India 7 for 244 at lunch. The pitch doesn’t appear to be doing much.

Jolliffe
Reminds me of the political solution to most of our problems.
Instead of fixing the bucket…

The Progressive Moment in Global Politics Is Over

BERTRAND BENOIT, DAVID LUHNOW AND VIPAL MONGA
5 hours ago

The progressive moment is over – at least for now.

This past year showed that the progressive politics that dominated most industrialised countries over the past two decades or more is shifting to the right, fuelled by working-class anxieties over the economy and immigration, and growing fatigue with issues from climate change to identity politics.

The return of Donald Trump to the White House is the most dramatic and important example – but it is far from the only one.

Across Europe, where economic growth has largely stalled, conservatives and populist right-wing parties are making unprecedented gains. Three-quarters of governments in the European Union are either led by a right-of-centre party or are ruled by a coalition that includes at least one.

The shift is set to continue. Canada appears poised to kick out a deeply unpopular progressive prime minister and Germany is expected to dump its centre-left government. Polls show the top two parties in Germany represent the centre-right and the far-right.

Part of the shift is the normal pendulum of politics swinging back and forth between established parties on the left and right. The difference this time is a strong strain of populism and a growing rejection of traditional parties.

In country after country, many working-class voters – especially those outside the biggest cities – are signalling the same thing: They mistrust the establishment – from academics to bankers to traditional politicians – and feel these elites are out of touch and don’t care about people like them.

Years of increased migration and trade, coupled with low economic growth, have led to a backlash and a rise in nationalism, where people want more of a sense of control, political analysts say. The rise of social media has exacerbated divisions and led to an upsurge in antiestablishment parties.

“It’s a broad shift that goes across countries,” said Ruy Teixeira, a lifelong Democrat who now works for the centre-right American Enterprise Institute think tank. “Working-class people are just pissed off – about immigration, about all the culture war stuff, and the relatively poor economic performance that has shaped the working-class experience in the 21st century.” While one of the two establishment parties won in the US, the Republicans have largely been taken over by the insurgent figure of Trump, who clearly has a mandate from voters to shake things up, said Teixeira. He said he doesn’t see either the left or conventional right easily recapturing Trump’s populist, multiracial working-class majority.

In Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s centre-left Liberal Party looks to be careening toward a decisive election loss, trailing the Conservative Party by roughly 20 points in opinion polls. Trudeau must hold a vote by October 2025.

Voters are experiencing “Trudeau fatigue” after a rocky nine years in power and are frustrated with high inflation, elevated housing costs and anger over Canada’s open-door immigration policies, said Shachi Kurl, president of polling firm Angus Reid.

Pierre Poilievre, the leader of Canada’s Conservative Party, has taken up much of the same populist rhetoric used by other right-wing movements around the world. In 2022, he aligned himself with Canada’s trucker convoys, a protest movement ignited by opposition to vaccine mandates and Covid-19 lockdowns.

Poilievre also has called for curtailing many of the policies introduced by Trudeau to curb climate change, including a carbon tax; pressed Trudeau about voters’ affordability concerns; and said he would reduce immigration.

Kurl noted that even though the Conservative Party is leading in polls, Canadians still hold an unfavourable opinion of Poilievre. Voters aren’t so much choosing Poilievre and his right-wing politics as they are rejecting Trudeau, she said.

In Europe, politicians also face a far more sceptical electorate after years of stagnant real wages and rising migration. That has fuelled support both for the establishment right – made up of social conservatives and free-market champions – and for antiestablishment populists, who want protection from migration and trade, said Manès Weisskircher, a political scientist at the Dresden University of Technology.

The rapid reshuffling of voters’ priorities in the past few years has made issues associated with the centre-left – such as climate change, social justice and identity politics – seem less relevant, said Ursula Münch, director of the Academy for Political Education in Tutzing, Germany. That could mean governments become more concerned with national rather than international priorities, reducing co-operation in areas from security to the environment.

“It turns out people [in the West] value their own jobs more than whether some islands are going to sink into the ocean,” she said.

The U.K. this year seemingly went the opposite direction, kicking out the Conservative Party and electing the Labour Party. But that was after 14 years of Tory rule and marked more of a rejection of the incumbent, said Tony Travers, a political scientist at the London School of Economics.

In many ways, the UK has the same dynamics as the rest of the West, with growing voter anger over the economy and immigration. The anti-immigration Reform UK party has surged at the expense of the Conservatives. And Prime Minister Keir Starmer is deeply unpopular after just six months in power.

