Calgary police ask for help in identifying potential victims of sexual … – CBC.ca

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Calgary police say they've apprehended 11 youth who were being sexually exploited so far this year and helped another 11 adults exit the sex trade.

The statistics for the first half of 2017 are not up significantly from the same time last year, but Staff Sgt. Jason Walker said the numbers only scratch the surface of what's actually going on in the city.

"These activities are beyond under-reported. They are, by their very nature, intentionally suppressed and hidden," Walker said Wednesday in a release.

"Victims are often reluctant to self-identify or seek helpand, in some cases, research indicates that many cannot self-identify, as they are vulnerable and limited in their capacity to recognize that they are in fact being trafficked and sexually exploited to begin with."

He said human trafficking and sexual exploitation remainhigh priorities for the Calgary Police Service (CPS).

In the summer, especially,with more people outdoors and in public places, police are nowasking the public for assistance in "recognizing potential signs" of victims being exploited.

Police said victims often don't speak English, are kept isolated or guarded when in public and may be coached by others when they are responding to questions.

Victims may also be unaware of what city they are in and be scared to seek help because they fear it will bring harm to themselves or their families. They may even try to protect their traffickers from being detected, as they develop loyalties toward them as a coping mechanism.

"The illicit elements of the sex trade are not victimless crimes," Walker said.

Traffickers cannot claim ignorance of an exploited victim's age to avoid being charged with child sexual exploitation, he added.

For adults looking to exit the sex trade, theCPS Prostitution Exit Initiativeoffers immediate help and is available by calling 403-428-8585.

Anyone with information about human trafficking activity is asked to call police at 403-266-1234.

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Alleged leader of Austin gambling operation faces up to life in prison … – KXAN.com

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AUSTIN (KXAN) A three-month long surveillance operation of a 53-year-old man suspected of running an illegal gambling ring in the Austin area culminated in his arrest by SWAT officers in Hutto on Monday.

The Austin Police Departments Human Trafficking/Vice Unit began their surveillance of Chong Pak in late January 2017 and, after several search warrants at various game rooms and the cooperation of people involved, detectives were able to identify Pak as the alleged owner of the operation.

On Monday, APD and Williamson County SWAT teams searched Paks home in the 1200 block of Augusta Bend in Hutto. Detectives say they found several documents linking Pak to illegal gaming operations.

They seized $724,736 in cash, believed to be income from the game rooms, three vehicles worth $94,550 and around $7,500 in gold and silver ingots, similar to gold bars.

Pak has been charged with first-degree felony money laundering and a state jail felony for engaging in organized crime. If convicted, he faces up to life in prison and a $10,000 fine.

Troy Officer, commander of the APD Organized Crime Unit, says there are about 80 illegal game rooms operating in Austin. Just one small game room can make at least $1.2 million a year, he said.

Anyone who says these game rooms are a victimless crime and people are willingly taking part in this, have no idea what the ultimate pocket is for the illegal activity, Cmdr. Officer said, estimating the hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash confiscated from Paks home is just a drop in the bucket.

The commander says game rooms are a breeding ground for robberies and violent crimes, and he wants to put their operators on notice. We may not get you today. We may not get you tomorrow, but we will get you, we will put you in jail, and we will come after your money and take what you covet most about doing these operations: your illegal games.

Cmdr. Officer says the money could be used for anything from financing drugs to terrorism. He says Paks game rooms were strictly running 8-liner machines, which are video slot machines.

The police department saying illegal gaming operations are bringing in millions of dollars every month citywide. Cmdr. Officer says theyve arrested around nine suspects related to Paks operation leading up to the arrest of the alleged ringleader himself. Investigators believe he owns six to eight game rooms and leases the machines for many of the other game rooms in the city, located in warehouses, homes or storefronts.

Police still consider this to be an active investigation and, with the help of the Internal Revenue Service, they expect to issue additional search and arrest warrants.

Heather Crawford lives two doors down from Paks home in Hutto. Its real quiet, everyone kinda keeps to themselves but everyone is real friendly with each other, Crawford said.

That quiet turned to a bit of chaos Monday morning for her and her family.

We heard another explosion and it shook the house and we thought, Oh my goodness whats going on? So my husband came outside to the front porch and he saw the police, he saw guns drawn. It was scary. Crawford said.

When the family found out hours later what the raid was for, Crawfords gut feeling kicked in.

Weve always kind of been suspicious of maybe illegal activities going on in the house, she said. There were always a lot of cars parked in the area and a lot of cars coming and going.

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"These Deaths Are Preventable:" Grieving Families Join Together To … – Townhall

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Washington, D.C. -Illegal immigrant crime is facing new opposition with the launch of the Advocates for Victims of Illegal Alien Crime (AVIAC).

The group was founded by Mary Ann Mendoza and Don Rosenberg, who both lost their children to illegal immigrant felons. The founders are joined by more Americans whose children and loved ones have been killed by illegal immigrants. AVIAC aims to be a resource for victims of illegal alien crimes, such as assault and battery, identity theft and rape; the organization also seeks to serve families of these victims.

Representative Steve King (R-IA) is one of the organizations strongest advocates, promising to push legislation such as Sarah's Lawand KatesLaw. Rep. King is a proponent of strong immigration policy and was the keynote speaker at AVIACs launch event. He cited a heavy amnesty time period under President Ronald Reagan:

In 1986, Ronald Reagan was honest. He called his legislation amnesty. Now, they just call it comprehensive immigration reform. We know it means amnesty...I thought he would veto it [amnesty] because I thought he understood that we have to uphold the rule of law.

Were on the cusp of restoring the rule of law, he said on the new administration.

Rep. King rightfully pointed out the sad truth that is often untold about illegal immigrant crimes: that each and every one is avoidable.

Every one of those lives that have been snuffed out by someone who is unlawfully in America, illegal aliens, is a preventable death, he said.

Rep. King brought up that although illegal immigrants commit more crimes than American citizens, the most crucial offense is executed on arrival by illegal immigrants. Coming to America illegally is a federal crime. He criticized Democrats for overlooking the immigration problem, and using it for political capital.

Hillary Clinton would fast track citizenship to anyone who would vote as a Democrat, King said.

Attendees of the event had the opportunity to hear from the families who lost their children and loved ones at the hand of illegal immigration. The group gathered from across the country, from California to Massachusetts, in support of the same cause, and with losing loved ones in common.

Michelle Root, who lost her daughter Sarah, who is the namesake of Sarahs Law, spoke to the support aspect of AVIAC:

When my daughter Sarah was killed last year, I wish I had an organization like this to turn to...AVIAC is important to me and the rest of the families standing here today, and many Americans...because we share the same grief. All of our loved ones would still be here today if it werent for the person who was here illegally.

We stand here today to speak truth, standing up for loved ones we lost, for other victims who have been silenced and for future generations of Americans who deserve to be safe and secure, she added.

The rest of the families shared their stories and passion for taking action on illegal immigration. The unique variety of tragic stories and diversity of the group proved that everyone is affected by illegal alien crime; and illegal immigration is not a victimless crime.

Watch the launch video for Advocates for Victims of Illegal Alien Crime here:

Kate's Law Passes House

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"These Deaths Are Preventable:" Grieving Families Join Together To ... - Townhall

Benefits cheat who swindled more than 6,000 by claiming she … – The Sun

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Rhona Vessey, 50, claimed she 'could only walk 20 metres without getting out of breath'

A BENEFITS cheat who swindled more than 6,000 by claiming she could barely walk was caught out after appearing with a marching band.

Rhona Vessey, 50, said her physical impairments meant she could only walk 20 metres without getting out of breath and could not carry a shopping bag.

SWNS:South West News Service

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But after receiving a tip-off, investigators carried out undercover surveillance and saw Vessey marching as a drummer with the band on three separate occasions.

She had fraudulently claimed for6,251.04 in disability benefits between October 3, 2014 and October 26, 2015.

Vessey, of Little Eaton, Derbys, admitted one count of fraud and was handed a ten-week community order at Southern Derbyshire Magistrates Court yesterday.

District Judge Jonathan Taaffe said: This is not a victimless crime because there is no bottomless pit of money that people can fraudulently claim from.

You claimed benefits you were not entitled to and the reality is that society and the courts take a serious view on crimes like this.

You made the claim and then participated in marching activities with others.

SWNS:South West News Service

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Prosecutor Lynn Bickley said: We say this was a claim that was dishonest from the outset.

She made the claim saying she was virtually unable to walk, needed attention to her leg three times during the day and prolonged attention during the night.

In her claim she said she could only walk between 20 and 50 metres without getting out of breath.

She said often she could not go outside her front door, or go to shops and supermarkets on her own.

She said she could often not use shopping bags and felt anxious if people looked at her when she was outside.

But information was received that she was a member of a marching band and regularly took part in lengthy and complex marching routines.

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Miss Bickley said investigators for the Department for Work and Pensions went to investigate Vessey and used secret cameras to catch her playing in the Derby Midshipmen Band.

She said: The result of the surveillance was that on three occasions she was observed marching in the band with a drum strapped to her shoulder and there were no limitations on her mobility.

Judge Taaffe ordered that she pay 85 costs, an 85 victim surcharge and handed her a ten-week curfew, confining her to her address between 7pm and 7am each day.

Peter Jones, defending, said Vessey had lost her husband relatively recently and is currently jointly claiming employment support allowance with her new partner.

He said: This is a lady that feels great shame that she before the court.

