Afternoon Sun, the Inner Harbor, Dieppe, Camille Pissarro, 1902
1,453 thoughts on “Open Thread – Weekend 13 Aug 2022”
“Just doin’ what y’ll said to do, boss!”
Ahh, malicious compliance.
1
Try the email on contact page, Zatara.
ScoMo retrospectively caught out declaring himself Grand Poobah of everything under Section 64 as the Great Plague of Xi-Fauci was kicking off. No cabinet or Nationals input at all, in fact, they had no idea he’d done it.
Holy rollers often have a god complex.
Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension released its report on the state’s 2021 crime statistics late Friday afternoon. My colleague Bill Glahn was one of the few who noticed.
The BCA’s numbers indicate that in 2021, homicides were up 72% over 2019, the state’s last “normal” year. Aggravated assaults were up 63% over 2019, and robberies up 30%. Minnesota’s crime wave continues to worsen.
What I really want to focus on is the demographic numbers, specifically with regard to homicide:
The racial characteristics of murder in Minnesota are very similar to 2020. Of known victims, 123 were African American, or 65 percent of the total. Of known perpetrators (a single murder could have more than one), 209 (76 percent) were African American. Compare these figures to the share of African Americans in Minnesota’s population, which is less than 10 percent.
African Americans represent less than 10% of Minnesota’s population, but are 76% of the state’s murderers and 65% of its murder victims. These facts make nonsense of complaints by Black Lives Matter activists, and liberals generally, that law enforcement unfairly targets blacks, or that blacks are “over-represented” in arrests or any other metric.
Where I want to be.
Never leave me alone.
Gravel pit.
Get money (heh).
Do for love.
Big poppa.
No money, mo problems.
de la Soul were pretty wholesome without being lame.
1
A year after Afghanistan fell to the Taliban, immigration minister Andrew Giles said the government is examining ways to accept more humanitarian migrants.
Yes, because if there is one thing Australia needs right now, it is more Muslims.
What could possibly go wrong?
22
Yes, because if there is one thing Australia needs right now, it is more Muslims.
What could possibly go wrong?
It could be disastrous! There might be more sportspeople refusing to wear rainbow uniforms during Pride Rounds!
Oh, wait, that’s only a problem if they’re Christians. As you were. No problem at all.
9
Why is it different, unless you can prove that Trump didn’t actually make the decision?
So your argument now is “Trump totally declassified those nuclear secrets in his mind years ago without telling anyone so that is law and you can’t prove otherwise”.
This is the dumbest talking point of the Trump era.
Dot
“Boambee
Do you think the FAS documentation on the W87 and W88 is actually disinformation?”
The magazine Aviation Week and Space Technology was known as Aviation Leak. Some items were genuine leaks, others turned out to be disinformation. The trick was to work out which was which.
If I wasn’t using a phone I would give a good example, but typing on this is a pest.
“Trump totally declassified those nuclear secrets in his mind years ago without telling anyone so that is law and you can’t prove otherwise”.
2
“The FBI raid on Trump’s estate has increased the chances of a red wave in November.
Leftards are shit at politics. And the further left you go (e.g., the antifa-infested Democratic Party) the more hopeless they are. That’s the main reason they hate democracy: they have no idea how it works.”
They may be shit at politics but they are damn good at elections.
10
Fatboy
Who packed the contents when Trump left the White House? Do we know? If not why not?
9
The West Australian has been campaigning recently against sexism in the mining industry. It has been using little journalistic tricks like sending a female reporter to Diggers and Dealers, the mining industry’s annual piss-up in Kalgoorlie, so she could report on being harassed. They even went as far as to put the photo of an accused rapist on the front page because he was a FIFO worker.
Today’s headline lets the cat out of the bag. They want quotas in the mining industry, apparently to stop sexism. But are they really that dumb? Could they really believe that an increase in women will lead to a decrease in complaints? Or are they hoping for the exact opposite, so they can mine the ‘sexist mining industry’ story for years to come?
15
m0nty-fa
“That’s the thing about bullshit: it may be true, it may not, who among us random dweebs on the Internet really knows, but you don’t care about credibility or the truth so you run with it anyway because it temporarily bolsters your argument.”
Look in the mirror, fvckwit. You are the exact mirror image of what you criticise, except that Zatara has some actual knowledge of the subject. You don’t.
5
So your argument now is “Trump totally declassified those nuclear secrets in his mind years ago without telling anyone so that is law and you can’t prove otherwise”.
monty believes there are ‘nuclear secrets’ involved and he accuses others of stupidity.
16
[Why is it different, unless you can prove that Trump didn’t actually make the decision?]
So your argument now is “Trump totally declassified those nuclear secrets in his mind years ago without telling anyone so that is law and you can’t prove otherwise”.
Poor old shiteater. I never said any such thing. I don’t know how the decision was made (if it was), or how it was documented or communicated (if it was), and have never made any assertions about those issues. I’ve just had to school you as patiently as I can that your flatulent bloviations about the US classification system were not only based on zero grounds, but also betrayed your total lack of knowledge about what rules for decision making, and practicalities of administering secrecy systems, are often like.
5
Re ‘Sloop John B’, here’s Al Jardine talking about how it came about and singing it.
Spends a lot of he time on her back, with her heels braced against the sheets.
I never said any such thing. I don’t know how the decision was made (if it was), or how it was documented or communicated (if it was), and have never made any assertions about those issues. I’ve just had to school you as patiently as I can that your flatulent bloviations about the US classification system were not only based on zero grounds, but also betrayed your total lack of knowledge about what rules for decision making, and practicalities of administering secrecy systems, are often like.
So you don’t know anything, but you think you can “school” me based on your extensive knowledge from being Johnny English or something. Yeah nah, you’re not a secret agent and you don’t have US security clearance. Back in your box, Tim N.
monty believes there are ‘nuclear secrets’ involved and he accuses others of stupidity.
But he can’t say what’s in the affidavit, but the leakers aren’t lying nor are they breaching the National Security Act themselves.
It was a good but bizarre day when the CDC finally reversed itself fundamentally on its messaging for two-and-a-half years. The source is the MMWR report of August 11, 2022. The title alone shows just how deeply the about-face was buried: Summary of Guidance for Minimizing the Impact of COVID-19 on Individual Persons, Communities, and Health Care Systems — United States, August 2022.
The authors: “the CDC Emergency Response Team” consisting of “Greta M. Massetti, PhD; Brendan R. Jackson, MD; John T. Brooks, MD; Cria G. Perrine, PhD; Erica Reott, MPH; Aron J. Hall, DVM; Debra Lubar, PhD;; Ian T. Williams, PhD; Matthew D. Ritchey, DPT; Pragna Patel, MD; Leandris C. Liburd, PhD; Barbara E. Mahon, MD.”
It would have been fascinating to be a fly on the wall in the brainstorming sessions that led to this little treatise. The wording was chosen very carefully, not to say anything false outright, much less admit any errors of the past, but to imply that it was only possible to say these things now.
“As SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, continues to circulate globally, high levels of vaccine- and infection-induced immunity and the availability of effective treatments and prevention tools have substantially reduced the risk for medically significant COVID-19 illness (severe acute illness and post–COVID-19 conditions) and associated hospitalization and death. These circumstances now allow public health efforts to minimize the individual and societal health impacts of COVID-19 by focusing on sustainable measures to further reduce medically significant illness as well as to minimize strain on the health care system, while reducing barriers to social, educational, and economic activity.“
In English: everyone can pretty much go back to normal.
Focus on illness that is medically significant. Stop worrying about positive cases because nothing is going to stop them. Think about the bigger picture of overall social health. End the compulsion. Thank you. It’s only two and a half years late.
What about mass testing?
Forget it: “All persons should seek testing for active infection when they are symptomatic or if they have a known or suspected exposure to someone with COVID-19.”
Oh.
What about the magic of track and trace?
“CDC now recommends case investigation and contact tracing only in health care settings and certain high-risk congregate settings.”
Oh.
What about the unvaccinated who were so demonized throughout the last year?
“CDC’s COVID-19 prevention recommendations no longer differentiate based on a person’s vaccination status because breakthrough infections occur, though they are generally mild, and persons who have had COVID-19 but are not vaccinated have some degree of protection against severe illness from their previous infection.”
Remember when 40% of the members of the black community in New York City who refused the jab were not allowed into restaurants, bars, libraries, museums, or theaters? Now, no one wants to talk about that.
Also, universities, colleges, the military, and so on – which still have mandates in place – do you hear this? Everything you have done to hate on people, dehumanize people, segregate people, humiliate others as unclean, fire people and destroy lives, now stands in disrepute.
Meanwhile, as of this writing, the blasted US government still will not allow unvaccinated travelers across its borders!
Not one word of the CDC’s turgid treatise was untrue back in the Spring of 2020. There was always “infection-induced immunity,” though Fauci and Co. constantly pretended otherwise. It was always a terrible idea to introduce “barriers to social, educational, and economic activity.”
The vaccines never promised in their authorization to stop infection and spread, even though all official statements of the CDC claimed otherwise, repeatedly and often.
You might also wonder how the great reversal treats masking. On this subject, there is no backing off. After all, the Biden administration still has an appeal in process to reverse the court decision that the mask mandate was illegal all along. “At the high COVID-19 Community Level,” the CDC adds, “additional recommendations focus on all persons wearing masks indoors in public and further increasing protection to populations at high risk.”
The problem from the beginning was that there never was an exit strategy from the crazy lockdown/mandate idea. It was never the case that they would magically cause the bug to go away. The excuse that we would lock down in wait for a vaccine never made any sense.
9
Monty
Do you still think the national archivist has Q clearance?
The guys who wrote the affidavit do, but they cannot view the seized documents?
…and the documents would “normally “ reside in the…national archives?
This is truly bizarre.
5
test
Guys
I’ve just seen a copy of the nuke document from Trump’s office!!!! It reads:
“Monty is a grade-A nuclear shiteater”
(Who is going to be so sick of #winning)
13
“Yes, because if there is one thing Australia needs right now, it is more Muslims.
What could possibly go wrong?”
Perhaps we should ask Salman for his opinion.
10
Canberra shooter…….
The man arrested over the shooting at Canberra Airport on Sunday afternoon (14 August) has been formally charged and is in custody. He made no application for bail.
Ali Rachid Ammoun, 63, is accused of using a revolver to shoot windows at the airport, causing chaos at the facility and sending it into lockdown.
He appeared in the ACT Magistrates Court on Monday (15 August) where he was formally charged with recklessly shooting at the airport, unauthorised possession of a .38/200 Smith & Wesson revolver and intentionally shooting the revolver to cause a named person fear for their safety.
Wearing a Hawaiian shirt and appearing over audio-visual link, Mr Ammoun said he understood each of his three charges.
His Legal Aid lawyer Tamzin Lee said he would not apply for bail and also said her client wanted the ABC to be excluded from the media-filled courtroom gallery.
Magistrate Robert Cook refused, saying, “this is an open court and the ABC have a right to report on such matters”.
There goes the insanity defence.
15
“Ali Rachid Ammoun”
That’s what goes wrong.
11
m0ntysays:
August 15, 2022 at 2:24 pm
…
So you don’t know anything, but you think you can “school” me based on your extensive knowledge from being Johnny English or something. Yeah nah, you’re not a secret agent and you don’t have US security clearance. Back in your box, Tim N.
Poor old shiteating mental defective. Nothing I’ve said is based on any claims to special knowledge.
I’ve just quoted you numerous laws on the public record which refute your fatuous bullshit about your “common sense” insights on how decision making systems work.
If you had any real information showing that the US classification system operates differently to those incontrovertible examples I’ve provided, you’re still at liberty to provide it.
GO!!!
4
The worst thing (one of) is the tactics they rolled out en-masse for an airborne impossible to stop ENDEMIC would actually work for the Schlong Covid.
Its focused in a small group.
Its harder to transmit (touch and open sores)
Its easier to detect.
Yet because its ‘political” because it hits a special snowflake group they will let it rumble on until it either burns out or actually becomes a serious population wide disease.
The political implications of calling for a cockdown on this small group is apparently larger than covid was.
9
“Ali Rachid Ammoun”
That’s what goes wrong.
Oh. Someone might want to tell the immigration minister, whose priority is to import more Muslims.
A police taskforce to hunt down organised crime groups exploiting the National Disability Insurance Scheme will be established by the government in coming weeks, the NDIS Minister says.
An investigation by Nine newspapers has alleged members of the Hamzy and Alameddine crime groups in Sydney and other organised criminal gangs have been rorting billions of dollars from the NDIS scheme.
…
NDIS Minister Bill Shorten gave a scathing assessment, as he announced a multi-agency taskforce would be established to track down fraudsters.
“I think they’re literally gutless cowards,” Mr Shorten told Nine this morning.
“They may think they’re tough, some of these organised crime people. They may boast amongst themselves how clever they are.
“The rest of Australia despises this. And what we’re going to do is make sure that the NDIS is only for the people who need it.”
Mr Shorten said he had warned the former government of massive fraud in the scheme.
He said he suspected there was exploitation and coercion by criminal gangs, but also that there may be people unconnected to organised crime who were padding bills and “robbing the scheme”.
… NDIS anti-fraud teams have recovered a small portion of the alleged billions that have been defrauded from the scheme, charging 18 people since 2020 with a total of about $14 million in alleged fraud.
I cant work out why all these sharks are appearing and eating all the chum we dumped in the water, a government spokesmong whimpered yesterday….
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The political implications of calling for a cockdown
Fnarrr.
Never underestimate the hidden clout of the homo staffer lobby, either – even if at present they’re all sitting on inflatable ducky cushions, and with both single-use disposable ice packs at the ready and immaculate hair.
3
They may think they’re tough, some of these organised crime people. They may boast amongst themselves how clever they are.
The rest of Australia despises this. And what we’re going to do is make sure that the NDIS is only for the people who need it.
That’s the way, Peanut Head. Shame those well-established career criminals into not taking free government money dropped in their laps. Tell ’em that’s not what taxpayer money is for. That’ll do it.
16
He appeared in the ACT Magistrates Court on Monday (15 August) where he was formally charged with recklessly shooting at the airport, unauthorised possession of a .38/200 Smith & Wesson revolver and intentionally shooting the revolver to cause a named person fear for their safety.
If only he’d said, “Alec Baldwin” when asked his name .. LOL!
7
An investigation by Nine newspapers has alleged members of the Hamzy and Alameddine crime groups in Sydney and other organised criminal gangs have been rorting billions of dollars from the NDIS scheme.
Please Mr Immigration minister, can we have some more of these please?
11
They may think they’re tough, some of these organised crime people. They may boast amongst themselves how clever they are.
The rest of Australia despises this. And what we’re going to do is make sure that the NDIS is only for the people who need it.
Peanut Head’s onto it now.
They’ll be in more trouble than a teenage girl at a Labor youth camp.
13
KD
Dont tell me you are going to bet against Bill “piss holes in the snow for eyes” Shorten against the combined intelligence, rat cunning and violent tactics of the organised crims?
Cant you see how scared they must be, seeing … checks notes… 14 million dollars recovered out of the billions stolen.
6
The rest of Australia despises this. And what we’re going to do is make sure that the NDIS is only for the people who need it.
The kick-back is soooo, bloody, good that here in Fairfield, NSW the NDIS providers have shopfront offices in the shopping malls .. rental that don’t come cheap! .. LOL!
9
An investigation by Nine newspapers has alleged members of the Hamzy and Alameddine crime groups in Sydney and other organised criminal gangs have been rorting billions of dollars from the NDIS scheme.
Never underestimate the hidden clout of the homo staffer lobby, either – even if at present they’re all sitting on inflatable ducky cushions, and with both single-use disposable ice packs at the ready and immaculate hair.
Ministers’ staffers are full of them. Do we recall Warren Entsch’s loyal staffer, the redoubtable Nathan Winn? You know, the expert in desk cleaning.
7
Point of Order: I don’t think you bend over backwards to deny the link between gay sex and Monkeypox.
12
Please Mr Immigration minister, can we have some more of these please?
Fraser’s Lebs. Again.
7
Dont tell me you are going to bet against Bill “piss holes in the snow for eyes” Shorten
The Lion of Beaconsfield will not be lectured to by scruffy falafel munchers.
3
When it comes to eyes like two piss holes in the snow the QLD premier takes the ring.
1
“When you are playing a women’s grand final and the best player award goes to a male, there is something wrong.”
They want quotas in the mining industry, apparently to stop sexism. But are they really that dumb? Could they really believe that an increase in women will lead to a decrease in complaints?
BHP started talking female quotas some 4-5 years ago. All it’s done is ensure that many blokes throw in the towel at striving for promotion, so they pretend to work and get wads of bux for it still. So yeah, they really are that dumb.
7
The Lion of Beaconsfield
Any relation to the Aardvark of Beaconsfield? .. LOL!
An investigation by Nine newspapers has alleged members of the Hamzy and Alameddine crime groups in Sydney and other organised criminal gangs have been rorting billions of dollars from the NDIS scheme.
Set up for this way from the get go.
