Monday, July 10, 2017

Mon Jul 10th Todays News

An Agence France Press release has it that President Obama's policies in Iraq have born fruit. As a service to my readers, I'll include pictures of Obama's success. AFP hopes similar success can be achieved in Syria. It probably can.

Some things should not happen, but they do. Kevin Rudd as PM was highly lauded for apologising to Australian Aborigines. It was an empty gesture, but an attempted travesty as he moved to end the intervention in the North of Australia saving lives of Aboriginal peoples. Aboriginal people are suffering from left wing compassion which seems to promote criminal and decadent behaviour. So that Aboriginal children have got high levels of sexually transmitted diseases. Drunken behaviour and dysfunctional families characterise what has become a cargo culture. Rudd effectively apologised for early welfare groups that tried to help foundlings and the dispossessed. Rudd referred to a myth of a stolen generation in which very few have been identified who were stolen from their parents to be raised by the state. It was an empty gesture of Rudd, but he is still highly lauded for it. 

It is apparent that Turnbull can not achieve anything worthwhile as PM, except further humiliation. So he must be looking for a note on which to finish so as to define his term. Turnbull is looking for a Rudd like empty gesture. Same sex marriage could be that. A plebiscite is the policy which the Liberals took to the last election, with no back up plan, and the senate won't allow it because many independents, and the ALP and Greens, feel discussion for such a plebiscite might mean that the plebiscite fails. Pesky democracy. So now a Lib backbencher, possibly with Turnbull's encouragement, is threatening to cross the party floor and move for a parliamentary vote without a plebiscite or discussion. Personally, I don't feel government should be involved with people's sex lives where consent is achieved, but I also want protection for churches which act on conscience, something a members bill might not do. There are lots of legal things I would never do. An empty gesture like Rudd's for which Turnbull can point as a crowning achievement. It is probably too late for Turnbull to bear a child while in office. 

138, Emperor Hadrian died after a heart failure at Baiae; he was buried at Rome in the Tomb of Hadrian beside his late wife, Vibia Sabina. 988, the Norse King Glun Iarainn recognised Máel Sechnaill II, High King of Ireland, and agreed to pay taxes and accept Brehon Law; the event is considered to be the founding of the city of Dublin. 

In 1212, the most severe of several early fires of London burned most of the city to the ground. 1499, the Portuguese explorer Nicolau Coelho returned to Lisbon, after discovering the sea route to India as a companion of Vasco da Gama. 1519, Zhu Chenhao declared the Ming Dynasty emperor Zhengde a usurper, beginning the Prince of Ning rebellion, and led his army north in an attempt to capture Nanjing. 1584, William I of Orange was assassinated in his home in Delft, Holland, by Balthasar Gérard. 

In 1806, the Vellore Mutiny was the first instance of a mutiny by Indian sepoys against the British East India Company. 1850, U.S. President Millard Fillmore was sworn in, a day after becoming President upon Zachary Taylor's death. 1882, War of the Pacific: Chile suffered its last military defeat in the Battle of La Concepción when a garrison of 77 men was annihilated by a 1,300-strong Peruvian force, many of them armed with spears. 

In 1913, Death Valley, California, hit 134 °F (57 °C), the highest temperature recorded in the United States. 1921, Belfast's Bloody Sunday: Sixteen people were killed and 161 houses destroyed during rioting and gun battles in Belfast, Northern Ireland. 1925, Meher Baba began his silence of 44 years. His followers observed Silence Day on this date in commemoration. Also 1925, Scopes Trial: In Dayton, Tennessee, the so-called "Monkey Trial" began with John T. Scopes, a young high school science teacher accused of teaching evolution in violation of the Butler Act. 1938, Howard Hughes set a new record by completing a 91-hour airplane flight around the world.

In 1940, World War II: The Vichy government was established in France. Also 1940, World War II: Battle of Britain: The German Luftwaffe began attacking British convoys in the English Channel thus starting the battle (this start date is contested, though). 1941, Jedwabne Pogrom: The massacre of Jewish people living in and near the village of Jedwabne in Poland. 1942, Diplomatic relations between the Netherlands and the Soviet Union were established. Also 1942, World War II: An American pilot spotted a downed, intact Mitsubishi A6M Zero on Akutan Island (the "Akutan Zero") that the US Navy used to learn the aircraft's flight characteristics. 1946, Hungarian hyperinflation sets a record with inflation of 348.46 percent per day, or prices doubling every eleven hours. 

In 1962, Telstar, the world's first communications satellite, was launched into orbit. 1966, the Chicago Freedom Movement, led by Martin Luther King, Jr., held a rally at Soldier Field in Chicago, Illinois. As many as 60,000 people come to hear Dr. King as well as Mahalia Jackson, Stevie Wonder, and Peter Paul and Mary. 1976, one American and three British mercenaries were executed in Angola following the Luanda Trial. 1985, the Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior was bombed and sunk in Auckland harbour by French DGSE agents, killing Fernando Pereira.

In 1991, the South African cricket team was readmitted into the International Cricket Council following the end of Apartheid. Also 1991, Boris Yeltsin took office as the first elected President of Russia. 1992, in Miami, Florida, the former Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega was sentenced to 40 years in prison for drug and racketeering violations. 1997, in London scientists reported the findings of the DNA analysis of a Neanderthal skeleton which supports the "out of Africa theory" of human evolution placing an "African Eve" at 100,000 to 200,000 years ago. 1998, Roman Catholic sex abuse cases: The Diocese of Dallas agreed to pay $23.4 million to nine former altar boys who claimed they were sexually abused by Rudolph Kos, a former priest.

2002, at a Sotheby's auction, Peter Paul Rubens' painting The Massacre of the Innocents was sold for £49.5million (US$76.2 million) to Lord Thomson. 2008, Former Macedonian Interior Minister Ljube Boškoski was acquitted of all charges by a United Nations Tribunal accusing him of war crimes.

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 Mystery of Webster's Curse

The complete HD video comprising all four parts.
The story is produced, written and directed and narrated by David Daniel Ball. Art work has been created by the former Disney animator May Wa Leng. A few clips were from VideoBlocks.com, a film footage firm which sells clips to tv studios and individuals for rebroadcast use. 
ARIA ISRC number AUAWN1200003


=== from 2016 ===
My books "History in a Year by the Conservative Voice" are available, recommended for those age ten and up. They have an essay or two on current affairs for each day of each month. They also list events, births, deaths and holidays and observances for each day around the world. But unless you ask a Library to stock it for you, they will not do so. One public Library feels they are too specialised. 

No news yet as to wether the fierce battle of half wits will decide who will be the next ALP leader between Shorten, Albanese, Plibersek or Clare. Clare looks better in a suit. Nobody is challenging random phrase generator Turnbull, yet, either. Turnbull has declared “We have resolved this election! Ringing stuff. Hopefully Scott Morrison will move soon before Turnbull melts completely. Compulsory voting has not prevented the lowest turnout for the major parties in Liberal Party history. ALP recording their second worst result since last time. Liberals going backwards while their coalition colleagues, Nationals, still progressed. Turnbull deposed Mr Abbott under the false pretence of explaining policy better and being better at elections. Now the vote is over, Turnbull can resign. Or face further humiliation. 

For some, at the moment, the Sex Party has more credibility.  
=== from 2015 ===
Democrat hatred for the United States cultural assets is longstanding. In South Carolina, in 1962, a Democrat Governor put up the confederate flag on their capitol building while taking credit for improving educational standards while opposing integration. The flag is coming down now, a symbol exploited by bigots and haters. It is difficult to know when it was anything else. The current governor is Nikki Haley. She is GOP. 

ALP leader Bill Shorten is the bastard boss portrayed in union attack adverts on Work Choices. He failed to adequately explain his union leader decisions from back in the day. Shorten smeared the High Court Judge instead, claiming Dyson Heydon is Mr Abbott's pawn. Shorten's leadership is exposed and so the eye of voters wanders to look at others. And the alternatives are showing voters what they have got. Tanya Plibersek, ALP Deputy leader, complains she is losing the ability to feed herself. The compelling vision is clearly calculated to inspire sympathy from ALP supporters at the grass roots. They will be needed to change the leadership. Jason Clare says he doesn't know why the government is turning back boats because the policy won't work. In fantasy terms, Clare is a compelling candidate because he has never been leader before and therefore all his mistakes have been someone else's fault. Something ALP members find appealing. But it isn't only ALP members campaigning for Shorten's position. Sarah Hanson-Young is going on sea patrol. She is going to the Mediterranean seas to find lost migrants. It is much nicer there in Summer than Australia in Winter. ALP should be happy with her embarrassment of leadership choices. 
From 2014
Hundreds of millions of tweets over just one soccer match. But it was an unusual match. By way of contrast, Netherlands vs Argentina did not get the same coverage as Germany vs Brazil. But then Germany spanked Brazil 7-1 in front of a home crowd for Brazil. It doesn't get more upsetting in world sport .. anywhere. The result is career changing for all involved. Netherlands beat Spain 5-1 earlier in the tournament, but did not carry on with that form. Germany have done well, but need to maintain it to win the tournament. That is their goal. 

Today is the anniversary of an equivalent match as Argentina vs Netherlands has been, 48 BC had Julius Ceaser pitted against Pompey at Battle of Dyrrhachium. It was precipitous, and Ceaser risked all by accident, but nothing happened as two heavyweights faced off. Technically, Pompey won and so he went to face Ceaser again at Pharsalos with all the advantages .. yet lost everything. What had happened was Ceaser had sailed to Dyrrhachium through an enemy force in winter .. and got trapped with a much smaller force that could not resupply. Mark Antony marched to his aid, and Pompey moved to prevent the reuniting. The upshot was that Pompey had a force behind fortifications and Ceaser chose to starve him out by building more fortifications. Pompey had sea access to supplies, but could not feed his livestock. Ceaser's men were hungry, but when spring came, Ceaser would hold all the advantages. Pompey broke out of his enclosure and marched to Pharsalos. How will Argentina fare against Germany? How will Brazil against Netherlands? So much has happened, but the future is uncertain, and anything might prove all the difference.

Also on this day, but in the year 645, was the Isshi incident in Japan which transformed Japan and involved their honour system in a way that seems incomprehensible if one is not Japanese. Two princes, Nakatomi no Kamatari, Prince Naka no Ōe, conspired to kill a third, Soga no Iruka. The attack took place in front of Empress Kōgyoku during a court ceremony. Iruka was not killed during the first attack, but pleaded his case to the Empress, who retired to consider it. A second attack in front of the Empress finished Iruka and put the Empress in a difficult position, she was unclean because of the murder in her presence. So she stepped aside, but not for the killer, but his older brother. The killer became a monk.  And after a few reigns, Emperor. It was a family affair. Much like that big family of soccer fans watching the events unfold in the world cup. 

Also on this day, Lady Jane Grey took the throne of England in 1553. It was not a blessing for her. Neither was it a blessing when Richard Neville defeated Lancastrian forces of Henry VI in 1460. The Vellore mutiny against the British East India company happened on this day in 1806, but the Sepoys had to wait another hundred and forty two years to see independence for India. US Democrat President Andrew Jackson moved to kill the second US bank in 1832, setting in train a position of inept fiscal rectitude all Democrat Presidents have followed. Death Valley recorded a temperature of 57 degrees centigrade in 1913. It has been cooler ever since. In 1997, scientists reported DNA analysis of a Neanderthal that favoured the 'out of Africa' theory for human development, with an 'Eve' existing 100k to 200k years ago (She was a good woman who liked kids). Born on this day was John Calvin in 1509, Nikola Tesla in 1856, Marcel Proust in 1871, Harvey Ball 1921, Jake LaMotta 1921, Arlo Guthrie 1941 and Sunil Gavaskar in 1949.
Historical perspective on this day
In 48 BC, Battle of Dyrrhachium: Julius Caesar barely avoided a catastrophic defeat to Pompey in Macedonia. 138, Emperor Hadrian died after a heart failure at Baiae; he was buried at Rome in the Tomb of Hadrian beside his late wife, Vibia Sabina. 645, Isshi Incident: Prince Naka-no-Ōe and Fujiwara no Kamatari assassinated Soga no Iruka during a coup d'état at the imperial palace. 988, the Norse King Glun Iarainn recognised Máel Sechnaill II, High King of Ireland, and agreed to pay taxes and accept Brehon Law; the event is considered to be the founding of the city of Dublin. 1086, King Canute IV of Denmark killed by rebellious peasants.

