And More Attacks On Ms Katharine Thornton's Lawyer and Women In General

 Howdy dear availees, just going to postpone by one day my post about what was revealed on Channel 10 News and their program The Project, and the ABC's Four Corners...I want to rewatch this stuff because there was so much going on I'm bound to have missed some things...in brief, it was another litany of gross misogynistic conduct in Federal Parliament, but the Peter Van Onselen 'expose' looked remarkably like a re-hash of old known claims, coupled with a hatchet job on PM Scott 'Scummo' Morrison...Van Onselen's recent behaviours/articles, and his declared friendship with Attorney-General Christian Porter, etc, self-define him as an untrustworthy arbiter of carefully chosen pro-Porter half-truths and vicious victim blaming...he is rendered himself notorious in this regard, and he looks to still be operating in that same idiom...he appears to have been removed/sacked from The Project, on which he was a frequent co-host, and they had him on again last evening, albeit as an external 'reporter' relative to his 10 News 'expose'...the Four Corners program was a vast improvement on the disjointed, toothless program they ran 2 weeks ago, a program that is still entirely absent from their Facebook page, not even the usual lead-up promos... 

Australian Democracy is drowning in a toxic quagmire of filth and corruption and misogyny entirely of our own construct, and as much as the Liberal/National Party are wholesale perpetrators in that space, they are equally symptomatic...'we' voted them in, and 'we' continue to allow them to steal from us and lie to us and openly threaten us...and along behind them like the faithful hounds they are trots an almost completely subservient Main Stream Media...except for a few lone voices in the wilderness, the MSM including the compromised ABC, are complicit in the LNP's relentless corruption, failing to hold anyone to account, failing to ask the most basic questions, allowing blatant and obvious lies to go unchallenged, etc...and in that equally toxic pro-LNP MSM environment, self-enamoured pond scum like the majority of SKY News luminaries thrive...and obviously I'm talking about all of the rancidly corrupted Murdoch Media, relentlessly Far Right Wing mouth-breathing shock-jocks who revel in their collective self-wonder...explaining balance and humility and empathy and decency to these clowns would be like combining the proverbial Sisyphian* toil with also teaching Shakespeare to a monkey...  (*the Greek myth of Sisyphus, pushing a boulder uphill)...

So, in that context, here's a cracking piece from Ms Katharine Thornton's lawyer Mr Michael Bradley, in his own words, about some of the dross hurled at him by a Murdoch hack...***

The Oz and me: ‘activist lawyer’ takes the hatchet from his back…

By Michael Bradley

If only Chris Mitchell had (a) checked his facts, (b) had a clue what he was talking about and (c) could write, his hit job might have drawn blood.

Put yourself within the sights of the Murdoch perpetual war machine and prepare to be shot at.

Fortunately its aim is not very good.

My turn came yesterday in the form of a classic hit job by the loyal soldier Chris Mitchell in The Australian titled “Reporters should give thought to how they are used by activist lawyers”.

I’m an activist lawyer, whatever that means.

Mitchell opens with a hilarious lawyer joke from the evergreen humorist Paddy McGuinness (deceased), then the first of many baseless assertions: that there has been an outbreak of “activist lawyers recruit[ing] journalists to their causes, usually involving calls for judicial inquiries. All with enormous billing opportunities for lawyers.” Greedy, tricksy lawyers.

Next, an excursion into an irrelevant debate about the social value of a truth-telling commission on colonisation, strangled into this killer argument: “In a world where victimhood is a status symbol [yeah I had to read that twice too] commissions of inquiry may give the powerless power to proclaim their disadvantage. They certainly give activists, especially activist lawyers, a platform for publicity, plus large fees.”

There it is again. The avarice.

So it is, Mitchell goes on, with calls for an inquiry into the historical rape allegation against Christian Porter — which he strenuously denies.

A claim which the complainant “withdrew” before ending her life. (She didn’t withdraw it, by the way. The day before taking her life she told the NSW Police she wouldn’t be pursuing it further.)

“Activist lawyers and legal academics claim rape victims are discriminated against by traditional concepts such as the ‘burden of proof’ and ‘guilty beyond reasonable doubt’.

They say women, like victims of child sexual assault, must be believed.”

Wrong, wrong and wrong. No lawyer I know of, certainly not me, has claimed any of those things. What we have said is that the allegation against Porter is serious, and holding an inquiry is essential to preserve the integrity of the office of public trust that he holds.

Nobody has suggested the allegation must be believed. It should not, however, be dismissed on Porter’s denial alone.

But we continue: “This is a decades-long campaign. At its heart is lawyer Michael Bradley.” Aha. Although, decades? Not sure where that came from. Anyway, Mitchell reports that I represented Kate, who made the allegation against Porter (yes I did), and Brittany Higgins (no I did not).

Time to introduce a tantalising subplot: ABC reporter Louise Milligan, who “says she met Bradley the day after the woman’s suicide”. She didn’t, and she’s never said she did. Mitchell goes on, discussing how Milligan got hold of the letter about Kate’s allegation that someone sent to Prime Minister Scott Morrison, about which she then reported and is now being sued by Porter.

