Hopefully The Wall Street Journal and News Corp defend this legal action and do not settle as other media corporations have previously done. Trump has a history of suing media outlets that write any negative press about him and they should defend their first amendment rights as news outlets. News media has a role in keeping the public informed and a government accountable, a free and independent press in a democratic society maintains transparency allowing an informed public scrutiny.

Trump dismisses any negative story or article about him as fake news and seeks to have his administration exert pressure on news media to submit to his will. Trump’s attack on the first amendment seeks to establish his government the sole source of information in the US to increase his authority and bypass media scrutiny. With Trump utilising the power of the government to punish adversaries, this is a genuine misuse and abuse of power.

A complainant has to establish that the defendant knowingly published a false statement or acted with reckless disregard for the truth. Trump has been fairly prolific in seeking defamation and has had a number dismissed at early stages. Similarly, Trump has had a couple of successes with Walt Disney’s ABC News agreeing to settle for $15 million [plus costs] along with Paramount Global, owner of CBS agreeing to similar costs for the Kamala Harris 60 Minutes interview. I hope The Wall Street Journal fights this defamation action, Trump is under enormous pressure with his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and MAGA voters are finally beginning to see through him.

You just cannot make this stuff up, the very manager who blocked every safety initiative I attempted to implement including the safe removal of asbestos materials from the workplace. When I began writing this post he was off on long-term sick leave from mesothelioma. He has subsequently died. He ended up dying from the very disease I was trying to prevent in our workplace.

We had a highly fractured relationship, he hated me. He tried everything within his given managerial powers to undermine me. Interestingly, I was indifferent to him, I did not hate him just because he hated me. This becomes a challenge, if you want to hate me, let’s see how deep that hatred can run. The fact that he was mostly incompetent was not lost on me, you use this to your advantage. He surrounded himself with people at his competence level, this was also to my advantage. Watching these people fumbling around and mucking up, this was the fun part of watching failure up close.

Fortunately for me, he wasn’t a very clever operator so it was a pretty simple process to circumnavigate him. Whilst it was easy to make him look incompetent in front of the people he answered to, this was really not the objective I was seeking though, I was seeking actions. I attended one meeting with the General Manager, Executive Director and himself. I took a scribe with me as a witness as they have a tendency to deny discussions took place otherwise, they blatantly deny a complete discussion.

Ok, so what was I seeking? Well, actually it is pretty simple, I am seeking a safe working environment of the people whom we are responsible for, and the safety and wellbeing of our staff. This was my primary objective, I was very open about this. When I say wellbeing, I mean protection against prosecution for our staff. My role is to build quality outcomes through robust and through processes and controls.

So, where were we going wrong then? Well, we have a management structure running a protection racket, what they do is select people to be promoted into roles beyond their abilities. They want people who beholden to them, these people owe their roles to them, there is no disdain in the team, no one questions the manager’s decision, this is groupthink – this is a group of yes men.

As the ninety day pause on US President Donald Trump’s tariffs set to expire, the relative stability on world stock markets and bond markets looks to be over. For myself, I did sink some of my hard earned cash three months ago in the Trump slump. So, now we will see what TACO will do this time, will Trump blink again and chicken out?

The world stock markets dropped, Trump was not too concerned as we all lost wealth. But when the bond market began to tank, Trump got yippy and backed down. The term TACO Trade was coined by Financial Times columnist Robert Armstrong in May of this year. Trump is no master negotiator, he is pretty much reactive, and we all know his instincts are not very good. What we do know is Trump will high ball a negotiation, progressively back down then claim a successful negotiation outcome.

We are now a year on from his assassination attempt, Trump really believes he was spared to save America. I have trickled money into the stock market; however, I have cash aside for further share price declines based on Donald’s tariff regime. I certainly do not believe Trump was spared to save America, I have to make sure that I make proper decisions based on Trump’s behaviour. Market timing is somewhat based on behavioural factors along with technical characteristics such as inflation, interest rates, GDP, economic growth, unemployment and of course government policy.

So we have seen another chaotic Trump Administration blunder, this time it was Pete Hegseth failing to notify the White House that he had authorised the halting of weapons shipments to Ukraine. This comes at a time when Ukraine is under increased pressure from Russian targeting of cities and infrastructure.

So the Trump Administration had to explain to Congress and Ukraine why weapons shipments had been halted without notice. Here are more examples of the haphazard nature of the Trump Administration towards Ukraine. Finally, President Trump is slowly starting to work out that whilst Russian President Vladimir Putin says one thing to Trump, his actions say otherwise.

