Another year, another polly on the ropes over expense claims. Sussan Ley has been on the receiving end of a media pommeling and the collective wisdom is she’s been a naughty minister. She has been dispatched to Coventry and the view is she should settle down and grow accustomed to her new home.
As an observer of various entitlements farragoes over the years, I think Ms Leys’ spending puts her in exalted company, somewhere between Peter Slipper and the guv’nor, Labor’s Mal Colston. Spending $21,000 in a week or so on transport is extraordinary. I didn’t even think it was possible. With those frequent flyer miles, you can forget about the carrot sticks and chardy in the Qantas club. It’s foot-long lobster subs and Moët by the schooner. Hell, they’ll get you your own plane. Maybe even let you fly it.
The Minchin Protocol always sounded like a bad novel and now as it comes to its denouement, it is about as satisfying as an EH Holden Mechanics’ manual or anything knocked out by Clementine Ford.
Full column here.
Ah yes we see the true coalition. Shame and blame the poorest and take away any access to legal services. This is the true con. in action. Keep your foot on their throats or they will expect to be given the same opportunities as the self entitled. Disgraceful government.
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/the-ministers-leading-the-war-on-the-poor-20170116-gts9xa.html?utm_source=TractionNext&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Worm-Subscribe-170117
Typical SMH article that only looks at one side of the argument!
Utter bullshit. Face Facts JS your coalition are a not and have not acted in the National interest only in the interest of their benefactors.
I guess they must have taken lessons from Labor and the Unions Dismayed.
GULP!!!!! So The Daily Telegraph is the last bastion of balanced reporting?
Only read it when I have a coffee every now and then Bassy. Put the SMH on one side of a beam balance and the Daily Telegraph on the other and it might come out balanced.
Yvonne 10:00pm.
I think Bassman may be refering to the media who run him out of town in America with around 95% crueling him as nasty and evil .The media he is critical of can give you false information as did America had to face .
I am not entering into this sneer stuff , just watching on and comment 12 months time who is correct .
Bassman is right on media in America . This occasion I see it like a wild pack of dogs only trying to kill off their country in this early stages while trying to throw democracy out the door . Very sour bigots at work there not excepting democracy peoples choice wanting change to survive .Health in a mess , industry run down imports flooding the country , record factory closures ,PC politics only harming the country , someone has to fix it .
Lets hope Trump can get them out of this 19.9 trillion debtnObama left behind and boost the growth rate up to 3.35%per annum from 1.46%now per annum now.Iam yet to decide on him but he has been given the chance so why dodge him now trying to fix the economy.
Glad I got to see this man last year. Ad astra, Gene Cernan.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/latest-news/last-man-to-walk-on-moon-dies/news-story/06f5c658284edb097bcb94bec9d668c9
Taking his secret to the grave!
Anyway Bowie your news led me to this interesting chap:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Schmitt
Bella 06:00pm.
You are correct , Roswell 1947 Area 51.
I remembered Roswell a little later after sending it .
I never followed this turning off after hearing media bounce it back on us over time . Seems a very strange chapter of history that visits us over years .I did hear many strange stories of sightings when among these blokes constantly in the decades of trips and travels to destinations all around Australia .
No cause for alarm by me JB! Just an old memory of anxious men confronting each other locked in verbal battle , me been the audience at the time .
Cheers .Bella &JB
There were heaps of UFO sightings in Norway back when.
The Americans finally came clean – it was the U2.
The reasoning at the time was it had to be a UFO because no plane could fly that high.
Ah. Bono on the hooch.
😉
I was just listening to a newsclip that informs us that the son of Martin Luther King has had a ”constructive” discussion with Trump. Another one who may be rethinking boycotting the inaug., realising that there is no point in antagonising this man.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-16/eight-men-own-same-wealth-as-worlds-poorest-50-per-cent:-oxfam/8185172
1% own more than the rest of the planet. That 1% must be doing something right.
Dismayed to say the least. What do we see here and in the US people actually believing their red haired messiahs want to change this inequality. Trump epitomises this disgrace and the Mad “angry at the world” hanson wants part of the spoils.
We see people here saying things like “better get used to it” they are good germans aren’t they. Trained not to question for fear of standing out from the crowd.
