1. Trump’s Plan B, was it Plan A?
It’s generally agreed, I think, that the moderator won the third presidential debate, with Hillary Clinton coming second.
Trump may not have lost, however, because there is talk that Trump may launch himself into the TV business, where no doubt nothing but the truth will be told.
There has been talk about it at Vanity Fair back in June. There was talk at Huffington Post a few days ago. Now it’s in The Economist.
I’ve even heard it said that his real plan was just that, run for nomination, come second, and then launch into TV.
So the more controversy the better. It’s the only sane explanation for how he’s been going on.
Meanwhile Bruce Schapiro told Phillip Adams that probably the most conflicted issue in the US at present was the argument over women’s reproduction rights.
Back when Clinton was up against Bernie Sanders they said she would struggle to get women to vote for her. Now the prospect of Donald Trump is going to bring them out in droves. That’s the Clinton plan, says Schapiro, and for now it seems to be working.
2. Abbott v Turnbull: open warfare on the floor of the House
Katherine Murphy says “Abbott had left Turnbull with absolutely no choice, given that he had indulged in a series of deliberate provocations for the best part of a fortnight.” Turnbull had to throw Abbott under the bus.
She says it’s not like Rudd v Gillard – a simple, brutal wrestle for power:
- The Coalition’s power struggle is between a conservative prime minister, who believes he has unfinished business and won’t leave the parliament, and a moderate prime minister, with diminished internal authority, who regularly has to sublimate his own views to cultivate some kind of internal stability and esprit de corps in order to manage a parliament with a one-seat majority.
So the Turnbull government remains riven by factional and philosophical differences.
Bill Shorten is also having problems with factional issues in Victoria, and was shirt-fronted by Albanese.
I don’t know enough about guns or gun legislation to have an opinion about the Adler lever-action shotgun, but I do object to David Leyonhjelm or any other politician doing deals across issues. Each issue should be considered on its merits.
3. Turnbull in trouble in the polls
The last two Newspolls have had Labor ahead 52-48 in TPP terms, and Turnbull’s approval rating has dipped below Shorten’s to reach -25 as against Shorten’s -16.
In the Essential Report Labor’s lead in TPP terms has opened up to 53-47.
Also just under one-third (31%) of Australians are confident that the Turnbull Government will be able to get things done that the nation needs. Just 4% are ‘very confident’, while 58% are not confident, and 11% don’t know.
4. Hard Brexit
Treasury have told the British government that Brexit could cause GDP to fall between 5.4% and 9.5% pa over 15 years, and cost between £38bn and £66bn per year in tax revenue.
What we told you back in April was right, they said.
Meanwhile Angela Merkel intends taking a firm stance during negotiations over Britain’s exit from the EU, even if it comes at a short-term cost.
It seems the Germans won’t grant Britain an opt-out from any of the four freedoms – free movement of goods, services, capital and persons – as it could amount to the “beginning of the end” of the single market.
Francois Hollande joined a line of European leaders saying Britain must pay a heavy price, or the EU will fall apart.
Theresa May has said:
- she wanted to “operate” within the EU’s single market, yet end free movement of people and the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice.
It’s looking like a bridge too far.
This quote perhaps tells you all you need to know about Brexiters.
Introduction to Saturday salon
Because of the way the blog currently presents posts on the home page I think it’s better to remove the introductory material to a different place. For new readers, here’s the rationale for this space.
An open thread where, at your leisure, you can discuss anything you like, well, within reason and the Comments Policy. Include here news and views, plus any notable personal experiences from the week and the weekend.
For climate topics please use the most recent Climate clippings.
The gentleman in the image is Voltaire, who for a time graced the court of Frederick II of Prussia, known as Frederick the Great. King Fred loved to talk about the universe and everything at the end of a day’s work. He also used the salons of Berlin to get feedback in the development of public policy.
Fred would only talk in French; he regarded German as barbaric. Here we’ll use English.