In 1212, the most severe of several early fires of London burned most of the city to the ground. 1460, Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, defeated the king's Lancastrian forces and took King Henry VI prisoner in the Battle of Northampton. 1499, the Portuguese explorer Nicolau Coelho returned to Lisbon, after discovering the sea route to India as a companion of Vasco da Gama. 1519, Zhu Chenhao declared the Ming Dynasty emperor Zhengde a usurper, beginning the Prince of Ning rebellion, and led his army north in an attempt to capture Nanjing. 1553, Lady Jane Grey took the throne of England. 1584, William I of Orange was assassinated in his home in Delft, Holland, by Balthasar Gérard. 1645, English Civil War: The Battle of Langport took place. 1778, American Revolution: Louis XVI of France declared war on the Kingdom of Great Britain. 1789, Alexander Mackenzie reached the Mackenzie River delta.

In 1806, the Vellore Mutiny was the first instance of a mutiny by Indian sepoys against the British East India Company. 1821, the United States took possession of its newly bought territory of Florida from Spain. 1832, the U.S. President Andrew Jackson vetoed a bill that would re-charter the Second Bank of the United States. 1850, U.S. President Millard Fillmore was sworn in, a day after becoming President upon Zachary Taylor's death. 1877, the then-villa of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, formally received its city charter from the Royal Crown of Spain. 1882, War of the Pacific: Chile suffered its last military defeat in the Battle of La Concepción when a garrison of 77 men was annihilated by a 1,300-strong Peruvian force, many of them armed with spears. 1890, Wyoming was admitted as the 44th U.S. state.

In 1913, Death Valley, California, hit 134 °F (57 °C), the highest temperature recorded in the United States. 1921, Belfast's Bloody Sunday: Sixteen people were killed and 161 houses destroyed during rioting and gun battles in Belfast, Northern Ireland. 1925, Meher Baba began his silence of 44 years. His followers observed Silence Day on this date in commemoration. Also 1925, Scopes Trial: In Dayton, Tennessee, the so-called "Monkey Trial" began with John T. Scopes, a young high school science teacher accused of teaching evolution in violation of the Butler Act. 1938, Howard Hughes set a new record by completing a 91-hour airplane flight around the world.

In 1940, World War II: The Vichy government was established in France. Also 1940, World War II: Battle of Britain: The German Luftwaffe began attacking British convoys in the English Channel thus starting the battle (this start date is contested, though). 1941, Jedwabne Pogrom: The massacre of Jewish people living in and near the village of Jedwabne in Poland. 1942, Diplomatic relations between the Netherlands and the Soviet Union were established. Also 1942, World War II: An American pilot spotted a downed, intact Mitsubishi A6M Zero on Akutan Island (the "Akutan Zero") that the US Navy used to learn the aircraft's flight characteristics. 1946, Hungarian hyperinflation sets a record with inflation of 348.46 percent per day, or prices doubling every eleven hours. 1947, Muhammad Ali Jinnah was recommended as the first Governor-General of Pakistan by the British Prime Minister, Clement Attlee. 1951, Korean War: Armistice negotiations began at Kaesong.

In 1962, Telstar, the world's first communications satellite, was launched into orbit. 1966, the Chicago Freedom Movement, led by Martin Luther King, Jr., held a rally at Soldier Field in Chicago, Illinois. As many as 60,000 people come to hear Dr. King as well as Mahalia Jackson, Stevie Wonder, and Peter Paul and Mary. 1967, Uruguay became a member of the Berne Convention copyright treaty. Also 1967, New Zealand adopted decimal currency. 1973, the Bahamas gained full independence within the Commonwealth of Nations. Also 1973, National Assembly of Pakistan passed a resolution on the recognition of Bangladesh. Also 1973, John Paul Getty III, a grandson of the oil magnate J. Paul Getty, was kidnapped in Rome, Italy. 1976, the Seveso disaster occurred in Italy. Also 1976, one American and three British mercenaries were executed in Angola following the Luanda Trial. 1978, ABC World News Tonight premiered on ABC. Also 1978, President Moktar Ould Daddah of Mauritania was ousted in a bloodless coup d'état. 1980, Alexandra Palace burned down for a second time. 1985, the Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior was bombed and sunk in Auckland harbour by French DGSE agents, killing Fernando Pereira.

In 1991, the South African cricket team was readmitted into the International Cricket Council following the end of Apartheid. Also 1991, Boris Yeltsin took office as the first elected President of Russia. 1992, in Miami, Florida, the former Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega was sentenced to 40 years in prison for drug and racketeering violations. 1997, in London scientists reported the findings of the DNA analysis of a Neanderthal skeleton which supports the "out of Africa theory" of human evolution placing an "African Eve" at 100,000 to 200,000 years ago. Also 1997, Miguel Ángel Blanco, a member of Partido Popular (Spain), was kidnapped in the Basque city of Ermua by ETA members, sparking widespread protests. 1998, Roman Catholic sex abuse cases: The Diocese of Dallas agreed to pay $23.4 million to nine former altar boys who claimed they were sexually abused by Rudolph Kos, a former priest.


In 2000, EADS, the world's second-largest aerospace group was formed by the merger of Aérospatiale-Matra, DASA, and CASA. 2002, at a Sotheby's auction, Peter Paul Rubens' painting The Massacre of the Innocents was sold for £49.5million (US$76.2 million) to Lord Thomson. 2005, Hurricane Dennis slammed into the Florida Panhandle, causing billions of dollars in damage. 2007, Erden Eruç began the first solo human-powered circumnavigation of the world. 2008, Former Macedonian Interior Minister Ljube Boškoski was acquitted of all charges by a United Nations Tribunal accusing him of war crimes.
=== 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 August, September, October, 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 James Calore, Shannon Souksavong, Ella Hoang and Sean Loh. Born on the same day across the years. On your day in 1800, Lord Wellesley, Governor-General of the British Raj, founded Fort William College in Fort William, India, to promote Bengali, Hindi and other vernaculars of the subcontinent. In 1913, The air temperature in California's Death Valley reached 134 °F (56.7 °C), the highest reading ever recorded. In 1942, An American naval airman discovered a downed Mitsubishi A6M Zero on Akutan Island, Alaska, US, which was used to devise aerial tactics against it. In 1973, John Paul Getty III, grandson of American oil magnate J. Paul Getty, was kidnapped in Rome. In 2011, After 168 years, the final edition of the News of the World was published as the British tabloid newspaper shut down over allegations that it hacked the voicemails of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler, victims of the 7/7 attacks and relatives of deceased British soldiers. What a day! The brother of the Duke of Wellington wants you to speak as your parents. The world got hot .. in 1913. You look for things and learn from them. You know great wealth and the Lord's blessings. You fix your mistakes. Enjoy your day!
Deaths
Meher Baba
Henry was yorked. Arthur understood our language. Baba's silence was profound. The poles hold the tents. The rocket improved communications. Let's party. 
===
Tim Blair

FROM 2939 TO ZERO IN ONE INCENTIVE CUT

Remove Tesla’s government assistance and Elon Musk’s enchanted volt buggies immediately stop selling.
10 Jul
===
Andrew Bolt

===

Mal trashed his party and we got hangover

Piers Akerman – Saturday, July 09, 2016 (11:18pm)

THERE’S nothing worse than having a throbbing hangover after a party no one really ­enjoyed.
 Continue reading 'Mal trashed his party and we got hangover'
===

Hounded to death by pack of trendy lefties

Miranda Devine – Saturday, July 09, 2016 (11:19pm)

HERE we go. Yet another kneejerk “compassionate” response to a campaign by animal activists, as prosecuted by the ABC.
 Continue reading 'Hounded to death by pack of trendy lefties'
===

SHORTEN CONCEDES

Tim Blair – Sunday, July 10, 2016 (2:54pm)

Our long national nightmare is over, replaced by an even longer national nightmare: 
After one of the longest election campaigns in history and a week-long results cliff hanger, Malcolm Turnbull has been handed election victory – with Opposition Leader Bill Shorten today conceding defeat.
In a nail-biting finish to what’s been widely criticised as a lacklustre campaign, the Coalition looks set to just scrap in – snatching the 76 seats it needs to form a majority government by a tiny margin. 
According to Liberal senator Arthur Sinodinos, that tiny margin confers a mandate: 
“We’ve won this election I believe. We are the government. And I think that’s a good thing for Australia,” he said.
“We got more primary votes than Labor and we’re going to end up ahead of them on the two party preferred ... We’re the government, so if anyone has a mandate it’s the government.” 
Sinodinos also claims that Turnbull has “done a good job this week of shoring up the condition of the government”. Nobody believes Sinodinos.
UPDATE. “We have resolved this election!” A stirring declaration from the Coalition’s random sentence generator:

===

Don’t miss Milo

Andrew Bolt July 10 2016 (3:56pm)

My fabulous guest on tomorrow’s The Bolt Report on Sky News at 7pm. Please do not watch if easily shocked.
UPDATE
I detect some happy anticipation.
Reader wellwellwell: 
young to be an absolute bloody legend
Reader The Rowdy Delcon:
Can we expect a whole lot of hair styling tips?? Daddy( Donald Trump ) Love??? This should be good. Have the swear button on stand by. Very entertaining guy and very informative. look Milo Yiannopoulos up on youtube. he has his own channel.
Reader Aaron M
YES!!!Im signing up to Sky right now! This is great!! 
Reader Shocked:
“Please do not watch if easily shocked.”
Or if you can’t handle the truth!
Reader Kat:
Kudos Andrew. Here is Milo pretty much annihilating Black Lives Matter as hypocrites who really don’t care about black lives, because if they did they’d get to the core of the problem and wouldn’t lie about the stats. Some interesting stats (also ditto Andrew’s warning that Milo has no censor button)
Reader Heather:
We need more like Milo. Truthful, tells it as it actually is, commonsense and brave enough to speak about it in this stupid PC world. Bravo Milo and everyone like him.
Reader Arch:
I’m a redneck. Thank God for Milo. 
UPDATE
More anticipation:

