New year news

What’s next for Kristina Keneally; the trouble with Victorian Labor; George Brandis’s Senate vacancy; new hopefuls for a resurgent ALP in Western Australia; and more.

Ring in the new year with two months of accumulated news concerning preselections for the next federal election – not counting matters arising from Section 44, which will be dealt with in a separate post during the January lull in opinion poll news.

• After falling short in the Bennelong by-election, Kristina Keneally’s most immediate pathway to federal parliament is the Senate vacancy created by the resignation of Sam Dastyari. However, The Australian reports the position is being eyed by Tony Sheldon, national secretary of the Transport Workers Union, and Tara Moriarty, state secretary of United Voice – either in opposition to Keneally or in her absence, since it is not clear she would not prefer to await a lower house berth. The Canberra Times reports the looming creation of a third electorate for the Australian Capital Territory could present such an opportunity. Other possibilities mentioned for the new seat are Thomas McMahon, economic adviser to Bill Shorten; Taimus Werner-Gibbings, chief-of-staff to Tasmanian Senator Lisa Singh; Jacob Ingram, 23-year-old staffer to Chief Minister Andrew Barr; Jacob White, staffer to Fenner MP and Shadow Assistant Trade Minister Andrew Leigh; and Kim Fischer, former territory ministerial staffer and current communications consultant.

• Another soon-to-be-created seat has been central to factional convulsions in the Victorian ALP in recent months. As in the ACT, population growth has entitled Victoria to an extra seat, which is expected to be established in Melbourne’s booming and strongly Labor-voting north-east. The Construction Mining Forestry and Energy Union wants it to go to Jane Garrett, who recently failed in a bid to move from her state seat of Brunswick to the Legislative Council after losing a Left faction ballot. Garrett feared Brunswick would be lost to the Greens, in part because of the efforts of the United Firefighters Union, whose dispute with Garrett over a pay deal caused her resignation as Emergency Services Minister in 2016. In tandem with other “industrial Left” unions, the CFMEU has walked out of the Left, which is dominated by Senator Kim Carr, and sought an alliance with the Right, which looks likely to proceed with the blessing of Bill Shorten. This will mean an end to the long-standing “stability pact” between the Carr forces and the Right, which has protected members including Jenny Macklin in Jagajaga and Andrew Giles in Scullin. However, Shorten insists he will ensure no sitting members are threatened.

• With George Brandis resigning from his Queensland Senate seat to take up the popular posting of high commissioner in London, The Australian reports a big field of potential successors includes three names from state politics: Scott Emerson, the former Shadow Treasurer who lost his seat of Maiwar to the Greens; John-Paul Langbroek, a former Opposition Leader who remains the state member for Surfers Paradise, but was unsuccessful in the post-election leadership vote; and Lawrence Springborg, repeatedly unsuccessful state Opposition Leader who did not contest the election in November (who would presumably faces a difficulty in being from the Nationals). Also in the mix are Joanna Lindgren, who had an earlier stint in the Senate when she filled Brett Mason’s vacancy in May 2015, but was unsuccessful as the sixth candidate on the Liberal National Party ticket in 2016; Teresa Harding, director of the Queensland government’s open data policy and twice unsuccessful candidate for Blair; and Amanda Stoker, a barrister.

• Surf Coast councillor Libby Coker has again been preselected as Labor’s candidate for the Victorian seat of Corangamite, after winning a local party vote over Geelong businesswoman Diana Taylor by 116 votes to 39. Coker ran unsuccessfully in 2016 against Sarah Henderson, who gained the seat for the Liberals in 2013.

• Mehreen Faruqi, a state upper house member, was preselected to lead the Greens’ New South Wales ticket in late November, winning an online vote of party members by a margin variously identified as 1301 to 843, and 1032 to 742. The preselection took place against a backdrop of conflict between the more moderate environmentalist tendency associated with the parliamentary leadership and Rhiannon’s hard left base in New South Wales. Anne Davies of The Guardian observes that Rhiannon will face “intense pressure to step down early”, so Faruqi can fill her vacancy and raise her profile ahead of the election.

Labor has completed preselections for the brace of Liberal-held seats where it is now reckoned to be competitive in Western Australia, after the resurgence in its fortunes in the state – all of which have gone to women:

• Hannah Beazley, policy adviser to Mark McGowan and daughter of Kim Beazley, will run against Steve Irons in Swan, which her father held from 1980 to 1996 before seeking a safer refuge in Brand. Hannah Beazley ran unsuccessfully for the state seat of Riverton in 2013.

