Sign In
0 Items (
Search
Comments (35)
Trump haters are most prevalent in the United States but they are everywhere, including in our midst. Troy Bramston was at again the other day in my morning Australian newspaper, the price of which has just risen by 17 percent. A case of getting less for more. “Biden in the White House would be good for us,” is its title. Aptly pedestrian for both the article and the writer.
Of course, Biden in the White House would be a disaster for Western civilisation and the Free World but, never mind, apparently, he “aligns better with the Morrison government’s international priorities.” What follows from Bramston is tendentious tripe and not fit to print. Like his Washington correspondent colleague, Cameron Stewart, his anti-Trump bias is regularly on tiresome show. But, let’s face it, Trump haters are a dime a dozen throughout the Australia media. More disconcerting is the way the hateful hacks have poisoned the opinions of ordinary people.
Best to regularly make a little list of the Donald’s dreadful deeds during what Bramston calls “Trump’s disastrous presidency.”
# He’s led the US into no new wars
# He’s routed ISIS (remember them?)
# He’s rebuilt the US military (you know, the military we depend upon)
# He’s stood up against China’s rapacious trade policies
# He’s forced NATO countries to front up more for their own defence
# He’s relocated the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem (long promised, never delivered until Trump) and recognised the Golan heights as being part of Israel (a must-have for Israel’s defence)
# He’s brokered peace deals between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain (Nobel Peace Prize 2021?)
# He’s curbed illegal immigration, including with a wall (OK, the Mexicans didn’t pay for it)
# He’s replaced NAFTA with an improved trade deal with Mexico and Canada
# He reduced regulations and taxes, producing US energy independence and, before COVID hit, the lowest Black and Hispanic unemployment on record; combined with an upsurge in real wage growth
# He’s brought back manufacturing jobs when Obama and those in the know said it couldn’t be done
# He’s promoted and signed the First Step Act to lessen the over-incarceration of black offenders
# He’s established business opportunity zones in the inner cities to help minorities escape despair
# He’s supported school choice and charter schools for disadvantaged children
# He’s promoted and signed a bill to provide permanent funding for traditionally black colleges.
# He’s appointed objective federal judges and Supreme Court justices to defend the constitution, as distinct from politically motivated activists.
This list is by no means exhaustive. Though, as you can appreciate from the above truncated list of his achievements, he has much to answer for. And I haven’t even mentioned COVID. Trump sure messed that up.
True, he moved quickly to shut down travel from China and Europe, orchestrated a lockdown advised by the sainted duo Fauci and Birx, made sure medical equipment and hospital beds were available to meet the expected surge in cases but, critically, he didn’t look glum enough. Glumness might have saved lives. Churchill was the same. That inane victory sign persuaded people to stray too far from bomb shelters, costing lives.
Let me concede what others might have suspected. I can’t stand those on this new woke left. Before COVID came to further diminish their good sense, I could just about stand them. At least, I could, for a few minutes at a time. But Dan-worshipping, the finger-pointing at those who refuse to cower in the face of the least-deadliest plague ever to afflict mankind; at those who don’t don their masks or keep their distance, is well beyond insufferable. Does anyone take these censorious scolds seriously?
Well, yes, as it happens. The likeminded. And they are a legion and growing. Incubated in universities, a neo-Marxist lifeform, more deadly than any virus, has metastasised throughout schools, the media, public services, the political class and corporate boardrooms.
We are not dealing any longer with mere differences of opinion. That’s long gone. That’s why there can be no amity. No grand bargain. No working across the aisles. This, quite literally, is a fight for survival.
Churchill put fighting for survival in perspective.
If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.
I fear we now occupy the ‘worse case’. But let’s still keep hope alive. Four more years of Donald Trump might give us at least a ‘precarious chance’ of survival. It’s a long shot.
There will be chaos, confusion and certain economic decline if President Trump does not win. In a ‘Biden’ Presidency (the Good Lord help us) Centre-left Democrats may try to regain control to curtail this somewhat, but I don’t fancy their chances. Socialism is to be given one more try at being ‘real’ socialism . Rampant green madness will link in with the green-crazy EU politicians and bureaucrats, the EU itself fraying over this issue, and China and Russia will make hay.
Only Trump can turn this ship around.
