Promoting civility and practicing the Golden Rule every day – The Hill (blog)

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Too often, all the American people see of Congress is hyper-partisan bickering on cable TV. What they dont see when the cameras are turned off? Many of us are friends. The policy disputes? They arent personal, even when passionate.

We are passionate because we all love our country. We want to serve the people who sent us to Washington to get things done for the American people. And we believe strongly in what we stand for. But we can disagree without being disagreeable. And the way we carry ourselves in our public debates is how we are represented to the American people no matter how cordial we are behind closed doors.

We can, and must, do better.

Weber Shandwick and Powell Tate, in partnership with KRC Research, recently released a report on the state of civility in America. It found that incivility has reached crisis levels in our country.

These findings, sadly, are not surprising. Particularly disappointing was that a majority of Americans believe incivility in our politics encourages general incivility in society, which deters citizens from engaging in public service. Incivility can lead to intimidation, threats, harassment, cyberbullying, discrimination and violence. In the wake of the attack on our fellow members of Congress at a Congressional Baseball Game practice of all places, the need for action could not be more urgent.

To try and disrupt this troubling trend, we have put forward bipartisan legislation, H. Res 400, creating a National Day of Civility. Its one small way to give this issue greater attention and spark greater awareness in communities across the country, and in Washington. The bill has overwhelming bipartisan support, introduced with the backing of nearly every member of our 50 plus person freshman class. As public officials, we have a responsibility to lead by example.

Matthew7:12reads in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you. Its the Golden Rule. In our civil discourse, we must strive to disagree without being disagreeable and practice the Golden Rule every day. We look forward to growing support for our effort to recognize July 12(7/12) as the National Day of Civility.

Words matter. How we treat each other matters. Lets foster more civility in public discourse Congress is a great place to start.

The views expressed by this author are their own and are not the views of The Hill.

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Promoting civility and practicing the Golden Rule every day - The Hill (blog)

Sheriff’s Tips: The Golden Rule – American Rifleman (press release) (blog)

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The Modern Technique of the Pistol gave us four simple rules of gun safety that make it so much easier for us to prevent injury to ourselves or others. Rule No. 3 is, Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on the target. This is such an important safety rule that many of us call it the Golden Rule.

In teaching the draw stroke, most of us teach the students to not only keep their finger off the trigger but to keep it out of the trigger guard area, too. In fact, instructors almost universally teach that the trigger finger should be straight, along the slide until the muzzle is pointed downrange at the intended target or threat. Further, in order to make this a habit, we practice this safety method whenever handling any sort of firearm for any sort of reason.

When I was first exposed to this important safety method, I thought that it would slow me down for that first, most important, defensive shot. Not that I really doubted my teachers, but I gave this admonition a lot of thought and practice. What I found was that, no matter what kind of fast-draw artist the shooter might be, he still had plenty of time to get the finger to the trigger while the gun was being brought to eye level and the sights acquired. I also realized that, the more conscious that we are of proper finger control, the less likely we are to have a negligent discharge.

Some would say that they keep their finger in the trigger guard, but off the trigger, until they are ready to shoot. But these folks simply don't understand the business of sympathetic reflex. Often, especially under stress, if we clinch one hand, we are very likely to clinch the other hand and this is one example of sympathetic reflex. A gunfight can be a very dynamic event and we may have to double up the fist of our support hand. Or we may use our support hand to grab onto something to keep from falling. Clinching that support hand may cause us to also clinch our shooting hand and, if your trigger finger is anywhere near the trigger, we could very well let off an unintended shot.

A critical time for keeping that finger straight is during the re-holstering process. Some time ago, I did an informal survey of defensive classes to determine when negligent discharges were most likely. What I found was that ND's most often occur when folks are re-holstering and still have their finger in the trigger guard. The finger smacks the top of the holster. Then it smacks the trigger. And then there is often a loud noise. Sometimes that loud noise is immediately followed by the need for Bandaids.

I have personally witnessed two negligent discharges on shooting ranges, one involving injury. In both cases the shooter had his finger on the trigger when it shouldn't have been. One of these, the one involving injury, was during re-holstering. The second was when the shooter was chambering a round and, fortunately, had his muzzle pointed in a safe direction.

I also have personal knowledge, though I did not witness it, of a fellow peace officer smacking a crook over the head with his revolver. The blow impacted his trigger finger, which was on the trigger, and the resultant shot wounded two bystanders. That, by the way, is just one of the many reasons why it is not a good idea to hit someone with your pistol. Reviewing these three incidents, it is clear that Rule No. 4 is important regardless of whether we use a revolver, a striker-fired semi-automatic, or a single-action semi-automatic, since these were the guns involved in those incidents.

I am impressed when I see people handle firearms with their trigger fingers straight. I've even noticed savvy gun folks doing this at the SHOT Show and the NRA Annual Meetings & Exhibits, when the guns displayed have short firing pins installed and could not fire even if they were actually loaded. It is simply the mark of a professional and safety-conscious individual. We don't do that to impress others, we do it to make it an ingrained habit.

Remember to keep that finger straight and off the trigger until your sights and gun muzzle are pointed at the target or threat. It is the right thing to do because it is the safe thing to do.

Rule No. 3 is truly the Golden Rule of gun safety. Make it part of your life. You'll be glad that you did.

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Sheriff's Tips: The Golden Rule - American Rifleman (press release) (blog)

OPINION: The ‘Golden Rule’ in the face of a negative climate – Petoskey News-Review

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Do unto others as you would have others do unto you (Matthew 7:12).

That verse is known by most people as the Golden Rule. Whether you are a person of faith or not most people would agree that it is a pretty good guide for life. Yet even as most would agree that it is a good life goal there seems to be an absence of it on a number of levels in our world.

In a nation whose political landscape is so divided we see an absence of this practice. In a world where so many talk at each other instead of to each other the practice seems forgotten. In a culture where electronic communications so easily voice our weaker nature, one would assume there has been a vacancy of learning about the transformational power of the Golden Rule.

With all this being considered I suppose we could throw up our hands, give up and avoid people. We could cry that, nothing will change and I am checking out. We could do that, but that would change nothing. That attitude would offer no hope for the future, and that simply is not an attitude that we as humans can afford to have.

When I was in high school our cross-country team was very good, state ranked, in fact, all season. They wore T-shirts to summer training camp with the following statement on them. The shirts said, What will be is up to me! That sentiment gave me a simple language that revealed what my heart believed. No matter what the circumstances may be I can make a difference wherever I am. No matter what the circumstances may be we can make a difference no matter where we are.

Later on, another thought occurred to me. What happens if enough Is become wes? What would happen if our attitude became I cant change everything but I can change something every day? What would happen if people began doing five simple acts of kindness every day? What would happen if we held doors for people? Smiled and said hello? Allowed people to turn in front of us in heavy traffic? What would happen if we made it our purpose to treat people who bring us our food or sell us our gas like we wanted to be treated? What would happen if for an hour or so every day we shut off the TV or the electronic devices and talked and listened to each other? What would happen if we went for walks in the neighborhood every summer evening and just looked to help someone with something simple?

South African Bishop Desmond Tutu said, Hope is being able to see that there is light despite the darkness. This reminds us not to give up.

St. Paul said, Faith, hope, love, abide these three but the greatest of these is love. This reminds us of the powerful source of transformation that can change anything. What will be is up to me reminds us that I/we are the living sources of transformation. This mornings sunrise reminds us that it is time to get to work changing the future!

A Fellow Traveler on the Journey Pastor Dan

The Rev. Dan Bowman is pastor of First United Methodist Church in Gaylord. He can be reached at fumcpastor@winntel.net.

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OPINION: The 'Golden Rule' in the face of a negative climate - Petoskey News-Review

Malcolm Turnbull’s Liberal party feels a dread chill – The Australian Financial Review

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It's not just a penchant for larrikin humour that explains former Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett's comment that he's so disillusioned by the Liberal Party under Malcolm Turnbull he wants to drink whisky before 9 am.

A creeping chill threatens to paralyse a Party already in crisis. According to one Liberal insider, the position is "unsustainable."

What he means is that a Liberal Party led by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is so riven by attacks from Turnbull's predecessor, Tony Abbott, and Turnbull's flat-lining in the polls, there will be a major eruption by Christmas.

If this scenario is born out, the "never again" mantra about another change in the Liberal Party leadership will metastasise into "here we go again."

There are no current plans to topple Turnbull, but plenty of "hypothetical" discussions. Two names that crop up are long-time Party deputy and Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop, as leader, and Health Minister, and Victorian MP, Greg Hunt, as Bishop's deputy.

