BJ is flossing his teeth as Dutton speaks; not a good look.

Ponzi Scheme Victims Cry Foul:

Couple who moved from India to Sydney seven years ago want halt to immigration as they struggle with cost of living

(lost the link…ABC? Daily Mail?)

DeSantis is extraordinary. In the Federal sphere he was totally captured by the blob but locally he’s a colossus.
DeSantis signs bill erasing the term ‘climate change’ from state law

It struck me as contrary to what Morrison did and said about Trump when PM and once he left parliament he became his true self, at least in respect to Trump.

His true self…hmm.

He’s in the US to tout his book.

A Trump endorsement will be very handy in the market its pitched at.

https://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2024/05/well-done-that-man.html

Anyone know where I can buy some of those shirts?

Rita Panahi gives the AFL a caning. Again:

The sheer absurdity of the AFL never ceases to amaze.

With the exception of the Australian Greens or the Queers for Palestine movement, one would struggle to find a more conflicted, wildly hypocritical pack of moral-posturing pretenders than the men and women at league headquarters.

It’s clear they have learnt absolutely nothing from their ill-considered activism for the Voice referendum, which was ultimately rejected by a clear majority of Australians despite the ‘yes’ camp out-spending the ‘no’ side, and by some margin.

For reasons that defy logic the AFL is again determined to antagonise at least 61 per cent of their fan base with more harebrained, race-based activism that will see a number of clubs changing their names to indigenous terms.

Are you pumped to see Euro-Yroke take on Walyalup this weekend? Perhaps it’s the clash between Waalitj Marawar and Narrm that has you excited; that’s if you had the slightest idea what any of that meant.

Both South Australian clubs decided to change their names, ignoring the fact that 65 per cent of the state voted against the Voice and the racial division it represented. If you think people who voted ‘no’ to the Voice would be happy to see their club name changed for some worthless virtue signalling exercise then you haven’t been paying attention. It’s bold of the AFL and its clubs to so haphazardly alienate a significant portion of their fan base.

The AFL’s official X account was mocked mercilessly this week when they posted an article with the following caption: “Will the Suns be able to emulate Yartapuulti’s success in limiting Tom Stewart’s impact?” You can imagine the responses.

Most footy fans, whatever their political persuasion, are thoroughly sick of politics and Leftist activism intruding into the game they love. And, they are increasingly seeing that the AFL has little credibility to weigh in on consequential sociopolitical issues.

This is the same organisation that has instituted a systematic WADA-dodging protocol that sees players pre-tested for illicit drugs and faking injuries to avoid match day positive tests, and the steep penalties that would follow.

It’s an organisation that this week came down like a tonne of bricks on a hapless Collingwood fan who awkwardly hugged West Coast’s, sorry I mean Waalitj Marawar’s Harvey Johnston but protects illicit drug users and gives endless chances to some unsavoury characters.

The AFL can rationalise holding a minute’s silence at games for female victims of violence while celebrating a character like “Dani” Laidley who four years ago pleaded guilty to stalking an ex-girlfriend and repeatedly breached court orders.

And, it’s worth noting this latest bit of activism will do nothing to advance race relations or unity, indeed the overwhelming majority of Indigenous folk are unlikely to know the names AFL clubs have adopted, given there are more than 250 different indigenous languages and 800 dialects, according to the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies.

A beautiful smackdown.
Euro-Yroke apparently is the name of St Kilda. Call me suspiciously suspicious but I have the feeling this is completely manufactured rubbish.
Also last night saw a young Aboriginal boy go out and hug Max Holmes from Geelong. Wondering if he will be banned from games for 12 months. Sorry you know the answer to that, I will see myself out.