It’s called reality, Dismayed. Trump is the president of the USA. No good ranting ad infinitum about it. You’re getting boring.
The world has to wait and see what happens next. Who knows, it might not be as bad as you think.
There is a reason why he was elected. The whole of America isn’t crazy. They are fed up. Trump, Hanson, Brexit are examples of that.
Happy to be a good german – whatever that means in your world.
No, the whole of America isn’t crazy. Less than half of Americans who voted, voted for Trump. So less than half of Americans could be considered crazy enough to believe that he is going to do something for them. Not all of course, many appreciated that the other washout candidates couldn’t beat Clinton but figured the best chance to sneak the Presidency for a stooge would be to see Trump elected and then manipulate his impeachment and have the conservative and no doubt pliable Pence replace him.
Machiavelli had nothing on that lot.
Well, it’s not quite true that Trump wont try to do something for the dunderheads , he will create more jobs by trying his damnedest to force down wages. If he gets the chance
.
Trump is a cunning slimy lying con artist, narcissist and psychopath who’d have made a very good holy roller with a glass cathedral paid for by the simpletons on the promise of a pie in the sky when they die.
Trump, Hanson and Brexit are the result of people who are fed up, because they have been left behind. They’ve been fed the dream and then shafted. Now they will get shafted again, by Trump, Pence or both. Born to be shafted.
No what was that definition of insanity again?
We’ll see, JB I’m going to keep an open mind and not jump on the panic wagon and rant on about what hadn’t happened yet. Was it Jung who said ” people spend more time worrying about what hasn’t happened”? When my shares hit rock bottom I may agree with you. Until then it seems as though the overseas sharemarkets may like what he’s doing. Hope so.
Yvonne. Well it makes sense to worry about things that haven’t happened.
I understand your position on this, but in the big picture it’s not about your portfolio.
Yvonne move along. I don’t write comments to appease you. You are talking about appeasement. It did not work to well previously in history did it. I work with a lot of Americans and their knowledge of what they were voting for was ridiculously naïve and scarily ignorant and in most cases the guys had absolutely no idea what Policies were being put forward. They believed Obama care and the Affordable Care Act were 2 different things. They reckon Obama care was socialism they did not even know it was affordable health insurance until a lot of their friends starting accessing it. They thought the Affordable Care Act was something different put in place by the Republicans, it is not, it is the same thing. Which trump wants to remove with nothing to replace it. So millions of people who voted for him will lose this with nothing to replace it. Mostly they were guys from the so called Southern states and Texas etc. First and foremost they would never vote for a woman. They still hate the fact a black man was elected President. They still believe he was not eligible and is a Muslim this come directly from their mouths. You need to get informed and open your eyes. Move along.
Crap!
Your usual rant Dismayed. I’m afraid you lost me when you declared that NDIS had been fully funded. I note you have decided to latch onto one of JTI’s astute ripostes – so I’ll return the compliment. Utter bullshit! Have a nice day.
Hmmmm. Hobart named as the capital with the highest business confidence in Australia ! Goodness me – you’ll have to take back the Tassie jokes, fellas!
JS it is the facts. You should try leaving your basement once in a while. there is actually a real world out there some of us move around in.
Actually Dismayed, you are the “good German”.
The world was on a trajectory that would have put more wealth in the hands of the few, decimated the middle class of the US and Europe and stuffed the US economy totally.
It would have seen the elites take more and more power away from the people and put it into the hands of unrepresentative bodies.
The two countries adept at gaming the system – China and Germany – would have become more and more powerful. I for one am very uncomfortable seeing the rise of a totalitarian state, China, to world dominance.
You have swallowed this shit hook line and sinker. Your leftist ideals have been shattered and your plans have been put back 4 years possibly 8 – hopefully forever. The sour grapes coming from those who see all of this as something to yearn for is a delight to see and I actually see you describing yourself in that post. Have you ever questioned what was going on? I suspect not because you probably actually approve of it.
https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-01-15/how-the-davos-pundits-got-it-wrong-president-clinton-anyone.
Your confusion is complete. Your hypocrisy is all consuming and has left you unable to view anything with clarity. It does not matter what comment I make you will take the opposite and opposing view. Stick to your doomsday prepping. You are out of your depth.
