Archive for the ‘Liberals’ Category

Progressive Liberals can step up if they choose to – Sydney Morning Herald

I know he has more spin than a whirling dervish but just how gullible does Scott Morrison think the Australian population is? Several weeks ago, he was telling us Anthony Albanese was pretending to be something that he wasnt. Morrison also told us that, with him, what you see is what you get. Now, days before the election, he tells us that his current bulldozer persona will be shelved and that a new Scott Morrison will emerge after the election, like a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis. John Gray, Belrose

If synchronised eye-rolling and head-shaking existed as an international sport, Australias female voters would be its world champions after hearing a powerful middle-aged man desperately promising to change his rusted-on modus operandi after the election. Sue Dyer, Downer (ACT)

Thanks for your honesty, Scotty. Bulldozers are useful on landfill tips and for knocking down native vegetation. Not much use in parliament. Vann Cremer, Auburn

The prime ministers change of approach seems desperate. He must know his goose is cooked. Unlike his chook. Scott Poynting, Newtown

I wonder which campaign focus group has advised the PM to admit to being a bulldozer politician who will change his tactics and be more conciliatory? Was it the fourth estate, the opinion polls, worried cabinet members or the National Party, the developing cracks in the mirror on the wall or more advice from Jen? Whatever the reason, someone should let him/them know that a born again politician is an Australian furphy. Graham Tooth, Kings Point

Sorry, Mr Morrison. Changing the way you and your government do things isnt related to the times we are in as much as the skin you inhabit. Your tin ear, your bombastic outbursts and your cynical machinations are infamous nationally and on the worlds stage. Cleveland Rose, Dee Why

From bulldozer to feather-duster in one week? Brett Evans, Hunters Hill

Scott Morrison has managed to annoy the electorate in many ways, but one of his most heinous acts must be his deliberate failure to inform the Opposition leader about AUKUS (Labor not told of Bidens bipartisan demand for AUKUS, May 14). He apparently ignored a request by the US that both political parties be informed of the prospective submarine deal. Why did he then ignore this requirement? Bad manners? Spite? Basic lack of integrity? Nola Tucker, Kiama

Peter Hartcher outlines the extreme secrecy around the AUKUS deal. But can someone please explain why secrecy was needed about a deal that was publicly announced a short time later, commits unprecedented amounts of our money and will affect generations of Australians? Isnt that the kind of decision that should be debated in parliament? Alexandra Barratt, Glebe

I thought that we were governed by a parliamentary democracy, and this requires honest communication between parties. There are, and have been, major international implications (ie, with France) for Australia following this decision. All for a gotcha moment in Scott Morrison re-election campaign? Joy Pegler, Picnic Point

It now emerges that Scott Morrison was deceitful over the submarine deal and AUKUS. In my opinion, anyone who is now aware of this latest information and continues to support him is complicit in his abuse of power. Graham Lum, North Rocks

The clear winner in the debate between Marise Payne and Penny Wong was civil discourse (The Coalition is losing the debate on national security and China, May 14). While there were political points of difference, these were papered over by a shared sense of optimism. Missing was the macho type of schoolyard male brawling that delivered all heat but no light. This one debate demonstrated that ideological adversaries can express their views without belittling or shirt-fronting their opponent. Trevor Somerville, Illawong

If anyone doubted the effectiveness of drug law reform they should look to Portugal (Letters, May 14). All drugs were decriminalised in 2000. Drug-induced deaths plummeted, HIV infection dropped and drug use has declined among 15-24 year olds, those most at risk of initiating drug use. If we follow Portugal, our courts and jails will be less crowded and the drug barons will be unemployed. Decriminalisation is worth trying now as nothing else is working. Lindsay Somerville, Lindfield

Your correspondent (Letters, May 14) gives us a telling list of ScoMos misdeeds. I would add his tirade against Christine Holgate under the protection of parliamentary privilege as being the most pertinent indication that he is unsuitable for any management position anywhere. A reflection of the mans character. This outburst alone is reason not to vote for him. Gary Hare, Narrabeen

Fitz and I are normally on opposite ends of the spectrum over issues, but I must praise his outstanding tirade against our morally bereft great white shark. Fitzs Saturday column (Greg, you and your Saudi support are a disgrace, May 14) said it all, but why are other more powerful Australian and indeed world figures not bringing Greg Norman into line over this breakaway golf tour. Phil Johnson, Dee Why

