Category Archives: Liberal

Fiona Kotvojs will be the Liberal Party's candidate for the upcoming by-election in the state seat of Bega.

The beef and truffle farmer from Dignams Creek on the NSW South Coast beata number of other locals in the pre-selection, including Merimbula Eden Liberals President Scott Kennedy.

Dr Kotvojs was narrowly defeated at the 2019 Federal Election and during the 2020 by-election for the Federal seat of Eden-Monaro.

She said it's important to have a local run for the Liberals in the state by-election.

"I'm a local, I'm a small business owner and I'm a farmer I also assess government programs," she said.

"We need someone who can advocate well for our communities and I want to be the person who represents our community."

The seat of Bega has been held by the Liberal Party since1988.

The by-election was triggered by Bega MP and former NSW treasurer and transport minister Andrew Constance's decision to resign from state politics for a tilt at the federal seat of Gilmore.

Mr Constance held the seat since 2003, which is currently a safe Liberal seatwith a 6.9 per cent margin.

The ABC's election analyst Antony Green breaks down everything you need to know about the NSW seat of Bega, and the upcoming by-election.

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet made the announcement during a visit to Begathat Ms Kotvojs will contest the seat in the by-electionearly next year.

"I know she has the skillset and will follow in Andrew Constance's footsteps," he said.

"I've known Andrew for many years, and he's been a passionate advocate, and they are the onesthat get things done."

"Andrew has done that in Bega and I know that Fiona will continue that in the Bega Electorate."

Andrew Constance reflected on his time as local state MP and his plans for federal politics.

"I think our region is in great shape and I leave it in abetter place than I found it," he said.

"It's a sad day but I won't going far, and hopefully the Eurobodalla get's the benefit of a Kotvojs/Constance partnership."

Mr Constance is one of four people who have nominated for Liberal preselection in Gilmore.

The Gilmore Liberal Federal Electoral Conference has been promised a plebiscite for the preselection, after it blamed the loss of the seat to Labor at the 2019election on thePrime Minister's decision to parachute in Warren Mundine as the Liberal candidate.

Fiona Kotvojs used her campaign launch to focus on her local connections.

"This is where my heart is, Iwas born in the local hospital and I went to Bega High School," she said.

"Ilive right in the middle of the electorate, in DignamsCreek, where one side is Bega Valley and one is Eurobodalla."

Ms Kotvojs lost to Labor's Kristy McBain during last year's by-election for the Federal seat of Eden-Monaro.

However, she said she's confident in her ability to represent the community at a state level.

"Im a person who gets things done,"she said.

"I know that as we move forward with recovery recovery from the bushfires, covid and now the recent floods I know that we are going to need a strong and effective voice in government."

Merimbula Eden Liberals president Scott Kennedy also nominated for Liberal pre-selection but said he welcomes the decision.

"Fiona has been a Lifeline counsellor, RFS volunteer and a founder of the Gourmet Coast Trail," he said,

"The Bega Valley and Eurobodallas recovery needs a strong, stable and experienced Government and Fiona will give us this."

Labor is yet to announcea candidate for the seat but has indicated they intend to.

Read the rest here:

Fiona Kotvojs named Liberal nominee for Bega with the by-election slated for early next year - ABC News

US health officials have urged Americans to get booster shots, wear masks and be careful if they travel over the winter holidays, with the Omicron variant raging across the world and likely to take over as the dominant strain. The government is gearing up for the next phase of battle in a two-year fight against a virus that has killed more than 800,000 people and disrupted every aspect of daily life. Dr Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, told CBS' Face the Nation that the number of Omicron cases will go up steeply over the next two weeks. "A big message for today is if you've had vaccines and a booster, you're very well protected against Omicron causing you severe disease," he said. "So, anybody listening to this who's in that 60 per cent of Americans who are eligible for a booster but haven't yet gotten one: This is the week to do it. Do not wait." Omicron is multiplying rapidly, making COVID-19 vaccinations and booster shots more crucial than ever, chief White House medical adviser Anthony Fauci said on Sunday. Currently 27 per cent of US residents have not received even a single dose of vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "It is just, you know, raging through the world," Dr Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on NBC's Meet the Press. Omicron has so far been found in 43 out of 50 US states and around 90 countries worldwide. The number of cases is doubling every one-and-a-half to three days in areas with community transmission, the World Health Organization said on Saturday. In certain regions of the United States, 50 per cent of the COVID-19 tests genetically sequenced detected the Omicron variant, Dr Fauci told CNN, "which means it's going to take over". In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio urged residents to get vaccinated or get a booster shot and said the city would spend $US10 million on an advertising campaign to promote boosters. Colorado Governor Jared Polis, meanwhile, told NBC he was considering changing the definition of fully vaccinated in his state from two shots to three. "I wish they'd stop talking about it as a booster. It really is a three-dose vaccine," he said. President Joe Biden plans to give a speech on Tuesday about the rising COVID-19 case level, hammering home his message to unvaccinated Americans to get a shot and for those who are vaccinated to get a booster. Part of Biden's strategy is to focus on increased testing, Dr Fauci said. "We really need to flood the system with testing. We need to have tests available for anyone who wants them," he said. Hospitals in some parts of the country are already becoming strained by COVID-19 patients and things are likely to get worse, the health officials said. Neither Dr Fauci nor Dr Collins said vaccinated Americans should cancel travel plans - just wear a mask all the time in airports, on planes, trains and buses. "I'm not going to say you shouldn't travel, but you should do so very carefully," Dr Collins said. Australian Associated Press

