Category Archives: Liberal

Updated March 21, 2017 21:29:43

Former WA treasurer Mike Nahan says the Liberals have learned the lessons from their landslide election loss, after officially taking on the party leadership.

Dr Nahan was appointed Liberal leader unopposed this morning, with Liza Harvey maintaining the deputy role she also held before the election.

The former treasurer's appointment for the Liberals came after Colin Barnett's resignation as leader, which followed his party's heavy election loss 10 days ago.

In the aftermath of that defeat, Dr Nahan said he was the person to rebuild the Liberals and hold the new Labor Government to account.

"We are a small, but very experienced and unified team; you will see an aggressive, unified Liberal Party going forward," he said.

"We were sent a message by the public, a very big one, we have learned it."

The partyroom meeting marked Mr Barnett's first official address to MPs since the election and brought to an end his eight-and-a-half years as party leader.

The former premier left without speaking to waiting media but made brief comments on the way in.

"I will simply, as I have said, return quietly to the backbench as the Member for Cottesloe," Mr Barnett said.

Ahead of the meeting, Dr Nahan made clear his desire for Mr Barnett to resign from Parliament and spark a by-election in the near future.

But the new leader would not be drawn on Mr Barnett's future following the meeting.

"He is an elder statesman, I seek his advice and ideas and he will, no doubt, depart from Cottesloe on his own time," he said.

Labor holds a huge parliamentary majority after the election landslide, having possession of 41 of 59 Lower House seats, but Dr Nahan insisted he could lead the Liberals to victory in 2021.

"We were at the mountain, we are in a gully but the gully is not as deep as the mountain was high," Dr Nahan said.

"We can come back and that is my task I am not here for the short term."

He said the allocation of shadow portfolios would be completed in the coming days, saying every MP staying for the long-term would be given a role.

Dr Nahan was non-committal about whether a partial sale of Western Power would remain part of the Liberal platform, saying he would talk to his colleagues about policy matters.

Peter Collier was re-appointed the Upper House Liberal leader, despite a push by some within the party to replace him.

Topics: government-and-politics, liberals, wa

First posted March 21, 2017 13:56:56

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WA Liberal leadership: Mike Nahan says party learned lessons of election decimation - ABC Online

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Posted: Mar 21, 2017 12:01 AM

I was prepared to just keep walking, but my friend, a Catholic who took his religion seriously, stopped to give the guy some money -- a dollar or two as I recall.

You know there's a very good chance he's just going to spend it on booze or drugs, I told my friend. Yes, he told me, he knew, but he felt it was the right thing to do.

But you're not helping him, I said. And I added, politely, I think you gave him the money to feel better about yourself. He acknowledged that was part of it.

I thought about that encounter the other day when I heard what Pope Francis said about helping panhandlers.

Giving to the needy "is always right," he said, and he challenged those who make excuses for not giving money to people on the street.

Questioning my CBS News friend is one thing, but questioning the wisdom of the pope, especially when I'm not a member of his flock, is something else. But here goes anyway: Giving money to a wino is not always right. In fact, it may always be wrong.

My reaction wouldn't surprise Pope Francis. Because in his interview that was published in a Milan magazine, the pope acknowledged what I, and many of you, I suspect, are thinking: "I give money and then he spends it on drinking a glass of wine," the pope said. But if "a glass of wine is the only happiness he has in life, that's OK."

Really? How does that work? The guy on the street is an alcoholic, we give him money, he buys some garbage that will rot his insides, and "that's OK" because "a glass of wine is his only happiness in life"?

"Instead," the pope continued, "ask yourself what do you do on the sly? What 'happiness' do you seek in secret?" And we should realize that we "are luckier, with a house, a wife, children."

Well, one of the reasons we are "luckier" than the alcoholic or drug addict begging for money is precisely because we're (SET ITAL) not (END ITAL) alcoholics or drug addicts. I realize that it's not the thing to say in polite company but we made one set of choices and the addict made another.

