On Tuesday night, Pasquale Barbaro was shot dead in his car in the backstreets of Earlwood in Sydney’s south.
On hearing the news, I first thought of the difficulties facing journalists working at news desks that night. The first question to answer was which Pasquale Barbaro had been murdered? There’s a small army of them and many are known to police. Two other relatives bearing the name had already been murdered. Another was serving a 30-year jail term over his role in the biggest ecstasy importation Australia has seen.
On this occasion it was 35-year-old Pasquale Timothy Barbaro who became the victim.
In 2003, Jason Moran a key combatant in Melbourne’s bloody underworld feud, knew he was in danger and with a contract out on his life. He came out of hiding briefly to watch his children kick a footy around at an Auskick clinic at Essendon in Melbourne’s north with his bodyguard, Pasquale ‘Pat’ Barbaro, Pasquale Timothy Barbaro’s cousin.
Full column here.
John,
“this i think is worth aa read http://tinyurl.com/jgasds9”
Thanks jack, but for the author of the article to claim that Trump winning the election — with fewer votes than Romney lost it with — somehow means that he is right about a relatively esoteric legal debate is frankly laughable. Trump will appoint right-wing judges because it suits his ideology, not because he or his constituents favour “originalist” Constitutional interpretation.
It’s a debate I’m very familiar with and I profoundly disagree with the position in that article. For example, take the phrase that founds our democracy, “freely chosen by the people”. To the drafters of our Constitution, “the people” almost certainly meant propertied white men. That interpretation is unacceptable today. In order for that phrase to mean anything now, obviously we have to look at what it means now.
To put it bluntly, the drafters are all long dead, so we can argue all day about what their own words might have meant to them, but we’ll never know, and in the end it’s irrelevant. All we have to go on are the words written down.
That debate is unresolved in the US, but thankfully, in Australia, “horse and buggy” originalism has not been taken seriously for a long time — with a few unsurprising exceptions, like Dyson Heydon.
JOH, you can’t compare the voting totals between elections. The turnout invalidates that. The percentage would be more instructive, and it still comes down to the Electoral College. It’s not like it never happens here, wot? (Whereas the likes of Saddam Hussein used to get 99%, so there was little doubt about those polls. Was there? 😛 )
Point taken, scratch “fewer votes” and replace with “a lower proportion of votes”. To be honest I was needlessly point-scoring on that subject, and for that I apologise. I’m not questioning the validity of Trump’s win; but my main point was that even if he had won by a landslide it still wouldn’t mean that Trump “knew” that the ordinary voter preferred a particular style of Constitutional interpretation and therefore had a mandate to pursue it.
John, I suspect Trump’s ideology is most likely what benefits him personally and perhaps his family as well.
If he can find a senior legal figure that fulfils that requirement and one who’ll also please the various conservatives, ultra-conservatives, and neo-fascist types in his Administration, I suspect they might be looking at a big promotion.
As for constitutional originalism, didn’t Jefferson propose to rewrite the Constitution every 19 years or so to keep it all fresh and up-to-date, and not turn it into something verging on scripture?
Someone asked ex ousted PM Tony Abbott, Mr Insider, did he think “current” PM Turnbull was a howling success and he responded thus:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLxHjNDnQlo
John,
this i think is worth aa read
http://tinyurl.com/jgasds9
penny, i lived in brunswick about that time, and i do recall seeing people in the supermarket who were considered by the papers to be crime figures.
i guess most people, even thugs, need to buy dunny roll.
Sorry jack, I replied to your comment without using the reply button, so hopefully it will turn up somewhere below.
Gangsters buy dunny roll Jack? Surely they knock it of from work like everyone else?
Jack, I believe that Brunswick may have been worse than Ascot Vale. Did you ever hear the rumors about a certain funeral parlor in Brunswick that apparently used to put than one body in the coffin? I always seemed to drive past just as the hearse was leaving and wonder how many bodies they were burying at the Fawkner cemetery …..it was probably not true though…..you think?
Wisdom from Brendan O’Neill:
The truly disturbing thing about 2016 is not the rage of the masses against the establishment but the rage of the elites against democracy.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/brendan-oneill/its-all-the-fault-of-the-thick-illinformed-irrational-mob/news-story/03b43d5bed606febfc0f0ffd2d132e67
And this might interest you as well:
http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/11/16/you-are-still-crying-wolf/
Cheers,
Linz
Hi Linz, sometimes your off-Broadway blog links are interesting but IMO I’m afraid in this case the guy’s use of statistics sucks.
He has noted the fact that in this election the Republican vote among certain non-white groups increased more than the Republican white vote. But he has concluded from this that the white vote was not determinative.
Sounds plausible, but he hasn’t taken account of the fact that the increases in minority Republican support are single-digit percentages of the already small percentage of Republican voters in groups that are already a small percentage of the population. In other words, SFA. Whites are the biggest group and their Republican support was already high, so even their smaller percentage Red swing had the biggest impact.
