Only in America??

Fiona Uncategorized

kleptocracy2

Only in America??
(QuickLink from yesterday’s AlterNet Headlines)

Is this something peculiar to Uncle Sam, or can we see elements of the colourful individual described in this article in some of our … quirkier … home-grown pollies?

NOTE: The title of this post does not mean that comments are restricted to matters American …

Sam Stockman – the Texas GOPer Who’s Bringing Ted Nugent to Obama’s SOTU

At some point we’re going to have to consider Texas a failed state. There should be a limit to just how dumb your representatives can be before it runs afoul of some trigger mechanism, somewhere, after which all the people who voted for that particular moron are stripped from voting again until they satisfactorily re-complete the fourth grade—but one problem with that, I suppose, is that we’d end up with the most unstable, heavily armed group of mustachioed fourth graders to ever grace our poorly funded public schools, and nobody wants to see that.

Rep. Steve Stockman is one of those representatives. Put more simply, his reelection should be taken as a sign that certain areas of Texas are still bitter at Somalia’s success, and even more bitter that they can’t just elect outright crooks like Tom DeLay anymore. Mostly known for being a nutcase one-term Congressman back in the nineties, Stockman made a brief name for himself with Waco conspiracy theories, gun fetishism, gun fetishism about Waco conspiracy theories, and a relationship with the NRA and anti-government militias that even for the 1990’s was fairly goddamn nuts.

. . . . .

Before and after that short and entirely unhinged shift in Congress, Stockman hasn’t had a political career so much as an ambitious, decades-long string of political failures punctuated by a few lucky breaks and more than a little friendly wingnut welfare (with an emphasis on molding young conservative minds via things like the Campus Leadership Program, and no, I do not know why that creeps me out as much as it does.) Still, for some reason a passel of ultraconservatives in Texas felt that it was finally time to give the obvious crazy person another shot in the big boy office, and Stockman is quickly making those Texans proud by being, well, as big a goddamn crackpot as he can manage without being hauled off for professional supervision.

Below the fold, let’s consider his absolutely insane one-month record so far:

      He was only one of a handful of House Republicans to vote against John Boehner,

boldly managing a “present” vote

      as the most spectacularly incompetent congressional coup of all time collapsed around its supposed planners.

In the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School murders, his response was to introduce legislation repealing the gun free zones around schools, and for the same reason as the similar NRA blustering—because what we needed, according to both, was to have manymore people wandering around school zones with guns, and that would probably work out just fine.

He was abruptly cut off in a Fox News interview after comparing Barack Obama to Saddam Hussein, thus managing to rank as one of the few crackpot Republicans too nuts even for Fox News to stomach.

When Obama introduced a set of executive actions that included things like “finally appoint a permanent head of the ATF, even if that makes Republicans sad” and “government scientists should be allowed to research gun violence”, Steve Stockman threatened in an exceptionally frothing statement to impeach Obama, if necessary, in order to stop such obviously scandalous things. This may have been the first, biggest sign that Steve Stockman is in fact a bona fide moron, but he quickly surpassed even that.

That brings us to Stockman’s latest episode of Congressional Moron Theater. In response to other politicians inviting Sandy Hook first responders, children, and other figures to the State of the Union, decided to rebut the presence of those people by inviting Ted Nugent, a man whose unhinged, violent rhetoric even managed to garner a visit by the Secret Service:

Nugent in the past has threatened to kill President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and California Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer.

“I was in Chicago and I said hey Obama, you might want to suck on one of these you punk; Obama, he’s a piece of shit, and I told him to suck on my machine gun,” Nugent screamed during a concert while brandishing two machine guns, “Then I was in New York and I said, ‘Hey Hillary you might want to ride one of these into the sunset you worthless bitch…. Then I was out in California and I thought, Barbara Boxer, she might want to suck on my machine gun, hey Dianne Feinstein ride one of these you worthless whore.”

