words matter

ON SALE AT APPLE BOOKS &
GOOGLE PLAY BOOKS
AUDIOBOOKS

If you are disgusted and horrified at Trump and the revelations of the Epstein files. Do your bit: Cancel your Big Tech subscriptions. Bill Gates and Trump are ball’s deep in the sordid world of the late Jeffrey Epstein. Rich men treat the world with disdain and think they can wipe their muck off on us. What can we do about this? What action can we take to send a clear message that this is not good enough behaviour? Ditch your Microsoft subscriptions. Hit them where it will ultimately hurt. Stop spending your money with Big Tech.
Crime Democracy Economics Fresh Government News Politics Power
This statement has been the overwhelming meta narrative running through human political history forever. I studied ancient history for many years and this was true in ancient Greek and Roman civilisations too. The aristocracy has always seen itself as the only thing that really mattered. Only the wealthy matter is top of the bill in Trump’s America right now. The evidence for this is manifest in multiple places. Trump’s big beautiful bill cut taxes for billionaires and slashed spending on the poor. The Trump cabinet is populated by more billionaires than ever seen before. Big Tech oligarchs lined up to kiss the ring of President Donald Trump at his inauguration. Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, inserted himself into the Trump administration via DOGE to garner attention on this stage. The messaging is clear – only the wealthy really matter.
Economics Fresh Government Life News Politics Power
A guy throws a bomb into a crowd of thousands of people. Luckily it does not go off, but if it had, it would have killed and maimed possibly hundreds of people. His lawyer successfully argues to have the bomb thrower’s name suppressed on the grounds of protecting his safety. WTF? What kind of country do we live in? Our justice system protects the anonymity of a wilful bomb thrower who wanted to hurt and kill Aboriginal people and managed to disperse a peaceful protest. White Australia worries about the safety of a bomb throwing terrorist. This is what is wrong with our justice system. Protecting perpetrators at the expense of our right to have these scumbags named and shamed. This happened in Perth on Invasion/Australia Day. There has been very little media coverage of this bomb throwing event in the right wing media, which dominates the Australian media landscape. Strange that, perhaps if it wasn’t at a brown skinned gathering it would have been given more attention by the Murdoch press.
Culture Fresh Media Police Politics Power
The Trump regime is attacking boats from Venezuela, blowing them up in international waters. Why this focus on a South American nation? Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves. The US has a great tradition of going after countries with lots of oil and administrations that don’t bend over backwards for them. Donald Trump is a firm believer in fossil fuels. His administration has already reversed much of the good work that was done under Joe Biden, when it came to renewables and the transition away from climate damaging fossil fuels. Trump is the ultimate head in the sand guy, when it comes to global warming.
Contact sports in the guise of AFL or rugby are coming under increasing scrutiny in regard to head knocks to players. The truth is that modern human beings are not designed to crash and bash into each other at speed. We have, obviously, evolved away from the need to do so in the natural world. Survival does not call for such behaviour these days and that has long been the case. It is, rather, recreational pursuits in the form of team contact sports which have become the unhealthy danger in recent years. The professionalism and commercialism within these sports have motivated players to become bigger, stronger and faster in pursuit of material rewards. The resultant clashes between these modern day gladiators are fuelling an increasing amount of brain injury diseases showing up in past and present players. Is it a situation where caveman sports have no place in a healthy life?
The release of a trove Epstein emails has revealed Jeffrey Epstein agony aunt to billionaires and other elites. Prominent Americans sought both financial and dating advice from Jeffrey Epstein. Money and sex, it is like these two hot topics use the same hole or parts of the brain. Larry Summers, the economist and former President of Harvard University, is featured in these email conservations with Epstein, even after Epstein’s conviction for sex trafficking. It seems that the billionaire financier and sex trafficker had a reputation as an expert in both these areas of life.
Donald Trump has just been fined $354 million for fraudulently lying about his assets and business worth when getting loans from commercial banks. Despite a history of very dodgy behaviour Trump ascended to the highest office in the land. Yes, he is an officer of the United States of America. Trump was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, thanks to property developer dad Fred Trump. He is not a self-made man or the second coming of anything worth waiting for. It seems in America the only law with any real teeth is that of money and civil suits.

