Yearly Archives: 2016

“Do not follow our lead in terms of politics and do not follow our lead in terms of the fourth estate”

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Why is that? “Because we are losing morality and courage in covering and holding politicians accountable.”

She is the former political director at CNN [!], on Q&A yesterday. She describes a corrupt political system drenched in money. To which she adds: “The problem is this. Over the course of the last eight years, that we have government officials threatening journalists, that we have journalists not doing their jobs in terms of coverage”. What happened eight years ago that changed all that, do you think? Listen to it all.

Via Andrew Bolt

Political idiots

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decius-mus

LIQ is not the only Roman with a view on this election. This is by Publius Decius Mus and the people he describes are everywhere to be seen:

To be a conservative or a Republican and to sit it out, or to criticize Trump, is in this circumstance to favor Hillary. That’s just a fact. Trump is the underdog and needs all the help he can get. Every defection or abandonment hurts him and makes it more likely that she will win. If she wins, she will be a disaster for the right and for the country—on precisely the terms that many others have always said she would. I therefore find it mind boggling that they could do anything, however slight, that might help her win.

These people are idiots, disgusting low-life political morons. It really is impossible to describe the imbecilic pomposity of anyone who takes an even-handed weighing up of both sides in the election this year, never mind those sunshine conservatives who are all-in for Hillary. Are they really that stupid, that out of it? If Hillary wins, there is no coming back.

Is there nothing these people don’t corrupt?

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In this case, we are talking about polling. The aim is to get people voting for Republicans not to bother since it’s all over. This is from Zero Hedge: New Podesta Email Exposes Dem Playbook For Rigging Polls Through “Oversamples”.

Now, for all of you out there who still aren’t convinced that the polls are “adjusted”, we present to you the following Podesta email, leaked earlier today, that conveniently spells out, in detail, exactly how to “manufacture” the desired data. The email starts out with a request for recommendations on “oversamples for polling” in order to “maximize what we get out of our media polling.”

I also want to get your Atlas folks to recommend oversamples for our polling before we start in February. By market, regions, etc. I want to get this all compiled into one set of recommendations so we can maximize what we get out of our media polling.

The email even includes a handy, 37-page guide with the following poll-rigging recommendations. In Arizona, over sampling of Hispanics and Native Americans is highly recommended:

Research, microtargeting & polling projects

– Over-sample Hispanics

– Use Spanish language interviewing. (Monolingual Spanish-speaking voters are among the lowest turnout Democratic targets)

– Over-sample the Native American population

For Florida, the report recommends “consistently monitoring” samples to makes sure they’re “not too old” and “has enough African American and Hispanic voters.” Meanwhile, “independent” voters in Tampa and Orlando are apparently more dem friendly so the report suggests filling up independent quotas in those cities first.

– Consistently monitor the sample to ensure it is not too old, and that it has enough African American and Hispanic voters to reflect the state.

– On Independents: Tampa and Orlando are better persuasion targets than north or south Florida (check your polls before concluding this). If there are budget questions or oversamples, make sure that Tampa and Orlando are included first.

Meanwhile, it’s suggested that national polls over sample “key districts / regions” and “ethnic” groups “as needed.”

– General election benchmark, 800 sample, with potential over samples in key districts/regions

– Benchmark polling in targeted races, with ethnic over samples as needed

– Targeting tracking polls in key races, with ethnic over samples as needed

The aim is to have the poll record as closely as possible the outcome they are intending to rig on the day. And what may be the most astonishing part is that were it not for the leaked emails, no one would have heard a thing about any of this even though hundreds of people must be in on the scam.

“The ‘most substantial threat’ to press freedom in his five decades”

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facial-discrimination-act

I will start with this from the papers today: Bill Leak cartoon probe biggest threat to press freedom.

Media proprietor Kerry Stokes has launched a blistering attack on a controversial ­investigation by the Australian Human Rights Commission over a cartoon by The Australian’s Bill Leak portraying an Aboriginal father and son.

Mr Stokes, the Seven Group executive chairman, said the probe was the “most substantial threat” to press freedom in his five decades of owning and running media businesses.

