
BREAKING NEWS Trumpets of Patriots founder Clive Palmer to retire from politics after annoying Aussies with unsolicited texts
Clive Palmer is set to retire from politics after his Trumpet of Patriots political party failed to secure any seats this election - despite him spending more than $60million to promote it.
The Trumpet of Patriots only secured 1.85 per cent of the primary vote, according to data from the Australian Electoral Commission.
On the back of his election blow, Mr Palmer has revealed that he will retire from politics and instead focus on charity work instead.
'I'm 71 and I'm getting too old for politics,' he told The Daily Telegraph.
'I'd rather spend time helping the tens of thousands that are homeless and hungry in this country … that's why I've donated $5m to Foodbank,' he said.
The Trumpet of Patriotsnfuriated voters after sending unsolicited texts to mobile phones across the country.
The messages were signed off by Harry Fong, the party's lead Senate candidate for Queensland, and urged people to 'Vote1 (sic) Trumpet of Patriots'.
Social media was flooded with people complaining about the messages, with the correspondence ramping up at the start of the week.
Frustrated Australians got their revenge on MrFong by finding his mobile number online and spreading it on social media
'His name is Harry Fong and his info is below. He's removed his contact info from his QLD Bar bio but I found a previous one with his mobile and email,' one man posted.
'I've never been so pleased to be a night owl as I am today. Have at him kids, text him and let him know how much you love his spam and feel free to share this post as wide as possible so everyone can reply to his texts!'
Mr Palmer was grilled by Channel Seven's Mark Riley on Saturday night over his election spending and spam text strategy.
'You've been the great disruptor in this campaign, there's been absolutely no missing your spam messages on all of our mobile devices,' Riley said.
'What was your objective in this campaign? Last time we heard you spent 100-odd million dollars and got about 10 back. You're doing your dough, what's the point?'
Mr Palmer replied by saying: 'Well I think we've got 130,000 Australians homeless at the moment, we've got 3.7million Australians having trouble with food.
'So having a debate, having different ideas, having disagreements is not a bad thing for a democracy.'
The Trumpet of Patriots picked up just 2.1 per cent of the primary vote and failed to pick up any seats as of 11pm on Saturday.
In NSW, the party picked up just 1.9 per cent of the primary vote while in Victoria they performed the weakest out of all the states with just 1.2 per cent of the vote.
The party performed the strongest in Queensland with 3.52 per cent of the vote.
Trumpet of Patriots' candidates performed poorly across the board.
In the Sydney electorate of Reid, David Sarikaya received 1.5 per cent of the vote, failing to defeat Labor's Sally Sitou.
During the campaign, Mr Sarikaya faced multiple reports that he had formerly been bankrupt.
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Daily Mail
2 days ago
- Daily Mail
Aussies unleash after Scott Morrison receives top accolade in King's Birthday Honours: 'Baffles me'
Australians have lashed out after Scott Morrison was awarded the highest accolade in the King's Birthday Honours List. The former prime minister, who led the nation for four years from 2018 to 2022, was recognised for his 'eminent service to the people and the parliament of Australia, particularly as prime minister'. A Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) is the highest award of the Order of Australia honours system. It is followed by Officer of the Order (AO), Member of the Order (AM), and Medal of the Order (OAM). Former prime ministers are typically honoured in the King's Birthday awards, but the 30th prime minister's recognition sparked widespread criticism. Mr Morrison's term as prime minister was overshadowed by multiple controversies, including his secret appointment to several ministerial portfolios, involvement in the Robodebt scandal, and his widely criticised remark during the 2019 Black Summer bushfires: 'I don't hold a hose, mate'. On Monday, Australians took to social media to blast the former PM. 'If you get a shiny trinket just because your a*** has occupied the PM's chair then what is that trinket worth?' one Australian wrote on X. 'Someone should have intervened to deprive Australia's worst ever Prime Minister of this award.' 'It baffles me that we award public servants for doing the job they were paid for. I understand if they do something 'special', but politicians very rarely do,' another added. 'Morrison certainly did nothing 'special'. Not to mention the retirement package that they all enjoy.' 'It's demeaning of the honour system to be giving this cruel, disingenuous s***-bag any honour,' a third added. One Aussie kept a close tally of Mr Morrison's missteps. 'You lied to the public. Repeatedly. You appointed yourself to five secret ministries. Then claimed it was no big deal,' they wrote. 