Daily Archives: July 19, 2017

Hamburg, Germany, July. As world leaders gather for the G20 summit, far-left anti-fascist (antifa) rioters set fire to cars and property, terrorize residents and injure more than 200 police officers attempting to keep the peace. Did you miss it? CNNs initial reports referred to the protesters as eclectic and peaceful.

But you need not cross the shining seas to experience violence, destruction of property and a general dismantling of liberal values from the political left. You could simply visit Americas elite college campuses like Yale or Middlebury or Berkeley, where tomorrows leaders attempt to shut down conservative voices with protest or riots. At Middlebury, rioting students landed liberal professor Allison Stanger in a neck brace for the crime of defending a conservative academics right to speak. At Berkeley, mobs of students created a war zone ahead of a planned visit from conservative provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, injuring Trump supporters and causing $100,000 in damages.

Or head to Portland, Ore., one of the most liberal cities in the nation in the heart of the progressive Pacific Northwest, which this month Politico labeled Americas Most Politically Violent City. The progressive paradise where Republicans are virtually an extinct species has witnessed millions in damages attributed to the same types of anti-fascists-in-name-only that kept Hamburg residents paralyzed in fear this month. A counter-protest to a planned pro-Trump rally landed 14 antifa in jail for attacking the police with explosives and bricks.

Witness the blood-soaked congressional baseball field in Alexandria, Va., site of the June attack on U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., and other Republicans batting up for their annual bipartisan game. James Hodgkinson, a fervent supporter of progressive politics, showed up to the field with a rifle, a handgun and a hit list of Republicans. As Scalise fought for his life, MSNBC host Joy Reid felt conflicted: The attempted assassination was a delicate thing because of Scalises conservative views like opposition to gay marriage. Are we required in a moral sense to put that aside in the moment? she wondered. Yes, Joy, you are. The shooting of a mainstream, congressional Republican leader is reprehensible, and in no way justifiable.)

Now cross the Potomac and visit the halls of Congress, where Democratic lawmakers have accused Republicans of murder for supporting an overhaul to the spiraling, ruined Obamacare program, which by next year will leave dozens of counties without a single option for insurance. Reasonable people can disagree about how much our Medicaid program should grow without comparing the Republican bill to 9/11, as Sen. Bernie Sanders, the independent from Vermont, did recently. Or saying the health care bill is paid for with blood money of dead Americans, as Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., tweeted shortly after the Scalise attack. If our sitting senators dont act more responsibly, who will?

Instead of retweeting, liberals who care about preserving our political system should be outraged that these are the standard-bearers of their party.

Nobody is directly responsible for a shooting except the shooter, and nobody throws a brick except the person who picks it up. No side has a monopoly on political violence. There are loonies at the fringes of every political movement mentally ill, perturbed and paranoid who can be stirred toward violence or dissuaded from it.

But when we have Democratic senators accusing political opponents of murder, when our college campuses descend into assault zones for conservative speakers (or those who defend them), when our major cities become playgrounds for far-left rioters and the news media gloss over it, we move toward a more violent and fractured society, not a safer one.

If gay people were pouring into bars and punching straight people, I as a gay man would speak out. If Jews were propagating terror in the name of our religion, I would condemn it vociferously. And when violence has come from the conservative side, I dont hesitate to stand against it. But its not.

There have been no right-wing groups storming campuses and flinging feces at speakers we dont like; no tea party mobs destroying property, assaulting police officers, and paralyzing our major cities; and no Republican senators calling their colleagues murderers just weeks after a political assassination attempt.

From Portland to New Haven to Washington, the violence were witnessing is largely a product of the hard left, and the reaction from mainstream liberals mostly silence, dismissiveness, equivocation means it will continue to flourish.

To move toward a less violent and hyper-charged society, we must be clearheaded about violence where we see it, and not avoid the subject. We must condemn it without conditions.

If you think Republicans are murderers, youre an extremist. If youre trading in that kind of rhetoric just to shut the other side up or raise a buck, youre giving cover to extremists. And if you object to political violence but fail to speak out, your weakness is causing our society to fracture.

Its time for liberal America to speak out against violence and the rhetoric that incites it.

Tribune Content Agency

Albert Eisenberg is the former communications director for the Philadelphia Republican Party.

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Liberal America has a political violence problem - Chicago Tribune - Chicago Tribune

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Posted: Jul 19, 2017 12:01 AM

Recently, Gallup published the results of its annual Values and Beliefs poll.

