VENGEANCE AS AN ART FORM

Vengeance is an essential element of Trump 2.0. It’s centred on his fascination with personality, his legendary grudge-holding and his obsession with payback for perceived slights.

Trump’s recent revocation of the security clearances of his predecessor Joe Biden, former opponent Kamala Harris and other adversaries is unremarkable in itself.

Some are painting it as payback for Biden’s move to remove Trump’s clearance in 2021 for what he then described as Trump’s ‘erratic behaviour’.

But, actually, it’s common for former officials to lose their clearances once they leave office.

Of course, usually it’s done without fanfare and both expected and accepted by the individuals involved. Not with Trump. The Trump Reality TV Show requires it done with his absurd showbiz live signing and portrayed as some kind of retributive victory.

But, behind the scenes, Trump’s supporters are hellbent on far more sinister vengeance.

They are quietly hunting down all those involved with what they see as the victimisation of Trump through the many court actions against him, including the non-political cases related to Trump’s personal behaviour.

Not content with firing those who led the investigations and prosecuted the cases, Team Trump is trying to take legal action against the officials personally.

This should be deeply concerning to anyone who values a democratic system where the judiciary is independent from the executive arm of the government.

IS IT TIME FOR MORE AUSTRALIAN INDEPENDENTS?

Just a thought: maybe electing more independents to our parliaments will protect us from the excesses of MAGA-Trumpism and its pathetic local copycat, Clive Palmer’s dog’s breakfast, Trumpet of Patriots.

At first glance, the rise of independents seems to foreshadow a confused, hung parliament that would slowly strangle good governance and planning and make it more difficult to innovate.

But, looking at what Trump has been able to achieve in such a short time under the American two-party system, it may be time to reconsider the value of independents.

Should we have an Australian version of the current American scenario: a craven Republican Party and a shell-shocked and toothless Democratic Party, we could see our system dismantled like America’s.

Strong independents, like David Pocock and Jacqui Lambie, and many others standing for the next Federal election, will act as an insurance policy against the regimented capitulation we’re seeing in America.

I’m thinking of genuine independents, not Clive and his playthings with their mindless MAGA mantras.

We need candidates with character, ability and policies aimed at bettering the lives of their constituents.

They speak without fear of party backlash and they are ever mindful of representing their core supporters rather than the party line.

Maybe it’s time to truly value independent voices and to give them the chance to hold both the major parties to account and to protect our democratic structures. We must choose carefully.

RATS FROM A SINKING TESLA ...

Do the board members of Trump’s chief tech thug Elon Musk’s Tesla know something that the rest of us don’t?

While Musk continues to divide America with his ham-fisted cost slashing and job cutting as the spokesperson for DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency), his fellow directors at Tesla have been voting with their wallets.

Rupert’s less favoured son, James Murdoch, recently exercised stock options worth $US13 million and immediately sold them.

Tesla chairwoman, Australia’s Robyn Denholm, unloaded $US75 million worth in November and December, then another $US43 million in February and a further $34 million in early March.

Another board member, Kathleen Wilson-Thompson, has sold more than $US100 million worth of her shares since last November.

Even Musk’s younger brother, Kimbal, sold $US 28 million on February 4 and the company’s CFO, Viabhav Taneja, sold $US2.5 million worth on March 3.

JP Morgan is forecasting that this quarter will be Tesla’s worst for car deliveries since 2022. Tesla’s new vehicle registrations halved year-on-year in January. And, JP Morgan says Tesla’s situation in Europe is even worse.

Overall, JP Morgan said: “We struggle to think of anything analogous in the history of the automotive industry, in which a brand has lost so much value so quickly.”

And things don’t look like turning around any time soon. According to a CNN poll this week, the proportion of Americans who hold a negative view on Musk has grown from 35% to 53%.

Against this background, Musk is continuing his appeal against a Delaware court which rescinded his proposed pay package of $US56 billion. Delaware is where Tesla is incorporated.

THE CONVERGENCE OF CORRUPTION

Clearly, America’s chief tech thug, Elon Musk, is feeling the impact of the almost 50% drop in the value of his Tesla shares since the Trump Reality TV Show hit the airwaves.

 While Tesla owners across the nation were trying to disguise the marque with fake badges, the Presenter of the United States turned the White House driveway into a Tesla showroom to try to help his favourite billionaire stop the rot.

