Monthly Archives: April 2017

A secret internal review of the Liberal Party's 2016 election performance has urged the executive to recognise that campaigning must never stop and the party's conservative base needs to be respected.

The review, conducted by former Liberal federal director and cabinet minister Andrew Robb, also says the party must be financially solid to be effective and improve its connection with ethnic voters, according to a version published by theDaily Telegraph.

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Ahead of the release of a report into the 2016 election, where the Liberal Party scraped home, the party's director Tony Nutt has resigned.

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It spawned the hashtag #censusfail and now the 2016 Census has got to deliver the goods.

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A look back on the hilarity that was the late John Clarke's comedy career.

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The problem of housing affordability is worsening, but getting rid of negative gearing would worsen, not better, the market for those looking to buy, according to Treasurer Scott Morrison. (Vision courtesy ABC News)

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Fergus Hunter explains the impact of immigration on other major areas of government policy.

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Between its strategic location and wealth of natural resources, the hotly contested South China Sea could become a flashpoint for major conflict.

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An ABC spokesman has confirmed renowned satirist John Clarke died on Sunday.

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Sydney radio presenter Ray Hadley has banned Scott Morrison from his show after the treasurer went on a Melbourne radio station, not his.

Ahead of the release of a report into the 2016 election, where the Liberal Party scraped home, the party's director Tony Nutt has resigned.

The post-mortem has been delivered to the Liberal federal executive and viewed by the parliamentary leaders in the wake of the election that saw the Turnbull government lose14 seats and narrowly hold on to power. Labor is now in an election-winning position according to widespreadpolling.

The review argues the party needs to "recognise and respondto the fact that the next campaign effectively begins the day after polling day" and establish a structured research operation that provides politicians with a "continuous understanding of community sentiment" towards policy.

It argues Liberals must "while governing for all, at all times respect, and be seen to be respecting our base".

This underlines the party's need to focuson the mainstream - necessary to win elections - while also pleasing core conservative supporters who demand action on deeply held but potentially divisive policy positions, such as free speech and and tax cuts.

"Never fail to strongly expose and unequivocally rebut the lies and misrepresentation of our policy positions, starting in the same media cycle, and continuing until the claims are discredited," the Robb report suggests, touching on Labor's "Mediscare" campaign.

"To be effective in campaigns, the party needs to be financially solid and since this affects on-the-ground and marginal campaigns, this must be seen as a priority."

The party organisation's finances were in dire straits as the 2016 campaign heated up, with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull forking out $1.75 million of his own money to help the cause. Coalition conservatives have argued that certain policy positions alienated many traditional donors.

Other recommendations include:

The Labor Party is widely seen as a more successful campaigning organisation, including by Liberal insiders.

After decades working for the party, Liberal federal director Tony Nutt resigned last week ahead of the report's release. Mr Nutt took over the organisational leadership of the party in 2015 after Malcolm Turnbull became Prime Minister.

The campaign he oversaw has been strongly criticised but Mr Nuttwas praised by the Prime Minister as "the consummate political professional" and a dedicated servant of the Liberal cause.

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Liberal Party review: 'The next campaign begins the day after polling day' - The Sydney Morning Herald

Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that's taken over our lives.

A man of conscience. Facebook conscience.

Everyone has friends like this.

The minute some disaster happens -- or some frightful political decision with which they disagree -- they change their Facebook profile picture to some sort of symbol.

Then they sit back and bathe in their own socially aware smugness.

Yes, such people are often of the liberal persuasion. Which might surprise one or two people that these slacktivists were skewered by the often left-leaning types at "Saturday Night Live."

As the anthem "Thank You, Scott," plays, we see Louis C.K. -- who is Scott -- sitting on his couch, ready to save the world.

"He couldn't sit by and do nothing. He had to act before it was too late," goes the song.

So what did Scott do? Yes, he shared an article on Facebook. Which solved the problem. After all, Scott has 84 Facebook friends.

When it came to the Black Lives Matter movement, Scott knew he had to march. Over to his laptop that is, in order to change his Twitter bio and skew it in support of what's just.

Scott has done more than MLK. After all, he fought for basic human rights while he was on the toilet.

"He cares because he shares," as the bridge of the song explains.

