Three new polls this week, from ReachTEL, Essential Research and YouGov, has moved Labor to a just-shy-of-career-best result in the BludgerTrack poll aggregate, on which they now hold a two-party lead of 53.9-46.1. However, the seat projection total is unchanged, as a gain for Labor in Queensland is balanced by a loss in South Australia. The big move on the primary vote is to One Nation at the expense of the Coalition. No new results this week for the leadership trends.
Cat
oh dear!!!!!!!!!!!
Er um!!!!
Obama did not allow Russia to get involved in Syria. Assad INVITED him in (begged actually).
The US thought Russia was tied up in Ukraine, and it shocked everyone when they arrived in force one afternoon.
Unlike the US and Australia Russia was INVITED in by the legitimate government in Syria. Assad is still the legitimate government until such time as there are new elections. The result is that Russia (and Iran) are in Syria legally whereas US, Australia, UK, Saudi etc are there illegally. That is why OUR government has been very, very careful about the way it uses our planes since they know they are in breach of international ;law. They officially are in Iraq with occasional bits of mission creep.
The Russians ALREADY had a base at Tartarus – from the cold war days. That was one of the reasons they decide to come to the aid of Assad.
C@tmomma @ #293 Sunday, October 8th, 2017 – 4:29 am
Irrelevant tosh. The Iraqis are the ones doing the routing.
FMD.
The Russians needed permission from Obama before they acted? And just why was Obama in charge of who got involved and who didn’t?
FMD again.
PUTIN: “Please Mr Obama, can we pretty please get involved in a war that is threatening one of our allies in the Middle East?
OBAMA: “Oh, alright then. As long as you promise to keep your room clean and do all your chores”.
PUTIN: “OK, we promise.
FMD yet again.
Section 4 . . . Cartoon Corner
Reg Lynch and the American psyche.
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/fitz-files-scale-of-slaughter-in-las-vegas-leaves-me-in-despair-for-america-20171006-gyvy17.html
A nice little dig from Mark David.
Paul Zanetti and Xenophon’s motives.
Jon Kudelka and the new security measures.
All about bump stocks. Says it all, really.
More from Jon Kudelka.
Andrew Dyson wonders about facial recognition technology.
http://www.smh.com.au/photogallery/federal-politics/cartoons/andrew-dyson-20090819-epqv.html
Mark Knight and the start of the AFL trade period.
http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/94b90d6a2d85570befb640a30140ca48?width=1024
Here’s the correct Reg Lynch cartoon link.
C@tmomma
A shameless piece of self-promotion by Murdoch scribe Rita Panahi.
Cat
The Democrats could start actually examining why they lost rather than looking for scapegoats.
why did working class people in the rust belt states switch to Trump?
Why was the turnout of black males lower than excpected?
Why did the young not get enthused by Clinton?
Why did the Clinton campaign fail to campaign in the rust belt
Is there a rural/city divide that the Democrats have missed or failed to adapt to?
Why did the celebrity campaign and media campaigns just flop?
These are the important questions. when we see democrats trying to answer them, then you can have hope that they will re-emerge.
What I think says a HUGE amount about the failure of the US system and the democrats in particular is that people actually talk of Michelle Obama as a saviour. Look I think she is great but the whole idea that being someone’s partner makes for a good presidential candidate is decidedly third world – shades of the Nehru and Ghandi dynasties or South American banana republics.
The Democrats need to recruit young people. Get in touch with the new populist and rather more left wing voter mood. Actually try to address the US growing economic problems rather than pretend they do not exist.
However at this stage I think the analysis is right. Trump will win another term (if still alive) or failing him it will be Pence or some other populist type. What is clear is that the old style of “polite” East coast “gentlemen” are not going to make i, whether republican or Democrat.
Sadly (and scarily) I suspect it could be a military man.
DanG,
The Russians needed permission from Obama before they acted? And just why was Obama in charge of who got involved and who didn’t?
