful to her and wish her the best."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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MSNBC fires Greta Van Susteren, replaces her with liberal host - Fox News

To some degree, the politics of The Progressive Liberal Dan Richards align with those of the real Dan Richards. Given that this is pro wrestling, a big red sign displaying Is this a work? is always flashing, but Richards claims he leans hard left. Its not much of a stretch, he says on the phone. When he tells me that Democrats should be as ballsy and unapologetic about their beliefs as the Republicans are about theirs, it could be either the character or man talking, and it still makes sense.

Regardless of how much Richards plays up the left-wing politics to crowds in Kentucky and nearby states, it works. Look no further than the videos to see that those crowds despise him. Theres a kid in the crowd telling him to shut up, and relentless jeers, or Trump masks worn by attendees. And even the occasional death threat, according to Tennessee-based wrestler and booker Beau James, who met Richards in 2003 and has served as something like a mentor. As James and Richards tell it, at a 2016 show in West Virginia, where Richards spoke about taking everyones guns, a patron displayed a pistol in a holster on his right hip and started rubbing it.

Another time, one fan threatened that if that fucking liberal showed up at a different show, hed bring his gun.

The heat is real:

Richards came up with the germ for the Progressive Liberal in 2015, with Donald Trump a few months into his presidential campaign. James, who vouches for Richardss authenticity, says, he is what you see on the TV. He serves as a barometer for Richards, figuring out how to get under the crowds skin without cutting too close. Appalachia has real problems, like many parts of the country: A lack of jobs, drug addiction, poverty. Ridiculing those topics will anger people in ways that go beyond riling up a crowd before a bout. We could use national politics, James says. We dont touch local politics.

The details really make the gimmick, and theyre not as obvious as the Not My President shirt. Its the way the Progressive Liberal says Appalachia, pronouncing the third syllable with a hard A as in ate, instead of the flat A preferred by locals. The audience immediately understands that hes not from here. Richards was originally billed out of Richmond, Virginia, his actual hometown. But he and James realized that when performing in Kentucky, which has a Richmond of its own, the crowd would become confused. So his origin became Washington, D.C.

The industry has always been replete with guys working effete liberal gimmicks, but this is the perfect place and time, and Dan Richards has built a sustainable meal ticket, at least within the limited scope of the indie circuit. Test your mental constitution and imagine for a minute if Hillary had won; this character would still be popular and paying customers would still project their frustrations onto him, for a different reason. For the time being, its an absolutely foolproof heel. And hell always be the heel. As Richards points out in our conversation, he could face the scummiest, most vile opponent, who cheats to win in the most obvious ways and with outside interference, and the people will still refuse to support the Progressive Liberal.

This gimmick has an expiration date, because they all do, but for the time being, the Progressive Liberal is something as fresh as it is seemingly obvious, with a lot of potential to go wideror be copied elsewhere. From what Ive seen so far, people who identified as left-leaning find Richards amusing, and so do self-identifying conservatives and Trump supporters. Their reasons for enjoying the character are vastly dissimilar, but they are all able to get something out of it. The holy grail of wrestling is to straddle the line between face and heel, to be someone the crowds love to hate. In the fair grounds and school gyms of Appalachia, Dan Richards may have found a shortcut.

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No One Is Pissing Off Local Wrestling Crowds Like The "Progressive Liberal" - Deadspin

This worldview does not recognize that private, economic power has a capacity to coerce. They trace back to [antebellum slavery advocate and Vice President] John C. Calhoun. These libertarians, particularly Murray Rothbard, said that Calhoun gave them their fundamental core concepts. These concepts included that its government that creates exploitation, and that its the government that creates coercion, whereas private economics is about freedom and free exchange. All you have to know is that Calhoun was a slaveholdera man making his wealth from keeping other people in shackles. This is where their notions of wealth as non-coercive comes from.

The idea that wealth cannot be coercive is also the basis of their case for freeing corporations to spend unlimited amounts in politics and harangue their workers. They argue it is merely an exercise of free speech. Its interesting that they are also pushing these measures that make it more possible for employers to essentially have whats referred to in union terms as captive audience meetings, where they push out their political views to their employees and try to sway their vote. That, and these huge infusions of dark money, are being represented as a First Amendment freedom, as if it doesnt skew the outcome. But it all connects back in a perverse way to the notion that only government is coercive and that wealth is all about freedom, and enabling the free exchange between economic actors who are totally free.

As were talking, the Koch brothers are wrapping up their annual retreat and Mitch McConnell is plotting to take health care away from millions of peoplewe seem to have reached a kind of culmination of a lot of the intellectual trends that you write about in Democracy in Chains. Did you see this happening as you worked on the book? Have the past six months surprised you?

