Archive for the ‘Liberals’ Category

Morrison preselection candidates aim to reshape the Liberals – Crikey

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What are the driving factors behind the PM's preselection 'captain's picks', notably those with limited prior political interest?

How do you get to be a captain's pick in Scott Morrison's Liberal Party?

This week, the civil war simmering over the preselection of candidates became very public, sparked by the case of Katherine Deves, Morrison's pick for the seat of Warringah.

How Deves emerged from utter obscurity to national prominence -- and provoked a spectacular meltdown of the NSW Liberals -- is a mystery.How do you become a prime minister's pick for a one-time blue-ribbon Liberal seat when you weren't even a member of the party six months ago? We have a stab at solving that mystery later.

Choose what you pay and your level of coverage.

David Hardaker

Investigations Editor @d_hardaker

David has an extensive career as a journalist and broadcaster, primarily at the ABC where he worked on flagship programs such as Four Corners, 7.30, Foreign Correspondent, AM and PM. He spent eight years reporting in the Middle East and can speak Arabic.

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Morrison preselection candidates aim to reshape the Liberals - Crikey

Conservative radio host unloads on liberals’ need for control exemplified in outrage over mask mandate ruling – Fox News

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The outrage expressed by liberals after a judge nixed the federal mask mandate exemplifies their consistent need to control aspects of people's lives, former Rush Limbaugh guest host Ken Matthews said.

Airlines and other interstate transit modes including Amtrak also dropped their mandate policies in concert with the ruling.

During Tuesday's episode of his syndicated program "The Ken Matthews Show," Matthews said the ruling, handed down by Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, essentially declared the "ends cannot justify the means" in a federal order.

"You cannot break the law in pursuit of something you believe is the right thing to do. That's not how it works when there's a Constitution," Matthews said.

He went on to point to the veritable outrage being seen and heard nationwide from liberals who were angered at the Trump-appointed jurist for striking down what they saw as an infallible public health requirement.

FLASHBACK: EIB'S MATTHEWS CLOSES OUT LIMBAUGH SHOW ON A HIGH NOTE AS SEXTON, TRAVIS TAKE OVER

President Biden (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

"There's a lot of middle-aged woke White men crying today it could be an allergy attack," he joked, adding that there is nothing in Mizelle's ruling that precludes anyone from continuing to mask up on Amtrak or on an airplane.

Online, some critics of the ruling declared that they would not feel safe until a "vaccine-for-all" was required, including for children under 5 years old." Other critics voiced support for boycotts of airlines that relented on their mask policies after the ruling.

Matthews suggested such outrage exemplifies that liberals will demand other people believe what they believe and do what they are doing:

"We're right back to Square-1 with the liberals," he said. "Their thing is you must do what I do you must agree with me, confirm me, validate me, and do exactly what I do or else therell be trouble that's the 21st century leftist right there."

FURIOUS LIBERALS REVOLT AFTER TRUMP-APPOINTED JUDGE TOSSES MASK MANDATE FOR AIR TRAVEL

An airplane lands. (iStock)

He added that the sentiment has been true throughout the pandemic, pointing to heavy-handed, unilateral mandates that shuttered small businesses and family restaurants in 2020.

"You get governors like Tom Wolf [in Pennsylvania] or Gretchen Whitmer [in Michigan] you cannot allow these people to take this power," he said.

In Matthews' home state of Pennsylvania, businesses were categorized into two groups by the Department of Community & Economic Development (DCED) as "life-sustaining" or not -- and those that were not considered such by Harrisburg were forced closed.

"And were still playing games with masks even when the courts say you can't do it," he said. "One you cannot break the law in order to achieve an illegal outcome even if you think it's the right thing to do and two the CDC never scientifically justified their mandate."

WHP radio host Ken Matthews joins talk radio host Rush Limbaugh in his Palm Beach studio. Credit: Ken Matthews (Ken Matthews)

In her ruling, Mizelle determined that the mandate violated the Administrative Procedure Act by being outside the scope of the CDC's authority, was "arbitrary" and "capricious" and not going through the required notice and comment period for federal rulemaking.

