Mediaboss Marketing

WA premier Colin Barnett and deputy premier Liza Harvey earlier this month at Government House in Perth on the day the state election was called. Photograph: Danella Bevis/AAP

A resurgent One Nation is looking to the Western Australian state election, on 11 March, as its first opportunity to demonstrate its growing support since last Julys federal election. Recent polling suggests One Nation is on track to win numerous seats in Western Australias upper house, and could even break through in the lower house.

One Nations prospects were given a further boost at the weekend when the Liberal party announced a preference swap with the minor party: Liberal preferences will favour One Nation in the upper house, while One Nation will give the Liberals a boost in lower house marginal seats.

The Liberal/National government in WA is facing an uphill battle to win a third term in office, and One Nation preferences will give them a boost. When One Nation first broke through in the late 1990s, they took a hefty chunk out of the Coalition vote, and that vote often did not return as preferences.

Recent polls have put One Nation on as high a vote as 13% in Western Australia. In contrast, the party polled just over 4% in the Western Australian Senate race in 2016. Last week on my blog I analysed where One Nation did best in that Senate election, and what the One Nation vote could look like if it jumped to 13%.

One Nations vote is strongly concentrated in regional areas, with a much lower vote in Perth. This reflects how One Nation performed in the 2001 Western Australian state election, where they won three upper house seats in regional areas.

Conveniently for One Nation, the Western Australian upper house is severely biased in favour of country voters. Approximately three-quarters of the states population lives in the Perth metropolitan area, but Perth voters only elect half of the states upper house. These regional voters overwhelmingly favour parties on the right, and this has helped give the current government a sizeable majority in the upper house.

If One Nation was to poll 13%, they would easily poll over a quota in the Agricultural, Mining and Pastoral, and South West regions, and could do reasonably well in the East Metropolitan region, giving them four seats in the upper house. This is made easier thanks to those Liberal preferences.

One Nation could well be a threat to Nationals seats in the lower house, too, but they wont benefit from Liberal preferences in those races. Liberal preferences to One Nation in the lower house could have had a devastating effect on the Nationals, wiping out quite a few of their MPs and making it much harder for the Liberal party to form government. In the upper house, on the other hand, One Nation are likely to win multiple seats with or without Liberal assistance, and a re-elected Liberal government would have an interest in working with a One Nation bloc in the balance of power.

There is a four-way contest for conservative votes in regional Western Australia. The Liberals and Nationals will be competing against each other for seats in both houses, alongside One Nation and the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers party, who hold two seats in the upper house.

Upper house preferences were formally lodged on Monday, and we saw some unusual decisions motivated by the Liberal-One Nation deal. The Nationals have decided to favour the Greens over their Liberal coalition partners, while the Shooters have gained preferences from many parties, including the Nationals.

The Liberal-National governments chances of re-election will be boosted thanks to One Nation preferences, but only if the deal can hold. Upper house preferences in Western Australia are required to be lodged ahead of time, and they will flow regardless of whether a party can find the volunteers to distribute how-to-vote cards at polling place, thanks to the group voting ticket system (the same system which was used for the Senate prior to law changes in 2016).

In contrast, One Nation preferences in the lower house are only as good as the partys capacity to hand out how-to-votes making the recommendation. One Nation voters have traditionally been happy to follow their partys recommendations, but there are signs that some One Nation candidates are not willing to go along with their partys deal. If candidates in key seats refuse to go along with the deal, the Liberal party could be left empty-handed, after giving away something quite valuable.

See more here:
One Nation could gain more than the Liberals from Western Australia seats deal - The Guardian

After President Barack Obamas inauguration in 2009, conservative talk host Rush Limbaugh made headlines when he said, I hope Obama fails. Many considered it a gauge of how bitter conservatives had become post-election.

Why would anyone, right or left, not want the new president to succeed?

The country was divided for a number of reasons then, but due in large part to too many conservatives drawing battle lines and retreating to the trenches.

Now, its the lefts turn.

In Sundays New York Post, gay Brooklyn-based journalist Chadwick Moore penned a thoughtful yet unsettling op-ed explaining why, although he had been a lifelong liberal, the lefts current intolerance has pushed him to the right. In September, Moore wrote a profile of hard right Breitbart provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos for the LGBT publication Out! For this unpardonable sin, he was shunned by his friends, even those he thought were genuinely close to him.

