Monthly Archives: October 2020

The greatest political show on earth

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This was just today, from Wisconsin. Watch at least ten minutes and if you’ve had enough then you will have seen most of what you need to see but there’s lots more later. There is never a dull moment the whole way though.

I naturally made the whole hour and ten minutes, but that’s me. More energy than any other political rally you will ever see from anyone else. I think he’s tired, but I also think he is convinced they are going to win. But the world is mad enough and there are fools enough everywhere.

Supposedly conservative media judgement in the US election

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The media with few exceptions is all-in for Joe Biden. Biden was chosen for a number of reasons but part of it I think is to pick someone so unelectable that when he won it would be more than just a preference for, but an absolute declaration of how bad Donald Trump is. Biden is the ultimate anti-Trump candidate since there is nothing there to vote for. A choice for fools and idiots. Incomprehensible why anyone would prefer Biden, but there we are. Nevertheless, let’s look at two of the more well known of the magazines one might once have included on the right side of politics.

Let’s start here with the late William F. Buckley’s National Review as he spins in his grave: Hell, No – “The case against Trump in 2020 is a lot like the case against Trump in 2016 but bolstered by the accumulation of evidence and experience.” The entire article lacks any seriously coherent thread, but the shame is on the magazine for even including it in its pages. I will try to find a sample of what he argues that makes at least a veneer of sense.

One of the many perversities of Trump’s presidency is that Donald J. Trump’s core deficiencies as a chief administrator — his ignorance and his laziness — are the chief practical virtues of his presidency. He doesn’t know what he doesn’t know and doesn’t want to know, and this has created the opportunity for some of the people in his administration to get some useful things done. For this reason, the conservative advances that have accompanied the Trump presidency (and it won’t do to pretend that these do not exist) mostly have been in the fields in which the president has the least engagement and interest, whereas the catastrophes of the Trump presidency (and it won’t do to pretend that these do not exist) are strongly associated with those few areas of policy in which he takes an active interest or is personally and strongly engaged with ex officio….

The Trump administration has succeeded most where Trump has the least to do with it. The nat-pops may turn up their noses at “Conservative Inc.” but that is who has delivered such benefits as we have received from the Trump administration. All Peter Navarro and the rest of those crackpots has done is bankrupt a lot of farmers and drive up the expenses of beer brewers and manufacturers.

Make of that what you will. The case against Trump must be the Case for Biden. And here we have The Economist stepping up to the plate: Why it has to be Joe Biden.

Insert a clear and simple description of the image

Our cover this week  sets out why, if we had a vote, it would go to Joe Biden. The country that elected Donald Trump in 2016 was unhappy and divided. The country he is asking to re-elect him is more unhappy and more divided. After almost four years of his leadership, politics is even angrier than it was and partisanship even less constrained. Daily life is consumed by a pandemic that has caused almost 230,000 reported deaths amid bickering, buck-passing and lies. Much of that is Mr Trump’s doing and his victory on November 3rd would endorse it all. Mr Biden is Mr Trump’s antithesis. He is not a miracle cure for what ails America. But he is a good man who would restore steadiness and civility to the presidency. Were he to be elected, success would not be guaranteed—how could it be? But he would enter the White House promising the most precious gift that democracies can bestow: renewal.

This election is a political judgement test and like most of the media, The Economist has failed badly. If there is a case for Biden, it has not yet been made. If I hadn’t long ago cancelled my subs to these publications, I would do it again right now.

I’m nervous but hopeful

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Stark choices before us ends as follows.

Once at the dinner table, my late mother-in-law (OBM), opined that Adlai Stevenson was divorced and, therefore, had not been fit to lead. Her husband (OBM) sharply replied, “Madam, you recently flew to Israel. Did you ascertain whether or not your pilot was divorced?” She got it right away and laughed uproariously at herself. She was a pip.

Donald J. Trump is piloting us out of the Swamp, away from the existential threat of socialism. He will win next Tuesday. Put your champagne on ice. He will win because Americans will see to it. All the celebrities in Hollywood could scarcely populate a small town in Texas. The NBA and NFL, likewise. Americans value liberty; we will see to our own safety.

There are, unfortunately, all kinds of people who prefer safety to freedom. This I well know since my country of origin took them in as “United Empire Loyalists”. I just hope the descendants of those who stayed behind are numerous enough and resolute enough to maintain the freedoms they fought for then and have defended ever since.

I might add that Adlai Stevenson, Democrat though he was, was to the right of Donald Trump as he is today, not that it matters in the least.

