We are constantly learning about yet another mass shooting in the US. However, these tragic events have recently been occurring with such rapidity it can be difficult to keep track. As a result, Aussies have largely stopped paying much attention.

But I am not implying this is callous – or even unusual. Precisely the reverse. It is an entirely understandable reaction. We are all constantly watching ‘goodies’ and ‘baddies’ waving guns about on our tele, so it is disturbingly easy to push all of these ‘stories’ about mass shootings and the proliferation of guns into this same frame of reference. I do it all the time.

I read an awful lot of American newspapers. Yet even so, I normally just ‘blip’ over the many local ‘crime’ stories about gun crime and mass shootings as they are simply too disheartening. But sometimes, when the debate regarding the regulation of firearms bleeds into the political press and election coverage, it becomes a little difficult to ignore the topic. Hence this article.

But I am not writing about gun crime in the US per se. The ultimate aim of this short muse is to consider how discussion of this matter – as well as many others – has now drifted into the realm of the absurd, and why and how this is dangerous. But one thing at a time.

This is initially a story about the new emergency order that the Democratic Governor of New Mexico, Michelle Lujan Grisham, recently issued. An emergency health-order that suspends the right to carry firearms in public, in and around Albuquerque, which is the state’s largest city.

The Governor explained that she had issued the order in response to a recent spate of shootings, including a suspected road rage incident outside a minor league baseball stadium that killed an 11-year-old girl standing on the sidewalk and critically wounded another in a vehicle; a 5-year-old girl fatally shot as she slept in a motor home; and the murder of a13-year-old girl, by a14-year-old boy, with his father’s gun.

Before considering the response to the issuance of this order, it is helpful to closely examine the claims being made by the Governor. Certainly, these tragic murders are horrific. But does the current situation warrant such an intervention? I went looking for a bit of context.

Albuquerque is not a large city, especially by American standards. With a population of about six hundred thousand it is comparable in size to Newcastle (if you add the Maitland district). Also, while Albuquerque is a more dangerous place to live than is commonplace in the USA, the same is also true for Newcastle. Over the last two years, Newcastle has generated a murder rate that is five times the average for the rest of NSW. In total, there were five murders in the Newcastle district in 2021, while in the preceding year there were four.

These statistics have generated concern but nevertheless, Australians are not generally too worried about getting shot. Even those living in Newcastle. And when the stats are interrogated, this seems a perfectly rational response. The total number of murders in Australia has been in the range of 300 to 350 per year (for the whole country) for the last two decades, with guns being involved in only about 21% of these homicide incidents.

Then there is the situation in the similarly sized city of Albuquerque. In recent years there has been a recent surge in homicides all across the USA. While arrests for most forms of criminal activity have either been static or falling, instances of murder by firearm have become almost commonplace most towns and cities across the USA. Albuquerque is emblematic of this trend.

Just like the rest of the country, Albuquerque has also been experiencing a murder by firearm ‘surge’. So, as the Wall Street Journal observes:

Despite the largest single-year increase in homicides on record, the overall violent crime rate in [in Albuquerque, in] 2020 remains relatively low by historical standards.

In fact, Albuquerque police records indicate that in 2023 alone, there have already been 73 homicide cases opened, involving 77 victims. Moreover, 83% of these murders involved the use of a firearm. This indicates a murder by firearm rate that is at least fifteen times that of Newcastle.

Consequently, it is evident that the USA is, oddly, both the most rigorously policed country on the earth, as well as being very near the head of the pack in the both the rate of gun ownership and death by gunshot. Yet while any other relatively unbiased observer would thus likely conclude that there is – more than likely – at least some connection between these factors, that does not seem to be the case in much of the commentary in the US. The New Mexico Governor certainly makes such a connection. Additionally, I would suggest that any reasonable observer would likely deem her response as being modest.

The order issued by the New Mexico Governor is only for thirty days, and only applies to carrying weapons in public in Alburquerque. Nothing else. Yet the instant response was dozens of highly armed citizen protestors, marching into the Civic Plaza in the centre of the city, carrying high powered rifles. All before the New Mexico Attorney General, Raúl Torrez, publicly declared that he would not uphold the governor’s public health order, or defend it in court, thus immediately sparking a political war within the local Democratic administration.