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December 20 2021 - 8:44AM

US health officials have urged Americans to get booster shots, wear masks and be careful if they travel over the winter holidays, with the Omicron variant raging across the world and likely to take over as the dominant strain.

The government is gearing up for the next phase of battle in a two-year fight against a virus that has killed more than 800,000 people and disrupted every aspect of daily life.

Dr Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, told CBS' Face the Nation that the number of Omicron cases will go up steeply over the next two weeks.

"A big message for today is if you've had vaccines and a booster, you're very well protected against Omicron causing you severe disease," he said.

"So, anybody listening to this who's in that 60 per cent of Americans who are eligible for a booster but haven't yet gotten one: This is the week to do it. Do not wait."

Omicron is multiplying rapidly, making COVID-19 vaccinations and booster shots more crucial than ever, chief White House medical adviser Anthony Fauci said on Sunday.

Currently 27 per cent of US residents have not received even a single dose of vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"It is just, you know, raging through the world," Dr Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on NBC's Meet the Press.

Omicron has so far been found in 43 out of 50 US states and around 90 countries worldwide.

The number of cases is doubling every one-and-a-half to three days in areas with community transmission, the World Health Organization said on Saturday.

In certain regions of the United States, 50 per cent of the COVID-19 tests genetically sequenced detected the Omicron variant, Dr Fauci told CNN, "which means it's going to take over".

In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio urged residents to get vaccinated or get a booster shot and said the city would spend $US10 million on an advertising campaign to promote boosters.

Colorado Governor Jared Polis, meanwhile, told NBC he was considering changing the definition of fully vaccinated in his state from two shots to three.

"I wish they'd stop talking about it as a booster. It really is a three-dose vaccine," he said.

President Joe Biden plans to give a speech on Tuesday about the rising COVID-19 case level, hammering home his message to unvaccinated Americans to get a shot and for those who are vaccinated to get a booster.

Part of Biden's strategy is to focus on increased testing, Dr Fauci said.

"We really need to flood the system with testing. We need to have tests available for anyone who wants them," he said.

Hospitals in some parts of the country are already becoming strained by COVID-19 patients and things are likely to get worse, the health officials said.

Neither Dr Fauci nor Dr Collins said vaccinated Americans should cancel travel plans - just wear a mask all the time in airports, on planes, trains and buses.

"I'm not going to say you shouldn't travel, but you should do so very carefully," Dr Collins said.

Australian Associated Press

See the article here:

Omicron 'raging through the world': Fauci - Daily Liberal

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Parks Victoria will reveal whether it plans to reintroduce dingoes to The Grampians before the end of the year. The Greater Gariwerd Draft Landscape Management Plan was put out for community consultation earlier this year. A Parks Victoria spokesman said the plan was being finalised and would be released before the end of the year. "We've heard lots of feedback about the draft proposal to research the potential reintroduction of culturally significant animals to the Gariwerd landscape as summarised in the engagement report published earlier this year," the spokesman said. Southern Grampians Shire mayor Bruach Colliton wrote to the Minister for Agriculture about the draft proposal after the council passed a motion opposing the reintroduction of dingoes to The Grampians. "Whilst sensitive and supportive of recognising Indigenous history and culture, Southern Grampians Shire Council is concerned that a proposed release of current dingo species into a vast landscape in the heart of livestock farming will become a major animal welfare issue which will affect our livestock," Cr Colliton said. In its engagement report, Parks Victoria reveals that some respondents supported the reintroduction of dingoes, but most did not. "Many people, particularly local neighbours and farmers were concerned that dingoes would leave the park and hunt on neighbouring properties putting their livestock in danger," the report states. A number of people expressed safety concerns about camping in the park if dingoes were present. "Although I respect that dingoes were previously a part of the ecosystem, I would be concerned about reintroducing them in this area. I personally would not visit if I knew that dingoes are in the area," one respondent wrote. Member for Western Victoria Bev McArthur spoke about the draft plan in parliament recently. "This idea is so ludicrous, that when it was first floated locals didn't take it seriously - they simply didn't believe it was for real," Mrs McArthur said. "Unfortunately, they now know how crazy and contemptuous it is, so much so that 4000 people have signed a petition to stop it happening," Mrs McArthur said. She said tens of millions of dollars were spent in other grazing areas in Australia attempting to stop the damage that dingoes and wild dogs cause to farming. Leader of The Nationals and Shadow Minister for Agriculture Peter Walsh also spoke out about the proposal. "Wild dogs are a blight on our parks landscape, mauling livestock and native fauna to death or leaving injuries so traumatic the animal can't recover," Mr Walsh said this week.

