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American’s voted in Donald Trump as their president for the second time. What did someone famous once say about ‘once can be forgiven as a mistake but twice is no excuse’, or words to that effect anyway. Yes, Trump only won by 1.4 points but considering he was a convicted felon and well known conman it was a travesty. Americans have only themselves to blame on this score. Therefore, Trump’s America is the enemy. The enemy of those who believe in law and order. The enemy of those who value democracy. The enemy of those who oppose white supremacists, sexual offenders, and blowhard bullies.
Economics Fresh Politics
What does a bully or stand over guy do to his victim? He menaces then extracts some form of payment in lieu of not beating him up. This is what Donald Trump is doing on the international trade scene. Trump threatens and shakes down Australia. This is what he has done with Canada and Mexico, other US allies. The media plays right into his hands by creating this melodrama, where the little guy or gal gets put under pressure from Trump and then we are all supposed to feel gratitude when the threat does not eventuate. The tariff stand over tactic will not serve US interests long term, rather it will poison an already dirty well.
Economics Fresh Politics
The story of American Independence is a far more nuanced one than most folk know. It was not all about a battle for freedom for the ‘hard done by’ colonists against the mighty British Empire. American Independence founded on lies is not too far from the truth when examining the southern slaver colonies like Virginia. Thomas Jefferson and his white slaver rebels burned the city of Norfolk to prevent it falling into the hands of emancipated African American slaves. The British were interested in abolishing slavery and had put limits on further expansion into Indian territories in North America. This did not sit well with white plantation families in the American colonies. Settlers in the New World, more generally, were motivated to enrich themselves no matter the cost to enslaved people and Indigenous populations.
Culture Fresh
Those Americans detained by ICE are being housed in private prisons and have already proved to be a half a billion dollar motza for one such corporation running them. America is home of the financialized and privatized everything, where transparency is an outdated concept. No, it is all about profits and returns on investments for companies and their shareholders. The Trump administration is feeding its backers with the promised billions. The disgusting American business of incarceration. ICE is going after mums and school kids too. ICE is not limiting itself to targeting gang members and illegal aliens. No, that is way too restrictive on the numbers to fill these private prisons.
The ABC has reported that the Macquarie Group through its Next Payment’s ATMs is profiting from the black market tobacco trade in Australia. This multibillion dollar trade downunder is fuelling gang war slayings and making the nation a much more unsafe place. Macquarie bank raking in black market tobacco profits. Yet another loophole exists for criminals to launder their ill gotten gains in Australia – through private ATM machines. You get the strongest sense that authorities are not serious about stopping such things when they continue to allow flagrant violations by banks.
Crime Economics Fresh The ABC has reported that the Macquarie Group through its Next Payment’s ATMs is profiting from the black market tobacco trade in Australia. This multibillion dollar trade downunder is fuelling gang war slayings and making the nation a much more unsafe place. Macquarie bank raking in black market tobacco profits. Yet another loophole exists for criminals to launder their ill gotten gains in Australia – through private ATM machines. You get the strongest sense that authorities are not serious about stopping such things when they continue to allow flagrant violations by banks.
Crime Economics Fresh
The ABC has reported that the Macquarie Group through its Next Payment’s ATMs is profiting from the black market tobacco trade in Australia. This multibillion dollar trade downunder is fuelling gang war slayings and making the nation a much more unsafe place. Macquarie bank raking in black market tobacco profits. Yet another loophole exists for criminals to launder their ill gotten gains in Australia – through private ATM machines. You get the strongest sense that authorities are not serious about stopping such things when they continue to allow flagrant violations by banks.
Crime Economics Fresh
Those Americans detained by ICE are being housed in private prisons and have already proved to be a half a billion dollar motza for one such corporation running them. America is home of the financialized and privatized everything, where transparency is an outdated concept. No, it is all about profits and returns on investments for companies and their shareholders. The Trump administration is feeding its backers with the promised billions. The disgusting American business of incarceration. ICE is going after mums and school kids too. ICE is not limiting itself to targeting gang members and illegal aliens. No, that is way too restrictive on the numbers to fill these private prisons.
Crime Democracy Economics Fresh Politics
The Sydney Swans took one small step toward recovery in 2025. Yes, the red and white team recorded a victory over Richmond, last year’s wooden spooner. It was a match between the 2024 minor premiers and the bottom side of that season. Of course, a year or 6 months is a long time in AFL footy. It was great to have Harry Cunningham back in the team for the first time in 2025. It was like having an adult in the 18 out on the ground who knew what to do and how to go about his business. Similarly, Callum Mills played his second game of season 2025 and was solid for most of the afternoon.
Footy Sport
Ill-disciplined Swans players look frustrated out on the field. This has resulted in a number of incidents and free kicks, which have cost suspensions and goals. An injury hit side like the Sydney Swans can little afford to lose more players to suspension. A losing team like the Swans can ill afford to give away 50m penalties and free kicks which directly cost goals to the opposition. It has been a perfect storm of poor play, lack of effort, weak tackling, loss of contest and ill discipline over the last 12 weeks. This is not the red and white team that the competition has grown to respect over many years for its unstinting application to the job at hand.