That doesn't mean the panhandler doesn't deserve help or compassion. But is it really compassionate to help some poor soul continue down a path that leads to still more destruction?

Let's get the obvious out of the way: The pope is a good man. His heart is in the right place. He cares about the less fortunate among us. And so should we all.

But isn't this the same old paternalism liberals are famous for? Isn't this the same kind of thinking that created and perpetuated the welfare state here in America -- the same kind of compassion that in too many cases left generation after generation no better off than when the supposed compassion started?

Liberals may genuinely think they're helping, but they're not the ones paying the price for their compassion.

And it's no surprise that the pope got a big thumbs up from the bible of liberal American journalism, the editorial page of The New York Times.

"New Yorkers, if not city dwellers everywhere, might acknowledge a debt to Pope Francis this week. He has offered a concrete, permanently useful prescription for dealing with panhandlers.

"It's this: Give them the money, and don't worry about it."

How liberal of The New York Times to instruct us not to "worry about it." Why should we? Even if our generosity doesn't make the wino feel better -- we'll feel better about ourselves. And that's really important, too, isn't it?

The Times editorial also tells us that, "You don't know what that guy will do with your dollar. Maybe you'd disapprove of what he does. Maybe compassion is the right call."

Or maybe buying the poor guy a tuna fish sandwich and handing that to him instead of a dollar bill is the right call. Maybe buying a bunch of cheap blankets then handing them out to people on the street in the dead of winter would be the right call, and more compassionate that simply tossing him a few coins or a few dollars and continuing on our way.

In Proverbs 14:21 we're told that, "blessed is the one who is kind to the needy."

Yes, but it's not kind to contribute to the ruin of a human being already tottering on the edge -- even if our compassion makes us feel better about ourselves.

Watch LIVE: Senators Question Gorsuch at Confirmation Hearing

More here:

The Pope, Panhandlers and Liberal Compassion - Townhall

In 1983, Alison Jaggar published Feminist Politics and Human Nature where she defined four theories related to feminism: liberal feminism, Marxism, radical feminism, and socialist feminism. Her analysis was not completely new; the varieties of feminism had begun to differentiate as early as the 1960s. Jaggar's contribution was clarifying, extending and solidifying the various definitions, which are still often used today.

Liberal feminism's primary goal is gender equality in the public sphere -- equal access to education, equal pay, ending job sex segregation, better working conditions -- won primarily through legal changes. Private sphere issues are of concern mainly as they influence or impede equality in the public sphere. Gaining access to and being paid and promoted equally in traditionally male-dominated occupations is an important goal. What do women want? Liberal feminism answers: mostly, what men want: to get an education, to make a decent living, to provide for one's family.

What she described as liberal feminism is theory and work that focuses more on issues like equality in the workplace, in education, in political rights. Where liberal feminism looks at issues in the private sphere, it tends to be in terms of equality: how does that private life impede or enhance public equality. Thus, liberal feminists also tend to support marriage as an equal partnership, and more male involvement in child care.

Abortion and other reproductive rights have to do with control of one's life choices and autonomy. Ending domestic violence and sexual harassment have to do with removing obstacles to women achieving on an equal level with men.

Liberal feminism tends to rely on the state and political rights to gain equality -- to see the state as the protector of individual rights.

Liberal feminism, for example, supports affirmative action legislation requiring employers and educational institutions to make special attempts to include women in the pool of applicants, on the assumption that past and current discrimination may simply overlook many qualified women applicants.

The Equal Rights Amendment was a key goal for many years of liberal feminists, from the original women's suffrage proponents who moved to advocating a federal equality amendment, to many of the feminists of the 1960s and 1970s in organizations including the National Organization for Women. The text of the Equal Rights Amendment, as passed by Congress and sent to the states in the 1970s, is classical liberal feminism:

While not denying that there may be biologically-based differences between men and women, liberal feminism cannot see that these are adequate justification for inequality, such as the wage gap between men and women.