When the first NDIS product off the line was ‘concierge’ services to guide recipients through the smorgasbord of options available (for a fee), it was clear to all that trays of money were being laid out.
12
NDIS anti-fraud teams have recovered a small portion of the alleged billions that have been defrauded from the scheme, charging 18 people since 2020 with a total of about $14 million in alleged fraud.
NDIS anti-fraud teams, obviously, training alongside the CentreLink anti-fraud mob going off their success rate(s) .. LOL!
5
Holy rollers often have a god complex.
Mmm…but I don’t think SloMo is bright enough to have come up with this himself.
Odds on someone advised him and he then went and asked dim bulb Porter if it was kosher.
2
NDIS providers have shopfront offices in the shopping malls
Plenty of tradies utes, Jim’s Mowing etc displaying the NDIS Provider details. Tax Agents, Financial Planners etc. All in on it for another revenue stream.
So surprising that those smarter and shiftier than Dodgy Bros. wouldn’t see the opportunity. They all had prior experience in Childcare.
5
“m0ntysays:
August 15, 2022 at 12:57 pm
What’s in the affidavit monty?
I don’t know, but this bloke makes an educated guess.”
To call that shit “educated” would be much like calling a failure in Economics 1 a qualification.
2
NDIS anti-fraud teams have recovered a small portion of the alleged billions that have been defrauded from the scheme, charging 18 people since 2020 with a total of about $14 million in alleged fraud.
At least $2,000,000,000 stolen and they have recovered $14,000,000. So, they have recovered less than 1%. Obviously, they have their best men working on this. Their Best Men.
We can relax now.
19
they have recovered $14,000,000
Which will be paid off, $10 per Centrelink payday, for the next several thousand years.
5
When the first NDIS product off the line was ‘concierge’ services to guide recipients through the smorgasbord of options available (for a fee), it was clear to all that trays of money were being laid out.
And yet, the disabled are still left eating beans on toast.
10
The NDIS was a sinecure for 22,000 middle class whites women to have an easy no work job as an APS for life.
2 clients per week!
The intent was to make disability insurance easier, now we have a hybrid freak from the bowels of Treasury and Dr Frankenstein’s lab.
9
How difficult is it to fail first semester economics?
Maybe someone could let them know that cement is too.
6
How difficult is it to fail first semester economics?
If you hit uni with high school economics, commerce or business studies (or whatever they are called these days) it isn’t hard.
But if you spent your time at band camp maybe it would be.
1
The NDIS was a good idea that was always going to turn into a beetroot juice shit spray.
10
“So you don’t know anything, but you think you can “school” me based on your extensive knowledge”
m0nty-fa himself knows less than fvck all about the subject, but has spent all of today and much of yesterday pontificating about it. Then he complains when asked to justify what he has been saying.
5
The NDIS scheme was another early failure of the Abbott government. Upon getting elected in 2013 the Coalition had ample opportunities to rein it in and yet they did nothing. But you know what, “they did nothing” is a fitting epitaph for nine years of lousy Coalition governments.
20
thefrollickingmolesays:
August 15, 2022 at 10:36 am
Blog has montypox.
Having no dick he is a taker not a giver.
4
How difficult is it to fail first semester economics?
Harder than passing.
That is why I suggest people be a bit more wary of of the subtle snares of Monty-logic.
2
Short Willie on Sky now.
“We warned the government.’
Of course ya did peanut. Whose thought bubble was the NDIS?
9
Wearing a Hawaiian shirt and appearing over audio-visual link, Mr Ammoun said he understood each of his three charges.
His Legal Aid lawyer Tamzin Lee said he would not apply for bail and also said her client wanted the ABC to be excluded from the media-filled courtroom gallery.
I’m starting to like this fuckwit.
6
NDIS anti-fraud teams have recovered a small portion of the alleged billions that have been defrauded from the scheme, charging 18 people since 2020 with a total of about $14 million in alleged fraud.
And I wonder what “consultancy fees” Govt drones received for shepherding the fraudsters through this Aladdin’s cave of taxpayer funded treasure?
How profitable is NDIS?
The NDIS is a multi-billion dollar market that is tipped to expand significantly toward the $30B mark by 2025, making it one of the best business opportunities in Australia.
4
Heard something on the radio earlier about Peter Costello getting paid $300,000 by Packer for lobbying the Vic Gov, anyone know anymore details?
Fixing the NDIS rorting is easy.
Offer bounties & indemnities for whistleblowers.
There is no honour amongst thieves.
4
Toad
And what amendments did the Liars propose as the legislation went through Parliament?
3
He appeared in the ACT Magistrates Court on Monday (15 August) where he was formally charged with recklessly shooting at the airport, unauthorised possession of a .38/200 Smith & Wesson revolver and intentionally shooting the revolver to cause a named person fear for their safety.
Interesting. The .38/200 Smith & Wesson revolver is also known as the .38 S&W Short and the .38 S&W NP (New Police). Not many manufacturers make ammo for them anymore. If it’s an Australian WWII army issue, it could be worth big dollars to a collector.
Please ban thefrollickingmole for that Amy Schumer monstrosity.
5
A few days ago, the fat fascist fool proclaimed that he “had a life”. Since then he has been pretty much full time here.
It seems that his “life” does not involve either his family or his business.
2
Heard something on the radio earlier about Peter Costello getting paid $300,000 by Packer for lobbying the Vic Gov, anyone know anymore details?
After leaving office with the government coffers overflowing (which really just means they were taking more in tax than they needed, but anyway) without ever winning the top job so coveted by him (and everyone else but he had at least delivered on his existing job), then watched the bacchanalian orgy of spending at all levels of government with excuses only the most devoted inebriate would think subtle enough to get away with, maybe after all this Peter thought, “Fuck it. Fuck them. They said they wanted the books balanced but when it comes down to it they really don’t. I grifting is the real game I’ll show them I can play that one too.”
8
And yet, the disabled are still left eating beans on toast.
Only 15%-20% fewer beans due to the ‘service fees’ charged.
Be like Therese Rudd.
5
Please ban thefrollickingmole for that Amy Schumer monstrosity.
Using the Alexandra Donkey Chompers criteria that means you just want to shag her.
1
I simply can’t believe these headlines about the NDIS. M0nty told us, actually lectured us, that the NDIS is the greatest piece of expenditure since the NBN. Gillard will be remembered for eternity for this amazing piece of governance, he said. Rorted by unions, Labor spivs and crooks? No chance says m0nty. This is there purely to benefit obese mentally ill types like his goodself.
The fat fuck is wrong about everything.
When will you borrow that neck tie m0nty?
11
There was movement at the kebab shop,
for the word had passed around
That the NDIS from Julia was there to play
And had joined other rort schemes-
near a billion to be found
So all the Mohs had gathered to the pay
All the tried bikie riders
8
Oops
Didn’t mean to post that. Work in progress or not.
1
There is a story (I suspect apocryphal) relating to the Battle of Marathon and the general Miltiades, specifically in how he was granted the prize as the second most valiant Greek on the day, but no one came first.
According to the story it was widely acknowledged among the Generals present (apparently the Athenian system was that Generals took daily turns to be in overall command rather than having a single one in command throughout the campaign) that Miltiades’ strategy was key to their success.
In the aftermath of the battle Generals would vote on who had been the most gallant, courageous, heroic soldier on the day. Each General voted himself first, and Miltiades second. So no one came first, but by unanimous decision Miltiades was second greatest.
I mention this because this is how Australians see the priorities of government spending contra fiscal rectitude.
Everyone knows that spending must be cut. Everyone knows we cannot afford to pay for every hairbrained goofy program that forces its way into our world from the retarded universe. But everyone also knows that their own pet project is the one that must be preserved. Everyone’s thing – their own ‘General’ – wins the first prize, and financial responsibility – the Miltiades – is their second.
All the self-pleasuring schemes comes first, and the saddest thing is that politicians have discovered they can award all the first prizes by raiding the piggy banks of generations not even born yet.
11
sfwsays:
August 15, 2022 at 4:32 pm Heard something on the radio earlier about Peter Costello getting paid $300,000 by Packer for lobbying the Vic Gov, anyone know anymore details?
Nine Entertainment has denied chairman Peter Costello worked as a “secret Crown lobbyist” for James Packer after the allegation was raised in a selection of the billionaire’s erratic emails leaked to the press.
According to the emails published by The Australian on Monday, Mr Packer claimed he’d hired Costello to be a casino lobbyist in 2011, helping him get “close to” the Victorian gaming minister. Nine said Mr Costello was an “adviser” to Mr Packer during that time, and refuted claims he was working as an unregistered lobbyist.
“Peter Costello did NOT lobby for CPH, he was an adviser to them on other business matters for a year in 2011 he has never been a registered lobbyist because he isn’t a lobbyist,” a spokesperson for Nine said.
But the airing of Mr Packer’s private emails puts the spotlight back on the former Crown owner, who has recently spoken about a desire to re-enter Australian public life for a so-called “meaningful and successful Act 3”.
Among the few emails aired were Mr Packer’s personal attacks on Mr Costello and Nine Entertainment’s managing director of publishing James Chessell. In one, Mr Packer also appeared to praise Nine’s Crown Unmasked report, a six-month investigation into his scandal-plagued company.
Dozens of emails sent
It’s understood Mr Packer has sent several dozen emails to Nine executives, including to Mr Chessell, since June after taking offence to the media group’s news coverage of his international business activities.
In an internal note published on Monday about the report into Mr Packer’s emails, Mr Chessell assured staff that now-Nine chairman never interfered in the group’s reporting about Crown casino.
“I never heard a word from Peter Costello about Crown Unmasked before, during or after publication/broadcast,” Mr Chessell wrote.
“I received another dozen emails from Packer last night.
“In the past he has copied in executives from competitors such as Seven and News. I hope he genuinely does make peace with Crown Unmasked and I wish him all the best.”
Mr Packer sold the Crown casino group to US private equity giant Blackstone in an $8.9 billion takeover in February this year.
Packer’s troubled past
The sale netted Mr Packer’s Consolidated Press Holdings $3.2 billion, coming off the back of years of scandal. In 2019, The Sydney Morning Herald and 60 Minutes? Crown Unmasked report into the troubled company, uncovered allegations that it had links to individuals or groups suspected of sex trafficking and drug importation.
During a government inquiry into the Crown casino in 2020, Mr Packer talked about being diagnosed with bipolar disorder when questioned about threatening emails he sent to an unnamed businessman.
Mr Packer appeared chastened at the time, calling the behaviour “shameful” and “disgraceful” and telling the inquiry he was being medically treated for the disorder.
1
Oh, whoever it was that posted the Damo and Darren link the other day…
FMD that was funny. I watched the other four as well. I swear I have seen people like that – on train platforms too!
The minute that Joe Biden got two days of negative tests after having COVID, after being isolated for several days, he was immediately off on vacation to Delaware. He had one stop in Kentucky thereafter regarding the flooding in the state, then on Wednesday this past week, he was out the door again for another beach vacation to Kiawah, South Carolina.
Along on the trip was his wife Jill, his son Hunter, Hunter’s wife, and Hunter’s son, baby Beau, along with some of Joe’s other grandchildren.
They were met by protesters when they arrived on the island.
“They stayed here before and they’re not paying,” a source close to the family told the New York Post. “They’ve never paid. They’re just friends.”
Biden asked Allwin if he could stay at her home, the source told the Post.[….]
The White House frustrated reporters by offering little transparency about Biden’s South Carolina trip, which is expected to last through early next week.
But it sounds like he’ll be back early in the week — when he’ll go back to a three-day work week, calling early lids, then head off back to Delaware and the beach again.
1
Albanese appoints US prison operator to run Nauru detention centre
EXCLUSIVE
Ben Packham
Foreign Affairs and Defence Correspondent
@bennpackham
An hour ago August 15, 2022
The Albanese government has selected one of the United States’ largest private prisons operators to run Australia’s offshore refugee processing centre on Nauru, stripping Brisbane-based firm Canstruct of the lucrative contract.
Management and Training Corporation, based in Utah, which runs 21 corrections and immigration detention facilities in the US, has been selected as the preferred tenderer to take over garrison and welfare services at the Nauru facility.
The decision is a controversial one, with the company facing allegations of human rights abuse over its management of multiple US prisons.
It also became embroiled in a bribery case involving the awarding of US prisons contracts, which saw one of its consultants jailed.
The appointment follows Labor’s pursuit of Canstruct in opposition, with former home affairs spokeswoman Kristina Keneally lashing the attendance by its chief executive at a $3500 a head Liberal fundraiser.
Canstruct, originally a private construction company, took over the garrison and welfare services contract from Broadspectrum in 2017, making at least $1.6bn from the role.
There are still 112 “transitory persons” detained on Nauru, including 83 refugees, 17 rejected asylum-seekers, and 12 people still being processed.
The Nauru government, which wanted to take over the management of the facility itself, has been informed Management and Training Corporation is the preferred tenderer, and the company has advertised on Seek for a Nauru-based security manager.
The Department of Home Affairs said: “A preferred tenderer has been selected to deliver Facilities, Garrison, Transferee Arrivals and Reception Services in Nauru. Should contracts be executed, further information will become available on AusTender.”
It said transition of services at the facility would occur from mid-August.
“There will be no degradation of services to transitory persons in Nauru during contract transition,” it said.
“ Transitory persons will continue to receive health, welfare and accommodation support.”
Ben Packham
2
Please ban thefrollickingmole for that Amy Schumer monstrosity.
A view only a gynaecologist might appreciate.
Lacks something of the artistry required to be otherwise.
2
Monty.
How does importing 200,000 workers assist the working class increase their bargaining power?
The federal treasurer, Jim Chalmers, last week told ABC radio “it’s pretty clear that we need a bigger workforce”.
..
The federal Coalition backed expanding migration numbers but said Australian workers must be “first in the queue” for new jobs.
…
The Labor state government in Victoria and the Coalition in New South Wales backed increasing the nation’s skilled migration intake.
…
Its a big club, the uniparty, and you are not in it.
Accusations are flying fast and furious regarding last week’s FBI raid at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home. In my Wednesday piece for The Post, I noted that 30 million pages of Obama administration records had been trucked to Chicago. The Obama Foundation, working with the National Archives, promised to digitize and put them online. Almost six years after the records arrived at a Chicago-area warehouse, that hasn’t happened.
Trump revved up the controversy Friday when he asserted that Barack Obama “kept 33 million pages of documents, much of them classified. How many of them pertained to nuclear? Word is, lots!”
Trump has not revealed any source for his allegations that many of the papers were classified and that they had “lots” of “nuclear” material. The Obama Foundation and the National Archives have denied there are any classified documents in those records.
The media have largely sainted the National Archives in this ruckus. The agency issued a statement Friday: “As required by the [Presidential Records Act], former President Obama has no control over where and how [the archives] stores the Presidential records of his Administration.”
But the National Archives blocks access to official records at the behest of every former president and his designated officials.
Almost all the media coverage of this controversy has ignored or downplayed the dismal failure of the Presidential Records Act to reveal presidents’ records. A Washington Post analysis of the dispute on the 30 million pages conceded, “As with many issues of government transparency and document-sharing, it’s true that this is not great! You often have to wait years for requested documents, and this appears to be no exception.”
But journalists should be outraged by this perpetual stonewalling. Barack and Michelle Obama collected a $65 million advance for their memoirs, but Americans are still effectively prohibited from seeing his official records.
The Presidential Records Act requires people seeking information to file a Freedom of Information Act request. As Politico reported in March, “At many presidential libraries, the queues for processing FOIAs stretch for years,” and requests “involving classified information can take more than a decade.”
Obama boasted he had “the most transparent administration in history.” In reality, the Obama administration was as devious as the Nixon administration when it came to government secrecy.
In 2011, Obama’s Justice Department formally proposed to permit federal agencies to falsely claim that FOIA-requested documents did not exist. The American Civil Liberties Union complained that the plan perverted “a law designed to provide public access to government information to be twisted to permit federal law enforcement agencies to actively lie to the American people.”
Obama’s lawyers claimed a new veto power that turned FOIA into a travesty. White House Counsel Gregory Craig quietly notified all federal agencies in 2009 that “all documents and records that implicate the White House in any way are said to have ‘White House equities’ and must receive an extra layer of review, not by agency FOIA experts, but by the White House itself,” a congressional report noted. Politico observed in 2016 that in some cases, White House FOIA “referrals have led to years of delay.”
The Obama Foundation and the National Archives talk about digitizing those 30 million pages as if it were an almost unfathomable labor of Hercules. It took me less than five minutes searching online to find a Kodak scanner that can handle 150,000 pages a day. Buy 10 of those scanners, and the 30 million pages could easily be digitized within a month. The scanners cost $20,000 each, but the Obama Foundation has $560 million in assets and the top three employees receive more than $500,000 a year. It could easily find the money for the scanners if disclosure were the goal.
The Obama Foundation estimates that 95% of Obama administration records were “born digital.” They could be easily placed online — if disclosure were the goal. Will the National Archives insist on “reviewing” each page for spelling errors before it goes live on the Internet or what?
