SUPREME COURT HANDS TRUMP BIG WIN
Donald Trump is almost certain to avoid facing trial over 2020 election interference allegations before this year’s November vote, thanks to a ruling by the US Supreme Court overnight.
“In a 6-3 ruling, the justices said that former presidents are shielded from prosecution for actions that fell within their official job duties, but they do not have immunity for unofficial acts,” the Associated Press reports.
Special counsel Jack Smith, who brought the charges, must now go back and convince a lower court judge whether certain allegations would fall under immunity or not.
Trump called it a “big win for our constitution and democracy” in a social media post. President Joe Biden’s team told reporters the Supreme Court was “conflicted and compromised” and that the justices had handed Trump “the keys to a dictatorship”, CNN reports.
One of the Supreme Court justices who disagreed with the ruling, Sonia Sotomayor, wrote in a dissent the majority’s reasoning would mean a future president may be immune if they “[order] the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival”, adding: “The president is now a king above the law”.
PAYMAN FURORE CONTINUES
Senator Fatima Payman says she has been “exiled” from the Labor Party and accused her colleagues of trying to intimidate her into quitting Parliament — and now there are suggestions she may join a new political organisation called The Muslim Vote, which is considering a “teal-style” attempt at running candidates in safe Labor seats.
“Labor is being warned of a looming political backlash in areas it considers the party’s heartland, from voters that have been some of its most reliable. In particular, Muslim groups in Western Sydney have warned concerns about the federal government’s approach to the Israel-Hamas war, and Palestinian statehood, are turning long-time Labor voters away from the party,” the ABC reports.
According to The Sydney Morning Herald, “the furore over Payman’s exile has spiralled beyond her own political future, as a coalition of Muslim groups announced it would use the high-profile dispute to harness support for a ‘teal-style’ strategy to eject Labor MPs from seats with large Muslim populations.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is reportedly annoyed the Payman saga has overshadowed his government’s tax cuts, which came into effect on Monday. He may have needed that boost: Guardian Australia reports a new poll found Albanese’s approval rating is the lowest since he won the 2022 election, with 49% of respondents disapproving and 40% approving. The same poll showed Opposition Leader Peter Dutton may have “gone all-in on a losing hand, with voters concerned about the cost and safety of nuclear energy”.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE…
Why is British politics so (unintentionally) funny? According to Steve Gimbel, professor of philosophy at Pennsylvania’s Gettysburg College and author of Isn’t that Clever: A Philosophical Account of Humor and Comedy, it’s a case of politicians failing to keep up with the UK’s diminishing importance in the world.
“In the case of British politics, they self-caricature … they end up looking like Ricky Gervais in The Office. There’s a sort of tone-deafness when you set [their] mythology against the modern world,” Gimbel told Politico.
Or, as political comedy podcast host Matt Forde put it in the same article: “It’s the pomposity of the Brits that makes this [funny]. Parliament and all its traditions and all its arcane language and its grand setting. There’s an element of the class system. These are people who genuinely believe they’re better than us, and it turns out they’re fucking idiots.”
Say What?
I just didn’t want to swim any more. It was just like I wanted to puke.
Yazan Al-Bawwab
Some Palestinian athletes feel the upcoming Paris Olympics are more than just a chance to win medals — they feel a responsibility to represent their people as Gaza is being torn apart by war. Palestinian swimmer Yuzan Al-Bawwab recalled in an interview with The Age how it felt to swim in the World Cup as Hamas’ attack on Israel unfolded, followed by the major retaliatory military campaign that’s still ongoing and which has flattened much of the territory. According to Al-Bawwab, competing in the Olympics would be a “political statement”.
CRIKEY RECAP
“In fact, pundits have pondered Biden’s frailty for years. But as Jack Shafer explained in 2019 in Politico, they generally avoided coming to any definite conclusion. ‘After tallying Biden’s repeated stumbles, miscues and mental lapses,’ he wrote, ‘journalists tend to retreat from calling Biden too infirm to run the White House. The greater press taboo, it seems, isn’t asking the question about Biden but answering it.’
