Month: May 2020
When it comes to foreign policy, Pompeo’s penchant for undermining America’s credibility is top-notch
via Mike Pompeo is the number one evangelist of Trumpism in the world | Mike Pompeo | The Guardian
This is our “Friends for Life” we go to war and die for (ODT)
The Murdochs and Packers have got their fingers in the taxpayer honeypot again, this time winning nearly $6 million without a tender from the Department of Health. Michael West reports on Mable and the latest in corporate welfare.
via News Corp and Packer aged care “win” is tip of corporate welfare iceberg – Michael West
Abbott’s legacy NBN. Trailer trashing regional areas but they won’t have a bar of it any longer. (ODT)
Communities are not going to sit and wait for what might or might not happen and regional towns know that they will not be first to get better broadband from NBN Co. Consequently, more and more cities will start developing their own plans in collaboration with their own state governments.
Unfortunately, this will mean overbuilding and wasting money, but with the Morrison Government – purely for party political reasons – stubbornly refusing to talk about fibre optic network, it is clear that many towns in Australia are not going to wait for the Federal Government to take a lead here. The economic and social future of their communities is simply too important to wait for politicians to finally get their act together on these issues.
via Regional Australia secures own digital success despite Coalition’s woeful NBN
He said China was “open” to international scientific cooperation to identify the source of the novel coronavirus, but stressed that the process must be professional, impartial and constructive.
By being “professional,” it means that the process should be based on science, led by the World Health Organization, and conducted on a global scale by scientists and medical experts. The goal should be to enhance the scientific understanding of this type of virus so that people can deal more effectively with major infectious diseases in the future, he said.
By being “impartial,” Wang said source identifying should be free from political interference, respect the sovereign equality of nations, and oppose any presumption of guilt. The research should cover all countries closely related to the virus. The whole process should be open, transparent, objective and rational, he said.
By being “constructive,” it means that the research should not hamper the work of saving lives, which clearly is the top priority at the moment. It should not harm the international cooperation against COVID-19 or undermine the statutory role of the WHO, Wang said.
Instead, it should be conducive to enhancing performances of various UN systems, to strengthening international solidarity and cooperation among countries, and to improving the global public health system and governance capacity, Wang said.
Regarding China’s aid to the global fight against the pandemic, Wang said China has never pursued geopolitical goals and economic gains, or attached any political strings.
“We Chinese are always ready to reciprocate acts of friendship and kindness from others,” Wang said.
Even the right-wing pollsters Rasmussen and Fox show Trump is losing (ODT)
via What the Polls Say About Donald Trump vs. Joe Biden in Key 2020 Swing States
President Donald Trump over the weekend used his massive platform on Twitter to again spread the outrageous and unsupported insinuation that Joe Scarborough — one of his most vocal critics on TV —murdered someone.
via Trump Spreads Baseless Conspiracy Theory Accusing MSNBC Host Of Murder | HuffPost Australia
Can you see what’s going on?
The fact that tens of thousands of people are dying and the nation’s economy has been reduced to rubble, doesn’t matter to the tech giants. For them the crisis is a “golden opportunity”, a once-in-a-lifetime chance to further subsume the government, to garner more government funding for their futuristic projects, to assert greater influence over public policy, and to wrap their tentacles more tightly around the levers of state power.
The tech giants are using the pandemic as a vehicle for imposing their own vision on the country and for promoting their own malign police state agenda. Just as Corporate America is using the crisis to restructure the labor market, and Wall Street is using the crisis to garner lavish multi-trillion dollar bailouts, and Fauci and Co are using the crisis to push for universal vaccines, so too, the tech giants are using the crisis to grab more power, more money and more integration with the state until the US government is nothing more than a trifling subsidiary of the ever-expanding Google octopus. That’s the ultimate goal, privatizing the state so the corporations rule the world. It is a Mission (that is nearly) Accomplished!
Quid Pro Quo and the real America raises its imperialistic head with a threat.(ODT)
A factor in the Coalition’s winning of the 2019 election could well have been the – dare I call it corrupt – pork barrelling through the sports grants.