Who’s this chap Bobulinski?

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All from Lucianne.com this morning. The evidence of deep corruption across the American political system is a phenomenon with the media all in and as deep as they can be. There was already so much to cover up and then this Bobulinski thing shows up. The package has now been located and whatever was sent would with certainty have already been copied. Nevertheless, it is all out in the open with half of America happy to be protected from positive news about the President and from negative news about Biden.

Did I mention that even talking about Covid, which is hardly political you would think, is impossible with friends who vote left? Of course, without the Chinese Flu, the election would not have even been close.

US GDP growth 33.1%

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AN UNSURPRISING UPDATE:

GDP Explodes 33.1% — Media Bury The Story

A few weeks ago we noted that the third-quarter GDP number was likely to be a stunner, defying the endless claims by the press that the economy will struggle to emerge from the COVID-19 lockdowns. We also warned that voters wouldn’t get the news through the mainstream press. Well, we were right on both counts.

__ Original story is below the line

It’s the sort of thing that only really interests economists since it has no personal meaning for anyone. Nevertheless, better this than the opposite. In its own way the Democrat decision not to provide a “stimulus” helped things out a bit, not that they would have known. Discussed here: U.S. GDP booms at 33.1% rate in Q3, better than expected.

Increased consumption along with sold gains in business and residential investment as well as exports fueled the third-quarter rebound. Decreases in government spending following the expiration of the CARES Act rescue funding subtracted from GDP.

It no doubt did subtract from GDP but it also added to growth. These Keynesian measures are such misleading indicators.

There is absolutely nothing to thank Daniel Andrews for

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If there has ever been a more repulsive political leader in Australia than Daniel Andrews I cannot think who it was. The notion that the leader of a government through its incompetence has led to hundreds of deaths and the longest lockdown in the world is owed any gratitude is a notion so grotesque that only a socialist party could even have conceived of it.

And even now we are still in lockdown although some, but only some of the worst excesses have been lifted. The premier is a bungling idiot. He has done nothing that he can point towards with an ounce of pride. His stupidity has led to the deaths of many many individuals who would be alive today were it not for his personal involvement in the lockdown.

Daniel Andrews is, moreover, such an evil presence that he actually thinks he has been a positive influence on the outcomes we have endured in Victoria. Look at the other states, you stupid fool and tell me what you have achieved in Victoria. For others, in the grip of the Melbourne Syndrome, there are those who are grateful for still being alive in the midst of a viral epidemic that had virtually no possibility of killing them.

I, on the other hand, think of Andrews as a monster who has been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of people, responsible for the destruction of millions of dollars of value across the state and for a lockdown that will drain the resources available to Victorians for a generation.

And it is still not over and Andrews has still not resigned. He must live inside the tightest most secure echo chamber ever constructed if all he can hear is the praise from deluded idiots for what he has done. Step outside, you buffoon, and hear what the rest of us think.

Josh Frydenberg has said it well, and he has said it in response to a Labor Party motion in the Federal Parliament to thank Dan Andrews for what he has done. How out of touch with reality can these people be! Repulsive remains the only word that captures the essence of Andrews and the sooner he leaves the political stage the better it will be. If you “Stand with Dan”, you are a pretty stupid person yourself.

Far-left in-bred ignorance

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If you left it to the kinds of people like Troy Bramston you would never have heard of the efforts by Obama and Biden (plus a host of others amongst the Democrats) to subvert the 2016 election. This is how his typically nonsensical column begins today:

Trump has been a terrible president. He has divided Americans, deliberately deceived and lied, trashed the moral norms and conventions of politics, treated his opponents and the media as the enemy, undermined the post-war liberal order and diminished alliances abroad. Faced with a great test — COVID-19 –— he failed abysmally. But it is Trump’s autocratic instincts that would most concern the founders. He has destabilised and damaged institutions of governance, especially the Justice Department, treated his cabinet with disdain and cozied up to dictators and despots. He believes he is above the law.

One ignorant assertion after another without the slightest evidence to back it up. As for using social media to get the facts, I googled, “Russian Collusion Hoax” and this is what came up first:

Partisan Claims of ‘Russia Hoax’ Revived Ahead of 2020 …

http://www.factcheck.org › 2020/10 › partisan-claims-of-russ…

Claim: “The Russia hoax was Hillary’s plan.”

Claimed by: Donald Trump Jr.

