Monthly Archives: April 2020

Why didn’t Malcolm see his removal as a CIA coup?

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From The Age: ‘Trump kept talking over the top of me’: Turnbull recounts tense call. Turnbull has to be the absolute high water mark of political stupidity. Is there anyone more completely dense who has ever been a political leader anywhere. Read this and wonder.

A furious Donald Trump berated then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull over a deal to resettle hundreds of refugees, only to joke about the agreement months later by claiming 2000 “terrorists” would come to America.

The US President swung wildly in the negotiations to resettle asylum seekers from Manus Island and Nauru, in a pattern repeated in volatile talks to give Australia valuable exemptions in Mr Trump’s trade war with China.

Recounting the clashes and compromises in a new memoir, Mr Turnbull tells of a colleague going “white with horror” at Mr Trump’s ferocity about the refugee deal in a notorious phone conversation in January 2017….

“As his anger rose, Trump kept talking over the top of me, with more intensity,” Mr Turnbull writes of the phone call.

“It was as though at times he was talking to himself or perhaps to the people in the room, which of course included [then presidential adviser] Steve Bannon, one of the deal’s fiercest opponents.

“At one point, I looked up from the phone across my desk to [senior adviser] David Bold – his face was white with horror – so I turned to look out the window instead.”…

When Mr Trump asked his wife, Melania, to join the talks, he joked with Mr Turnbull about the refugee deal he had been so angry about months earlier.

“Melania, do you know, Malcolm has 2000 of the worst terrorists in the world locked up on a desert island and that fool Obama agreed to take them?” Mr Trump said, according to the new memoir.

“And now Malcolm has talked me into taking them, too.”

Mr Turnbull notes that while the conversation was “surreal”, the deal meant refugees would soon begin leaving the islands to resettle in the US….

“So, you’ve been having a little fun at my expense, Malcolm?” he said, according to Mr Turnbull’s account. “It’s not bad. Lots of people think you are better than Alec Baldwin.”

As French President Emmanuel Macron listened, Mr Turnbull told Mr Trump – “wearily” – that the refugees were not terrorists.

“Oh, yes, they are,” Mr Trump replied, in Mr Turnbull’s account. “They are the worst, and that fool Obama – the worst president EVER – agreed to take them to America. Can you believe that? Would you take them, Emmanuel?”

Mr Turnbull says the French President opened his mouth but did not say anything.

Mr Turnbull concludes that Trump is a “radical” and “populist” leader whose deliberate unpredictability generates fear and anxiety in other nations rather than respect for American strength.

The only reason we can rule out a CIA coup is that everything Malcolm stood for is part of the American Deep State agenda.

ILLUSTRATING THE POLITICAL DIVIDE: It is worth having a look at the comments section on this post at The Age. This is the comment which was selected by the others as “most respected”.

It’s all part of the job, as MT would have known this before he took it on. The American people did elect a lunatic and our far right wing politicians see Trump’s behaviour as pretty good, that is, anything you can get away while still holding the treasury benches is okay. Democracy is such a lottery, anyone can nominate and when they get elected their true traits come out. In Canberra Malcolm was from a different universe, well educated and successful while so many of the career MPs have done little else since they landed a ministerial adviser job at age 25 or so. These people no nothing about dealing with ‘normal’ human beings – they see everything from the prism of the Canberra bubble. My hope is the Libs and Nats implode – what a nice thought!

What overlap is there with people who see things this way? Unbelievably ignorant, with not an ounce of common sense or understanding of anything. But they’re there, and in large numbers too. Useful idiots though they may be, they will yet doom us to perdition.

Good for you Scott

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As he goes from blunder to blunder, his sure-footed errors have reinforced in my mind that our Scott Morrison has been following an internationally-determined road map that has nothing to do with our circumstances here in Australia.

So to thank the Prime Minister for his work I have set up up the #GoodForYouScott twitter account, which may be better recognised by its short-form version, GFYS.

The CCP virus

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https://twitter.com/peterjhasson/status/1251316281422295043

Will that work better? Is that non-racist enough?

