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Ad will collapse in seconds CLOSE / international affairs May 7, 2017 05/07/2017 5:51 pm By Heather Hurlburt Share Dont get too comfortable. Photo: Lionel Bonaventure/AFP/Getty Images

As anti-fascists everywhere breathe a sigh of relief over Emmanuel Macrons big victory in the French presidential election, many Americans will take away from today that the French made a different choice in the contest between a liberal centrist and right-wing populist.

Thats true as far as it goes, of course. But that comparison might not be the most apt one. What if, instead of an alternative to what was in 2016 or a forecast of what could be in 2020 in the U.S., Macron is a French remake of 2008? As Emily Schultheis noted, Macrons campaign tactics, from a 2016 listening tour to the recruitment of thousands of grassroots enthusiasts to a massive database, were new to France. A figure with an Establishment pedigree who runs as an outsider on a platform that mixes new touches and the oldest standards involved borrowing Barack Obamas playbook and Macrons strategists will tell you so.

But looking ahead to the challenges Macron faces in governing, the similarities to Obama reappear. First, the French public is profoundly alienated from government and the urbanites that are so excited about Macron forget this at their peril. One in four French voters didnt show up for the second round and though that number sounds great to Americans, it is the lowest second-round turnout in France since 1969. Thats the year Charles de Gaulle left politics, as student protests, riots, and violence rocked France from one end to the other. The years that followed featured economic contraction, crippling strikes, and profound questioning and anxiety about Frances place in the world.

Of the 75 percent that did vote, more than one in ten turned in a deliberately spoiled ballot blank, or with another name written in. Thats the highest level ever recorded in France, and twice as high as the last presidential election. That leaves just two-thirds of French citizens who bothered to vote for one candidate or the other; the fact that two-thirds of them voted for Macron stills leaves him shy of majority approval among eligible voters, though he will surely do his best to claim a national mandate in the French legislative elections next month.

Macron has pledged to run a candidate in every district in France next month. He says half will come from civil society, and half will be women. Six weeks is a very short time to build a complete electoral slate, leading to speculation that many sitting Socialist legislators will come over to his En Marche party. The Socialists currently hold a majority, and the first poll published predicted that Macron could possibly claim another big victory or he could fall just short.

This matters enormously for two reasons. First, Frances government is a hybrid of presidential and parliamentary. The president must appoint a premier of whom the legislature approves. So a president who lacks a parliamentary majority is presented with an ideological opponent as his key implementer. Second, Foreign Policys Emily Tamkin warns that French political parties have not been accustomed to compromise and coalition-building across ideological lines. Macron, who has never held elective office, will have to ride herd over at best a majority mixing longtime politicians who have been successful on their own terms, and new civic activists who have entered politics with entirely different motives, power bases, and expectations.

In this respect, his situation may be more like Donald Trumps than Obamas. It may be a bit extreme to suggest that such a coalition will be as fraught, and as unproductive, as the coalition of mainstream GOP, Freedom Caucus, and Trumpistas that are currently ruling the roost in Washington. But the potential parallels ought to make Macron fans sober up fast Monday morning.

Regardless, the National Front is not going away, and neither are the issues that fueled its rise. While Macron and his lieutenants must try to define and build their political party even as they set the agenda for governing France, Marine Le Pens party has its platform, its legislative candidates, its infrastructure and a steady trend of rising votes at every level in France. At 10 percent, unemployment is twice as high as in Germany, the Netherlands, or the U.K. Seething racial resentments and terror networks nurtured in French prisons defy easy solutions. And Le Pens Gaullist nostalgia hit home in Frances smaller towns and cities, left behind as globalization spurred growth only in major centers.

Americans wrote their French friends lots of open letters in recent weeks, imploring them not to make the same mistakes we did. Perhaps Americans ought to write one more, thinking of 2009: Dont assume, because the candidate of wide smiles and new ideas has triumphed, that old fears and resentments and older power structures are gone for good.

Heather Hurlburt (@natsecHeather) directs New Americas New Models of Policy Change initiative and has held foreign-policy positions in Congress, the White House, and State Department.

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The Trump supporter will be challenging a Democrat-controlled seat in Southern California.

To state the obvious, you dont want your national security adviser compromised by the Russians, the former acting attorney general testified.

He has just nominated ten federal judges. Democratic senators can use the arcane blue slip practice to block three.

The liberal network continues to bring on former Fox News talking heads.

What were they chatting about huddled at the back of the Tick Tock?

Ever-anxious about their first-in-the-nation status yet happy to leverage it, Iowans lean into another caucus cycle.