So in your world Ian Macdougall the world will be better served with a bloke who has a penchant for fibbing about details such as selling his office availability to his sons dodgy business associates, cannot recall what state he is in, has an offsider who extended peoples time in gaol for financial gain, left a man on death row by withholding evidence that would have freed him until forced to offer it to the court, laughs about the 1500 people she put into gaol for marijuana use then laughs about her own use and the fact she did inhale.
You have a funny idea of what constitutes the right sort of person who should be inhabiting the whitehouse. Especially when one considers the alternatives.
‘Precarious chance”, Peter Smith? Lord Salisbury, PM, once observed: “Delay is life”. As a Cecil, his family had embodied this wisdom for some time. When Donald Trump was elected I remember saying to friends, “I’ve no idea where this is all going, but so far it’s upset a lot of people I don’t like.” Well, it turned out far better than I could have imagined, and for the reasons you list. So here’s to delay, the handmaiden of chance.
MINOR OPERATIONS: I performed many thousands without mask or gloves – a simple no touch technique sufficed – no complications.
MAJOR SURGERY/OBSTETRICS: always wore a mask and gloves in hundreds of cases – and the usual number of surgical patients got post operative infections.
POST MORTEMS: never wore a mask in thousands of cases and dealt with whatever came – influenza, tuberculosis, adenovirus, Q fever, syphilis, AIDS, hepatitis, melioidosis, pneumonia, leprosy, fungi, murder, suicide – never caught anything.
CONCLUSION: masks don’t protect the wearer. That’s a job for one’s white cells.
Meanwhile doctors in the sheltered workshop [government] flip-flop on masks.
The conversation devolved to Covid. No one, Trump, Johnson, Morrison, Macron, Conte, et al knew how best to handle the pandemic. Trump took early decisive action but it is true that his demeanour was to play it down at the start; ditto Johnson. How much should you scare people? The Nazis are at the door but “keep calm and carry on.”
But, leaving the beginning aside, we knew much more after a couple of months (as early as March) and the formula of protecting the vulnerable, isolating the sick, being sensible in interacting with people as one would with a common cold, and leaving the healthy to get on with life was pushed by numbers of scientists and commentators, and was broadly the view adopted by Trump and, of course, by a number of other world leaders (e.g. of Sweden and Brazil). I think now the weight of opinion has shifted decisively against lockdowns – the Great Barrington Declaration and the WHO. It is fair to say then that Trump was and is right. As to masks, again the CDC has just completed some research which seems to establish their limitations. I refuse to wear them, so maybe I’m biased.
Peter, Trump has this election nailed down. The left know it is lost (apart from their gullible sycophants). Their efforts have become quite pathetic and lacking any real zest, despicable as they are. Looking at the NYT you would hardly know there was an election coming. Perhaps a reckoning is coming to the twits-eratti.
Ian MacDougall (if that is your real name).
And you call my little post a rant? Pot and kettle buddy pot and kettle.
I didn’t ask for your opinion, I asked how you could ignore the known facts.
How you could read the list of achievements in the article, run a comparison to the terrible results of the Obama- Biden rule and then resort to CNN speak and not find your head exploding is a marvel to behold. With a wave of your hand, you ignore Biden’s crooked behaviour and his running mates authoritarian history and focus on the media’s favourite dead horse to flog. And boy are you giving it a caning, those arms must be getting tired.
I believe Peter Smith has quoted the numbers on numerous posts that would clearly indicate that the word lethal only applies in certain circumstances, so you are gilding the Lilly just like various state politicians. I understand their purpose, yours escapes me.
All politicians are garbage in one way or another because they are human, not even sainted ones like yourself are above having fault, the trick is picking the least damaging one.
For all of Trumps faults, the list above is impressive and unmatched by any US leader in my memory, not that I have a dog in the fight, I cannot vote in a US election but I would like to see him smack Bidens backside for many reasons but mainly he upsets the right sort of people.
