Tuesday, June 06, 2017

Tue Jun 6th Todays News

Some things should not happen, but they do. At Melbourne's upmarket suburb of Brighton an Islamic terrorist refugee on parole got a gun, murdered an innocent ethnically Chinese man and used a prostitute to lure police. The girl is ok, but traumatised. Poor ASIO is wondering what happened. They had not known refugees could be involved with terror. Asked on radio station 3AW how it was a parolee could get a gun Neil Mitchell and Derryn Hinch said it was too easy to get a gun, and Trump was an idiot, presumably for Trump's stance on firearms. One gets the impression that media are downplaying the basic fears Australians have with violent offenders being paroled. The evil loser had apparently had a monitoring bracelet. Malcolm Turnbull asked Dan Andrews how the terrorist could get parole. Andrews replied that it had not been the first time the terrorist applied, and so, although the terrorist clearly had not reformed, it was deemed appropriate to release him. The reasoning Andrews gave was not clear. Was the terrorist released because Andrews did not want to appear as if he ran a GITMO style prison system? That is one less dinner guest for Turnbull this year. An evil loser has been de radicalised, too late for wounded police, a family man and a young woman. Or for the ASIO chief.

I am very good and don't deserve the abuse given me. I created a video raising awareness of anti police feeling among western communities. I chose the senseless killing of Nicola Cotton, a Louisiana policewoman who joined post Katrina, to highlight the issue. I did this in order to get an income after having been illegally blacklisted from work in NSW for being a whistleblower. I have not done anything wrong. Local council appointees refused to endorse my work, so I did it for free. Youtube's Adsence refused to allow me to profit from their marketing it. Meanwhile, I am hostage to abysmal political leadership and hopeless journalists. My shopfront has opened on Facebook.






Here is a video I made The Burial of Sir John Moore at Corunna

Charles Wolfe (14 December 1791 -- 21 February 1823) was an Irish poet.
Born at Blackhall, County Kildare, the youngest son of Theobald Wolfe of Blackhall (descended from the Wolfe family of Forenaughts House, Co. Kildare), by his wife Frances, daughter of The Rev. Peter Lombard. Wolfe's grandfather (a first cousin of Lord Kilwarden) was the godfather, but widely believed to be the natural father of Theobald Wolfe Tone.

Lieutenant-General Sir John Moore, KB (13 November 1761 -- 16 January 1809) was a British soldier and General. He is best known for his military training reforms and for his death at the Battle of Corunna, in which his force was defeated but gained a tactical advantage a French army under Marshal Soult during the Peninsular War.

Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corse to the rampart we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O’er the grave where our hero we buried.
We buried him darkly at dead of night,
The sods with our bayonets turning;
By the struggling moonbeam’s misty light
And the lantern dimly burning.
No useless coffin enclosed his breast,
Nor in sheet nor in shroud we wound him,
But he lay like a warrior taking his rest
With his martial cloak around him.
Few and short were the prayers we said,
And we spoke not a word of sorrow;
But we steadfastly gazed on the face that was dead,
And we bitterly thought of the morrow.
We thought, as we hollowed his narrow bed
And smoothed down his lonely pillow,
That the foe and the stranger would tread o’er his head,
And we far away on the billow!
Lightly they’ll talk of the spirit that’s gone
And o’er his cold ashes upbraid him,
But little he’ll reck, if they let him sleep on
In the grave where a Briton has laid him.
But half of our heavy task was done
When the clock struck the hour for retiring;
And we heard the distant and random gun
That the foe was sullenly firing.
Slowly and sadly we laid him down,
From the field of his fame fresh and gory;
We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone,
But left him alone with his glory.



=== from 2016 ===
Fairfield Council discussed flood mitigation measures at 166 Sandal Crescent in 2003. A few years earlier, floods had reached the roofs of the garages of 168 Sandal Crescent. Strata members wanted money spent on useless measures in the hopes of inflating property values. But with Tim Flannery's later pronouncements that floods would not happen again because of global warming, it is unlikely that council proceeded with flood mitigation measures. One measure was to create a temporary sewage sump offline, which would prevent mains backing up as they had in '01. Now abysmal weather has flooded much of the east coast of Australia. Meanwhile, Shorten's election pledge regarding child funding will benefit millionaires and make it more expensive for struggling families. It is a reminder that Shorten's former union diverted money from members. 

For some, at the moment, the Sex Party has more credibility. 
=== from 2015 ===
The 16 year old vote is something extreme left teachers desire. The brain has not yet matured and judgement and decision making is skew. It is a bit like the judgement of left wing supporters. One meme circulated by Zeitgeist movement claims that capitalism is no better than communism for housing, savings and labour forces. It is valid for someone to assert it, but simply not true when statistics analyse it. Like the thought bubble surrounding giving 16 year olds the vote, it is not a good idea. Not because 16 year olds are not responsible, but irresponsible behaviour in children is expected and manageable as children, while irresponsible behaviour in adults is a problem for the entire community. 

There is something called a zero sum game. The theory of the zero sum game is that the inputs and outputs are the same. So workers eat and produce, or bosses eat, but not both. But the theory is too simplistic. It is applied to communism and capitalism and suggests neither matters. But there is something under capitalism called wealth creation. With wealth creation, workers work and everyone gets fed. The problem under communism is that wealth creation gets restricted. Under capitalism, wealth creation can be maximised. It is capitalism which prevents poverty. 

Simple illustrations include China in the sixties with China of the new millennium. In the sixties and fifties, drought struck China starved tens of millions of people to death. Today, millions are getting wealthy. In Australia, The Hawk Keating ALP governments were 5% pa behind the Howard government for average worker earnings, with ALP constricting workers pay and Conservatives growing worker's pay. But the meme goes on. There is a theorem of  the economic concept of externalities which suggests the meme is correct. The theorem is unsupported by reality.  
From 2014
Knowledge is driven by teaching and learning, but the recent reflexive thoughtless activity of the CSIRO does not constitute best practice. It is precisely because of the partisan nature of the CSIRO the ALP is stridently denouncing the creation of a research fund backed by a $7 co payment to a doctor. But when one becomes partisan, there can be victims. One example of this is the terribly biased news organisation Al Jazeera which prides itself on its close contact with terrorists in the Middle East. But, because Al Jazeera is so clearly partisan, enemies of its' affiliates, e.g. Egypt, can prosecute Al Jazeera journalists. And those journalists have their private interests compromised as a result. An Australian journalist is facing 15 years in jail, and is lucky not to be facing a death penalty. However, many terrorist victims have paid the higher price. 

Some say it is the inhumane experimentation of people like Mengele which drive knowledge in large strides. The body of that butcher was exhumed in the land he had fled to, on this day in 1985. An outrageous abuse of power had led to the scientific discovery of the process of digestion. It involved an accident that happened on this day in 1822. Alexis St. Martin was shot in the gut, and there was insufficient remaining flesh to cover the hole. An army surgeon, William Beaumont took the opportunity to study the working gut. And that is why we know how a Big Mac gets digested. 

It is fun to stay at the YMCA. And people could do so from this day in London in 1844, after it was founded. Andrew Jackson was not a good President of the US, but he was the first to ride on a train on this day in 1833. They say but for venetian blinds, it would be curtains for all of us. But it was the Venetians who did for Holy Roman Emperor Maximillien I on this day in 1508. 

However, this day should forever be remembered for the invasion of Normandy in 1944. In terrible weather, over 150,000 men of many nations faced a dug in and determined Nazi defence, and won. The invasion would balloon to over a million in following days, and liberate Western Europe from oppression. Technically, the UK remained at war with Finland, being the only example of democracies who declared war on each other. UK relented in '47. 
Historical perspective on this day
In 1508, Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, was defeated in Friuli by Venetian troops 1513, Italian WarsBattle of NovaraSwiss troops defeat the French under Louis de la Tremoille, forcing the French to abandon Milan. Duke Massimiliano Sforza was restored. 1523, Gustav Vasa, the Swedish regent, was elected King of Sweden, marking a symbolic end to the Kalmar Union. This was the Swedish national day. 1586, Francis Drake's forces raided St. Augustine in Spanish Florida. 1644, the Qing dynasty Manchu forces led by the Shunzhi Emperor captured Beijing during the collapse of the Ming dynasty. 1654, Queen Christina abdicated the Swedish throne and was succeeded by her cousin Charles X Gustav. 1674, Shivaji, founder of the Maratha Empire, was crowned. 1683, the Ashmolean Museumin Oxford, England, opened as the world's first university museum. 1752, a devastating fire destroyed one-third of Moscow, including 18,000 homes. 1762, British forces began a siege of Havana and temporarily captured the city in the Battle of Havana.

