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US President Donald Trump publicly congratulated his Defense Secretary James Mattis for “knocking the hell” out of Daesh - but, Trump added, only because Trump “made it possible with what” he let Mattis do.

Classified and sensitive information is designed to be secret. When it is made public, it is always for a political purpose. That purpose may be to promote a particular political agenda or to build public support for a certain policy position.

Donald Trump’s announcement that the U.S. now recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and will eventually move its embassy there, might well be the most predictable decision of an otherwise unpredictable presidency.

... He simply noticed that people were replacing instead of repairing, and buying two when one would do, all on money they didn’t have thanks to the exploding consumer credit market. Much of the criticism directed his way seems to have been a case of projection; was it not the consumerists who were the revolutionaries, remaking American life and the American economy overnight?

But I said the Turnbull speech trumped Joyce’s in a close run thing — a triumph in itself in this week of misplaced triumphalism.

The International Olympic Committee has ruled on Tuesday to suspend the Russian Olympic Committee immediately. The IOC's decision follows a probe into the country's alleged "systematic doping manipulation."

This weekend, the French press has not stopped praising Barack Obama, who came to France to participate in a “very expensive” conference. He was praised — lavished with a supersized beatitude equal in proportion to the massive criticisms that Nicolas Sarkozy suffered for going to the same thing in the past.

REMEMBERING THE GOOD OLD DAYS OF THE COLD WAR...

The Government and the banks — through various lobby groups like the Financial Services Council — seem obsessed with the makeup of industry super boards.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has said he is "satisfied" no more of his MPs will be forced from Parliament because of dual citizenship.

The dreadful peculiarity of politics, as a business, is the amount of deceit by politicians and lobbyists to promote greater expediency and harbour loose standards for personal gain. The present rot comes mostly from the inside — as outsiders, the public, us, clamour for reforms, fairness and democratic truthfulness. But we elect the bastards... Makes our eyes water...

Electric cars are already cheaper to own and run than petrol or diesel cars in the UK, US and Japan, new research shows.