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Why can’t self-satisfied liberals admit that conservatives care about people, too? – The Week Magazine

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As someone who voted for Barack Obama twice, supported the Affordable Care Act, and could be persuaded to vote for the right kind of single-payer system, I've found the entire health-care debate over the past several months deeply depressing. That's no doubt why my first instinct was to cheer when reading a recent rant against the right from an editor at The Huffington Post.

The transparently titled opinion column, "I Don't Know How to Explain to You That You Should Care About Other People," is a perfect expression of our political moment in its utter exasperation at those on the other side of a policy debate, but even more so in how it casts these partisan opponents as moral monsters with whom communication, let alone persuasion, is simply impossible.

I admit that it does often feel that way these days, especially when it comes to the House and Senate bills to remake the nation's health-care system, since so much of the discussion has been conducted by Republicans in undeniable bad faith with bills primarily designed to cut or eliminate taxes dishonestly described by leaders in Congress, as well as the president, as efforts to make health care more affordable. (The tax cuts ensure that health care would in fact become much less affordable for millions of people.)

But the instinct to cheer on the argument should be resisted.

The fact is that most intelligent and informed people on the right do not oppose progressive policies because they're stingy bastards who don't give a damn about their fellow citizens. It's true that this may describe some Republicans. There are probably a non-trivial number, especially those unduly influenced by the odious ideas of Ayn Rand, who do come close to viewing the poor as parasitic moochers. But many, many others the vast majority, in my experience do not take this position. They believe, instead, that progressive policies do more harm than good for the very people they're designed to help.

Consider the minimum wage. Many conservatives oppose raising it, especially as high as $15/hour, as some municipalities around the country have opted to do over the last few years. Do they take this position because they prefer lower-wage workers to struggle? No. They take this position because they understand basic principles of economics, which predict that raising costs for businesses that employ low-wage workers will lead them to make fewer hires, thereby hurting these workers overall. (A study released earlier this week seems to indicate that this is precisely what's been happening in Seattle since the city began incrementally raising its minimum wage.)

The same holds for the concerns that led the original neoconservatives to make various proposals for reforming crime and welfare during the 1970s and '80s proposals that powerfully influenced policymaking at the local and federal levels during the 1990s.

My point isn't to make a case for these policies (though I think many of them were defensible in the context of the time). The point is to recognize that the proposals were made with the intent of improving the lives of the poor, crime victims, and others, not with the intent of hurting them, or of giving the rich a post-spending-cut tax break. (While it's true that most of these conservatives supported tax cuts as well, those cuts, too, were justified as a spur to economic growth and job creation that would benefit everyone.)

It's certainly easier and more morally satisfying for those on the left to presume that the right is just motivated by rank selfishness. But it's no more true at an individual level than it is as the level of public policy debate.

Though there's been considerable dispute about studies purporting to show that conservatives are more generous than liberals when it comes to private charity, the most fair-minded critics don't claim the opposite that only people on the left care about the well-being of their fellow citizens. The critics claim, rather, that ideology is an insignificant variable in determining who gives to charity, and how much.

So much for having to explain to Republicans as a group why they "should care about other people."

Now, it may well be that Republicans are more inclined toward generosity when it comes to private charity than they are with regard to government programs. Is that foolish? Could conservatives do more social good if they supported tax hikes and policies devised and run by the federal government? That's an empirically testable proposition, the outcome of which just might change some minds on the right.

But only if liberals, progressives, and democratic socialists resist the temptation to flatter themselves and demonize their opponents and keep up the hard, unglamorous, sometimes infuriating work of trying to persuade.

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Why can't self-satisfied liberals admit that conservatives care about people, too? - The Week Magazine

The least of these – Ashland Daily Press

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In Matthew 25: 31-46, Jesus talks about compassion for the least of these. He identifies them as the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick and the imprisoned. He says that when time is fulfilled, the goats and sheep will be separated. The sheep are those who show compassion. The goats are those who do not. In the end, the goats will go away into eternal punishment (in today's language, they'd roast in Hell) but the sheep will enter into eternal life.

Jesus makes it very clear where he stands. Central to life in the Christian Church must be compassion for our fellow human beings. When I look at some of the people in our present U. S. Congress who are trying to pass a new health care bill that will hurt millions of poor, disabled, addicted, and elderly people, I wonder if they know that they are acting like a bunch of goats.

Oh, I'm sure some champion the notion of personal responsibility. While being responsible is a good thing, they say that if you are among the hungry, the thirsty, the strangers, the naked, the sick, or the imprisoned, it's your own fault. Yet this is not the message of Jesus. It's the philosophy of a mid-20th Century lady named Ayn Rand who thought that the talented few should be protected not the least of these. Its a notion that ought not be in the vocabulary of the Christian Church.

In my Christian bones, I believe that what is being contemplated in the new health bill is immoral. I wonder how our representatives in Congress would respond to the question: Are you a sheep or a goat?

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The least of these - Ashland Daily Press

Love Him Or Hate Him, There’s Nobody Making Movies Quite Like The Director Of Netflix’s ‘Okja’ – WBUR

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wbur Review Mija with her "super pig" Okja. (Courtesy Netflix)

Some pig, Charlotte the spider famously wrote of her friend Wilbur in a timeless childrens tale, but she just as well could have been referring to the title character in Okja, filmmaker Bong Joon Hos scabrous satire for adults that premieres this week on Netflix.

A larger-than-life collision of conflicting tones, gargantuan set-pieces and unsubtle social commentary, the film follows in the footsteps of the South Korean writer-directors extraordinary English-language debut Snowpiercer with another series of hairpin stylistic curves and barn-sized performances, at once both heartbreaking and ghoulishly funny. Love him or hate him, theres nobody else making movies quite like this guy.

Bong whose breakthrough 2006 creature-feature/family-melodrama The Host followed a giant lizard rising from toxic pollutants dumped into the Han River by an American army base isnt exactly coy when hes got an ax to grind. Snowpiercer was a class warfare fable set upon a speeding bullet train, its final reel a sly takedown of Ayn Rands Atlas Shrugged complete with Ed Harris as a gaseous John Galt-y industrialist. Okja fires a few shots at our current media culture but mostly its a horror movie about factory farming, detailing the ghastly practices of the fictional Mirando Corporation. (Any resemblance to Monsanto is presumably entirely intentional.)

A laboratory-engineered, floppy-eared super pig slightly larger than an Escalade, our lovable Okja is first seen frolicking around a South Korean mountaintop forest with her constant companion spirited, 14-year-old orphan Mija (An Seo Hyun). Mija has been raising the adorable animal for the past decade, as part of a PR campaign cooked up by one of the bickering Mirando sisters (played by twin Tilda Swintons) to try and make folks less wary of their genetically modified organisms by showing off some cute ones. The theory is that then we wont feel so weird about eating them.

But when a broken-down TV veterinarian (Jake Gyllenhaal, overacting atrociously) comes to collect Okja for a Mirando-sponsored parade in New York City, Mija loses her cool. The remainder of the movie is devoted to madcap chase sequences and daring rescues, our plucky heroine joining up with the Animal Liberation Front an idealistic collective of gentle vegans turned violent revolutionaries. Theyre led by a wonderfully droll Paul Dano, attempting to reconcile his peacenik manifesto with the messy tasks at hand.

The movies early highlight is a massive foot/truck pursuit through Seoul with tiny Mija constantly dwarfed by the immensity of both her surroundings and her porcine pal. Bong once again demonstrates a sharp eye for controlled chaos, the bravura sequence crashing through an underground mall as frenzied circus music on the soundtrack gloriously, inexplicably gives way to John Denvers Annies Song.

Not every offbeat choice works so well Gyllenhaals performance is a flat-out disaster but the movie is full of bold, sidelong jabs. Sharp-eyed viewers might bust out laughing at a moment when Swinton and her confidant Giancarlo Esposito are framed to mimic that iconic Situation Room photo taken during the Osama bin Laden raid. (Swinton even puts a hand over her mouth.) Nobody ever accused Bong Joon Ho of being subtle.

"Okja" became the subject of much extracurricular controversy at last month's Cannes Film Festival when jury president Pedro Almodvarread a statement saying he "personally could not conceive" of awarding a Netflix-produced picture, citing the streaming service's refusal to release their films in movie theaters. The festival later announced that starting next year films without a French theatrical run will no longer be considered for competition. The Netflix logo was reportedly booed by festival attendees, and a (rare for Cannes) projection error during the first screening was assumed by the more conspiratorially-minded to be an act of sabotage by film purists.

Personally, I wish Netflix shared their competitor Amazons strategy of booking a theatrical run before streaming exclusively. It especially would have been nice to see Okja on a big screen considering how many of Bongs visual gags are based on size and scale. But this isnt my money, and let's not pretend modern movie studios are lining up to finance projects as kooky and idiosyncratic as this one. How soon we forget that the U.S. release of Snowpiercer was all but scuttled after lengthy disputes over editing with distributors at The Weinstein Company, and the film would not have even played the Boston area had it not been for heroic efforts by our friends at the Brattle Theatre.

I expect Almodvars position will become increasingly more untenable as independent film financing continues to contract and Hollywood keeps narrowing its focus to franchises and branded properties. Later this summer, Martin Scorsese is scheduled to start shooting another of his decades-spanning gangster epics, this one starring the murderers' row of Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci and Harvey Keitel. Confoundingly, Scorseses home studio Paramount Pictures (which just released Baywatch and Transformers 5) passed on the project, so now its going to be a Netflix Original Movie.

