We’re not likely to see anything on the polling front this week, but there is other electoral news to relate following recent parliamentary vacancies and party defections:
• The Sydney Morning Herald reports preselection nominees to fill the late Jim Molan’s New South Wales Liberal Senate vacancy are likely to include Andrew Constance, former state minister and unsuccessful candidate for Gilmore, and Fiona Scott, who held the lower house seat of Lindsay from 2013 to 2016, together with reported front-runner Dallas McInerney, chief executive of Catholic Schools NSW. Constance and Scott are associated with the moderation faction, while McInerney is a conservative. Mary-Lou Jarvis, lawyer and Woollahra councillor, has also written to senior party figures staking her claim as a qualified woman and the third candidate on the ticket at last year’s election, while also criticising the party’s apparent intention to leave the position vacant until after the state election on March 25.
• The Australian reports the Liberal hierarchy’s hopes of fielding a female candidate for the Aston by-election stand to be complicated by the entry into the field of Emanuele Cicchiello, who is rated a strong chance by sources close to eastern suburbs conservative powerbroker and Deakin MP Michael Sukkar. However, other unidentified sources, “including some with strong Right faction allegiances”, rubbished the notion. Cicchiello is deputy prinicipal of Lighthouse Christian College, a former mayor of Knox and contestant for the seat of Bruce in 2013 and numerous preselections since. All other noted contenders have been women with the exception of Andrew Asten, a former staffer to Alan Tudge, who has since ruled himself out. Anthony Galloway of the Age/Herald reports the matter could be determined by a plebisicite of local members, which have lately proved resistant to female candidates, if the by-election is set for a date that allows sufficient time.
• Victorian Senator Lidia Thorpe’s resignation from the Greens last week marked the first change to party representation in parliament since the election, with the Senate numbers now at Coalition 32, Labor 26, Greens 11, One Nation two, Jacqui Lambie Network two, United Australia Party one and two independents, namely Thorpe and David Pocock. This leaves the government needing two extra votes when the Greens are on board and the Coalition are not, where formerly it needed only one. Thorpe was elected to a six-year term at the election last May, which will extend to the middle of 2028.
Now for today’s update on Russian soldiers killed in the last 24 hours while invading and occupying Ukrainian territory and assisting in their country’s genocide of Ukrainians:
Russians KIA Feb 18: 590
Total Russians KIA: 142,860
Daily average Russians KIA: 396.8
Source: General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/02/19/7389982/
Given what the Russian Army is up to in Ukraine, I for one am very pleased there are 590 fewer of them there doing this now than there were 24 hours ago.
“ Cummins needs to go.
He was a poor choice from the beginning.”
___
Lols Taylormerde.
Only right wing fuckwits deserve to be captain of the Australian test cricket team (mens) in your books, am I right?
of course it is our batting line up – containing ALL of the possible alternative test captains – that repeatedly fail in India, not the bowlers. … so there is that.
98.6
You mean ‘Drone’ Obama ? The chap who picked ‘Wall St’ over ‘Main St’ ?A choice that had nothing to do with his ‘Bankster’ friends and advisors eh ?
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/12/president-obamas-weak-defense-of-his-record-on-drone-strikes/511454/
The Untouchables: How the Obama administration protected Wall Street from prosecutions.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jan/23/untouchables-wall-street-prosecutions-obama
Obama’s hypocrisy: He said blame Wall Street, not food stamps — but he bailed out bankers and cut help for the hungry
https://www.salon.com/2016/01/13/obamas_hypocrisy_he_said_blame_wall_street_not_food_stamps_but_he_bailed_out_bankers_and_cut_help_for_the_hungry/
Enough Already says:
Given what the Russian Army is up to in Ukraine, I for one am very pleased there are 590 fewer of them there doing this now than there were 24 hours ago.
____________
We get it. As a natural contrarian, the more you talk about it the more sympathetic I am becoming towards Putin.
Steve777 at 7.22 pm
Yes, Bush did “un-sign” the Rome statute of the Court in 2002, after Clinton signed it only so the US could participate in its conferences.
However, the issue is more complicated. Almost all US allies were by then members of the Court, or soon after, including Japan. Some key provisions of the Rome statute were formulated by US allies in East Asia, particularly South Korea and Singapore.
So US policy was out of step with the Like-Minded Group of largely Western countries that, together with Latin America, were the main supporters of the Court. The US chose to be above international law, thereby setting the miserably low standard that Putin has followed.
