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A day after Christy Clark announced she is resigning as BC Liberal leader, one of the partys MLAs says he is considering a run to replace her.

Prominent former TV reporter Jas Johal, first elected to the BC legislature in the spring election that set off events that have ousted the Liberals from power, says he is thinking about a leadership run but has not made any final decisions.

I think this is a great time to focus on renewal and we need a substantial policy discussion. I am looking forward to that whether I run or not, Mr. Johal said in an interview on Saturday. He is the first of the partys MLAs to announce that he may go for the leadership now that the job is open.

Among the challenges for the BC Liberals, he said, is better connecting with millennial and GenX voters.

He said he is thinking about whether he has the time and energy to completely commit himself to leading the BC Liberals, who have had two leaders Gordon Campbell and Christy Clark since they began their 16-year run in government that recently ended.

Ms. Clark led the party into a spring election her second as premier which reduced the party to a minority. Last month, the Liberals were defeated on a confidence vote, the Lieutenant-Governor then asked the NDP to form the government and Premier John Horgan was sworn in earlier this month.

Mr. Johal, 47, who is married and has an eight-year-old son also said he is considering the impact on his family.

Theres a lot to think about, he said. He was a journalist for 23 years, working for Global Television in BC, Beijing and New Delhi. Before seeking and winning the riding of Richmond-Queensborough in the May election, he was a communications director at the BC LNG Alliance.

Mr. Johal said he was surprised at Ms. Clark's decision to leave.

He also said he did not think his relative lack of elected political experience would be a liability in what is expected to be a crowded race. When you look at voting here and internationally, people want something new," he said.

People dont want professional politicians. I am proud to be an outsider. I bring a different experience.

After six years as premier and saying she would serve in opposition, Ms. Clark told her caucus Friday that she would quit as party leader on Aug.4. She also will quit her Kelowna-area seat. In announcing her decision to the media in a statement, Ms. Clark gave no specific reason for leaving now. She is expected to hold a news conference early next week.

Liberal caucus members praised Ms. Clark on Friday, but the party will now face the necessity of picking a new leader to face the BC NDP government. Caucus prospects were avoiding discussion about leadership runs in the hours after Ms. Clarks announcement.

The BC Liberal party executive plans to meet within 28 days to come up with details on the leadership race. After Gordon Campbell announced his exit in 2010, it took about four months for the leadership convention that saw Ms. Clark become leader. The BC legislature is expected to resume sitting in September.

Follow Ian Bailey on Twitter: @ianabailey

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Former television reporter Jas Johal considers running for BC Liberal leadership - The Globe and Mail

The U.S. Senate rejected a Republican measure to repeal portions of former President Obama's health care reform law. Republicans John McCain, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins joined the Democrats in voting down the measure, 49-51. (July 28) AP

Each week, USA TODAY's OnPolitics blog takes a look at how media from the left and the right reacted to a political news story, giving liberals and conservatives a peek into the other's media bubble.

This week, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., managed to upset both liberals and conservatives with his dramatic return to the Capitol from cancer treatment in order to vote on legislation to repeal the Affordable Care Act. McCain initially drew praise from conservatives when he arrived Tuesday and voted in favor of a motion to proceed on debating legislation. That vote enraged liberals, who said McCain had returned to rob health care from millions. He then infuriated the right-wing by casting the deciding vote against a "skinny repeal" early Friday. That vote failed to win over liberals, however, who thoughtRepublican Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins were the real heroes.

Last week:Health care fail has conservatives calling for McConnell's head

Liberal commentators began hurling venom at McCain Tuesday after he votedfor the motion to proceed. They assailed him as a fraud and hypocrite.

"McCain, that rascally maverick, flew into the upper chamber to vote on a motion to allow debate on his partys health care nightmare, despite being diagnosed with brain cancer only a few days ago," Sarah Jones wrote for the New Republic after Tuesday's vote. "He then had the gall to crown this reckless, horrible moveone that upends years of precedent in the Senatewith some Sorkin-esque pablum condemning the Senate for turning its back on the democratic process and calling for a return to regular order."

McCain has performed this gross two-step throughout his recent career, taking the high road in his rhetoric while going along with his party on whatever depraved route they take.He is not a maverick; he is a conventional Republican through and through.

Fox News Radio host Todd Starnes directed his ire for the failed healthcarevote directly at McCain.

"The only reason he flew back to Washington, D.C., was to stick it to the American people," Starnes said. "You see, I always knew this guy was a closet Democrat. Last night, John McCain came out of the political closet."

Sen.MCainhas built a reputation over the years for insulting his opponents. He gets pretty nasty sometimes. Just the other day, he called talk radio hosts bombasticloudmouths. He once called his conservative colleagues like Ted Cruz "wacko birds." He even went after Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson and Evangelical leaders. He called them agents of intolerance. Well, if it's all the same to you, ladies and gentlemen, I'd rather be a bombastic, intolerantwacko bird than a backstabbing liar.

