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ACT deputy opposition leader Alistair Coe. Photo: Jay Cronan

An administrative tribunal challenge to freedom of information charges brought by ACT deputy opposition leader Alistair Coe will begin this week, as he seeks information on profits made by the Labor Party from changing the status on the lease of a Weston Creek club.

In August, bureaucrats from the ACT Environment and Planning Directorate asked the Liberal opposition to pay $2087 for the release of documents about the Weston Creek Labor Club, citing the need for 65 hours of work to collate information.

The charge included provision for nearly 29 hours to deciding what could be released, at a cost of $614.56.

Locating the required documents would take public servants 36 hours and cost $376.62, as well as charges of $1096 for photocopying.

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Mr Coe applied to the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal for the cost decision by the directorate's deputy director-general to be reviewed, arguing the release of the information was in the public interest.

He had previously sought for the fees to be waived by the directorate in keeping with long-standing convention that members of parliament are not charged for freedom of information requests.

The matter has been listed for consideration at a directions hearing on Wednesday.

Debate about concessional leases resumed in the ACT after a tribunal challenge over the Canberra Raiders' planned redevelopment of asite adjacent to Northbourne Oval in Braddon.

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Canberra Liberals challenge costs decision on Labor club FoI request

Nick Clegg Makes Case For Power Sharing Role In Future Coalitions
Nick Clegg has laid down a marker for the Liberal Democrats to become the rightful party of future coalition governments in Britain, declaring that power sharing counteracts the soulless...

By: WochitGeneralNews

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Nick Clegg Makes Case For Power Sharing Role In Future Coalitions - Video

Our latest NBC/WSJ/Annenberg poll presents some scary turnout numbers for Democrats. It shows them with a five-point advantage in congressional preference, with 48% of registered voters wanting a Democratic-controlled Congress and 43% wanting Republicans in charge. But those numbers flip among the highest-interest voters -- 51% prefer a GOP Congress and 44% want Democrats in control. Here is where we stand three weeks until Election Day: Democrats have put themselves in a position to survive this season and retain Senate control, especially with the Roberts-vs.-Orman race in Kansas. Meanwhile, Republicans have put themselves in a position to catch a wave to big Senate gains (eight to nine perhaps). We just dont know who will be turning out and deciding whether Democrats survive or if Republicans make big gains. But this NBC/WSJ/Annenberg poll suggests that Republicans have the intensity advantage here. But a little caution: Its a national poll and might not reflect everything thats happening in the most competitive Senate races, particularly where Democrats are investing a tremendous amount of money to turn out their voters. Indeed, a new Des Moines Register/Bloomberg poll released over the weekend shows Democrat Bruce Braley performing well among early voters (more on that poll below).

Following all the surrogates on the campaign trail

Speaking of turning out the vote, its a big week for high-profile surrogates in the top races across the country. Yesterday, Mitt Romney campaigned for Joni Ernst in Iowa. Today, Vice President Biden stumps for Charlie Crist in Florida and heads to South Carolina on Tuesday. President Obama travels to Connecticut on Wednesday for Gov. Dan Malloy. Also this week, Hillary Clinton campaigns for Mark Udall in Colorado (today), Alison Grimes in Kentucky (on Wednesday), and Gary Peters in Michigan (on Thursday). And on Thursday, Bill Clinton heads to Massachusetts on Thursday to stump for Democratic gubernatorial nominee Martha Coakley.

Susan Rice: U.S. isnt reassessing strategy against ISIS

Last week, we pointed out the limits -- so far -- to the U.S. airstrikes against ISIS. But on Meet the Press yesterday, National Security Adviser Susan Rice stressed that the Obama administration isnt reassessing its strategy. This is very early days of the strategy. Strategy's very clear, she said. We'll do what we can from the air. We will support the Iraqi security forces, the Kurds, and ultimately over time, the moderate opposition in Syria to be able to control territory and take the fight to ISIL. We'll do our part from the air and in many other respects in terms of building up the capacity of the Iraqis and the Syrian opposition, the moderates. More from Rice: But we are not going to be in a ground war again in Iraq. It's not what is required by the circumstances that we face and even if one were to take that step, which the president has made clear we're not going to do, it wouldn't be sustainable. We've got to do this in a sustainable way.

