The New York Times is anxious for us to believe that the classified documents scandals attached to Presidents Trump and Biden are Not The Same, Hey, Chuck: are we up to "six ways from Sunday" on the classified documents front yet?

Lefty Ted Rall, who wrote a book about Snowden, is even less impressed with the need for classification. Too many people are living in cartoon world, he asserts, and have been "watching too many Bourne movies:"

In the fevered imagination of political-thriller scriptwriters, we would be totally screwed if the wrong Super Duper Important Document were to fall into the clutches of an Evil Enemy of America.

Anyway, he says, we have more important things to worry about. He'd like both political parties to

focus on real problems that affect real Americans every single day: climate change, health care for profit, high college tuition, the prison industrial complex, brutal and racist police, unemployment, homelessness, unaffordable housing.

You know, I really appreciate an opinion-maker doing an Iselin and making things "real simple" for me. Because a statement like that makes it really clear that cartoon-world isn't just for the war party. Let's Fisk Rall's list of issues.

Climate Change. Don't you lefties understand that climate change is just as much of a fake war as you believed the Cold War to be, back in the day? Al Gore bellowing away at Klausi's WEF shindig ought to remind you about Sen. McCarthy bellowing about communists in the State Department. But go ahead. You climatistas will end up crashing the economy and get thrown out of power for a generation.

Health Care for Profit. Honey, if you want affordable health care then get the government out of health care. It's the science: you get "regulatory capture" by the regulated whenever the government regulates an industry. Back in the day, of course, Americans had "lodge doctors" at their Masonic or Elks lodge. Real cheap doctors right out of med school. Ever heard of that, cupcake?

High College Tuition. Well, yeah! You hand out handy-dandy college loans to kids wet behind the ears and that literally know nothing and you are basically shoveling money at colleges. So of course, college tuition is sky high. You did it, lefties.

Prison Industrial Complex/Brutal and Racist Police. You did this, liberals. You made it possible with your welfare policies for single women to bear and raise children without a father. I call it: Slavery Part Deux. Back in the day, in Britland in the Year 1000, a serf could go to his lord and ask to become a slave: "head for food" they called it. Just like today, only today you go to your local welfare bureaucrat instead of your local lord. But I understand, dear liberal friends. The utter mess on the fatherless black thug front cannot -- just cannot -- be the fault of educated liberals. No, some white racist-sexist-homophobic bigot must have done it.

Unemployment/Homelessness. Sen. Schumer (D-NY) would say that the regulatory welfare state has six ways from Sunday to make it really expensive to hire unskilled labor and to prevent the existence of cheap, affordable housing for people down on their luck. I go for a walk most mornings around my swank liberal neighborhood, and the guys working on housing construction are all Hispanic. No poor whites; no blacks. What's that all about, sports fans?

Unaffordable Housing. Oh please. At this late date you are branding yourself as a delta-minus moron if you don't understand why housing is unaffordable, from 85 years of Fannie and Freddie dishing out low-down fixed-rate mortgages, to liberal domination of zoning and building standards, to endless inflation. And the post 2008 zero-interest-rate policy has pumped trillions into stocks and real-estate.

If it weren't for the fact that La La Land is a perfectly respectable movie, I would make a comment here about the cloud-cuckoo land inhabited by our liberal friends.

Back in Realityville, I am reading Francis Fukuyama's The Origins of Political Order. He starts out with a disquisition on Big Man village politics in Papua New Guinea. The Big Man is the one who has

earned the community's trust, usually on the basis of his ability to distribute pigs, shell money, and other resources to members of the tribe.

You can already imagine the statement by his grandson, noted author Francis Fukuyama III, writing in the early 22nd century.

"The 21st century elected politician got elected on the basis of his promises to distribute government benefits and pensions to the voters, and carve-outs to the special interests."

Nothing has changed.

Now, some experts believe that the political distribution of goods and services is a net drag on the economy and the prosperity of ordinary people. Such experts are not, of course, often in the pay of the ruling class. The very idea!

Karnal wrote on Jan 25^th, 2023 at 10:35pm:



Our liberals are communists in denial, your liberals expect government to provide for them in life! They are in no way similar to our conservatives, they still want government controlling their neighbors.

