Author: peterimrich
Morrison is a total Trumper and also believes that the medium and ratings deliver the message. The media can turn lies into pure gold as long as it’s privatized and not independently funded by public money. That guarantees his message will be heard over and above any coming up from a disgruntled less funded citizenry. That is simply the process and fundamental rule of Autocratic Capture. Capture the culture and the systems under which we now operate, finessing, and control them is LNP politics today. It’s a lesson taught by Mussolini who gave it the name Fascism and the Reactionary Evolution here but Revolution in the US we are witnessing to form a Corporate State.
While Trump isn’t really a conservative but a grifter. He saw the GOP as a perfect vehicle by which to take over the Republican Party in America. Today it’s legitimising the process of Autocratically Capturing all the grassroots systems and institutions of voting in America and it’s become the model Morrison’s LNP is also following. Media , Education, Integrity, Grants, Political Funding, Voter ID, Labor and the ABC etc are all slowly being eroded reimagined with no focus on electorate needs only the LNPs. Murdoch Media is currentley promoting Hungary, Turkey and Russia as the “Liberal Democracies” to follow simply because they have elections.
Yes, Scott Morrison simply has a plan, a leaflet he doesn’t want any independent bodies like the ABC, or ICAC vetting him he wants privatised media photographing and praising him. Outsource Public Service and make it all private contract, the organ-grinder’s monkeys with KMPG and Delloites the Treasury. It’s the dream as they already work entirly for his kind of people, those who can pay.
A person could grow very weary trying to keep up with Scott Morrison’s lies. Below is a section of his falsehoods, which by no means is an exhaustive list and some of them you no doubt know, while others may be new to you. Either way, there are many more out there.
For the second time this year, Prime Minister Scott Morrison, bereft of the will and the capacity to announce anything useful, has again declared he will go after “anonymous trolls” on social media. His cunning plan requires forcing tech giants who own the platforms to either identify the “trolls” so they can be pursued for defamation, or pay defamation costs themselves. The proposal also requires social media users to provide proof of identity before being allowed to use the platforms. You can’t sue anonymous. This proposal is unlikely to be legislated and equally unlikely to be useful in the event it becomes law, except for the privileged few who can afford to pursue legal remedies.
LIBERAL MPs : While Parliamentary Privilege protects politicians’ anonymity protects individuals but Morrison wants that protection removed. Politician, regarded by many as trolls like Peter Dutton wants the freedom to say what he wants whenever he wants and the taxpayers to pay the legal costs to defend and sue whoever he chooses. While the individual citizens should bear their own costs. This seems to be the autocratic capture of free speech and the justice system in Australia. When compounded by Morrison’s want to also diminish class action suits by individuals against corporations it’s hardly democratization o the law but quite a reactionary desire.
Source: Scott Morrison renews crackdown on social media users – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Instead of investing in extremely expensive crewed platforms that take decades to design and manufacture and are potentially too valuable to lose, we should be making greater use of uncrewed and autonomous systems. Investing in cybersecurity and countering misinformation are far more relevant national security issues than buying bigger guns. Some say that having a few targeted long-range missiles would be a sufficient deterrent against aggression. It would certainly be cheaper than wasting money on submarines. Personally, I think respect given and earned, co-operation for mutual gain, and help in times of need or crisis, are far better defences than any weapon. The Coalition picked a bad time to cut Foreign Aid, ignore pleas to reduce emissions, and then act all offended when other suitors come calling. We need détente, not Dutton – a man who speaks very loudly and carries a tiny widdle stick.
WHO DO YOU TRUST?
Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese says Australia’s has slipped to 59th in the world in the average broadband speed rankings. Is he correct? RMIT ABC Fact Check investigates.
Angela Merkel is a scientist and Dan Andrews listens to scientists to devise the necessary policies to defend our Universal Public Health System and protect our hospitals and us which are currently Federally underfunded. The LNP want our health system Americanised and privatized and run by insurance companies. How many anti-vaxxers and anti- mandaters demonstrating have private health insurance? Not too many it would seem as 35 have COVID with only one vaccinated and 12 seeking the hospital space other Victorians now don’t have. How many more expect rooms to be made available to them in the public space?