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December 20 2021 - 7:00AM

Parks Victoria will reveal whether it plans to reintroduce dingoes to The Grampians before the end of the year.

The Greater Gariwerd Draft Landscape Management Plan was put out for community consultation earlier this year.

A Parks Victoria spokesman said the plan was being finalised and would be released before the end of the year.

"We've heard lots of feedback about the draft proposal to research the potential reintroduction of culturally significant animals to the Gariwerd landscape as summarised in the engagement report published earlier this year," the spokesman said.

Southern Grampians Shire mayor Bruach Colliton wrote to the Minister for Agriculture about the draft proposal after the council passed a motion opposing the reintroduction of dingoes to The Grampians.

"Whilst sensitive and supportive of recognising Indigenous history and culture, Southern Grampians Shire Council is concerned that a proposed release of current dingo species into a vast landscape in the heart of livestock farming will become a major animal welfare issue which will affect our livestock," Cr Colliton said.

In its engagement report, Parks Victoria reveals that some respondents supported the reintroduction of dingoes, but most did not.

"Many people, particularly local neighbours and farmers were concerned that dingoes would leave the park and hunt on neighbouring properties putting their livestock in danger," the report states.

A number of people expressed safety concerns about camping in the park if dingoes were present.

"Although I respect that dingoes were previously a part of the ecosystem, I would be concerned about reintroducing them in this area. I personally would not visit if I knew that dingoes are in the area," one respondent wrote.

Member for Western Victoria Bev McArthur spoke about the draft plan in parliament recently.

"This idea is so ludicrous, that when it was first floated locals didn't take it seriously - they simply didn't believe it was for real," Mrs McArthur said.

"Unfortunately, they now know how crazy and contemptuous it is, so much so that 4000 people have signed a petition to stop it happening," Mrs McArthur said.

She said tens of millions of dollars were spent in other grazing areas in Australia attempting to stop the damage that dingoes and wild dogs cause to farming.

Leader of The Nationals and Shadow Minister for Agriculture Peter Walsh also spoke out about the proposal.

"Wild dogs are a blight on our parks landscape, mauling livestock and native fauna to death or leaving injuries so traumatic the animal can't recover," Mr Walsh said this week.

Read more from the original source:

Decision on whether to reintoduce dingoes to The Grampians imminent - Daily Liberal

Trudeau and the newly sworn in ministers in Ottawa on Oct. 26, 2021 (Courtesy of Alex Ttreault/PMO)

On Sept. 20, voters returned a Parliament that will look a lot like the one Justin Trudeau was stuck with before he called the 2021 election. But one big thing did change. In conversation, senior Liberals were remarkably candid about discussing the last days of Justin Trudeaus government, and the prospect of a government led by somebody else.

Well, the PMs going to need legacy projects, one cabinet minister said, when invited to chat about the governments priorities.

Another member of Trudeaus inner circle was matter-of-fact in discussing the danger a leadership change would represent for the governing party. The Liberals had a decade of increasingly disappointing electoral outcomes before Trudeau became the leader, this person said. Its an open question whether Trudeaus tenure marked the end of those trends, or merely an extended break before the party declines again.

This sort of talk is new. In a party whose unity of purpose Trudeau did much to restore, its long been considered poor form, or wasted energy, for Liberals to contemplate the prospect of life without the leader who brought them back from the brink of irrelevance. This fall, that taboo lifted. Its as though a screw that had secured some plate in the Liberals psyche for nearly a decade had been loosened by one full counterclockwise turn. Suddenly Liberals are granting themselves licence to speculate. And so the biggest question in Canadian politics in 2022 is whether Justin Trudeau will still be Prime Minister when the year is done.

READ:Erin OToole, unresponsive

For what its worth, the man himself insists hes not leaving the top job anytime soon. At his first news conference after the election, a reporter asked Trudeau whether hell lead the party into the next election. He replied with an emphatic Yes!

Thats pretty much the only way you can answer a question like that. The moment you acknowledge an intention to leave, youre basically inviting everyone to ignore everything you say. But it may also simply be true. Trudeau has been Prime Minister for only six years. Voluntary departure from the jobbecause a PM is tired, or wants to arrange an orderly succession, or doesnt like their chances in the next electionis relatively rare, and normally comes after more than six years. Jean Chrtien gave up the job after a decade, under considerable pressure. Brian Mulroney hit the eject button after nearly nine years, dooming his successor Kim Campbell to a brutal electoral reckoning.