Ive been surprised by the velocity of the change. I believed that this is where we were heading, because if you block off the political process from answering peoples needs, as the radical right managed to do throughout Barack Obamas two terms on so many major issues, then people get frustrated. They get frustrated that politics has become so polarized between right and left and they believe that liberal democracy does not workthey start to believe that we need a radical alternative. Its very much like the interwar period of the 20th century with the rival poles of fascism and communism.

There were times when I thought, Am I being melodramatic? But this seemed to be the necessary outcome of what these people were doing to the political process. I am not surprised, but I am gobsmacked by just how cynically the Republicans have been operating and the extent to which the Kochs have taken over one of our major political parties, and how the whole situation is poisoning our public life and public debate.

One thing that helped Donald Trump get elected is that he didnt represent the Republican status quo, which is heavily tilted towards a political philosophy pushed by Buchanan and Charles Koch. Many Republican voters seem to be turned off by this philosophyparticularly its emphasis on privatization and on dismantling the welfare state.

This is a challenge in our polarized environment because I really want to reach Republican voters. Its been said that political parties are a lot like sports teams. People have a loyalty to their team. But what longtime Republican voters need to understand is that their team is no longer playing for the home crowd.

On issue after issue you see vast majorities of Republicans who actually agree on some of the fundamental needs of the country: They support a progressive income tax, they want to address global warming, they care about the preservation of Medicare and Social Security as originally construed as social insurance, they care about public education. They are not the enemies of Democrats. But they have been riled up by this apparatus, and by very cynical Republican leaders, to support a party that is undermining the things that they seek.

A recent study produced by the Voter Study Group found that libertarians basically dont exist in the American body politic. And yet your book lays out the extent to which theyve essentially taken over the Republican Party over the last few decades.

The Republican Party leadership bases its pitch to voters on a set of anodyne phrases. We are the party of freedom, and liberty, and small government. And that sounds good. Who is against freedom? Who wants super-intrusive government? But when you actually look at what theyre doing, they are freeing corporations to do whatever they want to their workers, the environment, retirees, and so forth and so on.When they say theyre for limited government that isnt really true.

If you look closely, what theyre doing is limiting the branches of government that are the most responsive to voters: local government and federal government. But they are for extreme power for state governments, which they find much easier to control. We are seeing this happen all around the country where these Koch-funded state policy network organizations and the American Legislative Exchange Council are working hand-in-glove to push what is called preemption. They use the power over state governments to prevent localities from doing things like raising wages, enacting anti-discrimination ordinances, even passing plastic bag ordinances! Its just a huge power grab.

One of the most fascinating and terrifying chapters in Democracy in Chains investigates Buchanans role in Chile, where Buchanan and Friedman pushed economic liberalization and extreme constitutional protections for the wealthy. Both have been disastrous for democracy. Do you see similar tactics right now, with the rush to push through health care legislation in the House and Senate?

Short answer: yes. They understand that sunshine and deliberation are not helpful to this project, and that it is very important to move things along as quickly as possible. I absolutely think the Chilean experience is what emboldened Buchanan and Koch to think, Wow, we can actually do this. Its going to be more complicated to do it in a functioning democracy, but we could actually achieve this constitutional revolution because we did it in Chile.

Most of the resistance that has appeared over the past six months has been focused on Trump, rather than people like Mitch McConnell or Charles Koch. Is this a mistake?

Its a huge mistake to imagine Trump as being separate from this story and sui generis. He was the logical culmination, in some ways, of this effort to derail our government and totally discredit norms of public service, the idea of a common good, and the belief that elected officials were actually workingin the flawed ways that ordinary mortals dotoward the public good. Trumps election is the fruit of this project, even if Trump was elected, in part, because he was the only Republican candidate not carrying Koch baggage. And yet, the Koch and Trump stories are not separate at all, and it would be a terrible mistake for those trying to resist this agenda to treat them as such.

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The Right's War Against Liberal Democracy - New Republic

Vince Cable is set to be crowned the next Liberal Democrat leader without a fight, after his last likely rival pulled out of the race.

Ed Davey said he had decided not to run for the leadership because of his desire to spend more time with his young family, including his severely disabled son.

Two other possible contenders Norman Lamb and Jo Swinson have already pulled out of the contest to replace Tim Farron, who quit after the general election.

It appears to guarantee a clear run for Sir Vince, the former Business Secretary who is 74 years old and who only returned to the Commons three weeks ago.

Sir Vince has vowed to continue to push for a second referendum on any Brexit deal, describing EU withdrawal as an iceberg about to hit the UK economy.

And he has insisted there are big opportunities ahead, despite the Lib Dems struggling to make a breakthrough at the election, winning just 12 seats.

