Open Thread – Tue 23 Aug 2022


Boar Lane Leeds, John Atkinson Grimshaw, 1881

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HT
HT
August 25, 2022 9:06 am

Bruce of Newcastle says:
August 25, 2022 at 8:19 am

And they won’t need a bathroom.
Green Party Official Tells Germans To Use Washcloths Instead Of Taking Showers (24 Aug)

Nor a kitchen.
Sierra Club Pushes EPA to Ban Natural Gas Stoves (24 Aug)

Perhaps builders should convert to making tents instead. Get in before the rush.

Dan Andrew’s Victorian hospital builds are already ahead of you…

thefrollickingmole
thefrollickingmole
August 25, 2022 9:10 am

The in-Voice has spoken…
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/aug/25/victorian-treaty-fund-should-help-aboriginal-people-access-housing-market-first-nations-leaders-say

Victoria’s former treaty advancement commissioner, Jill Gallagher, has called for tertiary education and interest-free housing loans for First Nations people to be provided by an independent self-determination fund to alleviate the economic disadvantages of “250 years of racism”.

An independent fund is seen as a cornerstone of the state’s treaty architecture, and the call by Gallagher comes after Victoria’s parliament last week passed a landmark bill to create the nation’s first treaty authority body.

The body will act as an independent umpire to oversee treaty negotiations and resolve disputes between First Nations groups and the state government.

The in-Voiceing will continue. There is no reason to stop making more and more claims.

Zyconoclast
Zyconoclast
August 25, 2022 9:14 am

The idiots who run some small businesses (like Luna Park) are too stupid to have figured out that, when you cave in to the radical left, you alienate the vast middle class who, for example, are Luna Park’s bread and butter.

I think not.
The CPAC attendees are a small minority of ‘conservatives’ and a minuscule % of the middle class.

Luna Park will not even notice a down blip in attendance.

The go woke go broke thing only applies to stand alone small/medium sized businesses.

The large, mega, oligopolistic businesses continue as usual.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
August 25, 2022 9:15 am

Report reveals the staggering scale of Australia’s net-zero path

Australia’s north would be transformed by five or six “Tasmania-sized” solar arrays and huge hydrogen hubs, and draw several million additional people as an army of workers arrives to build and service a vast net-zero economy.

Those are among the key findings of a landmark forward-looking, multi-year modelling project led by experts at the universities of Melbourne, Queensland and Princeton in the US, which for the first time details the staggering scale of the nation’s decarbonisation pathway.

Delivering on that vision of a near-zero carbon economy that exports energy to the world will also require wind and solar energy capacity equivalent to 40 times that of today’s national electricity market.

And in a serious wake-up call for the Labor government, the work suggests meeting the 43 per cent cut in emissions due to be legislated next month by the Senate implies the country will require solar, wind and transmission equal to almost five national electricity markets.

Alongside the staggering numbers involved, the research raises serious questions about how the country will manage what are almost certain to be critical skills shortages, the need for more foreign workers and a push to secure sovereign supply chains.

The report’s authors warn of the need to engage and win the support of households, landowners and communities, as well as the farmers who will host many of the wind and solar farms, pipelines and carbon-absorbing plantations.

They note that Indigenous-controlled lands are among the most suitable for making green power from hydrogen.

“As fast and large as the transition will need to be, it is practically achievable,” writes Richard Bolt, principal at Nous Group, a consultancy that helped lead the research, in an opinion piece in Thursday’s The Australian Financial Review.

“A large capital investment is required, but the cost of energy services need not increase as a share of our economy”.

However, Mr Bolt said Australians “will need to profoundly change the way we are going about decarbonisation. The approval, financing and construction of clean infrastructure will need to be greatly accelerated.

“Net zero is therefore both an immense challenge and a once-in-a-generation, globally significant and nation-building opportunity.”

The Net Zero Australia report adopts methodology used in Princeton University’s 2021 Net Zero America project, and explores how renewables will produce almost all domestic energy by 2050, alongside carbon capture and storage (CCS) and an energy export industry.

To close the gap between targets for emissions cuts and other ambitions, and the real-world impacts and costs, as well as land use, the study analyses several versions of what the future could look like.

Export industry

This includes alternative worlds in which only renewables are allowed by 2050, and one scenario in which CCS is limited.

Across most of the modelled versions of the future, capital investment to fund decarbonisation of Australia’s domestic needs will be at least 50 per cent greater than what would happen if the country remained on fossil fuels.

The total annual domestic energy system cost will balloon from just under $90 billion a year today to more than $150 billion a year by the late 2030s and stay at that level through the 2060s.

Expanding that to develop an energy export industry capable of offsetting current earnings from coal and gas – for instance, via green hydrogen – involves investment from $100 billion a year to $600 billion.

Supporting that growth will require between 1 million and 1.2 million workers, the great majority of whom will be across northern Australia, helping support several million more residents.

Alongside the headline numbers involved, the project uniquely maps where all this activity will take place, suggesting many of Australia’s traditional resources regions will be among the big winners, including politically sensitive central Queensland.

The project received financial support from APA, Dow, Worley and the Minderoo Foundation, as well as input from the ACTU, National Farmers Federation and Australian Conservation Foundation.

Boambee John
Boambee John
August 25, 2022 9:16 am

bern

Noting that Taibbi is reliably of the left, I wonder what the DemonRat spinmeisters (and subsequently m0nty-fa) will include in the talking points to counter this article.

Is it too soon to refer to Mar-a-LagoGate? (I was going to abbreviate it to MaLGate, but that might have caused it to be mixed up with the Godwin Grech rubbish.)

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
August 25, 2022 9:18 am

Victoria’s former treaty advancement commissioner, Jill Gallagher, has called for tertiary education and interest-free housing loans

Interest free housing loans, on the basis of race, should do wonders for reconciliation, if interest rates are on the rise.

Indolent
Indolent
August 25, 2022 9:20 am

Steve Kirsch has provided a means for health care workers to tell of their experiences anonymously.

If you are a healthcare worker, now you can tell your story without fear of retribution
The only way this will end is if doctors are allowed to speak out about what is happening without fear of retribution. Now you can.

How sad is it that this is even necessary. Who can honestly say that we still live in a democracy?

Zyconoclast
Zyconoclast
August 25, 2022 9:29 am

REDUXX
@ReduxxMag

The “world’s youngest transgender model,” 10-year-old Noella McMaher, comes from a predominantly transgender household and is the child of a professional trans activist.

McMaher allegedly came out at age 2, and is set to have “gender surgeries” at 16.

Tom
Tom
August 25, 2022 9:33 am

Some improvement was already apparent with the airline’s on-time performance in August averaging 66 per cent, up from 52 per cent the previous month.

Bullshit.

As anyone who has used the airline system in the past three months will tell you, Qantas is unlikely to get you to where you’re going on time. From the latest official government Avstats for July:

The Qantas network recorded 52.3 per cent for on time departures while the Virgin Australia network recorded 50.9 per cent. Virgin Australia achieved the highest level of on time departures among the major domestic airlines for July 2022 at 51.1 per cent, followed by Jetstar at 47.7 per cent and Qantas at 45.3 per cent. Of the regional airlines, Rex Airlines recorded 70.6 per cent for on time departures, followed by QantasLink at 57.5 per cent and Virgin Australia Regional Airlines at 47.6 per cent.

Jetstar recorded the highest percentage of cancellations (at 8.8 per cent) during the month, followed by Virgin Australia (at 7.8 per cent), QantasLink (at 6.5 per cent), Virgin Australia Regional Airlines (at 5.9 per cent), Qantas (at 5.6 per cent) and Rex Airlines (at 2.1 per cent).

You may not know that, about a decade ago, the government redefined “on-time” as within 15 minutes of scheduled arrival departure so anything that’s 14.5 minutes late is classified as on-time.

Airline industry punctuality post-Kung Flu is a complete shambles. Qantas used to lead the stat with close to 90% of flights arriving and departing on-time.

The federal government has created most of the current problems through its hysterical policy responses to Kung Flu, which have left the airlines short-staffed. An on-time rate of 90% is now a faraway pipe dream.

Boambee John
Boambee John
August 25, 2022 9:33 am

Rogersays:
August 25, 2022 at 9:04 am
LaborLotto: ACTU pushes for industry-wide wage claims.

While the immigration lobby is pushing for easier pathways to permanent residency for 100 000 failed asylum seekers who haven’t returned home, international students and PI agricultural workers.

Somehow the unions don’t see the connection between higher low-skilled immigration and lower wages.

Unions have become part of the establishment against which they formerly protested. The rot set in when union “researchers” and secretaries were recruited from university graduates, with no direct connection to the work of the union members (unless perchance, they had a parent who once worked in the specific industry).

Then being a union secretary became the path to a seat in Parliament, so they learned not to rock the boat along the way.

Roger
Roger
August 25, 2022 9:34 am

Interest free housing loans, on the basis of race, should do wonders for reconciliation, if interest rates are on the rise.

No doubt many people are unaware of existing state schemes which feature a low deposit, no lender’s mortgage insurance, “flexible” repayments and co-ownership with the local indigenous housing authority for those who can’t afford to borrow enough to buy a home outright (i.e. the tax payer pays the balance).

No wonder so many are keen to identify as indigenous.

Roger
Roger
August 25, 2022 9:36 am

Unions have become part of the establishment against which they formerly protested.

That became evident to many during covid, when unions did not protect the rights of their members.

Bear Necessities
Bear Necessities
August 25, 2022 9:40 am

REDUXX
@ReduxxMag

The “world’s youngest transgender model,” 10-year-old Noella McMaher, comes from a predominantly transgender household and is the child of a professional trans activist.

McMaher allegedly came out at age 2, and is set to have “gender surgeries” at 16.

A friend of mine works in a State School. One of the dad’s of 2 children currently at the school is transitioning or believes he is transitioning to be a female. Funny thing is the eldest son wants to transition as well. 40 years ago the child would of been removed from the family for its own welfare. Mental illness is now actively encouraged in society.

Boambee John
Boambee John
August 25, 2022 9:41 am

mole

Victoria’s former treaty advancement commissioner, Jill Gallagher, has called for tertiary education and interest-free housing loans for First Nations people to be provided by an independent self-determination fund to alleviate the economic disadvantages of “250 years of racism”.

This sounds like a waaaayccisssst plan to end the “world’s oldest living culture” by assimilation it into the replacement culture.

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
August 25, 2022 9:42 am

From Wordwall #1 of the day, at 8.03:

The f..ck heads on this blog

Clearly, it’s going to be another ‘shallow cocksmoker traitorous get a clot and die’ day.

many others come here with overwhelming evidence

From satire sites. Got it.

As if the constitution is still being adhered to and voting is uncorrupted.

The Consty, which should apparently be read as a companion piece to the Daily ‘5 Days to Shutdown’ Expose and Zeee ‘Nanowires Found in Corpses’ Brains’ Media.

Also, a nice touch bringing in that the Clive Party’s votes were all stolen away by the tunnel people.

I have to record my slight disappointment at the lack of Death Campery so far. Still, the day is young.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
August 25, 2022 9:44 am

I today’s “Drawing a Long Bow” news.
Apparently the absence of someone from a blog is evidence of some vax tragedy having befallen them.
Have we made this assumption before?
Were we wrong?
Yes and yes.

thefrollickingmole
thefrollickingmole
August 25, 2022 9:47 am

Sancho Panzer

I died, but i got better.

Tom
Tom
August 25, 2022 9:48 am

Jetstar recorded the highest percentage of cancellations (at 8.8 per cent) during the month, followed by Virgin Australia (at 7.8 per cent), QantasLink (at 6.5 per cent), Virgin Australia Regional Airlines (at 5.9 per cent), Qantas (at 5.6 per cent) and Rex Airlines (at 2.1 per cent).