Critics of liberal feminism point to a lack of critique of basic gender relationships, a focus on state action which links women's interests to those of the powerful, a lack of class or race analysis, and a lack of analysis of ways in which women are different from men.

Critics often accuse liberal feminism of judging women and their success by male standards.

In more recent years, liberal feminism has sometimes been conflated with a kind of libertarian feminism, sometimes called equity feminism or individual feminism. Individual feminism often opposes legislative or state action, preferring to emphasize developing the skills and abilities of women to compete better in the world as it is. This feminism opposes laws that give either men or women advantages and privileges.

A few key resources:

Link:

Liberal Feminism - What Are Its Characteristics?

Hollywood has been accused of letting its old McCarthyism shame creep back into the 21st century: driving conservatives into hiding and professional exile, like it once blacklisted communists.

Granted, that analogy goes too far for some. But for others, not far enough.

"You gotta be real careful around here," actor Tim Allen said on "Jimmy Kimmel Live," after stuttering through a confession that he attended President Donald Trump's inauguration. "You get beat up if you don't believe what everybody else believes. This is like '30s Germany."

Allen, who plays a vocal conservative on his sitcom, "Last Man Standing," has been one of few in Hollywood to speak openly about his right-leaning views.

Another 2,500 of his colleagues feel so stigmatized that they have joined a clandestine support group, according to a Los Angeles Times article profiling retribution and secrecy forced upon "the vast majority of conservatives who work in entertainment."

"In 30 years of show business, I've never seen it like this," an unnamed actor told the outlet. "If you are even lukewarm to Republicans, you are excommunicated from the church of tolerance."

Since it premiered several years ago, Allen's show has been hailed as a rare counterexample to Hollywood politics.

"Finally, we have a hero who hunts, fishes, watches sports, and occasionally drives a tank," the Imaginative Conservative wrote.

But Allen himself has complained of network censorship when his protagonist, an alpha-male family man whom the actor has called "an educated Archie Bunker," tries to go after liberal icons.

Allen "admits he has gotten more than one warning to stop calling President (Barack) Obama a 'communist,'" the TV Page reported in 2015.

Allen didn't sound so dire during the Republican primaries, when the Hollywood Reporter asked whether he vented his own political views through his character.

"It's getting more and more comfortable," he said. "These guys know me so well that they're writing stuff that is exactly what I would've said. It's a marvelous thing when you have liberal people writing for (a show like this)."

And he sounded lukewarm about the prospect of a Trump presidency.

"Forget the stupid s-- he says about immigrants," Allen said. "That's just ignorant. But he might be able to do the stuff that really needs fixing."

After the election, on Fox News, Allen compared Trump to an amateur performer with "very bad comic timing."

"I don't want to defend the guy," he said.

But he backed Trump's supporters in his industry.

"What I find odd in Hollywood is they didn't like Trump because he was a bully," Allen told Megyn Kelly. "But if you had any kind of inkling that you were for Trump, you got bullied for doing that. It gets a little hypocritical."

Kelly agreed. "I know many of them who are part of the Hollywood conservative underground," she said.

The industry has become more toxic to conservatives since Trump took office, the Los Angeles Times reported. Workers complained of political shouting matches on set and the professional shunning of those known to hold right-leaning views - although some had enough celebrity to speak out safely.

It's unclear whether Allen feels like one of them.

When Kimmel asked him about his trip to the inauguration ceremony, the actor's eye bugged out and he stammered:

"I was invited, we did a VIP thing for the vets, and went to a veterans ball, so I went to go see Democrats and Republicans," he said.

"Yeah. I went to the inauguration."

Kimmel laughed and said, "I'm not attacking you."

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Tim Allen says being a non-liberal in Hollywood is like being in ''30s Germany' - Atlanta Journal Constitution

New York Times

How Liberal Colleges Breed Conservative Firebrands New York Times Being conservative in liberal institutions, especially on college campuses, has long shaped the intellectual identity of young conservatives who later rise to prominence. Judge Neil Gorsuch, whose confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court begin ...

