Daily Archives: January 14, 2022

Covid-19, true to its reputation as an accelerant of economic and societal trends, has played an outsize role in sharpening divides and exacerbating existing societal ailments. Digital technologies are up, exacerbating already sharp disparities between economic classes. Digital interactions are up, resulting in increases in loneliness and despair. Misinformation is up, resulting in increased political polarisation.

As we advance further into an accelerated (and accelerating) digital age, we must respond to the negative effects that accompany the marvels of digitisation. A collective conscience that places a premium on fundamental human values is requisite.

A renewed commitment to the liberal arts is one obvious source of succour. Returning to the provenance of all knowledge is as instinctive as it is right. However, to address the ills of an increasingly divided society, integration will be key. Maximising the impact of liberal arts education will be achieved through a commitment to interdisciplinarity, experiential learning and engaging diverse perspectives.

In his 2017 book The Fuzzie and the Techie: Why the Liberal Arts Will Rule the Digital World, Scott Hartley points to the inter-reliance of humanists and technocrats that is needed for a healthy society. Techies, through the study of liberal arts, must recognise the human consequences of technological advances. The well-rounded technocrat will anticipate and mitigate the negative consequences of social media, automation and artificial intelligence. Increasingly, firms will turn to chief technology ethics officers to anticipate and mitigate tech challenges.

But the need for interdisciplinarity is a two-way street. Humanists fuzzies must possess tech and data literacy to understand the pitfalls inherent in the digital super-grid, to which we have entrusted our communications, transactions and operations. The humanist must understand the algorithms and data structures that can enhance or obfuscate the exchange of information and ideas.

In addition to beefing up requirements in the liberal arts, we must encourage undergraduates to pursue an academic minor in a discipline far afield from their major. Forward-looking academic programmes that fuse humanist and tech disciplines to improve cross-disciplinary understanding will be at a premium in an increasingly digitised world.

Experiences such as internships, service learning and study abroad can enhance skills that are traditionally associated with the liberal arts, such as intercultural competencies, communication and problem-solving. A relentless commitment to building these skills is needed to counterbalance the impact of technological advances.

In his 2018 book Robot Proof, Northeastern University president Joseph Aoun contends that the virtues of a liberal arts education hold little practical value without the opportunity to apply them. Engagement in problem-solving moves students beyond the theoretical and into the dynamic space where multiple disciplines and perspectives converge, allowing them to develop new ideas and address complex societal challenges. It also helps build the teamwork and communication skills required to participate in a nuanced and distributed new economy. This will be the antidote to seclusion and quiescence in an increasingly automated world.

The academy has a well-deserved reputation for challenging the existing order for the sake of furthering knowledge. In the best tradition of the liberal arts, higher education must provide outlet to a range of viewpoints, debating and evaluating them based on their merits. Otherwise, it risks contributing to the very thing it purports to fight: thoughtless intellectual conformity.

The Platonist is compelled to recognise zealotry or prudence across the political spectrum and, in the US, the number of voters who align themselves with neither major political party is on the rise. However, students are increasingly reluctant to share their political views in class. If students do not learn to robustly engage in civic discourse in the academic environment, where will it happen?

Jonathan Rauch, author of the recently published The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defence of Truth, laments the lack of viewpoint diversity in todays academic environment and observes that a number of academic fields have become politicised the one thing good science should not be.

We must mix the information diet, recognising that in the digital age content substantiating our personal beliefs and preferences is presented to us algorithmically. The pursuit of truth must be as dispassionate as it is dogged; the rigorous examination of issues depends on it.

Higher education must double down on the liberal education values of interdisciplinarity, experiential learning, and critical thinking. In doing so, it will empower a workforce and citizenry that prioritises human welfare over all else whatever technology throws at us.

Eric Skipper is provost and executive vice-chancellor for academic affairs at the University of South Carolina-Beaufort.

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The liberal arts can counteract polarisation but there are caveats - Times Higher Education

Suspicious of the liberal agenda? Good for you! After all, in 1776, they started a treasonous revolt against the king in the name of natural rights, not the least of which was the freedom for people to choose their own leaders.

Then they saddled the country with freedom of religion, freedom of the press, the freedom of people to speak out against authority without fear of punishment quite radical things at the time!

They coddled evil-doers with the 4th-8th Amendments!

