The above an unsolicited endorsement from a dying woman who was a former Miss Wisconsin. Below his interview today. And below that, the infamous moment when Trump’s campaign manager did not throw a reporter to the floor, discussed by Trump in the interview.
That moment in which nothing can be seen.
The new meaning of trumped up charges. Some thoughts by Piers Morgan on this whole business. Trump’s reaction is such a whole new world!
The only thing that makes it worth voting for a Turnbull government is that Tony Abbott is still there on the backbench. It remains obscure to the point of invisibility why Malcolm does not do everything he can to bring Abbott into the tent. The only things that Abbott has said is what a good government he had led. And since it was a LIBERAL government – you know, one on the same side as Malcolm is supposed to be – I cannot see why Tony’s triumph’s are not also Malcolm’s triumphs, or can at least be counted on the same side of the ledger.
It is Turnbull, however, who wishes to make this a distinction as large as it can possibly be. A political leader that does not try to combine everyone, to smooth over the differences, to make the machine run as well as possible, is hopeless at the job. If Turnbull is trying to deny credit to Tony for his achievements, it can only be because Malcolm understands himself to be the undersized and insignificant nonentity he is.
All of which is brought to mind by that Left-Labor Turnbull shill from The Oz, not Niki in this instance but Van Oncelot in a column he titles, Federal election 2016: sniping Tony Abbott could tip scales. My own wording is along the lines of “Sniping at Tony Abbott could tip scales” as the following selection of comments on his column might indicate. These were the ten most recent comments when I logged in, all of whom see things in the same way as I do. But in saying this, please also look at the last of these comments below.
I) How did I miss it?
Of course – it’s all Abbott’s fault!! Must be his sniping.. because all of use can wax lyrical about the enormous achievements of Turnbull. Such as … ummm … and there was the … aahhh … Oh and the … geez what was it again?
There has never been a better time to … i give up
II) Nothing to do with Abbott. Far more likely is Turnbull’s poor performance, his high handed treatment of Morrison, the feeling the country is now run by an unelected dynasty, the splitting of The Liberal Party, the left wing trying to gain control, who back the same beliefs as Labor, and the outrage by so many, of the removal of a sitting PM, which they consider, their job, if so inclined. In contrast Labor stood by their leader, no matter how poor his figures,and present as a disciplined group, compared to The Libs. A situation the Libs gifted to themselves.
III) What a load of rot. Tony the Australian Sniper…give us all a break. When are the editors going to step in and end this vendetta against Abbott? There’s a powerful difference between cool-headed analysis and heated vitriol, and Niki and Peter are giving us plenty of the latter.
IV) PVO I think the only sniping is coming from the likes of yourself, Niki Savva and a majority of the media prepared to analyse every word, eye twitch, smile or whatever Mr Abbott does, todays story about stealing a girls wave is the sort of rubbish that is being printed these days.
V) Two years ago one could have written the headline: sniping Turnbull could tip scales. You reap what you sow, Mr Van Onselen. Yes, you. Aka: spare us the hypocrisy.
VI) Rest assured that a sniping Vanonsolon won’t matter a fig, as he rates almost zero on the influence scale.
VII) If Turnbull wins the coming election then no future PM or government will be willing to take unpopular but necessary fiscal decisions. We will go down the pathway of populist tosh until the budget situation becomes intolerable and then political fireworks break out.
VIII) Why do you say “Of course” Turnbull won’t emulate Abbott’s win? Is it because Abbott was not as bad as Rudd, or because Turnbull is not as good as Abbott?
IX) While Turnbull is busy differentiating himself, he may as well bring back the mining tax, dismantle border protection and undo the free trade agreements. As for me, I will make my own differentiation at the ballot box.
X) I am finding it hard to comprehend the people in this forum who are saying they will vote for Labor over the LNP because of Turnbull. I too have not been very impressed with Turnbull so far, however, the prospect of a Labor government with the likes of Shorten, Plibersek and Bowen trying to run the country terrifies me! If that mob get control, Australia will never get out of debt in our lifetimes and what sort of legacy is that to leave to our children?
