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AFTER THE sweet tea was poured but before the tomato soup arrived, in the middle of a crowded restaurant, Bill White lifted his shirt-tail to reveal the rubberised grip of a .38 revolver. Everyones got one these days, he says. Over lunch, he and two other residents of Buckhead, the wealthy northern section of Atlanta, swap stories: packs of cars blocking intersections for illegal street races, would-be thieves casing houses, neighbours too frightened to leave their homes. Lenox Square, an upscale mall, installed metal detectors after a spate of shootings. Mr White is head of fundraising for the Buckhead Exploratory Committeea group of residents who have organised to push for Buckheads independence from Atlanta, driven, he explains, by three factors: crime, crime and crime.

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As of May 16th, murders were up by 59% in Atlanta compared with the same period in 2020. Rapes, aggravated assaults and thefts from and of cars are also well above levels in 2020. Nor is this just an Atlanta problem. Nationally, the spike in murders that began in 2020according to data from the Major Cities Chiefs Association, homicides in American cities rose by 33% from 2019 to 2020shows no sign of abating. This is a problem first, of course, for the people living in the neighbourhoods where much of this violence takes place. But it also poses a problem for advocates of criminal-justice reform, who made great strides in the 2010s, when violent crime was falling. Convincing people to back lighter sentences and decrease their reliance on police when murders are rising may prove more difficult.

The reasons why murder rates are on the rise nationally remain unclear. In fact criminologists are still debating why crime fell in the 1990s and 2000s. The pandemic closed schools and other institutions, leaving young people unoccupied and anxious. Police who might otherwise have been deployed to high-crime neighbourhoods or investigative duty were assigned to respond to protests. Gun sales soared, and many faced financial hardships and other stresses. But violent-crime rates were rising, albeit more slowly than over the past 14 months, even before the covid-19 epidemic began, beginning in 2014.

Whatever the reason, homicides can be sticky, says John Pfaff of Fordham University in New York. A shooting in March can lead to a subsequent shooting in July, when retaliation comes up. In other words, even if the pandemic is partly responsible for the homicide spike, any post-pandemic decline may well be gradual.

As a result, crime now has a political salience that it has not had in years. A poll released last month showed crime was the second-most-important issue (behind covid-19) for Democrats in New York, who will choose a mayoral candidate in a primary on June 22nd. Eric Adams, a former police officer who has recently defended the use of stop-and-frisk tactics and made public safety the centre of his campaign, leads in some polls. Jenny Durkan, Seattles mayor, has faced criticism from both the right and left over her handling of the citys police-free autonomous zone and tactics used by police against protesters; she will not seek another term. Chesa Boudin, San Franciscos district attorney, faces a recall campaign, driven by the perception that he is too soft on crime. Crime has become central in the race to succeed Keisha Lance Bottoms, Atlantas mayor, who also unexpectedly declined to seek a second term.

But before she leaves office, she plans to hire another 250 police officers. Other cities have taken a similar approach. Minneapolis, where a majority of the city council voted last year to defund and disband the police department, will spend $6.4m to hire new officers. While president of Baltimores city council, Brandon Scott championed a measure to cut the police departments budget by $22.4m; since taking office last December as mayor, he has proposed increasing it by $28m. Oakland will soon restore most of the $29m it cut from the police budget last year.

Such reversals testify more to the political than the budgetary costs of criminal-justice reform. But that does not mean reform is doomed, or that all voters will reject all reform-minded candidates. Last month Tishaura Jones was elected mayor of St Louis on a platform that included reducing reliance on police and closing one of the citys prisons. In a primary race on May 18th, Larry Krasner, Philadelphias crusading district attorney, trounced his police-union-backed opponent. On that same day, Ed Gainey, running on a reformist platform, defeated Bill Peduto in a primary election. He is poised to become Pittsburghs first black mayor.

Still, blame-mongering for violence is an effective cudgel for conservative state-level politicians to wield against liberal cities. Brian Kemp, Georgias Republican governor, is making Atlanta crime central to his re-election campaignthe better to win back Trump-hesitant Republicans in the citys suburbs. Florida has passed a law that lets the governor and his cabinet reverse any changes to cities police budgets that they deem unwise. Other states have proposed (and Texas has passed) measures cutting off funds to cities that slash police budgets. Unlike states, which the Tenth Amendment protects against federal overreach, cities are subsidiary creations of the state, and have no legal shield against these sorts of pre-emptive measures.

