Submitted by Blowin on Fri, 06/21/2019 - 08:01
Blowin started the topic in
Wax Off
Friday, 21 Jun 2019 at 8:01am
Have it cunts
stunet commented Tuesday, 24 Sep 2019 at 2:30pm
VJ, do you think Hawke and Keating sold out the left with the their unleashing of neoliberalism, albeit under the guise of economic rationalism?
Hard to see how Australia could have gone any other direction with our biggest ally (US), and trading partner (UK) both liberalising their economies, and I think we were fortunate to have those two in control when that madness swept the Western world.
Blowin commented Tuesday, 24 Sep 2019 at 2:54pm
If Australia hadn't embarked down this unnecessary and politically inappropriate economic shitpipe courtesy of Hawke / Keating then we'd be sitting on a pile of riches from our mining boom which would make Norway look like it's on the breadline.
And look at the personal wealth the two of them amassed from their PM's pay. They must have invested their meagre salaries well.....
Not bad for a couple of battlers for the working class. They sold out their entire base yet still like to portray themselves as in the trenches with the proletariat. Keating dressed like a Parisian dandy and his daughter shares billionaires amongst her peer group FFS.
You don't think Australia's working class and middle classes benefitted from the 80s reforms?
I'd say before the great waves of inequality hit post-2000, then it would be hard to argue anyone was worse off.
Westofthelake commented Tuesday, 24 Sep 2019 at 3:26pm
An honest presentation of the sh*tfuc*ery of the political masters of spin and spittle. The cashless welfare card.
sypkan commented Tuesday, 24 Sep 2019 at 3:41pm
Hindsight is a wonderful thing...
"...If Australia hadn't embarked down this unnecessary and politically inappropriate economic shitpipe courtesy of Hawke / Keating then we'd be sitting on a pile of riches from our mining boom which would make Norway look like it's on the breadline."
Whilst I generally agree with this - actually, I wholeheartedly agree with this!!
However, no one predicted the coming boom. No one at all, not even close. And it is a shining example of how useless economists and their 'evidence based' strategies/policies are...
Prior to this, back in the 80's, when times weren't so good, culminating in the 90's recession, this seemed appropriate for the times...
"...You don't think Australia's working class and middle classes benefitted from the 80s reforms?
I'd say before the great waves of inequality hit post-2000, then it would be hard to argue anyone was worse off."
The problem is, the plan wasn't adjusted. It gained it's own momentun, and it's own assumed inevitability. When times changed, things got better, the plan should have changed. The ideology should have adjusted to the new reality.
But instead, this happened...
"...What's been most amazing is that it has continued for so long, eg ACTU championing more immigration when the wage prices dilute as more workers compete for amount of jobs (jobs themselves become more part-time as key industries are lost). Also makes it easier for both small and big business to get cheap wages. Why the shop floor didn't kick their arses out I will never understand. How did that Button Plan work out for auto workers?"
...resulting in a total lack of faith in unions, and the left of politics generally, as it focussed on other 'issues'.
the left sold out big time. they went too much 'all in' with the new thinking. Pandering to a new somewhere between white collar and blue collar/university class, burning their traditional base in the process
Unfortunately for us, when "times changed" the left didn't have their hands on the levers of control.
And then when they finally did....well, you saw how popular a mining tax was with the public and industry.
"Unfortunately for us, when "times changed" the left didn't have their hands on the levers of control."
Yep. but a good opposition also has a role to fulfill. many of the changes went through pretty much unchallenged. their was a certain acceptance of a new inevitability...
"And then when they finally did....well, you saw how popular a mining tax was with the public and industry."
Yep again, surely one of the biggest fuck ups of australia's political history. how a shitty advertising campaign could have been so successful I will never understand. especially considering many miners (the workers) actually supported it...
I think at some point yourself and Blowin will have to accept that for many years people wanted the neoliberal gift set, they bought from the catalogue, they shifted classes, racked up debts, and kept on voting in the people that enabled their mobility.
