Suburban Eastern Australia.

An environment that has over time evolved some extraordinarily

unique groups of homo sapiens.

But today we observe a small tribe akin to a group of meka that gather together

atop a small mound to watch question and discuss the current events of their city,

their country, and their world at large.

Let's listen keenly and observe this group fondly known as the

Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove.

You guys are interrupting a perfectly good private argument that we were

just having prior to going live, and we thought, oh, what the heck?

We've just pressed the live button and, and just keep arguing.

So yeah, you're wrong.

Joe was against me.

Velvet.

Glove was against me.

Anyway.

This is a podcast.

He's got a wrong position.

Sorry.

You know, this is a podcast where we talk about news and politics, sex and religion,

and we've been doing it for eight years.

Bloody hell.

Exactly.

Today, Scott, 4th of July, eight years ago you and I started.

There we go.

Holy shit.

Indeed.

I'm Trevor a k a, the Iron.

Fist with me as always, Scott.

The Velvet.

Glove.

Good day, Trevor.

Good day, Joe.

Gday listeners.

So hope you're all well and enjoy the tech guy who's got, bits

and pieces of skin that has been removed from him via dry ice.

How are you, Joe?

Evening Neil.

Mm-hmm.

The skin doctor got a little bit excited and started dropping dry ice everywhere.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

So here we are, eight years later.

You might be hoping that I've gone through all of the old episodes and

extracted highlights and I've put them in some sort of clever montage for you.

Nope, that hasn't happened.

But, we can pretty much conduct a normal podcast.

Hello to Broman in the chat room.

If you're in the chat room, say hello.

yeah, so, is that logo in the wrong place, Joe?

Is that normally there?

Like that?

I put, maybe I'll take it off.

Actually, maybe I take that logo off.

That way we see the chat.

I, I, alright, what's on the agenda?

Let me see what have I got on the agenda for tonight?

We're gonna talk about briefly what's happened in the last two

weeks cuz it has been two weeks.

essential poll on the greens, some more polling on the voice, which is very

interesting as to how that's going.

Some polling on Donald Trump, talking about Gladys Lin.

Is she corrupt?

I mentioned Mexico the other day in relation to, the war with the Americans.

It looks like that might be repeated sooner rather than later.

And, affirmative action in USA Universities and the Calvary Hospital

in the a c t and maybe Seymour Hirsch on Prego and that attempted coup in Russia.

So see where we end up would've actually an attempted coup or not.

Well see where we end up.

Joe's had to log out, he'll log back in.

Dunno what's happened to Joe.

So, thanks Broman for the best wishes.

Yes, eight years.

Scott.

I was just reflecting a little bit on eight years.

I sort of went through some of the episode, names that I've

used over the last few hundred.

And one thing that struck me, Scott, was.

How many, just picking out, talked about submarines.

Yeah, submarines are in there.

Of course, major things though were that whole ruddock report,

religious discrimination bill.

Really, you know, we had Turnbull agreed to the ruddock report in order

to placate nut bags in the liberal party, and then that then led to the

religious discrimination Bill Israel for la and we've still got labor talking

about religious discrimination, bill.

That's kind of been one of the more dominant themes of the last eight years

that we could have avoided if we hadn't had a ruddock inquiry in the first place.

Brought about by those guys.

Yep.

Well, it's the fault of the damn gaze.

Demanding equality fault.

Yeah, that was it.

That's right.

You're right.

And it came because it was to placate the right wing because

of the marriage equality.

So correct all of that.

We can blame on Scott and his mates demanding equality.

So yeah, so that a key thing that we had, over the last eight years.

Another one would've been sort of libertarian arguments

that I had with Paul.

They went on a lot about what people could do, what were the rights of the individual

versus the rights of the community.

and their continuing ones today in many respects on different things.

Israel Lau of course.

How could one footballer create so much content for a podcast?

But he did.

we've had over that time, Scott, the obvious takeover of the liberal party

by the Christian radicals following, USA sort of game plan for doing that,

following the Republican example.

That's just become increasingly obvious over these past few years.

And I guess from eight years ago, the real dire straits of the liberal party

in terms of the caliber of candidate that's there and is likely to come in the

future is, it's probably the one of the biggest things in politics in Australia

in the last eight years, do you think?

Yep.

Absolutely.

Mm-hmm.

And they are looking increasingly sick.

Mm-hmm.

And it seems to be a position they can't recover from.

It's all right.

They, they've got the focus on the book.

No.

Yeah.

Their eyes on the ball.

You saw the, what the, the LMP are gonna do in Queensland if they get power.

No, they, they're gonna look for, all the sexually explicit material

that's being given to children.

Oh, for God sake.

Oh, good Bibles.

Yes.

Right.

Except that.

Except for that.

Yeah.

You know, did they really say that?

I swear they've just been through the Republican Twitter.

They, they really said that.

Yeah.

Oh, had I missed that?

Okay.

Send me the link.

I wanna send that one.

Was it from Elli or from, from one of the, I, I had a, it had a photo of, Mr.

Potato Head next to it, so I've No idea.

Okay.

Yeah.

You assume, you mean Dubin when you call him potato head there.

Yeah.

I, I, I wouldn't, give him a proper name.

He doesn't deserve it.

Mm.

Right.

And one of the highlights, I guess over this time was the voluntary

assisted dying legislation and how that progressed from not existing to now

in place and actually up and running, and what a great campaign that was.

The people behind it.

So that would be the highlight I'd say of the last eight years in terms of

things that have happened politics wise.

Hmm.

Amongst a lot of low lights.

It's a small mar a small bar to jump over, but voluntary sister died.