After a barrage of negative messages and attacks on social media, (neither the author nor the magazine signaled in any way that they agreed with Yiannopoulos controversial views), Moore wrote, I lay low for a week or so. Finally, I decided to go out to my local gay bar, where Ive been a regular for 11 years.

Nothing felt the same; half the place people with whom Id shared many laughs seemed to be giving me the cold shoulder, Moore lamented. A friend who normally greets me with a hug and kiss pivoted and turned away.

Moore continued: I realized that, for the first time in my adult life, I was outside of the liberal bubble and looking in. What I saw was ugly, lock step, incurious and mean-spirited. I began to realize that maybe my opinions just didnt fit in with the liberal status quo, which seems to mean that you must absolutely hate Trump, his supporters and everything they believe. If you dare to question liberal stances or make an effort toward understanding why conservatives think the way they do, you are a traitor.

Partisanship is not new, but left and right do seem to become shriller with each election. This has been particularly true in regard to perhaps the most uniquely polarizing president in modern American history, Donald Trump.

The division in 2017 compared to 2009 seems broader and deeper, something Chadwick Moores unfortunate experience illustrates. When the right was concocting every angry accusation imaginable against Obama, most dismissed it as right-wing propaganda from a conservative echo chamber.

But the current Trump hate presents a different and perhaps more troubling dynamic. Right now its not just progressive outlets, but the mainstream media that too often behaves like a liberal echo chamber.

So, if youre a left-leaning American already distraught over the election, and the mainstream media is telling you that Trump is an anti-gay white supremacist who hates MLK and wants to invade Mexico, how is this different from right-wingers who used to believe Obama was a secret-Kenyan-radical-Muslim-who-hated-America?

Because its what you already believe Trump really is, its what most of your friends believe, and most of the news you consume reinforces those biases.

Conservatives during the Obama era risked having their biases shattered the moment they turned off Fox News. Liberals right now are having their biases confirmed at every turn, which allows them to insist that what they believe genuinely reflects the unassailable truth about Trump.

They could be right. Trump is problematic on many levels. But how can liberals, living in so broad a bubble, truly know?

And if their intolerance toward anyone who dares challenge their worldview continues to increase, how will they ever know?

Go here to see the original:
What happened to tolerant liberals? - MyDaytonDailyNews

Joy Villa made one heckuva statement at the Grammys Sunday night.

Miss Villa, a self-described singer-songwriter and vegan-bodybuilder, stormed the red carpet wearing a Make America Great Again dress.

Click here to read the most deplorable book in America! Its a best-seller and its driving liberals nuts!

The jaw-dropping, star-spangled ensemble also included a train emblazoned with President Trumps name.

Sometimes you just gotta be free to express yourself, she wrote on Twitter.

It was a truly remarkable moment of diversity and inclusion in Hollywood one that will surely land the relatively unknown performer on the Worst Dressed List.

My Fox News colleague and resident millennial Caleb Parke gave Miss Villas ensemble a thumbs-up.

I dont care what your politics are, this girl is bold and might I add, beautiful, he said.

She did look stunning and patriotic.

The dress was designed by Andre Soriano, a Filipino immigrant who came to our shores in search of the American dream.

Ive never been in the political area, Soriano told The Hollywood Reporter. However, its just so crazy that people are getting beat up because they voted for Trump.

Soriano was inspired to create his masterpiece after watching the Nasty Woman protest in Washington, D.C.

I am an American, he told THR. I moved here from the Philippines and I highly believed in the trueness of what this country can bring. Its about bringing people together, thats the message.

Its worth repeating that Soriano came to America legally.

Unfortunately, the red, white and blue dress is not available at Nordstrom, Sears or TJ Maxx. Sorry, fashionistas.

Todd Starnes is host of Fox News & Commentary, heard on hundreds of radio stations. His latest book is The Deplorables Guide to Making America Great Again. Follow Todd on Twitter @ToddStarnes and find him on Facebook.

