Politics

*  Wasn't Insiders interesting yesterday, with new Senator Malcolm Roberts sealing the deal as having outpaced Leyonhjelm as the biggest nutjob in the Senate, by far.   Apparently, only 5 years ago he let some "very strong researcher" from Queensland convince him that the "sovereign citizen" movement was the way to go to try to argue against a carbon tax.  (I hadn't even heard of this bunch of nutters until Malcolm came along.)   He seems to have changed on this in more ways than one - originally trying to claim he had no knowledge of the movement, now saying it was "a mistake".

The guys looks nutty; he definitely sounds nutty; and he committed his nuttiness to paper - I think based on his "empirical evidence" insistence, I can declare the evidence is in:  he was and is a nut; and a slippery dishonest (even by normal political standards) one at that.

*  Also on Insiders, Gerard Henderson* was claiming that One Nation was a long term problem for the Coalition, as having 4 Senators and staff meant they could consolidate their credibility before the next election.

Yeah, sure, Gerard.   The track record of parties based around one personality is obviously dire - especially when they are run by self interested populists like Palmer or Hanson.  (Hanson does well out of elections whether she wins or not.).    At least people like Xenophon or Don Chipp - smart guys running for a neglected centre of politics - might establish parties that run some distance, but even then the Democrats show they won't be around forever.

Gerard's gone downhill as a political commentator; time to retire, I suggest.

*   Is Trump still the GOP candidate?    The longer this campaign runs, the more it shows that the power of positive thinking may take a BS artist who starts with a family fortune quite a long way, but it does absolutlelynothing to encourage insight.

The thing is, the more he derides Hillary's mental state, the more the electorate will see it as projection.  But he obviously doesn't see that risk.

Update:  *  even after just having watched the nut filled interview performance of Roberts.  But Henderson has always given undue credence to climate change denialism - he gave Salby a venue at which to claim he had discovered the end of AGW.   Where's Salby now?   Completely discredited, where ever he is.