Boonta Vista - EPISODE 111: Join The Dots

Episode Date: August 13, 2019

Andrew, Theo & Lucy cover the recent High Court ruling of Bad Posts, Miranda Devine's attempt to link marijuana and mass shootings, and the passing of a certain private jet enthusiast. Here's the piece by Mark Fletcher (https://twitter.com/openvillainy) that we read from in this episode: https://onlythesangfroid.wordpress.com/2019/08/07/if-no-truths-are-spoken-then-no-lies-can-hide-comcare-v-banerji-was-a-win-for-democracy/ *** Support our show and get exclusive bonus episodes by subscribing on Patreon: www.patreon.com/BoontaVista *** Merchandise available at: boontavista.com/merchandise *** Twitter: twitter.com/boontavista iTunes: tinyurl.com/y8d5aenm Spotify: spoti.fi/2DBCXGA Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/s?fid=144888&refid=stpr Pocket Casts: pca.st/SPZB RSS: tinyurl.com/kq84ddb

Welcome to Puente Vista, episode 111. It's a lot of number ones. And we've got three number ones for you right here. Ah, shoot. Can't wait for episode Triple 2. Triple 2. That's going to take us wild. There's me, Andrew, number one. Also number one, it's Theo. Hey, I'm number one. Sorry, that

took a lot of psychic energy to actually say. You're number one. And Lucy is also number one. Wait. Because we believe in equality. All of us the same ranked number one on the podcast. We're all at one of those new Fendangled, millennial schools where everyone just gets an A. All getting our participation trophies. It's so nice. It is. Do you guys get your participation trophy? I did. It says I'm number one on it. Oh, hell yeah, dude. Damn it feels good. Ben still traveling across the United States, which means he's currently number number number number. to. the the to. the to. the the t. the t. t. the t. t. the t. t. t. t. the's t. tod. the tod. tod. tod. today. toy. toy. today. today. today. today. tha. tha. tha. tha. tha. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. t. t. t. t. t. t. t. t. t. th. th. th. th. th. the the the the the the te. te. te. te. te. te. te. te. te. te. te. te. te. te. toda. today. today. toda. traveling across the United States, which means he is currently number two. He's a big old number two. You can make the duke joke about that one. That's fine. We all agree with it. So, um, a lot of stuff going on in the news.

Listen, there's things going on. Everything happens so much. Everything does happen so much. And of course we all get to read about it on social media because who doesn't love having their brain constantly poisoned by the energy of social media. The horror machine that I pick up as soon as I wake up in the morning. Immediately start funneling that into my brain? So over the last week or two there was an interesting court case in Australia where a that, their that that the tho' th. that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that tho-a tho-to-to-toda tho-tha th. th. tho-tha tho-tha tho-tod. th. tho-tod. th. tho-the th. Because th. Because tho-tod. Because th. Because th. th. tho-tod. th. tho-tod. that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that thattoda thattoda thattoday that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that the last week or two, there was an interesting court case in Australia, where a public servant was sacked for their social media posts, series of appeals, all that kind of thing. And this has been seen by the media class and I think

a lot of the center-left community as this horrible dystopian the government is squashing your right-to-post type stuff. But I think you've got to look at the case in a bit more detail before you get too excited about that angle. So I know that it's a that it is very much the default center-left position to say, Hey, no form of political speech should be censored by your employer, etc. But I would remind everybody, it's not that long since we had the whole Israel Falo to do, in which a famous rugby union player loved to get on social media and tell all of the

homosexuals and trans people and gamblers and alcoholics and everything that they're all going to burn in hell for all of eternity. And he got fired by Australian Rugby League because he had re-signed to a very specific contract that said, you have to stop doing that. And he went, okay, give me millions of dollars, please. And they went, okay, and he said, cool. You're all going to hell, send tweet. So everyone was perfectly happy in that instance to turn around and say,

well, that was the contract he signed with his employer. Which we love to see, left-wing people the thi people people people people people people people people people people people people people people people people people people people people people people to toing people the toing people their their tooing people their their tooing people tooing people tooing tooing tooing tooing tooing tooing tooing, the contract he signed. That was the contract he signed with his employer. Which we love to see, left-wing people invoking the rights of the employer. In their arguments, great stuff. So let me give you what has been kind of the, the, I guess, straight Australian media version of this story. This is from the Guardian. High court rules that public servants can be sacked for political social media posts. Free speech test case of former immigration department employee. Now I'm gonna just pick a pronunciation for this lady's name,

because I haven't heard it spoken anyway and I'm gonna stick with that. Apologies to her and anyone who actually knows how I'm meant to be saying it. Michaela Benergy? Sounds right. It feels fine to me.. I. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's to. It's to. It's to. It's to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to. to. to. to. to. to. to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the. the the the the the. to the to to to to actually knows how I'm meant to be saying it. Michaela Benergy? Sounds right. It feels fine to me. Looks correct. Former Immigration Department employee Michaela Benergy has implications for 2 million federal, state and local workers. The High Court has unanimously upheld a decision to sack a public servant, Michaela Bernardershi, for anonymous social media posts that criticised the government's immigration policy.

Now keep this in mind that this is the way this has been framed. Anonymous posts criticizing the government's immigration policy. Which I will say is probably the takeaway that I have seen from many of like our friends as well. That's sort of the message, and certainly the first impression we got the th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th the the the the the the the the the the the the the that's the theateateateate the theateateateateateateateateate. that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's the. that's the. the. the the that's the the that's that's the the that's the the the the the the the the the the theate theateateateateateateateateateateateateateateateateateate theateateate theateat of the message and certainly the first impression we got of the situation when this sort of came out, which is a scary thing right to say that if your face is on, is not on the account and you're just, you know, you've got some truth anon at Twitter thing and they somehow through like investigative work or whatever hunt you down and go no you cannot say these bad things anonymously and then you know there's this all

to do. It's probably not a great look I would say as far as those things go but as you said why we said why let's let this play out because this is very much the assessment that we've all been seeing of this. Now I would note straight off the bat in these two sentences that a thing that I feel again has been overlooked here is posts that criticize the government's immigration policy and also immigration department employee so she's already in the actual department that she's

publicly criticizing the policy of. Now we are no fans of the government's immigration policy on the show. Let's let let let let let let let let let let's let's let's that. Let's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I'd th. I'd the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the. I the. I the. I the. I the the the the the the th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the thean thean the thean thean theat the the the the the the the that she's publicly criticizing the policy of. Now we are no fans of the government's immigration policy on the show. Let's let that be known. The court delivered its judgment in a landmark freedom of speech test case on Wednesday, upholding an appeal from the workers' compensation agency Comcare, which argued that it was reasonable for the immigration department to sack Benegy. The case has implications for 2 million federal, state, and local public servants as the court declined to use the constitutional implied freedom of communication to rule that the sacking was unreasonable. Benergy was sacked for breaching the public service code of

conduct, which requires public servants to be apolitical at all times, they've pulled out at all times in scare quotes, for anonymous tweets from her La Legal Twitter account. Now again, the implication here is that she was tweeting this stuff at midnight from an incognito tab in a secure location and the government somehow tracked her down and found it, or that she whispered behind her hand to someone at a barbecue that she didn't agree with this policy. After an unsuccessful unfair dismissal claim, Benegy won a workers' compensation case where the administrative appeals tribunal found that her sacking was unreasonable in part

because it breached the implied freedom, because it breached the implied freedom. In the majority judgment, the Chief Justice, Susan Keefel and Justice's Virginia Bell, Patrick Kean and Jeffrey Nettle, overturned that decision, noting the implied freedom is not a personal right of free speech. So this is where we start to get back into the Israel-Faller territory of we don't actually have any like absolute right to free speech in Australia. And so this lady is kind of trying to say, my personal right to free speech trumps any and all, you know, agreement that I've made with my employee.