Here is the original post:
Todd Starnes: Liberals Panic Over Pro-Trump Grammy Dress - Fox News

posted at 6:21 pm on February 13, 2017 by Jazz Shaw

A new op-ed from Ari Berman at The Nation posits an interesting theory for us to consider this week. Its based on the repeated claims by President Trump (and more recently by Stephen Miller while making the rounds of the Sunday shows) regarding voter suppression during the last election. The specific claims in this case deal with busloads of voters being brought in from Massachusetts to New Hampshire and leading to the loss of the state not only by Trump, but Kelly Ayotte as well. While such specific charges clearly require more evidence than has been presented, the overall question of voter fraud remains open for debate. Still, according to Berman, the end result of this will not be some cleaning up process in the electoral system but instead, increased suppression of the oppressed.

Yet heres why Trumps lies about voter fraud are so dangerous: Republicans in New Hampshire, who now control state government, have introduced forty bills in the 2017 legislative session that would make it harder to vote.

The proposed legislation includes ending same-day registration, which boosts voter turnout by up to ten percent; restricting voting rights to only residents of New Hampshire who plan to live in the state for the indefinite future, which could prevent college students and military personnel from voting; and requiring that New Hampshire residents live in the state for thirteen days before voting and get an in-state drivers license and register their car in New Hampshire within 60 days of registering to vote, which the New Hampshire ACLU calls a post-election poll tax.

The basis of Bermans claim is nothing new. If New Hampshire enacts new laws tightening up the voter registration process and increasing security at the ballot box this apparently leads by default to a condition liberals love to refer to as, making it harder to vote. The question most of us should be asking in response is, making it harder for who to vote?

Most of the New Hampshire bills under discussion are nothing which hasnt been experimented with in other states before. Same-day registration has been recognized as being problematic nearly everywhere its been implemented. With the rare exception of special elections, voting takes place pretty much the same time every year. Its not as if you didnt have plenty of notice. To proponents of same-day registration I generally invoke the standard signage hanging behind the desks of many administrative assistants: A lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.

Most of the other proposals run along similar lines, though even I will admit that requiring prospective voters to state an intention to live in the state for the indefinite future is a bit dubious. But beyond that theres really nothing all that unusual going on.

Reading through Bermans entire op-ed, its difficult not to notice one glaring omission in his analysis. A charge has been levied stating that voter fraud was taking place in the form of out-of-state residents showing up, registering, voting and going back home to the Bay State. Perhaps, as the critics state, there is nothing to this charge despite the number of residents who regularly claim that it takes place. Or perhaps it has happened. This leads us back to the question I keep asking every time the subject arises and will likely continue to do so until I am blue in the face. Whether such incidents of voter fraud are taking place or not, wouldnt you want to know?

Rather than sitting here and shouting back and forth at each other across the aisle, might it not make sense to pursue the obvious and easily achievable remedy? A survey of the list of voters who cast ballots in the 2016 election (particularly in precincts closest to the border) could be readily obtained and then the alleged addresses of the voters in question could be checked. Are they all in fact happily living and working in New Hampshire? Or are perhaps some of them back across the border in Massachusetts, residing there and registered to vote in that state as well? This isnt long division, people. It wouldnt be that difficult to check. And once you did, the matter would be put to rest.

Wouldnt that be refreshing? Or would you be disappointed because we had one less thing to scrap about every Sunday morning on cable news?

See the article here:
Liberals: talking about voter fraud is what causes voter suppression - Hot Air

Eight years after the tea party turned town hall meetings on Obamacare into hands-on melees, liberals furious with President Trump are flipping the script by shouting down Republicans who have struggled to outline better health care plans.

Police escorted Rep. Tom McClintock out of a recent event in which protesters fumed over the Californians support for Obamacare repeal and Mr. Trumps travel limitations involving several Muslim-majority nations.

In Florida, Rep. Gus M. Bilirakis stood quietly as a speaker in bluejeans clutched the microphone and told him how to deal with the health care law: keep it and fix it.

And a Tennessee woman became a Twitter sensation after she tied her Christian duty to pull up the less fortunate to Obamacares mandate requiring even healthy Americans to get insured.

The healthy people pull up the sick, she told a panel that included Rep. Diane Black, a Tennessee Republican tasked with crafting Obamacare repeal legislation under fast-track budget rules this spring.

Its a stark turnaround from 2009, when conservative protesters tried to shove their way into packed meetings and shouted Tyranny! at Democrats advocating for the Affordable Care Act, saying it amounted to a federal takeover of the health care system.