Only one prime minister has ever retired voluntarily by the seven-year mark, which is the milestone Trudeau is scheduled to hit in 2022. Lester Pearson retired in 1968, after not quite five years. But Pearson was over 70. Walking away from the best job youll ever have is a big decision, after all. And Trudeau, who has not yet made a decision about home renovations at 24 Sussex Drive, cannot be accused of being impetuous.

RELATED:Theres no you in Team Trudeau

But already the question of Trudeaus future is becoming a feature of political conversation. A Maru Public Opinion poll days after the September election found that 55 per cent of respondents thought Trudeau should step down. A Nanos poll two weeks later found that 36 per cent shared that opinion. Obviously, most of the people who want to see any leader go voted for a different party. But in both polls, Trudeau was mentioned more than other major party leaders as the one who should leave. If nothing else, these results suggest the PM has a tenuous grasp on the hearts of the nation.

Nowhere is it written that a political leader needs to be beloved. All they really need to do is win. In September Trudeau won his third consecutive election. Excellent work, but not all that rare. Seven of his predecessors also won three in a row, including Stephen Harper, Jean Chrtien and Pierre Trudeau. What would be truly unusual would be racking up a fourth consecutive win. Only John A. Macdonald and Wilfrid Laurier have ever managed it. (Mackenzie King, whose first and last days as prime minister were separated by nearly 27 years, lost a couple of times amid all the victories, breaking what would otherwise have been longer streaks.)

These considerations start to wear on a leader after a while. And on his team, which helps explain why the Trudeau inner circle has lately grown markedly more quitty. Catherine McKenna and Navdeep Bains once seemed to reside at the heart of Trudeauism. Bains played a key role at the summer retreat at Mont Tremblant in 2012 at which a small team of loyalists hatched and workshopped the Trudeau leadership project. Now both senior ministers have left. So have important political staffers whose lower public profile spared them from some of the indignities of elected office, people like Mike McNair, Elder Marques and Mathieu Bouchard.

MORE:All the good politicians are inMontreal

Every departed colleague stands as a reminder that theres life after politics, a life with more money and less public scrutiny. The temptation to chuck it and find a beach somewhere must always lurk in the background. Alain Jupp, who served briefly as Frances prime minister, gave this impulse a name with the title of his 1993 book, La Tentation de Venise, the temptation to drop everything and head to Venice. For Trudeau, the poster child for that temptation might be Barack Obama, whose U.S. presidency was capped by a constitutional term limit at eight years but who now makes more money from a single speech than he used to in a year.

Trudeau is likely to resist the siren song of a life away from politics for some time yet. But politics will change even before he leaves. Paul Martins ambition was a central feature of Liberal Party life for every day that Jean Chrtien was prime minister. Other party figures who thought they had the luxury of playing the waiting game more coolly than Martin eventually woke up with his footprints on their backs.

If youre Franois-Philippe Champagne or Mlanie Joly or Mark Carney or Anita Anandnames that often figure in speculation about Trudeau successorsyou have to ask yourself two questions, starting right now. First, are you going to be a candidate for leader? Second, is there a subtle way to stop Chrystia Freeland?

READ:The new conductor of Montreals orchestra looks like fun but sounds like business

Surely I deserve some credit for getting this far in an election speculation essay without mentioning Freeland, the finance minister, deputy prime minister and stalwart Trudeau defender. Shes not universally beloved among Liberals. Shes aloof toward caucus colleagues, pays little attention to most briefings from officials, and her oratorical skills land somewhere this side of spellbinding. But so what? Right now her occasional detractors are far outnumbered by those who think shed represent a substantial improvement over Trudeau in intellectual capacity, worldliness and the possession of a closet blessedly empty of skeletons. Almost alone among reputed pretenders to the throne, she has a network within the government of loyal staffers who could form the basis for a solid campaign organization.

Most importantly, her position as frontrunner is generally assumed. In the Liberal Party of Canada, such assumptions normally carry the weight of self-fulfilling prophecy. Liberals have been voting on their leaders since 1919. In all that time, with only a single exception, the winner has been the person who led on the first ballot. In fact, more often than not, there wasnt more than one ballot. The exception was Stphane Dion in 2006. He was in third place on the first ballot. His tenure as leader didnt go well. More than members of any other party, Liberals live to back winners. Offhand its hard to imagine why else anyone would want to be a Liberal. So if your name isnt Chrystia Freeland and you want to lead this party, you need to do more than make your case. You need to make yourself inevitable. And you dont have a week to spare.

Right now, Freelands detractors are far outnumbered by those who think shed represent a substantial improvement over Trudeau (Courtesy of Adam Scotti/Liberal Party of Canada)

But its probably early to be measuring the prospects of individual candidates who havent yet even identified themselves. Liberals face a bigger question: what kind of party do they want to be?