And then there is John Spooner, himself a cartoonist, asking why should a satirist like Bill Leak be forced to explain himself?. His advice:

Rather than argue against the government’s right to interfere with our freedom (they can legitimately do so in cases of criminal conspiracy for example) Leak should defend himself if possible with satire.

He should force everyone to focus on the dangerous overreach of section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. After all the right to offend and insult are, in part, necessary ingredients of serious argument. How else can we combat racism? And don’t tell me about exemptions in 18D. The overall intent of the act is intimidatory. You need an expensive lawyer to rid yourself of the stigma of prosecution. Look at history. Read Ben Wilson’s The Laughter of Triumph, a life of William Hone, friend of William Hazlitt, publisher of the great cartoonist George Cruikshank, and admired by Charles Dickens.

Hone should be famous. In 1817 he courageously defended himself against charges of blasphemy and seditious libel; over a satire that offended and insulted many people. He wrote a parody of the Book of Common Prayer and the Athanasian Creed. He also libelled the Prince Regent and his corrupt government for good measure. A jury acquitted him to great public acclaim.

And to add to the defence, Mark Steyn has also again weighed in on our Human (Last) Rites Commission: Punching Back Twice as Hard (Oz version).

I’m glad to see, following the latest attempt to use Australia’s disgraceful Section 18C to throttle freedom of speech Down Under, that The Australian’s Bill Leak is introducing the concept to the Antipodes. His latest cartoon (above) features Tim Soutphommasane, the totalitarian hack who trousers a third of a million a year as Oz’s “Racial Discrimination” Commissar. Mr Leak invites Commissar Tim Jong-Un to sue him for “facial discrimination”.

Free speech should mean you can say anything you want short of incitement to violence – or, if you like, shouting “fire” in a crowded theatre – without the full weight of the law falling on your head, in fact without even the most minimal weight of the law falling on your head. According to the online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, under the entry Freedom of Speech, there is a lengthy discussion of the Andrew Bolt case and human rights in Australia. And in spite of Spooner’s advice, I will mention this since it seems important. According to the entry, in Australia, apparently 18C is delimited by 18D, which states:

Section 18C does not render unlawful anything said or done reasonably and in good faith: (a) in the performance, exhibition or distribution of an artistic work; or (b) in the course of any statement, publication, discussion or debate made or held for any genuine academic, artistic or scientific purpose or any other genuine purpose in the public interest; or (c) in the making or publishing: (i) a fair and accurate report of any event or matter of public interest; or (ii) a fair comment on any matter of public interest if the comment is an expression of a genuine belief held by the person making the comment.

This attack on Bill Leak really does look like an underemployed HRC Commissioner trying to find some purpose in life, as discussed in August in The Oz: Tim Soutphommasane may be drumming up work as race hate cases fall.

When it comes to discrimination, context is everything. Words that might appear completely innocent can take on a very different character when the full context is understood.

Which brings me to the words of Tim Soutphommasane, the Race Discrimination Commissioner who encouraged people to complain about a cartoon by Bill Leak that appeared in this newspaper.

The commissioner advised the public that complaints should be directed to the organisation where he works, the Australian Human Rights Commission.

His attempt to drum up work for the commission was followed by a torrent of abuse against Leak, whose cartoon depicted an Aboriginal policeman returning a delinquent Aboriginal youth to his equally delinquent father. On Soutphommasane’s Facebook page, the commissioner reproduced Leak’s cartoon and invoked the heads of liability in section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act: “If there are Aboriginal Australians who have been racially ­offended, insulted, humiliated or intimidated, they can consider lodging a complaint under the ­Racial Discrimination Act with the commission.”

He had seemingly prejudged those complaints, which raises doubts about whether the commission itself can now deal fairly with this affair.

It appears to be his job to be offended on behalf of the community. If no one else will take offence, then he will just have to do it himself. But to be quite frank, when it comes to being offended by what other people write and say, I would rather do it myself. I don’t need or want some government agency to do it on my behalf.

WILLIAM HONE ADDITION: From areff in the comments who guides us to this book on Hone: The Triumph of Laughter. This is the description of the book at Amazon and perfectly parallel to our own situation, except that this is the supposedly more enlightened 2016 and that was back in the Dark Ages of 1817.