The order instantly provoked both partisan and interparty criticism. Some of it ludicrously passionate. Some of it just ludicrous. Mostly it has become a story about the traducing of constitutionally enshrined rights by an overzealous public officer. One picture (published by the Associated Press) features April Polichette, at a ‘Second Amendment Protest’ meeting in Albuquerque, holding a sign that asserts boldly that: ‘The right to bear arms is what keeps us all safe.’

Which brings me to the crux of this missive. Which is that it is evident that much of the media coverage in the US, of a great many topics, is passionately unhinged. I suggest that we have to guard against a similar situation developing in Australia.

For example, the carrying of firearms in public is a constitutionally protected ‘right’ that was invented by right wing activists during the nineteen sixties. All of the jurisprudence up to this date indicates that the second amendment is (as the plain text of the amendment indicates) all about ensuring that the various US states could have their own little armies if they wanted them. Not a great idea, but certainly not as stupid as the idea of allowing every individual citizen to carry around an assault rifle in public. Thus, when I comment that this ‘right’ to carry arms was invented in the modern age, I am simply stating a fact. It does not exist before nineteen sixty. The second amendment does not say that everyone should have the right to carry a gun. The writers of the amendment did not intend for the second amendment to mean that everyone could carry a gun. Nor did those who voted for the amendment ever think that this might be the case.

But more significantly, just because the Supreme Court decided in District of Columbia v. Heller, to entirely renovate the interpretation of this amendment, does not thereby mean that the whole of American history and jurisprudence has also been altered. Nor does it mean that reality has been suddenly re-ordered in accord with right wing ideology.

Yet all of the responses to the order by the New Mexico Governor, from both the right and the left of the political spectrum in the US, has nevertheless been focused on the removal of these ‘rights. The whole basis of the discussion thus implicitly cedes to the right wing the ability to rewrite the past and be shielded from scrutiny. Consequently, I suggest that any discussion of gun control in the US should always commence with a simple acknowledgment that these ‘rights’ are manufactured, for political purposes. That the Federalist Society first stacked the US Supreme Court with partisan political figures and these individuals changed the interpretation of the second amendment to suit their personal political predilections. Yet even though all of this is undoubtedly the case, going by the coverage that is usually provided this issue in the US, the right wing have largely succeeded in rewriting history. Orwell would be astounded at their audacity, yet it seems to work.

In all the US press the proposition that the second amendment protects the right to own and carry a gun – any sort of gun – in public, is now simply assumed. Even though, throughout the ‘wild west’, virtually every town had a law that strictly prohibited the carrying of arms in public. So, all that the Governor of New Mexico is proposing is a return to the status quo circa 1880. A return to the good old days where a similar, quite commonsensical measure was ruthlessly enforced, for the good of everyone in town. (Those paying attention will likely understand that just such a town ordinance is at the centre of the story in the Shootout at the OK Corral.)

Yet the wholesale rewriting of American history and jurisprudence is rarely even mentioned in the mainstream media in the US. Or the takeover of the Supreme Court by a partisan group of religiously inspired nutters. Which brings me to the moral of this essay, which is that we need to reign in the more egregious, ideologically inspired claptrap that often passes for commentary in our media, in Australia; before it is too late to even engage in such a discussion.

The toxic impact of a purely partisan ‘mainstream’ media environment is made manifest in America. It should stand as a warning. The American press is now cut into two separate parts and a similar chasm is developing in our country. It will result in a situation here, just like in the US, where all of the press is chock-full of partisan ideologues, lecturing their partisan audience, on exactly why they should be outraged and regarding exactly how outraged they should be (ie, always very very outraged).

We are already seeing a similar disconnect between reality and the media narrative in some parts of the media in Australia, especially regarding topics such as the upcoming Voice referendum. For example, Marcia Langton labelling much of the recent coverage of the Voice debate in Australia as being racist is nothing more than stating the bleeding obvious (see The Great Australian Gaslighting). Yet instantly, the entire media pack in our country have descended on poor Marcia. Just for describing reality.

I do not want to pretend that the mass media has been better in the past. But I am asserting that we can, and should, aspire to a more nuanced and fact-based media narrative. More importantly, I suggest that we collectively need to revisit the idea that press agencies in our country are expected to be politically aligned. It seems to counter to the public interest that the many different press agencies in the west have decided to not only cover politics but also become politically active.