'You prayed the virus away, outsourced the vaccine rollout, then took credit when premiers fixed your mess. 'You fled to Hawaii during a bushfire crisis. Then blamed your daughters. 'Oh Scotty. Even your religion's ashamed of you. Jesus turned water into wine. You turned democracy into a private members club for gas executives.' Some Australians said Mr Morrison was 'underrated'. 'Respect, well deserved,' one wrote. 'Well deserved, Scomo is very underrated and deserves a lot more respect than what he is given,' another said. Since the establishment of the Order of Australia in 1975, every ex-prime minister has been appointed a Companion except Paul Keating. He declined because he believed the honours should be reserved for those whose community work went unrecognised. Mr Morrison's honour specifically points to his 'notable contributions to global engagement, to leadership of the national Covid response, to economic initiatives, and to national security enhancements, especially through leadership of Australia's contribution to AUKUS'. He received significant support during the early days of the pandemic, with an April 2020 Newspoll revealing he had the highest satisfaction rating for any prime minister since Kevin Rudd in 2009. But by the end of his second term, he had become the most unpopular major party leader since at least 1987, according to an Australian National University study. The King's Birthday Honours List names 581 people in the General Division of the Order of Australia, including academics, ex-sport stars, leaders and creatives. 'These honours recognise the selfless service, integrity, achievement, creativity, and care that flourish across our country,' Governor-General Sam Mostyn said. Fourteen people were appointed to the highest honour, AC. Baz Luhrmann and Catherine Martin, best known for their work on films including Moulin Rouge, The Great Gatsby and Strictly Ballroom, received the accolade for their service to the arts. Environmental scientist Mark Howden, who served as a vice chair on the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, was also appointed to AC alongside business leader Jennifer Westacott and NASA climate science centre co-director Graeme Stephens. Bangerang and Wiradjuri woman Geraldine Atkinson has been named an Officer (AO) of the Order of Australia for her work with Indigenous communities and reconciliation.


The Guardian
2 days ago
- The Guardian
How did you get my number? Inside the shadowy world of data brokers
Priya Dev has a clue on how political spam ended up in her inbox during the 2025 federal election campaign. Like many Australians, Dev endured an unwanted flood of Trumpet of Patriots text messages – Clive Palmer has admitted to sending 17m of them. But it was email spam from one of the major political parties that she thought she could do something about. Political parties are exempt from privacy law, so they have no obligation to tell individuals how they find your data, and there is no way to opt out. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email But the Australian National University data science academic had a clue: the emails were addressed to a fake name she had used for online purchases years ago – a name also used when she received spam from one of the minor political parties in 2020. 'It looks like it's come from a transaction,' she says. 'It would likely be some sort of online e-commerce transaction, or energy transaction or something like that.' Tracking down how organisations gain access to individual contact information is 'really hard with political parties because they just ignore you,' Dev says. 'If I can find out the origin of my data from this mission, it would be really amazing.' It's the second time Dev has attempted to track how someone got her data, working through the labyrinthine web of data brokers who – often without our awareness – buy and sell information on the public to advertisers or others who want to know more about us. Last year, after receiving dozens of unwanted calls, Dev was able to track who held her phone number back to real estate giant CoreLogic Australia, who told her they had been able to legitimately buy her data from another data broker firm in 2023, who had bought her data from another data broker in 2016. That company told her it obtained her data through a 2014 marketing campaign and had probably passed on her information to at least 50 other companies. Dev's experience is not an isolated one. Crikey reported in April that a child's email address that was signed up for a charity fundraiser more than a decade ago received Liberal party political spam at the most recent election. The answer to how marketers and others find out your contact details and other personal information is a complicated one. Katharine Kemp, an associate professor who leads the public interest law and tech initiative at the University of New South Wales, says it often occurs through a data-matching service that joins up your personal