William Hone is the forgotten hero of the British Press. In 1817 he was compelled to defend himself against a government determined to enforce censorship. His fellow journalists, opposition MPs and the ministers believed that a verdict against Hone would silence all critical voices. It was a show trial, and Hone – a self-educated and obscure Fleet Street journalist who had to defend himself against the Lord Chief Justice and the Attorney General and in front of a jury hand-picked by the ministry – was the underdog, a supposedly easy victim for the state. Hone’s crime was ridiculing the government. He was a noted satirist, who used laughter as a weapon to destroy censorship. His humour captured the imagination of the public; his satires sold in the hundreds of thousands. They were symbols of resistance for an angry public and were genuinely feared by his enemies. The Laughter of Triumph looks at the history of the struggle for free expression against repressive laws through the life of William Hone. Could the state push the law so far that humour was a crime? Or was it the only way to subvert censorship? As Hone implored his jury on the second day of his trials, ‘Is a laugh treason? Surely not.’

What do we have in common anymore?

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I stopped reading Jonah Goldberg’s pseudo-conservative nonsense ages ago – it’s been literally a decade – and have thought of him as irrelevant to anything that matters for a long long time. He has nothing to teach me about anything I think of as important. But here is something that begins with an attack on JG, but which has a much more important message. It’s titled, Seven Degrees of Jonah Goldberg, but is dealing with an entire disease, not the particular carrier who’s named in the article title. It is by the highly insightful Publius Decius Mus who has been cited here twice before. You can find his other articles referenced at the link. Here is the problem that the official conservative battalions have failed to achieve.

We failed to preserve a true understanding the principles of the Declaration of Independence. We failed to preserve the proper working order of the Constitution. We failed to protect and nurture that virtue in the people necessary to sustain the Constitution. We failed to defend the family from relentless assault. We failed to maintain any semblance of a shared public morality. We allowed—through a combination of active cheering and ineffective opposition—demographic and cultural replacement. We lent a great deal of our talent to serve rapacious interests in the name of “economic freedom.” All the things we were supposed to conserve—the nation, its people, its way of life, its governing structure—we have not conserved.

This all seems irrefutably clear to me [and me]. Yet official conservatism says I am insane for saying so. So I ask: what do we have in common anymore?

PDM then repeats the exact words he previously wrote, which is again a complete mirror of what I think myself:

If Hillary wins, there will still be a country, in the sense of a geographic territory with a people, a government, and various institutions. Things will mostly look the same, just as—outwardly—Rome changed little on the ascension of Augustus. It will not be tyranny or Caesarism—not yet. But it will represent, in my view, an irreversible triumph for the administrative state. Consider that no president has been denied reelection since 1992. If we can’t beat the Democrats now, what makes anyone think we could in 2020, when they will have all the advantages of incumbency plus four more years of demographic change in their favor? And if we can’t win in 2016 or 2020, what reason is there to hope for 2024? Will the electorate be more Republican? More conservative? Will constitutional norms be stronger?

And to the #NeverTrumpers, he says this, which I agree with more than with all the rest:

To be a conservative or a Republican and to sit it out, or to criticize Trump, is in this circumstance to favor Hillary. That’s just a fact. Trump is the underdog and needs all the help he can get. Every defection or abandonment hurts him and makes it more likely that she will win. If she wins, she will be a disaster for the right and for the country—on precisely the terms that Goldberg and so many others have always said she would. I therefore find it mind boggling that they could do anything, however slight, that might help her win.

It is self-defeating to stress the negatives that Trump brings with him, whatever they may be. So far, there is nothing that has come to my notice for which Hillary is actually superior, not a thing. If your aim is not to see Hillary lose, even if that means that Trump wins, then you are just as much the enemy as Obama himself.

The glacial discrimination act

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facial-discrimination-act

Mark Steyn has again weighed in on our Human (Last) Rites Commission: Punching Back Twice as Hard (Oz version).