Funnily enough, I am on the same side as MR X, but I have to say that Malcolm seems to be doing everything he can to drive people like myself away. But so long as Tony is there, and his most important mates along with him, there remains no alternative comes the election.
You cannot work for Murdoch and support Donald Trump. There are no exceptions to this rule, and unfortunately the absence of exceptions includes Andrew Bolt. This is his post today, with its last line in support of a Trump critic, that he was absolutely right. Here’s the whole thing, including the quoted comment:
Taking it to Trump, who by trashing the race probably helps make any Republican less electable:
Charlie Sykes, a popular radio host in Milwaukee, welcomed Donald J. Trump to his state in a phone interview on his program on Monday, explaining that “here in Wisconsin we value things like civility, decency and actual conservative principles.”
And then, for Mr. Trump, the 17-minute interview went downhill from there.
Mr. Sykes, an outspoken conservative and opponent of Mr. Trump, began by pressing the Manhattan businessman to apologize to Heidi Cruz, the wife of Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, for resending a Twitter post juxtaposing an unflattering picture of Mrs. Cruz with a shot of his wife, Melania Trump, a former model.
The spat began after an anti-Trump “super PAC” produced an ad geared at Utah voters featuring an image of Mrs. Trump, then Melania Knauss, posing nude from a January 2000 GQ magazine pictorial.
On Mr. Sykes’s program, Mr. Trump defended the photo of his wife — calling it “an artsy picture” — but blamed Mr. Cruz for starting the feud, even though the super PAC that produced the Texas ad is not connected to the Texas senator.
“I expect that from a 12-year-old bully on the playground, not somebody who wants the office held by Abraham Lincoln,” Mr. Sykes said.
Later, when Mr. Trump again complained, incorrectly, that Mr. Cruz “started it,” the radio host interjected: “Remember, we’re not on a playground. We’re running for president of the United States.”
Absolutely right.
Heidi Cruz works for Goldman Sachs so is the very essence of the wrong side of the debate. That Cruz must legally not in any way be associated with any PAC supporting him means he has no choice but to keep at least three degrees of separation. But to think that Cruz’s team did not start the attack on Trump’s wife on its way is ridiculously naive.
But that is hardly the point. Someone who wishes to investigate if someone is worthy of the office once held by Abraham Lincoln (and now held by Barack Obama) does not begin by attacking Trump for defending his wife against an attack by a Cruz supporter. If these are the high principles being defended, we are lost and doomed already.
And more’s the pity, it’s lonely out here. The following is an article along these lines of some interest: Some of my best friends are Trump supporters. The writer is Oleg Atbashian, a former denizen of the Soviet Union. It is worth reading through, but I will focus on this bit on how writers in the media never seem to come across Trump supporters:
There’s a big probability that Trump supporters are, in fact, all around them, even in their own families — and the reason why these writers don’t know it, is their own snobbery. No one likes to be called stupid, his IQ questioned, or presumed to be an unthinking herd animal, and many simply don’t have the time to stop and explain their reasons whenever a #Nevertrump activist feels like trashing Trump voters. Many simply choose to remain silent. . . .
Trump has consistently polled better on anonymous online polls than on phone surveys because some of his supporters were unwilling to identify themselves publicly. In other words, public shaming didn’t unwean Trump from his supporters but caused them to go underground.
Doesn’t this also describe how the majority of Americans have felt in recent decades, being constantly shamed into silence by the “progressive” media, education, and the cultural establishment? I know this too well, having worked in New York’s “progressive” corporate environment. My co-workers would ask me about life in the USSR and I would tell them exactly what I thought about socialism and political correctness until I realized that most of them didn’t like my answers and I was only hurting myself by speaking my mind. Some gave me frightened looks, others stopped talking with me. I might as well have told them that life in the USSR was similar to life in New York, where people had to learn to keep their mouths shut and to look over their shoulders before saying anything remotely political. So much for emigrating into a free country. It felt like history was about to repeat itself. Until now.