“Reform is taking advantage of the same thing that’s happening across Europe, which is the unpopularity of all the other establishment parties, ” said Travers. A weak economy and record migration provide an opening for populists to say, “All these people that run the traditional parties have failed you. The system has failed you. Only we can fix it,” he added.

Last June, voters across the EU elected a new European Parliament. The clear victor was the conservative European People’s Party. About half of government heads in the 27-country bloc belong to parties affiliated with the EPP.

But further to the right, gains were even bigger. Parties such as Germany’s AfD, France’s National Rally and Italy’s Brothers of Italy are scattered across multiple – and sometimes mutually hostile – groups in the chamber. Yet together, they now form the second biggest contingent in the house after the EPP, a big jump from the last election.

National Rally scored two-thirds of the votes at the European election and in the first round of the French general election a few weeks later. Despite a mixed second-round performance, it is now the largest single party in France’s National Assembly.

The nationalist, anti-immigration AfD won its first state election in eastern Germany this autumn and finished a strong second in two others. Ahead of February’s general election, opinion polls suggest it could get 16 per cent to 20 per cent of votes, behind only the conservative Christian Democratic Union at 30 per cent to 34 per cent.

The centre-left government of Chancellor Olaf Scholz is the least popular since 1949, according to Manfred Güllner, the head of public polling firm Forsa.

Support for the CDU is rising because of a weak economy, while the AfD is gaining traction among those worried about immigration, said Güllner.

A key difference between conservatives, who tend to favour the status quo, and far-right populists often is that the latter can more credibly criticise established parties because most haven’t held power. Where they have, as in Italy, they have moderated to govern.

Far-right parties “have solidified around a constant, ongoing critique of elites,” said Stefan Marschall, professor of political science at Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf. “Whereas right-of-centre parties, which are much more firmly anchored in the political system, can’t really engage in this classic elite criticism.” While European voters are increasingly leaning right, this won’t always translate into more centre-right governments because of animosity between establishment conservatives and insurgent populists — which are much more sceptical of the EU, free trade and man-made climate change, and take a harder line on immigration. They are also more wary of spending or welfare cuts.

In France, National Rally leader Marine Le Pen recently voted to topple the government of conservative Prime Minister Michel Barnier.

In Germany, the CDU has ruled out a coalition with the AfD. That leaves the more likely option of it partnering with the centre-left Social Democrats or the Greens. The risk with such awkward coalitions of opposites is that they lack the political common ground to govern decisively, said Münch. “This could increase dissatisfaction as voters see that political paralysis sets in,” she said. “This is exactly what the extremists want.”

The Wall Street Journal

Oz

Finland Has Solved the Migrant Rape Crisis – the No-No Square Dance (THE SAAD TRUTH_1790)

Sky peddling pure Pali/BBC propaganda lies regarding the IDF attack on the Indonesian Hospital in Gaza.

Not one mention of the fact that it has always been a major Hamas headquarters and weapons depot.

These idiots are simply ensuring that FTA will be overwhelmed by social media news and become irrelevant as has happened in the US.

The pro Palli bullshit seriously pisses you off though.

Media still doing weepies over IDF attack on “last hospital in Gaza”.
Would that also be the last hangout of the “small number of radical islamists” aka Hamas?
Israel would have no reason to attack if they were not convinced that Hamas was still active there, or if the remaining hostages were released.
But no, the MSM still uses the tired old “Israel presents no evidence” ploy that they never used about any Hamas claim, and hardly mentions the hostages.

They are worse than the ABC.

I think they are- it’s the plummy condescension

The grandkids talked me on to a waterslide, which I have always loved, but it has been a while. A long while.

This one was fully enclosed, lit be flashing disco laser lights and howling music.

I am sure that it is a fantastic entertainment but I became disoriented and a touch nauseous.

According to Sky it is hot in QLD!

Beautiful summer days as God defined QLD weather.

Rupert, sack your kids.

The old perv still has 3 weeks to do a lot of damage. An evil, inglorious old man.

No doubt the Kroger-Kennett Klan assured Prosciutto that they would lean on the girlie and it would all go away.

The trouble is, threatening someone like Moira that she won’t ever be a member of the Melbourne Club or get an invitation to the right marquee on Cup Day isn’t going to work

Mmm. I will mention this again, but for (possibly) the final time.

