Daily Archives: July 23, 2017

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian expects a "robust and at times heated" debate at a Liberal Party reform convention in Sydney on Sunday.

Malcolm Turnbull has urged the convention to back changes to party rules which would ensure grassroots members have a greater say on candidates and policy.

Ms Berejiklian has also thrown her weight behind the idea of plebiscites to select candidates for state and federal seats, but said she understood members had different ideas as to how this could be achieved.

"I know that this issue ... will be robust and at times heated, but that is a good thing, that is normal for a healthy thriving organisation," she told the convention on Saturday.

Mr Turnbull says plebiscites are a "fundamental element of party democracy" and will help boost party membership and motivate members to be more active.

Former prime minister Tony Abbott says the convention should pass a set of motions proposed by his Warringah federal electorate conference, which would ensure sitting members can be challenged under the plebiscite system and members would need to be signed up for two years before they can vote.

However, Mr Turnbull's moderate faction is working with members of the "soft right" on alternatives to Mr Abbott's motions - including a longer timeframe for members to wait and the protection of sitting members from the new rules.

Mr Abbott says those who oppose his "one member one vote" motions are advocating "fake democracy".

It is expected some disgruntled conservative party members could quit the Liberals if the reforms don't go far enough.

But the former prime minister said his message to those people was "stay and fight".

Liberal president Nick Greiner told the convention it would be "unfortunate" if the party steered away from it being a "broad church", incorporating both moderate and conservative wings.

He said he had noticed in recent times some "lack of civility" in the party and urged all members to advocate with passion but do so in a respectful way.

The final result of the convention will go to the NSW Liberals state director and president, who will prepare the party's modernisation plan to go before a future NSW state council meeting for endorsement later in the year.

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Liberal reform voting system crashes - NEWS.com.au

Old tweets from incoming White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci show that he embraced some liberal policy stances in the last few years, just as President Trump did before he committed to running as a Republican.

"I am not a partisan just practical. I voted for Clinton and Obama," Scaramucci wrote on Twitter in November 2011.

In 2012, Scaramucci reacted to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings with a call for gun control.

"I have always been for strong gun control laws," Scaramucci wrote in December 2012.

Earlier that year, he wrote, "We (the USA) has 5% of the world's population but 50% of the world's guns. Enough is enough. It is just common sense it apply more controls."

The 53-year-old Long Island native also urged conservatives to embrace gay marriage and rights in 2012.

"Republicans should support Gay marriage," he tweeted.

Unlike his new boss, Scaramucci believes the climate is changing.

"You can take steps to combat climate change without crippling the economy. The fact many people still believe CC is a hoax is disheartening," he wrote in March 2016, weeks after the GOP primaries started.

But Scaramucci's most recent critique of Trump occurred during the 2016 campaign. In a December 2015 tweet, Scaramucci lambasted Trump's campaign pledge for a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border.

"Walls don't work," he wrote. "Never have never will."

Trump on Saturday seemed to forgive Scaramucci for not adopting his policies early on in the 2016 election, and said Scaramucci backed different candidates before he knew Trump was running.

"In all fairness to Anthony Scaramucci, he wanted to endorse me 1st, before the Republican Primaries started, but didn't think I was running!" Trump wrote on Twitter Saturday morning.

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Anthony Scaramucci's old tweets reveal liberal views on climate, abortion, gay rights, border wall - Washington Examiner

A recent survey by the Pew Research Center found that 35 percent of Democrats believed that a friends vote for Donald Trump would strain their relationship. Among white Democrats, the figure is even higher, with 40 percent saying that they would have trouble maintaining a friendship with someone who supported Trump. Nearly half (47 percent) of those who described themselves as liberal Democrats said their friendship would suffer with someone who favored Trump.

By contrast, the share of Republicans who say that a friends vote for Hillary Clinton would strain their relationship was a mere 13 percent, just over a third the number of Democrats who say that a friends vote for Trump would do the same:

With these data in hand, Vermeule, who is the Ralph S. Tyler professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School, tweeted that, indeed, white liberal college graduates are the least tolerant in society, highlighting the three categories most radically affected by a persons contrary political ideas:

In a Twitter conversation that ensued, Vermeule suggested that on average Democrats and Republicans look at politics differently, which explains its differing effects on ones personal life and relationships.

Liberalism, he stated, makes an idol of politics, and thus, political dissent is looked upon as heresy. In the case of conservatives, however, politics plays a different role. The data show that Republicans are more politically tolerant, he said, because politics isnt as likely to be an idol, on average.

In other words, Republicans tend to be more politically detached, with politics playing a less central role in their existence, meaning that they can more easily overlook a friends contrary political opinions without it jeopardizing their relationship.

Citing a recent piece from the Washington Post, one commenter proposed that perhaps Democrats live in a bubble and, therefore, are more hostile to contrary opinions. The WaPo article declared that Democrats tend to be more insulated from dissenting political voices, and, therefore, they dont hear and dont want to hear those voices coming from their friends mouths.

To this theory, Vermeule responded that he believes such sociological explanations are insufficient to fully get to the bottom of the differences between liberals and conservatives in relation to politics.

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Harvard Law Professor: 'White Liberal College Graduates' Are 'the Least Tolerant' - Breitbart News

The University of California Berkeley is back at the center of controversy in another battle over free speech, but this time there's a surprising twist of events.