Reformers will have to change how they pitch their ideas. They cannot simply make a moral case. The impetus that led conservative and liberal states alike to reduce their prison populations in recent years was largely to save money. And, as Mr Pfaff notes, homicides are up nationwide, so if rising violent-crime rates indict reform in liberal cities, they must also indict the status quo in more conservative areas that have not pursued reform.

The rise in violence just makes everything related to these debates over how to reform policing and how to deal with police violence more difficult, explains Patrick Sharkey, a sociologist at Princeton University. Theres a knee-jerk response because weve been so reliant on police and prisons as the institutions we turn to to deal with violence. Faced with a choice between more and less policing, people frightened of violent crime will rarely choose less.

In fact the choice is not binary. Police play a crucial role in fighting crime and, in the near term, cities may require a more robust police presence than some reformers would like. They do not play the only role, however. A wealth of evidence exists that other institutionsanti-violence non-profits, drug-treatment programmes, summer jobs for young peoplealso help. Politicians who want to reduce violent crime in their cities and states should remember that, just as activists should remember that reform is a harder sell when people do not feel safe. Because, since murders usually rise in the summer, when people are out in the streets until late, safety is unlikely to return soon.

This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline "Reality bites"

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Reality bites Liberals and crime spikes - The Economist

The Australian Electoral Commission has approved the registration of the New Liberals as a political party, despite warnings from the Liberal party it would result in widespread voter confusion.

In a decision published on Thursday, the AEC assistant commissioner, Joanne Reid, found the new partys name was sufficiently distinct and not likely to cause confusion or imply a connection with the Liberal Party of Australia.

The Liberal party had accused the New Liberals of a cynical attempt to piggyback on its brand, and tabled Crosby Textor research claiming up to two-thirds of voters wrongly believed the parties were connected.

The New Liberals registration sets up the nightmare possibility for the Liberal party of a repeat of the 2013 election, when David Leyonhjelm was elected to the Senate from New South Wales. Leyonhjelm recorded a 7.19% swing to him after the Liberal Democrats ticket was placed further to the left on the ballot paper than the Liberal party.

The Liberal party federal director, Andrew Hirst, has told Guardian Australia the party is disappointed with the decision and intends to seek a review of it.

After internal review by a three-person panel in the AEC, the Liberal party can also seek a merits review by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

In the decision, Reid said she was not in a position to judge the accuracy of a survey of 2,036 voters conducted by Michael Turner, the head of research at Crosby Textor, as the precise methodology was not specified.

Reid accepted the survey showed some of the participants in the research were confused or mistaken by the name The New Liberals and said she gave this evidence some weight.

Reid said the New Liberals application was much closer to the line than the earlier registration of the Liberal Democrats and Liberals for Forests.

But she found the new party name was sufficiently visually and aurally distinct from the Liberal Party of Australia, as they only shared the word Liberal and in the precedent case of Woollard the AAT had found that no political party can claim the exclusive right to generic words such as liberal.

Reid said the ordinary definition of the word new does have the connotation of representing something different.

Unlike New Labour, a rebranding of Labour in the UK, both the Liberal party and the New Liberals would appear on the same ballot making it very likely that a voter would have a choice between the two, she said.

The word liberal has a broad meaning and history. It is suggestive of a certain political philosophy.

It is not a word that is only associated with one particular party.

Based on the prevalence of the term liberal in politics and in relation to liberal thought, any perceived correlation between The New Liberals might be on the basis of their shared belief in liberalism.

Reid concluded a reasonable person would not think that a connection or relationship exists between the two parties.

The New Liberals was founded in 2019 by the Sydney barrister Victor Kline, who is also a founder and director of the Refugee Law Project. He is also the partys leader and a New South Wales lead Senate candidate.

The New Liberals say they are economically responsible and socially progressive and target the Liberals over failures on climate change and treatment of refugees.

Claiming the mantle of liberalism and providing inner-city voters with a non-Labor alternative to the Liberals has helped independents including Zali Steggall win previously blue-ribbon seats, efforts set to continue at the next election.

In April Kline told Guardian Australia the New Liberals aim to run candidates for the Senate in every state and up to three dozen urban seats held by Liberal MPs, preferencing independents such as the Voice movement first and the Liberals last.

On Thursday Kline said he and the party were absolutely thrilled with the registration decision. Although were not totally secure, our position is very strong, he said, commenting on the Liberal party challenge.

The New Liberals have announced 19 candidates so far, including lead Senate candidates in all states except Western Australia.