I dont always agree with Peter FitzSimons criticism of Greg Norman, but this time he is absolutely spot-on. How can any sane person think a planned assassination is just a mistake? I think Greg Norman may have been out in the sun just a little too long. Peter Miniutti, Ashbury

The chaos in emergency departments has never been worse in my 50 years as a doctor, but there is silence from the major parties on health (Not enough beds: Eds ambulances in strife, May 14). The sharp end should be on restoring to 50 per cent the Commonwealth contribution to funding of the state-run public hospital system. The ALP is committed to covering 50 per cent of the growth but not to moving the base from below 45 per cent. The Coalition has committed to neither. At 50:50, there will sufficient beds to allow ED to clear and ambulances to get back on the road. It will end the unconscionable inequity between private and public access to timely specialist care, either for essential elective surgery or for out-patient medical consultation for serious, chronic and complex diseases. Chaos and inequity are curable, but it may take the balance-of-power teal independents, two of whom are outstanding mid-career doctors, to write the script. Graeme Stewart, Palm Beach

Your correspondent (Letters, May 14) is predicting the future by extending the trends of the past. We now know that living standards must improve in developing countries and for disadvantaged Australians at the same time as a reduction in net consumption. Scientists and engineers around the world are developing the circular economy which can reverse many previous trends, emissions reduction being at the top of a long list. Any leader suggesting we should revert to where we were before COVID is taking us down the wrong path. David Hind, Neutral Bay

Vote Labor to ensure the Murugappan family can return safely to their home in Biloela. Dont let them down. Judy Copeland, Willoughby

Could Scott Morrisons new-found empathy please extend to immediately releasing the traumatised Murugappan family back to Biloela? Vicky Marquis, Glebe

Richard Glovers musing on literature in the modern era (Banning books is a bloody terrible idea, May 14) was spot-on. The titles he mentioned immediately summoned up those gems from the past. As a retired teacher, I would like to know how the modern cohort can extract the fine details of human interaction from the type of books which seem to be the modern trend. Carolyn Van der Veen, Bonny Hills

Your correspondent (Letters, May 14) wishes for a Scott-free Australia next Sunday. We respectfully ask him to modify his desire ScoMo-free perhaps? The Scotts (Peter & Jean), Killcare

Bravo, Con Vaitsas (Letters, May 14). Seppo Ranki, Glenhaven

The digital viewOnline comment from one of the stories that attracted the most reader feedback yesterday on smh.com.au

Politicians pay has gone up by a third in a decade, but a wage rise in line with inflation is too much?

From djc789: The Liberal Party need a term or two on the opposition benches to come to grips with the reality of an electorate that is in danger of becoming increasingly divided. The major issues that need resolving centre on social equity as Australia drifts towards a nation where the minority rich are getting richer and the rapidly increasing majority of poor are getting poorer. (Shades of the USA?) Drifting further to the right will see the Libs become totally irrelevant.

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Progressive Liberals can step up if they choose to - Sydney Morning Herald

Clarence Thomas Says Liberals Throwing ‘Temper Tantrums’ Over Roe v. Wade – Newsweek

Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas suggested on Friday that liberals and supporters of abortion rights are throwing "temper tantrums" over the possible overturning of Roe v. Wade.

Thomas, the Court's longest-serving member, was speaking in Dallas, Texas at a conference organized by conservative groups including the American Enterprise Institute and the Manhattan Institute.

He bemoaned the recent leak of a draft majority opinion that would overturn the precedent set in 1973's landmark Roe ruling and suggested it had damaged the nation's highest court.

Thomas referred to recent abortion rights protests outside the homes of some of the conservative justices and argued that the left was engaging in tactics that conservatives would not.

"You would never visit Supreme Court justices' houses when things didn't go our way," Thomas said. "We didn't throw temper tantrums. It is incumbent on us to always act appropriately, and not to repay tit for tat."

Thomas said that conservatives had "never trashed a Supreme Court nominee" but he did acknowledge that Merrick Garland had not received a hearing when former President Barack Obama nominated him to the Court in 2016.

Garland now serves as attorney general after Republicans in the Senate refused to hold hearings on his nomination but Thomas said that Garland "was not trashed."

