The last days of Pompeo A tipster pointed out to us that among recently released freedom of information documents in the US, there has been a new tranche of papers released by Susan Pompeo, who was organising everything behind the scenes for then-US secretary of state Mike Pompeo in the Trump administration — including his trip to Australia in August 2019.
In the report prepared for Susan recounting her trip, there’s the tantalising detail of the Horizon church service with then-prime minister Scott Morrison and his wife, Jenny. Was this the first step in establishing the close, deeply religious and highly secretive affinity between Pompeo and Morrison? Note the post-service tea with Brad and Alison Bonhomme — Brad would share the stage with Morrison when he delivered his misty-eyed final message as PM, not to the public but to his church:
Apart from tossing up between a mahogany federal box and a pair of etched candle-holders as the perfect gift for the Morrisons, we also get some reviews of Australian TV via Pompeo’s adviser Mary Kissel, Sky News’ Rowan Dean and Peta Credlin.
It’s no great surprise Pompeo’s people approve of the “very sound” Credlin and the “hilarious stuff” produced by Dean (incidentally, we would use that word too — but perhaps not in the same way?). The Trump administration surely had no more fawning coverage than in Sky after dark. Who can forget Paul Murray, a month or so after the above emails, asking Donald Trump, “What do you want to say to your many Australian supporters who wish you nothing but the best in November 2020?” before adding: “There was a wonderful smile on our prime minister’s face when you were taking on part of the fake news media today.”
Z Nation Announcing itself via a flurry of tweets yesterday is the Gen Z Party, which argues that “the boomers in government have failed us”, which is hard to argue with. The party says the solution is to get “influencers standing for Parliament”, which we might want to interrogate a touch further.
Yep, just go to its website to find that one weird trick to make more than $150,000 a year. Whatever else we may think, our only tip at this stage is: guys, if you want to promise real change, don’t do it via graphic design that would make Anthony Albanese fire someone.
And despite having had less than two days in the public eye, the GZP already have a mini-scandal on the books, and it might be the funniest possible — the background of founder Thomas Dolan. Dolan ran at the last election for (get this) the Democratic Labour Party (DLP). Yep, this vanguard of youth politics was founded by a guy who last year ran for the hoary, doddering uncle of Australian politics, the party that answers the question “What if One Nation was twice as old and still faintly worried about communism?”
Insisting he was 100% in favour of bodily autonomy, Dolan insisted the party “wasn’t anti-abortion” when he ran. This would be laughable for anyone with the dimmest understanding of the socially conservative Catholic party’s history and organising principles, even without the detail that in the months leading up to the election the DLP became the party of choice for anti-abortion obsessive Bernie Finn, who became DLP leader after finding a way to be expelled from Matthew Guy’s Liberals.
AI know what AI know Remember when ChatGPT first came out and conservatives felt that its refusal to use racial slurs was a sign it was some kind of left-wing conspiracy? X(formerly known as Twitter)-owner Elon Musk found it “deeply concerning”, for one. Late last week, Grok, the AI that X developed as a counterweight, started rolling out to users. We couldn’t be happier to report, via very popular YouTube culture warrior Tim Pool, “Grok is woke unfortunately.” Funniest of all, the no doubt deeply scientific research shows Grok is “even more far left” than ChatGPT.
This utterly inevitable response came specifically because of Grok’s attempt at nuance when asked about the definition of a woman, but we’d argue it’s hard to satisfy people who will insist on feeling oppressed because they can’t cajole a chatbot into calling someone a gaywad.
Can it, Kennett! Crikey likes to keep half an eye on the proclamations of our granddad who hates us, former Victorian premier Jeff Kennett. Frustrated, presumably because all the focus on the defamation trial between former Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann and the Ten Network meant no-one was actively mad at him, Kennett made the following, profoundly relevant observation:
Very true, Jeff. A completely unrelated process proves exactly that, we’re sure.