You might ask which parts of that cause Steve Stockman, in his official press release about the stunt, to refer to Ted Nugent as “a patriot”. I imagine it’s those very threats, because nobody, anywhere, has any idea what the vigorously self-emasculated Nugent actually does these days aside from drunkenly threatening members of the opposition while waving guns around. My own opinion is that Steve Stockman referring to the gun fetishist and possibly-drug-addled Nugent as a “patriot” in a press release is quite possibly a worse sin than inviting him to a government function at all, but that is because my idea of “patriot”, especially in the wake of the latest in a long string of horrific mass murders, does not revolve around telling the nation’s president to “suck on my machine gun.” For Congressman Stockman, it does. (And can you imagine any other actual member of Congress, in the past, so closely aligning himself with someone who wished violence against the government? Forget rebranding the party, Karl Rove, you may have your work cut out for you convincing Americans that Republicans aren’t for outright treason, given a few more years of this. Even secession talk is considered tame, now that “Obama, he’s a piece of shit, and I told him to suck on my machine gun” is considered the high point of Republican “patriotism.”)

…

277 thoughts on “Only in America??”

  2. Cross post. Details the comments I made earlier

    Labor will switch back to Kevin Rudd before the September election, according to former opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull.

    ”I think it is likely they will put him back,” Mr Turnbull, the opposition’s communications spokesman told ABC Television on Thursday.

    But Mr Rudd has ridiculed the suggestion, saying Mr Turnbull should ”jump in the ice bath”.

    ”I said a week or so ago everyone should take a long cold shower,” Mr Rudd told Channel Seven on Friday morning. ”What I’d say to Malcolm and you Joe (Hockey) is it’s time to jump in the ice bath”.

    On the speculation by Mr Turnbull – ”who has no leadership aspirations himself” – which was forming the basis for a discussion on whether he would challenge again for the leadership, Mr Rudd responded ”give me a break”.

    A spokesman for Mr Turnbull refused to comment when asked about the chances of Mr Turnbull reclaiming the Liberal leadership given the poll results.

    Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/political-news/labor-will-reinstall-rudd-says-turnbull-20130215-2egn0.html#ixzz2KucP1qCQ

  3. And this was ‘News’ apparently. Did you know that, not one, but TWO! polls are coming out next week? Cue prognostications of doom and gloom for the government, based upon…..another poll, a Newspoll! And the media’s now, set-in-concrete narrative of ‘chaos’ in the government, leadership speculation, and ‘a bad start to the year for the government’.

    We should start up PUB Radio so we can get the jump on these shrill shills.

    Any Sugar Daddies out there want to bankroll us? 🙂

  4. Sickening Faine 774 radio again today following yesterdays soft interview/tickle tummy with Abbott.

    Kroger given a gig to tell us how good the real Ted Baillieu really is and how pathetic Daniel Andrews is.
    Faine tells Kroger twice (yes twice) how indebted we are to have him on the show!

  5. ‘Labor Will Reinstall Rudd, Says a Mischievous, Machiavellian, Self-Interested Malcolm Turnbull in a Coalition Effort to Destabilise the Government’, should be the honest heading for that article.

  6. C@tmomma

    All Rudd has to say out loud is that he is going to campaign his guts out for the govt and the re election of PMJG.

    To date he has not been emphatic.

    Btw is this correct

    [The rules of the ALP are such that if you accept Alp endorsement, and you are elected you are duty bound not to resign said position without permission of the party. Robert Mclelland would have signed this undertaking so as to receive all the assistance that goes with being an endorsed ALP candidate. If he chooses to go back on this written agreement I would think that would be conduct not becoming an aspireing Industrial Relations Comissioner]

  8. While hopefully lookng forward to The Guardian in Australia I am less than impressed with their coverage so far. Kate Middleton in a bikini (who cares?) and a Pom Backpacker lost. A bit around the edges about Mr X imprisoned and suicided in Israel but that’s it.

    Earth shattering!

  10. Oh boy, isn’t hindsight absolutely wonderful? Almost as good as being clairvoyant. The media and the public joined the coalition to STOP THE MINING TAX, causing Rudd PM to suffer extreme pressure on his ego and to fratenise with the miners to find a way to do what they wanted. Remember how Rudd was seen to be ‘best friends’ with Twiggy ?