Mortdooley wrote on Jan 26^th, 2023 at 1:05am:


Our Liberals are elected by the people, Mort. They do those things because voters want them.

Universal health care, education, social security, aged and disability care - and no guns. They might come around to renewable energy too. Why?

Because we have a country where people vote. Our Liberals are forced to do what they want.

Your Republicans play it differently. They rig and gerrymander and deny the vote to as many people as possible, and trick them when elections come round.

Because of this, you have a country where you can't possibly have an effective government. In your country, Republican governors bus refugees and homeless people to Democrat states not to solve a refugee crisis or homelessness, but to make a political point.

Your political system has effectively broken down. If you had more people voting, you'd get better leaders and governments you could trust - like us.

You'd have government that could come together to solve problems - like pandemics. The US saw more covid deaths than any country in the world. We had one of the lowest.

Our Liberals are largely responsible for that, dear. You?

Frank wrote on Jan 26^th, 2023 at 5:26pm:


However, those 14 have been crucial elections and have saved Australia when Australia had been gotten into some bad situations by the idiot Tories.  The ALP has also proved itself the better managers of society and the economy than the Tories could hope to be.  The Tories, overall have shown themselves to be competent but only just.  If we had followed their advice we would have suffered three recessions we didn't need to undergo, Soren.  Tsk, tsk, tsk...   

Brian Ross wrote on Jan 26^th, 2023 at 8:01pm:



Non-Labor parties or coalitions have won 30 elections and the Australian Labor Party (ALP) has won 14.

In 122 years.

Brian Ross wrote on Jan 26^th, 2023 at 11:53am:

I know it's common for kids that weren't even alive during Menzies'
PM-ship (until 1966 BTW Brian) to take the piss out of him and his
policies, but in 1962 inflation was a historic low of -1.3% in June that
year.  And the unemployment rate through most of his 16 years as
PM was less than 2%. 

Labor PMs since then can only dream of those figures.  Our inflation rate
under Labor for Q4 of 2022 came in at 7.8%, the highest in 33 years.

Karnal wrote on Jan 26^th, 2023 at 1:30pm:



All you are really saying is huge government good, personal freedoms bad. Your government like ours is very generous with other people's money. The rich and powerful select who you get to vote for, if you don't do it at the local level it hardly matters who you vote for nationally!

I spoke with a woman in Halifax last October and her opinion about universal health care was more honest than yours. She said people can go to the Hospital as often as they want, even more than once in a single day. Her complaint was that people don't really get any quality of care. Tests and treatments take a really long time to get. Also the cost is really hidden in the taxes they pay on just about everything so it isn't truly free, it just comes out of a different pocket. Our Social Security System was so overfunded the the early days it could support those who contributed during their working lives without current contributions. Until the democrats were able to transfer the balance into the general fund! Now this weeks contributions go to this weeks retiree while the government cries the fund is running out of money.

You really think the people in your government are required to do the peoples business, how naive of you. The Republican system is one legal vote for one legal voter, I know somehow that seems discriminatory to many. We feel our votes are diluted when others vote multiple time or the dead and non-existent also vote. One thing our system should do is have one age where people are considered full adults and minors until that day. Until a person is 21 they can't vote, enter into contracts or join the military.

Our Governor is bussing illegals to the sanctuary cities because they said they would welcome them. It is criminal for small communities to wake up one morning to find hundreds if not thousands of people suddenly demanding to be fed and housed. Our cities don't generally budget for a huge invasion of dependent people!

Our problem isn't because we don't have enough people voting it is that we have so many uninformed people voting! You actually trust your government? A mistake make by subservient people across history. In the long run that won't end well!

There is a saying that statistics don't lie but you can lie with statistics. Anyone who tested positive for the covid virus was included in those numbers. Shot to death, covid. Motorcycle accident, covid. Old age and natural causes, covid.

(green energy isn't carbon neutral, in fact it makes more carbon in the life of wind and solar than if prevents. Engineering 101!)

So, inconclusion your liberals aren't that much different than ours, you just don't have anyone representing the individual!

Quote:


Correct - not even close.