They ended slavery, supported racial integration, supported voting rights for all citizens (in a democratic republic), and equal protection for all under the law (14th Amendment).

Theyve been terribly anti-business, getting the eight-hour workday, weekends (Saturday used to be a workday for all), overtime pay, paid sick leave, family medical leave, the end of child labor, equal pay regardless of race or gender, wages beyond hand-to-mouth bare subsistence, and direct aid should one become too ill or physically unable to work.

They push regulations for clean air and clean water and have been responsible for purity laws for food, drugs, and other forms of consumer protection (bad for profits).

They slapped us with free public education and financial aid for people who wish to improve themselves via a college degree. Yes, nefarious agenda indeed! Truly nasty, nasty people. How dare they try to make the country a better place for everyone? Thats not the American way!

Jay Gillispie

Stephens City

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Letter to the editor: Have suspicions of the liberal agenda? - The Winchester Star

Conservative and liberal female figures came to varying conclusions on the validity of Vice President Kamala Harris' reported belief that she's treated worse by the press because of her race and gender.

A recent report by The New York Times suggested Harris, who is the first Black, South Asian or female vice president, has been privately complaining to her allies that the media's coverage of her would be better if she were any of her 48 White, male predecessors.

"Ms. Harris has privately told her allies that the news coverage of her would be different if she were any of her 48 predecessors, all of whom were white and male," the report read.

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at the Tribal Nations Summit in the South Court Auditorium on the White House campus, Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

NY TIMES: KAMALA HARRIS GRIPES HER MEDIA COVERAGE WOULD BE BETTER IF SHE WAS WHITE MAN

Liberal radio host and Fox News contributor Leslie Marshall found truth in those claims, arguing that race and gender likely leave the VP vulnerable to "extra scrutiny."

"Yes. I do believe thatWomen are definitely held to a different standard," Marshall said in an interview with Fox News Digital. "I dont think its whether youre a Democrat or a Republican, though I think it happens whether youre a Democrat or a Republican. So when you have the first woman, and the first woman of color also, who happens to be the vice president, I do think that those thingslead toextra scrutiny."

Yet conservative female leaders all pointed to policy. TheNew York Times report read that Harris had been reaching out to her predecessors about "the difficulties she is facing with the intractable issues in her portfolio, such as voting rights and the root causes of migration."

Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., argued it was that latter assignment, as Biden's border czar, that can account for any untoward media representations about the vice president, and less about her background or appearance. Last year, it took Harris 90 days to make a trip to the U.S.-Mexico border since being appointed as lead on the border crisis. Tens of thousands of migrants, including thousands of unaccompanied minors, have streamed across the border in recent months. When NBC's Lester Holtpressed Harris about the delay and why she had never been to the border as vice president, Harris laughed and responded, "I haven't been to Europe."

"There is nothing sexist or racist stating the fact that Kamala Harris has been an absolute disaster on every policy issue in her portfolio - especially the border crisis," Stefanik told Fox News Digital. "There is nothing sexist or racist about the fact that if you put Kamala Harris on the congressional ballot in any district across America, she would lose because she cant conduct a basic interview without embarrassing herself and Joe Biden."

Harris has also faced historic low approval ratings in recent months, numbers which liberal late-night host Jimmy Kimmel first and foremost blamed on "sexism and racism." But like Stefanik, Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., evoked Harris' failure to secure the border as a likely reason for any negative coverage or poor approval ratings.

"Conservative women trailblazers have been mocked and maligned by the liberal press for years," Blackburn said. "You learn to deal with it and not make excuses. When Vice President Kamala Harris took office, she knew she was charting a new path and would have to prove herself at every step along the way. She could have used her platform to protect the women and girls in Afghanistan, secure the southern border, or reduce crime in our cities. Instead, she tossed aside the historic opportunity she had been given to criticize the tough media environment conservative women have been successfully navigating for decades."

Democratic U.S. vice presidential nominee Senator Kamala Harris tours the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) training facility in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Sept. 7, 2020. (REUTERS/Alex Wroblewski)

Her gender, Blackburn added, "is no excuse for her disastrous performance."

Felecia Killings, founder and CEO of FeleciaKillings.org and the Conscious Conservative Movement, also expressed her disappointment in how Harris has responded to any perceived challenges. Killings said it would be "reckless" to think that women from all backgrounds do not experience hardships throughout their careers - something she says she knows from personal experience. But it's how women respond to those challenges, she suggested, that matters just as much.