In 1808, Napoleon's brother, Joseph Bonaparte, was crowned King of Spain. 1809, Sweden promulgates a new Constitution, which restored political power to the Riksdag of the Estatesafter 20 years of enlightened absolutism. At the same time, Charles XIII was elected to succeed Gustav IV Adolf as King of Sweden. 1813, War of 1812Battle of Stoney Creek – A British force of 700 under John Vincent defeated an American force twice its size under William Winder and John Chandler. 1822, Alexis St. Martin was accidentally shot in the stomach, leading to William Beaumont's studies on digestion. 1832, the June Rebellion in Paris was put down by the National Guard. 1833, Andrew Jackson became the first U.S. President to ride on a train. 1844, the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) was founded in London.

In 1857, Sophia of Nassau married the future King Oscar II of Sweden–Norway. 1859, Australia: Queensland was established as a separate colony from New South Wales(Queensland Day). 1862, American Civil WarBattle of Memphis – Union forces captured Memphis, Tennessee, from the Confederates. 1882, More than 100,000 inhabitants of Bombay were killed when a cyclone in the Arabian Sea pushed huge waves into the harbour. 1882, the Shewan forces of Menelik II of Ethiopia defeated the Gojjame army in the Battle of Embabo. The Shewans capture Negus Tekle Haymanot of Gojjam, and their victory led to a Shewan hegemony over the territories south of the Abay River. 1889, the Great Seattle Fire destroyed all of downtown Seattle. 1892, the Chicago "L" commuter rail system began operation 1894, Governor Davis H. Waite ordered the Colorado state militia to protect and support the miners engaged in the Cripple Creek miners' strike.

In 1909, French troops captured Abéché (in modern-day Chad) and installed a puppet sultanin the Ouaddai Empire. 1912, the eruption of Novarupta in Alaska began. It is the second largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century. 1918, World War IBattle of Belleau Wood – The U.S. Marine Corps suffered its worst single day's casualties while attempting to recapture the wood at Château-Thierry. 1919, the Republic of Prekmurje ends. 1921, Southwark Bridge in London was opened to traffic by King George V and Queen Mary. 1932, the Revenue Act of 1932 was enacted, creating the first gas tax in the United States, at a rate of 1 cent per US gallon(1⁄4¢/L) sold. 1933, the first drive-in theater opened, in Camden, New Jersey, United States. 1934, New Deal: the U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Securities Act of 1933 into law, establishing the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. 1939, Judge Joseph Force Crater, known as the "Missingest Man in New York", was declared legally dead.

In 1942, World War IIBattle of Midway. U.S. Navy dive bombers sank the Japanese cruiser Mikuma and four Japanese carriers. 1944, World War II: the Battle of Normandy began. D-Day, code named Operation Overlord, commenced with the landing of 155,000 Allied troops on the beaches of Normandy in France. The allied soldiers quickly broke through the Atlantic Wall and pushed inland in the largest amphibious military operation in history. 1946, the National Basketball Association was created with eleven teams. 1964, Under a temporary order, the rocket launches at Cuxhaven, Germany were terminated. They never resume. 1968, assassination of Robert F. KennedyRobert F. KennedyDemocratic Party senator from New York and brother of 35th President John F. Kennedy, died from gunshot wounds inflicted on June 5.

In 1971, Soyuz programSoyuz 11 was launched. Also 1971, a midair collision between a Hughes Airwest Douglas DC-9 jetliner and a United States Marine Corps McDonnell DouglasF-4 Phantom II jet fighter near Duarte, California, claimed 50 lives. Also 1971, Vietnam War: the Battle of Long Khanh between Australian and Vietnamese communist forces began. 1974, a new Instrument of Government was promulgated making Sweden a parliamentary monarchy. 1981, Bihar train disaster: a passenger train travelling between Mansi and Saharsa, India, jumped the tracks at a bridge crossing the Bagmati river. The government placed the official death toll at 268 plus another 300 missing; however, it is generally believed that the death toll was closer to 1,000. 1982, the 1982 Lebanon Warbegan. Forces under Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon invaded southern Lebanon during Operation Peace for the Galilee, eventually reaching as far north as the capital Beirut. 1982, a British Army Air Corps Gazelle helicopter was destroyed in a friendly fire incident, resulting in the loss of four lives. 1984, Tetris, one of the best-selling video games of all time, was first released in the USSR. 1985, the grave of "Wolfgang Gerhard" is opened in EmbuBrazil; the exhumed remains were later proven to be those of Josef MengeleAuschwitz's "Angel of Death". Mengele is thought to have drowned while swimming in February 1979.

In 1992, the Fantoft Stave Church in Norway was destroyed by Varg Vikernes. This was the first in a string of church arsons in the Early Norwegian black metal scene 1993, Mongoliaheld its first direct presidential elections. 1997, Prom Mom incident: While attending her senior prom in Lacey Township, New JerseyMelissa Drexler gave birth in a bathroom stall, leaving the baby to die in a trash can and then returned to the prom. 2002, Eastern Mediterranean event. A near-Earth asteroid estimated at ten meters in diameter exploded over the Mediterranean Sea between Greece and Libya. The resulting explosion was estimated to have a force of 26 kilotons, slightly more powerful than the Nagasaki atomic bomb. 2004, Tamil was established as a "classical language" by the President of India, Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, in a joint sitting of the two houses of the Indian Parliament. 2005, in Gonzales v. Raich, the United States Supreme Court upheld a federal law banning cannabis, including medical marijuana.
=== Publishing News ===
This column welcomes feedback and criticism. The column is not made up but based on the days events and articles which are then placed in the feed. So they may not have an apparent cohesion they would have had were they made up.
===
I am publishing a book called Bread of Life: January. 

Bread of Life is a daily bible quote with a layman's understanding of the meaning. I give one quote for each day, and also a series of personal stories illustrating key concepts eg Who is God? What is a miracle? Why is there tragedy?

January is the first of the anticipated year-long work of thirteen books. One for each month and the whole year. It costs to publish. It (Kindle version) should retail at about $2US online, but the paperback version would cost more, according to production cost.
If you have a heart for giving, I fundraise at gofund.me/27tkwuc
===
Editorials will appear in the "History in a Year by the Conservative Voice" series, starting with AugustSeptemberOctober, or at Amazon http://www.amazon.com/dp/1482020262/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_dVHPub0MQKDZ4  The kindle version is cheaper, but the soft back version allows a free kindle version.

List of available items at Create Space
Happy birthday and many happy returns Jason Hall and Ariel Ojeda. Born on the same day, across the years. In 1944, it was the Normandy invasion. The largest invasion in modern history. Aspects seen in movies like Saving Private Ryan or The Longest Day. They were said to be "The greatest generation." But you can do better. Try not to fight ..
Deaths
Shivaji of the Maratha Empire
You shall be crowned. You are gaining supremacy. You protect and support. Try not to run into phantoms. Exercise your right to choose a better doctor. Let's party. 
===
Tim Blair




RUN, HIDE, REPEAT

During Sunday morning’s multiple Islamic terror attacks in the centre of London, the Metropolitan Police issued an advisory on social media.
6 Jun  61
===
Andrew Bolt




ON THE FASCISTS WHO ATTACKED ME

Watch the fascist Left attack me and get clobbered. Luckily the cameras do not capture me kicking one between the legs. I cannot have my children see me acting like a thug.
6 Jun
===

DO THE DISHES, DAVE

Tim Blair – Monday, June 06, 2016 (2:52am)

A wonderfully illustrative moment occurs just a few seconds into the Diversity Council of Australia’s new video scolding us all for our insensitive and hurtful workplace language.
Following an introduction from Australian of the Year and Diversity Council chairguy David Morrison, warning everybody that “some things are just plain bad for you”, we see a young female worker enter her office kitchenette.
The room is filthy, with unwashed coffee cups, dirty dishes and half-eaten meals all over the place.
But the worst crime is on the kitchenette wall. It’s a sign that reads: “Clean up after yourself. Your mum doesn’t work here.”

