Dems need to wake up

[Rach3]

Listen to Moore; he was right last time : https://tinyurl.com/y68skwyh

Way past time for Biden to be out of the basement.The protest violence is a big problem, as well, like that fact or not ; at least 40% of America voted for Trump last time without such a convenient excuse.

[Rach3]

Congressional official briefed on the matter says the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has informed the intelligence committees that it will no longer offer in-person briefings about election security and foreign election interference. - @KenDilanianNBC


ODNI claims (ie., lies , ) it's concerned lawmakers would leak classified info ( eg.,that Trump's public statements, ie. lies, about all known interference being only to help Biden, are contrary to the actual facts), but clearly,Trump wants to hide fact Trump's buddy Putin helping him for 2020 just as did in 2016.Trump fears some American voters wont like that 2020 fact. Trump already sabotaging the mail. Traitor Trump and his neo-Nazis at work.GOP silent of course, complicit.

[lennygoran]

Listen to Moore; he was right last time : https://tinyurl.com/y68skwyh

Way past time for Biden to be out of the basement.The protest violence is a big problem, as well, like that fact or not ; at least 40% of America voted for Trump last time without such a convenient excuse.

I'm starting to worry about Wisconsin. Regards, Len

[jserraglio]

40% of America voted for Trump last time without such a convenient excuse.

I agree that nothing should be taken for granted and that Michael Moore's warning should be heeded, but would like to point out that that in 1988, 47% of the electorate voted for Mike Dukakis. Here's the tally for that one. With only 53% of voters, Bush won the Presidency in a landslide. Raw percentages can be deceiving, as Hillary found out. Where your voters are located matters a lot more.

[barney]

I must say the electoral college system strikes me as bizarre and open to both abuse and unjust results, including 2016 when Hilary had 3 million more votes. It probably worked very well in the late 18th century. What happens if every Californian votes for one party, while in New York and Florida one fewer votes for that party than the other party.The overwhelming majority of voters would be voting for Party A, but this would not be reflected in the electoral college.
I do like Australia's system of electorates based on population numbers which make up our Congress or lower house (which we inherited from Britain), and then each of the states elects 12 senators (like the US, half at each election) where the Senate acts as a house of review and can reject legislation, sending it back to the lower house for review, but not pass it by itself. It means the parties cannot dismiss any state as irrelevant for the lower house.
The other Australian system which I thought unfair at first but now applaud is compulsory voting. You are fined if you do not turn up at a polling booth (once inside, you can vote informal, or simply leave, so it's compulsory attendance rather than voting). About 40 per cent of the electorate voted by post at the last election (if I recall aright; it mightn't have been quite that high).

[Holden Fourth]

The Electoral College idea has always seemed bizarre to me and the previous election showed this to be a fact.

Here in Australia we are overgoverned with four separate levels for a mere 25 million people. The current bickering among the States over Covid19 borders is just one example. Our Premier here in QLD, when asked about our closed borders trots out the same mantra "I make no apologies for protecting the health of Queenslanders,"...... trite and uninformative.

After my surgery my brother came across from Western Australia to stay a couple of weeks. Qld's borders are open to folks from WA. Not the reverse however and he finishes 14 days of mandatory home isolation tonight. One state's policy is totally different from anothers.

With a population of 335 million people I can see the necessity for state level government but not here. The Brits have two and a half times our numbers and they see no necessity for an added layer of local government. True, the Scottish situation seems to against the grain but it's just one instance.

Finally, Michael Moore has proved to be remarkably salient in the past so I would not be surprised if Trump was reelected.

[Belle]

Holden: the Australian border closures are a national disgrace, so is trashing our economy. The government is popular because it's throwing money about but the very day it asks for it to be repaid the acid will be liberally applied. Don't even start me about the WA and Queensland Premiers; I do hope Clive Palmer is successful in forcing open the WA border. We need to get there to see our son going through a pitiful divorce process.

