Category Archives: Politics – international

A straight no fake news interview

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Read Donald Trump’s Interview With TIME on Being President. Nothing there but Q&A. Humility is not however one of his virtues. An example:

On foreign policy

You know what’s interesting, I’m getting very good marks in foreign policy. People would not think of me in that light. I’m just saying, and you read the same things I read. I’m getting As and A+s on foreign policy. And nobody thought about it.

On forging relationships with foreign leaders

Great relationship with [German Chancellor Angela] Merkel, one of the best. In fact so good she invited my daughter over. She loves Ivanka. Ivanka was over there and did great. But no I have a very good relationship with all of them, including Australia. You saw that the other night, right. You know they all said I hung up and I slammed the phone on him. I didn’t do that. I mean, it was a little testy for a while because Obama made a ridiculous deal. But that wasn’t [Australian Prime Minister] Malcolm [Turnbull]’s fault. But we have a very good relationship with Australia and him. Which I think the other night showed.

…I get back [former Egyptian prisoner] Aya [Hijazi]. Nobody could have done that. Nobody else could have done that. They could have negotiated – how tough is [Egyptian leader Abdel Fattah] el Sisi, right? Nobody else could have done–and he’s a great guy. Nobody else could have gotten her back. She would have been in jail for twenty-eight years. And that’s not twenty-eight years you’re going away for one. That’s twenty-eight years meaning twenty-eight years.

Malcolm must be the one stand-out for having had to deal with idiocy if he mentions him in the interview.

Meanwhile, Trump discusses Comey last night on NBC.

Fixing problems one by one

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But will eight years be enough?
.

TRUMP CANS COMEY…

 

In the meantime

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The video above was taken at the Sydney launch of The Art of the Impossible, and now I am extraordinarily happy to add that Andrew Bolt has agreed to launch the book in Melbourne. Some details to work out, but will let you know when and where.

In the meantime, let me bid farewell to blogging for a bit. I am going into hospital in the morning for hand surgery that will make it difficult to type for a while.

And let me add that it is safe to watch the video since it is all Mark and Ross. For my views, you will have to read the book.

Trump likes Australian health care which Democrats think is a single-payer system

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Australia’s health care system is the best in the world. It happened by accident with Whitlam having introduced Medibank in 1975 and Fraser having been flummoxed about what to do did nothing other than allow a parallel system of private insurance to compete. The two parallel systems remain, and while both are subsidised by government, the system of care for those at both ends of the income spectrum is as good as one could hope, which is not the same as being perfect.

Which brings me to this where left and right in the United States at least superficially agree on something: Sanders: ‘Trump is right’ on Australian healthcare system. As you can see from the video, Sanders and much of the left do not understand that we have a two-tier system that lets anyone who wishes spend their money to buy higher quality care that can be tailored to their own particular needs. Do the left in the United States, along with their media, ever get anything of importance right?

The Canadian single-payer system is a disaster that has as its one positive feature, that no one ever has to pay a cent when going to the doctor. But the downside is that it is forbidden to buy extra care for oneself (although that may have recently changed) so everyone queues until their number comes up. It is this system that the Democrats want to introduce. It is something along the lines of the Australian system that Trump wants to introduce. My advice, if you are going to get sick, do it in Australia and not in Canada or the US.

And if you want to see an exceptionally funny movie about the Canadian system let me recommend The Barbarian Invasions.

Counting our political blessings

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It’s nice to see an article pointing out how well we have done in having had the US elect Donald Trump. This is by Andrew Klavan who I don’t recall having been a fan during the election but does seem to have seen the light, calling his post Thanks GOP! with not a trace of irony meant. Just by not being Hillary, DJT has done more than could ever have been hoped for. But as Klavan points out, there is much much more to be thankful for even if it is not everything we might have wanted.

So yes, let those of us on the right continue to push for more conservative legislation, and let us complain some whenever we don’t get it. But let’s not be blinded to the fact that things are going pretty well for the good guys right now.

