Posts filed under 'Samuel’s Editorials'
Louisiana has a different system than most other states. Instead of a Primary system which allows people to elect one candidate per party for election day, a whole heap of candidates can run on election day. Today for example there are four Democrats, three Republicans and one Libertarian.
If no candidate receives at least 50% of the vote, then the two candidates who receive the most votes will face each other again in a runoff election. It looks pretty certain now that Louisiana’s Senate race will go to a runoff election on December 6.
Right now, with 10% counted, Republican Bill Cassidy is leading incumbent Democrat Mary Landrieu 43% to 42% (61,953 to 61,584). Bill’s a good candidate…hopefully he goes on to win the runoff.
Samuel
November 5th, 2014 at 01:53pm
This is odd. NBC, CNN, Fox, and pretty much everyone else is awarding South Dakota to Republican Mike Rounds, making it the third of six Senate seat pickups which Republicans require for a Senate majority. The odd things is that they are all making this pronouncement without any votes having been counted…they are going on opinion polling which gave Mike Rounds a strong lead.
I’m going to wait until I see some actual numbers. Calling a race before any votes are counted is just silly.
Samuel
November 5th, 2014 at 01:29pm
It looks like Republicans have now picked up two of the six Senate seats they require in order to form a majority.
In Arkansas, Tom Cotton looks likely to defeat incumbent Democrat Mark Pryor.
Republicans have picked up two of the six seats needed to gain the Senate majority, with Fox News projecting GOP Rep. Tom Cotton will unseat two-term Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor in Arkansas and Shelley Moore Capito will beat Democrat Natalie Tennant for an open Senate seat in West Virginia.
(h/t FoxNews.com)
As I write this, with 16% counted, Tom Cotton leads Mark Pryor 52% to 45% (73,904 to 63,692). In West Virginia with 35% counted, Shelley Moore Capito is leading Natalie Tennant 61% to 35% (113,822 to 66,093).
Good start, but early days still.
Samuel
November 5th, 2014 at 12:57pm
It’s early in the night, and the Republicans need to pick up six Democratic senate seats in order to gain a majority. The good news is Republicans have picked up one of these seats. The even better news is that the next time someone tries to claim Republicans are engaged in a “war on women” you should point them to this as an example of how silly that argument is.
Republican candidate Shelley Moore Capito defeated Democratic challenger Natalie Tennant in Tuesday’s election for West Virginia’s seat in the United States Senate, reports said. Capito is the first female senator in the state’s history.
Capito’s victory marks the first time since 1956 that a Republican will represent West Virginia in the U.S. Senate.
(H/t Thomas Barrabi, International Business Times)
Meanwhile, claims that Republicans are against black people (or vice versa), which have always been patently absurd, have been proven once again to be patently absurd.
South Carolina has elected the first black senator from the South since Reconstruction, with Republican Tim Scott winning his race to complete a term to the Senate after having been appointed to the seat in 2013. Scott is the first African American popularly elected to the Senate in the old Confederacy.
(H/t Michael Warren, The Weekly Standard)
It’s a good start for Republicans, and a bad start for the nutty people who try to portray (and are often taken seriously for no good reason) Republicans as being some modern-day version of the KKK.
Some good people elected so far. Much more to come.
Samuel
November 5th, 2014 at 11:59am
Polls are just starting to close in a few places in the US where 6pm has just passed in the Eastern timezone, but only a very small number of polls have closed as many places have closing times which are later than 6pm in their local timezone.
The indications are good that after six painful years of the most awful US President in recent history (and probably of all time, but let’s not dwell on this right now), the Republicans should be able to retain the House and form a majority in the Senate, which will put serious road blocks in the way of Obama’s awful and disastrous agenda. The midterm election of 2010 gave Republicans the House, but more importantly did so on the back of a conservative agenda…this slowed down the progress of Obama’s policies as his friends only had control of the Senate and thus could not just push things through Congress with minimal resistance as they did during the first two years. Unfortunately not all Republicans are conservatives, and the mixed messages which came out of this combined with a lacklustre candidate (Mitt Romney) for President in 2012 seriously hampered efforts to save America from Obama. As the terrible legacy of Obamacare and other Obama policies has become apparent, conservatives have found it easier to show people why conservative policies are the better choice, and so this election is looking good.