You have a very simplistic notion of foreign diplomacy between superpowers, don’t you?
Answer: Negotiations between Russia and America needed to occur, and Russia couldn’t just barge in if they wanted to and needed the okay of the USA, because if they didn’t have the nod from the US the US would have had to act against Russian aggression. Plus they agreed to co-ordinate their response. Until the agreement was broken by the Russians.
daretotread
Given she won the popular vote they seem strange questions.
A better one would be why did people like you join in the miss-information campaign; and are still not will to admit how dam stupid you were.
Now this is a front page:
frednk @ #309 Sunday, October 8th, 2017 – 8:02 am
+1
c@t
Post a link, or better still links that show that the Russians needed Obama’s permission to enter the Syrian conflict.
Of course there is always a chance Trump could win again – he won against all expectations this time, after all, and it’s rare for a US President in the modern era not to get a second term.
However, there are a lot of ifs around whether he will or not.
For example, if there are more third parties running the expectation should not be that they will only split the vote on the left.
As for ‘there’s no charismatic Democrat in the offing’, both Obama and Sanders came out of the blue. That’s not an exceptional happening in US Presidential races – I think Clinton was a ‘surprise’ as well.
Catalan not shrubbery.
An excellent article by a Catalan writer who wants a vote but not necessarily independence.
http://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2017/10/05/catalan-not-shrubbery/
zoomster
They voted in Dubya Bush twice so anything is possible. Heck ,we elected Abbott 🙂
c@t
Another assignment for you:
What is the US more interested in:
Removing Assad?
Defeating ISIS?
Since they’re fighting each other, which side is America on? ISIS or Assad’s?
Russia is definitely on Assad’s side.
If America defeats ISIS, Assad wins. If they remove Assad, ISIS wins.
For once Abbott was right. This is a case of Baddies v Baddies.
Dan Gulberry @ #312 Sunday, October 8th, 2017 – 8:06 am
To the negotiations between Sergei Lavrov and John Kerry!?!
Fred
What an ignorant comment. Yes Clinton won the popular vote, but she did NOT win they key swing states.
My questions relate to that.
If the ALP campaigned solely in traditional Labor strongholds and ignored the marginals I am sure you and I would both agree they got their campaign muddled. It is just as true of the Democrats.
Sure their system is pretty useless in may ways but it IS the system, and the Democrats needed to win a majority of electoral delegates. What appears to have been the case is that they relied on the rust belt – they had always turned out in force for Bill Clinton, and it was assumed that this would carry over to Hillary. Despite warnings from Michael Moore (and I have even read somewhere from Bill) and others that this would not hold it seems as if the Democrats just could not believe that the rust belt would swing.
For whatever reason the Democrats in campaign central were convinced that the rainbow coalition of minorities would be sufficient to get them over the line. This might have been true if they had not lost the rust belt. In actual fact the turn out from minorities especially blacks was a little lower than expected.
Now this should have been obvious to anyone but an idiot. Black men were never going to turn out as strongly for a white woman rather than a black male. It did not need to be by much as anyone who ever used Nate Silver’s interactive would clearly see. However it would seem (this is a question that they need to ask themselves) that the democrat team somehow assumed that they would automatically get 90% of the black vote and the same very high turn out.
dtt
‘This might have been true if they had not lost the rust belt. In actual fact the turn out from minorities especially blacks was a little lower than expected.
Now this should have been obvious to anyone but an idiot. Black men were never going to turn out as strongly for a white woman rather than a black male..’
Every analysis of the voter demographics for Clinton I have seen includes somewhere the words ‘..as was expected, the black male vote was lower for Clinton than Obama…’ usually followed by a comment that it wasn’t a very significant gap.
c@t
More for you. Look up Genie Oil. That will shed some light on why America and its lickspittles are involved in Syria.
Better still, I’ll do it for you:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genie_Energy
But yeah, it’s all about defeating ISIS, or removing Assad, or something.