All attempts, however feeble, by the Coalition to establish an anti-corruption watch dog have so far gone nowhere, but – praise be – religious discrimination laws seem to have been assigned to the dustbin!
The picture is not pretty – and even if our actions on climate change pale into insignificance beside those needing to be made by the really big polluters, USA, China and India – showing willing, added to efforts in Europe and elsewhere, would do much more good than harm.
I strongly feel that the actions of too many of our politicians go way beyond self-interest – ignoring their duties to electors – and actually move substantially into the realm of corruption.
Another facet of the government’s lack of consistency is the unspent $60 billion!
Millions were left without substantial help, while businesses were given first priority to be able to continue in existence.
If Morrison was prepared to spend the money for employees who, it transpires, do not exist, then he should use if for those who do exist, but who were abandoned because they fell outside his arbitrary criteria.
Morrison currently has a one seat majority and even if Eden Monaro turns that into a 2-seat majority, it is not an overwhelming mandate – particularly as he gained fewer than half the votes.
To ignore social distancing by inciting a revolution, out on the streets en masse, demanding attention to climate change action, would be irresponsible.
But come the end of the lock-down, we need to be prepared for action.
This probably corrupt and definitely uncaring government must be brought to heel!
via How deep does corruption in high places go? – » The Australian Independent Media Network
There’s one way out, by the way, if you’ve followed me closely. Give people money. No strings attached, no questions asked, now, on a large-scale, more or less permanently, forget how much needs to be borrowed to make it happen. So people can fund a working society again. Or else. That’s the big question for America. The rest is noise. Until something along those lines begins to take shape — my answer is simple: Americans made themselves too poor to now afford to have the luxury of a functioning, civilized, modern society. Or is all that a necessity?
Golf , TV, Twittering, Campaigning, the Presidency = HE’s YOUR PRESIDENT AMERICA
via Trump Plays Golf As Coronavirus Death Toll Nears 100,000 In U.S. | HuffPost
It is not as though the government is without options. If it had the intestinal fortitude it could use a COVID-19 recovery that would drive full-time sustainable jobs and growth on the back of a low-emissions transition that would last 50 years or more.
The other option is to use the recovery to continue with fossil fuels and pretend (lie your way through it) that in a time of great uncertainty you had a moment of gas led fossil fuel enlightenment. Jobs versus the environment.
History tells me they will take option two.
via We are being conned if we believe the government – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Crisis has proved renewable energy is now a safer investment, and accelerated the shift
Energy Minister Angus Taylor will fast-track changes to a $2 billion climate fund as he rejects furious criticism of a new plan to spend its cash on carbon capture and storage projects.
Mr Taylor called on the government’s critics to give up their “ideology” in opposing the controversial projects and said he would consider putting changes to the Parliament to overcome their objections.
via Taylor stares down objections to carbon capture schemes in $2 billion fund
In the absence of a cure, it is widely touted that the virus can be managed as Australia attempts to get back to “normal”. Attempting to manage the mystery that is COVID-19 equates to punching at shadows.
Ukraine Repeated Domestically- Voter Suppression,(ODT)
As Jack Holmes of Esquire pointed out, Trump is threatening two U.S. states in exactly the same way he threatened Ukraine: Claiming he will withhold funds authorized by Congress if the recipient doesn’t help him cheat in the 2020 election. This is election fraud and blackmail, but this time directed at Americans.
Not only are these tweets an effort to blackmail the states, but they are also a direct effort to scare ordinary citizens out of voting.
As political analyst Judd Legum pointed out in his newsletter, Popular Information, “Telling someone that an absentee ballot application they receive was sent to them ‘illegally’ could dissuade them from voting.”
