Month: June 2022
LEST WE FORGET
The overturning of Roe v Wade in the U.S. has reminded us all of the importance of women’s rights everywhere.
This article from 2021 by Labor MP Graham Perrett examines how the Morrison Government was biased against women and set women’s rights backwards in Australia.
FLASHBACK 2021: Morrison Government sends Australia backward in women’s rights
Peter Dutton lurched around like Barnaby at closing time, barging straight into a narrow, electorally irrelevant topic imported directly from the US Republican playbook. This mantra was repeated a few weeks later by a hyperventilating Sen. Hollie Hughes who told a questioner at the Sydney Institute who asked where the Liberal Party had gone wrong, that essentially it was all the fault of the “Marxist school teachers”.
Source: Lost and bound – whither the Liberal Party? | The Shot
Senator Hughes’ disgraceful attacks on the teaching profession in this country by labelling them Marxist is divisive and insulting to teachers. Her ignorance about Keynes and Marx is very concerning. Senator Hughes’ behaviour is the worst level of American style cultural war to try to agitate in this country. Senator Hughes should be reprimanded by her leader Peter Dutton, but I suspect there is a greater chance Shakespeare himself will be teaching next term at my daughter’s school than Ms Hughes being pulled into line.
Source: Stop the culture wars, Senator Hughes – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Meanwhile LNP Senator Hughes is outspoken in the media and acting as if it were Question Time calling the Australian Teaching Profession Marxists. Sounding like a an American Republican Trumpster she’s attempting to bring full blown “culture wars” to Australian politics. However, all she is doing is demonstrating her’s and the LNP’s ignorance. In her best un- Woke fashion Huges wants the Australian teaching profession cancelled, demonstrating she hasn’t a clue what even the term Woke means when demanding our children need to be taught what’s right rather than develop the skills of learningand assessing what’s right for themselves.
One of the promises the new Prime Minister made during the election campaign was to create or recreate a more civil parliament and, for that matter, a more tolerant and reasoned society. Most would all agree that we want our politicians to put their better minds to the problems confronting us. We want the screaming and disrespect to end.
The difference between manners and civility – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Negotiations for a “critical” trade deal with the European Union have “stalled” over perceptions Australia isn’t “fair dinkum” on climate change action, and due to a fractured relationship with France, Anthony Albanese says.
Trade discussions ‘stalled’ over climate – Michael West
Trade discussions ‘stalled’ over climate – Michael West
Melbourne was recently again crowned the most liveable city in Australia and 10th in the world, beating Sydney (13th in the world) and well ahead of everywhere else. Ironically, after the couple of years we’ve had, I think I finally understand why.
Chomsky on Israeli apartheid Chomsky believes that calling Israeli policies towards the Palestinians “apartheid” is actually a “gift to Israel”; at least, if by apartheid one refers to South African-style apartheid.
Source: Chomsky on Israeli Apartheid, Celebrity Activists, BDS and the One-State Solution
He lunged at a Secret Service agent’s throat. He threw dishes during temper tantrums. And he wanted metal detectors taken away so his fans could march with guns and knives.
An astonishing portrait of Donald Trump as an unhinged and personally violent president emerged at Tuesday’s hearing of the congressional committee investigating last year’s attack on the US Capitol.
“Anyone downplaying Cassidy Hutchinson’s role or her access in the West Wing either doesn’t understand how the Trump WH worked or is attempting to discredit her because they’re scared of how damning this testimony is,” tweeted former White House deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews, who resigned after Jan. 6. “For those complaining of ‘hearsay,’ I imagine the Jan. 6 committee would welcome any of those involved to deny these allegations under oath.” ( Mick Mulvaney )
As Hutchinson laid out, Trump was not only aware that many in the rally crowd were heavily armed, he seemed to be counting on it. He got angry with the Secret Service for not letting people with AR-15s and body armor clamor to his side during the rally, saying, according to Hutchinson, “I don’t fucking care that they have weapons. They’re not here to hurt me.” He demanded that the armed thugs that support him “march to the Capitol from here.”