Meanwhile: CCP Arrests HK Leaders While World Watches COVID.

What is perhaps the most astonishing, as well as the most disgusting part of all this is how ignorant and stupid the American media is, along with the entire left side of the American political structure. There is nothing racist by noting that a pandemic that arose in China had Chinese origins. What is racist is to declare that someone is racist for mentioning it. In that one shift in the conversation, the attempt is to shift the focus from one of geography to race. Who then are the racists other than the ideological driven socialists and media scribes whose aim is to bring a CCP political system to the West.

Really, these people are sick in the head. The media in the US are siding with the Communist Party of China against their own democratically elected government and their democratically elected president. Just exactly what do these media morons see in the governance of China that they would like to see introduced into the United States? Why don’t they fear the Chinese political system as much as they pretend to fear the CCP virus?

The American left is a toxic brew of ignorance and stupidity. If they do not see that this virus almost certainly escaped from a biological weapons facility run by the government of China inside China, their judgement is impaired by an ideological form of idiocy that may be more incurable than the CCP virus itself, with longer lasting and more harmful effects as well.

But in spite of all that there is this: The world begins to “social distance” itself from China in the wake of the pandemic.

As nations around the world struggle to deal with outbreaks of the Wuhan coronavirus, China is now experiencing the first phase of what could be considered social distancing on an international scale.

Where we end up from here is anyone’s guess, but the likelihood is growing that there will be widespread understanding of where this viral environment began, in spite of every effort by our corrupt and ignorant media to point the finger elsewhere.

The left could not care less about you other than your vote

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Consecutive articles at Lucianne.com.

Why Trump Will Win the
Post-Pandemic Election
American Spectator, by David Catron Original Article
It is by now obvious that the Democrats are determined to exploit the COVID-19 pandemic in a last desperate attempt to get the president. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has launched yet another Trump investigation, said his call to reopen the economy is “sinful,” and colluded with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to block the GOP effort to pass financial aid without which even more Americans will lose their jobs. Meanwhile, the nation’s Democratic governors refuse to ease their job-killing lockdowns, despite indications that the spread of COVID-19 has already passed its peak. The Democrats clearly hope that the resultant recession will cause Trump to lose in November.
–
The Pelosi Recession
Washington Free Beacon, by Editors Original Article
As another five million people flood the unemployment system, the country faces a classic whodunit: Who killed the U.S. economy? The novel coronavirus must bear some of the blame. Social distancing has pushed millions of consumers and producers into their homes. A temporary societal shutdown means a temporary economic contraction. But the length of the recession—whether the economy bounces back post-shutdown, or whether we lose another decade of growth—is as much about government as the conditions on the ground.

.
And bear in mind that the whole world has been turned upside with almost entirely the sole purpose being to defeat Donald Trump in the election in November. We would have had the virus anyway, because of Wuhan and the coverup by the Chinese government, but the over-reaction was entirely an American thing. But first the American left needed to work out how to confect the story. Here, is Nancy Peolosi saying there was nothing in it when Donald Trump had suggested there was and had cut off travel to the US from China.

https://twitter.com/hollandcourtney/status/1250560991969988608

And when that went nowhere as an election issue the Dems went for how derelict Trump had been in reacting to the virus too late. The leadership on the left is not just filled with stupid and harmful ideas. They are actually evil and will literally do anything it takes to gain power, which is their sole interest.

Make sure you watch the video while you still can since Pelosi is doing what she can to ensure no one else ever again is able to.

And for added emphasis:

Something to remind us how repulsive Democrats are

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Consecutive articles at Lucianne.com.