They noted that public service rules say that anyone who posts on social media should assume that their identity and public employee employment will be revealed, an obvious risk that means even so-called anonymous tweets can damage the public service. Outside the court, Benergy said she had taken legal action to quote affirm the role of freedom of speech for public servants and we failed. Her lawyer Alan Anforth said that the case could have implications beyond public sector employing. I'm not sure how. This is a case very specifically about whether or not this woman's tweets contravened the Australian Public Service Code of Conduct.

But somehow he's saying that it could have implications beyond that arrangement. He says, the implication is that for any employee-employee-employer relationship, if the employee is critical of the employer's position on some politically relevant social issue they can be sacked, her lawyer said. The community and public sector union national secretary Nadine Flood said the union was disappointed in the decision because quote people working in Commonwealth agencies should be allowed normal rights as citizens rather than facing Orwellian censorship because of where they work.

Duh. Scary word. It's like 1984. That's right. That's the book that Orwell wrote. That's right. That he knew all about posting. He would have been a poster. Would have been a big-time poster. Big-time poster. Big-time poster.

Now, I read a blog from a person I follow on Twitter. I think he's a lawyer named Mark Fletcher. Now I believe, I apologize to him in advance if I'm misrepresenting him, but Mark cast himself as a conservative, although I guess more of the like small L liberal type. And generally, he also disagrees with a lot of things that the government does in the name of conservatism, all that sort of stuff. So, he wrote a blog about this titled if no truths are spoken then no lies can hide Comcair versus Benergy was a win for democracy and I found this quite interesting because this actually gives an

amount of detail into the case that is not apparent in any of these articles that we're seeing the Guardian or anywhere else that say this woman did some casual posting and then she got sacked and that's the th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho thu thu- thu-o-o-o-o thu-soathes thus thus thus tho-o-o-u-u-u-a tho-a tho-u-a the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the thus the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the thus. thus. thro' thro' thro'-s. teeat-n'-n'-n'-n'-n'-n'-n'-n'-n'-n'-n'-n'eateateate of tho'that we're seeing the Guardian or anywhere else that say, this woman did some casual posting and then she got sacked and that's the end of the story and now no one's allowed to post without getting fired. Because that's the essence of what we're taking away from this, right? Definitely what I'm taking away from it so far. Yeah. So, I'll read some excerpts from this, so we'll get an idea of what's going on. Petty dissidents, i.e. employees who argue with their bosses over matters of everyday business

judgment or who slander their supervisors or who badmouthed their companies. It was into this category that the administrative appeals tribunal characterized Michaela Benergy with the greatest respect. Quote, the tone of her tweets carried her contributions beyond mere education and into the realm of partisan advocacy and personal vitriol. He says, we really need some background. If you are a public servant and you tweat some spicy spicy stuff on Twitter. What happens is that your supervisor says, hey don't do that, pull your head in and then it's over. If you do it again, they start to look at the code of conduct. 99.9% of the time, everybody is a normal, sensible person about this stuff.

Everybody knows that you don't post hogwild hot takes on Twitter about your own work, and so for the most part, people don't. Thus, there is absolutely no problem. The Benergy case was different. Miss Benergy inexplicably thought it was a good idea to tweet about her work and tag in her boss on some of her sledges. Extremely powerful. So she had like a, I believe, a relatively high profile position in the immigration department and was like tagging in a direct supervisor who's very senior public

servant in the same department and hassling them about policy. Powerful energy. And also her co-workers and shit too. It's like turning up to your parking lot and a little masquerade mask and yelling at your boss. Hey, I heard you suck shit. Just like a leg at it. But I'm sure she took, you know, precautions to make sure that the account was anonymous and so on and so forth.

Exactly, I mean, in the Guardian report it says, well, she tweeted this stuff from her anonymous account, and they still found out somehow. It possibly has something to do with the following. She had pictures of her Twitter avatar stuck up at her desk. Why? It's just the most boom of shit. Why in general would you have this? I got a theory about this but let's let's get through the rest of this paragraph. It's like sitting down at Bruce Wayne's desk and he's got a little framed picture of Batman. Just love that guy so much. She had pictures of her Twitter avatar up at her desk so her boss Sandy Logan had surprisingly little difficulty working out who was behind the account that was constantly tweeting at him about policy. He

reported it she self-represented in the federal court to prevent the department from sacking her. She got sacked. She saw workers' compensation for being sacked. The administrative appeals tribunal inexplicably found in her favor. Today the High Court returned the universe to normal. So I think about having the pictures of your Twitter avatar up at your desk. Like, that to me is the most boomer shit in the world the world the world the world the world the world the world the world the world the world the world the the the the th th th thi thi-s thi-s thi-s thi-s thi-s. I thi-s. thi. the that's that's that's the that's that's that's that's that's that having the pictures of your Twitter avatar up at your desk like that to me is the most boomer shit in the world and it represents the class of Australian middle-aged tweeter that we have spoken about on the show before which is somebody somebody with several thousand followers who is convinced that their tweets are actually like changing the country?

Yeah people who think that liketheir tweets are actually like changing the country? Hmm. Yeah, people who think that like, you know, putting the raindrop emoji in their... Hashtag close the camps. In their Twitter screen name is like activism and is actually like changing anything that happens? And these people also tend to do their tweets about this sort of stuff with like, just a level of self-importance that is mind-bending. I just want to see these tweets.

I feel like I need to see the tweets to form an opinion. So, yeah, she had pictures of her avatar printed out and stuck up on her desk, which, yeah, like you said, Theo, it's like being Batman and sticking up a little picture and going, oh, fuck, it feels good to be Batman. So my conceding is, it's really important that everyone recognizes that this was not normal. Sledging your boss on Twitter, even sledging your employer on Twitter, most people recognize that this is not a good career move. The inexplicable part about this case was that Ms. Benergy thought that her sledging her colleagues an employer should somehow get a constitutional protection that is not afforded to public

employees. So, again, as we, as we say, like if you work for the public service, you are governed by the APS code of conduct. The APS code of conduct has specific things in it about how you are to conduct yourself at work and away from work and in the case of this sort of stuff, it is that you cannot conduct yourself in a way that like makes the public service look bad, basically. So like, it's not as though if you are a public service employee that you're not allowed to tweet like, vote yes on marriage equality. The cops aren't going't gonna come around and kick down your door

and drag you off to the 1984 thought police prison and re-educate you. But like, if you work in a department and are actively involved in a particular type of policy, and you are tweeting about that at your boss. You really hate the policies. I mean, I know it's not that simple to just get a different job, but I feel like like to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have a to have a to have a the their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their theailellyllyllyllyllyllyllyllyllyllyllyllyllyllyllyllyllyllyllyllyllyllyllyllyllyllyllyllyllyllyllyllyllyllyllyllyllyllyllyllylly.eaugeli.eail.eail.eail.ea. the the policies. I mean I know it's not that simple to just get a different job, but I feel like to have a fairly senior role in immigration. You've pursued this career path, you know?