It's slim pickings for discerning viewers at the movies right now. I'm an almost pathological habitual moviegoer, and this is the first summer of my adult lifetime I can recall going entire weekends without a trip to the multiplex. To have a Cannes contender that's as big and crazily ambitious as "Okja" available through a streaming service is a paradigm shift that I'm sure makes a lot of people in the industry uncomfortable. But I'm just grateful there's finally something interesting for me to watch, even if I have to stay home to see it.

And Im also overjoyed that people are still giving Bong Joon Ho lots of money to make super-expensive movies about how capitalism corrupts and destroys everything good in the world.

Here's the trailer:

Sean Burns Film Critic, The ARTery Sean Burns is a film critic for The ARTery.

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Love Him Or Hate Him, There's Nobody Making Movies Quite Like The Director Of Netflix's 'Okja' - WBUR

‘The literal definition of fake news’: late-night hosts on Trump’s Time cover – The Guardian

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This would be the saddest thing Ive ever heard if it wasnt the funniest thing Ive ever heard ... Seth Meyers Photograph: YouTube

Late-night hosts on Wednesday took aim at Trumps fake Time magazine cover and the GOPs hugely unpopular healthcare legislation, the vote for which was delayed on Tuesday after failing to receive enough support from Republican senators.

Samantha Bee, of Full Frontal, began: Last week, Mitch McConnell and his gang of 12 finally unveiled their super-secret Obamacare repeal bill. Guess what the big secret was?

Bee went on to slam the bill, which includes huge cuts to Medicaid. Its called trickle-down, she said. Poor people will still get access to the antibiotics that rich people shed in their urine. It turns out, 13 rich white guys alone in a room isnt how good legislation happens. Its how Suicide Squad happens. But while Suicide Squad destroys your will to live, this bill destroys your ability to live.

Most people like Medicaid, including Republican people. Who the hell asked you to gut it by sending it to the states and capping its growth rate? she asked. Medicaid is the reason we dont have gangs of elderly people roaming the streets, robbing us of our soft food and sharing their thoughts about Asian people. Allowing states to cap Medicaid benefits also threatens the expensive long-term care that was so very important to Republicans back when it was keeping Terry Schiavo alive.

Bee then tore into Paul Ryan, who said hed been dreaming about the legislation since drinking out of a keg in college. While most college guys in the 90s were fantasizing about Pamela Anderson, Bee joked, Paul Ryan was jerking it to thoughts of poor people losing healthcare to pay for tax cuts. Easy there, cowboy! You might not be covered for carpal tunnel and blindness.

Amazingly, Mitch McConnells annotated copy of Atlas Shrugged wasnt greeted with unfettered senatorial rapture, Bee said. But dont put your sharpies and poster board away yet.

Stephen Colbert took aim at the legislation as well, a new version of which could be voted on after the Fourth of July recess.

The Senate Trumpcare bill suffered some setbacks this week because theres one major flaw to the legislation, he began. I dont want to get too wonky, but its a hot pile of garbage.

Yesterday, Senate majority leader and man trying to keep a bird from escaping his mouth Mitch McConnell announced that voting on the bill would be delayed until after the Fourth of July. Its a smart move. You dont want to strip people of healthcare until after the holiday that mixes booze and explosives.

Colbert continued: While theyve pulled the bill, Republicans say theyre going to come back with something better. And theres a lot of blame to go around. Today, the New York Times said Donald Trump faltered in his role as a closer. Usually, hes a great closer. Just look at his casinos. But you cant. Theyre gone.

The host then discussed the Times report, which detailed some of the internal efforts to get the bill passed. One Republican senator said the president did not have a grasp of some of the basic elements of the Senate plan, Colbert said, before beginning his impersonation of the president. Whoa, slow down. Slow down. Start from the beginning. Whats a Senate? And, follow-up question, whats a plan?

Trump claims he does understand the plan, Colbert continued, tweeting: Some of the fake news media likes to say that I am not totally engaged in healthcare. Wrong, I know the subject well and want victory for US.

He totally understands healthcare, Colbert quipped. He thinks you can win it.

Seth Meyers of NBC addressed healthcare legislation and the Washington Post report saying the president hangs a fake Time Magazine cover in many of his resorts and hotels.

This week the CBO projected that the GOP healthcare bill could leave 22 million more people uninsured, he began. So what has Trump been up to? Well, yesterday, he got up bright and early to retweet four different stories in a row from Fox & Friends attacking the Russia investigation and the Democrats.

Meyers continued: One of the stories Trump retweeted was a link to a monologue from Fox host Sean Hannity, whose surgery to have those bolts removed from his neck was apparently successful.

Trump is so obsessed with praise from the media that according to the Washington Post, he keeps this framed Time magazine cover hanging in several of his golf clubs, Meyers said. Cool cover, flattering photo. Just one problem. The Time cover is a fake. Thats right, Trump hung a fake Time Magazine cover with his face on it in his private golf club. That is the literal definition of fake news. This would be the saddest thing Ive ever heard if it wasnt the funniest thing Ive ever heard.

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WATCH: Sam Bee brutalizes Paul Ryan for ‘jerking it to poor people … – Raw Story

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Sam Bee on Wednesday railed into the GOP healthcare plan in a five-minute blitz that hit Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell and even Ayn Rand.

Bee torched conservatives for cutting healthcare coverage for poor, working and sick Americans, pleading, dont kill Medicaid, its only 52 years old! It just joined curves and is learning to dance like nobodys watching!

She then turned to Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI), playing a video of the GOP leader bragging hes been dreaming of sending Medicaid back to the states [and] capping its growth rate, adding hes been dreaming of this since you and I were drinking at a keg.

Yes, while most college guys in the 90s were fantasizing about Pamela Anderson, Paul Ryan was jerking it to thoughts of poor people losing healthcare to pay for tax cuts, Bee said.

She then turned to Ryans comrade in the Senate, Mitch McConnell (R-KY) for his thinly-annotated copy of Atlas Shrugged.

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WATCH: Sam Bee brutalizes Paul Ryan for 'jerking it to poor people ... - Raw Story

Richard Kyte: Institutions can bring people together – Chippewa Herald

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A fundamental insight to be gleaned from studying aid to developing countries is that healthy institutions lead to healthy economies; countries with undeveloped or corrupt institutions invariably have struggling economies.

Even countries with prodigious supplies of natural resources do not benefit if they do not have strong institutions. Wealth is extracted, it flows to a few individuals, and then to other nations. Most citizens remain impoverished.

What sets flourishing nations apart is the mediation of wealth creation and distribution by healthy institutions. Schools, universities, government, laws, courts, banks, churches, media, families, libraries, service clubs, hospitals and neighborhoods all serve, when functioning properly, to bring people together in a common cause, protect people from exploitation, and provide opportunities for developing and exercising gifts and talents.

IIn the 1970s and 80s, institution was a bad word, especially among liberals. The movement to reform society, to make it more just, less racist and sexist, was pursued through rejection of the establishment. Traditional ways of doing things were suspect simply because they were traditional.

The modern conservative movement rose in response to the liberal reforms of those years. People like William F. Buckley and George Will advocated incremental change when needed, but not wholesale rejection of traditional forms of society. Conservatives tended to be pro-business, pro-religion, pro-family and pro-education. They supported traditional moral values: honesty, courage, faith, humility, hard work, duty and self-sacrifice.

That all changed during the past decade with the rise of the Tea Party. The Tea Party rejected traditional conservativism and replaced it with profound distrust of institutions of all forms.

The intellectual and historical underpinnings of the Tea Party movement can be found in the writings of Ayn Rand, in books like Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead and The Virtue of Selfishness. Rand criticized institutions, especially government institutions, because they restrict personal freedom. She believed society is best served by allowing individuals to pursue their own paths and not requiring them to put their own interests aside for the sake of the common good.

Rands influence on contemporary American politics is far-reaching. Prominent politicians like Rand Paul (who is named after her) and Paul Ryan shaped their early careers in light of her philosophy, and others such as Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and business leaders John Mackey and Mark Cuban have acknowledged her inspiration as a factor in their success.

But Rands influence is not to be measured by the number of disciples, rather it can be seen in the profound changes in attitude we are witnessing in society today.

It can be seen in the growing antipathy toward government in all its forms, in the disrespect shown toward professionals in education, journalism and health care, in the rise of conspiracy theories, in the decline in church membership and service organizations, in the antipathy toward science, in the glorification of the violent hero, in the prominence of the cynic.

But there is another, albeit smaller, movement in America today, a movement started by a contemporary of Ayn Rand named Robert Greenleaf.

In 1972, Greenleaf wrote an essay entitled The Servant as Leader in which he expressed an attitude diametrically opposed to Rands Objectivist philosophy. That essay gave rise to the Servant Leadership movement, a movement encouraging the development of individual talents not for self-interest but to serve the common good. He believed this was best done by working diligently to ensure that core institutions are healthy and ethical.

In The Institution as Servant he wrote:

This is my thesis: caring for persons, the more able and the less able serving each other, is the rock upon which a good society is built. Whereas, until recently, caring was largely person to person, now most of it is mediated through institutions often large, complex, powerful, impersonal; not always competent; sometimes corrupt. If a better society is to be built, one that is more just and more loving, one that provides greater creative opportunity for its people, then the most open course is to raise both the capacity to serve and the very performance as servant of existing major institutions by new regenerative forces operating within them.

Greenleaf understood that when core institutions are weakened, it creates a void filled by the cult of the personality. Instead of society working slowly and consistently to fix its problems with long-term solutions, it tends to chase after a succession of quick fixes proposed by whoever happens to be most persuasive to the masses at the time.