I’m glad to see, following the latest attempt to use Australia’s disgraceful Section 18C to throttle freedom of speech Down Under, that The Australian’s Bill Leak is introducing the concept to the Antipodes. His latest cartoon (above) features Tim Soutphommasane, the totalitarian hack who trousers a third of a million a year as Oz’s “Racial Discrimination” Commissar. Mr Leak invites Commissar Tim Jong-Un to sue him for “facial discrimination”.

Free speech should mean you can say anything you want short of incitement to violence – or, if you like, shouting “fire” in a crowded theatre – without the full weight of the law falling on your head, in fact without even the most minimal weight of the law falling on your head. According to the online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, under the entry Freedom of Speech, in Australia, apparently 18C is delimited by 18D, which states:

Section 18C does not render unlawful anything said or done reasonably and in good faith: (a) in the performance, exhibition or distribution of an artistic work; or (b) in the course of any statement, publication, discussion or debate made or held for any genuine academic, artistic or scientific purpose or any other genuine purpose in the public interest; or (c) in the making or publishing: (i) a fair and accurate report of any event or matter of public interest; or (ii) a fair comment on any matter of public interest if the comment is an expression of a genuine belief held by the person making the comment.

This attack on Bill Leak really does look like an underemployed HRC Commissioner trying to find some purpose in life, as discussed in August in The Oz: Tim Soutphommasane may be drumming up work as race hate cases fall.

When it comes to discrimination, context is everything. Words that might appear completely innocent can take on a very different character when the full context is understood.

Which brings me to the words of Tim Soutphommasane, the Race Discrimination Commissioner who encouraged people to complain about a cartoon by Bill Leak that appeared in this newspaper.

The commissioner advised the public that complaints should be directed to the organisation where he works, the Australian Human Rights Commission.

His attempt to drum up work for the commission was followed by a torrent of abuse against Leak, whose cartoon depicted an Aboriginal policeman returning a delinquent Aboriginal youth to his equally delinquent father. On Soutphommasane’s Facebook page, the commissioner reproduced Leak’s cartoon and invoked the heads of liability in section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act: “If there are Aboriginal Australians who have been racially ­offended, insulted, humiliated or intimidated, they can consider lodging a complaint under the ­Racial Discrimination Act with the commission.”

He had seemingly prejudged those complaints, which raises doubts about whether the commission itself can now deal fairly with this affair.

It appears to be his job to be offended on behalf of the community. If no one else will take offence, then he will just have to do it himself.

Contract with the American voter

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Will this be the largest missed opportunity in American history: Trump’s Contract with the American Voter. Anyone who supports Clinton will be forever stained with the stupidity of supporting the imposition of a slave state in place of freedom.

DONALD J. TRUMP CONTRACT WITH THE AMERICAN VOTER

What follows is my 100-day action plan to Make America Great Again. It is a contract between myself and the American voter – and begins with restoring honesty, accountability and change to Washington

Therefore, on the first day of my term of office, my administration will immediately pursue the following six measures to clean up the corruption and special interest collusion in Washington, DC:

● FIRST, propose a Constitutional Amendment to impose term limits on all members of Congress;

● SECOND, a hiring freeze on all federal employees to reduce federal workforce through attrition (exempting military, public safety, and public health);

● THIRD, a requirement that for every new federal regulation, two existing regulations must be eliminated;

● FOURTH, a 5 year-ban on White House and Congressional officials becoming lobbyists after they leave government service;

● FIFTH, a lifetime ban on White House officials lobbying on behalf of a foreign government;

● SIXTH, a complete ban on foreign lobbyists raising money for American elections.

On the same day, I will begin taking the following 7 actions to protect American workers:

 FIRST, I will announce my intention to renegotiate NAFTA or withdraw from the deal under Article 2205

 SECOND, I will announce our withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership

 THIRD, I will direct my Secretary of the Treasury to label China a currency manipulator

 FOURTH, I will direct the Secretary of Commerce and U.S. Trade Representative to identify all foreign trading abuses that unfairly impact American workers and direct them to use every tool under American and international law to end those abuses immediately

 FIFTH, I will lift the restrictions on the production of $50 trillion dollars’ worth of job-producing American energy reserves, including shale, oil, natural gas and clean coal.