Obama’s machinations don’t make Trump trustworthy. The Justice Department has not yet revealed precisely what documents it seized at Mar-a-Lago and what legal charges may be filed. There are plenty of questions about the motivation of the FBI raid, the possible role of an FBI confidential informant and the alleged seizure of materials protected by attorney-client privilege
At this point, National Archives bureaucrats seem to have adapted the early motto of National Review, standing “athwart history, yelling Stop.” But as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wisely warned in 2012, “Lack of transparency eats away like a cancer at the trust people should have in their government.”
Dissolve the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Last week, the CDC released updated COVID-19 guidance. The agency now believes we should be taking an individual approach to mitigating our COVID risk. In layman’s terms, we are all Florida 2020 now.
The new guidance suggests ending “test to stay” so kids exposed to someone with COVID-19 can remain in school. Of course, this was only related to known exposure. People are exposed to COVID all the time, but only children who were aware of that exposure were punished. Kids lost so much throughout the pandemic because of terrible, irrational CDC guidance like this.
The fresh guidance also says people without symptoms no longer need to be routinely tested.
And the CDC permits us to come within six feet of each other again. Finally! Husbands, tell your wives it’s on!
But most important, the agency has finally faced some truths about the vaccine that it should have long ago. “CDC’s COVID-19 prevention recommendations no longer differentiate based on a person’s vaccination status because breakthrough infections occur.” And it’s admitted that “persons who have had COVID-19 but are not vaccinated have some degree of protection against severe illness from their previous infection.”
Cities across the country fired teachers, firefighters, health-care staffers, police officers, sanitation workers and so many others because they refused to get vaccinated. Many of these people had worked through the early days of the pandemic — and contracted COVID many times over — while we baked banana bread and patted ourselves on the back for ordering from Uber Eats. Now the CDC acknowledges this was the wrong thing to do. Whoopsie!
The new guidance is all fine and good, sane even, but it’s August 2022 and fully absurd that the CDC is only now recognizing that people aren’t staying six feet apart and that a previous COVID-19 infection offers a layer of protection similar to the vaccine.
When COVID first hit our shores, we naturally looked to the CDC for direction. The agency may have previously offered its thoughts on how we should cook our burgers (well-done) and whether we should eat sushi (no), yet it was primarily in the background wagging its fingers at us while we ordered our steak medium-rare (another no-no).
But with COVID, its word became policy. In what should go down as one of the most disgusting moments in public health, the CDC allowed, with direction from the Biden White House, Randi Weingarten, American Federation of Teachers chief, to craft school-opening policies that forced classrooms across the country to remain closed in winter 2021.
No one has been fired for this dereliction of duty. No one has even been openly chastised for allowing a special-interest group to control our health-care policy. This alone is why the CDC must go.
A health agency that refers to pregnant “people” instead of “women” is one we can’t take seriously anyway, but one that plays with semantics like this during a pandemic is broken and cannot be repaired.
5
I think we all need to commiserate with KD after the shocking murder of his honey bunny yesterday.
Hes been stoic about it, but the man can only take so much.
Please ban thefrollickingmole for that Amy Schumer monstrosity.
A view only a gynaecologist might appreciate.
Please ban Lizzie for luring extremely stupid people back to frolickingmole’s horrific offering even when they knew better.
6
And yet, the disabled are still left eating beans on toast.
Only 15%-20% fewer beans due to the ‘service fees’ charged.
Be like Therese Rudd.
I’m still waiting for a list of providers to vacuum my parents’ house once a week while I’m away. So far it has been almost two months.
I’m not hopeful. I’d ask one of my Christian friends to do it, but they’re all busy doing kindly things for the elderly gratis. I can’t impose.
There is no point engaging a contract cleaner. It’s impossible as no one wants to do the work any more or they’re already on the government list and fully booked. If I was ten years younger I’d start up a business doing rentals maintenance – name your price.
The government has completely distorted the market with this garbage. All at our expense.
Montana Girl
11 YR OLD WHO SHOT ILLEGALS. Thanks FOX NEWS for reporting it.
A Shotgun-armed Preteen vs. Illegal Alien Home Invaders.
Two illegal aliens, Ralphel Resindez, 23, and Enrico Garza, 26, probably believed they would easily overpower home-alone 11-year-old Patricia Harrington after her father had left their two-story home.
It seems these crooks never learned two things:
They were in Montana.
Patricia had been a clay-shooting champion since she was nine.
Patricia was in her upstairs room when the two men broke through the front door of the house. She quickly ran to her father’s room and grabbed his 12-gauge Mossberg 500 shotgun.
Resindez was the first to get up to the second floor, to be the first to catch a near point blank blast of buckshot from the 11-year-old’s knee-crouch aim. He suffered fatal wounds to his abdomen and genitals
When Garza ran to the foot of the stairs, he took a blast to the left shoulder and staggered out into the street where he bled to death before medical help could arrive. It was found out later that Resindez was armed with a stolen 45-caliber handgun he took during another home invasion robbery. That victim, 50-year-old David 0’Burien, was not so lucky. He died from stab wounds to the chest
Ever wonder why good stuff never makes NBC, CBS, PBS, MSNBC, CNN, or ABC news? An 11-year-old girl, properly trained, defended her home, and herself against two murderous, illegal immigrants and she won.
She is still alive. Now THAT is Gun Control!
39
Good girl with a gun. 🙂
7
Any Cats know whether there is a limit on how long somebody can be employed on a Labour Hire contract? I seem to recall that an individual had a limit of 2 years before the individual should be offered the position (as a permanent employee) by the employer, or the position extinguished.
I didn’t think an employer can continue on a Labour Hire contract basis ‘forever’ but can’t find any references. Perhaps those provisions have expired.
How convenient for Joe Biden that he is far from scrutiny on an extended vacation in a borrowed mansion in a secluded community on Kiawah Island, SC, the very week his attorney general unleashed a political firestorm by authorizing the FBI raid on the home of their shared nemesis, Donald Trump.
But the president couldn’t help a little subtle gloating as he rode a bike on the beach past the waiting media, flashing a cheery smile.
Asked about his vacation, he replied: “I’m enjoying it a great deal. I’ve been on the phone a lot, monitoring news reports.”
Yes, you can bet he is monitoring the news, with relish.
If there is one defining adjective for Biden’s presidency, it probably is spite. His consuming hatred for “the former guy”, whose name he often can’t bring himself to utter, is palpable.
He makes no secret of the fact that he despises Trump voters, too, all 74,223,369 of them. His unusual malice — fuelled by Trump-deranged historians he keeps inviting for endless “Socratic dialogues” in the White House — has had a corrosive effect on America.
If only Biden had been the unifying president he promised he would be, and shown a little grace in victory, commended Trump for Operation Warp Speed, perhaps, not spitefully unwound all his policies, not branded half the country “white supremacists” and “domestic terrorists” in his inaugural speech, not sicced the FBI onto parents at school board meetings, not weaponized the federal government’s security apparatus against his political enemies, not supersized the IRS to go after the little guy, not tanked the economy and lied about absolutely everything.
Joe’s failure to unify
He might have lowered the temperature on Trump derangement and set a more generous-spirited tone befitting a generous-spirited nation.
A statesman with America’s best interests in mind would have cautioned against the FBI raiding Mar-a-Lago or at least called for calm in a national address as soon as it happened. He would have been a president who is loved rather than reviled and mocked.
If only Biden had been the empathetic moderate that he pretended to be during the election campaign, we wouldn’t be at the perilous moment we are at today, with angry armed men in the hollers and the woods pledging civil war on TikTok, or storming an FBI office in Cincinnati, or ramming a burning car into the barricades at Capitol Hill, or God-knows-what in response to the Mar-a-Lago fiasco.
For them, Aug. 8, 2022, is a day that will live in infamy
We’ve had a flurry of leaks from the DOJ and the White House in an attempt at post-facto justification for this precedent-setting law enforcement overreach. It’s nuclear secrets. It’s Jared Kushner and the Saudis. Leak, leak, leak to the usual suspects.
But we’ve seen this playbook before. The Russia hoax, two impeachments, Alpha Bank, the Steele Dossier, Carter Page, the FBI lovebirds, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Stormy Daniels, Michael Cohen, Michael Avenatti, Adam Schiff, and on and on relentlessly.
So, forgive us for being skeptical. When the same top Obama administration officials who ran the Russia hoax are now back in the White House and running the DOJ it’s hard not to believe they are up to their old tricks.
The Bureau is ‘broken’
The FBI is unrecognizable since he joined in 1972, Turchie says, when agents were blue-collar crime fighters, rather than privileged Ivy Leaguers with ideological baggage.
“The FBI as I knew it has collapsed. Discipline has broken down and it has become nothing more than a police agency for the Democratic Party.”
Today the FBI has lost that spirit of independence and Turchie doubts it will ever contradict the wishes of the Biden administration, no matter how wrong-headed and politically partisan.
Mar-a-Lago is the tragic proof.
10
Ever wonder why good stuff never makes NBC, CBS, PBS, MSNBC, CNN, or ABC news? An 11-year-old girl, properly trained, defended her home, and herself against two murderous, illegal immigrants and she won. She is still alive. Now THAT is Gun Control!
Random act of Journalism in questioning White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre: “Isn’t it almost Orwellian? How can you call it the Inflation Reduction Act when the nonpartisan experts say it’s not gonna bring inflation down?”
2
There is not much point asking questions of Karine Jean-Pierre. Her little act where she looks like she is trying to be patient, closes her eyes for a fraction of a second too long and then goes to the binder is totally not convincing, at all. An empty vessel in need of an acting coach.
“Scott Morrison was (secretly) appointed by Governor-General David Hurley to take control of the entire Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources 11-months before he scuttled an offshore gas project weeks out from the federal election.”
4
Yes, you can bet he is monitoring the news, with relish.
And, as with previous times, that silly grin of his will evaporate once it dawns on him (probably at 9:00 am every day for two weeks as if it is the first time) that the triumphalism of the MSM is not as well founded as it seemed at first.
They may eventually prevail – although Trump has been an elusive target for all these years and although I cannot speculate on how he will get out of the chicanery set up by whole departments of government and an MSM leaping with puppy-like energy and enthusiasm that it trickles piss, I have thought this many times before and Trump has repeatedly slipped through their grasping fingers.
But no matter what else, the proceedings as this all develops will end up inflicting damage on the kid-sniffer and some of his malign allies as casualties, and he will come out afterward even more diminished than he went in.
And he will realise it afresh every morning at about 9:00, after his strained weetbix and prune juice, for weeks.
Even now his depends are pushed to the limit every time he looks in the pantry and sees Corn Flakes and Coco Pops next to each other on the shelf.
And even if he cannot recall quite what has gone wrong he will be the butt of other people’s resentment that the star to which they thought they had harnessed themselves to soar to the highest reached of the corrupt Olympus that is home to the Democrat elite, instead crashes to Earth and no one seems to remember who they are.
6
Richmond Park, south-west London, on one of those unforgivingly hot days in July. Lack arrived by bike – she grew up and still lives nearby
Of course she did. Richmond is in classic what we here call ‘Teal’ territory – Hairy’s brother lives in Richmond near Richmond Park. It is swanky very upper middle class to super-weathly in parts. The link to this newest (and far more attractive) than Greta climate dolly shows an improvement – she is more generally concerned with matters ‘environmental’ – plastics, saving elephants and orangutans, deforestation etc than just totally obsessed with a climatic catastrophe (although there is there with her too). She will possibly grow out of it all as she gets older.
2
Methinks if there’s anything positive left of Scumbag Morrison’s political legacy, it’s sinking faster than the Titanic.
16
Rogersays:
August 15, 2022 at 5:52 pm
How does importing 200,000 workers assist the working class increase their bargaining power?
Labor’s former base is on to them.
They’ll son be into high 20% primary vote territory & they’ll never form government in their own right again.
Can’t decide it it’s a good thing or not. Do they end up doing a coalition with the greens or do they suck up to independents. Or right out of left field, coalition with the Liberals.
“Scott Morrison was (secretly) appointed by Governor-General David Hurley to take control of the entire Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources 11-months before he scuttled an offshore gas project weeks out from the federal election.”
Morrison himself is a skid mark, brushed off the Canberra porcelain by the electorate.
However, one of Ms Maiden’s tweeters makes a reasonable point:
The GG should resign today.
Why not?
3
New Catallaxy Retweeted
jackposobiec
Rosary Extremist Poso ??
18h
Obama and Hillary were running guns from Libyan jihadists to Syrian jihadists and when they got caught they let an ambassador and an entire CIA site get wiped out rather than admit it
Has someone just realised this? This has been common knowledge since 2012, ten years ago.
The American ambassador was in Benghazi to meet the Turkish ambassador, the Libyan arms were sent to Syria via Turkey.
The last person to meet Christopher Stevens, the USA ambassador was the Turkish ambassador. By the time he left the compound after the meeting, all the surrounding streets were blocked by the jihadists preparing for their attack. The Turkish ambassador would have driven through one of these roadblocks, why didn’t he call Christopher Stevens and warn him of what was about to happen?
9
Can’t decide it it’s a good thing or not. Do they end up doing a coalition with the greens or do they suck up to independents.
Coalition with the Greens.
Electoral poison.
3
The GG should resign today.
Why not?
That may depend upon the legal advice he was given.
1
Cassie of Sydney says:
August 15, 2022 at 6:26 pm
Methinks if there’s anything positive left of Scumbag Morrison’s political legacy, it’s sinking faster than the Titanic.
I agree but it sticks in the gullet to hear the ABC marvelling at the measure whilst TaliDan closed parliament and threatened the general population with his VicPol goons all supposedly acting under direction of an unelected expert committee who were in fact little more than a front for his megalomaniac edicts.
I’d say the convections of democracy were breached more grievously in the states than by Morrison’s ego trip.
The Pirelli Calendar, known and trade-marked as “The Cal”, is an annual trade calendar which has been published by the UK subsidiary of the Italian tyre manufacturing company Pirelli since 1964. The calendar has a reputation for its choice of photographers and models and featured glamour photography from the 1980s until the 2010s.[1]
2
I’d say the convections of democracy…
I’m borrowing that.
😀
Here I was thinking that the Liberals might get there act together and be out of power for two terms. Wrong. The Liberals will be at of power for at least a decade and probably longer. They’ll now become, just like the Liberals in WA, Victoria, South Australia, QLD, and soon to be NSW, the official party of opposition.
Poor old Bob Menzies, he must be rolling in his grave.
10
I see Dan is hot for more immigration.
It’s the only trick he’s got left.
Prepare for another million by 2027, Melburnians.
4
There is not much point asking questions of Karine Jean-Pierre.
Like Kamala and the appalling trannie in charge US Federal Health, she’s been pulled out of Pandora’s diversity box without even a second thought. All great examples of what you get from Democrat posturing that puts identity before character and competence.
6
“I agree but it sticks in the gullet to hear the ABC marvelling at the measure whilst TaliDan closed parliament and threatened the general population with his VicPol goons all supposedly acting under direction of an unelected expert committee who were in fact little more than a front for his megalomaniac edicts.
I’d say the convections of democracy were breached more grievously in the states than by Morrison’s ego trip.”
I don’t disagree but Morrison should have spoken up about what was happening in states like Victoria however he chose not to. Why? Because he was too concerned with his image. The National Cabinet was a disaster and Morrison chose to legitimise Megalomaniac Dan and Maggot McClown. Morrison wanted to be liked, his legacy is that now he’s rightly despised.
10
Some comment upthread about older women being invisible.
I don’t agree. We are not. Don’t buy into that narrative.
2
Jesus Christ mole.
4
The National Cabinet was a disaster and Morrison chose to legitimise Megalomaniac Dan and Maggot McClown. Morrison wanted to be liked, his legacy is that now he’s rightly despised.
Absolutely.
What did he “conserve”?
Slowing spacktarded things down by 2 years over the life of your government while having the same policies ‘but a bit slower” is a well deserved ticket to oblivion.
7
I’d say the convections of democracy were breached more grievously in the states than by Morrison’s ego trip.
He set up the (illegal) National Cabinet and then sat back and watched us being abused by it. He empowered the local dictatorships. I’ve been calling him a traitor for months and see no reason to change my view. Whoever he was representing, it was not us.
19
I’m not greatly up to speed on what Morrison did with the GG during the first stages of ‘the pandemic’. However, it seems to me not unrealistic for him to consider assignment of major authority to himself rather than ‘experts’ or Ministers lower down the food chain should the situation become drastic.
Cassie is right that the more egregious thing was for him to create a National Cabinet and refuse to manage it properly. He should have used some of his powers (new or not) to intervene for the general good so many times during 2020 and 2021. He let the Premiers run with it, and did nothing to halt the border closures, nor the worst of the police outrages, let alone the loss of human rights re the jab.
6
A classic glamour shot from the Pireli calendar, you know, the one with all the hot chicks
It would seem to be showcasing the tyres.
13
Jesus Christ mole.
Please, no blaspheming.
Its not that sort of blog.
Thanks for that mole.
mole
Like Crom, to hell with you.
1
In a complete, diametric opposite to mole’s photographic journeys today, I had my very last parent/teacher interview thisngy this afternoon.