Reader wozzup:
I am starting a movement: Milo Yiannopoulos for Australia’s first President. Milo is a real truth speaker and very funny to boot. He is a more gay and more humorous version of Nigel Farage and Christopher Hitchins, combined - but still with their passion. And he has a dash of a more flamboyant version of Douglas Murray thrown in too. (Well, Douglas is more posh and “learned” than Milo but also gay and a truth speaker too.) One wonders why more gay folk are not like these two, who in particular understand that Leftism has thrown gays and women under the bus in the interest of placating their BFFs - the violent islamist movement. 
Reader AndrewL:
Congrats: at last, Yiannopolous is to get an outing on Oz TV. The Bolt Report is the best show for his Australian debut. 
I’ve been following him since his UK TV days, when he began contesting some of the more ludicrous arguments of contemporary feminism. His move to the US was timely. He has continued to tackle what he terms the cancer of feminism, launched his ‘fabulous faggot’ tour to deliver an unrelenting and uncompromising revelation of the damage being done to universities by political correctness, began an unwavering attack on the suicidal stupidity of gay men who decry so-called Islamophobia, and developed his entertaining ‘daddy’ routine in support of Trump’s presidential campaign.
At last, someone who is gay has the talent, skills, and chutzpah to call out the cultural death march of Western political correctness. I’m greatly looking forward to his appearance on tonight’s Bolt Report. 
Reader Melanie:
Well done Andrew. I’ve been following Milo for a several months. I look forward to lefty heads in Australia exploding just as in America.He says the things many conservatives would like to say about the LGBTIQWERTY movement but can’t. Safe Schools might be an interesting topic to mention.
Reader Reanna:
This is going to be the greatest segment ever! Milo is awesome and is actually gaining a following among young people, something conservatives/libertarians have struggled to do for so long (I can vouch for this as I’m in this category myself). He proves a lot of people are over the PC culture and just needed someone who could bravely articulate this for them. Just be sure to issue a “trigger warning” prior to the interview because social justice warriors are going to be sent into a frenzy. 
Reader Winnedge:
So pleased about Milo! I have been following his progress on his tour of American Universities and what is happening there is eye opening! 
As he tours American universities to talk about Free Speech and conservative values, he is constantly attacked and disrupted from speaking by the university administrations and various left wing groups who do not want him to speak or let others hear what he has to say.Fortunately in America, they have the first amendment which is helping him a lot as they know they cannot actually not let him speak (although they would love to)Being gay, has them confounded. Most gays are left leaning and Milo is now challenging them to open their eyes and admit the left do nothing for them and that indeed the feminists will choose to protect islamists over gay people.
His speeches are excellent. His debating skills are too. And he is also fearless as it is very difficult to be a conservative in society today. He is accused of hate speech when he tries to draw attention to the fact that followers of Islam do not like gays and that he has every right to be worried about that idea due to current events! He is one of the only people I know who is so outspoken and brave. He has many death threats but carries on regardless. These people, such as yourself Andrew, and Pauline, who in the face of such awful threats, choose to carry on and not be silenced deserve to be recognised and valued. Thank You. 
Reader Rita:
If ANYONE would have discovered the delectable MILO in Australia, it just HAD to be Andrew Bolt ! A straight relatively mature woman, I’m totally in love with that brave, outrageous, intelligent, articulate, flamboyant, crazy, brave gay man ! I really MUST finally get a subscription to Sky !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Reader Griffin:
Well done, Andrew! Getting Milo on! I am SOOOO looking forward to this! Two ABSOLUTE LEGENDS on one show! 
===

Credlin gives Turnbull just the kind of advice he’s inclined to ignored

Andrew Bolt July 10 2016 (7:43am)

Peta Credlin is far too generous. She has confused taking responsibility for accepting blame for his own performance:
IT’S good that Malcolm Turnbull has accepted full responsibility for the election result because he could hardly blame others for a campaign that was so much about him.
As far as I can tell, Turnbull so far has accepted responsibility only for Abbott scaring people with Medicare copayments, Labor scaring people about Medicare and Health Minister Sussan Ley not assuring people about Medicare. Other than that, Turnbull says he put a “powerful” case.
But even in April, when Michael Kroger now says Turnbull was destroying his campaign, I warned he was in trouble:
If Malcolm Turnbull keeps on like this, it’s over. 
The Prime Minister started by floating and just two days later dropping his plan to let states raise their own income tax, leading to suspicions he was clueless and had no ticker. Then he said he’d like to leave it to states to fund government schools, letting Labor make the (false) claim he’d cut their funding…
The Liberals’ cack-handed media performances have just made things worse. There was Treasurer Scott Morrison sneering at Shorten for his “ill-fitting suit”, and Turnbull cramming 13 MPs around him to nod while he announced transport spending for Melbourne.
And who will fix Turnbull’s terrible communication skills?
On Thursday he tried selling his Melbourne transport plan to the tradies listening to Eddie McGuire’s Triple M show. The waffling was so bad that the garrulous McGuire managed to get in just three questions in 10 minutes.
On Turnbull droned, talking about “value capture”, “capturing value”, “financial complexity”, “urban amenity” and giving Melburnians places “where they can recreate”. He outlined the theory of “30-minute cities” and sold his transport plan as “a holistic urban project, not just a piece of linear infrastructure from A to B"…
Shorten should actually be a sitting duck. What of his ties to our most corrupt union, the CFMEU, with 100 officials before the courts?
What of his mad plans for another carbon tax and his vast spending promises when we’re deep in debt?
This should not be a hard election for Turnbull to win. 
Except, of course, the Liberals never launched that attack on Shorten on his union ties or even his electricity tax.
Indeed, Peta Credlin goes on to list failings of the campaign which centre on Turnbull himself and for which I am yet to hear him accept blame:
Real people didn’t “get” that there had “never been a more exciting time to be an Australian” because that seemed to be more about Malcolm than about them. 
They were alienated by the constant references to “managing the transition to a new economy” because that seemed to mean “look out truck drivers and shop assistants; technology’s making you redundant"…

While “jobs and growth” was a good place to start, we were left mystified as to how this might be achieved because “our economic plan” boiled down to a company tax cut in some years’ time paid for by a superannuation tax ­increase now: the detail just didn’t come…

If Malcolm Turnbull really thought health was a such an electoral risk, why did he and Treasurer Scott Morrison make it worse by imposing a six-year freeze on the indexation of rebates? Why did he wait a week to take on Shorten’s “protect Medicare” pitch which the ALP launched on day one of the campaign?
Any campaigner worth their salt knows that the best antidote to a scare campaign based on a lie is a scare campaign based on a fact.
Labor’s commitment to a 45 per cent emissions reduction target and a 50 per cent renewable energy target would have put everyone’s power bills through the roof.
An “electricity Bill” ­advertising campaign was supposed to be ready to go, along with ads about the 50 Labor candidates and MPs who wanted to scrap the policy that put people smugglers out of business but, for some reason, these never materialised…
With campaign failures across so many fronts, there’s plenty of blame to go around and if not dealt with honestly, the next election will deliver Labor the landslide they’re ­already trying to bank. 
Good advice, especially given this unworkable Senate, that will stop any atempt to fix our finances:
Of course, Turnbull could make a virtue of necessity, ­accept that this parliament will largely be a legislation-free zone, refuse to countenance any new spending at all, let MPs spend far more time in their electorates, and follow the dictum that the government that governs best is the one that governs least by getting out of people’s lives and letting them get on with it. 
That would be a complete conservative makeover but might not appeal to someone with a notoriously low boredom threshold. 
Credlin will be on my Sky News show at 7pm tomorrow.
UPDATE
Piers Akerman:
Following Turnbull’s bizarre election night address (which will remain a reminder of his inability to grapple with reality), he belatedly took responsibility for the disaster which included the loss in NSW of Eden — Monaro (6.4 per cent swing to ALP), Lindsay (4.6 per cent swing), Macarthur (12.6 per cent) Macquarie (6.9 per cent), Barton (4.1 per cent), Dobell (5.5 per cent) and Paterson (11.1 per cent)… 
The NSW Liberals disaster owed much to the infighting, the ousting of Tony Abbott, to the poorly researched campaign and the lack of agility and nimbleness in the under reaction to the Mediscare ­campaign.
Whether the campaign strategy was federal director Tony Nutt’s, or Turnbull’s, Liberal MPs say it was hopeless, unscripted, unplanned with no day-to-day policy announcements to keep it alive.
Turnbull worked the campaign on bankers’ hours, he provided the ammunition to his opponents, the GST scare, the attack on superannuation, and the great Mediscare. In his wake, Abbott is entitled to feel somewhat vindicated as the far better, indeed, the most formidable campaigner since Howard, having led the Liberals to a dead heat and a smashing victory… Malcolm smashed his party for nothing.
Caroline Overington:
(W)ith Turnbull you get the impression that, for a politician, he thinks he’s a bit above politicking. Languid is the word that has been used to describe his campaign. 
Desperate reporters ... have returned wide-eyed from the field bearing tales of boarding Turnbull’s election bus around mid-morning to visit precisely one electorate, preferably not too far from the central business district of whatever city (usually Sydney, occasionally Melbourne) in which he’d deigned to lay his head. They’d tour a craft beer distillery or, better still, a start-up in an inner-city warehouse, with a CEO on a skateboard.
Then it was elevenses… Compare and contrast these efforts to, oh, OK, Tony Abbott in 2010. Remember when he promised to stay up for 36 hours before the polls closed? 
Reader Peter of Bellevue Hill:
Let’s face it, AB: Turnbull thought he should be PM because he’s Malcolm Turnbull - and thought he should have won the election handsomely for no other reason than he’s Malcolm Turnbull. As far as Turnbull’s concerned, no further correspondence need be entered into.
===

A real reaching out to conservatives

Andrew Bolt July 09 2016 (11:26pm)

There is much talk about Malcolm Turnbull “reaching out” to conservatives by giving ministries to two of them, Michael Sukkar and Zed Seselja, who has said good things about free speech.

That is fine, as far as it goes. But how far is that, precisely? A conservative in the ranks is all very well, but what if they then just toe the line?  Is that what Turnbull is banking on?
Wouldn’t a true reaching out involve bringing into the fold the conservatives who actually speak out loudly and have real influence in conservative ranks?  They’d surely include Eric Abetz, Kevin Andrews, possibly Angus Taylor (still just an assistant minister) and - looking ahead at real talent - Andrew Hastie. Appointing any of them would send a very strong message indeed.
And then there’s Tony Abbott.
So how serious is Turnbull really?
UPDATE
On re-reading this post, I feel I may be interpreted as having suggested Seselja and Sukkar have not themselves argued for conservative values. That would not be true or fair. Both have done so - particularly on free speech and gay marriage. Seselja has done so with the added handicap of representing the ACT.
My post refers more to whet Turnbull thinks he is getting by preferring them to the others.  
===

Missed by that much

Andrew Bolt July 09 2016 (11:21pm)

My tip over the last month of the campaign was that the Turnbull Government would lose eight to 10 seats. It now looks like it will lose 13, on the latest counting. No cigar, but not too far off.
That will give it a tiny majority that will be gone if two Liberal or Nationals cross the floor or if two seats are lost in by-elections. But as I’ve said several times, the Government’s graveyard will be the Senate. 
===

Kroger says it was Turnbull what lost it, not the Mediscare

Andrew Bolt July 09 2016 (11:13pm)

Michael Kroger is right and Malcolm Turnbull’s scapegoating of Tony Abbott and Sussan Ley is both dishonest and disgusting:
Victorian Liberal Party president Michael Kroger has sheeted the blame for the government’s disappointing election result to the Prime Minister and his Treasurer, citing a lack of “economic leadership in the country” as one of the key reasons the party failed at the polls… 
Mr Kroger also pointed to a period of policy confusion between last September and May when Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Treasurer Scott Morrison floated potential changes to the GST, the ability of the states to raise their own taxes, negative gearing, capital gains tax and superannuation…“In that period when we were putting things on and off the table and the electorate formed the opinion, ‘well if you fellas, if you people, don’t know what [you] are doing, that’s a problem’,” he said…

Asked by host David McCarthy if the party had “lost the campaign”, Mr Kroger said “it is not the campaign that people should focus on, it’s what happened on the period September to May”..
.
“Political parties have to take responsibility for their own performance,” he said. “The results slid dramatically from a 56-44 result, where we were 12 per cent in front to one where we are either 1 per cent behind or to level. Something happened, something dramatic happened, it wasn’t an accident, something dramatic happened.”
Turnbull should actually thank Kroger for saving his backside. If the rest of Australia had performed as the Kroger-led Victorians did, Turnbull would have actually increased his majority. Bit if the national swing against the Liberals had been repeated in Victoria, Bill Shorten would be prime minister.
And Shorten will yet be, too, if Turnbull stays Prime Minister. 
===

Bashing men instead

Andrew Bolt July 09 2016 (11:02pm)

Bettina Arndt says White Ribbon is just a male-bashing outfit - and very little of its massive donations go to the real victims. Then there’s the dodgy stats that White Ribbon and groups such as Our Watch peddle:
The femocrats face a herculean task denying the reality we see all about us in terms of the real ­issues that underpin domestic ­violence in this country… “Violence against women does not discriminate, ­regardless of ethnicity, social ­status and ­geography,” Our Watch chairwoman Natasha Stott Despoja says. 
Oh, yes, it does, Natasha. Just look at the neat little map produced by the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research showing prevalence of domestic violence offences across the state (http://bit.ly/1KxZQ9X). The rate of domestic violence offences in Dubbo and Bourke is 60 times higher than in Sydney’s north shore or eastern suburbs.
The lobby groups keep themselves busy preparing fudged statistics and cherry-picked research findings to counter evidence produced by the few brave experts who still dare to speak out about the damage being caused by this narrow perspective. Like Jim Ogloff, a world-­renowned researcher on violence who’s in charge of research at the Victorian Institute of Forensic Mental Health.
Ogloff warned the Victorian Royal Commission into Family Violence that it was misleading to suggest domestic violence was caused by patriarchal attitudes, that at least a third of family violence cases involved ­violent women, that the literature on family violence showed high ­levels of violence in both male and female partners and that the message should be that all violence in relationships was unacceptable, ­irrespective of gender…