• Lauren Palmer of the Maritime Union of Australia has been selected to run against Ken Wyatt in Hasluck, winning out over the Left-backed Bill Leadbetter, a history lecturer who ran in the seat in 2016, and very briefly served in the state upper house earlier this year. This comes after the MUA threw its lot in with the now dominant Right (“Progressive Labor”) faction in pursuit of its oft-thwarted ambitions to establish a parliamentary power base, together with the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union.

• Decorated police superintendent and Left faction member Kim Travers has been chosen to run against newly anointed Attorney-General Christian Porter in Pearce. Sarah Martin of The West Australian reported Labor’s administrative committee knocked back a nomination from Ann O’Neill, a campaigner against domestic violence whose estranged husband shot her and murdered her two children in 1994, who had not been a party member for the required period and was not granted a waiver.

• A little further up the pendulum, Melita Markey, chief executive of the Asbestos Diseases Society, will run against Michael Keenan in Stirling, and Melissa Teede, former head of the Peel Development Commission, will run against Andrew Hastie in Canning.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

3,217 comments on “New year news”

Comments Page 61 of 65
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  1. dtt

    If the Trump campaign makes an allegation that Clinton murdered Seth Rich (they did) you assume that it is political bias and discount very heavily. If the CIA makes a claim that Putin murdered 199000 journalists you assume that it is political bias and discount heavily.

    “(they did)” – Clinton murdered Seth Rich OR Trump alleged Clinton did ???

  3. SK

    Putin is of course trying to control all of the USSR’s former buffer states and advance the puck with Turkey.

    I think Erdogan has realised, just in the last couple of months as the Russians have consolidated their ongoing influence in Syria (and therefore Lebanon as well), that he in now on perilous ground and wants to flee back into the arms of the West.

  5. lizzie

    Only a rumour? McKay was chasing the drug trade. Put two and two together.

    I think that the allegation is generally true.

    If ‘chasing’ consists of having a proclivity to loudly tell everyone in the pub across the road from his business who was buying lots of household furniture and appliances and paying for them in cash and speculating that the cash was the proceeds of growing marijuana then he was ‘chasing’.

  7. I think Erdogan has realised… that he in now on perilous ground and wants to flee back into the arms of the West.

    It is hard to know how much these chaps are just using potential closer ties with Russia as leverage.

    Greece play this game too.

    Putin just says ‘deal me in’.


  8. Player One says:
    Tuesday, January 9, 2018 at 2:03 pm
    don @ #2981 Tuesday, January 9th, 2018 – 1:56 pm

    I guess not having ICBMs and nuclear warheads makes a difference.
    As does having the ability to simply walk nearly a million troops across a land border into many countries in both Europe and Asia. Plus a demonstrated propensity for doing so!
    bc says:
    Tuesday, January 9, 2018 at 2:06 pm
    don says @Tuesday, January 9, 2018 at 1:56 pm

    I can never work out why Russia has more clout than Australia.

    By almost any measure, they are behind us in wealth.

    http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Australia/Russia/Economy

    They have a total GDP which is about one third more than Australia, true.

    But our GDP per person is more than three (or 5, depending on the metric) times Russia’s.

    Our Gross National Income is half as much again as Russia’s, and 11 times more per person.

    Our inflation rate is one third Russia’s.

    I guess not having ICBMs and nuclear warheads makes a difference.
    It does. And so does spending USD26.1 billion vs USD84.5 billion, with “active frontline personnel” of 58,000 vs 766,000, tanks 59 vs 15,398 and aircraft 408 vs 3,429. (source http://www.businessinsider.com/these-are-the-worlds-20-strongest-militaries-ranked-2016-4/?r=AU&IR=T/#no-3-china-18).

    All that must be paid for, of course, in terms of median income.

    Maybe that’s why Adidas trakky dacks are so popular in Russia. It’s all most of the population can afford, and ranks as high fashion.

    And cheap vodka to dull the pain.

  11. SK

    It is hard to know how much these chaps are just using potential closer ties with Russia as leverage.

    I’d agree that it’s used as a bargaining tool. He’s really managed to piss off the Germans and the Dutch in a big way in the last year now that it’s become obvious the Turkey with him is never going to be part of the EU.