Sir Ed said it had been a difficult decision not to stand, but insisted he had to put his family first.

When you understand that John (aged nine) is severely disabled, you will appreciate that seeing our three-year-old daughter make him laugh is quite special, he wrote on the Lib Dem Voice website.

Please remember that my father died when I was four and my mother when I was 15.

Being there for my children over the next few crucial years and to see those special moments is my personal priority.

Reacting to the news, Sir Vince tweeted: Very much admire & respect what my friend & colleague @EdwardJDavey has said today on Lib Dem Voice about the importance of family.

Mr Farron sparked surprisewhen he announced he was standing down, arguing it was impossible to be leader and to live as a committed Christian, to hold faithfully to the Bible's teaching.

Several high-profile Lib Dems had privately criticised the way he had answered questions on whether gay sex was a sin and his views on abortion.

Sir Vince remains popular with Lib Dem members but, as well as questions about his age he will be 79 at the next scheduled general election some Lib Dems may fear Sir Vince is tainted by the Coalition years.

There are suspicions that Sir Vince has reached an agreement with Ms Swinson, the new deputy leader, to make way for her, at some point later in the Parliament.

Originally posted here:

Vince Cable set to be crowned Liberal Democrat leader after Ed Davey pulls out of race - The Independent

BC Liberal Government Caucus image Surrey-White Rocks MLA Tracy Redies responds to premiers throne speech.

Throne-speech issues the same but approaches differ, says MLA Redies as opposition parties prepare for power

Surrey-White Rocks newest BC Liberal MLA acknowledged Friday that criticism regarding the similarity between her partys throne-speech promises and those put forward by the opposition NDP and Green parties were things that we were all hearing on the doorstep.

But Tracy Redies said she was doubtful shed support such legislation coming from the NDP and Greens if the now-opposition parties win the right to govern.

The challenge with the NDP promises is that theyre very vague, Redies told Peace Arch News. Most of them werent costed and there wasnt really any detail.

I doubt very much that well be on the same page.

Redies spoke to PAN the day after Premier Christy Clarks throne speech, which laid out the BC Liberals vision for the province and included everything from creating child-care spaces to reforming the political-donation system.

Clarks speech was criticized by opposition parties as taking from their handbooks.

In a YouTube video posted Thursday, Redies conceded that election results which left the BC Liberals with a minority government and sparked a co-operation agreement between the BC NDP and the BC Green Party sent her party a message.

While our government received strong support from rural British Columbia, its clear that urban British Columbians expect us to do some things differently, she states.

The next day, she reiterated the point, and told PAN that while her partys issues may be similar to those raised by the opposition, the approaches that were taking are quite different.

For example, the child care. Were very focused on supporting those families in the lower or middle-income range, she said. That works with our philosophy.

The NDP have suggested $10 daycare for everyone. The government should be helping those who need the help.

Redies named social housing as another area where the parties approaches differ. The BC Liberals, she said, would work with the private sector to build social and accessible housing.

BC NDP Leader John Horgan has said an NDP government would provide Crown land to communities to lower the cost of new housing; the partys plan is to create 114,000 rental, social and co-op housing units over 10 years.

I think we have a much better likelihood of being able to deliver those units faster, Redies said.

Elections BC spokesman Andrew Watson confirmed Thursday following the throne speech that the agency is preparing for the possibility that voters could soon be heading back to the polls.

Horgan had said he would make a motion of non-confidence on the throne speech Monday, but after the NDP and Greens defeated proposed BC Liberal legislation to ban corporate and union donations and to grant the Greens official party status, the non-confidence vote is expected tomorrow (Thursday).

Redies said that regardless of who is in power, we all have to look at these (throne speech) issues.

For the BC Liberals, its a much bigger-picture approach than just the next four years, she added.

I guess if were not in government, we wont be able to implement them the way we think is the best way for the province, she said.

But well wait and see what happens.

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Redies doubts BC Liberal and NDP parties 'will be on the same page' - Surrey Now-Leader

June 26, 2017: Two Knoxville men with completely opposing political views are on a 3,200-mile bike ride to inspire unity across the country.

Leslie Ackerson, WBIR 11:46 PM. EDT June 26, 2017

Andre Block and Jonathan Williams Courtesy Facebook The Unity Ride

KNOXVILLE - Biking 3,200 miles across the country, could you do it?

Its an impressive trek, and its one two Knoxville men are tackling.

The other challenge? The have different political views.

I voted for Trump, said Jonathan Williams.

And ... I did not vote for Trump, said Andre Block.

Williams and Block share a laugh.

