Author: peterimrich

Fox News

Tucker Carlson lets slip that “Whiteness” is scam as he targets AOC for Race-Baiting and Sexual Harassment

Fox News poobahs have has a long history of sexual harassment of female staff, and the organization was fined $1 million for it last year. I once described the mandatorily blonde Fox News female anchors as “not so much hired as trafficked.” So Carlson’s objectification of the congresswoman is par for the course at a Murdoch news property.

Carlson seems to have been on the verge, as he frothed at the mouth, of slipping into German and of shouting “Kinder, Küche, Kirche” (children, kitchen, church!)– the Nazi ideal for women. At least June Cleaver, the fictional mother and housewife of the 1950s situation comedy, “Leave it to Beaver,” cooked meals and raised children and went to church.

Source: Tucker Carlson lets slip that “Whiteness” is scam as he targets AOC for Race-Baiting and Sexual Harassment

Israel

The Antisemitic Face of Israel’s Evangelical Allies

When Israel cosies up to its enemies and calls them friends

Evangelical Zionists want Jews to move to Palestine to set the stage for the divine requital of Armageddon. This hasn’t stopped Israel from sealing alliances with even nakedly antisemitic evangelicals, so long as they support the dispossession of Palestinians.

Source: The Antisemitic Face of Israel’s Evangelical Allies

Fight against Fake News, Fighting Fake News

Old Dog Thought- The “never leader” but would be silent movie comic is ready to leave the building

Fighting Fake News with REAL 21/2/22; Morrison War; The ALP;

China

On China, national security and defence, both the Coalition and Labor are prepared to play politics, but they use very different language – ABC News

Side by side photos of Penny Wong at a microphone and Scott Morrison standing at a podium

Let’s remind ourselves. Tony Abbott closed down Radio Australia the heartbeat and our biggest influence in the South Pacific. He had little or no ambition to be culturally part of the region and really was a catalyst in allowing China’s expansion in to fill a hole. Abbott was an Anglophile and wanted us to be more NATO than AUKUS. He was happy to cement our relationship with China and steal the ALP’s efforts. Andrew Robb quit and went to work for the Chinese. Back then it was all about shirtfronting Putin not Xi.

How quickly things change when leaders change. Morrison is quite the opposite a struggling leader in the polls and drawn in to become the Right-Wing of the L-NP’s puppet. He once claimed to be a moderate and stabbed Turnbull in the back. He’s spent 3 years politically scapegoating, dog whistling and flying false flags. Muslims are long gone and of no use as a threat, Australian Africans are like Lebanese beacause while black they’re actually Christians and amplify our racism. So it’s back to the future and drwing board. He’s now channeling Menzies and the politics of the 50s and 60s yelling “Reds are under our beds” and  China’s CCP is the threat.

Oddly enough Xi isn’t doing the same and has never really attacked our Democracy or political system in the way Morrison and Dutton are doing China’s. He’s simply initially reacted to the L-NP  and not our Democracy. For 9 years the L-NP have allowed News Corp and Sky News to run a Sinophobia campaign,while Abbott Morrison, and the LNP obediantly stayed shtum. Silent to Murdoch’s personal revenge campaign on China for having been thrown out of the country. He even claimed Wendy Deng his wife was a Chinese Party operative. Xi simply asked for the rhetoric to be toned down.

Morrison’s politicizing of China has resulted in destroying a successful economic relationship built over years to let News Corp, Ch9 and Stokes’s Ch7 stoke the flames of China-hate. He has now even sacrificed our sovereignty to the US and UK in the process. Welcome back to the 50s and 60s and that politicized prism through which we now view China in this election year. It’s the the same prism that allowed Indonesia to massacre 1M Chinese and left-wing unionists in Indonesia and had us go to and lose a war in Vietnam, and yes it was “all the way with the L-NP back then too. They were “keeping us safe”!

How does Labor see the world? The best guide is a landmark speech on Australia’s place in the world, delivered last year by Labor’s foreign affairs spokesperson Penny Wong at the Australian National University.

Source: On China, national security and defence, both the Coalition and Labor are prepared to play politics, but they use very different language – ABC News

Scott Morrison

‘Act of intimidation’: Australia demands answers from Beijing over laser incident

Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Sunday confirmed that Australian diplomats and defence personnel had lodged complaints with Beijing.

Morrison and Dutton had no issue when we sent our air force to the Middle East to bomb and then call civilian death simply “collateral damage”. We killed, and are currently witnessing a court case on Australia’s criminal killings in Afghanistan. We support the Israeli IDF’s criminality in Gaza and the West Bank. But now the scream of “foul” is being trumpeted across our media! Foul for a simple laser warning on a RAAF plane by a Chinese cruiser. Morrison and Dutton really are a pair of theatrical clowns crying crocodile tears, and acting like Chicken Littles in order to impress us with their political prowess.

How quick was Morrison to brush the laser incident aside to reveal it’s real purpose an attack on the ALP and not on China? The man’s intentions are not misunderstood. It’s to say and do anything to “service” or mount Australia for another 3 years. He hasn’t managed anything but spin, his foot in his mouth, and playing the daggy dad for a full term.

Well Mr Morrison, great organizer, planner, and action man. Where are the agricultural workers you promised in June 2021 to pick and save the fruit Industry by 2021’s end. It’s approaching March Morrison and you haven’t provided any. Just as with the promised Covid Vaccines, the RATs ICAC, ADF deployment in aged-care and so many other things. Great management!!