A Pennsylvania man told then-Sen. Arlen Specter that he would be judged by God. Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat in Congress at the time, rebuked a woman for comparing President Obamas overhaul to Nazi policy, saying he might as well debate a dining room table.

The protests demonized Mr. Obamas plan, which led to a rout for House Republicans in the 2010 midterm elections, taking control of the chamber for the first time since 2006.

While todays protests offer a 180-degree turn on policy, the amplitude is eerily similar, as Republican lawmakers struggle to explain why they have taken steps toward repeal without a firm plan for what comes next.

Republicans are making the same mistakes Democrats made in 2009. They are moving so quickly that they are creating needless anxiety and opposition, said Darrell West, director of governance studies at the Brookings Institution. They have to be careful not to turn 2018 into a wave election for Democrats.

Liberals who feel cheated by Mr. Trumps victory he swept the Rust Belt but lost the popular vote are riding a wave of anti-Trump sentiment after a caustic election featuring pejorative nicknames, chants of Lock her up against Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and hot-mic talk about grabbing womens genitals.

Grass-roots activists have channeled their anger into an organized campaign to flood the town hall meetups that Republican lawmakers hold to stay connected with voters.

Theyre using spreadsheets from Town Hall Project 2018 and other websites to keep track of when and where House and Senate lawmakers will face their constituents. The resulting standoffs are then shot across cyberspace, thanks to ubiquitous camera phones and the magic of YouTube and Twitter.

A huge Utah crowd greeted Rep. Jason Chaffetz with boos late Thursday, even as he touted his criticism of Kellyanne Conway, the White House adviser who may have flouted ethics rules by endorsing the fashion line of presidential daughter Ivanka Trump.

The crowd wasnt satisfied, saying the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman needed to probe Mr. Trumps business ties and coziness with Russia.

Some Republicans are avoiding town halls altogether, saying the political climate is too poisonous.

Unfortunately, there is more anger in politics today than ever before. And we are receiving many very hateful, very angry emails and phone calls from some on the liberal-left side of the political spectrum, Rep. John J. Duncan Jr., Tennessee Republican, said in a letter to groups requesting a town hall.

I am not going to hold town hall meetings in this atmosphere, because they would very quickly turn into shouting opportunities for extremists, kooks and radicals, he said.

While Mr. Trumps brash style feels brand new, the health care fight is steeped in deja vu, even if the two sides have switched.

Mr. Obama relied on Democratic majorities to brush aside protests and pass the Affordable Care Act in early 2010, though it failed to drive down premiums or increase choices as he had repeatedly promised in its first three years of full implementation.

It has, however, driven the uninsured rate to historic lows by doling out taxpayer-funded subsidies on its insurance exchanges, expanding Medicaid in 31 states and allowing adults to stay on their parents plans until age 26.

Big programs have constituencies that are being helped, Mr. West said. Unwinding them always is going to be contentious.

Republicans who railed against Obamacare for seven years are now realizing that. While blueprints and draft bills abound, Republicans are struggling to coalesce around a replacement plan that can be vetted by budget scorekeepers to see how it stacks up against Obamacare.

Ms. Black confronted questions about their plans Thursday at an event hosted by the Middle Tennessee State University College Republicans outside of her district.

Responding to the woman whose stand went viral, she said Obamacares individual mandate simply didnt work. It failed to attract the types of young people needed to keep rates down for everyone in the marketplace, as millions claimed an exemption from the mandate or just paid the tax penalty for remaining uninsured.

While there were strong feelings at this forum, there is no mistaking the clear message Tennesseans sent last November at the ballot box when they sent [Rep.] Black and President Trump to Washington to repeal Obamacare and put patients back in control of their health care choices, said Ms. Blacks spokesman, Jonathan Frank.

House Republicans insist they will produce an effective plan this year alongside Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, who assumed office Friday after the Senate confirmed him on a 52-47 vote along party lines.

When the left doesnt get its way at the ballot box, the next step it to intimidate everyone around them until they do, Republican strategist Ford OConnell said. And that is what we are seeing. Once the GOP coalesces around a plan to replace Obamacare, that is when I expect the real fireworks to start on the left.

Follow this link:
Liberals commandeering Obamacare town halls, blasting GOP plan for repeal - Washington Times