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Updated July 22, 2017 17:53:07

Former prime minister Tony Abbott says there is a contest between "factionalists" and "democrats" at play in the New South Wales Liberal Party.

But Mr Abbott argued it was not a brawl involving his hard right conservative allies and the dominant moderate wing of the state Liberals, who back his successor Malcolm Turnbull.

The state branch is debating changes to the party's governance in Sydney this weekend in what has been dubbed as a potentially explosive showdown by party insiders, and as the most important meeting since the Menzies-era by conservatives.

Mr Turnbull told delegates that he supported the principle of giving members a say in preselections, which is at the heart of Mr Abbott's concerns.

"We will be reflecting the procedure that I believe every other division of the Liberal Party adopts in Australia," Mr Turnbull said.

"So it is a very good idea, it's a very good idea, but it is not a new idea."

The issue is what form of member empowerment is adopted at the conference.

Mr Abbott's motion, commonly referred to as the "Warringah motion", would allow party members to vote in preselections after two years of membership.

His proposal has been criticised by some who see it as laying the groundwork for rampant branch stacking that has been seen in the Victorian branch as a result of similar changes.

Liberal MPs Alex Hawke and Julian Leeser have put forward compromises, including requiring a person to have been a member for up to four years before being given voting rights, and passing an "activity test" by showing they have campaigned or handed out how to vote cards for the party.

They will be debated on Sunday.

Mr Abbott argued Mr Turnbull's comments show they are "on the same side".

"This is a contest between factionalists who want to keep power and democrats who want to open up our party. That is the contest," he told reporters outside the conference.

"I am very pleased that the Prime Minister and I are on the same side.

"Listen to his words today. He is an absolutely unequivocal supporter of one member, one vote."

Federal Liberal president and former New South Wales premier Nick Greiner said debate was healthy, but issued a warning.

"We have had a tradition of civility, a tradition of having robust differences in the party or in the wings and we will always have that tradition and that reality," he told delegates.

"But I do notice, it would be hard not to notice, some lack of that civility, some lack of that mutual respect.

"My plea to you tomorrow and going forward is, of course we advocate with passion, of course we argue for our views on what is best for our party or for our nation, but not to do it in our tradition of civility of respect is unfortunate."

Topics: liberals, political-parties, government-and-politics, abbott-tony, turnbull-malcolm, sydney-2000, nsw

First posted July 22, 2017 12:38:36

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Malcolm Turnbull, Tony Abbott 'on the same side' in NSW Liberals reform push - ABC Online

"Conservatives and libertarians were always portrayed as the shrill and unhappy guys, and the left and liberals were always the people who are having fun," says Greg Gutfeld, host of Fox News' The Greg Gutfeld Show, co-host of The Five, former host of Red Eye, bestselling author, and Reason magazine intern reject.

"What you're seeing now is a lot more fun on the libertarian and right side than you've ever seen on the left."

Gutfeld sat down with Reason's Nick Gillespie to discuss his "ugly libertarianism," Donald Trump's love of Red Eye, why he was excited about the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, and why Trump's comments on the campaign trail were best understood in the context of a Comedy Central roast.

The interview took place on stage at Freedom Fest 2017, an annual gathering for libertarians in Las Vegas.

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Audio post-production by Ian Keyser.

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Greg Gutfeld: Trump Turned Liberals Into Dean Wormer [Podcast] - Reason (blog)

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Former Guantanamo Bay prisoner Omar Khadr, 30, is seen in Mississauga, Ont., on July 6, 2017.

Support for the Liberal government is still strong among Canadians, despite backlash following the Omar Khadr settlement.

A poll conducted by Abacus Data found that if an election was held today, 43 per cent of decided voters would vote for the Liberal Party, while 31 per cent would vote for Conservatives, and 16 per cent would opt for the NDP. For context, Liberals garnered 40 per cent of votes to win the October 2015 federal election.

Thursdays poll, which was conducted after news broke of the governments$10.5-million settlementwith Khadr, reveals 48 per cent of Canadians approve of Justin Trudeaus government while 34 per cent disapprove.

WATCH:Trudeau remains firm that paying out Omar Khadr the better option

Many Canadians have voiced outrage that the Liberal government granted Khadr a Canadian citizen who spent 10 years in Guantanamo Bay settlement money and an apology for any wrongful treatment.

But Abacus Datas CEO David Coletto explained the aftermath of the Khadr controversy hasnt changed much for the government.