All of that said, it’s not a certainty. The Republicans should not have any trouble holding the House, but the Senate (roughly a third of which is up for election…it can’t be an exact third when there are 100 Senate seats) will be a close battle. Republicans require only an extra six seats which should not be a hard ask, but with a few close races it could go down to the wire, and may even have to wait for a runoff election in December if things are really close.
Of course if Republicans hold a majority in the House and the Senate, one problem to deal with is the fact that Mitch McConnell will almost certainly be Senate Majority Leader. Senator McConnell has repeatedly proved himself to not be an ally of the handful of Republican senators who have been consistently advocating for conservative principles, and so it will be interesting to see if he changes his tune for the better, or if he will need to be replaced before 2016.
There are also a heap of Gubernatorial races today, state legislature elections, and a heap of ballot initiatives. A few of them are of interest to me, and I’ll update you on some of them later in the day. I hope that the number of conservative Republican governors grows (20 of the 36 Republicans running in a Gubernatorial race are the incumbent), as most have been proving themselves to be great models of good and successful governing, and it would be wonderful to see this grow before 2016 and help to influence the way people vote for President next time around.
In particular I would like to single out Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin who has, in conjunction with the legislature, turned a basket case economy around in to a good strong economy, brought the budget back to surplus and and paid off a lot of the debt which the state government held before he took office. Things are much better in Wisconsin now, and I hope Governor Walker is re-elected, and serves as a model for future people in government at all levels.
Dan Bongino is another candidate of interest. He is running for a Congressional seat in Maryland. He previously worked as a Secret Service agent protecting both President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama, and claims this gave him an insight in to the problems with the way power is exercised. He is running on conservative principles and I think would make an excellent Congressman. I wish him all the best of luck.
My best wishes go out to all conservative candidates in all races across the country. It is my sincere hope that as many win as possible, Obama’s destructive policies are stopped in their tracks as a result, and this election serves as a good start for a return to government by conservative principles, limited in size and interference in private matters, and consequently working almost exclusively on core functions, and in so doing making it easier for people to make their own choices without needing approval from government to run their own lives and businesses.
It is an exciting day.
Currently I am listening to Mark Levin’s radio show (there are a gazillion stations taking his show if you want to search for one and join me…I won’t link to the one I’m listening via because it’s supposed to be geoblocked and I shouldn’t be able to hear it here, but there are plenty of stations which aren’t geoblocked). Mark will be covering many of the results as they come in, and after 1pm Canberra time when his show finishes, I plan on jumping across to Salem Radio Network’s election night coverage anchored by Hugh Hewitt (probably via WNYM AM 970 The Answer in New York), and possibly I might listen to a bit of Glenn Beck’s coverage or even Fox News Radio’s coverage. All are good options.
Samuel
November 5th, 2014 at 10:50am
Former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam passed away this morning at the age of 98.
I was sad to hear of Mr. Whitlam’s passing.
I respect greatly the fact that he was an effective agent for change as it is hard to cause societal change, especially on the scale he did, and he reinvigorated interest in the political and legislative processes to the point of inspiring people to enter the political fray on all sides, not just that of Labor.
I respect Mr. Whitlam for these reasons even though I disagree with almost everything he did politically, and while I would gladly undo much of what he did if I had the opportunity, it is worthy of respect and a testament to his impact on the nation that most of his changes live on in some form many decades after he left political office.
Mr. Whitlam’s place in Australian history will not be forgotten. May he rest in peace, and his family grieve in peace and dignity.
Samuel
October 21st, 2014 at 10:06am
Back in February I noted that the Northern Territory was trialling an open speed limit on a 200km stretch of road, and that this is a good idea which will hopefully lead to speed limits in other places being reconsidered. Today there is news that the NSW government is considering increasing some speed limits as an effect of the successful trial in the Northern Territory.
The NSW government has nominated the Hume and Pacific highways as major roads where it could raise the speed limit from 110km/h to 120km/h.
[..]
The government will also monitor the progress of a controversial open speed trial in the Northern Territory before deciding whether to permanently raise highway speed limits in NSW.
With a safer roads network and increasing active and passive safety technology in new cars, [Roads Minister Duncan] Gay said, the government would consider introducing the legislation to parallel highway policies in European countries, where the posted speed limits are typically higher than in Australia and in many cases the road toll is lower.