Thankfully, none other than Super Diversity Man Morrison is on hand to quickly remedy the situation. Deftly wielding his orange texta of language justice, the former Australian Army chief makes the necessary adjustment. Fearlessly, he changes “mum” to “mum/dad”.
Problem solved! Morrison and his female staffer then pause to consider the powerful alteration. It’s a touching moment in the ongoing struggle against mothers being identified as primarily responsible for maintaining their households, and Morrison is rightly proud of his historic achievement.
But Morrison and the staffer don’t do anything about the kitchen, which presumably remains in its unsanitary state. Their focus is on a far more crucial subject. Why worry about an actual problem when there are words to be fixed?
(Continue reading Do the Dishes.)
===

WE’VE GOT THE CLOSE ONE

Tim Blair – Monday, June 06, 2016 (2:39am)

With 27 days to go until the election, Labor and the Coalition are tied
Labor and the Coalition are deadlocked at 50-50 in two-party preferred terms as voters reset the election battle, according to the latest Newspoll ...
It has ended Labor’s lead of 51 per cent to the government’s 49 per cent, which has lasted four consecutive Newspolls since the start of April.
But the survey also reveals the Coalition, Labor and the Greens have each suffered a one-point fall in their primary vote over the past fortnight, leaving a three-point gain for micro-parties and independents.
The Coalition’s primary vote is at 40 per cent, Labor at 35 per cent, the Greens at 10 per cent with other parties and independents at 15 per cent. 
Despite the tight polling, all the Liberals I’m talking to are confident. Some expect a repeat of 1998, when Labor won the popular vote but lost the election.
===

WHERE’S MALCOLM?

Tim Blair – Monday, June 06, 2016 (2:02am)

Spot the Prime Minister in this crowd:
===

SUDDEN SURGE IN CLIMATE CONCERN

Tim Blair – Monday, June 06, 2016 (1:58am)

A couple of months ago, the ABC ran a comment piece by Mike Steketee lamenting the decline in panic over the environment.
“In the last eight years, many Australians’ concern over climate change has fallen even while the problem has become larger and more urgent,” Steketee wrote.
“The market research company Ipsos has been conducting surveys on the issue since 2007. In that year 54 per cent of people who were presented with a list of issues said climate change was one that needed to be addressed.
“In the latest report, still to be released, this fell to 38 per cent last year.”
This is broadly in line with surveys elsewhere, which invariably find that people are no longer spooked by climate change, if indeed they ever were.
But last week the ABC announced that climate change was back on the agenda, thanks to shocking new “figures" and “data”.
 Continue reading 'SUDDEN SURGE IN CLIMATE CONCERN'
===

UNCLE MEGANOGGIN

Tim Blair – Monday, June 06, 2016 (12:25am)

I’m in Victoria for my niece Lauren’s 21st. One of her friends recently found a photograph of me, Lauren and the rest of the family … and made some slight alterations:


I don’t plan on looking like that for at least another five years. In accordance with Blair family tradition, the offender will of course be hunted down and eliminated.
===

BLACK’S LIFE MATTERS

Tim Blair – Sunday, June 05, 2016 (10:56pm)

Actor Jack Black falls victim to Twitter idiot syndrome – a notoriously fatal condition: 
Is Jack Black dead? Actor’s ‘death announced’ on Tenacious D’s Twitter page 
Happily, Black is alive.
===

Let’s remind McGeough which side of politics actually defended Hitler

Andrew Bolt June 06 2016 (4:46pm) 

This wet dream is what now passes for serious political analysis in the Sydney Morning Herald. The perpetrator is former SMH editor Paul McGeough:
It’s fair to say now, that if the angry old white men who are a rump constituency in the Republican Party were to hit on Adolf Hitler as a presidential nominee, the party establishment likely would say, ‘well, that’s nice – he’ll do.’ 
Complete drivel. And note the casual racism from an angry old white man in severe need of a mirror.
UPDATE
It is always safer to rely on what people actually did than on an ideologue’s strained analogy to predict what they might. In fact, it was the Left, people much like McGeough, who in Germany voted for National Socialist leader and who in Australia opposed the war against him - at least while he was an ally of fellow monster Joseph Stalin.  
===

Another hung Parliament coming as Turnbull treats conservatives with contempt

Andrew Bolt June 06 2016 (4:31pm) 

Forget strong government and forget whatever the Liberals are promising. The next Senate looks like being even more impossible than the last:
A record 15 per cent of voters plan to cast their ballot for a micro-party or independent candidate, with support falling for the ­Coalition, Labor and the Greens at the halfway mark in the election campaign. 
The latest Newspoll, conducted exclusively for The Australian, reveals support for other parties and independents has jumped three points to 15 per cent in the past fortnight to be at the highest level for this group during a formal election campaign in the 31-year history of Newspoll.
Overall, a slight improvement for the Coalition, with the vote 50:50. As I’ve said for a couple of weeks, Labor just isn’t getting the traction it needs, particularly in the marginal seats.
UPDATE
The poll is yet another sign, by the way, that the conditions are ripe for the start of a new, moderate and non-Christian conservative party.
That is even more the case now that the Liberals are led by someone who seems not to have the courage of many conservative convictions. Greg Sheridan explains:
Ministers and government backbenchers are increasingly concerned at poor decision-making in the Liberal campaign, failures of co-ordination and the apparent unwillingness of Malcolm Turnbull to campaign on key Liberal ­issues such as national security. 
The Prime Minister’s decision to tour a mattress factory on Thursday when the coffins carrying the remains of Australian soldiers killed in the Vietnam conflict were returned through the RAAF base at Richmond, in Sydney, has left some Liberals astonished, confused. They regard the politics of this decision-making as bizarre…
Without any overt politicising, the benefit to the PM of pictures of him welcoming home the coffins would have been very powerful. Many Liberals think any recent previous Liberal PM would have been there as a matter of course…

The other shocking national-security moment for many Liberals came after Attorney-General George Brandis called on Labor to dis­endorse Peta Murphy, its candid­ate for Dunkley, because she had opposed tough anti-terror laws and questioned whether ­al-Qa’ida’s Somali affiliate, al-­Shabab, should be listed as a terror group. Questioned on Brandis’s stance, Turnbull declined to support him.
Even more astonishing to Liberal insiders, Brandis had co-­ordinated his remarks with Liberal campaign headquarters and was encouraged to make the call. Partly because of the PM declining to back his A-G, terrorism has gone unmentioned in the campaign, ­despite terrorism-related arrests… [T]he PM’s ­apparent discomfort with national security, or unwillingness to campaign on it, has left Liberal silent on one of its strongest issues.
Similarly, Liberals are surprised at the campaign’s lack of significant mention of trade union corruption or the building industry.
Of course, part of the problem may just be Turnbull’s spite. He would be by nature reluctant to campaign on issues that Tony Abbott made his own.
UPDATE
Jennifer Oriel urges conservatives not to punish Turnbull, but what’s the harm in voting for more conservative Senate candidates while Turnbull declines to show the penance what she urges?
Turnbull’s plea for conservatives not to lodge a protest vote against him would be better expressed as an apology for giving them cause to do so. 
The apology could be made by Liberal strategist Mark Textor, who celebrated the ousting of ­Abbott by treating conservatives with utter contempt: “The loss of disgruntled conservatives will be outweighed by the appeal of a more moderate party to swinging voters … The sum of a more ­centrist approach outweighs any alleged marginal loss of so-called base voters."…

In large-enough numbers, a vengeance vote against the Liberals will punish party wets, but at what cost? A hung parliament will produce policy paralysis. Another recalcitrant Senate will prevent the passage of critical legislation and render the double dissolution an exercise in futility…
Conservatives too must choose between vengeance and grace in the upcoming election.  
Still, the Liberals may at least be realising now that there’s a price to pay for treating its conservative base with contempt.
UPDATE
Terry McCrann says the Senate to come means the Government has no hope of getting its tax cuts passed, and little hope of making its super changes either.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
===

Payola for Hillary?