So far, even in the direct aftermath of the decision to settle with Omar Khadr, we find little evidence of a shift in public affinity for the PM or the federal government, he said in a press release.

READ MORE:Canadians donate to family of slain U.S. soldier in wake of Omar Khadr settlement

Despite a series of difficult decisions by the federal government, we find little evidence that Canadians feel any worse about the government today than they did in May.

Approval of the government is mostly uniform across the country, except for thePrairie provinces Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan where more respondents disapprove than approve of the Liberals.

READ MORE:Fake news broadcast by media-bashing Tory MP deleted from Facebook

The highest approval rating is in Atlantic Canada at 60 per cent. The lowest is in Alberta at 37 per cent.

The Abacus Data report goes on to say that reasons for support largely centre on the economy, which many Canadians believe is picking up steam. About 68 per cent of Canadians believe the economy is growing the highest number since the 2015 election.

WATCH:Tory leader Andrew Scheer talks Omar Khadr

Coletto noted that these results confirm a new era of Canadian politics, where the governments performance is constantly compared to U.S. President Donald Trumps administration. He explained that this leaves the Conservatives with a complicated task.

READ MORE:Omar Khadr payout: 71% of Canadians say government made the wrong call

Very few Canadians are looking for a Canadian version of Trump or even Trump-lite, he said.

So, the choice for Conservative politicians is how to criticize this governments fairly popular agenda, distance itself from the Trump administration, while at the same time offering a positive alternative to Trudeau and his team.

While the Khadr case may not have affected Trudeaus approval or support, a recent poll by the Angus Reid Institute did find that most Canadians disapproved of Trudeaus handling of the case.

WATCH:Judge dismisses request to freeze Omar Khadrs assets

According to the July poll, 71 per cent of Canadiansthink the Liberal government should have fought a legal case with Khadr rather than settling out of court. They added it should have been left to the courts to decide if Khadr was wrongfully imprisoned.

Only 29 per cent of Canadians thought the Liberals did the right thing by offering an apology and compensation to Khadr.

The Abacus Data poll was conducted online between July 14 and 18, 2017, and completed by 2,036 Canadians. The poll is considered accurate+/- 2.2%, 19 times out of 20.

2017Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

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Liberals' support still strong despite Khadr settlement: poll - Globalnews.ca

Liberals don't just hate President Trump; lots of them don't even like the idea of being in the company of his supporters.

That's the big takeaway from a new Pew Research Center survey, which is just the latest indicator of our remarkably tribal and partisan politics. And when it comes to Trump, it's difficult to overstate just how tribal the left is and how much distaste he engenders. Indeed, that distaste apparently extends even to people whodecided they would like to vote for Trump.

The poll shows almost half of liberal Democrats 47 percent say that if a friend supported Trump, it would actually put a strain on their friendship. Among Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters more broadly, the number is 35 percent. White and more-educated Democrats are more likely to feel that it's tough to even be friends with a Trump supporter.

And while partisanshipand tribalism are pretty bipartisan things in American politics today, Democrats are actually substantially less able to countenancefriends who supported the wrong candidate:Just 13 percent of Republicans say a friend's support of Hillary Clinton would strain their relationship.

Part of the reason for the imbalance is likely that liberals tend to live in more homogeneous places and don't even associate with conservatives. Another Pew study last year showed a whopping47 percent of people who planned to vote for Clinton didn't have any close friends who were Trump supporters. By contrast, 31 percent of Trump supporters said they didn't have any friends who backed Clinton.

Because of the way our population is sorted, with liberals clustered in urban areas and Republicans more spread out, Democrats tend to be more insulated from dissenting political voices. So perhaps it's no surprise that they don't hear and don't want to hear those voices coming from their friends' mouths.

The prevalent belief on the left that Trump isn't just a bad president or person, but is also racist, xenophobic and misogynistic is undoubtedly at play here too. And at one point during the 2016 presidential campaign, Clinton even suggested half of Trump's supportersweredeplorables who were also racist or xenophobic or misogynistic. (Her campaign later clarified that she meant only people at Trump's rallies. But still.)

Despite that, it's noteworthy just how many people think supporting the nominee of a major American political party reflects poorly upon the people they know. Fully 46 percent of Americans who voted for president chose Trump, and that isn't really an acceptable position for a friend to take for half of liberal Democrats.

One final data point from the new Pew study: 68 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters say they find it stressful and frustrating to talk to people who have a different opinion of Trump. About half 52 percent of Republican and GOP-leaning voters say the same.