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How Liberal Colleges Breed Conservative Firebrands - New York Times

When President Donald Trump entered the 2016 race for the White House in June 2015 having never ran for political office never before, no one believed he was a serious candidate or had a serious chance at winning the Republican nomination.

And once he won the Republican nomination last summer, no one believed he would be able to defeat Hillary Clinton. After all, she had all the credentials: former first lady, former U.S. senator and former secretary of state.

But Trump won and Clinton lost.

Despite being just two months into his first term, Trump already has his sights set on running for re-election in 2020 and he knows who he wants to beat so badly.

After their defining loss last year, the Democratic Party was left scrambling to find their identity for the next four years as they mount challenges in 2018 and 2020 to push back against Trumps agenda.

One of the potential candidates the DNC may push to challenge Trump in 2020 is Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), one of the extreme liberal and progressive members of the DNC. Given how well Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) did in the Democratic primaries, running Warren would be a no-brainer for Democrats and Trump agrees.

He told Fox News host Jesse Watters in a recent interview aired Saturday that he wants Warren to challenge him in 2020 because he believes he would be able to beat her so badly.

When Watters noted the possibility of Warren running in 2020, Trump replied, I hope so.

That would be a dream come true, the president explained.

Trump went on to slam Warren for the craziness and anger she used in her political rhetoric on the campaign trail last year when campaigning for Clinton.

I think she hurt Hillary Clinton very badly, Trump said. I watched those speeches the anger, the hatred, in her heart and I said, Ya know, shes really bad for Hillary.'

Pocahontas would not be proud of her as her representative, believe me, Trump said, mocking Warren for her claim that shes of Native American heritage.

Watch Trumps comments below. The relevant portion begins around 2:25:

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Watch: After beating Clinton in 2016, Trump reveals which liberal he wants to beat 'so badly' in 2020 - TheBlaze.com

The 9th Circuit the largest and most important of the 13 federal court circuits in the country, encompassing 11 Western states and territories and covering nearly 20% of the U.S. population is under siege. Four Republican congressmen have introduced bills to break up the circuit in various ways. All four bills have a chance of passing. None of them makes any sense.

The arguments for splitting the U.S. Courts for the 9th Circuit are perennial: Its too big, too slow and, most of all, too liberal. But none of these complaints is sound. Moreover, breaking up the court would add considerable costs while potentially lowering the quality of judging.

Most of the justifications offered for splitting the 9th Circuit have to do with its size, and it does indeed hear a lot of cases more than 55,000 civil and criminal cases in its district courts in 2015 alone, along with 12,000 appeals in its appellate court.

Big doesnt always mean bad, however. The 9th Circuit may do a lot, but its pretty efficient. The circuit has pioneered mediation units and screening panels to help solve cases early, and it disposes of nearly half its appeals that way. It methodically allocates resources, assigning extra judges to areas faced with a shortage. The appellate court broadcasts arguments on the Web, allowing citizens to watch proceedings without traveling to a courthouse. The 9th Circuit doesnt handle cases any more slowly than other circuits if you account for the number of cases assigned to each judge.

Another common rationale for carving up the circuit is its supposedly high reversal rate in the Supreme Court, which last year hit 79%. That sounds high until you realize the Supreme Court on average reverses lower-court decisions 70% of the time. (The 6th Circuit, comprising just four Midwestern states, had a reversal rate of 81%.) The 9th Circuit also encompasses some of the most experimental states in the country, including Arizona, which frequently passes innovative immigration laws; Oregon, with its expansive individual-rights laws on assisted suicide and marijuana; and, of course, California. If anything, its surprising the Supreme Court doesnt reverse decisions from the 9th Circuit more often.

The real cause behind the efforts to split the circuit is that its appellate court is perceived as too liberal. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, based in San Francisco, has been a conservative bugaboo since the 1970s, when President Carter and a Democratic supermajority in Congress doubled the number of judges on the court and appointed some of the most liberal jurists in American history. Right-wing radio hosts and politicians love beating up on the nutty 9th.