chris merritt Sofronoff faces unequal application of the law

• 5:17PM May 16, 2024

The decision to subject Walter Sofronoff, KC, to a corruption inquiry raises issues of principle that do not reflect favourably on the government of the ACT.
The core of the problem relates to the erosion of one of the great principles of the rule of law – equal application of the law.
Sofronoff, a former president of the Queensland Court of Appeal, is accused of breaching provisions of the ACT Inquiries Act – a criminal offence – during his inquiry into the aborted rape trial of Bruce Lehrmann in the territory’s Supreme Court.
He provided his report on an embargoed basis to two journalists before giving it to the ACT government.
After taking legal advice, those in the ACT government who had accused Sofronoff last year of breaking the law took no further action – at least in public.
They did not apologise when Sofronoff’s lawyers asked for a retraction. Nor was Sofronoff charged with any offence.
Had charges been laid, his conduct would have been assessed against the requirements of the Inquiries Act – the statute that outlines the rules for those running inquiries.
Criminal justice is harsh. Those who breach the Inquiries Act can be jailed by a court.
But criminal justice is also fair. Those running inquiries who do not breach that statute know they cannot be punished – even if they infuriate those in authority.
This guarantee of robust independence is now at risk.
Sofronoff, despite being accused of criminal conduct, has not been subjected to a fair trial in which a court could assess his conduct against the clear and specific requirements of the Inquiries Act.
Instead, he is a victim of forum shopping.
Exactly the same criminal allegations that did not result in his prosecution have now been referred to a non-judicial tribunal that is not governed by the rules of evidence, operates under a statute that gives it a vaguely defined jurisdiction and which is overseen by a former academic and public servant who has never held a judicial position.
That public servant is John McMillan, a former commonwealth ombudsman who is an authority on public and administrative law, not criminal justice.
McMillan is a respected and honourable man. But he, too, must comply with the law – in this case the territory’s deeply worrying Integrity Commission Act.
This act is so vague it leaves open the possibility that Sofronoff could be declared corrupt not if he broke the law, as alleged by the territory’s government, but if McMillan decides the former judge “could” have broken the law.
Section 1 of the Integrity Commission Act says: “For this Act corrupt conduct is conduct that could constitute a criminal offence …”.
If there were any substance to the allegations against Sofronoff he would have been charged and prosecuted in a real court. It is revealing that this did not happen.
Instead, a man who has held one of this country’s most senior judicial positions is being subjected to a system that sidesteps the rigours of criminal justice.
Those accused of murder and rape receive fairer treatment.
With a lower standard of proof, a speculative “could” test for corruption, and no merits to appeal, Sofronoff is being set up for the same sort of smear that befell Sydney businessman Charif Kazal.
Kazal was declared corrupt in 2011 not because he had broken any law, but because the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption believed he “could” have broken a law.
For more than a decade, Kazal has been trapped in a Kafkaesque nightmare, unable to clear his name or test the merits of ICAC’s findings. Independent prosecutors, however, refused to charge him with anything.
Thanks to the advocacy of human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson KC, Kazal last year won a ruling in his favour from the UN Human Rights Committee. That ruling requires the federal government to prevent any similar erosion of rights guaranteed by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
The Albanese government, like its counterpart in NSW, has done nothing about the Kazal ruling. That means Sofronoff could become the latest victim of this bizarre system.
ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr accused Sofronoff of breaching the Inquiries Act at an emotional press conference on August 7 last year.
In retrospect, this is hard to reconcile with the failure to bring the former judge before a court. It also seems at odds with the formal written statement Barr issued the same day with his Attorney-General, Shane Rattenbury.
The formal statement implies there is a need to change the Inquiries Act because there is no provision that addresses Sofronoff’s actions.
This is what that statement says: “The government will also consider changes to the Inquiries Act to strengthen provisions relating to the obligation of nondisclosure of information in section 17 prior to the formal release of an inquiry report.
“The intent of any changes will be to provide the ACT government and the Canberra community with assurance that the unapproved release that occurred on this occasion will not occur for any inquiry that may be commissioned in the future.”
Sofronoff, like everyone else, is obliged to comply with obligations imposed by the law. But he is also entitled to the protections of the law.
If those protections can be sidestepped for Kazal and Sofronoff, they can be sidestepped for everyone.

Cassie of Sydney
 May 17, 2024 7:50 am

Johnny Pesutto has now settled and has apologised to Kellie-Jay Keen and Angie Jones for smearing them as ‘Nazis’. Good.

But nothing for Moira Deeming?

“Kneel, Both Dover and yourself can’t except a mistake.”

Was that deliberate?
I can accept that I made a mistake, and I can except a mistake by anyone as unusual. I presume you mean the former based on context. Either that, or as above, it was deliberate – perhaps for humor (just to be generous).

Regardless, as I said, it seems to me that you are dismissing the failures of the deep state to carry out the stated policy of the President by virtue of the fact that at a later date, the policy changed. My point was always and ever that these permanent “public servants” did as they wished rather than what they were told by their elected superiors (“superior” in the “authority” view, not any other like “morality” etc) and that such is not acceptable behavior by them.

Their duty is to carry out the stated policy, whether they like it or not, whether it makes sense or not, whether it will work or not. Any failure of the policy falls upon the elected representative not them, just as any success is not theirs to claim.
This is not hard to understand – or so I assumed. You appear to either fail to understand it, or fail to recognise the reason why these things are they way they are. But don’t let me stop you from espousing your opinion, you are welcome to have it and say it, just as I am welcome to mine, and both of us are welcome to disagree with the other. I trust my own position on this matter is now clear (if it wasn’t before), and that is an end it.

‘digenous round matches and the celebration of ‘digenous players past, present and out on bail.

Luv it .. 15/10 ..LOL!!

Bowen is not a human. He is a mere mathematical operation in a larger and more cynical political equation. 

Oh Mother Lode – you flatter him! Chris Bowen, for me, is one of those AWFUL boys in school who imagined he was a lot smarter than he was. A struggler. Nothing wrong with that. EXCEPT if the struggler thinks every mark was in error. That is Chris Bowen. There are some quite clever people in federal Labor. Bowen is not one of them. He is a journeyman. The Labor Party use him as cannon fodder.

What was God thinking of when he became Pope????

For argument’s sake (since I’m not RC and don’t believe the pope is appointed by divine decree. Do Catholics even believe that? dover?)

God generally acts through means, in this case the cardinals. It could be that he permitted Francis’ election by them to test the RC faithful.