 Trump then pretended to buy a top-of-the-line shiny red Tesla, a Model S Plaid in deep red, costing about $US80,000.

 Even after the Tesla market falls, Musk’s personal fortune is still estimated at $US325 billion. He’s still the richest man in the world, ahead of Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, who is at $US215 billion (and Vladimir Putin, estimated to be worth as much as $US200 billion).

 (No wonder Trump is such a fanboy of Russia’s oligarch-in-chief. Vlad Putin, the career public servant has amassed his vast wealth while on an official salary of around $US140,000 a year.)

 Meanwhile, Tesla is the worst performing S&P 500 listed company, dropping 45% this year. Musk owns 12.5% of its shares, worth roughly $US116 billion, about a third of his total wealth.

 Trump’s cheque is apparently in the mail.

MUSK'S TECH THUGS WIELD THE CHAINSAW

I checked and this is apparently true.  In their crazy doctrinaire rush to unravel (and to eliminate) what they believe to be America’s lurch to the left in diversity, Elon Musk’s young tech thugs have taken their digital chainsaw to the Pentagon, America’s Defence Department.

They have announced that they plan to bulk erase 26,000 websites and images because they contain content that “highlighted diversity, equity or inclusion”.

In making their selection, they searched the entire Pentagon database for references to “gay” and then ordered them to be deleted.

That meant a photo of a Sergeant-Major named A. C. Gay, from the 3rd Assault Amphibian Battalion, was marked for destruction.

It also meant that an image of General Paul Tibbets standing in front of his plane, was also to suffer the same fate. Tibbets was photographed in front of the ‘Enola Gay’, named after his Mum, Enola Gay Haggard Tibbets.

It was the B-29 bomber he piloted when it dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, on 6 August 1945, hastening the end of World War Two.

How long will this insanity continue?

Will the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, where the Enola Gay is on permanent display, have to double its guards in case the tech thugs try to destroy the plane itself?

'FIVE EYES' ALLIANCE UNDER THREAT

Perhaps the most concerning latest episode of the chaotic Trump Reality TV Show is the emerging talk that some of his henchmen are calling on Trump to expel Canada from the Five-Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance as part of his pressure play against his nearest neighbour.

The Five-Eyes alliance is the most important top-level intelligence partnership in the world - between the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. It arose from the collaboration between American and British codebreakers in WWII and grew to include Canada, Australia and New Zealand during the Cold War in 1956.

The rumours gain weight coming after Trump actually withdrew intelligence access to Ukraine following his recent dummy spit at President Zelensky.

The Financial Times fingered Trump’s senior counsellor on trade and manufacturing, Peter Navarro, as advocating Canada’s eviction from Five Eyes.

Navarro served prison time for refusing to testify when called before the congressional commission investigating the January 6 2021 attack on the US Capitol. But last December Trump rehabilitated him by naming him as a senior counsellor for trade and manufacturing.

Navarro has subsequently tried to backtrack on the issue but the fact that the suggestion has even seen the light of day should send shockwaves through the western intelligence community.

Surely Trump cannot be serious in his musings that Canada should be America’s 51st state?

With allies like Trump’s America, who needs enemies?

THE PRESENTER OF THE UNITED STATES ...

Here’s a stunning surprise: the overhyped $TRUMP meme coin’s price has plummeted 83% since its launch in mid-January.

It started trading at $US0.18, before surging to its peak of $US75.35 on January 19. Yesterday it was languishing at $US12.25, a fall from its peak of $US63.10 in 45 days.

The $TRUMP coin has no utility. It’s a pure collectible, a digital version of football cards or Pokemon. (It doesn’t even allow the owner to play a game!)

Trump’s operatives have retained 80% of the $TRUMP coins. Only 20% is in circulation. The backers apparently plan to gradually roll out the balance starting this month as they cash in on the project. That should provide even greater downward pressure to the price.

The $TRUMP coin is a perfect emblem for Trump and his method of operation: it’s designed to make a tiny group of billionaires even richer, leaving the vast majority as losers, while Trump himself invests nothing but clips the ticket.

It’s all about branding. Just as Trump doesn’t own the buildings with his name emblazoned on them, so Trump the meme coin promoter simply lends his name to it, taking no risk except to his reputation. And that’s worth about as much as his coin.

