Poll shows public rejects Labor lies
Piers Akerman – Tuesday, October 09, 2012 (3:42am)
TONY Abbott has taken a firestorm of abuse from Labor – and so has his wife, Margie – but it appears the public isn’t buying it.
Today’s Newspoll has the Coalition bouncing back to an impressive lead.
On primary votes, Labor dropped three points from 36 to 33 and the Coalition gained four, from 41 to 45.
The deadbeat Greens dropped 2 points from 12 to 10 – even though the miserable leader Christine Milne has enjoyed gushing publicity.
On the party preferred result, Labor dropped 4 points and the Coalition gained 4, taking them to 46 and 54 – a landslide – if an election were called now.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s personal popularity dropped, Coalition leader Tony Abbott’s rose.
Over the past two weeks, the Coalition leader has been called a misogynist, he has been accused of hating women, of having problems with women, of being unable to deal with “capable” women, and he has not flinched.
So hurtful and hateful has Labor’s campaign been that last Friday, that Margie, his wife of 24 years and the mother of their three daughters, penned a defense of her husband that was published in The Daily Telegraph.
She was not wheeled out like a political prop, she had just had enough of the nonsense and humbug and lies.
It was the first time she had felt it necessary to stake out some ground in their political life.
In an interview, she mentioned she had suffered a miscarriage and talked of her husband’s great grieving and the understandable sense of loss.
For this, Labor trolls savaged her.
That same day, she went to Western Sydney and delivered a frank speech about their marriage.
The media has been obsessed with the Alan Jones saga. So much so that the ABC has run Jones as its lead item and overlooked the court case and grubby, sexist exchanges from Gillard’s handpicked Speaker, Peter Slipper.
It has almost ignored the charges laid against the former national president of the ALP, Michael Williamson.
But the public has shown, again, that Labor’s lies and propaganda are not gaining traction.
The big issue is not a radio broadcaster, it is the economy.
If the public is interested in character, Labor will have its hands full.
From Williamson to Craig Thomson to Gillard is not a huge leap.
Today’s Newspoll has the Coalition bouncing back to an impressive lead.
On primary votes, Labor dropped three points from 36 to 33 and the Coalition gained four, from 41 to 45.
The deadbeat Greens dropped 2 points from 12 to 10 – even though the miserable leader Christine Milne has enjoyed gushing publicity.
On the party preferred result, Labor dropped 4 points and the Coalition gained 4, taking them to 46 and 54 – a landslide – if an election were called now.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s personal popularity dropped, Coalition leader Tony Abbott’s rose.
Over the past two weeks, the Coalition leader has been called a misogynist, he has been accused of hating women, of having problems with women, of being unable to deal with “capable” women, and he has not flinched.
So hurtful and hateful has Labor’s campaign been that last Friday, that Margie, his wife of 24 years and the mother of their three daughters, penned a defense of her husband that was published in The Daily Telegraph.
She was not wheeled out like a political prop, she had just had enough of the nonsense and humbug and lies.
It was the first time she had felt it necessary to stake out some ground in their political life.
In an interview, she mentioned she had suffered a miscarriage and talked of her husband’s great grieving and the understandable sense of loss.
For this, Labor trolls savaged her.
That same day, she went to Western Sydney and delivered a frank speech about their marriage.
The media has been obsessed with the Alan Jones saga. So much so that the ABC has run Jones as its lead item and overlooked the court case and grubby, sexist exchanges from Gillard’s handpicked Speaker, Peter Slipper.
It has almost ignored the charges laid against the former national president of the ALP, Michael Williamson.
But the public has shown, again, that Labor’s lies and propaganda are not gaining traction.
The big issue is not a radio broadcaster, it is the economy.
If the public is interested in character, Labor will have its hands full.
From Williamson to Craig Thomson to Gillard is not a huge leap.
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Knee-jerk reaction to a non-problem of speed
Miranda Devine – Tuesday, October 09, 2012 (7:39pm)
YOU know if 80 per cent of people are disobeying a law, it’s probably the law that needs fixing rather than the people. But in these illiberal times, we ramp up the punishment.
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Double standards much?
Miranda Devine – Tuesday, October 09, 2012 (7:35am)
THE illiberal attack on Alan Jones for a mean joke at the Prime Minister’s expense made at a private function has reached farcical heights.
Former Fairfax activist journalist, turned activist UTS journalism teacher, Jenna Price, is one of the activist organisers of the intimidatory cyber warfare on 2GB’s advertisers. She says ominously, and apparently without irony, that she wants to “re-educate” Jones.
Gerard Henderson is not impressed.
... Yesterday, Ms Price declined to take responsibility for the fact that some supporters of her cause have intimidated small businesses which traditionally advertise on Jones’s program. She merely described such behaviour as ‘’horrible’’. On Sky News last Sunday, Ms Price was quoted as saying: ‘’I’m not a person who wants to sack Alan Jones; I want to re-educate Alan Jones.’’
Not content with educating media students at the UTS journalism program, Ms Price wants to re-educate Jones. According to her, people like Jones do not represent ‘’the Australia our community wants’’. No surprise here. In fact, the UTS journalism community has as many political conservatives on staff as 2GB has leftist presenters. Namely, zip in both cases.
... There is a new intolerance emerging in Australia in the lead-up to the scheduled 2013 election which has been exacerbated by social media. A few examples illustrate the point:
Alan Jones insulted the Prime Minister and then apologised. The apology was not accepted by Julia Gillard, which is her prerogative. However, this incident has been used by Jones’s opponents, many of whom have wanted to drive him out of the electronic media for many years, to intimidate 2GB advertisers.
Few, if any, of the civil liberties lobby have spoken out against the recommendation made by Ray Finkelstein, QC, that a news media council be established. This body, if established, would have the power to regulate virtually all media in Australia. Moreover, its findings - concerning which there is no proposed right of appeal - would be enforced by fining and/or imprisoning editors. The government is still considering Finkelstein’s recommendations.
In the Eatock v Bolt case in 2011, Federal Court judge Mordy Bromberg not only found that the News Ltd columnist Andrew Bolt had made inaccurate and offensive comments about the claimants he described as ‘’fair-skinned Aboriginal people’’. Bromberg also railed against the ‘’tone’’ of Bolt’s articles. The judge objected to Bolt’s sarcasm, mockery, cynicism, incivility, disrespect and irresponsibility. He said that, in assessing language, it is necessary to ‘’read between the lines’’. Meaning that it is proper to find against columnists not only for what they write but also for what they do not write.
Then there is the matter of double standards. In 2011 the ABC paid for, and subsequently defended, the former Labor speechwriter Bob Ellis’s comments that the Liberal MP Jillian Skinner was ‘’like a long-detested nagging landlady with four dead husbands and hairy shoulders’’.
Ellis never apologised for this insult, which was published on the taxpayer-funded website The Drum. But to the likes of Ms Price, an apology by the former Liberal speechwriter Jones for offensive after-dinner comments at a university function are not acceptable.
It’s a hypcrosy rich zone, but last night’s Q & A takes the cake.
As my colleague Piers Akerman pointed out in one of his rare appearances on the show, the panel went on and on about an eight day old story about Jones’ unfortunate remark and the attempts to link it to Tony Abbott’s alleged misogyny, but spent zero time on the actual misogyny of Julia Gillard’s handpicked Speaker Peter Slipper, and his putrid text messages.
UPDATE: Andrew Bolt reveals the Get Jones campaign is being orchestrated by union and Labor figures using Price as a front-person.
You see, Price did not actually start the Facebook site. She seems merely the front person for an anti-Jones campaign in fact started by Sally McManus, a branch secretary of the Australian Services Union, and administrated by other women with strong Labor and union connections.