"You will not see the utter destruction of a single nominee," Thomas said. "You will also not see people going to other people's houses, attacking them at dinner at a restaurant, throwing things on them."

Thomas referred to Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh's contentious 2018 confirmation hearing. His own 1991 confirmation process was also highly controversial and involved accusations of sexual harassment, which he denied.

The conservative justice also appeared to defend Senate Republicans' decision not to grant Garland a hearing in 2016, saying they were following a rule suggested by President Joe Biden when he was a senator "which is you get no hearing in the last year of an administration."

The so-called Biden Rule, which was invoked by then Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), is not a Senate rule but rather a suggestion Biden made in 1992 at a time when there was no open seat on the Supreme Court. Biden had argued that nominees to the Court should not be considered during presidential elections.

Earlier in his remarks on Friday, Thomas addressed the leaked majority opinion that was published by Politico earlier this month.

"What happened at the court is tremendously bad," he said. "I wonder how long we're going to have these institutions at the rate we're undermining them."

Thomas said the leak was "like kind of an infidelity."

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Clarence Thomas Says Liberals Throwing 'Temper Tantrums' Over Roe v. Wade - Newsweek

Liberals Are Celebrating a New Book on Rural Trump Voters That Falls Apart Under the Simplest Inspection – The Intercept

A store covered with Trump signs in support of the former president is seen in Steep Falls, Maine, on Aug. 5, 2021.

Photo: Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images

This past week, Maine Democratic state Sen. Chloe Maxmin has received glowing media attention for a new book about how to woo rural Donald Trump supporters. Maxmin, a 29-year-old first-term state senator and former member of Maines House of Representatives, and her campaign manager, Canyon Woodward, argue in their book Dirt Road Revival: How to Rebuild Rural Politics and Why Our Future Depends on It that the Democratic Party has abandoned rural communities and given up on trying to persuade people who disagree with them. Their book tour, which has stretched from the pages of the New York Times and Teen Vogue to the studio of Bill Maher, has focused on the insights she says she gleaned in flipping a rural state Senate district.

Their recent New York Times op-ed What Democrats Dont Understand About Rural America describes how Maxmin a progressive, small-town politician stood up to party bosses, rejected standard Democratic Party dogma, and flipped solid Trump voting districts blue by having 20,000 face-to-face conversations with Trump voters over two election cycles. In a recent appearance on Real Time With Bill Maher, Maxmin lays out her argument this way:

I grew up in a House district and a Senate district in Maine that voted for Trump, and we just went out and started talking to folks and listening to people who did vote for Trump and try and have more of an honest conversation about what was happening. And we won in both of those seats. There were Trump signs next to Chloe signs, and we discovered all of this common ground with folks we usually write off. It was so sad to see my community left behind by the Democratic Party, but also so hopeful at all of this space that we can build relationships for durable political power.

This is the kind of hopeful path forward in red America that Democrats in blue areas have been craving: that because she focused her campaign on engaging so many conservative voters, she was able to defeat a popular Republican incumbent in a Trump voting district. The possibility that Maxmin and her young team had cracked the Make America Great Againcode is intoxicating. And it meant that Maxmin had no difficulty getting air and print space.

I share Maxmins concern that the national Democratic Party needs to do a better job of winning back rural voters. As a former state Representative who also defeated a Republican incumbent in a similar rural district up the coast, I also firmly believe in the mantra of knocking on doors and engaging with and listening to as many voters as possible. Like other Maine Democratic candidates, I was also able to get a few Republicans to put my lawn signs next to their signs for Republican Governor Paul LePage. But many of Maxmins claims about Senate District 13 and the nature of local Democratic campaigns in Maine are distortions and exaggerations.

Ironically, Maxmin accurately recognizes that liberals in New York and Los Angeles have a surface-level understanding of rural America which hampers their ability to connect. Instead of correcting those misperceptions, however, Maxmin deftly exploits the ignorance to spin tales that readers of the New York Times want to hear. Fact-checking her claims cant be done with a single Google search but instead requires tabulating vote totals and taking a closer look at the district she actually represents. Heres what that closer look reveals.

Map of Maine highlighting Lincoln County.