"The context of [the statute] indicates that sanitation and other measures refer to measures that clean something, not ones that keep something clean," Mizelle wrote. "Wearing a mask cleans nothing."

Fox News' Andrew Miller contributed to this report.

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Conservative radio host unloads on liberals' need for control exemplified in outrage over mask mandate ruling - Fox News

Ontario election 2022: New poll puts PCs and Liberals only 4 points apart | CTV News – CTV News Toronto

The Ontario election race appears to be tightening ahead of the formal start of the campaign, with one new poll putting the Liberals only four points back of Doug Fords Progressive Conservative party.

The Abacus Data survey of 1,500 Ontarians found that 36 per cent of decided voters plan to cast a ballot for Fords PC party in June, compared to 32 per cent who intend to vote for Steven Del Ducas Liberal party and 23 per cent who said they would vote for Andrea Horwath and the NDP. About six per cent of respondents indicated that they vote for the Green party while four per cent said that they would vote for another party entirely.

The Liberals are up four points from a similar survey conducted in January while the Tories are down one point and the NDP are down two points.

In a release accompanying the poll results, Abascus Data CEO David Coletto said the Liberals do appear to be within striking distance in the hypothetical ballot, but he cautioned that they still have a lot of work to do if they are going to win the election, starting with the profile of their leader.

The poll found that nearly six out of 10 Ontarians (59 per cent) expressed a degree of unfamiliarity with Del Duca. Only 39 per cent said that they were unfamiliar with Horwath and only 15 per cent said that of Ford.

Ford also had a considerable advantage when it came to personal popularity.

Approximately 41 per cent of respondents said that they had a positive impression of the PC leader, up nine points since January.

About 31 per cent of respondents said that they had a positive impression of Horwath, compared to 30 per cent who said that they had a negative impression.

Del Duca was the only leader of the three main parties with a negative score. About 22 per cent of respondents said that they had a positive impression of him but 27 per cent said that they had a negative impression. A further 27 per cent expressed a neutral opinion of the Liberal leader.

Meanwhile, when it came to who would make the best premier 35 per cent of respondents identified Ford as their pick. Horwath was chosen by 17 per cent of respondents and Del Duca was chosen by 12 per cent of respondents.

Steven Del Duca remains unknown to a large portion of the electorate and those that do have an impression of him are more likely to view him negatively than positively. He is well back in third when respondents are asked who will make the best premier, Coletto noted in the release. What is unknown at this point is whether vote intention will align more closely with the perceived best premier or whether the Liberals can hold onto their support despite how people feel about Mr. Del Duca.

Abacus has been tracking Fords popularity at regular intervals throughout his time in office.

The 41 per cent of respondents who said that they had a positive impression of the PC leader in its latest poll marks his highest level of support since May, 2020.

It is also a significant reversal from this time last year when only 28 per cent of respondents said that they had a positive impression of him.

Looking ahead to the election campaign, which is likely to start next month, the cost of living was top of mind for many voters with 52 per cent of respondents identifying it as a ballot box issue. Other top issues included housing affordability (36 per cent), improving the healthcare system (33 per cent) and taxes (30 per cent).

Interestingly fewer than one out of four voters (22 per cent) identified the COVID-19 pandemic as a key issue.

The cost of living is top of mind for more voters as housing, healthcare, and taxes round out the list of top issues. The PCs and Doug Ford have a natural advantage on that matter but are not immune to criticism about how their government has handled the issue, Coletto said. While about half of Ontarians definitely want a change in government, the desire for change isnt at a level where a PC re-election is in peril. The federal Liberals faced a similar environment in the lead-up to that vote.

The survey was conducted between April 14 and 19.

It is considered accurate to within 2.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

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Ontario election 2022: New poll puts PCs and Liberals only 4 points apart | CTV News - CTV News Toronto

BC Liberals fear loss of shoe-in rural ridings – Burnaby Now

Electorial boundaries commission could combine rural ridings and add more in urban areas.

The urban-rural divide that exists in B.C. politics may soon become wider.

That is because the B.C. Electoral Boundaries Commission, which could recommend a significant redrawing of the provinces electoral map, is nearing the end of the public hearing process.