Andrew Bolt June 06 2016 (2:43pm) 

How come Hillary Clinton is a presidential candidate and not a national disgrace? Or in the dock?
Even by the standards of arms deals between the United States and Saudi Arabia, this one was enormous. A consortium of American defense contractors led by Boeing would deliver $29 billion worth of advanced fighter jets to the United States’ oil-rich ally in the Middle East. 
Israeli officials were agitated, reportedly complaining to the Obama administration that this substantial enhancement to Saudi air power risked disrupting the region’s fragile balance of power…
But now, in late 2011, Hillary Clinton’s State Department was formally clearing the sale… At press conferences in Washington to announce the department’s approval, an assistant secretary of state, Andrew Shapiro, declared that the deal had been “a top priority” for Clinton personally… 
These were not the only relationships bridging leaders of the two nations. In the years before Hillary Clinton became secretary of state, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia contributed at least $10 million to the Clinton Foundation, the philanthropic enterprise she has overseen with her husband, former president Bill Clinton. Just two months before the deal was finalized, Boeing ... contributed $900,000 to the Clinton Foundation...
Absolutely incredible. Why isn’t this a scandal? Why are the Democrats allowing Clinton to be their candidate? 
===

Paying a fortune to look after someone else’s children

Andrew Bolt June 06 2016 (10:23am) 

The Age of Entitlement will eat us alive. Labor just throws more borrowed billions into a bottomless pit.
Judith Sloan:
A decade ago, the taxpayer forked out less than $1 billion a year to subsidise the cost of childcare. 
It is now more than $7bn. And if Labor wins government this will rise by $3bn to $10bn.
Childcare fees have risen by more than three times the rate of inflation in the past decade. Childcare fees are approaching $200 a day in Melbourne and Sydney. 
Higher fees have eaten up the higher subsidies.
How is Labor going to pay back these IOUs?
UPDATE
Straight from taxpayers to business profits:
LABOR’S planned increase to childcare subsidies would be an incentive for childcare centres to lift their fees, according to the independent Productivity Commission. 
A report released last year strongly argued against simply increasing the childcare rebate from its current cap of $7500 a child because of concerns it would provide an incentive for centres to increase their fees.
“Subsidies can reduce incentives for providers to minimise costs and set cost- reflective prices,” the report said. 
The revelations emerged after Opposition Leader Bill Shorten yesterday launched his $3 billion childcare package, which will increase the rebate to $10,000 for all parents regardless of whether they work or how much they earn, from 2017. The means-tested childcare subsidy will increase by 15 per cent.
===

Saying and doing

Andrew Bolt June 06 2016 (10:17am) 

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull yesterday:
“We stand with you. The spirit of community service, of volunteerism, is the great Australian spirit you embody. You are Australia,” Mr Turnbull said, to rapturous applause. “You and the lifesavers and the SES right across our country. Volunteers protect lives...”
Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott yesterday:
===

What kind of extremists would destroy the CFA volunteers?

Andrew Bolt June 06 2016 (9:52am) 

To be read alongside my column below on the Left’s march through our institutions. This is the Fair Work commissioner who has recommended the hard-Left United Firefights Union be given more control over the volunteer Country Fire Authority:
Mr Roe is a former president of the Australian National Manufacturing Workers Union and was once a self-­described Marxist and a Communist Party member
During the 1980s, he wrote in the Australian Left Review about his transition from “an idealistic anarchist position to a Marxist position”.
What a disgrace for Victoria’s Socialist Left Government to want to pay off its union mates by destroying a volunteer body:
The State Government spent the weekend in crisis mode after Emergency Services Minister Jane Garrett refused to go along with a Cabinet subcommittee’s decision on Friday to endorse the deal… 
CFA chief executive Lucinda Nolan and her board are expected to reject the deal today, in part because they believe the proposed EBA breaches the Equal Opportunity Act; CFA sources said the Premier’s office had spent much of the weekend exerting pressure on the CFA to cave in and sign the deal;
===

Why government is to the Left when voters are to the Right

Andrew Bolt June 06 2016 (9:04am) 

Culture warsthree

NOTICED how the unelected Left is seizing control? Let me give just the latest examples of this putsch.
In Victoria, Roz Ward, a Marxist who calls our flag “racist”, is a university lecturer running a government-funded program teaching children to be more “gender fluid”.
In NSW, Mark Scott, who as ABC boss did not let any conservatives present his main current affairs shows, has now been hired by the Liberal NSW Government to run its Education Department.
Back in Victoria, Fair Work Commissioner Julius Roe, a former Left-wing union official, last week ruled that the far-Left firefighters’ union be given more control over the Country Fire Authority’s volunteers, against their will.
Meanwhile, the latest of a line of Leftist Australians of the Year, former army boss David Morrison, has denounced the word “guys” as sexist — a ludicrous stand backed by the equally Leftist Sex Discrimination Commissioner.
Isn’t this weird?

After all, most Australians are so conservative that they overwhelmingly back tough border laws, and voted for a Liberal Government five times in the past seven federal elections.
Nearly two thirds are Christian and a CSIRO poll last year showed most even rejected or doubted that man’s gases were mostly to blame for any global warming — rejecting a faith so totemic among the Left that academics at two universities banned one sceptical environmentalist, the internationally renowned Professor Bjorn Lomborg, from teaching here.
That’s the problem right there.
(Read full column here.) 
===

Turnbull asks for sympathy vote

Andrew Bolt June 06 2016 (8:03am) 

Malcolm Turnbull’s latest campaign ad says he’s a loving boy from a broken home:
I know most candidates offer their biography to explain who they are, but is this just a bit too calculating? 
===

Palmer confirms

Andrew Bolt June 05 2016 (8:45pm) 

Well, he’s confirmed it, so I guess it’s happening - even though I still don’t get why he wants to come on:
===

COUNT THE SILVERWARE

Tim Blair – Saturday, June 06, 2015 (3:36pm)

Nothing could possibly go wrong with a house-sharing plan for Hillary supporters:


Just look at ol’ Granny Clinton’s wholesome, welcoming, completely natural smile. There’s no need to be frightened! In other US political news, the NY Times commits its full resources to an in-depth investigation of a Republican candidate’s driving record
Senator Marco Rubio has been in a hurry to get to the top, rising from state legislator to United States senator in the span of a decade and now running for president at age 44.
But politics is not the only area where Mr. Rubio, a Republican from Florida, has an affinity for the fast track. He and his wife, Jeanette, have also shown a tendency to be in a rush on the road.
According to a search of the Miami-Dade and Duval County court dockets, the Rubios have been cited for numerous infractions over the years for incidents that included speeding, driving through red lights and careless driving. A review of records dating back to 1997 shows that the couple had a combined 17 citations … 
Not even one per year. Between the pair of them. 
The Rubios have spent more than $1,000 paying traffic penalties over the years … 
I’ve spent more than that in just one year. Consider my own Presidential ambitions now completely destroyed.
(Via Iowahawk, who is having so much fun with this.)
===

STOP HOLDING PRESS CONFERENCES THEN

Tim Blair – Saturday, June 06, 2015 (2:24pm)

Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young complains about security protection during her visit to Nauru: 
“I don’t like to be watched …” 
She said that on television. Hanson-Young has since adopted her Nauru code name: 
Senator Hanson-Young changed her Twitter name to “The Raven” after claiming the code name was given to her by security guards who ‘spied’ on her in Nauru. 
Hanson-Young has just ensured that the next time a security group applies a code ID to her, it won’t be anything she’d want to repeat. It’ll be something like “Swamp Sow”. 
===

SCOREBOARD

Tim Blair – Saturday, June 06, 2015 (2:48am)

• Australian citizens killed while fighting for Islamic State: 35.
• Australian citizens currently fighting for Islamic State and related fundamentalist death cults: 110.
• Australian citizens providing funding for Islamic State: more than 150.
• Islamic State suicide bombers who have left Australia: three.
• Islamic State jihadists killed by coalition strikes during the past ten months: 10,000.
• Australian Islamic State sack wives attempting a Charlie’s Angels pose in this photograph: five.