Maybe we could call a pause in carping at President Trump and tarring and feathering Speaker Ryan and scorning Senator Mitch McConnell just long enough to tell them thanks.

To this day, I run across people who tell me they identify with the right side of politics but lament that Donald Trump because president. This is such massive stupidity never mind ingratitude by people who, whatever they may think about themselves, have not the slightest idea how politics works.

Les Miz after reality finally bites

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An absolutely stunning photo. The people behind the barricades are, of course, the people who put Chavez and now Maduro into power. I wonder what they now know that they didn’t know then. If you look to the government to give you things you didn’t earn for yourself, this is the very plausible place you will end up. That is why when I have gone to see Les Miz, I always cheer for Inspector Javert.

Picked up at Instapundit.

UPDATE: Here is perhaps an article that may have the explanation: What Caused Venezuela’s Collapse Is No Mystery — Except To Economically Illiterate Journalists. So let us see what answer they come up with. This is where they start:

The cause is simple. Socialism. End it and you will end the misery.

I suppose that’s right, but what is this thing referred to as “socialism”. What are its characteristics and what can be done to avoid it? This, I’m afraid, we don’t entirely find out. The rest of the article describes how mainstream journalists evade the issue, with examples from The New York Times, The LA Times and USA Today. They attribute the collapse to falling oil prices, corrupt business leaders and even the weather which brought on a drought. And, of course, these weren’t the causes of the drastic failure of the Venezuelan economy, but after all is said and done, we end where the story began.

It is their unwillingness to admit that socialism can’t work that drives so many mainstream journalists to look for something, anything, else to blame when socialist economies invariable fail.

Socialism is merely a word that describes lots of economic systems, many of which have been very successful. What’s missing is any discussion of what in particular they have been doing wrong. It is this that seems to leave out that specifics of what needs to be avoided and what ought to be done in its place.

It wasn’t Comey it was Obama who did Hillary in

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Listening to Hillary maunder on about Comey does make me think she actually knows the truth but knows she cannot say it herself. I have never been in any doubt that it was Comey who made PDT possible, but it was Obama via Loretta Lynch who was behind it all. I wrote about it a week before the election in a post I titled, Raisin’ Kaine to the highest office in the land which is, of course, reprinted in my The Art of the Impossible: A Blog History of the Election of Donald J.Trump as President. The same scenario was also discussed in another post on November 4. These are the ingredients for what is a very simple sequence that fits every fact not to mention the personal motivations of each of the persons involved. It also explains what Hillary cannot say but more likely than not knows herself.

1) Obama hates Hillary.

2) Tim Kaine is not just from the Obama side of the Democratic Party but was one of the first of the Democrats to defect to Obama in 2007. Hillary would never ever under ordinary circumstances have chosen Kaine for her Vice President, even assuming he would be a great campaign asset which he most assuredly was not.

3) However, she can only run for president if she is not under indictment for the undoubtedly illegal use of an insecure server. Hillary was therefore compelled to choose someone who she would never have chosen as her Vice Presidential candidate.

4) Obama’s aim was to be succeeded by someone with his own agenda to carry on where he had left off.

5) Hillary wanted to be president, but not necessarily serve as president. She is a sick woman which can hardly be denied. She might not have lasted a year before her illnesses would have forced her to resign.

6) But in any case, just in case she was reluctant to give up the presidency once she had it, the evidence of illegal activity could be used to impeach her if she chose to battle on, or at the very least, force her to stand aside and allow the Vice President to take over.

7) Comey had begun the original investigation, which was extraordinary enough. But since it is necessary for Hillary to win if Kaine was to become president, Comey – under instruction – says on his own bat that she has no case to answer.

8) Hillary then moves to the front and looks set to win the election. But now there is no means to force her from office if she doesn’t want to go. So suddenly 650,000 classified emails are found on Weiner’s laptop leading Comey – under instruction from Obama – to open the investigation again.