Like every other airline industry stat, the fight cancellation rate is now scandalous. Pre-Kung Flu, anything north of 1.1% was unusual. Now the flight cancellation rate is 5-10%. And it’s being felt most by holidaying families where Jetstar flights are suddenly cancelled because there aren’t the staff to operate them.

Boambee John
Boambee John
August 25, 2022 9:49 am

assimilating, not assimilation!

rickw
rickw
August 25, 2022 9:51 am

Corporate Diversity Consultants:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSbGmb5Wa9c

Roger
Roger
August 25, 2022 9:51 am

I have to record my slight disappointment at the lack of Death Campery so far. Still, the day is young.

Fun fact:

Wellcamp was coldest place in QLD today, dropping to -3.4c at 6.10AM this morning.

m0nty
m0nty
August 25, 2022 9:52 am

Excuse me for giving a shit, but what happened to the Trump raid story?

It’s not like an episode of Law & Order where they play the DUN DUN sound and suddenly we switch from cops to lawyers in an instant. Lawyers tend to take a long, long time to do stuff.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
August 25, 2022 9:53 am

Also, a nice touch bringing in that the Clive Party’s votes were all stolen away by the tunnel people.

Thanks for the reminder KD.
In the days immediately after the election embarrassment, Fat Cloive claimed he had REAL EVIDENCES of the AEC stealing votes.
Caught on fillem.
More than three months on and the normally litigious Cloive has not approached a JURDGE with his claim.
The real answer to Fat Cloive’s spectacular crash and burn is far simpler.
Too many wymmins candidates.
Real men don’t vote for COWS and they don’t let their wives vote for them either.
Speaking of election skullduggery and missing posters – where is Greta Thumbstix?

m0nty
m0nty
August 25, 2022 9:53 am

Also LOL at you lot getting angry at a giant clown head. Are you tired of winning yet?

calli
calli
August 25, 2022 9:53 am

Death Campery

Euphemism for Monkeypox?

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
August 25, 2022 9:54 am

Wellcamp was coldest place in QLD today, dropping to -3.4c at 6.10AM this morning.

It’s the freezers in the morgue.

calli
calli
August 25, 2022 9:54 am

I’ve been out in the garden removing a vast clump of ginger. Hard, hard work.

Not dead yet.

rickw
rickw
August 25, 2022 9:55 am

That became evident to many during covid, when unions did not protect the rights of their members.

Unions acted like the secret police, identifying, exposing and threatening anyone who dared depart from the narrative. Sadly most members didn’t get what was happening, otherwise Setka and his entourage would have got the bullet.

calli
calli
August 25, 2022 9:57 am

Anyone who looks forward to and gloats about the death of people with whom they disagree needs help.

Right now.

They are in the same boat as a rello who wished death on the unvaxxed. Completely unhinged if not outright evil.

H B Bear
H B Bear
August 25, 2022 9:58 am

Albo, living life looking in the rear view mirror.

calli
calli
August 25, 2022 9:58 am

Setka was well protected by his resident goons. We saw it in real time.

Delta A
Delta A
August 25, 2022 10:00 am

Thank you, Cats and Kittehs, for your condolences and kind words. Very much appreciated.

Roger
Roger
August 25, 2022 10:03 am

Much approval from the local ABC morning hosts today about Biden’s “forgiveness” of student loan debt.

Odd because the issue wouldn’t even be on most listener’s radars.

Not asked was the question of who picks up the tab.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
August 25, 2022 10:03 am

Biden’s Student Loan ‘Forgiveness’ Is An Unjust, Cynical Abuse Of Power

BY: DAVID HARSANYI – AUGUST 24, 2022

not to mention a moral hazard, counterproductive, and fundamentally immoral.

“No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.” That’s what it says right there in the Constitution. And yet, without any legislation, Joe Biden now promises to “cancel” up to $10,000 in student loans per borrower ($20,000 for Pell Grant borrowers), limited to those with annual incomes of less than $125,000.

Let’s start by pointing out that President Joe Biden isn’t “canceling” or “forgiving” any student loans. Those are preposterous euphemisms favored by Democrats and the media. The debt in question already exists, it has been lent and spent, and those who borrowed the money of their own volition have already received services. This debt isn’t cancelable.

The president hasn’t “forgiven” loans, he’s unilaterally broken existing contracts and transferred the responsibility of payment to taxpayers—many of whom have either repaid their own student loans or never borrowed any money to begin with. Now, if you’re opposed to repaying some stranger’s loan, that’s too bad. A new batch of IRS agents will be there to ensure that you do.

It should also be stressed that capping loan “forgiveness” to those making under $125,000 means absolutely nothing because most borrowers are at the beginning of their careers and have yet to enjoy the durable benefits of a college degree. The average worker with a bachelor’s degree ends up making, on average, $1 million more in their careers (those with graduate degrees $2-3 million more) than a worker with a high school diploma. And yet, the Biden administration is going to compel truck drivers and clerks without college degrees to pay the loans of white-collar workers on their way to six-figure salaries.

rickw
rickw
August 25, 2022 10:04 am
Boambee John
Boambee John
August 25, 2022 10:04 am

m0ntysays:
August 25, 2022 at 9:52 am
Excuse me for giving a shit, but what happened to the Trump raid story?

It’s not like an episode of Law & Order where they play the DUN DUN sound and suddenly we switch from cops to lawyers in an instant. Lawyers tend to take a long, long time to do stuff.

Today’s talking points are out!

rickw
rickw
August 25, 2022 10:07 am

Setka was well protected by his resident goons. We saw it in real time.

They were scared and outnumbered. What those outside didn’t comprehend was that they would be dealt with individually later on.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
August 25, 2022 10:07 am

MORE ON STUDENT DEBT, AND OUR DECREPIT PRESIDENT

Scott wrote about the Biden administration’s massive cancellation of student debt here and here. On its face, the administrative action appears to be illegal. In January 2021, a memorandum by the Principal Deputy General Counsel of the Department of Education concluded that the “HEROES Act” did not confer authority for such a mass loan forgiveness. That memorandum was repudiated and revoked yesterday by the Department of Education’s General Counsel. Nancy Pelosi is on record, saying that the Biden administration cannot lawfully forgive student debt. Today she changed her mind.

The theory underlying the administration’s mass cancellation is that it is “directed at addressing the financial harms of the COVID-19 pandemic.” How the obligation to repay debt on the part of millions of borrowers, or any incremental difficulty in repaying debt on the part of some of those millions, can be chalked up en masse as a “financial harm of the COVID-19 pandemic,” is beyond me.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
August 25, 2022 10:08 am

No doubt many people are unaware of existing state schemes which feature a low deposit

I, for one, was unaware of those schemes, thank you, Roger.

rickw
rickw
August 25, 2022 10:09 am

Today’s talking points are out!

Like the 6:00am garbage truck.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
August 25, 2022 10:09 am

Committee For a Responsible Federal Budget

Debt Cancellation Plan Is Costly, Inflationary, and Cynical

Today President Biden announced his plan to cancel $10,000 per borrower of student debt by executive action for households who make less than $250,000 in income (and individuals who made less than $125,000) plus up to $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients while extending the current repayment pause until December 31st. The plan also creates a new Income-Driven Repayment plan that cuts in half the required payments for undergraduate student loans and significantly reduces payments for all borrowers by making changes to the formula that determines the amount owed per month. The new repayment plan will also forgive smaller debt levels after ten years of payments.

The changes proposed today will likely cost an astronomical $400-$600 billion. Prior to the announcement, the last two Administrations and Congresses had already spent roughly $300 billion to pause repayments for 29 months and enact a variety of other changes to the student loan system. Including today’s announcement, policymakers will have spent between $700-900 billion on student debt cancellation and relief since the start of the pandemic.

The following is a statement from Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget:

H B Bear
H B Bear
August 25, 2022 10:09 am

Wellcamp was coldest place in QLD today, dropping to -3.4c at 6.10AM this morning

Good luck getting people into the gas shower at those temps.

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
August 25, 2022 10:12 am

I’ve been out in the garden removing a vast clump of ginger.

God’s work, calli. The less rangas in this world, the better.

H B Bear
H B Bear
August 25, 2022 10:12 am

Markle reviews Markle:

Meghan’s main problem is the rest of the world isn’t as stupid as her husband.

Roger
Roger
August 25, 2022 10:13 am

Sadly most members didn’t get what was happening…

I know through family contacts that the Nurses Professional Association of QLD saw a marked increase in membership due to the politicised manner in which the nurses union treated their members. Others – I know of a young nurse who was pregnant and didn’t want to take the vax – simply left the profession. The letter the union sent to members requesting representation on the vaccine issue is one of the coldest communications I’ve seen. Surprise…QLD Health is now short of nurses, with nurse managers doing double shifts to cover gaps.

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
August 25, 2022 10:14 am

Then:

Frank would have turned up by now.

Now:

‘Well what else would you have concluded.’

Roger
Roger
August 25, 2022 10:16 am

I, for one, was unaware of those schemes, thank you, Roger.

Found out about the QLD version through a friend of my oldest son who applied for a mortgage on the basis of some obscure indigenous connection. Went to a private school and has a good job, so not exactly disadvantaged. Not means tested, only a race test applied.

Pretty sure every state has them.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
August 25, 2022 10:17 am

Victoria’s former treaty advancement commissioner, Jill Gallagher, has called for tertiary education and interest-free housing loans for First Nations people to be provided by an independent self-determination fund to alleviate the economic disadvantages of “250 years of racism”.

So, a certain Greens senator, with an Aboriginal great grandmother, would be eligible for an interest free
housing loan….

cohenite
August 25, 2022 10:18 am

If Lachlan was Andrew Blot, Blot, being the perpetual wimp he is would no doubt shrug his shoulders and ignore the libelling, the lies and the smears, but ignoring it and turning the other cheek to it has only empowered them further. I say enough.

Bolt actually disagreed with Lachlan’s suit against crikey on the basis it gives the left more attention which, according to him, is what they want. He has a serious mental block about the left and how to deal with them. He is in the little johnnie, stiff upper lip camp.

You can’t reason with the left and there are no rules when you deal with them. Lachlan is doing the right thing: you have to destroy the left like the germs they are. Nothing else works. What is destroying conservatism are the likes of bolt and little johnnie and every other fucking gutless dickhead who thinks it is beneath them to get down and dirty.

P
P
August 25, 2022 10:21 am

Anglican Synod ‘may be the last’
By Adam Wesselinoff -August 25, 2022

When reading this article, words from a hymn written over 150 yrs ago by a clergyman of the Church of England came to my mind.
by schisms rent asunder,
by heresies distressed,

Sad days indeed for Christians.

H B Bear
H B Bear
August 25, 2022 10:21 am

independent self-determination fund

ATSIC on steroids. A gigantic Aboriginal Industry pinata.

H B Bear
H B Bear
August 25, 2022 10:24 am

You can’t reason with the left and there are no rules when you deal with them.

Treat them like the unions. Give them nothing and oppose everything.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
August 25, 2022 10:24 am

Trump Is Right. Mitch McConnell And Elaine Chao Spent Decades Getting ‘Rich On China’

For years, the McConnell and Chao families have cultivated a relationship that enriches the couple and grants status to the Chaos’ shipping company.

For decades, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and his wife Elaine Chao have maintained a glaring conflict of interest, conducting extensive government business despite the Chao family’s deep ties to China through a maritime shipping company. Now, former President Donald Trump is calling attention to the top Republican’s problematic China ties, while most of Washington remains silent.