[..]
Fairfax Media has been told the Northern Territory open speed trial, which at present applies to a 200 kilometre stretch of the Stuart Highway north of Alice Springs, has not resulted in a single serious injury or fatality since it began on February 1.
(h/t Sam Hall, Drive.com.au)
120km/h is a start, but 130km/h would be a better option for most of the Hume Highway and much of the Pacific Highway. The Federal Highway would be a suitable road for a 120km/h limit with 110km/h remaining in place around the intersections at Collector.
It seems that Duncan Gay has a bunch of pressure groups ignoring evidence such as the NT trial and bombarding him with “speed = bad” arguments (there’s an example in that article) so it might be prudent to start with a small increase and then continue after it proves to be successful. It’s an annoying way to have to do it, but it might prove to be the only politically viable option. Regardless, it is true that on roads which are safe enough, allowing some extra speed leads to more alert and responsive drivers, so I congratulate Duncan Gay on starting the inevitably long and drawn out process of increasing speed limits.
Samuel
August 9th, 2014 at 09:40am
The lady who gained national attention earlier this year for a racist rant on a train has been given a sensible sentence by the courts: no fine and no recorded conviction. Unfortunately she has been placed on a good behaviour bond, but I suspect Magistrate Teresa O’Sullivan did this only because Karen Bailey pleaded guilty to using offensive language, and failing to hand her some sort of punishment would have led to an appeal in front of a judge with less sense when it comes to matters of freedom of speech.
The real travesty here is that there is a law which makes her racist rant illegal. This law is entirely unnecessary as, apart from anything else, public reaction on the train where other people used their own freedom of speech to counter her absurd rant was enough to eventually shut her down. The public humiliation which followed when footage turned up online and on television was further punishment for her, as her court statements show.
Karen Bailey, 55, pleaded guilty to offensive language in the Downing Centre Local Court today and told Magistrate Teresa O’Sullivan she was “absolutely appalled” at her behaviour.
[..]
She had written a letter of apology to the court
(h/t Amy Dale, The Daily Telegraph)
Both the on-train reaction and the public airing of her rant and accompanying condemnation were exercises of freedom of speech, and proved the best defence against absurd uses of free speech is more use of free speech. Laws prohibiting certain types of speech inhibit this ability of a society to self-moderate, and worse still if such laws do reduce the amount of absurd speech, we end up in a situation where some groups don’t hear regular reminders that society doesn’t accept certain views, and can become radicalised in those views because they believe such views are widespread but silenced…at least when such views are intermittently aired and reacted to, people holding such views understand how these views are seen by society.
Unfortunately there are bigger issues with a lack of freedom of speech in Australia as, right now, there is a court order which can not be mentioned either by content or name (even writing this is skirting on the edge of the law) and we have to rely on foreign press to mention it as domestic media and citizens would be in contempt of court if they mention it. That law is a true disgrace as, while it is reasonable for a court to prevent some details from being mentioned while the court proceedings are in progress, the prevention of noting that such a court order exists is a sure fire way to diminish trust (which is dependent on relative transparency) in the courts.
Freedom of speech, while never enshrined in law in this country, really is in trouble while we have all of these restrictive laws in place.
Samuel
July 31st, 2014 at 06:30pm
If the facts are as stated (and that is for a court to decide), then what happened is inexcusable and I don’t seek to excuse it.
A Department of Environment and Heritage worker is believed to have been shot dead while attending a property 55 kilometres north of Moree.
[..]
A source at the department said the worker had been serving a notice on an elderly man at the property when he was shot.
The man was receiving the notice because he was suspected of illegally clearing vegetation.
(h/t Eryk Bagshaw, The Sydney Morning Herald)
There are calls for better protections for “frontline workers” in the wake of this incident, and that is fair enough, but something else which should be considered is that none of this would have happened if the government wasn’t interfering with how people run their own land. If people wish to clear land which they own, then the government should not be in a position to stop them. It is not as if the NSW Government, in particular, has been a beacon of great sense with such interference either as they are the people who refused to let people make fire breaks on their own land…land which burned as a result.