  12. PeeBee @ #3006 Tuesday, January 9th, 2018 – 11:05 am

    Shellbell and a petrified forest.

    … and cows. 🙂

    https://www.google.com/maps/place/Seal+Colony/@-38.3864973,141.4088668,3a,79.2y,231.98h,108.54t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipO-76n21rYk7286gxCCUHMKEGbMq8Yb1clSvFLy!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipO-76n21rYk7286gxCCUHMKEGbMq8Yb1clSvFLy%3Dw234-h106-k-no-pi-0-ya339.5-ro-0-fo100!7i8704!8i4352!4m5!3m4!1s0xaa9dbb946ccbd43f:0x13374322311563aa!8m2!3d-38.3921953!4d141.4136982

  13. don

    There would also still be some lingering cultural attraction to such ye olde symbols of “The West”. Stuff like Adidas and Levi gear were very sought after black market items “back in the USSR” days.

  14. Don

    On the other hand Russia has minimal foreign debt. They can probably afford the Adidas whereas most western countries are borrowing to by the Versace

  15. CTar1

    Even before Erdogan a lot of Turks were beginning to suspect the EU would never take them as a member and the EU will keep dangling membership just out of reach. But yes, with him they have NFC.

  17. What Mueller’s team probably wants to know from Trump – Posted with permission from Newsweek

    Trump’s lawyers will try to limit the topics that might be discussed, but here’s what Mueller probably wants to know if he gets a chance to ask:

    a ) What did Trump Know about his campaign’s contacts with Russia?
    b ) Did Trump try to get former FBI Director James Comey to drop his investigation of Michael Flynn?
    c ) Did Trump know that Flynn had lied to the FBI?
    d ) Why did Trump fire Comey?
    e ) Did Trump’s team coordinate with WikiLeaks?

    MORE : https://www.rawstory.com/2018/01/what-muellers-team-probably-wants-to-know-from-trump/

  18. Ctari

    Turkey is in a very interesting position – right on the nexus between the Russian sphere and the NAT sphere.. In 2015 Erdogan (or some people in Turkey) threw in their lot solidly with USA against Russia when it shot down the planes.

    The Russian pay back seemed mild but was deadly effective. Exports, tourism, energy all suffered and Russia completely broke the ISIS – Turkey oil supply pipeline. Erdogan and his family suffered huge financial losses.

    Now for some reason related to that attempted coup, Erdogan swung back towards Russia, the rumour being that Erdogan believe the US was behind it and Russia forewarned him.

    As for right now, who can say re Russia Turkey relations. Volatile may be the apt description.

    However Turkey has just bought S400s from Russia (as has Saudi) so there is something in the wings because these do NOT have NATO inter-operability.

    It should be fairly obvious to Turkey now that they will never get to join the EU, so it may be to their economic advantage to turn East.

  20. bemused says:
    Tuesday, January 9, 2018 at 1:56 pm
    …
    Or he may have talked to P1!
    BURN MORE GAS!!!
    ———————————–
    Bemused I get that you don’t like P1 but that doesn’t excuse misrepresenting P1’s views.
    P1 has consistently said that gas should burned instead of coal and only as a transitional solution. P1 believes that if we wait for renewables to take over from coal it will be too late to stop extreme damage from CO2 emissions. Others dispute that and expect renewables to replace coal quickly. Let’s hope they are right but whatever the case it is totally false to imply that P1 is advocating an increase in the use of fossil fuels.

  21. Indeed Ctari, where did you get the info that turkey was leaning back to the West. They just signed the deal with Russia in late December.

    Indeed a quick google uptake (Russia Turkey filtered by last month) suggests that Turkey is moving into the Russian camp along with Iran and significantly Qatar.

  22. Just finished the F&F book.

    Last extract from the end of the book –

    Steve Bannon had lost twenty pounds since his exit from the White House six weeks before—he was on a crash all-sushi diet.

    Asked about Trump’s leadership of the nationalist-populist movement, Bannon registered a not inconsiderable change in the country’s political landscape: “I am the leader of the national-populist movement.”

    …The fundamental premise of nearly everybody who joined the Trump White House was, This can work. We can help make this work. Now, only three-quarters of the way through just the first year of Trump’s term, there was literally not one member of the senior staff who could any longer be confident of that premise. Arguably—and on many days indubitably—most members of the senior staff believed that the sole upside of being part of the Trump White House was to help prevent worse from happening.