White Ribbon chief executive Libby Davies {has leaped] into print to say White Ribbon is more than a feel-good boys’ club. On the contrary, White Ribbon is in the business of prevention, of “stopping violence before it occurs”, says ­Davies. And she spells that out very clearly: “Our remit is to stop the violence at the source and the source is men.”
That led to a fiery exchange with Tom Elliott on Melbourne radio station 3AW, in which he called her out on her “shameless, offensive lie” that the problem was all men…

White Ribbon is notorious for fudging statistics. I wrote last year (http://bit.ly/29CV5zD) about the blatant misrepresentation of research ... in particular the claim that 31 per cent of boys thought it not a big deal to hit a girl. In fact, that is the proportion who believe it is not a big deal when a girl hit a guy — almost all young men say males hitting females is unacceptable…
You are being misled in so many ways. 
===
"TANYA PLIBERSEK: ... In environmental terms we’re looking at losing the Great Barrier Reef, losing Kakadu National Park, losing the ability to feed ourselves because our…
PETER DUTTON: To feed ourselves?
TANYA PLIBERSEK: ...our - our fruit and vegetable growing areas…
BRENDAN O’NEILL: This is the politics of fear. This is the politics of fear.
PETER DUTTON: Taking it - taking it to a new level.
BRENDAN O’NEILL: If you don’t support our policies, we will die and starve and the Barrier reef will disappear? It’s the politics of fear.
TANYA PLIBERSEK: Actually, it’s called…
BRENDAN O’NEILL: It’s the politics of fear.
TANYA PLIBERSEK: It’s called scientific consensus…
BRENDAN O’NEILL: Right. Okay, yeah.
TANYA PLIBERSEK: ...that there are effects of global warming that affect our environment and affect our fruit and vegetable growing areas. But there’s also…
PETER DUTTON: See, you do your cause - you do your cause a disservice with this extreme view. That’s the problem, Tanya.
TANYA PLIBERSEK: That’s not extreme view. That’s a scientific view…
PETER DUTTON: What that we’re not going to be able to feed ourselves?
TANYA PLIBERSEK: ...that if we lose our productive farmland it gets harder to feed ourselves, Peter, and there is also a very good economic reason for doing this".
http://blogs.news.com.au/…/qa_smear_and_the_politics_of_fe…/
===

Turnbull needs to turn off terror talk

Piers Akerman – Friday, July 10, 2015 (7:00am)

VOTERS have become used to mischievous Malcolm Turnbull discoursing on matters outside his portfolio but as well read as he undoubtedly is, his views on the threat posed by Daesh or the self-described Islamic State, are irrelevant.
He doesn’t sit on the National Security Committee and he doesn’t see the material gathered by the intelligence sources.
It may be he doesn’t even bother with the views of the international community, for it would appear he is on a very different page from some who have made a study of this evil phenomenon.
Turnbull opened an unnecessary public discussion on the Abbott government’s security position when he cautioned a Sydney Institute audience on Tuesday against “under-estimating” or “over-estimating” the threat posed by the Islamist terrorists and said that critics of the government’s new national security measures should not be “denounced”.
He said the nation needed to be careful not to get “sucked into” the group’s strategy and become “amplifiers” of their message or in any way add credibility to Daesh “delusions”.
“Just as it is important not to underestimate, or be complacent about, the national security threat from Daesh, it is equally important not to overestimate that threat,” he said.
“Daesh is not Hitler’s Germany, Tojo’s Japan or Stalin’s Russia. Its leaders dream that they, like the Arab armies of the 7th and 8th century, will sweep across the Middle East into Europe itself.
“We need to be very careful we don’t get sucked into their strategy and ourselves become amplifiers of their wickedness and significance.”
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, usually seen as a Turnbull ally, was quick to warn that Daesh posed an extremely grave threat — as she had told the same forum in April when she said it was the greatest to civilisation since WWII, including the rise of Communism and the Cold War — and that her view was based on classified briefing and private discussions with international leaders.
Nobel Prize winner V.S. Naipul is of the same view.
The author travelled through Iran, Pakistan, Malaysia and Indonesia in the 1980s and early 1990s examining “revival” of Islam that was taking place through the revolution in Iran and the renewed dedication to the religion of other countries.
In his most recent essay published after the murder of a group of tourists in the Tunisia’s Bardo museum in March, he said ISIS is dedicated to a contemporary holocaust: “It has pledged itself to the murder of Shias, Jews, Christians, Copts, Yazidis and anyone it can, however fancifully, accuse of being a spy.
“It has wiped out the civilian populations of whole regions and towns.
“ISIS could very credibly abandon the label of Caliphate and call itself the Fourth Reich.
“Like the Nazis, ISIS fanatics are anti-semitic, with a belief in their own racial superiority.
“They are anti-democratic: the Islamic State is a totalitarian state, absolute in its authority.
“There is even the same self-regarding love of symbolism, presentation and propaganda?terror is spread to millions through films and videos created to professional standards of which Goebbels would have been proud.
“Just as the Third Reich did, ISIS categorises its enemies as worthy of particular means of execution from decapitation to crucifixion and death by fire.”
Naipaul said the revival of religious dogmas and deadly rivalries between Sunnis and Shias, Sunnis and Jews and Christians was a giant step into darkness.
Whereas the Nazis pretended to be the guardians of civilisation in so far as they stole art works to preserve them and kept Jewish musicians alive to entertain them, Isis destroys everything that arises from the human impulse to beauty.
While Turnbull addresses the crisis with a barrister’s sophistry, Naipaul says ISIS has to be seen as the most potent threat to the world since the Third Reich.
He reckons its military annihilation as an anti-civilisational force has to now be the objective of a world that wants its ideological and material freedoms.
Several weeks ago I watched with great revulsion a series of videos Daesh had posted on the internet amid its recruiting material.
In one, ISIL’s captives were filmed as they were placed in a car which was targeted with an anti-tank missile and their death throes were recorded.
In the next, a cage full of victims was lowered into a swimming pool in which underwater cameras had been placed to film their terrible gasping end.
And, in the third, prisoners were linked with detonator cord wrapped around their necks, which blew their heads off when it was triggered.
As thousands of young men and some young women are lured to Syria to join the perpetrators of these dreadful atrocities each month it is difficult not to agree with Bishop and Naipaul that this is a force which must be regarded seriously and fought until it is eradicated.
Turnbull’s musings do not assist anyone in achieving that goal.
It would be better if he would stick to his portfolio and ensure that taxpayers enjoy reliable communications than take every opportunity to create an impression of disunity.
Stand up and be counted on electoral roll fraud
WHILE NSW Labor MP ­Noreen Hay stands aside as NSW Opposition whip pending the outcome of an Australian Federal Police investigation into allegations of electoral roll fraud, it might be an excellent time to conduct a wider ­inquiry into electoral fraud across the nation.
The Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters (JSCEM) is to conduct two new inquiries, with submissions closing next week, but the terms of reference seem to deliberately avoid electoral roll fraud.
The first inquiry will deal with electoral education, the second with behaviour at polling places and ­campaigning activities.
The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) has performed woefully for years. Lex Stewart, the president of Australians for Honest Elections, ­estimates there may be at least 200,000 false enrolments on the electoral roll.
He said the integrity of the roll had worsened over the years and was now in a state of crisis.
It is almost 20 years since the AEC stopped making home visits to physically check claims of residence.
Stewart said four reports by the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) in 2002, 2004, 2010 and 2014 pointed to the poor state of the roll and the potential for ballot papers to “go missing”.
The 1370 lost in the WA Senate election were merely “the tip of the iceberg”, he said.
With the roll in disrepair and without checks, massive voting fraud could easily occur and change the outcome of a federal election.
Apart from the potential for people to switch electorates in order to give their votes greater weight in marginal seats, there is the capacity for false enrolments to gift political parties with hundreds of thousands of dollars in electoral funding.
If the JSCEM is to hold an inquiry, it should make it meaningful.
The concerns of the ANAO ­deserve to be addressed and the public needs to be assured their votes will count and will not be discounted because of voters rorting elections.
===

SENATOR SEA PATROL

Tim Blair – Friday, July 10, 2015 (1:23pm)

This is perfect: 
Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young will join a rescue mission to find migrants lost in the Mediterranean Sea.
The senator announced on social media she would set sail on Saturday with the Migrant Offshore Aid Station and may be at sea for a number of days depending on how many people they find.
“This will be an experience I will never forget,” she wrote on Facebook on Friday. 
(Via Dave T., who asks: “Is this a real thing?” Good question. It does seem too hilarious to be true.)
UPDATE. South Australia’s unemployment rate just hit a 15-year high. Keep up the great work, senator. 
UPDATE II. Adelaide freezes:
A cold snap to hit South Australia this weekend has prompted a rare cold weather health warning.
The weather bureau says Adelaide will have a top of just 12 degrees on Saturday with heavy showers and rising winds from an intense low pressure system. 
A better option: “Spring has come to the Mediterranean. The days are sunny, the wind has died down, and the seas are calm.”
===

DOCTORS’ WIVES SPEAK OUT

Tim Blair – Friday, July 10, 2015 (5:48am)

An exclusive Jane Caro poll: 
If what I’m hearing in upmarket North Shore dress shops (today) is any indication, Abbott is in deep trouble. 
Among people who were working instead of buying dresses, responses may slightly differ.
===

TRY AGAIN, APPEASERS

Tim Blair – Friday, July 10, 2015 (5:18am)

Due to accuracy, the Australian Press Council has dismissed complaints against the Daily Telegraph‘s Sydney siege coverage: 
The Daily Telegraph produced a special lunchtime edition on December 15 – trouncing rivals Fairfax – which featured the front page headline: “Death Cult CBD Attack: IS takes 13 hostages in city cafe siege”.
The edition drew complaints, which – according to the APC – centred on the assertion Monis was a terrorist associated with Islamic State and that these claims may have caused distress to readers, particularly those known to the hostages, without sufficient public interest.
Press Council executive director John Pender decided not to pursue the matter and the watchdog concluded The Telegraph’s reporting did not breach its rules. 
More surprisingly, hundreds of complainants apparently considered an Islamic extremist’s murder charges, rape charges, vicious letters to the families of fallen Australian servicemen, a violent siege, the deaths of two captives … and decided that the main problem was a newspaper.
===

THIS HAPPENS FROM TIME TO TIME

Tim Blair – Friday, July 10, 2015 (2:03am)

Apologies for lack of posts. Distracted by cricket.
===

Turnbull gives in and the ABC board blinks under Abbott’s pressure

Andrew Bolt July 10 2015 (7:19pm)