They include Emily Mayo, an ASU organiser, Victoria Brookman who stood for Labor against Brendan Nelson, worked for a NSW Labor politician and stood for Labor this year in council elections.
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RPG HITS THE ROTORS
Tim Blair – Tuesday, October 09, 2012 (11:52am)
2011:
The federal Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency Greg Combet joined Premier Mike Rann in touring the RPG Australia plant in suburban Adelaide today …“With RPG in Kilburn, we see a company that has adapted to harness the opportunities of new green industries,” Mr Rann said.“Out of their workforce of about 100 people, 90 of them are working on wind-turbine tower production – an industry that didn’t exist here a decade ago.”
2012:
Steel engineering company RPG Australia has entered administration and 154 redundancies have already been made, with a total of 310 jobs at risk …The appointment of administrators to RPG is the latest in a spate of recent collapses in the struggling construction sector.
(Via Professor Bunyip, who has far more)
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NEW RULES
Tim Blair – Tuesday, October 09, 2012 (4:04am)
Online activist Nic Lochner outlines the case against Alan Jones:
“The sort of things Alan Jones has said in his private life make his position untenable as a public commentator.”
That level of politically-correct purity basically rules everybody out of public commentary. Lochner’s Twitter account, by the way, is private.
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NINE DOWN
Tim Blair – Tuesday, October 09, 2012 (3:56am)
A bunch of Assange supporters lose their cash:
Nine people who provided sureties to enable WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to get bail were today ordered to forfeit £93,500 [$146,700].
The WikiLoser Nine are:
• Professor Tricia Davies ($15,700)
• Literary agent Caroline Michel ($23,500)
• Assange’s assistant Joseph Farrell ($5,500)
• Assange’s ex-girlfriend Sarah Harrison ($5,500)
• Journalist Philip Knightley ($18,800)
• Caterer Sarah Saunders ($18,800)
• Biologist Sir John Sulston ($23,500)
• Actress Tracy Worcester ($11,770)
• Club owner Vaughan Smith ($23,500)
• Literary agent Caroline Michel ($23,500)
• Assange’s assistant Joseph Farrell ($5,500)
• Assange’s ex-girlfriend Sarah Harrison ($5,500)
• Journalist Philip Knightley ($18,800)
• Caterer Sarah Saunders ($18,800)
• Biologist Sir John Sulston ($23,500)
• Actress Tracy Worcester ($11,770)
• Club owner Vaughan Smith ($23,500)
Smith – at whose home Assange stayed while on bail – previously claimed: “I’ve got to know Julian well enough to be 100 per cent sure that he’s not going to abscond.” $23,500 says otherwise. Still, at least a kindly judge gave Smith and his fellow Julian dupes a discount, cutting their bill from$220,000. Among those who weren’t so lucky:
Other Assange supporters, like Michael Moore and British socialite Jemima Khan, were stiffed the $320,000 worth of bail money they tried to get back.
Maybe they should sue Assange, just as he’s planning to sue Julia Gillard. Not that anybody thinksdisco Jules has much of a case:
Prominent defamation lawyer Stuart Littlemore, QC, has labelled attempts by WikiLeaks and Julian Assange to find ways of suing Prime Minister Julia Gillard for defamation as nothing more than a stunt …“If I could be sure I wouldn’t be accused of touting for work, I’d say that I’d be happy to accept the brief to defend the Prime Minister,” Mr Littlemore said.
What with five of the surety nine being women, and Assange’s legal threat against the PM, some might ask if the Wikileaks founder has a problem with women.
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Working beautifully
Andrew BoltOCTOBER092012(7:41pm)
Mr Bowen said he believed the government’s new policies were starting to have an impact - even though close to 4000 asylum seekers have turned up on about 60 boats in the two months since Labor announced the policies.
”I think we are seeing our message cut through in the region,” he said.
Hours later:
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Why is the Government strangling a media already dying?
Andrew BoltOCTOBER092012(6:26pm)
Stuart Simson, who was associate commissioner on the Productivity Commission inquiry into broadcasting, says the Gillard Government’s drive for more controls on free speech and the media isn’t just vindictive but plain stupid:
The Nine Entertainment Company is on the edge of receivership while the Ten Network struggles to remain a large broadcasting force. Fairfax Media, Ten Network Holdings, Seven West Media and APN News and Media, to mention a few, have bloodied investors.
A very weak advertising market and the digital revolution are wreaking havoc on business plans. A number of players will not survive in their present form.
Rarely has there been such a disconnect between the business imperatives of an industry sector and the politics of Canberra. The federal government should be orchestrating a regulatory environment that provides more, not less, flexibility and so give our media sector the best opportunity to remain viable.
But no; emboldened by recent misguided industry reviews and perceived attacks from the media, it is about to tighten the noose on ownership rules. Speculation includes a public interest test, widening the scope of the rule relating to the minimum number of owners that must exist in any market, and possibly even toughening the maximum allowable population coverage of commercial television broadcasters.
The dichotomy is stark - the government preaches media convergence and the digital economy, and spends tens of billions of dollars on a National Broadband Network. Yet it is pursuing a media regulatory agenda dominated by an “old media” mindset and motivated partly by settling some scores.
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Labor’s defence of Slipper’s vile text? It’s “AbbottAbbottAbbott”
Andrew BoltOCTOBER092012(2:42pm)
Let me sum up the speeches after the Opposition stopped Question Time by demanding a vote to remove Peter Slipper as Speaker immediately. They say everything.
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says Slipper’s texts are vile and derogatory and make him unfit to be the Speaker, adjudicating over Parliament. The text calling Sophie Mirabella a “botch” [sic} shows a lack of impartiality.
Deputy Opposition Leader Julie Bishop says women in Parliament cannot have confidence in a Speaker so disparaging of women. She points out this man must also deal with a female Governor General.
Prime Minister Julie Gillard says Tony Abbott is a sexist and misogynist, and she won’t take lessons from him. She says her father didn’t die of shame of her, and Abbott once stood in front of a “Ditch the Witch” sign.
Nationals Leader Warren Truss says slandering Abbott is no defence of keeping Slipper in the job. The Speaker’s office has been diminished and the public is watching.
Parliamentary Secretary for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency Mark Dreyfus says the Opposition should not pre-empt the judge’s finding in the Federal Court case at which the Slipper texts were produced. He then pre-empts the judge’s finding in the Federal Court case by saying James Ashby, who has accused Slipper of sexual harassment, was criticised by the judge, failed to take other action to resolve his complaints and instead went to court to inflict “maximum political damage” on Slipper with Liberal help. [Yes, Dreyfus QC really is that much of a buffoon.]
Manager of Opposition Business Chris Pyne says the Labor front bench, after sanctimoniously damning the Opposition for sexism will now follow Gillard over a cliff by defending Slipper, one of her disastrous political misjudgements.
Labor’s Daryl Melham says he didn’t quit as Caucus chairman because he’d had enough, the Opposition should wait for the court case to be resolved and maybe there should be a conscience vote on the issue as there was in 1955. But, he hastily adds, he’s not really calling for a conscience vote. Not now, certainly.
Leader of the House Anthony Albanese says the Opposition is only now worrying about misogyny and used to like Slipper. Some woman in a protest once pulled his tie.
Summing up: Labor’s only defence of Slipper is to smear Tony Abbott and plead for time. Which suggests that if Slipper wins the court cause, he could return as Speaker despite writing emails more vile than anything Labor has attacked in the Coalition.
Labor’s contribution to this debate is an insult to the intelligence, an insult to Labor voters, an insult to Parliament.
An insult to every Australian.
UPDATE
The “independents” Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott voted to save Slipper. So much for standing for higher standards. Andrew Wilkie voted with the Opposition. Vote: 70 to 69 to keep Slipper.
