Three immovable realities are leading Labor MPs to an unpalatable decision to restore their dumped leader. 

You wouldn't think that poker machines and ethanol have much in common. But the actions of the O'Farrell government in recent weeks have managed to tie them together quite neatly.

The Minister for Hospitality, George Souris, quietly put through a regulation last month that did Clubs NSW a big favour.

It is no coincidence that each week brings news of another manufacturer forced to lay off staff, reduce their hours or shut up shop completely. Confronting a high Aussie dollar and an army of cheap labour overseas, it was the turn of Holden and the manufacturers of Mortein, Reckitt Benckiser, to announce job losses this week. Such events are invariably accompanied by calls for more industry assistance.

Mr President,

Washington's enemy is not "terrorism" but the principle of free speech and voices of conscience within its militarist state.

This month's Supreme Court hearing in the Julian Assange case has profound meaning for the preservation of basic freedoms in western democracies.

Tony Abbott's application for the nation's top job is a mix of elaborately sketched scenes of a glorious economic nirvana, contrasted against the grim reality of a slash and burn approach to government spending and public servants.

It is no different from the customary election stump speech, except that the election is almost two years away.

Abbott delivered a message of hope, reward and opportunity, with scant detail of how to get there.

That doesn't matter to his supporters, because they lapped up the portrayal of Labor as hapless and hopeless.

The government has been urged to explain why Prince Andrew has met four foreign heads of state in the past six months and embarked on two full-scale government trade missions despite stepping down as the UK's special representative for trade.

The Duke of York announced last July that he would relinquish the role following criticism of his association with a convicted child sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein, and business connections with dictators including Colonel Gaddafi.

Tony Abbott's decision to wait until the Parliament had shut down at the end of last year before making it clear that he would block a conscience vote on any gay marriage bill could cost him in the long run.

Rapper and poet Omar Musa refused the Queanbeyan City Council's request for him to be an Australia Day ambassador because he said January 26 represented a date that had increasingly become the focal point of the country's culture wars.

Is American power in decline, relative to the rest of the world? That question is at the center of a provocative study by the U.S. intelligence community exploring what the world might look like in 2030. 

What is it about bankers' pay that makes the hard-pressed majority feel that finance capitalism is a conspiracy against them? Could it be that, more than three years after the credit crunch of 2008, we feel that the unfair rewards in the sector that caused the crisis continue unabated?

from Crikey .....

all's well in an intelligence community overseeing itself

Crikey Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane writes:

ASIO, ROBERT CORNALL, WIKILEAKS

from Crikey .....

Australia Day spirit: kill politicians. 

A Crikey reader sent in this nuanced and charming political message on a shop front in Southport on the Gold Coast.