information across different service providers who then sell that via data brokers. Kemp said she had the experience where a mortgage broker had called her asking if she was in the market for a mortgage – she suspects they got her information from a real estate agent during an open house visit. But finding out how they got that information can often be hard, Kemp says. When she asks those who contact her where they got her details, 'they will obfuscate or sometimes just immediately hang up or … give a silly answer, and then when you press them, they very quickly end the call.' The federal privacy commissioner, Carly Kind, describes the data broking industry in general terms as 'very opaque', with 'a very complex value chain of personal information'. 'So because people don't really know what's going on, they're not really empowered to complain about it,' she says. 'I think people find it creepy, the way in which their personal information has been passed around through data brokers and ends up in places that they don't expect.' One global data broker organisation has described its work as 'enabling the exchange of information between businesses in the consumer interest and in the support of Australian corporates and small businesses,' according to a 2023 submission to the Australian consumer watchdog's inquiry into data brokering. The kinds of information collected includes names, addresses, age, browsing behaviour, purchasing behaviour, financial status, employment, qualification, tenancy history and other socioeconomic and demographic information. A Australia report last year found the types of data bought and sold by brokers could include location and movements over time, sexual interests, financial concerns, banking and utility providers, personal problems, gambling or drinking habits, and recent online purchases. Data broker companies include credit reporting companies, fraud and identity verification companies, news corporations, property companies, tenancy data brokers, marketers, loyalty programs, and social media platforms. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission found in its report last year on data brokering that privacy policies used by companies to allow the sharing of data can use 'ambiguous language', making it hard for consumers to identify who their data is being shared with and for what purposes. They also make it harder, the report found, for people to figure out who holds their data and to opt out of its collection. The average number of words in a typical privacy policy is 6,876 and it would take 29 minutes to read, the report found. Research conducted as part of the report found 74% of Australians are uncomfortable with the idea of their personal information being shared or sold. Some companies seek to downplay concern and privacy obligations – such as providing data held on a person by request – by de-identifying the data collected on consumers. Consumer group Choice found last year data brokers claimed to not hold data on consumers who were members of their loyalty programs, with names taken off the data held. Kind, the privacy commissioner, says the assertion that de-identified data may not be considered personal information under the Privacy Act could be 'creative interpretation' of the law by the companies collecting such data. The ACCC said de-identified data still carries risks of consumers being identified when combined with data points from other sources. Kind, speaking generally and without naming any companies in particular, said many Australians would find some of the practices of some data brokers to be 'quite uncomfortable to say the least, and often veering on affronting or outrageous'. 'The data is changing hands numerous times. So it is a very complex space, and I think undoubtedly, a big chunk of it is legitimate and in compliance with the [privacy] act. But that's quite fuzzy – where that stops and where less legitimate activity starts.' The ACCC report did not make any recommendations, but supported the implementation of strengthened privacy laws in Australia. Kind says the ACCC's work has cleared the way for her office to begin looking into the practices of the sector, saying the Privacy Act today 'has many elements which could be applied to data brokers to rein in their practices'. 'It's an issue that I'm keen to prioritise and my regulatory team is currently looking into potentially using our powers in this space,' Kind says. Dev says there needs to be a debate about extending the privacy obligations to political parties, which would force them to be transparent with the public about how they acquire personal data. The exemption means that political parties do not have to respond to her requests about what data they hold on her, Dev says. Kemp says she thinks there is some prospect of tighter rules around data brokering, but there will be no appetite from politicians to change the law on political party obligations. 'But I don't think we should give up on it as an issue in an area that requires reform.'