The PE teacher and Jessica Alba (in her prime) doppelganger I may have previously mentioned is teaching the son and heir something something.
Magnificent. Just magnificent. A1, top shelf, rolled gold stalking material.
3
Well, Mole, she’s no great beauty but she’s a nice normal looking woman whom many a man would like to get to know better.
I may have a certain personal interest in saying this, but a little bit of tummy on a girl, such as this one has, is no bad thing. She is not a stick insect and I think that shot is pretty attractive as such things go. Far better than the offending one shown previously.
In my good books again. We older ladies do have those, good books. And sometimes still a few good looks. Certainly not invisible. 🙂
6
Bluey
“Or right out of left field, coalition with the Liberals.”
Coalition/amalgamation with the left of the Lieborals and Nationals, then the left of the Liars and the Teal ducks join the Slime, and the social conservative part of the Liars join the rumps of the Lieborals and Nationals to hold the balance of power in both houses.
Consider my efforts a palate cleanser for your good self then KD.
Dot.
Please cant we be civil about this.
frank.
Another man of taste and style I see.
Mother Lode
Yes, a regular 18 wheeler.
2
The GG should resign today.
Why not?
His agents haven’t finished shaking me down?
On a similar topic, I recently had cause to reconsider a statue that I saw a few weeks ago. Initially it was quite impressive, and even, dare I say it, inspirational, though it will not be long before such an opinion counts as thoughtcrime.
Yet on a sober review, it rates as glitzy propaganda. You see it does not really show the final broader picture. What happened to these three purveyors of truth? Manning was found out, put in prison, and was so crazy he got his dangly bits cut off while still inside. Assange has for all practical purposes been under illegal detention for a decade, probably gone crazy by now too. And Snowden, well he’s not in prison but is in exile, living relatively well off in Russia, and is basically the odd one out in this line up, possibly due to his early escape, tech knowledge, and a few good Chinese fortune cookies.
So to take a snapshot of all of these upstanding folk before the blowback had reached them is just not telling the whole story. The fourth chair is empty, and with these examples as guidance one is tempted to assume it will stay empty.
I am off now to practice being invisible in the kitchen where Hairy has taken over all cooking.
He simply doesn’t see me. Although I am perfectly visible elsewhere.
2
Despite regarding SloMo as a complete waste of space it seems I overestimated him.
8
Like Kamala and the appalling trannie in charge US Federal Health, she’s been pulled out of Pandora’s diversity box without even a second thought.
More cynical than that, I think.
Any challenge to what they say can instantly be depicted as racism or homophobia or whatever – shifting the focus from the inadequacy of the doggerel they puked up instead to the ridiculous sideshow distraction of blackophobia or dykophobia or bloke-in-a-dress-phobia which no one really takes seriously but which they would never dream of publicly treating less seriously than the Holocaust.
5
Methinks if there’s anything positive left of Scumbag Morrison’s political legacy, it’s sinking faster than the Titanic.
Morrison was Turnbull’s whore — Trumble’s surrogate in the Lodge tasked with executing the World Economic Forum policy agenda of his predecessor.
Kevin Rudd was a just a rubbish prime minister, not a self-enriching crook like Trumble, who was and is Washington DC-level corrupt.
6
Concerns grow over Australia’s bulk billing crisis
The President of the Australian Medical Association is urging the government to “modernise” Medicare as a growing number of doctors opt to scratch the bulk billing system due to rising costs – leaving patients to pay the price.
When you’re trying to keep quacks on the putting green and conceal the high cost of healthcare in this country, having large numbers of people discover the true cost of healthcare would certainly rate as a crisis.
4
Like Crom, to hell with you.
A very ancient god, Dot. An Odin type.
Crom in old Irish simply means ‘dark’, a term often reserved for Odin/Eiddyn, who is also called ‘the dark god’. Crom is a capricious fellow, a nasty piece of work, for Christians certainly had an intense dislike of him and gave him a very bad press (likely deserved). He is associated with the ancient stone circles, one famous circle in Ireland in particular; his name aligns to an Arthur variant in Cromarty, a area in lower Scotland, where the Cromarty Bridge passes over an island known for aeons back as ‘The Dark Isle’. His name may, I speculate, relate anciently to the Indo-European root word for time,
expressed in Greek as Chronus, and from which of course we create chronometer, chronology and many other ‘time’ words.
2
Jesus Christ mole.
It is indeed disturbing that you know these images even exist.
3
Cassie is right that the more egregious thing was for him to create a National Cabinet and refuse to manage it properly. He should have used some of his powers (new or not) to intervene for the general good so many times during 2020 and 2021. He let the Premiers run with it, and did nothing to halt the border closures, nor the worst of the police outrages, let alone the loss of human rights re the jab.
As bad as the federal and state responses to covid were, I’d beware of positing that granting more power to the federal government, the executive council or the office of the PM is the answer. Subsidiarity is generally to be preferred to centralisation of authority and power, even – or especially – in a democracy as small as ours.
5
Throwing my Arthurian ‘cloak of invisibility’ on now heading towards the kitchen.
Arthur had one of those. So did the god ‘Bran’, meaning Raven. What a coincidence. 🙂
3
Ali Rachid Ammoun: Accused Canberra Airport shooter was on parole for trying to murder ex-wife
Shannon Hampton and Kimberley CainesThe West Australian
Mon, 15 August 2022 3:48PM
A man accused of causing mayhem when he fired several shots at Canberra Airport was on parole at the time after walking free from a WA prison where he was serving a 16-year sentence for the horrific attempted murder of his ex-wife in Perth.
Ali Rachid Ammoun was jailed in WA’s Supreme Court in 2008 for stabbing his former wife at the time, Tayna Kepic, 27 times with a knife to the head and body and bashing her 61-year-old mother, Pamela Kepic, a year earlier.
Ammoun walked free from prison on parole in July last year after serving just over 14 years. He was given approval to have his parole order transferred to NSW a month earlier.
But just over a year later, he found himself back behind bars on Sunday after he was arrested in dramatic scenes at Canberra Airport after allegedly firing five bullets into the window panes.
The West Australian can reveal that in 2007, then aged in his late 40s, Ammoun broke into the Spearwood home of his ex mother-in-law Pamela Kepic, waiting for her to come home before attacking her. He tied up her arms and legs with ropes and put a hessian bag over her head.
2
As bad as the federal and state responses to covid were, I’d beware of positing that granting more power to the federal government, the executive council or the office of the PM is the answer. Subsidiarity is generally to be preferred to centralisation of authority and power, even – or especially – in a democracy as small as ours.
I take your point Roger, but there has to be some point in being a Federation where Federal control is part of the social contract. Defense is an emergency power, and so is defense against what used to be call ed for a certain horseman ‘pestilence’. Covid was not that sort of pestilence, but it might have been so in those early stages of management.
1
Letting the States run riot in a National Cabinet was a terrible idea if control wasn’t exercised Federally over it.
3
“Morrison was Turnbull’s whore — Trumble’s surrogate in the Lodge tasked with executing the World Economic Forum policy agenda of his predecessor.
Kevin Rudd was a just a rubbish prime minister, not a self-enriching crook like Trumble, who was and is Washington DC-level .corrupt.”
Yep.
7
A view only a gynaecologist might appreciate.
Lacks something of the artistry required to be otherwise.
As my brother-in-law, a retired US anaesthetist (or anaesthesiologist as they put it) says:
“A breast is just a breast in the operating theatre —
But a titty’s still a titty in the moonlight”
2
It was very much ‘jump, ‘how high’ with Trumble and Scummo. Along the exclusion of Abbott.
3
Along with the exclusion of Abbott.
One’s thing’s for sure, I won’t be rushing out to buy little Johnny hoWARd’s new book. A did buy his earlier one. Silly me. It took Trump and Trumble for him to show his true self. In the Fraser category now.
4
A statue of a bone-hunting former Tasmanian premier will be torn down in an “historic precedent” for removal of colonial monuments nationally.
In an at times fiery debate, Hobart City councillors agreed – by seven votes to four – to remove the statue of William Crowther, who in 1869 was accused of removing and stealing the skull of Aboriginal man William Lanne.
A pre-prepared release by the council said it had set a nation-leading precedent by becoming the first to “formally vote in favour for the removal of a colonial monument”.
“This is one small part of a discussion that is happening about truth telling,” said Lord Mayor Anna Reynolds. “Around the country … the community does want to take steps to have a much more honest and brave conversation about our colonial history.
“To make a decision to relocate this statue does not change history. We are making a new historic decision for our city … We’re saying we’re ready to have truth telling take prime position in our prime civic square.
“It’s a decision of leadership. It’s a decision of principle and it’s an important new chapter in our history.”
However, several historians had urged a delay on the vote, arguing further research was required before being able to conclude Crowther – who denied the claims against him – was guilty of the mutilation.
A motion to put the decision to an elector vote was defeated, while debate was inflamed by revelations a PR firm hired by the council prepared – and accidentally released – a press release announcing the decision before the meeting even began.
“Someone could see that and come to a conclusion that this was done deal,” Alderman Simon Behrakis told the meeting.
Mr Behrakis and other aldermen also expressed concern that the decision was being made at the last meeting before a council election.
He likened removal of the statue to “burning books”.
“We need to preserve our history warts and all,” he said. “Removing this statue does sanitise history,” he said.
Councillor Jax Fox said removal of the statue was “the right thing to do” and had strong community support.
Under the decision, $20,000 will be spent to remove the statue to the city’s valuables collection “until a permanent home is found”. A further $50,000 will be spent on “interpretative elements onsite”.
A policy will now be developed to guide the removal or addition of other monuments.
The move is strongly backed by several Aboriginal groups, members of which attending Monday’s meeting held up photographs of Lanne and a skull.
They argue there is little doubt Crowther was a “body-snatcher” and the statue is a symbol of racism and oppression.
However, one group, the Circular Head Aboriginal Corporation, on Monday said some of the accusations against Crowther were “fanciful” and accused the council of failing to act on historic facts.
HCC chief executive Kelly Grigsby said no media statement had been authorised for release before the meeting started.
I take your point Roger, but there has to be some point in being a Federation where Federal control is part of the social contract. Defense is an emergency power, and so is defense against what used to be call ed for a certain horseman ‘pestilence’.
But only in regard to control of federal borders.
Morrison otherwise only had powers of persuasion available to him – rhetorical and fiscal.
As it turned out, he was not up to using either.
4
How profitable is NDIS?
The NDIS is a multi-billion dollar market that is tipped to expand significantly toward the $30B mark by 2025, making it one of the best business opportunities in Australia.
Apart from Thai massage parlours, NDIS outlets seem to be the only other growth industry showing up on every street corner.
3
ne’s thing’s for sure, I won’t be rushing out to buy little Johnny hoWARd’s new book. A did buy his earlier one. Silly me
Nor I – pity, I did used to rather enjoy reading the memoirs of the great and good.
1
Morrison otherwise only had powers of persuasion available to him – rhetorical and fiscal.
He had the Biosecurity Act, which gave him – as the Health Minister – immense powers.
2
Tin pot South Americans dictators collect medals and strut about looking ridiculous.
Tin pot Australian wannabe dictator El Morro collected portfolios and strutted about looking ridiculous. I now know why he was always smirking.
5
However, several historians had urged a delay on the vote, arguing further research was required before being able to conclude Crowther – who denied the claims against him – was guilty of the mutilation.
“Stories my Nanna told me..”
4
The most worrying aspect of Morro’s userpation of Hunt’s Health Ministerium is that they recognised that the unfettered power granted to Hunt by s475 of the Biosecurity act makes Hunt a Dictator.
“A declaration under section 475 gave Hunt as health minister exclusive and extraordinary powers. He, and only he, could personally make directives that overrode any other law and were not disallowable by parliament. He had authority to direct any citizen in the country to do something, or not do something, to prevent spread of the disease.”
The justification for the plan, according to the prime minister, was that by asking the Governor-General to invoke section 475, he effectively would be handing Mr Hunt control of the country.
So instead of repealing s475 of the act and replacing it with something less dictatorial, Morro appointed himself joint Emperor alongside Hunt.
New VicLoserLibs ad. Lame, pathetic, poor… adjectives fail me.
4
A policy will now be developed to guide the removal or addition of other monuments.
This is absolutely the right direction to move next, but it doesn’t go far enough. In recognition of the case that motivated this new policy, I strongly suggest this new policy be named The William Crowther Memorial Policy Against Memorialising Colonialists Like William Crowther.
1
I would like to say something in defence of Morro.
But alas, I am stumped.
3
How does importing 200,000 workers assist the working class increase their bargaining power?
The working class is getting decent wage increases. Lowering supply chain pressure through immigration will help workers by dampening inflation so that their wages go further.
This is not a zero sum game. Real wage increases and immigration can happen at the same time. It has happened before and it will happen again.
1
My 2c wotth on Victoria. Place abounds with Stockholm syndrome. Dan is going to romp it home in Nov.
Some opulence on display in Bendigo & shonky contracts too. A copper clad government building that would cost an absolute fortune. Another building nearby that has a government rent contract for it life, not just 20 years type life but the life of the building. They aren’t even masking corrupt dealings anymore.
Ah I’d also forgotten how cold this joint was. Deep cold that penetrates to the bones. Spring can’t come soon enough.
7
Barrysays:
August 15, 2022 at 8:32 pm
The VicLibs are committing Seppuku!!!!
New VicLoserLibs ad. Lame, pathetic, poor… adjectives fail me.
To be fair, what else are the PR firm involved supposed to do?
There’s 0.0000 [recurring to infinity] positive to say about the Victorian Libs, and their policy platform is 100% “we accept Labor/Greens’ arguments in full but we’ll be an insipid version of them”.
Something vacuous like that ad is a waste of money, but actually trying to say something specific about the goat rodeo would inevitably be a disaster.
1
That fucking idiot littleproud rabbiting on about carbon/CO2 capture. Clean coal or CO2 capture is a failed idea. metallurgist John Harborne described why in a 2009 article at Online Opinion.
Basically the energy required to extract the CO2 from the coal is about the same as produced by the burning of the coal and the waste takes much more room to bury than was created by the coal which was mined.
The working class is getting decent wage increases.
Outside of government and mining, where!?
Lowering supply chain pressure through immigration will help workers by dampening inflation so that their wages go further.
Labour supply isn’t causing inflation. Unless by the working class you mean skilled labour, which the government are gobbling up and have done so since 2018.
1
Let’s acknowledge that having a ticket to clear a drain or wipe down graffiti is pure credentialism and a ticket clipping racket.
A lot of “skilled labour” is bit of a joke.
1
m0nty-fa
“Lowering supply chain pressure through immigration will help workers by dampening inflation so that their wages go further.”
Getting immigrants to wipe the arses of the elderly will lower supply chain pressure. Who would have guessed?
3
Labour supply isn’t causing inflation.
Dot, you believe an acute shortage of labour pushing up the price of labour would is not contributing to inflation?
My 2c wotth on Victoria. Place abounds with Stockholm syndrome. Dan is going to romp it home in Nov.
Well unlike WA the Senate was 50-50 in May.
There is no official opposition in either federal or state spheres- it’s uniparty aka the political -media class. Enemies of the people.
5
It is industry specific Salvo which is why I pause in calling it inflationary. Shipping container scarcity matters more on a societal level than a specific labour intensive commodity like berries (they really have been struggling to get wukkas). If it applies to all pickers, then maybe so. I also refrain from declaring inflation when it can be a case of economic loss/low/negative growth. There’s more to a lost harvest than a very high price for retail customers.
Look. There is a “jobs boom”. It’s the government on borrowed money into low productivity jobs that pay better than a lot of private sector jobs with equivalent credentials and experience.
There’s your problem, for the most part.
We have a lot of debt and we have chosen inflation as a one way to pay for it. A lot of government debt has been paid off by pushing people up tax brackets over time (“fiscal drag”). Then there is plain old crowding out of the price of loanable funds and cash.
Robert Rubin was a actually a very good macroeconomist despite being Clinton aligned. He believed the price level was correlated to the level of government spending. I think he was right, look at Australian housing since Whitlam.
1
The Steyn article someone linked to hit the nail on the head.
I’m really liking ADH TV. With Alan Jones four nights a week and now followed by Fred Pawle and Nick Cater on every Friday night, it’s giving Sky a run for its money.
7
Lowering supply chain pressure through immigration will help workers by dampening inflation so that their wages go further.
How does putting more demand in the economy through immigration resolve a supply problem brought about by a shortage of materials that are primarily imported?
9
Labour supply isn’t causing inflation.
Dunno about that but I was at Coles this morning and both they and the Subway sandwich shop had A4s posted on the door saying ‘now hiring’. Those were the ones I noticed, I suspect there were others on the bakery etc.
I was bemused that they can’t seem to get basic staff at all. Why? Is it because masking, or vaccinations, or just an economy-wide plague of we can’t be bothered. I don’t know. But there are walk-in jobs aplenty from the look of it.
I was wondering if it was due to a subsection of the population too scared to emerge into public. That would reduce the supply of labour and increase the need for it: all those trolley kids in the supermarkets these days filling on line shopping orders. Is it because of terror?