A Berkeley radio station has canceled an August 9 speaking engagement with atheist author Richard Dawkins, according to Berkeleyside.

In recent months, the liberal university has generated widespread outrage for canceling speakers with conservative views, like Milo Yiannopoulos, Ann Coulter, and Ben Shapiro.

But this latest cancellation targets a well-known liberal.

Dawkins was going to speak about his new book, Science in the Soul: Selected Writings of a Passionate Atheist, in the engagement sponsored by KPFA.

Although Dawkins is outspoken against conservative values and Christianity, the radio station doesn't cite that as the reason for cancellattion. Instead, KPFA sent a letter to those who bought tickets for the event saying it's because his views against Muslims could be taken as offensive.

"We had booked this event based entirely on his excellent new book on science, when we didn't know he had offended and hurt in his tweets and other comments on Islam, so many people. KPFA does not endorse hurtful speech," it says.

The letter condemns what they call "abusive speech."

"While KPFA emphatically supports serious free speech, we do not support abusive sphttp://eech. We apologize for not having had broader knowledge of Dawkins views much earlier. We also apologize to all those inconvenienced by this cancellattion." In the past, Dawkins has criticized aspects of Islam on Twitter. In one tweet, he highlights the abusive treatment of some Muslim women.

In another, he references suggestions about what Mohammed would be doing if he were alive today.

Dawkins ended up responding to the radio station in a letter of his own: "I used to love your station when I lived in Berkeley for two years, shortly after that beloved place had become the iconic home of free speech," he wrote. "I have criticized the appalling misogyny and homophobia of Islam, I have criticized the murdering of apostates for no crime other than their disbelief. Far from attacking Muslims, I understand as perhaps you do not that Muslims themselves are the prime victims of the oppressive cruelties of Islamism, especially Muslim women."

In the letter, he points out what he sees as a double standard: "I am known as a frequent critic of Christianity and have never been de-platformed for that. Why do you give Islam a free pass? Why is it fine to criticize Christianity but not Islam?"

"You say I use 'abusive speech' about Islam. I would seriously I mean it like to hear what examples of my 'abusive speech' you had in mind. When you fail to discover any, I presume you will issue a public apology, which I will of course accept in a spirit of gratitude for what KPFA once was. And could become again," he added.

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'Why Do You Give Islam a Free Pass?' Why Atheist Richard Dawkins Got Booted from Berkeley - CBN News

A Pew Research Center survey found thatnearly half of liberal Democrat respondents admit that discovering that a person voted for Donald Trump would make a friendship with that person difficult. The other half of respondents did not admit this.

In contrast, a large majority of conservative Republicansindicated topollsters that they could put politics aside for the sake of a friendship with a person who voted for Hillary Clinton. Almost three-fourths of conservative Republicans said a persons vote for Hillary Clinton would not put a strain on their relationship. Just a quarter of them said such a vote would strain the friendship.

The resultsreflect (and perhaps influence)the increasing partisanship in Washington and take the longstanding advice to keep politics out of polite conversation to a different level by keeping people with opposing political views out of the conversation entirely. The results also clash with stories in the not-so-distant past of liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans buddying up.

Political history overflows with ideological enemies becoming personal friends. Democrat Jack Kennedy forged a friendship with Republican Joseph McCarthy, who hired his brother Bobby, dated sisters Eunice and Patricia, and served as the godfather to niece Kathleen Kennedy Townshend. President Ronald Reagan and Speaker of the HouseTip ONeill, occupying places closer to the opposing poles of the political spectrum than to one another, famously, and perhaps apocryphally, enjoyed beers together after legislative fights. The late Antonin Scalia, perhaps the most conservative member of the Supreme Court in recent times, found his closest friend on the bench in Ruth Bader Ginsburg, one of the most liberal members in recent times.

The poll, released July 20, reinforces other polling data and anecdotal reports that suggest that politics so subsumes the lives of some liberals that friendships with conservatives remain off-limits

Gay writer Michael Musto, for instance, recently advocated dumping friends who disagree politically.

Everything in a friendship that might have seemed good suddenly goes sour when I learn that they advocate Trump and his hideousness, which involves attempting to diminish rights for women, LGBTQs, Muslims, immigrants, the arts, and the non-rich, not to mention all those treasonous-sounding doings with Russia, he explained. Am I supposed to understand that a gay friend is simply concerned about tax breaks and therefore cant be bothered to devote any energy to little things like human rights? Bye, Felicia!

A Public Religion Research Institute poll taken after last years presidential election showed that almost three times as many liberals as conservatives blocked others on social media based on their political postings.

The political dealbreaker extends for some to romantic relationships.

[I]m left-leaning politically, and, truth be told, cant see myself ever developing feelings foror being in a relationship withanyone that supports [T]rump, one Wayne, Pennsylvania, Craigslist lonely-heart wrote potential beaus. A male professional Seeking College Student for Dating in San Francisco added this postscript to his Craigslist ad: No Republicans or Trump Supporters need apply.

How pervasive is the political intolerance? A recent OKCupid blog headline explained: In 2017, Trump Is a Major Dating Dealbreaker. Golden Showers Are Not.

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FLYNN: I Unfriend You! Polling Shows Half of Liberal Democrats Troubled by Socializing with Trump Voters - Breitbart News