UPDATE
Sky News’ panel and host thought Gillard’s speech was great. Once again they get it completely wrong, and will be blindsided by the public’s reaction.
UPDATE
Am I allowed to say that the Prime Minister’s use of the death of her father to smear Abbott was particularly low? I really think the play for the sympathy vote has been well and truly overdone.
UPDATE
And so the Speaker of Parliament of Australia is Peter Slipper, author of the following texts:
UPDATE
Gillard’s Speaker will represent Parliament and country overseas:
LIBERAL Senator Sue Boyce has called for stood-aside Peter Slipper to be banned from representing Australia overseas, urging his replacement as leader of an upcoming parliamentary delegation to Argentina and Canada.
The Queensland Senator, who is part of the scheduled delegation, said she was appalled at the prospect of Mr Slipper leading the trip following the emergence of sexist text messages authored by the speaker.“I would be extremely embarrassed to represent the Australian government and the Australian people to the people of Argentina and Canada with Mr Slipper as the leader of our delegation,” Senator Boyce said.
Three other parliamentarians are due to join Senator Boyce and the Speaker on the week-long bilateral trip to Argentina and a International Parliamentary Union conference in Quebec.
I know politicians like their junkets, but the Opposition should boycott this one in protest.
UPDATE
From the texts between Peter Slipper and staffer James Ashby (Slipper’s are the ones marked “read"):
UPDATE
The ultimate in denial from the love media:
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Gillard rocked. Melham quits in alleged disgust
Andrew BoltOCTOBER092012(10:27am)
Julia Gillard back on the leadership rocks. First Newspoll, now this resignation hours later from a Rudd loyalist:
The Sydney MP, who has been chair of the Federal Labor caucus for eight years, announced his decision to resign the post this morning during Labor’s party room meeting…Labor colleagues claimed that Mr Melham, the federal member for Banks in south west Sydney had “had enough” of the way the Government’s executive treated Labor MPs.
The Daily Telegraph was aware that Mr Melham had been considering resigning for several months and had been unhappy about what he described to colleagues as the “dysfunction” of the relationship between the executive and the caucus.
Didn’t Gillard promise to treat backbenchers better than did Kevin Rudd? Speaking of whom:
Supporters of Kevin Rudd last night said it was “game back on” after fearing that a trend back toward Ms Gillard and Labor under her leadership was destined to end any chance of a comeback for the former PM.
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How Roxon tried to save a misogynist
Andrew BoltOCTOBER092012(10:22am)
Nicola Roxon doesn’t mind misogynists so much, after all, provided they are Labor’s misogynists - and then they can even be Speaker, as far as Labor’s concerned:
ATTORNEY-GENERAL Nicola Roxon personally intervened in the sexual harassment case against Peter Slipper by briefing lawyers defending the Speaker, whose misogynist and degrading attitudes to women have been exposed in a new trove of sexually explicit texts.In a text exchange between Mr Slipper and former staffer James Ashby, Liberal MP Sophie Mirabella is referred to as an “ignorant botch (sic)” when she was thrown out of the House of Representatives on the day of the carbon tax vote in October last year.The texts released by the court show Mr Slipper repeatedly made allusions to the sexuality of his staffer, who is suing him for sexual harassment, inquiring whether he had “f . . kbuddies” and asking him for drinks at gay bars. Mr Slipper also makes humiliating references to women’s genitalia. “They look like a mussell (sic) removed from its shell. Look at a bottle of mussel meat! Salty C . . ts in brine!” he texted to Mr Ashby…
.
The Australian can also reveal Ms Roxon had personal briefings with Julian Burnside QC while he represented the commonwealth in the case being brought by Mr Ashby and expressed her dissatisfaction with the government’s $50,000 settlement reached a fortnight ago. Ms Roxon, who has been leading the Labor campaign against Tony Abbott for his perceived “issue with capable women”, has declined to condemn Mr Slipper’s comments, citing the ongoing legal action…The direct intervention by Ms Roxon continued up until the commonwealth withdrew from the case last week, when The Australian understands she gave instructions to Mr Burnside to apply to the court to act as a “friend of the court”, to enable him to provide support to Mr Slipper…
Federal court judge Steven Rares refused the application: “Well, that’s not a good enough reason for you to be here in somebody else’s litigation . . . If you’re wanting to appear for him, that’s one thing,” he said.
Roxon is a hypocrite, and Labor’s support of Slipper has utterly trashed the dignity of Parliament.
UPDATE
Surely not. Tony Windsor holding Labor and its allies to a moral standard? I’ll believe it when I see it:
Independent MP Tony Windsor says he plans to meet with Peter Slipper this week to determine if it is appropriate for him to return as Speaker.
Less than a week after Mr Windsor said he would not stand in Mr Slipper’s way if he was to return to the Speaker’s chair, on the condition was cleared of sexual harassment and CabCharge rorting allegations, the federal member for New England has revealed he is reconsidering his position on the matter.
UPDATE
Michelle Grattan delivers the verdict from the press gallery:
But with the revelation of Slipper’s obscene text messages denigrating women, enough has become enough. The idea of Labor targeting Tony Abbott over his alleged ‘‘woman problem’’, while shillyshallying on Slipper, is not on. Surely.
Gillard and her colleagues, women and men, should just say it.
That Slipper is not a fit and proper person to hold this high office.
No kidding?
UPDATE
But Jenna Price, front woman of a campaign by unions and Labor figures to drive Alan Jones off the air for rudeness, once again demonstrates a very selective indignation, giving Slipper a pass:
(Thanks to reader Andy.)
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No, let’s all talk about Jones, Jones, Jones
Andrew BoltOCTOBER092012(9:57am)
After 57 minutes of the ABC’s Q&A, much devoted to a ritual bagging of Alan Jones andspiteful questioning of Tony Abbott, panelist Piers Akerman asks: why no discussion about former Labor national president Michael Williamson, charged last week with obstructing a corruption investigation, and Labor’s Speaker Peter Slipper, author of a disgusting text about women’s genitalia.
The audience response indicates the Q&A audience figures claiming balance have been comprehensively gamed.
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Get-Jones campaign driven by union and Labor figures
Andrew BoltOCTOBER092012(9:53am)
The social media campaign to hound Alan Jones off the air is actually driven behind the scenes by union officials and a Labor candidate. It is not a social but a political campaign against a Labor enemy.
Jenna Price is sold to us as a feminist, writer and representative of “ordinary Australians” who started the “Destroy the Joint” Facebook site attacking Jones:
Mrs Price, who started the Destroy The Joint Facebook page, remains equally unapologetic. The former Fairfax journalist who still writes opinion pieces and lectures in journalism at UTS Sydney, ... (said) “You know, this is not just about the Facebook page of Destroy The Joint or the Sack Alan Jones site, it’s about ordinary Australians finally standing up to someone who’s bullied them for years...”.
First, this teacher of tomorrow’s journalists seems suspiciously selective in her opposition to bullying:
In one Canberra Times article, dated April 7, 2009, she lambasted a female flight attendant for getting upset when then prime minister Kevin Rudd allegedly shouted at her for giving him the wrong meal on a RAAF flight.
Mrs Price defended Mr Rudd, saying it was understandable someone who works as hard as he does would lose his temper once in a while.
“Now hands up if you would like to have a sharp talking to with the young flight attendant who burst into tears when the Prime Minister reprimanded her for not providing him with the right meal. For God’s sake, woman, get a grip...”
If you thought Price, the teacher of journalists, sounded like a Labor cheerleader, you might not be far off the mark.