Or rather, Trump thought he was kidding.

Whomever could it be about?

If women wanted to pay the same amount as men, they should have thought of that before they got a uterus.

The party came into power promising a string of high-speed victories. Now, after a lot of screwups and delays, its mired down.

Steve Bannon may have stepped in to save his former Breitbart colleagues job.

Abdul Hasib died in an April 27 raid, along with dozens of ISIS fighters, in eastern Afghanistan. He had led the terror group for less than a year.

They may replace some academics with people who work in the industries being regulated.

He hopes theyll look at the facts and speak the truth, even when it contradicts party positions though thats not really their style.

Local authorities could face fines or jail time for refusing to comply with federal immigration officials.

Kim Hak-song, a university professor, is the fourth U.S. citizen currently imprisoned in North Korea.

Democrat Chris Murphy of Connecticut is trying to sell liberals on restrained realism in Syria and other global hot spots.

In his new book, longtime urban optimist Richard Florida appears worried.

Macron won big over a right-wing nationalist in Frances election. That was the easy part.

The European political Establishment exhales.

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French Liberals Should Stay Worried - New York Magazine

Protesters hold rally against proposed changes to Affordable Care Act / Getty

BY: Andrew Kugle May 8, 2017 10:44 am

Prominent liberals are repeating the talking point that the new Republican health care bill classifiesrape and sexual assault as a pre-existing condition, but several fact-checking organizations have discredited the claim.

House Republicans on Thursday passed the American Health Care Act, which the GOP has touted as a plan to repeal and replace Obamacare, in a 217 to 213 vote. After the bill passed, liberals were quick to claim that the plan would classify rape and sexual assault as a pre-existing condition and allow insurance companies to deny Americans coverage or charge higher prices.

The Washington Postfact checker gave the claimfour pinocchios, meaning the paper found the statement to be completely false.

"The notion that AHCA classifies rape or sexual assault as a preexisting condition, or that survivors would be denied coverage, is false," the Post reported.

PolitiFact and BuzzFeed News also said the claim was false.

Several news publications, however, rushed to publish stories that reported the false talking point. The liberal Huffington Postpublished an article that blamed Republicans for making it more difficult for rape survivors to report what happened to them. The site claimed that Republicans were an "ally of rapists."

CNN joined the hysteria andpublished an article titled, "Rape and domestic violence could be pre-existing conditions."

The millennial news publication Mic tweeted out a video that stated rape survivors could be denied coverage because they were raped.

Several reporters parrotedthe talking point as if it was fact. GQ special correspondent and former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann said that President Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) "can burn in hell."

Fusion senior reporter Emma Rolleradded that domestic violence would be considered a pre-existing condition.

Rep. Barbara Lee (D., Calif.) repeated the false claim, tweeting that the bill makes her "sick."

Other prominentliberals shared their disguston Twitter over the false claim.

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Prominent Liberals Cite False Claim That GOP Health Care Bill Makes Rape a Pre-Existing Condition - Washington Free Beacon

It'snot yet seven months since the territory's last trip to the polls but the Canberra Liberals have begun to outline their strategy for winning the 2020 ACT election.

Four years out from their next shot at the Legislative Assembly'stop floor, the party has started looking at ways to address the shortfalls that saw them once again consigned to Opposition.

A month after theirdefeat at last October's election, the Canberra Liberals asked assistant federal director Stuart Smith to undertake an external review of the party's election campaign - although presidentArthur Potter said it was a normal part of thepost-election mop-up and not a reflection on the drubbing they received.

After more than 50 face-to-face meetings, post-election polling research and analysis of financial information, Mr Smith handed down 30 recommendations, which appear to point to problems with understaffing, poor budget allocation, patchy communication between candidates and party officials, and candidates going off-message.

His recommendationsindicatean absence of grassroots engagement and poor organisation which could have cost the Libs their first shot at office since 2001.

Instead, the Liberals were hit by a 2.2 per centswing against them, despite a series of factors playing against the incumbent Labor government.

In the weeks after the election, Canberra Liberals leader Alistair Coe said the citywideresultwas close -Labor winning 92,000 votes and the Liberals 88,000 -but Labor's targeted communications with households bested the Libs' "Canberra-wide campaign" and they needed to learn from that.

To this point, Mr Smith called on the Libs to appoint a coordinator for each electorate from March 2020 onwards, to monitor candidate activity, resolve disputes and provide advice on which areas or demographics to target.