"Many women have taken these challenges and converted these obstacles into stepping stones towards greatness," Killings told Fox News Digital. "In other words, our results speak for themselves. Vice President Harris, like any other politician, has something to prove to the American people. She is not exempt from any scrutiny. Her work must align with the bill of goods she sold to her voters."

"Citizens have every right to hold her accountable," she added. "If she's not doing her job, it has nothing to do with her race or gender. It has everything to do with her ineptitude."

MSNBC GUEST CLAIMS OFF THE CHARTS CRITICISM OF VP HARRIS ON BORDER FROM LEFT AND RIGHT IS SEXIST AND RACIST

Other critics have taken issue with Harris' reported complaint to argue that she has received much better media treatment than some of her predecessors or conservative female lawmakers. She had been placed on the cover of Vogue Magazine and sometimes enjoyed an assist from the press in fueling the narrative that Harris' naysayers are sexist and racist.

NBC's Peter Alexander was criticized for asking Harris' husband, Doug Emhoff, if race and gender had played into criticism of the vice president.

"Youre a husband. When you see the attacks, when you see the criticism, what do you think?" Alexander asked.

"As the first woman, Black, South Asian vice president, do you think that your wife is treated differently because shes a woman and a woman of color?" he asked in a follow-up.

A person holds a sign as others celebrate after media announced that Democratic U.S. presidential nominee Joe Biden has won the 2020 U.S. presidential election, on Times Square in New York City, Nov. 7, 2020. (REUTERS/Carlo Allegri)

Journalist Anushay Hossain penned a USA Today piece defending Harris, writing, "as the first black and first Asian and first woman to hold the second most powerful job in the country, she can't keep anybody happy. It's not possible."She expanded on that assumption during an appearance on MSNBC.

"Women and men aren't assessed through the same lens, and that's one thing we have to keep in mind whenever we're talking about the vice president," Houssain said, later adding, "But because she is a woman and a woman of color, the level of scrutiny that she is getting from both the left and the right is really off the charts."

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Harris' political allies have also suggested she's been victim of a double standard.

"I know, and we all knew, that she would have a difficult time because anytime youre a first, you do," Rep. Karen Bass, D-Calif.,said. "And to be the first woman vice president, to be the first Black, Asian woman, thats a triple. So we knew it was going to be rough, but it has been relentless, and I think extremely unfair."

Harris has not only been burdened with poor polling numbers. In recent weeks, high- profile members of her staff have announced their departures, fueling speculation that the vice president oversees a toxic work environment.

Continued here:

Conservative, liberal female figures weigh in on VP Harris report that her race and gender affect headlines - Fox News

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--FOX News Channels (FNC) The Five has added Jeanine Pirro as full-time show co-host along with a rotation of Harold Ford Jr., Geraldo Rivera, and Jessica Tarlov as the co-hosts for the liberal seat, announced Suzanne Scott, CEO of FOX News Media. The moves will take place effective January 24th.

In making the announcement, Ms. Scott said, The Five continues to be a beloved show by the American audience. Each of the co-hosts are accomplished and insightful talent with diverse opinions and terrific chemistry who will certainly help drive this ensemble program going forward.

Pirro, Ford, Rivera and Tarlov will co-host alongside powerhouse homegrown stars Greg Gutfeld, Dana Perino and Jesse Watters. The Five has ruled the timeslot for a decade as the number one show in both cable and all of cable news at 5 PM/ET. In the most recent 4th Quarter of 2021, The Five dominated with 3.3 million total viewers and second overall in the 25-54 demo with 481,000 the first time ever in cable news history that a non-primetime program achieved this milestone for a full quarter. The smash hit also topped all daytime and primetime programming on CNN and MSNBC for the entire year of 2021, delivering the second largest audience in cable news with 2.9 million viewers and 423,000 in the 25-54 demo, again making it the only non-primetime show to rank among the top five programs in the genre while notching its second highest ranking in the shows history.