The unlikely duo has embarked on a "unity ride" across the country. They say its an opportunity to show that people can come together whether they lean to the left or right.

"I feel in America we are sitting around complaining. I hope with what we are doing I can encourage people to get up and do something, said Block.

The pair started in California on Memorial Day, stopping in places like Colorado and Utah. They reached Knoxville on Monday and invited other bikers along for a 6-mile ride.

The plan is to finish in Washington D.C. on July 4.

"One of the things we talk about on this trip is the gray areas. You have people who live in the gray, you have some people very hard conservative, very liberal, explained Williams. Most of us live in the middle. If we can put those differences aside and just love one another. It all boils down to we are people.

Williams and Block stop in Knoxville on their journey.

From sea to shining sea, Block and Williams are biking their way across America to encourage people to move past political stereotypes.

It just brings together people with different backgrounds for one cause, to exercise and learn about one another, said cyclist Amanda Fox who joined Mondays night ride.

I think its especially important right now in the world, all aspects of the climate these days, said Meghan Goyer, another cyclist.

Beneath the spacious skies and purple mountain majesties, Williams and Block have learned the power of togetherness.

"We have actually talked about politics very little this entire trip, because we are out here trying to achieve a goal and working together to accomplish it is more important, said Williams.

"Its like as soon as you focus on those things we can agree on all the things we disagree on disappear, said Block.

The pair has a camera crew following them from start to finish. At the end of the journey, they plan on piecing together that footage to make a documentary so they can continue to share their vision with others.

You can follow their adventures on Facebook and Instagram.

2017 WBIR.COM

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Liberal and conservative biking across the country to encourage ... - WBIR-TV

A center-left Yale student lamented the politicization of his English class in an op-ed Sunday, highlighting how his professor asked which Shakespeare villain was most like President Donald Trump the morning after the election.

Yale senior Finnegan Schick, whopublished thearticleOn the Intrusion of National Politics in College Classrooms, expressed frustration that despite the fact Trump has been in office for more than half a year now, his professors show no signs of putting their political digressions on hold, reflecting a troubling trend: the growing partisanship of higher education.

The rise of Trump has accelerated the Ivory Towers politicization, allowing the campus Left to condemn dissenting students and faculty with new vigor, Schick said, adding that a fall survey of over 2,000 Yale studentsfound that 95 percent of conservative respondents felt the school doesnt toleratetheir opinions.

Schick acknowledged that he iscenter-left politically and voted for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,but said reading shouldnt require an Im With Her sticker and a Washington Post subscription.

Trump is a demagogue, American society is doomed, and English literature is our refuge, is always the message from my classes, wrote Schick. He said that while lefty professors thinkits their duty to promote their vision of the political good, students are becoming afraidthey will suffer academically for their views.

Universities have become hotbeds of anti-Trump resistance, according to Schick, and the result will be ageneration of adults whose liberal arts educations were hijacked by political debate.

Schick wrote that Literature is ideally a way of broadening our social imaginations, so if we only read authors to inform modern phenomena, we might as welldismiss the literarycannon also.

He doesnt want to takepolitics completely out of the classroom, but saysprofessors must recognize the line between timeless political insights and rank partisanship.

The student notedthat political homogenization of academia since the 1990s has been welldocumented, and referencedarecently published abookon the dearth of conservatives in academia bypolitical scientists Jon Shields and Joshua Dunn.

Finn isnt saying politics in the classroom=bad. Hes criticizing the tendency of political digressions to displace literary analysis, said Yale student and staff columnist ofYale Newson Twitter.

Yale didnt respond to TheDCNFs request for comment in time for publication.

Follow Graceon Twitter.

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Yale Student Unsettled By Liberal 'Politicization' Of His English Classes - The Daily Caller

Kentucky-based Appalachian Mountain Wrestling has graced the world with the presence of Progressive Liberal Dan Richards. He definitely isnt a face.

Here are some of Richardss promosone of them has him in a shirt covered in a bunch of Hillary Clinton facesas well as a tag-team match in which Richards has PROGRESSIVE LIBERAL plastered across the back of his briefs:

During a ring appearance earlier this year, Richards cut an in-ring promo in which he praised Hillary, and was interrupted by attendees chanting Feel the Bern! At about the 2:08 mark, some little kid yelled, You better shut up, always a mark of decent heat.

You know what, I think Bernie Sanders would make a great Secretary of State, Richards said before being jeered. Later on, he tried to persuade the crowd. I want to exchange your bullets for bullet points. Bullet points of knowledge. A few minutes later, Timmy Lou Retton came out to wrestle. (Richards lost. You know who would have won, though?)