ON SALE AT APPLE BOOKS &
GOOGLE PLAY BOOKS
AUDIOBOOKS

President Trump, in an obvious act of desperation, is offering every adult American a cheque for $5000 if his Republican party wins the primaries. This would cost some $1.3 trillion in a nation already $40 trillion in debt. Responsible Republican politics? The corrupt nature of populist politics is there for all to see. Now, I know Americans are pretty dumb but Trump has previously failed to honour promises for DOGE dividend cheques and for tariffs he imposed. Compound that with his promise to improve affordability for everyday Americans, which has not been realised thanks to his war with Iran and those many Trump tariffs. Things could not be much worse economically for ordinary Americans right now.
Democracy Economics Fresh Government Media News Politics Power Workers
President Trump, in an obvious act of desperation, is offering every adult American a cheque for $5000 if his Republican party wins the primaries. This would cost some $1.3 trillion in a nation already $40 trillion in debt. Responsible Republican politics? The corrupt nature of populist politics is there for all to see. Now, I know Americans are pretty dumb but Trump has previously failed to honour promises for DOGE dividend cheques and for tariffs he imposed. Compound that with his promise to improve affordability for everyday Americans, which has not been realised thanks to his war with Iran and those many Trump tariffs. Things could not be much worse economically for ordinary Americans right now.
Democracy Economics Fresh Government Media News Politics Power WorkersPresident Trump, in an obvious act of desperation, is offering every adult American a cheque for $5000 if his Republican party wins the primaries. This would cost some $1.3 trillion in a nation already $40 trillion in debt. Responsible Republican politics? The corrupt nature of populist politics is there for all to see. Now, I know Americans are pretty dumb but Trump has previously failed to honour promises for DOGE dividend cheques and for tariffs he imposed. Compound that with his promise to improve affordability for everyday Americans, which has not been realised thanks to his war with Iran and those many Trump tariffs. Things could not be much worse economically for ordinary Americans right now.
Democracy Economics Fresh Government Media News Politics Power WorkersThe shocked AFL pundits cried out, nobody picked this!!! The Sydney Swans demolition of the mighty Brisbane Lions in the Qualifying Final at the SCG. A talent depleted Sydney outfit outplayed the premiers for 4 quarters on a Saturday afternoon in the Harbour City. In actual fact, someone did pick this massive upset. No lesser person than the great Buddy Franklin picked this result and publicised it via his YouTube video with Shane Crawford. Buddy, I am reminded, is a great student of the game, according to John Longmire; and he proved it on this occasion.
Culture Footy Fresh News SportMuch of the news you view downunder is controlled by News Corp, which is owned by a right wing American billionaire. Facebook and Instagram are owned by another right wing billionaire, Mark Zuckerberg. X, formerly Twitter, is owned by yet another American billionaire, Elon Musk. American billionaires control your news feed. Can you perceive a bit of a pattern here, folks? The news you get either by legacy media or social media platforms comes via Trump supporting oligarchs. AI is likewise owned by a bunch of American billionaires, who have kissed the ring of President Trump. Your news and information comes via a filter, a right wing filter, which puts a decided slant on things.
Democracy Fresh Government Media News Politics PowerDid anybody notice that all 4 AFL clubs playing off in the Wildcard round were Melbourne based? In this expanded VFL parading itself as a national competition something had to be done about the lack of success for the glut of Melbournian AFL clubs. Enter the Melbournian mediocrity wildcard weekend, where a midtable result gets rewarded in season 2026. Something like 180, 000 footy fans attended these matches at the MCG. Big clubs like Collingwood and Carlton played off for a final’s spot against perennial also-rans the Western Bulldogs and Melbourne. If you build it they will come, to quote a line from an old sport’s movie.
Footy Fresh News Sport
The Trump 2.0 regime is attacking education in America, along with a host of other things which have made America great over decades and centuries. Right wing extremists have been marshalled into a force for disassembling stuff. Trump and the rise of righteous fools. Harvard University, an institution of higher education which is much older than the United States itself, is being threatened and attacked by the Trump regime. One of Donald Trump’s son couldn’t get into Harvard. I mention this in passing because with Trump this sort of thing is usually personal.