The thread will be a stoush-free zone. The Comments Policy says:
The aim [of this site] is to provide a venue for people to contribute and to engage in a civil and respectful manner.
At least The Donald has been in the TV game before, unlike the governance game. An easier life for him, and with the right format he can command a cavalcade of starlets. (Better than trying to re-engineer the White House intern program.)
Regardless of their views on abortion, US women apparently make up 53% of the national electorate and in past elections a higher proportion of women than men have bothered to vote.
A rigged election? Pre-poll voters are voting now, seemingly unconcerned…….
I very much hope that the percentage of eligibles who actually vote this time is the highest in modern times.
Trump Network Television, the TNT that wants to blow up the joint.
For some reason I can’t link to the youtube of a brilliant undercover investigation.
Just Google ” Project Veritas Action, rigging the election. ”
This is the first in an ongoing series that exposes the Dems election campaign rigging, in their own words.
So far nothing in the MSM, their silence is deafening.
Had 4Corners exposed it there’d be a ban on the US election.
Please view with an open mind…..
US politics has gone weirder than I thought possible – unless it has always been that way and now is collapsing under the weight of the great Preposterous.
Both side have shown what they are and one is clearly less attractive than the other, but you wonder if either is good enough. Sounds like Australian politics.
I guess it is still possible Trump will get across the line. If he does, it says far more about Americans than anything else. A Trump victory will dissolve any remaining trust, confidence and respect I have for the USA. Given I’m from the era where everything on earth was great if it was American, it is sad to see such a decline.
Maybe I’m too harsh on the people of America? They have been captive to their economic founders – especially their Press for so long they can no longer see outside their windows.
I like the new twist in the Brexit, largely about borders, which looks likely to move the British immigration frontier from Callais to Kent. Now the Brits will have to deal with asylum seekers on their own territory. Lets see how their courts cope with that one.
Jumpy, you are very selective with your conspiracies. Only too happy to forget the endless procession of Republican election rigging even to the extent of the US Supreme Court and all manner of lock outs of the less privileged. It seems denialists have no boundaries to their blinkered thinking.
Your Project Veritas http://www.projectveritasaction.com/ thing looks entirely Trumped up (copyright 2016), and unDemocratic, Jumpy.
Both sides are not being shown equally to the masses. The MSM filter is the problem, the answer is journalists that don’t work for ” Big Media ” along with sussing it out yourself.
But by all means listen to ” Big Media ” with a sceptical approach on all issues. That it the responsibility a voter bears.
Bilb, did you view the footage and listen to the audio ?
If you did, are you ok with that ?
Jumpy, the video you refer to may be linked in this article, which tends to come down on the side of significant voter fraud, mainly perpetrated by the Democrats.
However, it doesn’t go into Republicans trying to make it more difficult for citizens to vote in elections in areas where they ar likely to vote Democrat.
This article a few days later has a different view.
One of the real problems, however, is the gerrymandering of HoR seats, which is there for everyone to see, but no-one in the American sysyem has a workable answer to fix. See Elizabeth Kolbert’s review of David Daley’s book Ratf**ked: The True Story Behind the Secret Plan to Steal America’s Democracy. Project Redmap produced results like this:
They need a commission like the AEC, to run the whole election, not state by stae, and they need multi-member electorates, etc etc.
One of the problems cited in Ratf**ked is that the crazies are now in control, the crazies that gave us Ted Cruz as well as Trump.
It really is amazing where Trump finds himself at striking distance of the White House given the almost total condemnation b ythe MSM, the corporate money flowing to Hillary at double what he’s getting and the incumbency machine running against him.
Why is it so Julius…….
It just does not stack up, Jumpy. They’ve got one guy making red neck elaborate claims and that is somehow going to “change America”. For starters if “(we’ve) been doing this for fifty years”, it hasn’t been very effective as both houses of US government are Republican, and Republicans are incredibly slow to discover this “conspiracy”.
