Reader Bill Thompson has written to their ABC:

Zoe Daniel, your ABC’s North American bureau chief just filed this piece of detritus masquerading as analysis

Perhaps I was under a misunderstanding that the role of judges, including those on the US Supreme Court, is to consider the evidence presented in a trial & apply the law to the facts, in order to reach their decision?

I didn’t think “dishing out morality” entered into it.

ENDS

Ms Daniel's analysis:

The question should not be whether a 35-year-old allegation regarding teenage behaviour should derail a career, but whether the unanswered question — is the allegation true? — is tolerable when it hangs over a US Supreme Court justice forever after.

Realistically, that may never be answered, so can Brett Kavanaugh ever sit on the court dishing out morality to the American people?

Such is the complex moral question roiling the nation as the confirmation of the Supreme Court nominee is threatened by something he's alleged to have done when drunk and 17.

In this era of #MeToo, even the President has been surprisingly tempered in his use of language towards the judge's accuser Christine Blasey Ford, who is under pressure to testify on the matter, delaying the confirmation process.

"I don't know about the other party, but Judge Kavanaugh is anxious to do it, and a delay is certainly acceptable," Mr Trump said in the Oval Office on Tuesday.

"We want to get to the bottom of everything. We want everybody to be able to speak up and speak out."

That said, he has expressed sympathy for the judge and his family rather than the alleged victim, joining a GOP chorus suggesting that Democrats are using the allegation to delay confirmation hearings until after the mid-terms.

There's no doubt some superb timing in all of this for the Democrats, who favour an FBI investigation ahead of any testimony in front of the judicial committee.

But in the middle of it all is a woman who says she's been carrying this around for more than three decades and has now had to go into virtual hiding due to threats since the allegations became public (not by her choice).

Professor Ford, a 51-year-old research psychologist, alleges that the now Supreme Court nominee forced himself on her and sexually assaulted her at a party in Maryland when they were both teenagers.

She got away, but has provided medical notes from therapists showing she's struggled with men and relationships since. A polygraph test found she was telling the truth. This article sets it out in detail and is worth a read.

Mr Kavanaugh has outright denied the claim, as have several of his friends who were said to have been there that night. For some context on that, see this piece on Mr Kavanaugh's high school mate Mark Judge and what sounds like a pretty awful alcohol culture back then at private school Georgetown Prep in Maryland just outside DC.

The White House press office issued the following statement from Mr Kavanaugh:

"This is a completely false allegation. I have never done anything like what the accuser describes — to her or to anyone."

The nation is split.

Did Mr Kavanaugh do it? What if he did? Do the actions of a 17-year-old, who has since led a seemingly fair and lawful life, carry over to age 53?

ENDS

Why does that moral standard apply only to a US Conservative judge?

Why not to Gillard Federal Court appointee Judge Bernard Murphy?

Images for site:www.michaelsmithnews.com bernard ...

More images for site:www.michaelsmithnews.com bernard murphy file noteReport images

EXHIBIT ONE - reasoned, serious analysis from defence and security professionals

From The Australian today

This marks the first time since World War II that the South ­Pacific has been of such intense strategic concern to Canberra.

China’s growing influence in the Pacific has prompted a warning from the former head of the NSA, America’s largest and most secretive intelligence agency, that Beijing is ­engaged in a deliberate power play to gain “advantage” across the ­Pacific.

ENDS

EXHIBIT TWO - Australia's Minister for Foreign Affairs the FINCL

Marise Payne signs Aust up - Climate Change biggest regional defence threat

Thursday, 06 September 2018

Alexander Downer will go down in history as a stooge for Clinton who single handedly caused irreparable damage between the USA-Australia. Congrats, buddy.

— George Papadopoulos (@GeorgePapa19) September 21, 2018

Australian Government "will neither confirm nor deny" the existence of documents linking Downer to the Trump/Russia allegations

Tuesday, 13 March 2018

Here is a selection of our posts to our Facebook page over the past few days/weeks.

230 people reacted to this one, 80 commented and 148 people shared or reposted our post.

I'd estimate about 10,000 people were reached.

But according to Facebook stats - it's reached 0, yes zero people.

Same again - 63 reactions, 17 comments, 13 shares - Facebook says zero people reached.

Yesterday afternoon - 65 reactions - I'd expect to see about 2,500 people reached.  Facebook records zero.

Facebook independent?

Tell them they're dreaming.

WA's State archives holds an empty file for the Gillard/Wilson AWU Workplace Reform Association Inc slush fund.

ON 25 October 2012, The Australian reported:

The file, numbered 000 748 and titled "Australian Workers Union -- Workplace Reform Association Inc", is held in archives by the State Records Office in Perth.

The file should contain key documents from 1992 when the association, which Ms Gillard described as a "slush fund" for union officials including her then boyfriend, AWU boss Bruce Wilson, was registered by the WA government.

He said it was "highly unusual". It was unclear whether documents were removed before or after the file was transferred from the relevant government department. The documents would show what the WA government was told before it agreed to register the association. The SRO has responsibility for managing, preserving and providing access to historical and government records and holds documents going back more than 150 years. It is unlawful to destroy such records without permission.

We now know that is not the only file held in various WA state archives for the AWU WRA - and several senior WA officials knew it at the time.

As early as July 2012 - as The Australian started to make enquiries about the AWU slush fund affair - officials in the WA Government were examining the file.

Here's the cover for that active file - created 24 June 1992.  Note that it was moved in August 2012 and locked in a safe in November 2012.

IN March 2013 we started making enquiries about the file - here's some of what went on in the WA Government in response to our ministerial request (which turned up nothing).

At the time the then Commissioner asked for the Liberal and National Party's objects (ie under the same class - for political purposes - as that which the Gillard/Wilson slush fund was incorporated) in preparing the response:

Between July 2012 and April 2013 the WA system for file management logs the extensive Open and Close actions for the file.

In April 2013 Victoria Police (along with their WA colleagues) executed a search warrant on the WA Government department responsible for the second file.  Keep in mind this was after various FOI applications including from The Australian newspaper had turned up no file.

Here's the search warrant dated 3 April 2013 and executed 4 April 2013.

Note the notation about that file containing "internal correspondence".

I am not releasing all the information I have to you today.  What I am showing you is heavily redacted - some of the redaction is by the WA Government itself and some of it by me as I expect some of this material will be in evidence in court proceedings soon.

This note is dated 9 April 2013, 5 days after the police arrived with their search warrant.  It's from the then (April 2013) Commissioner in the relevant department responsible for the real AWU Gillard/Wilson slush fund file.  It was sent as a public official was finalising his/her statement to the police.

I can confirm to you that the "missing link that only we know about" didn't make it to the police statement.

One last point for now.

On 24 June 2010 GILLARD was sworn in a Prime Minister.

Six weeks later on Monday 9 August 2010 - out of the blue - the file which had laid dormant was suddenly opened.

Every touch leaves its trace.

From The Australian

Momena Shoma pleads guilty to stabbing homestay host Roger Singaravelu

A Bangladeshi student has pleaded guilty to stabbing her Melbourne homestay host in February in an act of terrorism to advocate violent jihad.

Today I will ask the Senate to acknowledge that it is okay to be white.

I saw the huge overreaction to Lauren Southern's t-shirt with the same message & decided that if the Senate won't agree to this then we have to admit Australia truly has an anti-white racism problem.