Climate scientists are very careful about attribution. But these scientists wrote, “we found that the 5-day maximum rainfall over the provinces Sindh and Balochistan is now about 75% more intense than it would have been had the climate not warmed by 1.2C, whereas the 60-day rain across the basin is now about 50% more intense, meaning rainfall this heavy is now more likely to happen.”
A new forensic analysis proves that an Israeli sniper could see that Shireen Abu Akleh was a journalist before firing the bullet that killed her.
Source: Israeli Forces Deliberately Killed Shireen Abu Akleh
My thought for the day
The Liberal Party has always been a party of elites and would-bes. The idea that economics and society are intertwined is abhorrent to them. Economics is the domain of the wealthy and privileged, and culture belongs to those of class and privilege. ( John Lord )
The stench of Donald Trump’s presidency still lingers around the United States of America, dispersing itself on the populous with a dulling effect. It is a rotten rancid odour that inhabits not only the United States but also the world.
Would-be right-wing dictators are increasingly taking over countries that were once stable democracies. These leaders all have one thing in common: All sought power for themselves under the pretext of improving the lives of the marginalized and the poor.
Democracy is threatened worldwide by authoritarian despots or dictators who deny their people a genuinely democratic vote.
Trump whined on Truth Social about the right-leaning tabloid’s “obnoxious reporter” and her dispatch on his rally’s visibly less-than-sold-out attendance.
The Daily Mail quietly scrubbed its own dispatch from former President Donald Trump’s Saturday rally in Ohio, removing all references to the “uncharacteristically thin crowd” at the event.
The right-leaning tabloid wholesale excised several paragraphs from the story without any editor’s note or update and the reporter’s name was removed and replaced with a generic “DailyMail.com Staff Reporter” byline. The headline was also completely changed to a more neutral framing of Trump’s event.
Source: Daily Mail Quietly Scrubs Article About Trump’s ‘Uncharacteristically Thin Crowd’
His Lawyers are saying that if they reveal that Trump didn’t declassify any documents, that could subject him to legal action for stealing and holding highly classified information. Which he did. And if Trump claims he did declassify documents, then he’ll have to prove that in court, and also be subject to possible charges over failure to follow the law regarding declassification. Plus, there’s the whole perjury issue—and the issue of Trump obstructing an investigation—that comes with lying about the whole thing.
Source: Whoops! Trump’s ‘Special Master’ Is Holding Him Accountable | Crooks and Liars
Voters have given Prime Minister Anthony Albanese a powerful vote of confidence almost four months after the federal election by backing him against Opposition Leader Peter Dutton by 53 to 19 per cent when asked to name their preferred prime minister.
Source: Anthony Albanese preferred PM over Peter Dutton four months after Australian election: RPM data
Constitutional recognition was first touted by John Howard prior to losing the 2007 election, then copied by Rudd, Gillard, Abbott (who swore to sweat blood for it) sponsored by Miners, the AFL and NRL under the banner of “Recognise” and now the new Labor Government is still pushing it, whilst keeping the republic as a separate issue, as if unrelated.
Whose land is this republic supposed to operate on? The King of Britain’s land, or Aboriginal Land?
Source: Talkin’ bout a Treaty Republic – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Information Commission, Angelene Falk, will argue in the Federal Court that she can take forever to handle FOI complaints. Rex Patrick reports
One needs to ask why is IA so readily flailing away at another independent media publisher rather than putting up a united stand against mainstream white man’s media? Why aren’t the other Independents responding and supporting them in their attack on Crikey? They don’t seem to feel Donavan and Pini have an argument worth backing.
Is IA just the sound of a single mouse roaring? Wailing against a competitor in a small Independent alternative market? They seem to have taken their eyes off the ball, the greater Australian media system? Or is this simply the sound of sour grapes? Do you really have to be poor to have both integrity and Independence?
Despite its claims of being small and independent, Crikey uses its cronies in the mainstream media, including ABC Media Watch, to promote itself and its funding campaigns and attack its competitors. Another eye-opening exposé by Dave Donovan and Michelle Pini.