“Why do Republicans Senators allow a broken down hack politician, Mitch McConnell, to openly disparage hard working Republican candidates for the United States Senate?” Trump asked in a Truth Social post on Sunday. “This is such an affront to honor and to leadership. He should spend more time (and money!) helping them get elected, and less time helping his crazy wife and family get rich on China!”

It didn’t take long for the corporate media to mock Trump’s assertion, framing his legitimate criticism of McConnell and Chao as unfair and unjust. Some outlets such as Vanity Fair even hinted that Trump’s comments were revenge against Chao for resigning from the Trump administration following the 2021 Capitol riot and subsequently cooperating with the illegitimate Jan. 6 Committee.

Trump’s criticism of McConnell and Chao, however, is not something to be taken lightly. For years, the McConnell and Chao families have maintained a symbiotic relationship that grants opportunities to the Chaos’ shipping company, Foremost Group, which largely operates in and on behalf of communist China.

This reciprocity is well documented, but unlike with Hunter Biden, there is less scrutiny from observers, including those on the right, for this “corruption by proxy,” as author and Government Accountability Institute President Peter Schweizer calls it.

– Blood Runs Thicker than Water
– How to ‘Get Rich on China’ 101
– Status and Power
– Consequences?

Given this track record, the likelihood that McConnell will support policies that curb his family’s fortunes is questionable at best. That’s why Trump’s criticism of the McConnells’ close personal and professional relationship with China is long overdue. At a time when Republicans are questioning McConnell’s ability to advance the new GOP’s agenda, raising these connections is nothing short of necessary.

Struth
August 25, 2022 10:25 am

And the mocking continues.

Sick fucks.
As men, you might think you should back off for the sake of those that you may influence.
But you really couldn’t give a fuck about anyone else.
It’s all about you.

Funny, I laughed when I wrote the last comments, as I knew KD would come in making a goat of himself.
I knew he would mention death camps and had him pegged for repeating what he himself, made up.
That I stated they would be gassing people.
A KD fabrication.
They scoff proving they have no civic responsibility at heart.
They scoff because they don’t care who they influence.
They scoff because they are frightened.
They scoff because they couldn’t give a fuck about their fellow man and their responsibility to them.
But it’s all coming out now.
Hard facts.
The jabbed are constantly getting sick, have lost their ability to think rationally, and are dying in large numbers.
Age groups that are far too young.
These fuckers will scoff all the way to the grave.
Make sure you don’t let them take you with them.
The facts are, and shown to you daily by many…..the jabbed are dying.
In large numbers.
Already.

They are catching any bug going around, and with a failing immunity, catching the same colds again and again.
Insanity.
Of course the sane thing to do would be to admit the truth and exact revenge/ get justice for what they have done to you, before…….tick, tick, tick……boom.

So, as I have asked many times before…..how many boosters are you going to get?

m0nty
m0nty
August 25, 2022 10:26 am

The latest in Trump raid news, for those asking, is that Trump’s own lawyer Pat Cipollone admitted in May that Trump should not have two dozen boxes of documents. No mention of standing orders to declassify, or any of that bullshit.

Trump’s paper-thin defence has already been blown to the shizenhausen, in other words.

m0nty
m0nty
August 25, 2022 10:26 am

Correction, in May 2021. Not May this year. LOL.

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
August 25, 2022 10:28 am

Munster……getting angry at a giant clown head. A word of warning to those wondering what munty looks like. I did and won’t recover. Nothing could have prepared me for that. JC has my eternal respect for managing to have lunch on two occassions I believe.

Struth
August 25, 2022 10:30 am

And Monty, you let your kids out.
It’s fucking child abuse to keep them locked away because you are a politically brainwashed sheeple.

You’re just a pathetic left wing , punch a Nazi freak.
Your kids deserve better.
Much better.
It’s criminal what you are doing to your children.
Locking them away because they tested positive YET HAD NO SYMPTOMS is complete criminal insanity.

calli
calli
August 25, 2022 10:30 am

If the Anglicans in Australia wish to deny the authority of scripture and do their own thing, so be it. It will not be blessed in any way, shape or form and will have zero eternal significance.

I opined many years ago on SincCat that the Sydney diocese would eventually remove itself from the destruction that is endemic in the Anglican communion, along with many diocese in Africa and Asia. It looks as if that day is fast approaching. It’s sad, but completely predictable.

H B Bear
H B Bear
August 25, 2022 10:34 am

And the mocking continues.

Repent sinners. Why hast thou forsaken my word salad?

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
August 25, 2022 10:36 am

Wonder if the Road Rager sends texts to his son every day to remind him what a failure he is and will soon be dead.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
August 25, 2022 10:37 am

H B Bearsays:
August 25, 2022 at 10:12 am
Markle reviews Markle:

Meghan’s main problem is the rest of the world isn’t as stupid as her husband.

Have been enjoying watching Netflix “The Windsors” Comedy – has Stupid Harry down pat

The Windsors | Funniest Scenes of Series 2 | Part 1

Struth
August 25, 2022 10:39 am

Repent sinners.

Pointless now.

You were told.

H B Bear
H B Bear
August 25, 2022 10:42 am

Teh Paywallian not allowing comments on its “influencer” stories as it continues to treat its remaining audience like shit and continues its slide to become Buzzfeed.

flyingduk
flyingduk
August 25, 2022 10:42 am

The “world’s youngest transgender model,” 10-year-old Noella McMaher, comes from a predominantly transgender household and is the child of a professional trans activist.

Presumably evolution will sort this reproductive strategy out?

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
August 25, 2022 10:43 am

Biden Pours Student Debt Gasoline on Inflation Fire

’cancels out any deficit reduction from the phony Inflation Reduction Act’

It’s hard to imagine a worse time for the U.S. government to decide to launch a massive student loan forgiveness program than right now.

The plan announced by President Joe Biden on Wednesday is actually bigger than the $300 billion program many had been expected. It not only forgives up to $10,000 of student loans for anyone earning under $125,000. It also forgives another $10,000 for recipients of Pell Grants, a student aid program for low-income families. The current time-out on student loans, which was due to expire at the end of the month, gets extended to the end of the year.

The White House also indicated that it would be putting forth a regulation that would slash the share of discretionary income that borrowers in income-driven repayment plans must pay each month on undergraduate loans from 10 percent to 5 percent. This amount had already been reduced from 15 percent just eight years ago. The rule would also forgive loan balances in these income-driven plans after 10 years of payments, down from 20 under the current rules. Back before the Obama-era overhaul of student loans, it took 25 years to earn debt forgiveness.

Of course, it is not really “debt forgiveness.” It is a debt transfer. The loan payments that will no longer be made by debtors will effectively be picked up by taxpayers.

One question is how the Federal Reserve will react. Very likely, it will need to offset the inflationary pressure created by Biden’s scheme with higher interest rates. This very likely means that unemployment will wind up even higher than it otherwise would have and the looming recession will cut deeper and last longer. Part of the cost of relieving ex-college students of their debt will be throwing people out of work and damaging businesses across America.

Farmer Gez
Farmer Gez
August 25, 2022 10:49 am

is that Trump’s own lawyer Pat Cipollone admitted in May that Trump should not have two dozen boxes

Already been interviewed by the FBI.
I’m assuming they made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. Allowing you and your family to sleep through the night without having your door broken down and having armed thugs terrorise your wife and kids is a powerful tool for compliance.
Amazing how the FBI has morphed into the KGB.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
August 25, 2022 10:50 am

Struth just for you

First Lady Jill Biden has tested positive for COVID-19 once again after first testing positive on Aug. 16, according to Politico.

Her husband, President Joe Biden, also had the virus twice in July and early August. His rebound presumably came as a result of taking Paxlovid, which is the same medication that the first lady took.

“After testing negative on Tuesday, just now, the First Lady has tested positive for COVID-19 by antigen testing. This represents a ‘rebound’ positivity,” Biden’s Deputy Communications Director Kelsey Donohue said in a statement.

She is not currently suffering from any symptoms. According to a prior White House statement, she is “double-vaccinated, twice boosted.”

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
August 25, 2022 10:53 am

Majority of White House Staffers Eligible for Biden’s Student-Loan ‘Forgiveness’

A White House report that detailed the pay of more than 470 staffers last month showed that roughly half of current White House employees make $90,000 or less per year, with the other half making more than $100,000. More than 300 staffers on the list earn less than the $125,000 threshold.

It is not clear how many White House staffers have student-loan balances. One-in-five White House aides required to file a 2021 financial disclosure reported having student loans, according to disclosures reviewed by Bloomberg News. However, only senior or well-paid staffers have to file the disclosures, the report notes.

At least 30 senior White House staffers have student-loan balances, according to the report

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
August 25, 2022 10:56 am
m0nty
m0nty
August 25, 2022 10:57 am

Already been interviewed by the FBI.
I’m assuming they made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. Allowing you and your family to sleep through the night without having your door broken down and having armed thugs terrorise your wife and kids is a powerful tool for compliance.
Amazing how the FBI has morphed into the KGB.

Yeah righto, cooker. Honestly, you sound crazy.

incoherent rambler
incoherent rambler
August 25, 2022 10:59 am

Repent sinners.

or not.
The fires of hell always welcome lots of fuel.

Tom
Tom
August 25, 2022 11:00 am

The trolls are quite needy today.

m0nty
m0nty
August 25, 2022 11:10 am
HT
HT
August 25, 2022 11:13 am

Roger says:
August 25, 2022 at 10:13 am
…Surprise…QLD Health is now short of nurses, with nurse managers doing double shifts to cover gaps.

Both my children are Registered Nurses, one with Crit Care and the other a Midwife. The girl child, the midwife, resigned and is lost to the health profession forever because of the mandates and the manner in which she was treated. The boy child is all in on the COVID BS (despite the evidence of his own eyes – cognitive dissonance at its best). The two of them are loggerheads- fuck COVID, fuck Andrews and politics of division and spite >:(

Fair Shake
Fair Shake
August 25, 2022 11:15 am

10-year-old Noella McMaher, comes from a predominantly transgender household and is the child of a professional trans activist

See folks this is what happens when we ban fireworks and enforce helmets on teenage bicycle riders. The weak of mind avoid being culled and make it through to adulthood and this what happens. They likely drive EVs. So coming to an intersection near you!

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
August 25, 2022 11:15 am

Florida’s Primary Results Should Worry Texas Democrats

Democrats have been hoping that Texans’ fears will be confirmed and that they’d be so overwhelmed with Democrat voters that the Republican stronghold would eventually give way to a shade of purple or even just go full-on blue.

Will Democrats get their wish? If I’m being honest, it’s not looking good…for Democrats.

Despite years of migration, Texas has only gotten redder. The election of Mayra Flores wasn’t the beginning of a rising red tide, it was another event of blue areas in Texas turning to Republicans. Flores happened after the flip of McAllen County, Starr County, and Zapata County.

But we can also look at a few more clues. For one, Texas Governor Greg Abbott currently leads Democrat challenger Beto O’Rourke by around six to seven points depending on the poll, but that lead only grows to 10 when you ask voters who are sure to vote. Moreover, O’Rourke’s stunts have done little to move the needle in his favor.

But we can also look outside the state for clues.

Florida is also one of those states that were seeing mass migration from blue-state refugees looking for a better life and judging by school board elections and Republican turnout in the primary, the blue seems to have bled out from the voters, leaving them staunchly red themselves.

Leaving an area with high taxes, high cost of living, high crime, and high leaders and transferring to a place where freedom reigns and the costs are low is probably a shock to the system. It’s probably going to make you question your past beliefs and see things in a whole new light. It seems that this is what’s happening Florida, and judging by the flips, it’s definitely happening in Texas.

