Category Archives: Liberal

Feb. 25, 2017 at 4:27 PM

Former Labor Secretary Tom Perez was elected Democratic National Committee chair Saturday.

The race for chair of the Democratic National Committee came to an end today in Atlanta when former Labor Secretary Tom Perez was elected to the position, beating out Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison in a race that had come to be framed as a battle between the partys Obama-era establishment and the burgeoning progressive wing of Sen. Bernie Sanders. Conceding the race, Ellison, who was backed by Sanders, pleaded with his supporters to give everything youve got to support Chairman Perez. Some Ellison backers in the room, wearing the candidates green T-shirts and upset by the vote, chanted in protest.

The former labor secretary had appeared to be ahead, if only by a slim margin, in the final days before the election, which gave the party time to fret about potentially angry reactions from Sanders voters. Perhaps inevitably, given the power vacuum in the Democratic Party following the presidential election, the race became freighted with deeper meaning and led Sanders to condemn a failed status-quo approach embodied by Perez, who served under Obama. Well aware of the raw feelings lingering from a hotly contested presidential primary season, the two front-runners have been publicly adulating of one another and were spotted out to dinner in Washington the week before the election. Saturdays messages of unity were almost certainly planned ones.

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But Perezs win deals an undeniable morale blow to the Sanders-supporting wing of the Democratic Party, which feels that the partys loss in November was something of a referendum on the status quo. Nina Turner, a prominent Sanders-turned-Ellison surrogate, told The Washington Posts Dave Weigel that if Ellison lost, the future of the Democratic Party will walk away.

The argument from the partys Sanders wing was that Ellison was the best choice to put forth a message of progressivism that would reinvigorate the partys base, implying that Perez was something of an establishment centrist. But Perez and Ellison laid out essentially identical visions for the party during the DNC race. Both called for a more decentralized organization that placed greater emphasis on the particular political climates and needs of each state, better candidate recruitment, and well-honed messages of economic populism that would speak to the partys traditional base and beyond.

And both Perez and Ellison are well to the left of center on the spectrum of beliefs within the Democratic Party, though Ellisons views are more deeply left. In fact, hes more liberal than 90 percent of House Democrats, according to FiveThirtyEight ideological ratings that look at congressional voting records, donors and public statements. Ellison scores a -57 in our ratings (-100 is most liberal; +100 is most conservative). The average Democratic member of the House in the 114th Congress (2015-16) had a congressional record voting score of -40. Perez never served in Congress, but he did make an abbreviated run for attorney general of Maryland and has made public statements on political issues. Using these, we estimated his average score at -45, which is not as liberal as Ellisons but indicates that he may be further to the left than the average Democratic member of the House.

Taking the podium in the afternoon after hours of balloting and his win, Perez motioned for Ellison to be appointed deputy chair. The party, it seems, is looking to move past the drama.

Harry Enten provided analysis.

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Tom Perez Isn't As Liberal As Keith Ellison, But He's Still Pretty Progressive - FiveThirtyEight

Elections have consequences.

Boom!

Thats the collective sound of liberals heads exploding during and after the presidents speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference.

Their heads were exploding because he started right out with an example of the medias fake news. When he said fake media is the enemy of the people, most of the liberal medias headlines claimed Trump said the media are the enemy of the people. When they report fake news, they are the enemy of the people.

The push by the administration to enforce the immigration laws on the books, in order to minimize the number of illegal criminals in this country, is being reported by the liberal media as anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim. Thats a totally false representation for the purpose of promoting their preferred narratives.

The liberal media are fixated on any little mole hill out of which they can make a mountain against the Trump Administration.

The liberals heads were exploding as he listed what his priorities are, especially because they are the same as what he promised while campaigning. To make matters worse for liberals, hes already made progress, or already delivered, on some of those promises.

Jobs are coming back to this country because of the presidents positive tone from the top. More businesses are now planning to build or expand in the U.S.

The stock market is already responding to this positive tone, as well as the anticipated tax code changes by this administration and Congress.

The president is determined to repeal and replace the Unaffordable Care Act. He and Congress are on the same page, despite the Democrats fighting it every step of the way, and the liberal media saying it wont happen.

President Trump is going to authorize significant funding to rebuild our military. We have great men and women serving our country, but our military readiness is not what it should be because of inadequate funding and poor strategic leadership.

The newly confirmed Secretary of Veterans Affairs is saying all the right things about changes we need to make in order to take care of our veterans, a commitment by President Trump from the beginning of his run for the presidency.

President Trumps biggest conservative move was the nomination of an indisputably conservative judge, Neil Gorsuch, to the Supreme Court. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said Gorsuch will be confirmed one way or the other, despite Democrat stall tactics.

Instead of the liberal media pitching a hissy fit about how they are being treated by President Trump (treatment they richly deserve), they could be reporting on the amazing fact that the national debt has gone down by $12 billion in the first month of the Trump Administration.

This is a direct result of two executive orders by President Trump. One EO put a freeze on federal hiring except for the military, while the other EO which said if you want him to approve a new regulation, you need to show him two that will be eliminated.

In contrast, the national debt went up by $200 billion during the first month of the 44th presidents administration.

The overarching take away from the presidents CPAC speech was consistency. His priorities, agenda and purpose as well as his role as a voice for the people have not changed since he started running for president.

That consistency makes it harder to find a mole hill from which to create a convincing mountain in the eyes of the people who are paying attention. And yes! More people are paying attention.

Get used to it, liberal media! Hes just getting started.

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Liberal heads explode as Trump CPAC speech confirms he means what he says - Canada Free Press

News Corp reports a band of Liberal MPs were actively colluding to pressure Malcolm Turnbull in the media.

Liberal MPs have been plotting to get Tony Abbott back in Cabinet. Picture: Kym Smith

MALCOLM Turnbull has blasted Tony Abbott as reports emerged that a group of Liberal MPs calling themselves the deplorables has been plotting to undermine the Government and get the former PM back onto the frontbench.

The group of more than a dozen conservative members of the party held phone hook-ups and meetings at Parliament House to discuss the strategy.

The Australian reports the former Prime Minister and Senator Eric Abetz co-ordinated the meetings via calendar invites and group texts.

In a double-blow for Mr Turnbull, the report comes as a new poll released today showed the his governments popularity has plunged to a record low.

