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Retired army general Jim Molan, who is an architect of the governments border policies, said other Liberal party state divisions were doing better than NSW because their constitution allowed forms of plebiscites. Photograph: Dan Peled/AAP

Preselection candidate and retired major general Jim Molan has dared the New South Wales Liberal party to expel him by speaking publicly to broadcaster Alan Jones.

Ordinary Liberal party members are not entitled to speak in public on party matters but his comments come as the party prepares for a bruising fight at the weekend futures convention to discuss the partys constitution.

An architect of the governments border policies, Molan is one of a number of high-profile members who accuse the moderate or left faction, including the former NSW minister turned lobbyist Michael Photios, of wielding too much power in the party.

They are turning up the heat in a campaign to win support for the Warringah motion, hatched in Tony Abbotts seat by his federal electorate conference president, Walter Villatora. Abbott has spoken out in favour of reform since losing the leadership. A former member, John Ruddick, has predicted a split if the rule change does not happen.

John Howard originally proposed the rule change in a review of the party after he lost government and has since backed the change. Other high-profile supporters include the monarchist and legal academic David Flint and the assistant cities minister, Angus Taylor, who says people are regularly barred from joining the party in order for powerbrokers to maintain control.

If passed and accepted by the partys governing body, the state executive, the Warringah motion would give ordinary members a vote in local preselections for all MPs and office bearers.

Molan said while he respected the prime minister and the premier, the members had a right to seize back the party.

This party is not owned by the prime minister, its not owned by the premier or elected parliamentarians, much less its not owned by factions, its owned by us, the members, Molan said. There is a great old military philosophy of what you walk past you condone.

Tony Abbott urged Liberal members to vote for the Warringah motion because the NSW party had too many lobbyists and factional warlords.

That means one member one vote for all positions, particularly the preselection of candidates because at the moment weve got too many lobbyists, too many factional warlords who are pulling the strings, Abbott told 2GB.

We dont want our party to in any way resemble the faceless men of the Labor party and if we want the Liberal party to be a better party, I think weve got to get out there on Sunday in particular, and vote for one member one vote.

Molan urged Malcolm Turnbull and the NSW premier, Gladys Berejiklian, to use their authority to ensure there were no last-minute motions and that the conference was conducted fairly. Turnbull has previously supported more open preselections in NSW.

Fifteen-hundred members have registered for the event where the prime minister will speak on Saturday and the premier on Sunday.

It begins with a party state council meeting on Friday night, followed by a day of debate before the motions are discussed on Sunday.

After a video on what it means to be Liberal, debate topics include Future challenges and Does gender really matter? On Saturday afternoon, members will discuss how the party can remain relevant, winning back the youth from the left, social media in modern campaigning as well as preselection.

Opponents of the change in preselection rules suggest it will lead to branch stacking. The Liberal backbencher Julian Leeser and the assistant immigration minister, Alex Hawke, have suggested compromise motions that impose waiting periods before members can vote, activity tests and a grandfather clause to protect sitting members. Both MPs have been contacted for comment.

Molan described alternative motions as the plebiscite you are having when you are not having democracy.

Its not a play to replace the current lobbyist influence, leftwing faction with a rightwing faction, Molan said. All factions within this party over the last number of years have been as bad as each other.

Molan said other Liberal state divisions were doing better than NSW because their constitution allowed forms of plebiscites.

If it was a fair contest, one person one vote, we will get through this contest no problem at all because it is what the people want, Molan said. Brave elected members of parliament who have worked for their people over time should have nothing to fear by sitting in front of their people and saying vote for me.

The NSW Liberal party was contacted for comment.

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Jim Molan dares NSW Liberals to expel him by speaking to Alan Jones - The Guardian

All women are witches would be a truly provocative premise. But what is a witch in 2017? The author of Witches, Sluts, Feminists: Conjuring the Sex Positive, dishes up different definitions, framing a witch-as-everywoman thesis to suit the modern day feminista. The witch is less a sorceress driven by the Devil or a terrible crone from a Russian folktale, more a politically engaged Pagan with a tumblr account. Author Kristen Sollee of Slutist.com earlier reclaimed slut for the womens movement but she didnt stop there! Sollee settles on a vague and inoffensive meaning of witch, n.: embodiment of a powerful femininity rooted in the earth, which transcends patriarchal influence. And her storyahem, herstorystarts with the sacred whores of Mesopotamian temples and culminates with Hillary Clintons presidential campaign.

