Trumpism failed in Canada and again in Australia

The Labour party won the general election in Australia, roundly defeating the conservative coalition led by the Liberal party. While needing 76 seats to have a majority, Labour already has 85, with the coalition only 41. Various independent candidates have nine seats, with 16 yet undecided.

As in Canada, the conservatives hoped to win but Trump’s baleful influence effect seems to have sunk them in Australia too. Like in Canada, the Liberal party leader Peter Dutton lost his own long-held seat.

Dutton’s brand of hard-line conservatism, his support for controversial immigration policies – like sending asylum seekers to offshore detention centres – and his fierce criticism of China, all led to comparisons with US President Donald Trump.

It’s a likeness he has rejected but then the Coalition pursued policies that seemed to have been borrowed from the Trump administration.

Dutton said that if elected he would cut public sector jobs – more than 40,000 by some estimates. This reminded voters of billionaire Elon Musk’s Doge, or Department of Government Efficiency, which has slashed US bureaucracy. Dutton later walked back the plan.

The Coalition even appointed Jacinta Nampijinpa Price as shadow minister for government efficiency. And images of her wearing a cap with the words Maga – short for the popular Trump slogan, Make America Great Again – have became a key talking point.

None of this served Dutton well and he knew it. Towards the end of the campaign, he tried to shake off Trump’s shadow, and in the final leaders’ debate he repeatedly told the audience that he didn’t know Trump before attempting to answer questions on him.

“The Coalition will probably regret issuing messages that came across as supporting Trump and opposing the US Democrats,” said Frank Mols, a political science lecturer at the University of Queensland.

Trump is proving to be a millstone around the neck of any politician who embraces him.

In the US, these results and Trump’s own historically low approval ratings must be sending jitters through members of his party who have been unswervingly supportive of him. But we will not know until the mid term elections in November 2026 what the effect will be and a lot can happen in that time.

RFK Jr. is going to cause the death of us all

It should be no surprise that placing an anti-vaxxer and conspiracy nut in charge of the department of Health and Human Services, the cabinet office that oversees almost all the science and public health agencies in the US, was going to do serious harm. And sure enough, he is wreaking havoc.

One of the more disturbing things he has done is cancel a long-running diabetes study that was looking at the effectiveness of a medication known as metformin. The group that got this medication was compared with another group that got a placebo and a third group that made lifestyle changes to meet health goals, such as to exercise more and lose weight.

The study found that, in people with prediabetes, metformin lowered the risk of diabetes by roughly a third; the life-style intervention cut the risk by more than half. Both components were so successful that the trial was stopped early.

But the The Diabetes Prevention Program Outcomes Study had planned to continue the study to explore other important questions, using the participants that had been enrolled in the earlier phase.

How long do the health benefits last? How do blood-sugar levels affect the body and the brain over time? For more than a quarter of a century, Nathan and his colleagues tracked thousands of patients—which was itself a feat of logistical and scientific endurance.(Many doctors struggle to get their patients to attend annual physicals, let alone engage them for a study of this duration.)

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Liberals win in Canada election

As expected, the Liberals have won in Canada’s general elections, winning 168 ridings, just short of the 172 needed to get an absolute majorities. Hence they will need the support of smaller parties to govern. Those parties got 31 seats.

The Conservatives won just 144 seats, more than they had in the outgoing parliament but still a huge disappointment since in January of this year they were expected to win big. But that was before Trump decided to make inflammatory and demeaning statements about Canada. Not only did they lose, their leader Paul Poilievre lost the own seat, one that he had held since 2004. The New Democratic Party faired very poorly and their leader Jagmeet Singh also lost his seat.

Until the end of 2024, internal discussions within the Liberal party were grim: under their most optimistic scenarios, they could only hope of holding the Conservatives to a minority government. Outright victory was nowhere on the party’s radar.
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Trump’s threats to annex the country to make it the 51st state, his belittling of Trudeau as “governor” and threats of economic coercion have all contributed to a sharp feeling of anger and betrayal towards Canada’s southern neighbour.