Good one Peter and I agree. President Trump is definitely needed to continue his overhaul of the corrupt political corners, nooks, and crannies in the US Washington establishment, and continue his campaign of removing two regulations for every one he has to apply, and to give real strong leadership to all of us who identify with a strong, free liberal democratic world, and this definitely includes support for the one free, liberal democratic country in the middle east….Israel, and need I say the principle of a capitalist, free-enterprise system. He also has an attribute that I very much admire, he doesn’t need the US Government system to enrich himself, like some of those before him ; he has his own money and in fact I read he didn’t even want a salary when he entered the white house, and was told by the charming establishment this was illegal and he had to have one, so he told them it will be one dollar per year….I like that. Yes, no doubt about it in my mind, ‘çometh the moment cometh the man’ and he’s the man who’d get my vote, big time, if I had a vote in the US.
If you can’t dispute the facts put in a forthright manner just call it a “rant”. It’s that easy.
The left use abuse as a means of shutting people up. They use terms like “racist’ if you disagree with the views of a non- Caucasian person, “homophobe” if you disagree with a person proselytizing same-sex marriage (so-called), “Islamophobe” if you cite the Koran as a source of Islamic terrorist motivation,”white supremacist” if you think (know) that Black Lives Matter is a Marxist hate group. And on and on.
Btw Biden, Pelosi and other idiotic Dems abused Trump for shutting off traffic from China late in January when a Chinese cover-up of the the virus became apparent and further abuse when he shut down in coming traffic from Europe in early February. Btw Cuomo was responsible for God knows how many deaths in NY. These are facts contained within my rant!
Engaging with the trollster simply encourages him to carpet-bomb the thread while adding nothing of consequence.
The “Barrington Declaration”, apart from some commonsense, also contains a sentence to the effect that retired elderly ( … now there’s a phrase) should be “protected” by being isolated at home indefinitely with groceries dumped outside their doorsteps – to alleviate the need to shop for themselves, of course – and denied family visitations. Exactly which I had persistently pointed out for almost 6 months. A true George Orwell concept from the Nanny State: “protection” through indefinite isolated incarceration.
2017 H3N2 influenza was my only admission to hospital with an infectious disease. Oxygen pressure half normal [54mm Hg]: treatment oxygen, tamiflu and home next day with a small bottle of cortisone pills – similar to President Trump.
2017 H3N2 caused 3% of deaths that year – at all ages [normally flu causes 1%].
2020 WUFLU has been a factor [NOT sole cause] in 3% of deaths. WUFLU has been a sole cause in 1/10,000 of cases and here we are finding subtle fatal genetic defects in the younger victims immune systems [Darwinian survival of the fittest]. There has been panic except in Taiwan and Sweden.
Childhood in the pre-antibiotic era saw me survive pneumonia and diphtheria at home [in later life I diagnosed diphtheria 5 times with proper confirmatory tests in guinea pigs a la Pasteur].
Just for the record, PVO in this morning’s Australian newspaper brought TDS to a high point. Cameron Stewart was at it again too. When it comes to Trump, both are miserable excuses for truthful and objective political commentators. Read them, if you can stand it, and see. As one example among many, PVO perpetuates the calumny that Trump mocks people with disabilities. He knows it isn’t true, yet he gives it currency. What kind of a person does that?
Peter, lately I have avoided reading PvO but since I noticed that both he and Bramston had similar columns, I did venture into that cesspool. Steve Kates has a good take-down of both at Catallaxy, https://catallaxyfiles.com/2020/10/17/proving-by-the-absence-of-a-contrary-argument-why-donald-trump-should-be-re-elected/
I think Ian MacDonald that we will never get any meeting of minds – leaving aside those on the outer reaches – unless we look at policies and results. Even poor old Joe conceded, at his frendly town hall meeting, that the Israel peace deals – he couldn’t remember with whom – were a good thing. Bringing black and Hispanic unemployment down to the lowest levels on record surely also has to be a good thing; and so on, until you too might become a grudging Trump supporter. Who knows?
If the Covid farce has revealed anything, it is the capacity of people to turn on common sense and follow the herd.
Common sense would indicate that if in fact thousands of people had died of this disease, there would be far more deaths than normal from all causes. In the UK no one has died of old age this year!
Yet in country after country, there are FEWER deaths than in prvious years. The world was aghast in February when the claim was 134,000 dead the virus in Italy. This sounds tragic until one is aware that in Italy 134,000 died of the seasonal flu in 2015 and again in 2017. Nobody died of the seasonal flu this year.
Even in the comments above, it is claimed that 210,000 Americans died of the disease, when even the corrupt authorities that compile this tally admit that the figure was actually less than 9,000.