As Queen Elizabeth is laid to rest, only one living person remains who can match her for length of service at the head of a family firm. And while Rupert Murdoch’s publications have caused the royal family plenty of grief, there are many similarities between him and the late monarch, as Crikey founder Stephen Mayne reports.
Source: Queen Elizabeth and King Rupert: seven decades of exercising soft power and hard – Michael West
There is nothing more important than informed perspective, for which it is necessary to step outside the grip of corporate western media.
John Menadue has drawn attention to how our views of the world are dominated by ‘white man’s media’.
This is a listing of other sources of news and commentary, by people of all kinds. I leave it to the reader to assess the quality of these sources, particularly by going to the ‘About’ section of web sites where possible.
There is nothing more important than informed perspective, for which it is necessary to step outside the grip of corporate western media.
Source: A feast of new reading outside the grip of corporate western media – Pearls and Irritations
From these we can see that One Nation and its senators don’t like the way we do things in Australia and that they want change and using Pauline’s logic, doesn’t that mean that Malcolm Roberts should leave the country and go back to India?
Or as Pauline pointed out, is he allowed to express a view without being told to go back to where he came from because “his skin is white”?
Source: Why Doesn’t One Nation Go Back Where It Came From! – » The Australian Independent Media Network
John Feffer examines what it means that North Korea has been driven ever closer to fellow nuclear powers Russia and China.
Sovereignty was once the king’s prerogative; he was, after all, the sovereign. Today’s autocrats, like Vladimir Putin, are more likely to have been voted into office than born into the position like Kim Jong-un. The elections that elevate such autocrats might be questionable (and are likely to become ever more so during their reign), but popular support is an important feature of the new authoritarianism. Putin is currently backed by around 80% of Russians; Orban’s approval rating in Hungary hovers near 60%; and while Donald Trump could likely win again only thanks to voter suppression and increasingly antidemocratic features baked into the American political system, millions of Americans did put Trump in the White House in 2016 and continue to genuinely believe that he’s their savior. Bolsonaro in Brazil, Nayib Bukele in El Salvador, Narendra Modi in India, Kais Saied in Tunisia: they were all elected.
Yes, such leaders are nationalists who often act like populists in promising all sorts of handouts and feel-good nostrums to their supporters. But what makes today’s autocrats particularly dangerous is their exceptionalism, their commitment to the kind of sovereignty that existed before the creation of the United Nations, the earlier League of Nations, or even the Treaty of Westphalia that established the modern interstate system in Europe in 1648. Both Trump and Xi Jinping harken back to a Golden Age all right — of rulers who counted on the unquestioned loyalty of their subjects and exercised a dominion unchallenged except by other monarchs.
Source: As Falls Russia, So Falls the World – scheerpost.com
The Biden administration laid out its plans to rev up work on completing Donald Trump’s signature project. THE WALL
Source: Joe Biden Resumes Construction of Trump’s Border Wall
*based on what he has said
I’m told you have presidential ambitions, Governor. If so, you might start acting like a statesman rather than doing stunts that make you a cynical clown.
Trump is pissed crying out “they stole my idea”
“Luring asylum seekers under false pretenses and then abandoning them on the side of the road thousands of miles away is not the solution to a global challenge — in fact, those are the kinds of tactics that smugglers are arrested for.” According to UC Berkeley associate history professor Hidetaka Hirota, the goal is to “embarrass pro-immigration politicians and create the appearance of chaos to justify cruel policies.” It is a pandering gimmick, photo-op and political statement to score political points with Trump’s cruel constituency and burnish “presidential” credentials. All at the expense of tragically vulnerable people, who’ve traveled 1000’s of miles with hope as their only capital and currency.
Source: DeSantis and Abbot are Traffickers in Human Misery, Pranking Asylum-Seekers
There are still many questions surrounding Scott Morrison’s ill-starred time at the helm of Tourism Australia, writes Jommy Tee. Newly released documents confirm KPMG did not undertake a probity audit in 2005 into the assessment and evaluation of shortlisted tenderers for Tourism Australia’s advertising contracts.
So when should we trust science? The view that seems to emerge from Popper, Oreskes and other writers in the field is we have good, but fallible, reason to trust what scientists say when, despite their own best efforts to disprove an idea, there remains a consensus that it is true.