Why Trump Will Win the
Post-Pandemic Election
American Spectator, by David Catron Original Article
It is by now obvious that the Democrats are determined to exploit the COVID-19 pandemic in a last desperate attempt to get the president. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has launched yet another Trump investigation, said his call to reopen the economy is “sinful,” and colluded with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to block the GOP effort to pass financial aid without which even more Americans will lose their jobs. Meanwhile, the nation’s Democratic governors refuse to ease their job-killing lockdowns, despite indications that the spread of COVID-19 has already passed its peak. The Democrats clearly hope that the resultant recession will cause Trump to lose in November.
–
The Pelosi Recession
Washington Free Beacon, by Editors Original Article
As another five million people flood the unemployment system, the country faces a classic whodunit: Who killed the U.S. economy? The novel coronavirus must bear some of the blame. Social distancing has pushed millions of consumers and producers into their homes. A temporary societal shutdown means a temporary economic contraction. But the length of the recession—whether the economy bounces back post-shutdown, or whether we lose another decade of growth—is as much about government as the conditions on the ground.

And bear in mind that the whole world has been turned upside down for the sole purpose of trying to defeat Donald Trump in the election in November. We would have had the virus anyway, because of Wuhan and the coverup by the Chinese government, but the over-reaction was entirely an American thing. Here, first, is Nancy Peolosi saying there was nothing in it when Donald Trump had suggested there was and had cut off travel to the US from China.

https://twitter.com/hollandcourtney/status/1250560991969988608

And when that went nowhere as an election issue the Dems went for how derelict Trump had been in reacting to the virus too late. The leadership on the left is not just filled with stupid and harmful ideas. They are actually evil and will literally do anything it takes to gain power, which is their sole interest.

Make sure you watch the video while you still can since Pelosi is doing what she can to ensure no one else sees it.

Who will guard us from the guardians?

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Not Malcolm Turnbull, that’s for sure.

I posted what you see below in February 27, 2015 just as Malcolm was about to overturn Tony Abbott as Prime Minister: I would never vote for a Coalition led by Malcolm Turnbull. It turned out that I would vote for Malcolm Turnbull when he led the Coalition, but everything else below remains unchanged. And to all this we can add this new revelation discussed by Andrew Bolt in the video above which is a revelation from Malcom’s new book: it was he who encouraged The Guardian to open an Australian edition. Why would he even say it if he wanted to have an ounce of influence on the side he once led. Only because he is an even bigger fool than most of us had already believed he is.

Going even further, more evidence that the Libs have a rotten core of funders and MPs is also highlighted in the video if one listens to Fiona Scott, a Coalition MP from New South Wales. She is barely capable of saying anything negative about Malcolm, even now, even with everything we know.

Below, however, goes back to my post from 2015 in which the only change I can think of is that my views have hardened a great deal further since then.

Andrew Bolt says that Malcolm Turnbull is about to have his final go at taking over the leadership of the Liberal Party by Tuesday, so that it is now or never to make our views known (see here, here and here).

When I used to work in Canberra, our offices backed onto the Liberal Party headquarters, and I was asked one time, even before Malcolm entered Parliament, what I thought about him. My answer was that if I was in the constituency that would decide the fate of the next election, and my vote was the one that would put him in or out, that I would hesitate about which way to go. That was then. Today I would have no doubt. The reasons.

Peter Wright For me, national security is the ultimate issue in any election. There are always international issues that matter, and they weigh heavy with me. All but forgotten today, The Spycatcher Trial was one of those moments I do not forget. Wright was an MI5 agent who set out to write a tell-all/reveal-all of the English intelligence service. Margaret Thatcher sought to prevent the publication of his book, and the final determination was in a court in Tasmania, in which Malcolm Turnbull sought to defend Wright and ultimately was successful in allowing the book to be published worldwide because it could be published in Australia. I was told then that everyone deserves the best defence and etc etc, but if Malcolm has ever said that he defended Wright even though he was treasonous scum, I haven’t heard it. I would never trust Turnbull on any national security issue, and there is nothing more important at the present time.

He’s a Warmist Anyone soft-headed enough to take in the Global Warming scam without at least some doubts is not a possessor of the shrewd, sensible, incisive mind I am looking for in a leader. He lost the leadership on this one issue at the time because there are people like me who would never line up behind anyone who believes this stuff needs trillion dollar government solutions to what is looking every day less of a problem.