Trump knew they were armed. Yet he directed his supporters to the Capitol on Jan. 6. He then repeatedly insisted on being the head of the mob. When Secret Service wouldn’t let him, he yelled, “I’m the f-ing president! Take me up to the Capitol now!” and physically attacked the agent driving th
Source: Cassidy Hutchinson’s surprise Jan. 6 testimony exposes the violence that fuels Trumpism | Salon.com
The success of Rupert’s exercise in spraying cologne on a chum bucket is yet to be proven but it is off to a bad start. Leave aside for the moment that Spud, sorry…Cuddles, is a 20 metre swimmer in a 50 metre pool who thinks shit takes are Japanese mushrooms and Feng Shui is a Chinese tennis player – in his first press conference as Lib leader Spuddley Too-right said; “I want to give you this assurance, we’ve heard loud and clear from the [partisanship-weary] Australian public” to be qualified a short time later with “Our job is to make things difficult for the Government“…so, lessons learnt, eh? Back to an obstructionist, Abbottesque future where after only three weeks Cuddles’ troops are laying the blame for nine years of Tory corruption, incompetence and wreckage at Labor’s feet.
Source: Cuddly Pete – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Independents spit the dummy over Albanese’s staff cuts proposal
Independents spit the dummy over Albanese’s staff cuts proposal
Yet again we, the hapless electorate, find ourselves an unwilling and exasperated audience for the performance of melodramatic spats that could and should be resolved by negotiation between the parties involved. The bad faith of the Independents who took this to media as their first, rather than their last resort, cannot be overlooked.
Their threat to block legislation over this matter is unconscionable. MPs and senators would do well to recognise that the electorate has in the main lost patience with belligerence and histrionics of the kind that has wrought so much havoc on our country for the last nine years.
If you’re going to throw all your toys out of the cot at the first obstacle you encounter, maybe you’re in the wrong job and maybe in three years’ time, we’ll sack you like we sacked your predecessors.
Before journalists can repair their broken institution, they first need to admit they have a problem.
But while journalists behave like they are untouchable and beyond critique, Australian news media standards will continue to degrade, and audience trust will decline.
When journalists are criticised, whether it be instances of bias, misrepresentation, factual errors or terrible ethics on display, we see a familiar pattern. First, they complain of “trolling” and “abuse” from whoever it is who points out their flaws. Then their colleagues jump in to defend them and join in the chorus of criticism against those who complain. Rinse, repeat.
This collective circling of the wagons and in-group defensiveness creates an impenetrable culture that refuses to self-reflect or confront problems from within. Like a snake eating itself, this downward spiral is unsustainable.
Journalists need to listen to media critique before it’s too late
Australia’s Omicron wave earlier this year was much larger than we thought, recent research has confirmed. We also heard Health Minister Mark Butler acknowledge Australia can expect a “very big wave” of people with long COVID over the next few years.
Source: We need to brace for a tsunami of long COVID. But we’re not quite sure the best way to treat it
Apartheid: How a Reluctant UN Official Was convinced to so Describe Israeli Policies toward Palestinians
“We are now in the sixtieth year of the Nakba. There are those who dance now on our graves, and they consider us their feast. But the Nakba is not a memory; it is a continuous uprooting that makes Palestinians more worried about their existence. The Nakba continues because the occupation continues. Continuing occupation means the continuation of the war. This permanent war waged by Israel against us is not a war to defend its existence; it is a war over our existence. The conflict is not, therefore, a conflict between two existences, as the Israeli discourse promotes . . . You are here, dear friends, to see the facts for how they are. Yesterday we celebrated together the end of apartheid in South Africa. And here you see it thriving . . . in all of its power.”
Apartheid: How a Reluctant UN Official Was convinced to so Describe Israeli Policies toward Palestinians
“People just burned alive,” said Ukraine’s interior minister, while the head of the Poltava region stated that “it is too early to talk about the final number of the killed.”
Scores Feared Dead and Wounded as Russian Missiles Hit Ukraine Shopping Center
Green-Colored Glasses
Private Prisons Are a Socially Responsible Investment, According to Bizarre Wall Street Measures
“We didn’t change any business practices. It’s a charade, yet no one questions this stuff,” he added. “It sounds good, but it doesn’t do anything.