That is precisely the situation in which most third world countries find themselves mired; it is the situation toward which America seems to be heading.

It is unfortunate that there are no strong conservative voices in American politics today. As a result, we have no political party that seeks, first and foremost, to protect and sustain core institutions as the foundation of democracy.

But there is hope. As long as we have a critical mass of people who believe in the common good, who are willing to sacrifice some of their own interests for the sake of others, who are willing to teach others children as if they were their own, and who are willing to share their vision for positive future, there is hope for a healthy, flourishing, ethical society.

Richard Kyte is the director of the D.B. Reinhart Institute for Ethics in Leadership at Viterbo University. He also is a member of the Tribunes editorial board.

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Richard Kyte: Institutions can bring people together - Chippewa Herald

Following the Golden Rule will help keep everyone safe while out enjoying the lakes this summer – Stanly News & Press

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Summer has arrived and the normal things associated with summer are happening as well. Schools out, its hot, its humid, vacations are happening all around and the fishing has turned to summer mode.

This means that bass, crappie, stripers and the assorted panfish we like to catch are now slowing down. No longer on the bed or schooling in large groups, these species are moving around deeper water without remaining stationary, making them harder to catch.

While this is happening the one bright spot for fishermen wishing to catch the bigun is the ever-feeding catfish.

Reports indicate that bass tournament totals are lower and many anglers are not catching the five fish allowed resulting in small totals.

Crappie have moved into deep channels or old creek beds flooded when local lakes were formed many years ago.

Panfish are now off the bed as well so they are smaller and harder to find than just a short month ago. The hot weather and frequent rain has also contributed to the slowdown in the bite as well.

Looking forward to the near future, we can look for better than average catches in catfish. Summer finds them deep and hungry so fish the main channels near the dams for your best chance. The young man mentioned in my last column for his citation size blue catfish out of Lake Tillery sent me picture of a similar lunker he caught on Badin just a few days ago.

Proof, if needed, that our area lakes are home to some big cats. Also on the near horizon is an increase in schooling of white perch (Waccamaw) that normally occurs shortly after the July 4 holiday.

As cats and Waccamaw are two of my favorite fish to both catch and eat, you will find me and my fishing partner on the lake most every week for the rest of the summer.

Fishin Tip of the Week: This time of year its normal for boating accidents to increase with the larger crowds on the water combined with the consumption of adult beverages.

This summer lets make it a point to be safe and courteous to others while out on the lakes. Fishermen and recreational boaters can co-exist as long as each of us respects the others right to be where they are.

To sum it up, heres a code I try to live by. Not at all original but appropriate. Treat others like you want to be treated.

Thanks and Good Fishin!

Larry Hunter writes a fishing column for The Stanly News & Press. Contact him at fishinstanly@cs.com.

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Following the Golden Rule will help keep everyone safe while out enjoying the lakes this summer - Stanly News & Press

A golden rule from Golden, CO: Please stop driving so loudly – 9NEWS.com

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Police say they're increasing enforcement for cars and motorcycles with illegal exhaust systems.

Jane Mo, KUSA 3:04 PM. MDT June 28, 2017

(Photo: Sharlotte Bennett Mecca?)

GOLDEN - Do to others as you would have them do to you.

Its the golden rule for most people, but one city might change what their golden rule is.

The residents of Golden open windows and step into their backyards to expectantly hear the sweet harmonious sound of birds chirping and creeks babbling.

Instead, they have been hearing the deep roars of car engines and exhausts.

Neighbors claim to no longer be able to enjoy the serenity of their homes, and the Golden Police Department have stepped in.

The police department will expand enforcement on illegal vehicle exhaust systems in cars or motorcycles that drive through downtown, Lookout Mountain Road, and Highway 58 and 93.

Map provided by Google

People can be fined $200 for the first offense.

Whats considered an illegal exhaust?

Officers will base their enforcement on two questions:

1. Is your exhaust system louder than a stock muffler?

2. Can they see that your exhaust system is modified?

If the answer to both questions are yes, you will be issued a citation.

Officers ask all travelers to drive with respect to the residents of Golden.

2017 KUSA-TV

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A golden rule from Golden, CO: Please stop driving so loudly - 9NEWS.com

How Liberal Portland Became America’s Most Politically Violent City – POLITICO Magazine

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On a cloudy day in early November 1979, a caravan of Nazi and Ku Klux Klan members careened into Greensboro, North Carolina, winding toward a local Communist Workers Party protest that had gathered in the city to march against the states white supremacists. The communists, wearing berets and hard hats, spotted the fleet and taunted the new arrivals with chants of Death to the Klan! The KKK convoy slowed, and stopped. Far-left protesters, bearing both wooden planks and concealed pistols, began surrounding the motorcade, beating the doors. As TV cameras rolled, the trunk of a Ford Fairlane, stuffed with shotguns and rifles, popped open. Someone yelled from one of the cars, You asked for the Klan! Now you've got em!

Eighty-eight seconds and 39 shots later, five communists lay dead. Eight other demonstrators were wounded, some permanently paralyzed. For a brief moment, the Greensboro Massacre became one of Americas most notorious acts of political blood-letting. And yet, unlike Wounded Knee or Selma before it, Greensboro has over the decades largely faded from memory.

Story Continued Below

Except in Portland.

Among the fringe political groups currently waging battle in the City of Roses, Greensboro is well-remembered, even idealized. It is increasingly seen as the inevitable end of the escalating violence that has rocked this city since President Trumps election in November. Leftwing antifas, wearing red bandana masks alongside other far-left protesters, have rioted multiple times and caused millions of dollars of damage, with threats from leftwing groups even forcing the cancellation of a parade because it featured a float from the local Republican Party. Eager to push back against the opposition, white nationalists have begun mixing with anti-government militia members for free speech rallies. A man who attended one of these rallies would later stab to death two men on a train when they intervened to stop his anti-Muslim rants against two young women. The norms of protest and counterprotestmostly verbal shouting and sign-wavingare quickly crumbling in Portland. The leftwing antifa have even threatened pre-emptive violence in the name of the defending the city from groups they say promote violence.

In Portland, Greensboro isnt a past mistake to be avoided, but a future clash to be courted. Both sides mention Greensboro in conversation. Both sides know the details and the death toll. And both acknowledge Greensboro as an event that may well serve as a model for whats just around the corner. My big concern is sooner or later is that were going to have another Greensboro Massacre type of event, Mark Pitcavage, who researches domestic political extremism with the Anti-Defamation League, added. This is so unlikely to end well.

***

The fact that Portland erupted as the epicenter in Trump-era political violence in the U.S. is, in a certain sense, surprising. A liberal nirvana, a crunchy, weed-and-hops city where Republicans and plastic bags alike have been all but evicted, Portland has embodied and outpaced many of the urban trends of the early 21st century: gentrification and co-ops, food trucks and foot-bridges, transitions to a bike-and-pedestrian economy. It is, as a conspicuous show has encapsulated, a progressive paradise.

And yet, as many within and without the city have begun realizing, Portland is a town leavened with a history of rampant racial strife. As the whitest major American city, Portland blossomed in the lone state that constitutionally barred blacks from living there through the 19th century, that acted as one of the primary concentration centers for incarcerating American citizens of Japanese ancestry during World War II, that redlined as severely as any major metropolis elsewhere. That in 1922 saw its chief of police posing alongside hooded Ku Klux Klan members. That brought Jim Crow to the Pacific shoreline.

Its the type of legal legacy, the type of nod-and-wink encouragement of white supremacy, that not only welcomed any number of Confederate families to relocate to the region in the aftermath of the Civil War, but that, toward the close of the 20th century, saw neo-Nazi and skinhead groups begin to extend their tendrils through the area. Before Portlandia, there was Skinhead City. In the mid-1980s, skinheads began marching through downtown, hauling bats, pipes, and axes. Not long after, the city birthed Volksfront, a neo-Nazi contingent that eventually expanded internationally. In 1988, a trio of skinheads bashed Mulugeta Seraw, an Ethiopian student, to death; the three all received prison sentences, with one tabbed as a prisoner of war by other white supremacy groups.

Locals began pushing back. In 2007, a group called Rose City Antifa took form, borrowing the shortened form of antifascist for its name. The crew pointed to similar European movements, which had, in places like Germany and Italy, arisen in response to the fascist movements that would eventually crater Europe in World War II. It also tapped into regional currents of anarchism and latent communism. These were the political strains that had sparked, among other things, the 1999 Battle of Seattle protests against the World Trade Organization, which resulted in millions of dollars worth of property damage in the city.

From its inception, Portlands antifa contingent cloaked itself in anonymity; as a 2009 story in Portlands Willamette Week noted, Little is known publicly about Rose City Antifa. And little seems to have changed in the decade since. Its unofficial uniform comprises blood-red and black bandanas and hoods, but the group doesnt keep any official membership rolls, let alone share last names with anyone outside of its circle. Why do we wear masks? Because [of] instances of antifa people [who] have been assassinated, says David, a member of Rose City Antifa who, like all group members before him, declined to share his last name with POLITICO Magazine. The historical examples are not recent, but they are well-known in the group: Skinheads murdered a pair of anti-racist activists in Nevada in 1998, luring them to the desert outside Las Vegas, and local antifa have claimed that a 2010 incident in Portlanda shooting that left a self-described anti-racist skinhead in critical conditionwas also politically motivated.