“The shift in polls was absolutely without precedent,” said David Coletto, the head of the polling firm Abacus. “But to see the honeymoon that followed – and the way that support held, is also unprecedented. I can’t think of other jurisdictions around the world where we’ve seen this complete reset. And this turns on two factors: how unpopular Justin Trudeau was, and how much of a threat and gamechanger Donald Trump has meant to Canada.”

Carney’s come-from-behind win was fueled by by his strong stance against Trump’s arrogant and condescending attitude towards Canada. The UK’s Keir Starmer and other world leaders should take note.

Carney should send Trump a thank you card.

Welcome to America? Not so much

David Lindorff has done many trips abroad to Asia and Europe and describes his experience on returning to the US after having been in Europe since October 1, 2024. He says that these returns are always unpleasant, with a long flight followed by long lines at US immigration with other grumpy fliers anxious to get to a comfortable bed.

But this time it was different. The arrival hall at Newark was nearly empty and there were no lines at any of the three sections for US passport holders, permanent resident green card holders, or other foreign passport holders. Of course, while highly unusual, this may have been partly due to a statistical fluke. Sometimes several planes arrive close together creating massive crowds, at other times just a single plane may arrive, though that is unlikely at a major airport like Newark. But he says that the statistics show that the number of people coming to the US is dropping due to worldwide coverage of the alarming way that people are being treated by ICE at US entry ports.
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UK’s Keir Starmer tries to placate Trump

Reports are emerging that the UK government, responding to repeated requests from Trump, is putting pressure on the organization that runs the British Open golf championship to assign the 2028 tournament to Trump’s golf course in Scotland.

One source described the talks as direct lobbying from the government, although others said officials had asked about hypothetical problems with the idea, rather than insisting that it happen.

One person with knowledge of the discussions said: “The government is doing everything it can to get close to Trump. One concrete thing is that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) have been involved in pushing for the Open to return to Trump-owned Turnberry.”

Both the DCMS and Trump Turnberry declined to comment.

Two other people briefed on conversations between the US president and Keir Starmer said Trump had asked the prime minister multiple times about hosting the Open at Turnberry, which the Trump Organization has owned since 2014.
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Hosting the Open could provide a welcome financial boost for SLC Turnberry, the course’s operating company, which is run by the president’s sons, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. Last year the company lost £1.7m, having made £571,000 in the previous year – its only profit in 10 years.

Trump of course has no shame in using his office to advance his personal business nterests.

The UK has a long, long history of their governments being servile to the US, and this is even when they have Labour governments like they have now. This is not as big a deal as Tony Blair being obscenely obsequious to George W. Bush and giving him cover for the invasion of Iraq. But it does indicate a subservient attitude that seeks to ingratiate themselves with US presidents.

It is not clear that they get anything worthwhile in return for their cravenness. Trump seems to only respect governments that respond with firmness, like China and Russia. Trying to please him only makes him worse.

Here come the quackpots

Remember when, during the Covid-19 epidemic, Trump startled people in the medical community by suggesting that ingesting disinfectants could kill the virus? This was even more horrifying than his suggestions of using Ivermectin (the horse dewormer) and laser light as cures. It was not clear at that time where he got this crackpot idea but since he is full of crackpot ideas, people presumably did not think it worth tracking down the source.

But now it appears we know. The idea of using bleach was suggested by someone named Andreas Kalcker who markets chlorine dioxide, described as “a potentially life-threatening form of industrial bleach that is claimed without evidence to be a cure for cancer, Covid and autism.”

Andreas Kalcker is among 50 listed speakers at the “Truth Seekers Conference”, a two-day event opening on Thursday at the US president’s resort, Trump National Doral Miami. The event features several anti-vaxxers and other conspiracy theorists who have been brought together by the far-right commentator Charlie Ward.

Kalcker, a German national thought to be living in Switzerland, markets the bleach under the brand name “CDS”, for chlorine dioxide solution. His online brochures claim that the toxic chemical, which he admits is a disinfectant, can “eliminate pathogens” that cause disease.

He boasts it is “possibly the greatest medical discovery of the last 100 years”.