You see, Price did not actually start the Facebook site. She seems merely the front person for an anti-Jones campaign in fact started by Sally McManus, a branch secretary of the Australian Services Union, and administrated by other women with strong Labor and union connections. Emily Mayo, an ASU organiser. explains in a blog post (now hidden):
September 16, 2012 //Two weeks ago today, having finished my Sunday rant fueled by the mad, misogynist, mumbo-jumbo rumblings of Morris, Jensen and Jones, I got an email from Sally McManus.She was fired up too. She said she was sick of the gendered attacks on women public figures. She thought she might start a Facebook page, and she asked me what I thought and if I’d help…I think I said something like “F#ck yeah. Let’s do it. I’ll set it up tomorrow.” Then, I headed to the pub for my post SIOS drink…I didn’t get far into my thoughts (or my beer for that matter) because my ‘phone went bing and the message read “Sally McManus has invited you to manage her page Destroy the Joint”. I clicked ‘accept’ and, with that, I was the first ‘liker’ on the Page…
Joint Destroyers Jenna Price, Leah Weber and Victoria Brookman joined Sally and I as Admins.
Victoria Brookman stood for Labor against Brendan Nelson and worked for a NSW Labor politician. She stood for Labor this year in council elections.
UPDATE
Which exposes Malcolm Turnbull’s intervention as not just politically stupid and spiteful, but incredibly naive:
ALAN JONES has been ‘’given a dose of his own medicine’’ with the online campaign that has stripped his station of sponsors, and is not the victim of ‘’cyberbullying’’ as he has claimed, the Coalition communication spokesman, Malcolm Turnbull, has said…
‘’Mr Jones has sought to lead ‘people’s revolts’ for many years. But this was indeed a popular revolt against vicious and destructive public discourse.”
No, this is not a revolt against “destructive public discourse” but an attempt to silence a critic of Labor. Not for the first time, Turnbull has put personal interests and resentments ahead of the interests of his party.
UPDATE
And then we get Nic Lochner:
Mr Lochner started the original Sack Alan Jones Facebook page with mate Vinay Orekondy...
Lochner sets an extraordinary standard for others - the kind befitting a witchhunter:
“The sort of things Alan Jones has said in his private life make his position untenable as a public commentator.”...
What? How on earth would Lochner know what Jones “said in his private life”?
(Thanks to reader PJ.)
UPDATE
So what does Communications Minister Stephen Conroy say now?
”http://www.minister.dbcde.gov.au/media/media_releases/2012/144”title="Abusive and harassing behaviour on social networking sites, like Twitter, can have devastating consequences">Abusive and harassing behaviour on social networking sites, like Twitter, can have devastating consequences,” Senator Conroy said.
Does Conroy think such abusive and harassing behaviour is fine, as long as the target is Labor’s enemy?
(Thanks to reader Gavin.)
In the same breath, those claiming to be offended by Jones’s slur have gone on to deride him as a “vile, racist, misogynist, bile-spewing throwback”, “troll of the worst kind” and “abhorrent human being”. Not to mention expressing their hope to see his cancer return to kill him.
Note the irony here: Jones is all too often accused of creating a climate of fear; yet the kind of vicious condemnation the talkback king regularly evokes from the Left creates a climate of hate…
Who could forget the nasty things said about John Howard—not in private, but on the record and in the mainstream media? Among other things, the former prime minister was derided as an “unflushable turd” (Mungo MacCallum) in a book launched by the then Labor leader. He was also a “scheming mendacious little man . . . every bit the despot Saddam was” (Alan Ramsey), who had a “pre-fascist fetish to attack minorities” (Margo Kingston).
Switzer says Labor makes a mistake to attack Jones’ audience by attacking him:
My advice to Gillard and her team is to try to recognise why Jones and talkback radio rate so well in Labor’s former battler constituencies in the western and outer suburbs of Sydney. This popularity is not based on simply tapping into a latent rage.
If anything, it is based on empathy, a connection with that part of Australia that finds it outrageous when their Prime Minister breaks a key election promise (such as the carbon tax) or when their elected representatives fail to protect the nation’s borders and so undermine community support for high levels of legal immigration. By declaring war on Jones and the shock jocks, Labor is playing with fire.
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Spinning the story of picked-on Julia
Andrew BoltOCTOBER092012(9:23am)
Tony Abbott also gets abused during on-line chats. Yet abuse of Julia Gillard is reported as something extra bad. The real question is why the abuse of Gillard was left up by her team. Surely not to whip up that story of nasty Liberals picking on a defenceless woman?
PRIME Minister Julia Gillard was today attacked by foul-mouthed critics who hijacked an online question and answer session to post abusive rants, including an offensive message about her recently deceased father.The offensive comments arose during a live education discussion held this afternoon on the PM’s official Facebook page.
Media adviser John McTernan said it was moderated by staff - however many abusive messages were incredibly still visible on the page up to four hours later, as were other offensive comments posted as far back as Friday.
Nice skills, John.
A SOCIAL networking exercise has backfired for Tony Abbott, with Twitter trolls seeking his counsel on a hoard of ridiculous topics.
The Opposition Leader regularly conducts a question and answer session via Twitter when he has spare moments carrying the hashtag #asktony.
But today’s 20-minute session began trending after people started asking questions that ranged from nasty to just plain silly.
You are being spun.
We’ll know sexism is dead in politics when a female Prime Minister can be attacked without her supporters screaming “misogynist!”
(Thanks to reader Peter.)
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Don’t do as Grattan says or she’ll attack that, too
Andrew BoltOCTOBER092012(8:57am)
Michelle Grattan of The Age is not only a hypocrite but aims a sexist slur at Margie Abbott:
MICHELLE Grattan, The Age, September 17:
WHY doesn’t (Opposition Leader Tony Abbott) go out, just once in a while, without a staffer, perhaps taking his wife Margie - whom the public would really like, if they saw more of her - and look natural and normal? Just to do a bit of “stuff” together, despite her dislike of the public forum. Possibly - no guarantees - it would help with the “woman problem”.
Grattan tweets on Friday:COULD there be a teeny weeny bit of overkill with the Tony loves, respects, obeys women blitz? And now she’ll have to cook the roast.
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Greens ignore the ice creeping up behind them
Andrew BoltOCTOBER092012(8:53am)
Look north, scream the Greens:
THE Australian Greens have called on the coalition to abandon its climate change scepticism, citing the accelerating melting of the Arctic ice cap.
Meanwhile, at the polar cap closest to us:
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Labor’s smears don’t work: 46 to 54, says Newspoll
Andrew BoltOCTOBER092012(8:43am)
The previous Newspoll, giving a 50-50 result, was plainly wrong, and today’s confirms the recent sympathy vote for Julia Gillard and her vile character attacks on Tony Abbott won’t save Labor:
Based on preference flows at the 2010 election, the Coalition’s two-party-preferred lead has returned to a resounding election-winning lead of eight points, 54 per cent to the ALP’s 46 per cent...
Despite a campaign from Labor ministers attacking Mr Abbott over his “problem in dealing with women” and seeking to link him to distasteful remarks about the death of Julia Gillard’s father by radio shock jock Alan Jones, personal support for the Liberal leader lifted slightly…Voter satisfaction with Mr Abbott came up from an equal record low of 30 per cent in mid-September to 33 per cent and dissatisfaction with the way he is doing his job fell five points from 60 to 55 per cent.
Margie Abbott’s recent counter-attack will also limit Labor’s smear campaign.
UPDATE
Is Kevin Rudd sending a message to smearer-in-chief Julia Gillard and Wayne “Class War” Swan?
In a speech at a NSW Blue Mountains tree planting honouring former prime ministers, Mr Rudd said the task of leadership was “to unite, not to divide” and urged leaders to work together “to shape a common vision"…“One of the difficult things about leadership is uniting a nation rather than dividing it,” the Labor backbencher said.
Call me gullible, but Rudd is looking more like a savior from Gillard’s politics of vilification and division.
