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Senator Eric Abetz: if a government loses a vote on the floor of the House because certain members deliberately vote with Labor and the Greens then that is an exceptionally grave matter. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

Tasmanian Liberal Eric Abetz says the Turnbull government should pursue a postal plebiscite to resolve the way forward on marriage equality but he will not agree to be bound by the result, noting that plebiscites by their nature are non-binding.

Abetz also used a television interview on Tuesday evening to issue a public warning on behalf of restive conservatives to a group of Liberal MPs currently contemplating crossing the floor to bring on a parliamentary debate about marriage equality.

The Tasmanian said he did not want to speculate about whether Malcolm Turnbulls leadership would come under direct challenge in the event MPs crossed the floor but what I will say as a matter of objective analysis is that if a government loses a procedural vote on the floor of the House because certain members deliberately vote with Labor and the Greens then that is an exceptionally grave matter.

Apparently ignoring other times Coalition MPs had crossed the floor without significant consequences, Abetz declared support for a procedural motion to bring on debate would signal to the Australian people that the government has lost its authority, has lost control on the floor of the House.

I think that would be an exceptionally grave matter and that is why any of my colleagues who are contemplating such action should be thinking about this, not two or three times, but a dozen times, then come to the conclusion that losing government isnt worth it.

The public intervention by Abetz is indicative of deep unrest in government ranks about an internal debate that will be triggered when parliament resumes next week about whether the Liberal party should move now to a conscience vote position on same sex marriage.

With some MPs signalling this week they are prepared to cross the floor to either allow marriage equality to be debated, or support the change in the event a bill makes it to the floor of the House, Malcolm Turnbull has noted publicly this week that the Liberal party by tradition allows MPs to cross the floor in legislative debates.

Turnbulls comments about the long tradition of free votes triggered a round of anonymous backgrounding by conservatives, who told some news outlets that any change of policy could trigger a challenge to the prime minister.

Anonymous threats were also delivered about peoples preselections.

The idea of rebel Liberal MPs supporting a Labor procedural motion on an issue that divides the government is particularly incendiary in some quarters of the Coalition.

On Tuesday, the prime minister, travelling in Perth, reiterated that the government was committed to a plebiscite. Our governments policy position on this issue is very, very clear and it has not changed.

We went to the last election promising that the Australian people would have their direct say on this issue, Turnbull said.

Queensland MPs are pushing the government to adopt a postal plebiscite because the parliament has rejected the Coalitions original plebiscite proposal. LNP MPs have been ringing Liberal colleagues in other states to try and drum up internal support for the idea.

The prime minister ducked a question from a reporter in Perth about whether the government was contemplating a postal plebiscite, which has been supported publicly by the governments most senior conservative, Peter Dutton.

Abetz on Tuesday evening said given the Senate had rejected the original plebiscite, the government was now entitled to explore other options which would give expression to our policy, namely of engaging the Australian people and giving them a say in this fundamentally important issue.

I think it is appropriate for us to explore a postal ballot to ensure the Australian people have a say and we retain faith with the electorate, the Tasmanian said.

But asked a number of times whether he would vote in favour of marriage equality if that was the result the plebiscite delivered, Abetz suggested he would not feel bound to follow a yes vote.

Any plebiscite, by its nature, is non-binding, Abetz told Sky News.

I would trust that the public accepts ... that no matter which way the plebiscite goes, I doubt there will be a 100% vote in favour or against changing the definition.

And I think its appropriate that the minority view, whatever that may be, is still expressed within the parliament.

He said he had no doubt the vote of the Australian people would ultimately be reflected in the parliament.

Liberals who favour moving to a conscience vote argue it is time to make the change on two grounds.

They say Tony Abbott, when he was prime minister, said the last parliament was the final time government MPs would be bound on same sex marriage. Abbott has subsequently backtracked on that statement.

They also argue that some of the loudest voices in favour of a plebiscite in government ranks have given absolutely no guarantees that they would support the result of any public vote which undercuts the purpose of the exercise, which is public consultation.

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Eric Abetz warns Liberals: crossing floor on same-sex marriage 'a grave matter' - The Guardian

Poland is in an uproar. The decision of its ruling Law and Justice Party to bring the judiciary under political control has been partially blocked by President Andrezj Duda after large street demonstrations in most major cities.