But in reality, the courts liberalism has declined dramatically. Judges appointed to the court by Presidents Clinton and Obama have been steadily more centrist, while Republican appointees have remained conservative.

Meanwhile, the real-world costs of splitting the 9th Circuit are extremely high. So high that every prior effort to split the circuit there have been seven or eight attempts since the early 1990s has failed. Division would double the bureaucracy and infrastructure to the tune of some $200 million up front and $35 million a year for taxpayers. Businesses could face twice the litigation and compliance costs depending on where they operate, and they might have to wrangle with different interpretations of federal law throughout the West. This is one reason why Congress has modified circuit borders only twice, in the 1920s and the 1980s, in response to requests from judges. By contrast, the 9th Circuits judges have historically voted to remain cohesive.

If lightening the caseload is the reason to break up the circuit, there is simply no good way to achieve that goal. California cases make up nearly two-thirds of the circuits work, and drawing a line in the middle of a state with different federal law on either side would wreak havoc. Each of the pending congressional proposals to split the circuit would siphon only 20% to 30% of its current cases, a figure so small that one of the new circuits would be back up to the 9th Circuits current numbers within a decade or so. Not to mention that putting California in its own circuit, or with just a few other states, would probably create one that is even more liberal.

Additionally, the quality of appellate judging might suffer from a smaller circuit. When the same judges sit together over and over, they become very familiar, which can foster discord or, worse, an over-willingness to defer to one another. Indeed, Congress would do well to consider merging some of the smaller circuits, rather than breaking up a bigger one.

On the 9th Circuit, the Court of Appeals assigns its three-judge appellate panels randomly from its scores of active, senior and visiting judges. The circuits geographic spread means a case arising out of California might be heard by judges from Idaho, Hawaii or Washington, allowing for a great variety of perspectives to inform the courts judgment. The judges sit in different frequencies and in different months. Their relationships are professional rather than personal, in part because of their number and distance.

Shifting the circuits borders around wont change the overall number of cases per judge or the way its judges decide legal questions, either. There are liberal judges from Montana and Arizona, and there are conservative judges from California and Oregon. If Congress really wants to speed up the 9th Circuit and influence the way it decides precedent-setting cases, it should create more judgeships. Compared with the other circuits, the 9th is understaffed; it should have at least five more appellate judgeships and 21 more district judgeships.

Adding judges might be particularly alluring to Republicans because it would allow them to make use of the gift former Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid now regrets giving them the ability to appoint federal judges without the risk of a filibuster.

The last time a party controlled the White House and had filibuster-proof power to appoint federal judges was in the 1970s, when Carter gave the 9th Circuit its hyper-liberal reputation. If congressional Republicans took this route, they could shift the courts political leanings without creating problems for litigants and businesses along the West Coast.

There is one final advantage to keeping the 9th Circuit intact: Republicans would retain their favorite culprit. After all, what would they do without the nutty 9th to blame?

Ben Feuer is the chairman of the California Appellate Law Group.

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion or Facebook

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The Republican case for breaking up the notoriously liberal 9th Circuit makes no sense - Los Angeles Times

BBC News

Morgan: Osborne's liberal Conservatism will be heard BBC News Ex-Education Secretary Nicky Morgan has defended George Osborne's appointment as Evening Standard editor, warning cabinet ministers fired by Theresa May will have their "voices heard". Mrs Morgan, who lost her job after Mrs May became PM, said ... and more »

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Morgan: Osborne's liberal Conservatism will be heard - BBC News

Updated March 19, 2017 17:34:42

Western Australia's next Liberal leader Mike Nahan has rejected suggestions he will be an "interim leader" and will not be around to contest the 2021 state election.

The former treasurer has spoken for the first time since the Barnett Government's dramatic election loss, in which seven ministers lost their seats.

