I was going to give Donald a day off but came across this article from The Daily Telegraph on Drudge of all places, under the heading Trump Down Under. The same zombie Murdoch press that has brought us Malcolm as PM is using its resources to oppose Trump for President. I actually noticed the moment in the press conference yesterday when Trump held his two fingers up which was actually a gesture of no significance. But it did occur to me that if you were the sort of media organisation that liked to run anti-Trump stories, and of course if you were either in England or Australia since the gesture has no negative meaning in North America, then there it was. But then again, there it was when Churchill was doing the same during the war.
Who needed more proof that Malcolm is to the left of the Greens without the slightest evidence he has idea how an economy works or ought to work? Here is something that I spent a good deal of time fighting off when I was working for business, and this was on behalf of the Chamber of Commerce where 90% of it members were small business. This is from Andrew Bolt.
Malcolm Turnbull yesterday triggered a rift with the nation’s peak business group by announcing the introduction of an “effects test” to competition law, allowing small operators to sue larger companies for behaviour that diminishes competition, even if their conduct was not intended to have that effect.
How is that for utter stupidity! You have a supposedly pro-business provision that is universally opposed by business who, you may be sure, know what is good and bad for themselves. I’m sure some small business know-nothing somewhere can be trotted out to say that having a larger competitor charging lower prices is harming their profitability, and no doubt it is. But if we are going to make it illegal to charge a lower price than someone else, the ACCC will never run out of work, as the forces of competition are dulled by one of the most stupid anti-market pieces of legislation you are ever likely to see. Seriously, what evidence is there that Malcolm understands a single thing of importance to Australia’s future? You should go to Andrew’s post to see the comments by Terry McCrann and Stephen Bartholomeusz.
The first of the Trump anti-Hillary ads and it’s on foreign policy where a very large part of the battle for the presidency will be fought. After the last seven years and by then it will be eight, it will undoubtedly be time for a change, and Obama’s former Secretary of State, the woman who oversaw the disaster in Libya and much else, will definitely not bring that change.
It’s hard to imagine how bad Obama’s foreign policy has been. Here in this article by Niall Ferguson we get some of it but hardly even here the full horror of its incompetence and arrogant stupidity. It’s from The Atlantic and titled, Barack Obama’s Revolution in Foreign Policy. The first para sets the scene:
It is a criticism I have heard from more than one person who has worked with President Obama: that he regards himself as the smartest person in the room—any room. Jeffrey Goldberg’s fascinating article reveals that this is a considerable understatement. The president seems to think he is the smartest person in the world, perhaps ever.
And after traipsing through Obama’s deep thoughts on foreign policy, this is where we end.
If you think you are smarter than every foreign-policy expert in the room, any room, then it is tempting to make up your own grand strategy. That is what Obama has done, to an extent that even his critics underestimate. There is no “Obama doctrine”; rather, we see here a full-blown revolution in American foreign policy. And this revolution can be summed up as follows: The foes shall become friends, and the friends foes. . . .
If the arc of history is in fact bending toward Islamic extremism, sectarian conflict, networks of terrorism, and regional nuclear-arms races, then the 44th president will turn out to have been rather less smart than the foreign-policy establishment he so loftily disdains.
A lot of people will die as these forces work themselves out. Some new balance will eventually be established, but the likelihood that it will be anything like what the rest of us would like is very unlikely indeed.
Trump took a big step towards the nomination today in winning Florida and other states. This is by Victor Davis Hanson, Time to Calm Down about Trump. It’s more than that. It is time that the Republican Party took him in and gave him their kindness and attention. The sub-head makes the point:
Trump is crude and politically clueless, but no more so than the Clintons, Sanders — or Obama
I will merely add that working for the Chamber of Commerce I met many like him. They knew everything, and when you have a billion dollars and a boat that’s bigger than my house, it’s not hard to think that way. But I also always knew how wary they were of me. My job was to make their vague capitalist notions fit into a wider economic and social narrative. Few of those at the top of a business conglomerate would have been able to carry on a conversation at Treasury or with the Fair Work Commission. That is what I did. And we were the most free market, anti-Keynesian operation in the whole of employer politics.
Trump is at the top of the league as a business strategist, and has a number of ideas that are sound and others which are not. But his core message works for me. He would have been the perfect Chairman of my Economics Committee. He won’t be a perfect president, but he will be better than any of the others who have sought the nomination on either side. Here is some sound advice from VDH:
I agree that it is disturbing that Trump does not grasp the nature of the nuclear triad, but so far he has not, as has Vice President Biden, claimed that a President FDR went on television in 1929 or, as has President Obama, that the Falklands are better known as the Maldives. His Trump vodka and steaks and eponymous schlock are a window into his narcissistic soul and his lack of concern with integrity; but I’ll say more about the size of his ego when he says he can cool the planet and lower the seas, and that he is the one we’ve all been waiting for — accompanied by Latin mottos and faux-Greek columns. Trump has no team to speak of. Is that because the ego-driven Trump fancies himself a genius in the manner of “I think I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters. I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I’ll tell you right now that I’m gonna think I’m a better political director than my political director.” . . .