Neither have expressed interest privately or publicly in such a scenario. So at this stage it is no more than talk.

Moreover, Party insiders acknowledge any significant improvement in Turnbull's opinion poll standing over coming months would result in leadership spill talk disappearing as quickly as a Scotch down a thirsty gullet.

But these conversations re-surfaced among Liberal MPs and Party supporters after Malcolm Turnbull's recent London speech. This sparked internal unrest because it included a shaman-like invoking of the name of the Party's founder, Sir Robert Menzies, to support Turnbull's position as a centrist.

The unrest is likely to become pointed during a special NSW Liberal Party "Futures Convention" to be held in Rosehill, Sydney, from July 21-23. It will debate a right wing push to "democratise" pre-selections. This originated in the electorate held by the man Turnbull bulldozed out of the prime ministership Tony Abbott.

The Warringah motion calls for pre-selections in "open" federal and state seats that is, electorates without a sitting Liberal MP, or where he/she is retiring to be done with full plebiscites of Party members.

Through its proximity to Mr Abbott, this push has been identified as a key element in the destabilising proxy war between Abbott and Turnbull. The complication is that Turnbull has also backed the reform bandwagon, with the significant caveat that he will not, in the end, necessarily back the motion from Abbott's Warringah Federal Electorate Council (FEC).

A more likely prospect is a series of 20 motions which in effect support plebiscites, but where respective Federal Electorate Councils (FEC) set the rules governing the conduct of those plebiscites. These will be put to the special State Council meeting by the successful Fox Valley branch of the NSW Liberal Party which lies in the seat of Berowra, held by a leading NSW Liberal moderate, Julian Leeser.

But even if the Fox Valley approach wins through it will not be a comfortable experience for Malcolm Turnbull who will be addressing the "Futures Convention" next Saturday morning. One interested attendee will be Peter King, the onetime Liberal MP for Wentworth until Turnbull toppled him in the mother of all Liberal Party pre-selection battles in 2003.

Mr King also mouths the mantra of Party reform, and is not re-entering federal politics. He has put his own motion forward for the special NSW Liberal Party Convention, but expects the Warringah motion, or the one identified with Tony Abbott, to win through.

No matter which motion emerges from the NSW Liberal Party "Futures Convention", the paradox is that the catalyst for this latest instability is a speech by Turnbull which, despite the spin by opponents, contained nothing exceptional, surprising, original, or even overtly provocative.

Turnbull pointed out that when Robert Menzies founded the Liberal Party in 1944, he "went to great pains not to call his new political party ... conservative, but rather the Liberal Party, which he firmly anchored in the centre of Australian politics."

"He wanted to stand apart from the big money, business establishment politics of traditional conservative parties of the right, as well as from the socialist tradition of the Australian Labour Party, the political wing of the union movement," Mr Turnbull said when receiving the Disraeli Prize from the influential conservative London think tank, the Policy Exchange.

"The sensible centre was the place to be. It remains the place to be."

Turnbull's London comments broadly accord with the views reflected in a 70-page report prepared for Menzies in 1944 as a political road-map for his new Liberal Party. It was written by the economic adviser to the powerful Institute of Public Affairs, Charles Kemp, father of David Kemp, Education Minister and Environment Minister in the Howard Liberal government.

Called Looking Forward, Charles Kemp's report was, writes Menzies' biographer Allan Martin, "a businessman's argument about the virtues of free enterprise". It was "not hostile to the state, but demanded agreed lines between when governments should attempt to thrust themselves forward and where they were being intrusive. What was essential, it said, was a kind of middle way."

Seventy-three years after Menzies founded the Liberal Party on the basis of that Institute of Public Affairs report, the current head of the IPA, John Roskam, says the "issue is what is his [Turnbull's] definition of what the progressive centre means." He answers that Turnbull's interpretation of the term "centre" means "bigger government" and an "excuse for higher taxes and bigger regulations."

The Turnbull government's economic policy stance contrasts with "everything he said he was going to do before becoming Prime Minister. He spoke about the evils of the mining tax. Now he is embracing something worse than that and that is the bank tax."

"That's how I see it," says Roskam

Historian Ian Hancock, who has written biographies of former Liberal prime minister John Gorton and former Liberal Attorney General Tom Hughes (father of Lucy Turnbull) points out that while Malcolm Turnbull refers to the terms "liberal" and "conservative" in his speech, "he never defines them. "

"He's like all Libs he's going back to Menzies and treating his statements as some kind of Holy Grail. But Menzies delivered" he was Prime Minister for a record 16 and a half years "because he was a pragmatist, not a philosopher."

"Menzies was never consistent" so "various factions of the Liberal Party can find support in various phrases."

Asked if Menzies would like Turnbull, Hancock replied: "If he was in a good mood he would probably say: 'Good luck to him'. He would probably approve that [Turnbull] is someone with a high background and appears to rise above everybody else."

Turnbull is, like Menzies was, a "loner, with few friends in politics. If Menzies was being honest he would probably have a degree of sympathy with someone who people on the backbench didn't like. That's something that Menzies went through himself," Hancock said.

But there are differences. Menzies was a social conservative; Turnbull is more liberal, and has supported same-sex marriage. Above all, Menzies was a devoted monarchist "I did but see her passing by, but I will love her till I die," he once intoned to Queen Elizabeth in a speech in Canberra.

Malcolm Turnbull is, or was, Australia's Mr Republic.

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Malcolm Turnbull's Liberal party feels a dread chill - The Australian Financial Review

The crisis of confidence that’s roiling liberalism – The Washington Post – Washington Post

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Asked what he thought of Western civilization, Mohandas Gandhi is said to have answered that it would be a good idea. Debate about liberal democracy in the Trump era is suffused with similar pessimism about Western achievement, bordering on self-damaging despair. The liberal mix of capitalism and democracy is denounced for yielding social inequality, cronyist kleptocracy and sheer governmental incompetence failings that opened the door to Donald Trumps dispiriting presidency and that may be entrenched by it in turn. In the wake of the recent Group of 20 summit, some went so far as to claim that the chief threat to Americans was not from the aggressively illiberal despots of Russia, North Korea, China or the Islamic theocracies. Rather, it was from Trump which is to say, from the perverse fruit of our own system. The enemy is us.

This intellectual bandwagon needs to be stopped. Liberalism faces two challenges on the one hand, external enemies; on the other, an internal crisis of self-confidence and it is time we all acknowledged that the external threat is more severe. However bad Trump may be, he is not Vladimir Putin or Kim Jong Un. And although it is true that liberalism faces an internal crisis Ive done my bit to contribute to the alarmism it is worth remembering how liberalism got started two centuries ago.

As Edmund Fawcett has argued in his magisterial history of liberalism, the creed originated as a set of principles for managing bewildering change. For most of human history, economic growth and social evolution proceeded at a snails pace, but between 1776 and the first decades of the 19th century, revolutions both political and industrial caused everything to speed up. Liberalism skeptical of central power, respectful of diverse beliefs, comfortable with vigorous disagreement offered a means of handling the resulting tumult. If headlong technological and economic dislocation made political conflict unavoidable, humanity needed a way to contain it, civilize it a way to hang on to timeless standards of humanity while providing an escape valve for argument and change.

Seen in this light, todays technological and economic convulsions the part-time jobs of the gig economy, the menacing shadow of the robots are not signs that the liberal system is in crisis. To the contrary, they are signs that liberalism is more essential than ever. We are in the midst of another industrial revolution, which will create winners and losers and bitter political arguments and Trump is testament to that. Liberalism will not end these conflicts; only absolutist doctrines create political silence. But liberalism will set the rules of the game that allow the conflict to be managed. For now, Trump is expressing the frustration of a part of the country, but liberal checks and rules of process are containing the impact.

In its long history of facilitating clamorous argument, liberalism has succumbed, unsurprisingly, to repeated neuroses. In 1956 Nikita Khrushchev boasted of the superiority of state-directed industrialization, telling a group of Westerners, we will bury you; some in the West made the mistake of believing him, especially when the Soviet Union launched the first-ever space satellite the following year. In the 1960s, U.S. democracy was rocked by political assassinations, violence at the 1968 Democratic National Convention and a bubbling up of radical challenges to the system. Amid the stagflation of the 1970s, a business school dean sounded a warning about an end-to-Western-capitalism syndrome; and no less a figure than the U.S. president lectured the nation on its moral turpitude. All these episodes generated existential crises, just as Trump today leads people to doubt the resilience of our system. But pessimists should note that liberalism emerged robustly from those moments of self-doubt.