Telegraph
3 days ago
- Telegraph
The world has never been more volatile. Britons must be prepared to fight for their country
When Lord Robertson was asked to co-write a strategic review of Britain's defence, he had one slightly peculiar objective. 'It was suggested at the beginning that the objective of our report should be to stop The Daily Telegraph judging Britain's defence by the number of people in the Army,' the former Nato secretary general said. 'And I think we've done that,' he remarked in an interview with The Telegraph 's Battle Lines podcast this week. The Strategic Defence Review (SDR) is a 144-page, 45,000 word prescription for 'root and branch' reform of Britain's military. Officially, it is an instruction to the Government. But at another level, it is addressed to us, the British public. The message is stark: how much are you prepared to sacrifice to make this country safe? That implies a demand no British government has had to make of voters since Winston Churchill promised blood, toil, tears and sweat. It's a reflection of the danger of the current geopolitical moment. And it is why Robertson believes he has made the case in this review for looking beyond numbers of troops, submarines and fighter planes that previous reports have focused on. The real issues, he argues, are much more crucial. 'Too many of the interviews I've had this week have been about the money. Whereas actually this report fundamentally transforms the way in which we do defence. 'It's a strategic review, it is designed for 2035, not just for what we're facing at the present moment. 'It's to do with what we are going to need in future: agile forces, grasping the whole of technology, capturing the innovations that are coming. I think a lot of people have missed that.' Lord Robertson has spent a career in and around defence and security. As Tony Blair's first defence secretary he authored the new Labour government's own strategic review in 1998. He went on to serve as secretary general of Nato from 1999-2003. So he was a natural choice when John Healey, the defence secretary, was hiring independent reviewers to take a new look at the state of British defence. His co-authors were General Sir Richard Barrons, an accomplished soldier who is best known for publicly warning of the current crisis in the forces 10 years ago, and Fiona Hill, the British-American foreign policy expert who advised Donald Trump on Russia during his first term as president. Both have a reputation as the best in their respective fields. The report they have come up with – readably penned by Hill, who Robertson strongly hints was by far the best writer of the three – is both ambitious, and frighteningly blunt. Three years into the biggest war in Europe in 1945, they warn, Britain's Armed Forces remain shaped by the post Cold-War era of small wars, far away, against irregular or poorly armed opponents. 'Exquisite' capabilities have masked the 'hollowing out' of the Armed Forces' war fighting capability. Stockpiles are inadequate. The 'strategic base lacks capacity and resilience following years of under investment. Medical services lack the capacity for managing a mass-casualty conflict'. Poor recruitment and retention, shoddy accommodation, falling morale, and cultural challenges have created a military 'workforce crisis'. And in addition, the relationship with industry is still stuck in the Cold War. 'Business as usual is not an option,' they write. Their plan is to bring Britain to war-fighting readiness over the next 10 years. Will we have that long? General Carsten Breuer, the head of the German army, said this month that Nato could face a Russian attack by 2029. The International Institute for Strategic Studies, a British defence think tank, found in a report in May that the attack could come as early as 2027, in the admittedly worst-case scenario of America leaving Nato and removing troops from Europe. 'The decade [to 2035] is what we were working to. That was our view about what we needed to do,' says Lord Robertson. 'For a peer adversary attacking the United Kingdom, which is what we're talking about, it would probably require that long for the existing potential adversaries to reconstitute. But it can be earlier, and therefore the model that we have created and are promoting can be accelerated.' Of the 62 individual proposals in this 'root and branch' reform plan, many are of operational implications that will mostly be of interest to those already in uniform. The Royal Navy, it says, will need a greater submarine and anti-submarine warfare capability to protect our underwater pipelines and cables. The RAF is called on to deliver deeper air and missile defence, expand its use of drones, and could be involved in 'discussions with the United States and Nato on the potential benefits and feasibility of enhanced UK participation in Nato's nuclear mission'. Some have taken that to mean mounting air-dropped nuclear-bombs on F-35As jets, but Robertson says: 'It's not in the report because we found a huge diversity of opinion about that, ranging from the best nuclear platform to the suitability of the F35.' The biggest implications are for the Army, the least modernised of the three services and the one most depleted by donating kit to Ukraine. It will have to increase its armoured brigades from two to three, implying a massive investment and overhaul. But woven through all of this is a theme of relevance to everyone living in Britain, whatever their relationship to the Armed Forces. The new era, they say, requires an 'all-of-society' approach. Forget recent decades. The Falklands, Gulf, and Afghanistan wars did not require anything close to the scale of national preparation for war, home defence, resilience, and industrial mobilisation that they have in mind. 