    …In early October, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s fate was sealed—if his obvious ambivalence toward the president had not already sealed it—by the revelation that he had called the president “a fucking moron.”

    This—insulting Donald Trump’s intelligence—was both the thing you could not do and the thing—drawing there-but-for-the-grace-of-God guffaws across the senior staff—that everybody was guilty of. Everyone, in his or her own way, struggled to express the baldly obvious fact that the president did not know enough, did not know what he didn’t know, did not particularly care, and, to boot, was confident if not serene in his unquestioned certitudes. There was now a fair amount of back-of-the-classroom giggling about who had called Trump what. For Steve Mnuchin and Reince Priebus, he was an “idiot.” For Gary Cohn, he was “dumb as shit.” For H. R. McMaster he was a “dope.” The list went on.

    Tillerson would merely become yet another example of a subordinate who believed that his own abilities could somehow compensate for Trump’s failings.

    Aligned with Tillerson were the three generals, Mattis, McMasters, and Kelly, each seeing themselves as representing maturity, stability, and restraint. And each, of course, was resented by Trump for it. The suggestion that any or all of these men might be more focused and even tempered than Trump himself was cause for sulking and tantrums on the president’s part.

    The daily discussion among senior staffers, those still there and those now gone—all of whom had written off Tillerson’s future in the Trump administration—was how long General Kelly would last as chief of staff. There was something of a virtual office pool, and the joke was that Reince Priebus was likely to be Trump’s longest-serving chief of staff. Kelly’s distaste for the president was open knowledge—in his every word and gesture he condescended to Trump—the president’s distaste for Kelly even more so. It was sport for the president to defy Kelly, who had become the one thing in his life he had never been able to abide: a disapproving and censorious father figure.

    * * *

    But, of course, this was still politics: those who could overcome shame or disbelief—and, despite all Trumpian coarseness and absurdity, suck up to him and humor him—might achieve unique political advantage. As it happened, few could.

    What now existed, even before the end of the president’s first year, was an effective power vacuum. The president, in his failure to move beyond daily chaos, had hardly seized the day. But, as sure as politics, someone would.

    In that sense, the Trumpian and Republican future was already moving beyond this White House. There was Bannon, working from the outside and trying to take over the Trump movement. There was the Republican leadership in Congress, trying to stymie Trumpism—if not slay it. There was John McCain, doing his best to embarrass it. There was the special counsel’s office, pursuing the president and many of those around him.

    * * *

    Now, nine months in, the administration faced the additional problem that it was very hard to hire anyone of stature to replace the senior people who had departed. And the stature of those who remained seemed to be more diminutive by the week.

    …..Kushner and his wife—now largely regarded as a time bomb inside the White House—were spending considerable time on their own defense and battling a sense of mounting paranoia, not least about what members of the senior staff who had already exited the West Wing might now say about them.

    Beyond Donald Trump’s own daily antics, here was the consuming issue of the White House: the ongoing investigation directed by Robert Mueller. The father, the daughter, the son-in-law, his father, the extended family exposure, the prosecutor, the retainers looking to save their own skins, the staffers who Trump had rewarded with the back of his hand—it all threatened, in Bannon’s view, to make Shakespeare look like Dr. Seuss.

    Everyone waited for the dominoes to fall, and to see how the president, in his fury, might react and change the game again.
    * * *

    Steve Bannon was telling people he thought there was a 33.3 percent chance that the Mueller investigation would lead to the impeachment of the president, a 33.3 percent chance that Trump would resign, perhaps in the wake of a threat by the cabinet to act on the Twenty-Fifth Amendment (by which the cabinet can remove the president in the event of his incapacitation), and a 33.3 percent chance that he would limp to the end of his term.

    In any event, there would certainly not be a second term, or even an attempt at one.

    “He’s not going to make it,” said Bannon at the Breitbart Embassy. “He’s lost his stuff.”

    Less volubly, Bannon was telling people something else: he, Steve Bannon, was going to run for president in 2020. The locution, “If I were president . . .” was turning into, “When I am president . . .”

    The top Trump donors from 2016 were in his camp, Bannon claimed: Sheldon Adelson, the Mercers, Bernie Marcus, and Peter Thiel. In short order, and as though he had been preparing for this move for some time, Bannon had left the White House and quickly thrown together a rump campaign organization.