Shifting the blame to "the opposition party of 1996" or whatever is a misread of history.
velocityjohnno commented Tuesday, 24 Sep 2019 at 5:59pm
"VJ, do you think Hawke and Keating sold out the left with the their unleashing of neoliberalism, albeit under the guise of economic rationalism?"
As a kid I was in awe of Hawkey (the beer, the America's Cup celebrations, watching dad get into it) & as a young adult able to vote I was very much in favour of Keating & that compassionate side of the ALP. In reflection, the reforms they presided over screwed the Aussie working class. The argument beforehand was that Australia wasn't competitive, and so needed this, so needed the reforms so it could be competitive on the world stage. I wonder if that was true?
We got so competitive we completely lost our car industry. Meanwhile, every other country with a car industry subsidises theirs in various ways. Could it be possible we totally fell for the ruse?
Next to come was the other side and selling off Commonwealth Bank, Telecom, the nation's Gold, etc was on the cards. As consumers, the inefficiencies that were removed once these were privatised now see us with lower... oh wait, nevermind
Anyway, we replaced actual production with FIRE and luckily fell on our feet with a once-in-100 years mining boom that we wisely.... oh wait, nevermind
I'm in two minds. If you look at the nation, the policy has had disastrous results for the sovereign wealth and what were the working communities. If you look at us as individual people, there are some very cool things we can do that we weren't able to do in the past - some very cool opportunities.
truebluebasher commented Tuesday, 24 Sep 2019 at 10:57pm
[Breaking News] Court busted Boris & tore up his Sick note...Computer said No!
UK Tory leader was to do something about UK or Queen's son or something?
PM shut down the Nation illegally ...Boris is declared a traitor and or saboteur?
Criminal PM has no choice but to stand down, lose head then be deported.
Team Boris: 'How very dare they, trespass on my executive power!'
Reckon the UK PM's dummy spit will dwarf Brexit!)
'Roundabout now! Scomo powers up Boris with a Knighthood.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/uk-pm-boris-johnson-shut-down-parlia...
Tory Top Hat can't get once round the Empire Games board without going back to the start.
Rules state that this or next week's PM has gotta get past Go to collect any Brexit!
So Libs also illegally shut down Oz Parliament in 2018...Striking Lib's leadership spill is invalid.
Ruling revokes Striker's Scomo's claim as PM ...Turnbull's smoking gun!
(Oz can also sue UK as a tragic brexit victim!)
PM Scomo & Dutto are traitors who plotted to illegally overthrow our nation.
All hail PM Turnbull to be reinstated, anytime yesterday is fine by Oz!
How good is the Westminster System! Toot! Toot! There is a God! Amen!
PS: Libs must pay back lost $millions in 3weeks leave + flights $100k each easy!
Blowin commented Wednesday, 25 Sep 2019 at 5:46am
MACROBUSINESS
Heil fasco-housing complex!
By Houses and Holes in Australian Politicsat 12:16 am on September 25, 2019 | 10 comments
Nine years ago I wrote:
Australian housing doesn't have anything to do with economics. It long since ceased being a "market" at all.
Rather, it is a political complex – a quango – that represents the single largest page in the socio-economic contract between the government, the Australian financial system and an ageing baby-boomer population.
When the baby-boomer generation first took power and reshaped Australia in the 1980s, the promise was for a new kind of meritocracy. The old "Australian Settlement" described brilliantly by Paul Kelly in the End of Certainty – a protectionist social contract between unions, industry, government and the people – was swept aside in favour of a neo-liberal vision. The new world demanded an open, more dynamic Australia. An Australia that rewarded entrepreneurial effort and flexibility. A productive Australia.
For a while it worked. Australia dropped its tariffs, deregulated government enterprise, most especially the banks, and after a false start at the end of the eighties, embarked on an historic productivity boom.