 SIXTH, lift the Obama-Clinton roadblocks and allow vital energy infrastructure projects, like the Keystone Pipeline, to move forward

 SEVENTH, cancel billions in payments to U.N. climate change programs and use the money to fix America’s water and environmental infrastructure

Additionally, on the first day, I will take the following five actions to restore security and the constitutional rule of law:

 FIRST, cancel every unconstitutional executive action, memorandum and order issued by President Obama

 SECOND, begin the process of selecting a replacement for Justice Scalia from one of the 20 judges on my list, who will uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States

 THIRD, cancel all federal funding to Sanctuary Cities

 FOURTH, begin removing the more than 2 million criminal illegal immigrants from the country and cancel visas to foreign countries that won’t take them back

 FIFTH, suspend immigration from terror-prone regions where vetting cannot safely occur. All vetting of people coming into our country will be considered extreme vetting.

Next, I will work with Congress to introduce the following broader legislative measures and fight for their passage within the first 100 days of my Administration:

1. Middle Class Tax Relief And Simplification Act. An economic plan designed to grow the economy 4% per year and create at least 25 million new jobs through massive tax reduction and simplification, in combination with trade reform, regulatory relief, and lifting the restrictions on American energy. The largest tax reductions are for the middle class. A middle-class family with 2 children will get a 35% tax cut. The current number of brackets will be reduced from 7 to 3, and tax forms will likewise be greatly simplified.

The business rate will be lowered from 35 to 15 percent, and the trillions of dollars of American corporate money overseas can now be brought back at a 10 percent rate.

2. End The Offshoring Act Establishes tariffs to discourage companies from laying off their workers in order to relocate in other countries and ship their products back to the U.S. tax-free.

3. American Energy & Infrastructure Act. Leverages public-private partnerships, and private investments through tax incentives, to spur $1 trillion in infrastructure investment over 10 years. It is revenue neutral.

4. School Choice And Education Opportunity Act. Redirects education dollars to gives parents the right to send their kid to the public, private, charter, magnet, religious or home school of their choice. Ends common core, brings education supervision to local communities. It expands vocational and technical education, and make 2 and 4-year college more affordable.

5. Repeal and Replace Obamacare Act. Fully repeals Obamacare and replaces it with Health Savings Accounts, the ability to purchase health insurance across state lines, and lets states manage Medicaid funds. Reforms will also include cutting the red tape at the FDA: there are over 4,000 drugs awaiting approval, and we especially want to speed the approval of life-saving medications.

6. Affordable Childcare and Eldercare Act. Allows Americans to deduct childcare and elder care from their taxes, incentivizes employers to provide on-side childcare services, and creates tax-free Dependent Care Savings Accounts for both young and elderly dependents, with matching contributions for low-income families.

7. End Illegal Immigration Act Fully-funds the construction of a wall on our southern border with the full understanding that the country Mexico will be reimbursing the United States for the full cost of such wall; establishes a 2-year mandatory minimum federal prison sentence for illegally re-entering the U.S. after a previous deportation, and a 5-year mandatory minimum for illegally re-entering for those with felony convictions, multiple misdemeanor convictions or two or more prior deportations; also reforms visa rules to enhance penalties for overstaying and to ensure open jobs are offered to American workers first.

8. Restoring Community Safety Act. Reduces surging crime, drugs and violence by creating a Task Force On Violent Crime and increasing funding for programs that train and assist local police; increases resources for federal law enforcement agencies and federal prosecutors to dismantle criminal gangs and put violent offenders behind bars.

9. Restoring National Security Act. Rebuilds our military by eliminating the defense sequester and expanding military investment; provides Veterans with the ability to receive public VA treatment or attend the private doctor of their choice; protects our vital infrastructure from cyber-attack; establishes new screening procedures for immigration to ensure those who are admitted to our country support our people and our values

10. Clean up Corruption in Washington Act. Enacts new ethics reforms to Drain the Swamp and reduce the corrupting influence of special interests on our politics.

On November 8th, Americans will be voting for this 100-day plan to restore prosperity to our economy, security to our communities, and honesty to our government.

This is my pledge to you.

And if we follow these steps, we will once more have a government of, by and for the people.

