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Republican lawmakers have become increasingly focused on waging conservative culture wars. Over the past year, the GOP has racked up several wins surrounding issues such as abortion care and reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights, and parents' rights over school curriculums.

After the revocation of Roe v. Wade, several red-state legislatures have been able to pass more restrictive abortion bans. Last month, Republicans successfully passed a law restricting drag performances on public property in Tennessee, and others are taking aim at gender-affirming care for transgender youth. Conservatives have also turned their sights to public school classrooms, universities, and public libraries. GOP-run states are passing widespread book bans, lambasting critical race theory, and placing restrictions on what sports trans students are allowed to play.

Legislative wins aside, some question whether Republicans' cultural crusade will work for them in the long run, as many of their measures appear unpopular among the general public. For instance, since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, polls show "public opinion on abortion in the U.S. has moved sharply leftward," Intelligencer wrote. Are Republicans out of touch?

Republican culture war rhetoric has floppedin school board elections, where "candidates who ran culture-war campaigns flamed out," Juan Perez Jr. writes for Politico. The outcomes have "major implications for 2024" and should also "serve as a renewed warning to Republican presidential hopefuls like Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis," Perez adds. "General election voters are less interested in crusades against critical race theory and transgender students than they are in funding schools and ensuring they are safe."

Ryan Girdusky, the founder of the conservative political action committee 1776 Project, defended the performance of the school board candidates he endorsed, telling Politico that they "didn't get obliterated." Still, he warns conservative candidates against assuming "that a blanket message on critical race theory or transgender issues is going to claim every district," and advised that they "don't tell parents something is happening if it's not happening, because then it doesn't look like you're running a serious operation."

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The controversies over abortion restrictions, book banning, and similar cultural measures "reveal how much politics has become an intergenerational battle, with older traditionalists against younger progressives," David Hopkins opines atBloomberg. Social issues that "divide voters along generational lines have become more central to the nation's political debates," Hopkins adds. He finds it "hard to imagine" that the GOP can successfully sway more young voters "by treating young adults' political views with contempt or characterizing them as gullible victims of liberal brainwashing."

As Republican presidential hopefuls prepare for 2024, "the fact that one cannot win a GOP primary without titillating culture-war addicts is undermining the party's prospects for winning the next general election," Eric Levitz comments in Intelligencer. Republicans fare better when they focus on economic concerns, Levitz adds, and each day "that the GOP's 2024 hopefuls display more concern with 'Marxist'educators than with high prices brings Joe Biden one step closer to re-election."

After a lukewarm performance in the midterms, Republicans are shifting their focus to who will represent them in the 2024 presidential race. Top possible GOP contenders for the White House "are increasingly focused on battles around LGBTQ issues and education," ABC News writes, "a dynamic that political operatives say is likely only to intensify in the lead up to next year's election."

One issue that has garnered a lot of attention among the prospective primary contenders is transgender rights. After the Supreme Court codified same-sex marriage, The New York Times says, "social conservatives were set adrift." Attempts to curtail transgender rights have "reinvigorated a network of conservative groups, increased fund-raising and set the agenda in school boards and state legislatures." the Times adds. Next year's election "appears poised to provide a national test of the reach of this issue."After some blamed the midterm losses on the focus on social issues, "it may prove easier for Republicans to talk about transgender issues than about abortion, an issue that has been a mainstay of the conservative movement."

"For many religious and political conservatives, the same-sex marriage issue has been largely decided and for the American public, absolutely," Kelsy Burke, an associate professor of sociology at theUniversity of Nebraska-Lincoln, told the Times. "That's not true when it comes to these transgender issues. Americans are much more divided, and this is an issue that can gain a lot more traction."

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Has the GOP's culture war been for naught? - Yahoo News

Its a bit late to call an early election (if that makes any sense at all) but Rob Anderson would like it to happen.

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On the weekend, a fellow said on Twitter hes already sick of the constant electioneering. Drop the writ and lets get this thing over with, he pleaded.

Anderson tweeted: Agreed!

Hes executive director of Premier Danielle Smiths office and also, according to Smith, her chief political adviser. Quite a high-level source for a public tweet like that.

