Author: peterimrich

Russia

There’s a Big Tent Opposing US Intervention in Ukraine. Tucker Carlson Is Stretching Its Limits. – Mother Jones

Carlson, it must be reminded is a supporter of dictatorships. He likes, scrapes and bows  to Hungary’s Orban’s authoritarian anti-democratic stand. He supports Putin as did Trump. His posture on American action is to abandon all its allies in the EU, UK, and NATO. Just as Trump abandoned the Kurds in Syria.

Anti-war advocates on the Left who oppose Carlson certainly don’t hold the same position Ther no equivalence between the protest in Washington and Jan 6th or between ANTIFA and White Nationalists.. Trump and Carlson are now arguing that those two events are the same. Yet he didn’t call in the National Guard at Capitol Hill.

The strangest of bedfellows currently oppose a confrontation with Russia.

Source: There’s a Big Tent Opposing US Intervention in Ukraine. Tucker Carlson Is Stretching Its Limits. – Mother Jones

Uncategorized

GOP Declares Deadly Capitol Attack ‘Legitimate Political Discourse’

RNC censure Cheney Kinzinger

The peaceful Washington protests according to Trump weren’t “legitimate”. he had them violently closed down. The generals who accompanied him on his walk to the Baptist Church for his photo op were shamed.

“January 6th was not ‘legitimate political discourse’—it was a violent insurrection on our Capitol,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal retorted. “I didn’t know if I’d make it out alive. Some didn’t. We cannot let the GOP whitewash what happened.”

Source: GOP Declares Deadly Capitol Attack ‘Legitimate Political Discourse’

Trump

Two New Memos Show How Trump Was Involved In Coup | Crooks and Liars

Two New Memos Show How Trump Was Involved In Coup

Donald Trump was way more involved in the plot to overthrow the government in the days and weeks leading up to January 6th. Not only did he stoke the insurrection ON January 6th, but he appears to have been deeply involved in the Fake Elector scheme pushed by Eastman, Guiliani and others. Two memos and an unsigned executive order have been discovered – so far – and the goal was always the same: to somehow find a way to overturn the 2020 election. Fake electors, securing voting machines, fake NSA data and even a military coup! All were ideas tossed around

Source: Two New Memos Show How Trump Was Involved In Coup | Crooks and Liars

Fight against Fake News, Fighting Fake News

Old Dog Thought- Truth “We didn’t know each other back then and wish we didn’t now”
Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce and PM Scott Morrison in Parliament earlier this week.

Fighting Fake News with REAL 6/2/22; Morrison and Joyce, The Shovel, Barnaby Ducks Scheduled ABC Appearance

LNP, LNP Government

Barnaby Joyce: After 15 years in Parliament together, the Deputy Prime Minister finally has an opinion of Scott Morrison?

Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce and PM Scott Morrison in Parliament earlier this week.

Does anyone seriously believe the Barnaby Joyce-Scott Morrison mess ends here? That the Deputy Prime Minister can simply apologise for stating of the Prime Minister “he is a hypocrite and a liar from my observation and that is over a long period of time” and, just like that, we will all forget and move on?

Source: Barnaby Joyce: After 15 years in Parliament together, the Deputy Prime Minister finally has an opinion of Scott Morrison?

Informed Comment

A prime ministerial address or a media undressing? – » The Australian Independent Media Network

My thought for the day Power is a malevolent possession when you are prepared to forgo your principles and your country’s wellbeing for the sake of it. ( John Lord )

Source: A prime ministerial address or a media undressing? – » The Australian Independent Media Network

LNP, LNP Government

Barnaby Joyce called Scott Morrison a ‘liar’ and ‘hypocrite’ in leaked text message sent to Brittany Higgins

The text message sent by Barnaby Joyce in March, 2021. Barnaby

Ms Higgins shared the message from Mr Joyce with the Herald and The Age after he called on Wednesday for an anonymous minister who made derogatory comments about Mr Morrison in a text message conversation with former NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian to identify themselves.

Source: Barnaby Joyce called Scott Morrison a ‘liar’ and ‘hypocrite’ in leaked text message sent to Brittany Higgins

Debt

When Debts Become Unpayable, They Should Be Forgiven

Usary wa once a crime and it still is according to Islam. Debts aren’t created in Muslim banking partnerships and mutual risk are. Lenders invest in borrowers and share a mutual profit or loss but not interest. Which means if the partnership goes belly up everyone loses and the arrangement is void. The very notion of student loans and Western banking isn’t as much a service but it system of milking people in need.

For centuries, debt and indebtedness have had profoundly destabilizing effects on human societies. In the ancient world, rulers and their subjects had a solution: known as a debt jubilee, it involved a periodic, unconditional wiping out of debt. We need such a jubilee today.