My looking at it tells me that the conspirator here is this James O’Keefe guy who is very organised to receive your donation, Jumpy. I suggest you give him $1000 as you are so very concerned about this. And to cover your costs, Jumpy, I know of a guy in Africa with $40 Million that he needs to give to someone in Mackay, I’m happy to forward the letter with the instructions.
BilB, we differ in that I don’t think two wrongs make a right.
Corruption is bad no matter the origin.
And ” R@dn@ck ” is as racist as ” N!gg@r “.
Geoff, you say “I’m from the era where everything on earth was great if it was American”.
I’ve never seen it that way. In the areas where I worked professionally, I didn’t get to the USA, but those who did found the best and the worst, the worst in the OECD, that is. And that’s the way I’ve tended to see the US overall.
On talkback radio I’ve heard over and over the killer argument “Well, we don’t want to become like America!”
Much to admire, certainly, but not a good place to be poor.
One of the things they are really good at is writing and performing songs.
Not really. “Redneck” is based on perceived attitudes and social standing not race, even though it’s often (but not always) applied to “poor white trash”.
It would be more accurate to say ”R@dn@ck” is as bigoted as ”N!gg@r“.
Brian I was in touch with the USA very early because my dad was a pilot. We had all the Broadway musicals, fluoride tooth paste, Canon towels and so on – all the little bits seemed to add up that the USA was great, certainly to a ten year old. We visited US several times but still the US was impressive.
In 1966 I spent a few weeks in Seattle and it was there that I saw how insulated Americans were from the rest of the world because their newspapers were bereft of international items. I was asked if we made our own cars, and how did we keep kangaroos of the runway in Sydney. Gunfights at gas stations during the so-called 70’s oil crisis left me wondering and more aware that the US had some issues. Years later I had some insights into how the big corporations developed (oil, finance, press, railways, steel, automobiles) and came to control the politics of the US that really soured me. Since then I have seen some social stuff that just leaves me cold. As you say, it is not a good place to be poor.
So my innocence has steadily eroded since then, assisted by a heavy dose of denial.
No we don’t want to be like the US but I see us drifting that way politically at least.
Was that Australia or the US you were talking about?
1. I hope that hypothesis about The Donald’s primary motivation is correct, Brian. It makes some sense. Wild accusations, as in a “US TV talk show” slugfest. Headline grabbing, daily sensations……. So, where a serious candidate for office might learn to moderate and control his language, a chap aiming for notoriety and TV celebrity might charge around like a ……….. well, like The Donald.
The only similar cases I can recall are the very lovely Signor Berlusconi (also an admirer of women), Mr Duterte, and a previous Phillipines President from the film industry. Signor B had a massive media empire……. and was a sincere seeker after truth……
2. Again, suggestions that Mr Turnbull needs to put Mr Abbott in his Cabinet. I can’t see it happening. Unless it’s a lead lined cabinet of strongest hardwood, with the doors firmly nailed shut, trucked out to the Simpson Desert and left to weather in the sun, well away from any track. Stocked with onions and bitter draughts of Waringah Bitter (c)
Ambigulous, with Trump, it could be just the nature of the beast. He’s erratic, but his consistent focus seems to be an ego trip. When he lost his teleprompter, he jumped around all over the place, from memory talking about over 20 different topics in five minutes.
At other times he is quite obsessive. Richard Branson relates his meeting with Trump at Trump’s request:
The vindictive streak is a worry.
Ambigulous,
Commenting to your point 2, I came across this information while researching how to cope with a disturbed business associate. I am contemplating forwarding this to Malcolm Turnbull’s office, but some how I think they are already well informed.
“Teaching empathy and emotion. Trying to teach empathy and emotion to a sociopath is like trying to teach a cellphone to cook a pizza. If it sounds ridiculous to teach a phone to cook a pizza, it’s because it is. A phone isn’t wired to cook, and it’s not bothered by this fact. Likewise, a sociopath’s brain isn’t wired to feel empathy or other emotions, and like the phone, the sociopath isn’t bothered about it.