I did it with ease.

Yeah, for sure.

And you know, deep Throat really needs to be congratulated for

that because you know, does that whole thing dying with Dignity

Queensland, they did a brilliant job.

Mm-hmm.

So there we go.

That's the reflections on eight years.

We'll keep going another eight or 16, see how we go.

We're up to 3 89 50 eighth guy then.

Yeah, we've averaged, pretty much only missing about three

episodes per year on average.

Although I'd say the average has been affected by this last year.

I've missed more than most.

But anyway, it's not bad going, so, alright.

it's been two weeks.

Few things have happened since then.

I saw a Twitter, a tweet by somebody who, cause we had the Russian coup

and the, and the, submarine that was around the, Titanic area there.

And the tweet was, if I'd had known this entire week would be a throwback to the

1910s, I would've worn a bigger hat.

Rich people dying on the Titanic uprising in Russia.

If someone launches a Zeppelin, I am buying a hobble skirt.

Said this person.

Not a bad line.

So, Scott, Joe Russian coup.

That was a pretty quick one.

Aver and done with, didn't go far.

Ian is now banished to Belarus and is with the blessing of Putin.

Just gonna see out his days over there.

Thoughts on that whole shenanigans?

Oh, the whole, the, the very vocal comments upfront.

About how Putin was being misled by Sui and whoever the other one, the

Minister of Defense and the chief of the Army, who had their own private

reasons for wanting to invade Ukraine and make it their own personal fiefdom.

And, and that Putin had been misled, that there weren't Nazis there,

that it really wasn't a threat.

NATO wasn't a threat, that it was all just all about personal gains and privilege.

That's what Pian was saying.

That's what Pian was saying.

Right.

and then invaded the, sorry.

One, well captured, captured the largest city since the invasion began.

Mm.

Which just happened to be a Russian city before heading north on the

highway, about 700 kilometers of the thousand kilometers while shooting down.

And, and yeah, the whole, forgiveness, the pardons for them is a bit strange.

They shot down at least four or five military helicopters.

With all on board lost and also a mobile, an airborne command center

with I think a left tenant general or a fairly high ranking officer on board.

So they actually took out a fair number of highly skilled Air Force pilots.

Mm-hmm.

and they've just been let off, which is seems strange.

Yeah.

And, and people are saying Yeah.

Whether or not it seemed like a smart move.

The, being, being a dictator, you have to be all about, the image you present.

And his image is of a person who is not a strong man at

Putin's image or Putin's image.

Right.

Has been severely weakened because having gone on TV and said, these are

traders, they're gonna pay for this.

He's then gone.

No, no, off you go.

Mm-hmm.

Nothing further to be had.

Mm-hmm.

Which, you know, this was a serious threat to his power and he's just accepted it.

Mm-hmm.

So there's a lot of questions.

Look, the Ukraine must be laughing about this at the very least.

There's a lot of questions being asked about how did they get so far

that's gonna pull some troops, real troops back into Russia to prevent

any other armed forces doing that.

There are a lot of private military companies that are operating in Russia,

that have been given heavy weapons by the Russian military that in theory could do.

I mean, obviously this was the biggest, but there are others out there.

and the question is, what's to stop one of those doing it?

Mm.

Or even the army.

I didn't read about the four, aircraft being shot down.

Where'd you read that?

what do you read?

What are you reading to get all this information?

This, this was Peron's YouTube channel who is a military analyst.

Yep.

but again, he works with open source intel.

So this is stuff that is being openly reported.

Mm-hmm.

it it's generally stuff that is verifiable.

Yeah.

So it's not speculation.

Okay.

So that's a, so that's sort of a view that Putin's in trouble.

It was something out of hand and for one reason or another, perhaps because of

weakness, Putin is letting him go because he can't really do anything strong.

Well, there's, there was a Wall Street Journal or, there was a US video I

watched, just before that happened actually about Wagner, and saying where,

yeah, where did they come from and.

Realistically, they have been going into third world countries that are politically

unstable, but have huge mineral resources.

Mm-hmm.

And providing stability in exchange for mineral resources.

And they have been providing the hard cash that Russia hasn't been able to get

since the sanctions have been in place.

So, hang on.

Is this from the same YouTube guy?

No, this is a, this was, one of the US ones, right.

Because I don't think Russia's had trouble getting, getting paid for its oil like,

but India and the rest of the, the, the non, but, but they also western line

countries, sort of gold mines in Africa.

They own, extra oil production facilities in the Middle East.

Right.

yeah, I think they own a third of Syria oil wells or something

because my understanding is the ration economy's doing fine.

Thank you very much.

I don't think they need the Wagner group's cash from African Minds support.

The Wagner Group is bringing in a large amount of money, so one wonders how

much of that was heading in Putin's direction and might have suffered him.

Mm.

Okay.

That's one view.

I'll give a count of view.

Mm-hmm.

I'll just jump to it.

So Seymour Hirsch, dear listener, was the guy who broke the story

on the Nord Stream pipeline being blown up by, merit Americans.

Yeah.

So well respected journalist in that regard.

So his, from his CK on this whole thing.

So what he says is, so below was a look at what was really going on that

was provided to me by a knowledgeable source in the American intelligence

community, an UNN source speaking to telling Seymour hers stuff.

He's, and this source is saying, I thought I might clear some of the smoke.

First, and most importantly, Putin is now in a much stronger position.

We realized as early as January, 2023 that a showdown between the generals

backed by Putin and, brien backed by anti-Russian extremists was inevitable.

The age old conflict between the Special war fighters and a large, slow

clumsy, unimaginative regular army.