Could US policy have been different? Perhaps not, given the role of the Republicans in Congress, but Clinton never made an effort to argue for the US to support the Court. Of all people he should have, because he was responsible for the Security Council’s dreadful refusal to intervene in Rwanda. That caused many more deaths than Putin has in Ukraine.
nath at 9.48 pm
You’ve descended there to Dubya illogic – “you’re with us or against us”.
It’s like he’s talking to people who are indecisive about which side they support. No one here supports Russia except for possibly one or two imbeciles.
Enough Already at 9.34 pm
“Any Russian who flees Russia to avoid conscription should be welcomed with open arms.” Correct, but unfortunately that is far from the reality, especially in Western countries.
I know of a real case of a Russian mining engineer, now in Turkey. He is desperate to avoid being sent back to Russia, because he would be conscripted and sent to fight his Ukrainian cousins defending their land.
What is the policy of Western governments, including Australia’s? It is not to welcome such people. It should be, if they have needed skills.
C@t replied to Pueo:-
Thank you, Pueo.
I’m tossing up whether to buy tickets for The Smashing Pumpkins/ Jane’s Addiction concerts.
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Have bought tickets to see Gary Puckett and the Union Gap at Twin Towns.
Ah the 60s, still the best pop of all time.
‘Lady Willpower’ one of my many favourites from that era.
I thought ‘its now or never’ if I’m ever going to see them.
Mavis @ Sunday, February 19, 2023 at 9:42 pm:
“I feel for Russian soldiers as much as I do for the otherside.”
============
How can you? None of their victims killed, raped, tortured or abducted any Russian civilians just minding their own business in their own homes. I find such an attempt at “both-sides”ism grotesque, to put it charitably.
Jimmy Carter RIP.
Ok can that. Someone on twitter jumped the gun. My apologies.
”Gary Puckett and the Union Gap”
Now that’s a name I haven’t seen or heard in a l-o-o-o-ng time.
Re Aqualung – sadly, I think we’ll be hearing that soon.
nath @ Sunday, February 19, 2023 at 9:52 pm:
“It’s like he’s talking to people who are indecisive about which side they support. No one here supports Russia except for possibly one or two imbeciles.”
=============
No. I am doing what I can to help Ukraine’s plight remain heard above the noise of other things. I think it is the submersion of Ukraine’s needs in public discourse which Putin is most counting on to sap the West’s ongoing resolve to support Ukraine’s resistance against his genocidal campaign to wipe them from the face of the earth as an independent people.
Dr Doolittle
Thanks for your earlier comments on subs. I take your point re desire for technology driving acquisitions in the absence of policy/strategy.
Our “strategy” seems to be to work as closely as possible with the USN, and acquire whatever kit is needed to do that.
From the perspective of the sorts of defense objectives outlined in White’s book, once you realise that long range is essential for a submarine to cover the vast expanses of Australia’s maritime patrol area, nuclear submarines do make strategic sense. The navy has argued for them since the 1980s.
On that basis though (range and availability) all three SSN options (US, UK, French) would suffice. Then as per White’s other criteria, the preference should have gone to whichever design was most affordable, able to be built in sufficient numbers to be effective, and sustainably maintained locally.
In terms of compatibility with the USN the US design would be the first preference and the French SSN last preference. In terms of affordability and local sustainability the French SSN would be the first preference and the US SSN last. The UK SSN option would be ranked middle on both criteria.
Dr Doolittle:
Sunday, February 19, 2023 at 9:48 pm
Please stop being so intellectual. I occasionally yearn for the wit of GG until he got nasty, as the night progressed, though I was agin his defence of Pell, as was/is yabba, and now Dr John.
Just watched insiders.
Bandt is a diminished figure. No cut through. This is not the ‘just google it’ man.
Dr Doolittle @ Sunday, February 19, 2023 at 9:57 pm:
“I know of a real case of a Russian mining engineer, now in Turkey. He is desperate to avoid being sent back to Russia, because he would be conscripted and sent to fight his Ukrainian cousins defending their land.”
==============
Dr D, as far as I am concerned, people such as him should be welcomed here they same way we welcomed Chinese student protesters after Tiananmen Square.
Yes Steve777. There wasn’t a timestamp so I figured it had just happened given the announcement this morning. There’s now a timestamp. 7 hours ago. Mea culpa
98.6, Gary Puckett’s ‘Young Girl’ would be a pensioner now.
nath @ Sunday, February 19, 2023 at 9:48 pm:
“We get it. As a natural contrarian, the more you talk about it the more sympathetic I am becoming towards Putin.”
============
Nath, it is either incredibly superficial of you to think that way, or you are being disingenuous.