We are watching the political party 'CONVENTIONS' for our entertainment. Either way the outcome won't affect Australia; we will continue to be engaged allies. Our electoral system isn't much different; we have electorates which require a party to win a majority of 75 to form government. You might get (as has happened in the past) more votes for the Labor Party (for example) in one or more electorates but they may not go on to form a government. The popular vote can be won by the party not forming government because there could easily be a swing in particular electorates to that party but it doesn't convert over to MORE SEATS in the government and a uniform swing. Ergo, to benefit from a 'swing' there has to be more actual SEATS garnered for the party, giving them more than 75. So, our system is quite like the USA from that perspective but not, of course, in the Presidential style. We would never invest a single person with that much power in Australia.

This following is a major problem for the Democrats; permissive treatment of protesters and this will galvanize the society AGAINST those doing the demonstrating and the enabling. I've seen it all through my lifetime. The hung-dog look on the faces of CNN after Trump's election 'acceptance' speech; they looked like they'd lost a million dollars and found a penny. Once you stop telling the people how terrible they are - how racist, greedy and selfish - you stand a fighting chance of winning their confidence.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/08/2 ... rn-bloody/

The thing which surprised me the most after the (overly long) Trump speech was the Democrats and supporters talking about Trump moving away from "norms". I could hardly believe my eyes; this from the progressive cohort which likes and appreciates change. To be honest, they're looking far more reactionary than any conservative ever was; cancel culture/excommunication, enforced group-think (catechisms), dislike of alternative opinions to the point of shutting them down...it's all there. It's the same with my lefty sister and her husband; retired teachers who shut down developments from residential apartments to coal mine extensions. Ergo, they don't like progress.

PS: Michael Moore made a documentary on the dubious efficacy of renewables. The sound of crickets from the Left for their favourite luvvy.

[Holden Fourth]

Belle, I agree about the border closures. We have to proactively learn to live with Covid19 as opposed to being continually reactive. The media in this sense is a disgrace (sorry Barney). Rising infection cases make much better news than (apart from Vic) mortality rates because the latter is ludicrously low. This reporting creates a sense of fear - what I call the 'Chicken Licken' effect. Quite simply it sells media subscriptions. It's also dishonest. I sense that Morrison has got totally fed up with the State political grandstanding and is going to put his foot down.

The bottom line is since when did we become Victorians or Queenslanders as opposed to Australians. What happened to the woman from Lismore who lost one of her unborn twins is an absolute disgrace!
Finally, sorry about hijacking the thread guys, I'll bow out.

[jserraglio]

permissive treatment of protesters ... will galvanize the society AGAINST those doing the demonstrating and the enabling.

Right wingers don't like it and may even try to undermine it, but for the time being, America's citizens still have the right to assemble and protest.

Rising infection cases make much better news than (apart from Vic) mortality rates because the latter is ludicrously low.

In the USA at least, the dead number 183,000 and counting, more than a quarter of the total lost in the devastating 1918 flu epidemic. Citing low mortality rates is a mere diversionary tactic.

[lennygoran]

America's citizens still have the right to assemble and protest.

Now I'm concerned about Portland again-I think you once said you were worried about another Civil War. As for Kenosha I guess that situation will be solved by Trump's trip there on Tuesday. Regards, Len

[jserraglio]

I think you once said you were worried about another Civil War.

Right-wing nutjobs and racists, like cicadas in swarm this year, have been emboldened to emerge from the dark chambers where they ordinarily lurk, battening in blessed silence on their shame.

[lennygoran]

as right-wing nutjobs and racists, like cicadas in swarm, are emboldened to emerge from the dark underground where they ordinarily lurk, battening on their shame.

Yeah an even the statues are joining the fight! Regards, Len

[jserraglio]

Those statues also practice the virtue of blissful silence. Would that their regressive counterparts would bestow that blessing hundredfold on the rest of the country.

[Belle]

Listen to the experts:

https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/08/3 ... with-fire/

[lennygoran]

Those statues also practice the virtue of blissful silence.

LOL-still you only see photos--with the current technologies I'm sure they could easily add audio comments and make them into full blown videos-trump's vulgarities might very well fit in with a project like that! Regards, Len

[jserraglio]

from MAGA mega quotes:

Let's make America great again--again!

It'll all go away, like magic.

It is what it is.

You always know what he's thinking.

Mr. President, I took that test; you know, it's not a very hard test.