An unbroken chain of nasty women joins the modern slut, who shalt not be shamed, to the witch, whos been maligned for millennia. (The witchs broom? Not just a broom, Sollee winks.) Her titular sex-positivity is about as subtle as the Slut Walks her website sponsors, vaguely political displays in which scantily clad hipsters take to the streets, daring the people of Santa Cruz to objectify them. And then a tenuous transition from the chapter Hillary Clinton: Wicked Witch of the Left to a celebration of the slut as the witch of the twenty-first century sets the archetype at war with itself.

Clinton, while no friend to the loose woman, came to own her witchery through frequent comparisons to Hermione Granger, the studious tryhard of young adult fiction fame. Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, whom Clinton beat by one type of black magic, hosted a link on his official website to a donors Bern the Witch fundraiser until a Clinton supporter complained and the Sanders campaign removed it. Shes a witch with a capital B, to Rush Limbaugh. Compared to the ubiquitous b word, Witch adds an element of supernatural evil that has no male equivalent in common use, writes Sollee.

This is the archetypal witch that sowed deadly paranoia in Salem circa 1692 and helped propel Stevie Nicks dark desirability. The essence of witchinessnow relieved of dark age superstition and the incumbent death sentence when a witch was discoveredstill evokes a secret, something shrouded in taboo and therefore unspeakably cool. Stevie Nicks wrote Rhiannon about an old Welsh witch, dresses in billowy capes and black velvet, and called her first solo album Bella Donna (otherwise known as sorcerers berry,) the plant belladonna brews a sinister sleeping potion). She denies rumors that shes a practicing pagan, and she wasnt oppressed by the patriarchy in any well-known way (although Sollee suggests otherwise without explanation, thickly worrying that she and other 1960s and 70s rockers allied themselves with witchcraft in a time when doing so was dangerous, and could even threaten their creative careers); Nicks was and is a performer who gives the people what they want, without giving too much away.

Sollee gets closest to the central contradiction in a meditation on the witch-slut dichotomy as a matter of concealment by degrees. She quotes fashion historian Valerie Steele on the attraction of concealment, as Sigmund Freud and Casanova knew it, and the neo-Victorian aesthetic [of] having the body all covered, draped in a mercurial black. Both sluts and witches thrive in high fashion. What distinguishes a slut from a witch? While more fabric often means more witchy, leaving less to the imagination is the sluts job. The slut lays bares what the witch keeps hidden. Denuding the witch demystifies her, and stripping away the mystique that made witchery alluring in the first place debases her to slut statuswhich, for the slutwalking sisterhood, is one kind of victory. Bur undressing witchy women, what Sollee aims to do, wont dent an historical sexism already in steep decline.

A commitment to intersectionality is non-negotiable, Sollee clarifies early on. But in one not so intersectional instance, Sollee invites us to look for the heiresses to Salems survivors among our sisters, How many of us are the granddaughters of the witches they could not burn? No skin off my nose, but surely only the WASPiest witches can trace their matrilineage to Cotton Mathers Massachusetts. Insistence on a trans-inclusive intersectional redefinition of witch in the age of social justice contortionism further confuses the witch-as-everywoman ideal: This book specifically looks at the indivisible links between the witch, femininity, and womanhoodwhich includes trans women and anyone on the feminine spectrumand the persecution women have faced as a result of their perceived connection with witchcraft.

