A submission to the current anti-science Government of the past 8 years.
Science & Technology Australia President Professor Mark Hutchinson urged the Government to use the 2022 Budget to safeguard the future of our science talent, institutions, and infrastructure. “The lessons of the past few years are clear. We must invest deeply in science and scientists. The success of science is crucial to our safety.”
Grace Tame’s ability to give voice to the voiceless and hold the powerful to account has earned her Crikey’s highest honour.
Source: In a year of deception, one voice stood out: Truth-teller Grace Tame’s
Who is that guy with Grace?
2021 Australian of the Year Grace Tame yesterday met with Prime Minister Scott Morrison, and she did not smile at him. In fact, Ms Tame used powerful body language and a steely side-eye to convey her disdain and contempt for the man.
The Government’s mismanagement of it’s “free market ” policy is effectively screwing Pharmacies. They have demonstrated under Morrison that they are the greatest mismanagers we have seen to date with their 2022 slogan. “Vote for us because theALP would be worse.” When we faced the GFC we were the world’s best economy and Swam was the best Traesurer. Frydenberg has claims to nothing other that the world’s biggest economic bungee jump.
The shortage of tests across the country has driven up wholesale prices. The tests currently cost the pharmacies up to $17.50 each but the government is providing only a $10 reimbursement, the guild said.
The California Department of Health confirmed on Tuesday that it had identified 11 cases throughout the state of BA.2, a sub-variant of omicron. At the time of this writing, 96 people around the country in total have been diagnosed with the BA.2 sub-variant in the United States. The World Health Organization (WHO) has dubbed the strain a “variant of concern,” or a virus that will spread more rapidly, hinder public health precautions more effectively or in some way prove to be more dangerous than other forms of the SARS-CoV-2 virus (which causes COVID-19). Unfortunately, there are early signs it may be more transmissible than the earlier strain of omicron (now known as BA.1), as Imperial College London virologist Tom Peacock opined on Twitter.
Angus Taylor’s LNP Scam puts politics before science and the planet. Kowtowing to their donor class rather than the service of the nation.
The ANU’s Dr Fiona Beck says turning fossil fuels into hydrogen is always going to be dirtier than using renewables
This argument applies as much to Australia and the L-NP who lurk in the shadows of the Republican Party playing Simon Says. Politicians who like Antic have no real ideas of their own.
There is simply no “both sides” narrative to what is often euphemistically called “partisan polarization.” America has one political party, the Republicans, wholly devoted to extremism, authoritarianism, and trolling. The other party, the Democrats, has a range of politicians, from centrist to progressive, who all fall within the range of normal political views and none of whom oppose democracy or support violence. People like AOC aren’t “provocative,” so much as they appeal to a bunch of normie Democrats who have a positive and progressive view of politics — and the negative attention they get is largely from rabid right wingers who are tearing this country to shreds. There’s no equivalence here, just one party that is trying to destroy the U.S. as we know it and another party that has some people in it that are trying to stop them.
Australia’s Shame is the worst it has been as we still treat Asylum Seekers in much the same way as America treats those in Guantanamo while our media pundits like Chris Kenny call it a holiday and Morrison denies they are even refugees. Humans who have been detained without trial for 20 years in the uS and here for a decade. Children have grown up in our detention camps. Meanwhile Commandant Morrison publicly lies and says said there are “no refugees” being detained at the Park Hotel.
Notice, I did say over three dozen. That’s because all 39 Guantánamo victims are legally innocent under American law, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. None of them have ever faced trial in an actual civilian courtroom and never will because their testimony was extracted under duress. KSM, for example, was infamously waterboarded 182 times. If the rule of law and due process mean anything, all 39 prisoners — not just those who have been cleared to leave — should not be transferred to maximum-security prisons on the American mainland, as liberals generally suggest. They should all be released in the United States and given every possible resource to live out their lives peacefully and successfully.