Well and like, and I know people who work in immigration, right? Like I know a guy who was a lawyer in the immigration department and he was there over the years that it was like becoming the sort of full-on, like when they created Australian Border Force and when they started like, you know, doing all the psycho ads and all that sort of stuff. I know some people where, like, he got to a point where he just said, I don't want to be a part of this anymore. And he got himself got to a point where he just said, I don't want to be a part of this anymore. And he got himself moved to a different department. Which, fair enough, that's absolutely a prerogative to do.

And I support it if somebody says, I don't want to be like actively taking part in doing this stuff. I also know somebody else who works for immigration like processing like a visa claims for asylum and stuff like that. So you know he does things like, he does things like the whole sort of where somebody's been in the country and they've overstayed their visa and stuff like that or they've lost their appeal to to get an asylum claim or something or all this different variety of stuff and that, or they've lost their appeal to get an asylum claim or something, or all this different variety of stuff. And the person has to be like taken through the whole process and taken to the airport

and put on a plane and sent to another country and stuff like that. And for him, like I know this person, well, and they are like I can sit in the left-wing person. and I've thl thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, tho, thi, thi, thi, thr-a, thoe, and tho, and tho, and tho, and tho, and tho, and tho, and thi, and tho, and th. And, and th. And, and th. And, and th. And, and th. And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, th, th, and, th, th, and, th, th, and, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thr, thr, thr. And, thrown, thrown, theean, thrown, theean, thrown, the, thean, thrown, the,-wing person. And I've talked to him about this and said, how do you reconcile this kind of stuff? And he said, well, this particular function of the state is going to take place. And I would rather that somebody was in there who was going to actually listen to people

and treat them with dignity. Yeah, someone has to do these roles, absolutely. Yeah, and do this process properly, as opposed to, you know, like he's not like a fucking Serco guard out there cracking heads at one of the camps or anything. So, so Mark in this blog goes on to kind of talk about some of the actual benefits that are baked into the Public Service Act from 1999, which is one of the things that that governs People's behavior and all this sort of stuff So he says far from living under a draconian reign where public servants have their freedom of speech severely curtailed The APS actively facilitates appropriate participation of public servants in the democratic process

The most well-known of these is right of return. Under section 44 of the Constitution, people who hold offices of profit under the crown are ineligible to stand for elections. So this is some of the section 44 constitutional stuff that was like a big deal about, what's his name, head of the immigration department, Peter Dutton, because he had, he had like, what was the shares in the child care company that was like receiving some kind of government rebate? There was a similar thing about Karen Phelps, when she got elected, she was still operating as a GP, and people were like, oh, but if you are a doctor who is taking the Medicare rebate who's taking Medicare payments then you are profiting from the crown blah blah blah so he says the APS has found a sneaky way around that through section 32 of

the Public Service Act if you're a public servant and you want to stand for an election you can resign to avoid section 32 of the Public Service Act. If you're a public servant and you want to stand for an election, you can resign to avoid section 44 of the Constitution knowing that you have your right to a job if you're not successful. So basically if you say, specifically, like what we're talking about here, if you disagree with these policies so much that you're like, I want to run for office and actively change this stuff. You can th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th thoen thoen thoen thoom thoom thoom thoom tho-a tho-a tho-a' tho-a' to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the their their their their their their their their their their their tho. thr. thr. thrown. thrown. thrown, the.e. the. thooooooooooooo.e.e.eanananananananananane. Wea. Wea. Wea. to run for office and actively change this stuff, you can resign from your job in the public service, run for an election on the basis of trying to change this stuff. And if you are unsuccessful in that, they have to hold your job for you and let you come

back to it and keep working if you're unsuccessful. That's a fun clause. That's a pretty good deal. And I think that's, youthat's one of the many conditions that the Australian Public Sector Union, Public Sector Union, Public Service Union, fights for that are like other types of employees do not get. He says a less well-known one is the right under the Australian Public Service Commissioners directions 2016 to access leave without pay in order to go and work as a ministerial advisor. That is, if you want to go and take up a partisan position within our democratic system,

you have an entitlement to leave without pay in order to access it. So again, if you say, hey, I've been given a chance to go and have like very direct, partisan, active influence over the democratic system here. You are allowed to do that. You're just not allowed to do it as an Australian public service employee. But again, they will say, you know what, you can go and do that job for as long as you like, taking leave without pay to do it and your job will just be held for you until you're done with it. Andrew, what if,, what if instead I want to put a little water drop emoji in my Twitter name? Yell at my boss.

This is basically nobody should be worried that there is an unreasonable clamping of speech just because you accepted, as Benegy's lawyer put it, the Queen's shilling. And we can see that in the decision. Miss Benegy,, whose tweets were quote reasonably characterized as in temperate even vituperative in mounting personal attacks on government and opposition figures, was pinged under the Code of Conduct. Everybody recognized that the Code of Conduct was an effective burden on political speech. Miss Benegy was not permitted to make public comments about particular political topics. Note that this is narrow. The legislation did not ban all political speech, only that which failed to uphold the APS values

and the integrity and good reputation of the APS within the meaning of the Public Service. What we are arguing about here is really, really narrow. It's not that all public servants are prohibited from making political comments, which is the way it used to be back in the early early, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, the, to, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, to, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, the, the, the, the, the, the, the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the,a.e.e.e.a.a.a.a.a.a.a.a.a. the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, which is the way it used to be back in the early days of the public service, it's that public servants are prohibited from making political comments that fail to uphold the APS values. So again, if you get into the specifics of that, what they mean by upholding the APS values is part of the APS values are you have to be seen to be able to conduct your job in a politically unbiased

way. So, again, it doesn't mean that you're not allowed to hold political opinions, but if you are directly involved with a particular type of policy, then you can't be out there publicly commenting on it. And more specifically publicly yelling at your boss about it. But yeah, again, like if you work, like, I don't know, if you work for Centilink, if you work for anywhere, you can tweet like, vote yes on marriage equality or you can talk about it on Facebook or whatever. If you are a high-level legal official at the department that is conducting the plebiscite,

maybe that's starting to get into the realms of you can't be publicly advocating one way or the other. On this one's really tough. Like I want to say that, you know, I 100% support someone like Israel for now being fired. But I think when it comes to some of these. These. These. These. These. These. These. These. These. I, I, I the department. I the department. I the department. I the department. I the department. I the department. I the department. I, the department. I'm that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's to say that, you know, I 100% support someone like Israel, for now being fired. But I think when it comes to some of these... I'm just going to clip the first part of that sentence. Why would I say? I 100% support Israel for Lao. I'm going to just clip that sentence.

Please do not do this. But sometimes, like, in these cases, I feel like you're getting into the the terterterterterterterterterterterterterterterterterterterterter the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the. the. to, the. to be to be thi. thi. to to to to to th th th th th th th th th th th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th th th th th th th thi. thi. th th th th th. th th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. I th. th. th. I th. that that that that that the the to. to. to. to. to. to. to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to the the thi thi I feel like you're getting into the territory of, like, unintentional consequences in terms of if the political opinion was a slightly more right-wing opinion, I don't know. I feel like it's difficult to have a certain rule that doesn't, won't affect left-wing people's free speech in some way as well. Like in this case, and it's clearly not exactly about her political opinions, it's to do with an employer code of conduct, just like the Israel-Fallau case, and while I obviously don't think her opinions are awful in that way, it's just the way it is, I suppose. Yeah, I think that there is a certain, like, if we're going to talk about the world that we live in, like we are talking about, everybody understands that there are like base level obligations

that you have with your employer, like, you know, if you work at Subway and you're wearing your subway and you're wearing your subway uniform on the way home and then you beat somebody half to death at a train station and it's on the news, Subway is probably going to fire it. Yeah. Like, there's just some pretty basic stuff like that. And, you know, I think that we, we all, we all very much on the side of, that generally speaking, there is a lot of, like, employer overreach into people's lives these days. A lot of, a lot of the constant blurring of the lines of all of this sort of stuff. But like you said, in this particular case, we are getting much more into the realms of a specific code of conduct

that your employer has. And I would say that having worked as a public servant in the past, I do not think that the APS code of conduct is like hyper unreasonable. It's also really hard to get fired from the public service. It's incredibly hard to get fired from the public service. It's incredibly hard to get fired from the public service. It's so hard. If your boss rolled up on you and said, hey, um, I've seen these tweets and this is going to be a problem. You know what I would say? Cool. Would you like to watch me right now as I delete my Twitter account in front of you?