Relevance to me? None, but the implication is hard to miss. Although I’m not sure if I’ve been manipulating Milligan or she’s been manipulating me.

We move on to a benign canvassing of my involvement in a legal dispute between “feminist campaigner and journalist” Nina Funnell and Bettina Arndt, and my firm Marque Lawyers’ partnering with Funnell, End Rape On Campus and, um, Mitchell’s employer News Corp, on the very public Let Her Speak law reform campaign. In other words, legal work that a lawyer might do.

Then, randomly: “Marque also has a formal financial relationship with GetUp, a strong supporter of the Labor Party.” Well, that is a smoking gun, I admit, if you ignore the fact that we haven’t had any interaction with GetUp for over five years and never had a “formal financial relationship”, whatever that means, unless he means we did legal work for it and it paid us for it, which did actually happen.

The point to all these excursions, apparently, is that although it is “fair enough, and all a legitimate part of political lobbying”, most journalists and politicians “don’t know all this”.

And voters “may have a different view”.

So now I’m a lobbyist? Ew. That’s almost as insulting as calling me a politician. Or a News Corp hack columnist.

I am not entirely sure what I’ve been accused of — something about failing to disclose my relationships with clients I don’t act for or my status as a secret agent of the Labor Party — but I guess the real clue is in the headline. I’ve been “using” journalists to further my activist agenda, which itself is really just a stratagem for making lots of money.

Defamatory? Yeah, I’d say so. To be honest though, I’m more offended by the terrible writing, non-existent fact-checking, incoherent logic and the sheer inept laziness of the whole thing.

He gets paid to do this? I mean seriously, if you’re going to try to do me over, at least get out of your pyjamas and write something that doesn’t read like a random collation of the bits the editor cut from someone else’s column.

Actually, maybe that’s what this was.

The headline should have read: “Calls grow for inquiry into lawyers caught red-handed engaging in legal practice. Sometimes even for fees.”

PS: we acted for Kate pro bono. If you were wondering.

If you or someone you know is impacted by sexual assault or violence, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732 or visit 1800RESPECT.org.au.

Source Crikey

***Classic, absolutely classic, 'stuck together from bits cut-out of other articles'...and just to maintain the rage, here's a classic example of the sort of progressive, respectful attitudes that have led us into the current quagmire...apparently it's all women's fault...you could literally write a PHD on what's wrong with these few gender-skewed paragraphs (below), but if I have to explain to you dear availee, just exactly how every sentence is wrong and in multiple ways, then I am Sisyphus and so is my pet gibbon, Hamlet...and this I copied from, of all places, an on-line questionnaire about what abuses women have suffered in their lives, where, when, etc...I've included the link to that article/questionnaire...***

https://www.news.com.au/national/crime/take-the-poll-women-coming-forward-like-never-before-with-stories-of-sexual-assault/news-story/e274c4b61d9520e847663d5ed1894065#.6oi0v

billyballad

1 day ago

 (Edited)

So funny listening to all these modern woman banging on about how much women have suffered "since the dawn of time. This is just the biggest load of revisionist twaddle that the they teach in "woman's studies".

Historically men and woman worked together quite successfully and woman that were in stable relationships, protected by a male of our species, suffered very little violence. It is only in modern times, at the insistence of woman, that the historical norms were torn down and woman suffered increased violence and relative financial disadvantage.

So now we have a somewhat self inflicted situation where woman decided that they "could do it all for themselves" but the moment they get into strife they come back screaming for "all men to help them". Sorry, that horse has bolted. Chivalry is dead and you killed it. You have reaped what you sowed.

The police have given you solutions for some of your problems. "Don't walk alone at night" however it seems you want to ignore those that are charged with your safely and would rather listen to idiots like Lisa Wilkinson.

Woman have basically ridden on the coat tales of all the men that have brought mankind forward in both wealth and health over the millennia. It is men that have taken the overwhelming majority of the risks to provide safety for all. If you want to continue to benefit from that safety and security then perhaps you should learn to listen rather than scream.

***Language Warning:...what a fuckwit, seriously...and here's me thinking that women have been treated like cattle and chattels, across cultures and for millenia, treated like possessions of men, and have perpetually suffered violence and disenfranchisement at the hands of men, but no, I've apparently got it all wrong...in fact, this is so wrong on so many levels, so bigotted and hateful and thusly so insightful, I might have to do a full post on it...having said that, what a fuckwit, what an absolute dullard fucking idiot...hasn't even got the common decency or commitment to his fuck-wittery to use his real name...fuckwit, coward, typical...End Language Warning...

Tomorrow: Today's Scummo Lies And Threats

And that's going to be a very long post just in and of itself, but then include the programs from yesterday about the multiple 'Sex' Scandals and Rape Scandals spewing out of the LNP...and gourd knows what gets exposed/revealed between now and then...it's a deeply saddening indictment of who we are as a society that you couldn't invent these appalling realities and be believed, yet here we are...

I am Nick Fletcher and this is my blog, cheers and laters...