But at some point a distortion began to grow at the heart of the new vision. It's dark seed was sown by the original architects of the new world when they back-tracked on the removal of negative gearing tax policy for housing in the 80s.
By the late 1990s it had become a cancer eating away at the achievements of the baby-boomer generation and a second wave of bipartisan supporters of the new vision took power only to further deregulate finance and install fabulous capital gains tax privileges on property investment.
As we entered the 2000s, the new vision threatened to stall and the same baby-boomers that had convinced us all to embark on their neo-liberal journey deployed new, more direct subsidies for houses, in the form of first home buyer grants that sought to co-opt the baby-boomer's children in the same now rapidly distorting vision.
Through the 2000s, the neo-liberal vision became virtually unrecognisable. The dynamic and open Australia mutated into a speculative abomination based almost entirely on houses. Our precious capital, freed in the 80s to find the most productive outlets possible became instead the key stone in a system of offshore borrowing and asset inflation.
The final death knell of the new vision surely came in 2003 when the old national good luck arrived in the nick of time. As the housing quango lay dying in 2003, along came a commodities boom the likes of which nobody has seen in century. The transformation was complete. The entrepreneurial vision of those pioneering 80s baby-boomers replaced with happy-jack dirt salesmen and a bloated entitlement state that now had the money to keep its most hideous progeny, the great, quivering housing sack that hung from its belly, alive.
In 2008, when the world woke up and the mutated vision was revealed in all its horrible form, the government deployed every available mechanism to keep the thing alive. Unheard of guarantees across the financial system, moral hazards like leaves in the wind, wholesale immigration, massive direct subsidies, huge general stimulus.
This might be forgiveable if it was at least honest and openly declared. But it wasn't and isn't. Instead, those that had sat outside the system, hoping for a house or sagely planning to swoop when the bubble burst, are insulted with blandishments about how robust the system is, how they missed out on the "market". Even though this so called "market" long since ceased to bear any relation to laws of supply and demand.
I feel sympathy to my bones for those that are running the buying strike campaign and those that participate in it. I understand completely where they are coming from. A buyers strike is an entirely appropriate and justifiable response to the Australian politico-housing complex. It is a political act targeted at a political system that lies to their face.
Ever since, we have watched the same politico-housing complex throw successive generations into a property mincer that has now consumed the entire economy.
Which brings me to my point. The evolving new level of real estate bastardisation, irrationality and power in the nation's capitals is more totalitarian in nature than the exercise of interests over government. It has moved well beyond the simple influence of lobbying or spruiking in the press. The politco-housing complex has evolved into a structure so complete that it is now a world view, a complete, closed-loop ideology, bound up with nationalism, geopolitics and power.
There is an inexorable logic to this. It was obvious to anyone with eyes that the politico-housing complex had become a parasite killing its host. The complex had so distorted the underlying economy, had so corrupted national identity, and had so compromised national security, that it was either going to die or had to evolve.
The first of the great challenges to the politico-housing complex was economic. Over the past two economic cycles, the politico-housing complex has flattened households under a mountain of debt that has killed inflation and monetary policy. Thus the complex has become ever more dependent upon fiscal support for life, both for funding and supporting a gutted underlying economy.
The second great challenge to the politico-housing complex was that its core pillar, mass immigration, was directly undermining Australian living standards. Wages growth has been destroyed. Public services like roads, rail, health, education and law have been crush-loaded and debauched. The Australian backyard is history and the great outdoors itself is gone as shoddy apartments have predominated in dwelling construction. All of this has happened without a vote for it. Indeed, all polls indicate strong resistance to further population growth.
The third great challenge for the politico-housing complex was political. The last election presented a generational threat when Labor sensed the marginalisation of younger voters was a political opportunity.