Judge Pirro has substitute co-hosted The Five since 2020. She joined the network in 2006 as a legal analyst and began hosting her weekend program Justice with Judge Jeanine in 2011, which has been the top-rated program in its Saturday evening 9 PM/ET time slot throughout its 11-year run. Pirro will relinquish hosting the program effective January 22nd to meet the demands of being elevated to a live five-day a week show, and a new weekend line-up replacing both Justice and Watters World (vacated by Jesse Watters moving to weeknights at 7 PM/ET) will be announced at a later date. She will continue hosting Castles USA on FOX News Medias streaming service FOX Nation, where she dives into the rich history of iconic castles all around the country.

Prior to joining FNC, Pirro was the host of a syndicated weekday court show distributed by Warner Brothers, for which she won an Emmy award. Her legal career spans over 30 years, during which she was elected Westchester County District Attorney for three consecutive terms. She was the first woman to prosecute murder cases and started the first domestic violence unit in a prosecutors office in the country as Westchesters assistant district attorney. In 1990, Pirro was elected as the first woman to serve as a Westchester County Court judge. She was appointed by then-Governor George Pataki to chair the New York State Commission on Domestic Violence Fatality Review Board in 1997, whose research assisted in passing increased protection for domestic violence victims.

Newly minted liberal co-host Harold Ford Jr. joined FOX News Media as a contributor in 2021 and guest co-hosted The Five throughout the last year. Ford served as a former democrat member of Congress for five terms from 19972007, representing Tennessee's ninth congressional district with stints on the House Budget Committee and the House Committee on Financial Services. In addition to The Five, Ford is currently the vice chairman and executive vice president of PNC Banks Corporate and Institutional banking business and is the chairman and CEO of Empowerment & Inclusion Capital Corporation, a SPAC with the purpose-driven mission of acquiring diverse businesses or those focused on promoting economic and societal inclusion. He is a graduate of the University of Michigan Law School and the University of Pennsylvania.

Geraldo Rivera will also serve as a rotating liberal co-host while continuing to helm COPS: All Access on FOX Nation, a behind-the-scenes look at each episode examining the risk that law enforcement officers face every day. He will also continue appearing on various programs as the correspondent-at-large. Rivera joined the network in 2001 as a war correspondent and has received more than 170 journalism awards, including the George Foster Peabody Award, three national and seven local Emmys, two Columbia-Dupont awards and two Scripps Howard Journalism Awards. His journalism career spans more than 50 years having worked for WABC-TV in New York as well as ABC News, NBC News, CNBC and launching his own syndicated talk show.

Liberal co-host Jessica Tarlov joined the network as a contributor in 2017 and has appeared on numerous programs, including The Five after serving as a frequent guest on various FNC shows since 2014. She currently serves as the Vice President of Research and Consumer Insight for Bustle Digital Group (BDG) and will return from maternity leave to begin the co-hosting rotation in March. Prior to this, she was a senior strategist with Schoen Consulting, where she advised domestic and international clients on messaging strategies for more than five years and worked as a democratic pollster. A graduate of Bryn Mawr College with a B.A. in History, Tarlov holds two masters degrees in Political Science and Public Policy as well as a Ph.D. in Government from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

FOX News Channel (FNC) is a 24-hour all-encompassing news service delivering breaking news as well as political and business news. The number one network in basic cable, FNC has been the most watched television news channel for nearly 20 consecutive years. According to Nielsen Media Research, FNC currently attracts more than 50% of the cable news viewing audience. Notably, a 2021 Nielsen/MRI Fusion report showed the network garners the largest independent audience in cable news, while FNCs primetime hours deliver the second largest liberal audience in cable news. Additionally, a 2021 Brand Keys Customer Loyalty Engagement Index report stated FOX News leads the news industry in both brand loyalty, engagement, and expectations. Owned by FOX Corp, FNC is available in 80 million homes and dominates the cable news landscape, routinely notching the top 10 programs in the genre.

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Jeanine Pirro Named Co-host of The Five With Liberal Seat to Rotate Between Harold Ford Jr, Geraldo Rivera, and Jessica Tarlov - Business Wire

President Joe Biden came into office promising to reverse President Donald Trump's restrictive immigration policies but failed to deliver in his first year, disappointing liberals and overseeing a major border crisis that hurt his popularity.

Biden struggled to follow through on vows to rescind Trump's "Remain in Mexico" program for asylum-seekers, to end the practice of using pandemic public health authority to automatically expel illegal immigrants, and to resolve problems in Central America that prompt many to flee to the United States.