“I can see it no other way than an act of intimidation, one that is unprovoked, unwarranted. And Australia will never accept such acts of intimidation,” Mr Morrison said, suggesting that China would react much more aggressively if Australia ever did that to a Chinese aircraft.

Source: ‘Act of intimidation’: Australia demands answers from Beijing over laser incident

Informed Comment

Steggall takes hatchet job, but will the chickens come home to roost for major parties? – Michael West Media

political donations, AEC

Murdoch media alone has been the LN-P’s  biggest propagandist with never a hint of that being an undeclared donation. Maybe it’s “not free” but part of an undeclared quid pro quo arrangement. Where there was 2.5 years of quo and now the quids are really beginning to flow for Murdoch as his business model predicted. In vast amounts of dollars out from the L-NP.

Spooked by independents, Liberals are happy to turn the spotlight turn on their opponents on political donations. But when it comes to taking dirty money, they only need to examine their own house. Stephanie Tran reports.

Why should we care?

An election will be called in the next 90 days so there’s no doubt that political donations are ramping up now.

Clive Palmer has already pledged to beat his own record $80 million spend in the upcoming election, having blitzed Labor at the 2019 poll.

While corporate donors will now be paying their political dues in droves, we won’t know the identities of the largest political payers until February 2023 due to the once-a-year donation disclosure regime.

Despite calls for real time donation disclosures and a reduction of the disclosure threshold, Australians are continuously kept in the dark about who is bankrolling the political parties.

And with distractions such as Zali Steggall’s failure to disclose the Kinghorn family donation dwarfing media coverage of the large systemic abuses by the major parties, don’t expect reform any time soon.

Source: Steggall takes hatchet job, but will the chickens come home to roost for major parties? – Michael West Media

Media

Grace Tame hits out at media for ‘unnecessary shaming stunt’

If the context were slightly different, and had the photo been slightly different it would have been  called out as male apes  hooting and “slut shaming”. The schoolyard thugs “getting even” with the girls they simply can’t abide by because they don’t know their place in their male dominated culture. They applied the same to Julia Gillard sniggering at her “looks” and the clothes she wore. Yes, the media are exactly what they claim not to be, genderist, and biased. Murdoch once created the “page 3 girl”. Yes, he stopped but didn’t really change the misogynist culture. But, then propaganda is really his business and all the Mainstream are afterall doing it for Scotty.

Grace Tame has written an open letter calling out the media for publishing an old photograph of her with a bong which she labelled an “unnecessary shaming stunt”. “To every media outlet who sought to discredit me by publishing THAT photo,” the former Australian of the Year began the lengthy sequence of posts on Twitter. “Although my humour and strength remain intact, I’d be lying if I said it didn’t let me down.” Ms Tame said her status as a prominent campaigner for victims of sexual assault should have made media outlets think twice before publishing the snapshot. “Not just as an individual, but more so as an advocate of the survivor community,” she continued.

Source: Grace Tame hits out at media for ‘unnecessary shaming stunt’

Uncategorized

Mike Cannon-Brookes, Brookfield launch bid for AGL to ‘accelerate coal exit’

Atlassian founder Mike Cannon-Brookes.

Morrison’s ” Free Market I have to do nothing” is talking back but Morrison isn’t listening.It’s talking back in a way totally unintended by Morrison who talks the talk but never walks the walk. He promises the world but commits to nothing and the market simply disregards the “fool on the hill”

Canadian fund manager Brookfield and tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes have launched a bid to take over Australian energy giant AGL and set stronger emissions-reduction targets that would force earlier closures of its remaining coal-fired power stations.

Source: Mike Cannon-Brookes, Brookfield launch bid for AGL to ‘accelerate coal exit’

LNP, LNP Government

Dudded customers thrown on the political scrap heap as promises broken

It was a single recommendation: pass both bills. But in the dying days before the federal election, it was ignored, leaving victims of financial misconduct left high and dry on the political scrapheap in another week of political mudslinging and point scoring. The recommendation, released in a report this week by the Senate Economics Committee, was to pass laws to introduce a compensation scheme of last resort and a financial accountability regime.

Source: Dudded customers thrown on the political scrap heap as promises broken

Informed Comment

Perceptions of corruption are growing in Australia, and it’s costing the economy

Superannuation Theft $1bn

Wage Theft

Rorts

Taxpayer Funds for Political Advertising

$80M purchase of Water rights worth nothing

The Australian government has decided not to establish a federal anti-corruption watchdog this parliamentary term, despite a promise in December 2018 to deliver an integrity commission with teeth, resources and proper processes that will protect the integrity of Australia’s Commonwealth public administration In the three years since that promise was made, Australia has slipped further down the international corruption league tables. On the respected Corruption Perceptions Index compiled by Transparency International, it is now in 18th position, down from 13th in 2018.

Source: Perceptions of corruption are growing in Australia, and it’s costing the economy

Coal

Replaced by Mega-battery: Massive 3 GW Coal Plant in Australia forced to Close by Cheaper Wind and Solar

The closing of Australia’s biggest coal-fired electricity plant is getting publicity on the other side of the planet, but the Australian Government isn’t saying anything. Mind you, they are currently running Tax Payer funded Political Campaign Ads illegally, telling us their policy (plan) is to be Carbon Neutral by 2050. Morrison doesn’t lie does he?!! He just refuses to sign any agreement validating a LN-P  committment to a “Promise”;

Coal supplies the world with about 800 gigwatts of its electricity, and if all those coal plants were suddenly shut down and replaced with wind-solar-battery, the world would save $3 billion a year in electricity costs plus make the planet substantially healthier. In the last week of December, the state of South Australia, about as populous as West Virginia, which lies just to the west of New South Wales, generated all its electricity for seven days in a row from wind and solar. Tesla built a megabattery for South Australia and is making one for Victoria, as well. There’s a new boss in town, and it is wind-solar-battery. Coal will just have to get out of the way.