Scott found articles on the internet. He posted them on the internet. This constant activism can change everything. It does change everything.

Scott is the savior of mankind.

Of all the political skewerings that SNL has done of late -- ones that have brought the show back to some prominence -- this one seems one of the most uplifting and simultaneously sobering.

Facebook likes us to believe that all we have to do is share more to make the world more connected and therefore change it. If only it was so easy.

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Liberal Facebook activism skewered by Louis C.K., SNL - CNET

Christian Schneider, Syndicated columnist 6:14 p.m. CT April 9, 2017

Christian Schneider(Photo: Eric Tadsen/USA TODAY NETWORK)

Since November of last year, if you were looking for partisanship in the dictionary, you wouldnt have to flip to the p section. Since Donald Trumps election, the folks running the social media accounts at Merriam-Webster have continuously trolled the Republican president, offering snarky responses to his ever-present malapropisms and his staffs often novel use of words.

One Merriam-Webster Trend Watch column took aimat Trump adviser Kellyanne Conways use of the term alternative facts. Other social media posts have poked at Trumps refugee travel ban, highlighted his staff barring reporters from a media gaggle. and needled Speaker of the House Paul Ryans use of the word sycophant to describe Julian Assange. On election day last year, the dictionarys Twitter feed changed its header to the German word Gtterdmmerung, or a collapse (as of a society or regime) marked by catastrophic violence and disorder.

In a word, this is all troublous. (And yes, that is a word.)

There is now no segment of American society to which one may retreat without being subjected to politics. Every corner of our lives is illuminated with talk of filibusters, health care strategy and minor cabinet appointees. It is as if the American economy now runs on demagoguery.

Remember when you could watch sports to escape from politics? No more. As The Ringers Bryan Curtis argued in February, sports writing is now a liberal profession, having soaked up more of the left-wing flavor of the traditional media. With the advent of Twitter, both columnists and straight sportswriters alike often have little compunction about expressing their political views publicly, frequently explaining how intolerant or uninformed their own readers are.

Take, for example, a much-read New York Times articlefrom last November that lavished praise on the Wisconsin Badgers mens basketball team for being college basketballs most political locker room. The article highlighted, for instance, forward Nigel Hayes support for the Black Lives Matter movement and guard Bronson Koenigs travels to protest the Dakota Access pipeline.

Does anyone actually believe the Times would have written such a tongue bath had the players been political on the right? What if they had been, for example, outspoken in opposition to gay marriage? Or if they marched against abortion? Would one of Americas most influential newspapers praise them?

Perhaps it is Americas fault for electing an entertainer to the presidency, but politics has become indistinguishable from pop culture. Online magazines that once covered exclusively movies and music have now moved into lefty political punditry, leaving no conservative pop culture fan unlectured. There is no safe haven anymore for a taste of what its like, imagine being progressive and having Sean Hannity follow you around berating you while youre trying to listen to the S-Town podcast.

Even comedy, the last bastion of tell-it-like-it-is-dom has fallen into line. Virtually every late-night comedian thinks he or she has to do some sort of imitation of St. Jon Stewart to coax his or her liberal followers into sharing their rant on YouTube the next day.

From now on, there is no respite for the weary. You can run, but progressive condescension is going to find you. Politics gets clicks, and clicks bring revenue. There is no incentive for this new punditry to be accurate or fair.

Undoubtedly, Merriam-Webster has a bucketful of arcane words to describe the way politics has saturated our culture. But it is most aptly expressed by Americas great philosopher, Donald J. Trump: #Sad!

Email cschneider@jrn.com.

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No escape from liberal American politics - Jackson Clarion Ledger

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The Writers Guild of America East organized Gawker as its first unionized digital media outlet in June 2015. Although Gawker was bankrupt in less than a year later, for unrelated reasons.

Since then, the WGA has been able to unionize a growing stable of liberal digital sites including the Huffington Post,VICE, The Root,ThinkProgress, Fusion,Salon and Gizmodo Media Group.

So far this year, the WGA hasunionized workers at MTV News, Group Nine, and the Thrillist.In addition,The Intercepts 32-member investigative journalist staff voted to join last week.