The public has turned on him. Biden's approval ratings on his handling of immigration plummeted through his first year, dropping from upwards of 55% approval to 35% this month, according to RealClearPolitics averages.

In his first year, the president took swift action to halt some of the most harmful and legally indefensible policies of his predecessor, Gregory Chen, the senior director of government relations for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, wrote in an email. But with each step forward, the president also took major steps backwards.

Conservatives, meanwhile, fault Biden for the policies he has been able to enact.

We said this would be the most radical policy changes in immigration before he even took office. And they were very effective, very quickly, said Lora Ries, the senior research fellow for homeland security at the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington. I would say it's worse than even we anticipated.

47,705 MIGRANTS RELEASED WITH INSTRUCTIONS TO REPORT TO ICE HAVE GONE MISSING UNDER BIDEN

The new administration moved in last January, quickly rescinding a slew of former President Donald Trumps border policies and plans, including stopping billions of dollars worth of previously funded border wall construction, ordering a 100-day halt on deportations, and promising to debut an improved asylum system.

But before he got too far easing border restrictions, the administration was met by an enormous increase in illegal immigration. The full extent of illegal immigration at the southern border is unknown, but the number of migrants who are caught or surrender to Border Patrol is tracked. Over the past decade, before Biden took office, the number of apprehensions ranged between 30,000 and 50,000 noncitizens encountered in a single month. Last March, 170,000 noncitizens were encountered at the southern border. Encounters have remained between 160,000 and 210,000 every month since March 2021.

As border numbers rose, the public began to sour on Biden's management, forcing the White House to spend its first few months focused on the border instead of steering sweeping immigration reforms through Congress. In response to the surge at the border, the Biden administration was forced to choose between maintaining the Trump administration enforcement measures it had vowed to rescind (and disappointing liberal immigration activists) or seeing a rise in illegal immigration of the kind the GOP has predicted. It chose a little bit of both, and that is what has infuriated both Democrats and Republicans.

One such border initiative created by the Trump administration was the Migrant Protection Protocols, which required migrants who sought asylum at the southern border to remain in Mexico for months until their day in court. Biden ended it in June and was sued by Texas and Missouri. The Supreme Court ordered MPP to be restarted.

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a restrictionist group in Washington, viewed the initial conclusion of MPP as Bidens most noteworthy promise kept. Liberal groups, though, are furious because Biden restarted the program and expanded it so that more migrants had the potential to be turned back than when the program was operating under Trump.

Biden was pushed early on in his first year by the same left-leaning immigration groups to stop using the pandemic public health measure, Title 42, which mandated that Border Patrol agents turn all illegal immigrants back to Mexico or to their home country. All illegal crossers, not just those seeking asylum, would be turned away.

Biden planned to end Title 42 as soon as the coronavirus was no longer a serious threat, but the spikes in cases, including the delta and omicron variants this past year, prevented him from doing so. Of the nearly 1.7 million encounters made by the Border Patrol in fiscal year 2021, more than 1 million people were turned away under Title 42, according to federal data.

It is absolutely indefensible that the president has stood behind a CDC ban on asylum-seekers put in place by his predecessor using falsely justified and now widely discredited public health statements, Chen wrote.

Chen said Biden promised to reduce the use of immigration detention, as well as eliminate the use of facilities operated by companies that are for-profit as opposed to nonprofit.

Instead, his agencies expanded detention and signed more contracts with private prisons reneging on those commitments, said Chen. During COVID, the administration continued to detain people unnecessarily in facilities that became Petri dishes for widespread infection, and it failed to provide vaccines and adequate protection for people detained in facilities.

More than 32,000 cases of the coronavirus have been detected among people jailed at Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities nationwide since the start of the pandemic, according to federal data. However, the Biden administration did stop using ICE family residential centers to hold migrants before release. Instead, it relied on hotels and also released people onto the street, but rather than using ankle monitors to track adults, it gave some migrants cellphones to track them in a less invasive way.

However, noncitizens released into the U.S. to await future court dates must wait several years due to massive backlogs for the fewer than 500 immigration judges nationwide. It's a problem that the Biden administration needs to do more to address, Chen said.

The president needs to take far more aggressive action to eliminate the 1.5 million case backlog that is keeping people waiting years for decisions, said Chen.