Give me any excuse to delete my Twitter account. Give me any excuse. I will delete this thing in front of you right now because I got kids to feed and shit and that's more important to me than tweeting. And like personally that would be my position. This lady's position was to say, no. Let's go to court. I will resent myself the move that all geniuses make.

It's a really smart move. Should always represent yourself in court. Always goes well. Tell people know that you're as smart as a lawyer. Ted Bundy did it, you know? Worked out for him. He's handsome. So, Mark continues here, Lucy. Basically, straight into what you were starting to toucest

toubst toubsts on there. Imagine if the court had found the other way. Imagine if you couldn't sack an employee of the APS for expressing extremist views about non-white immigration while they worked in visa processing. Imagine if you couldn't sack an employee of the APS for expressing completely unhinged conspiracy theories about members of Parliament. We depend on a professional and a political public service for our system of government to work and Miss Benegy could not accept that. The court also found that the Code of Conduct was suitable, necessary and adequate in its balance.

Termination is for the serious cases, minor sanctions for the lesser cases. It's here the serious cases, minor sanctions for the lesser cases. It's here the public servants worried about Benergy should focus their attention. Part of what makes the Code of Conduct well adapted is not that you can be sacked for every political utterance you make, it's that you run the risk of getting sacked if you stray into the realms of partisan advocacy and personal vitriol. To conclude, should a public servant be worried about Benji? Not really. There will be some fringe cases where the risk settings are calibrated slightly differently, but most people who are using their common sense will be entirely fine.

The court found that the code of conduct burdened political communication, but the role of the public service was so essential to our system of responsible government, the prohibiting particular kinds of political communication was considered legitimate. And this isn't a sledgehammer approach. This is a law that is well adapted to ensure that it goes far enough but not too far. Public servants should not be unduly worried that any and all political speech will be punished, but if you're going to go march in the pro-asylum-seeker rally, take off your lanyed. And I think it's pretty reasonable, really?

I'm going to have to say. I think it's definitely not as bad as it was presented as in everything that I had read up to this point. Well, yeah, like we were saying, this entire thing has been presented as this lady was doing some tweets about politics and was immediately sacked. Yeah. As opposed to, she continually used her Twitter account to harass her boss and fellow employees publicly about like stuff that she was personally working on and then when asked to stop doing it,

said no. I'm sorry but that's just unstoppable boomer energy. There's a lot of boomer energy. You cannot beat it. It's impressive. I just love having your Twitter avatar up in your up in your office. It's so cool. We should all start doing it. It's just incredible.

It's so goush. So you'll be pleased to know that for some reason Australia has started exporting Boomer Energy. Well, we produce too much of it. We do. It's a one. We've got a trade imbalance. It's a one export that we just got to get out of here.

Well, we do punch above our weight in Boomer Energy, I feel. It's true. So for some reason, we haven't talked about her in a while while. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. tho. tho. th. tho. tho. tho. tho. tho. tho. tho. tho. tho. tho, tho, tho, tho, to, tho, tho, to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to th. Well, th. Well, th. Well, th. Well, th. Well, th. Well, th. Well, th. Well, th. Well, th. Well, th. Well, th. Well, th. Well, th. Well, th. Well, tho. So, tho, tho. So, tho. So, the tho. the thooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. Well, to to to to toe. It's true. So for some reason, we haven't talked about her in a while, but notorious opinion writer and gender psycho, Miranda Divine, is getting published like in the New York Post now? Oh God, okay. I don't know why. They're like publishing her opinion columns there, and so she like kind of tries to make them sort of America-centric and it's weird because she barely understands what's happening in her own country. Mm-hmm. I yeah, so I don't know what the what the deal is. What is she? Maybe they're like we've got to take her off the defending high-profile Catholic rapists beat. Yeah, put her on something else.

I'm starting to dry up. Yeah, she got a little too much heat on it over there. So, um, they've shipped her off. I don't know if she's working remotely or she's actually in New York. But she's now running in the New York Post. And she laid down a galaxy-brained-s-s this week folks. Entitled, the link between pot and mass shootings may be closer than we think. But then again it may not, who's to say? Who's to say? She did post this on her Twitter account,

like, and ended her synops the summit by saying, join the dots, which is like some great conspiracy theorist energy. She's going to go Q& on. Join the dots because I'm not going to be doing the work to do that for you. Think about it. Yeah, think about it. Sometimes people smoke weed also mass shootings happen. Think about that. So Miranda says to us, in her wonderful style. You can't, I should also say that like incredible boomer energy from calling it pot all the way through this. I haven't heard that one in a long a long time in donkey's ears you know Mary Jane Miranda says you can't walk through the streets of Manhattan these days

without smelling weed even as evidence mounts of the health problems associated with marijuana new y Yorkers insisted on joining other greedy states scrambling to legalize this deceptively dangerous drug. You know this brand new drug, marijuana. It's a gateway drug, that's what I've heard. I remember the first time I smoked pot and then immediately started shooting up heroin the same day. Now here we are on this

podcast. Yes, the logical... Join the dots. The end point. I'm just imagining like that that little montage from Requiem for a Dream where they like you know cook up the spoon and shoot up the thing and then the irises get really big and then they're all sitting around in a circle with microphones. So we should start a podcast. So Miranda goes on to say it makes no sense at a time when American youth is suffering from an unprecedented mental health crisis. I would say Miranda does not do an enormous amount of investigation into the ideas of what perhaps is contributing to this unprecedented mental health crisis. She says, and in all honesty we cannot rule out a connection between increasing marijuana use, mental illness, and the recent

spate of mass shootings by disturbed young men. To which I ask, can we rule it in? Yeah. She continues, we don't yet know much about the mental state or drug use of the El Paso or Dayton killers. So, so we're not ruling it in? So literally nothing, no reason to thing this. Can't rule it in and can't rule it out. So you know? Floresloss logic here. Join the dots. No correlation is causation. Join the dots. A former girlfriend of date and killer Connor Betts 24 has indicated he was mentally ill

and two of his friends interviewed by reporters this week mentioned his previous drug use. So this is from an article that she linked to here to say he indicated he was mentally ill. It's about his ex-girlfriend. Lindsay Dole said she always suspected something was off about her bow and heard stories at Bellbrook High School about the hit list that Betts had allegedly compiled. So this was the list of people at his school that he wanted to kill. Her friends had warned her about his aggressiveness in previous relationships, pushing one ex-girlfriend into a roaring river.