    The heretofore behind-the-scenes Bannon was methodically meeting with every conservative leader in the country—doing his best, as he put it, to “kiss the ass and pay homage to all the gray-beards.” And he was keynoting a list of must-attend conservative events.

    “Why is Steve speaking? I didn’t know he spoke,” the president remarked with puzzlement and rising worry to aides.

    Most of all, Bannon was focused on fielding candidates for 2018. While the president had repeatedly threatened to support primary challenges against his enemies, in the end, with his aggressive head start, it was Bannon who would be leading these challenges. It was Bannon spreading fear in the Republican Party, not Trump. Indeed, Bannon was willing to pick outré if not whacky candidates—including former Staten Island congressman Michael Grimm, who had done a stint in federal prison—to demonstrate, as he had demonstrated with Trump, the scale, artfulness, and menace of Bannon-style politics. Although the Republicans in the 2018 congressional races were looking, according to Bannon’s numbers, at a 15-point deficit, it was Bannon’s belief that the more extreme the right-wing challenge appeared, the more likely the Democrats would field left-wing nutters even less electable than right-wing nutters. The disruption had just begun.

    Trump, in Bannon’s view, was a chapter, or even a detour, in the Trump revolution, which had always been about weaknesses in the two major parties. The Trump presidency—however long it lasted—had created the opening that would provide the true outsiders their opportunity. Trump was just the beginning.

    Standing on the Breitbart steps that October morning, Bannon smiled and said: “It’s going to be wild as shit.”

    The three generals, Mattis, McMasters, and Kelly have *apparently* agreed between themselves there will be “No Military Action” unless the three of them agree.

    Lets hope so.

  24. Wierd:
    https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/jan/08/oprah-winfrey-for-president-analysis

    Even the ABC is now running a competition to see which celebrity would make the best PM!
    I think this whole thing comes down to poverty – the poverty of good political candidates, the poverty of empathetic politicians, the poverty of politicians with spine & integrity, the poverty of a knowledgeable and thoughtful political class and the poverty of choice for decent candidates.
    People look around at what is on offer and cannot see a decent, suitable candidate and so start looking in other places. And so, why not celebrities, who know nothing about geopolitics, education, health, infrastructure, industry or commerce or social justice but have presence (even charisma) and CAN give a good speech, and have a large social media following. Maybe that is all that is required.

    Rebel Wilson for PM anybody?

  25. kevjohnno @ #3017 Tuesday, January 9th, 2018 – 3:23 pm

    Bemused I get that you don’t like P1 but that doesn’t excuse misrepresenting P1’s views.

    Appreciate the sentiment, kevjohnno. But I realized a long time ago that it is pointless engaging with bemused. I only see his posts when they are quoted by others -which is (fortunately) quite rare these days.

  26. dave says: Tuesday, January 9, 2018 at 3:25 pm

    Just finished the F&F book.

    Last extract from the end of the book –

    *****************************************************

    THANK YOU Dave – for your extracts from the F&F book ……. what is your opinion of Trump after your studious reading ???? – and do you think it is a truthful representation of the man – or a pile of biased/made up bullshit ????

  27. dtt
    you do a search of any State in the general vicinity of Russia (or its traditional/cultural sphere of influence) and its relations with Russia and you will see numerous recent good dealings mixed with fractious disputes. Russia are quite able to pat your head at the same time as sticking you in the guts with a stick. And many of these places are happy (needy enough) to lap up the pat and cop the stick.

    It helps that, in many of these States, Putin is dealing with somewhat diffuse and competing authorities (where trade/military/political powers).

  28. Even the ABC is now running a competition to see which celebrity would make the best PM!

    I will email Reese Witherspoon to see if she will move to Australia.

  29. kevjohnno @ #3017 Tuesday, January 9th, 2018 – 3:23 pm

    bemused says:
    Tuesday, January 9, 2018 at 1:56 pm
    …
    Or he may have talked to P1!
    BURN MORE GAS!!!
    ———————————–
    Bemused I get that you don’t like P1 but that doesn’t excuse misrepresenting P1’s views.
    P1 has consistently said that gas should burned instead of coal and only as a transitional solution. P1 believes that if we wait for renewables to take over from coal it will be too late to stop extreme damage from CO2 emissions. Others dispute that and expect renewables to replace coal quickly. Let’s hope they are right but whatever the case it is totally false to imply that P1 is advocating an increase in the use of fossil fuels.