Whats more, pessimists should remember that, if a few dice had settled differently, the current conversation would be completely different. Absent strong proof to the contrary, Trumps election must be accepted as legitimate, but a small swing in a few places would have put the status quo candidate in the White House. Similarly, Britains Brexit referendum was decided 52 to 48 percent; and a recent poll suggested that the voters now have doubts. In France, to cite a contrary example, the ambitious liberal Emmanuel Macron was lucky to face a bevy of weak opponents, and France was even luckier that Macron emerged out of nowhere, clad in white. The point is that political outcomes often hinge on quirks of fortune. None of these events should be interpreted as durable signals that liberalism is either moribund or resurgent.

Finally, it pays to remember that the two disasters that discredited the liberal establishment the 2008 financial crisis and the Iraq War were not errors that flowed from liberalism itself. There was nothing liberal about taxpayer backstops for private financial risk-taking, nor about the failure to temper the objective of Iraqi regime change with a sober calculation of available resources. These episodes do hold lessons for our democracy avoid cronyism, avoid hubris but they absolutely do not show that liberalism is wanting. To the contrary, liberalism arose during the first industrial revolution. We need it to navigate the second industrial revolution as it roils around us now.

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The crisis of confidence that's roiling liberalism - The Washington Post - Washington Post

Can Democrats Make Nice with the ‘Deplorables’? – National Review

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Editors Note: The following piece originally appeared in City Journal. It is reprinted here with permission.

Since early June, when voters in Georgias sixth congressional district rubbed yet more salt in their 2016 election wounds, Democratic pols and sages have been pondering why, as Ohio congressman Tim Ryan put it, our brand is worse than Trump. Thats a low bar, given the presidents nearly subterranean approval ratings, but so far the blue party has mostly been turning to an inside-the-box set of policy and political memes: jobs programs, talk of a mutiny against House minority leader Nancy Pelosi, and better marketing or, in Ryans words, branding of the Democratic message.

Whats missing from this list is the most important and most challenging item of all: solving the liberal deplorable problem. The white working class that hoisted Donald Trump to an unexpected victory may not always admire the man, but they know that he doesnt hate people like me, in the pollsters common formulation. And they have good reason to think that Democrats, particularly coastal and media types, do hate them: Consider Frank Richs snide and oft-cited article, No Sympathy for the Hillbilly. Its possible that white working-class voters would back a party filled with people who see them as racists and misogynists, with bad values and worse taste, because they all want to raise taxes on Goldman Sachs executives, but it seems a risky bet.

So its worth noting that a few prominent liberal writers have been venturing out of the partisan bunker and calling attention to the deplorable issue over the past few months. In late May, for instance, progressive stalwart Michael Tomasky, former editor of Guardian America and now of Democracy, published an article frankly titled Elitism is Liberalisms Biggest Problem in the New Republic. The West Virginia native called the chasm between elite liberals and middle America...liberalisms biggest problem. The issue has nothing to do with policy, Tomasky writes. Its about different sensibilities; bridging the gulf is on us, not them. To most conservatives, Tomaskys depiction of Middle Americans will seem cringingly obvious. The group tends to be churchgoers (Not temple. Church), they dont think and talk politics from morning till night, and, yes, theyre flag-waving patriots. Mother Jones columnist Kevin Drum, an influential though occasionally heterodox liberal, seconded the argument.

A more complex analysis of liberal elitism comes from Joan Williams, a feminist law professor whose best-known previous book is Unbending Gender. In White Working Class: Overcoming Class Cluelessness in America, Williams takes her fellow liberal professionals to the woodshed for their indifference to the hard-knock realities of working-class life and for their blindness to the shortcomings of their own cosmopolitan preferences. Married to the Harvard-educated son of a working-class family, Williams is astute about the wide disparities between liberal and white-working-class notions of the meaning of work, family, community, and country. One of her proposals for solving class cluelessness is a conservative favorite: reviving civics education.

A final recent example of deplorable-dtente comes from Atlantic columnist Peter Beinarts How the Democrats Lost Their Way on Immigration. Noting that the unofficial open-borders philosophy of the Democratic party is far more radical than the restrictionist immigration policy it espoused just a few decades ago, the former New Republic editor acknowledges that there is more than nativist bigotry behind white-working-class immigration concerns. He concedes that mass immigration may have worked to the disadvantage of blue-collar America by lowering wages for low-skilled workers and undermining social cohesion. Beinart concludes by dusting off a concept that liberals currently hate: assimilation. Liberals should be celebrating Americas diversity less, and its unity more, he writes.

These writers are engaging in healthy critical self-reflection, but in the course of describing the Democrats class dilemma, the liberal truth-tellers unwittingly show why a solution lies out of reach. They understate Democrats entanglement with the identity-politics left, a group devoted to a narrative of American iniquity. Identity politics appeals to its core constituents through grievance and resentment, particularly toward white men. Consider some reactions to centrist Democrat John Ossoffs defeat in Georgias sixth district. Maybe instead of trying to convince hateful white people, Dems should convince our base ppl of color, women to turn out, feminist writer and Cosmopolitan political columnist Jill Filopovic tweeted afterward. At some point we have to be willing to say that yes, lots of conservative voters are hateful and willing to embrace bigots. Insightful as she is, even Williams assumes that all criticisms of the immigration status quo can be chalked up to fear of brown people.

No Democrat on the scene today possesses the Lincolnesque political skills to persuade liberal voters to give up their assumptions of white deplorability, endorse assimilation, or back traditional civics education. In the current environment, a Democratic civics curriculum would teach that American institutions are vehicles for the transmission of white supremacy and sexism, hardly a route to social cohesion. As for assimilation, Hispanic and bilingual-education advocacy organizations would threaten a revolt and theyd only be the first to sound the alarm.

Appeasing deplorables may yet prove unnecessary, though. Democrats strategy of awaiting inevitable demographic change in the electorate, combined with the hope that Trump and the Republican Congress will commit major unforced errors, may allow the party to regain control of the country without making any concessions to the large portion of the U.S. population whom they appear to despise.

READ MORE: A Democratic Blind Spot on Culture The Democrats Resistance Temptation Nancy Pelosi, the Face of the Shrinking Democratis Brand

Kay S. Hymowitzis aCity Journalcontributing editor, the William E. Simon Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and the author ofThe New Brooklyn: What It Takes to Bring a City Back.

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Can Democrats Make Nice with the 'Deplorables'? - National Review

Liberal MP says people will die of cold because renewable energy drives up fuel prices – The Guardian

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Craig Kelly spoke ahead of a meeting of state and federal energy ministers to discuss the clean energy target (CET) proposed in the Finkel review. Photograph: Mike Bowers for the Guardian

Renewable energy will kill people this winter, Craig Kelly, the chair of the Coalitions backbench environment and energy committee has claimed.

Kelly, a Liberal backbencher, said the deaths would be caused by people not being able to afford to heat their homes in winter. He blamed rising fuel costs on the governments renewable energy target.

People will die, he told ABC radio on Thursday.

Kelly, MP for Hughes in New South Wales, cited recent reports that one-in-four Australian households this winter will be frightened to turn on the heater due to high power prices. He also said the World Health Organisation has made it clear that winter mortality rates increase if people cant afford to heat their homes.

Most of that research, however, was done in Europe, where winters can be much colder. Some work done in Australia by the Australian Institute for Health and Welfare found that at least some of the excess deaths in winter in Australia were caused by heating.

There are $3bn this year being paid in subsidies for renewable energy, that pushes up the price of electricity to the consumer, Kelly said.

That claim, however, is contradicted by the Abbott governments Warburton review of the renewable energy target which found the scheme was putting downward pressure on prices.

And it contradicts the conclusion of most industry groups, the Finkel review and many other reports finding the key driver of high power prices is policy uncertainty, which is driving down investment in new generation and allowing expensive gas-fired power plants to dominate the market.

Labors energy spokesman, Mark Butler, accused Kelly of scaremongering.

This is another appalling intervention, not just by a backbencher, but by the chair of the Coalitions energy policy committee.

Butler conceded households and businesses are facing high power and gas bills, but he put that down to policy paralysis at the national level.

Kellys comments come ahead of a meeting of state and federal energy ministers in Brisbane on Friday to discuss recommendations for change from the chief scientist, Prof Alan Finkel.

Every state in the national electricity market has either expressly stated their support, or hinted at their support, for the clean energy target (CET) proposed in the Finkel review but the federal minister for energy and the environment, Josh Frydenberg, has said the government will not support the CET at Fridays meeting.

Victoria and South Australia have said that if the federal government doesnt provide leadership, the states might go ahead and try to implement the CET without them.

Modelling shows the CET would put significant downward pressure on the price of electricity, specifically by introducing a lot of cheap renewable electricity, along with enough storage.