There are now more women out there than ever casting spells and doing spooky things with pentagrams, apparently. Technology is just another tool at my magickal disposal. If I can conjure spirits with an old root and a circle of salt, why not through a website? witch Melissa Madara told Sollee in a survey. Internet witches hexed President Trump earlier this year in a spellcasting campaign to bind his harmful agenda and drive him from office. Amid the mercurial topography of the arduous journey toward gender equality, stands the witch, a beacon in blackand a loutish president has revived the call, Sollee writes. Trump tweets, meanwhile, about investigations into his administration's ties to the Putin regime as a witch hunt. Appropriating witchery is another problem, the unpacking of which leads our author to the broader commercial appropriation of a mercantile feminism marked by mass-produced This Is What a Feminist Looks Like t-shirtsand the ethical imperative that witch-identifying women use their magic toward anti-capitalist ends. (Although if I were a witch, I think Id use my powers to turn a profit.)

Its also clear that the archetypal witchs dark mystery shares an etiology with what Betty Friedan in 1963s Feminine Mystique called the problem that has no name. Whenever women collude, however inconsequentially, we get to enjoy a semblance of covenish conspiracy. And wherever women are excluded from public life, their sisterly camaraderie gleans an aura of mystery from menssometimes fatalsuspicions. (Women are still persecuted for sorcery in nations where superstition trumps gender equality.) Imagining devilry at the root of whatever escapes his understanding, man conjured the witch.

Excepting the occultists, the Wiccans, the truly weird, witchiness for most women can be a fashion choice or an otherworldly quality observed in an otherwise normal acquaintancemy grade school art teacher, for example. (Witches were also called intuitives," Sollee notes the euphemism multiple times.) Women dont go around worrying if their witchiness is showing, but if the witch in all of us remains, its still something of a secret. A wisp of wildness, the thread of a confusing Virginia Woolf passage slipping ecstatically away from sense and order, a womans wandering mind straining to catch up with itself. Progressive gender discourse prefers to deny indivisible gender, but according to Witches, Sluts, Feminists: Conjuring the Sex Positive, womens untraceable transcendent powercall it what you willhas persisted through millennia of persecution. Heres betting itll outlast the Trump administration, and the gender fluidity fad too.

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Liberals Love Witches - The Weekly Standard

In approving a $5.3 billion transportation package, Oregons state legislature passed the first bike tax in the nation. And in a state thats known for its cycling culture, its not sitting well with riders or sellers.

If Democratic Gov. Kate Brown signs the legislation, as shes expected to, a $15 tax on the sale of adult-sized bikes valued over $200 will go into effect Jan. 1, 2018.

The tax will be collected at the time of sale and will go toward projects that expand and improve commuter routes for nonmotorized vehicles and pedestrians.

Even still, cyclists arent happy.

BikePortland publisher Jonathan Maus called it an unprecedented step in the wrong direction.

We are taxing the healthiest, most inexpensive, most environmentally friendly, most efficient and most economically sustainable form of transportation ever devised by the human species, Mr. Maus said.

Oregon Republican Party Chairman Bill Currier blasted what he described as Ms. Browns endless obsession with finding new and innovative ways to take money out of the pockets of Oregon taxpayers.

She just continues to view the people of her state as nothing more than a piggy bank to fund her efforts to impose job-killing policies, said Mr. Currier in a statement. Now add anti-healthy, environmentally-unfriendly policies to that list. (The Washington Times)

Supporters note that there is no sales tax in Oregon so its not as though riders will be hit twice at the register.

Other proponents of the tax argue bikers arent paying their fair share.

Democratic state Rep. Earl Blumenauer defended the tax on bikes, for example, telling BikePortland that its a modest fee in the overall infrastructure package.

One of the arguments we hear repeatedly is that cyclists dont have any skin in the game so theres been blowback, Blumenauer said.

I hope people will take a look at the big picture and see how it all evolves and realize that if were going to be players in the bike/ped space, its important to be part of the whole process, he added.

Even The New York Times Noticed the Dems' Obstructionism

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Liberals vs. Liberals: Oregon's Bike Tax Isn't Going Over Well Among Riders - Townhall

A new Washington Post-ABC News poll offers conflicting forecasts for the 2018 midterm elections, with voters clearly preferring Democrats in control of Congress to check President Trump even as Republicans appear more motivated to show up at the polls.