===
About that mining boom the Government was counting on…
Andrew BoltOCTOBER092012(8:41am)
BHP Billiton’s efforts to control costs in the face of weaker demand for key industrial commodities has shifted to cutting jobs at its Australian iron ore operations, the biggest driver of earnings for the world’s largest mining company…
“For most people there will be little change other than position title and reporting line changes. For some people there will be greater impact,” said Antonios Papaspiropoulos, a spokesman at BHP’s headquarters in Melbourne.
In an emailed reply to questions, Mr Papaspiropoulos said there are currently about 900 open roles across the iron ore business, and until the redeployment process has been completed it is too early to say how many workers will be made redundant.
UPDATE
Slowing:
The International Monetary Fund has trimmed its 2013 forecast for Australia’s economy and warned of sluggish global growth for this year and next…
In its latest World Economic Outlook, released this morning, the Fund says Australia’s economy will grow by 3 per cent next year, a downgrade from its previous April forecast of 3.5 per cent.
And the Government’s promised surplus?
===
Is this a story every time Windsor says it?
Andrew BoltOCTOBER092012(8:32am)
===
Who killed art?
Andrew BoltOCTOBER092012(7:05am)
Camille Paglia despairs:
Does art have a future? Performance genres like opera, theater, music and dance are thriving all over the world, but the visual arts have been in slow decline for nearly 40 years. No major figure of profound influence has emerged in painting or sculpture since the waning of Pop Art and the birth of Minimalism in the early 1970s…
What has sapped artistic creativity and innovation in the arts? Two major causes can be identified, one relating to an expansion of form and the other to a contraction of ideology.
Painting was the prestige genre in the fine arts from the Renaissance on. But painting was dethroned by the brash multimedia revolution of the 1960s and ‘70s. Permanence faded as a goal of art-making.
.
But there is a larger question: What do contemporary artists have to say, and to whom are they saying it? Unfortunately, too many artists have lost touch with the general audience and have retreated to an airless echo chamber. The art world, like humanities faculties, suffers from a monolithic political orthodoxy—an upper-middle-class liberalism far from the fiery antiestablishment leftism of the 1960s.
Paglia overstates the health of other genres to make her point. Which new operas have established themselves with audiences in the past 50 years? The decline may be more general.
(Via Instapundit, which has much more on the topic, including criticism of the wonderful Pauline Kael.)
UPDATE
Reader Another Andrew rebukes me:
Which new operas? Those by Philip Glass and John Adams (Einstein on the Beach, Nixon in America etc) have opened up opera to a new generation of appreciators. Also, many of the new music theatre events are more like the “art opera” of the past. Les Mis etc. A slightly different shift to what has happened in the visual arts.
My counter is to simply play this:
===
Rampant Romney hits Obama on America’s weak spot
Andrew BoltOCTOBER092012(6:10am)
The polls show Mitt Romney on the rise, looking presidential:
Mitt Romney’s commanding performance on the debate stage last week has generated a significant bounce for his presidential candidacy, according to national polls released Monday.
The Republican nominee opened up a 4-point lead over President Obama, 49% to 45% among likely voters, in the latest national opinion survey by the independent Pew Research Center. In mid-September, Obama led by 8 points, 51% to 43%…
A Gallup survey, conducted in the three days following the debate, showed a 47-47 deadlock between Obama and Romney among registered voters.
Romney now attacks Obama on one of his weakest spots - foreign policy:
Displaying new-found confidence since his debate victory last week, Romney used a major foreign policy speech in Virginia to attack Obama for a lack of leadership on a range of international issues, including Iran, Israel-Palestine, Libya and Syria....
Obama’s failure to project strength abroad, Romney said, had left the US at the mercy of events in the Middle East and vulnerable to terrorist attacks, such as the one in Benghazi which killed the American ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens.
The key excerpt from a strong speech:
Unfortunately, this President’s policies have not been equal to our best examples of world leadership. And nowhere is this more evident than in the Middle East.
I want to be very clear: The blame for the murder of our people in Libya, and the attacks on our embassies in so many other countries, lies solely with those who carried them out—no one else. But it is the responsibility of our President to use America’s great power to shape history—not to lead from behind, leaving our destiny at the mercy of events. Unfortunately, that is exactly where we find ourselves in the Middle East under President Obama.
The relationship between the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Israel, our closest ally in the region, has suffered great strains. The President explicitly stated that his goal was to put “daylight” between the United States and Israel. And he has succeeded. This is a dangerous situation that has set back the hope of peace in the Middle East and emboldened our mutual adversaries, especially Iran.
Iran today has never been closer to a nuclear weapons capability. It has never posed a greater danger to our friends, our allies, and to us. And it has never acted less deterred by America, as was made clear last year when Iranian agents plotted to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador in our nation’s capital. And yet, when millions of Iranians took to the streets in June of 2009, when they demanded freedom from a cruel regime that threatens the world, when they cried out, “Are you with us, or are you with them?"—the American President was silent.
Across the greater Middle East, as the joy born from the downfall of dictators has given way to the painstaking work of building capable security forces, and growing economies, and developing democratic institutions, the President has failed to offer the tangible support that our partners want and need.
In Iraq, the costly gains made by our troops are being eroded by rising violence, a resurgent Al-Qaeda, the weakening of democracy in Baghdad, and the rising influence of Iran. And yet, America’s ability to influence events for the better in Iraq has been undermined by the abrupt withdrawal of our entire troop presence. The President tried—and failed—to secure a responsible and gradual drawdown that would have better secured our gains.
The President has failed to lead in Syria, where more than 30,000 men, women, and children have been massacred by the Assad regime over the past 20 months. Violent extremists are flowing into the fight. Our ally Turkey has been attacked. And the conflict threatens stability in the region.
America can take pride in the blows that our military and intelligence professionals have inflicted on Al-Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, including the killing of Osama bin Laden. These are real achievements won at a high cost. But Al-Qaeda remains a strong force in Yemen and Somalia, in Libya and other parts of North Africa, in Iraq, and now in Syria. And other extremists have gained ground across the region. Drones and the modern instruments of war are important tools in our fight, but they are no substitute for a national security strategy for the Middle East.
The President is fond of saying that “The tide of war is receding.” And I want to believe him as much as anyone. But when we look at the Middle East today—with Iran closer than ever to nuclear weapons capability, with the conflict in Syria threating [sic] to destabilize the region, with violent extremists on the march, and with an American Ambassador and three others dead likely at the hands of Al-Qaeda affiliates— it is clear that the risk of conflict in the region is higher now than when the President took office.
But how partisan is the New York Times? Its latest editorial starts like a student newspaper polemic:
Mitt Romney mounted a big foreign policy display on a flag-draped stage at the Virginia Military Institute today, serving up a lot of tough-sounding sound bites and hawkish bumper stickers, some of them even bumping up somewhere close to the truth, to give the appearance that he would be stronger and more forceful on international affairs than President Obama.
He seems to consider himself, ludicrously, a leader similar to the likes of Harry Truman and George Marshall, and at one point he obliquely questioned Mr. Obama’s patriotism. The hope seems to be that big propaganda, said loudly and often enough, will drown out Mr. Obama’s respectable record in world affairs, make Americans believe Mr. Romney would be the better leader and cover up the fact that there is mostly just hot air behind his pronouncements.
No, Romney did not liken himself to Truman and Marshall. He did not mention Truman at all by name, and of Marshall he noted only the great success of his post-war plan and observed such an approach should be tried in the Middle East. The New York Times is wildly exaggerating a statement of policy into a personal puffery. It is deeply deceptive.
Likewise, the paper even claims that simply pointing out what the Administration initially tried to deny - that the September 11 assault on an American consulate in Libya was by pro-al-Qaeda militias - is to make “cheap political points” and an “exaggeration”: This is not a counter-argument but a smear motivated by partisan malice:
Mr. Romney seized again on the Sept. 11 attack on the American Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, and the murders of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three others, to make cheap political points. He said the attack “was likely the work of forces affiliated with those that attacked our homeland” on 9/11, an exaggeration that he can be making only for political effect.
