Jon McConkey

I just watched the segment on @abc730 about other countries looking to follow Australia’s lead with a social media ban for children. I think it would be pertinent for @abc730 to scrutinise whether the ban in Australia has actually worked, if they haven’t already

Sad to hear of the passing of Bud Cort. Harold and Maude was a cinematic masterpiece and a long time favourite movie of mine from a very early age. Classic Cat Stevens soundtrack as well. #RIP bbc.com/news/articles/…

Hi @NRL when do tickets for round 2 of the season go on sale?

@susancrabtree @JDHaltigan I sat across from one of Kamala’s secret service members on that flight and about 4 rows behind her. There would have been over 20 of them that got to depart the flight before anyone else. TBH, no one had any idea who she was, people kept asking why we were taking photos

#BREAKING: SECRET SERVICE SCOOP: THE SECRET SERVICE SPENT $81K FOR KAMALA HARRIS’ AUSTRALIA’S TRIP IN WHICH SHE EARNED A COOL HALF MIL FOR BASHING MUSK + JOKING ABOUT PLAYBOY, AND BEING UNEMPLOYED The Secret Service spent $81,000 to fly Kamala Harris to Australia and protect her during the May visit. Harris was there for a real estate conference in which she earned an estimated $500,000 to headline the event and deliver word salads bashing Elon Musk, joking about Playboy covers, hormones, and being unemployed. While the event’s sponsor didn’t disclose Harris’s speaking fee, several reports estimate the sum at $500,000. The agency laid out another $26,000 for luxury hotel stays to protect Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, during a trip to New York City earlier this year, the documents show. Internal Department of Homeland Security documents, obtained by the Center to Advance Security in America and provided to @RCPolitics, revealed the amounts the Secret Service spent on hotels and other protection-related expenses for the former vice president's trip to Australia and New York City. (see docs linked below) In the immediate aftermath of the trip, Sky News Australia roasted Harris for “taking a half million dollars” to say, “I am unemployed” at the event, and Alan Dershowitz, author of the Preventive State, estimated that Harris was paid “$1,000 a cliché.” “My head hurts,” @MegynKelly remarked after trying to decipher the points in Harris’ rambling speech. James Fitzpatrick, the director for the conservative watchdog the Center to Advance Security in America @SecureUSA, applauded President Trump’s decision to cancel Harris’s Secret Service detail after showing that Harris was using the Secret Service-funded travel and protection to attain the lucrative speaking fee. "The Center to Advance Security in America commends President Trump's decision to remove Secret Service protection for former Vice President and failed presidential candidate Kamala Harris," Fitzpatrick said. "CASA recently obtained records showing that the Secret Service spent $81,000 to protect Harris on her trip to the Australian Real Estate Conference in May, where she engaged in political attacks on the Trump administration and its allies, and was paid $500,000,” Fitzpatrick added. “This is a waste of taxpayer dollars, and the American people should not be expected to fund the protection of Harris as she travels the world in an attempt to line her pockets.” Introduced at the event in Australia as “one of the most successful women in history” with “her best work ahead of her,” Harris joked: “I am unemployed right now.” “Go on, speak the truth,” she added with an awkward smile. Harris didn’t name names, but clearly took a shot at Elon Musk, criticizing someone “popular in the press” who said empathy is a weakness in Western civilization. She said real leaders shouldn’t be judged by “who you beat down” but by showing care and curiosity about others. Just weeks earlier, Elon Musk said in a podcast with Joe Rogan that empathy is a “bug” in Western culture that’s being exploited. During an hour-long question and answer session with real-estate veteran John McGrath, Harris recalled that her mother was very focused on women's reproductive health, which included sharing her thoughts about “fibroids” and “hormones.” She said: 'My mother was actually very funny because she would say, "You look at the cover of Playboy magazine, let me just tell you, the reason that people are looking at these things, understand what they were developed for the perpetuation of the human species!" She was very practical that way.' As Harris began laughing, McGrath responded 'A great lady,' before shifting immediately to another question. Harris also waxed ineloquent on humility. "I don't aspire to be humble. And I don't recommend it, I think that one must be humble. But to aspire to be humble would be quite inauthentic," she said. "If one understands that, just, I mean, there's so much that is magnificent and awe-inspiring about this world and its people." The nonsensical statements included throwbacks to famous word salads from the campaign, including a mention of being "unburdened by what has been," the importance of "speaking truth" and being aware of the significance of the "passage of time." "I think it's very important to understand that people who fight for equality, fight for freedom, they see what can be and are unburdened by what has been they believe in what is possible," she said.