    P1 has a quite irrational insistence that it makes more sense to invest in burning gas rather than allocating scarce investment funds to renewables.

    Burning gas produces approx 50% of the CO2 produced by burning coal. In addition leakages from production release greenhouse gasses, principally methane, further reducing the advantage.
    Renewables produce zero emissions in operation.

    So yes, I mock P1s obsession with burning gas and wasting resources that should go to investment in renewables.

    Apart from that I share the belief of quite a few on PB that P1 has behaved in a fairly obnoxious fashion.

  30. I think this whole thing comes down to poverty – the poverty of good political candidates, the poverty of empathetic politicians, the poverty of politicians with spine & integrity, the poverty of a knowledgeable and thoughtful political class and the poverty of choice for decent candidates.

    Well those are the ones the people elected. Were they the best choice? If not then we have to ask ourselves why the best choice was rejected.

  32. dtt

    Ergogan has visited France and his foreign minister Germany in the last week.

    Lots of coverage of this in the international press.

  33. phoenixRED (Block)
    Tuesday, January 9th, 2018 – 3:33 pm
    Comment #3023

    THANK YOU Dave – for your extracts from the F&F book ……. what is your opinion of Trump after your studious reading ???? – and do you think it is a truthful representation of the man – or a pile of biased/made up bullshit ????

    Trump comes across to me as he always has – disfunctional and barely a human being. A liar, a con man who if I knew personally I would avoid.

    I can barely listen to him and mute the TV whenever quick enough, but US voters put him there. Up to them.

    Those same voters have a chance to change things at the mid terms, but how can one have any confidence? Again its their country.

    As for Wolffe who knows how much is true, how much embellished etc, but he ‘seems’ to have a lot of detail which should be able to be rebutted – but trump doesn’t do ‘detail’ let alone structured argument.

    Fake news, fake book just doesn’t cut it IMO. Our ABC carried a clip the other night with a US MSM reporter confirming Wolffe had a WH access pass which would have got him into ‘all’ ? areas.

    Wolffe paints Bannon as reasonably sane – one of the more sane people in the administration and who seemed to be getting most calls right in the 9 months or so he was on deck. Bannon told trump what would happen if he sacked Comey, what would happen when he told Mueller (or a representative etc) that ‘the family’s business affairs’ were “off limits”.

    Prehaps a Dubya quote finally, who was on the Dais on inauguration day.

    Referring to trump’s speech which was written by Bannon, Dubya said “That was some Weird Shit”.

    Sums it up pretty well IMO.

    🙂

  35. dave says: Tuesday, January 9, 2018 at 3:54 pm

    Fake news, fake book just doesn’t cut it IMO. Our ABC carried a clip the other night with a US MSM reporter confirming Wolffe had a WH access pass which would have got him into ‘all’ ? areas.

    Referring to trump’s speech which was written by Bannon, Dubya said “That was some Weird Shit”.

    Sums it up pretty well IMO.

    ************************************************

    A DOUBLE THANK YOU, Dave – you have a hidden talent for being a book reviewer !!!!

    His former adviser Sebastian Gorka dropped Trump in the shit by contradicting Trump’s insistence last week that he “authorized Zero access to White House (actually turned him down many times) for author of phony book

    Gorka – “When I met Michael Wolff in Reince Priebus’ office, where he was waiting to talk to Steve Bannon, and after I had been told to also speak to him for his book.

    https://www.rawstory.com/2018/01/you-had-one-job-internet-roasts-ex-trump-advisers-hilariously-botched-attempt-to-discredit-wolff/

  36. And why should anyone decent run if you’re just going to say they’re just another lemon and cynically complain about them?

  37. Simon Katich

    I think the Turkish doubters worked on the hypothesis that the xtian Crusaders would not welcome the islamic Ottomans back into Europe.

  40. “Apart from that I share the belief of quite a few on PB that P1 has behaved in a fairly obnoxious fashion.”

    I seem to remember disagreeing with some posters who said similar things about you bemused 🙂

    P1 is no angel and has certainly had a go at you over the years but in this debate at least, P1’s obnoxious fashion seems to consist of just disagreeing. I haven’t been involved with the debate but have followed it with interest. P1 has copped a lot of invective but has kept a measured tone in most replies. I know this in itself can be infuriating to some.