Whatever happens next, Justin Trudeau will almost certainly be remembered as a significant Liberal leader, not only for the way he brought an end to a terrifying decade-long losing streak, but because he provided novel answers to the question of what the Liberal party is for. The change he has wrought was perhaps clearest this past Sept. 14 in Brampton, when Trudeaus nervous and embattled campaign enlisted the help of Jean Chrtien to nail down voter support in the suburban ring around Toronto.

Chrtien peddled his trademark middle-of-the-road nostrums. Its not the time to move to the far right or to the far left, he intoned. It is the time to be in the middle. And the middle, he said, is where Canadians have always known theyd find the Liberal Party of Canada. The Liberal Party is the same party since 1867.

READ:Jason Kenney is sinking. How it all went wrong for him.

Surely Trudeau had to bite his tongue nearly in half to resist the urge to rebut the old man. Nobody in Trudeaus party talks about the centre. When presented with evidence of its existence, say in the person of Chrtien or John Manley or really anyone in a suit, Team Trudeaus normal instinct is to recoil. Trudeaus Liberal Party is a party of cultural combat, self-consciously designed first as a counterweight to Stephen Harpers Conservatism, then to Donald Trumps heady toxic stew, and now to anything that isnt Liberal. The location or even the existence of some purported centre simply doesnt enter into it.

If pressed to explain themselves, Trudeau Liberals would insist that, far from limiting its electoral fortunes, the contemporary partys wokeness has actually bolstered and ensured its electoral success. Trudeau didnt defeat any of three consecutive Conservative leaders thanks to his superior ability as an economic manager. He won as a superior reader of the cultural moment. He didnt win despite the bundle of diversity, reconciliation, feminism, climate activism and abortion rights that grates on earlier generations of Liberals like fingernails on a chalkboard. He won because of those stances, which put a solid floor under Liberal support and motivated a sufficient number of voters to believe they had something at stake in a Liberal victory.

If enough candidates show up for a post-Trudeau leadership campaign to make things interesting, they will surely debate the merits of a move to the centre. If there are enough candidates to debate, at least one will say: Sure, the six-year shopping spree started out fun and turned out to be crucial to getting through the COVID crisis. But now recess is over. Its time to rein in spending, attract foreign investors, grow the economy and do all the other responsible stuff a natural governing party used to worry about.

One of the other candidates will serve up a rebuttal that may sound like this: The centre only looks like the place where the votes are. Historically, the centre has often been where you find apathy and a demotivated electorate. Thats what Joe Clark and Tom Mulcair and Michael Ignatieff found, in three separate parties. The middle of the road is where you go to get run over.

RELATED:The broken triumph of Justin Trudeau

Itll be a fascinating debate, one the Liberals have avoided in public for most of a decade. It will also mark a moment of maximum danger for the party, because leadership changes give voters an excuse to shop around for alternatives. The current Conservative and NDP leaders replaced predecessors who were thought to be electoral under-performersand managed to attract even less of the popular vote. So did every Liberal leader between Chrtien and Trudeau. This, too, will wear on Trudeaus mind as he ponders his future: does he have the luxury of leaving a party that keeps winning elections under his leadership?

Anyone purporting to know Trudeaus mind on these questions is guessing. Hell let us know. Either post-election will drift into pre-election and it will be clear that Justin Trudeau is bidding to enter a pantheon so far occupied only by Laurier and Macdonald; or on some random morning hell invite Liberals to try their luck without him. All thats changed now is that the various considerations behind such a decision are now being discussed, just a little more openly, by the people wholl live with its consequences.

This column appears in print in the January 2022 issue of Macleans magazine with the headline, The life of the Party. Subscribe to the monthly print magazine here.

Read the rest here:

The future of the Liberal Partywithout Justin Trudeau - Macleans.ca

Liberal democracy in the UK, and across the western world, is under strain. After the most recent sleaze scandal to have hit Westminster, our polling shows that almost two in three people see politicians as out for themselves. In 1944, when this question was first put to the public, only one in three shared this view.

The leap of faith that voters make when they entrust a small group of people to govern on their behalf is extraordinarily powerful. It allows societies to make collective decisions democratically and efficiently without the need to involve everyone, all the time.

Yet it is also very fragile. Trust in politics is easily lost and hard to regain.

But regain it we must. The decline of trust in politics in the UK and in other liberal democracies over recent decades is damaging society. It is both cause and consequence of the rise in support for populist parties, rhetoric and causes, as well as growing polarisation, seen most clearly in the UK on Brexit.

Populist politicians have been far more successful at tapping into voters discontent with democratic politics in order to win power. From Donald Trump to Viktor Orbn, the populist right has proved its ability to channel peoples anger into illiberal policy agendas. Boris Johnsons government has not gone as far as this group but it is clearly drawing from the same playbook.

The problem is that the solutions put forward by populist leaders retreating into nativism, concentrating power centrally and combining big rhetoric on economic and social change with limited action fundamentally fail to grapple with the underlying causes of our democratic malaise and further deepen democratic decline.