But this is not a government that brooks denial. The Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro, responding to a complaint against the bill filed by the European Union, said the government wouldnt succumb to blackmail, threats and intimidation. No threats will stand in our way. We wont let anyone from the outside treat us this way, he told reporters.

Outside in this instance is a Union whose democratic and civic norms Poland enthusiastically embraced when it joined the EU in 2004 with nine other states, eight of which were formerly Communist-ruled. Outside is a Union which, in 2015, pumped in 13.4 billion ($14.2 billion) to its economy, by some way the largest subsidy to any EU member.

Over the 13 years of its membership, Poland has received some 150 billion. What we are witnessing, writes the Polish-Nigerian commentator Remi Adekoya, is, without doubt, one of the largest wealth transfers between nations in modern history.

Outside is a Western world where the rule of laws must take precedence over the rule of leaders. Where the divisions of ethnicity must no longer be a matter of discrimination or prejudice.

Outside is also globalization, the complex networks of trade agreements, transnational corporate production and overarching financial, political and legal institutions. Andoutside has been suffused, since the collapse of Soviet communism in 1991, with a broadly liberal ideology which stresses openness, multiculturalism and constant willingness to change.

The current Polish government is against most of that. And why should it not be? So is the leader of the Western world.

President Donald Trump, in a speech in Warsaw early this month, forbore to mention the justice law, instead sharing distaste for the news media with President Duda and lamenting the decline of Europe, implicitly exempting Poland from that declines. Home again, Trump signalled that he remains a reactionary by banning transgender people from the military. He had already shown his belief that government was all about him by attacking Attorney General Jeff Sessions for recusing himself from an investigation about alleged Russian involvement in the 2016 election as by law Sessions had to and in doing so, being unfair to the president.

A shift is taking place in politics and society worldwide, and no-one can know how far it will go. The release from communism in the early 1990s was expected by many - including me, then a correspondent in Eastern Europe - to result in a stable embrace of liberal democratic norms by the former communist countries, including Russia itself.

That was a liberal illusion. It is now being proven wrong, most starkly in Russia, but also in Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and possibly - after the coming October election - in the Czech Republic. The opposite of communism, in these countries, is not now liberal democracy, but semi-authoritarian nationalism. That had been a discreet component of communism; it has flourished much more openly since communism collapsed. As the European Council president Donald Tusk (a former Prime Minister of Poland) put it - "Poland is moving us back, in time and space, to the East.

But it isnt just the East. Trump is a standing affront to the ideals and practices of democratic statehood, which have had the adherence, more or less, of liberals, conservatives and social democrats in the post-war West. Under his giant shadow, movements of both the far left and right have become less inhibited about their distaste for political establishments they see as moribund, even illegitimate.

The far left showed one version of this at the G-20 summit in Hamburg earlier this month. German Chancellor Angela Merkel chose Hamburg for its radical, open culture - only to have parts of the city trashed and burned by mainly young, often masked demonstrators. A Syrian bystander, who had arrived 18 months before as a refugee, told a reporter, I can't believe my eyes. They have such a beautiful country and they're destroying it.

The protesters destroyed more than Hamburgs shops (and put more than 200 of the 20,000 police deployed in hospital). As the veteran German journalist, Josef Joffe put it, the'anti-capitalist demonstrations are the postmodern version of Romes bread and circuses - almost no risk and lots of fun. And selfies.

On the right, ideologists like Trumps senior adviser Steve Bannon embrace the most lurid themes and practices of tabloid journalism, especially in representing immigrants as criminal and lazy, the state as oppressive and mainstream politicians as corrupt, in order to cement a bloc of the public behind a right-wing program. According to the journalist Ian Birell, Trump is now a role model for authoritarian leaders in Liberia, Rwanda and Cambodia. When Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was asked in an interview about nepotism, by employing her sons in her administration, she shot back: My sons? Ask Trump!

A large part of the Western public is indeed justified in disappointment with and fear of what they see as the effects of liberal globalization. Wages have stagnated, rapid change has favored the elites and the wealthy and skills which gave shape to lives, even communities, are now captured by increasingly intelligent machines. But, as both Americans and Poles are discovering, the cure from the far right is worse.

The extremes wish to make sure that the center will not hold. Theres a fight on between the nationalist and the globalist visions which, even after the defeat of the far right in France and the Netherlands, remains intense. Moderate liberalism, after years of easy assumption that its bases were secure, now must show itself capable of mind-to-mind combat.