But, from the verge of extinction, the politico-housing complex suddenly evolved to confront each of these three challenges. The key moment was a Property Council of Australia coup at the last election, with its former head of research, Scott Morrison, appointed PM. That has entrenched the power of a cabal of public and private oligarchs that have taken control of national interest policy in the name of real estate. The first order of business has been to capture fiscal support for the economy and more credit. The coup has been followed up with the co-opting of regulators using classic fascist techniques of show trials and personal favours. Next underway is the cultural war to bring all "business" into line as well. Daily now, business leaders are bashed by marauding ministers of the new 'fasco-housing complex'.
The second feature of the newly formed fasco-housing complex is to sustain mass immigration no matter the cost to economy, living standards, democracy or security. In classic fascist practice, the deleterious impacts are disguised through the use of relentless mass propaganda, disseminated forcefully by oligarchic aligned media. Its greatest trick is to endlessly debate solutions to the destructive flow of peoples as if that is the answer, while misrepresenting any and all resistance to the flow itself using public shaming, via such tags as "racist". A terrific example of this is underway today at Nine's metropolitan newspapers as it conducts a gala event around how to manage population growth. Fresh from running fasco-housing complex fund raisers for Property Council Generalissimo ScoMo, Nine has dedicated days of debate to the topic without once mentioning that we could simply cut the migrant intake. The truth is that there are no solutions to the fallout from overly fast immigration within the Australian system, nor are there intended to be. The debate only serves to provide the illusion of choice as the putsch goes about its daily business of building shoddy apartments for money-laundering Chinese and propagating new generations of 'fasco-housing complex youth'.
The third leg of the fasco-housing complex is political transformation. Since the election of the Property Council PM, the fasco-housing complex has set about distorting the results in every way possible. The truth is that the Property Council PM only fell over the line thanks to Queenslanders who voted for nationalist fringe parties seeking tighter borders. But that has been completely repackaged as a fulsome embrace of "aspirationalism" – read fasco-housing code for higher house prices – permanently erasing any prospect of future political push back against the complex. Yet behind that lie is the truth that the Queenslanders were right. We do need tighter borders. The political system is reeling from an inundation of cashed-up foreign influences, mostly sponsored by the Communist Party of China and, again, revolving around property. These are now distorting the political system itself to more and more resemble the mobster patronage system of the CCP, the world's greatest fascistic state, not to mention sailing Australia further into its sphere of influence. Freedom itself may end up being the ultimate casualty of the fasco-housing complex.
Like all fascistic systems, the fasco-housing complex is pre-enlightenment, preferring religious zeal to reason in the formulation of national goals. It uses force to bring objectives to fruition, including ultra-nationalist bullying of conscientious objectors, the use of mass brainwashing propaganda via an effectively nationalised press, and the seamless fusion of public and private elites in a unified oligarchy of nationalist destiny.
That it revolves around realty is a uniquely Australian evil, best left as a banal footnote in the history of such systems.
AndyM commented Wednesday, 25 Sep 2019 at 8:21am
That's what I like about you Blowin, you're the Greta Thunberg of Swellnet.
stunet commented Wednesday, 25 Sep 2019 at 9:06am
Ha...I can hear you chuckling from 500kms away, Andy.
Westofthelake commented Wednesday, 25 Sep 2019 at 9:56am
Haha, Blowin Thunberg....I like it. (although it does kinda sound like a certain type of industry name)
Good read btw.
factotum commented Wednesday, 25 Sep 2019 at 10:33am
The answer my friend AIN'T blowin' in the wind...
stunet commented Wednesday, 25 Sep 2019 at 10:45am
Jordan Shanks is getting sued by Clive Palmer to the tune of half a million bucks, and this is his response, which Michael West has called the "greatest response to a lawyer's threat ever" and which has racked up half a million views on YouTube in two days.
You may not dig his delivery - not a fan myself - but the research is phenomenal, as is the unveiling of Palmer's artifice as a jovial friend of Australia.
Worth watching right through.