The unfortunate reality is that at this point, there is no evidence to show that a sociopath can change. Currently, there is nothing that has been proven effective as a treatment for a sociopath. Researchers and practitioners aren’t giving up, though. Can sociopaths be cured? Experts hope they can.
In the meantime, professionals advise that the best way to deal with a sociopath is to cut off all contact. Doing so may be the best treatment possible, at least for the non-sociopath. (In this case, the Australian public [my bracketed addition])”
Hmm, let us consult Oxford dictionary rather than zoot dictionary shall we ?
As usual, Jumpy only provides part of the definition:
dictionary.com has a usage note:
I repeat, it’s not primarily a racial epithet but a socio-economical one.
BilB,
Best wishes for your dealings with your business associate.
It’s a tricky situation to be in.
zoot, stop flailing.
What other races can be racially profiled as ” r@dn@ck ” ?
The jig is up.
Jumpy, I hate to tell you, but on this occasion zoot is right. Being white is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for being a redneck.
Or to put it in plain language, all rednecks are white, but not all whites are rednecks. Being a redneck is not a necessary part of being white, so it is not a distinguishing feature of being white. As it would be if it was a characteristic of the race.
That’s allowing ‘whites’ to be described as a ‘race’, which may pass muster, whiteness being a shared physical or genetic trait.
Rednecks are a sociological subset of whites, I leave it to others to define the distinguishing traits.
It does call into question whether ‘white men’ can be considered a race, as a certain angry politician would have us believe.
On reflection I’m not sure that ‘whites’ can in fact be considered a race. I would think there would have to be a number of shared characteristics.
On Counterpoint today we heard from Daniel Bonevac, one of 145 other scholars and writers in declaring support for Donald Trump for president.
He’s very articulate and his analysis is excoriating. The US as a declining hegemon is certainly in big trouble.
I’m sorry, though, that doesn’t make the indefensible acceptable.
Will Hillary C fix it? Probably not, in any way we can foresee.
BTW if you read through his piece, he’s a climate change denier.
Jumpy, stop flailing.
Redneck is not a racial profile (as Brian has pointed out), therefore no races can be profiled as redneck.
If someone calls Billy Crystal a “kike” it is because Crystal is Jewish. If someone refers to Ernie Dingo as a “coon” it’s because he’s Aboriginal. When you call people “wogs” it’s because of their ethnicity (Greek? Italian?). These are racial profiles.
If I call Donald Trump a “redneck” it’s not because of his race, it’s because he is a bigoted, narrow-minded ignoramus; nothing to do with the colour of his skin.
Just to let folks know, tomorrow our computer tech is going to turn up here with a new computer.
Today and tonight I’ve been trying to tidy things up a bit in anticipation of the change. My computer is six years old, and is increasingly slow. For reasons unknown the back end of the blog has also been playing up with lots of “Internal Server Error” and “Not found” notices appearing when I try to do something.
Anyway I’ll be offline for a while and will then be trying to set up settings. With a bit of luck there will be a new post for Wednesday, but I’m not sure.
Since Indians are racially Caucasian, does that preclude them from being rednecks?
If that be the case, Geoff, I think ‘white’ is a subset of Caucasian.
Anyway I think in cultural terms a different word would be found.
Brian
Good luck with your new gizmo.
Jumpy objected to your quoting Bruce S from The Nation (USA). Now you link to Counterpoint (Australia).
I admire your eclecticism and open mindedness. And your energy, enthusiasm and style.
Thanks again, champ!!
Yes Brian. I think in some contexts, “white” can be quite unclean.
Good luck with the new computer. I trust you have taken a full and complete copy of your current hard drive.
Well we’ll have to remain in disagreement zoot and Brian.
I remain certain that calling someone a ” r@dn@ck ” is likely to offend or insult on the basis of race, colour or culture, thus breaching 18c.
But till it’s proven but the bureaucrats we’ll never know for sure.
So keep it coming zoot. I prefer ” Brady Bunch Cracker ” if you could work that in a few times please, ta.