Trump is hardly, by current standards, beyond the pale, much less that he is aberrant in U.S. presidential-campaign history. He is or is not as uncouth as Barack Obama, who has mocked the disabled, the wealthy, typical white people, the religious, and the purported clingers, and has compared opponents to Iranian theocrats and said that George W. Bush was “unpatriotic” — all as relish to wrecking America’s health-care system, doubling the national debt, setting race relations back six decades, politicizing federal bureaucracies, ignoring federal law, and leaving the Middle East in shambles and our enemies on the ascendant.
For those who point to Hillary Clinton as a more sober and judicious alternative, they might ask themselves whether the Trump financial shenanigans are on par with the quid pro quo Clinton Foundation scams, or whether the Trump companies are a bigger mess than Hillary’s resets. True, a historical precedent could be set in the current campaign, but that would be if Hillary Clinton was the first presidential candidate indicted before the election, given that all her serial explanations about illegally using a private server to send and receive various classified information have only led to updated and further misleading backtracking, and will continue to do so until she is either charged or, for political reasons, exonerated.
In politics, like war, you go with the army you have.
Who really are authoritarian and violent, the people who wish to change things by convincing others, or the ones who want to stop their opponents from speaking?
Judge Jeanine Pirro delivered a strong endorsement of free speech on her TV show and rebuked those who are attempting to shut down the Donald Trump political rallies during this weekend’s disruptions.
Pirro, a friend of Trump and a former judge and district attorney in the New York City suburb of Westchester County, as well as the 2006 GOP candidate for New York attorney general, is the host of Justice with Judge Jeanine on the Fox News Channel. She is also well known as a foe of Robert Durst.
In her latest “opening statement” on Justice, Pirro denied that Trump’s incendiary rhetoric was responsible for the Chicago chaos (as well as other protests in other cities) and slammed both liberals and Trump’s GOP presidential rivals for piling on with that storyline.
Although I have to admit that the incredible obtuseness that seems to invade normally sensible people is beyond me. Nick Cater has an article in The Oz today on Donald Trump’s primary appeal is that he’s not a politician. This is his point:
The inconvenient truth for the political class is that in so far as Trump exploits hate, the principal object is not Hispanics, Muslims or homosexuals but them. The anger welling up from below is anger directed at urban sophisticates like themselves.
Americans regularly elect presidents who are not part of the political class. Eisenhower was the last, and military leaders are a consistent theme. It is executive experience that is valued, of which Obama has none at all while Trump has a lifetime of running things behind him. So for those who still don’t get it, here’s the list of policy issues that matter.
First border protection. Here’s an article by Victor Davis Hanson, who because he works for National Review, cannot actually say he supports Trump (similar to working for Murdoch), but read the article and imagine him voting for anyone else: The Weirdness of Illegal Immigration. Note the word “if” that runs through the para:
If the border were to be closed, if immigration laws were enforced, if there were some reduction in legal immigration, if entry were to be meritocratic, if we reverted to the melting-pot ideal of assimilation, if we cut –studies courses and jettisoned therapy and ideology for hard science, math, and English language, in just two decades one’s particular ancestry would become irrelevant — the image of Oaxaca would be analogous to having a grandfather from Palermo or cousin from the Azores. In other words, things would work out fine.
Second, the economy. Trump has spent a lifetime creating value for money. The American economy, like so many others, is being ruined by Keynesian Crony Capitalism, where the government decides how to use large proportions of our national savings and determines what ought to be built. The US is heading for a $20 trillion debt if it hasn’t reached it already. Is there seriously anyone else within a thousand miles of being electable who has a greater likelihood of getting the American economy on the right track?
Third, foreign policy. Trump wants to rebuild America’s national defence but is not in the business of nation building in third world countries. He will defend our interests, but with the additional thought that maybe those who America has been defending might chip in a bit in their own defence.
Fourth, he would get to choose the new justices for the Supreme Court. Fifth, he not taken in by global warming. Sixth, has the ability to achieve his agenda because he knows how to get things done. Seventh, represents a return to traditional American values. Eighth, he opposes the thug tactics of the left. Ninth, he is the most non-politically correct politician in years and is unafraid of the American media.
Tenth, he is far and away more likely to win than any other Republican who might be nominated. Ted Cruz would lose to Hillary in a landslide and he is the only alternative. Trump is reconfiguring politics in a way that could renew the American system for a generation in the direction that might actually appeal to a conservative.
If you don’t get it, you don’t get it. But it really should not be that hard to see his appeal. And as for his attitude to violent protest, see the video of Ronald Reagan above for a useful comparison.