The Golden Age of Corruption under the Presenter of the United States continues …

WHERE ARE ALL THE PRESIDENTS?

HE CAN’T BE SERIOUS! 

It’s long been clear that Donald Trump sees his presidency as some kind of bizarre reality-politik TV show, where he is the Presenter, ratings are the ultimate aim and the way to win them is to spew out a continuous flow of cheap theatrical drama.

It’s also clear, as many world leaders and commentators are concluding, that he is neither a serious person nor a serious world leader.

Trump erased any doubts at the end of his harangue against President Zelensky when he said: “It will make great television”.

My only question now is where are the Presidents? Where are Clinton, Bush, Obama and Biden defending the office against the assault on it by Trump, Musk and the tech thugs?

Americans have long held a deep respect for the office of the Presidency. Former presidents retain their title for life. These men continue to be briefed on the innermost operations of their nation. They have inside knowledge.

Their legacies are now at stake, Where are they?

BRING BACK THE COASTWATCHERS!

The Chinese navy’s live-fire exercises off our east coast have highlighted some major deficiencies in Australia’s defence capabilities. And we don’t have time for AUKUS to solve them.

The fact that it was a Virgin Australia pilot who had to advise the ADF that the Chinese were conducting the exercises 640km east of Eden on the NSW south coast should have alarm bells ringing in Canberra, both at Russell and in Parliament House.

 It focusses attention on our current defensive capacity. While AUKUS may deliver our first Virginia Class nuclear submarine in ten years, the $368 billion we’re spending on the deal is robbing urgently-needed current programs.

 Although the ADF has a budget of $58 billion this year, many experts are convinced that we don’t have the assets to defend ourselves and, under current arrangements, our navy doesn’t expect any new ships until 2029 at the earliest.

 Maybe it’s time we looked to some of the wonderful ingenuity we displayed in World War Two when we created the famous Coastwatchers.

 Protecting our enormous coastline has always been daunting. It runs about 19,000 km – roughly the distance from Sydney to London via the Cape of Good Hope.

 So, in the lead up to the war, the navy cobbled together a remarkable rag-tag group of ‘old hands’ around our coast and in the islands surrounding us: planters, traders, miners, teachers, government officials, missionaries and locals.

 Using cumbersome teleradios (needing up to 10 people to transport them), they provided an invaluable early-warning system against Japanese attacks.

 It cost them dearly. Many were captured, tortured and executed. But the intelligence they provided prompted the great American Admiral William ‘Bull’ Halsey to tell one Coastwatcher hero, Paul Mason:

“Guadalcanal saved the Pacific and the Coastwatchers saved Guadalcanal.”

 The Coastwatchers’ communications would be a lot easier and more efficient in today’s digital world. Maybe it’s worth putting the old band back together?

FACTS NOT FICTION AS AMERICA SIDES WITH RUSSIA ...

As the Trumpian propaganda train on Ukraine gathers momentum, it’s time to introduce some facts into the debate.

 The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based independent research organisation that provides fact-based data on conflicts, recently countered Trump’s claims.

 Trump: claimed Zelensky was an unelected dictator.

The facts: Zelensky was elected in a democratic national ballot in 2019 (with 75% of the popular vote). The Ukrainian constitution prohibits elections in wartime (ie once martial law has been declared, as it was when Russia invaded three years ago).

Trump: claimed Ukraine has lost millions of its people in the war.

The facts, Ukraine has lost around 46,000 killed - including 12,000 civilians - and almost 400,000 wounded. (That’s roughly Australia’s casualties in WWI.)

Trump: claimed the US has given $US200 billion more in aid to Ukraine than European nations. He said America had given $US350 billion.

The facts: The Kiel Institute for the World Economy says European nations have pledged $US204 billion against America’s $US183 billion.

Trump: claimed Zelensky had never sought negotiations with Putin.

The facts: Zelensky tried to meet with Putin days before the Russian invasion in February 2022. In March 2022, Zelensky tried again. Putin ignored him. Zelensky said he was even open to discussing the status of occupied territory provided the Ukrainian people could ratify any deal via a referendum. Putin rejected the offer.

As usual, Trump shoots from the lip, untrammelled by any need to stick to the facts.

And today, the United States split with its allies and voted against a UN resolution calling on Russia to pull its troops out of Ukraine.