Source: Clean Our Mess: Release Guantánamo Detainees in the U.S., Close the Camp | The Smirking Chimp
But let us be clear: No American president is going to go to war with Russia over the Ukraine. There is no compelling US national interest in a military involvement in that part of the world, and Russia is a nuclear-armed state. The steps President Biden has spoken about, including sending 8,000 US troops to countries in the vicinity of Ukraine that are allied with Washington, are (rather weak) symbolism. The threat of economic sanctions is in any case far more powerful. But Biden wouldn’t be playing such a weak hand if the US had had a unified position for the past five years and if Trump hadn’t appeared to be working for the other side.
Source: How Trump appeased Putin and Endangered Peace in Ukraine
Morrison and the Corporate Media celebrated the Government winning the proprietory rights to the Indigenous flag. As if the war was now over they have allowed granted permission to Indigenous Australians qualified use of “their flag”. How Colonial of Scott Morrison
Fifty years ago today, the Aboriginal Tent Embassy was established in Canberra. It successfully pushed Australia’s government to establish indigenous land rights in the 1970s and helped create a model for militant action in indigenous rights struggles today.
Source: The Aboriginal Tent Embassy Is Still Fighting for Justice
Two things are clear. First, this debate is not going away. Indigenous and non-Indigenous advocates for change are part of an activist heritage that is intergenerational. Second, it is clear to us from our campaign that many Australians won’t be marching for change today – but they still reject the woefully inadequate status quo for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in 2022. These Australians are tired of hearing the same promises and plans by governments to ‘close the gap’ between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians without seeing real change in peoples’ lives.
Source: A vote for an Indigenous Voice could unlock path to unity
Perpetuation of the myth that White settlers are the superior people of Western nations is inspiring racism and right-wing extremism, writes Bilal Cleland.
Cold,” one news outlet reported of the young woman’s expression. “Frosty,” said another. “Visibly uncomfortable,” ran a subheading, describing the manner that affected her obliged pose beside the man – hung back, unsmiling, eyes hooded with mistrust. Yes, the scene described was of outgoing Australian of the Year, survivor advocate Grace Tame, obliged into a photo event with prime minister Scott Morrison. The occasion was a formal morning tea to commemorate the end of Tame’s eventful year in the AOTY role. “Tense,” explained the copy under the published photographs.
Idiots like Parnell highlight Morrison’s declaration ” I never look in the rear vision” nor does Parnell it seems. Morrison strikes and runs and those he acts badly towards are props quickly forgotten and he likes it that way. Any history and any context in which Grace and Morrison have previously met are far more important than just the nice photo Morrison is out to get. Parnell’s the same, the propagandist who drains history from a photo for the advertising shot “they will see a polite couple trying to make the best of welcoming a rude young woman into their home.”
What bullshit! Grace Tame is not there to promote Scott Morrison. This photo will be historic, a statement, and what’s more not just unique but a truthful one that will be talked about for years to come. Parnell prefers pretence for “Morrison’s sake” which simply put is a lie. It’s not for Morrison’s sake at all. It is a shot looking back a rear vision shot, an historical one that will continue to be discussed time and time again and allowing the truth to be told. Parnell, won’t be remembered and if she is only badly as someone who once worked for Murdoch media.
When the images of her last official engagement are beamed into the lounge rooms of normal people, they will see a polite couple trying to make the best of welcoming a rude young woman into their home. (Parnell)
Source: Australia Day 2022: Grace Tame squanders her moment by scowling at Scott Morrison
Grace shoots down Morrison’s propaganda photo shoot and grabs the history shot in her pictorial statement on Morrison’s legacy. She surely is 2022 Australian of the Year again.