Source: When Debts Become Unpayable, They Should Be Forgiven

LNP, LNP Corruption, LNP Economic Management, LNP Government

A proxy on the house: Frydenberg’s attack on advisers raises alarm

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg under fire over his overreach of proxy advisers

Our Harvard-trained Treasurer has been caught out acting as someone’s puppet and jumped into a stoush blindfolded. He’s tried to install a regulation while nobody was looking and thought he’d get away with it. All hell has broken loose and you know it has when even Murdoch’s Terry McCrann among other major conservatives have yelled Frydenberg’s gone a Fascist mile too far. Josh is all style and less polished looks with little attention to what it means when doing it. He’s managed to make Kooyong Victoria’s Warringah.

The biggest question is why spend so much political capital on such a small issue when it has such bigger issues – the global pandemic, the aged care crisis and a failure to create a federal corruption watchdog – and so little time given the impending election.

Source: A proxy on the house: Frydenberg’s attack on advisers raises alarm

LNP, LNP Corruption, LNP Government

Australia is more corrupt than ever, but the media stays quiet – » The Australian Independent Media Network

 

Australia has a deteriorating global corruption ranking – and the mainstream media is ignoring it entirely. You won’t read about it in the mainstream Australian media. The story is missing from The Age and Sydney Morning Herald and a Google search reveals no coverage in any mainstream Australian media. What is it that gets so ignored? Just the news that Transparency International (TI)’s 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) has put Australia in 18th place – the worst result Australia has ever received since TI’s new methodology in 2012. Since 2012 Australia’s score has dropped 12 points and our rank in the global index has plummeted 11 places (from 7th in 2012). Keen observers will note that in that period Coalition governments have been in power for eight of the nine years. In contrast to our performance Papua New Guinea is improving and New Zealand shares equal first place.

Source: Australia is more corrupt than ever, but the media stays quiet – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Education, Teriary Education

News Corp’s deal with Google and the Melbourne Business School questioned by journalism academics

First, we saw the Ramsey Foundation’s incursion into universities with bribery and their Western Civilisations degree. Now News Corp and Google have moved in on  Melbourne University’s Business School. and the L-NP removal of research funding to the commercial sector. What we are seeing is the replacement of an Indpendant Tertiary Institution with the Trump University model being deployed in Australia? We know how well that went. Will shares too be issued sometime soon? The division between private and public seems to have been accelerated by this L-NP.

Why then are we as journalism academics concerned? There are several reasons. The first and most obvious is the incursion of a high-profile and controversial media company into the higher education sector and the extent to which that is funded by a large disruptive digital search company.

Source: News Corp’s deal with Google and the Melbourne Business School questioned by journalism academics

Education, Teriary Education

How COVID-19 almost killed universities, just as the Coalition wanted

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a nightmare for the tertiary education sector — and the government couldn’t be happier about it.

Source: How COVID-19 almost killed universities, just as the Coalition wanted

Polls

Voters in coal and gas heartlands want a clean energy future

coal energy

As the accelerating effects of climate change ravage swathes of our nation, a new poll has found voters from the coal and gas heartlands of New South Wales and Queensland are ready to cash in on the opportunities of a zero carbon emissions future. The poll, released on Wednesday, reveals that the clear majority of voters believe the states’ future prosperity lies in clean industries, such as renewable energy exports, critical minerals like lithium and cobalt, and manufacturing renewable products.

Source: Voters in coal and gas heartlands want a clean energy future

Israel, Israel Crimes

Human Rights in Prolonged Occupation: Israel’s Treatment of Palestinians (HRW)

You won’t hear any of this in Australia’s MSM or hear the L-NP even raise it for discussion. Israel has spied and probably still does on Australia. It has kidnapped not extradited people from Australia. Mossad has used false Australian documentation to cover assassinations in other countries yet our government supports them blindly. Their ex-PM Netanyahu and his wife were caught and are facing bribery charges and Morrison’s response is ” No Nations are perfect”. His claim is “equivalence” like Trump at Charlottsville  when the extreme-right murdered a woman ” It’s Ok because everybody does it”. The truth is he doesn’t! He’s soley accuses China but not Israel? Morrison is purely politically focused on himself. It’s patently clear he needs an enemy as a distraction for the up and coming election so why not ISRAEL??

This memorandum provides an overview of several of Human Rights Watch’s central concerns with respect to the Israeli government’s human rights practices in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Committee in advance of its review of Israel in March 2022. This submission, which draws on years of research and documentation by Human Rights Watch, covers freedom of movement, the right to due process and humane treatment, freedom of peaceful assembly, association and expression, residency rights, and right to equality before law. We hope it will inform the Human Rights Committee’s assessment of the Israeli government’s compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

Source: Human Rights in Prolonged Occupation: Israel’s Treatment of Palestinians (HRW)

Fight against Fake News, Fighting Fake News

Old Dog thoughts- Keeping enemies close is the L-NP
The text message sent by Barnaby Joyce in March, 2021.