Speaking in Canberra this morning, Mr Turnbull accused Mr Abbott of deliberately attempting to skew the poll results by criticising the Government in an outburst last Thursday.

A poll is a snapshot of opinion at one particular time, the election is two years away and what we saw was an outburst on Thursday and it had its desired impact on the Newspoll it was exactly as predicted and calculated, Mr Turnbull said.

The Prime Minister then hit out at the media for being too focused on personalities and conflict.

It wasnt a Donald Trump-level attack, with the Prime Minister beginning with great respect to all of you in the media, but his frustration was clear.

Youre much more entertained by conflict and personalities than you are by jobs, he said.

Now, you can focus on the personalities if you wish, thats up to you, but Im focused on jobs, Im focused on economic growth, Im focused on ensuring that as hardworking Australian families can get ahead.

ACT senator Zed Seselja appeared beside the Prime Minister in his press conference this morning after being named as one of the Liberal MPs agitating to undermine Mr Turnbull.

Liberal MPs have been plotting to undermine Malcolm Turnbull. Picture: AAP Image/Mick TsikasSource:AAP

The group also reportedly included Kevin Andrews, Michael Sukker, Rick Wilson, Andrew Hastie, Ian Goodenough, Cory Bernardi, Nicolle Flint, Jonathon Duniam, Craig Kelly, Scott Buchholz and Tony Pasin.

Junior MPs were reportedly given directives to use the media to put pressure on the Turnbull Government on issues such as Safe Schools, same sex marriage and freedom of speech.

A number have now distanced themselves as the group began to feel they were being used to get Mr Abbott back into Cabinet.

Others were silenced as they were moved to the frontbench.

Some junior members had initially thought the meetings were purely to discuss strategies on how to push conservative policy positions before realising the other motives at play.

Mr Abbott reportedly wanted to keep his hands clean so other Liberal MPs were directed to push the government on conservative issues. Picture: AAP Image/Mick TsikasSource:AAP

One MP told The Australian Mr Abbott wanted clean hands so the group were co-opted into the attacks.

Mr Abbott had publicly declared there would be no sniping the day after he was ousted as Prime Minister.

But members of the group have opened up about the plotting after yet another public stoush between Mr Abbott and Mr Turnbull last week.

The outbursts youre now seeing from Tony have happened because the hook-ups didnt produce the results he was looking for, one MP told The Australian.

Most of us quickly came to realise this was about personalities, not policy.

Liberal Tasmanian senator and former cabinet minister Eric Abetz was a reportedly a co-ordinator of the efforts to undermine the Government. Picture: AAP Image/Mick TsikasSource:AAP

Others described the continued invitations to take part as spam requests, while one said Mr Abbott was becoming increasingly frustrated about the groups failure to follow through with the plan.

Its all about Tony, thats what most of us have come to realise, one said.

WA MP Andrew Hastie had reportedly suggested the term the deplorables to describe the group, a reference to Hillary Clintons comments about Donald Trump supporters in the lead up to the US presidential election.

NSW MP Craig Kelly reportedly informed the group he wasnt interested in taking part, while Senator Bernardis departure from the Liberal Party earlier this month was said to be partly due to the realisation some MPs were trying to rumble Mr Turnbull.

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann said today he had not heard of the groups meetings but did not think it was there agenda to undermine the government.

Minister for Finance Mathias Cormann hit out at Mr Abbott for behaviour he said was deliberately disruptive and completely unhelpful. Picture: AAP/Mick TsikasSource:AAP

Mr Cormann, who was a loyal Abbott supporter during the leadership challenge but last week hit out at the former Prime Minister for being deliberately disruptive and completely unhelpful, said the people mentioned cited as members of the group were all good people and valued friends and colleagues.

Theres nothing wrong with discussing policy matters internally and theres nothing wrong with discussing policy matters internally with a view of participating in the overall policy debates within the Liberal Party, he told ABCs radio national program.

Meanwhile, Education Minister Simon Birmingham told Sky News: Anything that creates the perception that a Government might not be focused on issues that matter to people is bad for that Government.

I can only reassure your viewers that Malcolm Turnbull and every senior member of the Government is far from distracted from these issues that might be generating a lot of newspaper headlines and a lot of chatter, Senator Birmingham said.

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Liberal MPs 'the Deplorables' plot to oust Turnbull, get Abbott back - NEWS.com.au

WASHINGTON Speaking before a crowd of liberal American Jews, Arab Joint List leader MK Ayman Odeh denounced the Israeli Labor Party in biting terms Sunday, accusing it of betraying its principles and failing to stand up to the countrys right-wing coalition government.

He called on the American Jewish left to form a coalition with his own political union of Arab-majority and non-Zionist parties.

You showed up today because we know we cannot rely on the opposition we have, the one that is ready to sell out our values in exchange for power, he told a crowd gathered for J Streets 2017 National Conference in the Washington Convention Center Sunday evening.

He began his half-hour speech at the left-wing advocacy groups annual gathering by recounting the deadly clash last month between residents of the Bedouin village of Umm al-Hiran and Israel Police officers carrying out court-ordered home demolitions in the village. A resident of the village, Yacoub Mousa Abu Al-Qiaan, was shot by police and then drove his vehicle, possibly unintentionally, into a group of officers, killing 1st Sgt. Erez Levi, 34.

Police officials and politicians, including Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, insisted Abu Al-Qiaan had intentionally rammed the officers in a terror attack, but video footage released by the police seemed to show another officer shooting Abu Al-Qiaan moments before his car accelerated and hit Levi.

Odeh was at Umm al-Hiran that day, January 18, and was lightly injured when he was apparently hit by rubber bullets fired by police.

The Labor party did nothing to stop the order to destroy Umm al-Hiran and leave its residents homeless, he said. It has abandoned the human rights organizations and civil society groups that the right-wing parties attack. And it has failed to provide any real leadership toward ending the occupation and resisting the extremist agenda of the right-wing government.

He went on: They have called themselves the Zionist camp. The right-wing calls itself the national camp. We, Arabs and Jews together, are building a new camp, a democratic camp, that has already begun to show the world what real, principled, and strong opposition looked like.

This is the time for a real opposition, principled, fearless, he said. An opposition led by a Labor party that is a shadow of the right is no opposition at all.