On Tuesday, Morrison did seem to have the fixed-smile freeze of a man who knows he’s in for it and has no idea how to cope. But this is a bloke who knuckle-crawled his way up through the NSW Liberal Party, knocked off a rival for pre-selection, and ran Australia’s notoriously tough offshore detention system. He has probably seen worse than a lip-curl from a lady-activist. Tame’s critics have a hard time accepting that she doesn’t care what they think, which in turn exposes their insecurity in a changing world. They have a hard time accepting her generation’s model of activism, which is predicated on the stance that it is not the job of a victim/survivor to disguise negative emotions so the powerful feel comfortable.
Source: Australia Day 2022: Grace Tame refused to smile at a pre-Australia Day event at The Lodge
In an amazing break with protocol, Australian of The Year, Grace Tame did not curtsy and smile at the Prime Minister, leading to outrage from people such as James McGrath and Peter Van Onselen. What’s wrong with her? Morrison manages to smile, even when he’s announcing someone’s death?
Ms Barber, from Glen Iris, is not alone. She represents one side of a growing generational divide over the celebration of Australia’s national day. A recent survey by CoreData Australia, covering 1250 Australians aged 18 and over, shows younger people are less likely to celebrate the day. Almost 70 per cent of Gen Z participants – people under the age of 26 – said they did not intend to celebrate. Other studies released this week have reached similar conclusions. A YouGov survey showed younger generations are likely to prefer celebrating on a different day. One by Roy Morgan found almost 65 per cent of participants younger than 25 supported January 26 being referred to as Invasion Day instead of Australia Day.
Source: Australia Day 2022: Why many young people have given up on celebrations
“Cuba’s achievement in creating effective vaccines is immense, and if we can use this know-how to build a better system, not driven by the greed of the few, it will be truly world-changing.”
Source: ‘Historic Turning Point’: Cuba Issues Plan for Vaccine Internationalism
The National Australia Day Council (NADC), the body in charge of promoting Australia Day and choosing the Australian of the Year, has seen a tenfold increase in its funding since inception in 2014. Its funding has shot up from $4m a year when Tony Abbott was PM to $34m last year, the vast majority coming in the last 2 years under Scott Morrison. An investigation of the Council’s financial disclosures shows, ironically, that the people in charge of promoting Australia Day have been in breach of Australian Accounting Standards. Its accounts have been “qualified” by the Auditor-General; in other words they have been busted for fudging their income.
Source: Culture Wars: Morrison hides big spend on Australia Day – Michael West Media
Colonialism and Capitalism have worked hand in hand to capture Indigenous Identit once again for a sack of beans to a very very whiter than white LNP. Will they give the license they now own and proprietorship to Indigenous Australia? No effen way only the money earned for the time being to NIADOC. The right to fly the flag needs to be asked for and can be removed at the will of the Australian government. Maybe the Indigenous council of Australia ought to have thet same proprietory right over the Australian flag.
The Aboriginal flag will be transferred to public hands for the first time, freeing its use for Indigenous community groups and sporting codes after the Australian government reached a historic deal with its creator to permanently acquire copyright more than 50 years after it was first flown. The $20 million taxpayer-funded settlement will end a long-running legal controversy surrounding its use by allowing the ensign to be painted on sports grounds, used on apparel such as sports jerseys and shirts, on websites, in paintings and other artworks, digitally and in any other medium without having to ask for permission or pay a fee.
Source: Aboriginal flag in public hands after $20 million copyright deal
IF YOU WERE in any doubt as to the ability of COVID-19 to shine a spotlight on societal inequality, Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce’s declaration on Monday morning that “people aren’t dying” of the virus should convince you. In an interview with the ABC’s Patricia Karvelas, Barnaby had to be reminded that people are indeed dying in Australia from COVID-19 after categorically stating they are not, as he attempted to compare his government’s alleged success at handling the virus with that of other countries. It’s grimly significant that the Deputy Prime Minister of Australia can’t be bothered to inform himself of the effects the pandemic is having on citizens, particularly when they are dying in record numbers. Only the privileged are fortunate enough to “forget” or “overlook” or simply not notice that people are dying from an illness elites consider “mild”.