Westofthelake commented Wednesday, 25 Sep 2019 at 10:46am
While Thunberg was at the Climate Summit (Trump stopped in for a moment), the President was speaking at a religious-freedom event.
The man who began his Presidency by imposing a ban on Muslim travellers, and who went on to reduce the number of refugees the country accepts to an all-time low, delivered an address about American commitment to helping people persecuted for their religious beliefs, wherever it happens.
Rise of the youth. I'll vote for that.
I guess 'ol baby Trump and his religious right squad can just 'pray' for things to get better.....better get on it Donny.
"It's bad enough Trump sought help from a foreign power in the last election.
It's worse still that he obstructed the investigation into his misconduct.
Now he's admitted using his office to coerce another country to interfere in 2020."
Impeachment anyone?
Blowin commented Wednesday, 25 Sep 2019 at 11:15am
Oh , gawd. Another fiction based coup attempt by the formerly electable party known as the Democrats.
This'll answer all your questions.
Edit : this link is better https://thefederalist.com/2019/09/23/like-russian-collusion-ukraine-hyst...
Media corruption and propoganda? gasp, never surely....
Adam Schiff doesn't think its 'fiction'. From a tweet,
"We have been informed by the whistleblower's counsel that their client would like to speak to our committee and has requested guidance from the Acting DNI as to how to do so.
We're in touch with counsel and look forward to the whistleblower's testimony as soon as this week."
I thought impeachment is the last thing the Dems would try and pursue, but never say never I guess.
That is surprising that a Democratic senator from California would promote the latest unfounded attack on Trump.
Said no one ever.
truebluebasher commented Wednesday, 25 Sep 2019 at 11:44am
Natasha is acquainting love child Greta with some necessary Democratic Docs.
https://scontent-lht6-1.cdninstagram.com/v/t51.2885-15/e35/64382157_3270...
https://goat.com.au/federal-election/the-australian-democrats-are-back-s...
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/ED37/production/_103972706_g...
Put the boot in girlz...Whiteshoestomp'n'time...Oi! Oi! Oi! ..
Patrick commented Wednesday, 25 Sep 2019 at 12:08pm
That Jordan Shanks video cheered me up :)
Great info and fucking hilarious.
sypkan commented Wednesday, 25 Sep 2019 at 12:51pm
"...Australian housing doesn't have anything to do with economics. It long since ceased being a "market" at all.
Rather, it is a political complex – a quango – that represents the single largest page in the socio-economic contract between the government, the Australian financial system and an ageing baby-boomer population."
gold!!!
"In 2008, when the world woke up and the mutated vision was revealed in all its horrible form, the government deployed every available mechanism to keep the thing alive. Unheard of guarantees across the financial system, moral hazards like leaves in the wind, wholesale immigration, massive direct subsidies, huge general stimulus.
This might be forgiveable if it was at least honest and openly declared. But it wasn't and isn't. Instead, those that had sat outside the system, hoping for a house or sagely planning to swoop when the bubble burst, are insulted with blandishments about how robust the system is, how they missed out on the "market". Even though this so called "market" long since ceased to bear any relation to laws of supply and demand."
tragic!!!
sypkan commented Wednesday, 25 Sep 2019 at 1:44pm
"I think at some point yourself and Blowin will have to accept that for many years people wanted the neoliberal gift set, they bought from the catalogue, they shifted classes, racked up debts, and kept on voting in the people that enabled their mobility."
the problem is too much acceptance
acceptance of the dogma
acceptance of the deciet
the outrageous book cooking
the assumed inevitability of it all
dismissal of any dissenting voices...
did people really want it? did they really vote for it? or have they been decieved at every decision, at every vote, at every crossroad...
"This might be forgiveable if it was at least honest and openly declared. But it wasn't and isn't."
and the real tragedy is poor old greta, ...got caught up in it all..
trumped by the 'economics'
stunet commented Wednesday, 25 Sep 2019 at 1:23pm
C'mon...you can't make appeals to democracy, to the wisdom of the crowd for, say, Brexit or Trump, but then say the crowd has been duped here in Australia.