Map: The Intercept; Wikimedia

The most glaring problem with her story of flipping a Trump district is that, running for state Senate, Maxmindid not actually flip any towns that voted for Trump.

Senate District 13 includes all but one town in wealthy, coastal Lincoln County with the addition of two neighboring conservative towns. Trump narrowly won Senate District 13 over Hillary Clinton by only 11 votes in 2016. In 2020, Maxmin lost all seven towns Trump won. Instead, Maxmin won her race with big enough margins in the wealthy areas to compensate for the Trump areas. In fact, Maxmin did not perform as well as Joe Biden, who won the whole district that year with 13,034 votes to Maxmins 12,806. And progressive U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree outperformed them both in District 13 bringing into question how unique Maxmins win really was. (Republican Sen. Susan Collins did also win District 13, but she won in14 out of16 counties in Maine.)

Maxmin also claims in her book that Lincoln County is trending red, writing that deeply ingrained frustration with Washington helps explain the phenomenon of so many counties across the country, including Lincoln County, Maine, that voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012 and then for Trump in 2016. In fact, Lincoln County has voted for every Democratic presidential candidate since 2004 including for Clinton in 2016. Thats not surprising, given that Lincoln County has a substantial population of middle- and upper-class retirees and transplants who reliably vote Democratic. And with more out-of-state liberal leaning voters moving here, it is trending even bluer.

Maxmin also writes, Democrats only flipped one seat in the Maine State Senate ours. Thats incorrect. Democratic state Sen. Joe Rafferty also flipped a more conservative district in southern Maine that was previously held by Republicans.

And while its true that Maxmin flipped a state House seat in 2018, it was an open seat that she won as part of a large blue wave in the state. Her claim in her book that she is the first Democratic candidate to win in that district House District 88 is also misleading because the district has only existed since 2014. Before the lines were redrawn, a more conservative area including much of District 88 was also represented by Democrat Lisa Miller for three terms.

Maxmin deserves credit for her boundless energy; theres no question that having tens of thousands of conversations with voters through both phone and door canvassing during her Senate campaign helped Maxmin against a popular incumbent, former Senate Minority Leader Dana Dow. Dow is a well-known, respected, and charismatic Republican who served Senate terms from 2004 to 2008 and 2016 to 2020. But Maxmin isnt the first Democrat to defeat Dow. Former Sen. Chris Johnson, who served two terms representing Senate District 13, beat Dow in 2012 and served there until Dow defeated him in a rematch in 2016. Other Democrats represented Lincoln County from the mid-1990s until 2004. (Maxmin claims that Dow never lost a general election, and in fact Johnson beat Dow in a special election which may be the distinction Maxmin is resting on to make her claim.)

Maxmins district has been trending blue for a long time, and the majority of the population of the county is represented by Democrats and one progressive independent in the State House. So if Maxmin is doing something unique, the result a Democrat winning a rural district in Maine is not.

Senate President Troy Jackson, D-Aroostook, conducts business at the State House in Augusta, Maine, on April 12, 2022.

Photo: Robert F. Bukaty/AP

There are also a lot of reasons why Maxmins strategy cant translate easily to the rest of the country, which Maxmin and Woodward acknowledge in their op-ed. Just how unique Maine is may need a little emphasis for a national audience: Maine has a very large legislature for the size of its population of 1.36 million. With 151 House seats and 35 Senate seats, MaineHouse districts represent about 9,000 people and Senate districts have roughly 39,000 people. This structure allows for more face-to-face interactions and makes legislators much more accessible. Many lawmakers even put their cellphone numbers on their literature and websites.

For candidates in other states, Maxmins method would be incredibly difficult if not impossible to replicate. For instance, in West Virginia, a small state with similar demographics, state senators represent 54,500 residents on average. Maine also has a Clean Elections public financing system that allows candidates like Maxmin to focus less on fundraising and more on campaigning.

Maine also has a part-time citizen legislature where lawmakers earn about $25,000 salary for a two-year term, plus health care and very modest per diems for gas, food, and lodging. Incumbents struggle to balance campaigning with family responsibilities and earning enough income to survive. Half of Maines state legislators areself-employed or run a business, which allows for more flexibility than if they had to work a 9-to-5 job. Maine is the nations oldest state by median age, and more thana quarter of our lawmakers are retired because they have the time to devote to the job. When I ran for state representative, I was able to spend so much time campaigning because I was also in my 20s and had no responsibilities. I was able to cobble together enough income to survive on student loans and landscaping jobs and lived with my parents for my first campaign.