Only a truly progressive reform agenda that seeks to increase both prosperity and justice simultaneously, and to renew representative democracy for the challenges of the future, can really allow people, in the words of the prime ministers former chief of staff, Dominic Cummings, to take back control.

Carys Roberts is executive director of the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR)

Continued here:

The loss of trust in politics in liberal democracies is damaging society - The Guardian

To listen to the liberal justices, one would think the Supreme Courts job is not to uphold the Constitution but to maintain public support.

Their boasted concern for the courts reputation should be largely irrelevant in decision-making other than in presuming they will be supported widely if they act in good faith interpreting the law. Filtering constitutional jurisprudence through public relations concerns is improper. It undermines the very Constitution the justices are sworn to uphold.

Yet, repeatedly during oral arguments in the Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health case on Mississippis new law restricting abortions, liberal justices harped on how overruling the super case the rare case, the watershed cases of Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey could be what kills us as an American institution.

All three phrases quoted above first came from remarks and questions from Justice Stephen Breyer. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wondered whether the Supreme Court will survive the stench that this creates in the public perception that the court has been politicized. Justice Elena Kagan worried about what people would be thinking about the high court.

These concerns amount to a misapplication of Chief Justice John Robertss stated preference for bolstering the Supreme Courts credibility and legitimacy by favoring narrower legal decisions that can secure near-unanimity rather than more sweeping rulings that split it 5-4 along ideological lines. Even that preference of Roberts is problematic, for it can leave key constitutional questions unanswered longer than necessary. At least, though, Roberts's predilection for delaying big constitutional concerns does not extend to making credibility superior to the Constitutions text.

Because seeking narrower decisions also often means ruling on statutory grounds rather than constitutional ones, Roberts's conception at least has the virtue of having the court defer to elected branches of government rather than seize a power to pronounce broad edicts on policy issues.

Yet in the Dobbs oral arguments, liberal justices sought to subvert the constitutional text just as they did in Casey three decades ago. Casey excused itself by explaining that it reaffirmed Roe's pro-abortion ruling in part because reversing it would weaken the Court's capacity to exercise the judicial power.

The Court's power lies, rather, in its legitimacy," Casey reads, "a product of substance and perception that shows itself in the peoples acceptance of the judiciary as fit to determine what the nations law means and to declare what it demands.

This assertion puts things inside out. First, the courts job is not to protect its own power and legitimacy, but to get the Constitution and statutes right. Second, to the extent that its legitimacy is at issue, it is undermined, not enhanced, by worrying about the publics perception rather than about the Constitutions text.

Finally, concern about the courts power is also backward. Our Constitution makes the people, not the Supreme Court, the arbiters of social policy. Yet Justice Breyer told the Dobbs case lawyers that the country, for better or for worse, decided to resolve their differences by this Court laying down a constitutional principle, in this case, women's choice.

The country did no such thing. In Roe and Casey, the court decided to seize the power to resolve ... differences that properly belongs to the elected branches. It didnt just lay down a constitutional principle; it invented one. Rather than protecting republican processes, it short-circuited them. In so doing, it has catalyzed 49 years of vicious political battles about the court itself while forestalling chances for democratic compromises.

Nothing in the Constitution mentions abortion or anything close to it. Justice Brett Kavanaugh was right to say during oral arguments that the Constitution is, therefore, neutral on the question of abortion, and thus leaves the issue for the people of the states or perhaps Congress to resolve in the democratic process.

Justices who declare laws restricting abortion to be unconstitutional are thus themselves acting in anti-constitutional ways. Their approach is deeply and tragically wrong.

Link:

Liberal justices forfeited the 'legitimacy' they crave - Washington Examiner

To Memphis

Memphis is 200 miles by freeway from Nashville and if Nashville is country, then Memphis is rocknroll, gospel and the blues. First off, a visit to Al Greens Full Gospel Tabernacle Church on a Sunday morning is essential. It is somewhat touristy these days, but this does not detract from the Reverend Als fiery sermons and soulful singing. Beale Street is also touristy, but if you want to hear southern roots music in civilised surroundings, BB Kings Blues Club, Alfreds On Beale and Jerry Lee Lewiss Caf & Honky Tonk will do it for you.

Two other essential stopovers for music buffs are Sun Studios where Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and many others cut their early recordings in the 1950s and Stax, the birthplace of Southern soul music.

And, of course, there is Graceland, Elviss strange mansion, bought in 1957 when he was a 22-year-old rube from Tupelo. Given that it may be moved lock-stock-and-barrel to Japan in the future, a visit is recommended.

Clarksdale is just 75 miles south of Memphis on US Route 61, across the border in Mississippi, and this takes you to the birthplace of the blues, where Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads. Morgan Freemans Ground Zero Blues Club and Reds Lounge are where youll hear the blues, while the Delta Blues Museum is a major attraction.