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Peter Hartcher says we shouldn’t believe those denials of the people who leaked to him

Andrew Bolt June 06 2015 (11:16am)

Peter Hatcher is the Fairfax Abbott-hater who was given the leaks that showed six ministers - including Malcolm Turnbull and Julie Bishop - attacking Tony Abbott’s latest anti-terrorism plan in Cabinet.
The leak - or leaks - actually backfired so spectacularly, by rallying the backbench firmly behind Abbott, that some whiteanting MPs then suggested the real leaker could actually have been Tony Abbott’s staff or even Scott Morrison, hoping to cause Turnbull and Bishop exactly this strife.
But Hartcher cannot resist opining today on the leaks he received, and given that he knows exactly who talked to him we can safely conclude the leaks were indeed from Abbott’s enemies and not his side, and some denials cannot be taken on face value:
Tony Abbott’s claim to “good government” has exploded spectacularly this week. The leaks from his cabinet were a direct consequence of poor governance. The leaks contained in this column last week illustrated how he tried to ambush his ministers on a fundamental question of the rights of Australians. 
And how his ministers repaid him. They refused to be “duped” as one put it to me....
And then the inevitable media parlour games… Questions to each minister, one by one as they pop up for media appearances, whether he or she “leaked”. 
So far, astoundingly, none has cheerfully confessed and announced resignation from the cabinet. The denial, as inevitable as the question, is followed by the inevitable story: Minister X denies leaking.
Those who leaked to Hartcher have just had him point them out and trash their denials.
How funny. 
===

A good paper, now too eager by half

Andrew Bolt June 06 2015 (10:42am)

Yes, he acknowledges Greg Sheridan’s fine column this week, arguing the no case. But former ABC journalist Geoffrey Luck in Quadrant notes how exceptional this was, despite the paper’s ”so there” to me yesterday:
The Australian has stood out as a beacon of fairness, balance and openness to contrary opinion. So it was with surprise and dismay that I observed the progression of a policy of blatant promotion of the cause of constitutional amendment, unaccompanied by any dissenting views or opinions. Here’s a list of some of the articles The Australian has run in the last year (editor’s note: The Australian‘s paywall precludes access to the stories below without a subscription). 
4.4.14 Recognise: This pushes for youth engagement in referendum
8.7.14 A need to formally recognise First People
13.8.14 Qantas puts wings under Recognise campaign
30.8.14 Recognise push must face the political facts
27.10.14 Remove race reference from Constitution
27.11.14 Gooda: Commit to timetable for Recognise referendum
2.12.14 Mike Baird steps up on Recognise
3.12.14 We need heroes, black and white
18.2.15 Royalists recognise need for constitution change
18.2.15 Tony Abbott, Bill Shorten to join forces over Recognise constitution, and
Recognise: The journey to recognition. Special Section
13.4.15 Noel Pearson’s shift on Recognise campaign
14.4.15 Pearson on Freeman-Leeser declaration of Indigenous Recognition
23.5.15 Governments must help Indigenous communities develop native title land
23.5.15 Pearson lays the conservatives’ demons to rest
30.5.15 Constitutional referendum: the indigenous recognition tightrope 
Not until May 21 this year, when the paper could not ignore the news story, did it air a contrary voice: Cory Bernardi to spearhead No campaign on Recognise.
In its powerful editorial of August last year, Recognise push must face the political facts, The Australian declared itself a media partner of the government-funded Recognise group, providing coverage of its campaign.  What it did not say was that it would assist the campaign by avoiding or downplaying contrarian arguments. 
I’m getting a feeling of deja vu.  Dr Nancy Stone measured The Australian’s coverage of the republican referendum, which it heavily backed yet was lost in every state:
UPDATE
I really am looming as The Australian’s biggest nightmare, now resentful even of the links I provide. (I actually go out of my way to give The Australian links to stories I’ve first read in rival publications. My mistake, clearly.)
It’s as if someone there has decided one of us must go.
UPDATE
This childish abuse today now passes for debate in The Australian? Should I pay rent for occupying the minds of such journalists?
At least this piece disagrees with me politely, even if failing to detail how my arguments were rebutted by an earlier piece by Chris Merritt.
But, seriously, another three pieces in just one edition of The Australian dedicated to proving a columnist in another News Corp newspaper wrong, hateful and a user?  Is The Australian in healthy hands? 
===

Would Obama’s US be even more popular if it vanished completely?

Andrew Bolt June 06 2015 (10:22am)

Barack Obama:
People don’t remember—when I came into office, the United States in world opinion ranked below China and just barely above Russia… And today, once again, the United States is the most respected country on Earth. 
Mark Steyn: 
It’s pathetic for the leader of the global superpower to be boasting that he’s come number one in a Miss Congeniality poll ... I mean this, in itself, is incredible. I can’t recall Winston Churchill or Bismarck ever standing up and saying, ‘Hey, the world had a Miss World competition and I came first in the swimsuit round.’ It’s pathetic. It’s very easy to win the Miss Congeniality award when you’re doing nothing.
(Thanks to reader John.) 
===

Tuvalu, not drowning but waving

Andrew Bolt June 06 2015 (10:12am)

Global warming - dud predictions

Remember all those scares that Tuvalu would be the first Pacific islands to be drowned by global warming?
In fact, warned Al Gore in his An Inconvenient Truth, so dire was this danger that “the citizens of these Pacific nations have all had to evacuate to New Zealand”....
Take Prof Mohammed Dore, an environmental economist from Canada’s Brock University, who three years ago declared Tuvalu uninhabited already.
“In fact, there is an island called Tuvalu which was completely evacuated and New Zealand accepted all the residents because of sea level rising,” he wrote, much to the surprise of the island’s 12,000 residents, who have actually doubled their number in the past three decades, there being little else to do in the middle of the ocean....
Tuvalu’s prime minister in 2003 went to the United Nations to present a bill to the guilty Westerners he insisted were causing the seas to drown his home.
He really laid it on thick: “The threat is real and serious, and is of no difference to a slow and insidious form of terrorism against us.” ...
Rob Gell, the TV weatherman, ...  in 2008 launched an exhibition at Melbourne’s Immigration Museum dedicated to convincing the gullible that we should take in all these soggy Tuvaluans before the waves lapped over their heads.
It was virtually a “foregone conclusion” that Tuvalu would be uninhabitable “within the next 50 years”, he claimed.
Naturally, Labor signed up to the scare… It even produced a “Pacific climate change plan” which promised help to global warming “refugees” as they fled low-lying island states such as Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, and Tuvalu.
Said Labor frontbencher Anthony Albanese: “The alternative to that is to say, and I don’t think any Australian would accept this, that were going to sit by while people literally drown.”
All of which culminated in the tearful plea from Tuvalu’s delegate, Ian Fry, at the UN’s great warmist gathering at Copenhagen last year… “I woke up this morning crying, and that’s not easy for a grown man to admit ... The fate of my country rests in your hands.” 
Even the warmist New Scientist now concedes:
Funafuti atoll, which includes the capital of Tuvalu, is an islet archipelago in the tropical Pacific Ocean made from coral debriswashed up from an underlying reef by waves, winds and currents. Over the past 60 years the sea has risen by around 30 centimetres locally,sparking warnings that the atoll is set to disappear. 
But Paul Kench of the University of Auckland, New Zealand, and colleagues found no evidence of heightened erosion. After poring over more than a century’s worth of data, including old maps and aerial and satellite imagery, they conclude that 18 out of 29 islands have actually grown. As a whole, the group grew by more than 18 hectares, while many islands changed shape or shifted sideways.
(Thanks to reader bolt from the blue.) 
===

Ah, Queensland. Newman one day, but this stuff the next

Andrew Bolt June 06 2015 (9:56am)