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Liberal MP says people will die of cold because renewable energy drives up fuel prices - The Guardian

Xi Jinping, New Defender of Liberal Order, Lets Chinese Dissident Die – The American Interest

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Seven years after winning the Nobel Peace Prize, Chinas most famous political prisoner has died, locked away under the heavily guarded watch of the Chinese state. The New York Times:

Liu Xiaobo, the renegade Chinese intellectual who kept vigil on Tiananmen Square in 1989 to protect protesters from encroaching soldiers, promoted a pro-democracy charter that brought him an 11-year prison sentence and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize of 2010 while locked away, died on Thursday. He was 61. []

The Chinese government revealed he had liver cancer in late June only after it was virtually beyond treatment. Officially, Mr. Liu gained medical parole. But even as he faced death, he was kept silenced and under guard in a hospital in northeastern China, still a captive of the authoritarian controls that he had fought for decades.

As Bill Bishop points out in hisSinocism newsletter, Lius death will be difficult for even Beijings most dedicated apologists to spin. The last Nobel Peace Prize Laureate to be effectively killed by his own government was Carl Ossietsky, in Germany in 1938, Bishop notes. Does Xi care that the the likely precedent here for Beijing will be pre-World War II Nazi Germany?

Another question follows from that one: will the Wests newfound defenders of Xi Jinping care that the man they have anointed in the wake of the election of Donald Trump as the champion of the liberal world order drove a courageous dissident to his death? Or will they persist in the delusion that Xi is a liberal darling, content to overlook his human rights abuses so long as he delivers rhetorical paeans to globalization and needles Trump on the world stage?

Sadly, the answer is not clear. Many in the West have already proven easy marks as Xi has tried to reinvent himself as a principled defender of international values. All it took was a single speech at Davos for the plaudits to pour in: China has become the global grown-up, claimed the front cover of The Economist.Beijing would now be seen as the linchpin of global economic stability, raved Bessma Momani in Newsweek,while Trumps America [would] no longer play the role of enforcing the liberal rules and norms the country once coveted and benefited from.Susan Shirk, a former China hand in the Clinton administration, perhaps went the furthest in singing Xis praises toThe Guardian:

Lets lavish praise on them I think it was super-smart of Xi Jinping to go to Davos and give the speech More credit to him, really. []

I believe the United States actually has sponsored Chinas emergence as a constructive global power not just allowed it but really, actively encouraged it and I dont see anything bad about that. The only bad thing is that the United States is not just sitting by the sidelines, but actively subverting [the status quo].

Liu Xiaobos death should be a sobering reminder that this kind of thinking is nonsense. China is a dictatorship and a revisionist power, not a defender of liberal values or a responsible stakeholder. As the world pays tribute to Lius brave legacy of speaking truth to powerand his family remains under house arrest in China, unable to speak outacknowledging that reality is the very least we can do.

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Xi Jinping, New Defender of Liberal Order, Lets Chinese Dissident Die - The American Interest

GOP leaders enlist Pence, Mulvaney to help with budget woes – Politico

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Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney will be calling on his rabble-rousing friends and former colleagues to get in line behind a House budget proposal. | Getty

Republicans hope lobbying from key White House conservatives will ease opposition from the hard-line House Freedom Caucus.

By Rachael Bade and Sarah Ferris

07/13/2017 02:15 PM EDT

Updated 07/13/2017 06:20 PM EDT

House GOP leaders are bringing in the big guns to help ease their budget woes: Vice President Mike Pence and White House budget director Mick Mulvaney.

Pence and Mulvaney committed Thursday to helping GOP leaders muster support among their divided conference to pass a fiscal 2018 budget. Republican leadership and House Budget Chairwoman Diane Black are hoping that Mulvaney will be particularly helpful in wooing his former colleagues and friends on the hard-line Freedom Caucus, where he was once a member.

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The Freedom Caucus' opposition has the potential to be one of the greatest hurdles to passing the budget, which is crucial if Republicans want to pass tax reform on a party-line vote. Caucus leaders, who have pushed hard to include mandatory cuts to welfare programs in the budget, have said they will not support the fiscal plan until they also get the details of the Houses tax reform proposal.

But tax reform details are still far off, insiders say. And GOP leaders, not to mention Black, are eager to move on the budget before the August recess.

Its frustrating in a sense that theyre demanding that we stay here [through August recess] and work, which is fine with me, but they're not working while were here, said Budget panel member Tom Cole (R-Oakla.) of the Freedom Caucus threat to block the budget without tax details. I just think thats unrealistic Theyre not necessarily related."

The Vice President's office confirmed that Pence would be on the Hill to help get the budget passed. An Office of Management and Budget official confirmed that Mulvaney would be "working the phones" as well as making in-person pitches.

"The White House wants to be helpful in any way it can," OMB spokesman John Czwartacki said by phone Thursday. "The White House sees tremendous value on a 2018 budget resolution passing both chambers of Congress."

Black set out early to woo conservatives, even taking on GOP leadership as well as other Republican committee chairs to include $200 billion in entitlement cuts. Many moderates have balked at the proposal, with as many as 20 centrist Republicans in the Tuesday Group threatening to vote against such a plan almost enough to block it.

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Still, some Freedom Caucus members say those cuts are not enough. Vice chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) suggested during a news conference Wednesday that $200 billion in mandatory cuts was, essentially, a rounding error compared to the nations larger spending issues.

Meadows also said the group would need to see the details of the tax plan. They're wary of Speaker Paul Ryan's proposal to increase taxes on imports to pay for other tax cuts and want assurances the so-called border adjustment is dead.

Without decisions on tax reform, there will not be enough votes to pass it in the House because of the conservative concerns, Meadows said.

Enter the White House. Mulvaney and Pence huddled Thursday morning with Ryan (R-Wis.), Black (R-Tenn.) and White House legislative liaison Marc Short to devise a strategy to get Black's budget passed. That plan includes talking not just to members of the Freedom Caucus but any recalcitrant Republicans to get the 218 votes needed on the floor.

The meeting followed several calls between Mulvaney and Black this weekend.

Several GOP sources following the budget process closely said they think the White House's pitch for opponents to back the budget will work, allowing Black to move the bill through committee as soon as next week. Two members of the committee, Reps. Mark Sanford of South Carolina and Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida, told POLITICO on Wednesday that they were told to expect a Budget Committee markup next week.

Mulvaney and Pence's first task will be helping Black move the bill through the panel, where some conservatives like Reps. Dave Brat (R-Va.) and Gary Palmer (R-Ala.), both Freedom Caucus members, have not yet committed to supporting the plan.

Palmer in an interview off the House floor Thursday said he wanted the budget to rein in more spending.

Im still looking at it. I think theres time to improve it," Palmer said, when asked if he'd support the budget. "At some point everybodys got to come to the realization that were on a path to fiscal disaster."

Palmer, however, might be one of the easier conservatives to win over: He does not agree with his fellow Freedom Caucus members who say they want to hold up the budget in order to squeeze out the details of tax reform.

"The Freedom Caucus doesnt speak for all its members," he said. "I think that the tax reform effort is a separate issue. I dont believe in holding something else hostage."

Palmer also praised Black for her work, saying he can't remember the last time a budget was crafted to trigger billions in cuts.

Brat said he couldn't back a budget without more tax details.

"How do you get corporate rates down when you're minus a few trillion [in deficits]? We have to know the answer to that question because tax reform is the Holy Grail," he said. "I am not able to take a budget vote until I know how all the big trillion-dollar pieces fit together."

Even if Mulvany and Pence are able to help Black move the budget out of committee next week, they'll have an even heavier lift with the rest of the conference. Freedom Caucus members have not yet taken a position on the issue, but they could soon.

"Why arent we seeing the tax plan? I think [our opposition is] a move to try to spur things along," said Freedom Caucus member Scott DesJarlais (R-Tenn.). "Its a shame we would have to do that but weve got to keep things moving."

To be sure, Ryan, the White House and Senate leaders have indeed begun working on a tax bill. But right now, those discussions and decisions are being made at a high level not with the rest of the conference.

The Freedom Caucus would like to have input in those discussions.

Asked about Mulvaney whipping the Freedom Caucus, Meadows on Thursday gave a hearty laugh off the House floor.

"We're not voting for the budget until we get all those other things done, and Mick Mulvany can come up here and we can have nice lunch ... and it ain't gonna change a single vote," Meadows said.

Meadows then called Mulvaney to press him on his intentions to whip the Freedom Caucus into passing the budget. He said Mulvaney denied that was his intention.