By law the election is supposed to be held May 29, which means the writ would drop May 1. Smith herself has said that wont change. Her office confirmed it Monday.

Anderson is just trumpeting his partisan eagerness. But maybe, after six more weeks of escalating anger, well wish the election had been over sooner.

The culture wars broke into the open Monday, both nationally and provincially.

Federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre got his wish to have Twitter brand the CBC as state-funded.

The CBC said Monday it was pausing its use of Twitter. Whether this applies just to the main CBC account or to network journalists as well wasnt clear.

Ill keep using Twitter to tell readers Ive got a new column and sometimes to insert a word or two into the political maelstrom.

But if Twitter vanished tomorrow, Id be a happier human.

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Meanwhile, the gigantically irresponsible Tucker Carlson of Fox News keeps calling for the U.S. to invade Canada because he thinks were a totalitarian state.

That comes from a corner of the spectrum that favours autocrats like Vladimir Putin over leaders of democracies.

At home we have a new oddity that hardly rises to the level of crisis, but still increases the election temperature.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith. Jim Wells/Postmedia

The reason, as she stated it, is another one of the odd contradictions that show exactly why her handlers dont want her answering second questions.

By taking fewer questions, she suggested, there will be more questions.

Anderson himself explained that Smith is taking one question per media outlet for six weeks so she can get to more outlets during the upcoming election period.

Smith is quite right to say that allowing followups occasionally shuts out some reporters waiting in the queue. Its happened to me often enough.

But the real issue is that so many of her initial answers absolutely demand a What-the? type of followup.

But its the followup questions that keep Smith talking and getting into trouble. So she wont take any more.

On Monday, NDP Leader Rachel Notley unexpectedly got into a related spot that led to a tense exchange.

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Shes been saying she will take as many questions as we can dream up. But when a Western Standard reporter asked why the NDP wont communicate or send news releases, Notley said the party wont interact as long as the Standard is spouting homophobic and racist material.

She wouldnt take a followup from the Standard reporter; only from mainstream, accredited media.

Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley. David Bloom/Postmedia

Notley said the ban applies until the Standard apologizes for slurs against her MLAs, including statements that violate Albertas human rights code and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The Standard soon put up a video and story in which publisher Derek Fildebrandt said: The Western Standard will never retract a story that contains no errors, other than offending her sensibilities.

He says his publication is accredited in the Saskatchewan and Alberta legislatures and on Parliament Hill.

Some of the Standards attacks, especially on NDP member Janis Irwin, have been shocking. Notley refuses to normalize those views by treating the publication with respect.

Its already that kind of campaign; ugly before the gate even opens.

Don Braids column appears regularly in the Herald.

Excerpt from:
Braid: Alberta campaign will be long and bitter as culture wars keep escalating - Calgary Herald

For a while now, I have been waiting for the battle lines to be drawn in what many are calling the most significant leak of top-secret documents in at least a decade and maybe longer.

This seemed to be perfect culture-war material, because, lets face it, what isnt? As you may have noticed, the culture wars are only getting hotter particularly on abortion and guns, which, while always contentious, are now running code red and will presumably stay that way at least until the 2024 elections and, very possibly, forevermore.

All we needed in the leak case was some idea of whom to blame. Was it Joe Biden or the so-called Deep State? Was it Donald Trump, whos had his own issues with classified documents? Was it a whistleblower? Was it someone in the military tied to a right-wing militia group? Was it Russian-style cyberwar? Couldnt there be some way to blame the Chinese or at least the Iranians?

In any case, once we had a villain, then we could probably get really serious about a leak that, from all we know, seems to be plenty serious enough one that disclosed not only official insights into the state of the Russia-Ukraine war but also provided highly classified information on Americas ability to spy on Russia as well as on certain, presumably quite unhappy, U.S. allies.

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So, now we have a villain, or at least a suspected one in Jack Teixeira a 21-year-old member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard who has been arrested and charged with leaking hundreds of classified documents in violation of the Espionage Act.

But even with a villain, we have a story that doesnt fit any easy classification because its a story that is, more than anything else, so hard to believe. And one, as Jonathan Last points out in Bulwark the anti-Trump website run by conservatives and former Republicans that shouldnt devolve into a culture war despite some of the usual more-than-disturbing details about the accused leaker and his friends. I mean, isnt everyone against the nether regions, and even some open regions, of the Internet?