.... and I'm not referring to blowin
Blowin commented Wednesday, 25 Sep 2019 at 1:33pm
The crowd in Australia hasn't been duped , they've just been denied an alternative.
Stu - If there'd been a viable major party , not just a protest vote , which offered relent from the overwhelming neoliberalism, would you have voted for them ?
Brexit and Trump were the first and only electoral options which weren't limited into useless submission by their respective nations. Trump particularly so after the false hope of Obama.
I said it in another thread, neo-liberalism has only recently been accepted as a reality, or a concept, by the likes of the IMF etc., a failed concept that is...
the average joe has no idea what it is, probably never even heard the term. it's never ever mentioned in the MSM, barely ever been mentioned at the abc...
but it's a thing alright. you wouldn't know it though listening to labor politicians. it's probably never ever passed one set of their lips publically
...yet they're 'all in' on it...
average joe still doesn't know what it is, but he sure knows it sucks...
now knows...
... they've just been denied an alternative.
Jeez man, of course there was an alternative. We just got presented with the largest promise of wealth redistribution in a generation and it got rejected for the status quo.
The people told us what they wanted. Why do you respect the wisdom of US and UK voters, but not Australians?
I do respect the wisdom of Aussie voters and like myself they rejected the " biggest promise of wealth distribution in a generation " for the sophistic margin fiddling it was.
For every near respectable policy the ALP presented they put forward another that eradicated any and all gains and then basically ceded to the neoliberalist status quo.
They were not an alternative, they were a couple of degrees off the LNP at best. At worst they were all this and then even more complicit in the China appeasements.
The only genuine wealth distribution guaranteed by the ALP was the wealth of future Aussie generations into foreign hands.
Most of that is conjecture. Their policies would've benefitted the lower classes, that's beyond debate.
If you think putting the kibosh on franking credits, abolishing negative gearing, and halving the capital gains tax is margin fiddling then good luck finding any party that'll deliver what you want.
"I do respect the wisdom of Aussie voters and like myself they rejected the " biggest promise of wealth distribution in a generation " for the sophistic margin fiddling it was.
For every farcical policy the ALP presented they put forward another that eradicated any and all gains and then basically ceded to the neoliberalist status quo."
Exactly again!
We're in no mans land now. A time of reckoning
people aren't voting 'for' anything
they are voting against stuff
they outright rejected labor and their tinkering at the margins status quo
very very very few people actually voted 'for' the liberals and scomo
Yes , fiddling at the margins .
What was the purpose of franking credit , capital gains and neg gearing reforms? To repair the budget and increase home affordablility . That was their only function.
The return to the budget of all of these measures would have been about 1 billion per annum maximum.
And yet the ALP wanted to INCREASE the immigration rate ! And what is the result of this increase ? Demands for new infrastructure- not including increased maintenance requirements for existing infrastructure - from current population increase is the tune of 200 billion per annum ( !!!! ) .
The costing of the uncapped family reunification visa rort alone would have appropriated every single dollar of savings reaped from self funded Aussie retirees and handed it straight to the imported elderly relatives of Chinese students . And that would only be the start of paying that bill.
And what about house affordability? Well , subtracting the price falls from the already subdued residential investor market from the major influence of the huge demand from increase population equals house prices still rising and unaffordability increasing massively.
Fiddling at the margins . Nothing more . Illusory bait and switch If closely inspected.
Like you said , there isn't any party that gives myself , or the rest of Australia, what they want. The Australian people have no options. Not a Brexit-style fuck you or even a Trump - style" Hail Mary -and -hope -against -all -evidence " roll of the dice. That's my point.
Australians aren't lazier or less wise or more aspirational, they're just denied the outlet for their situation.
I didn't say it was fiddling at the margins.