Jumpy, it’s not culture. It’s “to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate” by reason of “race, colour or national or ethnic origin”.
I doubt 18C would come into play, but I could be wrong.
I’m obviously back working on the new computer, but it’s not a done deal. On the positive side I have 8 megabytes in RAM as against 2 before, so it’s much faster.
Some setting still need work, and I usually find it hard to locate them. The biggest negative is that the email wouldn’t come across fully, so I can receive and reply to emails, but no contacts list, not even a folder for them, and the Climate Plus subaccount is completely missing.
The tech has taken the old computer to work on. He said in general it still looked OK, but had developed a few kinks. One is in the email system.
I’m hoping he’ll be able to fix it when he comes back on Thursday.
The big change in the industry is that Microsoft and other BIG DATA firms are keen to sell subscriptions rather than products. You can’t by Office on a disk anymore, for example.
According to this, Brian,…
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-good-reasons-not-buy-office-2016/
……you can buy office and this site goes to some trouble to sell the rent seeker office 365 version.
Ok Brian.
Anyway, the US most accurate poll find it neck n neck just 2 weeks out. Leaving them at odd with the MSM polls, again.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/oct/24/clinton-trump-locked-dead-heat-poll/
Jumpy, Nate Silver has the race tightening slightly, but Clinton ahead by 6.2 percentage points, and an 83% chance.
The thing about the US is that you can always find something that will support what you want to believe, but I think Silver predicted 50 out of 51 states last time, or something like that.
Not long to go now before we find out, Bunchy.
Ambigulous, thanks for the complement upthread. The truth is that one has to take care about what is being written in the USA, because some will pen outright lies. I’m not sure we can always escape that sort of thing.
From the beginning I’ve thought that Hillary Clinton was not the ideal candidate. For starters she always was going to have baggage that could be attacked. In most elections she would be dead in the water by now, if it were not for Trump being more outrageous than one would have thought possible.
Ross Douthat has a piece in the NYT that puts the dilemma well. Trump is unacceptable, but Clinton comes from the elites whose policies gave us Trump. In the end:
Sanders was good on policy, I think, but was not really part of the Democratic Party – they didn’t own him. I think he would have found the going very tough and would not have gotten very far.
Brian
Isn’t that the truth.
But runs in the board matter with polling and that mob are going Bradman this decade. Unwise to ignore.
Bilb
Please, we’re old friends, call me Cracker.
Or Redneck, White Bread Honkey, …. any derogatory name with a Caucasian content, its a allowed here !!
Grouse ay ? ( trying to sound as white as I can, but its hard )
This site doesn’t agree.
They got the final result right in 2012, but 2 weeks out they had McCain in front of Obama 74-22 amongst young voters. and the final result was Obama 66-31.
Is history repeating?
Bunchy, Bunch, Honey Bunch, The Bunchster, Braidy, Brades, The Young Brade, Cracker, Cracks, Cracksy, BBC, Crackbunch, Braidsy, ……
So many to choose from, so little time.
Maaaaaaaaaate!!!
🙂
The article that Cracker linked to features the IBD/TIPP poll, saying that Trump and Clinton where at a dead heat.
Nate Silver in fact assessed IBD/TIPP as the most accurate poll over the last three weeks in 2012.
However, Silver now has Clinton at an 85% chance of winning.
In an intriguing article, he reports a survey that shows that most of the people voting for Clinton are voting for her, and not just voting against Trump.
OTOH, the majority of people voting for Trump are actually voting against Clinton.
In that sense, the election may turn out to be a referendum on whether Clinton should be president.
Interesting article in Washington Post online about Doug Band, aide to Bill Clinton, and Band’s company Teneo; it arranged for lucrative speaking jobs for Bill and lobbied the same sources for donations to the Clinton Foundation. Bill was ex-President by then.
Do some nations have laws prohibiting retired MPs and retired senior public servants from earning consulting money immediately after leaving office?