But I siuppose if someone actually thinks that the “Ozone Hole” is our doing, or that the Paris Excrement is something other than a UN scam, they would glom on to that 210,000 figure.
A lie is half way round the world before the truth gets his boots on, someone said.
In the meantime, Trump’s extraordinary judgement was correct all along. Had the same rational approach to defeating a virus that has been used since time iommemorial (i.e. Sweden) it would have disappeared in a few months.
For anyone interested in some factual information about the covid scam, here is a fact filled talk from the Mises Institute.
https://youtu.be/Xy3tP-BW5do
I don’t think another Trump term is sufficient. If he doesn’t change the constitution to make himself president for life (joking!!), then we need Ivanka to follow in 2024 for eight years, and Barron Trump to follow her for another eight years.
That will take us to 2040, and hopefully by then the Dumbocrats will have got some idea why they keep losing elections.
I’m figuring the penny does have to drop one day!!
The ‘climate change’ scam was the most mendacious scam foisted upon the human race until this year. The covid scam of course makes the global warming farce look like a joke. This is an interesting look at the deep state’s ability to manufacture a crisis from nothing and con the entire world. The aim of every thing from “Silent Spring” through DDT, acid rain, the Ozone hole etc. it is the culmination of a total control technique through fear of the unknown.
Like the Tasmania drama “The Ship that Never Was”, this crtisis is about a virus that never was.
https://blog.nomorefakenews.com/2020/10/14/the-virus-that-isnt-there-has-a-hypnotic-effect/
In 2032 Barron Trump will be 26; the US Constitution requires that a presidential candidate be a natural born citizen of the United States, a resident for 14 years, and 35 years of age or older. He’ll have to wait until 2044.
I commend Quadrant for its policy of allowing any subscriber to put their points of view on-line. However, it is really a waste of space to have comments ad nauseam from this person called Ian MacDougall and it is pointless to even waste time responding to his comments.
Davidovich,
.
It’s like, eg, the Australian; I no longer read POV inter alia, but may look at the comments to confirm he’s written rubbish, but not comments by an apparently idiotic “Russ” also inter alia,- pretty easy to see Ian MacDougall (or lbloveday….) at the top of a post and go to the next without reading.
While the troll amuses himself by feverishly mask-debating and bloviating, it might be useful to contemplate some factual information, such as:
https://youtu.be/kr04gHbP5MQ
and
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/corruption/the-covid-19-fraud-its-massive/
and
https://youtu.be/CPmWYFlUK54
Ian MacD, why do you believe that Trump or anyone else, Presidential candidate or otherwise should be required to release their tax returns? How do you believe that anyone, yourself or the most politically conflicted media are more qualified to assess Trump’s tax liability (and to pursue any debts) than the American Internal Revenue service, already shamefully corrupted against conservatives by the Obama administration?
In my opinion, this is a ridiculous piece of media mischief-making, and while it doesn’t surprise me that you agree with them, it does surprise me that you do not understand that nobody is required to comply with the media’s demands. If there were a requirement for candidates for political office to release their returns, there would be a LAW to that effect.
Now, there being no such law, it follows that Trump was perfectly entitled to ignore the media’s and his political enemies’ demands, and you crassly defame him by inferring that he has not paid assessed taxes.
Is there any limit to your perversity?
So what, Ian? Trump’s refusal to release his tax returns ought not to have attracted a single comment from the media or the people.
Once again you rush to Wikipedia, the LCD of sources, to support your absurd argument that Trump must have something to hide because he refused to release his returns. Trump is well within his legal rights to refuse to do so, and you do not say whether the House won its case to enforce its subpoenas. Sight unseen, I’d be very surprised if the subpoenas were enforceable, because there is no obvious legal requirement to do so, notwithstanding dubious voluntary precedent.
Trump is one of the very rare non-professional politicians to be elected to the Presidency, and he has complicated business affairs that leftists just love to assume must be corrupt. But they are happy to ignore the real corruption of their own professional politicians who enter politics to enrich themselves and reap like the bandits many if not most seem to be in the US. The list of such rogues is very long indeed, even limiting it to the period of our lifetime. Trump is an ethical giant compared to most of them.