That these aspirations seem to be naive simply serves to illustrate how low our common expectations have sunk. But unless we begin to look at the coverage of news and current events as being a core and important issue, and take steps to stop our current slide into partisan nonsense, then our Australian media environment may very soon become as hopelessly gridlocked and fractured as in the US.

This is why the current discussions regarding curbing the instances of misinformation and disinformation in our media are both necessary and should be applauded by all Aussies, regardless of their political bent. But these regulatory measures can only be viewed as a starting point. There is a need to move to decentralise our media and unwind the massive monopolies that currently exist. The good health of our democracy depends on cultivating a healthy press environment.

The stakes are high. Big Brother is not just a scary tale. Nineteen-eighty-four is not in our rear-view mirror. Just as in America, very soon parts of our media may also become so utterly detached from reality, that half our population will begin agitating for renovations to our law, in accord with a brand new and improved history of Australia; fashioned just for us out of whole cloth, by News Corp, the Evangelical Church, and the Industrial Arms complex of the United States of Australia.

Have a nice day.

We are all accustomed to being fed nonsense by the right-wing. Sky News after dark is largely untouched by common-sense, decency, or journalistic balance. When reading the Australian, or the Telegraph, we all share an expectation that we will likely need to wade through a swamp of ideological claptrap. But it does not have to be this way.

Once upon a time these same media outlets at least pretended that they were trying to be ‘fair and balanced’. There was a sometimes-indistinct line drawn between commentary and the ‘news’. It was a blurry boundary, but it was there. However, in recent days, in their ‘coverage’ of the impending referendum, it seems that the whole of News Corp has been given over to gaslighting. In all their outlets the pending question is never described as being a referendum formulated in response to a grassroots movement, it is ‘Albanese’s referendum’. Or ‘Labor’s referendum’. The LNPs hand in developing the idea has been erased from history. As has any hint of non-partisanship. Instead of a relatively powerless advisory committee, the Voice is depicted as being the plaything of rich aboriginal city-slickers, who are all Labor stooges.

Moreover, the dog-whistle is just about deafening. Every tired old racist trope has been given a further airing. Often many are trotted-out in quick succession. For example, today in the Australian (behind their paywall), Maurice Newman advises his readers that:

If the proposal is carried, a small racial minority will have constitutional privileges denied the majority of Australians. It will permanently define our system of government as one country, two systems. It will establish a platform for the politics of envy. The very expectation of race-based benefits is no doubt reflected in the latest census, which recorded a 25 per cent jump in those identifying as Indigenous.

The Uluru Statement from the Heart may be well-intended, but its authors are open to the charge that it’s really about more power and money for elites. After all, Indigenous people are anything but voiceless now. Indeed, in the past 15 years, thousands of Indigenous voices have been heard and tens of billions of taxpayer dollars, together with royalties and service payments, invested where the collective voices recommended. It is not clear how an additional voice will improve Indigenous lives.

It is a wonder the sun doesn’t momentarily dim every time Newman opens his mouth! I will not canvass any more of this article as further exposure could very well cause actual brain damage. And it would provide the article and author with a degree of consideration that they do not warrant. Plus, the details are entirely immaterial. There is no actual intent to deliver a message – just stir the possum. These many articles are designed to support and reinforce the torrent of racist bullshit and nonsense that is being given voice in the threads of these newspapers and all across the right-wing swamp. These are not articles designed to inform but rather inflame.

Which brings me to the nub of this article. The difficulty with political commentary such as this is that it commonly hides behind the proposition that all that is being advanced is merely an ‘opinion’. So, even though the author is presenting puerile and tangibly insulting claptrap which is quite obviously designed to reinforce many of the commonplace lies that are currently circulating within the right-wing media, it is not illegal (even though it is palpably dishonourable and despicable). Nor should it be illegal. What is needed is to address the root cause of this problem, which is that we only have two large media conglomerates in our country, one of which is a right-wing outfit, while the other is a far-right wing organisation that is owned by Americans and is run from America.

I feel passionately about the need for media sector reform as that is the only way to effectively banish this sort of hateful rhetoric from our mainstream press. It results from allowing just one or two players to have an outsized impact upon the social discourse. Regulating what can be said by any given journalist is not going to address this sort of problem. The problem is not the language but rather the tacit and sometimes enthusiastic pedalling of falsehoods via a massive megaphone. We need lots and lots of smaller megaphones.