Fighting Fake News with REAL 5/2/22 Friends of the ABC, Morrison’s Shampoo Stunt, The Shovel, Barnaby, Text,

Informed Comment

Michael Pascoe: Aged care, COVID and cheap migrant labour

michael pascoe aged care

Morrison pointed out that 66% of the Covid Deaths in Aged-Care were among the ” already near dying”. That seems his justification for not increasing the cost of labor but importing “cheap ” to keep the pressure on and shut the unions up. It seems like Abbott he wishes nature would take its course. So, case settled there’s no real need for him to intervene and lose voters it’s the natural course of events. The outcry of his inaction was there before Covid the virus has merely brought it into view and magnified it. His Minister Colbeck reflected that L-NP attitude. His solution has even magnified it more. The offer of an $800 two week bonus payment with strict conditions attached over a  4 month period amounts to a generous $0.77cents an hour bonus in reality. Morrison really seems to be a character out of a Dicken’s novel rather than Australia’s PM. “Scott sir. can I please have a little more dignity”

Mr Morrison’s miserly “retention bonus” in the face of a supply crisis reeks of a government determined to import cheap labour as soon as possible to solve its problems.

Source: Michael Pascoe: Aged care, COVID and cheap migrant labour

Uncategorized

Millions of Australians wondering how journalist hacked their personal text messages about Morrison | The Shovel

Saying they distinctly remember writing in a text that the Prime Minister was a ‘complete psycho’, millions of Australians were this morning trying to work out how the fuck Channel 10 journalist Peter van Onselen was able to access the private messages on their phone.

Source: Millions of Australians wondering how journalist hacked their personal text messages about Morrison | The Shovel

Scott Morrison

See, Scott Morrison DOES Hold A Hose! – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Morrison prefers his women restrained, on their backs, and lying down.

“It’s definitely not a fore-runner to a leadership spill. We’re not the Labor Party who feel the need to change leaders in order to win elections. We don’t change leaders unless we absolutely have to because someone’s unable to do whatever it is that they need to do in order not to get rolled by the party.” Once the woman’s hair was washed, Mr Morrison hurried on to his next appointment: an appearance on the Masked Singer. Information about what mask he’ll be wearing has been listed as classified under the official secrets act, but it has been confirmed that he refused the Dick Nixon mask on the grounds that it was ambiguous. Of course, the election has to be held soon and then we’ll have the Prime Minister doing all those gimmicky things to make himself appear more human and the country will just have to run itself for a while!

Source: See, Scott Morrison DOES Hold A Hose! – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Scott Morrison

How Scott Morrison unleashed a COVID wildfire

When Scott Morrison first learned of the coming COVID-19 wildfire on 21 December, there were 4,492 daily COVID-19 cases. On 26 January, scarcely a month later, there were 52,920 COVID-19 cases. Total confirmed cases stood at 259,174 on 21 December, a number nine times less than the number on 26 January 26 – 2,340,046 – an increase of more than two million in just over a month.

Source: How Scott Morrison unleashed a COVID wildfire

LNP, LNP Government

Election issue: outer city areas are running out of GPs – Michael West Media

It doesn’t matter whether you live in Sydney’s west or Vaucluse, or Melbourne’s Broadmeadows or Kew, your health needs are the same, our politicians believe. In trying to bolster services to rural Australians, the government has neglected struggling suburbs of our big cities, Callum Foote reports.

Source: Election issue: outer city areas are running out of GPs – Michael West Media

Informed Comment

So You Don’t Think Labor Unions Have a Future? | The Smirking Chimp

Big corporations like Amazon and Starbucks will continue to do whatever possible to squelch worker power. And if any of these issues get to the Supreme Court you can expect its Republican majority to do the same. But America’s working people outnumber the billionaires and CEOs by a wide margin. If we stand in solidarity, it’s possible to reverse 40 years of stagnant wages, declining economic security, and widening inequality — and build a more prosperous middle class where the gains are shared by everyone. My strong advice to Democratic politicians: Stand up for unions. Fight to strengthen them. Join workers on picket lines. Don’t let Republicans pretend they’re the party of the working class when they’re a trojan horse for the moneyed interests. * * * PS: I thought you might find useful the following video that my colleagues and I at Inequality Media just made about the labor union movement.

Source: So You Don’t Think Labor Unions Have a Future? | The Smirking Chimp

Murdoch Media

The Boosted are 97 times less likely to die of Covid, as Republican Party Death Cult Kills Tens of Thousands

The persistense in delivering false and intended misinformation to Americans on Climate, pollutants and vaccinations has resulted in the unnecessary deaths of thousands. “Jump off the Empire State Building you wont die” isn’t an opinion it’s tantamount to murder when broadcast over and over again phishing for those that will listen. False advertising is illegal, Ponzi schemes are indictable, yet Fox News can get away with murder.

