Marty_d

Yes, Albo is between a rock and a hard place on this. With an election coming up and 99% of Australia thinking Trump is a true cock-walloper, internally it would probably do him good to be a bit more vocal - but of course he can't risk the adverse effects to the country should the giant orange baby spit the dummy.

I think it spells the end of NATO. My guess is that European leaders will see the need to step up and support Ukraine without the US. They are facing the risk from Russia, not the US. It would be farcical if Russia and the USA aligned against a Ukraine supported by the EU. I'd like to see the response from the Joint Chiefs when their Wanker-in-Chief ordered them to draw up battle plans to support Russia against the EU.

F*ck me. If one country invading another one for absolutely no good reason isn't "aggression", what is? Maybe it wasn't an invasion? Maybe 300,000 Russian troops were just out training and got lost?

You truly are off the rails. Labor has been lurching to the right in a misguided attempt to get coalition votes by acting just like them. Look at their treatment of asylum seekers (which you must love). Still sending them anywhere else but here. Yet somehow you see them as far left. Face it mate - the vast majority of bad policy comes from the right wing. You may want to live in a fascist state or a kleptocracy, both of which the USA is becoming, but I don't.

Oh, he's quite clear about that - he doesn't read books.

That's classic Trump. Real dictators are wonderful people, while the people they invaded are the bad guys. He's raised lying to an art form.

I can understand that having billions would put you out of touch with the ordinary person, but for a lot it seems to drive them batshit. Clive and Gina have come out with some truly insane stuff. Mike Cannon-Brooks seems ok at the moment but give him time.

What an idiot.

I certainly can't imagine a "fair" Justice department if it's staffed with Trump arse-lickers.

Well according to the news today, the Trump administration has said that Musk is only an "advisor" and is not in charge of DOGE. So who IS in charge of DOGE, and why has DOGE hired Musk's 19yo gophers? Apparently the head of the US Social Security department, which makes payments to millions of people, has resigned after resisting DOGE efforts to access sensitive data.

"Confusion of internationalism and wokism"... What are you smoking?

Simple people like simple solutions. But simple solutions don't work for complex problems. We've been dumbed down.

The problem is that the people have even less idea of what the money is needed for than the parliament. So if you give the population at large the ability to block spending you'll get the same awful outcomes currently happening in the US where idiots without a clue are mindlessly breaking stuff in the mantra of "save money". (For who? Billionaires)

Even with compulsory voting it's hard enough to get people to vote properly (ie not make a donkey vote either deliberately or accidentally). Without political parties and people not spending the time to understand the candidates, how the hell are they going to make their vote go even vaguely in the direction they want? At the risk of opening a huge can of worms, maybe we need a better way of voting. Candidates clearly mark where they stand on a range of current and likely future issues (and are held publicly to account if they then vote differently without sufficient reason). The vote is also simply a questionnaire about where the voter stands on the same range of issues. Then your vote is assigned to the candidate whose profile most accurately reflects your choices.

Vance is a rabble-rousing dickhead. He's been courting the AfD in Germany which is widely regarded as a dangerous far right party. Obviously a man of consistent principles, he used to say Trump was America's Hitler, but now he's a full on supporter.

I'm finding the cool spell refreshing. However my wife still wants us to go snorkeling this morning so I'm not particularly looking forward to that...

Careful, if the weather's too cold his plums might drop off too.

Yeah I think she was the main "parent" to both her 16yo and the 16yo's baby. Besides working full time. Wouldn't have been fun.

Cars are left hand drive in the US and France. I just assumed they picked that when cockpits became wide enough for side by side seating for that reason.

I know. Sounds funnier this way though.

Hen's vaginas, Nev.

It would be about the only balanced thing in his life.

You are starting to talk like him. Are you actually a very intelligent lefty who is playing a long ironic joke?

True, I worked with one who was 32.

I now have a mental image of little old ladies in police uniform.