Like Trump the stench of Morrison is about to hit all those that stood around him. Hurley Frydenberg, Dutton, et al have all been tarnished by Scott Morrison who blames them in that he didn’t trust they coud do their jobs or sufficiently support him.
The scandal building over the secret appointments by Scott Morrison may cost the Governor-General, David Hurley, his job.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has this morning failed to give an unequivocal endorsement of Hurley’s role in the appointments. This is close to being the kiss of death for a vice-regal figure in today’s Australia.
One of the more bizarre things Scott Morrison said in his hour-long, sometimes combative, Wednesday news conference was that he’d had a “wonderful” conversation with Josh Frydenberg on Tuesday.
Morrison contacted Frydenberg after the revelation the former prime minister had himself sworn into the treasury portfolio in May last year and never told the treasurer. On the same day he’d inserted himself in the home affairs ministry, unbeknown to occupant Karen Andrews.
When she learned this week of his action, Andrews exploded and called for Morrison to leave parliament. Frydenberg, now in the investment banking world although retaining a hankering for politics, acted with more restraint.
But for the ex-treasurer and ex-member for Kooyong, the affair must raise the “what if” question.
What if the story of Morrison’s extraordinary power-grab had come out a few months before the election?
While this is undoubtedly a disgraceful “trashing of democracy”, as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese described it, it is hardly out of character for a man who denigrated his privileged position throughout his prime ministership. Indeed, Morrison even admitted his distrust of “governments” at the first opportunity, in front of fellow Pentecostal worshippers, following the toppling of his ridiculous excuse for a Government.
The news of former PM Scott Morrison’s deception has shown us how fragile our democracy can be. Dr Jennifer Wilson examines possible reasons behind such a pursuit of ultimate power.
When confronted with their malfeasance the Tories are capable of embarrassment but not shame. They circle the wagons – obfuscating, quibbling, blame-shifting and projecting albeit while blushing and looking at their shoes. Any regret is only ever at getting caught.
DiddleyScott led the Nasties to new levels of heinous behaviour, clad in his belief he had celestial licence to indulge his megalomania. Can the Nasties change? They won’t. Morrison and his messiah complex may be toxic and while now a figure of derision he moved the dial on acceptable behaviour way beyond norms and conventions. He tested what he could get away with; who knows what he was capable of had he been re-elected. The stench still clings to the shady characters who survived. I doubt that Spud has the inclination, the character or the stones to do anything about it.
Disinformation goes much deeper than that it’s direct from Trumpland to Australia via the LNP for some 10 if not longer years.. Peter Dutton spent time in the US intentionally mis and disinforming himself on politics , policy and tactics to use against the new ALP Government. Rest assured he spoke with the Murdochs, the GOP and looked for financial support just as One Nation did. Dutton simply doesn’t have what it takes to lead or even be trusted and Morrison indicated that by keeping him out of the loop. Frankly why would anyone be surprised if they were being independantly manipulated by America’s far-right?
The anti-vaxxers obstructing hospital entries in Melbourne are consuming the same misinformation and subsuming the same moral values as the Americans
How is it men like Trump and Scott Morrison are their own worst enemies when it comes to trying to justify their mistakes. Trump promises to pay his legal counsel but only does if they win. Morrison doesn’t trust anyone to be his lawyer and thinks he’s the best defense he has.
Attorney General Merrick Garland has many incredibly serious concerns in the unique, complex, high-wire situation in which he finds himself. The former president’s ability to personally articulate a meaningful defense to well-founded charges the attorney general is considering should not be one of them. Simply put, Donald Trump would end up being a very powerful witness against himself, if he decided to testify at all. The people in the best position to know, Trump’s own defense team, have certainly come to that conclusion
But Bannon wanted to talk. He explained repeatedly that Trump would announce early that he had won and would suggest that any apparent Biden victory had resulted from fraud. “He’s just gonna go in—remember, this is just with like 20 percent of the vote counted, Trump’s just gonna walk in and go, ‘I’m the winner,’” Bannon said.
Former President Donald Trump and his team have spent days since the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago trying to assemble a “team of respected lawyers” but keep getting rejected, according to The Washington Post.”Everyone is saying no,” a prominent Republican lawyer told the outlet.
Morrison’s bio reads like a history of an inept con artist taking on jobs he in effect was never competant to perform and caught out each time. NZ sacked him, The Australian Government sacked him and we sacked him. The only people that didn’t were the members a the Cook branch in the Liberal Party who opened the door by allowing him to lie his way into representing them over and above their original and preferred candidate at the time.
In an expert analysis, Anne Twomey, a professor of constitutional law and director of the Constitutional Reform Unit at the University of Sydney, told ABC radio that Morrison’s actions suggested “delusions of grandeur that suddenly you’re a president who should be in charge of everything rather than [thinking] I’m a prime minister who’s first among equals and is a participant in a system of responsible government”.