Maxmin didnt have to hold a full-time job; she comes from a wealthy background and, according to her mandatory income disclosure reports, receives income from investments. She was fortunate to be raised by one of the most professionally accomplished couples to have made Maine their home. Her late father Jim Maxmin was CEO of Volvo and later Laura Ashley, a pioneer in the creation of the global supply-chain. Her mother, Shoshana Zuboff, is among the foremost chroniclers of the role of power and technology in the contemporary era, capping her career (to date) with the 2019 bookThe Age of Surveillance Capitalism. Zuboff attended and taught at Harvard University, where Chloe Maxmin also attended. (Jim Maxmin and Zuboff chose a farm in Nobleboro to raise their children and sent Chloe to Lincoln Academy, which the Harvard Crimson called a public high school in a profile of Maxmin. Its true that students who live in the area can attend at a subsidized rate, but boarders from outside Maine owe $50,000 a year at the school founded in 1801. She told the Crimson there was no environmental club, so she started one. We galvanized this huge movement in this rural Maine community where no one really talked about sustainability or environmentalism that much, Maxmin said.)

She also had her fellow Harvard alums, Woodward and her field organizer Henney Sullivan, volunteering to work full-time on her campaign, which is a benefit most local candidates dont have.

I think [Maxmin] has a huge blind spot about her privileged position, said April Thibodeau, a Lincoln County resident and former Maine House Democratic Campaign Committee organizer who worked on Maxmins House campaign.

The state and county Democrats also devoted a substantial amount of money, time, and labor to Maxmins campaign because her district was a key battleground district for control of the state Senate (which belies Maxmins claim that nobody in the party thought her race was winnable). As a result, it was one of the most expensive Senate races in Maine for outside spending in an election where Democrats vastly outspent Republicans. In addition to tens of thousands of dollars in independent spending, Maxmin outspent her opponent $68,478.70 to $33,700.44.

In their book, Maxmin and Woodward wrote that Maine Democrats told her they dont believe in talking to Republicans a claim disputed by Julia Brown, the former executive director of the Maine Senate Democratic Campaign Committee who worked on Maxmins campaign. In a Medium post, she points out that a key part of the Democratic strategy is to knock on doors and talk to rural voters.

In fact, Maine is the most rural state in the country, and Democrats couldnt have won a Democratic trifecta of the governors office and both chambers of the legislature if they hadnt talked to rural voters. All one has to do is look at Maxmins progressive caucus leader Senate President Troy Jackson a labor activist, former Bernie Sanders surrogate, and a fifth-generation logger who consistently outperforms Republicans and wins in his very rural Trump voting district in far northern Maine. Maxmins claim that Democrats in Maine dont talk to Trump voters raises the question of why voters in an actual Trump district like Jacksons keep voting for him if he doesnt talk to them.

Right now in the Maine Senate, Democrats hold the largest majority held by either party in over 30 years, Brown wrote. This was only possible by winning rural and non-rural senate districts and earning the support of both Biden and Trump voters. It wasnt some messiah with an only-I-can-fix-it-attitude that made the Maine Senate Democrats one of only two legislative chambers in the country to pick up seats in 2016. That didnt secure us back-to-back historic majorities in 2018 and 2020 either.

Thibodeau took particular offense to Maxmins anecdote about a man who claimed Democrats didnt even bother to knock on his door because they judged him for what his house looked like.

I can assure you we all talked to plenty of Republicans and independents. Ive been down a lot of dirt driveways in Lincoln County in my time, said Thibodeau. I grew up in a trailer. Im not skipping houses just because the person is low-income. Poverty in Maine is not something thats restricted to Trump voters.

What really happened is this: The Democrats provided Maxmin with what is known as a persuasion universe of voters in her district using voter data. It roots out both partisan Republicans and Democrats to come up with a list of gettable voters, including both unenrolled voters and Republicans. The final list comprises those voters who are considered the most persuadable.

Maxmin wanted to focus on those forgotten Republicans who had been discarded as unpersuadable. Brown, the party campaign aide, told her that it made no sense as a matter of prioritizing scarce resources, but the districts are so small, and Maxmin had so much energy, that it seemed mostly harmless.