Looks like the same article in The Chicago Tribune.
Seems there was a spat between Chelsea and former Bill Clinton aide Douglas Band. Further down the article it says that Bill paid the money back the Band raised for him personally.
Not sure we learn anything we need to know, but yes, I think their are different laws in different countries. Tony Blair seems to have monetised his fame fairly well.
Interesting explanation of white privilege. Along the way it offers hints as to why “redneck” is not a racist epithet, even though our resident expert will disagree.
This is actually quite good zoot, we can get to the nuts and bolts of your flawed logic.
Could you please name a Country where ” white privilege ” does not exist, given that white are a minority of humanity and other races hugely dominate other populations, there must be plenty ?
Go.
Huh???
Well that”s 3 question marks, how about read it a 4th time;
My bold.
How about i truncate the question for simplicity, removing any potential confusing content;
How about you just describe my “flawed logic”?
If you answer the simple question, i will.
That is how debates on ideas work.
I fear you may not want to debate ideas that challenge your current perception. I hope I’m wrong.
Do take your time zoot, I’m off to bed after a long weeks work.
Be sure that I eagerly await your answer.
Sleep well, whatever your name is this week.
BBC What’s with the badgering about a debate? You have posed a question but then followed up by baiting. That is inconsistent with the concept of a debate.
In general, that level of debate is more commonly found in schools and parliaments.
But if you have a point of view on the topic, lets just hear what that is… might even trigger a debate??
Geoff, G’day.
The reason zoot won’t answer;
is because he has 2 options and both logically debunk his position, and he knows it.
If he answers ” there are none ” then conscience/unconscience racial privilege is caused by the dominant race ( i.e. power ) is bunkum.
If he names a Country e.g. China then his position that the dominant race can’t be racially offended by a minority allows a non Chinese to go to China and let rip ( insert Asian specific derogatory term )
Personally he can shout ” redneck ” and the like all wants, I’m a Freedom of Speech type. But to call for sanctions on some and sanctuary for others is not leading us to equality, rather the opposite. That’s what 18c does.
OK well thanks for that. I’ve been impressed many times by Zoot’s acute mind and depth of thought. It’s not like him to paint himself into a corner and he is very capable of responding if he chose to.
I am still curious about the intensity of your posts.
I prefer robust yet polite, a good recipe for any debate of opinion, in my opinion.
I’m quite often am faced with robustness or ” intensity as you put it, here and am fine with it.
Even if others breach the comments policy it’s not my place to enforce them only comply with them. And I think I do better than some.
Where statements, Bunchy, such as this from the Guardian
“Being top of the pile means that whites are peculiarly and uniquely insensitive to race and racism, and the power relations this involves. We are invariably the beneficiaries, never the victims.”
….are largely true, they are not absolutely true. Papua New Guinea would be one place where whites are victims of racism and must live in compounds for their protection. I think that the tide of respect for whites is changing and in countries such as China and Japan respect is severely waning.
Donald Trump, in the wake of JWB is doing more than anyone to hasten the decline of respect for white ideals. I think middle eastern countries would also demonstrate minimal respect, even huge resentment, for white Europeans.
As to Redneck, “a working-class white person from the southern US especially a politically reactionary one”, my use of the term is not racist, it is descriptive and correctly applied as used.
Cracker, it seems zoot doesn’t want to play, and I don’t blame him. You’ve set a test that is basically irrelevant.
There is a difference between what can happen on occasion, and what commonly happens. Also you’ve narrowed the concept of racial discrimination to ‘offend’ alone, in spite of it being made clear that the judicial system has considered “offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate” as though the “or” was “and”.
Of course it is possible to offend the Chinese in China, or the Japanese in Japan, and they may well have laws to deal with you.
It is also possible for a member of a racial minority in Australia to racially offend the majority of Australians, and the chances are, as far as I can see, that no legal penalty would be incurred, although there may be social implications.
BTW, I’m assuming that by “conscience/unconscience” you mean “conscious/unconscious”.