    And, when the MRRT was negotiated and passed through parliament with Greens support, which party immediately began to undermine it? The WA Liberal govt by increasing their royalties supported by the Fed Libs and their media.

    Then those billionaire mining companies which wanted all the mining wealth for themselves, did what all greedy mongrels do and ensured they found enough loopholes in the system/agreement so they paid bugger all in the first 6 months.

    Now everybody and his dog wants the revenue they avidly opposed by openly campaigning with the mining companies and the Abbott coalition against this Great Big New Tax that would effectively send all the mining companies to walk away from this nation and exploit another somewhere else.

    Now, after spending the whole of their time since 2010 indulging in dozens of schemes and smear campaigns to bring down the Gillard government, the coalition are pleading complete innocence and declaring incompetence by Labor because they, and their mining co mates have once again fleeced the people of Australia. And the media, of course, have completely absolved themselves of their part in the whole affair as is Christine Milne.

    It is enough to make a person throw up. I would stop being nice and tell those smart-arse mining companies that since it is of no use consulting and negotiating, the government has decided to slug them with a rise in their company tax in order to ensure this nation gets its fair share out of their minerals.

  11. You know, all these journo’s..;radio, tele and print that toe the suckole line just to get their pay each week have to be the most piss-weak specimens of humans to have EVER drawn breath!
    Damn if I and many, many more trades and labouring workers haven’t walked away from bastard bosses and unethical situations (look at Wilkie and JWH.) and copped the loss – AND IT WAS A BIG LOSS TO OUR FAMILIES TOO! rather than do the dirty on our friends and society.
    So I say to those journo’ who claim immunity from criticism for “toeing the line” as they NEED the job…..well F*CK YOU b*stards!……………..and don’t you worry..what goes ’round, comes ’round!….and we’ll be seeing you.

  12. Bushfire Bill:

    You once left a comment here (or at PB, I can’t remember) describing the polls as being three steps forward, two steps backwards, with the blow out to the coalition getting smaller all the time.

    I’ve tried to find that comment, but can’t find it. Can you remember what you said and pls post again? Ta.

  13. “@abcnews: BREAKING Peter Slipper granted adjournment in ACT Magistrates court on 3 charges of general dishonesty causing risk of loss to Commonwealth”

  16. I am so sick of nearing that Western Sydney will be a disaster for Labor. What do they think the Libs are going to do for them. Build a frickin dam? I thought this part of Sydney would be pissed off if they lost the school bonus, the 18000 tax threshold and increase to Superannuation being scrapped.

  17. foreverjanice

    Remember how Rudd was seen to be ‘best friends’ with Twiggy ?

    And met with him on the very last afternoon of his reign – the ‘final straw’?

    I think so.

  18. CTar1

    I was reliably informed at the time of Rudd and his foray into the mining tax that he was done for. A few weeks later, it came to pass

  19. victoria:

    Have you noticed that those who go on about how disastrous western Sydney will be for the federal ALP are invariably those who don’t live there?

  21. Tim Holding is resigning, eh? That’s 4 Victorian Labor ministers so far.

    I suppose it’s expected though. Fortunately Holding’s electorate is Lyndhurst, held by 63.9%, so Labor’s pretty much got the by-election secured, as long as a surprise Independent upset doesn’t happen.

  22. Also I wonder if Baillieu will chicken out of this by-election too? 4 in a row will not be a good look.

  23. vk

    Ballieu is not popular with the teachers. Yesterday was a mass strike and the turnout was incredible

  24. This tweet is gold

    RT @RealSkipBayliss: Tiger Woods, Joe Paterno, Lance Armstrong, and Oscar Pistorius. Nike should change their slogan to “Just Don’t Do It”

  25. How True. And then that LIbs views become a story to fan the flames

    Greg Jericho‏@GrogsGamut

    @citizen_cam I don’t even grasp the thought process that leads to someone calling Kroger to talk about the ALP

  26. @Victoria

    Yes, I saw that. And I also saw that Kennett slammed Baillieu on 3AW as well so the unpopularity is coming from his side as well.

    Not allowing a Liberal to contest the upcoming Lyndhurst by-election might be the straw that breaks his leadership. I remember there was much anger from the Libs over not contesting Niddrie and Melbourne last year.