USA Today’s headline contains all the contradictions: “Boosted Americans 97 times less likely to die of virus than unvaccinated; CDC predicts 75,000 more deaths by Feb. 26.” If we know the first part of the headline, why are we having all those further deaths, when boosters are free and universally available? To a large extent, the reason for all those deaths is the Republican Party. Eric Kleefeld at Media Matters shows that for-profit news organizations have been reluctant to call out the Republican Party on its deadly vaccine disinformation campaign. Fox “news” tells people that the vaccines have been a failure (they have not).

Source: The Boosted are 97 times less likely to die of Covid, as Republican Party Death Cult Kills Tens of Thousands

"For Coal", Murdoch Media

Fox News is filling its editor positions with GOP operatives and Trump staffers | Media Matters for America

Republican Party and Fox News

There is, and will be, no turnaround by Murdoch Media in this up and coming election. They are currently the Government’s media voice and have had an 8- year investment in place to keep the LNP in government. It’s simply their business model. The undeclared sponsorship of the L-NP voiced across Australia.

Since the start of President Joe Biden’s term, Fox News has hired at least nine editors who previously worked for former President Donald Trump’s administration, Republican campaign offices, or Republican politicians. Many of those editors now cover politics for FoxNews.com. Fox’s Republican hiring spree has come as the network has further cast aside its so-called “news” division in favor of right-wing opinion and Republican-friendly “reporting.” (The division between Fox News’ “opinion” and “news” division has always been a sham.)

Source: Fox News is filling its editor positions with GOP operatives and Trump staffers | Media Matters for America

Donald Trump

Donald Trump’s Having an Awful Week — and It’s Only Wednesday | The Smirking Chimp

These latest revelations do show us just how different these days are than 48 years ago when it was revealed that Richard Nixon had tried to get the CIA to block the FBI’s investigation into Watergate. That was known as the “smoking gun” in that case and it made dozens of Republicans and conservative Democrats turn against him. He resigned days later. What Trump did was worse. He tried to use the Department of Justice, the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security (and for all we know the CIA and the Department of Education too) to overturn a legal election that he lost. And his party shrugs. Worse than that he is the front runner for the nomination in the next presidential election. If, for some reason, he is actually held to account for any of this — or anything at all — it won’t be because the Republican Party lifted a finger to make it happen.

Source: Donald Trump’s Having an Awful Week — and It’s Only Wednesday | The Smirking Chimp

Fight against Fake News, Fighting Fake News

Old Dog Thought- Morrison is doing what Morrison has always done work for himself. Pity that’s not the job.

Fighting Fake News with REAL 4/2/22; The Shovel, Muslim-hater Morrison has turned China-hater; Nitpicking political psycho;

LNP, LNP Government

View from The Hill: Morrison a ‘psycho’ – now who would have said that?

Onselen also said “It was a Federal Member” Mind you Morrison has a history that runs parallel to this and has been sacked X2 before. There might be smoke but with his record, he’s a lump of burning coal

He said Berejiklian’s comments included describing Morrison as “a horrible, horrible person” who was “just obsessed with petty political point scoring” when lives were at stake. According to van Onselen, the other person condemned Morrison as “a complete psycho”, “desperate and jealous”, and said: “The mob have worked him out and think he’s a fraud”.

Source: View from The Hill: Morrison a ‘psycho’ – now who would have said that?

Scott Morrison

“Like other Aussies, Jen and I get our groceries flown in after a tender process coordinated by McKinsey” | The Shovel

The PM denied he didn’t know the price of basic food items. “That’s simply not true. I know, for example, that a barramundi from Humpty Doo in the NT costs around $18,000 a kilo, when you factor in refrigeration and express flight costs”.

Source: “Like other Aussies, Jen and I get our groceries flown in after a tender process coordinated by McKinsey” | The Shovel

Informed Comment

Aged care staff locked out of Australia due to government’s bridging visa stance | Australian immigration and asylum | The Guardian

The Australian government’s bridging visa restrictions are keeping 18,993 people in the country who wish to leave while 4,246 are stranded overseas

The “better” Managers according to Morrison

Aged care workers are among thousands of people locked out of Australia due to the government’s continued hard border for bridging visa holders. Australia is currently grappling with dire workforce shortages in the aged care sector, a problem compounded by the Omicron crisis. At the same time, the government has continued its tough border restrictions for one visa category – bridging visas – despite opening the border for all other fully vaccinated temporary visa holders. Freedom of information documents show the continued hard border was affecting 18,993 active bridging visa holders in Australia who are hoping to leave the country, and 4,246 people who are stranded overseas, as at 15 December 2021.