The Progressive Liberal is a solid character. He strikes the right level of condescension and punchable smugness. His line deliverys a little suspect and his actual wrestling leaves something to be desired, but those can be remedied. At its root, this is a good gimmick. If youre in Kentucky and free on Friday, watch Richards against some guy in a sleeveless shirt in a Crybaby Match, where the loser will have to wear a diaper and suck on a bottle.

H/t to @MurderBryan

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The "Progressive Liberal" Is Maybe The Perfect Wrestling Heel - Deadspin

A man leaves after voting in the Mongolian presidential election at the Erdene Sum Ger (Yurt) polling station in Tuul Valley. Mongolians cast ballots on June 26 to choose between a horse breeder, a judoka and a feng shui master in a presidential election rife with corruption scandals and nationalist rhetoric

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People attend Eid al-Fitr prayers to mark the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan at a play ground in the suburb of Sale, Morocco

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A plain-clothes police officer kicks a member of a group of LGBT rights activist as Turkish police prevent them from going ahead with a Gay Pride annual parade on 25 June 2017 in Istanbul, a day after it was banned by the city governor's office.

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Pakistan army soldiers stands guard while rescue workers examine the site of an oil tanker explosion at a highway near Bahawalpur, Pakistan. An overturned oil tanker burst into flames in Pakistan on Sunday, killing more than one hundred people who had rushed to the scene of the highway accident to gather leaking fuel, an official said.

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Rescue workers search for survivors at the site of a landslide that occurred in Xinmo Village, Mao County, Sichuan province, China

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Student activists shout anti martial law slogans during a protest in Manila on June 23, 2017

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A diver performs from the Pont Alexandre III bridge into the River Seine in Paris, France, June 23, 2017 as Paris transforms into a giant Olympic park to celebrate International Olympic Days with a variety of sporting events for the public across the city during two days as the city bids to host the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games

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Debris and smoke are seen after an OV-10 Bronco aircraft released a bomb, during an airstrike, as government troops continue their assault against insurgents from the Maute group, who have taken over parts of Marawi city, Philippines June 23, 2017

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Russian President Vladimir Putin (C) stands under pouring rain during a wreath-laying ceremony marking the 76th anniversary of the Nazi German invasion, by the Kremlin walls in Moscow, on June 22, 2017

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Smoke rises following a reported air strike on a rebel-held area in the southern Syrian city of Daraa, on June 22, 2017

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Iraqis flee from the Old City of Mosul on June 22, 2017, during the ongoing offensive by Iraqi forces to retake the last district still held by the Islamic State (IS) group

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Girls stand in monsoon rains beside an open laundry in New Delhi, India

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People take part in the 15th annual Times Square yoga event celebrating the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year, during classes in the middle of Times Square in New York. The event marked the international day of yoga.

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Faroe Islanders turn the sea red after slaughtering hundreds of whales as part of annual tradition

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A firefighting plane tackles a blaze in Cadafaz, near Goes, Portugal

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A person participates in a journalists' protest asking for justice in recent attacks on journalists in Mexico City, Mexico, 15 June 2017

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Poland's Piotr Lobodzinski starts in front of the Messeturm, Fairground Tower, in Frankfurt Germany. More than 1,000 runners climbed the 1202 stairs, and 222 meters of height in the Frankfurt Messeturm skyscraper run

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A runner lies on the ground after arriving at the finish line in Frankfurt Germany. More than 1,000 runners climbed the 1202 stairs, and 222 meters of height in the Frankfurt Messeturm skyscraper run

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A troupe of Ukrainian dancers perform at Boryspil airport in Kiev, on the first day of visa-free travel for Ukrainian nationals to the European Union

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A troupe of Ukrainian dancers perform on the tarmac at Boryspil airport in Kiev, on the first day of visa-free travel for Ukrainian nationals to the European Union

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French President Emmanuel Macron with his wife Brigitte Trogneux cast their ballot at their polling station in the first round of the French legislatives elections in Le Touquet, northern France

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A Thai worker paints on a large statue of the Goddess of Mercy, known as Guan Yin at a Chinese temple in Ratchaburi province, Thailand. Guan Yin is one of the most popular and well known Chinese Goddess in Asia and in the world. Guan Yin is the Bodhisattva of Great Compassion in Mahayana Buddhism and also worshiped by Taoist

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A Thai worker paints on a large statue of the Goddess of Mercy, known as Guan Yin at a Chinese temple in Ratchaburi province, Thailand. Guan Yin is one of the most popular and well known Chinese Goddess in Asia and in the world. Guan Yin is the Bodhisattva of Great Compassion in Mahayana Buddhism and also worshiped by Taoists