It’s obviously not immigration related since you never see immigrants working as checkout chicks. At least not here in Ncl.
I have no idea what’s behind this weird phenomenon, I’m just reporting what I’m seeing.
6
Look. There is a “jobs boom”. It’s the government on borrowed money into low productivity jobs that pay better than a lot of private sector jobs with equivalent credentials and experience.
The government is out competing and crowding out the private sector in the jobs market.
TaliDan has a 36 billion recurrent wages bill for his constituency scheme. They are actually employing people first and engineering the job second.
4
“Bar Beach Swimmersays:
August 15, 2022 at 9:32 pm
I’m really liking ADH TV. With Alan Jones four nights a week and now followed by Fred Pawle and Nick Cater on every Friday night, it’s giving Sky a run for its money.”
Me too BBS.
2
Before COVID we had population growth of 1.3% (2020) and public sector employment growth annualised from 2018 to 2021 was 1.7%.
2
Dunno about that but I was at Coles this morning
all those trolley kids in the supermarkets these days filling on line shopping order
Depending on the amount of notice you give them and the delivery window you choose, you can get your shopping delivered by Coles for as little as $2.
Hardly worth starting the car to go and do your own shopping.
1
Hardly worth starting the car to go and do your own shopping.
Up to a point, Lord Copper.
It’s worth going to the store if you prefer to look at the perishables before buying them.
If you don’t, you might get the last turkey in the shop, figuratively and maybe literally.
4
Basically the energy required to extract the CO2 from the coal is about the same as produced by the burning of the coal and the waste takes much more room to bury than was created by the coal which was mined.
The Vic news is full of the excitement of a RNA research facility to be set up at Monash Uni.
The ghouls gathered at the prospect of a home grown vaccine industry.
Victoria is naturally the pick of sites as investors can be assured that the population won’t be given a choice as to whether they use the vaccines or not.
The Premier psychopath was all ears, mask and shit eating grin at the big announcement.
4
The working class is getting decent wage increases. Lowering supply chain pressure through immigration will help workers by dampening inflation so that their wages go further.
So what happened to the reign of terror the libs were inflicting on the wukkas you whacker?
Are you saying there is no link to supply of labour and wage pressures?
If 50 fantasy football visa holders come in and compete offering a similar product to you of similar quality will it affect the price you can demand?
Its all to prime the population ponzi, screw anyone already in the country
8
A statue of a bone-hunting former Tasmanian premier will be torn down in an “historic precedent” for removal of colonial monuments nationally.
One of the Councillors trotting out all the rubbish about “Sovereignty was never ceded”, “Always was, always will be Aboriginal Land..”
How can a wandering tribe of Stone Age hunter gatherers, with out even a written language have “sovereignty?”
2
Those Colesworths drones filling multiple online shopping orders really clog the aisles if you shop old skool.
4
No wonder we need to import Indians if those are the jobs being created.
1
How does putting more demand in the economy through immigration resolve a supply problem brought about by a shortage of materials that are primarily imported?
Exactly.
1
How can a wandering tribe of Stone Age hunter gatherers, with out even a written language have “sovereignty?”
Absolutely no concept. Most people in PNG had bugger all clue about what independence meant when it happened.
1
it seems to me not unrealistic for him to consider assignment of major authority to himself rather than ‘experts’ or Ministers lower down the food chain should the situation become drastic.
The problems are larger than assign authority to himself.
With two Ministers, who has the final authority and responsibility? That was never explored, explained, nor brought to the attention of Parliament let alone the Australian public who were affected by these machinations.
The biggest issue was that ScoMo did all this in secret. Keeping the populace in the dark, keeping most of cabinet in ignorance, forcing the GG to keep his lips sealed, and making vital decisions about infrastructure development unfettered by the spotlight of media scruitiny and legitimate questions from the voting public.
How does putting more demand in the economy through immigration resolve a supply problem brought about by a shortage of materials that are primarily imported?
Every Sri Lankan refugee will bring in a suitcase full of 2 x 4 planks.
Ahh, malicious compliance.
Try the email on contact page, Zatara.
ScoMo retrospectively caught out declaring himself Grand Poobah of everything under Section 64 as the Great Plague of Xi-Fauci was kicking off. No cabinet or Nationals input at all, in fact, they had no idea he’d done it.
Holy rollers often have a god complex.
Will do Dover
THE DEMOGRAPHICS OF CRIME – It’s the Amish Again!
Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension released its report on the state’s 2021 crime statistics late Friday afternoon. My colleague Bill Glahn was one of the few who noticed.
The BCA’s numbers indicate that in 2021, homicides were up 72% over 2019, the state’s last “normal” year. Aggravated assaults were up 63% over 2019, and robberies up 30%. Minnesota’s crime wave continues to worsen.
What I really want to focus on is the demographic numbers, specifically with regard to homicide:
The racial characteristics of murder in Minnesota are very similar to 2020. Of known victims, 123 were African American, or 65 percent of the total. Of known perpetrators (a single murder could have more than one), 209 (76 percent) were African American. Compare these figures to the share of African Americans in Minnesota’s population, which is less than 10 percent.
African Americans represent less than 10% of Minnesota’s population, but are 76% of the state’s murderers and 65% of its murder victims. These facts make nonsense of complaints by Black Lives Matter activists, and liberals generally, that law enforcement unfairly targets blacks, or that blacks are “over-represented” in arrests or any other metric.
Return to Sender
Return to Sender
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PU5xxh5UX4U
Rap isn’t hateful.
Where I want to be.
Never leave me alone.
Gravel pit.
Get money (heh).
Do for love.
Big poppa.
No money, mo problems.
de la Soul were pretty wholesome without being lame.
Yes, because if there is one thing Australia needs right now, it is more Muslims.
What could possibly go wrong?
Yes, because if there is one thing Australia needs right now, it is more Muslims.
What could possibly go wrong?
It could be disastrous! There might be more sportspeople refusing to wear rainbow uniforms during Pride Rounds!
Oh, wait, that’s only a problem if they’re Christians. As you were. No problem at all.
So your argument now is “Trump totally declassified those nuclear secrets in his mind years ago without telling anyone so that is law and you can’t prove otherwise”.
This is the dumbest talking point of the Trump era.
Dot
“Boambee
Do you think the FAS documentation on the W87 and W88 is actually disinformation?”
The magazine Aviation Week and Space Technology was known as Aviation Leak. Some items were genuine leaks, others turned out to be disinformation. The trick was to work out which was which.
If I wasn’t using a phone I would give a good example, but typing on this is a pest.
This video is hilarious.
Chappell gone after 45 years
No one will miss that farking annoying upward inflection as as he prattled about himself.
But fair play for slapping down the even more annoying hanky head/
SUGAR TROLLS CRAWLING THROUGH MY VEINS
THIER SHOUTED MONGDOM DRIVES ME INSANE!!!
“Trump totally declassified those nuclear secrets in his mind years ago without telling anyone so that is law and you can’t prove otherwise”.
“The FBI raid on Trump’s estate has increased the chances of a red wave in November.
Leftards are shit at politics. And the further left you go (e.g., the antifa-infested Democratic Party) the more hopeless they are. That’s the main reason they hate democracy: they have no idea how it works.”
They may be shit at politics but they are damn good at elections.
Fatboy
Who packed the contents when Trump left the White House? Do we know? If not why not?
The West Australian has been campaigning recently against sexism in the mining industry. It has been using little journalistic tricks like sending a female reporter to Diggers and Dealers, the mining industry’s annual piss-up in Kalgoorlie, so she could report on being harassed. They even went as far as to put the photo of an accused rapist on the front page because he was a FIFO worker.
Today’s headline lets the cat out of the bag. They want quotas in the mining industry, apparently to stop sexism. But are they really that dumb? Could they really believe that an increase in women will lead to a decrease in complaints? Or are they hoping for the exact opposite, so they can mine the ‘sexist mining industry’ story for years to come?
m0nty-fa
“That’s the thing about bullshit: it may be true, it may not, who among us random dweebs on the Internet really knows, but you don’t care about credibility or the truth so you run with it anyway because it temporarily bolsters your argument.”
Look in the mirror, fvckwit. You are the exact mirror image of what you criticise, except that Zatara has some actual knowledge of the subject. You don’t.
monty believes there are ‘nuclear secrets’ involved and he accuses others of stupidity.
[Why is it different, unless you can prove that Trump didn’t actually make the decision?]
So your argument now is “Trump totally declassified those nuclear secrets in his mind years ago without telling anyone so that is law and you can’t prove otherwise”.
Poor old shiteater. I never said any such thing. I don’t know how the decision was made (if it was), or how it was documented or communicated (if it was), and have never made any assertions about those issues. I’ve just had to school you as patiently as I can that your flatulent bloviations about the US classification system were not only based on zero grounds, but also betrayed your total lack of knowledge about what rules for decision making, and practicalities of administering secrecy systems, are often like.
Re ‘Sloop John B’, here’s Al Jardine talking about how it came about and singing it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYpiur8eVcU
vr at 1008
Spends a lot of he time on her back, with her heels braced against the sheets.
So you don’t know anything, but you think you can “school” me based on your extensive knowledge from being Johnny English or something. Yeah nah, you’re not a secret agent and you don’t have US security clearance. Back in your box, Tim N.
But he can’t say what’s in the affidavit, but the leakers aren’t lying nor are they breaching the National Security Act themselves.
Hmmmmm…..
A Deeper Dive Into the CDC Reversal
It was a good but bizarre day when the CDC finally reversed itself fundamentally on its messaging for two-and-a-half years. The source is the MMWR report of August 11, 2022. The title alone shows just how deeply the about-face was buried: Summary of Guidance for Minimizing the Impact of COVID-19 on Individual Persons, Communities, and Health Care Systems — United States, August 2022.
The authors: “the CDC Emergency Response Team” consisting of “Greta M. Massetti, PhD; Brendan R. Jackson, MD; John T. Brooks, MD; Cria G. Perrine, PhD; Erica Reott, MPH; Aron J. Hall, DVM; Debra Lubar, PhD;; Ian T. Williams, PhD; Matthew D. Ritchey, DPT; Pragna Patel, MD; Leandris C. Liburd, PhD; Barbara E. Mahon, MD.”
It would have been fascinating to be a fly on the wall in the brainstorming sessions that led to this little treatise. The wording was chosen very carefully, not to say anything false outright, much less admit any errors of the past, but to imply that it was only possible to say these things now.
“As SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, continues to circulate globally, high levels of vaccine- and infection-induced immunity and the availability of effective treatments and prevention tools have substantially reduced the risk for medically significant COVID-19 illness (severe acute illness and post–COVID-19 conditions) and associated hospitalization and death. These circumstances now allow public health efforts to minimize the individual and societal health impacts of COVID-19 by focusing on sustainable measures to further reduce medically significant illness as well as to minimize strain on the health care system, while reducing barriers to social, educational, and economic activity.“
In English: everyone can pretty much go back to normal.
Focus on illness that is medically significant. Stop worrying about positive cases because nothing is going to stop them. Think about the bigger picture of overall social health. End the compulsion. Thank you. It’s only two and a half years late.
What about mass testing?
Forget it: “All persons should seek testing for active infection when they are symptomatic or if they have a known or suspected exposure to someone with COVID-19.”
Oh.
What about the magic of track and trace?
“CDC now recommends case investigation and contact tracing only in health care settings and certain high-risk congregate settings.”
Oh.
What about the unvaccinated who were so demonized throughout the last year?
“CDC’s COVID-19 prevention recommendations no longer differentiate based on a person’s vaccination status because breakthrough infections occur, though they are generally mild, and persons who have had COVID-19 but are not vaccinated have some degree of protection against severe illness from their previous infection.”
Remember when 40% of the members of the black community in New York City who refused the jab were not allowed into restaurants, bars, libraries, museums, or theaters? Now, no one wants to talk about that.
Also, universities, colleges, the military, and so on – which still have mandates in place – do you hear this? Everything you have done to hate on people, dehumanize people, segregate people, humiliate others as unclean, fire people and destroy lives, now stands in disrepute.
Meanwhile, as of this writing, the blasted US government still will not allow unvaccinated travelers across its borders!
Not one word of the CDC’s turgid treatise was untrue back in the Spring of 2020. There was always “infection-induced immunity,” though Fauci and Co. constantly pretended otherwise. It was always a terrible idea to introduce “barriers to social, educational, and economic activity.”
The vaccines never promised in their authorization to stop infection and spread, even though all official statements of the CDC claimed otherwise, repeatedly and often.
You might also wonder how the great reversal treats masking. On this subject, there is no backing off. After all, the Biden administration still has an appeal in process to reverse the court decision that the mask mandate was illegal all along. “At the high COVID-19 Community Level,” the CDC adds, “additional recommendations focus on all persons wearing masks indoors in public and further increasing protection to populations at high risk.”
The problem from the beginning was that there never was an exit strategy from the crazy lockdown/mandate idea. It was never the case that they would magically cause the bug to go away. The excuse that we would lock down in wait for a vaccine never made any sense.
Monty
Do you still think the national archivist has Q clearance?
The guys who wrote the affidavit do, but they cannot view the seized documents?
…and the documents would “normally “ reside in the…national archives?
This is truly bizarre.
test
Guys
I’ve just seen a copy of the nuke document from Trump’s office!!!! It reads:
“Monty is a grade-A nuclear shiteater”
(Who is going to be so sick of #winning)
“Yes, because if there is one thing Australia needs right now, it is more Muslims.
What could possibly go wrong?”
Perhaps we should ask Salman for his opinion.
Canberra shooter…….
The man arrested over the shooting at Canberra Airport on Sunday afternoon (14 August) has been formally charged and is in custody. He made no application for bail.
Ali Rachid Ammoun, 63, is accused of using a revolver to shoot windows at the airport, causing chaos at the facility and sending it into lockdown.
He appeared in the ACT Magistrates Court on Monday (15 August) where he was formally charged with recklessly shooting at the airport, unauthorised possession of a .38/200 Smith & Wesson revolver and intentionally shooting the revolver to cause a named person fear for their safety.
Wearing a Hawaiian shirt and appearing over audio-visual link, Mr Ammoun said he understood each of his three charges.
His Legal Aid lawyer Tamzin Lee said he would not apply for bail and also said her client wanted the ABC to be excluded from the media-filled courtroom gallery.
Magistrate Robert Cook refused, saying, “this is an open court and the ABC have a right to report on such matters”.
There goes the insanity defence.
“Ali Rachid Ammoun”
That’s what goes wrong.
m0ntysays:
August 15, 2022 at 2:24 pm
…
So you don’t know anything, but you think you can “school” me based on your extensive knowledge from being Johnny English or something. Yeah nah, you’re not a secret agent and you don’t have US security clearance. Back in your box, Tim N.
Poor old shiteating mental defective. Nothing I’ve said is based on any claims to special knowledge.
I’ve just quoted you numerous laws on the public record which refute your fatuous bullshit about your “common sense” insights on how decision making systems work.
If you had any real information showing that the US classification system operates differently to those incontrovertible examples I’ve provided, you’re still at liberty to provide it.
GO!!!
The worst thing (one of) is the tactics they rolled out en-masse for an airborne impossible to stop ENDEMIC would actually work for the Schlong Covid.
Its focused in a small group.
Its harder to transmit (touch and open sores)
Its easier to detect.
Yet because its ‘political” because it hits a special snowflake group they will let it rumble on until it either burns out or actually becomes a serious population wide disease.
The political implications of calling for a cockdown on this small group is apparently larger than covid was.
Oh. Someone might want to tell the immigration minister, whose priority is to import more Muslims.
Good lord.
They effectively funneled billions to crime groups, spivs and rorters in the rush to get the NDIS money out the door.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-15/ndis-disability-taskforce-to-target-organised-crime-fraud/101332668
A police taskforce to hunt down organised crime groups exploiting the National Disability Insurance Scheme will be established by the government in coming weeks, the NDIS Minister says.
An investigation by Nine newspapers has alleged members of the Hamzy and Alameddine crime groups in Sydney and other organised criminal gangs have been rorting billions of dollars from the NDIS scheme.
…
NDIS Minister Bill Shorten gave a scathing assessment, as he announced a multi-agency taskforce would be established to track down fraudsters.
“I think they’re literally gutless cowards,” Mr Shorten told Nine this morning.
“They may think they’re tough, some of these organised crime people. They may boast amongst themselves how clever they are.
“The rest of Australia despises this. And what we’re going to do is make sure that the NDIS is only for the people who need it.”
Mr Shorten said he had warned the former government of massive fraud in the scheme.
He said he suspected there was exploitation and coercion by criminal gangs, but also that there may be people unconnected to organised crime who were padding bills and “robbing the scheme”.
…
NDIS anti-fraud teams have recovered a small portion of the alleged billions that have been defrauded from the scheme, charging 18 people since 2020 with a total of about $14 million in alleged fraud.
I cant work out why all these sharks are appearing and eating all the chum we dumped in the water, a government spokesmong whimpered yesterday….
Fnarrr.
Never underestimate the hidden clout of the homo staffer lobby, either – even if at present they’re all sitting on inflatable ducky cushions, and with both single-use disposable ice packs at the ready and immaculate hair.