Several progressive pundits and commentators were annoyed that McCain was getting the lion's share of credit in the news media for the failure of the Republican repeal effort. They felt Murkowski and Collins were the ones who deserved praise for killing the bill.

Jezebel's Prachi Gupta said there would not have been a vote at all on the repeal if McCain had voted with Murkowski and Collins to block Tuesday's motion to proceed.

"Thanks to his vote in support of this atrocious measure, Congress spent a week playing Russian Roulette with millions of peoples access to healthcare," Gupta wrote.

"It is also frustrating to see McCain reap the adoration when both Murkowski and Collins have been consistently bullied by their own party throughout this process," she said.

Former Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly said it was "deeply surprising" that McCain "cast the deciding vote to kill health care reform."

"So, Obamacare lives on in full thanks to John McCain, and the Democratic Party wins a major victory," O'Reilly wrote in a column. "I have known Senator McCain for decades and respect him. But on a bill that would have diminished the failure of Obamacare, he let his country down."

"If you want to laud Senator John McCain for his military service, or for his occasional high-profile stabs at bipartisanship, feel free," wrote The Nation's Joshua Holland. "But it didnt take a lick of courage to vote against an ACA repeal bill that was supported by fewer than 20 percent of the electorate, and which would have killed off some unknown number of his constituents if it passed."

It isnt mavericky to fly into the capital on Tuesday to offer the deciding vote to take up a series of bills that would have stripped insurance coverage from between 16 and 23 million people, only to grab the spotlight with anovote two nights later during the final, decidedly operatic act.

Breitbart editor Joel Pollak took issue with McCain's claim that his vote against the "skinny repeal" of Obamacare was a vote for bipartisanship.

"In fact, it was the opposite, rewarding Democrats for passing Obamacare without working with Republicans in the first place, allowing them to establish a beachhead for government-runhealth care, which they will now be able to protect," wrote Pollak.

Pollak also disagreed with McCain's feeling that Democrats were left out of the process.

"Throughout the past seven months, Democrats had every opportunity to propose improvements to Obamacare," Pollak wrote. "They had the same opportunity for the past seven years."

Read more:

John McCain will begin treatment for brain tumor Monday

John McCain sinks skinny repeal. Way to represent, senator

John McCain's cancer: What is glioblastoma?

Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2vf6X8j

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The Bubble: McCain no hero, conservatives and liberals say - USA TODAY

Story Highlights

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Gallup's annual measurement of how Americans describe their views on social issues finds social liberals nearly tying with social conservatives for the fifth straight year. This is a change from 2001 through 2012 when social conservatives had the clear lead, including by 17-percentage-point margins in 2009 and 2010.

In Gallup's latest update, conducted May 3-7, 34% of Americans describe their views as conservative or very conservative while 30% identify as liberal or very liberal. Another 34% call themselves moderate and 2% are unsure. Gallup measures Americans' ideology on social issues annually as part of its Values and Beliefs survey, conducted each May.

Democrats' Fueling Rise in Social Liberalism

The increase in social liberalism has not been universal, but has occurred mainly among Democrats. The percentage of Democrats describing themselves as socially liberal increased fairly steadily from 36% in 2001 to 53% 2015 where it has since held.

By contrast, Republicans' propensity to identify as socially liberal has hardly changed, consistently registering around 10%.

In order to see whether the liberal shift in Democrats' social views is universal within the Democratic ranks, or limited to certain subgroups, Gallup has grouped its annual data into four time periods, allowing for larger sample sizes to evaluate the trends in Democratic subgroups. The earliest time period is from 2001 through 2005 when an average 37% of Democrats identified as socially liberal. The most recent period is from 2015 to 2017 when the figure held at 53%.

As shown in the accompanying table, social liberalism has risen among all major demographic subgroups of Democrats, as well as in the four main regions of the country. However, there are some notable differences:

Democrats' Views on Social Issues -- % Liberal

Implications

The increase in social liberalism in the U.S. seen since the early 2000s is the result of increasing liberalism among Democrats, and particularly among white, more-educated and older Democrats. The changes by age mean that various age groups of Democrats are now in greater political alignment. However, the changes by education and race have widened the divide on social issues between Democrats with and without college degrees, as well as between white and black Democrats.

This doesn't necessarily mean Democrats are at odds with each other. Indeed, despite the widening gaps along race and education lines, 89% of Democrats supported the Democratic Party's nominee for president in 2016. However, as Democratic leaders debate how to redefine the party post-President Barack Obama these data suggest that moving any further to the left on social issues could risk alienating Democrats with lower levels of education.

Those are the kinds of voters President Donald Trump might try to attract in a second-term bid, particularly if his GOP base is faltering. On the other hand, with most of these lesser-educated Democrats describing themselves as moderate on social issues rather than conservative, that would be a hard sell.

Historical data are available in Gallup Analytics.

The latest national results are based on telephone interviews conducted May 3-7, 2017, with a random sample of 1,011 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. For results based on the total sample of national adults, the margin of sampling error is 4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.

All reported margins of sampling error include computed design effects for weighting.