Cat
You do realise that Russia is leading the Astana negotiations to which the US is not invited or is not participating?
As one of the major countries in the region, Russia and Turkey of course were invited(gate crashed if you like) to talks, along with Jordan and Saudi and Iraq (to the extent it is functional.
If Kerry had not talked with Russia then Russia would have gone it alone. The talks were largely to avoid a hot conflict or US/Russian troops accidentally hitting one another.
Since in theory the ISI revolution was an entirely internal Syria affair, the US had no legal role to be having talks in any case. Of course as the biggest power we know they have that role, but it is insane to think that Russia or Turkey or Iran or China need to wait to be invited to talks. Only those with a more depended military alliance need to be invited by the US eg Saudi and even that is tenuous.
…and very few analyses factor in the ‘Democrats going for a third term..’ aspect.
No party has won a third term in the US Presidential elections going back decades. Al Gore was the closest to pulling it off, and at the time he was criticised for trashing Bill Clinton to get there.
The trouble with running for a third term is that the outgoing President can’t run again. That means the campaign has two choices – run on ‘basically, we’re offering you more of the same’ or ‘even though I’ve enthusiastically supported him for the last eight years, the President got everything wrong’.
‘More of the same’ isn’t a very inspiring message, even though often ‘more of the same’ is actually the rational and sensible course of action. “More of the same’ means – if you’re unemployed or struggling – no relief in sight. It’s not surprising that those people rejected the Democrat message. It’s also not surprising that the Democrats had little choice but to stick to that message (because to do otherwise would be both unrealistic and irresponsible, something which never seems to trouble conservatives).
The Australian experience would suggest ‘more of the same’ runs out of steam in much the same timeframe as it does in America.
If the expectations hadn’t been unrealistically high, we’d be lauding the fact that Clinton nearly pulled off the impossible, rather than dissing her for not doing it.
Zoomster
Yes that is true,but even a tiny drop in black turnout could affect results, especially in Florida and a few other places.
Possibly a second question is was the Latino turnout as high as expected. I am not sure of the answer but some Latino states that Clinton was targeting did not go her way. Also the turnout of white working class women did not go for Clinton but went Trump. I suspect that that was an effect that Democrat central was not expecting.
It actually boils down to the fact that the Clinton campaign was over confident and focused on building a base with the educated middle class and somehow overlooked or underestimated the rust belt for whom Trump’s “manufacturing” message resonated.
C@tmomma @ #317 Sunday, October 8th, 2017 – 5:24 am
Which had fuck all to do with Russia “getting permission” to enter Syria.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/08/syria-peace-talks-geneva-john-kerry-sergey-lavrov
The Russians were already there, at Assad’s invitation. The talks between Lavrov and Kerry were to negotiate a ceasefire and delineate where and how each party could operate. Nothing evenly remotely connected with “permission for Russia to enter Syria”.
Zoomster
Yes you are right about that whole third term effect. Again over confidence.
DTT
” The talks were largely to avoid a hot conflict or US/Russian troops accidentally hitting one another”
And you are aware of the possible consequences of this? There could only be one winner, and it wouldn’t be Russia. Of course they needed to clear their intervention with the USA.
X being interveiwed by Speers. The pattern of X’s commentary is clear: Labor bad; Government good; me wonderful.
daretotread
Fred
What an ignorant comment.
Unfortunately the campaign had to deal with many more than just you peddling rubbish; and it looks like the whole affair might collapse with Trump kicked out on his ass.
I am more interested in your excuse for peddling it; not that interested in your miss-direction.
Some more food for thought:
Is it a bizarre coincidence that Australia is getting a “space program” at the same time as we are potentially a target for North Korean missiles?
What exactly will our “space program” be launching?
dtt
It’s also difficult to see how you can gauge problems with your strategy when basically every poll taken suggested it was a winning one.