  28. How is it that the Liberal and National parties can so easily take over the National Broadcaster?

    I just can’t get over the fact that Jon Faine, one of the last bastions of resistance to Coalition GroupThink which has infested the ABC since Richard Alston was Communications Minister for Howard, basically, has just capitulated so easily when challenged over his forthright and utterly understandable and reasonable interview of Michael Smith.

    No wonder I decided to never have a mortgage again after I lost my house to pay back my debts during ‘The Recession We Had to Have’. It meant that I never had to worry again about balancing out competing financial interests when it comes to my personal integrity.

    It helps that I rent a place from family friends in one of the most beautiful places on the Sydney coast I guess. 🙂

  29. Jon Faine 774 is not on air this coming Monday.

    The ABC’s backfill for the day – namely Sally Warhaft a publicly self- confessed Julia Gilliard hater

  30. C@t:

    They whinge long and loud and hard about any perceived bias (real or imagined, usually the latter) towards the ALP. This whingeing is backed up by their spear carriers in the News ltd papers, usually the OO.

    They write numerous letters of complaint to the ABC, various parliamentary committees, etc. It’s a concerted campaign designed to bully the ABC into complying with their world view.

  31. Good morning everybody.

    No, I haven’t been sleeping in. Au contraire. I’ve spent the last 3 hours de-virusing my computer.

    OM are indeed becoming shriller and shriller, as are the Coalition. The next nearly seven months will be nasty, but while we may be tempted to become despondent, I think we must remain positive. Don’t despair: the prospect of an Abbott-led or Abbott-infected government is so dire that fighting the good fight is not just the only thing, but the best thing, that we can do.

  32. Earlyopener,

    Sally Warhaft is Eeyore’s mate. Specially created from one of Eeyore’s bits of sawdust.

  33. I see Abbot has consulted his “distinguished” advisors who gave him just one single word on a piece of paper. The word was GROWTH so his nibs is waffling on about how he will achieve growth as Howard did way back when.

    Gawd, I wonder whether a majority of voters want to go back to the Howard era when the govt took the easy way out and did nothing about infrastructure, preferring instead to sit in the counting house counting the money available for re-election campaign bribes.

  40. Don’t get Jon Faine over here…we get a local version of the braying donkeys that I never listen to…I refer to them as : “The two blokes”….
    You know…from “Keating; the musical”….”I’m just a bloke…an ordinary bloke………..on the mateship!…”

  41. I’ve tried to find that comment, but can’t find it. Can you remember what you said and pls post again? Ta.

    I can’t find it myself, not enough time anyway.

    The basic hypothesis was based on Possum’s Pollytrend graph and other observations I made of polling in the run-up to the 2007 election.

    The “Media Effect” on polling trends gradually wears off. As the punters become immune to scandals etc. they desert the government less and less, and come back in greater and greater numbers.

    The curve is similar to a reverse roller coaster. Instead of using gravity to drop lower and lower after each (lower and lower) crest (or polling recovery in the present context), a reverse roller coaster climbs higher and higher each time.

    Three steps forward, two steps back.

    This has been happening since 2010. There was a precipitous fall to about a 59:41 trand then a recovery. The next trend trough was about 56:44. The next, 2013 trough should be around 54:46.

    If this pattern is followed, then polling recovery for Labor should start in about 6 weeks, bottoming out and then recovering in time for the election.

    Around election time I predict that the polls will show about a 50:50 trend. It could be a little before that as I also noticed the period of the polling cycle – the time between peaks – was speeding up a little.

    I saw this before in 2007, where the then government (Coalition) gradually caught up, just not enough to win. Of course, the trick for Labor is to win. That goes without saying.

    But putting Abbott in as PM is a Big Ask too.

    His position on “trustworthiness” is grim. But (cleverly) he’s using that untrustworthiness quotient to “dare” the mugs watching his shell game – the voting public – to try to beat the house, to attempt to figure out which shell the pea is under.

