The Gist Not the news. Just the Gist.
3 February 2015
Asking a Christian to accept gay marriage is like telling Jews to serve “bacon-wrapped shrimp.”
— Mike Huckabee, US Presidential candidate and culinary theologian
Home | Leadership drama redux
THE GIST. Malcolm Turnbull and Julie Bishop are reportedly "considering their options", when it comes to challenging Tony Abbott for leadership of the Liberal party.
PPLOST. It looks like trouble ahead for Tony. He announced yesterday that the government is shelving its Paid Parental Leave (PPL) scheme, which was a key platform of their 2013 election campaign. Add that to the list of botched big-ticket policies: GP co-payments, GST, Medicare cuts, higher education reform, Racial Discrimination Act changes...yikes. In a speech to the National Press Club yesterday, the defiant PM said he would not resign. This, despite his approval rating dropping to a paltry 27 per cent.
STATESIDE. Recent events at the state level have got the Liberals spooked. Labor won the QLD state election over the weekend, making it a quick turnaround from their 2012 loss (which was the worst in the state's history). The Coalition also lost last year's election in Victoria, and things aren't looking good for the conservative government in NSW either. These governments have all had their own problems, but consensus opinion is that the backlash against Tones & Co. has well and truly spread to the states.
REPLACEMENTS. The two rumoured challengers are yet to make a move. Turnbull has publicly supported TA, and Julie Bishop has likewise pledged her allegiance - for whatever these kinds of promises are worth. Remember: Julia Gillard once swore that she was more likely to play Full Forward for the Bulldogs than challenge for the Labor leadership.
Abroad | Obudget 2015
THE GIST. Barack Obama announced his budget for 2015. He's planning on closing tax loopholes on trillions of dollars of profits held overseas by US companies. Some of the big names who will be targeted by the new taxes (if they pass in congress) include: Microsoft, General Electric and Apple.
SOTU. Obama put tax reform at the top of the agenda in last month's State of the Union address, saying that "lobbyists have rigged the tax code with loopholes that let some corporations pay nothing." Don't get too excited either way, though - this is Obama's sixth SOTU address in a row proposing tax hikes.
GOPPOSITION. The US total public debt is about $17.8 trillion (with a T), making it the biggest in the world. Balancing the budget has been a key theme of national US politics for the last few years. Unfortunately, nobody can agree on just how to do that. After the SOTU, one Republican called Obama's tax talk a "non-starter", and another said it was "not a serious proposal." After yeserday's announcement, top Republican tax-guy Paul Ryan said Obama was exploiting "envy economics." All of this means that any politically divisive tax reform (so, any tax reform) is likely to go nowhere, given that congress is officially Republican-controlled after last year's Senate elections.
Small-talk
Seconds chance. A Canadian man has lost his appeal against a court decision denying him a $27 million lottery win. In 2008 the man bought a winning ticket - 7 seconds after the strictly enforced 9pm deadline. What's that saying about time and money?
Happy meal. McDonald's has decided to sell bottles of its Big Mac 'special sauce' over the counter. The precise recipe of the sauce has been a secret for years, but Maccas has now decided to lift the lid on the mythical mixture. Now you can spread the special sauce onto anything you like, for the low low price of type-2 diabetes.
Baby arms. A three-year-old American boy in New Mexico has shot both his parents, after pulling a gun from his pregnant mother's handbag while looking for an iPad. The child's two-year-old sister was also in the room. In response to renewed grumblings about gun control, the NRA put out a press release saying, "guns don't kill people, babies do."
The word
Schadenfreude Noun (German). Satisfaction felt at someone else's misfortune: Opponents, enemies and detractors of Tony Abbott are all currently basking in delicious schadenfreude.
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