What the fuck? It's probably meant to sound scary, but it also sounds mildly funny to me. And screaming at another while pinning her against a wall, she shared, that is not funny. Despite that, she grew to trust him and the pair bonded over their shared mental health struggles. Doll has suffered from anxiety and depression, she said. As time went on though, Dole started to realize that Betz was in desperate need of professional help and talked often about dark evil things he was hearing in his head, she told the paper. Miranda does not

link to any of the articles where they talked about what kind of drugs this guy is set to have used. I wonder if maybe if the police and the legal system were a little more invested in things like say mental health support mental health and identifying people before. I wonder if there was maybe some kind of professional help that could be funded by some sort of government initiative like say Medicare for all or something and I wonder also if there's another link that could perhaps be made here between God I'm just throwing this out here maybe violence against women and going

on to being a great big weirdo that shoots a bunch of people? This is something that we're going to have to continue to draw, to join the dots between four Miranda, because she does a lot of talking about how there's a mental health crisis, she does a lot of talking about how there is a mental health crisis. She does a lot of talking about how we are failing young men, because this is one of her favorite topics. But Miranda also doesn't ever connect this to perhaps any kind of attitudes or cultural or systemic problems that lead young men to be extremely hateful towards

women. So let's continue on here. She says, just last year, the parents opposed to pot lobby group, bop, pop, tried to sound the alarm on the link between marijuana and mass shootings, compiling a list of mass killers it claims were heavy users of marijuana from a young age, from Aurora Colorado shooter James Holmes and Tucson Arizona shooter Jared Loughner to chat nigger Tennessee shooter Mohammed Abdul Aziz. I wonder if they, I mean this might be outside their purview, I mean it's right in

the name parents opposed to pop, but did they, did they happen to collect any data on whether they drink beer at all? Was it in there? Well I don't know because Miranda did not link to this thing which the closest thing she has is this lobby group claims that they were heavy users of their own. Okay, all right. So we haven't really compiled any data we're just throw on that lure in the river and see what bites. I love these parent lobby groups like mothers against heroin and fathers denying fortnight and fighting for father's rights. It's adorable.

Now this is going to be a running theme here is Miranda identifying one singular aspect of a study and they're not talking about any other factor from this. She says until we understand those links it istalking about any other factor from this. She says until we understand those links, it is nuts to enact lax laws that encourage more young people to use a drug proven to trigger mental illness. President Trump was right to highlight mental illness in his remarks Wednesday on the El Paso and Dayton shootings, not that his unscrupulous critics will listen so determined are they to brand him a white supremacist?

Hmm, I don't look any further into the El Paso shooting, just take it from her word. Just at face value. That it's just a big old, just, they're just trying to hang shit on our president, President Trump. Is she the only Australian who willingly calls Donald Trump President Trump? I feel like it. Probably. Hmm. President Trump, sir.

Oh. So, she says here, we know from a 2018. theyp. that 40% of active shooters in the US between 2008 and 2013 had been diagnosed with a mental illness before the attack, and 70% had mental health stress ors or mental health concerning behaviors. Again, where so far this has not reached the point of saying, how can we actually give these people access to the help

that we're all agreeing that they desperately need to that? It's just purely used as a blame. Yep. Yeah, like I have no doubt at all that Miranda is not a supporter of the push for Medicare for All in the US. So for anyone actually interested in preventing future such massacres, the so-called red flag legislation Trump is advocating to deny people with mental illness access to firearms is the most logical measure and the one most likely to be embraced by both sides of politics. Again, the only thing we're talking about is saying don't sell this one person a gun as opposed to say doing anything about the 400 million

guns in the country. Not very much the t anything about the 400 million guns in the country. Not very much the treating the symptom and not the disease. Also I would love to see the actual stats on how many of these mass shooters had a diagnosed mental illness. But this red flag legislation should also apply to marijuana use, seeing as the two go hand in hand. That's right, folks. Mass shootings. Marijuana use. Hand in hand, join the dots. Doing pot. You can't address the youth mental health crisis without considering the effect of rising teen marijuana use. Among American teenagers, the drugs daily use has become as or more popular than daily cigarette smoking. Hell yeah.

According to the National Institute of Health 2017 monitoring the future study. The kids are all right. Now, she does not actually show you any data here, right? She just says, according to this study, more kids smoke weed on the daily basis now than smoke cigarettes, right? She does not analyze that data in any sense and perhaps take into account whether or not cigarette smoking itself has drastically reduced over time. So I went and cracked open the study, National Institute of Health's 2017, monitoring the

future study. And on this big chart that we have of teens more likely to use marijuana than cigarettes, so charting from 1992 to 2017, we can see that marijuana use has risen from about 2% of people using it daily to about 6% of teens using it daily cigarette smoking has dropped down to 4.2% which is less than 6%. But it's dropped from a peak in 1997 of about 25% of teens being daily cigarette smokers. Wow. Holy shit.

Also, it's fun to note that that rate of 6% of marijuana use has not significantly risen since about 1997. Yeah. Yep. It's pretty much stayed very similar the whole time. The only difference is that now a quarter of teenagers aren't daily cigarette smokers, which I think it's fine. I think it's probably fine.

Also from the same report, 71% of high school seniors do not view regular marijuana smoking as being very harmful, but 64.7% say they do not view regular marijuana smoking as being very harmful, but 64.7 percent say they disapprove of regular marijuana smoking. So it's almost like the majority of high school seniors that they have talked to don't think that you will immediately become a school shooter if you smoke weed regularly, but they also don't think it's great for you in general. Which seems like a totally accurate assessment? Yeah, pretty fine and normal thing to think about smoking weed, I think. Yeah, to take it from a pro, smoking shitloads of weed every day doesn't make you the most productive person in the world.

Hmm. But we all know that, it's fine. She says we've successfully demonized cigarettes, poor innocent cigarettes. Smoke as rights. We've successfully demonized cigarettes while new laws send kids the message that marijuana is harmed. Damn it. Yet we've known for more than a decade of the link between marijuana and psychosis, depression, and schizophrenia. A 2011 study of the British Medical Journal of 2000 teenagers who found those who found those who smoked marijuana were twice as likely to develop psychosis as those who didn't.

Another British Medical Journal study estimated that 13% of cases of schizophrenia could be averted if all cannabis use were prevented. So, Miranda just goes on at this point to cite a series of studies by only pulling out the figure which suggests the correlation between marijuana's and an increased likelihood of schizophrenia, but gives no indication of whether any of the studies included any other factors, whether or or not people were like, you know, predisposed in their family history to mental illness, whether or not say, I don't know, like in these cases that we're talking about, they had already been diagnosed with mental illness and hadn't been able to obtain any form of treatment.

Who knows? She continues on. Young people and those with a genetic predisposition are most at risk. Just kind of just drops that one in there. Just... Why is she allowed to write this? Why is there no law against this? It should be a felony offense.

She says the evidence of harm is overwhelming and it defies logic to think that legalizing marijuana won't increase the harm. I love that you can like just do no work whatsoever and you can just claim that something defies logic instead of you know maybe maybe I don't know maybe looking at the studies that look at the harm that various drugs cause in their like social contexts, in their health contexts, and look at the ways that stuff like legalizing marijuana does not immediately stack on top of, you know, drinking eight beers every night and then doing a DUI, right? Like they don't, like, you don't just add those things all together and there's so much stuff

that you can go and look at for this, but she's just said that it defies, it defies logic. Well, it makes me think of like the, it makes me think of the, like Claire, Lehman, Quillette style of writing. Where as long as you say, you, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, you, the, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the the the the the the the the the the the the the the, the, the the, they they the, they they're the, they they're they, they they, they, they, they, they, they, the, the, the, the, the, the, makes me think of the, like Claire Lehman, Quillette style of writing, where as long as you say, we're just interested in debate and asking questions, then you don't actually have to answer any of those questions. We have to do it say, yeah, you decide. We report. You decide. Miranda says, we didn't have to wait for three mass shootings in two weeks to know that young males are in crisis. Mm-hmm. You're almost

there. Now again, we know from on this show reading Miranda's columns and her history of columns, that Miranda thinks that toxic masculinity is made up. She thinks the boys will be boys. She thinks that, you know, telling off kids at school for beating the shit out of other kids is bad because that's just their natural alpha behavior coming through and it should be encouraged. Why are men in crisis then? I'm confused. Who knows? Well, what she doesn't note, she doesn't note anything like this from New York Times piece this week.