Prior to his inauguration, Trump was touting his great relationship with Putin, Trump really thought he controlled Putin and Vladimir would do what Trump ordered. Now, Trump is not only coming across as a weak leader, he is coming across as a simplistic leader who is easily manipulated when his ego is massaged.

Pete Hegseth has not come across as a great Secretary of Defense, he has shown that when he is not leaking secrets on group chats, he is struggling to grasp the role. Even more embarrassing, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Retired General Keith Kellogg as the special envoy to Ukraine and President Trump learned about this from press reports, this was not fake news after all.

As much as it galls me, I am going to have to turn a manager into a leader. This just came to me on a Friday evening with the St Kilda v Brisbane game on television, so I grabbed my tablet and started typing emails aint leadership. It was a Fermoy night, we started with a 2022 Fermoy Estate Semillon Sauvignon Blanc, or SSB moving on to a 2017 Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon. Needless to say, the Reserve Cab Sav is a pretty special wine, refined with subtle oak tinges and great fruit flavours.

This was based on [of all things] an email we received on a Friday regarding an interaction between a staff member and an officer of the business. I have no issue with the person witnessing the interaction reporting the matter to our management. I encourage this type of feedback, this is how we learn and improve. We really need to improve as we are sub-par, take the criticism, prepare the learning outcomes, change our behaviour and set the improvements.

I think a scene out of A Few Good Men sums up where we currently are. No it isn’t “you can’t handle the truth” although it involves Jack Nicholson’s Colonel Jessop where Lieutenant Kaffee is questioning the code red on Santiago. If Jessop had to transfer Santiago off base to ensure his safety, then wasn’t Jessop’s authority was not worth what he claimed it to be.

This directly challenges his authority, if he gave an order, then that order should be upheld if he was respected as a commander and leader. If Colonel Jessop had to transfer private Santiago off base to ensure his safety, then Jesdop’s authority was not just diminished, it was so degraded he had to take steps by transferring private Santiago off base to ensure his safety. Just like my workplace, the standards the management sets and the minimum acceptable standards of behaviour. The manager created the workplace environment so this toxic environment was created by their actions and he needed to be held accountable to the standards of behaviour.

Ok, the US Marine Corps is not the Australian Defence Forces, but the same principles apply. Leadership is influence and this lack of influence is clearly manifesting in the toxic behaviour. You cannot sit in an office, type out the odd email and expect to change the result that you allowed to occur. If you create toxic conditions, then the manager should be held accountable for any actions arising from that toxic work environment. A leader needs to be proactive, an authentic leader needs to step out of the office frequently and meet with the staff. There must be dialect, there must be interaction and there must be honesty – I saw none of that.

The first rule of bullying, or bullying 101 is to pick a weak target, one that is isolated and one that cannot fight back. So when my manager took a red hot crack at me, you would have thought he sought better advice from the office snitch and actually got his facts right. But this is where we find ourselves as a state government organisation, a toxic environment thrives on malicious gossip, bias and discrimination, and of course cronyism.

So, I have been unsuccessfully targeted by the manager who has one year into the position and boy did he regret that. I fired back really hard, geez, that hurt a number of them. I had a fair idea they would come after me, so I had already prepared as this is their modus operandi. This is a manager who is still on his L-plates, lacks the prerequisite communication skills, does not possess empathy and exhibits poor judgement.

He thought he had built himself a leadership team, what he has done is inherited a dysfunctional group of people who lack technical skills required to get the job done effectively. They built themselves a toxic little group that thrives on group think, lacking the creativity to actually solve problems. They lack transparency, they apportion blame, they seek recognition of the people they are supposed to be serving and they certainly lack credibility. So I ask myself, why do managers attempt to harass and intimidate workers in their charge? Well, it is usually to cover up their knowledge, skills and abilities. They feel intimidated by these people, they are typically lazy and they seek to steal team recognition to cover up their own insecurities.

The Baltic states are getting more than a little concerned about Russian aggression, now Lithuania has notified the United Nations that the country will withdraw from the treaty banning the use of anti-personnel landmines. This means that after a period of six months, Lithuania will no longer be bound by the treaty.

Now Lithuania falls into line with Latvia, Estonia, Finland and Poland banning the use of anti-personnel landmines. Citing the Russian threat, the Parliament of Lithuania has agreed on the action. The Ottawa Convention that was adopted in 1997 prohibited the use, production and stockpiling of anti-personnel landmines.