That’s the way, Peanut Head. Shame those well-established career criminals into not taking free government money dropped in their laps. Tell ’em that’s not what taxpayer money is for. That’ll do it.
He appeared in the ACT Magistrates Court on Monday (15 August) where he was formally charged with recklessly shooting at the airport, unauthorised possession of a .38/200 Smith & Wesson revolver and intentionally shooting the revolver to cause a named person fear for their safety.
If only he’d said, “Alec Baldwin” when asked his name .. LOL!
Please Mr Immigration minister, can we have some more of these please?
They may think they’re tough, some of these organised crime people. They may boast amongst themselves how clever they are.
The rest of Australia despises this. And what we’re going to do is make sure that the NDIS is only for the people who need it.
Peanut Head’s onto it now.
They’ll be in more trouble than a teenage girl at a Labor youth camp.
KD
Dont tell me you are going to bet against Bill “piss holes in the snow for eyes” Shorten against the combined intelligence, rat cunning and violent tactics of the organised crims?
Cant you see how scared they must be, seeing … checks notes… 14 million dollars recovered out of the billions stolen.
The rest of Australia despises this. And what we’re going to do is make sure that the NDIS is only for the people who need it.
The kick-back is soooo, bloody, good that here in Fairfield, NSW the NDIS providers have shopfront offices in the shopping malls .. rental that don’t come cheap! .. LOL!
The authorities react.
Never underestimate the hidden clout of the homo staffer lobby, either – even if at present they’re all sitting on inflatable ducky cushions, and with both single-use disposable ice packs at the ready and immaculate hair.
Ministers’ staffers are full of them. Do we recall Warren Entsch’s loyal staffer, the redoubtable Nathan Winn? You know, the expert in desk cleaning.
Point of Order: I don’t think you bend over backwards to deny the link between gay sex and Monkeypox.
Fraser’s Lebs. Again.
The Lion of Beaconsfield will not be lectured to by scruffy falafel munchers.
When it comes to eyes like two piss holes in the snow the QLD premier takes the ring.
“When you are playing a women’s grand final and the best player award goes to a male, there is something wrong.”
Daily Mail
BHP started talking female quotas some 4-5 years ago. All it’s done is ensure that many blokes throw in the towel at striving for promotion, so they pretend to work and get wads of bux for it still. So yeah, they really are that dumb.
The Lion of Beaconsfield
Any relation to the Aardvark of Beaconsfield? .. LOL!
Set up for this way from the get go.
When the first NDIS product off the line was ‘concierge’ services to guide recipients through the smorgasbord of options available (for a fee), it was clear to all that trays of money were being laid out.
NDIS anti-fraud teams have recovered a small portion of the alleged billions that have been defrauded from the scheme, charging 18 people since 2020 with a total of about $14 million in alleged fraud.
NDIS anti-fraud teams, obviously, training alongside the CentreLink anti-fraud mob going off their success rate(s) .. LOL!
Mmm…but I don’t think SloMo is bright enough to have come up with this himself.
Odds on someone advised him and he then went and asked dim bulb Porter if it was kosher.
NDIS providers have shopfront offices in the shopping malls
Plenty of tradies utes, Jim’s Mowing etc displaying the NDIS Provider details. Tax Agents, Financial Planners etc. All in on it for another revenue stream.
So surprising that those smarter and shiftier than Dodgy Bros. wouldn’t see the opportunity. They all had prior experience in Childcare.
“m0ntysays:
August 15, 2022 at 12:57 pm
What’s in the affidavit monty?
I don’t know, but this bloke makes an educated guess.”
To call that shit “educated” would be much like calling a failure in Economics 1 a qualification.
At least $2,000,000,000 stolen and they have recovered $14,000,000. So, they have recovered less than 1%. Obviously, they have their best men working on this. Their Best Men.
We can relax now.
Which will be paid off, $10 per Centrelink payday, for the next several thousand years.
And yet, the disabled are still left eating beans on toast.
The NDIS was a sinecure for 22,000 middle class whites women to have an easy no work job as an APS for life.
2 clients per week!
The intent was to make disability insurance easier, now we have a hybrid freak from the bowels of Treasury and Dr Frankenstein’s lab.
How difficult is it to fail first semester economics?
Golf is bad for the planet.
French Climate Extremists Fill Golf Course Holes with Cement During Drought (15 Aug)
Maybe someone could let them know that cement is too.
How difficult is it to fail first semester economics?
If you hit uni with high school economics, commerce or business studies (or whatever they are called these days) it isn’t hard.
But if you spent your time at band camp maybe it would be.
The NDIS was a good idea that was always going to turn into a beetroot juice shit spray.
“So you don’t know anything, but you think you can “school” me based on your extensive knowledge”
m0nty-fa himself knows less than fvck all about the subject, but has spent all of today and much of yesterday pontificating about it. Then he complains when asked to justify what he has been saying.
The NDIS scheme was another early failure of the Abbott government. Upon getting elected in 2013 the Coalition had ample opportunities to rein it in and yet they did nothing. But you know what, “they did nothing” is a fitting epitaph for nine years of lousy Coalition governments.
thefrollickingmolesays:
August 15, 2022 at 10:36 am
Blog has montypox.
Having no dick he is a taker not a giver.
Harder than passing.
That is why I suggest people be a bit more wary of of the subtle snares of Monty-logic.
Short Willie on Sky now.
“We warned the government.’
Of course ya did peanut. Whose thought bubble was the NDIS?
Wearing a Hawaiian shirt and appearing over audio-visual link, Mr Ammoun said he understood each of his three charges.
His Legal Aid lawyer Tamzin Lee said he would not apply for bail and also said her client wanted the ABC to be excluded from the media-filled courtroom gallery.
I’m starting to like this fuckwit.
And I wonder what “consultancy fees” Govt drones received for shepherding the fraudsters through this Aladdin’s cave of taxpayer funded treasure?
https://www.brevity.com.au/blog/ndis-business-opportunities/
How profitable is NDIS?
The NDIS is a multi-billion dollar market that is tipped to expand significantly toward the $30B mark by 2025, making it one of the best business opportunities in Australia.
Heard something on the radio earlier about Peter Costello getting paid $300,000 by Packer for lobbying the Vic Gov, anyone know anymore details?
Fixing the NDIS rorting is easy.
Offer bounties & indemnities for whistleblowers.
There is no honour amongst thieves.
Toad
And what amendments did the Liars propose as the legislation went through Parliament?
Interesting. The .38/200 Smith & Wesson revolver is also known as the .38 S&W Short and the .38 S&W NP (New Police). Not many manufacturers make ammo for them anymore. If it’s an Australian WWII army issue, it could be worth big dollars to a collector.
Wonder where he got his hands on one of them?
the subtle snares of Monty-logic.
Up there with the alluring charms of Amy Schumer
The cut glass diction of Julia Gillard
The economic prediction skills of Paul Krugman
Please ban thefrollickingmole for that Amy Schumer monstrosity.
A few days ago, the fat fascist fool proclaimed that he “had a life”. Since then he has been pretty much full time here.
It seems that his “life” does not involve either his family or his business.
After leaving office with the government coffers overflowing (which really just means they were taking more in tax than they needed, but anyway) without ever winning the top job so coveted by him (and everyone else but he had at least delivered on his existing job), then watched the bacchanalian orgy of spending at all levels of government with excuses only the most devoted inebriate would think subtle enough to get away with, maybe after all this Peter thought, “Fuck it. Fuck them. They said they wanted the books balanced but when it comes down to it they really don’t. I grifting is the real game I’ll show them I can play that one too.”
Only 15%-20% fewer beans due to the ‘service fees’ charged.
Be like Therese Rudd.
Please ban thefrollickingmole for that Amy Schumer monstrosity.
Using the Alexandra Donkey Chompers criteria that means you just want to shag her.
I simply can’t believe these headlines about the NDIS. M0nty told us, actually lectured us, that the NDIS is the greatest piece of expenditure since the NBN. Gillard will be remembered for eternity for this amazing piece of governance, he said. Rorted by unions, Labor spivs and crooks? No chance says m0nty. This is there purely to benefit obese mentally ill types like his goodself.
The fat fuck is wrong about everything.
When will you borrow that neck tie m0nty?
There was movement at the kebab shop,
for the word had passed around
That the NDIS from Julia was there to play
And had joined other rort schemes-
near a billion to be found
So all the Mohs had gathered to the pay
All the tried bikie riders
Oops
Didn’t mean to post that. Work in progress or not.
There is a story (I suspect apocryphal) relating to the Battle of Marathon and the general Miltiades, specifically in how he was granted the prize as the second most valiant Greek on the day, but no one came first.
According to the story it was widely acknowledged among the Generals present (apparently the Athenian system was that Generals took daily turns to be in overall command rather than having a single one in command throughout the campaign) that Miltiades’ strategy was key to their success.
In the aftermath of the battle Generals would vote on who had been the most gallant, courageous, heroic soldier on the day. Each General voted himself first, and Miltiades second. So no one came first, but by unanimous decision Miltiades was second greatest.
I mention this because this is how Australians see the priorities of government spending contra fiscal rectitude.
Everyone knows that spending must be cut. Everyone knows we cannot afford to pay for every hairbrained goofy program that forces its way into our world from the retarded universe. But everyone also knows that their own pet project is the one that must be preserved. Everyone’s thing – their own ‘General’ – wins the first prize, and financial responsibility – the Miltiades – is their second.
All the self-pleasuring schemes comes first, and the saddest thing is that politicians have discovered they can award all the first prizes by raiding the piggy banks of generations not even born yet.
sfwsays:
August 15, 2022 at 4:32 pm
Heard something on the radio earlier about Peter Costello getting paid $300,000 by Packer for lobbying the Vic Gov, anyone know anymore details?
Nine denies Costello was secret Packer casino lobbyist
Nine Entertainment has denied chairman Peter Costello worked as a “secret Crown lobbyist” for James Packer after the allegation was raised in a selection of the billionaire’s erratic emails leaked to the press.
According to the emails published by The Australian on Monday, Mr Packer claimed he’d hired Costello to be a casino lobbyist in 2011, helping him get “close to” the Victorian gaming minister. Nine said Mr Costello was an “adviser” to Mr Packer during that time, and refuted claims he was working as an unregistered lobbyist.
“Peter Costello did NOT lobby for CPH, he was an adviser to them on other business matters for a year in 2011 he has never been a registered lobbyist because he isn’t a lobbyist,” a spokesperson for Nine said.
But the airing of Mr Packer’s private emails puts the spotlight back on the former Crown owner, who has recently spoken about a desire to re-enter Australian public life for a so-called “meaningful and successful Act 3”.
Among the few emails aired were Mr Packer’s personal attacks on Mr Costello and Nine Entertainment’s managing director of publishing James Chessell. In one, Mr Packer also appeared to praise Nine’s Crown Unmasked report, a six-month investigation into his scandal-plagued company.
Dozens of emails sent
It’s understood Mr Packer has sent several dozen emails to Nine executives, including to Mr Chessell, since June after taking offence to the media group’s news coverage of his international business activities.
In an internal note published on Monday about the report into Mr Packer’s emails, Mr Chessell assured staff that now-Nine chairman never interfered in the group’s reporting about Crown casino.
“I never heard a word from Peter Costello about Crown Unmasked before, during or after publication/broadcast,” Mr Chessell wrote.
“I received another dozen emails from Packer last night.
“In the past he has copied in executives from competitors such as Seven and News. I hope he genuinely does make peace with Crown Unmasked and I wish him all the best.”
Mr Packer sold the Crown casino group to US private equity giant Blackstone in an $8.9 billion takeover in February this year.
Packer’s troubled past
The sale netted Mr Packer’s Consolidated Press Holdings $3.2 billion, coming off the back of years of scandal. In 2019, The Sydney Morning Herald and 60 Minutes? Crown Unmasked report into the troubled company, uncovered allegations that it had links to individuals or groups suspected of sex trafficking and drug importation.
During a government inquiry into the Crown casino in 2020, Mr Packer talked about being diagnosed with bipolar disorder when questioned about threatening emails he sent to an unnamed businessman.
Mr Packer appeared chastened at the time, calling the behaviour “shameful” and “disgraceful” and telling the inquiry he was being medically treated for the disorder.
Oh, whoever it was that posted the Damo and Darren link the other day…
FMD that was funny. I watched the other four as well. I swear I have seen people like that – on train platforms too!
Biden at the Beach: Bikes, Bad Dress, and Questions of Ethics
The minute that Joe Biden got two days of negative tests after having COVID, after being isolated for several days, he was immediately off on vacation to Delaware. He had one stop in Kentucky thereafter regarding the flooding in the state, then on Wednesday this past week, he was out the door again for another beach vacation to Kiawah, South Carolina.
Along on the trip was his wife Jill, his son Hunter, Hunter’s wife, and Hunter’s son, baby Beau, along with some of Joe’s other grandchildren.
They were met by protesters when they arrived on the island.
While Americans are being crushed under the boot of Bidenflation, Joe Biden and his family are staying at the $20 million oceanfront home of a political donor, Maria Allwin. According to the New York Post, Joe isn’t paying a dime and he’s done this in the past.
“They stayed here before and they’re not paying,” a source close to the family told the New York Post. “They’ve never paid. They’re just friends.”
Biden asked Allwin if he could stay at her home, the source told the Post.[….]
The White House frustrated reporters by offering little transparency about Biden’s South Carolina trip, which is expected to last through early next week.
But it sounds like he’ll be back early in the week — when he’ll go back to a three-day work week, calling early lids, then head off back to Delaware and the beach again.
A view only a gynaecologist might appreciate.
Lacks something of the artistry required to be otherwise.
Monty.
How does importing 200,000 workers assist the working class increase their bargaining power?
Labor vows to prioritise Australian jobs as it eyes migration boost
Annual intake could potentially rise from 160,000 to up to 200,000 places as businesses cry out for skilled workers
The federal treasurer, Jim Chalmers, last week told ABC radio “it’s pretty clear that we need a bigger workforce”.
..
The federal Coalition backed expanding migration numbers but said Australian workers must be “first in the queue” for new jobs.
…
The Labor state government in Victoria and the Coalition in New South Wales backed increasing the nation’s skilled migration intake.
…
Its a big club, the uniparty, and you are not in it.
There’s no sainthood for Obama, National Archives in Trump FBI raid uproar
Accusations are flying fast and furious regarding last week’s FBI raid at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home. In my Wednesday piece for The Post, I noted that 30 million pages of Obama administration records had been trucked to Chicago. The Obama Foundation, working with the National Archives, promised to digitize and put them online. Almost six years after the records arrived at a Chicago-area warehouse, that hasn’t happened.
Trump revved up the controversy Friday when he asserted that Barack Obama “kept 33 million pages of documents, much of them classified. How many of them pertained to nuclear? Word is, lots!”
Trump has not revealed any source for his allegations that many of the papers were classified and that they had “lots” of “nuclear” material. The Obama Foundation and the National Archives have denied there are any classified documents in those records.
The media have largely sainted the National Archives in this ruckus. The agency issued a statement Friday: “As required by the [Presidential Records Act], former President Obama has no control over where and how [the archives] stores the Presidential records of his Administration.”
But the National Archives blocks access to official records at the behest of every former president and his designated officials.
Almost all the media coverage of this controversy has ignored or downplayed the dismal failure of the Presidential Records Act to reveal presidents’ records. A Washington Post analysis of the dispute on the 30 million pages conceded, “As with many issues of government transparency and document-sharing, it’s true that this is not great! You often have to wait years for requested documents, and this appears to be no exception.”
But journalists should be outraged by this perpetual stonewalling. Barack and Michelle Obama collected a $65 million advance for their memoirs, but Americans are still effectively prohibited from seeing his official records.
The Presidential Records Act requires people seeking information to file a Freedom of Information Act request. As Politico reported in March, “At many presidential libraries, the queues for processing FOIAs stretch for years,” and requests “involving classified information can take more than a decade.”
Obama boasted he had “the most transparent administration in history.” In reality, the Obama administration was as devious as the Nixon administration when it came to government secrecy.
In 2011, Obama’s Justice Department formally proposed to permit federal agencies to falsely claim that FOIA-requested documents did not exist. The American Civil Liberties Union complained that the plan perverted “a law designed to provide public access to government information to be twisted to permit federal law enforcement agencies to actively lie to the American people.”
Obama’s lawyers claimed a new veto power that turned FOIA into a travesty. White House Counsel Gregory Craig quietly notified all federal agencies in 2009 that “all documents and records that implicate the White House in any way are said to have ‘White House equities’ and must receive an extra layer of review, not by agency FOIA experts, but by the White House itself,” a congressional report noted. Politico observed in 2016 that in some cases, White House FOIA “referrals have led to years of delay.”
The Obama Foundation and the National Archives talk about digitizing those 30 million pages as if it were an almost unfathomable labor of Hercules. It took me less than five minutes searching online to find a Kodak scanner that can handle 150,000 pages a day. Buy 10 of those scanners, and the 30 million pages could easily be digitized within a month. The scanners cost $20,000 each, but the Obama Foundation has $560 million in assets and the top three employees receive more than $500,000 a year. It could easily find the money for the scanners if disclosure were the goal.
