Joe Biden is doing great but the popular media concentrates on Trump's exhibitionism.

 Following Donald Trump being found guilty on 34 charges of false accounting and paying off a Call Girl in order to influence a Presidential election, several letters have appeared in the morning paper saying Donald Trump is a political martyr and that Joe Biden is the worst President in American history. These correspondents presented no proof to substantiate their criticism of President Biden. So far the paper has not published any letters in defence of Joe Biden.                                                        

I do not know where these correspondents obtained their information about Joe Biden’s presidency. May I suggest they and perhaps the Editor of the newspaper, widen their knowledge base by reading an article in The Guardian of May 22nd written by Robert Reich, Professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkley. 

Professor Reich is a noted author and syndicated columnist who worked in the administrations of Presidents Ford, Carter, Clinton and Obama. The gist of Reich’s article is that in covering the attention-grabbing behaviour of Donald Trump, the popular media have overlooked the achievements of the Biden administration.  

I will refer to only some of the many points Reich made. He writes that, despite public opinion polls to the contrary, the US economy is growing and the stock market is at a record high.                                    Unemployment has remained under 4% for the longest stretch in fifty years.                                    Under Biden the economy gained 15 million jobs. Under Trump it lost 2.9 million jobs.              Inflation is at 3%. Post Covid it was at 9%.                                                                                    Spending on new factories has tripled over the last three years.                                                                In 2016, Trump campaigned against the US trade deficit with China. It was US$ 350billion. In the first three years of Trump’s presidency, pre Covid, this deficit grew to US$ 379billion. Under Biden the China trade deficit has dropped US$100 billion to US$ 279 billion. The lowest it has been since 2010. Trump’s record on antitrust enforcement was abysmal. Biden has been the most activist trustbuster in half a century.                                                                                                                                                Under Trump, the number of Americans lacking health insurance rose by 3 million. Under Biden, it’s been just the opposite. Enrolment in Obamacare has surged from 12 million in 2021 to 21.3 million. 

These are just some of the facts listed by Reich. Sadly, they are largely unreported by the popular media who highlight more sensational Trump stories, often  without any facts at all. 

 Just after he was convicted on 34 charges of deceit and corruption, Trump defiantly said he would continue to fight for the American Constitution. Let us not forget that on January 6th, 2021, Trump, the self-proclaimed Patriot, mounted an attempted coup against the United States government, encouraging his followers to riot ("Fight like hell")  at the Capitol building and to violently overturn the results of the 2020 election. We all saw it unfold so terribly on television. That it happened cannot be denied. If past performance is the best indicator of future actions, I would think that no rational person would ever consider putting Trump back in the White house.

On the other hand if we look at Trump's shambolic presidency we would wonder who in their right mind would want him back. In 2016 he won the Presidential election and had a great many promise to keep. He kept very few of them and some he completely reversed.

Here is a very short list of the very long list of promises that Trump failed to deliver or of which he did the  complete opposite:-

Trump failed to combat Covid-19. 170 000 Americans died because he said he could beat Covid without a vaccine.

He failed to keep Americans healthy. Apart from advising them to drink the wildly inappropriate Hydroxychloroquine 7 million Americans lost their health insurance under Trump.

He saide he would cut taxes but make the rich pay more. He did the complete opposite. He lowered taxes for the very rich while most Americans paid increased taxes.

He said he would boost economic growth by 4%pa. Instead the economy went backwards and unemployment soared.

He said he would not cut Social Security. He cut it severely. His budgets cut billions out of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

He promised to be a "Voice" for the Workers. He was not. he stripped workers of their rights. repealed protections, rolled back Work Safety rules and did nothing about wage theft by greedy employers,

He promised to eliminate the Federal deficit. Under his presidency it increased by 60%.

He said he would hire "the best people". He didn't. He forced a record number of rational and intelligent staff from his cabinet and replaced them with underperforming "Yes" men and women.