Odeh, who leads the Hadash party within the Joint List faction, also sought to link Netanyahu with US President Donald Trump both of whom are intensely unpopular with his audience.

In Israel, around the world, and here in the United States, those who sit in the halls of power care only about their own power, he accused.

Trump and Netanyahu have cemented their power in the same way regimes have throughout history: with the language of fear and a slow-burning hate, by turning us against one another instead of reminding-us of our shared values and our mutual interests.

J Streets sixth national conference, which runs from February 26-28, will host a number of prominent Democrats on Monday, including numerous members of Congress like Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine and California Rep. Nancy Pelosi.

Vice President Mike Pence, Defense Secretary James Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson were invited but did not respond, the group said.

Then-secretary of state John Kerry and then-vice president Joe Biden spoke at last years conference.

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Odeh tells liberal American Jews that Israel's Labor abandoned its principles - The Times of Israel

Lobbyist and Liberal powerbroker Michael Photios "took one for the team" by resigning as head of the party's left faction to shut down attacks about hisinfluence on Premier Gladys Berejiklian and her government, a senior source has revealed.

Mr Photios, whose firm Premier State is registered to lobby the NSW government on behalf of private sector clients, announced he would step down as chairman of the moderates board at a meeting of the left faction at Sydney Town Hall on Saturday night.

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Labor's campaign highlights Berejiklian's close relationship with left powerbroker Michael Photios. (Video: NSW Labor)

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Parramatta Eels back rower, Kenny Edwards gave a brief statement to press outside of the Parramatta court house, after he pleaded guilty to assaulting his former girlfriend.

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February will end with parts of the New South Wales coast forecast to receive their biggest downpours since last winter with possible flooding in places.

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The University of Sydney is investigating Wesley, one of its oldest colleges, after the distribution of a journal that named who had sex with the most people.

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Three men and one woman were arrested around 11pm on Saturday night after a violent brawl at a hotel in Sydney's inner west. Vision: Channel Seven.

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Dr Eman Sharobeem migrated to Australia more than 30 year ago, since then she has earned two PhDs and campaigned against issues such as forced marriage and family violence.

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Shark detecting drones are being trialled on beaches in NSW to combat shark attacks along the state's coast. Vision courtesy NSW DPI.

Labor's campaign highlights Berejiklian's close relationship with left powerbroker Michael Photios. (Video: NSW Labor)

The moderates board is the structure within the left faction where debate occurs about which candidates to support for preselection and related matters.

As chairman, Mr Photios was the leader of the left faction of which Ms Berejiklian is a loyal member.

Opposition Leader Luke Foley has attacked the manner in which Ms Berejikliansecured the numbersto secure the job, declaring that "the powerbrokers and lobbyists who pull the strings in the NSW Liberal party have decided Gladys Berejiklian will be their Premier".

A video distributed to party members for use on social media shortly before she was sworn in as Premier highlightedMs Berejiklian's association with Mr Photios.

"With Gladys Berejiklian as Premier, who is really running NSW?" it asked.

Mr Photiosexplained tothe meeting on Saturday nightthat he had chosen to resign now as he wanted to leave the positionat the top of his game like former New Zealand prime minister John Key.

He noted that members of theleft faction had now secured the jobs of Prime Ministerand NSW Premier.

But on Sunday a senior Liberal party source said Mr Photios' decision was closely tied to attacks on Ms Berejiklian.

"Michael did not want to become the story himself," the source said."He's taken a decision to remove the perception, real or otherwise, of his influence around the government.

"He's taken one for the team. He wanted to make sure that he wasn't the issue."

However, another Liberal source said: "There's no doubt he'll still be the puppet master".

NSW Innovation and Better Regulation Minister Matt Kean and federal member for North Sydney and former NSW Liberal presidentTrent Zimmermanhave been installed as co-chairs of the moderates board.

In April last year Fairfax Media revealed that Mr Photios was one of several NSW Liberal powerbrokers asked to resign from the party's state council in a push to remove professional lobbyists from positions of influence.

The request from NSW Liberal state director Chris Stone came shortly after former prime minister Tony Abbott complained about conflicts of interest during an interview with ABC TV'sFour Cornersprogram.

Mr Abbott told the program: "If you are making money out of the people whose preselections you control or influence, there is obviously a potential for corruption. And that's the last thing that we should have inside the Liberal Party."

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Liberal powerbroker Michael Photios 'took one for the team' - The Sydney Morning Herald

This week has not been great for free speech in the U.S. The Trump administration excluded certain news outlets from an informal briefing with Sean Spicer, Republican lawmakers across the U.S. have been introducing bills aimed at curbing protesting in at least 18 states, and Betsy DeVos decided to reinforce the dubious argument that universities currently pose a threat to free speech. In her words, she claimed that The faculty, from adjunct professors to deans, tell you what to do, what to say, and more ominously, what to think. They say that if you voted for Donald Trump, youre a threat to the university community. But the real threat is silencing the First Amendment rights of people with whom you disagree.

This is not a new argument, nor is it factual, but it is one that has gained an inordinate amount of support from many on the left and on the right. The right has been waging a campaign against liberal academics for decades and opposition to political correctness has proven to be a highly effective political strategy. The myth of the liberal campus functions as a broad generalization that paints all college campuses as bastions of liberal indoctrination without accounting for the differences and diversity in those institutions. This myth is particularly dangerous in that it diverts our attention from actual threats to some forms of speech on college campuses while serving as a useful tool for those who wish to divest in public education. What follows is a list of the current arguments that serve as the foundation for the myth of the liberal campus and an analysis of why their validity should be questioned.

Argument: Liberal Faculty Members are Using Classrooms to Promote Their Agenda

One of the assumptions in the myth of the liberal campus is that simply because one has progressive values they therefore teach progressive ideologies. Nicolas Kristof laments the fact that so few Republicans are represented amongst faculty on college campuses, but this presumes that ones party affiliation correlates with how one might teach math or science or english. A chemist who voted for Clinton or Sanders isnt necessarily going to teach a progressive form of biochemistry, yet we assume because someone is a Marxist or a progressive, they are necessarily teaching in their discipline using that lens.