@AndrewVossy @WestsTigers @nthqldcowboys @VossyBrandySEN “You don’t know how to HOLD a lead. Anyone can TAKE a lead…”

I firmly believe @WestsTigers fans should blame John Denver for today's heartbreaking defeat. Awful choice of a punishing song after the Latu Fainu error that then led to 3 straight @nthqldcowboys tries. Case closed. @VossyBrandySEN #NRLTigersCowboys

@katherine_deves Many a fun time back in the day, Kath 🙂

🇦🇺 How good was Sydney in the Before Time?

@GemmaTognini You don’t mean that…

Might not ever get another doggo tbh. #TPD

@GrayConnolly Hi @GrayConnolly thanks for sharing, it’s a wonderful insight into the life of an extraordinary Australian. Did you attend Riverview as well? With your permission I’d like to share this with my son’s House Master there

The Honourable Thomas Eyre Forrest Hughes AO KC, former Attorney-General of the Commonwealth of Australia, passed from this life today, aged 101. Among the many blessings in my life, sharing chambers with Tom is certainly one of them. I was Tom’s junior in several cases, including one successful constitutional appeal to the High Court, and I think that I was his final junior in his last brief. Tom is one of the greatest lawyers that Australia has produced and certainly our most distinguished and accomplished advocate. Tom was equally at home in the Privy Council, before a difficult appellate court, or before a jury, or in a suburban or rural Magistrate’s Court. Tom was a product of the Jesuits, an old boy of Riverview, and he came to the law after World War II, where he had served in the European theatre in the Royal Australian Air Force. Tom was always very modest about his war service, which involved flying Sunderlands against German U-boat wolfpacks, including in support of the D-Day landings. Tom would, in due course, be made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in recognition of his war service. After a short time in practice, Tom took silk in 1962 and, as a man of so many abilities, he entered federal Parliament in 1963, with Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies’ strong endorsement. After a brief time on the backbench (in which Tom said he was still briefed in cases, to not lose his skills), Tom became the federal Attorney-General in 1969. As the sitting Attorney-General, Tom remained an advocate and he argued a series of major constitutional cases for the Commonwealth, with his hard-won successes becoming what is now settled law. Tom left federal politics in 1972 and returned to the Bar, where he became, for the rest of his life, the pre-eminent advocate in both public and private law. Other memorials by his near contemporaries will record the story of Tom’s brilliance much better than I am able to do so as his last junior, so I will just say the following of the Tom that I knew. Tom’s work ethic was one of which the Jesuits would have been most proud, even as it scared others. Tom would work away at a case in the manner of a renaissance sculptor starting with a block of marble, with every large and small detail chiselled and shaped until what had been an impenetrably complex set of questions was answered by a series of clear and unarguable legal propositions. What was essential in an argument was worked over and over until it could be refined no more. What was not essential was irrelevant – and a needless distraction. This artisanship – this magisterial skill – was as true of Tom into his final years of practice as it would have been at the beginning. No one who ever worked with Tom on a case ever came away unimpressed or unimproved by his example. Tom was an always humble man, despite his many achievements, and would ask even the most junior lawyer on any case for their evaluation of his arguments and advocacy. As a Jesuit alumnus, Tom was always humble before the facts and aware that one’s work, however admired, can always improve, further. My own room was across the passageway from Tom’s in Sydney’s Blackstone Chambers. When I first joined the chambers, I wrote a long note to Tom, explaining who I was and noting briefly that I was joining the Bar after naval service in the wars of my own generation. Tom very kindly and quickly took me on as his junior in a series of cases, including to the High Court and Court of Appeal. As we both started work early, we would often have a morning coffee together and discuss the affairs of the world and the law. Tom would share with me his stories of post war law and federal politics, and of his time as Attorney-General. Very movingly, Tom would often discuss his own War service with me. Tom would often speak of his friends, forever young, who were the heroic air crew lost during the War – and even decades later, he had never forgotten them. Tom also discussed his own relief at returning home, with every day a blessing in a life that he lived to the full. When Tom finished his practising years, he very kindly gave me some of his law library, including his constitutional and public law works, which I still have, and which use always conjuries memories of Tom that I will only cherish more with time. Thomas Eyre Forrest Hughes was the good and faithful servant of Australian law. He was also a wonderful, kind, and generous, friend to me and to so many others. We can hope for great lawyers and great advocates, but we should be thankful, also, for such great men, too. In the words of Hamlet, from the quill of Shakespeare who Tom was given to quote, “He was a man, take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again.” AMDG