The people writing this stuff claim to be among America’s finest journalists. There’s an edge of hysteria to it, as if they know the next debate between Obama and Romney is on foreign affairs, and their man is holding a losing hand.
The real, sober criticism to make of Romney’s speech is his proposal to arm the Syrian opposition. I suspect the US needs to know a lot, lot more about who they actually are before putting more weapons in their hands.
But overall, Romney’s analysis of Obama’s failures seems only too true.
===
Essential Media: Labor 47 to 53
Andrew BoltOCTOBER082012(5:23pm)
No change in this week’s Essential Media poll: Labor 47 to the Coalition’s 53, 2PP.
===
Another boat
Andrew BoltOCTOBER082012(12:30pm)
The equivalent of half the boat people on Nauru:
===
Israel readies Patriot missiles to counter suspected Hezbollah drones
JERUSALEM – Military sources tell a local Hebrew newspaper that the Israeli Air Force has deployed a US-made Patriot missile battery to Haifa in northern Israel as tensions mounted over the weekend flight of a drone into Israeli airspace.
The location of the battery, on a mountain overlooking Israel’s border with Lebanon, serves as further confirmation that Israel is concerned that Hezbollah in southern Lebanon is behind the drone.
Forty-eight hours into the investigation of an unmanned aircraft flying into Israeli airspace there is no confirmation which of the Jewish state’s enemies have made significant enough technological strides to launch the drone and fly it deep into Israeli airspace. Saturday morning, Israeli radar tracked the drone flying toward the coast from the Mediterranean, then over the Gaza strip and into Israel. Twenty minutes after it crossed into southern Israel, scrambled fighter jets from the Israeli Air Force shot it down.
Since then, intense speculation has surrounded the drone’s origin. So far the Israeli Military has ruled out the militant groups in the Gaza Strip, and most evidence points to the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah, operating out of southern Lebanon.While the group has not commented directly, a TV station linked to the group said it belonged to Hezbollah. If true, it would be a major leap forward for the Shiite Muslim Militia.
In 2006, Hezbollah flew small drones laden with explosives into northern Israel, just across the Lebanon border, but a long range flight over the Mediterranean and then back into Israel would require a level of technological sophistication not yet seen from the group. One likely source of such technology would be Iran, which supplies much of Hezbollah weaponry and provides strategic guidance for the group.
Iran used the drone’s flight to poke fun at Israel, and an official was cited by the Associated Press as saying the move exposed the weakness of Israeli Air Defenses. Iran, however, did not directly claim responsibility. Rather, Jamaluddin Aberoumand of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps told the AP: “The Zionist Regime (Israel) has many enemies.”
Israeli experts speculate the drone may have been on a reconnaissance mission to gather intelligence on Israeli Military targets and possibly the closely guarded nuclear reactor at Dimona in the southern Israeli Desert.
Israeli fighters reportedly made several low passes over Hezbollah strongholds in southern Lebanon, but stopped short of dropping bombs or trying to retaliate for the drone flight.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
===
Plant that got $150M in taxpayer money to make Volt batteries furloughs workers
President Obama touted it in 2010 as evidence "manufacturing jobs are coming back to the United States,” but two years later, a Michigan hybrid battery plant built with $150 million in taxpayer funds is putting workers on furlough before a single battery has been produced.
Workers at the Compact Power manufacturing facilities in Holland, Mich., run by LG Chem, have been placed on rotating furloughs, working only three weeks per month based on lack of demand for lithium-ion cells.
The facility, which was opened in July 2010 with a groundbreaking attended by Obama, has yet to produce a single battery for the Chevrolet Volt, the troubled electric car from General Motors. The plant's batteries also were intended to be used in Ford's electric Focus.
Production of the taxpayer-subsidized Volt has been plagued by work stoppages, and the effect has trickled down to companies and plants that build parts for it -- including the batteries.
“Considering the lack of demand for electric vehicles, despite billions of dollars from the Obama administration that were supposed to stimulate it, it’s not surprising what has happened with LG Chem. Just because a ton of money is poured into a product does not mean that people will buy it,” Paul Chesser, an associate fellow with the National Legal and Policy Center, told FoxNews.com.
The 650,000-square-foot, $300 million facility was slated to produce 15,000 batteries per year, while creating hundreds of new jobs. But to date, only 200 workers are employed at the plant by by the South Korean company. Batteries for the Chevy Volts that have been produced have been made by an LG plant in South Korea.
The factory was partly funded by a $150 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy. LG also received sizeable tax breaks from the local government, saving nearly $50 million in property taxes over 15 years and another $2.5 million annually in business taxes. Landing the factory was hailed as a coup when shovels first hit the ground.
“You are leading the way in showing how manufacturing jobs are coming right back here to the United States of America,” Obama told workers at the ground-breaking ceremony. “Our goal has never been to create a government program, but rather to unleash private-sector growth. And we're seeing results.”
Randy Boileau, a spokesperson for LG Chem in Holland, told FoxNews.com that battery production is expected to pick up once Volt assembly lines in Detroit resume production on Oct. 15. He said the facility has spent the past two years building infrastructure and conducting pre-production “test runs.”
“The market conditions haven’t been as favorable, but this hasn’t slowed down plans one bit,” Boileau said. “LG Chem has repeatedly said that this facility is a critical component for them globally.”
Boileau pointed out the workers who are on furloughs one week a month are eligible to collect unemployment for that week, and he said the company covers the contributions to their individual benefits during the period.
The Volt has been plagued by low sales since it first rolled off the line three years ago. Orders have picked up for 2012 but are still well below projections.
Chesser said no amount of government subsidies can counter the practical problems posed by plug-in cars.
“Electric car batteries do not perform much better than they did 100 years ago," he said. "Research has not conquered the battery storage issue, and therefore the electric transportation ‘stimulus’ did not boost the ‘technology of the future,’ but instead a century-old technology as far as performance and capability goes.”
He added that the LG Chem plant's problems show that the unpopularity of electric cars despite heavy taxpayer subsidies has had more widespread negative effects than most realize.
“Billions of dollars were put into Volt research, and Ford received $5.9 billion in stimulus loans to retrofit plants to produce [electric vehicles]," Chesser said. "The battery companies like LG Chem that were supposed to service them have no customers to speak of. Their existence was solely based on access to taxpayer money.
“Had it been private investors rather than government bureaucrats making the decision, there either would have been a reality check about the industry, or only those who made individual decisions to invest would have lost their money, not taxpayers.”
===
MSNBC panel -- Ryan will lie but Biden will shine in VP debate
MSNBC is so focused on building false narratives they should hand out hard hats to their on-air staff. This time it was the gang of unknowns on Melissa Harris-Perry‘s Sunday show depicting Vice President Joe Biden as a statesmen and GOP veep hopeful Paul Ryan as a liar.
Perry’s self-described “nerdland” included “The Cycle” co-host Steve Kornacki, Feministing editor Chloe Angyal, MSNBC contributor Robert Traynham, a former communications director for Rick Santorum, and Sayu Bhojwani, founding director of the New American Leaders Project. (That’s a line-up so obscure, MSNBC could actually have body doubles filling in and no one would know or care.)
After Perry set up the segment in boxing match terms between the two candidates, she turned it over to her team. Kornacki wasted no time saying “Joe Biden gets a bad rap as a politician, as a communicator and as a debater.” He went on to complain about how the “caricature as everyone’s crazy uncle” has taken hold.