Secondly, this presumes that all faculty members, even when the very nature of their discipline is political, are able to speak freely on these issues without fear of consequence. Given that most college faculty do not currently have the tenured protections of academic freedom, most professors are unlikely to even engage in any sort of political conversation for fear of termination or student retribution. Untenured faculty on the campus where I teach are fearful of discussing anything that could even be perceived as political for fear of termination. This chilling effect prevents even general discussions related to that which could be seen as political and therefore partisan. This fear has only increased with the knowledge that conservative groups are openly encouraging students to videotape their professors to try and catch them in the act of so-called indoctrination.

And, as many of us who teach in higher education know, due to massive budget cuts across across the nation, universities more heavily rely on adjunct and graduate student labor to try and save money. Kevin Birmingham notes that, Tenured faculty represent only 17 percent of college instructors. Part-time adjuncts are now the majority of the professoriate and its fastest-growing segment. From 1975 to 2011, the number of part-time adjuncts quadrupled. And the so-called part-time designation is misleading because most of them are piecing together teaching jobs at multiple institutions simultaneously. A 2014 congressional report suggests that 89 percent of adjuncts work at more than one institution; 13 percent work at four or more. And, as Trevor Griffey points out, The vast majority of college faculty in the United States today are ineligible for tenure.

Given the fact that most classes around the country are taught by adjunct professors who have no job security and even less academic freedom in the classroom, even if that professor despised Donald Trump or conservative ideologies, what is the likelihood that she would actually engage in a 30 minute Trump bashing rant simply because she either has the platform or the captive audience? Entirely unlikely. Yet again, when we generalize about all faculty, we fail to discern between who actually has the power and privilege to go on such a rant at all, let alone discuss anything that could be perceived as political in nature.

Lastly, this presumes that simply because one teaches in higher education, they arent actually a professional capable of divorcing their own political ideologies from their work. The progressive academic advisor is still capable of giving her students advice on transfer opportunities without delving into the political subject of the day in the same way the conservative math professor is capable of teaching calculus without telling students who he voted for in the last election.

Argument: Look At Whats Happening At Berkeley!

Those who criticize the free speech problem on all college campuses tend to routinely point to those campuses that make headlines like Berkeley or Yale. The reality is that the small number of campuses making headlines arent actually reflective of most institutions of higher education. According to Jonathan Zimmerman, author of Campus Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford University Press, 2016) There are over 4,000 places to get a B.A. in the United States. And most of them look nothing like the colleges that you see on TV, or if youre from the upper middle class like the one you attended. Those of us in that class assume that you start college when youre 18, that you live as well as study there, and that you graduate in four years. But most of our students dont fit those patterns at all. Half of all undergraduates attend community colleges, which are rarely residential and serve an enormous range of age groups.

As with most mainstream corporate news coverage, that which is the most sensational makes headlines. But most campuses dont look anything like Berkeley or Yale. My campus rarely makes headlines unless were asked to reduce more services to students due to funding cuts. But those stories of how my students lack advisors or mental health counseling because the state continues to cut millions from our budget arent as juicy as Milo Yiannopoulos getting yelled at by Berkeley protesters. These stories simply do not reflect the experience of many students, yet serve to reinforce only the most negative of stereotypes. My students are kind and tolerant but theyre also adults and dont shy away from difficult conversations. Most of my students work 2 or 3 jobs. They are parents and grandparentsmany of them the first in their families to pursue a college degree. If you truly think all college students are entitled snowflakes, I have a hard time believing youve ever met one. Sadly, however, these types of students arent the ones getting airtime.

Argument: Universities Silence Conservative Speech and Ideologies

One of the primary narratives surrounding campus speech is that universities are hypocritical since they claim to value diverse voices but actively work to silence conservative leaning speech or ideas. What this argument fails to point out is how conservative legislators and watch groups have been actively targeting what they consider leftist or radical views on campuses for decades. If those on the right claim to support all speech from all groups as a bedrock of freedom, why restrict or target certain types of speech? As Jason Blakely argues, One of the more troubling examples of this is the attempt to stigmatize certain professors through the website ProfessorWatchList.org, which compiles lists of professors that purportedly need to be monitored due to their radical agenda. This website professes to fight for free speech and the right for professors to say whatever they wish but at the same time it publicly isolates professors whose perspective is seen as offensive or shocking to conservative students. Through the use of this website students can now know before they ever walk into their college classrooms if their professor is too radical to take seriously (or perhaps even too radical to take the class). At best the website serves as a massive trigger warning for conservative-leaning students; at worst it is a modern Scarlet Letter.

This also ignores patterns of attempts by conservative lawmakers to try and legislate whose voices get heard on college campuses. In Iowa, Senator Mark Chelgren proposed that universities gather voter-registration data for prospective instructors to ensure a balance of conservative voices on campus. In Wisconsin, as Donald P. Moynihan writes, At least three times in the past six months, state legislators have threatened to cut the budget of the University of Wisconsin at Madison for teaching about homosexuality, gender and race. . . . At the University of North Carolina, the board of governors closed a privately funded research center that studied poverty; its director had criticized state elected officials for adopting policies that he argued amounted to a war on poor people. Amid broader budget cuts here in Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker, without warning or explanation, tried to yank all the state funding for a renewable energy research center. On both private and public campuses, instructors who discuss race, gender, class, reproductive rights, elections or even just politics can find themselves subjected to attack by conservative groups like Media Trackers or Professor Watchlist. Faculty members in public institutions also have to worry about the possibility of having their email searched via Freedom of Information law requests. The ultimate audience for such trawling is lawmakers, who set the rules for public institutions. Indeed, a Media Trackers employee whose job included writing negative profiles of Wisconsin professors recently took a position with a state senator who likes to attack universities as being unfriendly to free speech.

Finally, this argument assumes all viewpoints are equally valid and good. The reason UW-Madison faculty criticized the state Department of Natural Resources for scrubbing its website of language that stated human activity is causing climate change isnt because those faculty members are tree-hugging lefties who hate jobs, but because human influence on climate is supported by sound peer reviewed evidence. The reason you wont find climate change deniers working in ecology departments on college campuses is because that idea does not hold up to scrutiny and hard evidence. As Caroline Levine argues, Say what you want about professors, but we spend our lives pursuing the truth. This means relentlessly interrogating what we think we know, and pushing ourselves to ask questions that feel, even to ourselves, uncomfortable. We insist on evidence and logic to support our claims. All of our publications are subject to rigorous peer review by experts around the world. We cant win tenure unless the most respected people in the field confirm that we have produced original and valuable knowledge. We are not paid by lobbyists. We do not earn more or less money if we take one position rather than another. And so were free to explore unpopular hypotheses, and some of these turn out to be true.