The 4,500-member Writers Guild of America East and 20,000 brothers and sisters of the Los Angeles-based Writers Guild of America West dominated the writers who create television and films for the major media conglomerates for 50 years/ But now the digital space hascaptured over 25 percent of all advertising revenue.

So far, WGA East has organized the staffs of 11 mostly hard-left Internet publishers. The new 550 union members now represent more than 12 percent of WGA Easts membership, and about 4 percent of the combined national WGA total membership.

Union organizers claim that writers who unionize can look forward to minimum salaries for work, attribution credit protection, residuals, healthcare, and pension benefits. Unions are also telling digital millennials they should organize in the hope that amplified media coverage will cross over into the unionization of other industries.

But opponents of unionization comment that unionized digital writers will go the way of newspaper writers over the last decade. A June 2016 Pew Research Center surveyfound that 36 percent of U.S. adults learned something about the election campaign in the previous week from a print newspaper. That compared to 44 percent from radio, 65 percent from digital, and 78 percent from television.

The Writers Guild of America is currently in final negotiations before a threatened strike against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which produce movie studios, broadcast networks and cable channels.

The lastWGA strike lasted for 100 days in 2007, but that effort backfired as viewers simply went online. The Associated Press reports: Hollywood is hoping to avoid a crippling work stoppage like the 100-day strike of 2007 that put prime-time TV into reruns and blockbuster movies on hold.

Perhaps the biggest challenge to unions organizing digital media is that many of the most highly-paid writers have created their own celebrity status. The New York Times motto, All the News Thats Fit to Print, means nothing online. The days of a few local newspapers and three television networks controlling access to public thought is over.

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Liberal New Media's Biggest Challenge: Unionization - Breitbart News

Donald Trump speaks after the US fired a barrage of missiles into Syria. Photograph: Alex Brandon/AP

So now we know what it takes for an unhinged, bigoted demagogue to win liberal applause: just bypass a constitution to fire some missiles. It had seemed as though there was consensus among those in the anti-Trump camp. This man was a threat to US democracy and world peace. The echoes of 1930s fascist leaders were frightening. This republic is in serious danger, declared conservative writer Andrew Sullivan on the eve of Trumps triumph. That this megalomaniac pussy-grabbing ban-the-Muslims ex-reality TV star would soon control the worlds most lethal military arsenal was chilling. Opposition would be uncompromising, a reflection of the Republican intransigence that Barack Obama faced from day one.

It has taken less than three months for these illusions to be shattered. A man widely castigated as a proto-fascist only needed to drop bombs without observing due process.

Lets examine what is being said about Trump now. A press he denounced as liars and enemies of the people are eating out of his hands, tiny or otherwise. I think Donald Trump became president of the United States, cooed CNN commentator Fareed Zakaria in response to the bombing. Trump reacted viscerally to the images of the death of innocent children in Syria, declared Mark Sandler in the New York Times. The original headline on that article, since amended? On Syria Attack, Trumps Heart Came First.

So the man who once bragged to a baying audience that he would tell five-year-old Syrian refugees to their faces that the US would not offer them safety, is now driven by his heart. Touching indeed. The moral dimensions of leadership had penetrated Trumps Oval Office, declared the Washington Posts David Ignatius. MSNBCs Brian Williams described the missile launches as beautiful three times in the space of 30 seconds.

In Britain, liberal and conservative columnists alike, plus Tory, Liberal Democrat and Labour politicians applauded the raid. Trump is now showing leadership, apparently. Leadership is shown by a man widely feared to be a) unhinged b) demagogic and c) authoritarian, dropping bombs in defiance of his countrys democratic process. Labours Jeremy Corbyn, on the other hand, is savaged for querying whether a military escapade led by Trump will succeed where all other Middle Eastern military adventures have failed.

Those who critique Trumps unilateral assault on Syria are portrayed as heartless in the face of the gassing of children

Those who critique Trumps unilateral assault on Syria are portrayed as heartless in the face of the gassing of little children, just as opponents of war in Iraq and Libya were demonised as indifferent to those murdered and tortured and persecuted by Saddam Hussein and Muammar or Gaddafi. Lets be clear. The gassing of those Syrian children, and the unspeakably sickening deaths that they suffered, is a despicable crime. President Assad is a blood-soaked tyrant who has slaughtered countless Syrians with his barrel bombs, and deserves to spend his final days rotting in a jail cell. Vladimir Putin, too, is caked in the blood of Syrian and Chechen children alike. If I genuinely thought Donald Trump was the plausible saviour of Syrias children, then I would reconsider my position.