Source: Replaced by Mega-battery: Massive 3 GW Coal Plant in Australia forced to Close by Cheaper Wind and Solar

Canada

The ‘Freedom Convoy’ Is More American than Canadian | The Smirking Chimp

Americans have invaded Canada

By many accounts, it seems as though the United States has exported its brand of toxic right-wing extremism across the northern border. Indeed, there are credible reports of Confederate American flags and swastikas being displayed by the Canadian protesters. Unsurprisingly, the so-called Freedom Convoy has also garnered outsized media attention in the United States, becoming a cause célèbre among domestic conservatives who see it as yet another front in the culture war around which to whip up frenzied hysteria and score political points.

Source: The ‘Freedom Convoy’ Is More American than Canadian | The Smirking Chimp

Fight against Fake News, Fighting Fake News

Old Dog Thought- Marshall McCluhan 50 years ago declared MSM’s business would become propaganda. Clive Palmer, the L-NP and Corporate media are proof and are “shaming Grace”

Fighting Fake News with REAL 20/2/22; John Pilger, Frydenberg, Grace Tame,

Informed Comment

Zombie Doctrine: belief in Coalition as “super economic managers” sticks, despite proof otherwise – Michael West Media

Australia economy, zombie doctrine

The Coalition as “superior economic managers”? The data demonstrates the polar opposite. Alan Austin looks at the leading measures of economic performance over 10 years and finds Australia has slumped sharply against other nations. The bright spot? Corporate profits.

Source: Zombie Doctrine: belief in Coalition as “super economic managers” sticks, despite proof otherwise – Michael West Media

Informed Comment

JOHN PILGER: War in Europe and the rise of raw propaganda

Marshall McLuhan’s prophecy that “the successor to politics will be propaganda” has happened. Raw propaganda is now the rule in Western democracies, especially the U.S. and Britain.

Source: JOHN PILGER: War in Europe and the rise of raw propaganda

Scott Morrison

Scott Morrison takes a major political risk. We’ll soon find out of it pays off

Morrison the ad-man with no real political ideas other than to win. None on how to move a Nation forward but back, “Back to the Future” and channel Menzies. No surprise he’s finding high profile figures and supporters telling him to ” “Shuduppa his a Face”

It did not take long for the nation’s national security establishment to correct the record. In two extraordinary interventions the nation’s current spy boss, Mike Burgess, and one of Australia’s most respected ever public servants, Dennis Richardson, both accused the government of seeking to politicise national security at a cost to the national interest. ( Along with Twiggy Forrest who told him to stop )

The result was a perceptible drop in tempo.  Mr Morrison used the office of the Prime Minister of Australia to take a risk this week. His charged rhetoric about Australia’s largest trading partner (CHINA) risks exposing him to a public perception of a leader prepared to burn the house down for political advantage.

But has it paid off, by the cynical standards of political tactics? Being so reprimanded by authoritative voices on overstepping the bounds on national security has not burnished Mr Morrison’s prime ministerial image.

Source: Scott Morrison takes a major political risk. We’ll soon find out of it pays off

Scott Morrison

Coalition faces the final curtain

NZ sacked him, The Australian LNP Government sacked him, Gunna Morrison sure didn’t shine then and he hasn’t changed now!!

WITH THE L-NP TERM nearly over, receiving terrible reviews and slammed by critics for lack of policy, plot, character and action, the Morrison Government is floundering in the polls. Star player, Prime Minister Scott Morrison, is already being mooted as “the worst PM ever”.

Backstage, it’s a mess. Infighting has surfaced, Deputy PM Barnaby Joyce is eating his own words and a new faction has formed supplanting “the big swinging dicks” — they call themselves “the wee chamber-pot men”. Unsurprisingly, lead women in the Coalition are keeping quiet or running for cover.

“No comment”, “it wasn’t me”, “I don’t accept the premise of your question” or “I’ve never known Scotty to lie” are the only lines being issued by the PMO. Things are so dysfunctional that bagging China is the only way to get a solid “Hear! Hear!” of approval from the back bench. Yet, the “troupes” are no longer keen to man the turrets.

Source: Coalition faces the final curtain

Uncategorized

Fox News promoting Canadian Right-Wing Nationalists. 98% of Canadian Truckers are Vaccinated. No Union support. Children used as shields.
Canada

The Canada Truck Protest, Once Small, Now Has a Fascist Life of Its Own | The Smirking Chimp

Canada isn’t the target it’s the example to encourage a second coming in the USA

They are happily giving very official-looking press conferences designed to increase the hostility of the gathering and make a violent public crunch with law enforcement all but inevitable. “As the authorities threaten to arrest people blocking the streets of the capital,” reports The New York Times, “protest organizers on Wednesday appealed to supporters to pour into Ottawa and make their gatherings too large for the police to disperse.” Worst of all, I am mortally certain variations of this thing will be the Hot Item on right-wing calendars by March. I’m fairly shocked we’re not already seeing Trump trucks at intersections all across the country. In Canada, it was about vaccine mandates. Here, if it does come, similar actions would certainly seem to be another tactical maneuver toward a second insurrection; a practice run, if you will, under the cover of “We Hate Everything” protest cacophony. What better way to bog down a federal response to a second coup attempt than to clog the intersections of vital areas with Peterbilts and Macks? Park it, cut the engine, throw the keys in the river and walk away. It’s just that simple.