John Lloyd co-founded the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford, where he is senior research fellow.

Continued here:
It's time for liberals to fight back around the world - Japan Today

Liberals have learned that if they attack, attack and attack some more, they can pressure organizations into surrender. Just like France.

That was the case with the Boy Scouts, a group that has repeatedly caved to alt-left pressure. President Trump spoke to more than 40,000 Scouts, leaders and volunteers Tuesday at the National Scout Jamboree in West Virginia and the media and left went insane comparing the Scouts to the Hitler Youth. Anyone who cheers this president gets thrown under the Panzer by liberals.

On Thursday the Scout leadership bowed to the assault. "I want to extend my sincere apologies to those in our Scouting family who were offended by the political rhetoric that was inserted into the jamboree," said Chief Scout Executive Michael Surbaugh. "That was never our intent."

President Trumps speech caused a media firestorm because the president tying his shoes would cause a media firestorm. He was attacked by liberals, and both news and entertainment media.

The New York Times headlined that Late Show host Stephen Colbert Says Trump Attacked Boy Scouts Belief in Our Democracy. Colbert built his career on attacking conservatives and recently drew criticism for making an obscene reference to President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Compared to that, saying the Boy Scouts were like Hitler Youth was mild for the left. But liberals were angry that the Scouts cheered President Trump. So they compared them to Nazis. That sounds reasonable to no one except libs.

Liberals have been calling Trump a Nazi since 2015 when he first began his race. One of the most obvious examples of that stupidity was ABCs The View star Whoopi Goldberg. In response to Trumps opposition to bringing Syrian refugees to the U.S., she compared the two and said: Hitler was a Christian. She also made a similar comparison to Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.

That was amateur hour compared to this week. Liberals call Trump Hitler or say hes a Nazi at the drop of a hat. But liberals went from attacking Trump to attacking kids with the same ferocity.

Heres how Newsweek set the order of battle. As the scout law says, a scout is trustworthy, loyal, Trump said, before adding, We could use some more loyalty, I will tell you that. As he spoke, the crowd chanted U.S.A and applauded.

Oh geez, they chanted U.S.A and applauded. The social media battle began. Twitter hashtags filled the space that sanity sometimes occupies. Terms like #Hitler Youth #Hitler and #HitlersYouth were flooded with comments from humans and bots.

Far-left filmmaker Michael Moore cited a famous Nazi propaganda movie in his comparison: I'm an Eagle Scout. Trump using the 30,000 BoyScouts as his props tonight was a scene out of Triumph of the Will. Shocking abuse of children.

John Haltiwanger, senior politics writer for the obscure Elite Daily (The Voice Of Generation-Y) started making comparisons between President Trump and Hitler. Haltiwanger said both wanted loyalty and didnt like the press. But he didnt stop there: Trump is not Hitler. Would be irresponsible to say they're the same. But he did make the Boy Scouts feel a lot like the Hitler Youth today, he tweeted.

Soap opera star Nancy Lee Grahn joined in. Tragically, #boyscouts in 2017 applaud Trump just like the all blonde blue eyed youth did for Hitler in the 30's.

Medium ran a piece by S. Novi headlined: Deranged Trump Emulates Hitler Youth Speech to Boy Scouts.

Igor Volsky, a vice president at the George Soros-funded Center for America Progress, was slightly more subtle. Trump is trying to turn the Boy Scouts into Trump Youth, he wrote. There were so many Nazi references running around on the left, it looked like Joseph Goebbels was running their media machine.

Even the outlets commenting on the trend embraced their biases. Of all of the outrageous and reprehensible things Trump has said and done over the past six months of his presidency, this seems to have really struck a raw nerve with people for a number of reasons, wrote Uproxx. Buzzfeed focused on angry Scout leaders, who naturally made the Hitler Youth comparison.

CNN Editor-at-large Chris Cillizza listed the 29 most cringe-worthy lines from Donald Trump's hyper-political speech to the Boy Scouts. But remember, CNN only thinks conservative media have opinions.

The left has long hated the Boy Scouts, bullying the organization into accepting first gay scoutmasters and now pushing to let girls join the Boy Scouts. Because boys arent allowed to have any spaces where they can just be boys. And every organization must push a left-wing agenda, or be destroyed. Or surrender. And then be destroyed. The left is OK with either.