Are the Sydney Swans so disappointing this year because their former coach, John Longmire, jumped from a sinking ship? Did Longmire desert the players in their greatest moment of need? Has Dean Cox, the long serving apprentice, been handed a poisoned chalice? Whatever is at the root of the blight the team are playing like a bunch of hapless losers. Cox has resorted to blaming the players in public, after 10 weeks of sucking up the pain himself, he is dishing some out himself. Questioning the list, as not being up to current AFL standards and questioning their heart. This last damning reality was never something to entertain under Longmire or Paul Roos.
The version of democracy that we have had in the West, of late, has not served a lot of people all that well. The lot of democracy. This is why we have the current phenomenon of Donald Trump plaguing the world right now. Lots of folk in the United States wanted someone to shake things up and deliver something better for them. Be careful what you wish for. This is because things can, indeed, get a lot worse. Trump is not the champion of the ordinary American, as he professes at times. Trump is no Bernie Sanders. He is someone who has never served a constituency. Trump only serves himself.
Donald Trump’s regime in America is breaking the law on an industrial scale. There are more than 200 legal actions currently taken out against the Trump administration by aggrieved parties in the United States. Thus, fighting the normalization of Trump is an issue on this basis. People get used to the outrage and are deadened in some way to the gross injustices. However, the behaviour of ICE takes the cake in the outrage stakes in their total disregard for judicial due process. The snatching of Americans off the streets by masked men bearing no identification or documentation and detaining them for weeks and months is abhorrent in the extreme.
Who is going to buy all the wonderful stuff if lots of folk can no longer afford to? Universal Basic Income: Its time has come.
The SCG is a disgrace in terms of the playing surface and dangerous for AFL players plying their trade on it. Sydney Swans home ground not up to AFL standard. Indeed, it mirrors the disappointing season the Swans are currently having in 2025. A concert was held on the playing surface some time ago and the ground has never recovered from the butchery engendered then upon it. Last night, once again, AFL players from both teams could not keep their feet and it is only a matter of time before a serious injury will entail. Perhaps, these have already occurred.
It only took them 81 years, but in Australia, the federal Liberal Party finally found a female leader. Of course, they only make these calls on merit and getting pantsed at the last federal election had nothing to do with it. I find in Australia, the Anglo-settler psyche only turns to women as a last resort and there are numerous examples of this over the recent journey. This is all about power and traditional blokes believe that they are best served by one of them holding the reins, so to speak. Peter Dutton made a meal of it but just about every recent Liberal leader has been turfed out of office by their own electorate in recent years.
Dean Cox presents yet another Sydney Swans side unprepared to play AFL football. The team that fronted up against Essendon were uncompetitive and disorganised. Very soon they were 8 goals down and 3 of them were due to ill discipline and 50m penalties, which resulted […]
Willi Rioli is in trouble for carrying things too far in the internecine trench warfare that goes on during AFL matches. The AFL is the home of the cheap shot. Unsportsmanlike behaviour is rife in games with players illegally slapping and bumping usually from behind. This stuff must come from the coaches and is part of some sort of psychological warfare to gain an edge on the day over their opponents. The unexpected hit from behind and trash talk are marring our great game. It is not a good look; and in Willi Rioli’s case things have gotten out of hand.
The Liberal Party of Australia have won no metropolitan seats in Adelaide and almost none in Sydney and Melbourne. Where does the greater part of the Oz population reside? In the cities, of course. Modern Australia no longer represented by Libs. This once popular political party is no longer representative of the modern Australia and Australians. Peter Dutton led the Libs further Right and has taken them into the smaller territory of that extremist category within the political sphere. It features a male dominated, Anglo-settler white is right, ethos which regularly attacks multiculturalism, refugees, LGBTQI folk, renewables and climate change, and ‘woke’ – which is really an attack on smart women and diversity. Inspired by Trump in the US, the Libs want to turn the clock back to an Australia where patriarchy and white men rule the roost and others know their place at the back of the queue.