Australians didn’t deserve him. Morrison says he was smarter than us all. Sacked, Sacked and sacked it was never his fault. The PM didn’t go rogue the LNP chose a rogue for PM.
He wants us to believe his portfolio pilfering was perfectly rational – but at the same time he admits colleagues couldn’t be told because they’d be shocked
Top spies unaware of Morrison’s ministerial appointments
Even the nation’s top spies were unaware of Scott Morrison’s ministerial grab of five portfolios, it has emerged.
Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neill has confirmed Australian intelligence officials did not know about Mr Morrison’s secret appointments, which she described as “damaging” to the nation’s security.
“What I can tell you is that the secretary of my department, the intelligence chiefs, including the head of ASIO, did not know he was the minister for home affairs,” she said on Wednesday, according to a report in The Australian.
Scott Morrison defends secret ministry power grab, does not dispute also taking control of social services. (ABC and Jake Evans)
Former prime minister Scott Morrison has defended his extraordinary move to jointly appoint himself to several ministries in secret, including the health, finance and resources portfolios.
Mr Morrison said he did not dispute claims he took joint power over a fourth ministry, the social services portfolio, in June 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic…. See more
Axe fossil fuel subsidies, bring in a Carbon Export Levy, fix tax and royalty loopholes. Michael West reports on a compelling plan to dramatically reduce Australia’s debt and soaring energy bills.
Recent episodes of purposeful and accidental truth-telling brought to my mind the latest verbal lapse by George W. Bush, the president who hustled this country into war in Afghanistan and Iraq after the 9/11 attacks. He clearly hadn’t planned to make a public confession about his own warmongering in Iraq when he gave a speech in Texas this spring. Still, asked to decry Russian president Vladimir Putin’s unjustified invasion of Ukraine, Bush inadvertently and all too truthfully placed his own presidential war-making in exactly the same boat. The words spilled out of his mouth as he described “the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified invasion of Iraq — I mean of Ukraine.”
OMG Lachlan Murdoch is offended by Australia’s Crikey! So much so he’s threatening to sue. Yet, he employs Tucker Carlson et al and allows those hucksters to bullshit the American nation. It’s great to see him being sued by those voting machine corporations for the lies he and News Corp not just reported but actively supported all the way to the violence on Jan 6th in claiming they helped steal the election in 2020 from Donald Trump.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson claimed on Monday that the Biden administration is hiring “87,000 armed IRS agents to make sure you obey,” a wildly inflammatory and false claim that his network’s White House correspondent debunked a few days earlier.
Trump’s “offer” to the Justice Department claiming his desire to “help the country” sounds eerily like the lead-in to his September 2020 debate declaration: “I’m willing to do anything. I want to see peace,” Trump said then. “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by,” Trump said. “But I’ll tell you what, I’ll tell you what, somebody’s got to do something about antifa and the left because this is not a right-wing problem.”
Trump’s “offer” is a signal to his followers and to the Department of Justice and to the FBI, just like that debate statement. If he doesn’t get what he wants, his thugs are ready to attack. Again.
Trump’s “offer” to the Justice Department claiming his desire to “help the country” sounds eerily like the lead-in to his September 2020 debate declaration: “I’m willing to do anything. I want to see peace,” Trump said then. “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by,” Trump said. “But I’ll tell you what, I’ll tell you what, somebody’s got to do something about antifa and the left because this is not a right-wing problem.”Trump’s “offer” is a signal to his followers and to the Department of Justice and to the FBI, just like that debate statement. If he doesn’t get what he wants, his thugs are ready to attack. Again.
Trump’s Administration wasn’t shy using the Espionage Act against others particularly journalists like Julian Assange who was never even in America.
This isn’t Trump’s first brush with the Espionage Act, though it is the first time he’s the one being accused. According to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, Trump’s Department of Justice charged five journalist sources — none of them spies — under the Espionage Act. (Several more journalistic sources were prosecuted under lesser statutes.) Here’s how the Espionage Act charges went for the people Trump used it against.
Even gun manufactures are now blaming Trump and other politicians for the gun violence. They like Trump will scapegoat anybody rather than blame themselves and their industry.
Donald Trump’s legacy of COVID apathy, gun violence and hatred has set in motion the decay of American democracy, writes Sue Arnold.
Recent revelations that former Prime Minister Scott Morrison secretly swore himself in as a co-minister in three portfolios may explain why he stood so firmly in the way of a Federal ICAC.
Shadow Government: Morrison’s Minstries – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Conclusion: What is to be Done?