Culture Footy Fresh Sport
First up I want to say that I am a big fan of Anthony Albanese and support his having a go at getting the Voice referendum over the line. It was brave and hopefully not stupid. Australian political leaders have a pretty poor track record when it comes to doing anything about Aboriginal recognition, reconciliation, and treaty. Bob Hawke squibbed it. Peter Dutton’s decision to oppose the Voice and turn it into a political battle destroyed any hope we had to constitutionally recognise First Nations people in Australia. Non-partisan politics does not exist in this nation when it comes to Indigenous Affairs.
Since the global pandemic we have seen a trend toward a concern for individual freedoms. This is no surprise after the lockdowns, vaccine mandates, and heavier government controls. However, these social health policies were necessary and will be again if and when another virus emerges. I am reminded of times of war when governments are forced to curtail public freedoms and demand much more from their citizens. Do not fall for those promising some sovereign citizen nirvana because such things do not exist in reality. The world is not all about you or me, we are all a part of communities, whether we like it or not. Populations are rising and this by its very nature means more rules to govern the many.
Down in Tassie things are different to the rest of Australia. The upside down world in Tasmania has the Liberal state government supporting a Yes vote in the Voice referendum, whilst local Aboriginal groups want a No vote. The polls are predicting a rare win for Yes in the Apple Isle, whereas the mainland story is predicted to be all about No. Why is this so? Tasmania is infamous for massacring most of its Indigenous population back in the day. Perhaps this has something to do with the apparently anomalous situation happening there in relation to First Nations recognition in the Australian Constitution and an Indigenous Voice to Parliament.
Injustice makes me angry! What about you? Do you get stirred up by it or do you simply shrug your shoulders fatalistically? This sense of the unfairness of injustice has waxed and waned over the various stages of my life. Keenly felt in my youth, somewhat disenfranchised during my working life, and returning with a vengeance now. We live in an age of disinformation and deflection by design. In the era of social media, gossip is given more credence because it is written down for public record. The digital world defines and details every piece of crap that comes out of human beings.
Education is, as we all know, a vital component in our lives. They do not call them our formative years for nothing. Yet, there are many things, those in charge of teaching, do not include in our learnings. The state or a particular religious organisation are most usually involved in defining the taught curriculum. Somehow, I find, there is always important shit they didn’t teach me at school. Stuff that they left out for reasons unbeknown to me but of which I am now willing to speculate upon. I have extended my research beyond just my own school days to include the experiences of others from different eras.
Michael Pezzullo, according to 60 Minutes, has been revealed as a Machiavellian character operating inside the halls of power in Canberra. Pezzullo pissing in political pockets in search of influence is operating well outside the remit of a member of the public service. The expose by Nine Fairfax investigative reporters shows him to be a right wing power broker rather than an apolitical appointment. The Home Affairs Secretary in his clandestine relationship with Liberal Party insider Scott Briggs has crossed the line repeatedly and consistently over many years. The trove of once encrypted messages now revealed should ring the death knell for his career.
As an interstate viewer watching and listening to the heavy Victorian bias in AFL final’s commentary this year it felt like the VFL. The Melbournian centric focus expressed by the many ex-player commentators was in top gear throughout the finals. These blokes were jumping on the Carlton bandwagon and were fully paid up members of the Magpie army. It is only to be expected when their bread and butter comes from this huge market in terms of paying gigs and such like, I suppose. It does make one wonder, however, whether this truly is a national competition or just the VFL with a few add-ons.
Banks make lots of money because they have utilised digitisation to streamline their operations. Which in plain speak means they have sacked all their workers and machines do all the work. That automation, however, makes their services vulnerable to scammers who get hold of the pass codes. Do banks love scammers? There are no human gatekeepers to stop the flow of money from one account to another. The banks make their money from countless small fees charged on transactions and accounts. They make their money just as easily from the scammer’s account as they do from yours or mine.
The numbers don’t lie but rather tell the real story of an already divided country. These conservative white politicians going around warning of the divisive potentialities of the Voice to Parliament are full of the proverbial. The fact that only 1 in 6 Aussies interact with an Indigenous Australian means that most of us don’t really know an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander. We live largely separate lives and only hear about them in the news. We have no idea what it is like to walk in their shoes. Therefore, the calls to vote No are misguided because the status quo is not alright for the majority of First Nations Australians.
Australians are really dumb if you go by their behaviour over the last 20 years. They have bought the whole anti-union narrative spruiked by conservative politicians like John Howard, Tony Abbott, Scott Morrison and their ilk. These guys demonised and attempted to criminalise unionists and their ALP mates. The whole anti-Bill Shorten campaign painted Bill as some union crook – for which there was no real evidence. Despite this voters bought it hook, line and sinker. Now, we are where we find ourselves with record low wage growth over decades. Unions stripped of power by laws. Labour hire companies ripping off workers. Workers with bugger all rights. Big companies lording it over little workers with no bargaining power.