  41. BB, psyclaw, pRED – i would have to go looking for the references, but when there was all the reporting about Manafort Papadopoulos etc i seem to recall reports that no attorneys were allowed. pRED may be right in that it is just in front of the Grand Jury that this rule holds and not the earlier interrogation itself.

  44. booleanbach says: Tuesday, January 9, 2018 at 4:14 pm

    BB, psyclaw, pRED – i would have to go looking for the references, but when there was all the reporting about Manafort Papadopoulos etc i seem to recall reports that no attorneys were allowed. pRED may be right in that it is just in front of the Grand Jury that this rule holds and not the earlier interrogation itself.

    **************************************************

    I am not sure booleanbach – but I saw this comment

    Manafort, who ran Trump’s 2016 campaign for several months, and Gates pleaded not guilty in October to a 12-count indictment by a federal grand jury.

    They face charges including conspiracy to launder money, conspiracy against the United States and failing to register as foreign agents of Ukraine’s former pro-Russian government.

    So maybe at that stage ???? – they did not have legal representation – till after this indictment was granted

    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-manafort/ex-trump-campaign-aide-manafort-in-11-65-million-bail-deal-lawyer-idUSKBN1DU2UL

  45. Ctari

    I have now read that article in full and it seems as if Europe is about to finally say no to Turkey which will force them into an alliance with Russia. I wonder what the US position is (assuming they have one.

    Will Turkey leave NATO?

  46. kevjohnno @ #3037 Tuesday, January 9th, 2018 – 4:10 pm

    “Apart from that I share the belief of quite a few on PB that P1 has behaved in a fairly obnoxious fashion.”

    I seem to remember disagreeing with some posters who said similar things about you bemused 🙂

    P1 is no angel and has certainly had a go at you over the years but in this debate at least, P1’s obnoxious fashion seems to consist of just disagreeing. I haven’t been involved with the debate but have followed it with interest. P1 has copped a lot of invective but has kept a measured tone in most replies. I know this in itself can be infuriating to some.

    Yes, I recall your kind words which were much appreciated both at the time and ever since.

    I think you will find my tone is always fairly measured but I do toss the ‘burn more gas’ taunt at P1 occasionally as I cannot see how her position amounts to much more than that.

    If it were possible to magically start burning gas where we now burn coal, I would agree that was a worthwhile endeavour. But it would take massive investment, that is better spent on renewables (including storage).

    Coal power plants will continue to operate until they reach end of life e.g. Hazelwood, Liddell, or their production costs exceed those of alternatives. Building and then paying for gas to run a plant is just not in the race other than perhaps for peaking. Renewables are already cheaper.

  47. it seems as if Europe is about to finally say no to Turkey

    The gist of the meeting wrt EU membership is ‘not yet’. Or, like what CTar1 was saying, not whilst Erdoğan keeps riding around on his despot, Islamist dog whistling horse.

  48. dtt- As long as Erdogan keeps having dummy spits like this Turkey’s value to any alliance, trade or military, is very questionable:

    Turkey does not need Europe. Europe is the one that is in need (of Turkey).

    He just continues to s#it in his own nest.

  49. Simon Katich @ #3044 Tuesday, January 9th, 2018 – 4:56 pm

    it seems as if Europe is about to finally say no to Turkey

    The gist of the meeting wrt EU membership is ‘not yet’. Or, like what CTar1 was saying, not whilst Erdoğan keeps riding around on his despot, Islamist dog whistling horse.

    Am I alone in suspecting the ‘coup’ was really a ‘fake coup’ to provide an excuse for what Erdogan has done since?

  50. Facing the prospect of more by-elections from Parliament’s dual citizenship saga, the Australian Electoral Commission has warned it needs a significant funding boost to upgrade ageing IT systems and improve election-day voting procedures.

    Maintaining a strict zero tolerance for error approach to running federal polls, the commission said any move by foreign powers to interfere in Australian democracy represents a “potential catastrophic risk”, akin to Russia’s meddling in the United States 2016 presidential race.

    The commission has told Parliament’s Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters an annual funding boost of $16 million secured from the former Labor government in 2011 had been completely eroded by efficiency cuts, coming as elections grew larger and more complex.

    http://www.afr.com/news/australian-electoral-commission-facing-funding-and-security-challenges-20180108-h0ff2z

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