A slight majority of registered voters 52 percent say they want Democrats to control the next Congress, while 38 percent favor Republican control to promote the presidents agenda, according to the poll.

Yet a surge in anti-Trump protests does not appear to have translated into heightened Democratic voter enthusiasm a signal that could temper Democrats hopes for retaking the House majority next year.

Trumps low approval rating, which dropped to 36 percent from 42 percent in April, could also be significant if it fails to improve in the next year.

The survey also suggests that a shifting electorate could end up propelling Democrats to major gains if voters who have skipped prior midterm elections show up to cast ballots in 2018.

The snapshot emerges just as Congress has hit a major stumbling block in its effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, with Republican leaders in the Senate falling short this week of the votes they need to advance their deeply unpopular bill.

Although the poll was conducted before the collapse of the health-care push, the results suggest fresh uncertainty as to whether Democrats can recruit strong candidates and mobilize voters despite negative views of the Republican agenda.

Republicans currently hold a 24-seat advantage in the House, and Democrats have pointed to the spike in activism, Trumps unpopularity and voters general preference for Democratic congressional candidates as evidence that the majority could be in play.

The Post-ABC poll shows that Republicans actually hold the advantage in enthusiasm at this early point in the campaign cycle. A 65 percent majority of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents say they are certain they will vote next year, versus 57 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents.

Among Americans who did not cast ballots in the last midterm elections, in 2014, Democrats and Republicans are about equally as likely to say they plan to vote in 2018 suggesting there is not a disproportionate number of newly motivated Democrats ready to come off the sidelines next year.

Independents, meanwhile, prefer Democratic control as a bulwark against Trumps agenda by the same 14-point margin as Democrats.

And then there is history: The party holding the White House, with few exceptions in the modern era, has tended to lose congressional seats in midterm elections.

We have a unique opportunity to flip control of the House of Representatives in 2018, Rep. Ben Ray Lujn (D-N.M.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, wrote in a memo last month. This is about much more than one race: the national environment, unprecedented grass roots energy and impressive Democratic candidates stepping up to run deep into the battlefield leave no doubt that Democrats can take back the House next fall.

Democrats, however, already this year have suffered a series of losses in special elections for open House seats none more crushing than their failure to win a suburban Atlanta race that drew more campaign and outside committee spending than any other House contest in U.S. history.

While Democrats came closer to winning these heavily Republican districts than in the past, the losses have spurred infighting and questions about how Democrats can best hone their strategy going into 2018.

The survey results suggest some reasons that Democrats have not been able to capitalize yet on voter antipathy toward Trump. For one thing, Americans who strongly disapprove of Trump do not appear to be any more motivated to vote than the average American.

Just over 6 in 10 of those who strongly disapprove of Trumps job performance say they are also certain to vote in 2018 midterm elections. Overall, 58 percent of voters say they are certain to vote next year, while 72 percent of strong Trump backers are certain they will vote.

That result contrasts with a Post poll taken soon after the presidential election and the post-inauguration Womens March that found Democrats more interested in increasing their involvement in politics.

Thirty-five percent of Democrats said then that they were more likely to become involved in political causes in the next year, compared with 21 percent of Republicans and independents. Nearly half of liberal Democrats and 4 in 10 Democratic women said they would become more engaged.

Now, it seems, the potential for a Democratic wave rides on whether the party can turn out voters who have tended to skip past midterm elections.

Democrats were more likely than Republicans to skip the 2014 congressional elections, and the poll finds that among those who sat out 2014 and now say they are certain to vote in 2018, Democrats have a major advantage. By 64 percent to 30 percent, more prefer Democrats as a check against Trump than Republicans who will support Trumps agenda.

On the other hand, there is evidence that Trumps struggle to pass major legislation has not sapped Republicans motivation to turn out.

Theres no significant difference between Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who say Trump is making significant progress toward his goals as president and those leaning Republicans who say he is not. About two-thirds of each say they are certain to vote in midterm elections.

And despite Trumps dismal approval ratings, only slightly more voters say their congressional vote will be to oppose Trump 24 percent versus the 20 percent who say they will vote to support him. Just over half of voters say Trump will not be a factor in their votes.