For much of its existence, the group largely relied on shout-downs and public displays of force as their primary tactics. Recently theyve added the cyber weapon of doxxingexposing personal information such as addresses, places of employment, and dates of birth and schools, even if it means innocent families mistakenly targeted by antifa begin receiving threats. Such tactics have been effective because they raise the cost of participation, Stanislav Vysotsky, who researches political extremism with the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, told POLITICO Magazine.

But now, for antifa, its not enough to simply out-scream their opposition; rather, those far-right forces must, in a bizarre nod to the Bush Doctrine, be preemptively denied a voice from the outset. We are unapologetic about the reality that fighting fascism at points requires physical militancy, Rose City Antifas Facebook page reads. Anti-fascism is, by nature, a form of self-defense: the goal of fascism is to exterminate the vast majority of human beings. The group does not specify what physical militancy means, but their page makes clear that the definition includes any means necessary.

Were seeing more people be like, Whats antifa actually about? Do you just like going and smashing Starbucks windows? David says. And no, we dont smash Starbucks windowsmost of the time. Or as one of the Rose City Antifas Facebook profile pictures read, Set phasers to kill.

***

Unsurprisingly, antifas assault-related tactics, despite their continued usage, have proven less than effective, according to those who closely follow political extremism in the U.S.

It just makes [antifa] feel goodthey think they made a point, the ADLs Pitcavage said. But their tactics are counterproductive. They havent made any dent over the years with those tactics. And it gives the white supremacists an unbelievable amount of publicity. After all, a lack of anti-Nazi brawl-and-bash protests werent the reasons fascists rose to the fore in Germany and Italyand theres little reason to think that depriving neo-Nazis of their First Amendment rights will prove any more successful than the myriad pre-WWII street brawls that failed to slow the rise of fascism in Europe. Pitcavage points out that the far-right has been far deadlier, far more corrosive, than any American antifa contingents over the past few decadesbut antifa tactics have only exacerbated and inflamed far-right rosters: All the antifa tactics do is give extremists more attention, make extremists feel good, feel like warriorsand give them an opportunity to recruit.

Its impossible to tell whether the antifa protests have boosted the recruitment efforts of nationalists and white supremacists, but the groups tactics have not endeared them to mainstream critics on either the right or left. Shortly after Trumps election, anarchist and far-left protesters rioted in Portland, bringing at least a million dollars worth of damageand resulting, in the eyes of the Department of Homeland Security, in domestic terrorism. Further riots followed Trumps inauguration, and more in the months thereafter. Their actionsconducted anonymously but brutallyshow them to be punk fascists, wrote an editorial in The Oregonian, slamming those leading the greatest political violence Portland had seen in a generation.

Then, in late April, organizers behind the 82nd Avenue of Roses Paradea spectacle through one of the more multi-racial neighborhoods in Portlandreceived an email ratcheting tensions even further. Sent from an anonymous account, the email targeted the inclusion of a Multnomah County Republican Party float: You have seen how much power we have downtown and that the police cannot stop us from shutting down roads so please consider your decision wisely. This is non-negotiable. Shaken, organizers canceled the parade; The Atlantics Conor Friedersdorf wondered who this faction on the left will next label a Nazi or a fascist in order to justify their own use of fascistic tactics. Or as James Buchal, the Multnomah County Republican Party chair, told POLITICO Magazine, The real concern going forward is that its a totalitarian sort of mindset, where basically [theyre] not going to tolerate Republicans in our city.

When asked about the threats made to parade organizers, Rose City Antifa didnt blame right-wing provocateurs posing as local leftists, although they did note that no one knows who sent [the email]. Rather, the groups spokesman characterized the cancellation as an overreaction. The email had some sort of oblique promise of some sort of altercation, they shut down the entire parade, and then acted as if it was a whole big deal, David says.

Shortly thereafter, alt-right actors organized a free speech rally near the parades canceled routea rally attended by a man, Jeremy Christian, who donned an American flag cape, gave Nazi salutes to passers-by, and, a few weeks thereafter, allegedly killed two Portlanders defending a pair of teenagers from Christians Islamophobic slurs on a train.

The stabbings of Ricky Best, 53, and Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche, 23, only emboldened the antifa protesters, who saw Christians ability to speak publicly as a precursor to his violence. Having a place where you can feel free to express these sorts of racist, bigoted beliefs enables you to go and make rants on a train, David claimed. It makes you want to defend yourself when people in the community step up against you.

One week after the murders, antifa and far-right actors clashed once more, this time at a Trump Free Speech rally. Epithets soon transformed into the kind of physical violence antifa had advocated earlier: Portland police said that counter-protesters at the alt-right rally sparked the violence by slingshotting bricks, rocks, and feces alike, forcing officers to unleash pepper spray on the crowd. As Portland Police Bureau spokesman Sgt. Pete Simpson told local Willamette Week in late May, It's never been as vocal as it has been in recent months. While they're not street gangs, the threat of violence is there. Or as Kyle Chapman, one of the alt-right spokesmen at the rally, said about the possibility of advocating violence, Its not such a bad idea, is it? This, after Chapman Tweeted that it was open season on antifa.

And the likelihood of a confrontation may increase if Buchal, the head of the local GOP, follows through on his plans to hire militiasOath Keepers and Three Percentersas security at future events, a development he told POLITICO Magazine hes still considering. What were really seeing are these very strong alliances being forged between Oath Keepers, Three Percenters, and white supremacists and white nationalists, Vysotsky said. Added Pitcavage, the Oath Keepers especially have really, really come on strong against the antifa. So now into the equation you not only have antifa versus white supremacists, but now you have antifa versus a much larger swath of the far-right, which really increases the possibility for all sorts of things going on.

As of now, any possibilities of dialogueof a negotiated off-ramp to de-escalate tensionsseem negligible. When somebody is threatening you with bodily harm, as many of these groups are, sitting down for a conversation is not really something you want to do with somebody like that, David said. Thats the unfortunate truth.

Meanwhile, the next round of protest is scheduled for Friday in downtown Portland. The right-wing Patriot Prayer group has organized a freedom march that is expected to attract white nationalists, neo-Nazis, militia and white supremacists. The antifa have pledged to block them. The Rose City Antifa wrote on its Facebook page, that, this time, enough is enough.

Casey Michel is a writer living in New York, and can be followed on Twitter at @cjcmichel. This article is adapted from a forthcoming report, entitled The Rise of the Traditionalist International: How Moscow cultivates American white nationalists, domestic secessionists, and the Religious Right, from People For the American Way.

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How Liberal Portland Became America's Most Politically Violent City - POLITICO Magazine

How pop music built liberal Britain – The Guardian

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British Conservatism with both a big and small c is once again feeling the pangs of crisis. Tory optimists might be hanging on to the fact that their party has just scored its highest vote share since 1983; as Brexit grinds uncertainly on, Britain remains in the grip of an avowedly rightwing vision. But the last time a Tory government was elected with a convincing majority was 1987. The UKs big cities seem more impervious to Conservative politics than ever. The fact that the Tories did so badly among people under the age of 45 55% of whom backed Labour, while only 29% voted Conservative underlines the sense of slowly gathering twilight.

What has happened? Conventional political commentary quite rightly points to the aftershocks of the EU referendum, and younger remain voters being shocked into action. But beneath that immediate development are much deeper factors, bound up with 50 years of cultural change, and millions of peoples embrace of the permissive, live-and-let-live set of values highlighted by this weeks publication of the latest British Social Attitudes Survey.

Moreover, in what the survey said about peoples views of the welfare state and public spending, there was a sense of something equally important: a fuzzy collectivism that stops well short of any kind of hardened socialism, but that defines a whole swath of the country that has not soaked up Thatcherism and its legacy to anything like the extent that the Tories would have liked.

On the face of it, it should not be beyond the wit of modern Conservatives to embrace those shifts. But ingrained Tory instincts seem to always get in the way: the overriding tendency of the partys individualism to turn cruel and cold; its attachment to moralism and the manipulation of base prejudice; and, in the case of Theresa May, a fusty, back-to-the-1950s spirit that arguably sealed her electoral fate (and is now symbolised by the governments dependence on the reactionary DUP).

Meanwhile, despite the support for the Tories politics from the Mail and the Sun, something much more powerful seems to be driving Britain somewhere else: the onward march of post-Elvis pop culture, and the way it now sits at the heart of a majority of peoples lives, along with a set of values that Conservatism still seems unable to convincingly accommodate.

Clearly, the country we live in is no idyll. Inequality is rampant; racism and bigotry have hardly gone away; there is a coarseness and impatience at the heart of everyday living that was not there 30 years ago. The country that voted for Brexit is hardly at ease with itself. But at the same time, when I think back to my early upbringing in the 1970s when the second world war was still a conversational commonplace, and my grandparents hung on to an essentially Victorian view of the world and compare Britain then and now, the sense of a quiet revolution seems pretty much inarguable.

Again, this is less about politics than values. British people are more liberal on such issues as same-sex relationships and abortion than they have ever been. At the last count, one in 10 people in couples in England and Wales were in what the official statistics call an inter-ethnic relationship. Cannabis smoke regularly wafts around our town and city centres; Glastonbury is as much a part of the national calendar as Wimbledon or the Grand National. And throughout our waking hours, there is one constant above all others: what the dictionary still calls pop music, probably the most potent means of communication human beings have ever come up with, now the lingua franca of all but the oldest generations, defined by a tangle of non-conservative ideas, and right at the centre of our everyday experience.