Does anyone have any doubt what Trump believes or what he intends to do? Picked up in the comments, the video supposedly shows how Trump is able to get his message across by speaking simply and forcefully. Others apparently speak over the heads of their audience. Trump makes his points in a way that everyone can follow. For those who made the video, this is apparently a bad thing. For me, it is what a leader needs to do.
The German people actually seem to want border protection against invasion by peoples from other cultures, who have no marketable skills in the German economy and who speak languages other than German. Germany Wakes Up to Politics Trump-Style as AfD Takes on Merkel. I am somewhat at a loss to know what the outrageous ideas the AfD has based on the opening of the story.
If you think Donald Trump has some outrageous ideas, wait until you meet Germany’s AfD party.
The Alternative for Germany, to give the party its full name, has shaken up the country’s consensus-driven politics with headline-grabbing policies that include telling Germans to have more children to avoid the need for immigration. Frauke Petry, the AfD’s co-leader, has said that police must “prevent illegal border crossings, using firearms if necessary.”
Like Trump, her rhetoric hasn’t damaged AfD support but rather struck a chord with those disgruntled with the establishment parties, in particular nabbing voters unhappy with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open-door policy for refugees. The party surged to record support in Sunday’s regional elections, taking seats in all three states that voted and boosting its representation to half of Germany’s 16 state assemblies. The AfD had its strongest showing in Saxony-Anhalt with 24.3 percent, making it the second-biggest party in the former communist eastern state, according to TV projections.
The rise of the AfD in Germany mirrors growing support for populist politicians such as National Front leader Marine Le Pen in France and Trump, who has called for banning Muslims from emigrating to the U.S. Like Trump, Petry spars regularly with the media that follows her every word. One German newspaper even ran a quiz asking readers to attribute statements to Trump or Petry.
Donald Trump is now the standard for wrong-headed policy. If he becomes President, you will have to wonder how much longer the US will subsidise the military defense of Europe.
To run for high office you have to at least pretend to care about global warming. There are too many voters on both sides, even on the Republican side, who would make disbelief in AGW the single issue that determined their vote. For me, belief in global warming is as clear a sign of feeblemindedness as I would care to choose. It may be a reality, but it is one for which the evidence is virtually non-existent while the costs of trying to contain our carbon footprint so immense that skepticism is the only answer that makes sense. I therefore googled “Donald Trump and Global Warming” and the following article, from MSNBC, seems to be representative of his views. And what makes this article so fascinating is that the article is trying to prove that Trump really thinks acceptance of AGW is utterly without merit although he is now beginning to pretend that he actually thinks it is important even though he doesn’t really think so. The article was published in February. Here’s the start.
Something unexpected is happening in the Republican presidential field.
Leading GOP candidates once denied the reality of manmade climate change, but now they seem to be softening their posture and subtly embracing it.
Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have long pledged to deepen President Obama’s climate commitments if elected to office. The Republican candidates are still far from believers or political backers of the president’s agenda. But a close parsing of their comments suggest the party of no is becoming the party of maybe – or perhaps even the party of yes.
Take the case of Donald Trump, the billionaire contrarian and big winner of the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday. His denial of climate change has been a centerpiece of his act for years.
Naturally, this is taken as a sign of ignorance and a lack of seriousness about dealing with one of our most important contemporary problems. But even though he is now trying to be more political in how he expresses his views, the folks at MSNBC are not going to be caught out in accepting his more recent statements as his real beliefs.
In tweets between 2012 and early 2015, he called climate change a “con job,” a “canard,” a “hoax,” “bulls**t,” and a concept “created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”
Now, however, Trump wants to be president so has begun to reverse course.
But as his political star has risen, he’s changed his tune on global warming.
He’s walked back his wildest conspiracy theories and toned down his claims that cold weather somehow disproves global warming. He’s also retired some of his most incendiary language (“con job,” “canard”) and wrapped what remains in strong qualifiers.
In January, for example, after relentless mockery from the Sanders campaign, Trump told “Fox & Friends” that his tweet about climate change as a Chinese plot was a “joke.”
So what does Trump say now?
“Obviously, I joke,” he said. “I know much about climate change. I’d be — received environmental awards. And I often joke that this is done for the benefit of China.”
The Republican front-runner still uses the word “hoax,” deploying it on December 30 at a rally in Hilton Head, S.C. But he bookends it in un-Trump-like uncertainty. “A lot of it is a hoax,” he said, according to ThinkProgress, a left-leaning news site “I mean, it’s a money-making industry, OK? It’s a hoax, a lot of it.”
You can trace the change to September, when Trump delivered his most expansive comments on climate change. Speaking with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, he criticized Obama for trying “to solve a problem that I don’t think in any major fashion exists.”
And that is their last word on Trump. The rest of the article shows similar lack of belief on climate change by the other leading Republicans. Trump, however, has been the most consistent and hardline of the lot. Whatever he ends up saying from this point on, you may be sure what he really thinks is what he has most consistently said. If he thought global warming was a con job and bulls**t a year ago, there is nothing that has happened since to have changed his mind.
Law of Markets 