EPA

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chairs a weekly cabinet meeting at his office in Jerusalem. An Israeli court has ordered a journalist to pay more than $25,000 in damages to Netanyahu and his wife Sara for libeling them. The magistrate court in Tel Aviv ruled Sunday that Igal Sarna libeled the couple for writing a Facebook post that claimed the prime minister's wife kicked the Israeli leader out of their car during a fight

AP

Parkour enthusiasts train on Ipanema beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Originally developed in France, the training discipline is gaining popularity in Brazil

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Volunteers spread mozzarella cheese toppings on the Guinness World Record attempt for the Longest Pizza in Fontana, California, USA. The pizza was planned to be 7000 feet (2.13 km) to break the previous record of 6082 feet (1.8 km) set in Naples, Italy in 2016

EPA

Jamaica's Olympic champion Usain Bolt gestures after winning his final 100 metres sprint at the 2nd Racers Grand Prix at the National Stadium in Kingston, Jamaica

REUTERS/Gilbert Bellamy

Usain Bolt of Jamaica salutes the crowd after winning 100m 'Salute to a Legend' race during the Racers Grand Prix at the national stadium in Kingston, Jamaica. Bolt partied with his devoted fans in an emotional farewell at the National Stadium on June 10 as he ran his final race on Jamaican soil. Bolt is retiring in August following the London World Championships

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Usain Bolt of Jamaica salutes the crowd after winning 100m 'Salute to a Legend' race during the Racers Grand Prix at the national stadium in Kingston, Jamaica. Bolt partied with his devoted fans in an emotional farewell at the National Stadium on June 10 as he ran his final race on Jamaican soil. Bolt is retiring in August following the London World Championships

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Police officers investigate at the Amsterdam Centraal station in Amsterdam, Netherlands. A car ploughed into pedestrians and injured at least five people outside the station. The background of the incident was not immediately known, though police state they have 'no indication whatsoever' the incident was an attack

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Police officers investigate at the Amsterdam Centraal station in Amsterdam, Netherlands. A car ploughed into pedestrians and injured at least five people outside the station. The background of the incident was not immediately known, though police state they have 'no indication whatsoever' the incident was an attack

EPA

Protesters stand off before police during a demonstration against corruption, repression and unemployment in Al Hoseima, Morocco. The neglected Rif region has been rocked by social unrest since the death in October of a fishmonger. Mouhcine Fikri, 31, was crushed in a rubbish truck as he protested against the seizure of swordfish caught out of season and his death has sparked fury and triggered nationwide protests

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A man looks on at a migrant and refugee makeshift camp set up under the highway near Porte de la Chapelle, northern Paris

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Damaged cars are seen stacked in the middle of a road in western Mosul's Zanjili neighbourhood during ongoing battles to try to take the city from Islamic State (IS) group fighters

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Smoke billows following a reported air strike on a rebel-held area in the southern Syrian city of Daraa

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Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel gestures next to Mexico's President Enrique Pena Nieto during a welcome ceremony at the National Palace in Mexico City, Mexico

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Soldiers and residents carry the body of a Muslim boy who was hit by a stray bullet while praying inside a mosque, as government troops continue their assault against insurgents from the Maute group, who has taken over large parts of the Marawi City, Philippines

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Opposition demonstrators protest for the death on the eve of young activist Neomar Lander during clashes with riot police, in Caracas

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Neomar Lander, a 17-year-old boy was killed during a march in the Chacao district in eastern Caracas on Wednesday, taking the overall death toll since the beginning of April to 66, according to prosecutors

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Former FBI director James Comey is sworn in during a hearing before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC

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Former FBI Director James Comey testifies during a US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC

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Usain Bolt of Jamaica trains at the University of West Indies in Kingston. Bolt says he is looking forward to having a party as he launches his final season on June 10 with what will be his last race on Jamaican soil. The 30-year-old world's fasted man plans to retire from track and field after the 2017 London World Championships in August

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Acquanetta Warren, Mayor of Fontana, California, reacts after US President Donald Trump introduced himself before the Infrastructure Summit with Governors and Mayors at the White House in Washington, US

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Frenchman Alain Castany, sentenced to 20 years on charges of drug trafficking in the 'Air Cocaine' affair, leaves the prison in Santo Domingo, on his way to France, where he is being transferred for medical reason

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A woman reacts at the place where 17-year-old demonstrator Neomar Lander died during riots at a rally against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government in Caracas, Venezuela, June 8, 2017. The sign reads: 'Neomar, entertainer for ever'

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Frenchman Alain Castany, sentenced to 20 years on charges of drug trafficking in the 'Air Cocaine' affair, leaves the prison in Santo Domingo, on his way to France, where he is being transferred for medical reasons