[Belle]

Here's an excellent way to win an election:

Create identitarianism as an ideology, whip the people into victimhood frenzies, tax business to the high heavens, stand back and watch cities burn/police forces de-funded, criticize your opponents for creating division (add here a Ricky Gervais look of total bewilderment), encourage violent protests then blame your opponents for it but, above all, lecture your own people about their racist, sexist and xenophobic impulses and behaviour. And then worry when the polling demonstrates the nation's concern about ongoing violence - not that it's intrinsically bad in itself for the nation. Oh, and you also need to concentrate on the personal idiosyncrasies of the 'swamp-clearer' in chief.

There's a winning formula, right there.

What could possibly go wrong?

[jserraglio]

What could possibly go wrong?

Yes, what indeed could possibly go wrong?

1. Putin's goal is, and long has been, to install into the Oval Office a stooge who would dismantle NATO. That train left the station in 2016, ETA, Moscow 2024. There. That's a wrong thing for you to stew on in your next rant.

2. The Donald's unhinged fugue to Fox's Laura Ingraham last Sunday, comparing a killer cop to a golfer who choked on a 3-foot putt (even Laura couldn't stomach that bit of bile) and his later defense of an armed Illinois vigilante who killed two people. The President condoning violence. Two more whats that went badly wrong for you.

3. The Right will twist itself into pretzels kow-towing to tyranny, while pretending to carry a torch for the downtrodden. Even Melania:

‘They all went crazy about that zero-tolerance policy. But they do not know what is going on. The kids that I met were brought in by coyotes, bad people are trafficking, and that is why the kids were put in shelters. They are not with their parents, and it is sad. But the patrols told me that kids say, ‘Wow, I get a bed? I’ll have a cabinet for my clothes?’ It is more than they have in their country where they sleep on the floor. They’re taking care nicely there.’

Yep, there's a third train wreck for you to chew on.

4. Nearly 40% of the money raised for the Donald's inaugural (some 40 million of 107 million bucks) has gone missing and reportedly has been stolen right from under people's noses. Stay tuned. Indictments of even more cronies of the President are forthcoming.

For all these reasons, and not because I love Bolton the less or Bannon the more, I say that the Right should be rechristened as the Wrong.

[Belle]

This little snippet nails it in today's national Australian newspaper:

Trump exposes the moral bankruptcy of a political movement that, incredibly, calls itself progressive. It cannot plausibly advocate for inclusion when its followers work across politics, the media, Hollywood, academia and corporate life to exclude those who disagree with its proliferating herd of sacred cows. Not even a few words of admonishment from Obama slowed the marauding enforcers of cancel culture in the US.That raises the deep and abiding dilemma for the left.

Should its latest candidate win the presidency, Democrats will have to own the problem of a growing radical left-wing movement that chooses violence, looting and fascist-inspired coercion as a means to solving racial divisions. Trump is a symptom, not a cause of America’s political divide. And the bumbling Biden will prove no cure for what ails America. More likely, the violent plunderers, the loitering thugs who demand submission with BLM politics, and those cleansing institutions of intellectual diversity will be emboldened by the presence, and silence, of their man in the White House.

[jserraglio]

This little snippet nails it

Until now I had never met a snippet that wasn't little. At any rate, it is the Right that rules America today, the Left is not even close to pulling the levers of power, nor will they be if Biden, a centrist for his entire career, is elected.

The moral bankruptcy of the governing Right, on the other hand, is beyond dispute.

How many members of the Trump Administration have been forced to resign in disgrace, indicted, pardoned or had their sentences commuted, or even sentenced to prison? The list is too long to print here. It would make Teapot Dome look like an ice-cream social hosted by an Anglican curate.

The Right is intellectually bankrupt as well: instead of argument from evidence, what they offer is mere cant:

Not even a few words of admonishment from Obama slowed the marauding enforcers of cancel culture in the US.

O, O, O, William F. Buckley, where are you when your cause so sorely needs you? Not that you would have had any truck with the American Right as currently constituted. The fact that they ruled the roost would not have deterred you from calling them out for what they are: rapscallions bereft of shame.

[Rach3]

The moral bankruptcy of the governing Right, on the other hand, is beyond dispute.