Rather than admit Biden is a gaffemaster, Kornacki called him “a really skilled communicator.” In Biden speak, that’s “a big f***ing deal.” Remember, this is Biden who in 2008 called Obama ''clean'' and ''articulate,'' and even The New York Times’s Frank Rich said that was reminiscent of “Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.”
This is Biden whom the Washington Post described in October 2008 as “known to much of the public as a gabby, gaffe-prone, backslapping Irish boy from Scranton, Pa.” This is the vice president, whom the Post in 2008 compared to Italy’s Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi “whose propensity for gaffes rivals that of Vice President-elect Joe Biden.”
And this is Biden
who makes so many gaffes that he joked that he had “never had a gaffe” when Jake Tapper interviewed him on July 18, 2010.
Kornacki wasn’t just constructing a fantasy, it was a bridge too far. He then went on to build a version of history that’s not exactly accurate. Kornacki said Biden was named to Obama’s ticket because of his success at the debates.
However, Biden was chosen after Obama was roundly criticized for having insufficient foreign policy experience. Biden’s background on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was seen as key to balance out Obama’s lack of any substantive international experience.
On Aug. 24, 2008, when Biden was chosen as VP, the Post’s Anne E. Kornblut focused on his international experience. “Biden, 65, a sharp-witted and energetic foreign policy expert who has held two of the most critical Senate chairmanships, bounded out onto the stage just after 2 p.m. Central time,” she wrote.
Post columnist Richard Cohen did the same the next day, explaining that Obama “reached into the very heart of the Washington establishment -- especially its foreign policy wing” to choose Biden. It had little to do with his debate strengths and lot to do with Obama’s weaknesses.
The MSNBC conversation then went from Biden to Ryan and grew more ridiculous. Korncki was followed by Traynham, who had the only good words to say about Ryan. “He’s very specific and he’s very smart,” he admitted before being outnumbered by his fellow guests.
This time instead of building up, they were tearing down. Feministing’s Angyal, went on what is now a common liberal attack against the GOP, accusing Ryan of lying. “Ryan’s reputation as a smart, substantive guy is collapsing, in part because of the amount of fact-checking that had to be done after his nomination acceptance speech,” she claimed. She predicted there would be “ruthless fact-checking” of Ryan, not Biden, of course. Bhojwani agreed with Angyal, saying “there is going to be this desire for fact-checking.”
Traynham pointed out that as a society “we can’t even agree on what the facts are.” That too was blamed on the right as Perry criticized anyone who had questioned the latest jobs numbers.
This is the same theme liberals like New York Times’ economist Paul Krugman have been claiming about Romney as well. Obama’s errors are “minor,” Romney’s extreme. Krugman told ABC's “This Week” “the press just doesn't know how to handle flat out untruths” from Romney.
Perry’s self-described “nerdland” included “The Cycle” co-host Steve Kornacki, Feministing editor Chloe Angyal, MSNBC contributor Robert Traynham, a former communications director for Rick Santorum, and Sayu Bhojwani, founding director of the New American Leaders Project. (That’s a line-up so obscure, MSNBC could actually have body doubles filling in and no one would know or care.)
After Perry set up the segment in boxing match terms between the two candidates, she turned it over to her team. Kornacki wasted no time saying “Joe Biden gets a bad rap as a politician, as a communicator and as a debater.” He went on to complain about how the “caricature as everyone’s crazy uncle” has taken hold.
Rather than admit Biden is a gaffemaster, Kornacki called him “a really skilled communicator.” In Biden speak, that’s “a big f***ing deal.” Remember, this is Biden who in 2008 called Obama ''clean'' and ''articulate,'' and even The New York Times’s Frank Rich said that was reminiscent of “Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.”
This is Biden whom the Washington Post described in October 2008 as “known to much of the public as a gabby, gaffe-prone, backslapping Irish boy from Scranton, Pa.” This is the vice president, whom the Post in 2008 compared to Italy’s Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi “whose propensity for gaffes rivals that of Vice President-elect Joe Biden.”
And this is Biden
who makes so many gaffes that he joked that he had “never had a gaffe” when Jake Tapper interviewed him on July 18, 2010.Kornacki wasn’t just constructing a fantasy, it was a bridge too far. He then went on to build a version of history that’s not exactly accurate. Kornacki said Biden was named to Obama’s ticket because of his success at the debates.
However, Biden was chosen after Obama was roundly criticized for having insufficient foreign policy experience. Biden’s background on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was seen as key to balance out Obama’s lack of any substantive international experience.
On Aug. 24, 2008, when Biden was chosen as VP, the Post’s Anne E. Kornblut focused on his international experience. “Biden, 65, a sharp-witted and energetic foreign policy expert who has held two of the most critical Senate chairmanships, bounded out onto the stage just after 2 p.m. Central time,” she wrote.
Post columnist Richard Cohen did the same the next day, explaining that Obama “reached into the very heart of the Washington establishment -- especially its foreign policy wing” to choose Biden. It had little to do with his debate strengths and lot to do with Obama’s weaknesses.
The MSNBC conversation then went from Biden to Ryan and grew more ridiculous. Korncki was followed by Traynham, who had the only good words to say about Ryan. “He’s very specific and he’s very smart,” he admitted before being outnumbered by his fellow guests.
This time instead of building up, they were tearing down. Feministing’s Angyal
, went on what is now a common liberal attack against the GOP, accusing Ryan of lying. “Ryan’s reputation as a smart, substantive guy is collapsing, in part because of the amount of fact-checking that had to be done after his nomination acceptance speech,” she claimed. She predicted there would be “ruthless fact-checking” of Ryan, not Biden, of course. Bhojwani agreed with Angyal, saying “there is going to be this desire for fact-checking.”Traynham pointed out that as a society “we can’t even agree on what the facts are.” That too was blamed on the right as Perry criticized anyone who had questioned the latest jobs numbers.
This is the same theme liberals like New York Times’ economist Paul Krugman have been claiming about Romney as well. Obama’s errors are “minor,” Romney’s extreme. Krugman
told ABC's “This Week” “the press just doesn't know how to handle flat out untruths” from Romney.
Dan Gainor is the Boone Pickens Fellow and the Media Research Center’s Vice President for Business and Culture. He writes frequently about media for Fox News Opinion. He can also be contacted on Facebook and Twitter as dangainor.
. He writes frequently about media for Fox News Opinion. He can also be contacted on Facebook and Twitter as dangainor.===
Romney offers powerful alternative to apologizing for America
On Columbus Day, Mitt Romney went to the Virginia Military Institute to outline a starkly different foreign policy vision from President Obama’s approach of apologizing for America, ignoring Islamism, mistreating our allies and embracing our enemies.
It came none too soon. The Syrian war has spilled across the border of a NATO ally and there are new indications the rebellion is drifting toward the influence of radical jihadists.
In our own hemisphere, the anti-US strongman with whom Obama shared a brother handshake in public, Hugo Chavez, just claimed a new mandate to advance his anti-American cause.
The Iranian regime—the chief opponent of a modern, civilized order in the Middle East -- is lurching toward a nuclear weapons capability.
And then there is Libya, where a terrorist attack that killed US ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans has led not to reprisals and serious action, but an administration lying to the American people about national security to a degree not seen since the Vietnam era.
Mitt Romney laid out an alternative that would be stingy with lives of American servicemen, but willing to use American statecraft and power when our interests are clearly on the line.
Where Obama has done nothing to help Syrian rebels for want of a permission slip from the UN, Romney would “identify and organize those members of the opposition who share our values and ensure they obtain the arms they need to defeat Assad’s tanks, helicopters and fighter jets.”
Where Obama and his aides have lied to the American people about the terrorist attack in Libya, Romney vowed to “pursue the terrorists who attacked our consulate in Benghazi and killed Americans,” noting that the attack was work of “terrorists who use violence to impose their dark ideology on others.”