Read more:

Why you're wrong about Nashville, the liberal city making more than just music - Telegraph.co.uk

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Liberal media helping Democrats steal more elections | Letters to the Editor | The Daily News - Galveston County Daily News

This years election produced nearly the same Parliament, with the same parties holding roughly the same number of seats. But it is also forcing the Liberal government into compromises with Parliament.

Last spring, Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus government was stalling for time as it fended off opposition demands for the release of secret documents relating to the firing of scientists at a high-security microbiology lab.

They insisted that hundreds of pages had to be withheld for national security reasons, while opposition MPs demanded the Commons law clerk be the judge of that. In the end, the government stalled long enough until Parliament was dissolved.

But now that the Liberals are back with pretty much the same minority government, they face the revival of those demands. This time, they are offering to compromise.

On Friday, Liberal House Leader Mark Holland proposed the creation of an all-party committee of MPs, all sworn to secrecy, which would pore through the documents and decide what can be released, with a group of three former judges tasked to adjudicate any disputes.

The Conservatives, Bloc Qubcois and NDP havent yet said if they will accept the plan. But the government proposal itself marks a change.

Where once the government fenced with the opposition majority in Parliament, rebuffing requests, stalling for time and sometimes threatening an election, they are now forced to offer compromise.

The inconclusive 2021 election has done one thing: It has taken away some of the Liberals tools for stymieing Parliament.

The Liberals cant wield the ultimate weapon that minority government has when opposition parties band together to make uncomfortable demands that is, threatening an election that one or more of those parties wants to avoid.

This years election sent one main message: that the Liberal government should never have called it. They cant pull the plug on this Parliament for a few years, at least. That makes stalling for time pretty tough, too.

For now, there is no sign that weaker hand is hindering the Liberals policy agenda. They can stickhandle legislation through the House of Commons, looking for support from one party or another usually the NDP.

But the Liberals are now in a weaker position in managing Parliament, and that can give MPs more power to scrutinize the governments actions. And they wont be reassured that the Speaker of the House of Commons, Liberal MP Anthony Rota, has ruled against them on some key decisions.

New Democrat MP Heather McPherson complained last week that Mr. Trudeaus Liberal government often treats the House as an inconvenience and thats not wrong.

Minority Parliaments, at least Canadian ones in the 21st century, are not places for co-operation. Minority governments have filibustered committees and rejected or ignored orders from the House. Stephen Harpers Conservatives repeatedly rejected to summon ministers political aides to testify before parliamentary committees just as Mr. Trudeaus government has.

Now the demand for records that could shed light on why Ottawa expelled and then fired Xiangguo Qiu and her husband, Keding Cheng, from Canadas National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, could see the House reassert its theoretical supremacy.

What is not yet clear is whether it will seek to do so through compromise or confrontation.

The proposal offered by Mr. Holland last week is similar to the one struck by Mr. Harpers Conservatives after his government was taken to task by then-Speaker of the Commons Peter Milliken for refusing to release documents about the Canadian militarys treatment of Afghan detainees.

Mr. Milliken had ruled that Parliaments privilege was supreme, and its demand for the records could not be refused but he also encouraged a compromise to accommodate the governments legitimate responsibility to protect national security.

It is not clear yet if opposition parties will be willing to make a similar compromise this time. Some MPs dont like the idea that, under Mr. Hollands proposal, it would be judges, not parliamentarians, who would decide what information can be released to the public but the government will want some kind of guarantee that MPs cannot act irresponsibly.

Either way, Mr. Trudeaus government has already come out of the 2021 election with less power to stymie Parliament, and it has to give some ground.

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Dj vu 2021 election weakens Liberal hand in disputes with Parliament - The Globe and Mail

Liberals enthusiastically pick the Munawar Faruqui saga, but remain silent on the lynching of two sadhus by a mob in Maharashtra. This blinkeredness is not serving any true liberal clause in any real sense

Freedom of expression has been much in the Indian news these last few weeks.

Dress and furnishings maker FabIndia came under fire for referring to Deepavali as Jashn-e-Riwaaj. Actor Kangana Ranaut faced a furore for saying that the Independence we got in 1947 was alms (bheekh) and that real freedom came only in 2014.

Comedian Vir Das had police cases filed against him for his monologue in Washington DC on two Indias. Munawar Faruqui says he will quit stand-up comedy after several of his shows were cancelled due to fears about protests.

Fashion designer Sabyasachi Mukherjee withdrew an advertising campaign for his line ofmangalsutrasthat featured surly women in lingerie and the Hindu necklace that signals marital status. Journalist Rana Ayyub wrote inThe Washington Postthat the filmSooryavanshiwas dangerous and that every third frame of the film is a bloodcurdling Islamophobic image.

As any sufficiently logical person could tell us, freedom of expression finally distills down to the right to offend. As Salman Rushdie, who surely knows more on this matter than most of us, stated famously: Without the freedom to offend, (freedom of expression) ceases to exist. But people surely also have the right to be offended?