Like most commenters they were the most daring changes in a generation and would've provided sigificant dividends, however they were voted down because, despite what some outlets might peddle, Australians still want the sweet neoliberal lollipop.
Australians were forced to choose between faeces and diarrhoea, don't add insult to injury by accusing them of coprophilia.
Westofthelake commented Wednesday, 25 Sep 2019 at 8:13pm
Finally got around to watching the Clive Palmer vid that Stu posted earlier at 10 45.
Talk about gold!
25 mins long and worth every second.
I think I'm going to buy a gold t-shirt as a token of respect.
Clive toad Palmer is deffo a fuckity mcfuck face i.e a Fatty Mcfuckhead
*in my opinion
Blowin commented Thursday, 26 Sep 2019 at 5:43am
And here's the full transcript, Westof.
The beat- up levels are way beyond rational. There is nothing even remotely remarkable about this conversation, beyond perhaps the fact that a President is expressing concern about corrupt behaviour by a fellow politician, which seems strange in this day and age. Admirable, but strange .....which is sad. Even if the concern is driven by political expediency.
Please learn a lesson about the partiality of the media from this. And just when you were starting to get over the Russiagate hoax .......Unbelievable.
And the charge against him was " undermining belief in the country and it's institutions . Full irony.
The media don't care about how obvious their complicity is anymore, they have a job to do and there's no accountability so they just go harder.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/the-full-transcript-of-donald...
And here is Biden ( at 52 minutes in ) publicly detailing how he refused to give a billion dollars of aid to the Ukraine unless a prosecutor who was pushing a case against his son's corrupt activities was fired and replaced with a pet prosecutor who would drop the case.
https://youtu.be/Q0_AqpdwqK4
So here we have genuine, unapologetic corruption by a Presidential candidate,using US aid money to blackmail the Ukraine government into ceasing application of the law towards his son and the media ignores this to focus on Trump's encouragement of the Ukraine to apply the law.
What more evidence do you need to admit that the media is colluding to end Trump's presidency by any means ?
PS Biden's son was kicked out of the Navy for drug use and then somehow, despite no business experience whatsoever, landed a US$50,000 / month job " consulting " with a Ukraine energy company. Anything to do with the fact that his father was Vice President at the time ? Pure corruption.
Westofthelake commented Thursday, 26 Sep 2019 at 8:45am
This is an edited account and not a verbatim transcription which means it's possible the White House omitted some passages.
It all looks a bit manufactured to me.
It seems like he wasn't just requesting Zelensky investigate Biden. It looks like he was unsubtly trying to strong-arm him into doing it by leveraging US military assistance.
He is the sitting President, not a wannabe candidate for the job, so the 'ethical' buck stops with Donny. i.e this is not about Biden (who I really couldn't give a flying fuck about), it is about a sitting President using his position to further his own political agenda i.e re-election at any cost.
"Please learn a lesson about the partiality of the media from this"
Nope, he deserves every bit of media collusion that comes his way.....besides he'll be right, he's got Fox News (and God) on his side.
Verbatim transcript and your inability to point out a single inappropriate sentence speaks volumes about the levels of hype over substance involved.
Would you have thought it inappropriate and criminal if Kevin Rudd had discovered that Tony Abbott had threatened to withdraw $1B of aid to Indonesia if they didn't sack the Indonesian prosecutor who was appropriately charging Abbott's daughter with corruption and Rudd had then encouraged the Indonesian President to continue investigations ?
This after Abbott had publicly and proudly bragged about his illegal intervention in the Indonesian justice system using Australian taxpayer's aid money as blackmail to save his daughter from criminal prosecution. On TV he bragged about it for all to hear ! Whilst he was previously in office and he is running to be Prime Minister !
Of course not . This is proper use of the Prime Ministerial directive to route out criminal activity by an Australian official. Irrespective if it's politically beneficial, it's the correct thing to do and it should be lauded.