@davidlipson @SkyNewsAust That’s a night-time tea in our house

@jonmcconkey @SkyNewsAust So good. I actually made myself laugh. It was camomile

ABC Chair Kim Williams has launched a scathing attack on Joe Rogan, branding the podcaster as “deeply repulsive” during an address to the National Press Club on Wednesday. skynews.com.au/lifestyle/cele…

@JayCaruso Balmoral Beach in Sydney Australia this morning, Wednesday 5:30am

Post a photo showing distance.

@GrayConnolly My G-G Grandfather Sergeant Major James Mitchell left Tenterfield for the Boer War at age 58 and died of his injuries at Elands River 6 months later. They’re the forgotten heroes in a somewhat forgotten war here in Australia: bwm.org.au/soldiers/James…

A great grandfather 'jumped ship' [or more likely went on leave] as a Midshipman to enlist for the Boer War & ended up in an imperial cavalry volunteers regiment ... then returned to the RN in some form. Must run this down.

@rickygervais @lsqtheatre Are you coming Down Under (Australia) @rickygervais? Please say yes 🙏

Couple of early 'Work In Progress' shows at @lsqtheatre this week, so home in time for tea👍Rock & Roll.

@uaustinorg @nfergus @WillKingston @SpectatorOz @bariweiss That’s great, thank you

@jonmcconkey @nfergus @WillKingston @SpectatorOz @bariweiss Merch here: uaustin.org/store

A recent interview with @WillKingston for @SpectatorOz x.com/WillKingston/s… also here: youtube.com/watch?v=jbR_CW…

@WillKingston @nfergus @SpectatorOz @uaustinorg @bariweiss Thanks to you @WillKingston, I’m really enjoying your conversations

Just watched #BRATS the @AndrewTMcCarthy doco. I get the feeling they (he) simply overthought the term and chose not to revel in it. To me, the “Rat Pack” was those cool old guys, & the “Brat Pack”, was the cool young actors emerging in the 80s. It’s all entertainment, I guess🤷‍♂️

@katherine_deves Beautiful photo Kath! Congrats

@ProfKarolSikora I’d urge everyone to heed warning signs early. My 53yo sister suffered seizures in April last year & had surgery to remove a brain tumour. Subsequent tests discovered Glioblastoma & she passed last Friday. All happened so quickly. Thank you for the work you do @ProfKarolSikora

Cancer symptoms present in many different ways, but usually they are persistent and worsen over time - check this helpful list below for common brain tumour symptoms. It's probably nothing, but it could be cancer and we need to get it checked.

I hope this new Sky News Program #TheJury succeeds. Debate between two parties with opposing views is increasingly rare these days in the media. As a society, we need ideas and mindsets to be challenged. Best of luck @DanicaDeGiorgio theaustralian.com.au/nation/sky-new…