Mr Smith said the party should also analyse all of ACT Labor's failings since the 2001 election and create a dossier on both a chronological and portfolio basis of their stuff-ups.

He said all candidates needed to be armed with a complete and regularly updated set of talking points across all policy areas.

Candidates needed to make better use of social media and other "modern communication tools" and keep their corflutes simple with as little text as possible to make a maximum impact on people driving by too.

The management committee neededto come up a fundraisingcampaignfor 2017, 2018 and 2019 to bankroll pre-campaign research, staff and advertising.

Mr Smith advised that a bigger slice of the overall expenditure cap in 2020 shouldbe set aside for advertising and messaging.

He saidindividualcandidate's expenditure caps should be lowered and each candidate given acostedmodel campaign budget template upon preselectionwithsuggestionson how much they should spend.

Television ads should be syndicated on social media with a portion of the digital advertising budget set aside for sponsoring posts to reach a broader audience.

The Canberra Liberals also needed to hire more campaign staff, including those with design and publishing skills, as soon as possible after the Federal Election.

An extra bookkeeper should be brought on from August to October 2020 to help with internal accounting during the peak period and money should continue to be set aside for research during the whole election campaign.

A sub-committee should be formed next year to identify and approach candidates for the next election and a 'candidates expression of interest' period should be set up, so potential candidates can be trained up before pre-selection in February 2020.

All candidates and MLAs should meet with the campaign director once a month between March and August 2020 and after that have a daily teleconference through to election day.

The Liberals have already moved on at least one of Mr Smith's recommendation -they launched a dedicated community engagement websitelast week.

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How the Canberra Liberals plan to win the 2020 ACT election - The Canberra Times

Tuesday's provincial election in British Columbia is setting up to be the most uncertain and closest vote in over 20 years, as polls show the B.C. Liberals and B.C. New Democrats nearly tied in public support a split that could give the edge to the Liberals' Christy Clark over John Horganand the NDP.

According to the CBC's B.C. Poll Tracker, an aggregation of all public polls that will be updated throughout the day as the final polls of the campaign are published, the Liberals and NDP are tied at 39 per cent apiece.

That's a significant reversal of fortunes from a little over two weeks ago, when the gap between the two parties stood at seven points in the polls to the NDP's benefit.

Click or tap for full projection details.

The Greens follow in third at 19 per cent support, while about three per cent of British Columbians are expected to vote for other parties and independent candidates.

With these levels of support, the Liberals are narrowly favoured in the seat projection, with 44seats to 41for the NDP and two for the Greens.

While that points to the narrowest of majority governments, the B.C. Liberals have a higher seat ceiling and thus a better chance ofwinning than the NDP running 10,000 simulations with these seat ranges gives victory to the Liberals 72per cent of the time, with the NDP winning the most seats 28per cent of the time.

The odds of a minority government stand at aboutone-in-five significant for a province that hasn't had a minority government since the 1950s.

The seat projection model favours the Liberals in a close race largely because the party's regional support is more efficient than the NDP's. But whilethe race is otherwise a toss-up two polls published Monday morning by Mainstreet/Postmedia and Ipsos/Global News give the NDP a statistically insignificantone-point lead over the Liberals there are reasons to believe the Liberals could have the edge.

In the polls conducted partially or entirely inMay, three have given the NDP the lead by a single point while two have given the Liberals a lead of two to four points. That suggests that the Liberals have the higher upside than the NDP. The Liberals have also been trending upwards at the tail-end of the campaign, while the NDP has stagnated or dropped.

The Liberals also potentially have a turnout advantage. Mainstreet finds that the Liberals have stronger supporters and give the party a three-point lead among those voters who are most likely to vote and least likely to change their minds.

Both Mainstreet and Ipsos give the Liberals a significant lead among older British Columbians, who also vote in larger numbers.

On leadership, in six polls conducted during the campaign that have asked who voters think would be the best premier, Clark has placed ahead of Horgan in five of them.

Nevertheless, the margin is close enough in the polls that the popular vote could go in theNDP's favour. Which party will win the most seats, however, will depend on how those votes break down regionally.

In 2013, the B.C. Liberals won both the regions of Metro Vancouver and the Interior/North the former by about five points and the latter by about 13.

The Liberals still look set to win the Interior/North again, leading with 48per cent to 33per cent for the NDP. The Liberals will thus be looking to hold onto the seats they have in the Interior and potentiallypick up a few at the expense of the NDP. The trend line has been heading in the Liberals' direction in the region.