You can find it all outlined here in detail, but naturally not in an American press but in The Daily Mail: Trump’s ‘Gettysburg address’ where the heading continues, “makes closing argument for choosing him and unveils first-100-days agenda as he promises ‘the kind of change that only arrives once in a lifetime’.”

A summary of the Trump agenda

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Alan Moran has provided a very handy summary of the Trump agenda which follows below.

With Trump leading in four of the most recent seven polls, and Clinton in only one (two being tied), how here’s my take on his policy summaries

ANTI-CORRUPTION TO-DO LIST 

  1. Constitutional Amendment to impose term limits on members of Congress.♥ 
  2. Hiring freeze on federal employees to reduce the workforce through attrition ♥
  3. Requirement to eliminate two federal regulations for every new one ♥
  4. Five-year-ban on White House and Congressional officials becoming lobbyists ♥
  5. Lifetime ban on White House officials lobbying for foreign governments ♥
  6. Complete ban on foreign lobbyists raising money for American elections ♥

IMMIGRATION AND ‘RULE OF LAW’

  1. Cancel Obama’s ‘unconstitutional’ executive actions, memoranda and orders ♥
  2. Pick a conservative replacement for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia ♥
  3. Cancel all federal funding to ‘sanctuary cities’ that harbor illegal immigrants ♥
  4. Begin removing the 2 million criminal illegal immigrants from the U.S., and cancel visas to countries that won’t repatriate them ♥
  5. Suspend immigration from terror-prone regions where incoming people can’t be properly vetted. ♥

PLAN FOR JOBS AND TRADE 

  1. Renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement or withdraw from it. XX
  2. Withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. XX
  3. Order the secretary of the treasury to label China a ‘currency manipulator. XX
  4. Use U.S. and international laws to end foreign trading abuses that unfairly impact American workers XX
  5. Lift restrictions on the production of $50 trillion dollars’ worth of U.S. energy reserves including shale, oil, natural gas and coal. ♥♥
  6. Approve the Keystone XL pipeline project and other ‘vital energy infrastructure projects’ ♥♥
  7. Cancel billions in payments to U.N. climate change programs and use the money to improve U.S. water and environmental infrastructure ♥♥

BILLS HE WOULD PUSH IN HIS FIRST 100 DAYS

  1. ‘Middle Class Tax Relief And Simplification Act’: Economic plan designed to grow the economy 4 per cent per year and create 25 million new jobs. Involves tax cuts, trade reform, regulatory relief, lifting restrictions on energy production, and encouraging companies with offshore funds to bring them back to America.♥

  2. ‘End The Offshoring Act’: New tariffs on goods brought into the U.S. by American companies that relocate jobs outside the U.S. XX

  3. ‘American Energy & Infrastructure Act’: Uses public-private partnerships and tax incentives to generate $1 trillion in infrastructure investment over 10 years ♥

  4. ‘School Choice And Education Opportunity Act’: Redirects education dollars to allow parents to choose any public, private, charter, magnet, religious or home school; ends the ‘Common Core’ federal standards; and expands vocational and technical education ♥

  5. ‘Repeal and Replace Obamacare Act’: Replaces the Affordable Care Act with health savings accounts, removes barriers to purchasing health insurance across state lines, allows states to manage Medicaid funds and speeds up drug approval inside the Food and Drug Administration ♥

  6. ‘Affordable Childcare and Eldercare Act’: Provides tax deductions for childcare and elder care and incentivizes employers to provide on-site childcare services ♥

  7. ‘End Illegal Immigration Act’: Funds a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, ‘with the full understanding that the country of Mexico will be reimbursing the United States’; establishes 2-year mandatory minimum federal prison sentence for illegally re-entering the U.S. after deportation, 5-year mandatory minimum for felons who illegally re-enter, and 5 years for coming back after multiple deportations; increases penalties for overstaying visas ♥

  8. ‘Restoring Community Safety Act’:Creates a Task Force On Violent Crime, increases federal funding of police forces and boosts federal support for anti-gang prosecutions ♥

  9. ‘Restoring National Security Act’:Eliminates the federal defense ‘sequester’ to restore military funding, guarantees veterans the option of private health care if VA facility wait times are long, institutes new defenses against cyber-attacks, and establishes new immigration screening based on ‘values’ ♥

  10. ‘Clean up Corruption in Washington Act’: Enacts new ethics reforms affecting politicians and their staffers ♥

A score of 23 out of 28 is not bad and hopefully his proposed trade protectionist policies will flounder.  Especially good for Australia is the way forward Trump would show in energy policy, especially getting out of the Paris CLIMATE CHANGE agreement, and arresting the stacking of a Supreme Court which has been steadily undermining property rights.