Regulating the minutiae of the press is not an option, simply because it does not work. It will not address this problem. The right wing in Australia know that they are pandering to a racist minority and they carefully, yet quite consciously, craft articles such as that quoted above, which are all dog-whistle and no substance. These many utterly objectionable articles are not being written by fools, nor are they being read by fools. A racist dog-whistle is being sounded gleefully and its meaning is being clearly understood. If you change the rules then the tune being played will simply change – yet the noxious intent and the facility to do mischief will remain. As Marcia Langton observes,

They’re very clever falsehoods. They appeal to the long-held tropes of discrimination. You know, we’ve heard words like ‘squalid’, ‘underbelly’, ‘maintain the rage’ thrown about. It’s as if, you know, the frontier wars were still happening. It’s very disappointing that so many Australians have been deceived…

But I am not as forgiving as Marcia. I know that many of the people who are throwing these racist tropes about are doing so quite deliberately. Yes, many readers are being deceived, but many others are enthusiastic about being given the chance to air their repugnant racist views in public without drawing down upon themselves any well-deserved derision.

Thus, we are all witnessing the Great Australian Gaslighting of 2024. It may or may not be successful. But regardless of the outcome of the referendum, these last few weeks have served to illustrate just why there is a pressing need for a Royal Commission into the media sector.

During the last few weeks, the Murdoch newspapers have been quite deliberately, and successfully, stoking racial division and disharmony in Australia. Which demonstrates the disproportionate degree of influence that is currently being welded by News Corp; which is a foreign controlled entity that is based in America. The influence of this media group is palpable. Consider that at the moment, the right-wing forces in our country are not in government anywhere on the mainland or in the federal sphere. Yet despite this overwhelming rejection by the Australian public, our media is still chocka-block full of the concerns and fears of the right-wing conservative rump.

Very few Aussies are far right-wing conservatives, yet we nevertheless have an entire segment of the press in our country, including several major masthead newspapers, that enthusiastically embrace and openly advocate for such an ideological position. As a result, it is evident that News Corp is acting as a political player and not just a disinterested media concern. For the entirety of the last year, the actual federal opposition in Australia has been News Corp – not the LNP.

This is an unacceptable situation. So, I would suggest that regardless of the outcome of the referendum, the behavior of News Corp during the last few weeks demonstrates that the right-wing press is currently a clear and present danger to our national interests.

The gross concentration of media ownership in our country is a problem that must be addressed soon. The existing monopolies must be broken up. The ability for one corporation to own large segments of both print and broadcast media, in several states, must be eliminated. We must return to the days when we had laws that served to supress the development of just these sorts of media monopolies. After all; there were laws in place to guard against the situation that we currently find ourselves in. Laws that were progressively watered down and abolished in response to the many lies that were sold to us by these same media magnates.

Those with long memories will remember how, over the course of several decades, the need for both horizontal and vertical integration in the media sector was sold to us by these big media conglomerates as being necessary. We were confidently informed that the only way to ensure that our media sector would not fail in the new digital world was to allow the big players to get bigger. So, for twenty years, we were all constantly fed a diet of unadulterated bullshit.

Despite the massive concentration of ownership that we now enjoy, all of the negative outcomes that we were warned about have nevertheless still come to pass. Most of the newspaper groups have disappeared and all of the large newsrooms have been merged. Almost all of the small regional newspapers have been bought up by the bigger players, then shuttered. Thousands of journalists have been laid off. And now we have only two huge media corporations left standing. Which is the worst of all possible outcomes – unless you are an owner or shareholder a media conglomerate.

The current referendum debate concretely demonstrates that the current media environment in Australia is not serving our national interests. At the moment, the whims of one non-Australian media owner, living in another country, are serving to dictate the nature and content of much of the social and political discourse of our country. As a consequence, our social discourse is becoming less civil and more extreme. Due to the baleful influence of News Corp and its deliberate spreading of misinformation and racist claptrap, after this referendum is over, regardless of the outcome, there needs to be a reckoning.

That the political thuggery has become quite overt is well illustrated by another article in the Australian today (also behind the paywall), in which the top corporate contributors to the ‘Yes’ campaign are listed as if they are guilty of war crimes. The article invites the reader to deride the corporations and their leaders, which are all named and shamed individually. The inescapable inference being that it would be a dandy idea if all of the readers of the newspaper boycotted these companies. Which, I would suggest, are just the sort of transparent mafia tactics that we can all live without.