Indeed, the tweets themselves are arguably voter intimidation, since Trump is literally trying to scare people into thinking they may be prosecuted if they fill out an application for a mail-in ballot. Voter intimidation is a federal criminal offense that could lead to jail time — except that Trump is hiding behind “executive privilege,” which has been used to argue against legal punishment for all his criminal behavior.
via Trump Moves Openly to Steal the Election: Democrats Should Impeach Him Again | The Smirking Chimp
Trump accordingly puts out his erratically changing messages through free-kick interviews on Fox News, essentially a propaganda outlet where whatever he says, true or blatantly false, is accepted. When in contact with other news media – professional journalists instead of professional propagandists – he tries to discredit them, insulting the reporters, squabbling, claiming incredibly they are liars.
via Media wars are heating up in contempt for President Trump
Throughout America, state, local, and federal government epitomize failure. Trillions of dollars have been poured into weapons systems that cannot be used without destroying the United States along with the rest of the world, while dams fail, bridges collapse, communities deteriorate, and homelessness grows. The government in Washington spends time, effort, and money manufacturing enemies to justify the budget of the military/security complex, while jobs and the US economy are offshored, the environment is degraded, and health care needs go unaddressed. The US rivals third world countries in terms of the percentage of its population that has no savings, no access to health care, and no prospects for advancement in life.
via America Is Drowning in Problems, by Paul Craig Roberts – The Unz Review
A study published Friday in a prestigious medical journal found that the anti-malarial drug President Donald Trump claims he is currently taking—and has repeatedly urged others to take—is not effective for treating Covid-19 and could increase risk of heart problems and death in coronavirus patients.
What has Trump done? What has Australia done?
via Cuba Has Sent 2,000 Doctors and Nurses Overseas to Fight Covid-19 | The Nation
Among a claque of western leaders yearning for “snap back” to the way things were before the virus – some pursuing “recovery” strategies of even lesser benefit – it’s New Zealand’s, conspicuously, who repeatedly shows the courage to snap forward. Little wonder she has become so popular.
Perhaps the most pathological problem with super is the most neoliberal: An enormous, extractive financial sub-industry has been built around it. Currently Australia pays over $30 billion dollars a year in super fees. Much of this is skimmed from low-balance accounts belonging to the worst off. It’s nearly the size of the military budget (roughly $40 billion) and twice what the whole country spends on electricity.
There are tens of different super funds, but all perform roughly the same role. This multiplication of effort means Australia’s superannuation system is absurdly wasteful. Super fees add up to more than $1,000 for every person in Australia, every year. By comparison, Norway’s nationalized pension fund has over twenty times lower fees per invested dollar.
China’s “incompetence” didn’t cause mass spread and deaths due to the disease 30% of the world’s current condition America’s and in particular is a result of DJ Trump’s personal and blind stupidity in not acting like other more responsible nation’s leaders did. Trump’s attempt at a pathetic excuse simply doesn’t hold water.(ODT)
via Donald Trump says China’s ‘incompetence’ on coronavirus led to ‘mass worldwide killing’ – ABC News
Trump is pitting the two halves of the network’s business model against each other. If its executives respond by making the network even more supportive, they are risking flight from advertisers and cable providers concerned with being too closely associated with the president. If they don’t, they are risking outlets like OAN, which has little interest in pretending to be a real news outlet, peeling off their viewers.
via President Trump: Fox News is a propaganda outlet | Media Matters for America
Australia’s Defence Connect (20 May 2020) called for even greater loyalty to the US Global Alliance from Australia in this time of crisis over the spread of COVID-19:
“It is Australia’s indispensable relationship, the core of our national security and the key enabler, that has allowed Australia to freely engage and prosper within the post-Second World War order. However, in an era of mounting great power competition and disruption, the US-Australia relationship will become ever more important, explains retired Army officer Jason Thomas.”
Australia is being hurt commercially by its growing antagonism towards China, our best and most profitable trading partner. What is going on behind the scenes in the corridors of power in Canberra in the halls of the Defence and Foreign Affairs Departments to justify this wanton folly to protect US interests across the Indo-Pacific Basin?
Surely, the Trump Administration with the support of the Department of State and the Pentagon can fight their own battles with China. So, what is the real payoff for Australia in these difficult times? And if the war games in the South China Sea go astray, are Australians instantly at war with China through the chain of command in these joint patrols?
China can finish what the LNP alpha apes started and they can do it without bullying.(ODT)
olddogthoughts 
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