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New Liberals registration approved despite Liberal party objection over voter confusion - The Guardian

Media top headlines June 4

Mike Pompeo alleging that the NIH tried to suppress a State Department COVID-19 probe, Fauci telling Americans to not be so accusatory with China, and a Yahoo News reporter asking Jen Psaki about a possible White House cat round out todays top media headlines.

CNN was mocked this week for its a piece citing a study that disparaged conservatives' news judgment.

In the piece, the liberal network cited a "small but intensive" study compiled by communications specialists at Ohio State University, who claimed that "more engaging but false stories tended to support beliefs held by conservatives, while viral news stories that were also true tended to support beliefs held by liberals."

The network promoted the piece in a tweet Thursday, writing, "The research is the latest in a series of studies that show people on the political right tend to not only be targeted by fake news, but to believe it's correct."

CNN CALLED OUT FOR USING OUT-OF-DATE STORY TO HIDE RATINGS COLLAPSE: CANT GET MORE FAKE NEWS THAN THAT'

Fox News contributor Mollie Hemingway slammed CNN for its report, saying it had repeatedly misled its viewers and readers on key issues.

"They lied about Russian collusion. They lied about the 2016 election. They lied about Brett Kavanaugh. And they lied about the origins of COVID-19. And their liberal viewers believed them," she said. "These corrupt partisans in the media are in no place to lecture anyone about disinformation, of which they are the most responsible for its harmful spread."

This led to the liberal outlet being lambasted on social media with examples of "fake news" it had been criticized for pushing in the past, including outright dismissing the lab-leak theory on coronavirus' origins, reporting on the racial controversy in the infamous Covington Catholic incident, and misinformation revolving around the Russian dossier following the 2016 election.

CNN HAS SHED MORE THAN HALF ITS VIEWERS SINCE BIDEN TOOK OFFICE, DOWN STAGGERING 60 PERCENT IN KEY DEMO

DON LEMON CLAIMS CNN RATINGS DIVE DUE TO TRUMP ABSENCE WORTH IT, 'BETTER FOR THE WORLD' HE ISN'T POTUS

FACT-CHECKERS IN EMBARASSING POSITION AFTER LAB LEAK THEORY ABOUT-FACE: REALCLEARPOLITICS

One conservative writer shared a photo of CNN's Brian Stelter interviewing disgraced Democratic attorney Michael Avenatti, who became a ubiquitous presence on CNN and MSNBC in 2018 for his anti-Trump activism.

The piece noted that the study ran from January to June in 2019, but did not cover the period under the coronavirus pandemic. It also noted the research team was now separately looking into misinformation surrounding the pandemic.

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The network also claimed that the researchers "carefully fact-checked" every article that was considered in the study based off social media engagement, but it didn't offer an explanation as to what the fact-checking process entailed.

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CNN mocked over reporting study conservatives more likely than liberals to believe misleading news reports - Fox News

During last years campaign Joe Biden promised to listen to the scientists. He repeatedly said his coronavirus-response policy would be informed by science and by experts.

On issues from the environment to teaching evolution in public schools to the public health response to the COVID pandemic, liberals often accuse conservatives of putting emotions ahead of facts. While recognizing that the scientific process of acquiring knowledge and putting hypotheses to an empirical test can and often does lead to shifts in consensus, we on the left claim to trust scientists such as Dr. Anthony Fauci, the infectious disease specialist and unlikely media icon.

After Dr. Fauci and other authorities such as the Centers for Disease Control told us to wear masks, Blue America listened. As of late June 2020, 86 percent of Democrats wore a facemask whenever they left home, compared to 48 percent of Republicans.

Now scientific consensus has changed. But lefties are choosing to ignore the new reality not that its new. Beginning nearly a year ago in July 2020 the CDC stated that wearing a mask outdoors was unnecessary unless one is less than six feet away from someone else. Aside from crowded events such as rallies, sports and concerts, risk of outdoor transmission is lower than a rounding error; there has been only one documented case of COVID transmission outdoors, between two Chinese villagers.

Clarifying its long-held stance, the CDC said on May 13 that people need not wear a mask outdoors unless we are in a crowd of strangers, or inside with our pod of friends and family members. Masking outside is optional, Paul Sax, clinical director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Brigham and Womens Hospital in Boston, told The Washington Post. Optional, as in unnecessary.