I have to say from your comments you believe the answer to this construct of “elites” is for a billionaire businessman a self confessed sexual abuser of woman and racist bigot to run things over twitter? Raise tariffs , impose trade taxes and duties, attack companies for making their own decisions, Remove access to health insurance to over 20 million people who have never had it. Go on a spending splurge and double what you have described as out of control debt, cut taxes to the wealthy which has been proven time and time again to worsen all your are crying about above not to mention install people directly responsible for the GFC into senior economic positions and place war mongers and right wingers in many other roles to try and turn back time. The US economy is in better shape that it was 8 years ago. that is not up for debate it is fact. Get it through your head the world cannot go back to subsistence farming or how you imagine things were in 1950 from the stories you have been told. You need to get away from Breitbart . you are parroting line for line the ultra right wingers. You need to get some help.
Being that the bottom third have no net worth JB, you and I have more than they do combined. Does that makes us evil?
Yes, probably Dwight. Tho most of us would avoid confronting that reality through denial, wilful ignorance and weasely rationalisations.
If we reincarnate as cockroaches, God will have spoken.
I see the next data cross -matching project is going to target pensioners. Probably the poor bastards who have had to go and find a job after having their pension slashed.
Maybe a cockroach woukd find life a tad easier. And the gap widens
BASSMAN, January 16, 2017 at 3:03 pm. I’m not doubting the figures mate but on stuff like that, which is not your opinion but stats or facts I think a source could be provided. And i’m not singling you out; just my thought on matters that cause a heap of needless tedium.
Penny and LOT – emoticon show offs!!!!!! (!’s is all I got). Wraith tried to explain to me how to do them years back but i’s a bit challenged, and not too fussed, on the new technologies.
On cooking – I’ve never eaten chicken hearts before, so with a bit of a rough idea from googling, I made up an Asian marinade from our depleted stuff, and grilled the m under a high heat and they were to die for (unfortunately the missus was in Sydney).
And speaking of the missus, she’s no mug. She (her?) and the kids went to the big bash at the SCG and she got 2 streakers for the price of 1. Obviously I couldn’t see the goings on back home but my eldest lad told me that the security guards couldn’t catch the streakers and it took my missus to tackle (?!) one of them. Then, i’m told, the security mob etc had a hell of a time extracting this chap from me missus. I never realised how emotional she gets when the cricket is interrupted.
Love your work-keep singing to the choir. It is not a court of law here. Proof is all over the place. Dig it out. There is plenty of ‘proof’ for global warming but heaps of people don’t want to know about it. For one lot of ‘proof’ you can always find another to counteract it. Believe in what you believe. Ignore my stuff it you don’t like it. Keep writing we love you. Keep voting. They love you.
This about sums everything up on Trump
https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-01-16/trump-s-eu-nato-snub-stuns-europe-s-leaders-evoking-unity-call
Anybody know where there is a good solid rock to hide under?
BASSMAN says:
January 16, 2017 at 3:46 pm
“Dealing with stupid people Rodent:- neither protests or the use of force accomplish anything here Bald with such people. Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. Reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need not believed. In such moments the stupid person even becomes critical. When facts are irrefutable they are just pushed aside by blind worship at the alter of politics and ideology. In all this, the stupid person in contrast to the malicious one is utterly self-satisfied and being easily irritated, becomes dangerous and frequently attacks. For this reason greater caution is called for when dealing with a stupid person than with a malicious one. Never again try to persuade the stupid person with science, reason, logic and facts. It is useless and even dangerous!”
BASSMAN, I suppose the deep thought and preparation you put into compiling the above advice to Rodent is just another one of those pure coincidences that keep popping up; in that, what you have offered is strikingly similar (practically word-for-word) to the advice Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in his book – “Letters and Papers From Prison” (vol. 8).
Its just another one of my cursory observations Bassy. There’s no need for you to confirm or deny.
Unless you wish to.
TOASTER:-It was GENERAL advice..Bonhoeffer is a favourite of mine. Died so young with a brilliant brain. Good to see you have found him. Don’t you get it? Groan!
Hey, Health Minister in waiting ,Sinodinos, *remember* to vaccinate the swamp!