The Obama Foundation estimates that 95% of Obama administration records were “born digital.” They could be easily placed online — if disclosure were the goal. Will the National Archives insist on “reviewing” each page for spelling errors before it goes live on the Internet or what?
Obama’s machinations don’t make Trump trustworthy. The Justice Department has not yet revealed precisely what documents it seized at Mar-a-Lago and what legal charges may be filed. There are plenty of questions about the motivation of the FBI raid, the possible role of an FBI confidential informant and the alleged seizure of materials protected by attorney-client privilege
At this point, National Archives bureaucrats seem to have adapted the early motto of National Review, standing “athwart history, yelling Stop.” But as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wisely warned in 2012, “Lack of transparency eats away like a cancer at the trust people should have in their government.”
Too little, too late: Disband the CDC now
Dissolve the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Last week, the CDC released updated COVID-19 guidance. The agency now believes we should be taking an individual approach to mitigating our COVID risk. In layman’s terms, we are all Florida 2020 now.
The new guidance suggests ending “test to stay” so kids exposed to someone with COVID-19 can remain in school. Of course, this was only related to known exposure. People are exposed to COVID all the time, but only children who were aware of that exposure were punished. Kids lost so much throughout the pandemic because of terrible, irrational CDC guidance like this.
The fresh guidance also says people without symptoms no longer need to be routinely tested.
And the CDC permits us to come within six feet of each other again. Finally! Husbands, tell your wives it’s on!
But most important, the agency has finally faced some truths about the vaccine that it should have long ago. “CDC’s COVID-19 prevention recommendations no longer differentiate based on a person’s vaccination status because breakthrough infections occur.” And it’s admitted that “persons who have had COVID-19 but are not vaccinated have some degree of protection against severe illness from their previous infection.”
Cities across the country fired teachers, firefighters, health-care staffers, police officers, sanitation workers and so many others because they refused to get vaccinated. Many of these people had worked through the early days of the pandemic — and contracted COVID many times over — while we baked banana bread and patted ourselves on the back for ordering from Uber Eats. Now the CDC acknowledges this was the wrong thing to do. Whoopsie!
The new guidance is all fine and good, sane even, but it’s August 2022 and fully absurd that the CDC is only now recognizing that people aren’t staying six feet apart and that a previous COVID-19 infection offers a layer of protection similar to the vaccine.
When COVID first hit our shores, we naturally looked to the CDC for direction. The agency may have previously offered its thoughts on how we should cook our burgers (well-done) and whether we should eat sushi (no), yet it was primarily in the background wagging its fingers at us while we ordered our steak medium-rare (another no-no).
But with COVID, its word became policy. In what should go down as one of the most disgusting moments in public health, the CDC allowed, with direction from the Biden White House, Randi Weingarten, American Federation of Teachers chief, to craft school-opening policies that forced classrooms across the country to remain closed in winter 2021.
No one has been fired for this dereliction of duty. No one has even been openly chastised for allowing a special-interest group to control our health-care policy. This alone is why the CDC must go.
A health agency that refers to pregnant “people” instead of “women” is one we can’t take seriously anyway, but one that plays with semantics like this during a pandemic is broken and cannot be repaired.
I think we all need to commiserate with KD after the shocking murder of his honey bunny yesterday.
Hes been stoic about it, but the man can only take so much.
Even at 3am, in the laneway outside the kebab shop, better shag than Amy Scumer
/sad walrus noises
Please ban Lizzie for luring extremely stupid people back to frolickingmole’s horrific offering even when they knew better.
I’m still waiting for a list of providers to vacuum my parents’ house once a week while I’m away. So far it has been almost two months.
I’m not hopeful. I’d ask one of my Christian friends to do it, but they’re all busy doing kindly things for the elderly gratis. I can’t impose.
There is no point engaging a contract cleaner. It’s impossible as no one wants to do the work any more or they’re already on the government list and fully booked. If I was ten years younger I’d start up a business doing rentals maintenance – name your price.
The government has completely distorted the market with this garbage. All at our expense.
Speaking of gynaecologists, a ventriloquist and her talking monkey go for a checkup. Two minutes, pretty funny in a cringy Ricky Gervais sort of a way.
Montana Girl
11 YR OLD WHO SHOT ILLEGALS. Thanks FOX NEWS for reporting it.
A Shotgun-armed Preteen vs. Illegal Alien Home Invaders.
Two illegal aliens, Ralphel Resindez, 23, and Enrico Garza, 26, probably believed they would easily overpower home-alone 11-year-old Patricia Harrington after her father had left their two-story home.
It seems these crooks never learned two things:
They were in Montana.
Patricia had been a clay-shooting champion since she was nine.
Patricia was in her upstairs room when the two men broke through the front door of the house. She quickly ran to her father’s room and grabbed his 12-gauge Mossberg 500 shotgun.
Resindez was the first to get up to the second floor, to be the first to catch a near point blank blast of buckshot from the 11-year-old’s knee-crouch aim. He suffered fatal wounds to his abdomen and genitals
When Garza ran to the foot of the stairs, he took a blast to the left shoulder and staggered out into the street where he bled to death before medical help could arrive. It was found out later that Resindez was armed with a stolen 45-caliber handgun he took during another home invasion robbery. That victim, 50-year-old David 0’Burien, was not so lucky. He died from stab wounds to the chest
Ever wonder why good stuff never makes NBC, CBS, PBS, MSNBC, CNN, or ABC news? An 11-year-old girl, properly trained, defended her home, and herself against two murderous, illegal immigrants and she won.
She is still alive. Now THAT is Gun Control!
Good girl with a gun. 🙂
Any Cats know whether there is a limit on how long somebody can be employed on a Labour Hire contract? I seem to recall that an individual had a limit of 2 years before the individual should be offered the position (as a permanent employee) by the employer, or the position extinguished.
I didn’t think an employer can continue on a Labour Hire contract basis ‘forever’ but can’t find any references. Perhaps those provisions have expired.
Spokin’ Joe is wheely spiteful
By Miranda Devine
How convenient for Joe Biden that he is far from scrutiny on an extended vacation in a borrowed mansion in a secluded community on Kiawah Island, SC, the very week his attorney general unleashed a political firestorm by authorizing the FBI raid on the home of their shared nemesis, Donald Trump.
But the president couldn’t help a little subtle gloating as he rode a bike on the beach past the waiting media, flashing a cheery smile.
Asked about his vacation, he replied: “I’m enjoying it a great deal. I’ve been on the phone a lot, monitoring news reports.”
Yes, you can bet he is monitoring the news, with relish.
If there is one defining adjective for Biden’s presidency, it probably is spite. His consuming hatred for “the former guy”, whose name he often can’t bring himself to utter, is palpable.
He makes no secret of the fact that he despises Trump voters, too, all 74,223,369 of them. His unusual malice — fuelled by Trump-deranged historians he keeps inviting for endless “Socratic dialogues” in the White House — has had a corrosive effect on America.
If only Biden had been the unifying president he promised he would be, and shown a little grace in victory, commended Trump for Operation Warp Speed, perhaps, not spitefully unwound all his policies, not branded half the country “white supremacists” and “domestic terrorists” in his inaugural speech, not sicced the FBI onto parents at school board meetings, not weaponized the federal government’s security apparatus against his political enemies, not supersized the IRS to go after the little guy, not tanked the economy and lied about absolutely everything.
Joe’s failure to unify
He might have lowered the temperature on Trump derangement and set a more generous-spirited tone befitting a generous-spirited nation.
A statesman with America’s best interests in mind would have cautioned against the FBI raiding Mar-a-Lago or at least called for calm in a national address as soon as it happened. He would have been a president who is loved rather than reviled and mocked.
If only Biden had been the empathetic moderate that he pretended to be during the election campaign, we wouldn’t be at the perilous moment we are at today, with angry armed men in the hollers and the woods pledging civil war on TikTok, or storming an FBI office in Cincinnati, or ramming a burning car into the barricades at Capitol Hill, or God-knows-what in response to the Mar-a-Lago fiasco.
For them, Aug. 8, 2022, is a day that will live in infamy
We’ve had a flurry of leaks from the DOJ and the White House in an attempt at post-facto justification for this precedent-setting law enforcement overreach. It’s nuclear secrets. It’s Jared Kushner and the Saudis. Leak, leak, leak to the usual suspects.
But we’ve seen this playbook before. The Russia hoax, two impeachments, Alpha Bank, the Steele Dossier, Carter Page, the FBI lovebirds, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Stormy Daniels, Michael Cohen, Michael Avenatti, Adam Schiff, and on and on relentlessly.
So, forgive us for being skeptical. When the same top Obama administration officials who ran the Russia hoax are now back in the White House and running the DOJ it’s hard not to believe they are up to their old tricks.
The Bureau is ‘broken’
The FBI is unrecognizable since he joined in 1972, Turchie says, when agents were blue-collar crime fighters, rather than privileged Ivy Leaguers with ideological baggage.
“The FBI as I knew it has collapsed. Discipline has broken down and it has become nothing more than a police agency for the Democratic Party.”
Today the FBI has lost that spirit of independence and Turchie doubts it will ever contradict the wishes of the Biden administration, no matter how wrong-headed and politically partisan.
Mar-a-Lago is the tragic proof.
That young lady would make a damnfine Kitteh!
Gonzalo Lira
@GonzaloLira1968
He’s right, the truth is what gets people banned. Have you ever seen a flat-earther get deplatformed?
test
fail
Labor’s former base is on to them.
They’ll son be into high 20% primary vote territory & they’ll never form government in their own right again.
ABC’s Jonathan Karl: Isn’t Name Of Inflation Reduction Act “Almost Orwellian” Since It’s “Not Gonna Bring Inflation Down?”
Random act of Journalism in questioning White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre: “Isn’t it almost Orwellian? How can you call it the Inflation Reduction Act when the nonpartisan experts say it’s not gonna bring inflation down?”
There is not much point asking questions of Karine Jean-Pierre. Her little act where she looks like she is trying to be patient, closes her eyes for a fraction of a second too long and then goes to the binder is totally not convincing, at all. An empty vessel in need of an acting coach.
Samantha Maiden
@samanthamaiden
Oh.
“Scott Morrison was (secretly) appointed by Governor-General David Hurley to take control of the entire Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources 11-months before he scuttled an offshore gas project weeks out from the federal election.”
And, as with previous times, that silly grin of his will evaporate once it dawns on him (probably at 9:00 am every day for two weeks as if it is the first time) that the triumphalism of the MSM is not as well founded as it seemed at first.
They may eventually prevail – although Trump has been an elusive target for all these years and although I cannot speculate on how he will get out of the chicanery set up by whole departments of government and an MSM leaping with puppy-like energy and enthusiasm that it trickles piss, I have thought this many times before and Trump has repeatedly slipped through their grasping fingers.
But no matter what else, the proceedings as this all develops will end up inflicting damage on the kid-sniffer and some of his malign allies as casualties, and he will come out afterward even more diminished than he went in.
And he will realise it afresh every morning at about 9:00, after his strained weetbix and prune juice, for weeks.
Even now his depends are pushed to the limit every time he looks in the pantry and sees Corn Flakes and Coco Pops next to each other on the shelf.
And even if he cannot recall quite what has gone wrong he will be the butt of other people’s resentment that the star to which they thought they had harnessed themselves to soar to the highest reached of the corrupt Olympus that is home to the Democrat elite, instead crashes to Earth and no one seems to remember who they are.
Of course she did. Richmond is in classic what we here call ‘Teal’ territory – Hairy’s brother lives in Richmond near Richmond Park. It is swanky very upper middle class to super-weathly in parts. The link to this newest (and far more attractive) than Greta climate dolly shows an improvement – she is more generally concerned with matters ‘environmental’ – plastics, saving elephants and orangutans, deforestation etc than just totally obsessed with a climatic catastrophe (although there is there with her too). She will possibly grow out of it all as she gets older.
Methinks if there’s anything positive left of Scumbag Morrison’s political legacy, it’s sinking faster than the Titanic.
Can’t decide it it’s a good thing or not. Do they end up doing a coalition with the greens or do they suck up to independents. Or right out of left field, coalition with the Liberals.
Spokin’ Joe is wheely spiteful
Morrison himself is a skid mark, brushed off the Canberra porcelain by the electorate.
However, one of Ms Maiden’s tweeters makes a reasonable point:
Why not?
Has someone just realised this? This has been common knowledge since 2012, ten years ago.
The American ambassador was in Benghazi to meet the Turkish ambassador, the Libyan arms were sent to Syria via Turkey.
The last person to meet Christopher Stevens, the USA ambassador was the Turkish ambassador. By the time he left the compound after the meeting, all the surrounding streets were blocked by the jihadists preparing for their attack. The Turkish ambassador would have driven through one of these roadblocks, why didn’t he call Christopher Stevens and warn him of what was about to happen?
Coalition with the Greens.
Electoral poison.
That may depend upon the legal advice he was given.
Cassie of Sydney says:
August 15, 2022 at 6:26 pm
Methinks if there’s anything positive left of Scumbag Morrison’s political legacy, it’s sinking faster than the Titanic.
I agree but it sticks in the gullet to hear the ABC marvelling at the measure whilst TaliDan closed parliament and threatened the general population with his VicPol goons all supposedly acting under direction of an unelected expert committee who were in fact little more than a front for his megalomaniac edicts.
I’d say the convections of democracy were breached more grievously in the states than by Morrison’s ego trip.
To make amends for my Amy picture.
A classic glamour shot from the Pireli calendar, you know, the one with all the hot chicks
The Pirelli Calendar, known and trade-marked as “The Cal”, is an annual trade calendar which has been published by the UK subsidiary of the Italian tyre manufacturing company Pirelli since 1964. The calendar has a reputation for its choice of photographers and models and featured glamour photography from the 1980s until the 2010s.[1]
I’m borrowing that.
😀
Here I was thinking that the Liberals might get there act together and be out of power for two terms. Wrong. The Liberals will be at of power for at least a decade and probably longer. They’ll now become, just like the Liberals in WA, Victoria, South Australia, QLD, and soon to be NSW, the official party of opposition.
Poor old Bob Menzies, he must be rolling in his grave.
I see Dan is hot for more immigration.
It’s the only trick he’s got left.
Prepare for another million by 2027, Melburnians.
Like Kamala and the appalling trannie in charge US Federal Health, she’s been pulled out of Pandora’s diversity box without even a second thought. All great examples of what you get from Democrat posturing that puts identity before character and competence.
“I agree but it sticks in the gullet to hear the ABC marvelling at the measure whilst TaliDan closed parliament and threatened the general population with his VicPol goons all supposedly acting under direction of an unelected expert committee who were in fact little more than a front for his megalomaniac edicts.
I’d say the convections of democracy were breached more grievously in the states than by Morrison’s ego trip.”
I don’t disagree but Morrison should have spoken up about what was happening in states like Victoria however he chose not to. Why? Because he was too concerned with his image. The National Cabinet was a disaster and Morrison chose to legitimise Megalomaniac Dan and Maggot McClown. Morrison wanted to be liked, his legacy is that now he’s rightly despised.
Some comment upthread about older women being invisible.
I don’t agree. We are not. Don’t buy into that narrative.
Jesus Christ mole.
The National Cabinet was a disaster and Morrison chose to legitimise Megalomaniac Dan and Maggot McClown. Morrison wanted to be liked, his legacy is that now he’s rightly despised.
Absolutely.
What did he “conserve”?
Slowing spacktarded things down by 2 years over the life of your government while having the same policies ‘but a bit slower” is a well deserved ticket to oblivion.
He set up the (illegal) National Cabinet and then sat back and watched us being abused by it. He empowered the local dictatorships. I’ve been calling him a traitor for months and see no reason to change my view. Whoever he was representing, it was not us.
I’m not greatly up to speed on what Morrison did with the GG during the first stages of ‘the pandemic’. However, it seems to me not unrealistic for him to consider assignment of major authority to himself rather than ‘experts’ or Ministers lower down the food chain should the situation become drastic.
Cassie is right that the more egregious thing was for him to create a National Cabinet and refuse to manage it properly. He should have used some of his powers (new or not) to intervene for the general good so many times during 2020 and 2021. He let the Premiers run with it, and did nothing to halt the border closures, nor the worst of the police outrages, let alone the loss of human rights re the jab.
It would seem to be showcasing the tyres.
Jesus Christ mole.
Please, no blaspheming.
Its not that sort of blog.
Thanks for that mole.
mole
Like Crom, to hell with you.
In a complete, diametric opposite to mole’s photographic journeys today, I had my very last parent/teacher interview thisngy this afternoon.
The PE teacher and Jessica Alba (in her prime) doppelganger I may have previously mentioned is teaching the son and heir something something.
Magnificent. Just magnificent. A1, top shelf, rolled gold stalking material.
Well, Mole, she’s no great beauty but she’s a nice normal looking woman whom many a man would like to get to know better.
I may have a certain personal interest in saying this, but a little bit of tummy on a girl, such as this one has, is no bad thing. She is not a stick insect and I think that shot is pretty attractive as such things go. Far better than the offending one shown previously.
