ABC chair Ita Buttrose (Image: AAP/Dan Peled)

Seeking Ita’s lefties Crikey notes with interest ABC chair Ita Buttrose’s speech to the Ramsay Centre delivered two weeks ago and reported in The Australian today, in which she speaks about attacks on the ABC from its detractors:

Elsewhere left-wing critics accuse us of being patsies for conservative causes and the same commercial interests that seek to tear us down. The old adage still holds that if you are offending everyone, you must be doing something right.

“Left-wing critics”?

We know there are almost daily attacks in our national broadsheet, and on Sky News. And there is the nearly three quarters of a billion dollars stripped from the ABC’s budget under a conservative government.

But, on the left? We have… people on Twitter with names like “cum worm” or “Queef Stalin” who accuse anyone vaguely centrist of having a head injury, and Jordan Shanks’ FriendlyJordies, which has been suspicious of all public broadcasters since SBS sent him a polite rejection email like six years ago. Equivalent power and influence, I’m sure you’ll agree.

We asked the ABC which high-profile influential left-wing voices Buttrose might have meant, but a spokesman said “the speech speaks for itself”.

When Trump disowns you… A while back, we introduced you to Sidney Powell, lawyer to former national security adviser Michael Flynn, a prolific far-right conspiracist and relentless spruiker of the theory that voter fraud had cost Donald Trump the US election.

The administration kept quiet as Powell told Fox News in the aftermath of the election that she has evidence of “massive and coordinated” voter fraud (spoiler: she does not have evidence of massive and coordinated voter fraud). But now it appears it’s found its line in the sand.

Last week Powell took it up a notch, saying “communist money” and deceased Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez was behind Biden’s win. The Trump campaign yesterday issued a statement saying she was “on her own”, and not a member of the Trump legal team.

So, we finally found someone who is just a little too bananas for the Trump brand. Given his official counsel is visibly melting and has a humiliating cameo in the latest Borat movie, that’s really saying something.

Or, could it be, that in threatening a “biblical” lawsuit that would “blow up” the state of Georgia, she appeared to implicate Georgia’s Republican leadership in the conspiracy?

For richer or poorer One note-worthy point from the Treasury’s report into retirement income: it talks a LOT about poverty — about the risks of poverty that retirees face, the ways Australia’s system attempts to ameliorate it, how to measure poverty, and the limitations and advantages of different approaches.

Which may be of interest to Social Services Minister Anne Ruston. You may recall, under questioning in Senate estimates last month about the adequacy of protections for the unemployed, she made air quotes around the word and said: “A narrow definition of ‘poverty’ is not something the government has ever sought.”

A Grotius display Prime Minister Scott Morrison has picked up the inaugural Grotius Prize “in recognition of his work in support of the international rules based order”.

The award is named for Hugh Grotius, who, among other things was sent into exile because of his view that church and state should basically be separated — something our Pentecostal PM would no doubt love.

Shock to the core, man We never did hear back from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade about the support it was sending the way of former finance minister Mathias Cormann in his bid to become OECD secretary general. Of course, as today’s news reveals — his RAAF jet around Europe is costing us $4300 a day — hosting his website was the least of it.