If I was a Texas Democrat, I’d get the creeping feeling that I’m probably not as wanted as my bubble has been telling me, and that the chances of me winning an election are getting lower and lower. As usual, time will tell, but all the clues point to a Republican sweep and then some.

Timothy Neilson
Timothy Neilson
August 25, 2022 11:18 am

m0ntysays:
August 25, 2022 at 11:10 am
Republicans fell far short in last night’s special elections

US voters really don’t like Dobbs.

What the fat dissembler fails to mention was that the “fell far short” in the article he’s linked to refers to two seats in New York, and the article admits that the Republicans actually did well in the other special elections held that day.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
August 25, 2022 11:18 am

Trump Vindicated as DOJ Releases Mueller Memo on Not Prosecuting Trump

The Department of Justice (DOJ) released a 2019 memorandum Wednesday that explained that then-President Donald Trump should not be prosecuted for obstruction of justice because his statements about the Mueller investigation had a valid purpose.

The memo, prepared on the basis of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia “collusion,” and sent to then-Attorney General William Barr, found that Trump’s attacks on the investigation were motivated by legitimate frustration.

Furthermore, the memo concluded that Trump could not be prosecuted for his statements about the investigation or criticisms of cooperating witnesses without intruding on the president’s authority to control the executive branch under the Constitution.

Mueller had known early in the investigation that there was no evidence of any so-called Russia “collusion,” though he and the prosecutors working for him tried to build a case for charging the president with obstruction of justice in the investigation.

The memo was sought by left-leaning Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), who fought a years-long legal battle to obtain the memo, in the hope it would turn up evidence of some kind of coverup to protect Trump.

That suspicion was the basis for claims by Democrats that Trump had somehow “politicized” the DOJ: if the department would not release such documents, and would not call for Trump to be prosecuted, it therefore must have been “politicized.”

rickw
rickw
August 25, 2022 11:20 am

Cold and wet here!

(Raining and dipped under 30)

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
August 25, 2022 11:24 am

Horrific Biden Consequence, 20 Million American Households Behind on Electricity Bills, Pending Shutoff

August 24, 2022 – Sundance

Long-term CTH readers might remember in 2014 when President Obama claimed U.S. families had been paying too little for electricity for too long. As soon as Joe Biden took office, he began implementing the Green New Deal energy policy that, (a) directly forces higher costs for energy; and (b) is now creating massive problems.

In July I noted my own electricity bill had jumped 28% in a single month. That bill was followed by another almost identical increase this month. A review of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for July [Data Here] shows that nationally the same thing is happening. The year-over-year electricity price has increased 15.2%. However, worse still, the July increase alone was 1.9%, which figures to an annualized rate of 22.8%.

Steve Cortes calls this the backside of the Biden created inflation hurricane. The backside of a hurricane is the worst because it hits from the opposite direction upon already weakened infrastructure.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
August 25, 2022 11:25 am

Struthsays:

August 25, 2022 at 10:25 am

And the mocking continues.

Not always.
It stops when you go away.

Arky
August 25, 2022 11:27 am

says:
August 25, 2022 at 8:32 am
The pwophet of doom has awived!

..
Notice the mockery of how they imagine people might speak Struth.
Belling the cat that everything they fundamentally believe in, from the China slave trade to complying with the cathedral’s commands on getting yourself vaccinated, is really about class warfare.
They hate you because you aren’t one of them, never will be, but worst of all you won’t shut up.
Why won’t you just shut up and stop making them feel uncomfortable?
It really is very rude of you.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
August 25, 2022 11:28 am

Joe Biden Claims He Had No Advance Notice of FBI Raid on Donald Trump Home, None, Zero, Not One Little Bit

From the Comments

– He said the same thing about Hunters business dealings.
– The soupier his mind becomes that more true that is.
– Those who the gods wish to destroy,first they make mad.
Or something like that.
Like Sergeant Schultz….”I know nothing….nothing.”
Liar…but you knew

Farmer Gez
Farmer Gez
August 25, 2022 11:29 am

Yeah righto, cooker. Honestly, you sound crazy.

The keyboard warrior switches to abuse.
Can you see me from there?

rickw
rickw
August 25, 2022 11:33 am

Managed to help my mate score lathe of the week. $200. Hercus 9” A model partly disassembled. Some rust.

bespoke
bespoke
August 25, 2022 11:38 am

Repent sinners. Why hast thou forsaken my word salad?

Lol! Made my day.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
August 25, 2022 11:42 am

Biden Cancels Student Loan Debt for Federal Borrowers, Extends Pause for Loan Payments Through End of Year

The student debt crisis is real. Millions of Americans were sold a fake and worthless “degree.” Now they’re strapped with insurmountable debt.

But American tax payers shouldn’t be forced to bail them out.

The universities who defrauded them should be. Seize the endowments!

That’s exactly right! Harvard, University of Texas/Texas A&M, Yale, Stanford, Princeton… Each of them is a hedge fund with a schools attached to it. Seize the endowments!

They are abusing their non-profit status!

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
August 25, 2022 11:43 am

White supremacists are so yesterday.

Animals are victims of ‘human supremacy,’ growing student organization claims (via Instapundit)

Students Opposing Speciesism is a quickly growing organization in the U.S. and Canada that aims at ‘total animal liberation’ and opposes ‘human supremacy.’

Backed by PETA and run by students aged 13 to 24, the organization has seven registered ‘hubs’ on college campuses, including UC Davis, UT Austin, the University of Maryland, and others.

SOS has organized protests at businesses such as In-N-Out and retail stores, where they hold signs displaying slogans such as “cheese is murder” or “wear your own skin.”

Someone should tell the AFP about this extremely serious threat. There’s a lot of cheese in supermarkets, they should track purchasers in case it’s used as a terror weapon.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
August 25, 2022 11:48 am

rickwsays:

August 25, 2022 at 11:33 am

Managed to help my mate score lathe of the week. $200. Hercus 9” A model partly disassembled. 

$200?
Tell him he’s dreamin’!

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
August 25, 2022 11:51 am

Why won’t you just shut up and stop making them feel uncomfortable?

Firstly, I am not at all uncomfortable with the dire predictions of Kenn Worth Road Ranger.
Or what were they again?
“Slight exaggerations and mild hyper-bowl to make a point”?
Secondly, I don’t want him to shut up at all. Too much fun reading the Grandpa Simpson word-walls.

Dot
Dot
August 25, 2022 11:53 am

Cooker.

The astroturf smells freshly brushed and deodorised.

What a wonderful day.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
August 25, 2022 11:55 am

Backed by PETA

The same PETA who want a ban on the use of animals for ‘food, fiber and fun” and were trying for a ban on breeding Merino sheep in Australia?

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
August 25, 2022 11:57 am

I must say, the bonhomie and good humour is top drawer this morning.
Well done chaps.
And COWS.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
August 25, 2022 11:58 am

RealClearInvestigations Writer Paul Sperry On Twitter Ban After Posting About War Between Former President And FBI

“It’s getting crazy out there,” Sperry said. “It has also gotten very personal between the former president and the FBI, this is like a full-blown war between the ex-president of the United States and the federal police — I mean, when has that ever happened?”

PAUL SPERRY, REAL CLEAR INVESTIGATIONS: They kicked me off [Twitter] the day after Trump’s home was raided, and I was in the middle of tweeting more about the raid and I got a message popping up saying I was permanently suspended. No reasons were given. They didn’t say what rules or policies I had allegedly violated to prompt that, so they canceled my account without any explanation, which is, by the way, a violation of their own rules.

If you look it up, they’re supposed to “explain which policy you may have violated” and which content was in violation, and they did not do that in my case because they know I didn’t violate any rules.

GLENN BECK: Isn’t one of the guys at Twitter a former high-ranking FBI guy?

[Former FBI general counsel James A. Baker is now a top lawyer for Twitter Inc.]

SPERRY: Yes the deputy general counsel is Comey’s general counsel at FBI headquarters, James Baker. He was disgraced after the FISA warrant abuse scandal, he left and Twitter picked him up, and now he is I’m sure screening any content-based matters that may have legal issues. Something like that would be run up to him, so he has a lot of influence at Twitter.

BECK: They’re kind of a black hole of information. I’m really concerned about the FBI and the whole government. Right now government agents have a bigger police force than we have Marines, that’s a little staggering.

SPERRY: Yeah, it’s getting crazy out there. It has also gotten very personal between the former president and the FBI, this is like a full-blown war between the ex-president of the United States and the federal police — I mean, when has that ever happened?

BECK: Never that I know of. So how concerned are you? Are you hearing from good FBI agents, and enough of them, to give you confidence that the average rank and file is not involved in this and won’t put up with it?

SPERRY: A lot of them aren’t putting up with it. There have been a number of whistleblowers who have come out to Sen. Chuck Grassley recently, so they are getting fed up with the politicization of the bureau.

Unfortunately, the same FBI division that ran the corrupt Russiagate operation, and by the way, coddled Hillary and Hunter in those investigations, ran the questionable Trump raid, and they are now running what appears to be Russiagate 2.0.

It is the counterintelligence division in Washington, even though it is the focus of special counsel Durham’s investigation of that prior corruption.

BECK: I talked to John Solomon yesterday and he said he was fairly confident that these documents still exist, he’s trying to get copies from the National Archive, but he wasn’t quite sure what documents they were really looking for. Do you have any idea about that?

SPERRY: Well, some former FBI and DOJ officials told me they suspect the FBI may have used the raid to cover their tracks in this Russian scandal. They may be trying to deep-six any evidence that Trump might have kept on them.

Lysander
Lysander
August 25, 2022 11:59 am

Even if fat boy Pennsylvania Senate Kleptocrapt rich boy Fetterman* doesn’t win a Senate spot. He is a taste of things to come to the US (and likely Australia afterwards):

-Immediate release of 1/3rd of prisoners (he says “no impact on crime rates”);
-Legalise ALL drugs,
-Huge increases in taxation.

Farmer Gez
Farmer Gez
August 25, 2022 12:00 pm

I’m in the shearing shed penning up very shitty old ewes with a four leg braking system.
Don’t look at me sideways.

Boambee John
Boambee John
August 25, 2022 12:00 pm

m0ntysays:
August 25, 2022 at 10:57 am
Already been interviewed by the FBI.
I’m assuming they made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. Allowing you and your family to sleep through the night without having your door broken down and having armed thugs terrorise your wife and kids is a powerful tool for compliance.
Amazing how the FBI has morphed into the KGB.

Yeah righto, cooker. Honestly, you sound crazy.

What amazes me is that m0nty-fa can stuff so many donuts in his mouth while his head is firmly inserted in his rectum.

He sees “fascism” in every utterance by those he dislikes politically, but cannot see it in the clear actions of those he supports.

Boambee John
Boambee John
August 25, 2022 12:04 pm

That suspicion was the basis for claims by Democrats that Trump had somehow “politicized” the DOJ: if the department would not release such documents, and would not call for Trump to be prosecuted, it therefore must have been “politicized.”

Don’t rush to respond ,m0nty-fa, the talking points might take a while to catch up with this.

Dot
Dot
August 25, 2022 12:05 pm

-Immediate release of 1/3rd of prisoners (he says “no impact on crime rates”);
-Legalise ALL drugs,
-Huge increases in taxation.

1 Which prisoners.
2 That would likely reduce crime.
3 Taxation is rape.

m0nty
m0nty
August 25, 2022 12:05 pm

Yeah..nah. America First did very well in FL, especially on the school boards.

School boards LOL. What next, glorious victories in the elections for tuck shop ladies?

Boambee John
Boambee John
August 25, 2022 12:07 pm

dover0beachsays:
August 25, 2022 at 11:48 am
Republicans fell far short in last night’s special elections

US voters really don’t like Dobbs.