How Corporate America Uses ESG to Polish Its Image
Trump is still crying out for War, “stand back” and “stand by”. If nothing untoward occurred why did so many of his activist supporters beg for pardons well before the Committee even came to being?
Carpenter, in a listicle published by the conservative website The Bulwark on June 21, lays out three ways in which Trump continues to prove that the committee’s arguments against him are spot on: (1) “Trump is still targeting Pence,” (2) “Trump is still defending the rioters,” and (3) “Trump is still using inciteful rhetoric.”
Source: Trump Continues To Build the Jan. 6 Committee’s Case Against Him | The Smirking Chimp
New polling taken directly after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned abortion rights that were recognized in Roe v. Wade finds that voters are more likely to back candidates in this year’s midterms who support reestablishing abortion rights through federal legislation.
According to an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll conducted over the weekend, 56 percent of Americans do not support the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, in which the conservative majority ruled to undo the abortion protections established in Roe. Fifty-five percent of respondents said that they think of themselves as mostly supporting abortion rights, while only 36 percent said that they opposed those types of rights.
Poll: SCOTUS Anti-Abortion Ruling Could Motivate Strong Dem Turnout in Midterms
Will this trend towards progressive governments continue? With elections later this year in Sweden, Latvia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Austria, Israel and Slovenia, we shall soon see.
Source: The world is now a much better place, not just Australia
Just over a month ago, Josh Frydenberg was telling us just how good Australia’s fundamentals were looking. The LNP was the best economic manager. Well, that’s proved to be rubbish. However, now the LNP is already declaring the ALP’s honeymoon period over and blaming them for the immediate turnaround or revelations about the economy. The books are being audited and were found the story is in fact quite the opposite to what Morrison and Frydenberg had been selling but much closer to what the ALP have been saying all along. The facts aren’t what we have been told. The question now is who is going to pay?
Global economic indicators are flashing red with a real risk of stagflation, one of the world’s most senior economists has warned, and highly indebted Australians are among the most exposed to rising prices and slowing growth.
Source: Bank for International Settlements warns global economy is ‘flashing red’
WEAR MASKS AUSTRALIA
Australia’s COVID rules wound back – despite surging cases “The findings reinforce the need to provide adequate resources and support for ICUs, particularly during times of unusually high demand,” Dr Begum said. There were almost 50,000 COVID-19 cases and 82 deaths across Australia over the weekend. There are about 227,000 active cases nationwide, the highest mark since June 7. There are also over 3100 patients in hospital care, the most in five weeks
The education minister has blasted Senator Hollie Hughes for “crazy” comments blaming the Liberals’ low youth vote on “Marxist” teachers.
India has moved away from British to Israeli Justice of “collective punishment”
It looks all too eerily similar as a method: the expulsion of individuals from their home, the demolition of said home and the punishing of entire families. All excused by a harsh reading of local regulations. But this method, used by Israeli authorities for years against vulnerable Palestinians, has become a weapon of choice for the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Gujarat.
Source: The brutality of “Bulldozer Justice” in India – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Trump too two steps forward to reverse ROE v WADE and now has tried to take 3 steps back saying not my call but “Gods”
Trump reportedly told people in private that a reversal of Roe will anger Republicans and anger women
After a draft of the coming decision was leaked in May, Trump reportedly told people repeatedly that he believes it will be “bad for Republicans.”
“The decision, Mr. Trump has told friends and advisers, will anger suburban women, a group who helped tilt the 2020 presidential race to Joseph R. Biden Jr., and will lead to a backlash against Republicans in the November midterm elections,” The Times reports. “In other conversations, Mr. Trump has told people that measures like the six-week abortion ban in Texas, which allows people to file lawsuits against those who enable abortions beyond that time-frame, are ‘so stupid,’ according to a person with direct knowledge of the discussions. The Supreme Court let the measure stand in December 2021.”
In an interview with Fox News about the ruling, Trump dodged a question about the role he played and instead said “God made the decision.”
Source: Trump initially said ending Roe v. Wade would be bad for Republicans | Salon.com
1. Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857
3. Hammer v. Dagenhart (1918)
4. Korematsu v. United States (1944)
5. Citizens United v. FEC (2010)
As for the sixth in this series, which may be the second-worst after Dred Scott, which caused the Civil War, you all know what that is, since it was just issued this week. Dobbs v. Jackson. It is the opening salvo of more such decisions inviting state governments to regulate our genitals and family life, which is the stealth agenda of the allegedly anti-government Republican Party.