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is being briefed regularly on these issues. If ever there was a situation custom-built for a federal investigative body such as ICAC, this is it. So blatant a personal power grab violates not only meaningless norms, but also the very rule of law itself. To whom was Morrison accountable? If he could simply swear himself into positions sua sponte, he was effectively a king.
To end on a lighter note, if a empire is ruled by an Emperor, and a kingdom is ruled by a King, Australia was a country ruled by Scott Morrison…
The only credible explanation for Scott Morrison personally installing himself, as an undisclosed ministerial partner, in several portfolios is the former prime minister’s passion for control.
The chances of having that broader debate are minimal. Albanese and his hounds smell blood, but the stains are not going to be that revealing. The Westminster model will be praised and defended; Morrison will be dismissed as pettily dictatorial. The fatuous notion of convention, the false assumption of gentlemanly conduct – for women do not feature in this – says everything about what is wrong about this rotten state of affairs. Inadvertently, Morrison acted consistently with, and enacted his belief: government cannot be trusted.
Name and Fame should be accompanied by the Name and Shame Awards particularly in the media and the News Corp and Sky News deniers,confusers and propagandists who built their careers and still do on continuing to deny the ever growing discovery of the detrimental man made warming of this planet warming. Andrew Bolt has been a long term antagonist against the global science and has built his career on it. Rowan Dean,and News Corp in general have worked their butts off denying the science with inumerable false and fake facts and giving deniers the platform to disribute them.
Science & Technology Australia Media Release
Australia’s climate change legislation should be passed with an added commitment to ‘name and fame’ sectors leading the charge to reduce emissions, the peak body for Australia’s 90,000 scientists and technologists has urged.
In future, those in the business of dolling out such health initiatives should think more carefully. These systems may be intended to keep public trust afloat but can have quite the opposite effect. Ultimately, the proof of COVIDSafe’s great demise can be found in the number of individuals who consented to having their data added to the National COVIDSafe Data Store for reasons of contact tracing. While there were 7.9 million registrations of the app between April 2020 and May 2022, fewer than 800 gave consent to that measure. As Australia’s current health minister, Mark Butler, opined, the entire endeavour was a monumental waste.
We won’t let the Hazaras in Indonesia come here. Yet they have few other options. They certainly cannot go back.Worse, the Hazaras kept at our behest on the streets of Indonesia for a decade are still not obtaining solutions or even adequate day to day support from Australia.Rather than let them arrive and thrive, Australia flips thousands of taxpayer dollars per stranded refugee to IOM rather than bring them here. IOM in turn sell the refugees to the lowest cost service provider or contractor. After a while, these practices resemble people trafficking for profit.I spoke to a couple of Hazaras in Indonesia over the weekend.One, Ghaznavi, is a gorgeous young chap who turned his hand to baking bread and tiling, despite work bans and his very apparent higher education.
Our involvement in the Afghan war makes us accountable for the wellbeing of Afghans. It is no different from the accountability of allied troops for Jewish war orphans in occupied Europe, or those affected by the bombing of Japan, Korea or Vietnam*. The Allies used their homeland to settle scores rather than our own. Even a hardened warrior like Jim Molan should be able to comprehend that.
Did you ask why this is happening now? Yes, we talked about the backlash. I will say this: I think critical race theory matters because race is a central political fault line in U.S. history. It is an enduring problem that is very difficult to solve. This backlash is intentionally sowing confusion and panic, and I think critical race theory tends to provide some clarity and profound solutions to dealing with this problem, or at least thinking through it in a better way. I think losing the ability to do that is harmful.
Sergei Sreda, a Russian propagandist, posted photos online of his visit to a Wagner Group base in Donbas. One small problem though: he forgot to cover the street signs. A simple geolocating later and HIMARS missiles were sent. The result? Upwards of 100 mercenaries blown to smithereens. Sreda later deleted the post of his “visit” to the Wagner military headquarters.
Fox News amplifies Trump’s veiled threats of political violence after Mar-a-Lago search | Media Matters for America
FoxNews.com ran an article featuring direct comments from Donald Trump responding to the fallout of the FBI search of his residence. The title of the piece was, “Trump ‘will do whatever’ he can to ‘help the country’ after FBI raid: ‘Temperature has to be brought down.’” Far from helping to bring down the “temperature” of the public debate, Fox has just promoted Trump’s veiled threats that his supporters will carry out more political violence against federal law enforcement — as he simultaneously worked to stir them up to even more bedlam — unless the Justice Department stops investigating him.
The story was also given prominent placement on the front page of the Fox News website, with an additional tagline noting that the country is now in a “very dangerous time.”