The army always wins because they own the peripheral assets that make victory

either offensive or defensive possible.

Most importantly, they control logistics.

When the overall strategy is offensive, big army tolerates their hubris and

public chest thumping because the special forces are willing to take

high risk and pay a high price.

Wagner members were the spearhead of the original Russian Ukraine offensive.

They were the little green men.

When the offensive grew into an all out attack, Wagner continued to assist, but.

Reluctantly had to take a back seat in the period of instability and

readjustment that followed, brige and Wagner as the worst of special forces

took the limelight and took the credit for stopping the hated Ukrainians.

The press gobbled it up.

Meanwhile, the big army and Putin slowly changed their strategy from

offensive conquest of greater Ukraine to defense of what they already had.

Brien refused to accept the change continued on the offensive against bmu.

Therein lies the rub.

Rather than create a public crisis and a court marshal, Moscow simply

withheld the resources and let pian use up his manpower and firepower,

reserves dooming him to a stand down.

he is after all, no matter how cunning, financially and ex hotdog cart owner with

no political or military accomplishments.

and is saying that Wagner was being cycled out of the Bachman front over

the past three months and sent to abandoned barracks for Demobilization.

And Putin finally backed to the Army, who let brien make a fool of himself and

now disappear into IGN Mini or without raising a sweat militarily or causing

Putin to face a political standoff with the fundamentalists who were ardent prion.

Admirers.

Pretty shrewd.

and now the current battlefield statistics were shared with me.

I learned that in the first two weeks of the operation, the Ukraine military

seized only 44 square miles of territory previously held by the Russian Army.

Much of it open land.

So basically the so-called counter offensive, not going so well.

But there you go.

There's two versions of the, of what's happening in Russia.

Who knows where the truth actually lies.

It could be in the middle, it could be somewhere way off, you know, another area.

Will we ever know?

I don't know.

Yeah.

I, I think, I think we're ever gonna know the truth.

The, the military gains of last year were unusual and we saw these huge advances

through large areas of Eastern Ukraine.

but realistically they were on the back of months and months of fighting.

So for this new attack, to have got nowhere in the first Yeah.

Couple of months is not an unexpected.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

I, I think we, 24 hour news cycle we're used to seeing, waking up

and seeing a new place taken every day, and that just isn't the norm.

Mm-hmm.

Those are outliers.

Mm-hmm.

Well, we'll see how it goes.

Right.

We've got some polls, lots of interesting polls to talk about in this episode,

closer to home after that diversion.

So we've got Ukrainians and polls.

Boom.

Boom.

Thanks, Joe.

All right.

Here's a chart on the screen for those who are watching the

video, or we'll talk about it for those simply watching at home.

And what we've got is greens and independent, which of the

following best applies to you?

and what we're looking at here is the dark red on the right hand side, which

is I've never given my first preference to the greens or an independent

candidate and don't think I ever will.

And the interesting part of that is young people, 18 to 34, only 21%

would say that old people, 55 plus.

62% would say that, that they've never given a preference to

a green or an independent and don't think they ever will.

So preference, first preference?

yes.

My first preference.

Yep.

So stock divide again, based on age.

There's a real age difference in politics in Australia.

Real age gap, I think, on lots of things.

So, and what they're actually finding is that they're not becoming more

conservative as they get older.

Mm-hmm.

You know, so there was a podcast I was listening to just recently, it

might have been 7:00 AM They were saying that, this is bad news for

the coalition because then as the population ages and that type of thing,

they're not getting more conservative.

Yes.

It was normal to see people swap from being.

labor to liberal as they aged.

Yes.

But they're not seeing the same swap at the same age points like they used

being young and angry and wanting against the status quo when you're,

when you've got nothing to lose, but when you've got something to lose, yes.

You want to keep what you've got.

And the problem is people aren't getting something that they know that

they then fear losing cuz the things are so bad for the middle classes and

the middle, you know, that sort of age group to, to 40, 40 fives or whatever.

So many renters amongst them.

So, so anyway, in terms of people for a first preference for the

greens, older people, 55 plus, 62%.

No way.

Never.

only 20% of young, 21% of young people would say that.

And then how does that break down in terms of, well, young people have

also got more elections devoted.

They've got longer to change their minds.

Yes.

But they're talking about a longer period there.

Yes, that's true.

That is true.

what have I got here?

How would that.

Pan out in terms of gender?

no, sorry, on voting preference, labor voters, 40% of them would say

that, that they've never given first preference to greens or independent

and don't think they ever will.

66% of coalition would say that.

How many greens voters though, doesn't say does it?

No.

For good reason.

And the other one I think coming up is on, oh, I must have missed the one on gender.

There's one on gender.

Again, females more likely as who vote green men less likely

to dunno what happened to that.

So, so that was, just in terms of the greens and how they're traveling and

just this age divide in politics, really, if you, if you were given a room full

of people and you're having to quickly.

Categorize them into likely voting, patents.

and you know nothing about people, but you're only allowed to ask, say a few

quick, a few key questions, except who are you gonna vote for at the next election?

Like, you're not allowed to ask the easy one, but you're allowed to ask

them about their lives and stuff.

one of the first questions you'd ask would just be, how old are you?

And that would be indicating a lot of politics right there in that

question as to, as to how old you are.

And then, do you live in an inner city urban environment or are you in

a outer suburb regional environment?

That will tell you a lot.

Male or female?

I'll tell you what, I think the outer suburbs are more conservative

than the regions actually.

Yes.

Like Queensland.

Yeah.

more conservative than the regional Queensland.

anyway, what age are you won't be my first question.

Where do you live and what gender are you and.