Cynics might point to the times when pop culture has seemed anything but progressive, from the time when Britpop spawned the oafishness of lad culture, back through the flimsy materialism that ran through the 1980s (watch any Duran Duran video for the proof), to the thuggish, nasty turn quickly taken by punk rock. But by far the strongest philosophical thread in pop culture has been there for around six decades, and steadily moved from the countercultural fringe to the very heart of national life. It is internationalist, open, permissive, implicitly anti-racist and, as evidenced by the modern festival crowd, as much communal as individualist.

By way of proof of all this, after years of people proclaiming the death of ideology, pop still steers well away from the political right. Aside from Gary Barlow of Take That, I cannot think of a single high-profile modern musician who has officially endorsed the Tories, nor of any moment in the past 10 years when a Tory politician appearing at Glastonbury would have been greeted with anything other than boos.

Clearly, attitudinal shifts do not happen by accident. Our culture has long privileged musicians with a pre-eminent importance, to the point that their views still make headlines. Fifty years ago, the Beatles played a huge and leading role in pulling down the walls of class-based deference. A little later, David Bowies defiance of the conventions of gender and sexuality changed tens of thousands of lives. The arrival after punk of 2 Tone, the genre-cum-movement that made a stand against insurgent racism via the simple idea of black and white musicians updating Jamaican ska, was another huge breakthrough. And so the list goes on: the global sensibilities embodied by Live Aid; more recently, the anthems to confidence and assertiveness that have made Katy Perry the latest embodiment of pop feminism (or, as the Spice Girls used to call it, Girl Power).

Thirty years after it first stirred, we also need to talk about acid house, which began on the fringes in the late 1980s, symbolised a massed upending of that decades individualist attitudes, and then bled out into everyday life. Matthew Collins definitive book on the subject, Altered State, rightly says that acid house was the most vibrant, diverse and long-lasting youth movement that Britain had ever seen, built on deeply felt desires for communal experiences. For all that it also involved the cheap and nasty entrepreneurialism that inevitably came with illegally organised parties and drug dealing, its legacy was pretty obvious: the imperative, simply put, to be nice kind, caring, open, accepting.

Earlier this week, the Daily Telegraph published a letter from Marianna, Viscountess Monckton of Brenchley. She furiously claimed that Jeremy Corbyns appearances at Glastonbury were an utter disgrace, little realising that the festival is the perfect example of the way that ideas that are still anathema to far too many Conservatives have gone from the countercultural margins into the mainstream, and that Corbyns presence made perfect sense.

I first went 27 years ago, when the Pyramid Stage was adorned with a huge CND symbol, the organisers would not let the police in, the BBC was nowhere to be seen, and there was a clear break between the outside world and the festivals licentious wonders. These days, by contrast, one blurs into the other, which highlights the Tories big problem: the fact that even when the tents have been packed up and the comedowns have kicked in, millions of us still live in a reality in which the politics of parochialism, nostalgia and moralism make precious little sense.

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How pop music built liberal Britain - The Guardian

Liberal senators round on Abbott, criticising him for trying to ‘rewrite history’ – The Guardian

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Former prime minister Tony Abbott watches on as Malcolm Turnbull delivers an address at the Liberal party federal council meeting in Sydney on 24 June. Photograph: Dan Himbrechts/AAP

The Liberal senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, a former one-time ally of Tony Abbotts, has joined the defence minister Marise Payne in publicly rebuking Abbott for his latest undermining of Coalition policy.

She joins the growing pushback from Liberal moderates, including the social services minister, Christian Porter, who this week rubbished claims the Coalition government had lurched to the left under Malcolm Turnbull.

The Liberal partys factional brawling has continued to spill into the open on Friday, sparked by a leaked recording of Christopher Pyne revealed on the weekend caught bragging to colleagues about the influence of the moderate faction in the government.

Conservatives have reacted furiously to Pynes claims, with calls for him to be dumped as leader of the government in the House.

Abbott told 2GB this week Pynes remarks were a very, very ill-advised speech and I can understand why some of my colleagues might be saying his position as leader of the House is now difficult to maintain.

But moderates are now increasingly rounding on Abbott, with Fierravanti-Wells and Payne publicly criticising him for attempting to rewrite history from his time as prime minister.

It comes after Abbott delivered two controversial speeches this week in which he criticised government policy.

Three days ago, he delivered a speech to the Institute of Public Affairs in which he dusted off his conservative manifesto for government, and said the only way to take pressure off power prices was to have a moratorium on new windfarms, stop any further subsidised renewable power and freeze the renewable energy target at 15%.

On Thursday, he delivered a second high-profile speech in which he called on his government to explore the option of nuclear submarines.

Not more robustly challenging the nuclear no-go mindset is probably the biggest regret I have from my time as PM, Abbott said in his speech on Thursday.

Fierravanti-Wells slammed Abbott on Friday, telling the ABC that he was trying to rewrite history.

As a prime minister, Tony had the opportunity to do a whole range of things ... if now he says that he was wrong when he was prime minister, well thats a matter for him, she said.

In relation to climate issues, the renewable energy target came in under Tony, [the Paris agreement] was signed under Tony.

The 26% [renewable energy target] was an iron-clad commitment. Yes, up to 28% there was some flexibility in relation to that, but to actually now say it was an aspiration, when clearly his words, the documentation and everything, clearly demonstrate that it was an iron-clad commitment, you cant rewrite history.

I would urge Tony not to try to rewrite history, because all its doing is damaging his credibility, Fierravanti-Wells said on Friday.

Payne told the ABC the Turnbull government was doing exactly what the Abbott government intended with submarines.

What we are in fact doing, which accords very much with the former prime ministers position, is delivering the plan to acquire our future submarines as was set out, and agreed, by then-prime minister Tony Abbott and his team in February 2015, she said.

They established a competitive evaluation process which was designed to assure that as a nation we acquired the most capable conventional submarines in the world, she said.

We dont have a civil nuclear industry, we dont have the personnel, or the experience or the infrastructure, we dont have the training facilities, or the regulatory systems, that you would need to design, to construct, to operate and maintain a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines.

So the decisions were made in that context. The process was started by the former prime minister and his defence ministers, and it was completed under prime minister Turnbull and myself and announced in April 2016.

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Liberal senators round on Abbott, criticising him for trying to 'rewrite history' - The Guardian

Stevie Wonder Dragged Back To The Liberal Plantation – The Daily Caller

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Stevie Wonders call to say I love you to black Americans was rejected by black and white Leftists. Leftists were outraged over Wonders compassionate message to his fellow blacks, It is in your hands to stop all the killing and shooting wherever it might be. Because you cannot say Black Lives Matter and then kill yourselves.

Leftists view Mr. Wonder as an uppity n***** who wandered off their Liberal plantation. Yes, Leftists do freely use the n-word. Repeatedly, Leftists have called me a stupid n word for refusing their chains on my brain. My singing performance at the 2010 rally opposing Obamacare in DC was broadcast on C-span. Leftists across America called me the n word and worse; including death threats.

Black overlords were immediately dispatched to drag back their musical-icon run-a-way slave. After a high-tech whipping in the media public square, emotionally bloody and repentant, Mr. Wonder dialed back his truthful comments.

As a black conservative activist, my frustration is getting fellow black Americans to see the light of how Leftists and Democrats are using them. My black daddy raised me to believe Democrat is the party of the little guy/working man. Republicans are for the rich. Most blacks do not realize the Democrat party leadership has been hijacked by extreme liberal radicals (Leftists). At their core is a hatred for America as founded, traditional values of hard-work, individuality, self-reliance, independence and faith in the God of Christianity.

In simple language, liberals believe in spreading mediocrity equally. Liberals believe no one should have more than someone else. Beginning in kindergarten, liberals teach their hatred for achievers disguised as social justice and the evils of white privilege.

Most blacks do not realize that Leftists believe implementing their extreme liberal agenda trumps everything, including black lives. Leftists deem blacks, women, homosexuals and all minorities useful idiots to be used to implement their anti-American and godless agenda. Speaking of godless, if you list Leftists sacred cow issues, they are all against biblical teachings.

Stevie Wonder stating the obvious that blacks should stop killing each other was not good for furthering Leftists agenda. Leftists want blacks to believe America is a hell-hole of racism where cops murder them on sight. This lie helps Leftists sell their lie that the only way to save black lives is for the federal government to takeover police departments. This would further Leftists agenda of government repealing our freedoms and controlling every aspect of our lives. Most blacks do not realize that Obamas government controlled health-care gave them power to decide who lives and who dies.

You may be scratching your head wondering why black leaders were outraged over Mr. Wonders attempt to save black lives. The truth is black Democrat leaders are Leftists first and black second. Most black so-called civil rights groups want to keep blacks down, dependent on big daddy government. They want blacks engaged in poverty producing behaviors; dropping out of school, having babies out of wedlock and killing each other.

If this was not true, how would you explain black Leftists anger over real common sense solutions offered by successful blacks; Stevie Wonder, Herman Cain, Justice Clarence Thomas and Dr Ben Carson to name a few?

Civil rights icon, Dr Martin Luther King, Jr is rolling over in his grave over the betrayal of black leaders. Dr King made the ultimate sacrifice for blacks to strive for excellence and have a fair shot at achieving their American dream. Dr King did not die for blacks to be eternally enslaved by the federal government; monolithic voting for Democrats to get just enough free-stuff to get by.

Dr King had no idea his movement would be transformed into a grievance industry which keeps Al Sharpton, Jessie Jackson, the Congressional Black Caucus, the NAACP and the Obamas fat, happy and rich. Meanwhile, urban blacks continue in a downward spiral of black-on-black crime and generational poverty. Stats prove that blacks actually moved backwards during the 8 year reign of the first black president. Why arent most blacks questioning why? Or, will blacks stay stuck on stupid, believing Leftists lie that all their problems are the fault of white American racism, Republicans and now Donald Trump?