Source: Aged care staff locked out of Australia due to government’s bridging visa stance | Australian immigration and asylum | The Guardian

Informed Comment

Media mood turns on shameless Morrison (except for Channel 9 … and Kyle)

I believe Michelle is being too generous in her description on the current state and mindset of our mainstream media. Their long term investment and profit moving forward depends on a one sided quid pro quo relationship with the Big Swinging Dicks in the LNP Club in Canberra. The Election fix is in and has been for the whole of this century their rewards in cash flow due every election cycle. But it can’t be allowed to be that obvious or the punters just might bring their House of Cards down and become aware of the sting.The sting that we are an Oligarch Corporate Capitalist Democracy far far removed from a Socially Democratic one.

Elections don’t depend on what the majority of Australian’s think and the ALP, the most democratic of all the major parties with the broadest views, knows that. Yet, every election since Keating lost has been a battle with one arm tied behind their backs. A battle fought against concentrated spearhead of the IPA, undeclared corporate support their MSM state media message the muszak in our ears louder than our dimwitted L-NP leadership. Tony Abbott was an example he was little more than a student brawler all his political life backed by the LNP office whose mindset was to serve their donors. Morrison on the other hand is more the two-faced huckster, the ad man, who believes he can soft sell anything and anyone as long as he leads from behind and not out front. It only takes a small swing among voters not the whole nation. For Morrison “style is meaning” in Marshal McCluhan’s “media has to be cool not hot” and the MSM and Clive Palmer provide that. It’s media without detail, the constant photo-op, pictures without detail and where the MSM don’t give Albo elbow room. Morrison runs into hiccups when photos turn out like the one with Grace and Australians have access to social media and can spoil Morrison’s vaccuous I’m just an ordinary guy message. The Troll then panics and has to control the digital world by trying push through bills allowing MPs to sue and curtail the flow of Independant media and “facts”.

When the Big Swinging Dicks Club starts to turn against you, is your time at the helm numbered? And when you’ve burned so many bridges, what cushy roles will be offered once you’re ejected? Can it be that the majority of Australians (and much of the world) have joined Grace Tame in giving you the side-eye?

Source: Media mood turns on shameless Morrison (except for Channel 9 … and Kyle)

Israel

Apartheid 2.0: Amnesty International Joins Chorus condemning Israeli rule over stateless Palestinians

Apartheid 2.0: Amnesty International Joins Chorus condemning Israeli rule over stateless Palestinians

The Israeli state has won the trifecta of condemnation by major human rights organizations, as, on Tuesday, Amnesty International joined with Human Rights Watch and B’Tselem in calling Israeli rule over the 5 million Palestinians of the Occupied Palestinian Territories a form of Apartheid.

Source: Apartheid 2.0: Amnesty International Joins Chorus condemning Israeli rule over stateless Palestinians

Australia's Shame

Amnesty calls on Australia to condemn Israel after Morrison dismisses apartheid claim | Australian foreign policy | The Guardian

Prime minister Scott Morrison dismissed Amnesty International’s report on Israel conducting apartheid against Palestinians, saying ‘no country is perfect’

Morrison doesn’t look in the rear vision. Israel’s history since 1967 has been a constant image of a State becoming less perfect so much soit appeared to be suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. Today it controls world’s biggest concentration camp consisting of in the main 2M women and children. It supplies arms and spyware to the worlds extreme despots. Every decade it has become less Liberal, cosied up closer to right-wing regimes and is now clearly an Apartheid State. Israel hasn’t improved but has diminished the lives of its Christian and Muslim citizens while illegally occuping the lands of surrounding States and territories and it continues to do so. The 66% majority of Jews around the world, the diaspora, aren’t listening to the call to come home and settle in Israel and increasingly believe Israel has shamed them and Judaism.

China’s on the other hand has improved the lives of 1.3 billion people and there’s Morrison and Dutton Australia’s noted concentration camp guards maintain they haven’t and supporting them. Morrison’s whitewash of Israeli crime “nobody is perfect”. While social life is worse for 25% of Israel’s citizens and national service a mandate. Chinese health, education, income, and freedoms have improved for 99,5% of China’s on every social metric. How many millions do we see free to roam the world and aren’t aren’t running away boosting Morrison’s economy compared with Palestinians. Under Morrison’s watch skilled Australians have been leaving Australia and we have shrunk and slid down in comparison to other OECD countries on all economic and social metrics while having grown on the global corruption polluters indexes, particularly to when the ALP were running the country during the GFC. That’s fact and not just propaganda.

Scott Morrison told reporters “no country is perfect”, in response to Amnesty’s 280-page report on Israel. A spokesperson for the foreign affairs minister, Marise Payne, told Guardian Australia: “We do not agree with the report’s characterizations of Israel, and we remain a firm supporter of the state of Israel.”

Source: Amnesty calls on Australia to condemn Israel after Morrison dismisses apartheid claim | Australian foreign policy | The Guardian

Trumpland Revealed

The Plan Was Simple: Infiltrate MAGA World and Tell Everyone What She Saw. Then She Was Found Out. – Mother Jones

Under Cover: In Australia Van Badham went undercover digitally and successfully In America an effort to join MAGA was eventually found out.