Maybe if you get a fourth question, your education level, but you

know, those first three are really telling you a lot about people.

I think one, just, just ask them if they're cisgender.

That tells you a lot about people.

Just their response to that.

Yes.

Are you, are you woke?

Yeah.

So, so yes, there we go.

That's the greens.

Scott, you are still in the category that you'd never give them first preference,

and you're unlikely you haven't and you're unlikely to in the future.

Would that be right?

No, that's right.

That's the, the greens, the independence.

I would actually consider casting a vote for them.

There you go.

Yep.

A teal independent or something like that.

Yes, exactly.

Yeah.

Okay.

Right.

The voice is, is becoming quite interesting.

So polls are really turning on the voice now.

So got this one from my son some snapshot.

So, news poll came out with some polling on the voice.

Now just remember, only three of six states need to vote

no for it to get blocked.

So at the moment we've got Victoria and New South Wales are

a relatively strong yes vote.

And according to the latest news poll figure we had Victoria.

Yes.

48, no.

41 New South Wales.

Yes.

46, no, 41.

So fairly strong in Victoria and New South Wales.

But South Australia, yes.

45.

Actually, I'll put that up on the screen.

Might as well do that.

South Australia was yes.

45, no.

46 Tasmania.

Yes.

43, no.

48 Queensland.

Yes.

40 No.

54 And Western Australia.

Yes.

39.

No, 52.

We don't have the territory though.

So yeah, because they don't get, they just go into the total.

Okay.

You don't actually, you don't actually, because they're no longer, because they're

not states, you don't actually count them into that second majority, right?

Mm.

So on that, overall, the overall figure from news poll, so then, so the, no, you

know, overall the No vote, took the lead 47 to 43 previously in the same poll.

The Yes was leading 46 to 43.

So that's, a change in news poll and it's sort of been reflected in, in

another one as well, resolve as well.

So I'll just read this section that says, that's the first lead for

the No Campaign in a news poll.

Resolve polling.

Had the first lead for a no in any national poll two weeks ago.

Now we, dear listener, have regularly been providing the

essentials sort of polling on this.

And it's been around the 60%.

Yes.

40% no.

And, according to this article in the conversation that may reflect some

sampling issues, and according to this article in the conversation, news

Pollen Resolve have far better track records at elections than essential.

So the support for the voice has crashed since April.

And, based on those figures, who knew that there were that many Nazis in Australia?

Well, do you have to be a Nazi to vote?

No, absolutely.

No, you don't.

So, I'm sure the Yes campaign will tell us all that we have

to be Nazis if we're voting.

No, just racist.

Yeah.

Interesting.

The whole point now, Brian was telling me about something that was

written by some former politician and he reckons that you are beginning

to see the basket of deplorables argument being displayed by the Yes.

Vote.

Yes.

Yeah.

The criticism of people who are wanting to vote no as being

racist assholes is just mm-hmm.

Hardening their resolve.

along those lines, so happened with Brexit as well.

Yeah, exactly.

So I wouldn't want to have a lot of money hunting that the Yes vote's gonna get up.

I would be very worried about my bet if that was the case.

It's gonna be very interesting how it all pans out.

Very interesting.

If, if you were to look at those numbers right now, it looks like it's lost.

Mm-hmm.

And, given that's the direction and the momentum, we'll see.

Very interesting result.

It makes me wonder why he's so hell bent on having it, you know?

Wow.

It's one of those things.

It may well have been an election commitment, but if the polls aren't,

aren't backing you and that type of thing, if the opposition's not backing

you, then you've actually gotta say, well, oh, was it, this isn't likely.

Was it a core commitment?

Sorry?

Was it core or non-core?

That's the question.

It was probably a core commitment because he made a hell of a big deal

about it on the election night, right?

Mm-hmm.

I mean, if it, if it goes down and fails, is that really going to be

seen as something, a failure that attaches to albanese and labor?

potentially.

I was gonna say he remembers the, Republican.

Mm-hmm.

Does anyone attach it to the, the Prime Minister at the time?

Yeah, Howard, I think it's poss I think it's quite possible for, for

this vote to fail and not really cause albanese a lot of damage.

I think people would take the view there was such a demand for this, you

know, referendum that you put it up there and then ultimately it's up to

everyone else to decide what to do.

Mm-hmm.

I think you can get by with that.

A lot of political damage to it, but we'll soon, you know, we'll find out.

But Yeah.

apparently it's in October.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

there was a question somebody asked was, is he gonna be mandatory?

Well, I thought it would be compulsory voting for a referendum.

It's compulsory.

It is compulsory to vote.

You know, the only reason that, the plebiscite wasn't compulsory

is because it wasn't actually governed by the electoral commission.

It was done via the a b S.

So it was just a grown up opinion poll.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

Okay.

So very interesting polls on that one.

Now in America, they have a thing called 5 38 is this group.

And what they do is they grab a bunch of polls and amalgamate the results

of multiple polls to try and get a, a, a poll of polls if you like, 5 38.

That's what their job is.

And they've been looking at Donald Trump and, how he's going in terms

of the, republican, nomination.

And then how he would go against Joe Biden.

And remembering, dear listener, it's hard to imagine a political

candidate having worse press than what Donald Trump has had.

And you know where I'm heading with this?

It's, he's simply Teflon coated in that this mud refuses to stick.

The, the problem is he gets any press.

Surely if Jack the Ripper got pressed though, it would've been that you're

a bad person and we don't throw you in jail, we wanna throw you in jail.

But, I mean Hitler had, was Time Magazines mad of the Year?

Yeah, just cuz you got good pre, just cuz you got press doesn't

mean that you're a good person.