Alyssa Farah, a spokeswoman for the Freedom Caucus, said: "Chairman Meadows has a great degree of respect for Director Mulvaney and always appreciates his input on policy matters."

And that's just the conservative end of the House GOP conference.

GOP leaders and the White House will also have to presuade moderates in the Tuesday Group to back the budget. A few weeks ago, members of the group said they wouldn't vote for a fiscal blueprint until Republicans strike a broader spending deal with Democrats, which seems a world away amid the partisan rancor on Capitol Hill.

In other words, Pence, Mulvaney and Ryan have some serious work to do.

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Freedom Caucus Fires First Volley in New Debt Ceiling Battle | The … – The Fiscal Times

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The jockeying for position over the coming need to increase the Treasury Department's borrowing limit, known as the debt ceiling, has begun in Congress.

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The Health Care Security And Freedom Act Of 2017 – Investor’s Business Daily

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After years of subjecting ObamaCareto the harshest criticism, the Senate GOP's struggles to come up with a replacement over the past several weeks havebeen a revelation:A critical mass of Republican senators seem to be saying that wresting the health care security provided by the law from their constituents is a nonstarter.

That leaves Congresswith two possible paths forward. The most likely path is a form of triage that would try to control the bleeding, rather than address ObamaCare'sunderlying problems that explain why enrollment was weak even before premiums spiked, and why the law was unpopular before"mean" TrumpCare came on the scene.

Stabilizing insurance markets, principally by providing protection for insurers against high-claims customers, is a good idea and an important step. But let's be clear about what that won't achieve: It won't create a robust nongroup insurance market with rules that Americans can broadly support, and that work reasonably well for the finances of healthy and sick, old and young, working class and middle class.

To create a robust nongroup insurance market with lower premiums that serves people well will require taking the other potential path forward: transforming the Affordable Care Act, largely byinjecting the ingredient that Republicans say the law is most sorely lacking freedom.

While ObamaCare has helped thenear-poor and those with chronic conditions who otherwise might be stuck without affordable coverage, it gives a bad deal to pretty much everyone else, which iswhy the exchanges' pool of customers is too small, too old and too costly, and premiums have soared asinsurers likeUnitedHealth Group (UNH),Aetna (AET) andHumana (HUM) have mostly exited the markets.

Simply stabilizing theturbulent insurance-exchange markets wouldn't do anything to ameliorate ObamaCare's harshest reality:Even among working-class households earning 150% to 250% of the poverty level, supposedly among the law'sbiggest beneficiaries, just 1 in 3 people who lack insurance from other sources are getting coverage that will protect them from financial disaster. Most of the other two-thirds are uninsured, either because they or a spouse work full time and don't qualify for exchange subsidies, or else they've spurned subsidized bronze plans that carry $6,000-$7,000 deductibles despite the threat of a individual-mandate penalty.

While Americans aren't crying out for the freedom to buy the skimpiest coverage that insurers can dream up, and pretty much everybody would rather have insurance than not if the price is right many people would benefit from greater flexibility than the ACA allows, and the entire country would benefit from a bipartisan consensus on health reform that helps those who have fallen through ObamaCare's wide cracks.

That is whythe very best step for public policy, within the realm of what might be possible, would be to give people a choice between the comprehensive coverage that Democrats want them to have and that many people with chronic conditions or low incomes clearly need and the consumer-driven model that Republicans believe in, which allows people to opt for high-deductiblecoverage and set aside funds to cover basic medical needs.

This would involve turning ObamaCare's cost-sharing support into something more akin to working-class tax cuts and removing ObamaCare's heaviest-handed mandates, while preserving the ACA's critical protections and support.

A central problem with ObamaCare is that the rules stacked the deck in favor of those needing comprehensive coverage, leaving far too many in the working class with three unappealingoptions: a silver plan that costs too much; a bronze plan that won't pay their medical bills until long after they're in financial distress;or anindividual-mandate penaltyfor opting against coverage that may be of little use.

Think ofa couple, age 30, in St. Louis with income of $40,000 (about 200% of the poverty level) and a child covered by Medicaid. For this couple, the cheapest silver plan under ObamaCare offers pretty solid coverage but costs$2,430 likely too much for a young family that's probably already struggling to save anything. The cheapest bronze plan, costing $1,068, might be doable, but the $13,300deductible ($6,650 per person) could make a hospital stay financially devastating.

The chasm between ObamaCare's silver and bronze deductibles $700 vs. $13,300 is by design, though clearly a poor one. ObamaCare provides extra cost-sharing subsidies that shrink deductibles for modest-income households, but only if they buy silver plans. Those cost-sharing subsidies work exactly like premium subsidies, paid directly from the government to insurers each month, even if the policyholder gets no medical care.

Looking through the lens of these 30-year-olds in St. Louis, a bipartisan replacement, merging Republican principles and Democratic values, is easy to identify.

First, don't get rid of the comprehensive option. If this couple is trying to have a second child or one spouse has a chronic condition, they will be desperate for a low-deductible plan with a wide range of essential benefits.

Second, offer people the flexibility to choose a Republican option. A replacement for ObamaCare could give young, modest-income families the chance to set aside some savings for health expenses with two simple tweaks. Relax ObamaCare's age-rating restrictions that inflate insurance costs for the young, but only for high-deductible plans, keeping comprehensive plans affordable for older adults. (That could mean silver plans with a 3:1 age rating, bronze 4:1 and catastrophic 5:1.)

Next, let people use cost-sharing subsidies to reduce premiums, if they prefer, effectively making it a tax cut. Those two steps would shrink that St. Louis couple's bronze premium to zero, and they'd have about $900 left to put in a Health Savings Account to defray medical expenses not nirvana, but a dramatic improvement over what ObamaCare offers. Yes, this family would still be subject to very high deductibles, but no greater than under ObamaCare, and they'd have a $2,000 head start on their medical bills, giving them a chance to put aside some savings not because their tax credits are more generous than under ObamaCare but because they would be more usable.

From 100% to150% of the poverty level (about $12,000-$18,000 for a single), roughly90% of exchange enrollees sign up for silver coverage. Bronze-level deductibles would bealmost too extreme to bother if not for the mandate penalty though some percentage don't bother and remain uninsured. So here's a beautiful compromise that would inject some freedom and flexibility but not too much into the ACA.

ACA cost-sharing subsidies, which are even higher for this income tier, turn silver plans to ultra-low-deductible platinum plans.That option would still be available, but they also could opt to use their cost-sharing subsidy to cover a basic silver-plan premium and deposit the extra amount in a Health Savings Account. What's beautiful about this is that the bar on minimum coverage would risecompared to the ACA, yet people would still have more freedom to pick a plan that works for their finances and their health status.

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We also should do something about thesteep drop-off in cost-sharing subsidies that acts as a disincentive to earn above 200% of the poverty level and is an especially big deal for people with significant medical needs. A more gradual phase-out by300% of the poverty level would provide more constructive incentives, while delivering modest tax cuts to income-tax-paying households. Premiums could essentially be free for everyone up to 250% of the poverty level if a catastrophic-planoption is made available to people above 200% of the poverty level and they opt to apply their cost-sharing subsidy to the premium for the lowest-cost plan, roughly around the "copper" option proposed by the insurance industry and some moderate Democrats.

This is another compromise in which both sides win.Above 200% of the poverty level, ObamaCare's cracks widen in a serious way. The percentage of the uninsured under ObamaCare takes a big jump, and so does take-up of bronze coverage.Easing the cost-sharing subsidy cliff won't only make it more attractive for people to get coverage, albeit higher-deductible coverage, but it will allow people who need comprehensive coverage to get a better policy than they do under ObamaCare, since the bigger cost-sharing subsidy will effectively turn a silver plan to gold.

Meanwhile, freedom to choose a catastrophic plan with a 5:1 age-rating should satisfy the GOP that the reformed insurance markets will provide sufficient flexibility to meet the needs of all comers. Democrats should acknowledge that it's far better to let a young adult member of the working class get a higher-deductible plan for free than pay a penalty for going uninsured, and the broader, healthier risk pool will serve to hold down premiums for everyone.

As for the individual mandate, among the biggest issues of contention, if people earning up to 250% of the poverty level can get high-deductible coverage essentially for free and in most cases get extra cash on top there should be no need to threaten them with fines.

Above 250% of the poverty level, an alternative to the individual mandate is well worth considering. Among the reasons that the ObamaCare individual mandate doesn't work very well is that relatively young and healthy people who gamble on going without coverage can reasonably expect to win their bet and end up with a financial gain. ObamaCare encourages this kind of short-term calculation, sinceonly those who get sick pay a price.