When a small clique of unelected ideologues impose their will on 330 million people in a way that offends the vast majority of them, it calls forth a movement. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King each in his own way, coming from Islam and from Christianity, knew what to do about Jim Crow. They organized. Eventually even the Congress became concerned enough to strike down segregation and interference in voting rights. We may need to do the second all over again in this generation. And now there is the challenge of freeing the bodies of American women, and, indeed, of all Americans, from the death grip of the New Puritan Plutocrats.
It’s a great day for politics but hell of a day for the Republican Party that got what they wished for but lost voting women in the base by doing it. Even Trump is denying he had any part in this decision but was “doing gods will”. What coward the man in fact is.
After today, young women will come of age with fewer rights than their mothers and grandmothers had. The majority accomplishes that result without so much as considering how women have relied on the right to choose or what it means to take that right away. The majority’s refusal even to consider the life-altering consequences of reversing Roe and Casey is a stunning indictment of its decision.
The Two-Faced President does it again.
Publicly, former President Donald Trump is taking credit for the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturn of Roe v. Wade and ultimately revoking women’s rights to legal abortions. But, behind closed doors, he reportedly is not thrilled about the ruling.
Freshman GOP Rep. Mary Miller, standing next to former President Donald Trump at a rally to boost her re-election bid in downstate Mendon — and reading from a notebook — said the Supreme Court decision to overturn the landmark abortion rights case Roe v. Wade was a “victory for white life.”
Fighting Fake News with REAL; 27/6/22; The World is moving LEFT; Borrow by the glass; Fox News- Roe Wade commented on by Men;
The government has admitted almost all rooftop solar energy in Australia may be double-counted – a massive emission reduction free ride for Australia’s largest corporations. Callum Foote reports.
One guy prosecuted for allegedly running a company while bankrupt, ten Crown directors off scot free for washing $70bn through casinos for Chinese Triads, drug and sex traffickers and other assorted criminals. One rule for rich and powerful, another for the rest. Michael West reports on the world of deluxe double standards.
Crown v Shannon: bigwigs off the hook, small fish fried – Michael West
Australia’s Gas Crisis Proves It’s Time to Renationalize Energy
Although in the short-term, we are still reliant on the environmentally destructive gas industry, in the long term, it must be eliminated. As Matt Bruenig from the People’s Policy Project has pointed out, it’s exactly industries like these that ought to be publicly owned and managed. The private market has already shown it can’t lead us towards decarbonization — and now, it can’t even guarantee a reliable supply. It’s time to renationalize energy.
The cost of renationalizing the energy industry is hardly a problem. Purchasing a profitable asset means that it will eventually pay for itself. The only real cost, therefore, would be the interest paid on the debt to purchase it, a fact that even critics of nationalization are willing to acknowledge. And considering fossil fuel subsidies already cost the government an absurd $11.6 billion last year, it’s not as if governments are unwilling to spend big to keep the industry afloat.
Politicians and energy companies say there’s a gas supply crisis, but huge price increases are caused by profiteering private corporations. It’s long past time to renationalize them.
Australia’s Gas Crisis Proves It’s Time to Renationalize Energy
In a nation where individuals are disposable and not the priority
Because I am a 53-year-old woman. The highest growing demographic for homelessness in Australia and I have had a severe and persistent mental illness for most of my life.
Have I asked for help? Yes! I used to work and teach Community Services and know how to do the research to find and ask for help. Have I been helped? No, I have received no assistance because I am a 53-year-old woman without children and I am the Government and any social services lowest priority. I am looking at least another two years before housing becomes available.
Breaking the cycle of homelessness – » The Australian Independent Media Network
When the king of “alternative facts ” Isn’t one himself
Last week, three news stories broke that are set to prove consequential for nonagenarian media billionaire Rupert Murdoch and his News and Fox media empire.
Source: Rupert Murdoch’s wild week: Jerry Hall, Trump and parties
‘Not in my backyard’: Sale of tacos under-regulated in the U.S.