Source: Why should we trust science? Because it doesn’t trust itself
Meanwhile, Tertiary Institutions are rolling in dough and cutting tenured staff.
Since when has Australia stopped investing in Education? Sixty Years ago you could work in a bank having passed 3rd form. Today you need a degree to meet and greet customers? Branches are being closed at a rapid rate and telephone contact with a branch is nigh on impossible. Everyday banking has become increasingly online.
Selling and designing a matrix of connected products and debt creation is the main goal along with hidden fees extracted from systems that maintain ever-increasing flow from were to syphon fees. Gone are the days when bankers came to primary schools and handed out piggy banks, Now it’s more likely credit cards but even they are being done away with for mobile phones you buy yourself on a plan.
People who choose to study are carrying larger debts – and for much longer than ever before
With a suicide rate of 10.4 per 100,000 people, according to Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, we rank about 18 out of 36 among OECD countries. And in terms of gambling, we are among the worst, experiencing the biggest losses per capita. The two can be linked: studies show gambling is the cause of an estimated 400 suicides annually.
Source: ‘Gamble responsibly’ message is a cop-out. Regulators must step up
Australians are no better informed about what will be Australia’s most expensive-ever defence project – equipping the Navy with US or British nuclear-powered submarines – than they were a year ago when the Morrison government announced the deal a year ago.
Yet while the Albanese government shows little sign of serious engagement to the increasingly heavy load of domestic criticisms of the globally-unprecedented project, its most serious and effective opposition may be a new and wide-ranging Chinese attack in the global legal nuclear arena.
The Chinese government has dramatically shifted the diplomatic attack against the AUKUS partners with an unprecedented and savagely worded submission to the International Atomic Energy Agency on the illegality of the AUKUS transfer of military nuclear-propulsion technology.
“Should such attempts prevail’, the Chinese paper states, ‘the Agency would be reduced to a “nuclear proliferation agency.”’
Australia and its elder partners did the IAEA head no favours by hiding behind his assertions of ‘AUKUS transparency’, and have provided China with another stick to beat Australia with.
Once again, an entirely an Australian own goal for China.
In Australia you simply have to be Indigenous and strangely enough death in custody occurs
Having locks of hair peak out over the forehead is referred to by Iran’s Shiite hardliners as “bad veiling” (bad-hejabi), and is a crime. Popular protests among activist women against the veiling requirement in recent years have caused Iran’s theocratic government to crack down on women more fiercely than ever before.
New revelations show that the CIA secretly took control of the security company hired by Ecuador’s government to guard Julian Assange during his exile in London. The agency’s spying on Assange and his visitors constitutes a major breach of civil liberties.
Source: Secret Documents Have Exposed the CIA’s Julian Assange Obsession
Still, the money is a far cry from justice.
I don’t know about you, but if I were waking up every morning and writing checks to lawyers — even super PAC checks — I wouldn’t be a happy camper. At this point, I’m thinking that maybe what they call a global plea deal made by Trump, to wrap up all his federal and state criminal investigations in return for not running for president, might be his best bet. Right now it looks like if he doesn’t make such a deal, he might lose his golf, his money and his freedom.
Source: They have him surrounded: Trump now faces legal troubles in three states, plus D.C. | Salon.com
The fifth circuit’s action points to another threat posed by Trump. Many of his judicial appointments were to appeals courts, which have an even greater influence in shaping public life in the US than district courts. He placed six judges on the fifth circuit – more than any other president before him – in a move which effectively neutralized moderate conservatives on the panel and gave extreme rightwingers the controlling hand. He managed to seat a similar number on the 11th circuit, which is likely to play a critical role in hearing appeals arising from Trump’s battle with the justice department over the Mar-a-Lago search.
Australia’s new defamation laws should stop criminals like Lachlan Murdoch and Kerry Stokes from abusing the law to silence journalists By Shane Dowling on September 18, 2022 • ( Leave a comment )
The UK isn’t the only one “looting” trained professionals from third-world countries Australia is too,
Meanwhile, the voice of Andrew Bolt can be heard crying ” don’t allow our medical professional’s to volunteer” in the case of Ebola in Africa.