American withdrawal from the climate treaty will unravel the whole of this fraud, leaving only a crisis ridden EU (and Canada) on the train.  In doing so, this will provide licence for the Australian government to wind back the planned 23.5 per cent share for renewable energy with its threefold cost premium and inherent unreliability imposing debilitating effects on the primary and mining industries that are central to our comparative advantage.

Why isn’t everyone on “the right” desperate to see Hillary lose?

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This is from Mark Steyn: Laws are for the Little People.

Like everything else the Clintons touch, Comey’s FBI is hopelessly corrupted – and certainly more corrupt than J Edgar Hoover’s FBI, at least in the sense that Hoover was independent enough not to get rolled. The revelations of what happened reveal Comey to be a hack and a squish: he offered immunity to Hillary’s aides not to facilitate his investigation but to obstruct any further investigation; he allowed witnesses to Hillary’s crimes to serve as her “lawyers”; and he physically destroyed the evidence – that is, the laptops. A 6′ 8″ gummi worm would be more of a straight arrow.

Now come the latest revelations. Powerline’s John Hinderaker writes:

In the first page, an unidentified FBI employee says he was “pressured” to change the classification of an email to render it unclassified. This pressure came from someone within the FBI, who said he had been contacted by Undersecretary of State Patrick Kennedy, who “had asked his assistance in altering the email’s classification in exchange for a ‘quid pro quo.'” The quid pro quo was that, if the FBI would say the email was unclassified, the State Department would allow the FBI to “place more Agents in countries where they are presently forbidden.”

So, to add to the corrupt revenue agency and the corrupt justice department, we now have a corrupt national law enforcement agency and a corrupt foreign ministry – willing, indeed, to subordinate national security and its own diplomatic policy to the personal needs of Hillary Clinton. Needless to say, if you get your news from ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, The Washington Post, The New York Times, etc, etc, you will be entirely unaware of all this. Which is the way they plan on operating for the next eight years.

A small but telling point: Wikileaks’ Julian Assange has lived in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for over four years. But not until he leaked against Hillary was his Internet cut off. Hillary, out of office, has a swifter and more ruthless global reach than Hillary in office on the night of Benghazi. And, should she win, her view of her subjects is that we should have the same information access as Ecuadorian Embassy refugees.

And, should she win, I will delete all of my previous posts and become a registered Democrat. It would be futile to do anything else.

Shotguns at twenty paces

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I have to say that I am unable to follow the rights and wrongs of the specifics in this ridiculous tantrum from the PM in regard to anything related to Tony Abbott. My instincts are always to think that Malcolm has messed things up but this business with who offered who what about guns is a murky question that can only distract. What I am doing, therefore, is to put the issues before the people, that is, to those who comment here. I have taken the four comments from Andrew Bolt’s blog piece, Turnbull vs Abbott: the war is on. I will start with a couple of comments that take the PM’s side, one that is more neutral and then finally one that takes Tony’s side. But I do have to say, to find those who back the PM at Andrew’s site is difficult. Here’s the first:

If Mr Abbott did not know he should have. He is ultimately responsible for his staff and his office. Ignorance is no excuse. If he truly did not know he condemns himself for being slack and incompetent. Of course the reality is that Mr Abbott was being loose with the truth. He has selfishly remained in parliament to act as a lighting rod for a rag tag band of disgruntled Coalition MP’s in order to sabotage his successor and his party in a crazy bid for revenge. After the Leadership farce of the Labor government it would seem obvious that the public will not tolerate such behavior. Unfortunately the Mr Abbott in his quest to do or say anything to regain power has not learned the lessons of recent history. With a one seat majority and disastrous polls it is unlikely that the warring Coalition will last a full term.