Malcolm Turnbull would have been severely tempted to defy the boycott ordered by Tony Abbott, but has given in - acting not just in the Liberals’ best interests but his long-term own:
MALCOLM Turnbull has confirmed he will not be appearing on next week’s Q&A episode on the ABC.
Tony Abbott offers a peace deal to the ABC board:
Prime Minister Tony Abbott said ministers will start going back onto the ABC’s Q&A program once the broadcaster’s news and current affairs division takes responsibility for it…
Mr Abbott wrote to ABC board chairman James Spigelman today in response to a letter he received from the chairman on Thursday.
In the letter, the prime minister wrote that Mr Turnbull had been “given to expect that Q&A would be moved to news and current affairs, which would be appropriate for such a program”.
Mr Abbott wrote that the chairman had indicated the shift of responsibility from the ABC’s television division to news and current affairs “has merit”.
“Front benchers look forward to resuming their participation in Q&A once this move takes place,” Mr Abbott wrote… An ABC spokeswoman said the board would consider the issue at its scheduled meeting on August 6.
Naturally, the Fairfax media presents this as Abbott caving:
Q&A boycott: Tony Abbott prepares to back down on frontbench ban - with a catch
But if it’s a ‘backdown”, the ABC’s Leftist warriors aren’t celebrating:
Mr Abbott’s letter has infuriated ABC management and the ABC board, which is insisting it will not rush into a decision to appease the government… 
“This is unwarranted interference in the ABC,” a senior ABC source said. “Our message is basically, ‘get f----ed’. There is a strong view that this is the most direct interference from government into the ABC in memory."…
While ABC programs in the news and television divisions are governed by the same editorial policies, moving Q&A into the news division would be a cultural change for the program. Like programs such as 7.30 and Lateline, it would be overseen by a journalist, news director Kate Torney.  
If it’s a “backdown”, Age Lefitst Michael Gordon isn’t smiling:
In delivering the ABC an ultimatum it could never accept, Tony Abbott has again shown poor judgment on an issue that should have been done and dusted weeks ago.
By “done and dusted” Gordon means the Government should have just caved in again to the ABC’s blatant and unlawful bias.
I don’t think so.
Nor, incidentally, are the squeals of “editorial interference” correct. Abbott has merely refused to appear on the ABC, just as Bill Shorten and other Labor frontbenchers refuse to appear on my program. And he’s only endorsed a management decision - not an editorial one - which the ABC board itself suggested, and which will merely require Q&A to more scrupulously stick to its legal obligation to be impartial.
Which part of that is improper?
But that’s the Left for you. It hijacks a taxpayer-funded broadcaster to pump out its own politics and then screams when conservatives insist on the balance the law requires. 
===

Albo and the rest of the not-Shortens

Andrew Bolt July 10 2015 (7:16pm)

If not Bill Shorten, then who? Paul Toohey presents the candidates for Labor leader.
I still like Albo best. 
===

A member of the Australian Senate, deciding your country’s future

Andrew Bolt July 10 2015 (11:47am)

Jacqui Lambie on a mine that will give Australia jobs and money for public works such as hospitals and roads: 
===

On The Bolt Report on Sunday, July 12

Andrew Bolt July 10 2015 (8:58am)

On Channel 10 on Sunday:
Editorial:  The case against Bill Shorten after his royal commission disaster
My guest: Employment Minister Eric Abetz.
The panel: former Labor Minister Gary Johns and political scientist Jennifer Oriel.

NewsWatch: Sharri Markson, media editor of The Australian.

So much to talk about, including Malcolm Turnbull - what’s he up to? And Tony Abbott - why has his recovery stalled?
The videos of the shows appear here.

NOTE: The V8s on Sunday have forced some changes to the schedule:
The 10am show will be on as usual everywhere except in Perth, where it will be shown on ONE.
The 3pm repeat will be shown everywhere on ONE, except in Perth, where it will be on Channel 10 at 4pm.. 
===

Er, global warming?

Andrew Bolt July 10 2015 (7:09am)

This global warming isn’t quite panning out:
A strong cold front will sweep over much of Australia over the weekend, potentially causing the largest outbreak of frigid conditions in 15 years, the Bureau of Meteorology says. 
The likelihood of snow falling over the ranges all the way up into Queensland also has emergency services warning motorists and those planning outdoor activities such as skiing or camping to “plan carefully for the cold conditions”. Blair Trewin, senior climatologist with the bureau, said the last time Australia had such a large northward spread of snowfall was in May 2000.
Meanwhile, the melting of the Arctic seems have paused for a decade, while the increase of sea ice around Antarctica is at near-record levels for modern times:
===

Shorten cuts conditions

Andrew Bolt July 10 2015 (6:56am)

Another deal Bill Shorten struggles to explain: 
Bill Shorten knowingly signed an enterprise bargaining agreement which meant thousands of cleaners would be paid below the industry award in a deal that he knew would not pass the Fair Work Commission’s “no-disadvantage test”, the royal commission into unions has heard.
The commission was provided yesterday with minutes of an AWU Victoria meeting in June 2004, which note that Mr Shorten stated the “issue” concerning the “no-disadvantage test and the casua­l event rate” relating to cleaning company Cleanevent did not affect AWU members, who were “overall, happy with the agreement”.
Enterprise bargaining agreements must not disadvantage workers by locking them into deals where they are paid less than ­industry award rates. To ensure this does not occur, unions and employers entering into agreements must provide the Fair Work Commission with sworn statutory declarations stating whether proposed deals place workers in a worse position than under the relevant industry award…
In the Fair Work Commission transcript, the commissioner explic­itly states that he was “relying on the statutory declarations” when approving the deal on the grounds it did not fail the Fair Work test.
Mr Shorten agreed on Wednesday that the statutory declaration had been inaccurate…
Despite stating that workers were “overall happy” with the 2004 deal, it appeared that no meeting of Cleanevent employees had been held to discuss it. Mr Shorten said he could not remember any meeting, but suspected he had become aware workers supported the deal because union members had told him so.
A motive is suggested:
The commission has also been investigating whether the AWU artificially inflated member numbers by charging Cleanevent $25,000 a year in membership fees.
And another: 
In the early 2000s Shorten sat down with executives of the Thiess John Holland joint venture to negotiate a workplace agreement for the $2.5 billion EastLink road project in Melbourne.
Together they struck an agreement, ground-breaking in its flexibility, that saved the company as much as $100 million…
But evidence before the commission points to a side deal under which Shorten appears to have asked for payments to the union.
Internal AWU documents, and emails between the joint venture and the union, point to an informal agreement under which the company agreed to pay the union $100,000 plus GST a year over three years.
The union then issued what appear to be either bogus or exaggerated invoices for services, training and events, in what appears an agreed plan by the company and union to justify the $300,000.
Fairfax Media understands Thiess John Holland executives were in no doubt that the money was in reality a thank-you payment in return for the flexibility of the workplace agreement.
Shorten told the commission he did not recall a deal for $300,000 in side payments to the AWU. He later revised his position to say he may have raised the provision of training and other services with the joint venture.
If, as seems likely, the executives concerned are called to give evidence on these negotiations, Shorten would have cause for concern… .How the money was really spent remains unclear. And there is no suggestion of personal benefit to Shorten or his officials.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
===

If Shorten has lost Tony Jones and Laura Tingle he’s toast

Andrew Bolt July 10 2015 (6:27am)

When the media Left gives up on a Labor leader you know he’s gone.
Laura Tingle, Financial Review:
Just how drawn-out the damage for Bill Shorten will be from the federal government’s royal commission into trade unions became clear on Thursday… The Opposition Leader did not cover himself in glory in the witness box, which he seemed to approach as a politician approaches a media interview. That is, don’t answer the question you were asked, answer the question you wished you had been asked. 
In the witness box, it looked even more evasive than it does in front of a bank of cameras.
The bottom line of his evidence seemed to be that he knew nothing of the magnitude of amounts paid to his old union, the AWU, by employers for various services rendered, even if he was generally aware that there were agreements that money would be paid for services rendered, such as OH & S training… To a general public unlikely to ever be across the details of the issues on which Mr Shorten is being questioned, the most devastating intervention during the Opposition Leader’s appearance must have been that of Commissioner Dyson Heydon on Thursday. Helpfully noting his concern that Mr Shorten’s “non-responsive” answers might ultimately affect his “credibility as a witness” was devastating for the Opposition Leader.
Tony Jones, ABC:
And - well he’s relied all his life, and you are right about this, on his charm, the gift of the gab, his ability to win over an audience and of course all of these things failed miserably in the context of the Royal commission where you’ve got the Royal commissioner publicly questioning his credibility as a witness… 
And, you know, I mean, it had the benefit that no television interview will have: as many hours to conduct an interview and no chance of him sort of waffling on. He had to stick to the point and he wasn’t sticking to the point and this is the problem. But point they were trying to get to was this: what happened behind the scenes in those secret dealings with employers while simultaneously you were conducting negotiations for a workplace agreement for your workers? That was what they were trying to get to: what he said and that’s what he was trying to avoid saying. Pretty damning either way.
Aaron Patrick, a former Bill Shorten acquaintance, former member of Young Labor and author of Downfall: How the Labor Party Ripped Itself Apart:
Well it doesn’t look good, doesn’t look good for Bill Shorten and this is almost his worst nightmare… 
I don’t see how you can legitimately claim that receiving money from an employer, particularly a kind of employer like this, a small labour hire firm, when you’re engaged with workplace negotiations with that company is not a conflict of interest. And the other circumstances of the arrangement are also pretty strange, which is it wasn’t declared and the person’s job wasn’t described accurately. So, no, I don’t buy that… I think what’s happened today and yesterday in the Royal commission looks incredibly bad. Because you have a man here who’s wanted to be Prime Minister his entire life and came up through the trade union movement and presented himself as the modern face of trade unionism. And here we go, we’re digging through these - what look like dodgy deals. This is not the kind of - this is not modern trade unionism. This is not unions working at their best. And so I think - to be honest, I think the Labor Party and the Opposition’s in shock and they’re trying to work out what this means, what the reactions’s going to be and how average Australians are going to feel about this.
Graham Richardson: 
Bill Shorten ... looked incredibly ill at ease at times and it is no wonder that he did. The two issues that caused him so much grief over the past two days were the undisclosed donation and his admissions about the Cleanevent enterprise bargaining agreement… 
(H)is failure to declare a $40,000 in kind donation to his election campaign in 2007 ... fails ... “the pub test"… You can bet your bottom dollar, however, that any big donation has been procured directly by the candidate and not by an underling. This is where Shorten is struggling for credibility…
The Cleanevent deal is a problem as well. Shorten was so adamant this was good for the workforce and his words on Wednesday made his original statement look pretty sick. His reasoning that the amount the workers were to receive in wages and the wellbeing of their conditions was necessary to keep the company afloat and save their jobs may well have validity. Had he relied on that defence in the first place and put some meat on its bones he would be in way better shape now...Shorten has been damaged — not mortally but severely.
UPDATE From the conservative side of the commentariat, Paul Murray is in hot form about the latest smoking gun - Shorten striking a verbal side deal with bosses worth $480,000 to the union while ostensibly representing its members in a pay deal.
Quadrant:
In response to questions about monies assigned by employers to curious ends under the supervision of Bill Shorten’s AWU, the Opposition Leader has shared insights into ... the value of display advertising in union publications. Plus, he has hailed the lofty intentions of companies that pay for political campaign managers and see those contributions billed as something else… 
Shorten insisted that all this was above board, not to mention a very good thing when employers make that special effort to foster close and cordial relations with their workers’ representatives…
Shorten might yet have taken some consolation in the knowledge that, had he been testifying on the other side of the Pacific, details of those employer payments would have been enough to put a US union official behind bars. The offence and punishment for payments like those ... is laid out in (29) U.S. Code § 186 – Restrictions on financial transactions:  
It shall be unlawful for any employer or association of employers or any person who acts as a labor relations expert, adviser, or consultant to an employer or who acts in the interest of an employer to pay, lend, or deliver, or agree to pay, lend, or deliver, any money or other thing of value— (1) to any representative of any of his employees who are employed in an industry affecting commerce; or 
(2) to any labor organization, or any officer or employee thereof, which represents, seeks to represent, or would admit to membership, any of the employees of such employer who are employed in an industry affecting commerce …
The maximum penalty for a “willful” violation of section 302: five years and a $15,000 fine.
(Thanks to readers Peter of Bellevue Hill, nathan, daremo and min.) 
===

Bob Hogg and the bottom line

Andrew Bolt July 10 2015 (6:02am)