Yes, Teixeira is, his friends tell us, a gun enthusiast, with libertarian views, who is antiwar (presumably channeling Tucker Carlsons version of Putinism), patriotic, religious, from a military background, and someone with real concerns about Americas future. He also has a lot of guns, and members of his chat group showed the Washington Post video of Teixeira shouting racist and antisemitic slurs before firing a rifle. Yes, so its very disturbing.

If it sounds like right-wing extremism, and it probably is, thats still not the whole story. There are other, important angles here.

We can begin with the fact that this obviously represents a failure, and only the most recent one, of the intelligence community and how, in this case, a 21-year-old, who was basically an IT specialist assigned to an Army intelligence unit, could have access to such sensitive documents. Were told thousands of people could have had access to them. And as many experts have pointed out, how good are background checks on teenagers? Teixeira apparently got his top clearance when he was 19. I guess we can say someone wasnt, uh, woke on this one.

Leaks can be beneficial. Think Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers. And it has been clear for decades that we have too many classified documents, but its just as clear that far too many people have access to the classified information that is simply too dangerous to be revealed.

While the problem may be difficult to fix, it is easy enough to understand. Obviously, some serious reform is required.

And then theres the backstory on this case, which is another take on the dangers of social media. And, in this case, we cant even blame Elon Musk, although it would be simpler if we could.

This part of the story, I guess, is also easy to understand but much harder to fathom.

It starts with a chat group. Of course it does. The leaker and his friends met on a site called Oxide Hub on a platform called Discord and then decided to move to a closed gamer group, which apparently had somewhere between 20 to 30 members.

The group, also on Discord, was called Thug Shaker Central, a name apparently derived from a racist meme. According to multiple stories, the group enjoyed a game called Project Zomboid, which has been described as the ultimate zombie survival game. What else? And in their spare time, the group exchanged racist and antisemitic views and also talked about guns and about the war in Ukraine.

This is where the story turns. In an effort, were told, to inform and impress the group, Teixeira started posting elements of the information he had learned from reading classified documents on the Russian assault on Ukraine. The posts were long and complicated, and many of the members, were told, started losing interest.

And so the leaker upped the stakes, posting photos of documents labeled TOP SECRET, which got everyones attention. According to people on the chat group, Teixeira warned group members that the information had to be kept within the group. But according to the New York Times, a 17-year-old named Lucca would publish many of the photos on a group called #War-Posting.

The Times story generously suggests that Lucca might not have fully grasped the gravity of the documents he had been given access to. Thats a decent guess. It took weeks for anyone to notice including the U.S. intelligence community that this secret information had gone public. That is, until Telegram, which is a messaging app popular in both Ukraine and Russia, started posting the secrets.

And then came the firestorm. And then came word from Teixeira that he was shutting everything down.

One chat-room member, who went by Vahki, said Teixeira told them: Guys, its been good I love you all. I never wanted it to get like this. I prayed to God that this would never happen. And I prayed and prayed and prayed. Only God can decide what happens from now on.

As Vahki pointed out, this could be life-in-prison stuff.

It certainly could be life-and-death stuff. If we understand just that much, we know we dont have to take sides, or draw battle lines, on this one. The real battle lines, after all, are in Ukraine.

The war in Ukraine is, of course, a different matter. That should be debated and argued, just not the way the ultimate culture warrior, Tucker Carlson, wants to debate it, with the truth, as the saying goes, the first casualty of war.

But the fact is you can read all about it and in some cases, obviously much too much about it on a social media post near you.

Mike Littwin has been a columnist for too many years to count. He has covered Dr. J, four presidential inaugurations, six national conventions and countless brain-numbing speeches in the New Hampshire and Iowa snow.

Originally posted here:
Littwin: Now that we know the alleged villain in the leaked ... - The Colorado Sun

The Australian and Aboriginal flags fly over Sydney Harbour Bridge. Australians must now decide on a body to represent Indigenous people. Photo / Getty Images

OPINION:

A Kiwi wandering into an Australian pub these days might find the chatter at the bar is about something they didnt expect.