While Cuba at times of need sends their professionals to where they are needed most. While our Australian Medical Association retains a post-WW2 attitude that cries out ” don’t let these Imports into practice because how do we know they are sufficiently trained?
Self-interest is reflected over and above the “common good” in our not so “Free Market Place” What’s left is fear, confusion and disrespect for practitioners.
The looting of artistic and religious objects from Africa and Asia by British invaders in the 19th century causes much rancorous debate about whether the artefacts should be returned to the countries they were originally stolen from. But the discussion is much more muted about equally acquisitive expeditions launched by Britain today that may ultimately cause more suffering than those imperialist ventures long ago.
Source: Luring Doctors From Poorer Countries is the UK’s Quiet Scandal – scheerpost.com
The Timor-Leste secret spy trials are not over, with costs already $5m and rising, Rex Patrick writes the Government will be back in court spending more public money trying to censor one of the former Chief Justice’s decisions to keep secret the finding of the Court that the spying operation took place.
Source: Michael West Media – investigative journalists – always independent
Is this a call to commoditise carbon pollution? Isn’t it the “regulated” free market that created the fucking problem in the first place? So this is really a call for “more regulation”? So why the illusion that it’s still a free market? Oh, I see to hide the need for a major change when major change is what’s needed more than ever and on a global and not just local scale.
Placing a value on the environment through formal well-regulated markets is a better way to effect climate action and change the behaviours destroying our planet, writes Mike Berwick.
Source: Put a price on pollution or we’ll keep cooking the planet
In Australia, as in Britain and the United States, professional mass media are part of the Establishment. This status even has its own name: the fourth estate. So at times like the death of Queen Elizabeth II, the pressure to conform to political and social expectations is intense.
Source: Media coverage of Queen Elizabeth’s death began well, but quickly descended into farce
Right to protest is forever being restricted while Fake Advertising and media propaganda is increasingly tolerated
As oil companies push to criminalize dissent, they’re also making the case that climate denialism is protected speech, not fraudulent advertising.
Source: Fossil Fuel Industry Wants Free Speech for Corporations but Not Citizens
Trumping Trump by applying Rendition Tactics on Asylum-Seekers DeSantis’s Action isn’t a “Stunt” it’s the Federal Offence of Kidnapping across state lines
Stunts like Republican Governor Ron DeSantis’s program of rounding up and flying to Martha’s Vineyard Venezuelan and Colombian asylum-seekers, who are in the country legally awaiting the adjudication of their asylum status, have definite downsides. DeSantis helped run an explicitly racist Facebook page before he was governor of Florida, and continues to be the KKK in a business suit. DeSantis, who wants to be president in 2025, is a publicity hog seeking to make a national name for himself. He thought Florida is the perfect terrain for the politics of racial fear, since the state
Source: Top 6 things wrong with DeSantis’s Stunt of Flying Asylum-Seekers to Martha’s Vineyard
Most political colonies have come to an end. But a colonial mind set continues in the media .That colonial media mind set in turn promotes a ‘colonisation of the mind’. The US Department of Defence maintains, in its own words ‘full spectrum dominance’ throughout the world. Legacy media in the US and the UK has the same dominance. It frames and influences how we think and particularly how governments act.
In Washington, wide agreement exists that the Russian army’s performance in the Kremlin’s ongoing Ukraine “special military operation” ranks somewhere between lousy and truly abysmal. The question is: Why? The answer in American policy circles, both civilian and military, appears all but self-evident.
“Putin’s options for the future are bleak, particularly as he increasingly feels the heat of domestic opposition,” the first intelligence official said. Per Arkin, the official also noted “the impact of 60,000-plus Russian casualties and as well as the bite of sanctions and the controls on travel as challenges to Putin.”
Source: The Smirking Chimp | News And Commentary from the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy
My thought for the day
In the recipe of exemplary leadership there are many ingredients. Popularity is but one. It however ranks far below getting things done for the common good. (John Lord )
Universities are too important to Australia’s education system to be thought of as corporate enterprises, writes Graham White.