9) But then, to everyone’s astonishment on the Democrat side of politics, Trump begins to move ahead in the last week of the election, throwing the result into doubt. The investigation against Hillary therefore needs to be shut down immediately. Comey therefore declares that they FBI has gone through the 650,000 emails and states there is nothing there to prosecute.

10) But by then it is too late and Trump gathers just enough momentum due to the various scandals that have surrounded Hillary to win the election.

Hence this: Clinton blames Comey, WikiLeaks for election loss. I think this is exactly right:

Clinton said she was on track to winning the election until Oct. 28, when news broke that Comey had sent a letter to Congress announcing that he had reopened the investigation into her emails. . . .

“I was on the way to winning until the combination of Jim Comey’s letter on October 28 and Russian WikiLeaks raised doubts in the minds of people who were inclined to vote for me, but got scared off,” Clinton said.

Saying that the WikiLeaks came from Russia is just part of the fake news dross, but the WikiLeaks no doubt did matter but was hardly decisive. It was the investigation by the FBI that made her electoral poison. I even agree with her when she says she would have won had the election been held the week before. I wrote exactly this on the first of November, where I discussed A Week is a Long Time in Politics – another post reprinted in my book. There I wrote: “In my view, had the election been held today, Hillary would have won.” We’ll never know since the election was held a week later and bless my soul, by then, thanks to Obama with the assistance of James Comey, DJT was elected instead.

Well, how did it go?

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As a matter of fact, it could not have gone any better. Ross Cameron came and spoke on Donald Trump. Mark Latham came and spoke on Donald Trump. And then I spoke on Donald Trump. And as a coincidence it was also the 100th day since Donald Trump had become president. So a few highlights.

First, to find a room entirely full of Trump supporters is one of the most pleasant experiences I have had in many a while. For most of us, you know someone here or there, and occasionally come across someone else who, after oh so carefully venturing an opinion here and a comment there, and then listening very closely to the kind of response you proceed to sort of, very tentatively, go on to sort of venture into a slightly more open discussion until you find that well, bless my soul, this other person also would have voted for Trump, which since we are in Australia, no one actually does. This time, instead, it was a whole room full of such people – although it did turn out there was a media person from the Fairfax organisation who actually revealed him(her)self and in so doing, did not in even the slightest end up in fear for his/her life. But for the rest of us, a very good time was had by all.

And while a blogger’s life is spent in front of the console typing out whatever thoughts one has, public speaking is a different kind of art and we were genuinely blessed with Ross Cameron and Mark Latham. A reuniting of The Outsiders reminding of us of those Sky News vandals who have broken up the set. I could have listened forever – absolutely outstanding presentations but others who were there are invited to add their own thoughts – but eventually it was my turn, where, more or less, I followed the script I had outlined so I will only discuss a few added bits from the Q&A that came after.

So there was the question, what have I been surprised about these first hundred days, both on the plus side and then on the negative. For me, there has not been a negative of any kind. I am aware there are some who seem to think that these first hundred days should have been a major disappointment, but the only thing I have had confirmed, as I said on the night, was how useless the actual Republican Party is. Without Trump, nothing of any serious importance would change. The average of the spectrum across the party is Hillary-lite. Trump has made all the difference. As for what I have discovered that was unexpected on the plus side is how temperamentally sound he is. He does politics at an amazingly high level. No doubt he had plenty of time to learn the trade negotiating within New York and elsewhere about various projects he has had to bring through political systems of one kind or another. And now, having to deal with the consequences of Obama’s incompetence and outright anti-American malice, he has enough on his mind to occupy three presidents. I do have to say that more than ever, if you thought Obama was all right in some things and not so good in others, your political judgements are less than useless. If you are not endlessly grateful that it is Trump and not more of the same I really cannot tell you how great a fool I think you are. There are plenty of them, but their lives will only continue to work because they are oblivious of the harm Obama did and the good that Trump is capable of bringing, if he can only get the Republicrats to go along.