‘Not in my backyard’: Sale of tacos under-regulated in the U.S.
Wow, we really dodged a bullet there!
Well, we put paid to that. We didn’t just restrict the sale of this merchandise. We went right ahead and banned at least 12 French cheeses that were deemed a brazen threat to our general community. In particular, a threat to the safety of our children. Children are precious right?
Because when things are really dangerous, then sensibly you restrict and regulate it okay?
These cheeses that undermine the very fabric of society, with their delicate harmony of aroma and finely developed bacterial sensibilities, such as Roquefort, Bleu de Gax, Mimolette, Morbier, Camembert de Normandie and Brie de Meaux will no longer be permitted to put our children in grave physical danger as has been consistently proven over many a past decade.
Mr Biden said empowering states to ban abortion made the US an outlier among developed nations on protecting reproductive rights.
‘Violence for weeks’ feared after landmark US abortion ruling
The Brazilian case shows what happens when reproductive rights are treated as a last resort rather than a public good.
Brazilian Minor Denied Abortion Holds Lesson for Post-Roe U.S.
Muslim-majority countries out of 47 surveyed permit abortion on demand. These are Albania, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tunisia, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Another two, Burkina Faso and Guinea, allow abortion in cases of incest and rape, which the new Texas law does not, and Sudan allows it in case of rape.
Several other Muslim-majority states allow abortion where the mother’s physical or mental health would be impaired, not just if her life was endangered . . . Even Saudi Arabia permits abortion where the mother’s health is in danger, as do all but 18 of the 47 nations Shapiro surveyed . . .
Since 43 U.S. states have some restrictions on abortion, in fact, there are more Muslim-majority countries with abortion on demand than there are U.S. states [who allow that] . . .
With the striking down of Roe, the Federalist Society’s bought-and-paid-for Supreme Court has allowed states to dictate as they will to women over the disposition of their own bodies. Judge Samuel Alito alleged that it was ‘rational’ to protect a blastocyte, a just-fertilized human egg. No one in history ever found that rational. They might have found it doctrinally sound if they were believers (and that only recently). Let’s take a poll of scientists as to whether that is rational. It is actually the imposition of Catholic and Evangelical theology on rational people who reject
Roe v Wade overturned: what abortion access and reproductive rights look like around the world
Roe v Wade overturned: what abortion access and reproductive rights look like around the world
I regret that I’m compelled to write again about the Leader of the Opposition. In what was an interview about the past, he told us everything about the style of leadership we can expect from him. Let’s call it “Liberal Negative” to give it a name.
Dutton, Speers, and that pathetic interview – » The Australian Independent Media Network
COVID cognitive decline more widespread than thought, say researchers at Australia’s first long-COVID clinic – ABC News
COVID cognitive decline more widespread than thought, say researchers at Australia’s first long-COVID clinic – ABC News
team has found something startling.
Cognitive decline widespread
Around one quarter of the ADAPT study’s participants were experiencing noticeable cognitive decline a year after getting COVID.
When decent Australians allow themselves to be carried along by the wave of this moral panic, they are not defending women. What they are doing is becoming caught up on the rational-sounding fringes of a hysteria that will lead to violence.
The transphobia “moral” panic – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The Qantas board is offering staff an $87m bribe as it slashes real wages and conditions. As ever, shareholders and Qantas fat cats get the cream, writes Michael Sainsbury.
Rooing the day: Qantas passengers and crew taken for a ride by the board – Michael West
It is the first time the Federal Court has been asked to look at objective scientific evidence and find that the greenhouse gas impacts of a major offshore gas project are likely to significantly impact the Great Barrier Reef. The Scarborough Gas Project is a for-export LNG proposal off Murujuga/the Burrup Peninsula in Western Australia, which will result in the release of an estimated 878.02 million tonnes of carbon dioxide over its lifetime.
Woodside’s ‘climate bomb’ Scarborough Gas Project must be defused
Millions of women are now less free than men, in the functioning of their own bodies and in the paths of their own lives
Roe v Wade has been overturned. Here’s what this will mean | Moira Donegan | The Guardian
olddogthoughts 
You must be logged in to post a comment.