A more logical approach would eliminate the incentive to go without coverage when one is young and healthy, then sign up when one's health starts deteriorating. Much like Medicare's late-enrollment penalties, the idea would be to very gradually shrink future tax subsidies based on how long people go without coverage. This should apply to both the individual market and employer market, or else people would have reason not to get coverage between jobs that offer insurance. The key for this to work in the constructive way intended is that subsidies must be sufficient to make coverage affordable, or else people would opt out for legitimate financial reasons and their future cost of coverage would gradually become even less affordable.

Even without this more constructive incentive, it's important to give members of the middle class a better deal than they get now. Those who earn too much to receive ObamaCare subsidies including young adults earning well below the official cut-off at 400% of the poverty level should be treated more equitably relative to their peers covered through the workplace.

A fiscally responsible solution would be to put a floor on tax credits for anyone buying coverage on the individual market equal to 25% of the cost of a silver plan, while limiting the income-tax benefit to 25% of the cost of employer-provided coverage and capping that benefit for high-income households. People in the 25% tax bracket (up to $91,151 for singles and $151,900 for married couples) who get coverage from an employer wouldn't be touchedby the tax change, while there would be minimal effect on those in the 28% bracket (up to $190,150 for singles and $231,450 for couples).

The sad reality today is that ObamaCare throws millions of modest-wage, full-time workers under the bus. There are some4.5 million uninsured full-time workerswho along with their spouses don't qualify for exchange subsidies, even if bronze-level workplace coverage costs close to 10% of income, which ObamaCare deems "affordable" but clearly isn't. That can amount to five times what people pay on the subsidized exchanges, sometimes even more. That's why perhaps a million other modest-wage earners solid numbers arehard to come by opt for"skinny" coverage at work that won't pay for hospitalization or surgerybut will keep them from having to pay a mandate penalty. This is worth repeating: The skimpy coverage that Democrats hate is exactly the kind of insurance-in-name-only-coverage that a lot of low-wage, full-time workers are settling for under ObamaCare.

Theemployer mandate is easy to dodgeand ends up harming the low-wage workers it was supposed to help. Getting rid of it is a progressive thing to do especially if it is done while fixing the individual insurance market.

Finally, we shouldallowstates that haven't expanded Medicaid to do so whilelimiting the expansion to 100% of the poverty level, easing the fiscal burden of the expansion on states, as suggested by Urban Institute scholars.

The Health Care Security & Freedom Act wouldn't deliver gold-plated insurance to most people, but it is the least we can do. All of these features would create a broad, stable risk pool, with affordable coverage options and plenty of flexibility to let people get the coverage that they believe suits them best. While they entail a fiscal cost, we can tackle that while stillputting the nation on a sounder fiscal courseand strengthening the social safety net.

Having a robust nongroup market for insurance that serves people well should be a priority for the nation. The dynamism of our economy will be better served if entrepreneurs and idealists who are willing to step out on a limb don't have to fear that their health insurance support will come crashing down. Demographic changes make it increasingly important for people to have the flexibility to step back from full-time work to help care for an aging parent or a sick child. Amid minimum-wage pressures and health care mandates, ultra-competitive markets and the advance of technology threaten to widen the cracks in our employer-centric insurance system that millions of workers, many with modest wages, are already falling into. And don't forget that we're entering the ninth year of an economic expansion. When the next recession hits, all of these pressures will multiply and millions more people will depend on insurance outside the employer system.

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How To Replace ObamaCare And Save Social Security

6/30/2017 Combining Republican principles and Democratic values is key to replacing ObamaCare.

6/30/2017 Combining Republican principles and Democratic values is key to replacing...

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Trump’s looming steel war, explained – The Week Magazine

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The Trump administration may be about to tick off the world over steel.

President Trump will reportedly soon decide whether to slap tariffs of up to 20 percent on U.S. imports of steel from other countries. Tariffs on other imports like semiconductors, paper, washing machines, and aluminum could also be in the works.

A majority of White House officials apparently oppose the plan just not Trump himself. And it set off plenty of grumbles among the world's other major economies at the international G-20 summit last week. If Trump goes through with it, officials in the European Union are looking into retaliatory tariffs on American exports in orange juice, whiskey, dairy, and other agricultural products.

Broadly speaking, there are two dimensions to this plan and its consequences: the legal and political complexities, and then any possible economic fallout.

Let's take them in that order.

If he imposes the tariffs, Trump would actually be using an odd corner of American trade law that dates back to the Cold War. It allows the U.S. to impose protectionist measures if they're deemed critical to national security. In this case, the ostensible justification would be that the military needs steel for equipment and vehicles and such, so the U.S. must have a robust domestic steel industry in case of war.

This is also where the problems start.

Trusted allies, not just the domestic industry, have historically been considered reliable sources of steel. Furthermore, the process for deciding when to use tariffs under this law usually requires months of committee hearings and knowledge gathering. That Trump is rushing the process suggests that national security is just a pretext. Instead, it is really an effort to protect U.S. steel, and everyone totally knows it. Which is why other Western countries are getting ready to retaliate.

Another justification the White House is throwing around is that China specifically needs to be punished for subsidizing its own steel exports to lower their price, and then dumping them on the international markets.

China is definitely guilty of this. Previous administrations, including Obama's, have slapped plenty of restrictions and temporary tariffs on Chinese steel as a result. But for that very reason, China's steel exports to the U.S. are already low it's not even among America's top 10 foreign suppliers. A more accurate characterization of the problem is that China's exports drive down the price of other countries' steel exports to America.

That's why Trump may well target other countries think Brazil, Mexico, Japan, Canada, and the European Union as well or just impose the tariffs on everyone across the board. Which brings us back to the problem of pissing off the international community.

Now, Vox's Zeesham Aleem pointed out that Trump could have yet another strategy in mind here: using the threat of tariffs on everyone to force other Western countries to get tougher on China together. But the White House has a big self-created problem there, too: "Trump's constant reversals, ambiguity, mixed signals, and outright hostility to following through on U.S. commitments on everything from trade deals to military alliances have destroyed trust in the U.S.'s ability to actually fulfill its pledges."

Basically, Trump is trying to game the rules of international trade agreements in a way that American allies will find particularly obvious and insulting. And they don't find him credible enough to trust U.S. commitments anymore.

But what of the economic merits of those agreements? Even if it's sure to piss off our trade partners, is this still a good idea for American jobs?

Well, as I mentioned, the more targeted a tariff is, the less likely it is to do anything for U.S. jobs. Just go after Chinese steel, and domestic producers will still be undercut by cheap imports from other countries. Meanwhile, tariffs on all steel imports only apply to steel. You may create jobs in the U.S. steel industry, but by definition, you're also raising the price of steel for American consumers. So you gain jobs in steel, but maybe lose them in industries that use steel, like car manufacturing.

So Trump's jobs goal would be better served by more comprehensive tariffs on all imports. But the closer he gets to that, the more likely he is to blow up international trade agreements entirely and spark a full-blown trade war. Now, American exports to the rest of the world make up just 12.5 percent of our economy, while the portion is much higher for most other Western countries. So they'd have far more to lose from a trade war than we do. But it still wouldn't be pleasant.

Even many left-wing economists who agree with Trump on the effects of trade think tariffs work best as shots across the bow: temporary and targeted measures to punish specific countries for bad behavior. They're not well-suited to forcing systemic changes in trade relationships.

If systemic change is Trump's ultimate goal (and it should be) he could use countervailing currency interventions to fix systemic imbalances between the U.S. dollar and other currencies. Or he could negotiate directly with other governments as previous administrations have successfully done to get them to adjust the value of their currencies relative to ours. Both movies would shrink the trade deficit, and thus increase the amount of American demand going to fuel domestic job creation.

Alternatively, Trump could accept that large trade deficits give the federal government enormous room to borrow without consequence. The stimulative effects of bigger federal budget deficits are actually a natural corrective to the job-sucking effects of trade deficits. Trump could use that fiscal freedom to create jobs and bulk up domestic industries like steel with domestic industrial policy.

Many centrist analysts have fallen into the habit of treating even the whiff of protectionism as a terrible idea with inevitably apocalyptic consequences. But while Trump may be wrong about many things, he's right that America's trade relationships harm American workers.

Unfortunately, precisely because Trump is wrong about many other things, his solutions tend to be terrible.

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Trump's looming steel war, explained - The Week Magazine

Gain Financial Independence Attend a FREE Educational Event – FOX31 Denver

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Do you wish you could find financial independence? Are you struggling to save money, and if you can save, watching it go up and down in the stock market? Then it's time to take charge and do something for yourself and your family. Our Financial Planner is going to show you how to get started right away, no more procrastinating! Joseph Quijano is a Certified Financial Planner, published author, and National Financial Educator. He's hosting three FREE educational events to show you how to make your money work for you. Joseph joined us this morning to talk about how he can change your life.