I was disappointed when Mr. Wonder walked back his statement of truth. However, I understand the pressure on Mr. Wonder must have been tremendous. Leftists attack with furious anger, seeking to destroy anyone who dares to speak truth contradicting their narrative.

Hey boy, sing your pretty songs. But, dont you never ever again speak out against the family!

###

Lloyd Marcus, the Unhyphenated American, is Author of Confessions of a Black Conservative: How the Left has shattered the dreams of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Black America.

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Stevie Wonder Dragged Back To The Liberal Plantation - The Daily Caller

It turns out the liberal caricature of conservatism is correct – Vox

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Marc Thiessen, the George W. Bush speechwriter who now writes a column for the Washington Post op-ed page, is aghast at the Senate GOPs health care bill. Paying for a massive tax cut for the wealthy with cuts to health care for the most vulnerable Americans is morally reprehensible, he says.

If Republicans want to confirm every liberal caricature of conservatism in a single piece of legislation, they could do no better than vote on the GOP bill in its current form.

But at what point do we admit that this isnt the liberal caricature of conservatism? Its just ... conservatism.

Though Republicans had long promised the country a repeal-and-replace plan that offered better coverage at lower cost, the House GOPs health care bill cut hundreds of billions of dollars in taxes for the rich and paid for it by gutting health care spending on the poor. It was widely criticized and polled terribly.

Senate Republicans responded by releasing a revised health care bill that also cut hundreds of billions of dollars in taxes for the rich and paid for it by gutting health care spending on the poor. It has also been widely criticized, and it also is polling terribly.

Donald Trump, who ran on a platform of covering everyone with better health insurance than they get now, has endorsed both bills.

Republicans, in other words, have repeatedly broken their promises and defied public opinion in order to release health care bills that cut spending on the poorest Americans to fund massive tax cuts for the richest Americans. (The Tax Policy Center estimates that 44.6 percent of the Senate bills tax cuts go to households making more than $875,000.)

If they would simply stop doing that, their health care problems would vanish: They could craft a bill that would rebuild the health care system around more conservative principles and do so without triggering massive coverage losses. But at some point, we need to take them at their word: This is what they believe, and they are willing to risk everything their reputations, their congressional majorities, and Donald Trumps presidency to get it done.

And its not just health policy. Though Trump said he would raise taxes on people like himself during the campaign, the tax reform plan he released amounted to a massive tax cut for the richest Americans. That cut will ultimately have to be paid for, and because Republicans refuse to increase taxes to close deficits, and because they support increasing spending on the military, the only plausible way to pay for their tax cuts will be by slashing programs that serve the poor and/or the elderly. (This isnt just hypothetical: Trumps budget relies on massive cuts to programs that serve the poor.)

Like Thiessen, I want to see a better, more decent conservatism drive the Republican Party. I dont want to believe that this is the bottom line of GOP policy thinking. But this is clearly the bottom line of GOP policy thinking.

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It turns out the liberal caricature of conservatism is correct - Vox

Federal Liberal Party in-fighting threatens to destroy it – The Sydney Morning Herald

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Nothing short of open warfare has erupted in the federal Liberal Party. This once great political party resembles nothing so much as a pub brawl.

For anyone who's followed Liberalism closely and enthusiastically in this country, as I have for more than a quarter of a century, these are dark days. There is widespread talk of knives being sharpened and coups being hatched. Senior party figures are retreating from the past week's dramas in disgust and horror. At the grassroots, Liberal membership is in decline, and those remaining activists are angry at the policy direction in Canberra.

Notwithstanding Christopher Pyne's ugly triumphalism, small-l liberals feel betrayed. Conservatives either vent their anger and or place their hopes in a Tony Abbott comeback, which much to the angst of metropolitan sophisticates and the Canberra press gallery now looks conceivable. In between, there is much sighing and shaking of heads.

It was not meant to be like this. And the fact that it is calls for some explanation.

The temptation, scarcely resisted, is to blame it all on the Prime Minister and his circle. This interpretation has a lot going for it. I have lost count of the number of times I have been regaled by Liberal MPs with anecdotes about snubs by Malcolm Turnbull.

To be sure, backbenchers always feel that their leader does not pay them much attention: the stories about John Gorton's contempt for his colleagues in the late '60s and early '70s, for instance, are legendary. But there is a striking malice about the way some Liberal MPs spit about this prime minister. To paraphrase Paul Hasluck, the longer one is associated with Turnbull, the deeper the contempt for him grows and they find it hard to allow him any merit. So much for the vision, unity and leadership that was supposed to characterise this prime ministership.

Another shortcoming is policy. The Liberal Party purportedly stands for individual freedom and the right to make your own way in life. It sides with people against government. There is very little of that philosophical mindset evident in recent government decisions, from energy and education to spending and superannuation.

And yet it is facile to just blame Turnbull and his lot for today's widespread discontent. After all, if everything is the fault of a sub-par prime minister and a bunch of under-performing cabinet ministers, it suggests this is a temporary problem that can be fixed with comparative ease. It is an explanation that distracts us from contemplating a more uncomfortable possibility, one that might cast doubt on the nature of public-policy making in this nation. I am referring to what the distinguished journalist Paul Kelly has called a political crisis.

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Australia, Kelly argues, is suffering a malaise in its political decision-making that goes beyond partisan politics. The origins of the crisis are deep-seated, which means the crisis is unlikely to be easily reversed. Just ponder how increasingly poll-driven our political climate has become. Or how the relentless 24/7 news cycle, together with noisy and polarising social media, has fostered the growth of so-called "infotainment" and sensationalism in political news. Or how a hostile upper house of Parliament all too often blocks important legislation.

This portends grave consequences for the body politic. It means politics as reported is a question of who is up or down rather than of policy and political debates. It means that any prime minister will struggle to implement a long-term productivity reform agenda that might kickstart a new era of prosperity. It also means constant changing of leaders: during the past decade, we've had six prime ministerships, seven defence ministers and six NSW premiers.

We are on borrowed time and living beyond our means: growth is sluggish and our debt-to-GDP ratio is escalating. We are now in a phase very much different from 1983 to 2007 the golden era of economic reform one where the pace of the news cycle is faster, and the media beast has to be constantly fed.

Selling sound free-market reform in such a volatile political environment is more difficult than ever. It is destabilising for a prime minister to be all too often looking over his shoulder for the flash of daggers. This undermines his authority and makes governing even more fraught. At the turn of the decade, Labor learned the hard way that fratricidal governments do not win elections. How quickly today's Liberals have forgotten.

I don't know how to resolve this crisis, but I suspect leadership changes however justified they may seem in the short term will only prolong the problems bedevilling Australia's political system. For the MPs who sack Turnbull, the moment will feel cathartic, the relief of having defenestrated a traitor totheir cause and ended a rush of bad polls and bad-news stories.

But there is every likelihood his successor will face the same problems that every leader since John Howard has faced. The present troubles will start all over again. And our political crisis endures.

Tom Switzer is a presenter on ABC's Radio National.

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Federal Liberal Party in-fighting threatens to destroy it - The Sydney Morning Herald

BC NDP to form government, ending 16 years of Liberal rule – The Globe and Mail

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Almost two months after a provincial election, British Columbians will have a new government, following a tense evening in which the provinces Lieutenant-Governor spent hours in deliberation with the leaders of the governing Liberals and Opposition New Democrats.

Finally, NDP Leader John Horgan emerged from Government House to announce that he had been invited to serve as B.C.s next premier after offering assurances to Lieutenant-Governor Judith Guichon that he could provide continuity of government.

We discussed the configuration of the legislature, he told reporters waiting outside, while supporters cheered. I think this is an extraordinary opportunity for a new legislature to work co-operatively.

Gary Mason: NDP waited 16 years for this. Now comes the hard part

Premier Christy Clark ended 16 years of Liberal rule when she tendered her resignation on Thursday night after she lost a vote of confidence in the legislature. The vote was tied to her governments Throne Speech.

The NDP have not won an election in B.C. since 1996, but will seek to govern with a minority of seats, buttressed by the three Green MLAs who have pledged support on key legislative measures, including budgets.

The New Democrats and Greens voted together to defeat the Liberals. A hush fell over the packed House as the roll call was read. Afterward, Ms. Clark emerged from the chamber to applause from staff, MLAs and other supporters who lined the halls of the legislature.

Inside the legislature, Mr. Horgan embraced former NDP leader Carole James in a bear hug. In the floor seats behind his caucus were retired NDP cabinet ministers Moe Sihota and Sue Hammell.

Im excited now, seven weeks after the election, we can get going on a government that works for the people, he said in an interview.

Mr. Horgan said he will take the Liberals up on their promise, contained in their recent Throne Speech, to work with all parties to craft legislation.

Theres an enormous amount of work to do, he said outside Government House. Its been 16 years since theres been a transition of government, theres been 16 years of challenges that have been created for many, many people. These challenges wont be fixed overnight.

Mr. Horgan said he would turn his focus to putting together a cabinet and preparing for the transition.

As premier-designate, Mr. Horgan and his team will have access to government briefing documents and deputy ministers. Mr. Horgan is expected to be sworn in with his new cabinet in late July. After that, they would spend some weeks drafting a Throne Speech, a budget, and several pieces of legislation that they have promised to immediately introduce as part of their agreement with the Greens.