So, just exactly how do you propose to fix the problem of wealthy people paying not enough tax to satisfy your idea of how much they ought to pay? Assuming you can muster enough of the ignorant Emma Albericis of this world to support you, and to agree on a definition of “enough”, how would you extract these sums from your targets? How would you then replace the entrepreneurs and industries that flee Australia to escape your scorched earth policies?
Theoretically, at least, the answer is almost self-evident. Enact sensible and just tax laws. Good luck.
In the meantime, you show me yours and I’ll show you mine. Hmmm? Thought not.
I have a couple of friends who unfortunately suffer from TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) whom I would like to quickly share this article with but Quadrant Online pages seem to lack the share option. Please add this feature to the next update of the site.
DT,
So many use the term tax when they should use “income tax”. I once paid $0 income tax, examined and approved by the ATO, in a year during which I paid $500,000+ other taxes.
.
More than my fair share I reckon.
Ian
Your contributions of blathering bile serves no purpose other than to confirm your imperviousness to rationality. Prejudice is a poor argument.
Interesting that Ian Macdougall (or whatever his real name is) failed to mention China in all his incoherent ramblings. I wonder why….
Ian McD, Emma Alberici is one of the ABC’s stable of ideologs masquerading as an economics commentator. She recently amazed the business world, and amused many if not most sentient beings in the wider community, by asserting that companies with megabucks of revenue that paid no income tax were somehow unethical. She completely failed to understand that revenue does not equal taxable income. She totally destroyed her credibility as an expert, and the howls of laughter are still echoing throughout the land, adding to the ABC’s reputation as a prime source of fake news.
Ian MacD, when you say … “APART from his withdrawal of the US from the Paris Accord on climate, which as the science is probably right will likely have pretty big consequences for the whole planet (Precautionary Principle) … ” you tell me that you don’t understand what science is, that you don’t even understand how the “Scientific Method” preserves scientific integrity, and that you haven’t read anything about the science of climate, and that you are simply sprooking the politics of climate change. Might I add that if we all defaulted to the Precautionary Principle as our first option, we would still be living in caves.
I found Ian MacDougall’s contribution to be far from rambling, nor did I find it in the slightest bit incoherent.
Peter Smith provides a worthwhile list of Donald Trumps achievements, and they are significant. If I was able to vote in the US, my vote would go to Trump, not because I admire the individual – far from it – but because he supports areas that are important to me. Morality, life and religious freedom. This is in itself a paradox.
Peter,
Great article. When I started to read the Bramston piece (which I didn’t finish), I thought Murdoch put it in the Australian for a joke surely.
The Chines CCP own Papua New Guinea, the Darwin Port, the Victorian Government, The Darling River, half our Dairy Industry and they tell us our wheat & barley are full of weeds. What do we do? We dig holes and give China the red dirt. Do we have a manufacturing industry? You know we import our artillery from China ! This predicament we are in is worse than any economic dilemma that Pig Iron Bob could rescue us from.
The world needs Trump and the Republicans to win, as Trump is the only leader who’ll stand up to China. He has shown he is not frightened by North Korea or the Middle East.
Confidence & prosperity can only arrive with a strong defence. That defence is a strong USA economy driven by Trump. If Biden gets into the White House then painting my hair green, holding hands with some same sex looney and screaming defund the Police does not really invigorate me with an armour to oppose any invasion, economic or physical.
Thanks again Peter, at least someone aligns with my initial shock.
Ian MacDougall:
Are you the culprit who has been stealing and drinking my Shiraz? Either that or can I have some of those drugs you’re on man? You certainly are one for twisting the discussion better than a clothoid spiral.
Ian MacDougall (if thats your real name).
Your complete lack of response is noted.
And for the record, I have just been sent this courteous email by Roger Franklin about my responses to points made by other participants, which give the appearance that I have been ‘carpet bombing’ this invaluable site.
.
“You were banned for hijacking threads with your often inane epistles, but I allowed you to sleaze back into the threads out of the goodness of my heart and what has proven a forlorn hope that you are capable of behaving yourself.
“All your comments from the start of September have been consigned to the trash.
“Any further comments that make it through the spam filter will meet the same fate.
“Do not come back. And don’t bother writing to me as I have blocked your email address.”
Heil Franklin.
For Franklin’s a jolly good fellow, and so say all of us.