Moira Deeming doesn’t take my breath away. She is, however, moderately nice to look at – which will be (and was) more than enough for the mutton-dressed-as-slightly-younger-mutton lady offsiders of the abovementioned Klan to jack up at the thought of their husbands being anywhere near younger, better looking ladeees.

Barnaby’s Missus #2 comes to mind.

‘Michael! Jeffrey! John! I am not having that strumpet in the same building as you, do you HEAR ME?’

Lock it in that this completely unnecessary scenario played some part in that shitfight.

Thanks, Tom.

H1-B’s are critical to scaling up.
Reform the system, don’t end it.
The abuses are not in silicon valley.

The abuses are where an intermediary like McKinsey sets up an SPV on behalf of a client (typically an ex McKinsey “led” Fortune 500 legacy type business) who needs a “transformational” project worked on.
If a typical medium size business wanted to do the same they’d have Uncle Sam up their arse quick smart.
But if you’re part of that K street connected ecosystem those rules don’t apply.

Similar to ranges of visa classes that have existed in one way or another in Australia over the past 20 years.
The biggest abusers were the big banks.

Bottom line, Bannon is being a dick.

If you have a employment visa program, someone is going to try and exploit it in a way the law makers didn’t intend.
As someone pointed out yesterday on twitter, twitter autists are now examining every single H-1B visa job listed on the internet.
Elon wasn’t elected to govern the US, he ought to be objective.
Very few are arguing for zero high skilled immigration but they are arguing against cost cutting by replacing Americans with indentured servants.

Even if he didn’t directly oversee it, during Bannon’s time at GS, they would have advised dozens of clients to use/abuse visa programs purely to cut costs.
& he would have known about them.
Funny, can’t remember him writing any op-ed’s or blowing the whistle on the behaviour.

He is such a hypocrite.
Ensured a pardon for himself, lobbied against a lot of other pardons.

Half a trill.

WIP had too many good ones to have a favourite.

My pick from WIP. (hopefully, my success rate has been poor lately)

https://x.com/jlippincott_/status/1872811016540586048

I had a rockstar application for college–near perfect SAT score, perfect AP scores on 7 different tests, Eagle Scout, congressional internship, varsity athlete, etc.–but I spent my summers doing manual labor for long hours because, hey, that was the only work available that paid. 

Not one major American firm ever tried to recruit me for anything much less cultivate my talent. 

If American corporations are really so desperate for talent that they need to poach software coders out of the slums of Mumbai, where were they when I was a young kid looking for opportunities?

Not one major American firm ever tried to recruit me for anything much less cultivate my talent.

The “white male” comment is the crux of it. DEI disease means the quota for diversiteeee cannot be met if you employ white males.
H1-B lets them bring in dusky males thereby meeting the DEI quota.
Trump maybe about to fix that:

Marc Andreessen: ‘Every Signal Is Being Sent’ Trump DOJ Official Harmeet Dhillon Will Drop Hammer On Woke Corporations (28 Dec)

I really hope so.

This is EXACTLY how cats are.
Make sure you have sound, it’s only a few seconds.

https://x.com/buitengebieden/status/1872269934761545862

One of the less poisonous comments from this creature over at CL’s.

Martin says:

28 December, 2024 at 4:37 pm

BJ: I am not wholly surprised by the howling over attacks on peaceful, entirely reasonable Jewish citizens in australia. Unfortunately we have a pus-infused mob of demented bigots who celebrate any violence against Muslims. They – and there plenty on this site – promote hatred and division in a society that is otherwise free of such filth. The tragic circumstances of Gaza no doubt inflame passions and it’s just a pity that some of the bigots here aren’t in the firing line.

My response:

28 December, 2024 at 8:35 pm
Chat bot AI-Marty
Some anti-bigot you are. You couldn’t even bring yourself to openly condemn anti-Semitism because “Islamophobia”, while ignoring that many of the anti-Semites are not Muslims, just common or garden leftards.
Like you.
Bugger off, anti-Semitic bigot.

It’s rejoinder:

Martin says:

29 December, 2024 at 6:37 am

BJ: what I said is tgst you’re the problem. So yes. I condemn you.

My latest:

Boambee John says:
29 December, 2024 at 6:40 am
Chat bot AI-Marty
So someone who wants you to condemn anti-Semitic bigotry is the problem?
Bugger off anti-Semitic bigot.

Sorry to pollute the blog with this trash, but this indicative of the leftard mentality of the likes of Martin.

PS, Roger’s quote from Popper above is relevant.