Honestly, Trump could walk down Fifth, fifth Avenue and just start shooting

people and, and if he was arrested, people would say that it was a set up correct.

And his, these numbers would jump.

He would actually get a boost in the polls.

Yep.

here we are with Trump in terms of the, Republican nomination

and he is way ahead of DeSantis.

So at the moment, somewhere around 51%, what is he?

50, Trump leads 53.1% Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on 21.2,

and nobody else is above six.

So when it comes to who the, the nominee is gonna be for the

Republican party at the next presidential election, if he doesn't

die beforehand, it's gonna be Trump.

Well, DeSantis is an non-entity.

Yeah.

and the crats are beholden to Trump because he's given them.

Three Supreme Court justices.

Yeah.

Who proceeded to do the most radical reform.

Yeah.

No, no.

None of these reformist judges.

Oh wait, they are, aren't they?

You're just reforming the wrong way.

Yes.

Yeah.

Anyway, interestingly enough, the Republican primary vote has dropped

in many states because of abortion.

Right.

Well, we'll get onto how he would fare against Biden.

yes.

For example.

But just before we get to that, if Trump is convicted at trial before

the November, 2024 election mm-hmm.

He can still run for president.

Yes.

there's actually a precedent for that, where somebody did do that before,

got 3% of the vote running there, there was a question as to how Secret

Service would look after him in prison.

Wouldn't that be fascinating?

Mm-hmm.

Fascinating how that would pan out.

Indeed.

in Australia, section 44 of the Constitution disqualifies anyone

under sentence or subject to the sentence for a crime with a prison

sentence of one year or longer from serving in federal parliament.

But there is no US equivalent.

And of course, if Trump were elected president from prison, he

could potentially pardon himself

a beautiful world we live in.

Yeah.

Can you pardon yourself?

I didn't think you could.

There was that argument and that type of thing that was being brought up last time.

They were saying that, there was some.

constitutional experts were saying that he could actually go in and pardon himself.

Others were saying he couldn't.

I tell you what, if it goes to the Supreme Court to decide if he can Oh, that's true.

He'll be able to, pardon?

I think you'll find, I think you'll find he can.

Mm.

even, even if there's a specific section in the Constitution that says

the president cannot pardon himself, they'll read that some way to Yes.

Find that he can.

But the original intention of the founders was Yes, indeed.

thinking about a Donald Trump in the future.

Yeah.

Okay.

So let's then move to, how he's going against Joe Biden and, oh boy.

Oh boy.

Oh boy.

so on the screen and perhaps appearing on your screen, dear listener, in

your app, because I gave the effort of putting these on the chapter

images, so hopefully it appears.

There's a poll of polls.

There's, seven of 'em, big Village Harris Havard, sorry, Harris, Harvard Born in

consult, premise, Quinnie Pak, Redfield and Wilton and YouGov slash the Economist.

And on average, before he was indicted for these issues regarding

keeping secret documents in toilets, before that, Biden was, Trump

was leading 42.9 to Biden, 42.3.

And after the indictment, the average of all those polls shows that Trump

is still leading 42.6 to 41.4.

So Trump's.

Approval dropped marginally, but Biden's dropped.

Biden's dropped even more.

So according to the poll of polls, Trump would win an election against

Joe Biden and the indictment, he has not shifted that unfavorably at all.

I don't extraordinary, I don't understand that extraordinary.

How the hell could, you know, how the hell could anyone in the US actually think to

themselves that this man's worth a vote?

Ex Hmm.

Well, the crats think he is because he's given the Supreme Court.

Yeah.

there's a lot of people who watch Fox News and buy into the,

everything that Biden does is bad.

there's a lot of people who are never Democrats.

There's just a lot of crazy, uneducated people who think very tribally,

who have been brainwashed by a poisonous Murdoch propaganda outfit.

In, in here.

We are.

It's not untrue over here.

We just haven't quite got to that point just yet.

Thank goodness.

Give us time.

But surely they must be looking for someone else other than Donald Trump.

I, I would say the smart money is, but I think the problem is, the

Republicans and there are some never Trumpers in the Republicans, but

he's their best chance of winning.

He's a populist, he will say whatever he needs to say at the time.

These people sa incredulous, I'll just believe anything.

Promises do not matter to him.

He will stand up and say whatever it takes to get their vote and is extraordinary.

It is extraordinary times after all that.

So, so there you go.

if you've got, the other thing of course is in the Democrat, pre-selection, Biden

is a long way ahead of the next candidate.

Robert Kennedy Jr.

Thank God for that.

But, and increasingly you're seeing stuff about Robert Kennedy Jr.

About how crazy that guy is.

He's one crazy dude.

any of us who are in the skeptic community have known for a

long time how crazy he is.

Mm.

He's only a heartbeat away from being the leader, leading contender.

I mean, if Biden has a heart attack or a stroke or some other incapacitating

event, then because this guy's been running the, you know, he's in the

box seat, doesn't he like, okay.

He's a long way from being the leader.

Harris.

Harris would end up, Kamala Harris would, would get the job

if Biden was actually to die.

And then after that, then they wouldn't actually, well, you'd assume that

they wouldn't kick her out for him.

Yeah, I know.

No.

Any look at these figures, anything's possible, isn't it anyway, just, just

saying We could end up with a presidential election with, Robert, with an anti-vaxxer

and an anti-vaxxer against, against Trump.

That could be the next US election.

Mm-hmm.

And people think that that country can continue to put up a fight against China.

Good luck.

Right, that is Barry Jian had an ICAC report come out and, 700 pages.

Oh.

Basically, in an extraordinary report released today, the Independent

Commission against Corruption found former New South Wales Premier.