“President Zelensky has welcomed indications he has received in the last few days that attempts will be made to hold Russia legally accountable for crimes committed in Ukraine.
Speaking in his nightly address, he said he had received “strong signals from our partners, and concrete agreements regarding the inevitability of holding Russia accountable for aggression, for terror against Ukraine and its people”.
“Every Russian attack on … every corner of our state will have concrete legal consequences for the terrorist state. We have to restore justice,” he said.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2023/feb/19/russia-ukraine-war-live-us-and-moscow-row-over-crimes-against-humanity-claims
Hear, hear! Putin and his cronies need to have it rammed home to them that they are only making it worse for themselves, the more atrocities their forces commit in Ukraine. I also think it needs to be rammed home to those in the Russian army that they are also making it worse for themselves if they keep personally committing those atrocities.
Oliver Suttonsays:
Sunday, February 19, 2023 at 10:16 pm
98.6, Gary Puckett’s ‘Young Girl’ would be a pensioner now.
——————
and he would be arrested these days
Garry Puckett is now 80, the “young girl” would be in her late 60s.
“Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki believes that everything in Europe must now be changed and a new accelerated process of Ukraine’s accession to the EU must be created.
“We cannot compare what is happening in Ukraine with a ‘normal or almost normal accession process.’ We must think outside the box. We are living at a turning point in history, we must change almost everything in Europe and therefore we must create a new process for Ukraine. Fast track is synonymous to this,” he said at the Munich Security Conference on Friday, Feb. 17.”
https://www.kyivpost.com/post/13245
Another “hear, hear!”
Ukraine is European. The Maidan protesters in 2013-14, and their supporters across the country, understood this and were willing to die to achieve this in law as much as it is in geographical fact. How many more Ukrainians have to die before their dream is realised?
Aqualung says:
Sunday, February 19, 2023 at 10:05 pm
Jimmy Carter RIP.
中华人民共和国
Has he passed? I read he was going home for hospice care.
Carter was the first US President I really was aware of. The Old Man said he would win in 1980 and remember being disappointed Regan won.
Carter seems like a very nice chap. Putting time in post office to build homes for those not having them. He flew to Three Mile Island during the meltdown and took charge having been a Nuclear Tech in the Navy. Democratic President and Peanut Grower from Georgia – now a State with two Democratic Senators.
Is Nath a Putin stooge?
Enough Already:
Sunday, February 19, 2023 at 10:18 pm
Please get off your hobby horse: 99.9% are on your side. Please accordingly take that for granted. In short, one doesn’t need to be daily updated with the fatalities on either side. Pepys.
I thought the bowlers bowled well in the India test. Batters let the team town.
Steve777:
Sunday, February 19, 2023 at 10:31 pm
One more for the road. I don’t know about nath but I think you’re a little theck (sic).
I take it Jimmy Carter is close to death. Best wishes to him.
I was only in high school when Carter was POTUS but learnt more about him later. He faced a tough draw in office with things like the Tehran US embassy siege illustrating the USAs post Vietnam weakness.
I had an indirect contact with his post office decency. In the 1990s I went trekking in Nepal. In Solo Khumbu Carter’s signed photo was on the wall of the lodge I stayed in. He had visited on a holiday. After he made efforts to get education and health programs organised for the locals with US assistance. No publicity or political capital sought in return. They loved him.
Scott says on Sunday, February 19, 2023 at 8:24 am
The longer Anthony Albanese, Bill Shorten,Daniel Andrews, Mark McGowan and other Labor members are in government , the more annoyed the corrupt lib/nats and their propaganda media units will get.
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No doubt like MOST of the rest of you, I read and watch everything that the propaganda Tory media units put out and as I’m doing it I say to them SUFFER BABY SUFFER because you’re got 2 more years to go with Albo, 4 more with Dan, 3 more with Peter M, almost 2 more with PAP, 3 with Marcus and very soon 4 more full years with Chris.
(pity about that other place, what’s it called, with a population of SFA)
Upnorth @ #2527 Sunday, February 19th, 2023 – 10:31 pm
Sorry Upnorth. The Twitter post was missing the timestamp initially and it thought that the hospice post meant he’d died.
I remember when he was elected. Nothing really went right for him culminating in the Iranian hostage siege.
And that of course led to Ronnie Raygun.
He certainly lived up to his convictions and the Habitat for Humanity support is a wonderful legacy.
I can’t see the orange turd being remembered for anything but representing a sewer.
Aqualung says:
Sunday, February 19, 2023 at 11:02
中华人民共和国
Thanks Cobber. Agree 100%.