When I first heard the Queensland Labor Government was just doing the bidding of its union bosses I was alarmed. Now I wonder whether I should be relieved, after the latest allegations against the latest Labor MP, Rick Williams: 
BRUCE McLean worked closely with Rick Williams in his financial planning business until 2002 when he was sacked after trying to blow the whistle on Mr Williams’ alleged activities. 
Mr McLean kept detailed notes at the time of alleged unscrupulous practices by Mr Williams, now the Labor MP for Pumicestone, in the business, which represented Suncorp.Allegations include forging client signatures on documents, backdating documents to avoid cooling off periods and encouraging staff not to disclose the dangerous hobbies and health problems of clients to Suncorp underwriters in insurance applications.
He also kept notes of an alleged approach by Mr Williams to find someone to have his ex-wife’s boyfriend “done over” during a vendetta against the man and being asked to make a false statement about the alleged target relating to drugs.
Mr McLean also alleges Mr Williams conspired to destroy the reputation of a 17-year-old junior office assistant who quit the business over concerns about Mr Williams’ behaviour… Mr McLean says when Jessica quit Mr Williams was so concerned about a sexual harassment complaint he tried to concoct a fake story that she had offered sex [for] an extra $100 a week… 
Mr Williams has denied the allegations and rejected acting improperly. Mr McLean provided The Courier-Mail a sworn statement detailing his allegations, which – along with other witness statements – were forwarded to the police on Wednesday on the request of the Premier.
To repeat what the story says, Williams denies the allegations.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
===

How can Gillian Triggs possibly stay when she is so biased?

Andrew Bolt June 06 2015 (9:41am)

Gillian Triggs, president of the Human Rights Commission, waited until the Liberals were in power and actually emptying detention centres before calling an inquiry into children in detention.
Gillian Triggs gave conflicting evidence on whether she did or didn’t discuss with Labor ministers whether she should delay an inquiry.
Gillian Triggs, waited until the boats were stopped and no more people were drowning before launching a full-on assault on the management of our borders.
Gillian Triggs presided over an inquiry making inflammatory and inaccurate claims about suicides in detention and armed guards.
Gillian Triggs verballed the Immigration Minister in her report, falsely claiming he’d admitted detaining children had no part in stopping the boats.
Gillian Triggs in her report at times presented allegations of sexual abuse of children in detention as proven.
Gillian Triggs claimed she’d been asked by the Government to quit when in fact she herself had asked the Government if it had confidence in her.
Gillian Triggs gave misleading evidence about what she claimed was an “inducement” to quit - a job the Government claims she had herself suggested (and she denies).
Gillian Triggs falsely linked the execution of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran to the Government’s border policies.
Gillian Triggs has recommended record amounts of compensation, including $350,000 to a PNG “refugee” held in detention who’d beaten his Australian wife to death with a bicycle.
And now this:
The Australian government’s raft of new national security laws are stripping people of their freedom and threatening democracy, outspoken Human Rights Commissioner Gillian Triggs has said. 
In a strident speech aimed squarely at federal politicians, Professor Triggs said ministers increasingly used their powers without legal oversight.
“A growing threat to democracy is the expansion of discretionary, often non-compellable, ministerial powers that may be exercised with limited or no judicial scrutiny,” Prof Triggs said at a dinner on Friday night.
“What are the options for democracy when both major parties, in government and opposition, agree upon laws that violate fundamental freedoms?” 
And:
Professor Triggs also suggested the indefinite detention of thousands of asylum seekers, most of whom are refugees, has been “essentially punitive” and beyond the power of the national government.
The question: why is Triggs still head of a Human Rights Commission whose (already tattered) reputation for impartiality she has now trashed?
Why is Triggs still head of a Human Rights Commission whose effectiveness she has destroyed, by giving it the appearance of yet another far-Left activist group?
But Labor and Greens MPs past and present cheer on their warrior:
UPDATE
Triggs offers a no-but-yes defence.
The no: 
In the report ... The Australian ... asserted that Professor Triggs had linked Indonesia’s refusal to negotiate on the death sentence for two Australians who were executed in April to the Abbott government’s policy of turning back boats.“At no time did I refer to the recent executions of the two young Australians,” Professor Triggs said ... “Rather, I spoke of the future need to work diplomatically to reach agreement on ending the death penalty in the region. This reflected my early public commentary on the need for a moratorium on the death penalty.”
But yes:: 
“Boats have got to stop,” she said. “But have we thought about what the consequences are of pushing people back to our neighbour Indonesia? Is it any wonder that Indonesia will not engage with us on other issues that we care about, like the death penalty?”
Greg Sheridan calls her out:
This offensive, foolish, almost grotesque remark is innocent of fact, credibility or analysis. It is wrong at every point. 
Not only is there not a skerrick of evidence for the link Triggs makes, it is demonstrably false.It is deeply offensive to the Indonesians — the idea that Jakarta’s policy on the death penalty is influenced by Canberra’s policy on boatpeople… As a matter of simple empirical fact, the Indonesians do engage with Australia on all manner of issues that are important to us, everything from trade to education, counter-terrorism to regional diplomacy. They also engaged on the death penalty, but disagreed with us.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
===

Flaming faucets! Another green scare debunked by fracking report

Andrew Bolt June 06 2015 (9:38am)

 Yet another costly green scare debunked:
The Environmental Protection Agency’s long-awaited report on fracking dismayed liberal green groups Thursday while pleasing the oil and gas industry — the latest episode in both sides’ fraught relationship with President Barack Obama. 
The study, more than four years in the making, said the EPA has found no signs of “widespread, systemic” drinking water pollution from hydraulic fracturing. That conclusion dramatically runs afoul of one of the great green crusades of the past half-decade, which has portrayed the oil- and gas-extraction technique as a creator of fouled drinking water wells and flame-shooting faucets.
When will Victoria end its senseless ban on fracking, one even crazier than its earlier ban on GM crops? When will NSW loosen its own restrictions on a technology that can give us relatively cheap energy?
(Thanks to reader Low Profile.) 
===

Incredible cruelty

Andrew Bolt June 06 2015 (9:13am)

I have worked every single day since January, so it is with floods of sympathetic tears that I, sobbing, type this following testimony from a Canberra public servant:
Due to a high workload, I have just worked for 13 days straight (no, the weekends were not full days). During a meeting yesterday, my SES band 1 told me that if we had time for lunch, we weren’t that busy. 
I’m a grown man with a fairly thick skin but my reaction was to walk out of her office and into a toilet in tears. I ended up going home, visibly upset. I texted my boss at 5.30am today telling her I’m unable to come in. Her written response was to ask me where a report was located. I am genuinely unsure what to do. 
Tim Blair offers most excellent advice.
===

Mulkearns can’t keep hiding

Andrew Bolt June 06 2015 (9:02am)

There is no way this former bishop can legitimately avoid giving evidence. He has very grave questions to answer and lousy excuses not to:
THE bishop who was in charge at Ballarat when some of Australia’s worst paedophiles preyed on young children has no plans to help a royal commission uncover the truth about sexual abuse within the Catholic Church.   
Father Ronald Mulkearns was bishop while children suffered at the evil whims of Fr Gerald Ridsdale, Fr Paul Ryan and Brothers Robert Best and Edward Dowlan.
A Victorian inquiry has previously heard Fr Mulkearns could not give evidence to it because he was too ill and suffered memory loss due to a stroke…
In Aireys Inlet on Friday, where he maintains a peaceful retirement in his seaside home with million-dollar views of the Great Ocean Rd, Fr Mulkearns would not comment on his condition.
The only evidence of ill-health was a packet of throat lozenges he bought from a pharmacy. 
The 84-year-old appears capable; he lives independently and drives daily… Earlier this year, he travelled to Sydney for a celebration dinner organised by the church.
===

The one person both Gillard and Rudd agree on hating

Andrew Bolt June 06 2015 (8:04am)

Troy Bramston has watched the first episode of The Killing Season, the ABC’s documentary on the Rudd-Gillard years:
The sight of Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard trashing each other is not pretty. Their mutual hatred is barely concealed. Yet there is one other thing the two former prime ministers have in common: their loathing of Bill Shorten.
UPDATE
Thanks to the many readers who alerted me to the typo I had in the headline. 
===

The Bolt Report tomorrow, June 7

Andrew Bolt June 06 2015 (7:38am)

On Channel 10 on Sunday at 10am and 3pm.
My guest:  Immigration Minister Peter Dutton. Let’s talk treason.
Editorial: Crying wolf on the Great Barrier Reef. Holding the scaremongers to account.

