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Toronto MP Chrystia Freeland has been acclaimed as the Liberal candidate in the new riding of University-Rosedale for the 2015 election but that has not ended the party discord which saw another hopeful nominee barred by the Liberals from running against her or anywhere else.

Hugh Scher, a constitutional lawyer and president of the Liberal riding association in University-Rosedale, said Wednesday that party brass disqualified Christine Innes, who also filed nomination papers in the riding that will be formed from portions of the redrawn Trinity-Spadina and Toronto-Centre constituencies.

Ms. Freeland, who now holds Toronto Centre and who was hand-picked by Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau, will be acclaimed in University-Rosedale at a nomination meeting scheduled for May 2.

Mr. Scher said in a telephone interview that her acclamation notice was sent to the riding executive on Tuesday evening and came as a surprise.

Without consultation to the executive of the association, they have gone ahead and booked the nominations and determined that Chrystia is going to be the candidate, he said.

I think Chrystia Freeland is a great lady and a very qualified candidate. I think the Liberal party is lucky that we are receiving such interest from such quality candidates, said Mr. Scher.

But holding true to a commitment to open and fair nomination processes is essential to party development and renewal, he said. Recent efforts to circumvent the usual nomination process and to bypass the duly elected community board representatives of University-Rosedale are contrary to basic Liberal and democratic values and to efforts of party renewal that put grass roots community interests ahead of political expediency and backroom dictates.

A senior Liberal party who asked not to be identified said it should come as no surprise to members of the riding association in University-Rosedale that they were not involved in the process of vetting candidates.

We have never said we are going to, and we wont, consult with the riding association in terms of the green-lighting or red-lighting process, he said. Much of the information that we get in that process is confidential information which we are not going to share broadly.

Ms. Innes is currently suing Mr. Trudeau and David MacNaughton, the Liberal partys Ontario campaign co-chair, saying they slandered her by falsely claiming she was blocked from running in any riding because of bullying and intimidation tactics used by her campaign.

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Liberals still facing grassroots grumbling over Toronto nominations

5:27pm: And so after the drama of Wednesday, today ran a little bit more smoothly for the NSW Liberal Party.

Initial talk of a leadership contest between Mike Baird and Gladys Berejiklian was discounted early, when the latter withdrew her candidacy to focus on becoming deputy. This was unwelcome news to the right of the party, but they appeared to be later mollified, as Pru Goward and Anthony Roberts withdrew from the race to be deputy.

This allowed Baird and Berejiklian to be elected unopposed to head the party.

Baird then gave a confident first press conference where he announced he didn't just want to stabilise NSW, but "transform it". (An attempt to distance himself from O'Farrell's reputation as a plodder, perhaps?)

Ms Berejiklian announced she would stay on as transport minister, rather than take on the treasury portfolio, while Mr O'Farrell is going to continue in politics, presumably on the back bench.

Quote of the day goes to Mr O'Farrell, for his joke as the two future leaders walked into a party room meeting.

"You're late. As a consequence, Gareth Ward has been elected Premier unopposed."

This ends our live blog. For a wrap of the day's events, click here.

5:10pm: A snapshot of some of the conversation happening on Twitter about our newly elected state leadership.

4:59pm: That wraps up the first press conference of Mike Baird as Liberal leader and soon-to-be Premier.

Go here to read the rest:
Liberals gather to choose NSW premier

David Graham | Ralph Rodighiero | 24th District West Virginia House of Delegates | Liberals ACA Guns
David Graham and Ralph Rodighiero are both running for the 24th District West Virginia House of Delegates. This video covers some of what has been found with...

By: West VA Liberal Agenda

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David Graham | Ralph Rodighiero | 24th District West Virginia House of Delegates | Liberals ACA Guns - Video

George Will: Liberals Have #39;Racism Tourette #39;s #39;
In response to a viewer question (it was really more of a statement) accusing President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder of "race baiting," cons...

By: Secular Talk

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George Will: Liberals Have 'Racism Tourette's' - Video

Ever since ObamaCare supposedly hit the arbitrary target of 7 million sign-ups by March 31, its supporters have been taking the most premature victory lap since conservative proponents of the Iraq War (like me) crowed about the results of the three elections inside Iraq in 2005 and how they demonstrated the country was on the verge of a historic peace.

Its all over but the shouting: ObamaCare is working, said Eugene Robinson in Tuesdays Washington Post. All the naysaying in the world cant drown out mounting evidence that the Affordable Care Act, President Obamas signature domestic achievement, is a real success.

Those words summarize the relief of many liberals who plunged into despair last fall when the HealthCare.gov site proved to be a $600 million disaster. So relieved was Ezra Klein of Vox.com that he blithely claimed the sudden resignation last Friday of Kathleen Sebelius, the top administration official in charge of the ObamaCare rollout, was actually a mark of the policys great success.

It takes a very special pair of rose-colored glasses to ignore the simple reality that officials almost never resign when the policy theyve been working to implement has triumphed. But rose-colored glasses are the only ones ObamaCare fans are allowed to buy from Warby Parker these days.

Yes, its true that six months after that catastrophe, people can actually sign up for ObamaCare. Its also likely true that the programs worst possible fate in which it literally collapses on its own because its overall insurance pool holds far more sick people than healthy people has been avoided.

But the idea that, by meeting their obligations under the law, those 7 million signers-up have thereby indicated their support for ObamaCare, or their approval of it, or have ensured its success, is simply delusional.

In the first place, we dont yet know how many people who didnt have insurance before now do which was the entire point of this exercise. But its not a lot. According to an analysis by Avik Roy of Forbes, the number might be as low as 1.4 million.

Thats 1.4 million out of an overall uninsured population of 31 million to 47 million.

The other 6 million have gone into the program because circumstances compelled them to as in, they already had insurance until it got canceled due to the coming of ObamaCare.

Second, even by the administrations own calculations, as many as 1.5 million of the sign-ups havent paid their premiums yet. Standard accounting principles say such people shouldnt be considered covered by the law.

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Liberals in rose-colored glasses consider ObamaCare a victory