The political thuggery has become overt. There has to be pushback, to not do so would be dangerous.

It’s going to be huuuge. The election campaign in the US of A, next year, will be bigger than Ben Hur. However, I am going to go out on a limb and suggest that many commentators are talking shit.

The media is obviously struggling to cope with the dawning new reality. Namely, that Trump is political toast. That point where all the chickens come home to roost has at last arrived. You have all been asking ‘Are we there yet! Are we there yet!’ And now we have arrived. Thus, anyone who cares to look out the window will notice that everyone who is familiar with Trump’s travails is either giggling, looking for a new job, or changing channels.

Don’t take my word for it, just weigh the scenario for yourself. Donald Trump is now facing more than several criminal indictments and has already been told, nicely, by at least two judges, to please stop abusing judges, counsellors, prosecutors, and those testifying against him. He has largely ignored these requests.

How long do you think it will be before Trump lashes out at a prosecutor or a judge in a way that simply cannot be ignored? I suggest that by the time we all get around to Christmas lunch, we will already be sick of hearing about Trump being locked up, yet again, for contempt.

Others have done all the same sums. The Governor of Florida, at the moment running second in the Republican primaries, is currently being very, very careful with his words. I just heard one otherwise fairly rational commentator observe that this is odd, considering that he is thirty points behind Trump. ‘So why is he behaving like a front-runner?’ he asks.

I find this disappointing. It indicates that this poor fellow is so deeply engaged in beating up on Trump that he has failed to realise that Trump is already a political corpse. Guvnor De Santos knows this. He knows he is actually the front runner. That Trump is no longer in the race.

For those who are failing to pay attention: let me explain the bleeding obvious in simple terms.

The only people left in America who actually like Trump are a few far, far right-wing politicians, the consumers of right-wing media, and some of the entirely non-informed. Everyone else hates the chappie. Even the owners of the far-right media are ambivalent. You get the sense that they prefer their fascists to be a little more coherent and a tad more competent.

Therefore, while I believe that the election campaign will be huuuge, it will not match the spectacle of Donald Trump v the rest of America, as he flames out in a huge fireball of angry indignation and incompetence.

The numbers do not lie, and the numbers currently indicate that Trump, even should he stumble anywhere near an election campaign, would have snowballs hope in Hades of winning. He is currently the most actively hated person in America.

A substantial majority of women dislike Trump. Along with democrats, teachers, students, unionists and anyone who has ever worn a Che Guevara tee-shirt. But while these people dislike him intensely, it is generally not nearly as much as many Republicans. This is because, ever since the first wave of conspiracy obsessed, flag-waving, MAGA crazed fans crashed through the doors of the Republican Party, in 2016, the Republican Party of America has been engaged in a civil war. Most of the Republican old-guard have since come to hate Trump with a greater passion than even the Hilliary deprived. They are no longer in charge of a staid and feared bastion of power. (See The real fight is between America and the Trump cultists; and America is kicking butt). Worse, the bastion has fallen to weirdos with a bunch of stunningly weird ideas. Which is fair-enough for a Republican, but in this case these strange ideas all serve to benefit only one person, not the 1%. Which does not make any sense?

Yet still, for now, the right-wing media remain captive of their own audience. They are hemmed in by the truly loony far, far right-wing media outlets, so they have to ever feature Trump, and ever repeat that they truly and dearly love the fellow. They have to eternally explain that if you listen to him carefully, in just the right way, then he makes perfect and enduring sense. And, of course, they must ever profess that they believe he will win. But even on the couch at FOX n’ Friends you can sense that they know the end is nigh. Soon the knives will be out.

Indeed, very soon it will become almost impossible for anyone, including the right-wing press and crazed Trump critics, to sustain the fantasy (or nightmare) of a potential Trump victory.

The most important number has nothing to do with presidential popularity, but rather Trump’s extraordinary and growing unpopularity. In January of this year even the most favourable polls had Trump’s disapproval numbers in the low fifties. But in recent days polling shows that a tipping point has been reached. His supporters are all jumping ship. On FiveThirtyEight the average of polls shows that in just a couple of weeks Trumps unpopularity has soared, from the low fifties into the low sixties, with a corresponding drop in his approval numbers. Plus, these polls are looking backwards a couple of weeks, and he has hardly had a good ten or so days.