ITA and the ABC the Monthly Women’s Magazine is back
Is this the madness that comes with monarchy – or is it the disdain that’s over the top? by Mark Sawyer and Callum Foote | Sep 16, 2022 The ABC’s has sent its big guns to London for the funeral of the Queen. Is this a wise use of taxpayer dollars – or entirely justified by the event’s historic nature?
Source: Michael West Media – investigative journalists – always independent
Crimes and misdemeanours in the Royal House,
Graham Smith, CEO of the activist group Republic, also filed a complaint against Charles along the same lines: that both he and his close aide and former valet, Michael Fawcett, had allegedly breached the Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act 1925. In the peculiar world of royal family relations, Fawcett made himself indispensable as chief squeezer of toothpaste onto the royal toothbrush when required. “I can manage without just about anyone, except for Michael,” Charles once stated.
A published email from Fawcett to an aide of bin Mafouz, written in 2017 as chief executive of the Dumfries House Trust, promised, “In light of the ongoing and most recent generosity of His Excellency… I am happy to confirm to you, in confidence, that we are willing and happy to contribute to the application for Citizenship.” An effort would also be made to apply “to increase His Excellency’s honour from Honorary CBE to that of KBE in accordance with Her Majesty’s Honour’s Committee.”
Charles, for his part, denies having any knowledge of the scheme, something considered risible by Baker. “The idea that Fawcett was running a rogue operation without telling [Charles] is simply unbelievable.” The issue of royal money and its inscrutable mysteries is unlikely to go away.
Source: Royal Money: Charles III and the Wealth Dimension – » The Australian Independent Media Network
This report proves that we still haven’t a clue what’s happening and simply waiting to be told. However in not so many words. When Michael West doesn’t know nobody does.
Australia controversially scrapped a French submarine deal in favour of the AUKUS agreement, with a leaked confidential document revealing officials were kept in the dark about the cancellation.
The leaked note was written by former Department of Defence deputy secretary Kim Gillis and first published by the ABC.
Mr Gillis wrote he did not believe any more than a handful of people within Defence knew the French submarine contract was being dumped.
He also canvassed reopening discussions with the French about buying nuclear-powered submarines in the future.
Source: Australia looks to plug nuclear subs gap – Michael West
War fuels rape, sexual torture, and sexual exploitation of women and girls by male soldiers and civilians. Every documented war holds accounts of this acute sexual injustice, including the current Russia-Ukraine war. “For predators and human traffickers, the war in Ukraine is an opportunity – and women and children are their targets,” states UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
Taras Berezovets is a Ukrainian analyst and reporter, now serving with one of his country’s special forces outfits, who keeps his hand in at his old gig with a lively feed on the socials. On the ninth of September, in the early days of the current offensive, he published a letter from an enemy soldier, V.V. Tarasenko, to his wife Valeria. Tarasenko is dead.
Hewitt: I do. That’s what I wanted people to understand. That would not take you out of the arena.
Trump: It would not. But I think if it happened, I think you’d have problems in this country the likes of which perhaps we’ve never seen before. I don’t think the people of the United States would stand for it.
Hewitt: What kind of problems, Mr. President.
Trump: I think they’d have big problems, big problems. I just don’t think they’d stand for it. They will not, they will not sit still and stand for this ultimate of hoaxes.
Source: Analysis: Trump on what would happen to the U.S. if he were indicted | CTV News
The News Most Recent Threads The Blogs Most Recent Threads The Forums Most Recent Threads Home » blogs » Robert Reich’s blog Trump’s Latest Threat Is a Doozy Robert Reich’s picture Robert Reich Article Tools E-mail | Print Comments (0) FB comments (1) Donald Trump by Robert Reich | September 16, 2022 – 7:28am — from Robert Reich’s Blog Yesterday, Donald Trump threatened that if he is indicted on a charge of mishandling classified documents after leaving the White House, there would be “problems in this country the likes of which perhaps we’ve never seen before,” adding “I don’t think the people of the United States would stand for it.
” These words followed on last month’s threat by Senator Lindsey Graham that if Trump is prosecuted, there would be “riots in the street.” Trump appeared to endorse Graham’s threat, sharing a video link on his Truth Social platform.
Trump’s latest threat requires four responses:
Source: Trump’s Latest Threat Is a Doozy | The Smirking Chimp
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