The panel: Niki Savva of The Australian and former Labor campaign guru Bruce Hawker. Has the media been too hard on Abbott, hmm, and other leading questions.
NewsWatch: Sharri Markson, media editor of The Australian. On the media’s rules - and Gillard’s - for playing the gender card. And is the media reporting on same-sex marriage - or campaigning?
Plus a word about Sarah Hanson-Young and a prime hypocrite.

The videos of the shows appear here.
===

Greece won’t pay. So waddya gonna do about it?

Andrew Bolt June 06 2015 (12:02am)

As they say, if you owe the bank $1 million, you’ve got a problem. If you owe the bank $440 million, it’s got the problem.
Greece has delayed a €300 million IMF loan repayment due this morning and threatened to call a snap general election if its creditors do not soften their demands. 
Raising the stakes in its acrimonious negotiations with international creditors, Greece opted to postpone today’s payment until the end of June - a perfectly legal if highly unusual move. By invoking the clause in its loan contract, Greece has become the first developed country to miss a scheduled payment to the IMF since the end of the Second World War. 
(Thanks to reader Low Profile.) 
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JUST PAY IT

Tim Blair – Friday, June 06, 2014 (4:06pm)

According to this Greens-endorsed payment calculator, it will take two decades for someone to pay off an arts degree HECS debt:


That’s just $23 per week. Is there no provision under HECS for debts to be paid more quickly? Here’s a young complainer whose $133,292 debt will apparently be closed in 2054: 
40 years to pay off my HECS debt… May as well move overseas. Thanks Libs. 
There are always other options, by the way. On the whole issue of subsidised education, this chap seems to get it: 
There is no such thing, of course, as “free” education. Somebody has to pay. In systems with no charges those somebodies are all taxpayers. This is a pretty important point: a “free” higher education system is one paid for by the taxes of all, the majority of whom haven’t had the privilege of a university education. Ask yourself if you think that is a fair thing. 
The speaker? Paul Keating, in 1995. 
===

BIG BUDGET CUTS

Tim Blair – Friday, June 06, 2014 (10:43am)

Huge cuts on the way for the BBC: 
Director of news and current affairs, James Harding, said in an email to staff that the division had to make savings of “tens of millions of pounds” as part of the so-called Delivering Quality First programme …
“I am afraid that there is no escaping the fact that there are likely to be a significant number of redundancies – most of our costs are tied up in people so there is limited scope for other big savings elsewhere,” he said. 
The potential scale of the cuts is enormous: 
A BBC spokesman said they are working to deliver savings of $A1.46 billion a year by 2016/17 …
So the annual savings the BBC is aiming for are worth more than the ABC’s entire annual budget. That’s one goliath of a broadcaster there.
===

The Bolt Report on Sunday

Andrew Bolt June 06 2014 (5:22pm)

On Channel 10 at 10am and 4pm.
Clive Palmer: the most dangerous man in Parliament.
My guest:  the man who could help Tony Abbott break the Palmer grip.
The panel: former Labor advisor Cassandra Wilkinson and former Victorian Liberal president Michael Kroger. Plus a message to Malcolm Turnbull.
On NewsWatch: Hedley Thomas on how Palmer was spun - and could be unspun.
Plus Barack Obama’s amazing surrender.
The videos of the shows appear here.
===

No conservatives may judge history

Andrew Bolt June 06 2014 (7:33am)

Gerard Henderson has a long history of identifying errors in books claiming to be factual, many of them of the Left. This, according to Leftist publisher Chris Feik, makes him unacceptable as a judge for a prize for non-fiction:
Tony Abbott and George Brandis announced that Gerard Henderson was the new chairman of the judging panel for the 2014 prize for non-fiction…

Henderson has a long history of incessant and obsessive criticism of leading Australian writers, journalists and thinkers with whom he disagrees politically… 

If any of these writers were to submit a book for the 2014 Prime Minister’s non-fiction literary prize, Henderson’s history of campaigning against them means they could have no confidence of receiving an unprejudiced reading.
His appointment politicises what has until now been an apolitical award based on merit.
To be clear: it is not that Henderson is a conservative that is the issue here.... 
The point is everything is politics for Henderson. 
So it’s not a political objection, but it is.
Feik did not complain about the 2008 judging panel being dominated by Leftists:
Hilary Charlesworth, academic (chair)

Sally Morgan, indigenous artist and author
John Doyle, comedian and script writer
He did not complain when the 2009 panel was chaired by Leftist Phillip Adam, an obsessive critic of conservative writers:
Phillip Adams AO (chair)
Peter Rose
Professor Joan Beaumont FASSA
He did not complain when the 2010 panel was chaired by a Leftist, Brian Johns, whose mates included the inner Labor coterie:
Brian Johns AO (chair)
Colin Steele
Dr Faye Sutherland
He did not complain when the 2012 panel was chaired by former ABC star Chris Masters, Leftist author of a book trashing conservative Alan Jones:
Christopher (Chris) Masters PSM (chair)
Dr Faye Sutherland
Colin Steele
Dr Michelle Arrow
===

Fairfax peddles lie that Labor fed me anti-Turnbull material

Andrew Bolt June 06 2014 (7:21am)

I can reveal that Fairfax just makes stuff up:
Fairfax Media can also reveal that Bolt and Jones have asked Labor for ammunition to use against Mr Turnbull, particularly in relation to his stewardship of the national broadband network.
Complete crap. I have asked no one from any party for any such material.  Nor have I used any such material.  I don’t even believe Turnbull has done anything but a good job in his portfolio.
Fairfax is lying or being spun by Labor or being fed untruths by a paranoiac.
But to make this crazier, Fairfax claims that I am actually egged on by Liberals, while being fed material by Labor. What a grand conspiracy this is!:
The stoush prompted government discussion about what had fuelled the attack on Mr Turnbull, with suspicion that Jones and fellow right-wing commentator Bolt were being egged on by the hard right of the party.
Which loon is promoting these conspiracy theories? Such rubbish. My interview with Abbott and my column were completely my own work, people. No one egged me, no one briefed me. I just used my own eyes and my own brain to conclude Turnbull seemed more eager to sell himself than the Budget to Abbott’s enemies. The objective facts bear me out.
Also false:
Mr Turnbull was forced for a fourth straight day on Thursday to affirm his loyalty to the Prime Minister and support for the budget during a combative interview with Sydney radio host Alan Jones.
No one forced Turnbull to do anything such thing. I have never seen a man so eager to volunteer interviews to declare he is completely loyal, but of course if anything should one day happen to the leader…
This cartoonish no-but-yes performance makes my analysis now seem acutely penetrating;
In an interview on the ABC’s 7.30 on Thursday night, Mr Turnbull said he didn’t have “any plans, any desires, any expectations to be the leader” of his party again. 
“Politics is an unpredictable business so people say to me often, ‘Do you think you’ll be leader again?’ and I say my prospects are somewhere between nil and very negligible and I think that is probably about right,’’ he said. However when asked directly about his leadership ambitions, Mr Turnbull said he “didn’t think there is any member of the House of Representatives who, if in the right circumstances, would not take on that responsibility”. 
Another Turnbull falsehood:
He also said Bolt and Jones had undermined the prime minister by suggesting the government was divided which was an enormous falsehood.
I said no such thing.  I merely said Turnbull was not pulling his weight with the Budget, and was advertising his friendship with Abbott’s natural predators. I also noted that his affinity with Palmer and the ABC could one day allow him to argue only he could deal with a hostile Senate. Bloody obvious, I would have thought. Turnbull is just advertising, not undermining. Or not until this week, at least.
Bottom line: it seems to me that my perfectly reasonable column is being used by Turnbull forces to argue that nasty Abbott forces are geeing up demented me to undermine a great and loyal Turnbull with lies and outrageous smears, and isn’t it time the party had a leader who wasn’t so influenced by unhinged conservative commentators? This is a narrative too many journalists seem only too eager to repeat. It is what they, too, would wish, and therefore they do not ask if it is actually true.
UPDATE
After all those denials, Turnbull leaves more people unconvinced:
COMMUNICATIONS Minister Malcolm Turnbull has infuriated colleagues after stirring up leadership speculation while Prime Minister Tony Abbott was overseas… 
His comments exploded across the Liberal party with colleagues baffled as to why he would make the remarks, particularly while the PM was overseas.
UPDATE
What I wrote on Monday in the column that drove Turnbull ballistic:
That said, a disclaimer: I’m sure Turnbull isn’t contemplating any imminent challenge or is fostering destabilisation
Nor do I think the Liberals are considering any such switch at the moment...
What Turnbull last night said I said: 
...  that the Government is divided and that a senior cabinet minister, in this case me, is without any evidence at all is seeking to undermine the Prime Minister...
Why is Turnbull misrepresenting and exaggerating my argument? 
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Just another HSU allegation. Poor members