Source: The Canada Truck Protest, Once Small, Now Has a Fascist Life of Its Own | The Smirking Chimp

Informed Comment

A Republican Genocide of Quackery: COVID-19 has Killed as many Americans as all our Wars combined

The Biden administration’s successful vaccination drive is estimated to have saved a million lives all told in 2021. So since the US Right Wing has started liking Nazi analogies so much, they should look in the mirror. By discouraging vaccinations and masking, they are the Dr. Josef Mengeles doing deadly experiments on people. They have mown down hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people in a genocide of quackery.

Source: A Republican Genocide of Quackery: COVID-19 has Killed as many Americans as all our Wars combined

Trump

Confirmed: National Archives tells Congress Trump took classified documents from White House | Salon.com

Donald Trump | Mar-A-Lago (Photo illustration by Salon/Getty Images)

The American Justice System is so complex that all Trump does is employ lawyers to delay delay delay until he can eventually get it to an appeal in a  court of Trump-appointed judges.  Then  seems he only pays lawyers if they win. If I was a White House staffer and took classified docs did  I’d be jailed. If  I showed or sold them, then treason could well be the charge. Shit look what they are doing to Julian Assange and did to Snowden.

The National Archives has confirmed that former President Donald Trump took classified national security documents with him to Mar-a-Lago after leaving the White House in January 2021.

Source: Confirmed: National Archives tells Congress Trump took classified documents from White House | Salon.com

Ukraine

For Senate Dems Pushing Weapons for Ukraine, Neo-Nazis Not Top of Mind

Members of the Azov regiment take part in a march to the 78th anniversary of the founding of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army in central Kyiv, Ukraine on 14 October 2020.

Biden has been wedged by neo-Nazis and a Russian Imperialist in a face-off. Who does he side with. Putin has false flags in place in the Southern Donbass region of Ukraine to justify his invasion. Biden can’t for a moment justify he’s even saving a Democracy.

While Senate Democrats consider a way forward to send Ukraine hundreds of millions of dollars so it can buy new weapons, some of the most influential advocates are neglecting measures to make sure they don’t wind up with the country’s notorious neo-Nazis.

Source: For Senate Dems Pushing Weapons for Ukraine, Neo-Nazis Not Top of Mind

Informed Comment

The Coalition is backed into a corner – its white teeth anger is frightening – » The Australian Independent Media Network

In the 1996 election, the silent majority spoke, and Australia voted for a more peaceful future, and that’s not what they got. From Howard on, conservatives have given us cultural upheaval and political ratbaggery. It seems to work for them.

The conservatives have been in power for almost nine years. By their incompetence and adherence to ideology, they have stuffed up so many things that a likely mantra for Labor is “Let’s change for the better.”

So, in March 1996, Australia opted for a bit of calm. Years later, after a succession of failed prime ministers, the conservatives continue their abysmal flirtation with corruption and bad governance to the point where you couldn’t trust them as far as you could kick them.

My thought for the day If my judgment, my common sense and what my heart says is different from yours, then I might also be correct. ( John Lord )

Source: The Coalition is backed into a corner – its white teeth anger is frightening – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Uncategorized

Old Dog Thought- When Cool News dominates a disengaged uninformed Democracy. “Cool” being uninformative as opposed to “Hot”. Real as opposed to Fake.

Fighting Fake News with REAL 19/2/22; Who have been the BETTER ECONOMIC MANAGERS? Racism back again for the election; Biden’s Wedgie

Informed Comment

Go, ScoMo go: Morrison coalition beats Harvey Norman for biggest ad spend, even before election – Michael West Media

Government advertising

Corporate media’s reward and business model investment paycheck is about to arrive. The three-year investment in the quid pro quo arrangement with the L-NP is paying off.  The No News, or Marshall McCluhan’s cool news business profit tap has been turned on, and the ABC has been crushed as insurance that real or hot news doesn’t get out.

Government advertising has skyrocketed to an all-time high of $685 million. With the looming election campaign, which promises to be the biggest political spend in Australian history, and a gigantic war chest for pork-barrelling, is it any wonder the corporate media barracks for the Coalition? Callum Foote and Michael West investigate.

Source: Go, ScoMo go: Morrison coalition beats Harvey Norman for biggest ad spend, even before election – Michael West Media

LNP, LNP Corruption, LNP Government, LNP Tactics

Coalition’s taxpayer-funded ads over played role in state infrastructure projects, auditor finds | Australian politics | The Guardian

Light traffic is seen on the M1 Pacific Highway during the morning peak hour in Brisbane,

Taxpayer-funded ads exaggerated the federal government’s role in infrastructure projects, while a plan to include former deputy prime minister, Michael McCormack, had to be scrapped for breaching advice, an auditor general’s report has revealed. The Australian National Audit Office made those findings in a report, released on Thursday, identifying “shortcomings” in the Building Our Future campaign, including material that was not always presented in an “objective and fair manner”. The audit examined the framework of government advertising, which is once again ballooning in advance of the 2022 election, and three campaigns conducted since 2019. Government advertising is subject to strict guidelines against party political material, but is often criticised for boosting messages favourable to the incumbent.