The poll did not ask a generic congressional ballot question an indicator often cited by party strategists but recent polls show that voters favor Democrats over Republicans for Congress by between six and 10 percentage points when asked whom they would rather vote for.

A report by the University of Virginias Center for Politics last month suggested that if Democrats maintain at least a six-point advantage on this question, they would be predicted to win enough congressional races to take control of the House in 2019.

While Democrats are heavily targeting the House in 2018, the Senate is seen as a tougher prize. Of the 33 seats in that chamber being contested, 25 belong to Democrats or independents who caucus with them. Of the eight GOP seats, forecasters and party campaign committees consider only two to be genuinely competitive.

The Post-ABC poll was conducted July 10-13 among a random national sample of 1,001 adults reached on cellular and landline phones. The margin of sampling error for overall results is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points and four points among the sample of 859 registered voters.

Scott Clement contributed to this report.

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Even in Trump era, new poll shows a mixed outlook for Democrats in 2018 - Washington Post

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan face a very difficult choice as they survey the smoking ruins of their unified GOP government after nearly six months in office. They and their lieutenants could decide to pivot from health care to racking up small victories and awaiting reinforcements from the 2018 elections. Or they could go for a big deal with Democrats. Its a tough choice for Ryan and McConnell, but Im hoping they opt for the latter.

Putting off fixing the disaster that is Obamacare is risky, though not impossible. If Republicans score enough small victories between now and November 2018 cutting corporate taxes and confirming all Court of Appeals judges and perhaps next summer another member of the Supreme Court it may be possible to hold both houses of Congress. Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) is a dead man walking for his role in pulling the first thread that led to the unraveling of repeal and replace, but McConnell (Ky.) might calculate that wins in Florida, Missouri and elsewhere may leave him in a stronger position in January 2019 than he was at the start of this year.

Ryan (Wis.) is in more dangerous terrain, as every member of his caucus owns the failure to repeal and replace especially the Freedom Caucus, which threw the process into disarray only to retreat (too late) with a fig leaf and as a result the carnage of the collapsing Obamacare experiment. Real people with real illnesses and deeply flawed Medicaid insurance will discover in increasing numbers that paper insurance doesnt deliver real health care when their children are sick. A watch it fail approach to Obamacare, when the crisis is real and the consequences for poor children are so enormous, is not just bad politics; it is also immoral.

The alternative to waiting for 2019 is a bipartisan approach if Democrats will have it. A health-care deal could be done, leaving the fringes of both party caucuses on the outside looking in. Devolution of authority over Medicaid to the states, and repeal of the insurance mandate and absurd taxes such as the medical device tax, are the GOP must-haves. The Democrats will have their list.

Odds of success increase if the parties go big at the start by removing the sequesters limits on defense spending and adding immigration reform to the deal: appropriations for President Trumps wall paired with legalization of the law-abiding, undocumented population but no path to citizenship. A truly ambitious go big option could also include a settlement of the judicial confirmation wars, because the more moving parts, the better the chances of success. McConnell, Ryan and Democratic leaders Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.) and Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) could get together with a half-dozen of the smartest members from both parties to work on an expedited basis and go big.

The GOP Congress has failed. Unless theres a Lazarus-like resurrection of the health-care bill, the session is effectively over. Tax reform isnt likely going to do any better than health-care reform, especially with Wall Street Journal ideologues demanding the end of the state and local income-tax deduction and the capping of the mortgage-interest deduction. (F.A. Hayek doesnt vote in large numbers. Blue-state voters with Republican congressmen do.) The GOP must get its appelate court nominees through the Senate, or the party wipeout could expand to seats previously thought safe.

The 2018 prospects look bad for both parties: The GOP lacks policy victories, thanks to imprudent Freedom Caucus members and scared moderates. The Democrats are lost in Trump hatred to the point where a large part of the country thinks that they and the mainstream media are deranged. Both parties have cause for concern. We are at a crisis point where citizens are giving up on representative government en masse. So why not swing for the fences?

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Why Ryan and McConnell should go for a big deal with Democrats - Washington Post