And the point I also made was that we do not live in Montana, where an isolationist US which has pulled its international outreach within its borders, will make little immediate difference. We are out here at the south end of Asia in the middle of the Pacific an isolated outpost of Western values. If you like this way of life and want it to continue, you had better hope that Trump continues to seek to enforce the Pax Americana that has existed since the 1940s.

The other thing that came up was my offhand comment to the effect that the parties of the left have never accomplished a single positive outcome on anything. They have brought with them mass misery through the various communist revolutions we have seen around the globe. But even where they have not been able to complete subvert our free communities and market economies, they have limited our freedoms and lowered economic outcomes, repeatedly impoverishing the bottom rungs of society by pretending to provide benefits they never quite seem to achieve. Every government of the left is eventually thrown out because of the damage they do, but back they come as soon as 50.1% of the population have forgotten the mayhem that comes with socialist practice. And having said it, I have not been able to conjure up in my mind a single counter instance where a party of the left has done some kind of general good. Meanwhile there is the shining example of Venezuela before us to remind those with the wit to understand exactly what happens if you let these people take over the political control-room with no means available to get them out again.

You can buy your own copy of The Art of the Impossible from the Book Depository for a mere $A32.48 with worldwide free delivery. The more I read the papers, the more I see the need for this book since it reminds you of the cultural-Marxist world we have been spared but which our brainless and fantastically ignorant media and political class will pull us back into the first chance they get. Read it and remind yourself of the narrow escape we have had, which will also hopefully fortify you for the ongoing assault by these 25-watt low-grade political elites and graduates of our schools of journalism.

The media caters for a dwindling stock of fellow simpletons

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If you need another reminder of just how dishonest the media is, and how ignorant the people who read what they write must be, let me take you to eleven things the press still doesn’t get about Trump. That Trump receives daily briefings from some of the most knowledgeable people in the American government is certainly a more reliable source for everything than reading it in the papers. And if you truly believe that Trump had been in cahoots with the Russians you are truly an ignorant moron. Here is the first:

Too often, the press forgets the very lessons Trump himself has taught us about how he operates and why it often works. For example, journalists often imply that Trump’s reliance on cable news is a liability because it leaves him ill-informed. And so it does—but it also leaves him highly attuned to that medium and able to respond to what he sees there with immediate, pitch-perfect tweets or other comments that come across as direct, authentic and trustworthy.

Another example: the power of repetition. Frequently, reporters assume that because they have already responded to a Trump assertion, the issue is settled. But then he repeats the same misinformation, as he did in defending the size of his inauguration crowds. In part, this is because he’s incapable of acknowledging loss or error. More important, it’s because one of his highest priorities is the construction of an alternate narrative and the delegitimization of the mainstream media, traditional authorities, and the primacy of facts.

Likewise, the press seems to have forgotten the power of distraction. Coverage of the Trump-ordered missile attack in Syria made little reference to how conveniently it deflected attention from Russia-gate, Trump’s conflicts of interest, his draconian budget cuts, etc. The media also understate Trump’s reliance on bullying, which works surprisingly well for him. With the recent exception of the House Freedom Caucus’ refusal to knuckle under and vote for the GOP’s health care act, most people (e.g., the other Republican presidential candidates and many TV commentators) back down.

Trump has also mastered the power of grievance and continues to use it. When an issue gets too sticky, he reverts to self-pity—fashioning himself as the victim of Barack Obama’s supposed wiretapping, for instance. The media might call such behavior weak or petty, but it also re-cements Trump’s bond with his followers as fellow victims of the Washington elite.

Finally, the press tends to forget how much Trump needs to keep experiencing the act of winning—and how much this drives his behavior. The likeliest reason for his charge that Obama wiretapped him is that Trump wants to feel as if he’s continuing to beat the biggest competitor he can find. And what bigger target than Obama?