And then there’s this:

Abbott gave Turnbull him no choice and in fact I think it was well overdue. Good for Turnbull to make a stand. Abbott “Mr Goody Two Shoes” but skulking in the background and constantly causing issues and creating diversions for his own party. Abbott should go and go fast. It wasn’t Turnbull who dumped him, it was his party and the people of Australia, that’s right, the voters.

This one is more neutral:

They deserve each other.

Neither of them is addressing this issue on the basis of whether it is good law. Neither of them is asking whether it is justified by the evidence.

When John Howard brought it in, it was a piece of bullying – attacking and vilifying g a poorly-understood minority in order to gain political advantage.

Now both Turnbull and Abbott are continuing in the same vein. Either one of them could take the moral high ground by admitting that the policy was mistaken, and pointing to the facts as justification. Neither of them is likely, because the politics of fear and personality take precedence over good government.

Facts

– Formal advice to the Justice Minister is that the Adler is not a matter for public concern.

– This type of firearm has been available and legal in Australia for well over a century, without being a problem.

– The NSW Police have been unable to find even a single crime committed with this firearm over the last 5 years.

– It is not of the type preferred by criminals and cannot be reasonably modified to suit.

– Martin Bryant, Man Monis and Marc and Gino Stocco all acquired their firearms illegally. The problem has never been lack of legislation, but lack of enforcement.

And this one takes Tony’s side.

Had Malcolm Turnbull, when interviewed on this issue Monday from memory, ignored what a Howard or a Hawke would have done, and answered with a simple “no” when the question was put to him, all this that has followed would have been avoided.

The government, with Turnbull to his credit and his willingness to prosecute a core Liberal Party ideal at last trying to get the critical ABCC Statute through and obtain the first real, and to be objective a substantial piece of real reform, albeit yet another Abbott era policy and initiated policy, Turnbull could have dominated the rabble of the alternative ALP Opposition and really won the week and the political optics.

Yet Turnbull’s mouth, his non political smarts again deserted him. The default when answering ANY questions to Barrister style verbosity is not only an own goal, it does not help Turnbull in an era where cut through delivery is the name of the game, more so nowadays in the gotcha 24/7 media cycle.

If Credlin says Abbott was not aware of this issue then that is it in my opinion. Given her power, the micro managing, her over reaching remit as Chief of Staff, there is simply no way arguably Abbott is not telling the truth even if some documented evidence exists. The Press Gallery know full well how Minister’s and the PMO works.

A Senior Advisor’s emails to the PMO [if it was a SA] would have – should have ended up with their PMO counterpart, and then forwarded on to the Chief of Staff. There are internal staffing protocols that have existed for decades, period.

The Gallery again have invoked the term “smoking gun” as they try yet again to tear at their nemesis, the MP they loathe and want kicked out of public life, Abbott.

The lack of critical commentary on their messiah’s consistent, now systemic inability to give short, concise and cut through answers is again missing. Hypocrisy and ‘barracking’ is still all the collective way for the Turnbull Gallery cheer squad.

The thumping of the desks applause from the backbench [some of it] for Abbott last night would have the Oakes and crew in a furious rage. Abbott rising is like arsenic for the Gallery elites.

Turnbull needs to more disciplined. He also needs to stop traducing a man who has since being deposed acted reasonably, when he could have done real damage if he was so inclined.

Showing Abbott even a modicum of decency and respect has been absent since the day Turnbull took over the leadership.

If these two Leaders worked together they’d be a solid team, and would, could demolish this Shorten led social engineering rabble.

Abbott is not blame free in all this if one is objective.

Seriously, who in their right mind wants Wong as Foreign Affairs Minister or Dreyfus anywhere near the AGs Department.

This really is a mess thast must be addressed, and given Turnbull has had this morning his senior NSW wets put up a ‘pushing back Party reform again’ in NSW for this weekends meeting, Turnbull and his ideological leftists like Sinodinas, the inept Payne and Hawke have just thrown gasoline on the fire.

Turnbull really needs to get out more and listen to the base of this party he leads cos everything he has and has not done to date just hammers home the political optics of a PM who is so very uncomfortable leading a centre right political party.