Actually, nothing has changed. The sensational ganging up on Trump is incredible. I can now see he has only a minimal chance of winning in November, but for all that he has more chance than any other Republican. When you see every news media network, including the Murdoch empire and Fox, gunning for him, when you find virtually every “conservative” site from National Review to Powerline out to see him lose, when you see so many so-called conservatives say they would rather see Hillary win than Trump, when you see a virtual absence of positive comment anywhere, you do have to appreciate how deep the resentment is that drives his campaign. He might still win, and if he does he will owe no one anything, which will be the best thing about the administration he oversees.
I met Alan Kors a year ago. He is, among other things, one of the co-founders of The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, FIRE. He has also survived 43 years at the University of Pennsylvania, largely because he can be used as evidence that all sides of the political spectrum are represented on campus. In fact, he is unique, not just there but virtually across the Western world. The ignorance is truly scandalous.
The presentation is about socialism, an idea so bad that it has swept the world and now the West. As he says, it is by no means clear to whom the future belongs. It runs an hour and a half, with questions making up the last half hour. Very impressive.
I saw the story in only one other place. This is from Mark Steyn:
In the spirit of the season, Asad Shah, a Glasgow newsagent and a “devout Muslim”, decided to send out an Easter greeting on his Facebook page:
GOOD FRIDAY AND VERY HAPPY EASTER, ESPECIALLY TO MY BELOVED CHRISTIAN NATION X! BISMILLAH…
Let’s Follow The Real Footstep Of Beloved Holy Jesus Christ (PBUH) And Get The Real Success In Both Worlds xxxx
Less than four hours after this ecumenical greeting, Mr Shah was savagely murdered outside his shop by his co-religionists:
The victim was found seriously injured on Minard Road, Glasgow, and was taken to the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital where he later died on Thursday.
An eyewitness, who did not want to be named, told the Daily Record: “As I drove past I saw two men standing over the victim.
“One was stamping on his head. There was a pool of blood on the ground. It was horrific.”
A 32-year-old Muslim man has been arrested.
We can then supplement that with this: Liberal Teacher Takes In Muslim Refugee, His Colleague Finds What’s Left Of Him. Here’s what you need to know:
Celle Heute reports that when Mehdi didn’t show up for work, one of his co-workers went to check on him. After searching the home in February, he discovered what looked like a trail of blood leading to the basement. It was there that the colleague found Mehdi butchered and lying dead in a pool of his own blood.
Murdered by the very migrant for whom he cared, Mehdi’s tolerance for the 58-year-old Afghan refugee came “full swing” when police say they got into an “argument,” according to Bild. Upset that Mehdi, the man who gave him everything, simply disagreed with him, the unidentified asylum seeker took a rock and a large metal instrument and bashed the teacher’s head to a bloody pulp. He then dragged the mutilated body down to the basement in an attempt to cover up his gruesome crime.
And why don’t we know what we are dealing with? Perhaps this from the same story might help:
Although the migrant suspect was arrested last Thursday, German police were hesitant to give out many details, including the man’s Afghan origin or his legal status. Throughout Europe, many officials have failed to report key statistics, hoping to protect Muslim migrants’ image and their own leftist agenda.
If you trust the media to know what is going on, you will live to regret it. Same for the governments under which we live. With nowhere to turn to, you might have a look at this: “Europe might be dying”. There’s no might be about it, and it’s not just Europe.
Some useful advice on how to deal with the left from Stacy McCain that comes in large print:
NEVER ACCEPT THE PREMISE
OF YOUR ANTAGONIST’S ARGUMENT!
This is the somewhat expanded version:
Carve that into your cerebral cortex, young men. One of the tricks by which liberals succeed is by smuggling into the argument some dubious premise that they don’t expect you to question. Take for example, “equality.” Exactly what do we mean by “equality”? Where in human history can we locate this “equality” of which the liberal speaks?
A couple of books worth reading — The Mirage of Social Justice by Friedrich Hayek and The Vision of the Anointed by Thomas Sowell — will do wonders for helping you see why liberal ideas about “equality” should always be viewed with skepticism. Most people, however, never think seriously about glittering generalities like “equality,” “progress,” “rights,” etc., and are therefore apt to let the liberal get away with smuggling an unexamined premise into the argument. The result is that the liberal easily forces his antagonist into a defensive “me, too” position where, having tacitly accepted the unexamined premise, the conservative cannot avoid certain logical conclusions based on this idea.