The motivations of these gunmen are often muddled, complex or unknown. A common thread connecting many of them, other than access to powerful firearms is a history of hating women, assaulting wives, and female family members, or sharing misogynistic views online. This is a very common one, too. Very, very common. It's almost like all of these dudes had these massive red flags of just hatred of women. Violent, misogynist attitudes and behavior.

But hey, let's not examine that, Miranda. He smoked the pot. Let's not get into that too much. It's probably the weed. Youth suicide is at an all-time high and rates of serious mental illness in this country are on the rise, especially among people aged 18 to 25, the cohort most likely to use marijuana. But hang on, sorry, let's just rewind. There, Andrew, so that's on the rise. So if you imagine like a little line on the chart. Got the chart, and that line, it's sort of doing that wiggly thing, but it's going up.

It's going up. Year on year, that little line's going up. But we just looked at chart before, Andrew that said that the weed use in high school kids is not going up. It's not, it's about the same, the same spot. So one's sort of going up, and this is a bit where I'm getting confused. The other one sort of just at a straight line. So my conclusion, I think, out of that, would be a little bit different to the one that she's drawing here, but I'm not a big old brain genius in the media.

So... I think you're just not getting it, theyre. You're not smart enough to join the dots here. I don't get it. I don't get it. I'm not very good at joining the dots. Plus, you know, I mean, all the things that Miranda does to help support the plight of all of these young men in crisis, I think that we can all help out by chipping in and contributing to the causes that Miranda advocates, like banning all trans people from toilets

and dropping charges of child abuse against senior figures in the Catholic Church. Hmm. Her pet causes that do the most most most that that th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thanks thanks thatee thate thanks thate thate thate thate thate thate thi thi thi thi thi dropping charges of child abuse against senior figures in the Catholic Church. Her pet causes that do the most to help these young men. She says young people born in 1999, the birth year of the El Paso shooter were 50% more likely than those born in 1985 to report feeling, quote, serious psychological distress in the previous month, according to an alarming study published this year in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology. I wonder if there's like any other issues in the United States or the world at large that could be affecting people's mental health. Yeah that could be affecting like all the the young males in the states who feel like there is

no future for them, or who feel socially isolated, or who are cooking their brains. Anyway, let's not do anything about it. Let's just leave it there. I wonder if any kind of self-radicalization is taking place from these people who are already precariously mentally unwell and then spend 20 hours a day sitting in a room smoking weed and watching Jordan Peterson videos. Nope, probably not. It's the push. Instead, she says, with all we know, it's time to put the breaks on marijuana legalization before it's too late.

Here's the fucking thing for me, Andrew. I'm not going to claim that any industry is completely healthy as far as the way that we act and we enact laws and do that sort of thing, right? But I know that, you know, as a someone that's at uni to become an engineer, and engineers are not free of, you know, the Wu factor or whatever, there's plenty of dickheds out there, we have to do a bunch of stuff about, um, about the understanding, understanding, understanding, understanding, understanding, understanding, understanding, understanding data, right? And like as we've kind of pointed a million times in this in this story,

you know, understanding the difference between correlation and causality, understanding significances, right, and putting all this stuff together and coming away with a viewpoint that at least somewhat accurately represents the reality of what it is that we're doing, and we'll go through a peer review process Where people go oh no, maybe your numbers here are not quite right maybe maybe this could be better and that that could be better Now in the case of Miranda divine just from just remind me if you can do you know do you know? Do you know what she did at uni if anything? Did she go that's that's the liberal indoctrination? Center? Yeah, that's that's that's? That's? That's? That's? That's? That's? That's? That's? That's? That's? That's? That's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's th, th, th. th. th. th. th. the the the they. they. they. they. they. they. they. they. they. they. they. they. they. they. the the they. the the the the the the they. the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the they. they. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. they. they. they. they. they. they's the liberal indoctrination center. Yeah, that's right. But like in places where, you know, in the medical field, in actually, you know, in medical research and surgery and all these sorts of things,

we have to understand how data works and how it describes the world and how we can make decisions based on that. And there's so much of that that she's sort of pointed to but then taken just the very surface level, picked out whatever, like you said, picked out whatever she wants from the article to, that supports her cause and just passes, blasts past everything else, right? But whereas in those fields, there are pretty definite ways of working with this. And as I alluded to earlier, right, like, you know, if you look at where things like marijuana stack versus the things that we already have, like alcohol and cigarettes and that sort of thing, you know, they can be positioned further down the harmfulness ratings, right?

And in fact, we know that if you kind of stack up alcohol, for example, versus a whole bunch of stuff, the only things that really exceeded as far as harmfulness goes, you know, heroin and cocaine, just depending on like how you weight the factors and all, that sort of thing. But there's a real way that, and us, you know, but there's a real way that you can like look at this stuff and stack these things in the realms where your actions have actual real life health consequences for others. And the media, I would put in that same in that same basket, but of course we don't have to, we don't have to do that. We don't have to, you know, understand the differences between correlation and causality or even if we do, we

don't have to enact them or act by them, right? We can just say whatever the fuck we want and just say, well, you know, some people are saying or, yes, many have said. You know, or don't even cover it. You just blast past it saying, you know, the two go hand in hand. Join the dots. And it's an honest, it's a honest, like, legislative failure, I think. And the thing reading this column that I get, the impression that I get as far as, you know, beyond we need to be looking at more more the the the the the to to the to be more more more at more at more at more the to be more at more at more at more the to be looking more at more at more at more at more, like to be looking at more, like the the to be looking at more, like to be to be to be to be to be to be to be the, this column that I get, the impression that I get as far as far as beyond we need to be looking more at the access to guns and especially people

that have a history of domestic violence is maybe we need to be legislating more journalistic practices. Right? To me, that's my outcome. They should at least meet the standards of a first year college essay, where this would be returned with a bunch of red circles around where it says many have said and things like that, just with a big question mark. Yep, big, big, red, a marker. Citation please. Yeah, it's absolutely maddening to me to see this stuff. But of course, because we have this concept of free speech that you should be able to say whatever you want as long as you can show yourself to be as dumb as somebody that shouldn't

know better, then you can just keep doing it apparently. Well, and also where the line comes in as, oh, but this isn't journalism, this is an opinion piece. Yeah, that's right. You just, you changed the little tag in the CMS from, from, uh, say, wouldn't it be a little use to editorial. And you're pretty much legally in the clear there. Well, I saw an exchange on Twitter recently between Gina Rushden who writes for BuzzFeed, I believe. And she specifically covers a lot of like reproductive health stuff. And there's been changes to the New South Wales laws

on abortion going through Parliament at the moment and as is always the case it's been getting severely misrepresented by like the religious right who are casting...Joyce specifically. Yep people who are casting it as as... like the Donald Trump thing where he was like oh I'm hearing that a woman could have a baby and the and the the the, and the, yeah. And thro thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thro thro thro thro thro thro thro tho throing going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going going. tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I the the their. I their their thi. I to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to thooooo. the. the. the Donald Trump thing where he was like, oh I'm hearing that a woman could have a baby and then they wrap the baby in the blanket and then the doctor comes in and says I'm going to shoot the baby. Yeah, and they're like, it says here, right here in the law, that all it takes is the consensus of two doctors to undergo a late-term abortion. And that means that they can do whatever they want.