Trump promised to "Drain the swamp." He didn't do that, either. What he did do was bring more billionaires, CEOs and lawyers into his administration than any other US President in history. he also filled Federal agencies and departments with lobbyists, lawyers and consultants who busied themselves creating new policies for the companies they previously worked for.

He promised to build a wall along the Us' southern border and that Mexico would pay for it. He didn't. Neither did Mexico.

On the international stage trump was a worrying flop. He alienated America's main allies Germany, France and the United kingdom. At the same time he almost humiliated himself and his country in his deference to Vladimir Putin at international conferences. Trump said  Putin was right to annexe Crimea. He said that he would not defend a NATO country if Putin attacked it. He also made a trip to North Korea to hold hands and curry favour with Kim Jung Un.

In recent times Trump seems to more and more communicate with repetitive short slogans or sour   criticisms. He seems unable to talk broadly about political, economic or social matters. It will  be interesting how he performs in the debates with joe Biden. will he be able to provide some substance to the frothy epithets he throws around over and over again?

Sadly, the popular media provides very few facts when it reports on Donald Trump. It hardly reports on Joe Biden all, except to say that he is old and sleepy. Interestingly, it was Donald Trump who slept through quite a bit of his recent trial.

We need a media that tells us the facts about what Trump did and didn't do. To tell us the facts about what Biden has done and is doing.

The day of  reckoning is fast approaching . If the world is plunged into chaos and despair we  will all blame the media for not presenting the facts. The sad fact is, it will be too late.

Playing the man and not the ball is not football.

Recently, Justin Longmuir,  the coach of the Fremantle Dockers in the Australian Football League (AFL), called for the umpires to provide more protection to his full forward who had been severely manhandled by the opposing full back in a game against Richmond. As some of my Blog readers live overseas and are unfamilar  with Australian Rules football, a few words of explanation are required.

Australian Rules football is a very fast, physical game played over two hours between two sides of 18 players. The grounds are oval shaped, approximately 170 metres long and 140 metres wide. Some grounds ae bigger, some grounds smaller. 

It is a team game but it also a man on man game because each player has a direct opponent.                    Full Back/Full Forward, Centre Half Back/Centre Half Forward and so on. Up until the 1970s teams only had one reserve players to replace anyone who was injured. In 1978 two reserves became available to replace injured players. Injured players, once replaced,  could not return to the game.                           

In the 1990s, the AFL introduced a four man interchange bench. Coaches could now take injured players off and have them temporarily replaced by an interchange player. The patched up injured player could be sent back into the game. As usual coaches abused the new system to their advantage. They began rotating uninjured players on the interchange bench so that they could get fresh legs on the field.  

This radically changed the nature of AFL football.  What was already a fast game became a whole lot faster because refreshed players could run in packs up and down the field all day. As a result, positional man on man contests were replaced by large packs of players around the ball. It also led to a lot more scragging and manhandling. 

In AFL football you cannot manhandle a player who does not have the ball. You can grab and tackle a player in possession of the ball. You can put your arms out to shepherd a player from the ball or from a teammate who is going for the ball. You can also deliver a hip and shoulder bump to an opponent in a contest for the ball. However, if you grab or tackle a player who is not in possession of the ball it is free kick to that player. Or it should be. There used to be one central umpire. Now there are four. They should be constantly looking for any player who is manhandling another player and awarding free kicks against that player wherever it occurs on the field. Coaches would soon change their message.

Justin Longmuir’s call for some protection for his forwards highlights the sad fact that our beloved Aussie Rules football now encourages playing the man instead of the ball. Players hold, grasp and grapple with each other before bouncedowns and boundary throw-ins. Sometimes, as in the case with Docker full forward,  Jye Amiss, players are thrown to the ground even when the ball is more than a kick away.

It was not always like this. I started going to WANFL matches with my Dad in Perth in 1947. There were plenty of really tough footballers playing in those days. But the never scragged their opponents. Why not? Because the umpire would immediately award a free kick for holding the man without the ball. There was plenty of hip and shoulder bumping and fierce tackling, but no scragging. 