Gladys Baric then has taken, had taken steps toward government grants

in a desire on her part to maintain or advance her relationship with

former Stadium p Darryl McGuire.

And the commission faulted her for not disclosing her relationship and

for failing to report any suspicions she had about McGuire's activities.

And they called it grave misconduct, but not criminal misconduct.

No.

And that is what the conservative commentators and Murdoch press.

I've latched onto to say, well, it wasn't criminal, so it's all okay.

And just reading from a piece that said the reason why it wasn't criminal, this

simply reflects the difference between the statutory definition of corrupt

conduct and specific criminal acts.

The statutory definition of corrupt conduct embraces a wide range of

conduct that might not be criminal.

Failure to reveal conflicts of interest is one book, barreling is another.

On the ICAC findings, bar, Ian's conduct fell well short of a proper discharge of

her public duties, but was not criminal.

So, yeah, that's how that all panned out.

Pretty damning report as to her conduct, just not criminal.

What did.

Peter Dutton have to say about all of that.

Ah, here we go.

It's been a big week for Gladys Berro Lin as well as we all know.

your reaction to the corruption findings?

Well, Carla, in Gladys, I know somebody who is, absolutely, a wonderful person.

She's first class, and what you see in public is, is what

you get in private as well.

She's just a very decent person.

she chose a bum, basically, and, he was a bad guy.

And I think, that she has, you know, paid a big price for that.

She and a good woman brought her integrity is not in question.

She's not a corrupt person.

that's not the person that I know, and I think she should hold her head high.

she had, a bad relationship as everybody does, and I hope that, pause for some

reason in the middle of that, Joe, sorry.

yeah, she chose a bum.

That's luck.

A we all do it apparently.

she, she's only a simple woman.

She couldn't be expected to know better.

Unlucky, it's a bloke who brought her down unlucky in love.

Hmm.

It's one of those things I've never accepted that, you know,

that she was unlucky in love.

You know, you, you can look at that and that type of thing.

You, you know, you listen to some of those, some of those recordings of them

on, on their, on their telephone chats.

And you could think to yourself, okay, lady, you mightn't have been

told that what he was actually doing, but you knew he was up to no good.

Yeah.

And he was pressuring her for favors and she was saying, yeah, all right,

just look, I think we can rely on the Australian editorial to provide us with

an unbiased assessment of the situation.

And apparently it said, it's meed icac as being an unaccountable law unto itself.

Of course it is with little regard for proper process.

It's public hearings as nothing but quote, public shaming and the

investigation is nothing but a show trial.

Yeah.

So Leader of the Opposition and Australia's major newspaper.

Nothing to see here, despite an icac, damning icac report and damning

about the evidence she gave as well.

That's the state of play in Australian, politics at the moment.

Your listener, I, I'm shocked that the Australian would say such a thing.

Yes, totally outta outta character.

Yeah.

Probably somewhere on some panel show on the abc, they will repeat that and say,

well, is that a fair assessment or not?

Like they'll actually give that some airtime probably.

No.

And then they'll have an LMP person in to say, of course, it was a fair assessment.

Yes.

And then they'll have one per from, you know, the other side.

And, there were two sides of the whole thing.

That's what will happen.

Right.

I mentioned just for the, like I just dragged up an old article last

time we spoke about the, the, the war between America and Mexico and just

by coincidence came across an article from, David Frum in the Atlantic.

So David Frum was, I think a speech writer for George W.

Bush and conservative commentator of course writing in the Atlantic.

And he says actually he's conservative, but he hates Trump.

He's a never Trumper.

Mm-hmm.

Along those lines, war with Mexico, it's on the 2024 ballot, at least if

you believe the campaign rhetoric of more and more Republican candidates.

In January, two Republican House members introduced a bill to authorize the

use of military force inside Mexico.

I've watched the com documentary about the ex, military members

who are doing cross-border raids against the drug smugglers and Right.

And, and also I think the people smugglers.

Yes.

So they're already doing cross border incursions, just

not legally un unauthorized.

Yeah.

And so these two Republicans are saying, well, we need to write this into, we

need to do the right thing and write this into law that our forces can just

enter Mexico and start doing whatever they need to do because, you know,

it's the best place for us to do it.

So, these were not, no, nothings from the fringe of the MAGA caucus.

One was Dan Crenshaw of Texas, a former Navy Seal who received

a master's degree from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

The other was Mike Walsh, waltz of Florida, a former Green Beret who

served as the counter-terrorism advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney.

For a start, what do we do?

A former Navy SEAL and a former Green Beret are really keen to pass

laws authorizing military action.

Gee, what a surprise.

Mm.

Like if we elected Ben Robert Smith to Parliament and he suddenly wanted the

SAS be given extra power to run around in other countries, would we be surprised?

No, I wouldn't be surprised.

No.

I'd be shocked.

Yeah.

Anyway, that was apropos Mexico Ray Raytheon, that's a company

that provides military nasty stuff.

And aircraft stuff and a huge company.

It's all sorts of government contracts, massive a company.

And when they're talking about the battle with China, the head of,

Raytheon had some stuff to say.

Western manufacturers will be able to de-risk their operations in China,

but we'll find it impossible to cut ties completely with the country.

According to the head of one of the US largest aerospace and defense

companies, Greg Hayes, chief executive of Raytheon said the company had

several thousand suppliers in China, and decoupling is impossible adding.

He believed this to be the case for everybody.

So China is too strong, too well embedded, supplying too much essential stuff.

It's gonna be really hard.

America's modus operandi in the past has been to cut countries off, sanction them.