Instead , we have an inverted distortion of reality where the pursuit and prosecution of corruption has become the condemned act.
Only in the bizarre anti- democratic world of the Never Trumpers could this perverse interpretation of events be considered. The fact that an undisguised coup attempt is supported by the media is scary I reckon.
Crazy shit.
It's blown me away the headlines I'm reading. At least with the Russiagate hoax , the allegations were able to be doctored by the Democrats, this false accusation is openly and obviously utterly spurious and the attackers don't give a fuck. It's an unambiguously illegitimate push to remove a democratically elected president from office and it's globally supported. FFS.
"The White House says a "memorandum of a telephone conversation" is not a verbatim transcript" - from your own SMH link above.
To me that says it all.
zenagain commented Thursday, 26 Sep 2019 at 9:30am
Good posts gents.
Oh , for sure , mate.
Just like the Russiagate hoax , the Democrats have irrefutable, smoking gun evidence , but they just choose to not reveal it.
There is NOTHING to even remotely hint that Trump has done anything wrong, yet you have convicted him just like the rest because......well fucking why exactly ?
Because you don't like him and that should be enough.
Ridiculous state of affairs.
And what of the example I gave above re Abbott and Rudd in the same circumstance ? Would you be calling for Rudd's resignation and ejection from office ?
Westof said " It seems like he wasn't just requesting Zelensky investigate Biden. It looks like he was unsubtly trying to strong-arm him into doing it by leveraging US military assistance."
Please provide the relevant quotes from the transcript to support this ridiculous conjecture.
Westofthelake commented Thursday, 26 Sep 2019 at 10:07am
Regarding the "transcript" - that's not good enough asit is more likely than not it will be sanitized version scripted to fit Trump's narrative.
Congress must see the full and unredacted whistle-blower complaint (which, according to reporting, alleges several troubling phone calls, not just the July 25 call with Ukraine).
"There is NOTHING to even remotely hint that Trump has done anything wrong, yet you have convicted him just like the rest because......well fucking why exactly ?
Because you don't like him and that should be enough."
You're right, I don't like him and what he represents, and as this is a forum of opinions, that IS enough.
Equally ridiculous as the Trump apologists who think the man is a shining light of altruism and superior leadership.
Blowin commented Thursday, 26 Sep 2019 at 10:15am
When you're calling for the extraordinary expulsion of a democratically elected head of state it should be based on something a little more substantial than your opinion, don't you think ?
I'm not calling for his expulsion, the Dems are.
And as history shows, the only way a sitting President can be removed is by being voted out, or resign. Impeachment has never removed a President.
He'll be right, for this term.
Don't you find it strange that , like the Russiagate hoax , these allegations are already bogged down in the ream of unsubstantiated bullshit and third hand rumour ? Thats not happenstance, it's the structural design of this attack on a political opponent that they've no alternative way to deal with.
Face it , mate. This is just another Hail Mary attempt at a coup with the stated bonus of hampering the President's ability to perform his duty
AKA the exact same treasonous undermining of state institutions and confidence in the government that the Democrats consider to be a criminal act.
This " resistance movement " is a complete rejection of respect for democracy , an illegitimate expression of democratic opposition and an act of social bastardry. Pouting children who refuse to get off the supermarket floor until the adults placate their entitled whims and supplant their power for a minutes peace.
Theyll continue to push spurious accusations until they are confronted with consequences.
I focus commented Thursday, 26 Sep 2019 at 1:28pm
I think politics aside its a line in the sand for Trumps actions in regard to the Constitution lets face it Trump has no regard for the rules or traditions.
This is only an inquiry not yet an impeachment but it will allow the house to carry out investigations which will be interesting to see what turns up plenty of smoke coming from the Trump administration.
I thought Trumps reaction strangely subdued.
Blowin commented Thursday, 26 Sep 2019 at 1:47pm
Come on guys.
Come clean.
You're geeing me up aren't you ?