Within the interior of the country, Krikorian said, Biden has all but ended interior immigration enforcement deportations. His order to halt deportations for 100 days was blocked in court. But, Ries said, he was very effective at reforming ICE by significantly limiting the categories of migrants subject to arrest, making many with criminal records ineligible.

The Biden administration did follow through on a promise to roll back a Trump rule that deemed immigrants who were poor a public charge because they did not make enough money and therefore would not be given green cards. Rosanna Berardi, managing partner of Berardi Immigration Law, which has offices across the U.S. and England, praised Biden for taking down that restriction. Naturalizations, the ceremonies by which legal permanent residents become citizens, drastically increased last year, which she applauded.

But when it comes to overhauling the immigration system through Congress, Biden has not gotten far. The White House-backed Democratic bill, the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021, includes anearned roadmap to citizenship for11 million non-U.S. citizens illegally residing in the country and would drastically boost security at land, air, and seaports of entry on the border. Four billion dollars would be available over four years to address underlying reasons that people flee Central America for the U.S. southern border. The bill states that it will improve the immigration courts and expand family case management programs and reduce immigration court backlogs, which top 1.5 million. It has not made it through the House or Senate.

This is my 25th year of being an immigration lawyer. Ive lived through lots of administrations. They all promised the same thing. They promised comprehensive immigration reform, said Berardi. They promised ways of making illegals lawful and no administration, including the Biden administration, has delivered on that promise.

Even foreigners seeking to immigrate to the U.S. legally are having trouble doing so under the Biden White House. U.S. consulates and embassies overseas that are responsible for part of the visa screening processes have remained closed, understaffed, or have simply not prioritized immigration matters, preventing immigrants and tourists seeking admission to the U.S. from being able to reunite with family or take a job here, Chen said.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

Biden raised the number of refugees admitted to 125,000 but fell short this past year. Krikorian said the Trump administration shrank the U.S. government's capacity for reviewing refugee applications and that that has continued to affect the number of refugees able to be screened under Biden.

Continued here:

Biden immigration promises after one year: Border chaos and frustrated liberals - Washington Examiner

A Bath and North East Somerset Councillor has quit the party saying he was bullied, but that is being disputed

An outspoken Bath councillor has become the second to quit the Liberal Democrats this term amid allegations of bullying but the party say he is the perpetrator, not the victim.

Dr Yukteshwar Kumar claimed he had been the subject of lies and discrimination and at one point was on the brink of taking his own life.

The party has denied the allegations and hit back, accusing the now independent councillor for Bathwick of bullying and harassing a female colleague in a vendetta over the last three years accusations he has denied.

The Lib Dems shared an email about the woman in which Dr Kumar said he felt thankful to the God too that perhaps, he has chosen me to eradicate an evil person, which one recipient interpreted as a threat.

Dr Kumar said he did not mean anything threatening and had only hoped to remove the colleague from the party, adding: Because of cultural differences between east and west some of the words I choose arent appropriate in the western culture.

The Lib Dems said Dr Kumars claims had been independently investigated several times and none of his complaints were upheld but he had refused to accept the outcomes.

His departure follows that of former transport cabinet member Joanna Wright, who left the party in June to become a Green, after unrelated claims her efforts were a victim of slow-motion sabotage. The administration rejected her allegations and her departure was unrelated to the dispute between the party and Dr Kumar.

Dr Kumar Bath and North East Somerset Councils member advocate for Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic issues and the first person of Asian heritage to take the role of deputy mayor of Bath said in an email to colleagues: With a heavy heart but a sigh of relief, I shall be leaving the LD group and becoming an independent councillor from immediate effect.

This decision is solely because of the bullying, discrimination, and so much of lies and canards spread about me by just one member of the party and the council for more than three years now.

I had faced so much trauma in my life that at one point, that I was on the brink of taking my own life.

He claimed he had been asked not to speak to residents, he had not had equal representation on campaign leaflets and he was asked to leave a tree planting ceremony because it would embarrass another councillor.

The Lib Dems dispute the allegations.

Dr Kumar said in a post to Bathwick residents: I originally joined the Liberal Democrat party because I believed them when they said they were the party of fairness, justice, and equality.

But, unfortunately, my personal experience has shown me that at least locally they are none of the above. There is no liberty, there is no democracy within the party.