In my good books again. We older ladies do have those, good books. And sometimes still a few good looks. Certainly not invisible. 🙂
Bluey
“Or right out of left field, coalition with the Liberals.”
Coalition/amalgamation with the left of the Lieborals and Nationals, then the left of the Liars and the Teal ducks join the Slime, and the social conservative part of the Liars join the rumps of the Lieborals and Nationals to hold the balance of power in both houses.
Consider my efforts a palate cleanser for your good self then KD.
Dot.
Please cant we be civil about this.
frank.
Another man of taste and style I see.
Mother Lode
Yes, a regular 18 wheeler.
His agents haven’t finished shaking me down?
On a similar topic, I recently had cause to reconsider a statue that I saw a few weeks ago. Initially it was quite impressive, and even, dare I say it, inspirational, though it will not be long before such an opinion counts as thoughtcrime.
Yet on a sober review, it rates as glitzy propaganda. You see it does not really show the final broader picture. What happened to these three purveyors of truth? Manning was found out, put in prison, and was so crazy he got his dangly bits cut off while still inside. Assange has for all practical purposes been under illegal detention for a decade, probably gone crazy by now too. And Snowden, well he’s not in prison but is in exile, living relatively well off in Russia, and is basically the odd one out in this line up, possibly due to his early escape, tech knowledge, and a few good Chinese fortune cookies.
So to take a snapshot of all of these upstanding folk before the blowback had reached them is just not telling the whole story. The fourth chair is empty, and with these examples as guidance one is tempted to assume it will stay empty.
I am off now to practice being invisible in the kitchen where Hairy has taken over all cooking.
He simply doesn’t see me. Although I am perfectly visible elsewhere.
Despite regarding SloMo as a complete waste of space it seems I overestimated him.
More cynical than that, I think.
Any challenge to what they say can instantly be depicted as racism or homophobia or whatever – shifting the focus from the inadequacy of the doggerel they puked up instead to the ridiculous sideshow distraction of blackophobia or dykophobia or bloke-in-a-dress-phobia which no one really takes seriously but which they would never dream of publicly treating less seriously than the Holocaust.
Morrison was Turnbull’s whore — Trumble’s surrogate in the Lodge tasked with executing the World Economic Forum policy agenda of his predecessor.
Kevin Rudd was a just a rubbish prime minister, not a self-enriching crook like Trumble, who was and is Washington DC-level corrupt.
When you’re trying to keep quacks on the putting green and conceal the high cost of healthcare in this country, having large numbers of people discover the true cost of healthcare would certainly rate as a crisis.
A very ancient god, Dot. An Odin type.
Crom in old Irish simply means ‘dark’, a term often reserved for Odin/Eiddyn, who is also called ‘the dark god’. Crom is a capricious fellow, a nasty piece of work, for Christians certainly had an intense dislike of him and gave him a very bad press (likely deserved). He is associated with the ancient stone circles, one famous circle in Ireland in particular; his name aligns to an Arthur variant in Cromarty, a area in lower Scotland, where the Cromarty Bridge passes over an island known for aeons back as ‘The Dark Isle’. His name may, I speculate, relate anciently to the Indo-European root word for time,
expressed in Greek as Chronus, and from which of course we create chronometer, chronology and many other ‘time’ words.
It is indeed disturbing that you know these images even exist.
As bad as the federal and state responses to covid were, I’d beware of positing that granting more power to the federal government, the executive council or the office of the PM is the answer. Subsidiarity is generally to be preferred to centralisation of authority and power, even – or especially – in a democracy as small as ours.
Throwing my Arthurian ‘cloak of invisibility’ on now heading towards the kitchen.
Arthur had one of those. So did the god ‘Bran’, meaning Raven. What a coincidence. 🙂
I take your point Roger, but there has to be some point in being a Federation where Federal control is part of the social contract. Defense is an emergency power, and so is defense against what used to be call ed for a certain horseman ‘pestilence’. Covid was not that sort of pestilence, but it might have been so in those early stages of management.
Letting the States run riot in a National Cabinet was a terrible idea if control wasn’t exercised Federally over it.
“Morrison was Turnbull’s whore — Trumble’s surrogate in the Lodge tasked with executing the World Economic Forum policy agenda of his predecessor.
Kevin Rudd was a just a rubbish prime minister, not a self-enriching crook like Trumble, who was and is Washington DC-level .corrupt.”
Yep.
As my brother-in-law, a retired US anaesthetist (or anaesthesiologist as they put it) says:
“A breast is just a breast in the operating theatre —
But a titty’s still a titty in the moonlight”
It was very much ‘jump, ‘how high’ with Trumble and Scummo. Along the exclusion of Abbott.
Along with the exclusion of Abbott.
One’s thing’s for sure, I won’t be rushing out to buy little Johnny hoWARd’s new book. A did buy his earlier one. Silly me. It took Trump and Trumble for him to show his true self. In the Fraser category now.
A statue of a bone-hunting former Tasmanian premier will be torn down in an “historic precedent” for removal of colonial monuments nationally.
In an at times fiery debate, Hobart City councillors agreed – by seven votes to four – to remove the statue of William Crowther, who in 1869 was accused of removing and stealing the skull of Aboriginal man William Lanne.
A pre-prepared release by the council said it had set a nation-leading precedent by becoming the first to “formally vote in favour for the removal of a colonial monument”.
“This is one small part of a discussion that is happening about truth telling,” said Lord Mayor Anna Reynolds. “Around the country … the community does want to take steps to have a much more honest and brave conversation about our colonial history.
“To make a decision to relocate this statue does not change history. We are making a new historic decision for our city … We’re saying we’re ready to have truth telling take prime position in our prime civic square.
“It’s a decision of leadership. It’s a decision of principle and it’s an important new chapter in our history.”
However, several historians had urged a delay on the vote, arguing further research was required before being able to conclude Crowther – who denied the claims against him – was guilty of the mutilation.
A motion to put the decision to an elector vote was defeated, while debate was inflamed by revelations a PR firm hired by the council prepared – and accidentally released – a press release announcing the decision before the meeting even began.
“Someone could see that and come to a conclusion that this was done deal,” Alderman Simon Behrakis told the meeting.
Mr Behrakis and other aldermen also expressed concern that the decision was being made at the last meeting before a council election.
He likened removal of the statue to “burning books”.
“We need to preserve our history warts and all,” he said. “Removing this statue does sanitise history,” he said.
Councillor Jax Fox said removal of the statue was “the right thing to do” and had strong community support.
Under the decision, $20,000 will be spent to remove the statue to the city’s valuables collection “until a permanent home is found”. A further $50,000 will be spent on “interpretative elements onsite”.
A policy will now be developed to guide the removal or addition of other monuments.
The move is strongly backed by several Aboriginal groups, members of which attending Monday’s meeting held up photographs of Lanne and a skull.
They argue there is little doubt Crowther was a “body-snatcher” and the statue is a symbol of racism and oppression.
However, one group, the Circular Head Aboriginal Corporation, on Monday said some of the accusations against Crowther were “fanciful” and accused the council of failing to act on historic facts.
HCC chief executive Kelly Grigsby said no media statement had been authorised for release before the meeting started.
Oz
But only in regard to control of federal borders.
Morrison otherwise only had powers of persuasion available to him – rhetorical and fiscal.
As it turned out, he was not up to using either.
How profitable is NDIS?
The NDIS is a multi-billion dollar market that is tipped to expand significantly toward the $30B mark by 2025, making it one of the best business opportunities in Australia.
Apart from Thai massage parlours, NDIS outlets seem to be the only other growth industry showing up on every street corner.
Nor I – pity, I did used to rather enjoy reading the memoirs of the great and good.
Morrison otherwise only had powers of persuasion available to him – rhetorical and fiscal.
He had the Biosecurity Act, which gave him – as the Health Minister – immense powers.
Tin pot South Americans dictators collect medals and strut about looking ridiculous.
Tin pot Australian wannabe dictator El Morro collected portfolios and strutted about looking ridiculous. I now know why he was always smirking.
“Stories my Nanna told me..”
The most worrying aspect of Morro’s userpation of Hunt’s Health Ministerium is that they recognised that the unfettered power granted to Hunt by s475 of the Biosecurity act makes Hunt a Dictator.
So instead of repealing s475 of the act and replacing it with something less dictatorial, Morro appointed himself joint Emperor alongside Hunt.
The Biosecurity Act s475 stands unchanged today, and only the GG stands between us and Mark Butler wielding absolute power in this country.
A trans man, perhaps.
She’s a keeper, mole. As in ‘keeper the hell away from me.’
The VicLibs are committing Seppuku!!!!
New VicLoserLibs ad. Lame, pathetic, poor… adjectives fail me.
This is absolutely the right direction to move next, but it doesn’t go far enough. In recognition of the case that motivated this new policy, I strongly suggest this new policy be named The William Crowther Memorial Policy Against Memorialising Colonialists Like William Crowther.
I would like to say something in defence of Morro.
But alas, I am stumped.
The working class is getting decent wage increases. Lowering supply chain pressure through immigration will help workers by dampening inflation so that their wages go further.
This is not a zero sum game. Real wage increases and immigration can happen at the same time. It has happened before and it will happen again.
My 2c wotth on Victoria. Place abounds with Stockholm syndrome. Dan is going to romp it home in Nov.
Some opulence on display in Bendigo & shonky contracts too. A copper clad government building that would cost an absolute fortune. Another building nearby that has a government rent contract for it life, not just 20 years type life but the life of the building. They aren’t even masking corrupt dealings anymore.
Ah I’d also forgotten how cold this joint was. Deep cold that penetrates to the bones. Spring can’t come soon enough.
Barrysays:
August 15, 2022 at 8:32 pm
The VicLibs are committing Seppuku!!!!
New VicLoserLibs ad. Lame, pathetic, poor… adjectives fail me.
To be fair, what else are the PR firm involved supposed to do?
There’s 0.0000 [recurring to infinity] positive to say about the Victorian Libs, and their policy platform is 100% “we accept Labor/Greens’ arguments in full but we’ll be an insipid version of them”.
Something vacuous like that ad is a waste of money, but actually trying to say something specific about the goat rodeo would inevitably be a disaster.
That fucking idiot littleproud rabbiting on about carbon/CO2 capture. Clean coal or CO2 capture is a failed idea. metallurgist John Harborne described why in a 2009 article at Online Opinion.
Basically the energy required to extract the CO2 from the coal is about the same as produced by the burning of the coal and the waste takes much more room to bury than was created by the coal which was mined.
Numerous clean coal projects have failed.
Outside of government and mining, where!?
Labour supply isn’t causing inflation. Unless by the working class you mean skilled labour, which the government are gobbling up and have done so since 2018.
Let’s acknowledge that having a ticket to clear a drain or wipe down graffiti is pure credentialism and a ticket clipping racket.
A lot of “skilled labour” is bit of a joke.
m0nty-fa
“Lowering supply chain pressure through immigration will help workers by dampening inflation so that their wages go further.”
Getting immigrants to wipe the arses of the elderly will lower supply chain pressure. Who would have guessed?
Dot, you believe an acute shortage of labour pushing up the price of labour would is not contributing to inflation?
My 2c wotth on Victoria. Place abounds with Stockholm syndrome. Dan is going to romp it home in Nov.
Well unlike WA the Senate was 50-50 in May.
There is no official opposition in either federal or state spheres- it’s uniparty aka the political -media class. Enemies of the people.
It is industry specific Salvo which is why I pause in calling it inflationary. Shipping container scarcity matters more on a societal level than a specific labour intensive commodity like berries (they really have been struggling to get wukkas). If it applies to all pickers, then maybe so. I also refrain from declaring inflation when it can be a case of economic loss/low/negative growth. There’s more to a lost harvest than a very high price for retail customers.
Look. There is a “jobs boom”. It’s the government on borrowed money into low productivity jobs that pay better than a lot of private sector jobs with equivalent credentials and experience.
There’s your problem, for the most part.
We have a lot of debt and we have chosen inflation as a one way to pay for it. A lot of government debt has been paid off by pushing people up tax brackets over time (“fiscal drag”). Then there is plain old crowding out of the price of loanable funds and cash.
Robert Rubin was a actually a very good macroeconomist despite being Clinton aligned. He believed the price level was correlated to the level of government spending. I think he was right, look at Australian housing since Whitlam.
The Steyn article someone linked to hit the nail on the head.
I’m really liking ADH TV. With Alan Jones four nights a week and now followed by Fred Pawle and Nick Cater on every Friday night, it’s giving Sky a run for its money.
Lowering supply chain pressure through immigration will help workers by dampening inflation so that their wages go further.
How does putting more demand in the economy through immigration resolve a supply problem brought about by a shortage of materials that are primarily imported?
Dunno about that but I was at Coles this morning and both they and the Subway sandwich shop had A4s posted on the door saying ‘now hiring’. Those were the ones I noticed, I suspect there were others on the bakery etc.
I was bemused that they can’t seem to get basic staff at all. Why? Is it because masking, or vaccinations, or just an economy-wide plague of we can’t be bothered. I don’t know. But there are walk-in jobs aplenty from the look of it.
I was wondering if it was due to a subsection of the population too scared to emerge into public. That would reduce the supply of labour and increase the need for it: all those trolley kids in the supermarkets these days filling on line shopping orders. Is it because of terror?
It’s obviously not immigration related since you never see immigrants working as checkout chicks. At least not here in Ncl.
I have no idea what’s behind this weird phenomenon, I’m just reporting what I’m seeing.
Look. There is a “jobs boom”. It’s the government on borrowed money into low productivity jobs that pay better than a lot of private sector jobs with equivalent credentials and experience.
The government is out competing and crowding out the private sector in the jobs market.
TaliDan has a 36 billion recurrent wages bill for his constituency scheme. They are actually employing people first and engineering the job second.
“Bar Beach Swimmersays:
August 15, 2022 at 9:32 pm
I’m really liking ADH TV. With Alan Jones four nights a week and now followed by Fred Pawle and Nick Cater on every Friday night, it’s giving Sky a run for its money.”
Me too BBS.
Before COVID we had population growth of 1.3% (2020) and public sector employment growth annualised from 2018 to 2021 was 1.7%.
Depending on the amount of notice you give them and the delivery window you choose, you can get your shopping delivered by Coles for as little as $2.
Hardly worth starting the car to go and do your own shopping.
Hardly worth starting the car to go and do your own shopping.
Up to a point, Lord Copper.
It’s worth going to the store if you prefer to look at the perishables before buying them.
If you don’t, you might get the last turkey in the shop, figuratively and maybe literally.
Just perfect then, for the climate scam.
Benny Johnson
@bennyjohnson
Mark Levin goes SCORCHED EARTH on Deep-State RAID on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home— STOP and watch this
Clay Travis
@ClayTravis
Moderna’s CEO says they are throwing away 30 million covid shots because no one anywhere in the world will take them. Yeah, no kidding, the shot is garbage. And everyone is slowly realizing it. It’s why no parents are getting it for their kids too:
The Vic news is full of the excitement of a RNA research facility to be set up at Monash Uni.
The ghouls gathered at the prospect of a home grown vaccine industry.
Victoria is naturally the pick of sites as investors can be assured that the population won’t be given a choice as to whether they use the vaccines or not.
The Premier psychopath was all ears, mask and shit eating grin at the big announcement.
The working class is getting decent wage increases. Lowering supply chain pressure through immigration will help workers by dampening inflation so that their wages go further.
So what happened to the reign of terror the libs were inflicting on the wukkas you whacker?
Are you saying there is no link to supply of labour and wage pressures?
If 50 fantasy football visa holders come in and compete offering a similar product to you of similar quality will it affect the price you can demand?
Its all to prime the population ponzi, screw anyone already in the country
One of the Councillors trotting out all the rubbish about “Sovereignty was never ceded”, “Always was, always will be Aboriginal Land..”
How can a wandering tribe of Stone Age hunter gatherers, with out even a written language have “sovereignty?”
Those Colesworths drones filling multiple online shopping orders really clog the aisles if you shop old skool.
No wonder we need to import Indians if those are the jobs being created.
How does putting more demand in the economy through immigration resolve a supply problem brought about by a shortage of materials that are primarily imported?
Exactly.
How can a wandering tribe of Stone Age hunter gatherers, with out even a written language have “sovereignty?”
Absolutely no concept. Most people in PNG had bugger all clue about what independence meant when it happened.
The problems are larger than assign authority to himself.
With two Ministers, who has the final authority and responsibility? That was never explored, explained, nor brought to the attention of Parliament let alone the Australian public who were affected by these machinations.
The biggest issue was that ScoMo did all this in secret. Keeping the populace in the dark, keeping most of cabinet in ignorance, forcing the GG to keep his lips sealed, and making vital decisions about infrastructure development unfettered by the spotlight of media scruitiny and legitimate questions from the voting public.
Now he refuses to talk about it. Scumbag.
https://twitter.com/SBakerMD/status/1559024608207982592/photo/1
Bug Puffs, anyone?
rickw:
Every Sri Lankan refugee will bring in a suitcase full of 2 x 4 planks.