Enough Alreadysays:
Sunday, February 19, 2023 at 10:31 pm
“Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki believes that everything in Europe must now be changed and a new accelerated process of Ukraine’s accession to the EU must be created.
“We cannot compare what is happening in Ukraine with a ‘normal or almost normal accession process.’ We must think outside the box. We are living at a turning point in history, we must change almost everything in Europe and therefore we must create a new process for Ukraine. Fast track is synonymous to this,” he said at the Munich Security Conference on Friday, Feb. 17.”
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Yet again and still we are witnessing the reshaping of Europe, with borders that have been in place for centuries changing before our very eyes and on our TV screens in real time.
For 65,000 years aboriginals in Australia had none of those worries, till January 1778, when they claim they were invaded by a foreign power.
245 years later they ask for a VOICE to parliament so they can have a say in how their country is governed.
Looking back even in the last few decades to Europe and how promises, peace treaties and covenants have been broken, what chance do the aboriginals have in restoring what is rightfully theirs.
While the Polish PM said this about Europe “We are living at a turning point in history”, the same can be said for us here in Australia and that’s why we must vote YES to the VOICE referendum.
“Given what the Russian Army is up to in Ukraine, I for one am very pleased there are 590 fewer of them there doing this now than there were 24 hours ago.”
Celebrating the deaths, many of whom would be very unwilling conscripts, is all things considers a very Putin world view.
It takes a particularly sick and disgusting person to rejoice in the deaths of other humans.
Dulce et Decorum est
Jimmy Carter was a religious man when he said this “I’ve looked on many women with lust. I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times. God knows I will do this and he forgives me”.
OK, so he is no different to JFK and Bill Clinton except their adulterous lust was sated outside of the heart.
Like Jimmy, both JFK and Bill would say God knew they would do this and forgive them.
I also think Hillary knew Bill would do it and she forgave him as well.
And it is well known that Jackie knew about Marilyn Monroe.
What really happened under, or on, that White House Oval Office Resolute desk?
I trust you’ll not go too mental:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4avjWXsEYZI
Mavissays:
Monday, February 20, 2023 at 12:31 am
I trust you’ll not go too mental:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4avjWXsEYZI
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Never had much to do with opera except when my 9 year old daughter got a part in Opera QLDs performance of Eugene Onegin at QPAC many years ago.
I think it was her first on stage paid performance.
As we had to escort her there we watched the opera many times usually from seats at the back that were empty. But I was amazed as to the packed houses that opera could attract.
I noticed in her early photos Joan’s teeth are different from her later photos. Had me thinking would false teeth or a removable plate have affected her beautiful voice.
Obviously not!
south @ #2518 Sunday, February 19th, 2023 – 10:13 pm
I saw a bit of it again and the thing that struck me was that Bandt just kept throwing out these statistics as if they were gospel, in order to boost his case. But he never said where they came from?
Some men just don’t get it:
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/transport-minister-eyes-liberal-upper-house-spot-after-poulos-dumping-20230219-p5cloz.html
Even the use of the term, ‘spear thrower’, suggests he sees himself as some kind of cave man warrior. 🙄
This is pretty good from Steve Schmidt:
This is a fantastic article on Putin and how he has transformed Russia via the war with Ukraine. I have unlocked it for you to read for free. The man really is putrid:
https://wapo.st/3KCirZN
C@t, even as the flagrant fabrications of the Fox ‘lie factory’ are exposed, the Republican mad dogs keep on returning to their vomit:
“The election conspiracist Kristina Karamo, overwhelmingly defeated last year in her bid to become Michigan secretary of state, was chosen on Saturday to lead the state Republican party for the next two years.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/19/election-denier-michigan-republican-party-kristina-karamo-trump
Oliver Sutton,
Like Putin, Xi, and Dutton and the Coalition, they are circling the plughole. They are old men attempting to perpetuate the old ways. The world is changing and they are not. So they are attempting to force the perpetuation of their world by brute force. But time and tide are not in their favour. However, we still have to work hard to keep it that way.
Oh, and some women who are along for the ride. 😐
More MAGA madness:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-gops-2022-midterm-losers-are-looking-to-make-a-comeback
The cricket Test may have finished early, but there’s plenty more gripping viewing to hold our attention through this week, and beyond:
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/feb/20/robodebt-royal-commission-the-questions-that-remain-as-inquirys-final-public-hearings-begin
Oh, and for the cricket tragics, the Women’s T20 World Cup continues.
Watching England vs India on the weekend, a question came to mind: is England the first international cricket team to field a married couple?
The Sciver-Brunts — Nat and Kat — were very much part of the action.