DHS Chad Wolf told Fox News' neo-Nazi Carlson that DHS has talked to DOJ,ie Barr, about bringing RICO actions against Black Lives Matter.Neo-Nazis Miller and Kushners at work after talking to madman Fuhrer Trump.We also have Trumps disguised attack on Social Security thru his election ploy payroll tax deferral, plan to impose temporary drug price forced reductions just prior to election which will harm industry ability/supplies to respond to a range of diseases, sabotage of Post Office, and continuing pandemic failures, all of which have elicited ZERO response and silence from cowardly,sycophant,corrupt GOP.

And then news of Trumps buddy Morrison:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/australia- ... o-slavery/

[Belle]

'Trump's buddy' Morrison is getting energy up and running again in Australia after the Left completely tried to destroy it, with their fanciful notions of the renewables utopia. A major corporate leader has just appeared today at our National Press Club to tell us that battery power is still a joke and that we can have no faith in renewables until those problems are fixed and we can control the 'bad behaviour' of the sun and the wind. What an irony!! The Labor Party in Australia is busy incorporating LGBTQI issues in its policy platform: they're onto the real big issues!! A couple more terms in the wilderness might just about fix that!!

I've met another group of Lefties yesterday at lunch. You hear the same old canards, bromides and cliches from them. One thing I've learned; as a cohort they are not well read. If they were well read there would be some bones on their arguments. But there are none. Just repeated iterations of the same tired old tropes. For them, wide reading is the New York Times, The Guardian and our lefty newspapers and the ABC in Australia. Not a book can they ever quote. No relevant books sit on their bookshelves either, which is always a hoot. And a hint. That doesn't mean that all conservatives are well read; it means that they don't carry the monopoly on virtue or try to demand the rest of the world conform to their, er, moral standards - or else.

And they don't hate like the clappers.

Only economic progressives actually get it!!

[jserraglio]

they are not well read ... repeated iterations of the same tired old tropes.

Repeated iterations. Thus Redundancy rebukes redundancy.

[barney]

And you balance your reading so carefully, Belle. Hint: The Australian, Murdoch's flagship, is not left-wing, nor is it centrist.

[Belle]

And you balance your reading so carefully, Belle. Hint: The Australian, Murdoch's flagship, is not left-wing, nor is it centrist.

I read books, Barney, and newspapers and media for daily commentary. The authors of those books include (but are not limited to) Niall Ferguson (yes, you can read all about historic networks and hierarchies), Douglas Murray, Steven Pinker, Thomas Sowell, Christopher Hitchens, Martin Amis, Tucker Carlson, Theodore Dalrymple, Jonathon Haidt, Jordan Peterson, Clive Hamilton, Paul Kelly.

The Australian has largely become centrist thanks to the nature of the extreme positions the Left now adopts. It doesn't buy into the endless economy-sapping loop of climate hysteria. And its readers understand, as I do, that cool and thoughtful problem-solving is the answer to most of our social and economic issues. Since most of the readership belongs to the entrepreneurial class they'll be shelling out the cash whatever happens.

Bagging the News Corp press is the last resort of those who rely upon the vast left-wing majority news outlets who dislike the idea of a dissenting voice. Were it not for Murdoch there would BE no dissent. Most media fall into lock-step with the prevailing left orthodoxies - which is counter-productive anyway, since the Left is largely on the run politically the democratic world over. Think about that; the people feel they have to tolerate the march through the institutions but their basic thinking translates into "we don't have to tolerate them in government as well". And while we must endure race bullying by the once-liberal media (did you see that dreadful man shouting "Black Lives Matter" at Kimmel during the Emmys?), the people turn off their sympathies in droves. There is a war - a big cultural war - and if Trump didn't exist he'd have to be made up. I suspect that if you reversed the positions of the Left with conservatives and it was the Left having to provide the wealth for job creation there'd be a very different tune on the song sheet. As Jordan Peterson once said, "if you paid university professors the same as bankers they'd be capitalists and not marxists".

