from Crikey …..

The government's controversial citizenship-stripping bill is in deep trouble, as it becomes apparent that it has been drafted too hastily and the "solution" to the problem of ministerial discretion has merely pushed it further up the bureaucratic chain.

One of the bosses’ best economic think tanks, the working class taxpayer funded Government agency the Productivity Commission has released its Workplace Relations Framework Draft Report.

Brownyn Bishop’s escalating expenses row, from helicopters to limousines to god knows what else, the contempt the vast majority of Australian people feel for her, the protection Prime Minister Tony Abbott gave her and the consequent damage this has done to his government and party, all combined to see her resign as speaker of the House of Representatives and Abbott announce a root and branch review of parliamentary entitlements.

Did you hear about the man who entered New Orleans’ airport with explosives and a machete? No? Well, you would have if he’d been Muslim.

A Muslim American man carrying a duffel bag that holds six homemade explosives, a machete, and poison spray travels to a major U.S. airport. The man enters the airport, approaches the TSA security checkpoint, and then sprays two TSA officers with the poison. He then grabs his machete and chases another TSA officer with it.

The Speaker is under further pressure as revelations emerge that she hired a corporate aircraft to travel from Sydney to Nowra for a Liberal party fundraiser.

Adam Goodes is a great Australian Rules footballer. He was won two Brownlows (best and fairest) and two premierships with the Sydney Swans. He is a former Australian of the Year. He is proudly Aboriginal. For that, for the very fact of proclaiming his aboriginality, he is now being booed by many opposing football fans.

from Crikey ….

Australian sovereignty is at risk under the Trans-Pacific Partnership, with evidence showing a toxic combination of corporations, ambulance chaser law firms and biased arbitrators will be able to overrule our laws.

from Crikey …..

Last year, Treasurer Joe Hockey famously declared that Australia needed to be a nation of “lifters, not leaners”.

The Coalition wants us to believe workers and the poor have it easy—and that the funds for their coveted budget surplus should be taken from our pockets. Labor leaders, for their part, largely agree.