While Chloe used her candidates campaign to test her theory of deep organizing, the focus on actually winning her race went to the Senate Campaign Committee and volunteers.

From a strategy standpoint, it was baffling. But I loved Chloe and thought she could probably knock on all of the voters doors, so I said Lets do it, said Brown. But while Chloe used her candidates campaign to test her theory of deep organizing, the focus on actually winning her race went to the Senate Campaign Committee and volunteers. This meant we had union guys taking time off work to knock doors and turn out people to vote.

So while Maxmin focused on getting Trump voters, Democrats more broadly in the district, on her behalf, were talking to the persuasion universe of largely Republicans and independents. (In her interviews, she has focused on Trump voters, but in her Times op-ed, she and Woodward wrote that they believed that Democrats could still win conservative rural districts if they took the time to drive down the long dirt roads where we grew up, have face-to-face conversations with moderate Republican and independent voters and speak a different language, one rooted in values rather than policy.)

In my campaigns for state representative, I also used a similar strategy of deep canvassing that included reaching out to partisan Republicans. But in retrospect, I question this strategy of spending so much time talking to rock-ribbed conservatives. While I can also point to similar anecdotes of winning over conservative voters, it was most often because we connected on a personal level or they already knew me and respected my family. But hardcore partisan Republicans were seldom interested in supporting me no matter how much I tried to appeal to kitchen table issues or what Maxmin calls rural values. Brown said her team researched Maxmins theory to prove whether spending so much time on solid Republicans voters was worth the time and energy but couldnt find any evidence of its effectiveness.

Chloe Maxmin, a co-founder of Divest Harvard, and other students staged a sit-in in Massachusetts Hall to protest the universitys decision not to divest from fossil fuel companies in Cambridge, Mass., on Feb. 12, 2015.

Photo: Pat Greenhouse/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

Sen. Maxmin has been a great legislator, especially with her work bringing labor and environmental groups together to pass landmark Green New Deal legislation to create good union jobs in the renewable energy sector. She is also an excellent organizer and deserves a lot of praise for running a strong grassroots effort where she made 80,000 voter contact attempts over the course of the campaign. Making thousands of outreach calls to voters to offer aid and support at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic was an excellent idea. Knocking on doors and writing personalized, handwritten clincher postcards to every person she met on the campaign trail is a great strategy and one used by Maine Democrats for many years.

The fact that she ran her own campaign, designing her own literature and hand-painted signs, is proof of her commitment and of the freedom Maine Democrats give candidates to run their own campaigns. Unfortunately for many people who supported her, Maxmin has decided not to run again for her Senate seat and is instead focusing on going to law school, promoting her book, and creating a new nonprofit to help Democrats learn how to better campaign in rural districts.

Meanwhile, Democrats and grassroots activists in Lincoln County are focusing on holding onto Senate District 13 as we face what is shaping up to be a wave election for Republicans. With former Gov. Paul LePage making a comeback, control of the Senate will be critical to putting a check on his far-right policies if hes reelected.

None of this is to diminish Maxmins success in winning her two races. Shes been a powerful voice for the climate in the legislature, while dealing with both ageism and sexism in the capital and on the campaign trail. What it does mean, though, is that there is no evidence her victories were in any way unusual, nor, sadly, are there lessons that can be scaled. Quite the opposite: A number of campaign organizers I spoke to expressed worries that other candidates might take Maxmins advice to heart and blow an election based on a theory tested in a blue-leaning district.

Senator Maxmins playbook for rural campaigning leads Democrats into a dangerous trap, says Brown. By lumping all rural Mainers (and Americans) into one category, she insists the pathway to winning votes in a blue-leaning coastal community is the same pathway that wins votes in a rural community in the midwest. This one-size-fits-all approach is how Democrats lose a long-term rural strategy.

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Liberals Are Celebrating a New Book on Rural Trump Voters That Falls Apart Under the Simplest Inspection - The Intercept

Liberals, New Democrats promise to bolster investments in arts and culture – Global News

Ontarios Liberals and New Democrats are promising to bulk up spending on the arts sector, whose funding they say was already being whittled away before the COVID-19 pandemic closed galleries and cancelled concerts.