If governments wish to dictate how land is managed, then the government should take ownership of such land after (and only after) providing reasonable compensation. The NSW Government, thanks to laws (The Native Vegetation Act — Thanks Jim Ball) passed by Bob Carr’s government, are not required to provide any compensation and, as a result, seem to think they can dictate to all and sundry about how land should be managed, despite their own dismal record.
Samuel
July 30th, 2014 at 02:12pm
I have two hopes for today’s Senate re-election in Western Australia.
1. Enough seats are won by conservatives for there to be a conservative majority in the Senate.
It’s impossible for the Coalition to get an outright majority by my count as winning all six seats would only get them to 37 seats in the Senate (39 is a majority) but it is possible for them win enough seats to have a conservative majority once certain crossbenchers are taken in to account. Four Coalition seats in today’s election (achievable with a very small swing to them compared to the 2013 election) plus one other conservative winning a seat should make it possible for there to be a conservative majority in the Senate on most issues.
2. Bye bye Scott Ludlam.
Even if he was to be replaced by another Green I’d be happy. His speech in which he came up with all sorts of inaccurate statements about Tony Abbott being some sort of racist was an embarrassment…it was almost as ludicrous as Julia Gillard’s infamous misogyny speech. The country would be better off with anyone other than Scott Ludlam in the Senate.
Good luck and vote well Western Australia; The country is counting on you.
Samuel
April 5th, 2014 at 01:10pm
Voters in Tasmania and South Australia go to the polls today for their respective state elections, and the opinion polls indicate that conservatives are likely to win which would put conservative governments (or right-of-centre at least…I struggle to characterise the Victorian government as “conservative” although they are “to the right”) in power in every state, territory, and federal government in the country except for the Australian Capital Territory. Meanwhile, not surprisingly within the ACT, there is going to be a protest march against the conservative federal government on Monday, which is going by the name of “March in March”.
State elections are not generally fought on federal issues, but federal issues have an impact. It is fair to say that after Kevin Rudd and Labor took power federally in 2007 and all of the state and territory governments also went to Labor around the same time, the Liberal Party brand was on the nose and that was largely due to federal issues. The same thing appears to be happening now, just the other way around, and even Labor Party “elders” agree.
LABOR Party elders are calling for the party to embark on a new debate about key values to restore its economic credibility, as it faces the possibility of wall-to-wall state Coalition governments in its darkest electoral days since the defeat of Gough Whitlam in 1975.
(h/t Sid Maher and Mark Coultan, The Australian)
On that point there is an issue which has damaged Labor at all levels: reckless spending. Federal Labor did the most damage with it and dragged down their state and territory counterparts, but the state and territory Labor governments did it on a smaller scale and reinforced the image of irresponsibility.
The Liberal Party should win in South Australia today. Newspoll yesterday had the Liberal Party ahead of Labor 53-47 on a two-party-preferred basis. With a number as close as that, it’s possible that the Liberals might win the most seats but not take an outright majority, but the numbers look pretty good for a majority government.
In Tasmania the margin is much bigger. Liberal 53%, Labor 23%, Greens 16%, Palmer United 4%. This easily creates a two-party-preferred figure around 55% for the Liberal Party. Oddly enough though, Tasmania has the same curse of an electoral system as the ACT (Hare Clark) and numbers like that can very easily lead to nobody having an outright majority and Labor/Greens together having enough seats to form government. The margin should be large enough to avoid that, but Hare Clark is an awful electoral system which delivers results which quite often have very little to do with the intention of the way people voted.
The mood across the nation is clearly a pro-conservative and anti-left-wing one, but trust the ACT to supply many of the people who will attend the “March In March” on Monday, where people will express their “no confidence” in the conservative federal government. They seem to be lacking confidence in the federal government on three main topics:
1) Gonski school reforms
2) Illegal immigration and social justice
3) Climate change
Well, on the first point, objective evidence from around the world shows clearly that centralised control of education of the type Gonski proposed results in worse educational outcomes than school which have general autonomy over curriculum and staffing. On the 2nd point, under this government there have been no illegal boat arrivals in about three months, with only one death which actually didn’t happen at sea but in a detention centre, whereas under the previous government our shores and maritime authorities were being overrun by illegal arrivals and multiple people were dying at sea each week and often each day. And on the third point, the planet has not warmed in nearly 20 years, and the theory of man-made global warming caused by carbon dioxide has been proven to be a complete and utter nonsense, and yet these people who will march on Monday want the federal government to tax people’s carbon dioxide emissions to stop warming which isn’t happening, ignoring the fact that carbon dioxide is an important part of life on this planet.