The history of western military intervention in the Arab world is of bloody failure. Remember Libya, and how this time things would be different, before the country descended into a violent quagmire overrun by Islamist militia? Those applauding his latest intervention are saying, implicitly or otherwise, that this time will be different. And who will apparently buck the trend of failed, bloody US military interventions in the Arab world? Trump.

There are two plausible outcomes to his raid. One, it was purely symbolic. This, currently, seems most likely. His administration gave the Russians notice, who alerted Assads forces. Syrian military casualties were minimal, and bombing raids from the targeted military base have now resumed. In that case, it was a meaningless slap on the wrists, mostly designed for a domestic American audience at a time when the president has disastrous polling numbers. The other is that this marks the beginning of a further escalation of US involvement in Syrias intractable civil war. That will mean entrusting Trump to spearhead deepening military involvement in a war which has already claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. How palatable are both options?

Good on Trump, some liberal pundits say, but he lacks strategy. In Syria, that is true. He has no strategy there. But lets not pretend for a second that a man who defeated both the Republican and Democratic party machines is lacking in strategy. He has proved adept at winning power, and now he will amass it with the help of this applauded military excursion.

Trump is now emboldened. The pundits are applauding him, his critics have praised him, his appalling approval ratings will surely edge up. Further military action by a man who has repeatedly bragged about disrespecting the norms of war will surely follow. He bypassed the constitution this time, and will be praised for it, so why shouldnt he next time? And if war comes with North Korea, what will the liberal pundits do? Some will cheerlead him all over again. Wheres your compassion for the suffering of North Korea? will be their cryto silence opposition, just as it was with Iraq and Libya. We had the Ronald Reagan Democrats, now the Trump liberals will emerge. Others will say, no, we backed the bombing of Syria, but this new war is different, this is too far.

Too late. They will have legitimised one extra-constitutional military intervention, their subsequent opposition will look as pathetic as it will be hypocritical. A man who backs torture and castigated his predecessors for not stealing Iraq and Syrias oil is being rehabilitated by the liberal pundits: as a man of compassion, a man of strength, with the resolve that Obama apparently lacked.

A wartime martial presidency may then be born, cheered on by some liberals who once decried Trump as a possible American Mussolini. Well fine: it was liberal Italy that handed Mussolini the keys, after all. History shows that war presents the ideal opportunity for the authoritarian-minded to amass, consolidate and concentrate power. Dissent can be more easily portrayed as treachery; jingoism sweeps the nation, boosting the popularity of the ruler; critics fall into line; constitutional norms can be disregarded at a time of national crisis.

What happened in Syria cannot be divorced from what is happening in Iraq and Yemen. In Mosul, at least 150 civilians perished in a Trumpist bombing raid one of the deadliest US raids since the calamitous Iraq invasion. Thats more than perished in Assads gas attack in Khan Sheikhun, even if the American weapons that slaughtered them are legal.

Dozens were killed by a US strike against a school in Syria last month, largely unmourned by Trumps new apologists, as were the 30 civilians killed in Trumps failed Yemen raid in January, children among them. There are children in Yemen too, you know, and they are being slaughtered by US- and UK-backed Saudi warplanes. Trumps liberal apologists wont cry for them or even acknowledge their existence: they are, apparently, unpeople, rather than kids clutching teddy bears as western-backed bombs rain on their heads.

How naive some of us were. Yes, some of those liberals were cheerleaders of George W Bush as he launched an invasion of Iraq which plunged the country and the region into blood and chaos. They learned their lesson, though, right? I mean, Trump almost makes a bloodstained Bush look like a paragon of decency in comparison surely they wont legitimise his war machine too and laud him to boot?

One of the main objections to Trump was that he was unstable, impulsive, with authoritarian instincts, and would disregard constitutional norms. This has turned out to be true, while being applauded by his erstwhile detractors for doing so, emboldening him to go further. Yet Im no fan of Trump, but will be the battle cry of his erstwhile detractors. Still, the children of Syria will die, just as they will die in Yemen and Iraq and elsewhere. History will ask: how did this man become president? And how did he maintain power when he did? Look no further than the brittle, weak, pathetic liberal opposition. The US deserves better, and so does the world.