Yeah..nah. America First did very well in FL, especially on the school boards.

m0nty-fa sees only what he wants (and the talking points tell him) to see.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
August 25, 2022 12:08 pm

Grilled kanga, yum!

‘Potentially going bankrupt’: Qantas boss grilled over mass sackings (Sky mainpage headline)

Qantas CEO Alan Joyce faced a grilling over his decision to sack thousands of staff in 2020 – insisting the airline was facing just weeks of survival – as he announced the national carrier had posted its third consecutive annual loss.

Woke airlines are broke airlines Alan. Just saying.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
August 25, 2022 12:09 pm

The Half-Trillion-Dollar Student-Loan Executive Coup

Biden’s student-loan write-off is an abuse of power that favors college grads at the expense of plumbers and FedEx drivers.

By The WSJ Editorial Board

Well, he did it. Waving his baronial wand, President Biden on Wednesday canceled student debt for some 40 million borrowers on no authority but his own. This is easily the worst domestic decision of his Presidency and makes chumps of Congress and every American who repaid loans or didn’t go to college.

The President who never says no to the left did their bidding again with this act of executive law-making, er, breaking. The government will cancel $10,000 for borrowers making less than $125,000 a year and $20,000 for those who received Pell grants. The Administration estimates that about 27 million will be eligible for up to $20,000 in forgiveness, and some 20 million will see their balances erased.

But there’s much more. Mr. Biden is also extending loan forbearance for another four months even as unemployment among college grads is at a near record low 2%. Congress’s Cares Act deferred payments and waived interest through September 2020, but Donald Trump and Joe Biden have extended the pause for what will now be nearly three years.

The Administration is claiming, again, that this will be the last extension and is needed to help borrowers prepare to resume payments. But even if the Administration lets the forbearance end in December, about half of borrowers won’t have to make payments since their debt will be canceled.

Most of the rest will only make de minimis payments because Mr. Biden is also sweetening the income-based repayment plans that Barack Obama expanded by fiat. Borrowers currently pay only up to 10% of discretionary income each month and can discharge their remaining debt after 20 years (10 if they work in “public service”).

Democrats said these plans would reduce defaults. They haven’t. Federal student debt has ballooned because many borrowers don’t make enough to cover interest and principal payments, so their balances expand. Student debt has nearly doubled since 2011 to $1.6 trillion, though the number of borrowers has increased by only 18%.

Now Mr. Biden is cutting undergrad payments to a mere 5% of discretionary income. The government will also cover unpaid monthly interest for borrowers so their balances won’t grow even if they aren’t paying a penny. This will mask the cost to taxpayers of the Administration’s rolling loan write-off. Student-loan debt won’t appear to swell even as it does. What a fabulous accounting trick.

The Penn Wharton Budget Model estimates that canceling $10,000 for borrowers earning up to $125,000 will cost about $300 billion. The Pell grant addition could increase this by as much as $270 billion. The four-month freeze on payments will cost $20 billion on top of the roughly $115 billion it already has.

The payment plan revisions could eventually add hundreds of billions of dollars more. An analysis commissioned by the Trump Education Department estimated that taxpayers would lose $435 billion on federal student loans, largely because borrowers in these payment plans on average were expected to repay only half of their balances. Now they will repay even less.

Worse than the cost is the moral hazard and awful precedent this sets. Those who will pay for this write-off are the tens of millions of Americans who didn’t go to college, or repaid their debt, or skimped and saved to pay for college, or chose lower-cost schools to avoid a debt trap. This is a college graduate bailout paid for by plumbers and FedEx drivers.

Colleges will also capitalize by raising tuition to capture the write-off windfall. A White House fact sheet hilariously says that colleges will “have an obligation to keep prices reasonable and ensure borrowers get value for their investments, not debt they cannot afford.” Only a fool could believe colleges will do this.

It’s important to appreciate that there has never been an executive action of this costly magnitude in peacetime. Not Mr. Obama’s immigration amnesties, not his Clean Power Plan, not Mr. Trump’s border-wall fund diversion. Nothing comes close to this half-trillion-dollar or more executive coup.

Congress authorized none of Mr. Biden’s loan relief and appropriated no funds for it. Progressives say the Higher Education Act of 1965 lets the Education Secretary “compromise” (i.e., modify) student debt.

But the Federal Claims Collection Act of 1966 sets very limited terms and strict procedures for such “compromise.”

Even Mr. Biden said in December 2020 it was “pretty questionable” whether he had authority to cancel debt this way. The Supreme Court recently underscored in West Virginia v. EPA that Congress must provide clear authorization to agencies taking action on major questions. Canceling so much debt is beyond major to a mega-ultra-super question.

With the cancellation precedent, progressives will return to this vote-buying exercise every election year. The only antidote will be if Democrats conclude this gambit boomeranged politically by mobilizing an opposition coalition of Americans who are tired of being played for saps by progressives. The test arrives in November.

eric hinton
eric hinton
August 25, 2022 12:10 pm

a four leg braking system.

Please explain. Is this some postmodern postmulesing innovation?

Lysander
Lysander
August 25, 2022 12:10 pm

Dot,
I’m not going into the whole Libertarian delusional philosophy that full drug decriminalisation would be a boon for govt tax invoices, create business and a really happy society because somehow policing it now isn’t working…

Sorry, we’ve all had that debate and its why I left Libertarianism behind (for this and other Lib’tarian beliefs on freeing up SSM, drugs, euthanasia, abortion, pornography and other “freedoms”).

I’m just not getting into it mate. But go ahead, support Fetterman.

Boambee John
Boambee John
August 25, 2022 12:11 pm

m0ntysays:
August 25, 2022 at 12:05 pm
Yeah..nah. America First did very well in FL, especially on the school boards.

School boards LOL. What next, glorious victories in the elections for tuck shop ladies?

Now that the fascist left controls many institutions, and prostitutes them to its own political advantage, m0nty-fa forgets about the “long march through the institutions”.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
August 25, 2022 12:15 pm

Sky News is fun. Whatever sub editor it is who writes the main page headlines is superbly Tim Blairish. But the other editor that does the story headline itself then wimps it and produces something resembling verbal tofu. Happens time after time.

All I can think is Sky’s chief editor is scared someone will forward the articles to a Murdoch kiddie if the headline strays too far off the RINO reserve.

calli
calli
August 25, 2022 12:16 pm

Each leg has its own set of brakes? Horrible old things.

I bet they’d bite too. If they had teeth.

Salvatore, Understaffed & Overworked Martyr to Govt Covid Stupidity

m0nty says: August 25, 2022 at 12:05 pm

School boards LOL. What next, glorious victories in the elections for tuck shop ladies?

School boards were important enough for the FBI & DOJ to go after middle class mums & dads over.

rickw
rickw
August 25, 2022 12:17 pm

Now that the fascist left controls many institutions, and prostitutes them to its own political advantage, m0nty-fa forgets about the “long march through the institutions”.

Yep.

Dot
Dot
August 25, 2022 12:17 pm

full drug decriminalisation would be a boon for govt tax invoices

I don’t want that.

The government racing tobacco creates a significant and violent black market too.

Salvatore, Understaffed & Overworked Martyr to Govt Covid Stupidity

Farmer Gez says: August 25, 2022 at 12:00 pm

I’m in the shearing shed penning up very shitty old ewes with a four leg braking system.
Don’t look at me sideways.

Oh boyo boy, can I relate.
I know exactly how you feel.

Farmer Gez
Farmer Gez
August 25, 2022 12:20 pm

eric hinton says:
August 25, 2022 at 12:10 pm
a four leg braking system.
Please explain. Is this some postmodern postmulesing innovation?

You could push a 120kg bloke easier than you can push a full grown sheep that doesn’t want to go.

Mother Lode
Mother Lode
August 25, 2022 12:21 pm

Animals are victims of ‘human supremacy,’ growing student organization claims

The slow deconstruction of the ‘human’ has wrought its damage, reducing humanity. Reminds me of Wordsworth’s worthy words:

Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;
Our meddling intellect
Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:—
We murder to dissect.

Well, so much for name-dropping.

But the reduction of being human to an assemblage of organs, all of them ponds of chemical reactions, our desires and fears to the release of hormones, and our minds to mere arcs flashing across synapses, has been a kind of a murder.

Once you have denuded humanity of all its non-physical attributes then they are indistinguishable from animals. (And isn’t that weird? Plants are chemical reactions too. What makes one level of intricacy the better level?)

But it is really another case of people using an argument against other people they would not point at themselves. Like the post-modernist that insists that there is no privileged point of view and that every story is only ever equally valid, and properly lost among the others, they do not act like that is true for them. Theirs are always truer, and need to be imposed on other people.

The murder has been weaponised.

Farmer Gez
Farmer Gez
August 25, 2022 12:26 pm

School boards LOL. What next, glorious victories in the elections for tuck shop ladies?

Belittling tuck shop ladies now.
Absolute champions from my experience.

Dot
Dot
August 25, 2022 12:26 pm

School boards are not trivial.

Indeed. But ideally they should be abolished, as per the principle of subsidiarity.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
August 25, 2022 12:31 pm

More Sky News fun. Smells like there’s a minor grass-roots insurrection going on against the alpha RINOs of Newscorp management.

Nigel Farage: Scott Morrison’s ‘fake conservatives’ deserved to lose the election (Sky mainpage headline)

It is something I’ve learned over many, many years of being involved in political campaigns across the United Kingdom, the United States of America and Europe too.

I believe this key observation is highly relevant to Australia.

To put it simply – when Conservative Parties speak, imitate, or even begin to govern like centre-left parties, they will always lose elections.

My own view is that at your last election, the Liberal Party deserved to lose.

They’ve moved way too far towards the middle ground. They’ve been taken in by lockdown-mania and scare stories. They’ve become the party of big government.

Scott Morrison was a poor Prime Minister, and a period of self-reflection is now required.

The lesson I visit your country with is very simple. When our conservative parties become conservative, they win elections. But when they stop being conservative, they lose.

Yep, a home truth which will not surprise Cats at all. But Sky News is also the stable for Piers Morgan of TalkTV, the wet Newscorp competitor of Farage’s GB News. So having Farage on Sky slagging off uselessly wet Libs is diametrically opposed to the Murdoch kiddie editorial position. Nice! Guys, I hope you survive the wrath from on high when they notice.

Gilas
Gilas
August 25, 2022 12:32 pm

P says:
August 24, 2022 at 7:18 pm

Pancreatic cancer is not always a death sentence.

Late to this post.. the WordPress posting gremlin finally hit my browser last night.. the magic of millions of lines of Firefox code, I guess.

Great news about about your brother, P.
Pancreatic cancer is curable if detected early, this happens usually by accident while someone is being investigated for an unrelated abdominal issue.
Due to its anatomical location, usually (in >80% of cases) it is detected too late, and the rest is history.
Also, not all pancreatic cancers are adenocarcinomas (gland-related), some have neuro-endocrine histology and better prognosis, a very different clinical course and treatment protocols.

shatterzzz
August 25, 2022 12:32 pm

Even if you think our legal system can’t do worse .. your wrong! .. how well marinated is this lettuce leaf of a sentence .. FFS!
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11143245/Alisha-Fagan-Woman-accused-killing-grandfather-crash-released-healing-centre.html

m0nty
m0nty
August 25, 2022 12:36 pm

School boards are not trivial. They’re not Senate or HoR seats, sure, but they are not anywhere near being nothing. And the message from NY is Republicans without Trump are on a hiding to nothing. Also, your claim that this is the result of Dobbs is trash, the turnout in NY was about a third of eligible voters.

I’m sure the red wave in Florida school board elections will lead to a rise in free speech and Enlightenment values, and not silly stuff like book bans and syllabus censorship.