None of it is understood by the dogmatic left. They don't care anyway. They're already conflicted; they blame Trump for escalating deaths from Covid-19 yet lionize a Supreme Court judge after her death (that's another thing the Left does so well and so ostentatiously - lionizing its legends, all the time, endlessly) because she advocated (inter alia) for abortions. Do you not see the inconsistency? One demographic (baby boomers) is worth destroying a global economy to save, yet at the other end of the spectrum the life of an unborn child isn't up to much. Which is it to be? Is a child more valuable in its mother's arms than it is at 30 plus weeks in the womb? One is forced towards the inevitable conclusion; that only a voter is valuable. And a desirable voter at that - not a 'deplorable'. (Where have I heard that before? Orwell, National Socialism, Communism? Somewhere.)

[barney]

And you balance your reading so carefully, Belle. Hint: The Australian, Murdoch's flagship, is not left-wing, nor is it centrist.

I read books, Barney, and newspapers and media for daily commentary. The authors of those books include (but are not limited to) Niall Ferguson (yes, you can read all about historic networks and hierarchies), Douglas Murray, Steven Pinker, Thomas Sowell, Christopher Hitchens, Martin Amis, Tucker Carlson, Theodore Dalrymple, Jonathon Haidt, Jordan Peterson, Clive Hamilton, Paul Kelly.

The Australian has largely become centrist thanks to the nature of the extreme positions the Left now adopts. It doesn't buy into the endless economy-sapping loop of climate hysteria. And its readers understand, as I do, that cool and thoughtful problem-solving is the answer to most of our social and economic issues. Since most of the readership belongs to the entrepreneurial class they'll be shelling out the cash whatever happens.

Bagging the News Corp press is the last resort of those who rely upon the vast left-wing majority news outlets who dislike the idea of a dissenting voice. Were it not for Murdoch there would BE no dissent. Most media fall into lock-step with the prevailing left orthodoxies - which is counter-productive anyway, since the Left is largely on the run politically the democratic world over. Think about that; the people feel they have to tolerate the march through the institutions but their basic thinking translates into "we don't have to tolerate them in government as well". And while we must endure race bullying by the once-liberal media (did you see that dreadful man shouting "Black Lives Matter" at Kimmel during the Emmys?), the people turn off their sympathies in droves. There is a war - a big cultural war - and if Trump didn't exist he'd have to be made up. I suspect that if you reversed the positions of the Left with conservatives and it was the Left having to provide the wealth for job creation there'd be a very different tune on the song sheet. As Jordan Peterson once said, "if you paid university professors the same as bankers they'd be capitalists and not marxists".

None of it is understood by the dogmatic left. They don't care anyway. They're already conflicted; they blame Trump for escalating deaths from Covid-19 yet lionize a Supreme Court judge after her death (that's another thing the Left does so well and so ostentatiously - lionizing its legends, all the time, endlessly) because she advocated (inter alia) for abortions. Do you not see the inconsistency? One demographic (baby boomers) is worth destroying a global economy to save, yet at the other end of the spectrum the life of an unborn child isn't up to much. Which is it to be? Is a child more valuable in its mother's arms than it is at 30 plus weeks in the womb? One is forced towards the inevitable conclusion; that only a voter is valuable. And a desirable voter at that - not a 'deplorable'. (Where have I heard that before? Orwell, National Socialism, Communism? Somewhere.)

What I was getting at was the lack of diversity in your reading, which means you just stay in the echo chamber. I respect nearly all the names you list (I don't know Sowell), but they are all right-wingers except Hamilton (whom I suspect you read mostly on China, as I do) and possibly Haidt. I don't recommend you follow me, as I spend far too much time on the Net, but I read daily The Age (leftish), Herald Sun (rightish), Australian (right-wing), Guardian (left-wing), New York Times (I think centrist, you think left), Spectator (right wing, more so in Australia than the UK), plus I get daily newsletters from at least a dozen sources, from John Menadue's Pearls and Irritations (very pro-China and anti US, which I read to get out of my comfort zone on China, and spend half the day arguing on) to religion and philosophy websites. Plus, as an Australian male, a few sports sites. Then there are individual links, such as those often provided here on CMG and in newsletters.
What I am suggesting, with all due respect, is that you need to get out of your comfort zone a bit more. News Corp has some excellent journalists, even if I don't always agree, and Paul Kelly and Greg Sheridan spring to mind. Then there are culture warriors such as Chris Kenny, who often irritates the heck out of me, but can still offer important commentary, such as when he broke the news about the ABC's scandalous treatment of Jacinta Price. It may interest you to know that I have emailed Kenny four or five times to congratulate him. I just think that reading a few different opinions might mitigate your intense culture warrior attitude.
I know that you are going to resent this post, and disagree, but I still thought the point worth suggesting.

