old man emu

I haven't heard much from Dutton on this matter. Do you think that Dutton's mob are the "Co" part of your thought?

Without sounding like a disciple of Voldemort, I'm wondering if Australia's seemingly diplomatic silence over so many things that affect the US's international relations is simply a wait-and-see strategy. Not that I don't think its unwise to hold off at this stage, until the tariff situation is sorted. Unfortunately this silence does make one nervous about what backroom arrangements have been made. China hasn't helped by having a couple of its naval vessels take a late summer cruise through the south Pacific. But then, do we know how many US submarines are doing similar things? In a realistic world, the US has a lot to lose if we kicked them out. Their facilities here are too important to their "defence" strategies. I am yet to be convinced that China has military intentions away from its own shores. Why should they shed blood when they can get whatever they need through trade and investment?

Surely one of the aims of a tariff is to make the price of locally produced goods competitive with imported goods. Therefore, agricultural products produced in the USA which are given tariff protection should be competitive with imports. The things illustrated in the video were corn, soy beans and fruit. These are things used in large amounts in the USA, so the same things as imports should be more expensive. I did not want to concentrate on products themselves, but I wanted to highlight the propaganda aspect of the video - stating the worst to create fear. As I said, I think this video is anti-Trump, but it uses the same falsehood-telling of pro-Trump videos. Both sides of the propaganda war use lies, which is bad reporting.

Getting back to the topic of bad reporting. Does anyone know of Trump's 25% tariffs have begun yet? I was watching a video allegedly about the bad effects of the tariffs on sales of US agricultural products. What attracted my attention to the reporting was that the creator was saying that sales of those products had fallen so much that producers were facing ruin. To my thinking, at the moment there are no 25% tariffs in force, and if they were, then they would apply to products coming into the USA, not going out. In other words, is the message of the video false? Clearly since the video has an anti-Trump bias, could it have been made by radical left-wingers who used lies to instill fear into the US population?

Define "communism". I doubt if you know what the term actually means.

Closing down the US Social Security Department is the modern application of the comment, "Let them eat cake". "Let them eat cake" is the traditional translation of the French phrase "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche", said to have been spoken in the 18th century by "a great princess" upon being told that the peasants had no bread. The French phrase mentions brioche, a bread enriched with butter and eggs, considered a luxury food. The quote is taken to reflect either the princess's frivolous disregard for the starving peasants or her poor understanding of their plight. Now it's often used to describe someone who is out of touch with the needs of others, as Trump and Musk obviously are. Attributed to Marie-Antoinette, the phrase can actually be traced back to Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Confessions in 1765, 24 years prior to the French Revolution, and when Antoinette was nine years old and had never been to France. Rousseau does not name the "great princess", and he may have invented the anecdote altogether, as the Confessions is not considered entirely factual.

What Trump and Musk are doing to the Government of the USA keeps bringing this short scene to mind And this one

A fool and his money are soon Partied.

Someone should tell Musk that air traffic control is not rocket science.

Good shit, man.

Is the air actually hotter near the equator than away from it, or is it an apparent feeling of heat because the humidity is so high one's evaporative cooling fails?

By the way, who told Trump he could tell the Ukraine that they had no place in the peace talks? Not one US military person fought in that war with the approval of the US government. Zelenskyy's demand to sit at the table reminds me of Billy Hughes' retort to US President Wilson at the Paris, "“I speak for 60,000 Australian war dead,” When US President Woodrow Wilson tried to belittle Australian Prime Minister Billy Hughes at the 1919 Versailles peace conference by asking who he represented.

I interpret that statement to imply GON thinks that our current immigrants are radical Lefties. From my observation of immigrant settlement in the area of Sydney where I used to live, I would say that the immigrants are very conservative. Sure, there are a few deeply radicalised ones, but they are radicalised to the far Right. Every society has its nut cases. What would a Far-Right Minister for Immigration do? Ask each immigrant if they believed in equality of the sexes, or were in favour of nuclear and coal power generation over solar and wind? I think most immigrants would shrug their shoulders and simply ask for employment for themselves and an education for their children

Question Time is the parliamentary equivalent of those "reality" shows on TV. It's all theatrics.

AI and BS, not to mention also, smoke and mirrors.