Yes, instructors demand that students use evidence to support their ideas. Yes, we demand that that evidence not come from the first website you may have stumbled on in your initial Google search. But thats a very different argument than saying faculty discriminate between conservative and liberal ideas. In my class, I ask my students to conduct library research and to use peer reviewed data so that they are making claims based on the best evidencenot simply a topic that aligns with my personal worldview. And this is where we tend to conflate evidence with liberal ideology.

As Bill Hart Davidson writes, Ironically, the most strident calls for safety come from those who want us to issue protections for discredited ideas. Things that science doesnt support AND that have destroyed livesthings like the inherent superiority of one race over another. Those ideas wither under demands for evidence. They *are* unwelcome. But lets be clear: they are unwelcome because they have not survived the challenge of scrutiny. The resistance I see is from people who cant take that scrutiny and who cant defend their ideas. They know it. They are afraid of it. So they accuse us of shutting them out. They cant win, and so they insist the game is rigged. The answer is more simple: they are weak. Bring a strong ideaone accompanied by evidenceand it will always win. Thats the beauty of the place where I work. Good ideas thrive. Bad ones wither and die, as they should.

In this post-truth era of fake news and my YouTube video is just as credible as your peer reviewed journal article, we must support those who are regularly pursuing truth and knowledge for the sake of pursuing truth and knowledge and challenge the false assumption that teaching critical thinking is the same as liberal indoctrination. This means supporting the few areas in the U.S. where this type of work is still happening, one being on college campuses.

Argument: The faculty, from adjunct professors to deans, tell you what to do, what to say, and more ominously, what to think

This is perhaps, I think, the most egregious claim of them all for it essentially presumes that students are so gullible and incapable of free thought, professors can shape their minds and turn them into bots in mere seconds. This line of thinking comes mostly from those who have never taught in a college classroom or who have never actually interacted with a college student. And this is where I would welcome anyone of any political stripes to come and sit in on my classes. My students are brilliant. They work hard, they are kind, and they are capable of thinking for themselves. My job is to get them to think critically; my job is not to tell them what to think. My job is to teach them to question the validity of sources, to learn how to conduct research, and asking them to question authority, even if that authority is me.

I am incredibly proud of the fact that I regularly have students of all political backgrounds enrolling in my classes semester after semester because they know they will be treated with dignity. Last year I won the teaching excellence award on my campus, an award voted on by the student body and given to an instructor of the highest caliber every year. I note this not because I enjoy bragging about my accomplishments but because I, like most everyone I work with, takes such great pride in teaching well and making sure every voice and every student in our classes feels valuedeven if those students are white supremacists or Holocaust deniers. We go to extraordinary lengths to make sure we dont stifle speech in our classes, but that we do create an environment where students must engage with each other civilly. If demand for civility and evidence based reasoning is liberal indoctrination, then yes, I am guilty of that.

So what has changed and why should we worry? Years of divestment in public education and the demonization of intellectualism and expertise has created a culture in which we need people who can teach critical thinking skills now more than ever yet those same people are routinely painted as enemies of the state. Arguments about faculty as thought police on college campuses only reinforces the narrative that these institutions no longer serve the public and that they are no longer a public good. The myth of the liberal campus allows legislators to threaten to withhold funding from institutions where they feel their voices arent getting a fair shake. And when legislators pit taxpayers against university faculty (forgetting faculty employed by the state are, in fact, also taxpayers) we set up a system whereby politicians can argue that states need not fund higher education since these institutions are just imposing liberal agendas in their classrooms. This not only defies logic but also reality. If liberal professors were so good at indoctrinating students, how did Trump outperform Clinton by a 4-point margin amongst white college graduates? If liberal indoctrination were real, how did Betsy DeVos make it through college without adhering to a radical political agenda? Sadly, for many, this reality doesnt matter. What matters is only the illusion that liberal campuses are real, that they are un-American, that those who work there hate free speech and expression, and that they serve no use to anyone. When enough citizens believe this to be true, asking states to invest in education will be impossible.

If you are truly worried about the state of college campuses, visit one. Come to my classes. See for yourselves the level of thoughtful debates and dialogues that happen in most classrooms. But please, stop demonizing faculty and students based on crude stereotypes. This is a dangerous fiction, one created by those who see no value in public education and who dont actually care about the welfare of students on these campuses. These discussions serve as a distraction from the real threats to higher education and we all need to do a better job of dismissing them as such.

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The Myth Of The Liberal Campus - Huffington Post

The Hindu

Democracy liberal enough in UK for defaulters to stay: Jaitley The Hindu Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has said democracy is liberal enough in the U.K. to permit defaulters to stay there and that normal needs to be cracked, in an apparent reference to liquor baron Vijay Mallya, who is wanted in India for loan default and ... and more »

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Democracy liberal enough in UK for defaulters to stay: Jaitley - The Hindu

We tell ourselves stories in order to live. Joan Didion said that in 1979, and it is the phrase Ive had pounding in my head as America endures the early stages of the Trump administration. An uncharitable reading of Didions statement is We lie to ourselves to feel important but that feels reductive. Lies are tiny mistruths, told for profit or to shift blame. Stories are necessary fictions, and the meanings they create are as valid as the truths created from chaos. But which stories we tell ourselves matter. Occasionally, our stories get repeated so often, we forget to challenge them.

For instance, youve heard this one,that 2016 was the worst year in human history! Yes, in 2016 the death camps of Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen were in full effect, the American slave trade raged on, manifest destiny created the Trail of Tears, the World Trade Center imploded, the trench warfare of the first world war kills thousands every day, as Pol Pot, Josef Stalin and Chairman Mao murder millions of dissenters, and that was before an assassins bullet passed through Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi, before lodging itself into the gas tank of the plane carrying Richie Valens, the Big Bopper and Buddy Holly, which then exploded into the city of Hiroshima incinerating thousands. Im not positive that all of those events happened in 2016, but George Michael died, and that caused a lot of well-paid pundits to declare it the worst year in history.