Source: Coalition’s taxpayer-funded ads over played role in state infrastructure projects, auditor finds | Australian politics | The Guardian

Informed Comment

Benefits of Australia’s compulsory voting system largely illusory

If compulsory voting is no escape from voter ignorance. What then is the driving force on who swinging voters will choose to elect but then as we have seen not work for them? Morrison, Palmer, and the Corporate Oligarchs believe it’s soley Media and Advertising. In fact the LNP have risen to be currently the biggest advertiser with their $680M spend and coupled with the dismantling of the ABC over the past 8 years. There has been a masked long-term quid pro quo arrangement with the Murdoch’s business model and IPA to produce “cool” not “hot” News. We have lived, seen and experienced the quo for the past 8 years and it will be amplified again as the election draws closer but we are beginning to see the enormity of the quid in the government’s arrangement. Palmer, is part of that “spending surge” a tsunami of factless propaganda delivered on an uninformed electorate compelled to vote and that’s the only thing Morrison is now relying on. Maybe what we  see happened in Warringah will happen in all marginal seats with a difference.

The ALP always has to come from behind but “It’s Time Again”

What was dismal in the exercise by the national broadcaster was the happily conceded ignorance of the punters, who, with the exception of one “voter”, seemed to have gone for the whole political spread in their electing history. In other words, they were swingers, fidelity adjustable. This ignored the fundamental point that Australians remain, even now, hostile to eclectic coalitions and representatives unaligned to the major political parties. On the issue of whether the Labor Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese would be a suitable leader, let alone prime minister, no illumination was offered, only a blanket of ignorant darkness, occasionally rented by observations that “he might be a decent bloke” who hated Tories and loved his beer.

Source: Benefits of Australia’s compulsory voting system largely illusory

Truth in Humor

CARTOONS: ‘Dirty deeds done dirt cheap…’

Maybe next, the PM could manage to mangle that on the ukulele?

Source: CARTOONS: ‘Dirty deeds done dirt cheap…’

Peter Dutton

“We’ll protect you from China,” says government struggling to get ADF into Aged Care | The Shovel

A government that hasn’t been able to effectively mobilise troops to help elderly Australians get in and out of bed reckons it can handle a fight with the second largest military in the world. Defence Minister Peter Dutton, whose department has so far only managed to place 129 out of a promised 1700 defence force personnel into Aged Care facilities, says only the Coalition can defend Australia from the rising threat from China.

Source: “We’ll protect you from China,” says government struggling to get ADF into Aged Care | The Shovel

Informed Comment

Could You Possibly Invent a More Expensive and Less Effective Healthcare System than What We Have in the US? | The Smirking Chimp

The Australian L-NP actually believe we should adopt the American model and been working to that end.

I have no illusions this will happen soon. But the road we’re now on is unsustainable — economically, politically, and socially. Eventually, we’re going to have some version of Medicare for All (and hats off to members of Congress who are leading the way, such as Representatives Pramila Jayapal, Debbie Dingel, and Ro Khanna). The question is how much unnecessary cost and hardship must we bear before we do?

Source: Could You Possibly Invent a More Expensive and Less Effective Healthcare System than What We Have in the US? | The Smirking Chimp

Coal, Informed Comment

Australia’s largest coal plant will close 7 years early – but there’s still no national plan for coal’s inevitable demise

In a major step forward for Australia’s clean energy transition, the country’s biggest coal-fired power station Eraring is set to close seven years early in 2025, Origin Energy announced this morning. Eraring has been operating for 35 years in the central coast of New South Wales. Last year, it alone was responsible for around 2% of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions, based on calculations from electricity market and emissions data. The fundamental reason for its early closure is the brutal impact the growth of renewable energy is having on the profitability of coal plants. Origin has announced it will be building a large, 700 megawatt battery on-site in its place to store renewable energy.

Source: Australia’s largest coal plant will close 7 years early – but there’s still no national plan for coal’s inevitable demise

Commentary

How the Left Stopped Fascists From Organizing in Australia

Given what we are witnessing today in Canada, the U.S, and the EU does this still hold true. The demonstrations in the ACT say otherwise.  The organization and money is flowing but from the top-down. There’s cyber communication instigating chaos in all the world’s Democracies under the guise of “freedom” in order to make Authoritarian and Totalitarian nations seem more stable unoppressed and palatable. This is a financed coordinated action that’s drawn in disparate groups of individuals neo-Nazis, nationalists, false flaggers but not any Unions or the Left. Scott Morrison knows well they aren’t from the left so fails to condemn them as he would if they were ANTIFA. It’s why he prefers to say he “understands where they are coming from”. If any were ANTIFA would Morrison be so “understanding”?

This article seems more a cry for help  and is rather a celebration and reminder of history in order for the left to become more active in our current circumstance. The most active action at present is to get rid of the Morrison L-NP.

Far-right organizing in Australia is nothing new. But time and again, coalitions of anti-fascists, union militants, and community organizations have stymied the far right’s rise. That history stands as a resource for the Left to draw from today.

anti-fascists in Australia have beat back the threat of far-right violence time and again. From the Unemployed Workers Movement of the 1930s to Community Action Against Racism in the late 1980s and early ’90s, their lessons stand out clearly. To beat the far right, we need to unite people on the streets while confronting racism head-on and building broad coalitions that include unions and community organizations.

Source: How the Left Stopped Fascists From Organizing in Australia

Uncategorized

Fox News Descended into Utter Insanity on Wednesday | The Smirking Chimp

Russian State Media models itself on Fox News. Fox now declares, along with their favorite President Trump, that the likes of Vlad and Orban run model governments and are model leaders of political systems that should be envied. That they are merely misunderstood and maligned by Biden.

