Life as a mushroom.

Donald Trump has finally left the scene. Well, at least he is no longer President. Like a very bad smell, he could hang around, one way or another, for a very long time.

After setting "his people", AKA a riotous mob, on to the US Capitol building on January 6th to reclaim his stolen" presidency, Trump was impeached for the second time. He will no doubt be tried by the US House of Representatives in the near future.

Incredibly, there are still Republican congressmen , despite the sedition, destruction and deaths that Trump caused on January 6th, who think that he should not be impeached. These "Law and Order" Republicans  do not believe that unlawful behaviour deserves any consequences, if the culprit is Donald Trump.We may  draw our own conclusions about such woolly thinking.

Trump, of course is famous, or infamous, for claiming that any news he did not like was "Fake News". Most people agree that a lot of news  is, indeed, Fake News. For years we have told ourselves not to believe everything that we read in the papers. Now we can include "or what we hear and see on TV."

The fact is that most Fake News comes from a former champion of Donald Trump, the media baron, Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch's media empire includes some of the most unreliable news  sources in the world. Indeed, one of them, The London Sun, was so bad that Murdoch actually closed it down himself. That was after  a revealing government enquiry into illegal phone tapping, which Murdoch and his senior editors claimed to know nothing about. How could they? After all, they only owned and operated the paper. What would they know? A few reporters were found guilty.

 The other thing Rupert is very good at it not printing news that should be made public. 

For instance, after Donald "I was robbed" Trump sent the mob to attack the citadel of American democracy, Rupert's son, James, said that it was the warped Murdoch media that developed such irrational thinking in Trump's followers that they saw themselves as American Patriots.

 James Murdoch's criticism of the role his father's media played in the rise of rampant Trumpism was published around the world. But not by any Murdoch media. Certainly not in Australia, where Murdoch controls about 70% of the media.

Another for instance. In December, 2020, Prime Minister Morrison and Treasurer, Josh Frydenburg flew in the Prime Minister's private jet to attend Lachlan Murdoch's Christmas Party. I cannot say if these gentlemen were accompanied by their wives because this little party trip attracted almost no media attention at the time. Well, it was Christmas.

Now, the Prime Minister's private jet was bought with taxpayers' money. By regulation, it is only to be used on official government business. Not even Scott Morrison attempted to make out that the trip to Lachlan Murdoch's Christmas Party was government business.

He really did not have to trouble himself to say anything at all. The Murdoch dominated Australian media did not comment on this unlawful use of the Prime Minister's private jet for purely personal, social purposes. Unlike the furore when our worst ever Speaker of the House, Bronwyn Bishop, used a private helicopter to get to a Liberal Party function some years ago. The media chased that story to such an extent that that Ms Bishop was forced to resign her one eyed Speakership and, with much gnashing of teeth, went and sat on the back bench.

There was actually some government business involved in the PM and Treasurer's social trip.                 It was a little matter of about $5000 which the government had to pay out for fuel and cabin crew.

So, we in Australia are being starved of the Light of the Truth and given larger and larger doses of the bovine excreta that is Murdoch's Fake News.

Just like mushrooms, really.