He’s a Keynesian I once had a conversation with Malcolm over economic issues and mentioned something that I think of instinctively as an issue, the kind of thing Peter Costello put at the centre of his own management of the economy. His response was to walk off. Having watched and listened to him over the years, he has no sense of how an economy works. Given that when he led the Libs he was all set to follow Labor’s lead on the stimulus, and declared that the Coalition would have done much the same, in many ways he owns the problems we have right now.

Useless as a Minister He may be popular with the ABC and others like it, but this is only because he has never done anything of any use that would upset them. If he doesn’t upset the ABC, what could he possibly stand for? What issue has he carried forward as part of the government that has done an ounce of good? If the NBN is his crowning achievement, he has done nothing other than implement Kevin Rudd’s back-of-the-envelope idiocy that will cost us billions and return millions.

He Cannot be Trusted To draw a distinction between himself and the Prime Minister over the Human Rights Commission Report on children in detention not only shows the worst imaginable political judgement, but has him line up with the Government’s enemies. I am a million miles from Canberra right now, but since all and sundry report Turnbull’s treachery, who am I to doubt it. This is a government that needs to survive and win that next election. Abbott is learning how to be a PM on the job, and is actually getting the hang of it. Shame about the wasted first year, but that is now the past.

There is clearly a succession plan in place at the top of the Liberal Party. What may have begun as the second eleven is now starting to function as a very good government. And the PM does not like to lose, and I don’t think he will.

Actually, there is one other matter I should have included but will include now.

Led the Republican Movement He has no idea how we are governed nor the crucial role of the Governor-General in a Parliamentary Democracy. He prefers a system in which a single person makes the rules and everyone else follows the rules this single person has made. Utterly ignorant of the necessary constitutional restraints on a government of the day. Even though a shift to a republic was utterly rejected across the country he remains bitter about the loss. Too shallow to understand any of the deeper issues involved.

Time to open our economies and restore our freedoms

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The difference between Trump and every other world leader that I can see is that he recognises there is a balancing act involved between protection from the harm the virus might do and the immense costs of shutting the economy down. Unlike most others, he is seeking to bring these shutdowns to an end as quickly as possible, unlike say Slo Mo. The Oz front page is Coronavirus Australia live updates: Downturn will hit us like a truck: Morrison. What he intends to do about it is an unknown but it sounds bad. Personally I think it is the decisions he has made that is hitting us like a truck, but perhaps that’s just me.

In the US we now have this: Trump unveils ‘Opening Up America’ plan, aims for May 1. Unlike the pleasures of enjoying the power trips they are on that so many political leaders are in the midst of, Donald Trump seems anxious to get not just the economy back on the road, but to return our lives to the previous normal, or as close as we can.

President Trump on Thursday announced new guidelines for reopening states as soon as May 1 now that the coronavirus appears to be peaking in the US, but he left the decision up to each state’s governor while recommending criteria that would have to be met for each to gradually reopen.

“America wants to be open, and Americans want to be open,” Trump said at the White House during the daily Coronavirus Task Force press briefing.

“Based on the latest data, our team of experts agree we can start the next front in our war, which we are calling Opening Up America Again, and that is what we are doing, opening up our country, and we have to do that.”

You can see the details of his plan at the link. You can also see where we are at the moment in relation to this virus.

This graph shows new cases of COVID-19 in Australia by date of notification. See the Description field on the publication page for a full description.

The above is the Australian experience. Here is a description of the international experience which is identical, which was an article Currency Lad linked to yesterday.

“Is the coronavirus expansion exponential? The answer by the numbers is simple: no. Expansion begins exponentially but fades quickly after about eight weeks.” …

Professor Yitzhak Ben Israel of Tel Aviv University, who also serves on the research and development advisory board for Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, plotted the rates of new coronavirus infections of the U.S., U.K., Sweden, Italy, Israel, Switzerland, France, Germany, and Spain. The numbers told a shocking story: irrespective of whether the country quarantined like Israel, or went about business as usual like Sweden, coronavirus peaked and subsided in the exact same way. In the exact, same, way. His graphs show that all countries experienced seemingly identical coronavirus infection patterns, with the number of infected peaking in the sixth week and rapidly subsiding by the eighth week….