Champion ruckmen of those days, like Merv McIntosh, Ray Perry, Jack Clarke, Brian "Blue" Foley and the young Graham Farmer never locked arms as they ran in to contest boundary throwins in the 1950s. Their eyes were on the ball and they used their hips and shoulders to gain position. These days, the opposing ruckmen run in more closely entwined than Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. They are invariably locked together with outstretched arms over or under each other's shoulders.           

I earlier times, footballers were encouraged to play the ball and not the man. Our coaches told us that umpires would favour payers who made the ball their object. Not anymore. In the mid-1960s the game changed. Taggers became key weapons in curbing the opposition’s attacking ball getters and goal kickers. Taggers became claspers and graspers. They were  often penalised but soon  became very skilful in holding their opponents without being penalised.

In the early 2000s the introduction  of the interchange bench made everyone a midfield player. Four players on the bench could be interchanged repeatedly with players on the field. Instead of holding their specified positions, all players could now run up and down the field to assist teammates  moving the ball forward or defending opposition forward thrusts. It sometimes makes for very fast moving football as players race towards their goal, moving the ball forwards with lightning fast hand passes and accurate kicks to teammates. Sometimes, it means you have twenty or thirty players milling around in rugby like scrums and 'all in' rolling, wrestling matches. These days, we often see all 36 onfield players inside the fifty metre arc. Play is so congested and rugby like that  scragging is common. Umpires often just call  “Play on” to keep the ball moving.

These days coaches clearly instruct their players to play the man instead of the ball. The field umpires,  the four of them, often just let it happen. How often do we see players wrap their arms around their opponents, throw them to the ground and then clasp the incoming ball as the field umpire indicates, “Fair mark”. What happened to holding the man without the ball? Or putting your knee in his face?

In his response to Longmuir’s request that the laws of the game be upheld, Adam Yze, the Richmond coach, typified what all AFL coaches now say, "Our defenders try to limit the amount of access their forwards get at the ball. So, if they are manhandling then that’s the game.”  No, it’s not!

Manhandling never was part of our game. The laws of football forbid it.                                                    

Time for the umpires to lift their game and give us back our game.

  

WHAT IT IS, IS FOOTBALL!

 

WHAT IT IS, IS FOOTBALL!

Every so often on the Letters page of my local morning newspaper, some followers  of other sports, generally lovers of rugby or soccer, pen letters poking fun at our great Australian game of football, otherwise known as Aussie Rules or Footy. Sometimes pronounced Foody! Rhymes with Goody.

These writers appear to be upset, bemused, irate, iindignant, amused, perplexed or may just confused that our great game of Australian Rules Football has different rules to their game. Just imagine how they would react if the knew that Autralain Rules Football started out as Victorian Rule, because the game was born on Melbourne  half way through the 19th Century. Not only that Auystraliuan Rules football is not governed by rules but by laws. The way in which the great game s played and officiated is all set out in The Laws of Football.

The people writing disparaging letters about our game's Laws/Rules all complain that in Aussie Rules football you get a point for missing the goals. It’s called a Behind. They complain that if the ball goes through the goals, but is touched by a player on either side, or hits the goal post on the way through, then it is not a goal but a behind. Instead of six points the team only scores one point. They say that no matter how it goes through the goal posts it should be a goal.

They complain that if the  ball  hits the posts and bounces back  in to play it should be “Play on”. In the Aussie game if the ball hits the post, the   umpire stops the game, because if the ball hits the goal post it means a behind has been scored or If the ball hits the point post it is deemed to out of bounds. 

What these critics fail to understand is that Australian Rules Football is not Rugby and it is not Soccer. It is different game with different rules. And we love it.

I do not mind rugby and soccer lovers attacking our game because it shows that they are frightened of it, probably because  because it is fast, virous and more spectacular in every way. As Margaret Thatcher once said, “When they start calling me names I know that I have won the argument.” 