I know that we have all been hearing about the imminent downfall of Trump for what feels like forever. But Trump is currently older than Reagan was when he completed his second term, is currently under massive pressure, and very soon may even be forced to pay for his lawyers out of his own pocket.

The sharks are circling ever closer. As soon as Christmas, I humbly suggest, Trump will be out of the running, dead, or in goal.

But regardless of how the end game unfolds, you can be assured it is about to commence. Thus, a world without Donald Trump is nudging ever closer. I promise. Yes, kiddies; we are nearly there.

One of Trump’s co-defendants –the (very soon to be) ex-lawyer Mr Chesebro – just took a metaphorical swing at the Prosecutor, and hit Trump.

As you may be aware, Fulton County in Georgia is hosting a trial of 19 defendants on racketeering charges. Lawyers for the Boss of the crime syndicate, one Mr D. Trump, have indicated that they believe a trial date in early 2026 would likely be suitable. Pointing to a mountain of evidence that they say they need to sort through to be able to adequately defend the action.

This sort of delaying tactic is commonplace in racketeering cases. But in this instance it would likely be unpersuasive. This is because, the claim that there is a need to carefully read every document in evidence is a bit of a furphy. After all, the vast bulk of the evidence in question (for all of the defendant’s involved) is made up almost entirely of their own documents. But even as the lawyers were thus shaping up for a battle regarding the scheduling of the matter – it was all overtaken by other legal events.

After an especially long lunch (it must be supposed) a group of the Crime Boss’s lawyers got together and worked out a bold and cunning strategy to get all of the charges – against everyone – dropped. It was a new strategy that hinges on Georgia’s Speedy Trial Act.

In the right-wing press it has long been celebrated, as a fact, that Fani Willis (the Prosecutor) has rushed to lay these many charges for purely partisan political reasons. Therefore, the case is only half-prepared but she is nevertheless rushing to lay charges so that this can interfere with Trumps political campaigning. So, the lawyers for the crime syndicate decided to use this obscene haste and lack of preparedness against the prosecution. They would tell Fani Willis to ‘put up or shut up’. They would force the prosecutor’s hand.

The Speedy Trial Act of Georgia requires that, upon application, someone who is charged with a crime (that does not attract the death penalty) can demand a trial within ninety days of their charging date. Otherwise, the prosecution has to drop all the charges.

Thus, a group of lawyers acting for the Cheese Guy filed a motion demanding a severance of his case from that of the other defendant’s, and a speedy trial. Fani Willis was going to be exposed for a fraud and would have to either go to trial utterly unprepared or drop the charges.

Unfortunately for both the Crime Boss and the Cheese Guy, this strategy was flawed. While the commonsense and everyday knowledge of the right-wing media has been endlessly proposing that the Prosecutor has hastily cobbled a case together, in just the last five or so minutes, from fond aspirations and bluetack, this is incorrect. Who could have guessed?

Instead of being ambushed, in response to the application by the Cheese Guy, Fani Willis just said ‘Yes’. But not just for the Cheese Guy. She is ready to go on all counts as soon as the court might please. Apparently, it seems that her whole office has been carefully and methodically compiling a detailed case against all of the defendants for at least the last two years. The prosecutor therefore informed the court that she agreed that a speedy trial, for everyone, would be an absolutely fab idea.

So, a couple of days ago the judge ruled on the application and issued a case specific scheduling order. In the order he declares that:

‘due to the Defendant’s timely Demand for Speedy Trial filed August 23, 2023 (Doc. 5), scheduling [for all the cases] will occur on an expedited timeline.’

The judge set Chesebro’s trial for Oct 23. He also indicated that because all the other defendants have a similar right to a speedy trial, firm trial dates for all the accused will also be set on this date. Yes, the Cheese Guy is right; it is essential to guard against impinging on the civil rights of the defendants.

Ooops.

So, due to this great moment in modern jurisprudence, Trump and Co will all go to trial very soon after October the 23^rd. Moreover, this is an outcome that is actually far worse than it might appear at first glance.

The Cheese Guy will now likely get a separate trial, prior to the rest of the cases being heard. The first trial will therefore be one lonely lawyer, all by himself, facing charges of conspiracy to commit impersonation of a public official, conspiracy to commit forgery, and conspiracy to commit filing false documents. Which is a case featuring a mountain of evidence that is fairly easy to lay out. The Cheese Guy was the person who came up with the phony electors scheme in the first place. He was the one who then sold it to the rest of the conspirators. As a consequence, the whole of the case against the Cheese Guy is spelled out in his own memos and power-point slides.