Source: Barnaby acts as epidemiologist and coroner as Coalition ignores COVID deaths
Last December, 41% of respondents rated the federal response to Covid as good. After the challenging summer of Omicron – with surging case numbers, increased numbers of deaths, and rolling controversy over shortages of rapid antigen tests – only 35% of respondents think the Morrison government is doing a good job, while 38% (up from 32%) of the sample describes the response as poor.
If the crisis can wait four years, big increases in wind and solar power will replace most NatGas. The IEA site reports that, “The agency says that between 2020 and 2026, renewables will grow by another 60 percent to over 4,800 gigawatts, which is roughly the size of the capacity of all fossil fuel and nuclear [electricity] power plants combined. Over the next five years, renewables will capture 95 percent of the growth in the electricity sector.”
Source: Europe is dependent on Russian Gas during Ukraine Crisis because it didn’t Ramp up Renewables Faster
The right to appeal has been declared a win.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been given the chance to challenge a decision allowing him to be extradited to the United States to face 18 criminal charges including breaking a spying law to Britain’s Supreme Court.
Source: Julian Assange can appeal against extradition at UK’s Supreme Court
Dutton’s feelings might be hurt he wants the right to sue for Defamation and us the taxpayers to pay to shut Binoy and other critics up. Scott and Michaela are preparing the Bill to do just that and keep themselves safe.
Give the man credit where it’s due. Few could possibly be congratulated for selling the sovereignty of a country in full view of its citizenry, but Peter Dutton, former Queensland copper turned sadistic Home Affairs minister turned Defence Minister, is very capable of it. Australia promises to become a throbbing bordello for the strategic affairs of other states (to a large extent, it already is), awaiting submarine insertions, naval manoeuvres, and more troop rotations. With the AUKUS arrangements being firmed up, US and UK sailors, personnel and miscellaneous staff are being readied for more time Down Under, ensuring that Australia becomes a staging ground for future forward military operations. Canberra has relinquished much say in this; the song sheets and blueprints are coming from elsewhere.
In light of last week’s devastating senate vote on voting rights, I keep hearing “voting rights are dead.” Wrong. If voting rights are dead, American democracy is dead. And if American democracy is dead, the entire project that began (imperfectly, to be sure) in 1776 and has been a beacon for the world, is dead. I will not accept that. Nor, I assume, will you.
Source: The Weeks Ahead: The Future of Voting Rights and Democracy | The Smirking Chimp
A mirror of Australia’s Shame
The contractors got scant guidance and sudden reversals from USAID officials as they fielded desperate pleas from their staff on the ground.
Source: USAID Contractors Denounce Agency’s Betrayal of Afghan Workers
In Arizona, for instance, the tax cuts enacted last year figure to deliver 55.5 percent of their benefits to the state’s top 1 percent. Arizonans making over half a million dollars will save an average $30,000 off their tax bills. Taxpayers making between $21,000 and $40,000 will average $13 in savings.
Source: Two Sides, Same Coin: Suppressing Votes, Cutting Rich People’s Taxes
Australia’s LNP is increasingly adopting the same policies as the Republican’s in the USA. Along with banning of teaching subjects, sacking teachers, removing books, privatising media and ridding us of the ABC all have been central policies for over 8 years. Now they want our defamation laws changed, made easier and even suggest that taxpayers fund actions taken to sue by their MPs. Parliamentarians who already have privilege. But want it stretched beyond parliament in order to shut down criticism. It has become a priority for the Morrison Government whose standing and opinion in the eyes of the public in the polls has become lead.
Experts say trend is accelerating as groups push for bans of works that often address race, LGBTQ issues and marginalized people Adam Gabbatt @adamgabbatt Mon 24 Jan 2022 21.00 AEDT Last modified on Mon 24 Jan 2022 21.01 AEDT Conservative groups across the US, often linked to deep-pocketed rightwing donors, are carrying out a campaign to ban books from school libraries, often focused on works that address race, LGBTQ issues or marginalized communities.