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Why are liberals now cheerleading a warmongering Trump? - The Guardian

Does anybody here remember Blanche Lincoln? She was a two-term senator from Arkansas, a moderate Democrat who prospered in a red state by defying liberal power brokers like big labor.

The unions and ultra-left pressure groups went after her big-time in 2010, backing a primary challenge by Arkansas Lieutenant Governor Bill Halter. She survived the primary barely but suffered mortal wounds in the process, and lost badly in the fall to Republican John Boozman.

We thought of Lincoln as the purist wing of the Democratic Party re-emerged this spring and threatened to run primary opponents next year against senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Joe Donnelly of Indiana. Their sin: daring to support President Trumps nominee for the Supreme Court, Judge Neil Gorsuch.

As one of those purist pressure groups, We Will Replace You, said in their manifesto: The next crucial step is escalating our demands, and demonstrating that we wont accept anything less than full opposition by showing Democrats just how many people are willing to back primary challenges to Democratic collaborators and enablers of Trump.

This harassment is beyond stupid. Its suicidal.

Democrats are struggling to win elections and have lost control of both Congress and the White House. Trump won West Virginia by 67 percent, North Dakota by 62 percent and Indiana by 56 percent.

The only Democrats who could possibly hold Senate seats in those states are ones like Manchin, Heitkamp and Donnelly: moderates who separate themselves from the rigid tenets of liberal theology. Lincolnizing them, purging them as heretics, would have only one result: making it easier for Trump and his congressional allies to retain power.

Look at the facts. Yes, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by almost 3 million, but thats a highly misleading figure, based entirely on huge Democratic margins in a few coastal and urban enclaves. In California alone, Clinton rolled up a lead of 4.3 million; in New York, it was 1.7 million. Take away those two states and Trumps national margin was above 3 million.

Trump won about 84 percent of the counties in America; Clinton, 16 percent. Only 26 percent of voters identified as liberals in Election Day exit polls, with 39 percent calling themselves moderates and 35 percent conservatives.

Add the nature of the American system: House members represent individual districts that are often gerrymandered to protect the party in power; each state gets two senators, no matter its size; and the Electoral College determines the president, not the popular vote.

The math is undeniable and unrelenting: Democrats cannot take back the White House or Congress simply by building up large majorities in Brooklyn and Boston. Politics is always about addition, not subtraction. Condemning moderates as collaborators and enablers will condemn the party to permanent minority status.

Groups like We Will Replace You are directly connected to Bernism, the mass mania that infected liberals during the Democratic primaries. They deluded themselves into believing that a self-proclaimed Democratic socialist, mouthing totally unrealistic slogans like free college tuition, could actually win.

Sure, Sanders backed Clinton after the conventions, but he stayed in the primaries far too long and convinced far too many of his followers that she was a flawed candidate not worth voting for. Yes, Clinton was a poor candidate, but without a doubt, Sanders helped elect Trump. He Lincolnized Clinton.

The fallout from Bernism is not just bad for the Democrats; its bad for the country. Moderates like Manchin, Heitkamp and Donnelly are an essential part of a functioning Senate. They are the dealmakers, the conciliators, the lubricators who make the legislative machinery run. Their shrinking numbers help explain why the Senate is imploding over Gorsuchs nomination to the high court.

In 2005, a group called the Gang of 14 seven Democrats, seven Republicans brokered a pact over judicial nominations that avoided a partisan showdown. Only three of those 14 Senators, all Republicans, remain in office. All the Democrats are gone, including four moderates from red states: Robert Byrd of West Virginia, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana.

There was no deal this year, comparable to the one forged 12 years ago, because there are so few dealmakers left.

If the Democrats forget Blanche Lincoln, if they insist on purging anyone who strays from liberal orthodoxy, they will misread once again the nature of the American electorate. And they will weaken, not strengthen, their ability to resist Trump.

Steve and Cokie Roberts can be contacted by email at stevecokie@gmail.com.

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COKIE & STEVE ROBERTS: The deadly liberal delusion - The Albany Herald