“These are people who are undermining elections. They are working to ensure that we never have anything resembling the kind of free and fair elections that we previously had,” describing, with a note of frustration, conversations she witnessed and right-wing organizers she met. “They’re literally killing people. They’re telling people to take ivermectin, to not get vaccinated. They’re encouraging people to leave their children behind, to leave their spouses behind, if that’s what it takes. They hate people who are not like them. These are people who were straight-up saying, ‘We should have repatriation. If you’re Black or brown, you should leave the country.’ And it’s like, is it unethical for me to hear them say that and report it?”

Source: The Plan Was Simple: Infiltrate MAGA World and Tell Everyone What She Saw. Then She Was Found Out. – Mother Jones

Trump

New Revelations Show Trump’s Coup Failed Because He’s a Coward Who Hid Behind His Lackeys | The Smirking Chimp

Trump’s gutlessness may have kept him from stealing the election, but it probably also helped him stay out of prison. And as long as he’s a free man, he will be able to try again — and this time, with an army of people who are ready to take the risks for him.

Source: New Revelations Show Trump’s Coup Failed Because He’s a Coward Who Hid Behind His Lackeys | The Smirking Chimp

Fight against Fake News, Fighting Fake News

Old Dog Thought- Morrison’s friendship poll. Besties OAN members, his hero Brian Houston, his… his ???…” Don’t look in the rear vision”
May be an image of 1 person and text that says 'Doesn't 't know the price of bread ...But thinks you can live on $44 a day'

Fighting Fake News with REAL 3/2/22; Morrison Isn’t Mr Nice; He’s an “arsehole”

Polls

Election polls reveal Morrison slipping

Morrison Government threatens Australia's democracy

Labour enters this election as it has all the elections for the past two decades with one arm tied behind its back. Wealth, Media, and the IPA are a consolidation of forces the ALP don’t have backing and funding them. The fact that the ALP is the most Democratic party in Australia, and the truly  broadest tent allowing for the widest views doesn’t make it the strongest contender against an Oligarch run, Capitalist, Democratic System. However what they do have going for them this time round is  Morrison, Joyce, and Dutton who have to be worst politicians this nation has ever seen. Any wonder their slogan is “don’t look in the rear vision”.

We once thought, and still do that Abbott was bad, the precursor for what was to come. He was what he was and was patently obvious all his political life. However his time ran out when one of the wealthiest and most educated electorates in the country Warringah rid us of him. Despite the fact Murdoch’s News Corp was throwing their papers over electorate fences for free trying to save his arse. However, with Morrison Dutton and Joyce we have seen the L-NP rapidly moving closer to Mussolini’s dream of a corporate state with one exception. It’s not a happy State Benito promised but rather an ever-growing nightmare.

In the balance of all this reasoning, as things are travelling, the Election in 2022 should soon be Labor’s to lose.

Source: Election polls reveal Morrison slipping

Scott Morrison

Morrison is an “arsehole”, just ask his colleagues – » The Australian Independent Media Network

There were a lot of his peers that rate him as lower than a snake’s belly. Turnbull no doubts a recent one.

It seems whatever he does, Scott Morrison leaves a bevy of disgruntled colleagues in his wake. An early job was with the Tourism Task Force where he was 2IC. After he jumped ship to join its main rival, Tourism Council Australia run by Bruce Baird, the TTF was unimpressed and changed its employment contracts to prevent others from “doing a Morrison”. From there, Morrison moved on to the Office of Tourism and Sport in New Zealand. Within weeks, the tourism board’s three most senior figures — the chair, the deputy chair and the chief executive — were gone. “I suspect it was just about power,” said board member Gerry McSweeney. “You had the meeting of two people [Morrison and Tourism Minister Mike McCully] who were very ambitious.” The Auditor-General was scathing about Morrison’s role in commissioning PwC to conduct a secret review of the board and then recommending they be sacked. “We were surprised by the vehemence and timing of this advice,” the auditor-general commented. “Mr Morrison was aware that the board’s directors (including the chairperson) had deliberately been excluded from the review process, as part of the terms of reference.” When interviewed last year, McSweeney said of Morrison, “Picking off soft targets, seems to have been a career projection of your PM.”

Source: Morrison is an “arsehole”, just ask his colleagues – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Informed Comment

Quid pro quo: donations data shows billionaires and corporations fix politicians for another year – Michael West Media

political donations

What isn’t accounted for is the unrecorded support offered by Corporations like News Corp in Quid pro Quo arrangements along with the promises in retirement guaranteed to Ministers for the mutual two-way street of benefits. Being a minister is just a step along the way to real wealth. The danger does Murdoch even like Morrison?