    It’s a common scenario with cheap scammers. They have to operate in a scenario where the mugs KNOW they are bent. Everyone is aware that the Shell Game (Pea & Thimble Trick, also Three Card Monte where the Red Queen substitutes for the pea) is dodgy, but they still step up to be fleeced or their hard-earned. Why?

    Because they think they can beat the scammer at his own game.

    The scammer employs shills to come forward and win, thus “proving” the game is legit. Others follow, if the scammer is good enough. Abbott is a good scammer.

    In cases of suspect sales, for example the Gold Chain Gambit (where “24 carat gold” chains or “1 oz. ingots” are sold for ridiculous discounts at street markets) the shill will always buy the first one, claiming to be an expert at detecting phoney gold.

    In politics, the polls fulfill this role. They keep telling us that millions will be voting against Labor, millions have already bought the gold chain. They ask, “Why not join in and make it a landslide?”

    It’s not that the polls are bent, but the reporting of them is slanted towards making it appear the result is a foregone conclusion. Mugs fall for it every time.

    The other essential thing to remember about Abbott’s shell game is that it doesn’t have to have universal appeal. It only has to convince 2% of voters to step up and try their luck. Once they’ve surrendered their vote, of course, they never get it back. Abbott will have squandered it immediately. The damage will have been done.

    The normally Labor-inclined who vote for the Coalition think they can beat Abbott. They think they’ve outsmarted him. They KNOW he’s dodgy, but they think they’ve worked him out.

    There’s enough policy confusion around to provide ample opportunity for the mugs to be fleeced.

    * “The NBN will be destroyed” v. “It will be continued.”

    * “The tax-free threshold will be repealed.” v. “It will be kept.”

    * “There will be an NDIS.” v. “There’s not enough money for one.”

    * “100 dams will be built.” v. “It was just a draft idea.”

    * “Public servants in their thousands will be sacked, and good riddance to them.”v. “There will only be some slight trimming.”

    * “Company tax will go down,” v.”… but it will also go up to pay for Parental Leave.”

    * Interest rates will be “lower”, “higher” and “stay the same.”

    * “They’re policy rich and ready for an election any time one is called.” v. “Their policies are still under development and will be ready by August.”

    * (One I heard on 2GB this morning) “Bill Shorten should be condemned for calling serious charges of corruption in sport a ‘Beat up’.” v. “The government should be condemned for beating up trivial incidents of corruption in sport (despite the state Attorneys-General coming away from yesterday’s confidential meeting with Clare ashen faced).”

    You’ll all have your own favourite contradictions, back-flips, ambiguities and ambivalent Coalition policy positions.

    In my opinion it’s futile trying to argue against them. That just wastes time. It takes ten seconds to utter a policy lie, and weeks or months to refute it, and that’s IF the media even bothers to print your rebuttal.

    In each of the above, separate sections of society think they can see something they want.

    If they want an NBN to be built, they’ll latch onto statements in the media that say “Of course, the ‘Destroy the NBN’ promise will be broken”.

    If they have a mortgage they’ll want to believe the bit about interest rates being lower, not the other bit about interest rates being too low (and thus, implicitly needing to be higher). Self-funded retirees will hug the opposite proposition.

    Low income workers will WANT to believe that Abbott would not dare to get rid of it.

    Mums and Dads will WANT to believe he’ll retain the Schools Bonus.

    In all these cases, the voters (aka “the mugs”), distrusting Abbott, believe they have worked him out. They believe they know which shell the pea is under.

    They know he’s a liar, so they believe the opposite of whatever he’s saying, especially if it suits their expectations or their needs. That’s the way to beat Abbott at his own game…not.

    The ONLY way to beat Abbott is to NOT PLAY THE GAME. To walk away.

    The way to encourage the mugs to desert Abbott is to simply say, “Don’t take notice of what he says. Whatever it is, he’s trying to scam you.”

    Gillard has made the mistake in the past of scoffing at Abbott’s “promises”, saying he’ll never fulfill them. That’s what he WANTS the mugs to think.

    Consequently, I think this is a totally bad strategy and I hope she stops using it.

    Instead, the government should be hammering home the idea that Abbott’s policies are totally contradictory, internally and externally. they should emphasise the point that he probably doesn’t know what he’d do himself (which I believe is the case). All Abbott wants is power first, policy second.