Government health authorities in the US and Spain have denounced the remedy as fraudulent, saying it is no different from drinking bleach. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has warned that it can cause serious and even life-threatening side-effects, including dehydration, diarrhoea and kidney injury.

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Trump becoming increasingly pathetic

We are witnessing the transition from Trump being bold and bombastic to becoming weak and pathetic as his aggressive actions are turning out to be ineffective, resulting in him having to lie and plead.

We see that most clearly in his actions with China. He must have thought that the high tariffs he slapped on imports from that country would swiftly cause them to buckle. But they have hung tough and reciprocated with high tariffs of their own and the stock markets cratered. So now he is reduced to essentially pleading with them to call him and promising them that he will be “very nice” to them if they call. He claims that the two countries have been in talks but the Chinese dismissed that.
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George Santos sentenced to 87 months in prison

One of the most spectacular cases of fraud by a member of the US Congress came to an end today when George Santos was sentenced to 87 months in prison for all the crimes he had committed. The brazenness of both his frauds and the way he responded when he was found out were truly breathtaking. The judge was not convinced by his last-minute expressions of contrition.

He lied extensively about his life story both before and after entering the US Congress, where he was the first openly LGBTQ+ Republican elected to the body. He was ultimately convicted of defrauding donors.
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He admitted to deceiving donors and stealing the identities of nearly a dozen people, including his family members, to fund his winning campaign. He also made up strings of fantastical stories about his life, identity and experiences.

During his court case he frequently held press gatherings and mocked the media and his detractors, saying he was being smeared.

Santos was shown to have spent donor money on vacations, luxury goods, Botox treatment and the website OnlyFans.
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Santos’s sentencing was not without controversy. Before his Friday court appearance, he referred to himself as a “scapegoat” on social media, in reference to prosecutors accusing him of organizing the fraudulent conspiracy.

Santos also alleged that the justice department was a “cabal of pedophiles”, in posts made to X. Prosecutors highlighted Santos’s comments in a filing after Santos’s defense team requested a two-year prison sentence.
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As part of the plea agreement, Santos was forced to pay a restitution of $373,749.97 and forfeiture of $205,002.97.

A list of his lies is something to behold. And yet, for a while, his Republican colleagues in Congress were willing stand by him until the scandal got so bad that they booted him out. It was a local newspaper the North Shore Leader that first accused him of fabricating his resume shortly before his election but the story did not gain traction in the major media.

Since he was convicted in federal court, he could appeal to Trump to pardon him. It would not be at all surprising to me if Trump did that.

Lawrence Krauss taken down by Rebecca Watson

Via Pharyngula, I saw an excellent analysis by Rebecca Watson (see below) about a new book coming out that is edited by Lawrence Krauss that has the title The War on Science.

She takes apart Krauss, describing his abominable behavior towards women over the years. Krauss was the chair of the physics department at Case Western Reserve University from 1993 until 2005, when I was also in the department. Because he was the chair, I had plenty of interactions with him though we were not friends and did not socialize outside of official functions. While I did not have any problems with him personally or professionally (except on one occasion when I felt that he behaved ungraciously), I had seen and heard things that made me have misgivings about his judgment and ethics, and so found the charges made against him by so many women to be utterly plausible.

While the book is not yet out, Watson’s description about the blurbs about it sounded to me like it was written by Republican MAGA types, claiming that the enemies of science are wokeness, DEI, transgender women, war on free speech, cancel culture, and all the other usual suspects that are trotted out by the MAGA-adjacent for all society’s ills. (It is curious that most of the people who shout loudest about their right to free speech being denied are rich, famous, and (mostly) white men who seem to have no difficulty finding publishers and other media outlets for their views. It seems like what they really want is that, despite their obnoxious views, to be loved by those who were their allies before their ugly sides were revealed.)

Watson talks about other contributors to the book like Jerry Coyne, Richard Dawkins, and Steven Pinker, all of whom have a marked anti-trans bias. She did not discuss other dubious contributors such as Niall Ferguson, Jordan Peterson, and Peter Boghossian. Some of them are not even scientists and so I was surprised that they could not sign on another famous transphobe J. K. Rowling to boost the sales.