It’s not just NY, there were similar swings in Nebraska and Minnesota.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
August 25, 2022 12:38 pm

Farmer Gez at high noon.

I’m in the shearing shed penning up very shitty old ewes with a four leg braking system.

Err, what exactly is “penning up”.
Us ut a New Zulland term, bro?

shatterzzz
August 25, 2022 12:39 pm

Brussell sprouts .. Fairfield update .. $1.99 kg .. LOL!

Pogria
Pogria
August 25, 2022 12:40 pm

I was a tuck shop Lady.
For the 13 years my son was in school, I volunteered for Canteen duty.

It is the best way to stay on top of the garbage that is being taught in schools and make sure that your child is not being brain washed by the curriculum and dumb teachers.

P&C is another good one. When the Principal asks if anyone has any questions about whatever subject has been raised during the meeting, there is surprise and fear when you actually fire back at them from the loaded list in your hot hands. Good times.

One issue that was being bandied about was the teaching of “values”. I told them that before they could have values, they needed integrity. And while certain teachers were showing the students pirate videos in class of movies that had not even been released in the cinema, integrity was a long way away from the classroom. That was a fun night.

JC
JC
August 25, 2022 12:40 pm

I’m getting out the violin.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
August 25, 2022 12:44 pm

JCsays:

August 25, 2022 at 12:40 pm

I’m getting out the violin.

Standby.
I’ll get my banjo.
Let’s do some troubadourin’.

m0nty
m0nty
August 25, 2022 12:47 pm

Oh geez, I started a wave of Mrs Mangels recounting their halcyon days of busybody interference.

Crossie
Crossie
August 25, 2022 12:47 pm

calli says:
August 25, 2022 at 9:57 am
Anyone who looks forward to and gloats about the death of people with whom they disagree needs help.

Right now.

They are in the same boat as a rello who wished death on the unvaxxed. Completely unhinged if not outright evil.

Calli, when the vaccine mandates came out I just hoped that if they were not effective and harmless the best we can hope for is that the vaccines would be ineffective and harmless. I didn’t even care about the astronomical financial fraud as long as we all came through it unscathed.

As you say, hoping for deaths just to be proven right is horrendous.

I want my old world back.

HT
HT
August 25, 2022 12:48 pm

Zyconoclast says:
August 25, 2022 at 9:29 am
REDUXX
@ReduxxMag

The “world’s youngest transgender model,” 10-year-old Noella McMaher, comes from a predominantly transgender household and is the child of a professional trans activist.

McMaher allegedly came out at age 2, and is set to have “gender surgeries” at 16.

Like that WOFTAM Victorian Animal Justice Party Senator . Two out of two kids are Trans. No child abuse to see here folks, move on…

Anchor What
Anchor What
August 25, 2022 12:51 pm

Let’s see – Robodebt!
2016 start, Turnbull era.
Yep, that’s much more Royal Commishworthy than the COVID debacle.

Farmer Gez
Farmer Gez
August 25, 2022 12:53 pm

Err, what exactly is “penning up”.
Us ut a New Zulland term, bro?

A pen to hold but not to write.

P
P
August 25, 2022 1:01 pm

Gilas says:
August 25, 2022 at 12:32 pm

Also, not all pancreatic cancers are adenocarcinomas (gland-related), some have neuro-endocrine histology and better prognosis, a very different clinical course and treatment protocols.

My brother’s doctor told him it was the same pancreatic cancer as Patrick Swayze had and if he didn’t remove the whole pancreas he would also die.

Roger
Roger
August 25, 2022 1:02 pm

Let’s see – Robodebt!
2016 start, Turnbull era.
Yep, that’s much more Royal Commishworthy than the COVID debacle.

Both involved governments brazenly trampling on people’s rights and lives.

Not coincidentally, the Heritage Foundation has recently relegated Australia from “free” to the “mostly free” category on their league table of economic freedom. Government integrity took a big hit, along with spending and the tax burden.

Crossie
Crossie
August 25, 2022 1:06 pm

When reading this article, words from a hymn written over 150 yrs ago by a clergyman of the Church of England came to my mind.
by schisms rent asunder,
by heresies distressed,

Sad days indeed for Christians.

P, they can always come back to the Catholic Church.

Salvatore, Understaffed & Overworked Martyr to Govt Covid Stupidity

If regular suburban mums & dads are having the FBI open an investigation file on them, or being arrested, in handcuffs ffs, for simply speaking at a school board meeting, then school board elections are very important.

The results of those school board elections are most instructive.

Boambee John
Boambee John
August 25, 2022 1:07 pm

I’m sure the red wave in Florida school board elections will lead to a rise in free speech and Enlightenment values, and not silly stuff like book bans and syllabus censorship.

ROFLMAO, the gloating gone, m0nty-fa attempts to recapture the narrative.

Book bans? Didn’t some left inclined boards ban “TO Kill a Mockingbird”, as not meeting the “Believe all women” (except those DemonRats against accusations are made – Hello Bill C) standard.

And I am sure that others will be aware of other bans of books that contradict the “narrative”. The fascist left are such predictable sufferers of projectionism.

“Syllabus censorship”, is that the new code for not pushing the gender fluidity or any other ratbag PC “narratives”?

Boambee John
Boambee John
August 25, 2022 1:10 pm

Salvatore, Understaffed & Overworked Martyr to Govt Covid Stupiditysays:
August 25, 2022 at 1:06 pm
If regular suburban mums & dads are having the FBI open an investigation file on them, or being arrested, in handcuffs ffs, for simply speaking at a school board meeting, then school board elections are very important.

That is why the US left (and by extension, m0nty-fa) are so paranoid about them.

Boambee John
Boambee John
August 25, 2022 1:12 pm

(except those who made accusations against DemonRats – Hello …

Need to proof read.

Kneel
Kneel
August 25, 2022 1:17 pm

M0nty: “If those three are your star witnesses, you’re going to lose.”

Depends on where it’s tried (unfortunately). In a DC court, you’d probably be correct. In Florida, I don’t think so.

Think about it – Trump asserts he said it. A couple of people say “Yeah, I heard him say it” under oath.

No-one testifies “I was there and he never said that!”

Assuming you take your responsibility as a judge or juror seriously and ignore your partisan position and rely on the facts as presented, what would you decide?

What makes you think the FBI and DoJ are non-partisan, honest etc etc?
They had Hunter Biden’s laptop in 2019, and still haven’t charged him with anything!
They lied to the FISA court, more than once!
They refused to indict Hillary, despite evidence she was grossly negligent, yet raid Trump (literally unprecedented) and fight every step of the way to prevent publication of what they even took, let alone learned from what they took.
Sure, it’s ongoing, but this is so far outside of precedent that they should have already had everything they needed to indict him and just wanted what they subpoenaed as supporting evidence of a crime to be used at trial – if they were seriously going by the book, they would have had enough to arrest and charge him before the raid, and the raid would have been “pre-discovery” info for his trial. Instead they used a constitutionally dubious warrant issued by a nobody judge linked to Epstein, took things that they had no reason to take, got the warrant despite all evidence that Trump was cooperating (so maybe a dispute, but you can ask the court about that under normal circumstances, and the didn’t even try), then sent people from interstate to perform the search instead of using “locals” – the same DC group who were lying and leaking like crazy over the impeachment hoaxes!

FMD, the whole thing stinks to high heaven and it ain’t coming from the Trump side!

“The WhiteHouse wasn’t involved” they said – then it turns out that Biden himself not only knew, but authorised it with an extremely dubious re-cast of Trumps orders. Something never done before and likely not constitutional or legal.

They keep lying and dimwit leftists like you keep believing them.
Russia-gate.
Ukraine-gate.
Jessie Smullet.
“Hand up don’t shoot”.
Kyle Rittenhouse.
Election integrity (remember that? From 2016-2020, Trump was an “illegitimate” president and the election was stolen by Russia, but as soon as Creepy Joe gets in, anyone who doesn’t accept the election result is a conspiracy theorist!)
Jan 6 was “worse than Pearl Harbor” they said.
“Mostly peaceful” BLM protests are OK despite more than 20 dead and billions in damage, but only one person died on Jan 6 because of that protest. No-one was even investigated for the “summer of love”, but hundreds incarcerated for Jan 6 and denied their constitutional right to a timely trial and to not be given “cruel and unusual” punishments like solitary confinement for 18 months prior to conviction!

And you think you can trust the mob that did all that? If so, I have a bridge to sell you… only one owner, awesome views, toll income, vendor keen to sell, going cheap! Hurry, won’t last at this price! Step right up chummmmm…p

Franx
Franx
August 25, 2022 1:17 pm

Hoping for deaths either due to the jab or its refusal is mean. So is surreptitious compliance.

Boambee John
Boambee John
August 25, 2022 1:28 pm

Kneel

but only one person died on Jan 6 because of that protest.

Two, both women, both unarmed. One was shot, the other beaten to death with batons/clubs. Fortunately for the “narrative” both seem to have been white, so that’s OK, then.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
August 25, 2022 1:28 pm

Trifecta – Man diagnosed with HIV, Covid-19, and monkeypox all at once – report
According to the Journal of Infection, this is the first known case in which the three viral diseases concurred in one individual

An Italian man has been diagnosed with HIV, Covid-19, and monkeypox simultaneously – the first known case of the concurrence of these three viral diseases, the Journal of Infection has reported.

According to an article published by the medical outlet last Friday, the 36-year-old male spent five days in Spain in June this year, developing a fever accompanied by a sore throat, fatigue, and a headache nine days later. A subsequent test yielded a positive result for Covid-19. To make matters worse, a rash appeared on the patient’s left arm soon thereafter, with small, painful vesicles spreading across the man’s body in the following days.

The man sought medical help and was hospitalized in an infectious diseases unit. The patient told doctors that he had had “condomless intercourse with men” during his sojourn in Spain.

Zyconoclast
Zyconoclast
August 25, 2022 1:33 pm

P says:
August 25, 2022 at 10:21 am
Anglican Synod ‘may be the last’
By Adam Wesselinoff -August 25, 2022

When reading this article, words from a hymn written over 150 yrs ago by a clergyman of the Church of England came to my mind.
by schisms rent asunder,
by heresies distressed,

Sad days indeed for Christians.

The Catholics are headed for schism.

Question is who gets the assets.

m0nty
m0nty
August 25, 2022 1:34 pm

Think about it – Trump asserts he said it. A couple of people say “Yeah, I heard him say it” under oath.

No-one testifies “I was there and he never said that!”

Assuming you take your responsibility as a judge or juror seriously and ignore your partisan position and rely on the facts as presented, what would you decide?

“Y’onna, me and Bugsy over heah totally was wit’ Mister Capone all evenin’ on the night of the moidah, we wuz playing cards you know, bit o’ canasta and some gin rummy. We ain’t done nuttin’ wrong, I sweah!”

As for the rest of your rant, impressive recitation of every conspiracy theory in a row there. You forgot to mention Kathy Griffin offing Seth Rich, kids in tunnels under Comet Pizza, and lizard people running the Fed, but you got everything else.

Zyconoclast
Zyconoclast
August 25, 2022 1:36 pm

Trifecta – Man diagnosed with HIV, Covid-19, and monkeypox all at once – report

We have a ring side winner.
He can collect the meat tray on the way out.

cohenite
August 25, 2022 1:38 pm

m0ntysays:
August 25, 2022 at 10:26 am
The latest in Trump raid news, for those asking, is that Trump’s own lawyer Pat Cipollone admitted in May that Trump should not have two dozen boxes of documents. No mention of standing orders to declassify, or any of that bullshit.