Of course, we all know 2016s mortal sin. Donald Trump promised the world an ocean of shit, and America decided to snorkel in it. President Barack Obama was an imperfect leader heading an imperfect system, but even his critics concede hes intelligent, thoughtful and doesnt routinely talk about how badly he wants to have sex with his children. We traded that for a man who treats women the way an arcade claw treats a stuffed animal.

Since the inauguration, great swaths of the left have accomplishedimpressive feats. The width and breadth of the protests has been staggering. The town hall protests are enlivening and reinvigorating debate. Still, while actual liberals are forming a resistance to Donald Trumps America, the fake liberalism of the cosmetic left as represented and served back to its audience by many online-media platforms, including at times this lovely website here tells us to double down on what weve been doing all along. Sure, it may not help anyone, but at least we can warm ourselves in the beaming light of our own smirk.

The legacy of the 2016 election is that it turned too many of us into a nation of children. Its hard to argue for our nations maturity when our leader tweets like an unmedicated preteen and thinks, No puppet! Youre the puppet! is a cogent debate response. But leftists have acted as tribal as conservatives. Am I saying liberals are more childish than conservatives? No, but if our reaction is They did it first it doesnt help our argument. But I am saying if liberals dont change who we are forget about the right-wingers were doomed to look back at 2016 as a golden age of nuance and tolerance. We are telling ourselves the wrong stories.

* * *

Donald Trump is a child, but he was elected because too many of us became children. How many times did you hear harmonica-playing Tim Kaine being called Americas stepfather? Or how Hillary Clinton talked to the electorate like a substitute teacher? Pundits say this with a smirk: The humor stems entirely from the assumption that we share their upper-class urban backgrounds. Every time I would hear this, Iwould look at the newscaster and think, But youre 40. Why are you talking like a child? Why do we look to the authority figures of our childhood when we talk about politics? Because, like children, we observe society and wait for it to be handed to us.

Our politicians treat us like children, our media talks to us like children, and so how does the cosmetic left react? By rolling their eyes and saying Ugh! and Thats not OK! With think pieces about multicultural emojis and by reveling in how many famous people agree with them. You know, like adults.

After President Barack Obama was re-elected, Republicans did an election postmortem and came up with a strategy to appeal to a broader base. They then ignored it and won with Donald Trump. Forthe 2016 postmortem, liberals, because we tend to lean toward compassion, blamed the poor. We didnt phrase it that way, of course. We blamed hillbillies, rednecks, trailer trash, as though this hasnt always been prep-school code for poor people. How, we asked, could they vote for someone so opposed to their own interests?

I dont understand why we look down on people who vote against their own interests. For one, why do you assume you know their interests? If you believe every abortion is the systemic murder of a child by the state, then whether you get an earned income credit on your taxes seems unimportant. Also, putting the good of the country ahead of your own pocketbook? I salute you, my noble friend, and wish you had a less idiotic idea of whats good for the country.

Because we are inundated with childish stories, we interpret reality in childish ways. Conservatives werent the people who disagree with us. In superhero movies or cowboy melodramas set in space, the bad guys dont disagree with the good guys as much as they want them sacrificed to their dark lord. Because were certain were the heroes, the election becomes about defeating an evil culture.

Culture matters. In fact, in politics, its all that matters. How many positions would Trump have to change for you to vote for him? When Trump said hed replace Obamacare with health care for everybody, did your mind change? We vote to tell others the sort of person we want to be. Thats why pollsters know who youre voting for by the music you listen to, the neighborhood you live in and a thousand other elements that have nothing to do with whether or not you read the news. Its why the next time Beyonc releases an album or Woody Allen releases a movie, you already know how your favorite websites will react. In art criticism, the aesthetic quality of the work matters less than what our opinion of the art says about us. In politics, the policy doesnt matter; its what our vote says about us.

* * *

Are people who voted for Donald Trump racist? Its tempting to look at a Confederate flag at a Trump rally and extrapolate that to symbolizing everyone there. When a couple of Bernie Sanders supporters waved a hammer and sickle flag to protest a Trump speech, did that delegitimize Sanders message? If people think Bernie Sanders is advocating communism and point to that hammer and sickle flag as proof, wed call that hysteria.

Trumps supporters say they are worried about jobs, about economic insecurity, but we, the enlightened we, know better. Really, they are racists, whether they know it or not. We have reached the saturation point of calling things we dont like racist, but havent offered a succinct, coherent definition of racist. All people have inherent biases, which surface even when we fight against them. If thats the qualification for racism, then the word racist is a useless adjective, as it can apply to any person or piece of art. It also defangs the word. Trump still believes the Central Park Five are guilty even after they were exonerated. That is so racist. Like in the way A Christmas Story was racist? Or are we talking white-women-who-belly-dance levels of racism?

Look, Donald Trump has been an asshole ever since he crawled out of his mothers asshole. Im not forgiving the racism of the Muslim ban, the border wall or his equivocating on David Duke. But the Washington Redskins have a racist name, and that doesnt mean their fans are racist. To say everyone who voted for Trump is racist is the logical equivalent of saying, If you voted for Clinton, you support the Iraq War. Maybe you personally didnt support the Iraq War, but by voting for a woman who voted for the war, you support carpet bombings and drone strikes. Its worth noting that as toxic as Donald Trump has been, he has not as of yet done anything as bad as voting for the Iraq War.

* * *

On her first show after the election, Samantha Bee, the comedic equivalent of a Facebook share if you agree post, said, America has done the diplomatic equivalent of installing an above-ground pool. Even in the best case scenario and it doesnt seep into the foundation, our neighbors will never look at us in the same way again.

Who has above-ground pools? Poor people of all races. Rural people with yards. The joke is simply Poor people who try to act rich are tacky. People who dont have the money to get a proper pool are an embarrassment, and they should be more concerned with the judgment of neighbors than their own happiness.

Does that attitude matter to people? One of my best friends a woman from West Virginia who organizes labor unions and has received commendations from the Obama White House said when she heard Bees above-ground pool joke, she instantly felt like the poorest kid in class. She organizes unions and had everything at stake in Clinton winning, but to Bee she was just the stupid, poor kid from astupid, poor state. That is the flip side of identity politics. It doesnt matter what she does only who she is.