Trump might have wanted to keep the materials as mementos or perhaps for reference if he wound up hiring someone to write a book under his name. Or perhaps the materials contained information he wanted to keep permanently hidden for personal reasons. Regardless of the justification, the documents were never his, and Republicans who are apoplectic over the FBI search should first be asking why it was ever O.K. for him to break the law in the first place.
Why is Scott Morrison hanging around? The weekend revelations that Morrison swore himself in to multiple portfolios without notifying the nation has sparked cries of outrage, in the political class at least.
‘Nothing about the last government was real, PM saysPrime Minister Anthony Albanese says there is an ‘absolute need’ for clear transparency.”This isn’t some local footy club,” Mr Albanese says.”This is a government of Australia where the people of Australia were kept in the dark as to what the ministerial arrangements were.””It’s completely unacceptable.”
The history of Australia’s drinking culture from rum as a currency to non-alcoholic wine – ABC News
Australia’s first prime minister, Edmund ‘Toby’ Barton, was many things: A leader, a visionary and as one of his obituaries summed up, “a great Australian”.
And, according to author Matt Murphy, he was also “an outright drunk”.
Should we be surprised? We saw the same exploitation in Child Minding, Privatised Education, The outsourcing of Employment services you name it when the LNP privatised public services they invited the vultures in.
Australia’s most senior criminal intelligence official says organised criminals involved in drug trafficking, violence and money laundering are exploiting systemic weaknesses in the National Disability Insurance Scheme to rort it on an unprecedented scale.
Even when the rich and powerful fall out, the house – their wealth – always wins. Michael Sainsbury examines the latest goings on surrounding Sydney’s Crown Casino.
The grubby nexus between Australian business, politics and the mainstream media has been laid bare in a leaked series of explosive emails from James Packer to senior Nine Entertainment executives, journalists and chairman Peter Costello.
The emails alleged that Costello was paid as a secret Crown lobbyist in 2011 for a year, a claim he denies.
Unable to shut WikiLeaks down the Americans turned on Julian Assange instead. They created laws and crafted charges that nobody had previously faced in order to try to have him extradited to the US. The State has persecuted this one man more than a decade and even harder than they did Chelsea Manning the American GI who leaked the information in the first place. They claim worldwide universal juristiction no matter where. If a crime has been comitted against what they declare are their laws even if not committed in the US they will be applied. However that doesn’t apply in reverse.
The US have openly and without regard killed civilians and treated their actions as “collateral damage” without anybody being arrested or charged and wthe world has witnessed it. They have assisted in the massacre of journalists and other professionals simply because they can, have misfired and killed innocents whenever they wished and then denied it unless it became impossible to do so. The set up the model for Israel to copy and get away with.
Nevertheless the organization Assange helped found WikiLeaks continues and is held in greater respect than any news or information alleged to be held as truth in the US.
WikiLeaks continues as one of the world’s most remarkable organisations, despite numerous attempts to shut it down.
Its founder, Julian Assange, is gaoled in the United Kingdom’s Belmarsh Prison as a “political” prisoner and faces extradition to the Medes-in-wait. Assange has not murdered anyone — but he is hounded as if he has.
Despite resistance, WikiLeaks continues its fight for the truth
If it seems like nothing works anymore in the US, you’re not imagining things. Record-low public investment and declining private investment have given us a failing, decrepit infrastructure.
Former President Donald Trump possessed a lot of concerning government information in his home that he shouldn’t have had. What has become obvious over the weekend is that Trump’s behavior appears defensive enough to indicate he understands what he did was serious.
Trump appears so panicked he is pointing to his own family members, changing his stories, and trotting out allies on cable news and trying to change the story.
It is possible. So this is not just the “time to listen to the Voice and act”. It is the time to tell the powers-that-be what sort of Australia we want. We all have a lot to lose if we shirk this referendum and politicians and dissenters should be held to account if they intercede to prevent the emergence of a constitutionally enshrined Voice.
The Murdoch’s claim to be major supporters of “free speech” but only as long as it’s not directed at them it seems. Their company Fox News has never shown it was strongly critical of what occurred that day. In fact they have shown to be major supporters and in no way apologists for what had occurred. Stronger criticism of Fox News was certainly provided by much of American media and in stronger terms but they took no action. Why is Australia the place they are taking their Godzilla like legal stand?
Lachlan Murdoch has threatened online news website Crikey with legal action over an article that suggested he and his media mogul father Rupert Murdoch were responsible for the riots at the US Capitol in January.
Inside the Liberal Party’s debate on how to win back Chinese-Australians and teal voters
Dutton has been telling colleagues that the party should also take an ambitious package of economic reforms to the next election. According to the plan, this would focus the mind of traditional Liberal voters who saw no daylight between Morrison and Albanese on the economy.
Nope Nope Nope and no Specifics other than don’t cooperate on anything.
olddogthoughts 
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