The chances are that bar patrons will be sparring over the upcoming voice referendum rather than, say, the weekend footy or the upcoming Ashes series.

Given that the voice debate has underlying themes of identity and belonging, it might have some degree of familiarity for Kiwis. They are, after all, the themes of some of the conversations (or slanging matches, more like) going on in New Zealand.

Across the Tasman, the voice in question is that of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. What Australians will be asked in the referendum is whether there should be constitutional recognition of the continents original inhabitants.

Its an issue thats dividing Australians and, whatever the outcome of the referendum, about half the country is going to be unhappy. Especially now that hopes of a bipartisan approach appear to have been dashed.

A yes vote would mean changing the constitution to give the Indigenous population a voice, meaning theyll be able to advise the Australian Parliament and Government on laws and policies that affect their wellbeing.

It wont deliver anything in the way of tangible benefits, such as new services or funding. And it wont lead to any laws being invalidated. It would simply enshrine two fundamental principles, recognition and consultation.

It doesnt seem a lot to ask on behalf of one of the oldest living cultures on Earth.

Yet the referendum subject is controversial and creating deep splits. Not surprisingly, its one of the five biggest news stories of 2023, as measured by the number of hours a story spends on the homepages of major Australian news sites.

The politics of the issue are intriguing. Since winning last years election, the Labor PM Anthony Albanese has been urging Australians to seize the moment. His catchcry is, if not now, when? The polls suggest hes on a winner, though the gap has narrowed slightly in the past month.

Meanwhile, the Opposition and Liberal leader, Peter Dutton, has decided to champion the no case. He argues the referendum is divisive and wont materially help First Nations people, many of whom continue to live in appalling conditions. Instead of a peoples vote, he wants regional and local voices established by legislation.

The sniping has gone up a level since Dutton made his call, as I observed on an Easter visit to Australia.

Hes been tagged a heartless Judas and accused of fuelling a culture war campaign. There are howls of outrage about race-based constitutional change. A Liberal grandee has denounced the yes camp for trying to denigrate and humiliate opponents. And the exercise has been described you probably guessed it as wokeness, a promotion of identity politics.

Duttons strategy sure feels risky.

Hes managed to alienate some of his own party. His shadow minister for Indigenous Australians has resigned the role, and the Liberals deputy leader and several other frontbenchers are refusing to say how theyll campaign ahead of the vote. Most worryingly, a shade under 40per cent of Liberal voters back the yes case, either strongly or partly, according to Newspoll.

Yet despite that latter statistic, his sagging popularity, and the fact the Liberals lost a March by-election the Government won an Opposition seat in a by-election for the first time in 100 years Dutton is going for broke and making the referendum a partisan political issue. Aussie commentators have had plenty to say about whether thats a wise idea.

If the referendum fails and many are pointing out that no referendum in Australia has succeeded without bipartisan support some warn of sorrowful times ahead. And Dutton will inevitably be blamed for that.

Thats the thing with polarising issues that attract labels such as culture war and wokeness. There is seldom, if ever, any upside for politicians who wade in, but there can be downside, as we have seen here recently.

We tend to remember only the blunders, like Greens co-leader Marama Davidson blaming violence on white cis men, and Nationals Simon OConnor boorishly responding, on the day after a US school shooting, that the shooter didnt fit that description.

We are getting used to New Zealand opposition politicians trying to capture and exploit the public mood on issues where theres a marked polarity of opinion.

Co-governance, hate speech laws, transgender rights and the use of Te Reo Mori have offered them plenty of material.

Co-governance is probably the foremost example.

Whether the public unease about it is a consequence of the issue being poorly communicated, or just the Government being tone deaf on where the political centre is, the upshot is that it has presented an opportunity for the doomsayers.

So Christopher Luxon demands an end to co-governance in public services because the conversation about it is immature and divisive. David Seymour derides it as a culture war that must be resolved by a referendum. And Winston Peters mentions co-governance when lamenting the seeds of apartheid being sprinkled around New Zealand.

By whipping up a squall of drama, they hope to position themselves on what they see as the right side of the divide over the issue, and if theres votes in taking that position, so much the better.