The fat little turd inks to WAPO. Typical leftie, head up its arse, riddled with disease and poxes and spewing bullshit which it flings ape like in the direction of its betters.

cohenite
August 25, 2022 1:40 pm
custard
custard
August 25, 2022 1:46 pm

https://bioclandestine.substack.com/p/russian-mil-discuss-us-crimes-against

“I would like to mention of the facts uncovered during the special operation regarding the implementation of the US military-biological programme in Ukraine. The documents we disclosed confirm that the Pentagon financed more than 30 Ukrainian bio-laboratories. The high-risk research was carried out secretly, with the participation and guidance of US specialists.

As part of this programme, components of biological weapons were developed, techniques to destabilize the epidemiological situation were tested and collected and exported to the United States.

Such actions pose a direct threat to SCO countries.”

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
August 25, 2022 2:04 pm

Zyco it was them sausages that did it. What did this moron think was likely to happen. Same as someone shoving Krispy Kremes in their face all day. Its not my fault, I’m special.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
August 25, 2022 2:07 pm

Tim Page captured the Vietnam War and the essence of its chaos and madness

Alan Howe
History and Obituaries Editor
6 minutes ago August 25, 2022
No Comments

Tim Page, photographer, born May 25, 1944 in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England. Died age 78, August 24, Bellingen, NSW.

In the 1970s, during a flourish of books looking back on the recently ended Vietnam War, a publisher suggested Tim Page, that conflict’s best-known photographer, write a book that would take “the glamour out of war”.

“Take the glamour out of war?” Page repeated to a friend later. “I mean, how the bloody hell can you do that? It’s like trying to take the glamour out of sex, trying to take the glamour out of the Rolling Stones. I mean, you know that it can’t be done.”

The common ingredients of war don’t change: fear, horror, noise. And Page’s photographs captured that as boys, who weeks before saw life from the perspective of quiet suburbs, found themselves being shot at and bombed as they pointed new rifles at an enemy they didn’t know and often couldn’t see.

More than other photographers who charted those same events, Page’s images froze in time the often banal life of soldiering along with terror, blood and guts that often punctuated it. Sometimes his own.

Page died on Wednesday after battling cancer since May. He was 78 and had been living in Bellingen on the mid-north coast of NSW.

His war images – from Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Cuba and more recently Afghanistan – are on display at Washington’s Smithsonian National Museum of American History, and the Tate Gallery in London.

He was included in Professional Photographer magazine’s list of the 100 most influential photographers of all time alongside such household names as Helmut Newton, Man Ray, David Bailey and Annie Leibovitz.

At 16, he was in a motorcycle ­accident and almost bled to death, with a lacerated temporal artery, and suffered “my first broken hip”. It was the first time he was declared DOA, and he wrote about it in his 1988 biography Page After Page.

“I had died. I lived. I had seen the tunnel. It was black. It was nothing. There was no light at the end. There was no afterlife … it was a long, flowing, no-colour wave which just disappeared (but) I was alive … This was the dawning, the overture to losing a responsible part of my psyche. A liberation happened at that intersection. Anything from here on would be free time, a gift from the gods.”

He worked for a time as a cook in Amsterdam and sometimes joined hash runs between Paris and there. After befriending an Australian he set off in a Kombi van to drive overland to Australia. The van died and along with that plan.

He ended up in Laos, with a camera and little else, and when there was a coup there he was the only westerner able to photograph events, filing his words and pictures and capturing the attention of the UPI news agency that offered him a job in Vietnam to record the war, which America had recently joined.

His work there – along with his addiction to risk and enthusiastic drug talking – are legendary and made him a celebrity of sort in Saigon. So much so that filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola based the frenzied Dennis Hopper character in Apocalypse Now on Page.

Towards the end of the war Rolling Stone magazine founder Jann Wenner suggested to gun-wielding gonzo columnist Hunter S. Thompson that Thompson and Page cover its last days. Thompson – once described by Norman Mailer as “a legend in successful self-abuse” – refused on the grounds that Page was far too dangerous.

Dr Faustus
Dr Faustus
August 25, 2022 2:08 pm

In Deluded Prime Minister news:

Japan to restart nuclear reactors as blackouts loom

Tokyo | Japan is planning a dramatic shift back to nuclear power more than a decade on from the Fukushima disaster, aiming to restart a sweep of idled reactors and to develop new plants using next-generation technologies.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said on Wednesday that the government will explore development and construction of new reactors as the country aims to avoid strains on its power grid that buckled under heavy demand this summer, and to curb the nation’s reliance on energy imports. The Nikkei newspaper reported the move ahead of Mr Kishida’s formal announcement.

“Nuclear power and renewables are essential to proceed with a green transformation,” Mr Kishida said. “Russia’s invasion changed the global energy situation.”

Nuclear power, you say?
Essential?
Small modular reactors?

Not in a proper, grownup, lucky-country like Albo’s Australia.

custard
custard
August 25, 2022 2:37 pm

https://bioclandestine.substack.com/p/international-military-tribunals

See full statement from the Russian Embassy below.

“???? Comment by the Russian Embassy in the United States on the State Department’s statement on the upcoming Tribunal in Mariupol:

?We have taken note of another groundless accusations against our country related to the Tribunal over Ukrainian war criminals.

?The upcoming Trial is aimed at bringing justice to war criminals, among which there are Nazis from the Azov Regiment. Washington is clearly afraid of making public the evidence of the inhumane acts committed by the members of this terrorist organization.

??The International Tribunal in Mariupol can shed light on the true essence of the Kiev regime, of which the United States diligently creates a bright and heroic image. American citizens will finally learn that in reality, their government is helping those who purposefully kill and torture the Russian people of Donbass and Ukraine.

?Russia fully complies with the Geneva Conventions and guarantees Ukrainian captives proper conditions of detention. The same cannot be said of the Kiev regime, which militants mistreated captured Russian soldiers.

Finally, if the US authorities have questions about what happened in Mariupol, they could discuss it with the administration of the Donetsk People’s Republic. It is an independent state.”

Cassie of Sydney
August 25, 2022 2:43 pm

Every fortnight I get my nails done here in Sydney’s CBD. The girls who do the nails are all Asians….all delightful. Of course, following lockdown last year they’ve been fully masked and have been all year. My nail artist began working at the salon in February of this year and I’ve seen her very two weeks. Today she told me she was leaving, which upset me because she’s very good. She told me she’s leaving to work in a salon closer to home, I said to her that makes sense and wished her all the best. Anyway, sitting there today, having her do my nails for one last time, I realised that I’d never seen her unmasked. I don’t really know what she looks like. I wouldn’t recognise her if I walked past her in the street.

This is the Covid world we now live in. Strange world, strange times.

Real Deal
Real Deal
August 25, 2022 2:49 pm

Monty

Oh geez, I started a wave of Mrs Mangels recounting their halcyon days of busybody interference.

You’re just salivating because someone keeps mentioning tuckshops.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
August 25, 2022 2:50 pm

Anyway, sitting there today, having her do my nails for one last time, I realised that I’d never seen her unmasked. I don’t really know what she looks like.

Duzzen madda.
They all look same.
Boom-boom!

Boambee John
Boambee John
August 25, 2022 2:58 pm

Zyconoclastsays:
August 25, 2022 at 1:36 pm
Trifecta – Man diagnosed with HIV, Covid-19, and monkeypox all at once – report

We have a ring side winner.
He can collect the meat tray on the way out.

It seems that he was the meat tray.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
August 25, 2022 3:06 pm

Zyconoclastsays:
August 25, 2022 at 1:36 pm
Trifecta – Man diagnosed with HIV, Covid-19, and monkeypox all at once – report

You know you are in trouble if you are just back from the ‘dance party’ and your doctor says,

“I’ve got slightly worrying news, bad news and worse news.
The slightly worrying thing is you have Covid-19.
The bad news is you have monkey-pox.
Want to hear the worse news?”

Brislurker
Brislurker
August 25, 2022 3:13 pm

I don’t know if any of you have noticed that the “health authorities” overseas, in particular America are now very quietly admitting that the jab causes lymphomas.

Some of you may remember that I VERY reluctantly got the jab in December, due to those not jabbed were being locked out of medical attention. Unfortunately I have now acquired a very aggressive, fast growing lymphoma.
There was no sign of it in December, had a scan, but was diagnosed as having it early in July. The opinion is that it started in late March or early April and is growing very quickly. I was very lucky in that it affected my face lightly with a little swelling on jaw but the primary was actually hidden behind the nose. Very unusual spot.

I am very fortunate that my specialists acted very quickly and sent me to a hematologist within a within a week of sorting out what it actually was. The result is that I am now doing chemo, but with a prognosis of total cure at the end of 6mths.

So for anyone who is not sure if a small lump appears somewhere on your body to worry, just get it checked out

Roger
Roger
August 25, 2022 3:15 pm

The Catholics are headed for schism.

Question is who gets the assets.

I think you’ll find that the same situation pertains as among Anglicans – parish property is held in trust by the diocese. Therefore, when dissenting parishes leave, they forfeit the church building.

Timothy Neilson
Timothy Neilson
August 25, 2022 3:17 pm

Brislurkersays:
August 25, 2022 at 3:13 pm

Chemo can be unpleasant, but I hope yours is easy and super-effective.
Thanks for telling us.

Roger
Roger
August 25, 2022 3:23 pm

Best wishes for a speedy recovery once chemo is out of the way, Brislurker.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
August 25, 2022 3:23 pm

The result is that I am now doing chemo, but with a prognosis of total cure at the end of 6mths.

All the best with the chemo – it can be tough.

H B Bear
H B Bear
August 25, 2022 3:31 pm

They hate you because you aren’t one of them, never will be, but worst of all you won’t shut up.

All hail the Peoples Front of Judea. Next meeting – Hay truck stop. (No thongs).

H B Bear
H B Bear
August 25, 2022 3:37 pm

Woke airlines are broke airlines Alan. Just saying.

The mangy Roo resumes its normal state – crook and somewhere below The Little Reef that Could on life support. The only cure is another truckload of OPM.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
August 25, 2022 3:39 pm

I want my old world back too, Crossie. All I can do is make the best of what is left here for me before someone arrives to take that away too.

For me, it is travel, and Struth notwithstanding, I am glad I took the AZ Vaxx and Novavax booster. A major reason was that it might help keep me well and life’s a gamble on the vaxx death rate, a gamble I took. A second important reason is that I don’t have more than five or six years of good travel time left in my life and I needed a border pass. In the event, Britain had dumped all Covid rule, so it was a joy to live there for five weeks of freedom again. I looked at the Vaxx certificate as necessary for me to protest my imprisonment in Australia, to stand up for freedom of movement. For plenty of people at my age of eighty travel capacity is all gone anyway.

The link backthread has Katy Hopkins saying plane travel will be gone for most in five years, deliberately priced out and with schedules reduced by the climate cult, and gone for all in ten years except for Elite private plane owners. This trend led me to agree with her final words in the clip: get out there and book your flights while you can. Which is what Hairy and I are doing. Katy suggests leaving your old passports with foreign stamps in them to your grandchildren as souvenirs of a world departed from their times.

Although somehow, I don’t think the travel and tourism industry will go down without a bigger fight even given the slow erosion happening now.

calli
calli
August 25, 2022 3:43 pm

Good luck Brislurker.

Cassie of Sydney
August 25, 2022 3:46 pm

“Brislurkersays:
August 25, 2022 at 3:13 pm”

All the best.

Tintarella di Luna
Tintarella di Luna
August 25, 2022 3:47 pm

Best wishes Brislurker

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
August 25, 2022 3:47 pm

Therefore, when dissenting parishes leave, they forfeit the church building.

Take enough of the dissenting congregations with them and this will increase the number of empty churches which cost money for the Diocese to maintain and insure. Then the dissenters can buy back the churches at a bargain price, for even now many obsolete churches are going cheap. Even one or two beautiful old gothic churches that are held fast to the old liturgies and beliefs would help to put the dissenters into a better frame of mind.

