RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/05/australian-election-voters-reject-leftist-ideas/

A stunning conservative win has lessons for the U.S.

Hell hath no fury greater than left-wingers who lose an election in a surprise upset. Think Brexit in 2016. Think Trump’s victory the same year. Now add Australia.

Conservative prime minister Scott Morrison shocked pollsters and pundits alike with his victory on Saturday, and the reaction has been brutal from supporters of the opposition Labor party. They can’t seem to decide whether Australia’s electorate is stupid, evil, or both.

Cathy Wilcox, a newspaper cartoonist, tweeted: “It seems unfair that the morons outnumber the thinking people at election time.” Broadcaster Meshel Laurie concluded that “Australians are dumb, mean-spirited, and greedy. Accept it.” Some were ready to write off the whole country. Brigid Delaney, a columnist for the Guardian, wrote, “It’s the country that’s rotten.” She reported from the Labor party’s Election Night event. People there had to face “the fact that their vision for Australia’s future was not affirmed,” she wrote. That “made them feel estranged and alienated from their own country.”

By contrast, Zareh Ghazarian, a political-science lecturer at Monash University in Melbourne, was snobbishly restrained: “We have completely expected an opposite thing for two years,’ he told the Washington Post. “Voters rejected the big picture.”

By that, he meant that voters have rejected a sweeping Labor-party platform that urged Australia to move in a dramatically leftward direction on everything from higher taxes on retirement income to greater benefits for indigenous people to an ambitious program to reduce carbon emissions by 45 percent from 2005 levels over the next decade. Labor was heavily promoting renewable energy and electric vehicles; many Australians called the plan Labor’s version of the Green New Deal in the U.S.

The sweeping nature of these ideas gave Prime Minister Morrison the opening to paint his Labor challenger, former union head Bill Shorten, as a risky, job-killing opponent of traditional Australian values. Morrison “ran a targeted, presidential-style campaign with a tight message focusing on tax increases under Labor,” lamented Osmond Chiu, editor of the Australian left-wing magazine Challenge. “He often appeared as if he himself was not in government but rather the insurgent.”

http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/2019/05/fickle-fannys-down-under.html

The Iranians hang gays from cranes, and the hard men of Hamas have a habit of throwing gays off the roofs of buildings, but when the Eurovision Song Contest is held in Tel Aviv, a singularly misplaced hatred for Israel prods gay activists into turning their backs on the event.

Not all gays, of course.  Even the pompous “occasional Jew” (as somebody deliciously termed him) and gay icon Stephen Fry, who invokes his halachic Jewish status on occasions when to do so suits him (such as signing as-a-Jew statements inveighing against Israel) joined such staunch pro-Israel figures as Tracy Ann Oberman and Gene Simmons in signing a statement issued by the so-called Creative Community for Peace condemning calls for a boycott of this year’s Israel-based event:

“We, the undersigned, believe that music is our shared language, one that transcends boundaries and brings people together under a common bond.We believe that unifying events, such as singing competitions, are crucial to help bridge our cultural divides and bring people of all backgrounds together through their shared love of music.The annual Eurovision Song Contest embodies this unifying power. Every year, millions of people across Europe, and around the world, join together in a massive display of cultural exchange and celebration of music.Unfortunately, this year, the spirit of togetherness is under attack by those calling to boycott Eurovision 2019 because it is being held in Israel, subverting the spirit of the contest and turning it from a tool of unity into a weapon of division.We believe the cultural boycott movement is an affront to both Palestinians and Israelis who are working to advance peace through compromise, exchange, and mutual recognition.While we all may have differing opinions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the best path to peace, we all agree that a cultural boycott is not the answer.”

https://www.israelhayom.com/2019/05/19/bomb-hits-tourist-bus-near-egypts-giza-pyramids-at-least-16-wounded/

Blast detonates near new museum being built nearby Egypt’s famed pyramids, most of the wounded are foreign nationals, sources report.

A roadside bomb hit a tourist bus on Sunday near the Giza Pyramids, wounding at least 17 people including tourists, Egyptian officials said.

The officials said the bus was travelling on a road close to the under-construction Grand Egyptian Museum, which is located adjacent to the Giza Pyramids but is not yet open to tourists.

The bus was carrying at least 25 people, mostly from South Africa, officials added.

The attack comes as Egypt’s vital tourism industry is showing signs of recovery after years in the doldrums because of the political turmoil and violence that followed a 2011 uprising that toppled former leader Hosni Mubarak.

The officials said security forces cordoned off the site of the explosion and the wounded were taken to a nearby hospital.