I have never seen any letters to the Editor from Aussie Rules fans pointing out absurdities in Soccer or Rugby. However, just for the sake of prolonging the argument I am taking a leaf out of their grumpy book to point out some anomalies in their games.

First off, the name Soccer. The round ball game is called soccer in Australia, Canada and the USA and probably in some other places, too. However, in 2005,  the Australia  Soccer Federation,   in what it thought was a great one fingered salute to the Australian Football League (AFL), changed its name to the Football Federation Australia. Then in 2020, it changed its name to Football Australia.   Fair enough. But that  organisation which seems to loathe its game being called Soccer has a national men’s team which it calls…wait for it…The Socceroos.  Maybe  it’s  time for another name  change…one way or the other. The Footeroos? The Federoos?

In Australian rules the players take postions all over the field. It is a team game but each player has direct opponent. In rugby, the two teams start in the opposite halves of the ground. Their aim is to get the ball up to the other end and score a Try, by touching the ball over the end line and by scoring a goal by kicking the ball  through the goal posts.

Seems like a good plan. However, while the rugby  team can run forward with the ball, they can only pass it backwards. What? Why? No Aussie Rules fan has ever written to a newspaper saying that this is a foolish rule. The fact is, we do not care  at all about the Rules of Rugby . But it does seem a very strange rule. Of course in Gridiron, the American high tech version of Rugby, the Quarterbacks can throw the ball as far forward as they like. Usually, with dead eyed accuracy to another player who is well forward of the ball.  You cannot do that in rugby and you definitely cannot do it in soccer.

If you score a Try you  get a free kick at goal. You not only have to kick it through the goal posts but over a cross bar which it a couple of meters above the ground. Why? What happened if the  ball goes through the posts but under the crossbar?  Well, it is no score at all. Why?

Soccer has few strange rules, too. Probably the strangest is that you cannot use your hands unless you  are the goal keeper. Seems unnatural to me. You can use your head but not your hands. In these days when concussion and its after effects are coming under increasing scrutiny, the use of the head may one day be banned. That’s if the soccer administrators use their heads.

Even stranger though, is that  if a player causes the ball to go over the side line, on purpose or accidentally, it must be returned in to the play by  a player from  the opposite team. Well, that  is not strange but how it is returned to  play is mind boggling. Just  how does this player return the ball? He throws it! He uses his hands and he throws it.  I am not  making this up. It is the rule in soccer, a game where you are not allowed to handle the ball. Why don’t they kick it  in? Or head it in?

Like rugby,  the two soccer teams occupy either half of the ground at the start of play. Their aim is to get the ball into their goal at the other end of the ground. Unlike rugby, soccer players can pass  the ball forward which is quite sensible as, otherwise, it would never get anywhere near their goal.

However, in Soccer,  the Offside Rule says that no player can be ahead of the ball. In simple terms the offside rule says, “an attacking player, when in the opposition half, must have at least two opposition players, including the goalkeeper, between him/her  and the opposition goal when a pass is being played to him/her.” For those who do not know, “The opposition half” is the half of the ground in front of  the goal net that the attacking players are trying to reach.

Even soccer lover have trouble with this rule. In fact the Offside Rule once stipulated that three opposition players must be between the attacking player and the goal. Hockey had the same rule which was amended in 1972 from  3 players to 2 from the halfway line. In 1987, hockey amended this rule to only apply within the 25 yard area. Then in 1996 they experimented with a No Offside rule. This gave more power to the attacking side, speeding  up the game and, more importantly, led to more goals being scored and making for much more exciting and dynamic game. In 1998 Hockey canned the  offside rule altogether. Hockey lovers say  this improved their game.

 So far, Soccer has been happy to stay with the two man offside rule. That is probably why soccer crowds are known for singing and chanting to keep themselves awake and amused during low scoring games. And rioting, of course. At many grounds soccer barrackers are segregated in separate areas of the ground.