Summing up:
Character witness. Bob Hogg, Facebook, Wednesday: 
Dear Bill — is the concept of conflict of interest beyond your understanding ... Let’s call a halt to defending the indefensible ... Do something for the ALP ... Just go.
Character witness. Daniel Andrews, Twitter, July 4, 2013:
Heading to function to present Bob Hogg with his ALP life membership. No better strategist or campaigner! #laborhero.
Missing the point in vilifying the messenger:
Bill Shorten’s praetorian guard has returned fire following a call from former ALP national secretary Bob Hogg for the Labor leader to resign, circulating news stories from 1991 about Mr Hogg’s own court appearance for failing to disclose political donations. 
The stories note Mr Hogg was placed on a $1000, six-month good-behaviour bond for failing to declare individual donations of less than $1000 to the Labor Party ahead of the 1990 election - an amount totalling almost $143,000.The court did not proceed to conviction, accepting Mr Hogg’s explanation at the time that it was purely an oversight. 
Backed up by a symptom of the NSW Labor disease that’s make Labor so sick:
SABRA LANE: Mr Hogg’s attack was blunted by a reminder of his own past. The former ALP chief fronted court back in 1991 for failing to declare $143,000 in donations. He was placed on a good behaviour bond. 
SAM DASTYARI, NSW LABOR SENATOR: There’s nothing as ex as an ex. And this morning, I had to scratch my head and try and remember who was the last leader that Bob Hogg didn’t call for the resignation of. But frankly, I think Bob Hogg should be a bit careful about throwing stones considering his own history in this space.
Why does this vilification of Hogg miss the point? Because Hogg was talking principally about a conflict of interest - in this case Bill Shorten soliciting a $40,000 donation to him personally from the boss of workers his union was about to represent in negotiations over their wages. From a boss, by the way, with a colourful business past.
Can anyone point to a single example of Hogg putting the bite on anyone like this, appearing to use his official position for private gain, and in circumstances where doing so would seem to give him a conflict of interest?
Labor members who defend this trash their own reputation. And all their trashing of Hogg just throws out the good with the bad:
“It’s all about Maxine,” is the view of a fair wad of the Labor Party. 
Hogg is married to Maxine McKew, the former ABC television host who stunned the political establishment by beating John Howard in 2007.
It was a short political career. She lost Bennelong three years later to tennis commentator-turned-Liberal MP John Alexander.
On the night of her loss, McKew made it clear who she blamed for her cruel change of fortune.
She was furious about the toppling of Kevin Rudd. And as any waiter in any Chinese restaurant on Sussex Street worth their MSG-laced salt could tell you, McKew remains filthy at the power brokers who masterminded the kill: David Feeney, Don Farrell, Mark Arbib and man of the moment Bill Shorten. 
Maybe it is about Maxine. But if so, all it’s done is inspire Hogg to speak the truth rather than defend the indefensible. 
===

Challenge to Abbott Government: it’s your job to sack Lawler

Andrew Bolt July 10 2015 (5:46am)

This surely cannot go unresolved, given how it makes a public scandal of a court and shakes confidence in its judgment:
The powerful Australian Bar Assoc­iation has made an extraordinary intervention into the controversy swirling around Fair Work Commission vice-president Michael Lawler, rejecting the Abbott­ government’s repeated claims that the matter must be dealt with by his superiors. 
Instead, the peak legal body for barristers says the law is clear that the issue of Mr Lawler’s continued role at Fair Work can only be resolve­d by parliament.
Mr Lawler, the partner of ­former unionist Kathy Jackson — who is facing allegations of mis­appropriating more than $1.4 million from her time at the Health Services Union — has been on sick leave for nine months of the past year on full pay of $435,000 a year.
The ABA threw down the gauntlet to the federal government yesterday, describing comments that Fair Work president Iain Ross had the power to deal with Mr Lawler as “unfair and misguided"…
But ABA president Fiona McLeod SC issued a combative press release yesterday on the Lawler matter to say that Justice Ross had only limited statutory powers to manage Mr Lawler and that it was up to parliament to deal with the situation. It was also up to parliament to amend the Fair Work Act if it wanted to fix the “current vacuum” in the legislation. That vacuum has enabled Mr Lawler to operate largely unfettered. As previously reported by The Australian, Justice Ross holds no power to discipline Mr Lawler, to reign him in, or in extreme circumstances to dismiss him.
I believe almost any employee in the country would be sacked if they took off nine months, claiming to be sick yet at times appearing to work - in Lawler’s case, acting as his partner’s legal representative or advisor, not least by appearing in court on her behalf. 
===

Shorten should apologise to the royal commissioner for this smear

Andrew Bolt July 09 2015 (8:08pm)

Labor leader Bill Shorten smears Dyson Heydon, the head of the royal commission into union corruption and a former High Court judge:
He has got a job to do. I get that. It’s Tony Abbott’s royal commission.
How despicable. So Labor.
Shorten gets exposed soliciting $40,000 donation to him personally from a boss whose workers he is meant to be representing. He gets exposed soliciting donations to his union from bosses whose workers he is meant to representing. His union gets exposed issuing phoney invoices to bosses for work not done.
And how does Shorten respond? By smearing the royal commissioner as a Liberal stooge. 
===
When Simon returns to Cabramatta after training at a legendary Kung-Fu school in Beijing, it’s only a matter of time...
Posted by The Viewing Lounge on Wednesday, 1 July 2015
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Best-selling author Brad Meltzer shares 4 helpful tips for managing your social media: http://bit.ly/1dOlSsO
Posted by Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing on Thursday, 9 July 2015
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Posted by M.J. Rose on Wednesday, 18 February 2015
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Why did the thunderstorm cross the road?
Posted by Matt Granz on Thursday, 9 July 2015
===

ROLL OF PAIN

Tim Blair – Thursday, July 10, 2014 (4:26am)

Earlier this year I purchased a roll of GLAD wrap. Initial experiences with the polyethylene food-preservation product were satisfactory. Cling levels met or surpassed industry standards, and transparency was maintained in all temperatures and conditions.
But then the roll’s Ezy Cutter Bar began to come loose.
At first, the bar snapped free from its crucial location point furthermost from the user. This exposed the bar to unsustainably imbalanced forces across its remaining anchored section, quickly leading to a catastrophic total Ezy Cutter Bar detachment.
It gets worse. Much worse.
This was a 150-metre roll, meaning I’ve been stuck using it for several months now without any Ezy Cutter Bar assistance. Over time I’ve developed a method of pinning the wrap with the point of my elbow before crudely clawing at it with my fingers. It is an undignified cutting solution, and I am not proud to describe it here. There will be no photographs.
If anyone has a lamer first-world problem, I dare them to post about it in comments.
===

BIRDS SMOKED, SMASHED

Tim Blair – Thursday, July 10, 2014 (3:50am)

Solar panels are even more effective at killing birds than are wind turbines: 
When birds flew into the hottest areas, observers saw them emit streams of smoke from their feathers. On-the-ground staff found birds with their flight feathers burned away, some still alive but unable to fly. During their visit to Ivanpah, the report states, USFWS staff saw birds burn in midair “every two minutes.”
If that wasn’t bad enough, birds are dying in a completely different—but equally ugly—manner at other facilities. Researchers found an unusually high number of water birds dead at the Desert Sunlight facility. These birds, including grebes, herons, ducks, and even pelicans, died not from the heat but from blunt force trauma. The cause was clear, as stated in the report: “A desert environment punctuated by a large expanse of reflective, blue panels may be reminiscent of a large body of water.” These birds—tired from flying over the hot desert—home in on what looks like a calm lake but instead crash into hard panels. They either die instantly or, as researchers found, lie helpless for land-based predators. 
If you want something that will hurt the environment, ask an environmentalist.
===

7500 REVOLUTIONS PER MINUTE

Tim Blair – Thursday, July 10, 2014 (3:29am)

A letter to Auto Action, Australia’s motor racing trade paper, expresses frustration at the rumoured rescheduling of an event next year: 
Bathurst 12 Hour and the V8 Supercar test day on the same weekend. It’s a disgrace. V8 Supercars are acting like spoilt brats. Effectively they are barring all their competitors from racing in the 12 Hour. All the drivers should vote as a block and tell V8 Supercars they are busy that weekend, and won’t be at the test day. 
So far, nothing much of interest to those outside of Australian motor sport. But then the letter takes a curious turn: 
This is again another attempt by Rupert Murdoch to control everything that occurs in Australia. His empire does it with our political system, and now he’s fiddling with motorsport. Enough is enough, and I am stunned by Auto Action’s lack of editorial on this issue. Are they being controlled as well? Fascists are running Australia and it’s time for a revolt! 
This example of Murdoch paranoia indicates a new peak in imagined influence. What next? How Rupert controls pet registration programs? His manipulation of seafood consumption statistics? Is Rupert Murdoch responsible for the decline in Norwegian tourism?
AUTOMOTIVE UPDATE. Missed this earlier, but Fairfax’s obituary for Sir Jack Brabham claimed that the “BT” designation on his cars stood for Brabham Team. Incorrect. It stood for Brabham Tauranac.
AUTOMOTIVE UPDATE II. New is old. The 18-inch wheels being tested on a 2014 Lotus offer a similar wheel/tyre ratio to that of a 1968 Lotus.
===

On 2GB tonight - Palmer wins even when he’s a fool, Abbott in strife - and verballed by China

Andrew Bolt July 10 2014 (6:37pm)

On with Kel Richards from 8pm. Listen live here. Talkback:  131 873.
Listen to all past shows  here.
I will discuss the fall-out from this report - or slight misreport:
Welcoming Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to parliament on Tuesday, Mr Abbott said Japanese military personnel demonstrated “courage” and “patriotism of a very high order” during World War II.
Why have almost all the media commentators I’ve heard on the topic taken China’s side - or simply assumed Abbott indeed was praising even Japanese war criminals?
The Xinhua article described Mr Abbott’s comments as “appalling” and “insensible”. 
“He probably wasn’t aware that the Japanese troops possessed other ‘skills’, skills to loot, to rape, to torture and to kill. All these had been committed under the name of honour almost 70 years ago,” it read.
“He also dubbed Japan ‘a first class international citizen’ who has truly learned its lessons 70 years ago. However, Abbott didn’t give an explanation why Japanese leaders, including Abe, keep visiting Yasukuni Shrine where war criminals are enshrined.”
Australia’s RSL also said many of its members would disagree with Mr Abbott. “There are members of the RSL, who for good reason, do not hold that same view,’’ said RSL president Rear Admiral Ken Doolan. “There are, however, members of the RSL who are prepared to let bygones be bygones.”
Listen to Abbott’s actual remarks, from six minutes in:
He’s referring just to Japanese submariners who attacked in Sydney Harbor. And he’s making a sensitive and important point about forgiveness and the best interests of nations:
Even at the height of World War II, Australia gave the Japanese submariners killed in the attack on Sydney full military honours. Admiral Muirhead-Gould said of them: “theirs was a courage which is not the property or the tradition or the heritage of any one nation…but was patriotism of a very high order”. 
We admired the skill and the sense of honour that they brought to their task although we disagreed with what they did. Perhaps we grasped, even then, that with a change of heart the fiercest of opponents could be the best of friends. 
But such is the hate-Abbott reflex…  
===

Age shame: publishes falsehood as fact, then won’t apologise

Andrew Bolt July 10 2014 (9:49am)

Media

Yesterday The Age reported a highly improbable and inflammatory falsehood as fact:
A wave of attempted suicides has swept Christmas Island as 12 mothers tried to kill themselves in the belief their then-orphaned children would have to be settled in Australia.
It also ran on the front page this blurb, again treating an truly incredible and unsupported falsehood as fact:
Today it merely notes this, without apology or explanation for having published such garbage the day before:
On Wednesday, it was reported that up to 12 women on Christmas had attempted suicide in the belief that if they were dead their children would be settled in Australia. 
The Immigration Department refuted those claims on Wednesday, saying: ‘’The minister is advised reports of multiple suicide attempts by women on Christmas Island are not correct.’’ But advice from the Department of Immigration obtained by Fairfax Media shows that following the meeting on Christmas Island this week, there were ‘’seven individuals who made threats of self-harm, four have actually self-harmed and one woman attempted suicide’’.
So even the strongest evidence The Age can find says not 12 women attempting suicide but one. What’s more, I can’t even claim that one case involved a woman trying to kill herself so the baby could stay.
Some important background to this hoax:
A HANDFUL of Christmas Island detainees have engaged in minor acts of self-harm, in what authorities claim are ... cynical attempts to ­follow three mentally ill young detainees into community detention in Sydney.
The Age is now no more than a propaganda sheet of the far Left. A real newspaper should have demanded heads roll. 
===

Sri Lankan boat people make liars of “refugee” lobby

Andrew Bolt July 10 2014 (5:16am)

Boat people policy

 THE outrage over the forced return of 41 Sri Lankan boat people has been exposed as a fraud by the “asylum seekers” themselves.
Here’s conclusive proof that our “refugee lobby” is motivated by deceit, self-preening and insane hatred of the Abbott Government.
These 41 were on one of two boats of Sri Lankans intercepted by our Navy over the past fortnight, and were sent back this week.
Greens leader Christine Milne was apoplectic, describing the passengers as victims of a Sri Lankan tyranny and the evil Tony Abbott: “Sri Lankan asylum seekers have been returned to Sri Lanka: the persecuted to the persecutor.”
Refugee lawyer George Newhouse and former prime minister Malcolm Fraser even likened returning boat people to Sri Lanka to returning Jews to Nazi Germany.
And journalists of the Left competed to be the most horrified. ABC host Fran Kelly, won, gasping: “Since when does our Government disappear people?”
Bad luck for Kelly. The 41 have now appeared again, back in Sri Lanka where they spoke to reporters.
So were they “refugees”? Were they truly the “persecuted”, fleeing a Third Reich in the Indian Ocean?
Let me quote every single one who talked to reporters. You judge.
(Read full article here.) 
===

Scrap the Human Rights Commission. It’s a danger to boat people

Andrew Bolt July 10 2014 (5:13am)

Boat people policy

HOW much longer before the Human Rights Commission is abolished, not least for being a public safety menace?