When people ask why politicians in Washington can't get along, this is why: Americans can't even talk to each other about politics anymore withoutgetting flustered.

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Nearly half of liberals don't even like to be around Trump supporters - Washington Post

Hamburg, Germany, July. As world leaders gather for the G20 summit, far-left anti-fascist (antifa) rioters set fire to cars and property, terrorize residents and injure more than 200 police officers attempting to keep the peace. Did you miss it? CNNs initial reports referred to the protesters as eclectic and peaceful.

But you need not cross the shining seas to experience violence, destruction of property and a general dismantling of liberal values from the political left. You could simply visit Americas elite college campuses like Yale or Middlebury or Berkeley, where tomorrows leaders attempt to shut down conservative voices with protest or riots. At Middlebury, rioting students landed liberal professor Allison Stanger in a neck brace for the crime of defending a conservative academics right to speak. At Berkeley, mobs of students created a war zone ahead of a planned visit from conservative provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, injuring Trump supporters and causing $100,000 in damages.

Or head to Portland, Ore., one of the most liberal cities in the nation in the heart of the progressive Pacific Northwest, which this month Politico labeled Americas Most Politically Violent City. The progressive paradise where Republicans are virtually an extinct species has witnessed millions in damages attributed to the same types of anti-fascists-in-name-only that kept Hamburg residents paralyzed in fear this month. A counter-protest to a planned pro-Trump rally landed 14 antifa in jail for attacking the police with explosives and bricks.

Witness the blood-soaked congressional baseball field in Alexandria, Va., site of the June attack on U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., and other Republicans batting up for their annual bipartisan game. James Hodgkinson, a fervent supporter of progressive politics, showed up to the field with a rifle, a handgun and a hit list of Republicans. As Scalise fought for his life, MSNBC host Joy Reid felt conflicted: The attempted assassination was a delicate thing because of Scalises conservative views like opposition to gay marriage. Are we required in a moral sense to put that aside in the moment? she wondered. Yes, Joy, you are. The shooting of a mainstream, congressional Republican leader is reprehensible, and in no way justifiable.)

Now cross the Potomac and visit the halls of Congress, where Democratic lawmakers have accused Republicans of murder for supporting an overhaul to the spiraling, ruined Obamacare program, which by next year will leave dozens of counties without a single option for insurance. Reasonable people can disagree about how much our Medicaid program should grow without comparing the Republican bill to 9/11, as Sen. Bernie Sanders, the independent from Vermont, did recently. Or saying the health care bill is paid for with blood money of dead Americans, as Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., tweeted shortly after the Scalise attack. If our sitting senators dont act more responsibly, who will?

Instead of retweeting, liberals who care about preserving our political system should be outraged that these are the standard-bearers of their party.

Nobody is directly responsible for a shooting except the shooter, and nobody throws a brick except the person who picks it up. No side has a monopoly on political violence. There are loonies at the fringes of every political movement mentally ill, perturbed and paranoid who can be stirred toward violence or dissuaded from it.

But when we have Democratic senators accusing political opponents of murder, when our college campuses descend into assault zones for conservative speakers (or those who defend them), when our major cities become playgrounds for far-left rioters and the news media gloss over it, we move toward a more violent and fractured society, not a safer one.

If gay people were pouring into bars and punching straight people, I as a gay man would speak out. If Jews were propagating terror in the name of our religion, I would condemn it vociferously. And when violence has come from the conservative side, I dont hesitate to stand against it. But its not.

There have been no right-wing groups storming campuses and flinging feces at speakers we dont like; no tea party mobs destroying property, assaulting police officers, and paralyzing our major cities; and no Republican senators calling their colleagues murderers just weeks after a political assassination attempt.

From Portland to New Haven to Washington, the violence were witnessing is largely a product of the hard left, and the reaction from mainstream liberals mostly silence, dismissiveness, equivocation means it will continue to flourish.

To move toward a less violent and hyper-charged society, we must be clearheaded about violence where we see it, and not avoid the subject. We must condemn it without conditions.

If you think Republicans are murderers, youre an extremist. If youre trading in that kind of rhetoric just to shut the other side up or raise a buck, youre giving cover to extremists. And if you object to political violence but fail to speak out, your weakness is causing our society to fracture.

Its time for liberal America to speak out against violence and the rhetoric that incites it.

Tribune Content Agency

Albert Eisenberg is the former communications director for the Philadelphia Republican Party.

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Liberal America has a political violence problem - Chicago Tribune - Chicago Tribune