Couple that with Dutton’s want for defamation cases brought by Government MPs to be funded by us the taxpayers. You then have a very privileged group who with power and access to money can say whatever they want but can shut down any criticism. The simple act of threatening a court case to shut citizens up becomes available to them. Don’t be fooled that this government is protecting anyone other than themselves while knocking freedom of speech on the head. The efforts are to ban any form of criticism and reduce debate.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Attorney-General Michaelia Cash announced in November that they would amend defamation laws, traditionally a state and territory responsibility, to provide an “easy and quick” way for people to complain to social media platforms and have allegedly defamatory material taken down.
Source: Trolling: Defamation experts reject Morrison government’s ‘anti-troll’ proposal
Australia Day honours will be announced this week, and, if recent announcements are any indication, they are likely to generate considerable public debate. In 2014, there was the re-establishment of knighthoods and damehoods in the Order of Australia under then prime minister Tony Abbott. The next year, Prince Philip was infamously awarded one of the revived titles. The past decade has seen increasing scrutiny of the gender balance in the awards, while individual honours, such as those given to writer Bettina Arndt and tennis champion Margaret Court, have also drawn criticism. This is not necessarily out of keeping with the longer history of the honours system.
Source: Why controversy continues to follow the Australia Day honours
This Government wants desperately to fund its history of financial mismanagement. So it turns to Welfare to pay. The negative consequences of LNP policies always seem to trickle up the positive down.
The National Disability Insurance Scheme Act 2013 was brought about to: ‘… support a better life for hundreds of thousands of Australians with a significant and permanent disability and their families and carers.’
It was not designed to pressure participants into fear-fuelled spending over claims that unspent funding results in irretrievable losses of funding that cannot be reallocated later according to changing needs.
It was not designed to inappropriately benefit the provider at the expense of the participant.
It was not designed for nefarious opportunists to help themselves at the expense of individuals already distrusting of the “kindness of strangers”.
These are but a handful of ways in which the NDIS continues to embed structural stigma into its delivery of services at large and in which the Coalition continues to ignore the humans floundering in the messes that ill-considered public policy maintains.
On this, I believe the Greens have it right — the Federal Government needs to #FixOurNDIS and fix it now.
Are retirement villages a rip-off? Retirees could be up to a million dollars worse off if they moved into a retirement village than if they remained at home, according to new analysis. Callum Foote reports.
Source: Retirement villages: the destruction of retiree capital – Michael West Media
Labor’s Helen Polley and Anne Urquhart should be returned in Tasmania as should Greens Senator Peter Whish-Wilson. After an unsuccessful tussle with his former staffer Jonathon Duniam, Eric Abetz has been relegated to third spot on the Liberal party ballot with Wendy Askew at #2. There is a slim chance Eric could be gone and Labor pick up a seat but unlikely. It’s a nice thought nevertheless. Putting all that together, the likely end composition of the Senate is 37 Coalition, 24 Labor, 12 Greens, and Jacquie Lambie, with Pauline Hanson and Malcolm Roberts as the deciding votes on legislation. I would suggest we all get very active about discussing the importance of the Senate vote with friends, family, neighbours, colleagues and anyone who will listen. A hung parliament is one thing but we don’t have time for a paralysed one at the mercy of PHON.
Source: Is time up for Eric Abetz? – » The Australian Independent Media Network
An appropriate description of The Tories, The Republicans, and the LNP
A fish rots, it is said, from the head down. With claims of blackmail, bullying and racism, it seems so too does a political party
Is Australia’s Scott Morrison the 3rd Musketeer?
There’s a truism of conventional wisdom, broadly accepted on both sides of the Atlantic, that British and American politics since World War II have run in rough parallel. Sometimes one of the two Anglophone democracies gets ahead and sometimes the other falls behind, but roughly similar phenomena — adjusted for cultural differences and quite different political systems — tend to occur at roughly the same time.