Goals are still hard to score in Soccer and draws are quite common. However, the administrators have made it very easy to score goals in soccer. If the ball crosses the goal line and goes into  the net it is a goal. It does not matter if somebody touches it or it hits the posts at the side or on top of the goal. If the ball is in in the net then it is a goal. If it hits the top of the goal and bounces inside the goal line and then bounces out again …it is still a goal. In fact, even if an opposing player kicks, heads or otherwise causes the ball into the net, it is a goal.  They call it an Own Goal.

Indeed, goals are so rare in soccer, that when a player scores a goal he goes into a well rehearsed highly  choreographed routine which often involves him ripping off his shirt. Of course if a player unfortunately scores an Own Goal for the opposing side he does not dance for joy and rip his shirt off. Quite the opposite.

I do not write these lines to belittle rugby or soccer. They are both wonderful games. In fact, some of my best friends played rugby and/or soccer. Nothing wrong with that! I write merely to point out that Australian Rules fans have refrained from writing letters poking fun at soccer and rugby basically because we could not care less.  We love our Australian footy game and we love the  rules, er, pardon me, Laws that make it unique.

As somebody once said, “It’s more than a game!”

 

Meet Donald Trump... The Russian Candidate for the US Presidency.

 

In today's West Australian newspaper, conservative columnist, Paul Murray (24/2) lamented the murder of Russian patriot and martyr, Alexei Navalny by Putin the Poisoner. However, Murray also criticised  Anti-Trump campaigners for not vigorously protesting the tragic death of this courageous Russian dissident. Murray's criticisms (deflections? His usual anti left rant?) are not well founded, at least in my experience. My many outraged friends and  colleagues, as well huge numbers on Social Media, have been quick to express heartfelt tributes to Navalny as well as outrage and utter disgust towards Russian Dictator, Vladimir Putin.                                                                                                    

One of the reasons  people oppose Trump is that he is seen as Putin’s puppet. This is evident from way Putin aided Trump in winning the 2016 election; all of those hacked Hillary Clinton  e-mails (that suddenly  fell into Trump’s in-tray) and the abject and embarrassing way that Trump caved in to Putin when they met publicly  in 2018. At that time, President Trump said Putin had very good reasons to annexe Crimea. As president, Trump subsequently attacked America’s allies and friends, including NATO.  He went out of his way to curry favour with Putin and the Supreme Leader of nuclear North  Korea, Kim Jong Un.

Trump is crassly beholden to Vladimir Putin. He has demonstrated this on many occasions, even on  the international stage at G8 meeting of heads of government. At one such meeting during his presidency,  Trump made some criticism of Russia and Putin  which were widely reported on international television.  The very next day, Trump backed down and abjectly grovelled before Putin. He said that he had “mispoke” the words. He lamely told the world that did not really mean what he really had said.       It was embarrassing... and on a world stage.

 

Trump agrees with all of  Putin’s imperialist policies for Russian expansion. He has even said, as President, he would not take any action if Putin attacked NATO countries. Last week he  even encouraged Putin to attack NATO countries who had not paid their fair share towards NATO's costs.

Apparently, this is in America’s best interests. This man wants to be America's next president.

What is really agitating anti-Trump campaigners is his statement, made  after Navalny's murder, that he is being treated like Navalny by his opponents in America. What an obscene, self righteous comment from a supreme narcissist.

 

Navalny spoke out about corruption in high places. He spoke about millions of Russians living in hardship and poverty while Putin and his corrupt billionaire  friends enjoy the spoils that they garnered from the dissolution of the Communist state. Because he spoke out against corruption and a loss of liberty, Navalny was poisoned, sent to prison and murdered.                      

 

Trump is in the courts for fraudulently conducting his various businesses. For fraudulently inflating his wealth to escape taxes. For assaulting women and paying women not to testify against him. He did not accept the electoral result against him. He does not accept the many courts that have upheld the accuracy of that election. He tried to coerce electoral officials and even state governors to find him extra voters. 