Obviously, whites arent underserved by the media. But rural people who arent just white, Im embarrassed to have to remind the press are wildly underserved by the media.

Do you remember the storms last summer in Washington that caused flash flooding, killing 23 people and destroyed 1,200 homes? No? Because it didnt happen in Washington; it happened in West Virginia. As such, it was the fourth leading story on CNN, and it disappeared from the national news in a day.

But do you remember Hurricane Sandy battering New York and New Jersey four years ago? The storm that not only helped alter the 2012 election, but also the 2016 Republican primary? The one that led coverage of every TV channel and was on the cover of Time despite it being right before a presidential election? Of course you do because it happened to New York. Thirty-seven people died in Hurricane Sandy, and I dont want to minimize that loss but isnt there something unequal about the attention paid to an urban tragedy and to a rural tragedy? A neutral observer would conclude that a city life is more valuable than a country life.

The media is created in a few pockets of America but only in cities. If an actor plays a character from South Boston with a Worcester accent, they get savaged by critics and professional wiseasses for years. Yet when actors play characters from anywhere from southern Maryland to San Antonio, they throw the exact same accent think Foghorn Leghorn after drinking a bourbon laced with Rohypnol that no human has ever had and they walk away with Oscars. These are small slights, but they matter. These are subtle ways to tell people theyre unworthy of accurate representation.

The great secret about the white working class is that it doesnt exist. It is an arbitrarily divided subset of the working class, akin to the right-handed working class. Donald Trump did better with blacks and Latinos than Mitt Romney. Trump did worse with whites than Barack Obama. Im not dismissing the role race played in this election, but when we think about it in simplistic terms my side versus racists we tell ourselves a false story. We identify false separations: the white working class versus the black working class versus the Hispanic working class. We neglect the very real division between urban and rural or wealthy and the poor.

The rich people who run your favorite left-wing websites arent really liberal. At best, theyre progressive fashion police. Constant carping about which movies get awarded, which jokes are acceptable, which millionaire celebrities we lionize isnt about improving anyones lives. Its about identifying a uniform.

Uniforms are childish. They invite judgment and show pride. Our culture is our uniform, but what has our cosmetic-left culture given us? Half-wit comedians making endless jokes about poor people, dumbass websites that repost celebrity gossip as breaking news, flaccid sarcasm, corporate feminist lip service, circle-jerk op-eds about Star Wars and Ghostbusters? All of which are so persuasive that we have Donald Trump as our president? Im a liberal, but I dont want to wear this liberals uniform.

* * *

So what now? While smoke was still rising from the wreckage of the election, they told us to fight. Dont give an inch. Stay strong and fight. The people asking us to fight are the same people who lost the election. The method of fighting involves giving money.

Im done fighting. Im done with militaristic language. When we give our police tanks and automatic weapons and treat them like soldiers, they think the neighborhoods they police are war zones. If we talk about politics as a war zone, then we think of the other side as our enemy. Im fine regarding Donald Trump as my enemy. But what about someone who feels left out of the Obama recovery or who disagrees about the carbon tax? What about someone who hasnt forgiven Clinton for her Iraq War vote, or someone who, already insecure about her place in society, felt insulted when Clinton said deplorable? I disagree, but they arent my enemy.

Id rather work than fight. How do you work for a more humane, interesting and complex leftism? The same way you fight for it which is to say, I dont know. Theres a reason why the details of the fight turn as foggy as dreams as soon as anyone asks for specifics. Because they are basically telling you to keep doing what youre doing. Dig deeper into your culture. Feel more pride.

The cosmetic liberal believes this kiddie-pool tidal wave of snark, outrage and self-gratification is the only thing holding back the abyss. But if the fight consists of watching TV and yelling problematic! then what good is our fight?

On Sunday during the Oscars, we will more likely hear from someone who believes that the intergalactical lord Xenu sent aliens down to populate the Earth than hear from someone who supports Trump. You already know the jokes tiny hands, weird hair, Yuuuge and you already know the headlines. Celebrity DESTROYS Donald Trump. You also know no one will challenge the crowd or show actual courage.

When Meryl Streep lambasted Donald Trump at the Golden Globes, did she risk anything? She spoke to a crowd of people whoidolize her and already agree with her. That doesnt make her wrong but dont pretend she showed an iota of courage. But where this sort of fight turns from useless to insidious is when Streep takes pains to insult football and mixed martial arts, which are not the arts. I plead ignorance to mixed martial arts, but I imagine the practitioners are born with natural gifts and then work to hone their talents until they can ply their trade professionally. That is no different than what an actor or a football player or a writer or a drummer or a dancer does. Why does Streep exclude football players and martial artists? Because their art makes too much of a difference, it touches too many people, many of whom dont already agree with her. Streep is the greatest actor Hollywood has ever produced, but does she think more people watch Florence Foster Jenkins than a random Week 7football game? Football has millions more blue-collar fans, more black fans, more female fans, more Hispanic fans, more gay fans than August: Osage County or whatever semi-compelling Oscar-bait movie shell be nominated for next year. But to reach them, we have to respect them enough to persuade them. That takes effort, so its better to dismiss that art and that culture.

Ive always thought that conservatives lived in a bubble. They do. That bubble isnt so close to reality that it brings the property values down, but its the suburb of realitys city. But this election has made me know I live in a bubble as well. My bubble is in reality (close, at least our kids go to the same school and we see each other in the grocery store) but it distorts my thinking. Understanding that and knowing that my story is subjective, I can meet the Trump administration like an adult.

Ultimately, thats the lesson of our election. Our media and our politicians treat us like children, and we subsequently act like children. Those squabbling about Ghostbusters or the Oscars, who genuinely think theyre improving the world by doing so, may be right or wrong, but they are childish. If we tell ourselves stories in order to live, lets also tell ourselves stories in order to grow.

When we blame a year, were blaming ghosts. When we regard our opponents as devils, were engaging in magic. I dont know the efficacy of marches or sit-ins. I dont know if financial boycotts will work, but if refusing to stay at Trump hotels, or not buying any product that advertises on far-right websites, or hiring Polish rather than Russian prostitutes to pee on you makes you a kinder and more complex person, then follow that path. I can say an activism that consists of hashtags, catchphrases, GIFs, celebrity worship and disdain for the poor is neither liberal nor effective. The cosmetic left needs to grow the fuck up.