98% of Canadian truckers are vaccinated and their unions do not support the stupidly named “freedom convoy” which is both highly organized and funded by the likes of the Oath Keepers. They are armed, and are using their children as shields. How free is that?

Yes, Fox News has gone the Full Monty in declaring Justin Trudeau “Red” when Murdoch media is actually acting as a support agent for the Russians in their efforts to reelect Trump just as they did in 2016 and 2021 when they encouraged the Jan 6th riots. Murdoch Media is so blinded by the opportunity to profit it is constantly caught out as unfit for having a media license anywhere in the world. Murdoch was caught 1) Illegally bugging the phones of British citizens forcing the News of the World to be closed and his CEO and editor jailed. He then fled the country for the USA 2) Broadcasting live the NZ Christchurch massacre so much so the NZ government shut him down. 3) The Murdoch’s are the basis of 65% of all complaints directed to the Australian Press Council yet remain the nation’s biggest Fake News provider. 4) They are the shadow behind the conservative efforts to shut down both the BBC and the ABC and become the voice of right-wing government in the anglo world.

Today has been a wild one over in Fox News propaganda land, even by their standards. This morning, anchor Jesse Watters urged the United States to annex Canada to save it from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, whom Watters suggested is a communist. And he was serious.“We have to finish the wall and build a fresh one in the north if this keeps up. Or we could just liberate the Canadians from their dictatorship,” said Watters. “It’s not like America hasn’t done that before. There’s room for a few more stars on the flag.”The full eight-minute segment is below:

Source: Fox News Descended into Utter Insanity on Wednesday | The Smirking Chimp

Canada

Far-Right Groups Are Funding Canada’s “Freedom Convoy”

Demonstrators march to support the Trucker Convoy protesting Covid-19 mandates, in Montreal on February 12, 2022. - Mandate protests and support for the truckers in Canada have spread from Ottawa. to Windsor to Montreal, and Toronto. (Photo by Andrej Ivanov / AFP) (Photo by ANDREJ IVANOV/AFP via Getty Images)

Whose funding the Oath Keepers? What are the odds it’s Putin or his supporters? Let’s face it he has Fox News onside promoting him as the better leader of a fairer society run by Oligarchs. The fact is 98% of Canadian truckers are vaccinated and their unions don’t support this armed rabble who are using their children as shields. Murdoch Media however, does and Russian lover Tucker Carlson certainly leads the cheering. If Fox News are simply doing it for ratings then it’s an indictment on how low American corporate media has sunk from real news to fake.

The Intercept obtained the hacked donor data of GiveSendGo, including roughly 104,000 donors who contributed $9.6 million to “Freedom Convoy 2022” and “Adopt a Trucker.”

Source: Far-Right Groups Are Funding Canada’s “Freedom Convoy”

Fight against Fake News, Fighting Fake News

Old Dog Thought- We saw the Quo for three years, Corporate Media Bias, and attacks on the ABC. Now we will see the Quid and the cash flow!

Fighting Fake News with REAL; 18/2/22; LNP Ad- Spend Surge, The Shovel,

Education

The national history curriculum should not be used and abused as an election issue

The Liberal Party claims its ethos is “free thinking” individuals. It’s reality is to create and action Institutional systems to produce the opposite. Single-minded thought is a priority and Education is their training ground. Education to teach individuals to think freely is in no way on their agenda and resistense begins in primary schools. Training not learning the emphasis and a strict control of history the planned method. History turned into myth and learned as truth. Hitler, it must be reminded, had exactly the same program in mind.

Everyone has an opinion about what should go into history curriculum. Politicians are especially good at expressing theirs. The acting federal education minister, Stuart Robert, has announced a delay in approving the revised Australian Curriculum until at least April. This means the ongoing debate about Australian history in the curriculum is likely to be dragged out to the eve of the next federal election. History curriculum is political but should not be used as a political plaything at election time. The federal government and Western Australian government are concerned that the revised history curriculum is “very busy”. Robert said Western civilisation “is well and truly back in the curriculum, but it remains quite cluttered”.

Source: The national history curriculum should not be used and abused as an election issue

LNP, LNP Government

Aged care still waiting for ADF support as homes close amid staff shortages

Some aged care providers are closing their doors as staff shortages worsen.

Morrison is at war and Peter Dutton is our Defence Minister. He sent our best ship to Tonga and it broke down now a week has gone by and he’s managed to deploy 129 personnel to aged care. This is a government that has surrendered not one that’s capable of keeping anyone safe let alone a Nation

More than a week after Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced that up to 1700 ADF personnel would be sent to help fill clinical and support roles in aged care homes, only a handful of the nation’s more than 2600 facilities have received military assistance.

Official ADF data shows there were just 129 personnel on the ground helping fill staff shortages in the sector on Tuesday, including 18 in NSW and 50 in Victoria.

Source: Aged care still waiting for ADF support as homes close amid staff shortages

Informed Comment

Crikey Worm: A grand plan for donations

Helen Haines

NO MORE MONEY BUSINESS Reveal who donates more than a grand to your campaign — that’s the challenge from Victorian MP Helen Haines, The Age reports, as the fallout over donations from coal millionaire John Kinghorn to independent MP Zali Steggall continues. Haines says she’ll list every donation above $1000 on her website each quarter, and anything above the official threshold of $14,500 within just five days (!), demanding all sides of Parliament do likewise. At the moment donations are revealed eight months after the end of the financial year.