But the fact is that these big American companies like Raytheon need China.

they can arm themselves.

China, they can feed themselves.

They're, they're arming and feeding America, well,

they're arming America anyway.

They've, they've run out of cards that they would normally

play in this situation.

It's game over.

I think just a matter of watching it all happen.

Anyway.

That was interesting.

The big US company, we can't decouple.

Well, they can, but it would be too expensive.

Yes.

Because everyone was happy to rush everything overseas to a cheap provider.

Yeah.

And all of these companies all have little factories doted all over America.

And, They basically threatened the local congressman and say, well, if you don't

do the right thing, I'm just gonna pull my factory out and put it somewhere else.

I'm gonna blame you so you better do the right thing.

And so in lots of parts of America, the only viable business is an arm

manufacturing business that's been clonked there because of an arrangement

between them and a local, politician.

Well, Musk moved to Tesla to Texas, from California.

There were a couple of others that did that because they didn't like the way that

California was being run, that, you know, poor people were actually being helped.

Whereas Texas was every man for himself.

Mm-hmm.

Tesla's being made in China as well?

Yes.

Huge Tesla factory there.

Mm-hmm.

Also, final topic, another quick one.

Affirmative action in USA University.

Mm-hmm.

So there recently, in the last week was two rulings on, related cases by the Chief

Justice John Roberts in the Supreme Court, which basically are ending affirmative

action in the US as it's currently known.

So there was two cases students for fair admissions versus, basically Harvard

College and students for fair admissions versus the University of North Carolina.

Both argued the use of race in college.

Admissions should end, but for slightly different reasons.

In the Harvard case, the plaintiffs claimed that the admissions

practices of Harvard discriminated against Asian American applicants.

It did by placing a cap on the number of admitted, and we have talked about this in

the past several times, the, that if you just based it on a, a color blind score.

That, Asians were disproportionately represented.

Mm-hmm.

And basically Harvard didn't want a campus full of Asians and then penalized

Asians in its admission process to mm-hmm.

Deduct points, oh, you're of Asian race, we're gonna take points off

and make it harder for you to enter.

And that process has been deemed, unacceptable by the Supreme Court.

And, I, in the North Carolina case, the plaintiffs asked the court to rule

that universities can't use race as a factor in college admissions and

must use a race neutral approach.

So, the Supreme Court found that the practices of both colleges

violated the equal protection clause in the 14th Amendment.

They quickly looked at the 14th amendment, and the last part of it

says, nor shall any state deny to any person within its jurisdiction

the equal protection of the laws.

So that was the wording that Harvard, for example, was falling foul of.

Now there is a, mm-hmm.

Something called legacy admissions.

Mm-hmm.

So if one of your parents went to the college, you are automatically

deemed eligible to get in.

And historically these were white only colleges.

Yes.

And they're saying that of the legacy admissions, the vast

majority of them are white.

So are the legacy admissions now ruled invalid as well?

No, of course not Really?

Yes.

That would be denying equal protection for No, no.

The non legacy people, Correct, but it's not based on color, it's based on

whether or not your parents went and that which historically was based on color.

Yes, it was.

Historically, white people got into the college.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

There we go.

There wouldn't be too many black kids relying on black

parents having attended half.

No, exactly.

Exactly.

Mm-hmm.

So I think if you stroke down one, you have to stroke down the other.

You would've thought that it was unequal.

But, how we going?

So now I, it's one of those things.

Now I heard this, what's the, the West Wing?

He was in there though.

I was watching that.

And there was a British, there was a British diplomat and that sort of

stuff who was lecturing the Americans.

And he said, look, your, your original sin was slavery.

Our original sin was your, was Ireland.

And he was just talking in both those terms and he said, now you

are overcoming your original sin.

We're still overcoming our original sin.

Mm-hmm.

Anyway, that was just something by the by.

Mm-hmm.

Just, back to this decision in America, the decision might actually be popular,

a poll designed to capture public opinion on major Supreme Court decisions.

This term found the strong majority of Americans agree 74%, sorry, that

public 74% and private 69% colleges and universities should not be able to use

race as a factor in college admissions.

So the Supreme Court is in line with public opinion, when they,

when they adjust the polling by, questions that remind respondents

of the goal of affirmative action.

To increase the numbers of blacks, Hispanic and other unrepresented

students on elite campuses, it tends to generate more support.

But people don't think minority groups should be given special references.

And guess what?

I've got a little graph for that one.

I think a bit luck.

Here it is.

So half of US adults, disapprove of selective colleges can string race and

ethnicity and admissions while a third approve and a fair number of not sures.

So a total is 50 disapprove of considering race and ethnicity.

33% approve and 16% not sure.

Now, when you break that up, guess what, amongst black, adults, 47% in favor of.

Taking race into account, 29% against Hispanic.

It's split 39.

39.

In the Hispanic community where this law would actually favor them, presumably.

39 4 39 against Asians.

Guess what?

They've seen what's happened in Harvard and they don't like it.

52% are against factoring in race and only 37% are in favor.

And then of course, whites at 57, in 29.

And guess how that breaks down politically?

Well, if you're a Republican, 74% are against special privileges for ethnic

groups in university admissions and as opposed to Republicans or leaning, sorry,

Democrats or leaning Democrats, 29%.

So Republicans, 74 Democrats 29.

There we go.

Significant overall number of people kind of agreeing with the, with

the Supreme Court, with the way that's panned out by looks of it.

Hmm.

What do you think, dear this now it's one of those things here in Australia,

we don't really have a, a hell of a lot of racial bias going on here.

Mm-hmm.

Like, we do have a, relatively, different colored face and that

sort of stuff around the country.