If would be wise to buy through a hidden Trust though, because the other party may be reluctant to cede way to the breakaways and could refuse to sell to them.

Lysander
Lysander
August 25, 2022 3:47 pm

Shame to hear Brislurker, I’m sure the fighting spirit you show on the Cat will be on display!

Oh come on
Oh come on
August 25, 2022 3:50 pm

Hildebrand is so low information.”

He’s an idiot, he doesn’t know whether he’s Arthur or Martha.

Agree he is likeable. He’s a likeable Piers Morgan – every now and again he gets something really right and, if you were listening to him for the first time, you’d think he was edgy, anti-PC, anti-narrative etc. But then he will simp so hard for whatever the Current Thing is. There’s no consistency, no sense of underlying principles guiding his perspective – he seems to read the room before producing an opinion. And he often doesn’t read it well.

jupes
jupes
August 25, 2022 3:50 pm

All the best Brislurker.

jupes
jupes
August 25, 2022 3:53 pm

Agree he is likeable. He’s a likeable Piers Morgan – every now and again he gets something really right and, if you were listening to him for the first time, you’d think he was edgy, anti-PC, anti-narrative etc. But then he will simp so hard for whatever the Current Thing is. There’s no consistency, no sense of underlying principles guiding his perspective – he seems to read the room before producing an opinion. And he often doesn’t read it well.

Ha ha. True. I think people also cut him some slack a while back, because Tim Blair was his mate. However, the dickhead was going hard on the ‘racist Australia’ bullshit a few years ago. Have avoided him since.

JMH
JMH
August 25, 2022 3:53 pm

All the best for a quick and permanent recovery, Brislurker.

Oh come on
Oh come on
August 25, 2022 3:57 pm

All the best, Brislurker. And my condolences to Delta.

Kneel
Kneel
August 25, 2022 3:59 pm

“…impressive recitation of every conspiracy theory in a row there.”

Care to refute that any of those narratives from the left and the MSM (but I repeat myself) were all wrong? Because as is well documented, ALL of them were false lefty narratives. Every one.

Russia-gate – FBI said “no evidence of collusion” after 2 years and $50M, no Trump interference in the investigation.

Ukraine-gate – Trump released the contents of the call (official WH transcript) –> <crickets>

Jessie Smullet – he hired the people himself, they were never Trump supporters.

“Hands up don’t shoot” – never happened.

Kyle Rittenhouse – if you saw any of the video, you know that the “Not Guilty” verdict was clearly the result of self defense, and they were all white people, not black people.

Election integrity – the Democrat would-be governor of Georgia still insists election was rigged against her and she is the rightful governor, in 2019 HillBillary was still saying the election was rigged and Trump was illegitimate, yet any questions about 2020, like those in “2000 Mules” are to be ignored as “conspiracy theories”.

Hunter Biden: laptop story was blocked by social(ist) media and ignored by MSM until they eventually agreed the story and the laptop drive were legitimate – but only AFTER the election. FBI admits they had the laptop in 2019, but did nothing. Something north of 5% of people who voted for Biden didn’t know about the laptop story, but say if they did it would have changed their vote. Hunter Biden lied on his background check for a firearm, no action against him to this day.

Protection: after Jan 6, they put up fences and had National Guard deployed around the Capitol etc, yet even with clear evidence of people breaking federal law attempting to influence a judge at his home, not a single charge for this except the guy who self-admittedly tried to assassinate a sitting Supreme Court Justice and he got caught by local authorities (not the feds!). Worse, the president, VP and Majority leader of the house ALL encouraged clearly illegal acts – you are most definitely NOT allowed to protest outside a judges house, period.

So, yeah – I guess they were “conspiracy theories”. Just lefty ones. Now brushed under the rug and forgotten. Or trotted out as “conspiracy theories of the right” because you only read the headlines on the first 4 pages, and not the retractions buried on page 37 in 8 point font, nor U-turns later when it is finally “safe” for them to “drip, drip, drip” the truth out. Or the odd “stealth edit” with no footnote the story changed, so it looks like “we always said that” unless you use an internet archive site.

Delta A
Delta A
August 25, 2022 4:03 pm

Brislurkersays:
August 25, 2022 at 3:13 pm

What a terrible fright for you.

Yet in your post you said you were ‘lucky…” and “fortunate…”. That positive attitude, together with your doctors’ care, will certainly see you through.

PS: Not all chemo is ghastly. I’ve been on it for three years now, and shall remain so until lights out. The side effects are quite manageable.

Boambee John
Boambee John
August 25, 2022 4:03 pm

Brislurker

Give that chemo hell!

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
August 25, 2022 4:04 pm

Good luck Brislurker.
From my direct experience a few years ago, medical specialists never, ever use the “C-word” (cure) unless they are highly confident.

Delta A
Delta A
August 25, 2022 4:04 pm

Thanks, OCO.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
August 25, 2022 4:09 pm

What irony though.
Cured of cancer only to die of vax-attax in 8-38 months.
But at least that will bring some joy into the lives of a few bogan, red-neck Queenssslanders.

Boambee John
Boambee John
August 25, 2022 4:14 pm

Kneel

Don’t hold your breath waiting for m0nty-fa to respond, he tends not to concede any errors by the fascist left. However, he might respond by doubling down.

Anchor What
Anchor What
August 25, 2022 4:17 pm

School boards LOL.
Yes, but it can’t stop there. Every marched through institution has to be taken back in line with the values and attitudes of the majority of US citizens.
It’s a big job, maybe too big.
You can perhaps see why Thatcher thought Pinochet was a hero.

Makka
Makka
August 25, 2022 4:18 pm

He said the same thing about Hunters business dealings.

Didn’t know a thing about it. Like when suddenly, a few thousands Tali’s appeared outside Bagram AFB one day out of nowhere so his precious Military scooted out leaving 8 Billion $ of perfectly functioning military hardware, armour and machines. Didn’t have a fkg clue.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
August 25, 2022 4:18 pm

Brislurker, my neighbour is currently undergoing chemo for lymphoma. Like yours, it was a sudden shock diagnosis. She is in her late seventies, living alone but with family nearby. She lost her husband to cancer earlier this year so is now on her own. She and I exchange books regularly, so she is a reader, and this keeps her mind active. Our reading tastes differ, but there is enough overlap for me to keep her bedside pile of interesting stories well stocked. She is being very stoic and apparently is doing well. She also has heart problems and recently had to have a pacemaker inserted. She’s had enough problems this year for three people, so I count my blessings frequently. We and other neighbours try to check on her regularly.

Take heart that you are not alone on this journey, Brislurker. Cats and Kittehs have your back, and thank you for reminding us to check our lumps out. Lymphomas (blood cancers) are a variety of cancers where great success rates have been achieved in more recent times, so keep positive.

Kneel
Kneel
August 25, 2022 4:20 pm

“…he might respond by doubling down.”

Might? Well, OK, I’ll give you “might” – it’s either that, or ignore it completely.

In any case, that would require ignoring CNN (“The most trusted name in news”), The New York Times (“The publication of record”) and The Washington Post (“Democracy dies in darkness”) – hardly the bastions of “right-wing extremism”, are they? Not like in citing Tucker Carlson or quoting Donald Trump or anything.

Oh come on
Oh come on
August 25, 2022 4:21 pm

Joe Biden has always been a class act, as is evident from this profile puff piece by uber-biographer Kitty Kelley written back in 1974:

Death and the All-American Boy

In his office in the New Senate Office Building surrounded by more than 35 pictures of his late wife, Biden launched into a three-hour reminiscence. It wasn’t maudlin—he seemed to enjoy remembering aloud. He was the handsome football hero. She was the beautiful homecoming queen. Their marriage was perfect. Their children were beautiful. And they almost lived happily ever after. “Neilia was my very best friend, my greatest ally, my sensuous lover. The longer we lived together the more we enjoyed everything from sex to sports. Most guys don’t really know what I lost because they never knew what I had. Our marriage was sensational. It was exceptional, and now that I look around at my friends and my colleagues, I know more than ever how phenomenal it really was. When you lose something like that, you lose a part of yourself that you never get back again.

“My wife was the brains behind my campaign. I would never have made it here without her. It’s hard to imagine ever going through another campaign without her. She was the most intelligent human being I have ever known. She was absolutely brilliant. I’m smart but Neilia was ten times smarter. And she had the best political sense of anybody in the world. She always knew the right thing to do.

Let me show you my favorite picture of her,” he says, holding up a snapshot of Neilia in a bikini. “She had the best body of any woman I ever saw. She looks better than a Playboy bunny, doesn’t she?

“My beautiful millionaire wife was a conservative Republican before she met me. But she changed her registration. At first she didn’t want me to run for the Senate—we had such a beautiful thing going, and we knew all those stories about what politics can do to a marriage. She didn’t want that to happen. At first she stayed at home with the kids while I campaigned but that didn’t work out because I’d come back too tired to talk to her. I might satisfy her in bed but I didn’t have much time for anything else. That’s when she started campaigning with me and that’s when I started winning. You know, the people of Delaware really elected her,” he says, “but they got me.”

We’ve all got you now, Joe. Dear lord, look how full of shit he was even back then! Such a fantasist, such a blowhard.

Oh come on
Oh come on
August 25, 2022 4:26 pm

The sleaze just drips off his words. What a degenerate. You can see where Hunter gets it from.

Kneel
Kneel
August 25, 2022 4:27 pm

“Every marched through institution has to be taken back in line with the values and attitudes of the majority of US citizens.”

By this time, approximately half of states in the US are “constitutional carry” for firearms (Florida would make 26 – not sure if they have done it yet, but they intend to). That’s the result of Republican state legislation.
They are getting close to the required 34 states required for a convention of states that can propose an amendment to the constitution as well.
The biggest and historically the best indicator of coming elections in the US is the “right direction/wrong direction” – and Biden is way under water on that, same as his “satisfied/not satisfied” performance, and also under water on the “better off/worse off” too.
The “prefer to run the country by party”, which had the D’s up 1 % in 2020, where they lost seats, is at 5% or so in favour of R’s.
November will be… interesting!

Struth
August 25, 2022 4:29 pm

Yes Arky.
They have nothing but kiddie taunts in response.

Not a thing.

Sad really.

But it couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch.
They were told for three years and still went out and did it.
They were shown proof and given enough reason to not do it.
But they weren’t going to be told by the underclasses.
Arrogance and bigotry killed them……the walking dead….tick tick tick……
And a severe lack of grey matter.
You’ve got to ask the question…………………….why the fuck did they do it?
Here’s the answer.
They are only conservative by name, not action.
They just wanted to be in a club they perceived gave them some station in life above the peasants.
It really is poetic justice for some here, like Sancho and JC.

Roger
Roger
August 25, 2022 4:32 pm

Take enough of the dissenting congregations with them and this will increase the number of empty churches which cost money for the Diocese to maintain and insure.

The situation in the Sydney Anglican diocese may turn out differently, in that the whole diocese could leave the Anglican Church of Australia and take their property with them.

For others it’s more of a wrench. The minister who left the Brisbane diocese was given two weeks to clear out and had to hire a room in the local RSL for their first Sunday service.

H B Bear
H B Bear
August 25, 2022 4:34 pm

Arrogance and bigotry killed them……the walking dead….tick tick tick……

Any minute now. But first … back to our regular programming
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EnJEeHND_lQ

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  1. The Magazine attached to the Australian had an article just recently about the fantastic limestone cave networks under the desert…

  2. They’d suffocate, as in most you depend on air con for air quality as well. You can’t open windows in…

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