Source: Crikey Worm: A grand plan for donations

Informed Comment

Coalition gaffes galore to the tune of an off-key ukulele

It is fitting that the Prime Minister chose to strum away on a simple ukulele the tune of a well-known song this week, without having practised, learnt the words or informed himself of the subject matter, and without any apparent embarrassment. His performance is a metaphor for the Coalition Government he leads.

Source: Coalition gaffes galore to the tune of an off-key ukulele

Scott Morrison

Scott Morrison supercharges his ‘reds under the bed’ election scare campaign

Scott Morrison in question time on Wednesday.

While the streets are running amok with a right-brigade protest no Left or “Commies ” are  in sight. Morrison is dredging up the old LNP political cherry that the Reds are coming to get us. It goes to show just how desperate and a ridiculous political thinkers they are. Nobody is buying that Scamo is the nice daggy dad from Cronulla anymore. Promotional photos no longer cut it and have made him look the poor mad man he is.

Buying subs and tanks go to show the LNP is keeping the Industrial Military complex happy along with mining because while yelling “China is coming” they selling coal to them. Morrisson has wanted to go down this fear-mongering path since 2005 and the Cronulla riots. Fixating on the Lebanese, who happened to be Christians, was his desired political tactic and not Reds under beds. Abbott did it with  the Russians and ignored the Chinese. Morrison and Dutton have decided on the Chinese and  they are going to save us with 121 new tanks and AUKUS. Have those tanks even been delivered? Has AUKUS been deployed? They have our biggest and best naval vessel break down in Tonga and it has taken a week to deploy 129 ADF of 1700 promised to aged-care.

There is currently only one political party stable, rational, steady and democratic enough to be employed to to govern and “It’s Time Again”

Not since Robert Menzies used his “reds under the bed” anti-communist campaign in the 1950s has an Australian Prime Minister been so determined to paint an Opposition Leader as a quisling for a perceived enemy. It is now clear that is precisely what Scott Morrison and his colleagues, floundering in the polls, are up to as the federal election draws near.

Source: Scott Morrison supercharges his ‘reds under the bed’ election scare campaign

LNP, LNP Government

Morrison and Dutton are imperilling Australia’s national security to hang on to power | Katharine Murphy | The Guardian

Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton

Is it right for Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton to weaponise national security in the run-up to an election they evidently fear they could lose? If you ask the correct question, the answer is simple and clear. Malcolm Turnbull and Peter Dutton ‘Reckless and desperate’: Malcolm Turnbull savages Peter Dutton for claiming China is backing Labor Read more The answer is no. Unequivocally, no.

Source: Morrison and Dutton are imperilling Australia’s national security to hang on to power | Katharine Murphy | The Guardian

Trump

Yeah, Biden Is NOT Going To Protect Trump’s White House Visitor Logs | Crooks and Liars

Yeah, Biden Is NOT Going To Protect Trump's White House Visitor Logs

Trump’s whole life has been a secret so why the surprise his Presidency has.

However, under Donald Trump, those logs quickly became a source for nothing but frustration as right out of the gate Trump decided to keep White House visitor logs a secret. That policy became official in April 2017, with the Trump White House making claims that they couldn’t release what Obama had spent eight years releasing “for reasons of national security.” As a result, for the next five years Devin Nunes could wander in after leaping from an Uber, Michael Flynn could visit to propose a military takeover, or Ted Nugent could stop by to join Trump in some locker room talk, but all of it was only as visible as Trump wanted it to be.

Source: Yeah, Biden Is NOT Going To Protect Trump’s White House Visitor Logs | Crooks and Liars

Coal

News Corp claims coal and gas moratorium would be a revenue ‘black hole’. How much would it really cost? | Graham Readfearn | The Guardian

A worker walks through the Queensland Curtis Liquefied Natural Gas project site

Grattan Institute energy experts say News Corp’s eye-watering figures on the projected costs and job losses of an improbable moratorium are ‘inflated’

Source: News Corp claims coal and gas moratorium would be a revenue ‘black hole’. How much would it really cost? | Graham Readfearn | The Guardian

Uncategorized

ROY SPENCER ON GOOGLE PUNSIHING HIM FOR REP | Herald Sun

 For years Andrew Bolt turned to Roy Spencer a renowned Meteorologist  to tell us the planet was Cooling. That eventually changed to “it’s not warming as fast as Climate Science is saying or predicting” If you take that single year 1998 as ground zero you get a false impression from the 30year average. Even Andrew Bolt was forced to change his tune denying he ever said the planet was cooling. Science has moved on and left Spencer and Bolt in it’s wake as has the global media except for Murdoch media, Andrew Bolt and the likes of Roy Spencer. Yet again he’s been provided the platform by Andrew Bolt for a reunion.

However, this time it’s about money and not really anything new about climate science. It’s about how Google has “victimised” Spencer. If you Google Roy Spencer he’s all over Google like sunburn is after a 36 degree day lying naked in the sun. He’s neither a victim nor been cancelled. In fact you’d be hard pressed to find any arguments against him. He’s been forgotten!! Being demonetized just means he’s dropped below Google’s threshold for payment. Well. it’s long after his hey day and the attention he got in the years after 1998 are over. Furthermore the attention Bolt tried to grab for himself as a contrarian are over too. They are both obviously cooling while the planet is not. Andrew  Bolt back in the day was promoted as an “expert” back then when the IPA published a book of “false facts”. Today they too have been demonetized and am sure nobody is buying or paying attention to the book.