He claimed his experience was not an isolated incident and there was a culture of bullying and micro-aggression within the local party, which the Lib Dems have denied.

A Lib Dem spokesperson said: We firmly reject all prejudice and discrimination of any kind and take seriously any complaint.

Dr Kumars allegations have been thoroughly investigated three times by a barrister on behalf of B&NES Council, by Avon and Somerset Police and by our own independent complaints process under a panel from outside the area.

All three investigations found nothing to support Dr Kumars assertions, but he refused to accept their verdicts and has continued to repeat his discredited accusations.

Endlessly repeating false claims does not make them true. We would be happy for the investigators reports to be published but that decision is outside our control.

The spokesperson said instead of accepting the outcomes of the investigations Dr Kumar had spent three years attacking the party in general, and one female councillor in particular, such that the police have taken action to protect her from him.

Avon and Somerset Police confirmed it had received a report of harassment from a female against a male and said she was given advice about personal safety.

She was visited as part of the Be Home Safe scheme, which gives security to victims of crime and helps vulnerable people to stay safe by fitting locks and alarms where necessary.

The Lib Dem spokesperson added: We tried hard to help Dr Kumar with his problems, and he received a very large amount of support and pastoral care from the party. But sadly, it was all to no avail. We are disappointed that he has repaid our help with unwarranted abuse.

We regret having to make this statement but Dr Kumars stream of false allegations against us has left us with no choice but to defend our members and put the record straight.

Dr Kumar rejected all of the allegations against him, saying: If elected people do not fight for truth, who in our society will fight?

I am fighting for truth and nothing else. I have no vendetta against anybody..

He said he had never bullied or harassed anyone and claimed the report to the police had been a pre-emptive attempt to silence him.

He said the party and council investigations had not been robust enough because they failed to take witness statements and he was given no chance to appeal the outcomes, so he has filed a civil court case for discrimination and bullying against the female councillor.

He is also taking the Lib Dems to an employment tribunal after he was deselected ahead of next years elections, however the party said it has never employed him.

It said Dr Kumar was deselected because of the legal action against colleagues and his refusal to acknowledge the outcomes of the investigations.

Hear all the latest news from across the UK on the hour, every hour, on Greatest Hits Radio on DAB, at greatesthitsradio.co.uk, and on the Greatest Hits Radio app.

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An outspoken Bath councillor has become the second to quit the Liberal Democrats this term amid allegations of bullying but the party say he is the...

Matt Walker, Vice Chair of the Liberal Democrats in Harrogate and Knaresborough wrote to Andrew Jones MP, Member of Parliament for Harrogate and Knaresborough last night urging him to join the calls for Boris Johnsons resignation.

Commenting, Matt Walker said:

Yesterday we heard an evasive apology from the Prime Minister for hosting a garden party at the height of lockdown. This is just one of many recent allegations made about Government representatives and officials breaking the rules during the pandemic, but none so clear cut as the occasion on 20th May 2020.

At that moment the nation remained frightened of the virus. The death toll was climbing. Pubs and many shops were closed. But it gets worse than that. Local residents were deprived of precious final moments with family and loved ones and were forced to attend funerals via Zoom.

How, especially at this moment in the pandemic, the Prime Minister thought it appropriate for a bring your own booze bash in his back garden is totally beyond every reasonable person I know.

Our MP must say enough is enough from the PM and all those who attended this party and call for their removal.

Letter to Andrew Jones MP

Dear Andrew Jones MP,

Following PMQs earlier today, where Prime Minister Boris Johnson gave an empty and evasive apology for hostng a party at the height of lockdown, I am now urgingyou to join in the calls on the Prime Minister to resign.

There have been many recent allegations made about Government representatives and officials breaking the rules during the pandemic, but none so clear-cut as the occasion on 20th May 2020.

We have seen the invite to a hundred people, at a meeting we were told we could only meet one person outside. We know it happened on the Prime Ministers premises, that his own private secretary organised it, and that he had attended it.

We do not need an independent investigation to tell us if the Prime Minister knew it was a party.

At this moment in the pandemic, the nation remained frightened of the virus.

The death toll was climbing. Pubs and many shops were closed. The rule of six wasnt even introduced for another month. But it gets worse than that.

Local residents were deprived of precious final moments with family and loved ones and were forced to attend funerals via Zoom.