'We need to have a national conversation among the British people about your defence and security, how safe do people want to be, and what you are willing to pay in order to be properly safe,' says Robertson. 'Our adversaries don't believe in business as usual, and therefore what we are doing can't be business as usual.' Nor will it be business as usual for Robertson, who left Nato in 2003 and at the age of 79 could be forgiven for wanting to spend more time at his home in Dunblane with his wife Sandra. Instead, he says, he and the other reviewers will be visiting 'various parts of the country' to make that case for a new defence pact to the general public. 'The volatility of world events is unprecedented' It is a function of just how fundamentally the world has changed since the defence review he last authored nearly 30 years ago. 'We had 10,000 troops committed to Northern Ireland in 1998, either in the province or ready to go there. Nato had just signed the Nato-Russia Founding Act with Boris Yeltsin. China was in the shadows, wasn't really a big player at all, and we thought globalisation was a great idea.' 'So that world has gone. We now have a great power competition playing out in front of our eyes,' he adds. 'We have geostrategic shifts taking place all the time in terms of industry and commerce. The volatility of events in the world is unprecedented, probably in history.' For that reason, the SDR devotes several pages to home defence and resilience, ensuring continuity of national life in the event of infrastructure failures and 'build national preparedness and resilience, ensuring the UK can withstand attacks and recover quickly'. Its prescriptions include renewing the contract between the Forces and the country, enhancing protection for critical national infrastructure, making sure that industry knows what is expected of it in case of war. All of this will be useless without one crucial, but unquantifiable factor. Just as nuclear deterrence depends on the willingness of national leaders to use it, whole-of-society deterrence will only be as credible as our own – that is, ordinary people's – willingness to endure hardship our enemies can inflict upon us. Those hardships will be enormous. Experience from Ukraine shows that full scale war involves electricity, water, and energy supplies being targeted. There will be shortages of fuel and possibly of food. We have already had tasters of the chaos to come. 'If the lights go out in this studio and this building here today,' Lord Robertson says, gesturing around The Telegraph 's podcast studio, 'do we know how to get out of it?' I'm not entirely sure I do. He carries on: 'A few weeks ago, the whole of Spain and Portugal lost power. Two modern European countries lost power. Paralysis was the result. 'A transformer blows up and Heathrow airport, the busiest airport in the world, has to close down for 24 hours. Something like 90 per cent of the data that we are using in this country and in Europe as a whole, comes in under sea cables. ' About 77 per cent of the UK's gas imports come from Norway and one in one pipeline. So the vulnerabilities from cyber and from the grey zone, disinformation, targeted assassinations, electoral interference, all of that is part and parcel of today's world.' Once confrontation moves from the grey zone to open war, there is a question of casualties. How would the British public respond, I ask, to cruise missiles slamming into Catterick Garrison leaving dozens, possibly hundreds, of young soldiers dead? Or glide bombs ripping women and children into pieces as they shop? Or a Royal Navy ship being lost with all hands? Are we, as a nation, psychologically and culturally prepared to shoulder the kind of hardship and grief unseen since 1945? 'We'll need to make sure that that is the case and remind people about what it is. And I think that's the job of the media. It's the job of politicians. 'And we need to raise awareness of the issue. What is it you want, what is the insurance premium that will keep you and your family safe in the future. 'But we in the review are talking about how to avoid it. Deterrence is the question. You know, we all go to our beds at night safe because of Article 5 of the Nato treaty.' However Nato – the bedrock of British defence – is under strain. And Britain's relationship with its allies is about to be tested at the annual alliance summit in the Hague later this month. Robertson, Barrons and Hill wrote the Review to parameters set by the government: specifically, a commitment to raise defence spending from 2.3 per cent to 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2027 and to 3 per cent in the next parliament when economic conditions allow. Nato officials told The Telegraph this week that they expect Starmer to commit to 3.5 per cent at the alliance's annual summit in the Hague. Donald Trump and his defence secretary Pete Hegseth are demanding a much higher bench mark of 5 per cent. Lord Richard Dannatt, a former head of the British Army, said earlier this week that postponing three per cent target is 'tantamount to back in 1937 saying to Adolf Hitler 'please don't attack us until 1946 because we won't be ready'.' Although Robertson argues the money question is a distraction from the 'guts' of the review, it is not difficult to see where the tight budget has constrained ambition. 