NDP Leader John Horgan gestures to indicate two days until election day while addressing supporters during a campaign stop in Vancouver on Sunday. (Darryl Dyck/Canadian Press)

Metro Vancouver, however, is trending against the Liberals. The polls now give the NDP about 42per cent to 38 per cent for the Liberals, a swing of some nine points from 2013. That has the potential to move a number of seats from the Liberals over to the NDP.

But can the New Democrats win enough new seats in Metro Vancouver to make up for a lack of gains or losses in the Interior? Horgan's election hopes lie in a strong showing in and around Vancouver.

Additionally, the New Democrats will need to minimize their losses on Vancouver Island.

After flirting with the lead earlier in the campaign, Andrew Weaver's Greens have since fallen back, dropping to about 28 per cent and into a tie with the Liberals. The NDP still leads on the island with 40per cent. But both the Liberals and NDP are trending below their 2013 levels of support on Vancouver Island, opening up some opportunities for the Greens.

Support for the Green Party, whose leader Andrew Weaver is seen above in Nanaimo, B.C., stands at 19 per cent a day before the vote. (Darryl Dyck/Canadian Press)

Attaining four seats and official party status in the B.C. legislature is within reach of the Greens, but it is looking like a bigger challenge than it was earlier in the campaign.

How the Greens do is perhaps the biggest unknown going into tomorrow's vote. Polls put the party at between 15 and 23 per cent support provincewide and between 20 and 35per cent support on Vancouver Island. Within those bands of support lie everything from a breakthrough to a disappointment for Weaver and the Greens, with significant implications on the performance of the other parties.

This all leaves the outcome of the B.C. election uncertain. The Liberals have a regional and turnout advantage that should give them the edge in a close race. They could also benefit from incumbency and so out-perform their polls, as has often been the case in other jurisdictions. That would turn a slim majority into a wider one.

The New Democrats could benefit from a breakthrough in Metro Vancouver or a decrease in Green support that, polls suggest, would boost the NDP more than the Liberals. But they could also under-perform their polls as they did in 2013.

And the Greens could prove to be efficient in getting their supporters out exactly where the party has a shot at winning seats giving them official party status and potentially the balance of power in a minority government. Or the Greens could under-shoot their polling average, as the party has often done elsewhere in Canada.

Considering the margins of error in polls and the regional dynamics at play, such a narrow gapbetween the New Democrats and the Liberals could result in any of the above outcomes without the polls seriously missing the mark.

So surprises could be in store. All will be revealed after voting closes at 8 p.m. on Tuesday night.

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NDP, Liberals neck and neck in BC polls, but Christy Clark could have edge - CBC.ca

Is there any problem in America not the fault of liberal progressives? Has anyone actually ever met a liberal? What do these people do for fun? Sneer about cultural appropriation, burn American flags, and mock old women wearing crosses?

The idea that every political, social and financial crisis in the United States has a liberal origin is not only the propaganda of right-wing tantrums, but increasingly since the surreal election of Donald Trump, an obsession of liberals themselves. Myopically fixated on their own masochism and pathetic insecurity, they have wasted precious airtime, intellectual energy and freelance budgets of popular publications in attempts to explain how exactly they are to blame for 62 million Americans driving or walking to the polls to vote for a historically illiterate fool whose character actually appears in worse shape than his acumen.

Bernie Sanders, a leftist rather than a liberal, was one of the first to incoherently assign the presidential loss to the failure of identity politics, failing to recognize that Donald Trump is the most powerful practitioner of identity politics in the world. Mark Lilla, a Columbia University professor, acted as eloquent parrot to Sanders when he wrote that the Democrats fixation on diversity cost them the election. Recently, Bill Maher, whose derangement seems to advance with every television appearance, told Jack Tapper that the Democratic Party failed in 2016 because its leaders made white people feel like a minority.

Caitlin Flanagan, an excellent writer regardless of the inanity of her topic, blames Bill Maher for Trumps victory, or more broadly, late night comedy. When Republicans see these harsh jokes, Flanagan explained about the humor of Stephen Colbert, Trevor Noah and Samantha Bee, they see exactly what Donald Trump has taught them: that the entire media landscape loathes them, their values, their family, and their religion.

One has to wonder: With liberals like these, who needs reactionaries? Trump voters told pollsters that diversity comes at the expense of whites and that the federal government, throughout American history, has provided too much assistance to black citizens. Maher, Lilla and Sanders would not identify the problem with the white electorate as racism, but insufficient coddling and pandering from Democrats. The crucial aim of American politics, according to the increasingly widespread view of opposition to identity politics, is to make white cowards and bigots feel that they have no need for growth, and that they are the center of the universe.