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Queen Maxima of The Netherlands visits Tobroco Machines in Oisterwijk, Netherlands. The company is a manufacturer of machines for use in agriculture, road construction and field maintenance. Tobroco is winner of the 2016 Koning Willem 1 Award for entrepreneurship

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A family member of an inmate tries to stop a truck used to transfer prisoners, outside a prison where a riot took place on Tuesday, in Ciudad Victoria, Mexico

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An unconscious person is taken away on a motorcycle by fellow demonstrators after they clashed with riot police during a protest in Caracas, Venezuela

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Liberal mosque founder vows to keep it open despite Egyptian fatwa and death threats - The Independent

TwoLiberal MPs havebeen secretlyworking on a plantolegalise same-sex marriage in Australia as soon as August, with a draft copy of the laws well advanced and consultation with advocates under way.

Fairfax Media can reveal WAsenator Dean Smith and NSW lower house MP Trent Zimmerman are working ona private members' billthey hope willbe presented to Parliament to legalise same-sex marriage through a conscience vote, rather than the Turnbull government's stated policy of a national, non-bindingplebiscite.

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Liberal minister Christopher Pyne has reportedly been caught on tape saying marriage equality would happen "sooner than everyone thinks."

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Research by the Obesity Policy Coalition found food packaging which used cartoons was often unhealthy.

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Irish forecaster with a giant umbrella is blown away by a gust of wind and everyone can't stop laughing about it.

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One of Australia's most-wanted fugitives has been caught hiding under a child's bed, after police forced their way into a home in north-west Sydney on Sunday. Vision: Seven News

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Lee Rhiannon has spoken out against claims she derailed her party's school funding negotiations with the government, rejecting claims from colleagues accusing her of betrayal.

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In a bid to limit any further jail time, Crown Resorts staff will plead guilty to gambling-related crimes at their trial in Shanghai on Monday.

Liberal minister Christopher Pyne has reportedly been caught on tape saying marriage equality would happen "sooner than everyone thinks."

It's understoodcabinet ministers Christopher Pyne and GeorgeBrandis- both of whom support same-sex marriage - are aware of the existence of the bill, which is designed to end the politicalimpasse over the issue and get it off the political agenda before the next federal election.

Senator Smith and Mr Zimmermanhave been consulting with the director of legal advocacy at Melbourne's Human Rights Law Centre,Anna Brown, who is also the co-chair of Australians for Equality, on the details of the legislation.

In keeping with the recommendations of a February Senate committee report, the draft bill would allow exemptions for religious and other celebrants who did not wish to marry two people of the same sex.

While the bill is unlikelytobe selected fordebate by thegovernment-controlled parliamentarycommittee that choosesbills, it wouldtake only a handful of Liberal MPsto side with the opposition and cross bench, reach an absolute majority of 76 votesand force the lawto be considered.

Once that happens,Liberal MPs who support same-sex marriage could team up with Labor and the crossbench onthe floor ofParliamentto legalise same-sex marriage.

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The bill would almost certainly then sail through the Senate with the support ofLabor, the Greens, the crossbench and some Liberal senators.

Senator Smith was unavailable for comment because he is travelling, while Mr Zimmerman and Ms Brown declined to comment when contacted by Fairfax Media. Senator Brandis and Mr Pyne were also contacted for comment.

In a statement, Mr Pyne said "the government has no plans to alter the policy".

However, in an interview with Huffington Post Australia, Senator Smith said there was a "natural symmetry" about having a free vote in Parliament on the two-year anniversary of government adopting its now-defeated plebiscite policy in August.

Liberal moderates are frustrated by the lack of action on same-sex marriage following the defeat of the plebiscite earlier this year, and believe Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull should stand up to the conservative wing of the Liberal Party and allow a free vote on the floor of the parliament.

However, Mr Turnbull will face pressure from the conservative wing of his party not to allow a free vote to occur.

MrTurnbull - who personallysupports same-sex marriage but is concerned about keeping the conservative wing of his party onside -said on Monday his government'sposition ofa non-binding national plebiscite on the matter was clear and that "we have no plans to change it, full stop".

Those comments were made after a leaked audio recording of Mr Pyne emerged on Monday, in which the Leader of the House predicted same-sex marriage could be legalised "sooner than everyone thinks".

Mr Pyne's remarks were made at a gathering of Liberal moderates on Friday night in Sydney as the Liberal federal council met. The recording wasleaked to conservative News Corp columnist Andrew Bolt.

He told the gathering of moderates that "we [Liberal moderates] are in the winner's circle but we have to deliver a couple of things and one of those we've got to deliver before too long is marriage equality in this country".

"Your friends in Canberra are working on that outcome."