Yes, Andrew Bolt and Roy Spencer are reliving their gory days of undeserved attention. The graph above makes no reference to the 10 hottest years on record and those being in the last decade. Besides Bolt and Spencer pay absolutely no attention to any data or the average after 1998. Spencer says he’s been treated like a “Liberal Arts Major” and not as a scientist. Well he is standing with Andrew Bolt who is less than one and  has no “Major” at all other than contrarian.

Andrew Bolt doesn’t invite any scientists that have argued against what was once the Christie and Spencer show. Christie left. The only people Bolt invites to trumpet their ideas on Climate Science tend to be unqualified anti-science sceptics on along with a sprinkling of scientists are are generally not experts in the field but are monetised and associated with well known wealthy organizations like the Koch Bros andthe Heartland Foundation that argue against warming, News Corp also being one.

Still the very fact that today Industry, Banks, and Investors around the world have all turned against man made CO2 emmissions found to be the major cause of global warming speaks to the fact that Andrew Bolt and Roy Spencer were simply talking to themselves.


Social media giants are increasingly censoring debate – and now Google is punishing one of the world’s top climate experts. Professor Roy Spencer runs one of the five big measurements of world temperature, some say the most authoritative, at the University of Alabama at Huntsville. His work has been widely cited in the scientific literature and has won him the American Meteorological Society’s Special Award.

Source: ROY SPENCER ON GOOGLE PUNSIHING HIM FOR REP | Herald Sun

Fight against Fake News, Fighting Fake News

Old Dog Thought- Conspiracies aren’t just the playground of fruitcakes. They exist are organized manipulate and take money.

Fighting Fake News with REAL 17/2/22; Canada and False Flags;

Informed Comment

Let’s hear it for the ladies – » The Australian Independent Media Network

This says it all. Morrison’s his wife didn’t stand “by him”! She was used to “shield him”.

The first thing to say about the National Press Clubs ladies’ speech day was that Albo turned up; Scomo didn’t.

My thought for the day Just because clowns govern us doesn’t mean it is a laughing matter. ( John Lord )

Source: Let’s hear it for the ladies – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Australia Day

Nah – you can’t change the date – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Of course, we can change the date. While we can’t unscramble the egg and pretend Captain Phillip and his ships, full of the ‘dregs’ of English society never landed, we can move the date of the national celebration and reflection to something far less confrontational to many. Maybe we should consider a long weekend around the time of the first sitting of the Australian Parliament – which occurred on May 9, 1901. After all, the long weekend is an Australian tradition we probably all support! What do you think?

Source: Nah – you can’t change the date – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Uncategorized

We need to cut Carbon, not fall for the Scam of Trying to Capture it

Morrison Government is ready to throw money at Carbon Capture, or any technology that might delay the process of transition but not accelerate it to clean energy. Rather to a politicized position of a slightly “cleaner energy”, will do. Then promote and have that heralded as the LNP’s great. With a focus on gas and technologies widely spread rather than a concentration on what we already know works delay has become their goal. A delay for donations their preference.

For both types of capture to achieve their stated purpose, the additional energy used must not emit any carbon — it must come from renewable energy sources. If it weren’t being used here, this zero-carbon energy could otherwise be used to directly meet our energy needs, making carbon capture technology inefficient and highly expensive.

Source: We need to cut Carbon, not fall for the Scam of Trying to Capture it

Informed Comment

The Zali ballyhoo: dark days for an idealistic independent MP, but the soot won’t stick to Steggall – Michael West Media

Zali Steggall, political donations

The Independent federal MP Zali Steggall has been forced to defend her integrity after revelations by Nine Newspapers that her campaign took donations from a coal kingpin. Mark Sawyer and Michael West have some free advice for the member for Warringah: no strings attached.

Still, Nine Entertainment, which does fundraisers for the Liberal Party and whose political coverage is skewed in favour of the Coalition, boasts the moniker “Independent. Always.” emphatically on its mastheads. Therefore it too is guilty of hypocrisy, emphatic hypocrisy.( Michael West )

Source: The Zali ballyhoo: dark days for an idealistic independent MP, but the soot won’t stick to Steggall – Michael West Media

Informed Comment

Political Donations and Brown Paper Bags – spot the difference! – » The Australian Independent Media Network

So, in effect nothing illegal has occurred and when the oversight was brought to the independent member for Warringah’s attention, it was corrected. Does it warrant a media hit ? I don’t think so but there is no doubt that the whole of the regulatory system governing political donations badly needs to be overhauled. When you consider that just $17.9 million worth of individual donations were declared for the 2020 – 2021 year compared with the almost $177 million received by parties you would be forgiven if you thought that the disclosure regime was better described as a non-disclosure scheme. Personally, Steggall’s oversight doesn’t concern me but I am far more concerned that our former Attorney General, Christian Porter, was able to receive and conceal an anonymous donation said to be in the order of a million dollars. In Porter’s case he threw a legal doona over the donation by calling it the proceeds of a blind trust and thus he could not reveal either the source of the funds or the donor – all legal according to him, wink wink, nudge nudge ! Not to mention the potential for disruption to our democracy, not from overseas interests as Peter Dutton would have us believe, but closer to home in the form of Clive Frederick Palmer who spent $60 million in the lead up to the 2019 election without much of a return on his money. But he threatens to spend even more this time around and may well be able to insert one or more of his stooges into the senate : that’s what ASIO are worried about and we should be too.

Source: Political Donations and Brown Paper Bags – spot the difference! – » The Australian Independent Media Network