As one commentator at the Washington Post observed:

Chesebro authored a Nov. 18, 2020, memo recommending an alternative slate of electors in states where litigation was still pending. In a Dec. 6, 2020, memo, Chesebro advised that they could drum up phony electors in six states to give Vice President Mike Pence the opportunity to throw the election to Trump.

The outcome of this attempted ambush is, therefore, that now the judge is obliged to try Trump and co promptly, and that this series of trials will likely commence with an action against one unlikeable lawyer, with unconventional ideas, that features lots and lots of simply damning evidence, instead of a trial featuring Trump. Instead of a popular politician, the accused will be a lawyer. Plus, the defence now has very little time to prepare as the Speedy Trial clock is now ticking.

Trump usually shoots himself in the foot but it seems that he is now also outsourcing the task to his lawyers. It is almost enough to raise the proposition of an appeal on the basis of inadequate counsel (which is a bit of a damning commentary on the nature of the advice that Trump and Co seem to be receiving).

Stay tuned for updates…

When President Trump announced that he would acknowledge Jerusalem as the capital of Israel he did it to appease the Christians in America. Or, more precisely, the big money Evangelical donors. This is not a good development. The real problem with the current meddling in the affairs of the middle-east is not so much that the President has no idea what he is doing. The real problem is that this President is a fantasist.

Because the President lives in a world in which everyone is being deliberatively and carefully deceitful, he cannot seem to discern the difference between the personally rapacious and the dangerously lunatic. Don’t get me wrong. I want to state at the outset that people like Steve Bannon are dangerous. But Bannon is a banker and so is easily understood. It is simply class-warfare. To work Bannon out all you need is a calculator, a stock price index and to be able to feel the breeze of the current social mood on your cheek. In many ways Bannon and the traditional Republican Establishment are one and the same. They entertain much the same basic ambitions: Do what you have to do to amass a lot of money, then retire.

But the current Prez is so dim-witted that he cannot seem to understand that while most of the people he deals with, day-to-day, are just saying whatever they need to say – some are not lying. Some are actually batshit crazy.

So we return to the topic of the Evangelical Christians and all the other ‘people of the book’. The current coalition of the deluded that the US President is unknowingly appeasing are just that percentage of the population that all sane and thinking apes have been doing their best to disinvest of power since Adam was knee-high to a Neanderthal. We almost got there for a while prior the Roman Empire but the dark ages intervened and it was religion everywhere for centuries. Then we had a real crack at it during the Enlightenment. But it was only after we all had electric light and flushing loos that rationality ever really took hold. So, ever since the Industrial revolution, we have all been whittling away at the power of the ‘people of the book’. I actually thought we had finally won. Silly me.

I don’t mean to say that we don’t all like the stories. They are terrific stories. The garden of Eden. The snake. Noah and the big boat. The red-sea opening up. Moses and Commandments. Jesus whizzing about on the water. Mohammad and his flying horse. But in the modern world I thought that it was not really popular to actually believe the stories. Or admit that you believe them. At least not in public where sane people might overhear.

After all, the ‘people of the book’ (either Jewish, Islamic or Christian) are simply not working with the same rule book as the rest of us. They are not amenable to reason. The Evangelical Christians that Trump is pandering to are pretty much unknown to Trump. He probably dismisses all their ‘end-of-the-world’ malarkey as just another schtick. But some of us understand that they are deadly serious. No really! People like Sheldon Adelson should not be approached unless they are wearing a straight-jacket and muzzle. They are not just batshit loop-the-loop crazy; they want to blow up the world so they can live forever in another dimension where everything is ‘nice’ (in other words where scum like you and me are burning in hellfire eternal somewhere close at hand where the saved ones can watch on and giggle). So not just batshit crazy but dangerously batshit crazy.