The free seminars are happening Tuesday, July 18 at 6:30 p.m. in Northglenn; Wednesday, July 19 at 6:30 p.m. in Lakewood; and Thursday, July 20 at 6:30 p.m. in Centennial. Seating is limited.

If you want to find financial independence, make and save more money, and have tax-free paychecks for life at retirement, call (877)299-9957 to reserve your seats for one of the three educational and life-changing events. If the line is busy, you can also register online at BecomeTheBanker.org/Register. If you're one of the first 10 callers to register, you will receive a free report on "How to Turbo-Charge Your Retirement."

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Flooding on Chester’s Sealand Road after downpour – ChesterChronicle.co.uk

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Chester's Sealand Road flooded following a deluge this afternoon (July 11).

Cars heading towards North Wales on the stretch near B&Q caused 'bow waves' as they ploughed through the surface water flooding.

Fortunately, the water level was not high enough to enter people's homes.

However, the timing of the flood is ironic on a day when the Environment Agency held a flood training exercise on nearby flood zone land involving sandbagging and the erection of temporary flood barriers.

In addition, today was the first day of an inquiry into whether developer Bark Street Investments should be allowed to build 142 homes in the flood plain on playing fields off Sealand Road.

A government decision to refuse the plan was overturned by the High Court.

This has resulted in a second planning inquiry at Ellesmere Port Civic Hall presided over by inspector Phillip Ware. His recommendations will help determine the ultimate decision by Sajid Javid, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government.

Friends of North Chester Greenbelt presented similar arguments as last time about why housing should not be built in the River Dee flood zone although the homes plan was actually supported by Cheshire West and Chester Council back in December 2014.

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Republic of Minerva Tonga – Atlas Obscura

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Although many utopian societies seem doomed from the outset, the Republic of Minerva was up against a unique challenge: Creating a libertarian micronation on reclaimed reefs in the Pacific Ocean, when the land already had an owner.

Situated 250 miles from Tonga, the Republic of Minerva was conceived by wealthy Nevada real estate mogul Michael Oliver. According to Oliver, his organization the Ocean Life Research Foundation had raised $100 million to create a utopian society on Pacific reefs. Olivers plan was to create a micro-nation without taxes, welfare or economic intervention, that lived chiefly off of tourism and fishing.

In 1971, Minervas construction began by bringing barges of sand to the reefs to raise them out of the ocean. Oliver then led a conference of neighboring states in which he delcared his intentions, only to find out that Tonga had issued a claim over the land. At that point, Oliver and his organization jumped the gun a little bit. Ignoring other claims to Minerva, Oliver issued a declaration of independence and created a coin currency for his new nation and was all set to launch into his experiment in nation building.

Unfortunately, the King of Tonga did not accept the new countrys legitimacy, and issued a document laying official claim to the reefs. Within months, representatives from Tonga made it clear they were in control of the reefs, and Oliver and his followers left without a fight.

Since that time, a few other groups have tried to set up shop on the islands of Minerva, only to be rebuffed once again by the Tongan government. Almost all of the land brought to the reefs has since been reclaimed by the Pacific Ocean.

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Republic of Minerva Tonga - Atlas Obscura

Focal Reveals the Next Generation of Its Flagship Utopia Speakers – Robb Report

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Launched in 2008 and expanding incrementally ever since, the flagship Utopia III line of speakers from French audio manufacturer Focal has now been joined by an upgraded special-edition range dubbedappropriately enoughEvo. The new collection currently comprises two variations, the Scala Evo and the Maestro Evo, both of which retain the stunning design vocabulary of their forebears while offering technological upgrades to help audiophiles get the most out of their systems.

Both floor-standing speakers share the same basic layout as their respective cousins from the standard Utopia line. The Scala Evo (the smaller of the two models) is equipped with a 10.6-inch subwoofer, a beryllium inverted dome tweeter, and a newly improved version of Focals proprietary Power Flower midrange driver, all of which occupy their own, isolated sections of the cabinet. The Maestro is equipped with the aforementioned drivers as well as four additional woofers with a Magnetic Dampening System that allows the bass to adjust to the specific dimensions of the room the speaker occupies.

The Evos also have upgraded crossovers and the gauge of their cabling has been increased by 20 percent to reduce distortion. However, the new feature that will be music to hardcore hi-fi geeks ears is the support for bi-amplification, in which a single speaker is connected to two amplifiers: one that handles high and mid-range frequencies and a second amp for low frequencies. This affords discerning listeners greater control over their system and allows them to fine-tune the sound according to their personal preference.

Since its introduction, the Utopia line has been noted for its aesthetic appeal, and the Evos are no exception. The speaker is arranged in a slightly curved stack, with each type of driver housed in its own enclosure. The Evos differentiate themselves, however, with brand new set of three finish colors inspired by the automotive industry: British Racing Green, Metallic Blue, and Ash Gray. (Carrara White and Black Lacquer are also available for traditionalists.)

Though pricing for the two new models has not yet been announced, Focal expects to start offering the Evo for sale next month.

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Focal Reveals the Next Generation of Its Flagship Utopia Speakers - Robb Report

A New Suburban Utopia: An Interview With EMA – The Quietus

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In the 2016 US Presidential election, Donald Trump won 61 per cent of the vote in the mid-west state of South Dakota. This was not a surprise South Dakotans had backed a Republican candidate since 1968. South Dakota is a red state. Erika M. Anderson hails from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, but for the past few years has resided in Portland, Oregon on the US Pacific Coast. In Portlands county Multnomah Hilary Clinton bagged over 73 per cent of the votes last November. Portland is a blue city.

Its the tension between these two versions of America the liberal coastal elite and the middle American that inspired much of EMAs third album, Exile In The Outer Ring. Its a staggering record, fuelled by class alienation, male rage as a society teeters on the verge of an implosive collapse. Its an album of heavy drones, self-loathing and Erikas gloriously twisted wit and feels like a sonic monument to the current fucked-up status of America in 2017.

However, Exile In The Outer Ring is a record aiming to build bridges. Amid all the dystopic energy lies a sliver of hope in the place EMA defines as the outer ring. According to Erika, this zone is where the two Americas collide. It can be found at the periphery of cities that have become too expensive for most, and its where the jobless from the countryside come to find a new life. Its a mass of faceless strip malls, vape shops and drive-thru fast-food joints and the good news is that the outer ring is culturally diverse, community-focussed and, as Erika tells me, is where all the weird shit is going down.

Its a place that suits Erika perfectly. She is still a mid-westerner at heart, but left Sioux Falls in part to remove herself from the suffocating misogyny of the towns punk rock community. Weve spoken before about her formative years (in an interview with fellow mid-westerner, Zola Jesus, in an article titled Empathy And The Red States) and Ive witnessed Erika visibly prickling at the lazy racist rednecks stereotypes bandied around by the coastal chattering classes.

I have interviewed Erika several times since a first meeting 2011, in the disused, top-floor storeroom in Salfords Islington Mill. She was touring her astounding debut album Past Life Martyred Saint and told me a terrible joke about an alien mattress salesman. Our most recent conversation was over a Skype video link for a tQ feature about her 2014 album, The Futures Void, a visceral and intense set of songs exploring online abuse, digital surveillance and media wrath. When we spoke, Erika was agitated and withdrawn. I was thinking about the last time I talked to you, Erika tells me, when we catch up to discuss Exile In The Outer Ring via another Skype video. I was a wreck and I was fucked up. I was not in a good place. This interview is very different.

Although I ask her some preposterous questions Erika has virtually fixed America by the time we are done she is on fine form and impassioned about an alternative vision for her wounded, flailing country. Exile and a desire to build bridges clearly suit EMA.

Congratulations on the new record. Three albums in, how close are we getting to the core DNA of EMA?

Erika M. Anderson: Well, I think I have done a pretty good job at being me on this record. It has all the things that I am interested in for as long as I have been making music - heavy drones, folk melodies, feedback and riffs. Its my language.

Thinking about the album title, can you give me an insight as to what you mean by the phrase outer ring.