It’s quite clear where the real march is and the real mood of the Australian public is. It’s in a conservative direction, in the direction truth and sensible government and government keeping out of people’s lives as much as possible. The people on Monday can march and get media attention to their heart’s content…and make a dumb spectacle of themselves in the eyes of the sensible majority of conservative Australians.
Good luck to the voters of South Australia and Tasmania today. May your votes be good, and the outcomes match your votes.
Samuel
March 15th, 2014 at 09:13am
An email to 2UE’s George Moore and Paul B. Kidd in regards to the Griffith By-Election where, unfortunately, the brilliant LNP candidate Dr. Bill Glasson looks set to be defeated despite winning first preferences 43.6% to 39.0% (at latest count) over the Labor candidate.
Hi George and Paul,
I feel sorry for Dr. Bill Glasson. He’s a great man who has put in a lot of effort in Griffith and was forced to put in his time and effort a second time by the duplicitous Kevin Rudd taking his bat and ball and going home when he lost the Prime Ministership to Tony Abbott.
Bill would have been a great MP, but I hope that he can now get away from politics and focus on his medical career.
As for preferential voting…what a joke. A system based on the idea that if you can’t get an absolute majority, you have to rely on the preferences of the least popular politicians…in other words a system which favours the supporters of fringe kooks. First preferences should be the only preference…whoever gets the most votes wins, absolute majority or not. It’s the only fair way.
Regards,
Samuel
P.S. I’m leaving for the US for a few weeks on Tuesday. I’m looking forward to listening to US talk radio while I’m over there but will be sure to tune in to you as well. Keep an eye out for a postcard!
February 9th, 2014 at 10:17am
Yesterday’s revelations about some of the things which go on in unions (the CFMEU is named, but other unions have their problems too) came as no surprise to me or, I would think, many Australians.
A FORMER senior union official in Queensland has pledged to provide Attorney-General George Brandis’s planned royal commission into unions with evidence of alleged corruption, dodgy elections and unlawful industrial actions in the state’s mines and energy sector.
(h/t Hedley Thomas, The Australian)
The claims came from Stuart Vaccaneo who used to be the CFMEU’s senior vice-president.
At the same time, there were also claims of similar activities within the CFMEU in New South Wales involving corruption and the Barangaroo construction project in Sydney. Sadly, but not surprisingly, death threats have been made against certain people who have tried to expose the grubbiness within the CFMEU.
A building union stalwart says he received death threats after he tried to stop his union’s dealings with a Sydney crime figure.
Brian Fitzpatrick, a senior industrial officer and 25-year veteran of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union in NSW, said the infiltration of organised crime into the union had plunged it into a “crisis” and called for “a very serious clean-up.”
(h/t Nick McKenzie and Richard Baker, Sydney Morning Herald)
Tony Abbott has taken aim at Labor for abolishing the Australian Building and Construction Commission, and quite rightly so. The ABCC was very effective at stamping out this sort of behaviour and ensuring people were prosecuted for breaking the law. Not that you’d be able to draw the link clearly enough for a legal case for “proceeds of crime”, but it’s fair to say that Labor benefited from this illegal activity by way of the revenue they receive from the union movement, and how much extra revenue the unions were able to rake in through dodgy means after the ABCC was abolished.
The sooner Tony Abbott can restore the ABCC, the better.
Is it any wonder that I refuse to let my superannuation be managed by one of those union-owned funds. Apart from the fact that the non-union funds tend to perform better (the union-run funds claim they perform better, but they use very carefully manipulated data to make that false assertion), I just don’t want any of my fees going towards the unions. The unions already openly push for and fund socialism and the Labor Party…that’s bad enough without them helping organised crime groups along the way. I won’t help them do it.
Samuel
January 29th, 2014 at 07:13am
One thing the federal government has been very good at is following through on their promise to stop the boatloads of illegal immigrants and customers of people smugglers. Today the good news came to light that there has not been a single illegal boat arrival in Australia for five weeks, which is the first time we have had such a five-week period in five years.
