Returning to the United States in an election year, I am struck by the silence. I have covered four presidential campaigns, starting with 1968; I was with Robert Kennedy when he was shot and I saw his assassin, preparing to kill him. It was a baptism in the American way, along with the salivating violence of the Chicago police at the Democratic Party's rigged convention. The great counter revolution had begun.

Jobs in Australia: From bad to disastrous with no relief in sight

It’s called the dead cat strategy.  Here, according to Sam Delaney in the Guardian, is how Boris Johnson describes it:

Following a sponsored visit by Reagan adviser Arthur Laffer, Malcolm Turnbull’s budget is based on the fallacy of his trickle-down economics.

The story goes that in 1974, at the Two Continents restaurant of the Hotel Washington, a conservative economist named Arthur Laffer met with two rising stars in the Republican Party, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.

Australia is a sick country, primarily because it has become such a selfish and self-centred country. A sense of entitlement pervades, indeed is encouraged and fostered within the ruling class and politicians. For sure it's all about us, that is, the white Anglo Christians who comprise the bulk of the Australian ruling class.

from John Passant …

This is a Budget of smokers and mirrors.

Waleed nails why Labor is fighting for housing affordability.

When Vice President Joseph Biden travelled to Iraq a few days ago, he did it, as always, under a shroud of secrecy. The mainstream press was asked in advance to keep the trip secret and dutifully complied. Biden declined to spend the night in Iraq, staying only 10 hours before whisking away to Italy, where presumably he slept safe and sound.