 

Trump has shown his contempt for democracy by sending a riotous mob to the Capitol building in Washington on January 6th, 2020 to violently stop the congress from ratifying the election of Joe Biden in the 2020 election. Millions of TV viewers were horrified to see a fired up Trump urge his angry  mob to march on the Capitol and to "fight like hell" to stop Biden being named as president. He promised his supporters, "I will be with you." But Trump, the five times draft dodger, was definitely not with them when the fighting, the lethal threats and thuggery started . The mob moved to the Capitol building looking for bloody vengeance. At the same time, Trump was driven back to the White House and gleefully watched the disgraceful events on TV ... for HOURS AND HOURS!

 

There are conflicting reports that Trump wanted to go to the Capitol but was prevented from doing so by wiser and more courageous, counsel. After several hours of mayhem, Trump appeared on the White House lawn and meekly told  his lynch mob that , "It is now time to go home."  He thanked them for their support. He should have been arrested on the spot for inciting a riot, let alone for sedition against the US government and its elected representatives, most of whom had been in fear of their lives. A few days later all but six courageous Republican Senators found that Trump had no case to answer.

 

If Trump wins the 2024 presidential election, many fear that he will immediately release all those imprisoned for crimes committed on his behalf. And pardon himself in the process.Taking a leaf out of the political handbook of his friend , the bloody dictator and Poisoner in Chief,  Vladimir Putin, Trump will then lock up all of his political opponents, including the many judges and attorneys who found him guilty of many crimes against commercial interests, women, democratic electoral processes,  the Congress and the American people. As he has shown his disdain for elections, many predict that a newly elected Trump will quickly say by Presidential decree that he is now President for life.  just like  his great mate, Vlad the Poisoner. He would be an American dictator who would rule unfettered… except for the orders he would have to take from the murderous Vladimir Putin.

 

The presidential election is eight months away. Eight months is long way down the track for anybody aged over 75, However, as far  as we can tell, it will between Trump and Biden. While Donald Trump attacks NATO and the Ukraine and gives Putin carte blanche to attack whom ever he wants to, the shallow mass media is busying itself with Joe Biden’s age and suitability for the presidency. Let us fervently hope that the media lifts its game and stops highlighting Biden's age and begins taking a really close look at Trump's actual policies..or lack of them. They could also fact check his many lies and perhaps comment on his unstable and volatile character.  

 

Anti-Trump campaigners are disappointed that the mainstream media (are you listening Paul Murray?) seems largely uninterested in Trump’s  many personality and policy flaws and in the slip-shod, fact free way large sections of the media "cover" his campaign for the presidency. The popular media largely ignore Trump’s litany of lies and evasions. They hone in on  Joe Biden’s age.

 

To many, including all anti Trump campaigners, Good Old Joe Biden is a much, much more suitable presidential candidate for America and the democratic world than Donald Trump. They would not care if Biden was comatose and suffering from “locked in “ syndrome”. He would  still be  a mile better than the opportunistic, unpredictable  charlatan, Donald Trump. At least Biden, recently voted the seventh most effective US President, is surround by rational, sentient beings. Trump, recently voted the worst US President in history, is surround by sycophantic Republicans.  

 

Biden is surrounded by rational and strong advisors who will always give sound advice without fear or favour. Conversely, Trump is an opportunistic egotist who is surrounded by weak and sycophantic Yes men and women who associate with him solely to maintain their own wealth and power.                       If they so No to him, Trump sacks them.

 Recently Trump boasted that he could quickly fix the problems in Ukraine and Gaza. He would do so by caving in to Putin and Netanyahu, giving them carte blanche to do as they wish.                               No skin off his nose. That is how his delusional mind works.

Trump did not make America great again when has President. In fact, Trump reduced  America.              He made it look weak in the eyes of the rest of the world.                                                                         A second presidency would be catastrophic for America...and the rest of the free world.