Tag: Appeal

A key ally of the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has called for EU leaders to reject Theresa May’s appeal for a further short delay to Brexit, in a sign of the dangers of the prime minister’s strategy. Theresa May calls for talks with Jeremy Corbyn in attempt to save Brexit Read more The EU’s heads of state and government had agreed at their last summit that the UK could stay in the bloc until 22 May but only on the basis that the withdrawal agreement was ratified by 29 March. An unconditional extension to that date was firmly rejected during the leaders’ discussions in Brussels due to the danger that it risked a full-blown crisis before the elections, offering up ammunition for Eurosceptic parties. EU should insist on long extension with participation in EU elections.” The EU could not impose a long extension on the British government as any decision would need to be endorsed by all 28 member states. It could, however, present a long extension on a take-it-or-leave-it basis, leaving the British government with the option of leaving on 12 April without a deal – or signing up to a delay to Brexit of at least nine months and, more likely, a year or longer. Denmark’s prime minister, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, tweeted: “Since we could agree to postpone Brexit to right before EP [European parliament] election given the approval of May’s agreement, we should also be patient if there suddenly is a cross-party way forward in UK. There is a risk by being ambiguous you create a crisis on the UK side.” EU diplomats were quick to point to the legal text in last month’s decision on extension agreed by May and the 27 leaders. It states that the UK would be “under obligation” to hold elections if still a member state on 23 May. One EU diplomat said the prime minister had created “a darkest hour moment” that could help her agree the withdrawal agreement and a revised political declaration by 22 May. But it could also end in no deal, the diplomat said.

Mayor London Breed picked the right time and the right governor to ask for clemency for her imprisoned brother. The San Francisco mayor said the attorney for brother Napoleon Brown suggested that “Jerry Brown would probably be more open” to the request because it was his last year in office. In his first stint as governor, Brown issued 400 pardons and just one commutation. This time around, he has pardoned 1,100 and commuted 152 sentences. So Breed would never have a better opportunity to make the case that her brother, who has served about half his 42-year sentence for a 2000 robbery and involuntary manslaughter, received an excessive sentence and deserves another chance at freedom. She has received legitimate criticism over the way she highlighted her title — “MAYOR LONDON BREED” in block letters at the top of her correspondence to the governor — as well as disclosures that she testified as an alibi witness, claiming she saw her brother sleeping on a couch on the night the robbery went down. We thought about it, we discussed it, we even weighed it: Should we do this because this could be problematic?” The decision was that attaching the prefix “Mayor” to her name did not really matter, in her view. The reason I got into politics and the first place, and doing the work that I’ve done even before I was an elected official, had everything to do with what happened to my family growing up in the city, and the challenges we experienced.” I can’t begrudge Breed for wanting to free her brother, and I respect her putting herself on the line to assure the state that she would help provide the support to allow him to succeed outside the prison walls. These are among the questions a governor must consider. The easy way out — see: Gray Davis — is to pretend the justice system always gets it right, and that every inmate who remains in prison, however unfairly, is one less potential Willie Horton to crop up at election time.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Democrats are fighting to beat back Republican gains across the Midwest as the 2018 primary season roars through Wisconsin and Minnesota, two states where President Donald Trump's appeal among working-class voters threatens to upend decadeslong political trends this fall and beyond. At the same time, accusations of domestic violence involving the Democratic National Committee's second-in-command could undermine any blue wave in Minnesota, a state still healing from scandal. All but 10 states will have picked their candidates for November's general election by the time all votes are counted in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Vermont and Connecticut. Democrats appear particularly motivated in Wisconsin, where eight candidates have lined up for the chance to take on Republican Gov. Once a target of Trump criticism, Walker gained the president's endorsement in a tweet Monday night calling him "a tremendous Governor who has done incredible things for that Great State." "By attacking Wisconsin workers to cover for failed economic policy, President Trump took a page right out of Scott Walker's playbook," said Mahlon Mitchell, one of the candidates and the head of the state firefighters union. Neither candidate was an early Trump supporter, and Vukmir has struggled to explain footage recently unearthed from 2016 in which she calls Trump "offensive to everyone." His replacement, Democratic Sen. Tina Smith, is on Tuesday's ballot as she seeks her first full term. He's the leading Republican candidate in the high-profile race to replace outgoing Democratic Gov. Pawlenty has since said he voted for Trump and supports his agenda.