The three-person commission headed by B.C. Supreme Court Justice Nitya Iyer will file its preliminary report by October (followed by more consultation and feedback, with the final report due in April2023), and is now embarking on a tour of 15 communities in the north, interior and the coast.

The Iyer commission is the 10th such commission since 1965 (currently, one is struck after every second provincial election). It has been given the ability to come back with recommended changes that could tower over the changes made by its predecessors.

The current commission can recommend the addition of up to six more ridings. But it also tasked with ensuring the principle of representation by population is followed in establishing riding boundaries, as well as taking into account historical and regional interests.

Any additional ridings will likely be located in regions with high population growth rates since the last commission in 2014: Langley/Surrey/Abbotsford, the Okanagan and perhaps Vancouver Island.

The commission will no doubt find it easier to create new ridings compared to recommending that some ridings in less-populated areas be eliminated or combined.

A curious part of the terms of reference for the commission was removing the specific protection that was provided to 17 ridings in the North, the Columbia-Kootenay region and the Cariboo-Thompson regions.

The 2014 commission was specifically prevented from touching those ridings even if their population base was significantly lower than the provincial average. The current commission faces no such restrictions.

Since then, the population gap between many of those ridings and the ridings in Metro Vancouver has grown. For example, in the 2020 election there were more than 50,000 voters in each of four Okanagan ridings, as well as ones in Langley, Surrey and the Capital, but there were less than 20,000 voters in each of the northern ridings of North Coast, Nechako Lakes, Stikine and Peace River South.

Some BC Liberal MLAs are worried about the commission coming back with recommendations that could combine the two Cariboo ridings as well as the two Peace River ridings.

But small population concerns aside, creating huge ridings could present some huge and even insurmountable challenges to MLAs trying to meet the needs of constituents spread out over ridings the size of France.

I will be surprised if the commission eliminates more than one or two rural ridings. More likely it will opt for the expansion approach, with new seats in those Metro areas I mentioned as well as the Okanagan.

As an aside, if the commission does recommend the creation of even a handful of ridings it could result in a completely new look for the B.C. legislature chamber. Simply put, there may not be enough physical space to put even a few more desks on the floor.

One potential option being considered: get rid of the desks and move to benches as they have in the Mother Parliament in the British House of Commons in London.

In any event, I expect the urban-rural divide when it comes to B.C.s electoral ridings will be even more visible come the next provincial election.

Keith Baldrey is chief political reporter for Global BC.

Originally posted here:
BC Liberals fear loss of shoe-in rural ridings - Burnaby Now

Liberals Raise Concerns About Account That’s Making Them Look Bad By Just Sharing Their Actual Words – The Babylon Bee

U.S.Liberals are worried that the popular Libs of TikTok account is making them look "bad, stupid, and completely out of touch with reality." According to multiple sources,it's doing this by just sharing their actual words, according to leftists who have raised concerns about the targeted harassment of their ideas by just sharing their ideas.

"Yes, I posted that video of myself screaming about teaching gender ideology to kindergartners," said local Portland teacher Marie Walsky. "But it was just intended for psychotic people on TikTok to consumeI never meant for normal people with regular thoughts and feelings to see it. By sharing my ideas, the Libs of TikTok account is making me look like a real dummy."

"When I screamed at the sky because someone misgendered me, I never thought someone would amplify that to a wider audience and make me look like a completely unhinged psycopath. By, you know, just sharing exactly what I actually did."

Some are calling the tactic of just sharing liberals' actual words "the most sinister attack on liberals you could think of." Said one journalist, "See, you could try to parody what we believe, but eventually, you're gonna run out of material. If you just repost things we actually say with no commentary whatsoever, completely unedited, well, that's a dangerous attack on our ideas that makes us look totally stupid."

At publishing time, Taylor Lorenz was knocking on the door of the author of this Babylon Bee article.

Mandy is absolutely triggered by Twitter's possible takeover by Elon Musk. She attends a Twitter-sponsored therapy session to help her cope.

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Liberals Raise Concerns About Account That's Making Them Look Bad By Just Sharing Their Actual Words - The Babylon Bee