The NDP platform pledges to stabilize annual funding for the Ontario Arts Council and the Ontario Media Development Corporation, while the Liberals said they would restore funding for arts, music and culture.

The arts sector does really give a lot of our communities their sense of character, the kinds of things that we love, Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca said at a campaign stop in Milton, Ont., on Saturday.

Having a government in place that doesnt abandon the sector, that wants to partner with the sector, thats why weve included this specific costing in our plan.

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The Liberals peg the cost of restoring funding at $25 million each year starting in 2023-24, in addition to $5 million for the Indigenous Culture Fund, which Doug Fords government scrapped in 2019.

The president and founder of the Indigenous Arts Collective of Canada said that $5 million cut hurt.

When that funding was cut from Indigenous people, Indigenous culture, it really was a blow because at that time, we were feeling a little more confident and a little safer. And so that funding really came in handy for us to share our culture with Canadians, said Dawn Iehstoseranon:nha, who is also known as Dawn Setford.

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Iehstoseranon:nha said her organization and Indigenous artists more broadly managed through it somehow, despite the funding cuts and income lost due to the pandemic, but it would be a huge boost too see it reinstated.

It would be absolutely wonderful if that funding was put back in place so that more people could have access to it, she said.

Andrew Cash, president of the Canadian Independent Music Association, said his group would also like to see $7 million restored to the Ontario Music Fund.

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The Tories cut the $15 million in half in 2019 as they sought to reduce an $11.7 billion deficit.

It made the fallout from COVID worse, said Cash, a former member of parliament for the federal NDP.

It affected the ability for music labels to invest in new talent to bring to whats essentially a global market for music now.

The New Democrats have yet to release costing for their plans, but their platform says the party would establish a $50 million fund over the course of five years to match TV and film industry investment in new studio space.

The NDP platform also touts its social supports as beneficial for artists and other workers in the cultural sector, saying pharmacare and dental coverage will make a career in the arts more viable.

A spokeswoman for the Progressive Conservatives said in an emailed statement that the partys infrastructure investments include community, culture and recreation initiatives.

Doug Ford and the Ontario PCs have also invested almost $1 million to expand on-the-job training for 350 young people in creative industries like film, music, gaming and animation, Gillian Sloggett said. The initiative is focused on youth above the age of 16 with disabilities, who are newcomers to Ontario, Indigenous or Black.

2022 The Canadian Press

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Liberals, New Democrats promise to bolster investments in arts and culture - Global News

Ted Nugent Urges Trumpers to Assault Liberals at Rally: Id Love You More If You Went Berserk on the Skulls of the Democrats – MetalSucks

So far, right-wing crackpot, insensitive asshole, and Putin sympathizer Ted Nugent has been smart about keeping his hardcore political blathering relatively bloodless. The dude is the king of the just my opinion defense which, hey, is valid, and is what MetalSucks is based on. But at a Trump rally last night, Ted took the stage and straight-up urged the crowd to commit acts of violence against the people who he considers the enemies of America.

As reported by Consequence of Sound, Ted took the stage at a Trump rally in Austin on Saturday night and said the following:

force, if I do say so myself, everyone in your life to think of what the enemies of America have done over the last 14 monthsThey didnt sneak into the White House they lied, they cheated, they scammed, and everyday the Democrats violate their sacred oath to the Constitution. And if you cant impress you friends on that, they shouldnt be your friends.

I love you people madly, but Id love you more if you went forward and just went berserk on the skulls of the Democrats and the Marxists and the Communists.

So first off, to get in front of it, heres how Teds going to explain this away: hes going to say he means a war of knowledge and information. Hes going to claim that when he said berserk on the skulls, he meant that he wanted those in attendance to challenge the thinking of these enemies of America. Its actually outraged liberals fault for misinterpreting him, right?

But its pretty clear by Teds tone that he didnt mean that, and its pretty clear by their reaction that the crowd didnt take it that way. This is a call to violence, and if people get hurt because of it, lets not get bogged down in Teds long-winded, acrobatic explanation about how this was actually the lefts fault.

Watch the video below:

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Ted Nugent Urges Trumpers to Assault Liberals at Rally: Id Love You More If You Went Berserk on the Skulls of the Democrats - MetalSucks