Result based on combined years have larger sample sizes

Each sample of national adults includes a minimum quota of 70% cellphone respondents and 30% landline respondents, with additional minimum quotas by time zone within region. Landline and cellular telephone numbers are selected using random-digit-dial methods.

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Social Liberals Nearly Tie Social Conservatives in U.S. | Gallup - Gallup

The United States is evolving into a one-party country; that being Republican with support from independents and pro-Trump Democrats. The once proud party that cared for and supported the working middle-class, union workers and minorities, has decimated long-standing traditions and plunged itself into a sewer of antipathy and vulgarity. They sail merrily and rudderless toward the insanity of the ultra-left, socialism and political correctness.

It has become a party of destruction, hypocrisy, hate and obstruction. There is no denying that. And there is no end in sight. In a few short months, we will be blessed with the mid-term elections where Republicans will win a super-majority in the Senate. Contributors to the Democrats will be pouring millions of dollars into slimy, snarky attack ads.

All the self-centered, malignantly narcissistic celebrities will return spewing their vile hatred and morbid sophomoric soliloquies. I imagine we will even see our former president and former secretary of state on the stump for the liberals.

None of that mattered in 2016 and certainly will not matter in 2018. To make matters worse, the liberal virus appears to have infected a few Republicans who have concluded their egos are more important than their loyalty to the country, the president and our Grand Old Party.

I am comforted however, with the knowledge that time wounds all heels.

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Letter: Liberals infecting GOP - Quad City Times

Checks are being made to see if Chisholm MP Julia Banks has Greek citizenship. Photograph: Mike Bowers for the Guardian

The Liberal party says it has been given confirmation by the Greek embassy that the Victorian Liberal lower house MP, Julia Banks, is not a dual citizen, and has no entitlement to citizenship.

The confirmation came after questions were raised about whether Banks may have had Greek citizenship conferred on her a development which could have triggered a by-election in the seat of Chisholm.

Earlier on Friday, Liberal sources told Guardian Australia the state party organisation in Victoria was agitated about Banks potentially having a dual citizenship, and checks were being made on her status.

Speaking to Guardian Australia on Friday from London, the Victorian Liberal MP said she was born in Australia, her parents were Australian citizens at the time of her birth and she had never taken up Greek citizenship.

Those facts notwithstanding checks were made to ensure she had not acquired Greek citizenship by descent.

Late on Friday, a spokesman for the Liberal party issued a statement saying Banks was in the clear. We have received confirmation from the Greek embassy that according to records, Julia Banks is not registered as a Greek citizen and also is not entitled as a Greek citizen.

Guardian Australia has contacted the Greek embassy for confirmation.

The question mark over Banks followed a tumultuous week where the resources minister, Matt Canavan, stepped down from Cabinet because he discovered he was a dual citizen of Italy, and serious questions remain about the status of the One Nation senator, Malcolm Roberts.

The government is already facing a high court proceeding over one of its lower house MPs, David Gillespie, with concerns he may have an indirect financial interest in the Commonwealth, which, like dual citizenship, is grounds for disqualification under section 44 of the constitution.

There will be a directions hearing on the Gillespie case in August, with substantive hearings expected before the end of the year.

The Turnbull government holds a majority in the lower house of just one seat.

Banks won her seat of Chisholm against the political tide from Labor at the last federal election, and Liberals fear the government would not have held the seat at a by-election in the current political climate.

Once parliament resumes in August after the winter break, the Senate will refer the cases of Canavan and the two Green senators, Scott Ludlam and Larissa Waters, who resigned after discovering they held dual citizenships, to the high court for deliberation.

If no one challenges Robertss eligibility in the meantime, it is possible that either the government, or Labor, the Greens and some cross benchers, could also move to refer the One Nation senator to the high court as well.

Government sources have suggested it is unlikely they would join Roberts to the other cases, given it would be provocative. Labor is yet to determine its position on that as a course of action.

The Greens leader Richard Di Natale said he would support referring Roberts to the high court. We are going to refer Scott and Larissa, and One Nation should also do the decent thing and refer Malcolm Roberts.

He said in the event One Nation failed to do the decent thing, the Greens would happily join Labor and any interested crossbenchers in sending Roberts case to the court.

NXT leader Nick Xenophon told Guardian Australia on Friday he was also open to referring Roberts to the high court in the event constitutional law experts thought there were valid questions for him to answer.

Xenophon said such a referral should not happen carelessly but it should certainly happen if there was any prospect of a constitutional breach.

Roberts has changed his story about dual citizenship on a couple of occasions, but he told Sky News on Thursday he had written to British officials on 1 May last year asking if he was a UK citizen.

After not getting a reply, he wrote again on 6 June, just before Senate nominations closed, saying if he had British citizenship, he fully renounced it. Ive taken all steps that I reasonably believe necessary, Roberts told Sky News.

But it has emerged the British high commission did not confirm the renunciation until December six months after he nominated as a Senate candidate.

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Liberal Party confirms Victoria MP Julia Banks is not a Greek citizen - The Guardian