Mm-hmm.

You know, it's just one of those things, you know, I

thought about it just recently.

I went into a shop and that sort of stuff, and there was a whole

group of people in front of me.

I was the only white fella, so, you know.

Mm-hmm.

You know, it's just, where was that?

It was up in Rocky.

Okay.

Yep.

Yeah.

I was the only white fella I, the only white fella going in the shop.

My only experience of discrimination in the university sector would be my

son Leon, who did very well at high school and was school vice captain.

He got a full scholarship at Q U t and a friend of mine who works in Q U

t said a factor in his favor would've been that he was from a, a, a public

high school and that they would actually take that into account his results and

his achievements and him coming from a, the gap high school as opposed to

a private school would've been in his favor as one of the considerations

they use when handing out scholarships.

Scholarships.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Yeah.

So anyway, that's little anecdote there.

I was gonna say, I think the hex is probably disproportionately.

A burden on the poor.

Mm-hmm.

in theory you don't need a wealthy parent because you can just take the loan.

Well, exactly.

But, but the loan can be so big that you could be discouraged from

doing it in the first place if you really thought about it hard.

And, and also, you know, you're shackling yourself with debt, whereas a rich kid

effectively doesn't go, doesn't come outta university with that debt potentially.

Yeah.

If that's assuming your parents are prepared to pay it.

Mm-hmm.

Yep.

And not all mine weren't.

So, you know, I up with the he debt.

Yeah, but your, he debt is probably considerably less.

Oh.

It's a considerably less compared to what they're charging now.

It was, it was considerably less, you know.

Mm-hmm.

And I paid it off relatively quickly.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Final topic, dear listener, before we finish Calvary Hospital in the A c t Joe,

we've had this on the agenda kind of.

For a little while waiting for the right moment moment.

We've not already talked about it.

No, I don't think we have.

Okay.

It got bounced off and on and back on.

And anyway, I found an article from Crikey, which was interesting

about Calvary Hospital.

So basically the A c T government decided to forcibly acquire the

Catholic owned Alary hospital.

I go on, no, not what I understand.

My understanding was it was an c t owned hospital that was

outsourced to the Catholics to run.

Right.

And they have compulsory purchased the leaseback, then the leaseback.

So rather than the ownership, it was the leaseback.

Correct.

That, that's probably correct, yes.

That that's a more accurate description where they may not have owned the.

But then all property, all property in the a c t is leased.

Oh, that's true.

Correct.

But my understanding was that this was a 25 year lease.

This was an outsourcing?

Yes.

Okay.

They had some sort of rights to run a hospital.

Yes.

Which the government said, we don't care what you want, we're taking it off you.

Mm-hmm.

The background is that it was being run by a group called The Little

Company of Mary's Sisters, L c M.

And there was an a c t audited General's Performance Audit Report in 2008.

And as a result of that, both the little company of Mary's sisters and the A c T

government agreed that the, the Mary's sisters should get out of this hospital.

And instead, they could operate a recently opened Canberra Hospice

and and there would be 68 million in compensation as part of the deal.

Unfortunately, the a c t public would not agree to the deal somehow.

I dunno how that came about.

And the Vatican hearing about it said, we don't wanna lose a

hospital that we're operating.

So they basically took control of, of that asset and said, well, it

doesn't actually belong to the little company of Mary's sisters anymore.

It's now a, a Vatican asset and we don't agree with any of this.

if you like resumption of the hospital and.

In any event, it looks like the a c t, is going ahead with the

forcible recovery of the hospital and the compensation will be paid.

And the, the sort of the right of the article was saying the really the little

sort of company of Mary's sisters this, sort of modern nuns who are interested

in healthcare, it's not suitable for them to run a proper hospital that

encompasses all of hospital services and for the sort of in including abortions.

Yes.

And for the sort of stuff that they would be interested in and

would want to do, they should be involved in sort of end of life care.

For people who don't wanna take voluntary assisted dying, that's

where their interest would be and that they would be suited to and.

That's where they wanted to end up and where the government wanted to end up.

But the Vatican stepping in, taking control of the hospital

and saying, no, all deals are off.

Sorry, you're saying the Vatican trying to run people's lives.

Yes.

That sounds outta character for them.

Yeah.

So that was the sort of the flavor of the article, if you like, about

what's happened in that hospital.

So look, the little, company of Mary's sisters might end up acquiring a little

hospice somewhere and getting a big compensation payment or a Catholic

church might end up getting a big compensation payment more likely.

Mm-hmm.

So that's a bit of a messy one, but an interesting one nonetheless.

And maybe in the future there'll be a whole range of hospitals that will be

acquired by governments as they say, we cannot, what the hell are we doing,

having religions running our hospitals?

These are essential services and schools and care services and retirement

villages and, yes, we can only hope Joe.

Mm-hmm.

Well this must have already happened because there was a picture on, Facebook

that was put on the, by the Satanic or there was a picture of a crane

removing the cross from the whole thing.

I dunno what that one was.

Anyway, dunno.

Yeah, right.

That's enough.

That's all the topics I'm gonna get through.

8 38, 8 years down.

I dunno how many more to go.

Yeah.

What else are we gonna do on a Tuesday night?

Just a bunch of old white men.

Yeah.

Shouting, getting the world, getting older every year.

Yeah.

I'm starting to feel old actually.

So anyway.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We talked about our medical ailments before the show.

Yeah.

We've got that out the way.

Anyway, we'll be back next week with some more topics of some sort.

Stay tuned.

Join us then we'll be back then.

We'll talk to you later.

Bye for now, and it's a good night from me and it's a good night from him.