How, especially at this moment in the pandemic, the Prime Minister thought it appropriate for a bring your own booze bash in his back garden is totally beyond every reasonable person I know.

The fact he went on to deceive the public and Parliament about it, only makes it worse.

If this was a one-off mistake, perhaps there would be more public sympathy.

But Im afraid this is only the latest incident in a long line of evidence that this PrimeMinister and his Government believes that there are rules for them and rules for us and he will lie, obfuscate and gaslight the nation if anyone accuses him of doing wrong.

I recognise that you will owe some loyalty to the Prime Minister. You were elected in 2019 with him as your leader, and you have voted in line with his orders on almost every occasion. I also note with interest that your social media presence almost entirely ignores major national debates.

However, as Harrogate and Knaresboroughs representative in Westminster, it is incumbent on you to take a stand on what is morally right.

It is quite clearly time for Prime Minister Boris Johnson to resign.

I urge you to demonstrate that you will stand up for the people you represent, who have sacrificed so much during this pandemic, and join me in this resignation call.

Yours sincerely,

Matt Walker, Vice Chair Harrogate and Knaresborough Liberal Democrats

Read more from the original source:

Liberal Democrats in Harrogate and Knaresborough write to Andrew Jones MP calling for Boris Johnson to resign Harrogate Informer - Harrogate Informer

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The homeowner put the F*ck Trudeau flag up after the September federal election, following her disappointment with the Liberal party victory

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A woman in the Niagara region city of Port Colborne, Ontario, is allowed to keep flying an anti-Trudeau flag on her home after challenging a city order to remove it.

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The flag says F*ck Trudeau, with the u represented by a maple leaf.

The homeowner put the flag up the day after the September 2021 federal election, following her disappointment with the Liberal party victory.

In November, the homeowner, referred to as Melissa, read a story in a local newspaper about the citys displeasure with the flag on her home. She was unaware of any controversy until then.

Days later, she received a registered notice from the city that she was required to remove the flag for violating a Port Colborne property standards bylaw that states exterior walls of a dwelling and their components shall be free of unauthorized signs, painted slogans, graffiti and similar defacements.

The Alberta-based Canadian Consitution Foundation (CCF) became aware of the case and assisted the homeowner in appealing the order. The CCF is a non-partisan charitable organization that focuses on cases involving Canadian constitutional rights and freedoms.

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Like every citizen of Canada, Melissa has a Charter-protected right to express her political views. She is flying a flag on her own property, expressing a political sentiment that frankly is not even that uncommon. If her flag bothers some people at Port Colborne city hall, I suggest they drive down a different street instead of trying to tell Melissa what she can and cannot say, said CCF Litigation Director Christine Van Geyn in a statement.

Van Geyn told National Post the city specifically cited the language used in the flag, suggesting it was profanity. Technically, it is not profanity, Van Geyn said, adding the homeowner sourced the flag online.

Melissa filed a notice and paid a fee to challenge the citys bylaw order, and was initially told her appeal would not be heard.

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But this week, under threat of legal action, the city rescinded the order, and Melissa is allowed to keep flying the flag.

Michelle Idzenga, a spokesperson for the city of Port Colborne, said the citys bylaw department had received multiple complaints about the flag, which is why an investigation was initiated and an order to remove issued.

Following further investigation, the city closed the file and notified the property owner. She said the city hasnt received any calls recently and were not aware of any concerns.

Van Geyn said the matter was a victory for freedom of expression and Port Colborne was wrong in its actions.

We hope that Melissas situation will serve as an example to other towns and cities, and that citizens across Canada will remain free to express their political views without interference from municipal bureaucrats, said Van Geyn.

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We hope that Melissas situation will serve as an example to other towns and cities, and that citizens across Canada will remain free to express their political views without interference from municipal bureaucrats, - @cvangeyn

Melissa, who has received positive support in the community, said she is pleased Port Colborne has backed down. Im proud to continue to be able to express my political views, which is my right as a Canadian, she said in a statement issued by CCF.

Van Geyn said this was not the first time the CCF has successfully challenged a municipality on the issue of signs that express political views. The organization previously took on Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, which was attempting to pass a bylaw banning people from putting up signs supporting candidates in a municipal election.

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Ontario homeowner allowed to keep flying anti-Trudeau flag after town backs down - National Post