Dan Gainor is the Media Research Center's Vice President for Business and Culture. He writes frequently about media for Fox News Opinion. He can also be contacted on Facebook and Twitter as dangainor.

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How a liberal blitzkrieg from Hollywood and the press got the Boy Scouts to surrender - Fox News

Common Dreams

Liberals, Cut Your Cable Cords Common Dreams Oxford-educated Rachel Maddow has supplanted the vanished Fox News host, and her soaring ratings undoubtedly delight the growing community of liberals who now consider themselves cable news fans. That's the good news for liberals. The bad news is ...

Originally posted here:
Liberals, Cut Your Cable Cords - Common Dreams

This is a story which began ramping up back in March. Liberal activists in a number of states were complaining that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was making arrests of illegal aliens in the vicinity of courthouses when they would show up for hearings. (The fact that the same thing happened on an as needed basis while Barack Obama was president didnt appear to cross their minds.) For their part, ICE argued that illegal aliens frequently have no listed permanent address or place of employment, and if local law enforcement wasnt going to assist them in their duties, a court appearance was sometimes the only opportunity they would have to locate the suspect.

Since that time, attorneys and prosecutors in several states, most notably California, Arizona, Texas and Colorado, have asked ICE to end this practice. Particularly in Colorado Denver to be precise theyve gotten their answer. Sorry no can do. (CBS Denver, emphasis added)

Arrests of illegal immigrants at the front door of Denvers courthouse is getting national attention. Denvers mayor asked Immigration Customs Enforcement agents to stop making arrests there, just as ICE will not arrest at schools or churches.

ICE rejected that request.

When witnesses and victims of crime are not showing up to testify, now we cannot pursue the individuals who have perpetrated crime. Now, hows that make us more safe? asked Denver Mayor Michael Hancock.

By not turning over criminal aliens in a safe, secure environment, theyre actually putting my officers and the community at risk, said Phillip Miller, who oversees deportation agents for ICE.

Denver is a special case when it comes to sanctuary cities. Theyve gone far past the level of refusing to honor detainers from ICE. In recent months they have changed the sentencing structure for many minor crimes (which apparently includes domestic violence and assault) so that immigrants both legal and illegal who are convicted of crimes can avoid automatic deportation. And now they included a new wrinkle, allowing illegal immigrants to send in their plea for minor violations by mail so they can dodge immigration officials. (ABC Denver)

Fears of deportation kept many people from showing up to court and prompted a policy change allowing some to skip certain hearings.

Denver is now allowing people to mail in a plea for traffic court. The pilot program started several weeks ago as a response to the fear and anxiety city leaders were hearing from constituents.

Because of their fear of coming into the courthouse, they werent showing up for their hearings which only made their legal situation worse, said Denver City Attorney Kristin Bronson.

If the plea-by-mail scheme doesnt do enough to thwart immigration officers, Denver has one more trick up their sleeve. Theyre experimenting with the idea of allowing suspects to show up for hearings via Skype so they dont have to physically walk in the door at the courthouse. At this rate were about six months away from Denver simply declaring that anything illegal aliens do is legal so they dont have to interact with law enforcement at all.

One wonders how the citizens feel about this, particularly when they hear about stories such as this one out of Oregon, which also fights ICE tooth and claw. Just this week, Sergio Jose Martinez was arrested for the brutal sexual assault of one woman in Portland and the attempted kidnapping of another on the same day. As the Daily Caller explains, this was not the first time authorities had encountered Mr. Martinez.

Sergio Jose Martinez, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, had been deported at least 13 times since 2008, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokesperson Virginia Kice confirmed to Portlands KATU2. Martinez, 31, was also the subject of an ICE detainer request placed Dec. 7, 2016 with the Multnomah County Jail, where he was being held on local charges.

Because Oregon law prohibits police from using agency resources to enforce immigration law, jail officials released Martinez the following day without notifying ICE.

The municipal leaders in Portland, just as in Denver, kept the streets safe for Mr. Martinez, particularly in terms of being safe from a 14th deportation. For the two women he attacked this week not so much. The citizens of Denver need to think long and hard before they go back to the polls again and keep electing the same people who are undermining their own safety.

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Keeping ICE away from courthouses turns out to be harder than liberals thought - Hot Air