    On September 15th, if that 2% of mugs decide to take Abbott on at his own game, if they figure they’ve out-smarted the smartarse, then they’ll have given him carte blanche to do whatever he wants to do.

    He will act quickly. The prospect of voting him out if he renegs will be about as useful a scenario as complaining to Consumer Affairs that the gold chain you bought from a street vendor wasn’t real gold.

    A voter said the other night on ABC TV (lovingly replayed) that “He can’t be there forever,can he? I mean, we can always vote him out again, can’t we?”

    This poor sod doesn’t understand that by the time another election comes around the damage will have been well and truly done, most probably to idiots like himself, working people, unionists, low paid employees.

    Just like Campbell Newman in Queensland, Abbott intends to ACT FAST.

    Thousands will be sacked. Media monopolies will be shored up. The NBN will be sold off to corporate mates (what a bonus for Telstra… they flog-off their megabit copper network for a premium, then buy a gigabit digital network back in return, for a song!).

    Abbott will get Costello, or Nick Greiner to go through the books like a dose of salts and report that the NDIS is unsustainable. Carers will go back to being trapped with their loved ones in a never-ending misery of death and sickness.

    No, or very few trees will be planted. The scientists are right: they just cost a lot and do little.

    The boats will not be turned back. They’ll try a few, for appearances’ sake, then quit, or be forced to quit by a recalcitrant navy. It’s against international law, after all.

    Gay marriage will be off the agenda.

    National parks will be opened up for shooters and trail bike riders in order to make them pay their way, like any other business.

    The Carbon Tax WILL be repealed, making Australia a laughing stock in the eyes of the rest of the world.

    Plain packaging of cigarettes will be abandoned. The tobacco companies pay enough to the Liberal Party for this to be near to a dead certainty.

    We’ll never get a republic.

    His crazy Paid Parental Leave scheme won’t surface. It’s too expensive and prone to rorting. It’s too against what “business” wants.

    Industrial relations will become a wasteland of exploitative bosses hiring and firing millions of hapless workers at their whim.

    The courts, the ABC Board, all the rest of the qangos will be stacked with Abbott appointees.

    And so on and so forth…

    Abbott’s game is power. He wants voters to believe their vote can be lent to him and that it will be paid back upon demand. It won’t… not before he’s wrecked the joint beyond repair.

    He want voters to believe he’s a con man, so the slower thinkers among them can try to outsmart him. To them, it’s a game, like voting on a Reality TV show, or clicking on an on-line poll. To him… it’s total power.

    It won’t be a return to “Howard 2007”. It’ll be a cataclysmic fall into the abyss of “Abbott 2013”.

    Abbott doesn’t care about policy. He only cares about power. And he’ll tell any lie, make any promise, contradict any previous utterance he’s made in his insane quest for it.

    When he gets there he’ll make it up as he goes along,most probably offending many of his erstwhile more solid supporters.

    He won’t care. He’ll be “the Authority” by then.

    Kevin Rudd, one of the supreme rats of Australian Labor history, wants us to believe people like Julie Bishop and Joe Hockey will be on hand to temper the more excessive Abbottisms. It plays into Abbott’s hands to see things like this. No wonder he slapped Rudd on the back the other day. He was thanking him.

    All that’s between Abbott and his Holy Grail of power for its own sake is Julia Gillard.

    She needs to learn fast, in my opinion.

    She needs to quit trying to critique his policies. She needs to quit telling everyone that he doesn’t mean it.

    He does.

    He has an image of Australia in his demented head that is ugly, divisive, polarised, forever indulging in chaos.

    It’s how these Jesuit-educated DLP zealots think: “In confusion is profit.”

    They are profiteers off the backs of a confused, conflicted public, more concerned with baseball bats than policy, obsessed with trivia, and forever deluding themselves that they can out-scam the scammer.

    Gillard needs to point this out in the most forceful way possible. She needs to get down and dirty in defence of Australia. Policy talk, QT, parliament itself are wastes of time. Reason in the face of Abbott’s insanity is anathema.