Lets pivot toward hope. Nearly half of American adults have been fully vaccinated and Pfizer is vaccinating children ages 12 to 15. We can go outside, have fun and socialize within the new liberalized guidelines yet too many people remain traumatized and grimly coasting on paranoid inertia. Its the return of freedom, said Dr. Mike Saag, an infectious disease expert at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Weeks after the latest CDC guidelines were issued, however, normalcy and freedom are still in short supply in liberal bastions such as my neighborhood in Manhattan, where Biden won 91 percent of the vote. In compliance with the CDC, I walk outside without a mask because its unnecessary. Moreover, Im fully vaccinated. Rules require that I put one on when I go into a store or ride the subway.

Furrowed brows, glares and general stink-eyes still abound. My neighbors are ignoring the CDC as much as right-wingers in West Virginia did last summer.

One would expect attitudes to evolve with the passage of time, but that hasnt been the case so far. When a fellow tenant confronted me recently about my masklessness in the lobby where Id been alone prior to her arrival I informed her that Id been fully vaccinated. Everyone in the building has probably been vaccinated, she said, but here we still wear them. I asked why. Its just the right thing to do, she replied.

At a full-serve gas station in Manhattan the attendant demanded that I put on my mask before giving me a fill-up. Were outside, I pointed out. It was windy to boot. The CDC says you dont need a mask. I dont care what the CDC says, he told me. Im going to keep wearing a mask forever, like in Asia.

Half-empty streets in majority-Democratic areas where people are far more likely to get vaxxed are still, CDC be damned, dotted with people wearing one or two masks on sidewalks where no one can be seen for hundreds of feet. Many of the bemasked will tell you that theyve been fully vaccinated. Youll see people jogging down lonely country roads, riding bikes and driving cars while wearing masks.

You can understand that when people have been following a certain trend for a considerable period of time that it may take time for them to adjust [to the new mask rules], Fauci said on May 21. So I would not say that thats irrational. Id say thats understandable.

Go ahead, wear a mask indoors if you want to despite being vaccinated. Wear one outside if you feel like it. However, you are sorry, Dr. Fauci acting irrationally. Whats the point of the jab if you behave the same way as a year ago when we wiped down our groceries, bleached our counters and wore plastic gloves out of since-debunked worries over surface transmission?

Masks have devolved from medical imperative to virtue signaling. According to a May 5 Ipsos poll, 63 percent of even vaccinated Americans were still wearing masks outdoors, down from 74 percent in April but still a surprisingly high number. That number ticked up to 65 percent the following week on May 11. President Biden has begun appearing in public with his face fully exposed yet his supporters are not following his example.

Whats the harm in a fashion accessory that, as the vaxxed-yet-masked crowd informs you, merely tries to make other people feel more comfortable while also sending a subtle anti-MAGA message? Its about thinking straight. Democrats cant credibly claim the scientific high ground unless they adapt to the latest medical consensus.

You have the right to be anxious and illogical, not the right to be catered to. No one should wear a mask outside. Vaxxed Americans shouldnt wear them at all.

Ted Rall is a political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist. Follow on Twitter @tedrall.

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TED RALL: Liberals bizarre fear of an unmasked nation - Las Vegas Review-Journal

OTTAWA Liberals and Conservatives have stumbled into a thorny debate over fears that criticism of China can bleed into bigotry, as wariness of the global superpower rises alongside incidents of anti-Asian racism in Canada.

Tory MPs asked Justin Trudeau last week to respond to reports that scientists at a Winnipeg infectious-diseases laboratory had been collaborating with Chinese military researchers.

"Communist China cannot be trusted," Conservative deputy leader Candice Bergen said during question period in the House of Commons on May 26. "Will the prime minister commit to ending this research and this co-operation with the regime that actually wants to hurt Canada?"

Trudeau replied by warning Conservative lawmakers against wading into intolerance.

"The rise in anti-Asian racism we have been seeing over the past number of months should be of concern to everyone," he said.

The response prompted blowback from Conservatives, who have hammered the point daily in the House of Commons. MP Michael Barrett demanded the prime minister ditch what he dubbed "woke talking points" and address security concerns. Tory MP Kenny Chiu, who was born in Hong Kong, said: "Expressing dissent is not hatred."

In a Twitter post, Chiu also said Trudeau's rebuttal resembled "the exact tactics (China's) United Front Work uses: criticism of the #CCP is a criticism of ethnic Chinese as a whole." Chiu was referring to an arm of the Chinese Communist Party that gathers intelligence on individuals and groups abroad and co-ordinates influence operations.