Fossil fuel companies, the Big 4 accountants, billionaires and the usual suspects. The Coalition bag-people came out on top, with more than $15 million more payments given to them than Labor. Callum Foote and Stephanie Tran wrap up 2021’s political payments. It never ceases to amaze how cheaply politicians, and therefore policy and political protection, can be bought. Released today, the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) data for the 2020-21 financial year reveals that $166 million was paid to political parties, with the Liberal Party ranking in $15.4 million more than Labor.

Source: Quid pro quo: donations data shows billionaires and corporations fix politicians for another year – Michael West Media

Australian Economy

Long way to go before the Australian economy is more equal

A capitalist economy wouldn’t work as well as it does were entrepreneurs not always trying new ways to increase their profits. The trouble is that not all the ways they try are of benefit to the rest of us, not just themselves and their shareholders. In such cases, governments should not shirk their responsibility to act in the interests of the many not the few. Nor should we fear that, unless we give businesses free rein in their pursuit of higher profits, our business people will lose all interest in running businesses.

Source: Long way to go before the Australian economy is more equal

Informed Comment

Paul Bongiorno: Coalition offers a sick excuse for pandemic inaction

Frydenberg pandemic budget

All of a sudden there are other priorities rather than saving Australian lives and livelihoods. There’s not enough money for free rapid antigen tests for everyone but there’s a stash of $16 billion to buy votes ahead of the election. We got a couple of installments at the weekend. There are one billion dollars for the Great Barrier Reef and $50 million to save koalas, both programs announced in North Queensland by the Prime Minister on the deadliest days of the Omicron wave. Despite assertions, Omicron is less severe, it has a four-times higher death rate than the original Delta outbreak. Four hundred elderly Australians in aged care died in January alone, more than the 300 over the entire 12 months of 2021. Experts are warning with the return to school we are sure to see another surge in infections, which can only prolong supply chain disruptions and staffing shortages. And yet calls from doctors, businesses and the opposition for free rapid antigen tests for everyone as a surveillance check on the spread of the virus continue to be rejected.

Source: Paul Bongiorno: Coalition offers a sick excuse for pandemic inaction

Informed Comment

Chalk up another couple for the Government – » The Australian Independent Media Network

My thought for the day In 2011 Malcolm Turnbull didn’t think there was a need for an inquiry into the news media but agreed with the then PM Gillard that Newscorp should stop publishing crap. They still do. ( John Lord )

Source: Chalk up another couple for the Government – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Great Barrier Reef

Barrier Reef funding smells like another Morrison Government rort

Saving the Great Barrier Reef should be a priority for our Federal Government, but how can Australia be rescued from the clutches of Morrison, the L-NP, and News Corp?

This latest round of funding is to be spent over a ten-year period and is targeted at marginal seats held by the L-NP, adjacent to the Reef, and is of course conditional on the L-NP being re-elected. The current L-NP Government led by Scott Morrison has a reputation for blatant pork-barreling and rorting public money while electioneering.

Source: Barrier Reef funding smells like another Morrison Government rort

Israel, Israel Crimes

It’s Undeniable: Israel Is an Apartheid State

A new Amnesty International report terms Israel an apartheid state. Israel’s defenders have replied by smearing the authors — but there’s no denying that this is a state built on the systematic brutalization of Palestinians.

Source: It’s Undeniable: Israel Is an Apartheid State

Climate Change

New flood maps show US damage rising 26% in next 30 years due to climate change alone, and the inequity is stark

Climate change is raising flood risks in neighborhoods across the U.S. much faster than many people realize. Over the next three decades, the cost of flood damage is on pace to rise 26% due to climate change alone, an analysis of our new flood risk maps shows.

Source: New flood maps show US damage rising 26% in next 30 years due to climate change alone, and the inequity is stark

FBI

The FBI Ignored White Radicals While Spying 24/7 on Muslim Americans | The Smirking Chimp

White terrorists are given free reign on Murdoch media in Australia and the UK just as they are in the U.S. So much so there wouldn’t have been a massacre in a mosque in Christchurch NZ. Sky News had been providing  the platform for White Nationalist Extremists for years and were and still are the echo chamber of hate and division. They were ignored by ASIO and our Federal Police but cut off by NZ when trying to broadcast the murderous mayhem live. They are still ignored today despite the fact 66% of the media complaints are against Murdoch Media.

Just as Trump is calling for his supporters to Stand down, Stand By, and Prepare for a  repeat of Jan 6th, but this time  across all the USA. Murdoch media incites and encourage mayhem and is still the major private corporate fake news and media provider in the country. The LNP government continues to dance to their tune. It’s difficult to tell who is the monkey and who’s the organ grinder in their quid pro quo coupling. One thing is certain they want the ABC Australia’s most trusted public funded News source gone.