That leak prompted former prime minister Tony Abbott, who introduced the plebiscite policy nearly two years ago, to accuse Mr Pyne of not being fair dinkum and suggesting he was disloyal to the government.

"To dump the plebiscite, to do anything without a plebiscite would be a breach of faith with the people," Mr Abbott told radio station 2GB.

-with Fergus Hunter

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Liberal MPs secretly drafting private members' bill to legalise same-sex marriage - The Sydney Morning Herald

The B.C. Liberal governments bill to ban union and corporate donations to political parties was defeated immediately upon introduction this afternoon.

NDP and Green MLAs outvoted the government 44-42, which kills the Liberals attempt to emulate their opponents in supporting campaign finance reform.

Earlier, NDP Leader John Horgan walked into the legislature with a formal non-confidence motion designed to topple the government. It has not yet been voted on.

Government house leader Mike de Jong said he expects the confidence vote to take place Thursday, on support of last weeks Throne Speech.

Hours before the defeat, de Jong was hopeful of passage, even though the government has rejected similar attempts by the NDP six times in the last 12 years.

There seems to be a convergence of opinion in favor of doing this, he said. This government has been told repeatedly by the Opposition that its something that can be done in a day and that theyre willing to do it in a day, so lets test that proposition.

De Jong said it remains to be seen whether the NDP and B.C. Green Party will consent to have the bill presented.

A surprise Liberal bill to amend the status of the B.C. Green was also defeated, with the NDP and Greens determined to focus only on the confidence vote.

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NDP, Greens defeat Liberal political donations bill - Times Colonist

One of the most popular sports media debates of 2017 has been the existence, or lack thereof, of ESPNs liberal agenda. The extremelypolarizing election cycle of 2016has bled into pretty much every aspect of our culture and sports is no different. And with ESPN at the top of the mountain and FS1 attempting to dethrone Bristol, some of their personalities have tried to cling on to this polarization to create an us versus them mentality to divide and conquer ESPNs audience.

FS1, namely led by Clay Travis and Jason Whitlock, have repeatedly tried to paint ESPN as having a liberal agenda. It hasnt really done anything to improve FS1s ratings, it cant really be blamed forESPNs business struggles, but the narrative now definitely exists. ESPN has tried to discount the narrative with surveys of their own, but sometimes narratives are all that matter in media.

Finally, an ESPN executive has gone on record swinging back on FS1 after taking it on the chin for several months. In Mondays Sports Business Journal, ESPN Executive VP of Programming Burke Magnus calls the FS1 narrative false and in a very calculating move, refuses to even mention FS1 by name.

One of ESPNs top executives accused Fox Sports of advocating what he called a false notion that the network operates with a liberal bias.

The whole narrative is a false one that was seeded and perpetuated primarily by a direct business competitor, said Burke Magnus, ESPNs executive vice president of programming and scheduling. We have no political agenda whatsoever.

Fox Sports has given voice to many of the accusations of ESPNs liberal bias. For example, Fox Sports 1s afternoon studio show co-host, Jason Whitlock, wrote a May 7 editorial for The Wall Street Journal in which he accused ESPN of adhering to a strict obedience to progressive political correctness.

Magnus went on to tout ESPNs talking point when it comes to allegations of the networks liberal bias, that it wouldnt make sense to step into politics and alienate half of their audience. He hits back at FS1 for trying to take advantage of the hyper-partisan political scene themselves to make a splash.

It would be foolish in the business that were in to take sides on the political arena, Magnus said. Our business competitor perpetuates this narrative because in this highly partisan time, it suits them to highlight this distinction, even when it doesnt exist.

As is usually the case, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Theres no denying that ESPN has become more liberal. Just look at the facts and their decision making over the last few year when it comes to programming, on-air talent, how that talent speaks out on social media, and so on and so forth. However, the result of ESPN leaning left has been more organic from a drive to become more diverse versusa top-down conspiracy to try to align the networks philosophy with MSNBC. FS1 would have you believe that ESPN is dedicating the 5th inning of Sunday Night Baseball to do an Elizabeth Warren 2020 infomercial and its just not true.

FS1s brazen personalities have overblown it for sure, butthe narrative that exists has definitely had an impact on ESPN as rare as it is to see them come out and swing back at FS1. And you can tell how fed up ESPN is with it when one of their top executives refuses to call them by name. Who knows, perhaps the decision to bring back Hank Williams Jr. is a way to try to prove that ESPN is not in fact leading the deep state resistance to Donald Trump.

It hasnt brought FS1 any closer to actually competing with ESPN, but it hasmade a lot of people annoyed and upset on all sides.

[Sports Business Journal]

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ESPN exec slams FS1 for trying to create liberal agenda narrative - Awful Announcing