President Donald Trump took the Republican Party by storm on his way to winning the White House. The race between Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam and U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis also is showcasing the enduring appeal of the anti-establishment message that helped carry Trump and other Republicans into office over the last few years. Natural politician Pat Neal first met Putnam in 1996 when he was a 22-year-old running for the state House. The disruptor Steve Vernon views the current Republican primary for governor as an extension of the GOP rift that began with the Tea Party movement in 2010. After Trump’s election, DeSantis became one of the president’s most outspoken supporters in Congress and a big critic of the Russia investigation. The president’s influence with the GOP base was evident last week when a Trump-backed candidate won a GOP primary in the Georgia governor’s race. “If you look around the country in these primaries it’s not just Florida,” Gaetz said. “His campaign has not been based on issues important to Floridians,” Neal said. “It’s hard to argue that one’s more conservative than the other. The people running for office in their own words, myPalmBeachPost.com/kyc Adam Putnam Age: 43 Hometown: Bartow Education: Bachelor’s degree from the University of Florida Professional experience: Served in the Florida House of Representatives from 1996 to 2000, the U.S. House of Representatives from 2001 to 2011 and as Florida Agriculture Commissioner from 2011 to present.

There’s a reason why the cohort of voters colloquially known as “Howard’s battlers” have a semi-mythical status in contemporary Australian politics. This group of working and lower-middle class Australians had traditionally voted Labor, but for much of Howard’s reign they kept the plain-talking and mostly uninspiring PM in office. Labor will repeal tax cuts for companies earning $10m-$50m Read more Howard had little of the charisma or gravitas of his previous prime ministers, but he was a canny political operator who knew how to connect with the majority of voters who made up working class and middle Australia. It’s also why his opponent is trying to use the very same group to bring the PM down. Even before Labor’s deputy leader Tanya Plibersek mentioned in an interview last week that the term “aspiration” was a mystery to her, Malcolm Turnbull and his ministers had been accusing Labor of denying workers the motivational benefits of personal income tax cuts and trumpeting that only the Coalition understood the aspirations of such everyday Australians. “Stick with me if you want to get ahead”, the PM was essentially promising voters. The opposition couches its approach in terms of equity and fairness rather than resentment. But the effect is the same The difficulty for Malcolm Turnbull is that aspiration ain’t what it used to be. Longman byelection: will One Nation decide who wins? Read more Of course Longman is also the tightest of the five byelection contests, with the seat being extremely marginal after Labor snatched it with the help of One Nation preferences in 2016.

It was the first time that two politicians of Warren’s and Booker’s stature had appeared at the event. Rob Lee, a North Carolina pastor and descendant of Confederate Civil War Gen. Robert E. Lee whose denunciation of racist violence made a splash at last year’s MTV Video Music Awards. But the theme of this year’s festival is “Preaching and Politics,” and those who assembled at Washington’s Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church were treated to a rare hybrid of a campaign rally and a preaching competition. Valerie Steele, of Highland Park United Methodist Church in Stillwater, Okla. “But I think we’re called to help people connect the head and the heart.” For Warren and Booker, conscious that their politics often overlap with a strain of social-justice preaching popular in mainline Protestantism, the conference offered an opportunity to connect liberal faith with potential votes. “I have a saying: Before you tell me about your religion, first show it to me in how you treat other people around you,” he said. “These are not political issues. These are moral issues,” he said, over shouts of “amen.” He later added: “This is a moral moment in America, where self-inflicted wounds are costing us not just humanity. “I’m not just called to preach social justice — I’m called to act.” “I’m not just called to preach social justice — I’m called to act.” The assembled preachers seemed to welcome the notion that their conference had been turned into something akin to a hustings for a day. Introducing Booker, the Rev. Rev.

The Christian right has been a forceful presence in American political life since the 1970s. Australian political religion began as an expression of identity, but today draws much of its appeal on notions of self-governance. Catholics and Protestants For the first half of the 20th century, religious identity was a major faultline in Australian politics: Protestants tended to support conservative parties; Catholics generally favoured Labor. Among Catholics, disproportionately less educated, religion was still understood as a form of group identity rather than a way of living. They defied the Labor and Catholic establishment to form the Democratic Labor Party (DLP) after the 1955 Labor Party split. Australia provided only a faint echo, but for ambitious evangelicals, the American Christian right was a model. Evangelical Christians pushed into politics even more explicitly in the 2000s. In 2002, former Assemblies of God pastor Andrew Evans established the political party Family First, and was elected to the South Australian upper house. But this moral panic misjudged the appeal of religion. Political entrepreneurs like Evans successfully corralled religious voters, but for many of them the appeal of religion was as a technology of self-governance.