[jserraglio]

[The Left] lionize a Supreme Court judge after her death (that's another thing the Left does so well and so ostentatiously - lionizing its legends, all the time, endlessly) because she advocated (inter alia) for abortions. Do you not see the inconsistency? One demographic (baby boomers) is worth destroying a global economy to save, yet at the other end of the spectrum the life of an unborn child isn't up to much. Which is it to be? Is a child more valuable in its mother's arms than it is at 30 plus weeks in the womb?

You kick a few facts into the gutter:

(1) Bader Ginsberg advocated not for abortion but for equal treatment of women under the law. Those are two very different things:

[Bader Ginsburg] “first thought long and hard” about abortion rights when, as a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), she took on Struck v. Secretary of Defense, a case that was on the Supreme Court’s calendar during the same term that Roe was decided. Susan Struck was an Air Force Captain who got pregnant while serving in Vietnam and sued the Air Force after it said she would have to either get an abortion at the base hospital or leave if she wanted to have the child. She told the Air Force that she didn’t want to get an abortion; she wanted to use the vacation days that she had saved up to give birth and then put the baby up for adoption because abortion violated her Roman Catholic faith.

Here’s how Ginsburg explained her approach — that sex discrimination includes discrimination because of pregnancy — to the Senate Judiciary Committee:

"First, that the applicable Air Force regulations — if you are pregnant you are out unless you have an abortion — violated the equal protection principle, for no man was ordered out of service because he had been the partner in a conception, no man was ordered out of service because he was about to become a father.

"Next, then we said that the Government is impeding, without cause, a woman’s choice whether to bear or not to bear a child. Birth was Captain Struck’s personal choice, and the interference with it was a violation of her liberty, her freedom to choose, guaranteed by the due process clause.

"Finally, we said the Air Force was involved in an unnecessary interference with Captain Struck’s religious belief.

"So all three strands were involved in Captain Struck’s case. The main emphasis was on her equality as a woman vis-à-vis a man who was equally responsible for the conception, and on her personal choice, which the Government said she could not have unless she gave up her career in the service.

"In that case, all three strands were involved: her equality right, her right to decide for herself whether she was going to bear the child, and her religious belief. So it was never an either/or matter, one rather than the other. It was always recognition that one thing that conspicuously distinguishes women from men is that only women become pregnant; and if you subject a woman to disadvantageous treatment on the basis of her pregnant status, which was what was happening to Captain Struck, you would be denying her equal treatment under the law…

"The decision whether or not to bear a child is central to a woman’s life, to her well-being and dignity. It is a decision she must make for herself. When Government controls that decision for her, she is being treated as less than a fully adult human responsible for her own choices."

(2) In the courts of the 1970s, in case after case, RBG pretty much singlehandedly erected the legal scaffolding that protected the rights of minorities and women already enshrined in law and the Constitution but not enforced as a matter of practice. For that, she was lionized many decades before her death.

(3) RBG was revered by many more than those on the Left. The late great Justice Antonin Scalia, the leading voice for conservatism on the Supreme Court, if not in the nation during the post-Reagan years, was a close and devoted friend of hers and fellow opera enthusiast, co-starring with her in an opera by Derrick Wang entitled Scalia/Ginsburg; and the now retired dean of Senate conservatives Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) publicly lauded and admired her. Apparently, many other conservatives counted themselves among her friends or admirers.

RBG the incrementalist, arguably the most consequential champion of individual liberties to serve on the Court since Thurgood Marshall, deserves better than to have her achievements misrepresented by a poorly informed observer with a dull axe to grind.

[Rach3]

The HAL 9000 , 2020 version:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/ar ... de/616424/