British academic Matthew Goodwin, a specialist in populist politics, has written of the lingering divides over values, voice and virtue that are emerging in the UK, and the political risks for parties that amplify those divisions.

In New Zealand, where the dark shadow of high inflation and rising borrowing costs means the upcoming election will be overwhelmingly about the economy, its difficult to see how such culture-war divisions will change many votes.

But that wont stop some politicians from trying.

- Mike Munro is a former chief of staff for Jacinda Ardern and was chief press secretary for Helen Clark.

Read more from the original source:
Mike Munro: Politicians wade into the culture wars - New Zealand Herald

In a slap to Muslim girls at Stuyvesant High School, the school is canceling single-sex swim lessons, even though swim instruction is required to graduate. That forces the girls to choose between preserving their modesty and getting a diploma.

Count on Muslim families to fight back and likely prevail. Nationwide, Muslims are taking up the battle in schools to protect traditional religious values, including modesty.

Move over, Roman Catholics, evangelical Christians and conservative Jews. Reinforcements have arrived, and theyre turning the tide.

Even in the Ivy League. After weeks of protests by female Muslim students, Yale University is switching its campus housing policy for the coming academic year to offer single-gender dorms and bathrooms.

From Michigan to Virginia, Muslim parents are showing up at local school board meetings to oppose graphic sex education and gender fluidity indoctrination. Their engagement is impacting politics. More Muslims are voting Republican, concluding that the Democratic Party is trampling Islamist values.

In Dearborn, Michigan, left-wing Democrat Rep. Rashida Tlaib opposed the Muslim parents in her district protesting sexually explicit materials in school.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration continues its lurch to the extreme left. President Joe Bidens Department of Education announced double-barreled rule changes last week, one favoring transgender athletes in elementary and middle school, and the other revoking a Trump-era commitment by the department to protect religious clubs and associations on college campuses. Flipping the bird to people of faith twice in a single week.

The Democratic Party is blowing off traditional values.

Sexual modesty is a core value in Islam. Muslims observe a dress code and guard against physical contact between sexes once students reach adolescence.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects an employees right to practice religion in the workplace, but there is no comparable statutory protection for students. Muslims are waging the battle one campus demonstration and school board meeting at a time, often winning.

Muslims are powerful at Yale. In 2021, undergrads elected a Muslim woman to be student body president. And on March 10, Yale acceded to demands from the Muslim Student Association, Orthodox Jews at Yale and other religious groups to provide single-sex campus housing. Muslim women students had protested that with men in the bathroom, they couldnt even remove their hijab.

Modesty is the issue at Stuyvesant High School, too. Brian Moran, assistant principal of physical education, told the student newspaper that the girls single-sex swim classes clashed with other scheduling priorities. He made it sound like a mere scheduling inconvenience was justification enough for the change, and told the girls to wear full-body burkinis. Sorry, but those still cling to the body when wet.

New York Citys Board of Education website promises trans students alternative arrangements for anyone with a need or desire for increased privacy. Why should Muslim students get less? One in every 10 students in the citys school system is Muslim.

Last September, Muslim women at Syracuse University waged a battle for swim time without men in the college pool and won a concession that starts next fall.

In Utah, the Muslim Civic League worked with the Sikh and Jewish communities to pass a state law in February allowing school athletes to wear turbans, hijabs and modest pants and tops in competition instead of the regulation form fitting uniforms.

Luna Banuri, the leagues executive director, said: All faiths have modesty standards. We believe this affects multiple communities. Maryland and Illinois recently passed similar laws.

In Bethel, Ohio, a coalition of Muslim and Christian parents are suing to preserve single-sex bathrooms and locker rooms and halt a rule change that would allow biological boys to use the girls facilities.

Most Muslims still vote Democratic, but the shift is beginning. According to a Wall Street Journal exit poll, 28% voted Republican in the 2022 midterms, a double-digit increase over the 2018 midterms.

Republicans are gaining ground as more Muslims conclude the Democratic Party doesnt show regard for Islamic values.

Tell educators to respect families with faith-based values instead of shunning them.

Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York and chairman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths.

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Star Parker Muslims turning the tide in the school culture wars - The Mountain Press