'Ten times more lethal' The review clearly states that none of the three Services – Army, Royal Navy, or Royal Air Force can afford to lose any more highly trained and equipped regulars. Yet the authors' proposed remedy is strangely modest. For example, it says the Army should have a total strength of 100,000, consisting of the current nominal 73,000 regulars (the smallest since the Napoleonic wars) and the difference made up by an expansion of the number of reservists. It argues that new technology can make this small force '10 times more lethal' than it is now. And it is true that automation is changing warfare. The audacious Ukrainian operation to strike Russian airbases last weekend, points out Robertson, is a perfect example of the kind of thing Britain should be planning to carry out – and defend against. But high intensity peer conflict still involves casualties. Heavy casualties. In the trenches in Donbas, there is a constant threat of shrapnel, bullet, and blast wounds. Drones may now be inflicting more casualties than artillery, but that is of little comfort to the infantry: unlike a 152mm shell, a quadcopter loaded with plastic explosive can chase your car or fly right through the door of your dugout. 'Ukraine is an example, but it's not a template' That is one reason why this month Russia is projected to suffer its millionth casualty, including dead and wounded. No one is suggesting the British Army should fight with Russian-style tactics. But can a force of 73,000 regulars and 27,000 reservists really sustain modern levels of attrition? 'The Army's lethality is what matters. It's the effectiveness of our forces that actually matter, at the end of the day. And Ukraine is an example, but it's not a template. 'People say that generals, and even strategists are busy fighting the last war, and in some ways, Ukraine is the last war. The next war will be a very different war in many ways with very different sets of circumstances that we have to deal with,' says Robertson. Yet it is difficult to shake the feeling that although Robertson, Hill and Barrons did the best they could within the financial parameters they were set, they would have liked to do more. Would he have liked more money to work with? And does he believe Labour will deliver? Everything in the review has been 'ruthlessly' costed, he says, and the Prime Minister has explicitly promised its recommendations are going to be implemented. 'So the three of us are going to be right there, you know, sitting there like crows on the branch of a tree, watching carefully as to how the recommendations are implemented and how, and, and when and when they are,' he says 'So Labour has created a bit of a rod for their own back by having independent reviewers, but at the same time, it should galvanise them.' The question of raising the budget, he says, is a question for voters. 'What we can say is what we think is necessary, in terms of reference [we were given]. If the British people as a whole decide they want to spend more money on defence and less money on other things, then they will make that decision,' he says. 'At the moment they don't. We had a general election campaign last year where defence wasn't really mentioned at all. We had a Conservative party leadership campaign where defence wasn't mentioned as an issue. So people in the country have to see the threats that exist at the moment and the threats that will be there in the future and make a decision about what they have.' Britons will have to make sacrifices It's a fair point. For all the grumbling about Keir Starmer's timidness, the truth is his government – and British taxpayers – face three equally unpalatable options. They could borrow, while national debt is already at 95 per cent of GDP and growth anaemic; raise taxes, when the tax burden is already on course to be the highest since the Second World War; or make cuts elsewhere, when public services are already struggling. Is the blunt message, then, that to be safe ordinary Britons will have to make sacrifices? 'I think so. Unless the economy improves and unless we get growth – and a lot of what we are doing is promoting growth, defence expenditure is a way of gaining growth – then that makes the pie bigger and the choice is less difficult to make. 'We don't live in a world where there is an infinite amount of money available. It's a question of priorities. And if in a national conversation, which the Prime Minister has promised he's going to lead, people come to the conclusion that they want to avoid the lights going out or the hospitals being shut or the airports being shuttered and the data cables being broken, then the insurance premium that keeps your family safe has got be afforded.' As Robertson leaves The Telegraph, I remark that there is something about our conversation that leaves me uneasy. Here we are, a journalist in his 40s and a peer of the realm in his 70s – blithely discussing a war that neither of us will probably have to fight in. Does he find it morally awkward, talking about sacrifices today's teenagers and twenty-somethings will be asked to make? 'It is, and that's why I'm so obsessive about deterrence,' he says. 'The idea is to do this now so we don't have to fight.' He returns to the nuclear question, and three decades of interactions with top Russian officials. 'I've been in the Kremlin. And I am convinced that even if we did everything you've suggested – double the size of the army, and so on – the one thing that will really get their attention is the independent nuclear deterrent.' 'You know, there are people who will still argue that if Ukraine had not given up its nuclear weapons in 1994, in return for the paper assurances of the Budapest memorandum, that Russia would never have dared to have crossed the border. I don't know if you can prove that or disprove that. 'All I know is that Nato and the Article 5 guarantee is a deterrent to any aggressor who thinks that they can take on these 32 countries. So all of the missiles, all of the submarines, all of the planes that we are proposing are part of the build-up to war readiness are designed not to be used. 'They're designed to make sure that nobody fires that cruise missile.'