Fact check by FactCheck.org: No Evidence

This, by the way, is the first comment on Troy’s article under “Best”:

Can’t agree Troy. The born to rule Left Establishment, the Washington “swamp”, the privileged elites, the Hollywood glitterati, the Wall Street bankers, the Globalists,  trashed the USA. They were the disease, Trump was a symptom, not the cause. When the Democrats chose the smug, entitled Hillary Clinton as their presidential candidate, the forgotten, derided and ignored blue collar working class had nowhere else to go other than to Trump. When she doubled down on her sneering contempt for law abiding working class Americans by labelling them as “deplorables” the die was cast. The working class decided “We’re not going to take it. anymore” To say Trump has divided America is simplistic and straight out of the Democrat’s handbook. Trump didn’t worship Davos Man, Obama did. Trump didn’t sacrifice American industry to China, Obama did. Trump, on first meeting Biden, didn’t hand a note to an aide “Shoot. Me. Now.”, Obama did. Trump doesn’t support the lawlessness, the looting, the burning of American cities. He wholeheartedly condemns it. The Democrats don’t. Whatever the result of the US election, the nation will remain divided. As always the blue collar working class will suffer the most, more especially if the Democrats are victorious. Whether the working class are prepared to again meekly submit to these privileged elites whose sneering contempt for them is obvious, remains to be seen.

Might also add in this while we’re here:

In this weekend’s WSJ, Peggy Noonan sums up Kamala’s ‘shtick’ perfectly:

….For her part, vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris is, when on the trail, giddy. She’s dancing with drum lines and beginning rallies with “Wassup, Florida!” She’s throwing her head back and laughing a loud laugh, especially when nobody said anything funny. She’s the younger candidate going for the younger vote, and she’s going for a Happy Warrior vibe, but she’s coming across as insubstantial, frivolous. When she started to dance in the rain onstage, in Jacksonville, Fla., to Mary J. Blige’s “Work That,” it was embarrassing. Apparently you’re not allowed to say these things because she’s a woman, and she’s doubling down on giddy because you’re not allowed to say them. I, however, take Ms. Blige’s advice to heart: I will not sweat it, I will be myself. Kamala Harris is running for vice president of the United States in an era of heightened and unending crisis. The world, which doubts our strength, our character and our class, is watching. If you can’t imitate gravity, could you at least try for seriousness?….

Comes with this:

Reading the media is worse than superficial. It reminds you that much if not most of the media is a form of far-left in-bred ignorance.

Insubstantial, frivolous

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In this weekend’s WSJ, Peggy Noonan sums up Kamala’s ‘shtick’ perfectly:

….For her part, vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris is, when on the trail, giddy. She’s dancing with drum lines and beginning rallies with “Wassup, Florida!” She’s throwing her head back and laughing a loud laugh, especially when nobody said anything funny. She’s the younger candidate going for the younger vote, and she’s going for a Happy Warrior vibe, but she’s coming across as insubstantial, frivolous. When she started to dance in the rain onstage, in Jacksonville, Fla., to Mary J. Blige’s “Work That,” it was embarrassing.

Apparently you’re not allowed to say these things because she’s a woman, and she’s doubling down on giddy because you’re not allowed to say them. I, however, take Ms. Blige’s advice to heart: I will not sweat it, I will be myself. Kamala Harris is running for vice president of the United States in an era of heightened and unending crisis. The world, which doubts our strength, our character and our class, is watching. If you can’t imitate gravity, could you at least try for seriousness?….

We shall soon see how much any of that matters.

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This is from

Kamala Harris Gets Giddy When Asked About Her ‘Socialist Perspective’

The least surprising news I may have ever read

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Andrews support strong, but Liberal leader floundering: poll.

In a week that saw new daily COVID-19 cases drop to single digits after a peak of 725 in August, an Ipsos poll commissioned by The Age and Nine News found 52 per cent of Victorians surveyed approved of the way Mr Andrews had performed his role, with 33 per cent disapproving.

The online poll conducted over three days last week before Mr Andrews’ decision on Sunday to temporarily delay easing restrictions or Monday’s announcement that they would proceed this week. The poll’s findings are devastating for the opposition.

Only 15 per cent approved of Opposition Leader Michael O’Brien’s performance during the pandemic. His approval rating among even Coalition supporters surveyed was just 27 per cent.

The Melbourne Syndrome is strong. Andrews will almost certainly be gone by the next election since he will bail out before all the vultures come home to roost. I can only assume the Libs have decided to lose the election rather than be in charge of fixing the fantastic mess that will need to be dealt with. At least there was Peta Credlin there to give Dan the belting he deserved.