Source: So what the hell happened to Boris Johnson — and can it happen to Donald Trump? | Salon.com
The establishment and foundations laid for the creation of Israel’s Fake News
Last week, 80-year-old Palestinian-American Omar Asad was kidnapped, tied up, and apparently tortured by Israeli army thugs in the West Bank. He was found dead soon after. It’s the kind of brutality habitually imposed upon Palestinians by the illegitimate Zionist regime to maintain a “pure” Jewish state in historical Palestine. But because Assad held a US passport, his case generated ever so slightly more attention over there than usual. The US State Department and several US lawmakers called for Israel to “investigate” itself over the apparent killing. This is worse than pointless.
IDF kills another American and it’s asked to investigate itself.
“This is a policy: Israel does not prosecute those responsible for harming Palestinians, thus making their lives miserable,” said the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem.
After Rachel Corrie, an American activist volunteering with the International Solidarity Movement, was crushed to death by an IDF armored bulldozer while defending Palestinian homes in occupied Gaza in 2003, Dan Shapiro, the U.S. ambassador at the time, expressed his dissatisfaction with Israel’s investigation of the incident. Attempts by Corrie’s family to hold Israel accountable for the woman’s death ultimately proved futile.
Source: Leaked Report Suggests Impunity for IDF Troops in Deadly Stop of Palestinian-American Elder
When the committee, and the Department of Justice for that matter, get to the point that they’re issuing subpoenas to people who were regularly in the room with the president during the days and weeks leading up to the assault on the Capitol, I would be very, very worried if I were the ultimate target of both investigations. The lid may be getting ready to come off the House of Representatives, but down at Mar-a-Lago, the roof is falling in on Trump’s House of Lies.
Source: With new subpoenas, Jan. 6 committee closes in on its ultimate target: Donald Trump | Salon.com
A reality Trump didn’t want revealed. But lost his court action to stop it now it no doubt be sbsorbed into his world of false facts.
While it remains unclear who actually wrote the draft, it does appear to align with the ideology of former President Donald Trump’s allies and many right-wing figures who circulated his claims of widespread voter fraud. The Jan. 6 investigative committee was able to obtain the draft earlier this week after the U.S. Supreme Court denied Trump’s request to block the panel from obtaining a substantial amount of executive-branch documents.
For years successive Australian Governments have proved they’re racist by repititiously maintaining that real Australians Support Australia Day while Aboriginies, Indigenous Australians don’t. However what’s obvious is the exclusion of the Indigenous first peoples which couldn’t be more celebrated, in your face, racist and clearer for the world to see.
“We” claim proudly claim to be a multicultural inclusive nation but with two major exceptions. That successive white colonial governments have demanded assimilation of Indigenous Australians, having taken their land, made every effort to rapidly obliterate and disrespect their culture by lowering their social status, and generationaly steam rolling their psychological identities for over 220 years. The consequences of a historical victim-blaming mindset continues today. When we say it was never our fault why should we be blamed.
When conservative Australians speak of Australian identity they insist it be recognized culturally as predominantly Western White, Christian,and Male and all others are expected to bow in recognition of the day that gave birth to this nation and it’s institutionalised patterns of behaviour that systematically still exist today. Their Australian Calendar,” begins in the racist year zero” and on the 26/Jan. 1778.
More than two-thirds of respondents aged 26 and under say they won’t be celebrating on January 26, with just over 30 per cent saying they will. But more than 80 per cent of them support moving the date for the sake of improving relations with the Indigenous population, as do more than 70 per cent of those aged 27 to 41. Support for change dropped among older respondents, with just over 30 per cent of those 56 to 75 and 25 per cent of those older supporting a change in date.
Source: The tide is turning against celebrating Australia Day: Poll
Morrison demand us not to look in the rear vision mirror to ignore history why? So as not to amplify his own and can deny his constant lying. History, unfortunately, doesn’t support the constant fact that Morrison can be believed and he’s not a racist, a Christianist, a political user and abuser of superficial cultural differences.