The headline of the report speaks for itself: "Americans Hold Record Liberal Views on Most Moral Issues."

Gallup has been doing this poll since 2001, and the change in public opinion on the moral issues surveyed has been in one direction -- more liberal.

Of 19 issues surveyed in this latest poll, responses on 10 are the most liberal since the survey started.

Sixty-three percent say gay/lesbian relations are morally acceptable -- up 23 points from the first year the question was asked. Sixty-two percent say having a baby outside of marriage is OK -- up 17 points. Unmarried sex, 69 percent -- up 16 points. Divorce, 73 percent -- up 14 points.

More interesting, and of greater consequence, is what people actually do, rather than what they think. And, not surprisingly, the behavior we observe in our society at large reflects these trends in values.

Hence, the institution of traditional marriage is crumbling, Americans are having fewer children, and, compared with years gone by, the likelihood that children are born out of the framework of marriage has dramatically increased.

Undoubtedly, the liberals in academia, in the media, in politics, see this as good news. After all, doesn't removing the "thou shalt not's" that limit life's options liberate us?

Isn't the idea of freedom supposed to be, according to them, that you have a green light to do whatever you want, as long as you're not hurting someone else?

But here's the rub. How do you measure if you are hurting someone else?

No one lives in a vacuum. We all live in a country, in communities. We are social beings as well as individuals, no matter what your political philosophy happens to be. Everyone's behavior has consequences for others.

For instance, more and more research shows the correlation between the breakdown of the traditional family and poverty.

In 2009, Ron Haskins of the Brookings Institution published his "success sequence." According to Haskins, someone who completes high school, works full time, and doesn't have children until after marriage has only a 2 percent chance of being poor.

A new study from the American Enterprise Institute and the Institute for Family Studies focuses on millennials -- those born between 1980-1984. And this study reaches conclusions similar to those of Haskins.

According to this study, only 3 percent of millennials who have a high school diploma, who are working full time, and who are married before having children are poor. On the other hand, 53 percent of millennials who have not done these three things are poor.

Behavior increasing the likelihood of poverty does have consequences on others. American taxpayers spend almost a trillion dollars a year to help those in poverty, a portion of whom would not be in this situation if they lived their lives differently.

But the same liberals who scream when Republicans look for ways to streamline spending on antipoverty programs like Medicaid, scream just as loudly at any attempt to expose young people to biblical values that teach traditional marriage and chastity outside of marriage.

The percent of American adults that are married dropped from 72 percent in 1960 to 52 percent in 2008. The percentage of our babies born to unmarried women increased from 5 percent in 1960 to 41 percent by 2008.

This occurred against a backdrop of court orders removing all vestiges of religion from our public spaces, beginning with banning school prayer in 1962, and then the legalization of abortion in 1973. In 2015, the Supreme Court redefined marriage.

Losing all recognition that personal and social responsibility matters, that the biblical tradition that existed in the cradle of our national founding is still relevant, is bankrupting us morally and fiscally.

We are long overdue for a new, grand awakening.

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Liberal Values Are Bankrupting Us - Townhall

One of the candidates vying to be the next West Australian senator for the LiberalParty has described supporters of refugee-friendly policies as "a bunch of cockroaches" swarming all over his former electorate.

Michael Sutherland, the former Speaker in the WA parliamentwho lost his inner city seat in March, made the comments at a Liberal Party event in Sydney last month.

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Canadian-born Queensland senator Larissa Waters is forced to resign after discovering she is a dual citizen.

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Warnings have been issued about Australia's lax building laws and the risk of a Grenfell style fire happening here, during a Senate inquiry into non-compliant cladding.

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Ethan Wright had a close call after falling off his scooter without a helmet and is now fronting a new publication that targets child safety practices.

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Warning: graphic images. A cooler bag bearing a swastika and a bloodied animal head was left out the front of Islamic College of Brisbane.

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A plane bound for Brisbane returned to Perth because of this one passenger, who had to be forcibly removed from the flight.

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In the prequel to Prime Suspect, follow a young Jane Tennison in the early days of her police career as a probationary constable.

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The Greens leader has responded to suggestions Larissa Waters and Scott Ludlam should repay their salaries after both resigned from Parliament because they hold dual citizenship.