Criticism of the Chinese government has ramped up in recent years, spurred by accusations of suffocating democracy in Hong Kong, systematically repressing Uyghurs, a Muslim ethnic minority in Xinjiang, and cracking down on Chinese civil society.

The idea of China as international scapegoat gained renewed strength after former U.S. president Donald Trump used language about COVID-19, including "the Chinese virus" and "Wuhan flu," that many condemned as inciting racist attacks. Last month, President Joe Biden tasked U.S. intelligence officials with boosting their efforts to probe the origins of the pandemic, including whether it could be traced to a laboratory in China.

A report released in March by several advocacy groups found a disturbing spike in racist incidents against Asian Canadians since the onset of the pandemic, largely in connection with false ideas about coronavirus spread.

Cherie Wong, executive director of Alliance Canada Hong Kong, has experienced hateful harassment first-hand.

"There would be people spitting at me to say, dirty racial slur at me. And this has happened to my family and friends as well," she said. "People became emboldened during this pandemic to even further this hatred and this xenophobia against Asian Canadians."

As geopolitical tensions with Beijing heighten, anti-Asian prejudice will grow, she predicted, pointing to past discrimination against people of Japanese, German and Italian descent during the Second World War.

Wong stressed the need to confront concerns over foreign interference and domestic human rights violations by Beijing in language free of racial undertones. She also hopes to see more public awareness around the vast chasm separating China's Central Committee brass from Canadians of East Asian origin, including residents with roots in Korea, Vietnam and the Philippines who also face threats from bigotry that is ignorant of the difference.

While Trudeau has veered away from his "tolerance and diversity" response to questions about the Winnipeg lab, Conservatives have ramped up their line of attack. On Tuesday, seven Tories asked 13 questions related to national security and the Winnipeg lab.

On Wednesday, legislators passed a motion from Conservative MP Michael Chong demanding unredacted documents from the Public Health Agency of Canada in connection with two scientists who were escorted out of the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg in July 2019. It was described as a possible policy breach and administrative matter. The two scientists, Xiangguo Qiu and her husband, Keding Cheng, were eventually fired in January.

Qiu had earlier been responsible for a shipment of Ebola and Henipah viruses to China's Wuhan Institute of Virology, but the public health agency has previously said the events were unrelated.

Health Minister Patty Hajdu has said in question period that the Conservatives "are playing a dangerous game," and that the relevant documents have already been provided to the House of Commons special committee on Canada-China relations "with minor redactions for the protection of confidentiality."

Conservative calls for a harder stance on China are nothing new.

Leader Erin O'Toole has said the regime poses long-standing domestic risks, including threats from its foreign agents to Chinese Canadians and spreading anti-western propaganda through post-secondary Confucius Institute partnerships as well as Chinese media outlets.

But Lynette Ong, an associate professor in political science and China specialist at the University of Toronto, cautioned against "exaggerated" tales of shadowy operators.

"Theres nothing illegal about trying to exert influence per se, even though, because its a 'communist' country, people tend to look at influence from China with skeptical eyes," she said.

"Its foreign interference that I think we should be concerned with. But I think evidence so far for foreign interference is rather sketchy."

Questioning Chinas influence in North America does not amount to stoking anti-Asian racism, she added. "But I think people who try to criticize China often do it in such a broad brush that they are inadvertently stoking anti-Asian racism."

Conservative MPs deployed the word "communist" 14 times on May 26, when Trudeau cited tolerance in response to security questions.

"This is a much more interdependent world, and we cannot easily draw a line in the sand trying to divide the world into two halves," Ong said, calling outsized stress on Chinese communism "alarmist."

Weiguo Zhang, associate professor of sociology at the University of Torontos Mississauga campus, offered an explanation for the potential to overlook racially loaded language.

"Politicians have not focused on anti-Asian racism for years. They believe that anti-Asian racism is not a problem," he said. Some non-racialized Canadians view of Chinese Canadians as a "model minority" translates, in their eyes, into a lack of prejudice an attitude that can infiltrate new Canadians mindset as well, he said.

"I hear some people mention that you should use Chinese wisdom not to fight back directly but to use a kind of soft power," Zhang said.

"Its related to a model minority myth: by behaving well you will not be discriminated against. But you know that a model minority myth is a kind of discrimination in itself."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 3, 2021.

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Liberals, Tories clash over criticism of Chinese government and accusations of racism - Kamloops This Week