    As the British government found out in 1943, firebombing the bastards is the only solution.

    And even then it’ll be a close-run thing.

  42. Last night I watched (we sure can be masochistic) a Channel 9 Sydney Report on the ACCC exposure of drug use and criminal infiltration of Australian Sport. The Panel was stacked with sports figures that considered themselves hard done by: the lovely Ray Hadley, Phil Gould, Dennis Lockyer and a Daiy Telegraph reporter by the name of Kent.

    The general theme was that the whole expose was a beat-up done by the Gillard Government through Clare and Ellis to take the heat off their misgovernment of the nation. All the nation’s sportsmen were being accused of cheating that they would never do – these guys had been there and they knew everyone gave of their best without illegal stimulation. The Crime Commission were big-noting themselves; the Press conference had been held in, shock, horror, Canberra which just proved the Government were forcing all the poor football CEOs to turn up and look stupid.

    Ans so the program kept going on: one part “our sport is clean, because we know it’s clean” (just like Armstrong and his cycling mates); the other part ” it’s the rotten Gillard Government trying to take the spotlight off their incompetence”.

    A mark of the programs bias was that the breaking interview with Graham Annesley, the Liberal NSW Minister for Sport, after his briefing from the Crime Commission earlier last night, was a beacon of light. Much to the panel’s surprise, Annesley said that, following his briefing, he believed that the matter was very serious and needed a lot of follow-up investigation that would take a lot of time.

    Nevertheless, after the Annesley segment was over, the Panel returned to its theme of bad, incompetent Labor Government that went off half-cocked and which should have waited until all the investigation was finished and all the evidence was gathered and set in stone. (That worked well with cycling, didn’t it)

    I guess the Daily Terror is running much the same line. I reckon it will have a 1to 2% effect in this weekend’s polls; like a lot of other beat=ups it will probably wash away before Sept 14.

  43. BB

    Brilliant post.

    I must have missed the reports regarding the meeting of the State Attorney Generals meeting with Jason Clare and/or the ACC. I did not know that this took place.

  44. The members of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition have made an awful lot of predicitions lately. So many that there are some among their ranks who could seriously consider post-politics careers as soothsayers.

    There has been a virtual chorus of Liberals saying Rudd will be PM any day now. Michael Kroger is the latest to reveal his supernatural powers by prediciting a Rudd return to the Lodge. Who knew he had the ability to peer into the depths of Kevin Rudd’s mind? Malcolm Turnbull also shares that ability. They could do a double act in Las Vegas – Mike and Mal, Mystics ‘R Us.

    Then there was Psychic (or maybe Psycho) Tony’s claim that the PM will call an early election. It seems he had a vision on the road to Queanbeyan in which a burning bush told him That Woman could not be trusted. He’s been spreading the gospel ever since.

    Even Julie Bishop, recently returned from a secret visit to an oracle in Sri Lanka, has shown off her unique paranormal abilities by telling Julia Gillard to ‘Beware the ides of March’ and to keep an eye on the full moon.

    On and on it goes, each prediction becoming more ludicrous than the last, although Julie Bishop’s Ides/moon comment will take a bit of beating. She’s already the favourite to win the Flo Bjelke Petersen Golden Scone award for Fruitcake of the Year at the Midwinter Ball.

    What next? Bronwyn Bishop sees an early election in her lea leaves? Wazza Truss reads the return of the Ruddsiah in the entrails of a rooster?

  45. Brianmcisme

    Thanks for the report. I actually wrote to Jason Clare forewarning him of this program. But I do believe the govt have done themselves some damage in the process

  48. Leone,

    She’s already the favourite to win the Flo Bjelke Petersen Golden Scone award for Fruitcake of the Year at the Midwinter Ball.

    Would you care to don your Deputy Fashion Editor’s fascinator and predict Ms J Bishop’s outfit on that august occasion?

  49. janice

    Good idea.

    BB

    Perhaps you could even send it to Jason Clare in light of the sports saga currently being played out.

  50. Sortius Currently writing an article to pick apart this Turnbull interview. The sheer arrogance of Turnbull is sickening. #NBN

Comments are closed.