Donald Trump isnt something that happened to us; its something we created. The Americans who disagree with you arent your enemies but your co-authors. Theyre struggling through the current moment as well, but whatever we create together, we will own forever. Instead of creating a false world of self-congratulations, of the personal affirmation of the like button, instead of the relentless promotion of who we are, lets talk about what we do. The cosmetic left embraced the simple story, with flawless heroes, predictable jokes and snarling villains. But if America is our creation and we are flawed but honest storytellers it deserves a complicated story rather than a morality tale.

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Outgrowing the cosmetic left: A liberal plea for fake liberalism to grow up - Salon

President Donald Trump got an eyeful of red, white and blue after two liberal activists handed out nearly 1,000 Russian flags to unwitting attendees of the Conservative Political Action Conference.

Ryan Clayton, 36, and Jason Charters, 22 both members of Americans Take Action handed out the Russian Federation flags inside and outside of CPAC, which they emblazoned with the word "TRUMP" in gold letters.

Clayton and Charters said the prank went better than expected because most of the wavers did not recognize the flag's country of origin, forcing CPAC staffers to confiscate the free "souvenirs."

"The amount of people who didn't know the flag was astonishing," said Charters, who added that most attendees were excited to be given the flags.

Director of Communications for the American Conservative Union Ian Walters, the organization that puts on the conference, did not immediately respond for comment.

The two liberal organizers said the plot was hatched because they wanted to bring attention to the allegations that the Russian government was involved in an operation to interfere in the American election, which U.S. intelligence officials have said evolved into an attempt to help Trump win.

"It makes a great point. We shouldn't have foreign powers picking our president," said Clayton, who heads Americans Take Action.

"Some call it a false flag operation," Clayton added. "I like to call it a true flag operation because Trump's definitely the wrong kind of red, white and blue."

While Clayton and Charters handed out flags, they used Russian accents and shouted comparisons of Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

They said the prank was well-received by many who have reached out to them since it went viral on social media.

"Most people are telling us, 'Thank you for being our voice in that place to Donald Trump,'" Clayton said.

CPAC staffers kicked out Clayton three times from the conference, and Charters got the boot once. Charters was escorted outside by security after he stood up during Trump's speech and called Trump "Putin's puppet" and a "fascist."

"We think his values are fundamentally un-American and he is a danger to the issues we most care about," Charters said.

Americans Take Action is a liberal activist group that strives to have the president impeached and for three additional goals. They question the fairness of American elections and aim to better their quality, support a purpose-driven economy and want to fight any threat to internet freedom.

Charters and Clayton believe that the majority of Americans are worried that there is an unexplored relationship between the president and Russia. Trump said at a press conference last week that he has no deals with the country, and "I have nothing to do with Russia."

"Most Americans feel like something is wrong here," Charters said. "They feel it in their gut. There is a weird connection between this guy in the Oval Office and the people in Russia."

A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll said the two might not be wrong. More than half of Americans believe that Congress should investigate whether Donald Trump's presidential campaign had contact with the Russian government in 2016.

Their immediate future isn't quite clear, but this isn't the final statement for Americans Take Action. According to Charters and Clayton, they'll continue as long as Trump is in office.

"We've been doing these types of actions for a while," Clayton said. "And we'll continue to do them until President Trump gets impeached."

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Liberal Activists' Prank Had Some at CPAC Waving Russian 'Trump' Flags - NBCNews.com

The hysteria concerning the alleged Russian interference in the US presidential election appears to be a mirror projection of techniques that have been used against Russia, with little or no success, with the aim of interfering in its political processes. While the propaganda campaign aimed at Russia has sought to foster the impression that the countrys media is strictly controlled, in actuality the liberal opposition newspapers and radio stations have in the past run articles and stories that, due to their nature, would be unthinkable in the free West. Controversial stories over the last few years have included:

These media outlets main audience is not the Russian public but rather Western funders and supporters. Novaya Gazeta funding sources include the Netherlands and the Soros Foundation. The Dozhd TV Channel financing is opaqueits owners claim they are financing the project using own funds, which must be bottomless considering the channel has not turned a profit since it began operating. Ekho Moskvy is receiving financial support from the Voice of America Broadcasting Board of Governors, which is also supporting other liberal news outlets. These and other Russian media outlets figure prominently in the Fiscal Year 2017 proposed federal budget appropriation for the US State Department. Moreover, journalists working for these outlets have received a broad array of awards for journalism issued by a number of Western governments and West-controlled so-called non-governmental organizations.

Another example of a Internet media outlet created in order to push the pro-liberal agenda is Meduza. It was financed by opposition oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovskiy and so-called anonymous investors. In spite of Meduza being registered and based in Latvia, it focuses on the Russian audience and is promoting globalist agenda in Russia.

In addition to resources which are openly promoting anti-Russian propaganda, there is an array of major media outlets whose informational policy demonstrates they are pursuing political goals quite divorced from Russias interests as a sovereign state.

In the meantime, genuinely accomplished investigative journalists such as Julian Assange are facing politically motivated prosecutions, and there are efforts to exclude English-language Russia-based media such as RT and Sputnik from Western markets for allegedly spreading propaganda.

This state of affairs also raises the question why is the Russian government tolerant of media beholden to foreign sponsors. Part of the answer lies with the guarantees of the freedom of speech and press contained in the Russian Constitution, though the support of these outlets by important factions of the economic and political elite also plays a rolethe Ekho Moskvy radio station is part of the Gazprom Media Holding, for example. Ultimately, however, the relatively unfettered existence of these media is a reflection of the Russian governments confidence in its policies and its popular support, in sharp contrast to the panicked fake news reaction to the loss of Hillary Clinton that resulted in widespread calls to limit the freedom of speech in Western countries, lest the wrong candidates win elections.

Still, this is an intolerable state of affairs, a leftover from the 1990s era of Russias political and economic weakness, when it seemed it might become nothing more than a politically impotent supplier of raw materials to the West. Any genuine reset of Russia-West relations will require the West to respect the inviolability of Russias political institutions and processes in the same way that the West demands respect for theirs.

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Russia's Liberal Media's Foreign Sponsors - Center for Research on Globalization