No one ever quite explains how even the most idealistic of Democrats could reach out to the 61 percent of Trump primary voters who believe that Barack Obama is an illegal immigrant born in Kenya and smuggled through customs as part of a Manchurian candidate conspiracy, but liberals will maintain that a large number of racists voting for a racist is somehow their fault.

Progressives were too politically correct or self-righteous, as a former Obama official phrased it for theAtlantic, and they are incapable of seeing beyond the blue bubble, to cite a boring bromide forever playing on repeat in television studios and radio stations across America.

All but the densest of observers will notice that all the self-flagellators share one common characteristic: they are white. People of color do not seem apologetic or stupefied over Trumps victory. Expertly, and often violently, acquainted with the anti-intellectual and resentful failures of white America, many black and Latino Americans are able to clearly identify the villain in the story.

When I asked a black friend and former coworker what she thought of Trumps triumph at the polls, just a week after the results, she expressed disgust and said, I wasnt surprised. I did not interpret her comprehension of Americas comfort with bigotry as an indictment of Clinton for not campaigning in Wisconsin or as criticism of overly zealous college students, satirical stand-up comics, or anyone else offered as a shield to deflect attention away from the real problems of American culture, and the refusal of white America to advance with an increasingly multicultural and multiethnic society.

In her essay on the evils of comedy, Flanagan writes, Somewhere along the way, the hosts of late night shows decided that they had carte blanche to insult not just the people within Trumps administration, but also the ordinary citizens who support Trump.

Emmett Rensin, writing for Vox, once crowned me the most smug of liberal essayists. So, as the smug liberal elitist out of touch with the real America, I would like to advance a radical notion: In a democracy where citizens are free to vote for their preferred candidate without coercion, the people most responsible for the outcome of an election, good or bad, are the voters.

Everyone is looking for someone to blame for the weird and dangerous reality of President Donald J. Trump. Well, here is a good place to start: the 62,904,682 people who voted for him. The Trump administration and the ordinary citizens who support him are not exactly disconnected. A Trump administration would not exist if not for the ordinary citizens Flanagan would like to romanticize.

I, like most anyone else who was horrified at the turnout, know and love people within the Trump coalition, but personal affection should not preclude acknowledgement that something is amiss with someone in their right mind supporting a con man who boasted of committing sexual assault; proclaimed that women deserve punishment for abortion; routinely insulted African-Americans, Mexicans and Muslims; mocked a disabled journalist; and demonstrated profound ignorance of the basic tenets of American history, law and governance.

The internal ombudsman of most liberals, especially in comparison to the shameless right wing, is a healthy feature of progressive politics. It encourages contemplation and reflection, often leading to helpful self-criticism. Taken to an extreme, however, it becomes a liability it preventsmovement, cloudsjudgment and obfuscatesreality.

Maybe womens studies professors, civil rights activists and provocative comedians all of whom, with their own tactics, are attempting to civilize and humanize American life are not responsible for the behavior of people who chanted build the wall or shouted bitch when Trump mentioned the name of his opponent. Maybe some element of American culture should hold adults accountable for their own actions. Maybe the problem is not making racists feel bad, but racism itself.

An important consequence of the liberal humiliation ritual is that it not only obscures genuine understanding of American culture, but insults or ignores the Americans who, even with comics cracking jokes and the occasional leftist on Twitter making a stupid remark, managed to make the right decision.

Flanagan and many others believe that mockery of religion helped usher voters into the arms of Trump. Black women are the most faithful Christians in the country, but 94 percent of them supported Clinton.

The smug elitism of liberals did not prevent 91 percent of black women or 82 percent of black men without a college degree, or a large majority of Latinos without higher education,from voting for Clinton.

The dedication of American culture to protecting the fragile white ego in denial of widespread white mediocrity is without limit. According to this worldview, black crack addicts in the 1980s and 90s represented a grave threat to civilization, whilewhite heroin junkies are the human face of a medical crisis. Black and Latino poverty is the result of laziness and lack of discipline, but poor white people are the victims of a worldwide economic conspiracy. Donald Trump is not the problem of the tens of millions of whites who voted for him, but the liberals who opposed him.

The colorblind and racially illiterate view of Sanders, Maher and company amplifies an odd interpretation of politics and sociology. White Americans are worthy of criticism only when they commit the ultimate sin criticizing other white Americans.

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Stop blaming identity politics: With white liberals like these, who needs the right wing? An error occurred. - Salon