The 9pm Overturned Turtle Taliban with John Birmingham

John Birmingham in a hat. (Supplied)

Australian author and reprobate John Birmingham joins me once again for the first sensible episode in The 9pm End of Spring Series 2020.

We talk about the US presidential election (obviously), the echoes of history, drugs, optimism, Blue Lives Matter, solar power, fake news, the Queensland election, love and hate, disinformation, media balance, and fundamentalist evangelicals.

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JB was on a previous episode of the Edict in 2018, and more recently in September 2020.

Thank you, Media Freedom Citizenry

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This episode it’s thanks to Brett Rann, plus all the people who supported The 9pm End of Spring 2020.

CONVERSATION TOPICS: David King, Phillip Merrick, and Tim Holland.

THREE TRIGGER WORDS: Christopher Neal, John Lindsay, Joop de Wit, Rami, Wyld, and two people who choose to remain anonymous.

ONE TRIGGER WORD: Andrew Groom, Benno Rice, Crispin Harris, Edward Thompson, Frank Filippone, John Twyman, Jon Eaves, Jonathan Ferguson, Karl Sinclair, Mark Newton, Matthew Moyle-Croft, Michael Cowley, Mick Fong, Paul Williams, Peter Blakeley, Peter Sandilands, Scott Reeves, Wade Bowmer, and four people who choose to remain anonymous.

FOOT SOLDIERS FOR MEDIA FREEDOM who gave a SLIGHTLY LESS BASIC TIP: Andrew Kennedy, Bob Ogden, Chris Lawrence, Coralie Naumann, David Heath, deejbah, dfk, Drew Mayo, Emma Cooper, Garth Kidd, Katie McLaughlin, Karloscar Hall, Leanne O’Donnell, Mathew McBride, Matthew Hall, Michael Harris, Michael Keating, Michael Rowe, Paris Lord, Peter McCrudden, Ric Hayman, Rohan Pearce, Smurfingbeer, Stacey Ryan, Stu Annels, Susan Rankin, Syl Mobile, Tim Bell, and seven people who choose to remain anonymous.

MEDIA FREEDOM CITIZENS who contributed a BASIC TIP: Anthony Agius, Daniel O’Connor, Errol Cavit, Greg Randolph, Jason Anderson, Kate Carruthers, Lucas James, Peter Viertel, Raena Jackson Armitage, and five people who choose to remain anonymous.

And another 11 people chose to have no reward, even though some of them were the most generous of all.

Episode Links

  • Donald Trump is no Adolf Hitler. He’s not even much of an off-Broadway Saddam Hussein. (Although Don Jr and Eric do a pretty good drag act as Uday and Qusay). Anderson Cooper got close after this morning’s low energy fin-de-suckhole presser with “an obese turtle on his back flailing in the hot sun”, but as we compulsively doomscroll while waiting for the mad orange fuck-trumpet to play the final notes of his Fanfare for a Sad Trombone, I thought we might have a drink together and consider which failed autocrat the soon-to-be-disgraced former President most recalls.
  • Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man is a tell-all book written by Mary L. Trump, a niece of Donald Trump.
  • The three big broadcast networks — ABC, CBS and NBC — all cut away from President Trump’s appearance as the president’s false claims about the integrity of the election mounted.
  • First the black, white & blue anti-Black Lives Matter flag flew outside of Trump rallies, then on stage, next to the US flag; in Wisconsin last week it replaced the US flag behind Trump; now the American flag, with all its complications, is just gone, & a fascist banner waves.
  • With Don Jr present, top Trump Campaign surrogate Vernon Jones threatens to shoot Biden supporters tonight: “We’re starting now to see the white in their eyes and we’re getting ready to start shooting.”
  • Sun Cable proposes to build a 10GW solar plant in central Australia combined with a battery storage system 150-times the size of the Tesla Big Battery in South Australia, and then connect this to Singapore via an undersea cable. Each part of the project would be built at an unprecedented scale.
  • As the chaos of the fiercely fought election campaign subsides, the state's newly re-elected Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk is eager to prove to voters she can handle the COVID-19 economic recovery.
  • The "Thin Blue Line" flag is all black, bearing a single horizontal blue stripe across its center. Variations of the flag, often using various national flags rendered in black and white with a blue line through the center, are seen below. The "Blue Lives Matter" movement was created in December 2014, after the homicides of NYPD officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu in Brooklyn, New York.
  • Trump’s defeat would guarantee nothing. The seeds that grew into his presidency are still embedded in US politics
  • SALEM, Ore. (AP) — In a first in the nation, Oregon has rejected charging drug users with criminal offenses, with voters passing a ballot measure that decriminalizes possession of heroin, methamphetamine, LSD, oxycodone and other hard drugs.

If the links aren’t showing up, try here.

Series Credits