This week HRC president Gillian Triggs was at it again, recklessly hyping claims of suicide attempts at the Christmas Island detention centre. “We’ve had reports that have been confirmed during the day that 10 women have attempted suicide,” Triggs announced.
Fairfax newspapers even claimed “12 mothers tried to kill themselves in the belief their then-orphaned children would have to be settled in Australia”.
These claims were inherently unlikely, and yesterday the Government said an investigation found “no basis” for them. There had been instead “a small number of minor self-harm incidents”.
Yet Triggs rewarded these alleged attempts by publicising the demands to which they were clearly intended to draw attention.
(Read full article here.) 
===

Joko Widodo tipped winner of Indonesian poll

Andrew Bolt July 10 2014 (4:45am)

I suspect it’s the best result for Australia:
The counting of votes is underway in Indonesia’s elections and early exit results are indicating that Joko Widodo has won enough to claim victory over the former military hard man, Prabowo Subianto.
A profile here.
We’ll see if this amounts to anything:
Australia has a “phobia” about Indonesia and is to blame for the poor relationship between the two countries, strong-man presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto said during a nationally televised debate on Sunday. 
His opponent, the favourite Joko Widodo, proposed taking Australia to an international court over asylum seekers if diplomacy failed to solve the disagreement.
The subject of Australia came up twice in the international relations and defence debate between Mr Prabowo and Mr Joko, just over two weeks before the crucial July 9 presidential election…
Mr Joko, the narrow favourite and currently the governor of Jakarta, agreed there was a “lack of trust” between Indonesia and Australia, as illustrated by the phone tapping issue late last year. He said it stemmed in part from a general lack of respect shown to Indonesia.
“I think we are always regarded as a weak country … we have to show that we are a country with dignity, and not let other countries treat us as weaklings,” he said.
He proposed better government, business and community ties with Australia, including through educational and cultural exchanges. On the subject of asylum seekers, Mr Joko said if the dispute could not be solved by dialogue, “we can bring them to international courts if necessary”. He did not elaborate which court or which jurisdiction he believed would apply.
===

Christensen vs Flannery and the alarmists

Andrew Bolt July 10 2014 (4:36am)

How times have changed. There are now politicians - albeit still far too few - who dare call out the great global warming scare campaign:
One of the Prime Minister’s backbenchers has likened the climate change debate to a science fiction film plot, but says “alarmist” claims are more comedic than frightening. 
Liberal National Party MP George Christensen ...honed in on former climate change commissioner Tim Flannery, former chief scientist Penny Sackett and Labor’s former climate change adviser Ross Garnaut. He said ... Professor Flannery ... had raised the possibility of beaches reaching eight storeys… He described Professor Garnaut as a climate change “salesman first and economist second”, and he mocked Professor Sackett for her comment in 2009 that the planet had just five years to avoid disastrous global warming.
Read Christensen’s speech here.
===

What “suicide attempts”? More stupid hype from refugee advocates exposed

Andrew Bolt July 10 2014 (4:06am)

Boat people policy

We were told the 41 boat people returned to Sri Lanka were the “persecuted”.
That was false.
We were then told this inherently improbable thing:
A wave of attempted suicides has swept Christmas Island as 12 mothers tried to kill themselves in the belief their then-orphaned children would have to be settled in Australia.
That also turns out to be utterly false:
A HANDFUL of Christmas Island detainees have engaged in minor acts of self-harm, in what authorities claim are ... cynical attempts to ­follow three mentally ill young detainees into community detention in Sydney. 
It is understood that the female asylum-seekers who self-harmed at Christmas Island this week had recently become aware that three other teenage detainees had harmed themselves last month inside the centre’s compounds… The government’s Senate leader Eric Abetz yesterday ... said there was “no basis for the claims that up to 12 women have attempted suicide at Christmas Island detention facilities’’… Both the Greens and Labor attempted to use the unconfirmed reports for political mileage.
Why are refugee advocates so deceptive? 
===

A Senate of shameless spenders, wasting our children’s savings

Andrew Bolt July 10 2014 (3:53am)

The Senate is dangerously addicted to populism and to spending.  We are in trouble:
With the combined numbers of Labor, the Greens and the Palmer United Party blowing a further $2bn hole in the budget yesterday by rejecting tax legislation, the tally of measures that the Senate appears likely to block has reached $43bn over the next four years…
If the government is unable to win support for budget savings, it will not be able to go to the 2016 election promising a budget surplus in the next financial year…
The annual cost of measures likely to be blocked in the Senate rises from $6.7bn this year to reach $14.2bn by 2017-18.
The measure blocked yesterday was the cancellation of an increase in the tax-free threshold, which Labor had legislated as part of its carbon tax package. Labor had planned to defer the increase but voted yesterday to ensure the tax cut was delivered… The jettisoning of the government’s proposed budget savings means that spending will rise at an annual rate of about 3.4 percentage points more than inflation over the next four years.  
One of the worst and most shameless: 
When he addressed the National Press Club on Monday, Palmer’s ‘’flexibility’’ was face-slappingly apparent… (T)he mining tax repeal will be supported, but not the [repeal of the] generous handouts to families foolishly funded by the revenue stream that never materialised. ...day one of the new Senate was a bad start. Commitments to support votes were welshed on immediately. Huge holes were blown in an already stymied budget. And the Treasurer Joe Hockey was branded a liar for claiming a budget emergency.
David Uren is worried by two disgracefully populist parties:
Labor went to the election promising budget repair, with a vow to keep spending growth to no more than 2 per cent more than inflation… 
Clive Palmer’s $9bn lunch at the National Press Club on Monday showed how he intends to use his influence in parliament. His blocking of the government’s proposed abolition of the Schoolkids Bonus, the superannuation concessions for the low-paid, the Income Support Bonus and an increase in the tax-free threshold is all about garnering votes…
The trashing of the budget ... imposes greater costs on future generations, and it exposes the economy to greater risks… Benefits such as the Schoolkids Bonus and the Seniors Supplement are nice to have, but they are being paid for by accumulating debt.  Future generations are left with the debt but will get nothing for it.
At least with Bob Day and David Leyonhjelm the Senate will now have two new voices demanding less government spending. I am not as libertarian as Leyonhjelm, having less trust in a freedom unfettered by tradition and faith, but his maiden speech, in praise of small government, sure is welcome:
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.)  
===

Dancing on the grave of the carbon tax

Andrew Bolt July 10 2014 (3:50am)

If I’m on the cover of anything it is usually to my disadvantage. But I’ll sure take this:
Of course, there is the small matter of the Senate still needing to vote the tax down. 
===

Judge on slippery slide: incest and pedophilia will be accepted as was homosexuality

Andrew Bolt July 10 2014 (3:40am)

The new morality

The “slippery slope” argument is too often dismissed, especially by people on the Left with an arrogant faith that the world shares - and will be bound by - their own sense of reason. But here is that slope, slip-sliding us away:
A Sydney judge has compared incest and paedophilia to homosexuality, saying the community may no longer see sexual contact between siblings and between adults and children as “unnatural” or “taboo”. 
District Court Judge Garry Neilson said just as gay sex was socially unacceptable and criminal in the 1950s and 1960s but is now widely accepted, “a jury might find nothing untoward in the advance of a brother towards his sister once she had sexually matured, had sexual relationships with other men and was now ‘available’, not having [a] sexual partner"…
He went on to say incest only remains a crime “to prevent chromosomal abnormalities” but the availability of contraception and abortion now diminishes that reason.
“If this was the 50s and you had a jury of 12 men there, which is what you’d invariably have, they would say it’s unnatural for a man to be interested in another man or a man being interested in a boy. Those things have gone.” 
===

Palmer’s $12 million a long way from home

Andrew Bolt July 10 2014 (3:10am)

Clive Palmer is struggling to explain what happened to $12 million of his partner’s money:
THE com­pany controlled by Clive Palmer that received $10 million in Chinese funds is a $1 entity once involved in minerals exploration northwest of Adel­aide, far from the West Australian port for which the cash was allocated. 
Cosmo Developments Pty Ltd, the recipient of cheque number 2046 for $10m of Chinese funds allegedly wrongfully siphoned last August, had no interest or role at the port of Cape Preston, according to documents seen by The Australian yesterday…
Mr Palmer and staff are under mounting pressure in legal proceedings to explain how Chinese funds, drained from a National Australia Bank account called Port Palmer Operations, were spent on “port management services’’ when his companies have not been operating the port of Cape Preston.
Mr Palmer was served with a subpoena in Canberra on Monday at the Hyatt Hotel. A source who saw it said the federal parliamentarian tried to hand it back, saying he would not accept it.
Mr Palmer was the sole signat­ory on the NAB cheque account, according to sources close to his company, but he repeatedly told journalists on Monday he could “not recall’’ signing two cheques totalling $12.167m last year. The Chinese government-owned Citic Pacific suspects its funds, which were held in the NAB account and subject to strict controls, were wrongfully used by Mr Palmer to bankroll the Palmer United Party.
A setback for Palmer:
CLIVE Palmer’s Mineralogy has been forced to hand over $1.7 million to Chinese state-owned Citic Pacific as part of rulings in secret hearings and is now being pursued for an overdue $106,000, court documents have revealed… 
It is part of a bitter dispute between Mineralogy and its estranged business partner Citic Pacific over more than $12 million that was paid into a Palmer-controlled bank account.
Palmer denies any wrongdoing.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
===
Larry Pickering
RUDD MOVES TO KILL OFF THE FACELESS MEN

With an October election looking more likely by the minute, Kevin Rudd plans to emasculate the people who handed him the Prime Ministership.

“I would only consider being drafted into Office again if there is an overwhelming Caucus majority”, said our Kev. But there was nothing like an overwhelming majority.

Contrary to Labor Ministers’ insistence, if Bill Shorten had not brought the required numbers to the Caucus table, a mere 20 minutes before the vote was taken, Julia Gillard would likely still be Prime Minister.

It was only after she heard that Shorten had ratted on her that Gillard admitted defeat. How did she know that?

Well, the final vote was 57 to 45 in Rudd’s favour. Prior to Shorten’s announcement it was line ball, as Gillard had said.
It was close and she knew it teetered on which way Shorten jumped.

A differential of twelve votes meant if six Caucus members had voted the other way, Rudd would have faced yet another failed attempt to assassinate Gillard.

But shorten carried more than six votes into Caucus... possibly eight.

Calling a Press conference to announce his prescient intention to back Rudd indicated the votes he spoke for were easily sufficient to kill Gillard.

