Category Archives: Politics on the left

Why only Number 3?

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I am going to have to stop reading The AFR while trying to eat my lunch if they keep coming up with articles like this: PM Malcolm Turnbull comes in No. 3 on President Barack Obama’s best-friends list. I can see why they might have an affinity for each other. What gets me is why Obama’s high approval is not the kiss of death for Malcolm.

President Obama may be in Havana but Malcolm Turnbull can relax knowing he’s one of the top three world leaders on the president’s besties list.

The Atlantic magazine writes that the man in the White House “has intense relationships with many world leaders – and he has become, in his last years as president, a mentor to a handful of important new ones”.

The magazine put world leaders “on a continuum reflecting the state of their relations with Obama”, and Turnbull, who’s only been in the job six months, places quite well coming in third after Pope Francis and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

It is clear that Obama can spot a kindred spirit, another empty-headed narcissist lacking any ideas other than the cookie-cutter inanities of the left. Global warming – check. Open borders – check. Runaway public spending – check.

But the part about Obama’s comments on Malcolm that I found most noteworthy is that I only saw them mentioned once and then only in a small article on page 7 of The AFR. It can only mean that even for the ABC, an endorsement from Obama brings no political momentum whatsoever. This might help you understand why that could be:

Just outside the top 10 are more controversial choices, including Cuban dictator Raul Castro at No. 11, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who placed twelfth, and at No. 13, Nicaragua’s “tiresome Marxist ideologue” and president Daniel Ortega.

You really do have to ask why Obama’s views have not wrecked the Democrat brand? Anyway, Obama will be gone in a year. Yay!

UPDATE – THE MOST DEPRAVED POLITICAL LEADER EVER ELECTED IN THE WEST: That year cannot pass soon enough. This is from an article titled, For Obama, Muted Reaction to Brussels Attacks Is by Design, with the non-reaction having occurred while he was in Cuba visiting a country that has been a one-man dictatorship since 1959!

In the aftermath of a deadly terror attack that stirred Americans’ concerns about the potential for threats to the U.S., President Barack Obama pressed ahead with his tour of Latin America, including a planned family excursion in Patagonia.

Mr. Obama’s public appearance of nonchalance has drawn criticism from Republicans that he is detached from Americans’ fears and isn’t sufficiently countering violent extremism. But his approach partly reflects his belief that overreacting to a terrorist attack—however horrific—elevates extremist groups like Islamic State in a way that exaggerates their influence, his aides have said.

Also driving Mr. Obama is his view that the threat of terrorism in Americans’ daily lives often is overstated, and that the focus on it could become self-paralyzing and an excuse to adopt misguided policies. His aides often note that many more Americans are killed by gun violence than terrorist attacks, for instance.

Mr. Obama, asked about the Islamic State threat Wednesday at a news conference in Buenos Aires with Argentine President Mauricio Macri, urged Americans not to give terrorist groups the power “to strike fear in our societies.”

“Even as we are systematic and ruthless and focused in going after them, disrupting their networks, getting their leaders, rolling up their operations, it is very important for us to not respond with fear,” he said. “We send a message to those that might be inspired by them to say, you are not going to change our values of liberty, and openness, and the respect of all people.”

If you voted for Obama, or supported him either in 2008 or 2012, your right to comment on the 2016 election is hereby rescinded.

We have reached peak insanity. Repeat: peak insanity

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refugees in greece

Refugees break down a gate on the Greek-Macedonia border.

Here is The Guardian Subhead that goes with the picture and its caption:

I can insist this is an image of heroic, defiant, brave refugees, trying to make us live up to our liberal values. But to terrified European eyes they are the other, the enemy

It comes via Five Feet of Fury who calls the post We have reached Peak Guardian. Repeat: Peak Guardian. I am generally at a loss anyway observing the judgements of others about politics, but is it really that hard to accept that maybe, just maybe, those of us who worry about border protection might have a point?

It cannot be genuine – no one is this depraved

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rape-30-seconds

Your only instinct is that this is a parody, but it is either extremely dark or it is exactly what it says it is. The poster is discussed at Pro-Migrant Ad: Rape Only Lasts 30 Seconds – Racism Lasts a Lifetime where it is assumed that what you read is the actual intent. One way or the other, we are dealing with depravity of the highest order. Beyond which, it assumes that the new migrant class are among the most repulsive and uncivilised people ever known. What is possibly even more striking is that even if this is a parody, it is very difficult any longer to tell.

Understanding the death of the West – READ THIS!

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This is an article of such uncommon sense that it amazes me that it could be published at all. The title says it all: How the Feminists’ “War against Boys” Paved the Way for Islam. You must open at the link and you must read it. I will add a quote here but again, you have to read it all. I have chosen the quote only to bring to your attention the writings of Phyllis Chesler:

American writer Phyllis Chesler has sharply criticized her sisters in books such as The Death of Feminism. She feels that too many feminists have abandoned their commitment to freedom and “become cowardly herd animals and grim totalitarian thinkers,” thus failing to confront Islamic terrorism. She paints a portrait of current U.S. University campuses as steeped in “a new and diabolical McCarthyism” spearheaded by leftist rhetoric.

Chesler has a point. Judging from the rhetoric of many feminists, all the oppression in the world comes from Western men, who are oppressing both women and non-Western men. Muslim immigrants are “fellow victims” of this bias. At best, they may be patriarchal pigs, but no worse than Western men. Many Western universities have courses filled with hate against men that would be unthinkable the other way around. That’s why Scandinavian feminists don’t call for Scandinavian men to show a more traditional masculinity and protect them against aggression from Muslim men. Most Norwegian feminists are also passionate anti-racists who will oppose any steps to limit Muslim immigration as “racism and xenophobia.”