For those unfamiliar with the name, Sheldon is an anti-Union, anti-Cannabis, anti-Women’s rights, anti-Modern world, evangelically inclined Casino magnate, who donated twenty-five million dollars to Trump. Sheldon was brought up, like the rest of his generation of literalist bible believers, reading the ‘Left Behind’ series of books, which are simply racy pieces of Christian ‘end-time’ apocalyptic pornography in which the Christians all win and the rest of us get to burn in hellfire eternal. Most of the rest of us understand that people like Sheldon cannot be allowed into the game. OK, being corrupt is horrible but tolerable. It is not an existential problem. Even the corrupt need a world in which to spend their ill-gotten gains. However, the batshit crazies like Sheldon are on the side of a worldwide apocalypse. They are on the side-lines cheering and doing everything they can to bring on a worldwide Armageddon as soon as possible. (Nothing could be finer than to burn in Carolina?)

It is impossible to stress this enough for a relatively rational Aussie audience: the American Evangelical Christians really do believe that bringing about the end of the world is a good idea. They talk about ‘us’ and ‘them’. They really do think that science is the product of the devil, that the world is six thousand years old, that angels exist, and they alone will live forever while everyone else is damned (and damnable). They are hoping for Armageddon. They have been betting on it and waiting for it all their lives. Some of them even think that they have to force the prophecy to come true. They believe that bringing about the end of the world is doing God’s work. Loopy does not quite cover it.

Yet notice how all of the Press coverage does not even dare to talk about the sheer lunacy that is propelling this whole situation. Why do the Christians care? According to the Evangelicals, all of their metaphysical end-of-the-world fun can’t get underway until Jerusalem is reunited under the one ruler who can then lead all of the Jewish Nation into the fires of hell to cook forever in one long parade. Wow!

I am not so worried that Trump will cause America to become debased. That is a bit like worrying about water becoming wetter. But I am worried that he might accidentally blow us all up.

[sigh]

Say after me; people are real. Books are fantasy. We don’t stone children to death; we don’t keep slaves; women are equal to men; sex between consenting adults cannot be ‘perverted’; we don’t live forever; people don’t die and then get better; and, blowing up the world is just not a good idea.

F’r Chrissakes. I thought we worked all this out during the Enlightenment? Sad.

The biggest kerfuffle in Aussie politics is all about the technicalities regarding ‘dual citizenship’. Our founding fathers were well aware that if an individual was going to sit in our Parliament, then it was important to know that they do not have divided loyalties. A principle which has been largely lost in the political point-scoring and bickering about paperwork. Do any of our politicians even notice the irony in this situation? What has become of us?

We, the people, need to begin questioning the obviously divided loyalties of our leaders. No one else will. The mainstream media are only interested in pissing in the pockets of their owners and advertisers. We all know the social media to be as corrupt and as stupid as the lowest common commercial denominator. Therefore, it is largely down to us. (Which, in effect, means we’re f*****d.)

What do we want from our political leaders? What is the one thing that is foremost in every average citizen’s desires regarding an elected representative? It is simple. We want a politician to put our problems and circumstances first; not that of Party, Religion, Sect, Ideology or Idol. Not their mates, their donors, their bank account, the ‘economy’, their favourite TV star, dog, or anything. How far from this simple ambition has our political system drifted?

Currently, it is almost impossible to even get elected to a parliament in Australia if you do not pledge your abiding loyalty to a political party. If you stand as an Independent you will not get any media coverage, or you will be pilloried in all the mainstream media. If your only loyalty is to the citizenry, then it is almost impossible to get elected. If you do get elected, (accidentally), you will have no power. You will not be ‘in the club’.

Yet, this is just the first of the loyalties that our politicians put well ahead of any thought for their constituents. If a constituent of Mr Turnbull is having trouble with a bank loan and walks into his office to discuss it, whose interest do you think will be at the forefront of our PMs mind? First, he will toe the party line. This will provide him with a script for his discussion. Then he will argue the case for all of his donors. But what about his private opinions and loyalties?

Our PM is an ex-merchant banker with a squillion dollars stashed away in offshore bank accounts. I would propose that this is probably Mr Turnbull’s No. 1 priority in all matters; both personal and private. The PM is an easy target of course. But if it came down to a choice between forsaking their money or fleeing Australia, how many of the people in our parliament do you think would choose their money?

I do hope you are not as cynical as me. The assessment I make is not flattering. The hypocrisy is as thick in the air in Canberra as it has ever been. The fight is as furious as ever. Yet it continues to be a fight about whose big money backers get to rule the roost. It has nothing to do with you or me. We only get to be observers (and to be ruled). And don’t doubt that most of our politicians fully comprehend both their own deceit and our continuing disdain for them. But they hardly care. They don’t have to. After all, we’re not their boss.