Andrew Bolt June 06 2014 (7:07am)

More claims about the much-rorted HSU, this time involving the alleged whistleblower:
Self-professed union whistleblower Kathy Jackson used $1 million in members’ funds to pay off two personal credit cards she claims to have used on work expenses between 2000 and 2011. 
Documents prepared for the royal commission into unions also reveal that between 2007 and 2010, Ms Jackson withdrew a further $220,000 in cash using union bank cheques.
A Fairfax Media investigation has also obtained a leaked NSW police statement that alleges Ms Jackson knew of serious corruption claims involving Health Services Union boss Michael Williamson and Craig Thomson more than a decade before she reported the pair to police in 2011.
The witness, Sydney businesswoman Carron Gilleland, told detectives she asked for Ms Jackson’s help in 1999 after discovering the possible ‘’illicit’’ use of union members’ funds by the pair.
The leaked police statement and other documents also suggest that a private company directed by Ms Jackson and her then husband Jeff Jackson was used both as a slush fund and a vehicle for charging the union for ‘’industrial consulting’’ fees in the late 1990s.
Jackson did not respond to these latest claims but I am sure she would deny any illegality or impropriety. And Fairfax adds:
This newspaper is not suggesting she engaged in criminal conduct. 
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Occupied no longer

Andrew Bolt June 06 2014 (6:34am)

Quite proper, and it exposes Labor:
AUSTRALIA has made a historic shift in its policy on Israel’s control over the Palestinian territories, dumping its 47-year-old position that Arab land captured in 1967 is “occupied”
Attorney-General George Brandis yesterday read a statement to the Senate foreign affairs committee indicating the language of occupation was “judgmental”, “freighted with pejorative implications” and “neither appropriate nor useful” for the peace process. The reversal of the bipartisan position was castigated by Labor as a “foreign policy embarrassment”, as the Palestinians’ top diplomat in Australia warned the move undermined Australia’s credibility as an advocate for a two-state solution.
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Palmer quits company board as China hunts for missing money

Andrew Bolt June 06 2014 (6:23am)

Hedley Thomas on a brawl over missing money that could one day break up Clive Palmer’s party:
Clive Palmer has quietly quit as a director of his flagship company Mineralogy and two other major entities amid a forensic financial investigation by China’s inter­national investment company into where more than $12 million of its funds went in the weeks before the federal election. 
Legal experts told The Aus­tralian yesterday that Mr Palmer’s resignation from the most important company in his corporate network may not distance him from any fallout from his escalating dispute with his Chinese business partner, Citic Pacific, which has accused the resources tycoon in court documents of wrongfully spending the money…
Mr Palmer ... stepped down from the board Mineralogy on May 20 and from the companies behind his trouble-plagued Queensland Nickel refinery on April 5....
The battle between the Chinese and Mr Palmer worsened last month when Mineralogy was accused in court documents of wrongfully spending more than $12m and of having no legitimate reason to siphon the cash, $10m of which was taken from an account in August last year and a further $2.17m in September, just days before the election.
Mr Palmer’s costly election campaign saw candidates stand in every seat at a time his companies were under severe financial stress, but he has strenuously denied the allegations that Chinese money was wrongfully spent to bankroll his political career… Mineralogy told Citic Pacific that the funds were for “port management” expenses, but documentation to support the expenditure was not produced…
The matters including hundreds of documents and bank statements are likely to be referred to police… 
Mineralogy and the companies behind his refinery — QNI Resources and QNI Metals — have accrued significant financial losses in recent years… Mineralogy’s most recent financial accounts disclosed a net loss of about $104m in the 12 months to June last year. 
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Chicago Rapid Transit Company 4410
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“Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.” 1 Thessalonians 5:11NIV
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning


"The Lord shut him in."
Genesis 7:16
Noah was shut in away from all the world by the hand of divine love. The door of electing purpose interposes between us and the world which lieth in the wicked one. We are not of the world even as our Lord Jesus was not of the world. Into the sin, the gaiety, the pursuits of the multitude we cannot enter; we cannot play in the streets of Vanity Fair with the children of darkness, for our heavenly Father has shut us in. Noah was shut in with his God. "Come thou into the ark," was the Lord's invitation, by which he clearly showed that he himself intended to dwell in the ark with his servant and his family. Thus all the chosen dwell in God and God in them. Happy people to be enclosed in the same circle which contains God in the Trinity of his persons, Father, Son, and Spirit. Let us never be inattentive to that gracious call, "Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee, and hide thyself as it were for a little moment until the indignation be overpast." Noah was so shut in that no evil could reach him. Floods did but lift him heavenward, and winds did but waft him on his way. Outside of the ark all was ruin, but inside all was rest and peace. Without Christ we perish, but in Christ Jesus there is perfect safety. Noah was so shut in that he could not even desire to come out, and those who are in Christ Jesus are in him forever. They shall go no more out forever, for eternal faithfulness has shut them in, and infernal malice cannot drag them out. The Prince of the house of David shutteth and no man openeth; and when once in the last days as Master of the house he shall rise up and shut the door, it will be in vain for mere professors to knock, and cry Lord, Lord open unto us, for that same door which shuts in the wise virgins will shut out the foolish forever. Lord, shut me in by thy grace.

Evening


"He that loveth not knoweth not God."
1 John 4:8

The distinguishing mark of a Christian is his confidence in the love of Christ, and the yielding of his affections to Christ in return. First, faith sets her seal upon the man by enabling the soul to say with the apostle, "Christ loved me and gave himself for me." Then love gives the countersign, and stamps upon the heart gratitude and love to Jesus in return. "We love him because he first loved us." In those grand old ages, which are the heroic period of the Christian religion, this double mark was clearly to be seen in all believers in Jesus; they were men who knew the love of Christ, and rested upon it as a man leaneth upon a staff whose trustiness he has tried. The love which they felt towards the Lord was not a quiet emotion which they hid within themselves in the secret chamber of their souls, and which they only spake of in their private assemblies when they met on the first day of the week, and sang hymns in honour of Christ Jesus the crucified, but it was a passion with them of such a vehement and all-consuming energy, that it was visible in all their actions, spoke in their common talk, and looked out of their eyes even in their commonest glances. Love to Jesus was a flame which fed upon the core and heart of their being; and, therefore, from its own force burned its way into the outer man, and shone there. Zeal for the glory of King Jesus was the seal and mark of all genuine Christians. Because of their dependence upon Christ's love they dared much, and because of their love to Christ they did much, and it is the same now. The children of God are ruled in their inmost powers by love--the love of Christ constraineth them; they rejoice that divine love is set upon them, they feel it shed abroad in their hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto them, and then by force of gratitude they love the Saviour with a pure heart, fervently. My reader, do you love him? Ere you sleep give an honest answer to a weighty question!
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Today's reading: 2 Chronicles 23-24, John 15 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: 2 Chronicles 23-24

1 In the seventh year Jehoiada showed his strength. He made a covenant with the commanders of units of a hundred: Azariah son of Jeroham, Ishmael son of Jehohanan, Azariah son of Obed, Maaseiah son of Adaiah, and Elishaphat son of Zikri. 2 They went throughout Judah and gathered the Levites and the heads of Israelite families from all the towns. When they came to Jerusalem, 3 the whole assembly made a covenant with the king at the temple of God....

Today's New Testament reading: John 15


The Vine and the Branches

1 "I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me...."






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