Rudd knew without Shorten he was dead meat but Rudd has not appreciated Shorten’s support. In fact he has moved to destroy Shorten’s long-term ambition of ALP Leadership.

Shorten’s numbers were instrumental in Rudd’s initial knifing and critical to Gillard’s elevation... and to her eventual demise.

More proof is hardly needed that Bill Shorten will stoop to any low to fulfil his Bill Ludwig-bestowed destiny.

But Kevin Rudd too was on a mission to claim what he saw as his rightful role as Australia’s Prime Minister and Julia had handed it to him on a plate the moment she announced an eight-month election campaign.

It was a tactic aimed at Abbott but blind to her real enemy, Kevin Rudd. Yet another instance of Gillard’s lack of political judgment.

An eight-month campaign allowed the “I’m only here to help” Kev to commence campaigning in the marginal seats of those who supported him.

He could not have done that without her inane eight-month campaign announcement.

The results were devastating and marked the end of Gillard.

Kev’s campaigning immediately encouraged the pollsters to draw a renewed comparison between the two protagonists and forced a nervous Caucus to again start counting numbers.

But the cost to Shorten was great. He had ratted on his mates and his union base is now fractured.

Even the AWU’s “we’ve got your back, Prime Minister” Paul Howes, has disowned him.

Worse still for Shorten is Rudd’s order for Presidential style Party elections that, in effect, neuter the unions’ influence.

Rudd will never forgive those who arranged Gillard’s knifing of him and he is currently seeking to kill them off for good. It’s a task that may be beyond him.

What Rudd is proposing is that the Parliamentary wing of Labor divest itself of the unions’ faceless men. But it may be that the faceless men will again divest themselves of Rudd, and this time for good.

Rudd’s is a perilous gamble that has little chance of success because unions will not allow ownership of their Labor Party to be snuffed out by one arrogant, anti faction populist who they temporarily installed as PM.

Rudd’s bump in the polls will soon dissipate as memories of his myriad inadequacies are jolted.

Union powerbrokers are gathering their loins for the next ALP National Conference in a livid rage at a virtual outsider attempting to steal their heritage of 123 years.

Kevin Rudd is left with a precarious skeleton of potentially disloyal Caucus members who have already shown they will readily turn on a Leader when it suits their interests.

The best of Caucus and most of the front bench have resigned in revulsion. Albanese alone will not be enough.

Kev is virtually on his own with a crippled and incompetent C team incapable of dealing with a sophisticated union onslaught.

Our Kev has the conceited arrogance to believe he can rip the Labor Party heart from the breasts of trade unions and simply walk away.

It could be his making but more likely it will expose his mortality.
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This is probably going to cost me some friends, but it needs to be done. So, here we go!

By: Rabbi Aryel Nachman ben Chaim – 29 Tammuz 5773

BS”D (Besiyata Dishmaya - "With the help of Heaven") In the aspect of “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the L-RD;” (Yeshayahu [Isaiah] 1: 18)

Dear Friends,

I have some areas of concern, and I think it is time to address them, or at least begin to think about them. Let’s face it, a person can’t fix what they don’t know is broken.

So many times I see on your posts, pages and groups “We stand with Israel!” or “We stand with the Jewish people.” Very good; but just what does that mean? You see, words are like promises, they mean very little unless they are backed up with actions. And before you tell me “Well, I pray for Israel and the Jewish people every day!”, let me tell you the same thing I tell my congregation, “Prayers without actions is an empty vessel.” By that I mean, no prayer, no desire, no goal, no matter how lofty, is accomplished with the help of G-d unless we act first. Only by action do we merit His help. So, when you say “We stand with Israel!” or “We stand with the Jewish people!” I ask, what have you actually done to “stand” with Israel and/or the Jewish people?

Now, before you answer, let me point out a few things that are going on in Israel that may give you some ideas.

First, missionary groups are invading Israel with the stated intent to convert Jews to their religion by deceit and lies. They are like thieves who prey on the weak and weary. What they are in fact doing is to steal precious jewels from the treasury of the King. Do they think that the King does not keep an accounting of all His jewels? And, when they steal these jewels, they essentially destroy them; like the jeweler who strikes the rough diamond wrong and turns a potentially priceless jewel into dust. So, I ask, what would happen to a person who was caught stealing jewels from an earthly king? Can you imagine what happens to a person who steals from the treasury of the King of the Universe!? Who among the churches and organizations stands up against these practices and speaks out?

Next, many churches and organizations spend excessive amounts of money each year on trips to Israel. Also good, they are helping the economy in Israel. However, there are many Jews around the world who would dearly love to visit or move to Israel. What of these; G-d’s chosen? What have they done to help a poor Jewish family visit or move to Israel? Every time I hear people saying that they and their church group have made many trips to Israel, my first thought is, how many of the Children of Israel could they have sent home for the price of just one trip? It is like waving a steak in front of a starving person and telling them how wonderful it tastes, and then consuming the entire steak in front of them.

Many churches and organizations have jumped on the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement against Israel. The BDS’ers (pun intended) use misinformation and outright lies to justify their anti-Semitism against Israel and the Jews. How many times have you heard the worn-out lie “Oh, I am not against Jews, I am against Zionists.”? Well, my friends, anti-Zionism is nothing more than politically correct anti-Semitism. How many churches and organizations have publically encouraged their members to buy Israeli goods to counter the BDS lies? How many people have spoken to their churches and organizations about the lies and injustice of the BDS movement?

Today, it is very popular to point out all the wrongs of Israel; in fact, it is one of the United Nation’s favorite pastimes! Israel is told they cannot build homes for their people, they cannot build a fence to protect their people, they cannot decide where the capital of Israel will be located. Let’s be clear, Israel is a country of people and people make mistakes, and they make poor decisions from time to time. However, while Israel is often vilified in the media for any minor and perceived wrong (whether it is true or, as often it turns out, false), why is so very little attention paid to the Arab countries and the very real oppression being perpetrated against Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus and, very often, their own people. Why is Israel held to a different standard than any other nation on the earth? Have the churches and organizations petitioned the U.S. Government to recognize Jerusalem as the Capitol of Israel? Have the churches and organization publically supported the building of homes in Israel for her children? Have the churches and organizations publically protested the treatment of people in the Arab countries?

As rockets rained down on towns and schools in Israel, as Arab uprisings have attacked villages, synagogues and the graves of our people, many churches and organizations have cancelled trips to Israel and said “Well, we will just have to go another time when things settle down.” But, how many of them have taken that money they would have spent on the trip and sent it to help rebuild those towns, villages, schools, synagogues and restore the graves? How many have decided to donate even part of that money to the Magen David Adom, IDF Pizza, Hatzolah or other organizations in Israel who provide help and relief from these attacks and acts of terror?

So, my friends, we now come full circle, and I again ask, when you say “We stand with Israel!” or “We stand with the Jewish people.” what does that mean?  Or, is it just an empty vessel?

Excellent questions. I stand with Israel. By that I mean I believe Jewish peoples have the right to prosper in their faith, and Israelis have the right to prosper in their nationhood. This does not contradict my Christian faith. The great nation of Israel accepts all peoples of all faiths .. our futures are entwined, as are our peoples. - ed
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Bilateral meeting with President Morsi of Egypt
Both removed from government days after .. - ed
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Rudd .. take your fingers out from inside that child's top .. - ed
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Holly Sarah Nguyen
How happy is the man who does not follow the advice of the wicked or take the path of sinners or join a group of mockers!
Psalm 1.1
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Holly Sarah Nguyen
"I say to you people that are listening to me, love your enemies. Do good to those people that hate you. Ask God to bless those people that say bad things to you. Pray for those people that are mean to you. If a person hits you on the side of your face, let him hit the other side too. If a person takes your coat, don't stop him from taking your shirt too. Give to every person that asks you. When a person takes something that is yours, don't ask for it back. Do for other people what you want them to do for you. "If you love only those people that love you, should you get some special praise for doing that? No! Even sinners love the people that love them! If you do good only to those people that do good to you, should you get some special praise for doing that? No! Even sinners do that! If you loan things to people, always expecting to get something back, should you get some special praise for that? No! Even sinners lend to other sinners so that they can get back the same amount! "I'm telling you to love your enemies and do good to them. Lend to people without expecting to get anything back. If you do these things, you will have a great reward. You will be children of the Most High (God). Yes, because God is good even to the people that are full of sin and not thankful. Give love and mercy the same as your Father gives love and mercy. ~ Luke 6:27-36
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Pastor Rick Warren
An attack from evil always preceeds a victory from God.
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Lady Jane Grey
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“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” Ephesians 3:20-21 NIV
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Morning


"Forget not all His benefits."
Psalm 103:2
It is a delightful and profitable occupation to mark the hand of God in the lives of ancient saints, and to observe his goodness in delivering them, his mercy in pardoning them, and his faithfulness in keeping his covenant with them. But would it not be even more interesting and profitable for us to remark the hand of God in our own lives? Ought we not to look upon our own history as being at least as full of God, as full of his goodness and of his truth, as much a proof of his faithfulness and veracity, as the lives of any of the saints who have gone before? We do our Lord an injustice when we suppose that he wrought all his mighty acts, and showed himself strong for those in the early time, but doth not perform wonders or lay bare his arm for the saints who are now upon the earth. Let us review our own lives. Surely in these we may discover some happy incidents, refreshing to ourselves and glorifying to our God. Have you had no deliverances? Have you passed through no rivers, supported by the divine presence? Have you walked through no fires unharmed? Have you had no manifestations? Have you had no choice favours? The God who gave Solomon the desire of his heart, hath he never listened to you and answered your requests? That God of lavish bounty of whom David sang, "Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things," hath he never satiated you with fatness? Have you never been made to lie down in green pastures? Have you never been led by the still waters? Surely the goodness of God has been the same to us as to the saints of old. Let us, then, weave his mercies into a song. Let us take the pure gold of thankfulness, and the jewels of praise and make them into another crown for the head of Jesus. Let our souls give forth music as sweet and as exhilarating as came from David's harp, while we praise the Lord whose mercy endureth forever.

Evening


"And God divided the light from the darkness."
Genesis 1:4

A believer has two principles at work within him. In his natural estate he was subject to one principle only, which was darkness; now light has entered, and the two principles disagree. Mark the apostle Paul's words in the seventh chapter of Romans: "I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members." How is this state of things occasioned? "The Lord divided the light from the darkness." Darkness, by itself, is quiet and undisturbed, but when the Lord sends in light, there is a conflict, for the one is in opposition to the other: a conflict which will never cease till the believer is altogether light in the Lord. If there be a division within the individual Christian, there is certain to be a division without. So soon as the Lord gives to any man light, he proceeds to separate himself from the darkness around; he secedes from a merely worldly religion of outward ceremonial, for nothing short of the gospel of Christ will now satisfy him, and he withdraws himself from worldly society and frivolous amusements, and seeks the company of the saints, for "We know we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren." The light gathers to itself, and the darkness to itself. What God has divided, let us never try to unite, but as Christ went without the camp, bearing his reproach, so let us come out from the ungodly, and be a peculiar people. He was holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners; and, as he was, so we are to be nonconformists to the world, dissenting from all sin, and distinguished from the rest of mankind by our likeness to our Master.
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Today's reading: Job 38-40, Acts 16:1-21 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Job 38-40


The LORD Speaks

1 Then the LORD spoke to Job out of the storm. He said:
2 "Who is this that obscures my plans
with words without knowledge?
3 Brace yourself like a man;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.

4 "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
5 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?
6 On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone--
7 while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels shouted for joy?


Today's New Testament reading: Acts 16:1-21


Timothy Joins Paul and Silas
1 Paul came to Derbe and then to Lystra, where a disciple named Timothy lived, whose mother was Jewish and a believer but whose father was a Greek. 2 The believers at Lystra and Iconium spoke well of him. 3 Paul wanted to take him along on the journey, so he circumcised him because of the Jews who lived in that area, for they all knew that his father was a Greek.4 As they traveled from town to town, they delivered the decisions reached by the apostles and elders in Jerusalem for the people to obey. 5 So the churches were strengthened in the faith and grew daily in numbers....
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