Of course, before any of that you have to uncover what that premise is. What you really need to do yourself is to read history and political philosophy, but this is where you need to end up. Might I also suggest Russell Kirk.
That this is not part of our universal understanding of the difference between communism and capitalism is itself enough to condemn modern education in the West. The picture on the left is from sixty years ago. Obama’s words again:
“So often in the past there has been a division between left and right, between capitalists and communists or socialists, and especially in the Americas, that’s been a big debate.
“Those are interesting intellectual arguments, but I think for your generation, you should be practical and just choose from what works. You don’t have to worry about whether it really fits into socialist theory or capitalist theory. You should just decide what works.”
How moronic do you have to be not to have already decided.
[The picture’s from Steve Hayward at Powerline]. For a modern incarnation, try Venezuela.
A film not to miss: Eye in the Sky. Here is the beginning of the description at Rotten Tomatoes:
EYE IN THE SKY stars Helen Mirren as Colonel Katherine Powell, a UK-based military officer in command of a top secret drone operation to capture terrorists in Kenya.
The rest is the most nerve-wracking film I have seen in ages. It also follows Kates’s Five Minute Rule for Hollywood movies, that the last five minutes of every serious film are devoted to replacing life’s reality with some kind of making-everything-right for the kind of people who need trigger warnings. In company with Zootopia, it captures the madness of our own times. Do yourself a favour and not find out what it’s about beyond what I have just said before you enter the cinema. It is also Alan Rickman’s last film which is another reason to go.
As I say, the best political thriller in a long, long time and about contemporary issues as well.
UPDATE: The reason I had invoked my Five Minute Rule for Hollywood endings was that I was not sure which side the film was actually on. No question that the film as it came out will appeal to people like myself, but there is that last five minutes which made me think that the producers had not intended the film to appeal to me at all. That this is the case has been confirmed by the comment from PoliticoNT, who wrote:
Two stars at best. The director’s film ‘Rendition’ which the critics panned is much better. You’ve been warned.
To have preferred Rendition gives the game away. So let me give you just a touch of an understanding of what the film is about. Suppose that we are in the middle of World War II, at the end of 1943, and the entire Nazi high command is meeting in some place that can be bombed to smithereens. There you find Hitler, Göering, Himmler, Goebbels and Eva Braun all in one location at the same time. However, as they are about to bomb this location, some innocent young fräulein is so close to the building that the entire decision making process is frozen as they decide whether or not to bomb the place if there is more than a 50% chance that the girl will be killed. Now go see the film since there is nothing in it that anyone will think of as unrealistic about how the threat of terrorists is treated in the modern world.
Two stories on Tony Abbott today, Abbott: the case for my foreign policy the first in today’s Australian on The national security case for the Tony Abbott government and the second just published in Quadrant, Abbott: I Was Right on National Security. Why is Turnbull not man enough to say so? From the article in The Oz:
Tony Abbott stands by his hard line on Islamist terrorism and his “Team Australia” rhetoric, and indirectly criticises the Turnbull government for not responding to the general request by the Obama administration to do more in the Middle East.
In a defence of his government’s national security policies, Mr Abbott says that in office he shunned the moral posturing of Labor, aspired to be America’s “most dependable” ally, did “shirt-front” Russian President Vladimir Putin and strengthened national security by practical action and close co-operation with other leaders.
And from Quadrant, the article begins:
As prime minister, I was determined to advance our interests, protect our citizens and uphold our values around the world. The best way to do this was usually to be as practically helpful as possible in our dealings with other countries. That meant putting aside the moral posturing of the Rudd years to be a country that said what it meant and did what it said.
What a difference he made!
There is also this from Andrew Bolt, The Belgian ambassador’s criticism of Turnbull is wrong: blame Islam and immigration, where we find this fantastic piece of self-delusion:
My view is that the terrorists who committed the latest attacks and in Paris and in Belgium are European-raised and born. Maybe from foreign origins, but they are Europeans. So it has nothing to do with the refugee crisis…
And therefore, presumably, another few million won’t make the slightest difference.
Law of Markets 