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Family and friends have gathered to remember Justine Damond who was shot and killed by a US police officer, while the PM says the government is pushing for answers.

Canadian-born Queensland senator Larissa Waters is forced to resign after discovering she is a dual citizen.

He is one of the five menrevealedto bevying in this weekend's pre-selection for the Senate vacancy created by the retirement of Liberal Chris Back. Born in South Africa,Mr Sutherland has refused to provide proof he has relinquished his dual-citizenship,despite two Greens senators resigning in the past weekafter it emerged they were citizens of other countries.

Speaking at a panel discussion on how the Liberals can combat anti-fracking campaign groups, Mr Sutherland said such activists had overrun his former electorate of Mount Lawley.

"My seat was an inner city seat and these people were crawling all over the seat, so, it's a big problem," he said.

He then turned his attention to the organisation representing Western Australia's 139councils (WALGA)for promoting refugee-friendly spaces.

"Youknow WALGA as well gets involved in things like refugee-friendly zones and if we don't all stand together and fight this bunch of cockroaches, we're going to have a real problem."

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Liberals attending can be heard laughing atMr Sutherland's comments in audioobtained by Fairfax Media.

The Refugee Council said in 2015 there were146 Welcome Zones created by local governments across the country. The Refugee Welcome Zones is a voluntary scheme created in 2002 to encourage councils to help refugees, people who have fled persecution in their home countries, settle in their new homes.

Under the scheme, the Refugee Council suggests local governments organise street fairs, hold picnics andfund community projects that help resettle refugees and develop English tutoring programs through local libraries.

Asked to clarify his comments, Mr Sutherland cited Russian communist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin.

"The 'cockroaches'are the greenies and activists I referred to -they have infiltrated WALGA local councils and wherever they can.

"WALGA and the local councils who promote this stuff are better describedby the term used by Lenin, 'Useful idiots,'" he said.

"I did not know of the Refugee Zone business until my wife, who is a councillor, came home and told me about it.I nearly fell off my chair as I did when I learned that WALGA is encouraging councils to disinvest from financial institutions who support fossil fuel industries.

"I am waiting for my local council to do away with all fossil fuel vehicles, perhaps we will have 'sheep in the meadows'to mow the park lawns.

"People must not squeal when there is mass unemployment which is coming with this nonsense coupled with mechanisation."

He also released to Fairfax Media his letter to State Council formally seeking their support ahead of this Saturday's preselection.

In it he vowed to continue to fight "left-wing groups who wish to shut down or curtail economic development."

And he said he would champion "maintaining strong borders and combating the existential threatsfaced by Australia caused by instability in the Pacific Region and by Islamic terrorism."

Former staffer to the influential right-wing powerbrokercabinet minister MathiasCormann, SladeBrockman, is considered most likely to win the pre-selection contest.

Dual Nationality

Mr Sutherland was born in South Africa in 1954. His father served for the South African army in the Second World War in Egypt, where he met Mr Sutherland's mother - a Lebanese Christian who spoke Arabic, French, Italian and Greek. He moved to Australia in 1987, and held onto to his dual nationality while in state parliament, as there is no rule against dual citizens in the WA legislature.

Earlier this month he assured Fairfax Media that he is no longer a dual-citizen.

Since then, the shock revelations of dual citizenship that forced two Greens senators to resign haveprompted calls for all MPs born overseas to provide proof, and not just assurances, that they have relinquished their second citizenships.

Former prime minister Tony Abbott, who has faced a relentless online campaign claiming he still holds a British passport, was the first to provide evidence that he gave up his dual-nationality before standing for Parliament.

WA Liberal Ian Goodenough has also provided documentation. But Mr Sutherland said the people who "needed to know" would be shown the evidence and not the public.

"I am a solicitor.I have attended to the necessary -the people who need to know are aware of my actions," he said.

"To reiterate, I have relinquished my South African citizenship," he said.

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Refugee and fracking activists a 'bunch of cockroaches', says Liberal pursuing Senate vacancy - The Sydney Morning Herald

Toronto Sun

Plant closure underscores Liberal energy blunders Toronto Sun Because of the incompetence of the Kathleen Wynne and Dalton McGuinty Liberal governments, Ontarians are now facing a perfect storm of multiple energy crises. They're paying the highest electricity rates in Canada - which the Liberals say they're going ...

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Plant closure underscores Liberal energy blunders - Toronto Sun