I believe in the efficiency of markets, as long as broad but effective government regulations exist to deter and punish the wayward. The same applies to a democratic society. Free speech too is subject to some freedoms and conditions, as laid down in our Constitution.

FabIndia and Sabyasachi should be free to advertise their wares as they think fit and in a way that they think would attract customers. But it is also entirely within the rights of some potential consumers to say: Their message offends us. Dont buy their products. Everyone is free to buy a FabIndia kurta or a piece of Sabyasachi-designed jewellery. Just as any citizen has the right to protest peacefully in front of a FabIndia store.

Stakeholder activism is an integral part of markets, and corporations include customers in their definition of stakeholders. One could cite many examples of ads being withdrawn by major brands after a consumer backlash, but two will suffice.

In 2009, Bacardi ran an ad that seemed to imply that ugly women would look more attractive if men had a few pegs of the white rum. In 2017, a Pepsi ad showed a white woman offering a can of the beverage to a policeman watching over a peaceful street protest. The protestors cheer her and the policeman grins appreciatively. Black Lives Matter activists felt that the ad trivialised their movement against police brutality. Both companies decided that it would be better for businesses to apologise and withdraw the ads.

These principles apply in India too. And it is up to the brands to decide how to respond to criticism, based on their understanding of the market.

Two groups are at war every day on Indian social media. Some Indians spend their waking hours abusing Narendra Modi, and the rival group spends 18 hours a day praising every move that Modi may or not have made. Both sides often make wild claims and are rude and cruel. I support the freedom of expression of both sides while retaining my right to laugh at or be annoyed by their opinions.

But questions remain. Why does the recent Tamil hit film, based on a true incident, change the religion of the real villainous police officer from Christian to Hindu, and de-Hinduise the names of a few of the victims? Will Sabyasachi ever designhijabsand run a campaign with women dressed only inhijabsand undergarments?

Liberals are upset because, inSooryavanshi, terrorists offernamaazbefore they go off to kill innocents. But it is an irrefutable fact thatjihadisbelieve they are doing Allahs will and seek His blessings before setting off on their ghastly missions. In fact, several characters and scenes inSooryavanshistrongly refute the easy generalisation that Indian Muslims support acts of terror. The villains are even given back-stories where they lost family members in riots, which led to their thirst for revenge on Hindustan. As the films director Rohit Shetty has noted, no questions were asked about religion and caste when he had Hindu villains in all his other films. And those men had no back-stories to even remotely explain their venality.

I have watched the objectionable Munawar Faruqui videos. Humour is of course the ultimate test of freedom of speech. But to joke about the 59 human beings many of them women and children who were burnt alive at Godhra is not merely tasteless; many comedians across the world have made their fame and fortune from being tasteless. Such a gag could inflame a few hotheads enough to put some more innocent lives in danger. And we should feel exactly the same way if someone made fun of the Muslims who died in the post-Godhra riots. The right to offend comes with some boundary conditions.

Much of the liberal outrage that we see currently seems to be highly selective. Faruqui is being portrayed as a victim of Islamophobia, but if say a Brahmin called Mahesh Tiwari cracked a burning train joke about the Godhra incident, would he not have faced the same criticism that Faruqui faces?

Islamophobia has become such a broad-brush term used at the drop of a hat, that one doesnt even know what it means any more.

I cant remember any liberal condemnation of Haji Yakoob Qureshi, the Bahujan Samaj Party leader from Meerut, when he announced a Rs 51-crore reward for the men who killed journalists working for the French satirical magazineCharlie Hebdo. Would such a condemnation have been Islamophobic?

Last week, the Toronto District School Board cancelled a talk by Nadia Murad, an escapee from the Islamic States sex slavery and a Nobel Peace Prize winner. Apparently, Murad, a Muslim victim, talking about Islamist terrorism could promote Islamophobia and offend Muslim students. Indian liberals cheered the American academics who organised the Dismantling Global Hindutva conference, held ironically to coincide with the 20thanniversary of the 9/11 attacks by Al Qaeda. Yet, they and the same American intellectuals have not even hinted that the Toronto Boards decision could be problematic.

Indian liberals pick and choose their outrages. They stay silent when twosadhusand their driver are lynched by a mob in Maharashtra with the police looking on helplessly, when a Hindutva leader is killed after public rallies openly call for his beheading, or when armed agitators try to raise the Khalistan flag at Red Fort on our Republic Day.

This blinkeredness is not serving any true liberal clause in any real sense. Let the same logic be applied uniformly to all to both people who need their rights protected and to those who need to be denounced. Freedom of expression is too precious a commodity. Its myopic adulteration is dangerous for our society.

The writer is a former editor of Financial Express, and founder-editor of Open and Swarajya magazines. Views expressed are personal.

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Why liberals should not pick and choose outrages based on their whims and fancies - Firstpost