EA: The outer ring is a term I came up with. Its the estuary between where the people who are being forced out of the cities, due to being economically disadvantaged, meet with the people who having to leave the countryside in order to get jobs. It has its own vibe and culture. And, where that place exists, is at the outer ring of a city. A lot of my work has been about spiritual transformations taking place in prosaic places. The outer ring to me is mess of chain stores and nondescript architecture, but also containing many super-unique elements the people. When I go to a city now, a lot of them are just all much of a muchness, with a culture and an aesthetic that makes them virtually identical. The fact that only wealthier people can live in the city, means they have become sterile. They all have the same kind of shops, bars and restaurants you could be in New York, London or Portland. Cities should be vibrant with culture and they still do house all of the cultural institutions but I think the outer ring is the place where the weird shit is going down.

Im also interested in a quote from the press release for this album, in which you describe your teenage self as a socialised male. What did you mean by that phrase?

EA: In my home town, any art or culture or anything interesting that was going on was strictly a boys club. Punk rock was the main art. There were definitely no girls that were playing music. I was the first woman to front a band in Sioux Falls. Even music fandom, if you wanted to hang out and learn about any of this stuff, all the people who were doing cool shit were dudes. They were also gnarly scumbags, but they were the people I had to learn from.

What impact did that have on you?

EA: Well, there are a couple of places on this record where I was going for a Guns N Roses vibe. It was me thinking about being six years old and getting the Appetite For Destruction tape and it containing a painting of a crumpled little girl who has just been raped by the huge robot. So, what did that do to me? I was taking in all of this culture the rage and the rebellion and it was all very male. When you are reading [Charles] Bukowski as a 12-year old girl, what does it do to you? Of course male rage is not hard to understand. It is everywhere. There are so many movies, so many books and so many songs that are fuelled by male rage. I have had to deal with male rage literally; by having crazy boyfriends who would destroy shit. I feel like I understand it. There is part of me that has been taking it in - artistically - for years, by observing, and then making something out of that rage.

The album explores some of the rage that fuelled the Presidential election. Why do you think that Trump was able to tap into so much frustration and anger?

EA: All the songs on this record were written before the US Presidential election. I think that one of the things I was tapping into, subconsciously, was a resentment of the liberal coastal elite in America. I dont know how to speak to the racism aspect [of Trump supporters] thats a whole different discussion but there is a resentment and rejection of liberal culture. That culture is not available to many people in America. And the liberal coastal elite, who may never have been to rural America, just think everyone there is racist and homophobic and judge them to be terrible people. They think there is nothing wrong to be making jokes about meth heads, who are actually a group of people with poverty-related drug issues. They dont see their own hypocrisy. I think this is a huge issue and one that cannot be ignored. Also, there is a dismissal of certain aspects of liberalism an almost wholesale rejection of multiculturalism and globalisation.

You are from South Dakota and I remember the article we did for tQ with Zola Jesus was entitled Empathy For The Red States. I am assuming you empathise with the demographic so reviled by the liberal coastal elite?

EA: I can pick up on that. I have a bit of that resentment. I can go a fancy bar or a boutique and it flips a switch in me, even though I have been living on the coast for a long time. I can still feel it, even if I havent been back home for a while. Having said that, I didnt really see Trump coming because he is such a conman. I could see the anger and a desire to say fuck you to the establishment and to the liberal elite, but how could you vote for a person who is a sleazy, New York City real estate mogul? Its beyond me.

Let me push you a little bit. While I understand your empathy, is it not true that there are many people in the Red States that are racist and homophobic and how do you square that away?

EA: Okay. I have a lot of thoughts going on. As for how to defend folk back home? I have been recently reading a lot about racism in America and the aspect that I can talk to and experienced when I was growing up in South Dakota, was about racism being linked to misbehaviour and shock value. I remember being in first grade and a kid carved a swastika into his desk. The teacher was so upset and the kid was getting into huge trouble. None of us knew what it meant at that point I didnt know and the kid didnt really know. He had no history of World War Two he just knew it caused a huge reaction. I think that is something I saw - kids being rebellious. Thats being going on forever. I was reading some stuff about the alt. right and some of them are these children who now have grown up and want to say the craziest things and make the most offensive memes. So, there is an aspect of that, which I remember as a kid. People would say racist shit and I would be like Dude, we are in South Dakota and everyone is white and you are obviously ignorant you literally have no clue what you are talking about at all. All they knew is that it would evoke a reaction. So, I had experience with this, when I was hanging out with some of the teenage scumbag boys. I dont have experience of actual hate crimes or of people who make that jump from saying stupid shit for shock value to piss people off, to the violent actions. I didnt grow up with that. I have no understanding of that. I dont know what thats about or how people can get that way. And, I dont know what to do about it.

Dont worry, Im not asking you to cure racism.

EA: Its frightening. There were people murdered recently on a train in Portland. Its insanity.

Have you a sense of what it means to be an American in 2017?

EA: This is the thing. I feel like an American and all this shit makes me want to reclaim it. I was so pissed when a group of people decided they were more American than I was. I dont believe any of the bullshit they try and put under the umbrella of what it means to be American. Since when has America just been about white people? We are all fucking immigrants what are they talking about? So, I definitely want to reclaim what it means to be American. Right now, the concept has been trashed.

How would EMA reclaim America? Sorry, thats a deeply unfair question.

EA: No. Let me think about this. What would I reclaim America as? I do want it to be a diverse country. As I am talking to you, I am thinking that the reason the outer ring might work as a place of unification is because its signifiers of geography are neutral. It has a neutral aesthetic - it is chain stores and parking lots. Its not the city with its dark wood espresso shops or the country with its dive bars. I dont know how to fix the cities and make affordable housing in the city. It seems pretty fucked cities seem like places people visit but not anywhere that anyone could live. They dont feel vibrant or integrated and interwoven anymore. The only thing I can hope for is some sort of suburban utopia. Isnt that what everyone at some point desires? Didnt America invent the suburbs?

Can you define your suburban utopia?

EA: The suburbs have always been like an American version of utopia and a reflection of their hopes and fears. Erikas version of American suburban utopia which I am renaming the outer ring is a diverse place, with affordable housing, the possibility for people to have small businesses (which is more realistic in the outer ring than in the city with its huge costs), decent public transportation and the ability to access art and cultural events. Thats my dream for America.

I think you might have just fixed America. Finally, is Exile In The Outer Ring a hopeful album?

EA: Well, you can always accuse my records of being harrowing or dark or bleak. There is processing of trauma on my records and I think my music does contain a lot of healing. As a person who has been watching others rage for years, instead of having my own tantrums, I keep the feelings inside until I can find a way of making them into music. The songs are like healing spells and it really works for me. When I really do a good job on a song, it gets rid of a weight. So, as far as hope goes, there is hope that you can heal through processing stuff and make it through to the other side. I think thats all I can hope for.

Exile In The Outer Ring is out on August 25 via City Slang.

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A New Suburban Utopia: An Interview With EMA - The Quietus

Studio Update On New Album Posted By Bleeding Utopia – Metal Underground

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Studio Update On New Album Posted By Bleeding Utopia
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Swedish death metal act Bleeding Utopia issued a video studio update on the upcoming new album. The band is currently in the studio finishing up the album, which is said to be a blast of deep-rooted Swedish death metal meshed with modern American ...

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Studio Update On New Album Posted By Bleeding Utopia - Metal Underground

Liberal Utopia Imagined Through Students in New Season of ‘Degrassi: Next Class’ – NewsBusters (press release) (blog)

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Liberal Utopia Imagined Through Students in New Season of 'Degrassi: Next Class'
NewsBusters (press release) (blog)
A few episodes later, Yael reveals her new pronouns: they and them. In classic liberal fashion, the show rebukes Yael's boyfriend, Hunter, for not accepting his girlfriend's transformation. Despite his assertion that he's attracted to girls, his ...

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Oceania abalone companies to merge – Undercurrent News

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New Zealand-based canned abalone supplier PauaCo and Australia-based live abalone supplier Ralph's Tasmania Seafood are set to merge Aug. 25, the companies said in a release on Thursday.

The deal will create what the companies call the largest abalone processor and exporter in Australasia.

PauaCosuppliesretail and catering markets in Southeast Asia while Ralph's specializes in live abalone exports to mainland China.The merger aimsto better utilize the wild abalone resource in both New Zealand and Australia. The consolidation will lead to greater distribution access for live Paua exports from New Zealand whileallowing the maximization of Australian abalone currently not able to be sold into the live markets, the companies said.

We are delighted to be able to announce this merger to the market, said David Hogg chairman ofPauaCo, which was formed in 2012. He added that the deal will more efficiently utilize the wild resource, resulting in better returns for all involved.

I am very happy to be joining forces with PauaCo, said Ralph Caccavo, co-founder of Ralphs. We have found a business that shares our goals for the future of the industry, and together we can offer the best routes to markets for our suppliers and the best products for our customers.

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Oceania abalone companies to merge - Undercurrent News