And people are like, oh cool, now just show us one case. Just show us an example. Just give us, you know, you're very worried about this. Just, you just give us an example of this of this occurring where two doctors have conspired together for non-medical reasons, not for the interest of health of the mother. To murder a baby that is nine months old. Just, you can just show us the data anytime you like. But no, like you said, it's not, they're beyond that realm of responsibility to actually accurately portray this event.

Well, and so they ran a column in the Sydney Morning Herald written by a minister in the New South Wales government who was like, ah, there will be abording full-term babies, they'll be killing nine-month-old babies and stuff. They'll be putting them in their little swaddling and placing them in one of those old-timey wound-up catapults and flinging them out of the city. In the baby catapult. In the baby catapult. Trebushing this baby out into the city harbor. Or to Cuba where they may grow up to be communists. Yes. Many are saying. Put the little hat on, put on the little Che Guevara hat. Place a little comically small cigar in their mouth.

So yeah, and they were having this exchange where Gina Rushton was asking Ben Cubby, who is the editor of this paper saying, why is this guy just allowed to print this stuff in which he makes these assertions of this stuff that there is no evidence for existing and he's stating it like it's a fact and he's doing it in your paper. And Ben Cubby's response was, oh because it's an opinion piece and that can be considered his opinion. It's like you've pulled this, like this specific part was like pulled out as the big pool quote in the page of him going, they'll be taking 18-month-old babies and feeding them into the soilent green machine.

So just to cap it off, this might help make you feel better about it, Theo. Miranda Divine has a Masters in Journalism from Northwestern University in the USA and a Bachelor of Science in Maths from Macquarie University. Are you joking? No. Holy shit. Both of those places should be ashamed. It makes it so much worse, doesn't it? It makes it a

lot worse. You should know better. My God. She has a little, a little addendum on her, on her thing here, which is apparently a piece of opinion that she couldn't wedge into the actual article. But she's very helpfully tooday, Neo-Nazi theory. Yep, that's a mirror. Neonutsi. Donald Trump can't win, she says. He flew to Dayton and El Paso Wednesday, signaling gun law concessions and trying to unite the nation.

But his enemies only stepped up in an increasingly unhinged demonization campaign. Ah, it's Trump derangement syndrome. Take the MSNBC intelligence analyst who suggested on air that the president was sending a sly code to neo-Nazis by ordering the US flags fly at half-staff throughout Thursday evening to mark last weekend's mass shootings. In his crackpot theory, former FBI assistant director Frank Figliucci. Figuillucci. Told MSNBC's 11th hour of Brian Williams that Trump's choice of Thursday's date, the

8th of the 8th, is a very significant signal in the neo-Nazi and white supremacy movement. That's because the letter H is the eighth letter of the alphabet and to them, the numbers 8, stand together for Heil Hitler. Thank you for the explanation. I love it this is possibly new information to her as well the way she's written this. This is just madness when the president's foes are so determined to paint him as the devil they only hurt themselves and help him eat shit. Well actually I actually probably agree with her on that last part in that assigning Trump any kind of agency beyond just pure reflexive synapses like firings in his brain to go, I'm

going to do this on the 8th of the 8th to signal to all my people. That's very weird. That's assigning way more cognitive ability to Trump than I believe is actually kicking around in his head. True. Now while I agree with that, let me just say on the subject of these mass shootings, I don't know if either of you guys saw the photos that came out of the hospital visit that he did in El Paso. Yes. I saw a lot of him with him just like wildly grinning like an idiot. Well, let me let me give you the specifics though, right?

So there was a, there was a couple, the parents, who were killed by the gunman as they used their bodies to shield their two-month-old baby. The baby survived and the parents didn't. So it was two-month-old orphaned baby in this hospital. And they did a photo-op with this two-month-old Latino baby, where Melania and Donald are standing there holding the baby and they're both grinning and Donald Trump's giving a big thumbs up. Standing in front of like a banner in the hospital, like, you know, at a press roll type thing. And it's the kind of thing that makes you

feel like your brain is splitting in half. Hmm. It's just trying to escape out your head in any way that it can. Yeah and there was also the fact that there were reports afterwards that the baby had already been discharged from the hospital. Jesus Christ. And that they bought it back for the photo-op. Everything is awful. Well, not only is it awful, but I, this is the thing. Like, so I saw like all these different journalists, like, from the states talking about this photo and just saying like, what am I looking at? Like, like, people who were genuinely mortified at this thing, they were just like,

what level of just cold, malevolence? Cold malevolent indifference to humanity do you need to be on, to be like, hey, let's get a picture of this orphaned baby from a mass shooting, and I'll give a big smile and a thumbs up to the camera. As though to say, everything's going great. Folks, we've got the best orphans here. Like, so powerful.

And just coming back to that Miranda Divine thing, like, like you said, I agree, I agree with your general premise that Trump's sundowning brain is so gelatinous that anything that he does, I think it's pretty hard to like attribute this grand scale of conspiracy to. But decisions like this are so inexplicable that I cannot fault people for looking at it and saying, what is happening? Yeah, this is so strange that it has to be deliberate. Well, like, I could understand somebody looking at this and going, is he giving a thumbs up to white supremacist fans of his that like, it's going great, we're killing them.

Like, awesome. my fans are out here like killing killing illegal immigrants and Latinos here is an orphan baby. I'm happy about it. Because why else would you be doing this? Why would you be doing? I still don't us like okay. Obviously I'm not saying not saying, no, no, no, I'm not saying. Obviously, it's a white supremacist, but it's like, I think the man likes putting his thumb in the up position. So do I. Like, this, all I'm saying, I'm not saying that I agree with it. What I'm saying is that these things are so inexplicable and so far removed from having any level of like sensibility. Baseline humanity. Baseline humanity or consideration or just being in touch with what any normal person would think about any of this shit in any way that I genuinely cannot fault people who look at it

and go, I'm so fucking confused and perplexed by this thing that I have to assign some type of meaning to it. Because that's like often that's what I think a lot of conspiracist stuff is. Trying to assign some kind of meaning to the inexplicable. And in this case, it's's just like on what fucking planet would anyone in group of people go great I'll get the camera. Mm-hmm. Cool. Someone get the social media person we'll get this. Get that right up on the Twitter account put a bad Instagram filter over this. Big smile with the often baby everyone.

Say no parents like that's bleak just just mind-numbing and so yeah from Miranda's perspective it's like yeah people people are so determined to paint him in particular lights because there's so little fucking explanation for the things that they do he's just misunderstood man. Just mind melting stuff. Speaking of huge pieces of shit, should we close on the news of the day? News of the day? Yeah, speaking of wild conspiracy theory type stuff. That turn out to be somewhat true although directed at a different group of people.

RIP Jeffrey Epstein who was found dead today in his in his jail cell. He was found dead from I'm doing doing huge air quotes here a suicide. Which is funny because he also attempted suicide like a week ago and was under suicide watch when it happened? The reports I've heard are that he was not under suicide watch. They took him off suicide watch, which is, it's just what you do for someone that tried to kill themselves very recently. Yep, and also is an extremely high profile suspect in a case involving some of the world's most powerful people. Including the president.