THE opposition immigration spokesman, Scott Morrison, urged the shadow cabinet to capitalise on the electorate’s growing concerns about “Muslim immigration”, “Muslims in Australia” and the “inability” of Muslim migrants to integrate. Mr Morrison’s suggestion was made at a meeting in December at which shadow ministers were asked to bring three ideas for issues on which the Coalition should concentrate its political attack during this parliamentary term. The Herald has learnt several colleagues, including the deputy leader, Julie Bishop, and the former immigration minister Philip Ruddock, strongly disagreed with the suggestion, pointing out that the Coalition had long supported a non-discriminatory immigration policy and saying it was not an issue that should be pursued.
Minor far-right parties like Clive Palmer’s UAP are poised to assist in the re-election of the Morrison Government through the disciplined distribution of preferences in Outer Suburban Areas where financial stresses have frustrated the delivery of affordable housing dreams. In the Outer Brisbane South Electorate of Forde, the combined vote for One Nation, the UAP and Fraser Anning’s Conservative National Party approached 20 per cent of the primary vote and was highest in the most disadvantaged polling booths.
Alternative economic options are difficult to promote in more disadvantaged electorates where many residents are under siege from financial pressures of mortgage payments or high rentals. These stresses have generated a fair share of scepticism about national politics and the relevance of the old two-party divide in Australian politics.
Electorate profiling of constituents has become so intricate that political insiders in the federal LNP can exploit these financial and social tensions in Australian households to make use of the outrageous levels of opportunistic political communication from both federal LNP and minor far-right parties who are offering a disciplined distribution of preferences to the Morrison Government.
In February last year, Andrew Wilkie introduced a Private Members Bill, seconded by Zali Steggall, calling for an end to the immoral, illegal, and extremely expensive practice of indefinite and arbitrary immigration detention. In presenting the Bill, Wilkie drew attention to the staggering cost of this irrational cruelty. It costs approximately $346,000 to hold someone in immigration detention in Australia for one year but it costs only about $10,221 for a refugee or an asylum seeker to live in the community. In fact, the budget for our offshore detention is still running at about $1 billion per year. These figures are breathtaking and almost unbelievable.
Some analysts argued that Netanyahu had feared that a law aimed at suppressing Palestinian freedom of speech online could be exploited by his enemies to control his own speech and incitement. Now that Netanyahu is no longer in the picture, the bill is back, and so is Sa’ar. Gideon Sa’ar is currently Israel’s justice minister and deputy prime minister. While his boss, Naftali Bennett, is moving rapidly to expand settlements and to worsen already horrific realities for Palestinians on the ground, Sa’ar is expanding the Israeli military occupation of Palestinians to the digital realm. What is known as the ‘Facebook Law’ is set to grant “Israeli courts the power to demand the removal of user-generated content on social media content platforms that can be perceived as inflammatory or as harming ‘the security of the state,’ or the security of people or the security of the public.”
Source: How Israel’s ‘Facebook Law’ plans to control all Palestinian content online
All the World Economic Forum’s Davos panels and the combined philanthropy of the world’s more than 2,755 billionaires have failed so far to vaccinate the world’s poor. That’s why a broad, global coalition has formed calling for the world’s governments to tax the rich. “It is time to levy a wealth tax on the world’s multi-millionaires and billionaires,” Chuck Collins of the Institute for Policy Studies and the Fight Inequality Alliance, wrote, introducing their “Taxing Extreme Wealth” report. “This is not to simply raise revenue to vaccinate the world and invest in robust public health systems. But a wealth tax that is intended to save democracy from the extreme concentrations of wealth and power.” A graduated wealth tax on people with $5 million or more would raise $2.5 trillion annually, the report calculates. Those funds could pay to contain this pandemic, invest in public health to prevent the next one, and lift millions out of poverty. Tax the rich.
Source: Global Wealth Inequality Is Deadly | The Smirking Chimp
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