The data from the past 50 days indicates that the closure policies of the quarantine countries can be replaced by more moderate social distancing policies. The numbers simply do not support quarantine or economic closure.

Madness on steroids. I can see we will need a staged recovery for our political leaders from the delusions they have been indulging in over how significant their decisions have been, when all they have done is copied from everyone else in how much of a police state they could erect. Time they started thinking about bringing all this to an end.

THIS NOW IN: From Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit:

AND YES, I KNOW, A LOT OF PEOPLE ARE VIEWING TRUMP’S DECLARATION AS A HOPEFUL SIGN. I SEE IT AS HIS CONTINUING TO ALLOW US TO BE GOVERNED BY SCIENTISTS WITH PRETTY CHARTS. BECAUSE THAT WORKED SO WELL FOR THE USSR:  Trump bows to bureaucrats, unveils a never-ending 3-phase program to end shutdowns.

They didn’t close us gradually. They can reopen like they closed.

Also, am I the only one who still remembers this was ALL about “bending the curve” which apparently auto-bent (because three weeks of isolation would be when it started to bend, but instead it never spiked. Even with all the dubious diagnostics and highly exaggerated “deaths.”)

SERIOUSLY people go outside. Being locked indoors with the MSM leads to strange amnesia and hysteria.

I still assume that Trump has been in part guided by a series of screaming meemies* among his own side of the political divide.

* Knew the phrase since I was a lad, but looked it up to see how it was spelled. Turned out “origin, originally used of German shells in World War I”. I find that both fascinating and charming.

“Only by acting collectively … will be be able to protect personal liberty”

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This was a posting at the History of Economics discussion forum which I find both very revealing in the state of mind it displays but also in how he connects the reaction to the coronavirus with global warming. I intend to put up my own comment but thought I would see what the reaction of others here might be.

Of course, with the spread of the COVID virus, I have been thinking of the libertarian arguments of the constraints of government on liberty. But now the constraint on liberty is not from the government but from nature where one’s individual actions can harm others. I would assume that for a responsible libertarian, they would recognize their behavior affects the liberty (health) of another, and change their behavior. Besides having rights, liberty also means individual responsibility to protect the liberty of others from one’s actions.
But what if individuals don’t and add to the tragedy of the commons?

If one believes ecological economists, individual constraints are going to increase with global warming. It is only by acting collectively to control global warming that we will be able to protect personal liberty from the constraints that nature will force on us. The point I’m getting at is that besides demanding rights, individuals need to act responsibly. If not, then collective action needs to step in to protect the common good. The libertarian argument for me has only made sense if individuals besides demanding rights are also willing to respect and act to protect the rights of others. If not, you get too many tragedies of the commons.

I will only say this is to me a true example of the depths to which economic theory has fallen.

“The numbers simply do not support quarantine or economic closure”

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This graph shows new cases of COVID-19 in Australia by date of notification. See the Description field on the publication page for a full description.

The above is the Australian experience. Here is a description of the international experience which is identical.

“Is the coronavirus expansion exponential? The answer by the numbers is simple: no. Expansion begins exponentially but fades quickly after about eight weeks.” …

Professor Yitzhak Ben Israel of Tel Aviv University, who also serves on the research and development advisory board for Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, plotted the rates of new coronavirus infections of the U.S., U.K., Sweden, Italy, Israel, Switzerland, France, Germany, and Spain. The numbers told a shocking story: irrespective of whether the country quarantined like Israel, or went about business as usual like Sweden, coronavirus peaked and subsided in the exact same way. In the exact, same, way. His graphs show that all countries experienced seemingly identical coronavirus infection patterns, with the number of infected peaking in the sixth week and rapidly subsiding by the eighth week….

The data from the past 50 days indicates that the closure policies of the quarantine countries can be replaced by more moderate social distancing policies. The numbers simply do not support quarantine or economic closure.

Madness on steroids.