Yep, and former president Bill Clinton. Someone called Prince Andrew who I had to Google. Sorry. Oh yeah, not the Clintons, God. I love that a lot of the right-wing responses to this are like, oh well what about Bill Clinton? It's like yeah dude he's a piece of shit. Get us. Yes Bill Clinton, him too. Yeah, absolutely bizarre news. Basically what everybody said was going to happen with Jeffrey Epstein? There were like a lot of people who have been covering this and talking about. I don't think anyone's buying that it's a suicide either from any side of

the political spectrum. Well considering how many people said there is like he's never going to get to court and talk about this stuff. Folks it's really genuinely hard to talk about Jeffrey Epstein without sounding like an unhinged conspiracy theorist, because the genuine and true story of everything that relates to Jeffrey Epstein is just unbelievable. Billionaire elite pedophile ring. Billionaire elite, child sex trafficking elite pedophile ring. Billionaire elite child sex trafficking pedophile ring. He had already been charged and found guilty of

this years ago so it's not like it's an unfounded assertion or anything like that. That whole case was run by an attorney general at the time who Jim Acosta, who for some reason arranged a nice sweetheart deal with Jeffrey Epstein in which they only took testimony from one of his victims, despite many of them existing and giving testimony. They only admitted the testimony of one of his victims to the trial and they deliberately chose the oldest one so that the penalties would be the least severe. Wow, incredible. They also made a deal that said that anybody implicated in that case through records of their involvement coming to light would be exempt from charges and would be made immune. And then they let him do his, do his term in a minimum of security the their their their their their their their their their their their their te. te. tease te. teste. teste. teste. teste. teste. teste test, test, test, test test test test test test test their testimony test test test to to their their the penalties, so the penalties, so the penalties, so the penalties, so the penalties, so the penalties, so the penalties, so their their their their their their their their their their t. So, so te. So, so te. So, so test. Soe, so test. Soe, so test. Soe, so test. So, testimony, testimony, so te, some, some, some, some, some, some, te, somean, somean, somean, somean, somean, somean, somean, somean, so they let him do his term in a minimum security prison,

a country club style prison which he only had to go to at night. He was allowed to just leave in the morning and go to his office and work there, as though nothing had ever happened. It's true that when you're rich, you can just do crimes. That's the way that it is. There's nothing you can't thuuuuuuuu thu thu thu thu tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho thue that when you're rich you can just do crimes. Yep. That's the way that it is. There's nothing you can't do. And also, yeah, just just look into it because like none of this stuff is None of this stuff is like crazy, you know, stuff I'm hearing from the underbelly of the internet a lot of this stuff is like things you can read in like the New York Times and the Daily Beast and all these like, like, you, you, you, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, the underbelly of the internet. A lot of this stuff is like things you can read in like the New York Times and the Daily Beast and all these like places that you see normal news. Even the stories from that case, from the original case that he was tried by

Attorney General Jim Acosta who is now what Trump's transportation secretary, immigration secretary? He's now a senior figure in the Trump administration. But yeah, even the things about the person who got twice as much jail time as Jeffrey Epstein from that case was the person who gave his little black book detailing all of the people that he has taken to his private sex island. So like his personal assistant who turned that stuff over to the FBI got twice as much jail time as Jeffrey Epstein did. Except before he got all of his jail time, he got murdered by a crooked cop and

then that cop mysteriously became ill and died within six weeks. So basically just a whole lot of instances of anybody involved on the periphery of this case being scared for their life and then suddenly being assassinated or getting sick and dying very shortly afterwards. Seems like a normal amount of people to die though. Yep. Terrifying stuff, I think we can all assume now that this stuff is never going to see the light of day and that all of the people who are on the flight logs of Jeffrey Epstein's private jet like Bill Clinton and Matt Graining and lots of very high profile figures

will now go unexamined. So, justice for all. Everything's good. and lots of very high-profile figures will now go unexamined. So, justice for all. Everything's good, justice, woo. Everything is peachy. But yeah, basically, please, please have a read into some of the Jeffrey Epstein saga, and then try to convince yourself that your brain is not melting and pouring out of your ears.

Speaking of exactly that, Donald J. Trump has just retweeted a tweet from Terence K. Williams in the, it says, died of suicide on 24-7 suicide watch. Yeah, right. How does that happen? Wait, Donald Trump retweeted that? I think it's safe to say that this is perhaps not going away. Yeah, no, the president of the United States just retweeted a tweet that says, Jeffrey Epstein had information on Bill Clinton and now he's dead. Retweet if you're not surprised.

You can just blame Bill Clinton. Hashtag Clinton body count, hashtag Clinton crime family. He also retweeted a tweet from Breaking News Live, an extremely fake-looking news source, that says, Breaking, documents were unsealed yesterday, revealing that top Democrats, including Bill Clinton, took private trips to Jeffrey Epstein's Pedophilia Island. So, yeah, they've got the... That's so weird, I saw another news story earlier that said one of the girls testifying says that she was recruited for Epstein's thing on Marilago. Mm-hmm. Which is interesting news.

So it goes to some pretty, pretty wild levels. Well I guess we're not going to know peace for the next couple of weeks. I think I'm just sort of seeing my future as far as being online and having to process these things. Why do we live right now? Why did this happen to us? Extremely strange times folks. So yeah, enjoy if you start to dig into that stuff? Just try and to wrap you big old the thi th th th th th th th th th th th th th th the th the th the th th the th th th th th the th th thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi the thi thi to to to to thi the next the next thi thi the next thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi the next thi the next the next the next the next thi the next the next the next thi the next thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi ne ne ne ne ne neeeeeeeeeeeeeeean to nea to to to to to to to to to to to thi thi th start to dig into that stuff, just try and wrap your big old brain around it and it's not going to work. Enjoy yourselves. Great. So that's it for us folks. You can get an extra bonus episode of the podcast every week by going to Patreon Vista.com forward slashto Vista.com. You can buy merchandise. So Buntavista.com forward slash merchandise. I'm just going to start saying these things faster and faster. Uh, that's it. That's it. That's it. That's the pot. What did all of this? Join the dots.

That's it. The world is on fire and we should all be worried that somebody smoked weed. That's it. It's the part. That's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's the pot. It's the pot. It's the pot. It's th. It's the pot. It's th. thi thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thoom. thoom. thoom. thoombou. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. thi. We's thi. We's thi. We's thi. We's thi. We's thi. thi. thi. thi. to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to theee. thooooooooooooooooo. th? Join the dots. Did Jeffrey Epstein ever smoke pot? I think we need to look more into this. Probably, we should ask Miranda about that. Famous pedophile defender, Miranda Devine. What's that's true? We know Bill Clinton smoked weed. We do know that. I'm joining the dots right now.

All that folks, we're going to continue drawing the dots. And we'll and we'll and we'll and we'll and the dots. And the dots. And the dots. the dots. the dots. the dots. to the dots. the dots. the dots. to the dots. the dots. the dots. the dots. tho. tho. tho. tho. tho. tho. tho. tho. tho. tho. the dots. the dots. the dots. the dots. the dots. the dots. the dots. the dots. the dots. the dots. the dots. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. Join. th. Join. Join. to to to to to to th. th. to to th. th. th. th. Join. tho. Join. Join. tho. Join. tho. Join. tho. too. too. too. too. to. to. toooooooo. to. to. to. t're going to continue drawing the dots and we'll see you next week. Bye. Bye. you