Where Obama turned his back on pro-freedom protestors and sought to sweet talk the deadly Iranian regime out of its nuclear aspirations, Romney promised to position the military force necessary—and to stop the looming defense cuts that would eviscerate that military—in order to convince Tehran that there will be consequences to aggression.
Outlining his approach to the world at large, Romney noted “I believe that if America does not lead, others will--others who do not share our interests and our values--and the world will grow darker.” This commitment to smart internationalism differentiates Romney from an Obama administration that has been asleep at the wheel as revolutions have swept the Middle East, stunned that the president’s repeated apologies for past American conduct and deep bow to the Saudi king somehow did not fix America’s problems in the region.
But Romney also made clear he is no neo-conservative. His plan for Syria rejects the no-fly zone approach to everything advocated by Republicans John McCain and Lindsay Graham. So instead of an open-ended military commitment Americans want least right now, the Romney plan for Syria would influence the future political outcome away from radical Islamists—what really matters most for the future government that will inherit Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal. Overall, the would-be Romney doctrine has a focus on political outcomes abroad—what comes after a war or revolution—that has been missing from recent administrations of both parties.
The one matter conspicuously absent from Romney’s speech was a comprehensive approach to China, which he mentioned only once. China’s unelected government sits atop a kleptocracy that systematically steals American intellectual property and trade secrets, wages a relentless cyber war on the United States, and is undertaking a massive military buildup aimed at pushing the US out of the Western Pacific.
But at least Romney has called for what could be the most important tool in containing an increasingly aggressive China—a strong military centered around a restored US Navy. Beijing will take note of that more than hopeful statements about cooperation from Obama’s diplomats.
President John Quincy Adams famously said that America “does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy.” So too can we now assume a Romney presidency would avoid foreign adventures. But when others make war on us, we will no longer be afraid to see what we see and respond accordingly.
Christian Whiton was a State Department senior adviser from 2003-09 during the administration George W. Bush administration. He is principal at DC International Advisory. Follow him on Twitter@ChristianWhiton
. Follow him on Twitter@ChristianWhiton===
In second term, Obama will allow UN to tax Americans
It should come as no surprise that President Obama will raise taxes if he is re-elected. But here’s the shocker: He will invite the United Nations to tax Americans directly. And the proceeds would go directly to the Third World. In this way, Barack Obama will, indeed, realize the dreams of his father.
In our new book, "Here Come the Black Helicopters: UN Global Governance and the Loss of Freedom," Eileen and I describe how there is now pending in the U.N. all kinds of plans to tax Americans and redistribute their wealth – not to other Americans – but to other countries. These taxes will not be like our U.N. dues paid by a vote of our Congress. Nor akin to foreign aid which we choose to give. They would be mandatory levies imposed by treaty on American citizens. And, since they would be enumerated in a Treaty – not an act of Congress -- only the president and the Democratic Senate need be on board. The Republican House has no role in the Treaty-making process.
(Of course, we do not believe that actual black UN helicopters will land in our midst to take over our country. But we use the symbolism to warn that the liberal, bureaucratic elites in the UN, enabled by Obama and Hillary, mean to create global governance to override American self-rule and independence).
Here is what we say in "Black Helicopters" that Obama, Hillary, and the UN are planning for us:
- A “Robin Hood” tax on financial transactions. Every time you buy or sell a stock or a bond or exchange money while travelling, you’d be hit with a financial transactions tax (a percentage of your transaction) that would go to the UN.
- A global tobacco tax with the funds to flow to the World Health Organization (WHO).
- A UN-imposed tax on billionaires all over the world. And don’t delude yourself for a moment that it is only the 1600 current billionaires who will be hit. Once the precedent of a UN tax on US citizens is approved, it will gradually grow downwards to cover more and more Americans. Again the funds will go to the UN.
- Under the Law of the Sea Treaty – up for Senate ratification in December of the lame duck session – offshore oil and gas wells would have to pay a proportion of their revenues to the International Seabed Authority, a UN-sponsored organization, which would distribute the loot to the third world.
- A carbon tax on all U.S. or other foreign commercial or passenger aircraft flying to Europe. Nominally to fight climate change, these revenues would also go to the third world.
- A mandatory assessment to be imposed on the U.S. to compensate third world nations for the costs of reducing their carbon output.
- These taxes are, of course, only the first steps. Once the principle is established of UN taxation of American citizens, the sky is the limit.
Is there any organizations less worthy of our trust to spend our money wisely than the United Nations? Beset by almost constant scandal, bereft of any in-house oversight or even audit, the UN is one of the most corrupt of all international organizations. In "Black Helicopters," we document how pervasive this corruption really is.
And where would the money go? To so-called less developed countries. The taxes are part of a global plan of redistribution of wealth from the Northern Hemisphere (US, Europe, Japan) to the Southern Hemisphere (Latin America, Africa, and South Asia).
But don’t think that this flow of wealth will reduce poverty. Foreign aid doesn’t work. We explain in "Black Helicopters" that it really just puts a pot of money on the table in third world countries that automatically goes to whoever controls the presidential palace. Coups, civil wars, revolutions, and all sorts of violence usually ensue as various factions, tribes, or ethnic groups try to get their hands on the money. Real reduction in poverty can come only through foreign direct investment and trade, not via massive exports of northern hemisphere wealth to countries controlled by corrupt oligarchs.
Even a victory in the election of 2012 may avert the threat of rampant globalism. Obama and his lame duck Senate will sign and try to ratify a broad range of global treaties to give away our sovereignty and expose us to UN taxation.
"Here Come the Black Helicopters: UN Global Governance and the Loss of Freedom" is a clarion warning call and a guide to saving our freedom while we still can!
Please…read the book and join the battle for our liberty!
Dick Morris is a Fox News contributor and author. He is the author of the forthcoming book, "Here Come the Black Helicopters: UN Global Governance and the Loss of Freedom." His latest book is "Screwed! How Foreign Countries Are Ripping America Off and Plundering Our Economy-and How Our Leaders Help Them Do It." Visit his website:www.dickmorris.com and follow him on Twitter@dickmorris.
." His latest book is "Screwed! How Foreign Countries Are Ripping America Off and Plundering Our Economy-and How Our Leaders Help Them Do It." Visit his website:www.dickmorris.com and follow him on Twitter@dickmorris.===
Free speech frauds 2GB ban News Ltd editor over Alan Jones column
TO SAY that I am gutted is an overstatement. Just over an hour ago I got a call from 2GB saying that I am no longer welcome on the network.
The reason - this column from last Tuesday which was critical of Alan Jones.
I am not sure if you can technically describe it as a sacking, given that I received the handsome sum of zero dollars for my weekly appearances on the Steve Price show.
I was only doing it because I like and rate Steve, and enjoyed our casual chats, as I have in the past with other 2GB broadcasters such as Ben Fordham and my friend Chris Smith.
It is unclear whether AJ stepped in to orchestrate my demise. All I was told was that 2GB management had advised Pricey not to get me back on air on account of the Jones column, and that I would not be appearing anywhere on the station.
It is an interesting move from a network which is posturing as both a dogged defender of free speech, and the innocent victim of a vicious bullying campaign aimed at suppressing opinion. I was only doing it because I like and rate Steve, and enjoyed our casual chats, as I have in the past with other 2GB broadcasters such as Ben Fordham and my friend Chris Smith.
It is unclear whether AJ stepped in to orchestrate my demise. All I was told was that 2GB management had advised Pricey not to get me back on air on account of the Jones column, and that I would not be appearing anywhere on the station.
For now I suppose I'll just have to pick up the pieces of my life and maybe find another network which is prepared to pay me nothing in return for my thoughts. I will also be returning the Mercedes.
It comes as no surprise. Penberthy was behind the Telegraph flip which backed NSW ALP in '07. - ed
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