When you view a world map identifying signatories, most of the western world has ratified the agreement. Most of Asia [excluding South East Asia and Oceania] is not a signatory, this includes Russia. Looking at the map of the Americas, most of South America and Central America have signed the convention, North America is split, yes Canada is a signatory but the United States is the gaping hole in the map.

Previously more than fifty countries produced land mines, the Ottawa Convention has officially reduced landmine production to India, Myanmar, South Korea and Pakistan. More likely, China, Iran, Cuba, North Korea, and Russia produce landmines. As the United States is not a signatory, I was interested to learn if they still produced anti-personnel landmines or they have just stockpiled large quantities of anti-personnel landmines and found they only stopped production in 1997. Sadly, Ukraine is the country with the most landmines, long after the Russian invasion, the people of Ukraine will still be at risk of mines.

The dead cut bounce term still irritates me, my retirement fund would be in a brilliant position right now if I had not taken the advice of my stockbroker. The broker I had at the time cost me a brilliant purchasing opportunity and I am missing dividend returns.

This includes the dividend reinvestment plan where I could be earning compound interest growth on the dividends, instead I had to leave the funds in cash receiving simple interest payments. I was calling him daily, I had picked the bottom of the market, I was advising him to buy and he held off. When prices started rising, I kept getting told this is a dead cat bounce and to not panic, prices were headed way lower. This was people buying in too early, better to wait, when prices went way higher, my broker informed me I had missed the cheap prices.

This is when I made the decision in my mind to get out; however, there was one final annoyance awaiting me. The stockbroking firm contacted me as I was a low value client and they would be shutting my account. Previously, they had shut down my high interest cash account where I kept my investment funds, so I was forced to transfer my cash out to another [low interest] account I had to open at the National Australia Bank.

The decision was not hard, I would now open a share trading account at NabTrade and link the funds to the trading account. However, the stockbroking firm had messed up all my HIN accounts, I had multiple accounts and my superannuation account is missing out on dividend reinvestments. One would think this was a simple process to correct, oh boy was I wrong, the problem continues to this day and my missed opportunity is costing me. It has taken me years to correct this situation and I rue the day I listened to my stockbroker.

The PRX has been a real winning timepiece for Tissot, the Gérald Genta inspired design from the 1970s is very popular. The Reference T137.407.11.091.00 with the dark green waffle [tapisserie] pattern dial with applied metallic markers is my choice. The narrow baton hands with Super-LumiNova makes for a pretty stylish dial.

The 40 mm brushed 316L stainless steel tonneau shaped case with polished accents is very 70s retro styled that seamlessly merges with the integrated stainless steel bracelet. There is no screw-down crown offering a 100 metre water resistance. A sapphire crystal and display caseback is less than 11 mm in height. The triple folding clasp with safety push-buttons ensures a neat bracelet, the bracelet is pretty thin.

The Powermatic 80 is an upgraded ETA 2824-2 automatic movement with Nivachron anti-magnetic hairspring and 23 jewels. The 80 hour power reserve is based on a larger barrel and 21,600 vibrations/hour frequency. The 3 Hz frequency affects accuracy, I am not sold on the larger power reserve with reduced accuracy, I appreciate this is the direction the watch industry is moving. I am in the minority here and accept that I am wrong, I know what the Powermatic 80 is and still choose the PRX as a very good watch for the price.

So, for his next move, Vladimir Putin was trying to get Volodymyr Zelensky removed as the leader of Ukraine as part of the peace deal and an interim government installed. Putin has called for a transitional administration, that really means a pro-Russian puppet government that unlike Zelensky will yield to Moscow’s demands. What that means is the death squads sent into Kiev in the early days of the Russian invasion ultimately failed, now Putin is entertaining another way to get rid of Zelensky.

So far, all of Putin’s special military operation has been a complete failure, so this is now his best chance of getting what he wants. That is eliminating his obstacle to success, that is the leadership of Zelensky. With the Trump Administration and its anti-European stance eager to make a deal, there is concern. JD Vance is embarrassing himself in an international sense, but he is also playing up for the hardliners back home and supporting his base. 

What we are seeing is an anti-European stance with the Trump Administration desperate to make a deal at any cost. Even if Trump and his zealots sell Ukraine out, a bad deal is better than no deal according to the flawed Trump mantra. Now Trump and his hardliners are sidetracked with the Iran/Israel conflict, we will see Ukraine get sidelined until that conflict is under control, this will have a large bearing on global share markets in the coming weeks and months. Putin is looking vulnerable, his invasion of Ukraine has failed and he is looking for a way out to save face.