Inadvertent breach in protocol in newest Ebola case

Also on Meet yesterday, Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health attributed to the new confirmed case of Ebola in Dallas to an inadvertent breach in protocol by a health-care worker. What obviously happened unfortunately is that there was an inadvertent breach in protocol, he said. I think the important thing to do is to emphasize the difference between the confidence that there won't be an outbreak, which is fundamentally prevented by putting the patient in isolation and doing contact tracing to kind of get an umbrella around them, versus the unfortunate inadvertent breach of a protocol that would get a health care worker. We're still quite confident because of our ability to reach out, do the contact tracing, and isolate people who are infected, that we won't have a public outbreak. That's a different thing than an individual healthcare worker unfortunately getting infected.

Heres the Democrats anti-Rounds TV ad in South Dakota

Last week, we confirmed that the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee was going to dump $1 million into the three-way Mike Rounds (R)-vs.-Rick Weiland (D)-vs.-Larry Pressler (I) Senate race in South Dakota. Well, here is the TV ad the DSCC is airing against Rounds. Mike Rounds. Schemes. Special Favors. Investigations, the ad concludes.

Heading for a photo finish in Iowa?

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Democrats May Be Freaked Out By This New Poll

The good news for Democrats: They are winning big on issues like contraception and climate change.

The bad news: These are among the least important issues in the 2014 election at least according to some new polling.

It has become pretty clear that Republicans have a distinct and emerging issue advantage in the 2014 campaign, and anew visualization from Gallupis about the best we've seen to bear out that point. The chart below compares the GOP's advantage or disadvantage on a given issue (the y-axis) tothe percentage of voters rating that issue as "very" or "extremely" important to their vote (the x-axis).

In sum:The GOP has an advantage on eight of the nine most important issues tested by Gallup, while Democrats lead on the four least-important.

Among the issues the GOP leads on: the economy, the Islamic State (ISIS), the budget deficit, foreign affairs and even immigration.

Democrats, meanwhile, have finally gained an advantage on the Affordable Care Act a.k.a. Obamacare only to see it wane in importance as an issue. The lone big issue on whichDemocrats have an advantage (and a big one, at that) is equal pay for women.

This is the second poll in a week to show the GOP asserting leads on the mostimportant issues in the upcoming election. A CBS News poll last week showed the GOP ahead by 21 points on terrorism, nine points on the economy and 11 points on foreign policy.

At the same time, issues aren't everything, and voters elect people, not necessarily parties. Candidates matter, and sometimes a vote is less about policy and more about personal feelings. And this is where Democrats continue to excel; even the CBS poll showed people think Democrats understand them more than Republicans, by a 50-34 margin.

If Democrats can somehow pull this off and keep the Senate, that fact will have played a major role.

But to the extent that people are heading to the ballot box Nov. 4 and voting on a choice between the two parties on the major issues of the day and there are plenty of these folks there's a sizeable advantage for the GOP.

Originally posted here:
The Fix: A really scary chart for Democrats three weeks before the 2014 election

Democrats apparently think they've got a new campaign issue.

Over the weekend, the head of the National Institutes of Health suggested to the Huffington Post's Sam Stein that there mightcurrently be an Ebola vaccine if NIH hadn't undergone a steady decline in funding over the past decade.

"Frankly, if we had not gone through our 10-year slide in research support, we probably would have had a vaccine in time for this that would've gone through clinical trials and would have been ready," Francis Collins said.

That's a pretty bold assessment. And now, Democrats are latching on to it.

On Monday, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee launched banner Webads against Republicans, hitting them for voting to cut funding for the Centers for Disease Control. The ads echo an August TV adfrom Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) hitting Rep. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) for votingagainst the reauthorization ofpublic health and emergency programs that included pandemic response.

Here's the DCCC ad:

Also on Monday, there was aWeb videomaking a similar point from The Agenda Project a liberal group that is fond of reminding us that it launched the ads in which "Paul Ryan" pushed granny off a cliff. (Warning: Some brief, graphic content in the new Ebola ads.)

Editor's note: This ad contains graphic images. The Agenda Project Action Fund, a progressive non-profit group, blames Republican spending cuts for Ebola deaths in this ad. (The Agenda Project via YouTube)

Neither effort has a huge amount of money behind it, and the latter ad is pretty low-rent. But it does appear that Democrats/liberals are at least toying with the idea of hitting Republicans for voting to cut funding to things like NIH and CDC.

As we've noted before, though, Americans at this point are actually pretty unconcerned that Ebola will have an impact on them directly. It's a really buzz-worthy news story, but it's not clear that it's a huge voting issue for many folks right now. Pryor, for instance, hasn't gone back to the well on Ebola, and probably won't after what happened last week.

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The Fix: Democrats launch an Ebola trial balloon