He described the result as "catastrophic" and "gut wrenching" and pointed the finger of blame at former premier Colin Barnett, telling another media organisation he was "tired" and "not up to" the campaign.

Despite being 13 days older than Mr Barnett, Dr Nahan, aged 66, insisted he was not too old to lead the Liberals.

He will be elected unopposed when the party's MPs meet to determine the leadership on Tuesday. Liza Harvey will remain deputy leader.

"Look around the world, I think Donald Trump is over 70, Hillary Clinton was older than I and she was going for the toughest job in the world and I'm very fit and able," Dr Nahan said.

"It requires energy, which I have, experience, which I have, but also a bit of maturity.

"I will be a leader of a team, not a boss, and that's what we need now.

"There is not any issue of policy that I haven't over the last 30 years come across."

Dr Nahan insisted there was no "Kirribilli agreement" to hand over the leadership to Ms Harvey mid-term.

Meanwhile, the former treasurer said there were a number of reasons why the Barnett government was "hammered", including the One Nation preference deal and a perception it was of touch with voter concerns.

"It's our fault. We failed to address the concerns of the public," he said.

Dr Nahan said the proposal to sell 51 per cent of Western Power to raise up to $11 billion was absolutely right and the Liberal Party would most likely stick with the policy.

"It was the right thing to do, it got rejected," he said.

"Labor will rue the day they allowed the unions to fund their campaign in the millions of millions of dollars because that asset will require major investment and will be depreciating in value."

"The sale of Western Power was poorly carried by us ... the public didn't understand it, they didn't understand what Western Power was or the benefits of selling it, or the risk of holding it in terms of depreciating value that's our fault."

Dr Nahan said he had not spoken to Mr Barnett since the election and did not know whether he planned to retire or stay on as a backbencher.

"He's been a contributor to Western Australian politics for many decades but I would expect him to move on from Cottesloe and vacate the seat sooner rather than later," he said.

But he insisted the Liberals would bounce back.

"I've been playing a lot of sports, some seasons you have a bad one but you can come back and the best thing is a bit of offence and we will come back aggressively," he said.

"Labor has a lot of weaknesses."

Topics: elections, state-parliament, wa, perth-6000

First posted March 19, 2017 16:44:03

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WA election: Mike Nahan says he is leader Liberals need after 'gut wrenching' defeat - ABC Online

Animal activists were out protesting President Donald Trump this week in Hollywood, and they were eager to talk to Dartmouth graduate and aspiring filmmaker Austen Fleccas about their beef with the president, even though those reasons didnt always make sense.

Congregating on Hollywood Blvd around Trumps Hollywood Walk of Fame sidewalk star, the protesters held up signswhile chanting, Theres no excuse for animal abuse! One protester added that Trump is against all humans and animals.

Fleccas interviewed several of the participants, who told him they were protesting the USDAs decision to remove their list of animal welfare reports from its Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, but attributed the decision directly to the president.

Why are you against Trump, Fleccas asked one protester.

Because hes an evil dictator, she responded, then went on to explain it is because he is a capitalist. Explaining that she is a communist, the unnamed protester continued, saying thatcommunism has worked in America. Its kind of worked in America, in a way, back in the dayno?

Others focused on the animal rights aspect, saying they wanted all animals to be set free.

Total animal liberation, one protester said. Another proclaimed that people who fight for human rights but not for animal rights are speciesists.

Last month, the USDA removed public access to tens of thousands of records documenting whether animals kept by research labs, circuses, and other entities were being treated humanely, citing individual privacy rights as the reason for the removal. Though the documents were still available through FOIA requests, the United States Humane Society challenged the legality of the move, saying that the agency was eliminating transparency.

The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Services office has since clarified that the information was taken offline to conduct a comprehensive privacy review and the information is slowly being loaded back onto the site as appropriate.

Read more:

Watch: Liberal activists try to explain why they dislike Trump, hilarity ensues - TheBlaze.com