Another factor that plays against the Doctor’s theory is the effect of the electoral college. I don’t have the facts to hand, but I imagine it would be easy to point to once-Blue states that turned Red due to the white vote, but I have yet to hear any claims that the same could be said of a swing among minorities. I could be wrong.
Where “elites” is defined as anyone with views outside a certain sphere, rather than anything remotely to do with the actual meaning of the word “elites”. And where “against democracy” means preferring a different election result. So a tautology really.
Standard fare from O’Neill, who I would have suspected was a buggy algorithm if I hadn’t seen him on live TV.
Hi All,
Back from Bhutan. Great trip/trek. Charming kingdom, at the moment unspoilt by foreign incursions. No Macca’s, KFC, Starbucks. Not a single traffic light in the country – and no mention of the word “Trump” fir 2 weeks! Bliss. Really just testing our smart new abode. Nice work Jack!
Good to be back
Wow! Great trip, Yvonne.
Yvonne: very jealous Bhutan is high on my list of places to visit – all the more so as top of the list is to see tigers in the wild and Bhutan has one of the best remaining populations. Are there any tiger tour operators there? The tourism sector is still immature from what I have been able to gather but I am suer eco-tourism will catch on because it is low impact and high value.
Welcome back, Yvonne! Just in time for the fire season! (You know, that thing we used to call ‘summer’).
In idle moments, being strategically oriented, I’ve thought about what a monster headache Trump Tower must be giving the Secret Service. The family lives on the top three floors, his offices are on the 26th. His transition team has probably moved into his campaign offices on the 5th. Corner of 5th and 56th, traffic on all sides, loading docks for the commercial stores, subways running underneath. Sniper angles galore. But, they’re good at what they do.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/new-yorks-trump-tower-a-security-problem-for-presidents-men/news-story/3241e45c9b6beedcdd3543a060447061
Not to mention the menagerie of characters who already live inside:
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-trump-tower/
Jack, I am sorry I probably didn’t express my point correctly. I have no gripe with your reporting and blog handling. I find it refreshing the way you permit all points of view so long as they are not offensive and reasonably researched. I am aware of editorial policy control in the media and I try to avoid the most blatant and biased, but I find Mr M’s attitudes and viewpoints to be intolerant and divisive. I have no gripe with individual reporters because I can choose to read them or not and I have never had to avoid reading your work.
Whenever I hear of a hit on an underworld figure I always think of Danny Greene who outmanouvered many an assasination attempt but finally got caught, the Mafia like the Mounties always get their man
http://blog.cleveland.com/pdextra/2011/02/car_bomb_kills_danny_greene.html
If it was colder here, this could have been Hawke and Keating, or Rudd and Gillard: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/latest-news/moose-pair-found-frozen-midfight-in-us/news-story/d28a609b16dac5981d80ded664ef8fe3
Were they in between Trump and Obama at their first meeting at the White House?
The body language was great, mate. Next time I teach negotiation I might use it.
You might have a pursue of this guy, who unexpectedly turns out to be student of persuasion as well:
http://blog.dilbert.com/
What he had to say on the HRC-Trump campaigns over the last few months is interesting.
Cheers,
Linz
Must have been fighting season Dwight. Earlier posts lead me to think you are Stateside now? Wish this had been frozen and put on display somewhere. http://www.northcrane.com/2016/11/15/cnn-reporter-states-hillary-became-physically-violent-towards-john-podesta-at-midnight-had-to-be-restrained/
I wondered why Candidate Clinton didn’t come out and gracefully concede. Instead she sent a terse go home via Podesta. It’s -4 in Minneapolis but everybody’s happy, even the moose. Using a bottle of Eagle Rare 10yo for anti freeze.
I have just realised I had posted my intro and a comment for this thread, in the wrong thread. Seniors moment as my wife would say. So I’m not a stranger- your ma should have warned you about blogging with strangers – I have a post in Smoking Out Good Government. Hi all. Call me Orv.
Moose video. http://www.chron.com/sports/outdoors/article/Moose-found-frozen-in-Alaskan-stream-locked-at-10622843.php
Funny you mention Radev as I was just thinking of the anecdotal acknowledgement concerning the ruthlessness of the Russian Mafia (I know Radev was not Russian, but hey close enough- probably similar prison networks?). And whilst i’m not sure, I don’t think they are connected to the Italian ‘system’, yet have apparently a wide and lucrative industry going as well. A parallel capitalism?
Anywho, what concerns me is the case of mistaken identities. If possible could I be provided with mug shots of all the underbelly types so as I can alter my appearance, if necessary.
And on other matters, John Hewson. Another, like Keating who is suffering a severe and prolonged bout of relevance deprivation syndrome. Credit where due, at least Gillard is not out there sucking up oxygen, unlike Rudd.
ps. I get the feeling I am going straight through to the keeper named spam.