At the same time, this country’s security agencies failed epically in their treatment of Muslim Americans after the 9/11 attacks by infringing on their civil liberties, while abridging or disregarding constitutional protections for millions of innocent people. Faiza Patel, co-director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Program, points to congressional reports that question the value of all this monitoring of an American minority, not to speak of the absurdities it has entailed. As she put it, “Often, the reports singled out Muslims engaged in normal activities for suspicion: a [Department of Homeland Security] officer flagged as suspicious a seminar on marriage held at a mosque, while a north Texas fusion center advised keeping an eye out for Muslim civil liberties groups and sympathetic individuals and organizations.” In such a world, even Muslim Americans active in peace centers become inherently suspicious, but heavily armed white nationalists in motels just outside Washington aren’t.

Source: The FBI Ignored White Radicals While Spying 24/7 on Muslim Americans | The Smirking Chimp

Fight against Fake News, Fighting Fake News

Old Dog Thought- Every Picture tells a story. It does and lies for Scott Morrison
Prime Minister Scott Morrison greets Jane Malysiak before receiving their COVID-19 booster vaccinations at Kildare Road Medical Centre in Blacktown in Sydney.

Fighting Fake News with REAL 2/2/22 Onselen attacks Tame then Morrison; A “psycho’ scammers history;

Polls

Newspoll has Labor’s biggest lead since Turnbull’s ousting as Coalition damaged by COVID

In the first Newspoll of 2022, Labor led by 56-44, a three-point gain since the previous Newspoll in early December. Primary votes were 41% Labor (up three), 34% Coalition (down two), 11% Greens (up one), 3% One Nation (steady) and 11% for all Others (down two). This is Labor’s biggest lead in Newspoll since the aftermath of the August 2018 ousting of Malcolm Turnbull in favour of Scott Morrison as prime minister. But the Coalition recovered to win the May 2019 election, with the final polls inaccurate. So the Coalition is not out of contention for the upcoming election yet. 39% were satisfied with Morrison’s performance (down five), and 58% were dissatisfied (up six), for a net approval of -19, down 11 points. Analyst Kevin Bonham said this was Morrison’s worst net approval since the 2019-20 bushfires (-22 then).

Source: Newspoll has Labor’s biggest lead since Turnbull’s ousting as Coalition damaged by COVID

LNP, LNP Government

How are you going to pay for it? – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Morrison is about to “give back ” the money he took away in the first place. A billion for Research however is going into private research and not Universities ( over the next 10 years) He took away $200 M peter and is now giving it to Paul. However not if it has ” Climate” or “renewables” attached to it. Is he going to give back the Billion taken from the ABC and redirect it to private and mainstream media?

With December’s MYEFO projecting net debt will peak in 2025 at $915 billion, it would be fiscally responsible for Labor to say now is not the time for this tax cut, which would then put their second term budget in far better shape than the Coalition’s. As the Coalition goes to an election promising to spend hundreds of billions on obsolete and inappropriate armaments and hundreds more on tax cuts for the wealthy, perhaps it’s time to ask them about everything else they promise… How are you going to pay for it?

Source: How are you going to pay for it? – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Scott Morrison

The Morrison Government’s Term Has Shown Terror Laws Target Us All

The Morrison Government’s Term Has Shown Terror Laws Target Us All

A general shift towards a more authoritarian form of governance is becoming apparent to a broader section of the populace. No longer are people blindly turning their heads away with carefree statements, such as, “I’ve got nothing to hide,” as they’ve become aware that surveillance laws have made such inroads into their private lives that they literally have nothing left to secret away. The transformation of Australia into the world’s most secretive democracy, as the New York Times put it, has been facilitated by the bipartisan passing of over 90 pieces of national security/counterterrorism legislation since the 2001 9/11 attacks were perpetrated in New York. Despite the stated aim of these laws being terrorists – specifically those of the Islamic variety – local civil liberties advocates have long been warning that these laws are incrementally eroding the rights of all citizens and residents. And the practical understanding that these laws can be turned on the general populace has really taken hold under the current Morrison government, as its term in office has been marked by press raids, political prosecutions, the targeting of critics and a retreat into opaque rule.

Source: The Morrison Government’s Term Has Shown Terror Laws Target Us All

Scott Morrison

A tale of two stories: Tame attacked while Colbeck off ‘Scott-free’

Morrison is no Politician let alone a leader.

The constant attacks on Grace Tame and the indifferent shrug towards Minister Richard Colbeck’s disgraceful conduct highlight media bias in this country, writes Paul Begley.

Source: A tale of two stories: Tame attacked while Colbeck off ‘Scott-free’

COVID-19

Omicron subvariant BA.2 ‘more infectious’

omicron ba.2

Are we making variants healthier and stronger smarter and more virulent?

The BA.2 subvariant of the Omicron coronavirus variant, which has quickly taken over in Denmark, is more transmissible than the more common BA.1 and more able to infect vaccinated people, a Danish study has found. The study, which analysed coronavirus infections in more than 8500 Danish households between December and January, found that people infected with the BA.2 subvariant were roughly 33 per cent more likely to infect others, compared to those infected with BA.1.

Source: Omicron subvariant BA.2 ‘more infectious’