In other words, from late 2009 until this past five weeks, we have had at least one illegal boat arrival in each five week period, and more often than not it was multiple boat arrivals every week and sometimes every day. Those arrivals were due to Kevin Rudd scrapping John Howard’s Pacific Solution and the utter incompetence of his government and Julia Gillard’s government in failing to address the problem when the human costs of their policy became apparent.
Tony Abbott, Scott Morrison and the Australian military should be proud of their work in reducing the human suffering caused by the awful people smuggling trade. The vast majority of people who used the boats of the people smugglers were not refugees as they did not stop at the nearest safe port of call and instead paid to continue on to another location, and in many cases they weren’t even refugees to begin with and instead were paying to knowingly illegally enter Australia. The reduction in the false asylum claims which have to be processed will mean that the federal government is able to resettle genuine refugees who are currently living in refugee camps, and will be able to save an awful lot of money as well.
There is more work to do, but for now it is very safe to say to everyone involved in Operation Sovereign Borders “well done, and keep up the good work”.
Samuel
January 24th, 2014 at 08:42am
When I selected a few people recently who I would support if they chose to run for the presidency of the United States, I deliberately did not select radio and Fox News host Sean Hannity as I didn’t think there was any serious chance of him running, especially not in 2016. While I still think he won’t run in 2016, it does look like his interest in running for public office is increasing in the wake of his decision to (eventually) leave New York state after Governor Andrew Cuomo declared that “ultra-conservatives” are not welcome in the state.
A source who was on Hannity’s Fox News show last fall told The Hill the conservative commentator mentioned the possibility — off camera — of running in Florida.
“He wasn’t joking,” the source said. “It was definitive, but he didn’t mention a specific office in Florida.”
On his radio show, Hannity said he “can’t wait” to leave New York in the wake of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s (D) remarks that extreme conservatives have “no place” in the Empire State.
Hannity, a native New Yorker, has repeatedly ripped the state’s tax rates. He said he would move to Texas or Florida, which don’t have state income taxes.
[..]
During an appearance on Greta Van Susteren’s “On the Record” Fox show Tuesday night, Hannity said his departure isn’t imminent.
Hannity noted his son is still in high school, and he has more than 100 staffers who work on his television and radio shows, suggesting it would be irresponsible to immediately move his media operation elsewhere.
He added, “As soon as I am able, some time probably when my son graduates from high school, I’m getting out of here as quick as I can.”
(h/t The Hill’s Bob Cusack)
Sean Hannity is an interesting creature in conservative circles in that he is one of the few genuinely conservative people who is both unafraid of standing by his convictions and has good friends in the more moderate “establishment wing” of the Republican Party. As such, Hannity could be one of the few people who could unify the GOP behind a truly conservative platform.
I have been critical of Sean in the past for giving some of his moderate Republican guests (especially regular guests like Karl Rove) a bit too much room to explain their point of view without challenging it, which isn’t to say that he doesn’t eventually challenge it, but I have thought he has sometimes left a few too many points unaddressed, however I have noticed that he has been much more strident in his promotion of conservative principles and solutions ever since his radio contract negotiations were finalised and he gave his Cumulus Radio affiliates the heave-ho in favour of Clear Channel affiliates. I put this down to not having to expend energy on contract negotiations, and not having to deal with pressure from Cumulus to be a bit more moderate in his views.
I think Sean would do a good job as US President and would be especially effective at “rallying the troops” in the House and Senate to support his conservative agenda. His lack of governing experience could be made up for with a good Vice President and also by his business experience. I’m not convinced that Sean would greatly enjoy the job, but I think he would be very effective.
That said, he has made no mention of a run for President and seems instead to be giving consideration to some other public office such as a congressional seat. I think Sean’s talents would be wasted in Congress or in a state government (although after two terms as President I would love to see him become a state Governor…but after, not before) as his ability to influence public policy from the media on a national scale is of much greater importance and value to the nation than his ability to be a conservative vote in the House or Senate, or to reform a state. If he is to run for office, then I think his talents dictate that the most suitable office is the top job.
But as much as I would like to see it, I doubt it will happen, and certainly not before 2024. He will be 63-years-old in 2024 so it’s not out of the question, but I rate the chances of it happening as being quite low.
Samuel
January 24th, 2014 at 05:37am
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