Further to #329, I forgot to add that it’s mighty strange that a government which has defunded the CSIRO and generally degraded the role science plays in Australia now suddenly wants to get involved in “rocket” science.
ajm
What the hell are you talking about.
The Russians stayed out UNTIL it was obvious that the US proxies would overthrow Assad. THEN Russia entered in force to protect their ally and their bases.
Russia made a decision that their military/commercial/domestic interests relied on NOT letting the US have a win in Syria.
In case you have not caught up the Syrians/Russians ARE winning in Syria. The US proxies have been largely forced out although three HUGE battles remain:
1. the huge battle for the Eastern oil fields which will be between Syria/Russia and Kurds/USA which is a very dangerous flash point for the world at large
2. the whole issue of Kurdistan, which will probably involve Turkey and Iran and Iraq fighting the US and proxies, with both Russia and Syrian government standing on the sidelines to pick up the pieces.
3. The Golan heights which is always a problem but is now in much sharper focus.
There are still conflicts in Idlib and along the border with Iraq, but these seem fairly minor although Idlib has heated up recently.
Another relatively sane panel.
http://www.farmonline.com.au/story/4972341/shorten-leads-labor-bush-blitz-in-regional-queensland/?cs=5706
Dan G
You have a right to be suspicious of every ‘innovation’ or ‘inspiration’ by our follow-the-leader govt.
Looks like the Kurds have been dudded by a major power again.
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/10/pentagon-stop-paying-peshmerga-salaries-iraq-kurdistan.html
The National Country Forum was an initiative which came out of talks I had at the Labor Women’s Convention, followed up by some personal lobbying of Fitzgibbon. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to attend any of them!!
Zoomster
Actually if you looked at Nate silver’s site or RCP (which is easier to follow) the polls were NOT predicting a Democrat win with certainty. Nate Silver was giving trump a 30% or more chance of winning and I felt that in fact he was underestimating this chance largely because so many other pollsters were predicting a huge Clinton landslide.
RCP actually looked at the various states and had a lovely map that you could play with interactively.
I used a very simple technique – look at the movement of states in polling (RCP had six colours) and if there was more shift blue Dems were on trend and more shifts red then Trump was winning. it seemed pretty clear to me which way the tend was going.
Sometimes it is unwise to rely on polling – especially where there is not compulsory voting. I think in fact that this was a trend missed by pollsters – the higher than anticipated turn out of angry white workers and the lower than expected turn out of younger progressives.
Antony Green will be on Insiders.
Well done, zoom.
Another reason to be careful what you post on social media.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-07/xenophon-candidate-rhys-adams-sacked-over-facebook-photos/9026442
Poroti
Wow!!
That is indeed big news.
I am not sure what it means yet. But something is happening. I suspect it may involve Turkey somehow and saudi.
Sorry but I have to go out. I am going to the NSW Art Gallery and having lunch with a very charming fellow. Catch you later, Bludgers.
I shall likely address my moronic nature, according to some, then. ; )
Unbelievable irresponsibility. Someone needs to take his twitter account off him.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/10/07/trump-on-north-korea-sorry-but-only-one-thing-will-work/?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_trumpnorthkorea525pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.8b81a8856c3c
Pyne has some nerve saying SenX has a massive ego!
Fess
Pyne has nerve to say that X is all about the politics. Bit rich coming from the man who only believes in himself and whatever else is the current policy.
Now here’s someone with his finger on the pulse of, erm, erm well his finger on something:
Ides:
True! I liked Marr’s point that when the person is the party its candidates are the strangers, pointing at PHON and X in particular.
C@tmomma @ #293 Sunday, October 8th, 2017 – 7:29 am
Pardon me, but isn’t the Assad Govt still the recognised Government of Syria whether you like it or not?
When did Obama have sovereignty over Syria to say yea or nay to the Russians or anyone else supporting the recognised government of Syria?
“Pyne has some nerve saying SenX has a massive ego!”
Says the man with an ego the size of a planet.