In part, the equivocation stemmed from the American style of journalistic ‘objectivity’, which often results in an ‘on-the-one-hand’ and ‘on-the-other’ presentation. For instance, after Biden flopped in a 2019 debate (ironically, against Kamala Harris), The New York Times reported that some thought him ‘slow off the mark’ and ‘uncertain about how to counterpunch’. But the piece carefully balanced such criticisms with quotes from Biden loyalists about his gym program and healthy diet (he ate ‘staples like yogurt and juice, salads with protein and for dinner, pasta or fish’, they enthused).”
“Payman could have dealt with the issue of further motions by saying she’d indicated where she stood on recognition of Palestine and, given the Greens could move a hundred more similar motions and they wouldn’t have any impact, nor save a single life in Gaza, there was no benefit in crossing the floor again on the same issue. Her focus could have been on pushing within Labor — which is in government and thus in a position to change Australian policy — to recognise Palestine now, not, as the government currently seems to want, in some nebulous future. She can’t do that while she’s suspended from Labor, or if she’s booted out.
But while Labor might have tried the soft approach in response to her initial crossing of the floor, it has offered precious little else to MPs and senators who have watched tens of thousands of Palestinians massacred in Gaza with no more than expressions of concern and calls for a ceasefire.”
“In May, Nine refused to deny reports first published in Crikey that cuts in the broadcast division of the company were imminent, saying it was ‘always evolving to best meet the needs of our business in order to remain the market leader’.
Crikey understands Nine staff were incensed by the decision, particularly to cut jobs from the profitable publishing division, which contributed 25% of the company’s earnings despite running on 21% of its revenue in 2023.
‘Fuck Mike Sneesby,’ one Nine staffer told Crikey.
‘Glad we spent millions on a vanity broadcast,’ they sarcastically added, referring to Nine securing the broadcast rights to the next three Olympic Games (including the upcoming Paris Games) for $305 million.
Another source, working at The Sydney Morning Herald, said there was ‘white hot anger’ on the floor, particularly in the context of the ongoing public scandals Nine has recently faced.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
North Koreans are seen wearing Kim Jong Un pins for the first time as his personality cult grows (Associated Press)
Russia launches attacks on Kharkiv and Kyiv as Zelenskyy appeals for help (The Guardian)
Kenya to borrow more after new taxes withdrawn (BBC)
Hezbollah’s plans, Israel’s threats — is either side ready for war? (Al Jazeera)
Bolivia’s attempted coup, dueling versions of events raise worries over what comes next (NBC News)
French parties rush to build anti-far right front (Reuters)
THE COMMENTARIAT
The tragic parable of Rishi Sunak: Driven by success at all costs, then undone by his own myth-making — Nesrine Malik (The Guardian): “Sunak the man may seem like a cipher — political hinterland opaque, motivations unclear – but he is best understood as the product of a postcolonial, post-Thatcherite ideology that considers social mobility as the sum total of achievement. That achievement is secured not just through ‘determination and focus’, but through proximity and affinity with the establishment and its institutions.
In the world of Sunak’s father, British officials regarded Indians who moved to east Africa from south Asia as second class, but still planned to develop Kenya as ‘the America of the Hindu’, with middle-class Indians as intermediaries who would help the British lead Africans towards ‘civilisation’. That was the context from which east Africans of Indian origin came to the UK under favourable immigration regimes after African independence, and then had sons and daughters who are now so well represented in the Tory parliamentary party in Suella Braverman, Priti Patel and Sunak himself.”
This European city is missing a service common in Australia — and we don’t miss it — Caroline Zielinski (SMH) ($): “Within days, we realised what we had thought was a temporary app crash was actually something else entirely: there are no rideshare platforms in Denmark.
Instead of jumping in a car when you’re running late or ordering meal deliveries when you’re too tired to eat, everyone here cycles, walks or takes public transport. No one I know orders food to be home-delivered.
Admittedly, Aarhus is much smaller than our home city of Melbourne. But there’s something to be said for a society that values people’s quality of life enough to eschew small conveniences for the greater good.”