Now read it all. If this doesn’t scare you, you have not been paying attention, although many very unpleasant things will be brought to your attention in the very near future.

[Picked up at Instapundit]

The attacks on Archbishop Pell are the terrible symptoms of a much worse disease

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I am with Andrew Bolt on this, Defend justice. Oppose this lynching of Pell. But for as much as I deplore every bit of it, this is now par for the course. The very essence of left ideology is an anti-Christian socialism. Pell is the latest focus for this hatred. Our latter-day Voltaires, who think they are écrasezing l’infâme, are just the handmaidens of a national socialist future across the West.

As a kind of measure of where we are, we went to see the film Trumbo last night [Rotten Tomatoes: critics 73% – audience 80%; IMDb: 73%]. Here is the dialogue that mattered, right at the start:

“Are you a communist?”

“Yes.”

A communist, Trumbo explains to his daughter, is someone who would share their lunch with another student who didn’t have a lunch of their own. There was no need to hide his communist past or beliefs although they were naturally distorted to keep the narrative free of any complications that might have arisen by knowing any of the facts. The producers were perfectly sure that in the world the film was being projected into, someone who was a communist while Stalin was still alive, would not be seen in a bad light by virtually anyone.

This is a war on our institutions and our traditional values waged by approximately half of our own population, the kind of people who need a trigger warning before being told that Stalin murdered thirty million people as part of his attempt to introduce socialism in one country.

The Democrats could still win

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Meaning, no matter who the Republicans put up, the Democrats, even with Hillary and Bernie, might actually win. It’s the 12-13% still unaccounted for who will now decide the fate of the American Republic and much else.

Against Hillary:

Trump wins 45% to 43%.
Cruz wins 45-44
Rubio wins 46-42

Against Bernie:

Trump wins 44% to 43%.
Cruz loses 42-44
Rubio wins 46-42

The question remains, who would be the best president, although to be the best president you also have to be the winner of the election. Meanwhile, you have this kind of nonsense from The Wall Street Journal to contend with: Donald Trump’s hostile takeover of the Republican party. And when we are talking about voting Democrat, we are talking about putting either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders into the White House, not some anonymous person unknown. So you tell me what sense there is in this?

The Trump phenomenon offers a moral challenge not only to evangelicals, but to the entire Republican leadership. Nine months ago I couldn’t imagine a scenario in which Mr. Trump would receive his party’s nomination and go on to win the presidency. Now I can. If he wins in South Carolina, conscientious Republicans will have to ask themselves whether they can be complicit in a course of events that hands the Oval Office to a man so manifestly unfit for the presidency. It is hard to decide which is a greater threat to the republic — Donald Trump’s pervasive ignorance or his deep-seated character flaws.

Some leading Republicans have quietly told me that they would break ranks if Mr. Trump wins their party’s nomination. A few have said so publicly. Unless a viable alternative emerges soon, every Republican will face the same dilemma.

The same kind of idiocy that found itself walking away from Romney in 2012. I cannot think of two more extreme possible representatives of the Republican Party than Trump and Romney, businessmen though they both may be. I will merely add this comment from The Australian thread following the article:

It seems clear to me that Trump’s critics have got him completely wrong.

Many Americans are looking for the one man they believe can fix the problems created under Barack Obama. They know it’s Donald Trump.

Trump’s supporters already know what he plans to do as President. They know what he will do, why he will do it, how he will do it, and how he will pay for it. It’s all set out in Trump’s two books “Time To Get Tough: Making America #1 Again” and “Crippled America: How To Make America Great Again”.

Trump’s critics haven’t bothered to find out his plans … they prefer to pander to the tabloid sound-bites.

If Trump can win South Carolina, it will send shock waves through the republican party. You see, while New Hampshire has produced the republican nomination 15 out of 17 occasions, South Caroline has a perfect record in picking the eventual republican nomination.

Anyone who thinks that it ought to be a toss up between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump should never be allowed to comment on politics again. You may not think he is the best among the Republicans, but if you vote Democrat because Trump is the nominee then you are too stupid for words.

David Horowitz on Trump and the War in Iraq

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This is from a post by David Horowitz at FrontPageMag which he titles, Election Fog. And what was important to me was that he sees past the lack of knowledge and historical understanding to the core motivations of Trump’s run for president.

Trump showed himself recklessly ill-informed on the causes of the Iraq War during the South Carolina debate. George Bush did not lie to lead us into war – that is, in fact, a Democrat lie. The Iraq War was about Saddam’s defiance of a UN Security Council ultimatum to disclose and destroy his Weapons of Mass Destruction. Contrary to an enormously destructive political myth, the WMDs did exist – including 2250 Sarin-gas-filled-rockets and chemical weapons in storage tanks that Saddam buried and are now in the possession of ISIS. Finally, the destabilization of Iraq and the Middle East are entirely a consequence of Obama’s policies not George Bush’s as Trump falsely maintained. Trump’s misreading of the Iraq War is a serious political fault. But it is the result of ignorance rather than malice against his country, which is what motivates the left. Whatever one thinks of Trump, he is justly hated by the Sanders radicals, who understand that his intentions make him their nemesis not their twin.

It’s not something you can pass over lightly since understanding history is crucial to political judgement, but history can be learned. The will and judgement to do the right thing is what matters in the end, and the question that does still remain open is whether Trump does have the judgement to succeed. I think he does, and more so than any of the others, but that still remains the question after all of the other issues have gone by.