Ms. Clark told reporters she had asked the lieutenant governor to trigger a new election.

She has chosen another path... And I respect that, said Ms. Clark, who remains premier until Mr. Horgan is sworn in.

However Ms. Clark maintained that she believes the new government, with its narrow balance of power in the House, poses a risk to really bend the rules of democracy.

Ms. Clark also said the new premier will inherit an excellent fiscal situation. He is inheriting the best balanced books in the country... I hope he finds a way to preserve that.

The legislature is not expected to be recalled until after Labour Day in early September, and the legislation would include campaign finance reform and would launch a referendum on electoral reform.

The moment was weeks in the making; however, the outcome was anything but certain.

Voters in the May 9 election delivered an inconclusive verdict on B.C. politics: The governing Liberals were reduced to 43 seats, the NDP took 41 seats and the Greens won three.

Once the final ballots were counted, the Greens began negotiations with both the Liberals and NDP to determine which they would support, and eventually reached an accord with the NDP.

The Liberals argued that the NDP and Greens together do not have enough seats to provide stable government, as they will have to provide a Speaker of the House. That leaves the legislature in a perpetual deadlock of 43 votes on each side, and Liberals say the non-partisan role of the Speaker will be eroded by having to constantly vote to break ties.

The premier had said she would not ask Ms. Guichon to dissolve the current House and trigger another election. But she told reporters on Wednesday she would if asked offer the opinion that the legislature could not function, even with the NDP-Green agreement in place.

However, the Lieutenant-Governor chose to give the NDP a chance.

Mr. Horgan said issues that will require his governments immediate attention include the fentanyl crisis, the softwood lumber dispute, and the public education system.

As well, the New Democrats plan to launch a review of the $8.8-billion Site C dam, which could lead to the cancellation of the provinces most expensive public infrastructure project in history.

In the May election campaign, the New Democrats promised to raise taxes on the wealthy and real estate speculators to pay for promises that include $10-a-day daycare, building 114,000 housing units over a decade and annual $400 subsidies for renters, as well as the elimination of tolls on two bridges in the Lower Mainland.

The Liberals had attacked the NDP platform as unaffordable, but they have since introduced a Throne Speech that offered many of those commitments and more, including an ambitious $1-billion daycare program.

In a fiscal update earlier this week, Finance Minister Mike de Jong said the Liberals new promises are affordable, as the economy is performing better than expected. That will provide the NDP more flexibility in the budget they will table this fall.

However, the NDP and Green pact could face challenges.

The two parties will find points of discord. The Greens say they will vote for the NDP budgets but they oppose the lifting of tolls, because the policy would run counter to their climate action agenda. The Greens have also signalled that they will oppose the changes to the Labour Code that the NDP have promised to their labour supporters.

The success of any NDP government could hinge on the continual and unconventional support of the Speaker.

The Speaker, who must enjoy a level of respect from all parties to keep order in the House, has traditionally been detached from regular votes. But that position is challenged with a legislature evenly divided, because the Speaker is, by convention, elected from the government benches.

Under this NDP minority, barring a change in the numbers, the Speaker would regularly be voting to break ties, which some observers have warned would turn it into a highly partisan role.

This happened in New Brunswick in 2003, where a Progressive Conservative government survived on a one-vote margin for three years.

A government in perpetual survival mode put great stress on the Speaker and led the public to become deeply cynical of the politicians in power, according to Shawn Graham, who was Liberal leader at the time.

Mr. Graham, who formed government after beating the Progressive Conservatives in 2006, said the actions of the Conservative Speakers damaged democracy at the time, but had little lasting effect to the role of Speaker as later elections have been won by larger margins.

Philippe Lagass, an associate professor and constitutional scholar at Carleton University, said an NDP Speaker breaking ties is no more partisan than the Liberal Speaker resigning his post after his party loses government.

If impartiality was the pre-eminent concern, then that Speaker wouldnt resign, he said.

As well, the coming legislative sessions will be trying for all members of the House. The opposition Liberals will have 43 seats, and absent the Speaker, the governing NDP will have 40 votes. They will need the Greens, at the least, to support any legislative changes. There will be no margin for MLAs to be absent for travel or illness, unless they can find a degree of goodwill which has been markedly absent in recent weeks to agree on pairing up absences on both sides.

Follow us on Twitter: Mike Hager @MikePHager, Justine Hunter @justine_hunter

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BC NDP to form government, ending 16 years of Liberal rule - The Globe and Mail

Same Sex Marriage: Why Liberal Germany Took So Long To Give Gay Couples Equal Rights – Newsweek

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It was in the year 2000 that David Staeglich, one of the organizers behind Berlin Pride and Pride Germany, first got involved in LGBTactivism. A year later, the movement won a major victory when the governmentthen a center left-green coalitionlegalized civil unions for same-sex partners.

At that time I thought, OK, this year we have the civil partnerships, and maybe in three or four more years there will be marriage equality, he tells Newsweek .

But it didnt turn out that way. It was only this Friday morning, over 15 years later, when Germanys parliament finally voted in favor of allowing gay couples to wed by 393 votes to 226.

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The intervening years, Staeglich says, were frustrating: It turned out [that] there are no reasons to be proud about Germany and the German government because all the countries around [us] changed a lot [but] Germany stood on the same place.

Germany follows the United Kingdom (2013), France (2013), the United States (2015), and a host of other nations that have agreed marriage euqality between heterosexual and same-sex partnerships.

Staeglich, who was speaking while meeting other LGBTactivists from across the world in Madrid a day before the result, coincidentally on the last day of Pride month, said hed be celebrating: I think I will... drink as much champagne as possible. We will have the party of my life here in Madrid.

The fact that it took so long for relatively tolerant Germanywhere 83 percent of Germans back gay marriage, according to a recent pollto equalize its marriage laws is in a large part down to politics. In 2001, the country was run by the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) and the environmentalist Greens.

But since 2005, Germany has been led by Chancellor Angela Merkel and her center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party, at the head of a series of coalitions.

Merkel may now have a reputation is a liberalon the world stage, thanks largely to her 2015 speech welcoming refugees and her regular rhetorical sparring sessions with U.S. President Donald Trump, but her political grounding is firmly conservative.

People dance in front of the Victory column as they participate in the annual Gay Pride parade in Berlin, Germany July 23, 2016. Germany's parliament just voted to allow same-sex couples to wed. Stefanie Loos/Reuters

The chancellor, like many in her party, is a committed Christianand an often cautious politician. In 2005 she said in an interview: man and wife, marriage and family, stand at the centre of our social model, so other lifestyles should not receive comparable constitutional protections, according to The Economist.

In Fridays vote, where lawmakers were allowed to vote with their conscience rather than along partylines, the Chancellor herself opposed the move.

Jens Spahn, Germanys Deputy Finance Minister, himself a gay man and a proponent of gay marriage within the CDU, admits in an interview before the vote that his party is still coming to terms with the issue, and that many within it still oppose it.

Die Welt reported that at least 70 of the lawmakers representing the CDU and its smaller sister party the CSU, roughly a quarter of the total, backed the change. I just realize that there is an ongoing process right now, Spahn says.

But should Merkel have spotted the public mood and moved earlier? Well actually I didnt expect it to happen this week, not before the election, Spahn says. (Germans will vote in September.) We can argue now if it should have been done earlier, if it should have been done after the election, whenever, theres never the right time.

Merkel said on Monday that she had begun to change her mind on the issue of gay marriage after an invitation to dinner in her constituency at the home of two gay women who were caring for eight foster children. But the move was read in Germany as pre-election positioning.

Two rival parties and potential coalition partners, the SPD and the centrist Free Democrats (FDP), both back the change, and by allowing a vote without a party whip Merkel could neutralize the policy as an issue for the general election without having to fight her partys more hardline conservative members.

Spahn, though, quotes British Conservative ex-Prime Minister David Cameron, who once said: I don't support gay marriage despite being a Conservative. I support gay marriage because I'm a Conservative.

Backing the change is logical for right-wingers, says Spahn: Its because of values. When two peoplewant to stay to each other, they want to actually care for each other, before asking society to help them they will help each other first, then that is a value that we as Christian Democrats should cherish.

It isnt just the ruling party that has opposed the shift. However tolerant the majority of Germans,divisions remain.

If you go into the countryside being a lesbian girl or a gay boy in a small village, says Staeglich, it is still not that easy to call themselves a gay person, or a queer person.

In the Catholic state of Bavaria, the largely Protestant CDU is represented by its sister party the CSU, which remains staunchly opposed. And there are differences in the perception of homosexuality between men, which was decriminalized in East Germany in 1968 and in the West in 1969, but still partly criminalized until 1994 (when the age of consent was equalized), and between women, which was never technically illegal.

Staeglich hopes that gay people being able to marry like anyone else will change the minds of some traditionalists: From that point on you can just argue and say: Well, hello? I have the same life, so why are you discriminating [against] me? Because now, our parliament took the decision that we are the same, he says. And to give further cause for hope, even the hard-right populist Alternative for Germany party, which opposes gay marriage, elected a gay woman as its leader in May.

As elsewhere, there are many battles still to fight for Germanys LGBT community, but the shifts are palpable and dramatic.

But aside from all of that, one choice remains for gay people in Germany: Now they have the right, will they take the plunge and pop the question? Until now I always told my partner, as long as it is not officially allowed why should we marry, jokes Spahn, now I have to think about a better phrase. We will see. He laughs: I would never say never.

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Same Sex Marriage: Why Liberal Germany Took So Long To Give Gay Couples Equal Rights - Newsweek