Overseas, the big news is that Germany has decided to lock out unvaccinated people from much of public life as leaders agree on a plan to make vaccines mandatory.
Source: COVID: NSW cases include child, Germany plans mandatory vaccines
Lomborg is willingly the man paid to twist what scientists aren’t saying as if it’s what they are. Where does he get the media space and the platform Murdoch Media naturally and the Fossil Fuel Industry gladly pays? The scientists without the clout of that platform have insisted that what claims they have said insist he correct his bullshit but are ignored. Lomborg is practiced in the art of deception omission and cherry picking his biggest tool. Tony Abbott tried to bribe universities in Australia with $4M to give his CCC, which Denmark no longer recognises, Department space on an Australian campus. None took up the bribe. Andrew Bolt whose mouth has cost Murdoch a mountain of money being defended but found guilty in our courts was an avid supporter of his. Bolt also touted as an expert on Climate facts by the API spent almost 2 decades telling us the planet was cooling is also a cherry picker was a voice, but without Dr or even a BA to his name a waste of space.
Not a net zero plan In the words of Angus Taylor, Australia’s emissions reduction minister, this week: “The Government’s Long-Term Emissions Reduction Plan outlines how Australia will harness low emissions technologies to meet its 2050 net zero goal.” The Morrison government keeps saying this. But its own report on the modelling into its “technology not taxes” plan to get to net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 shows it won’t get Australia to net zero. According to that report, the technology plan will leave the government about 226m tonnes short of net zero. That’s almost half Australia’s current annual footprint. To make up for that huge shortfall, the government’s modelling report says Australia will buy 94 megatonnes from international offsets, save an unlikely 38Mt from controversial negative-emissions technology not mentioned in its plan, and then reach into the unknown to find another 94Mt from other future technological breakthroughs. So the government’s plan outlines how it will get a little over halfway to net zero.
Rio Tinto has achieved what it set out to do in Australia recently blow up one of our Major Heritage sites and get away with it and carry on. The mining corporation is now promising the Serb’s wealth, and fortune if they are allowed to destroy their natural environment, why? They simply see a profit in it.
A large protest movement is taking shape in Serbia, centred on the importance of clean water, air, soil and observance of sound environmental regulations. The month of November saw protesting efforts that involved blocking roads in Belgrade, Novi Sad, Kragujevac, Užice, Loznica and Kruševac, amongst others. Rio Tinto, environmental vandal par excellence, has shown, along with other mining giants, a marked tendency to ignore local grievances and fears while flattering gullible authorities with promises of a glittering future. The future for the Jadar valley, outlined by one sceptical ecologist, Mirjana Lukić Anđelković is suitably dark. The company, she told the morning program TV Nova S “Wake Up” in March this year, promises to mine for six decades and “make a mountain of tailings.” Where there are tailings, “there is no grass, nothing grows.”
Which brings me to today, when the spectrum from left to right is the longest it’s been in my 50 years in and around politics. Despite all the howls from the right about “cancel culture” and “woke-ness” on the left, I don’t think the left has moved much from where it was a half-century ago. Nor, frankly, have I. But the right has moved far, far rightward. Donald Trump brought America about as close as we’ve ever come to fascism. He incited an attempted coup against the United States. To this day, he and most of the Republican Party continue to deny that he lost the 2020 election. And they are getting ready to suppress votes and disregard voting outcomes they disagree with.
At this rate, I can’t help but wonder where the “center” will be twenty-five years from now. What do you think?
Source: The Biggest Change During My 50 Years in and Around American Politics | The Smirking Chimp
Only in America is there the Republican blind opposition to vaccine mandates and a blind misogynistic support for a mandates forcing women to give birth. The rich are advantaged in every which way. If they want an abortion th leave the country make the poor populate it. It’s the slavery of old. There is no need to vaccinate, mask or distance in a mansions or the broader leafy burbs of white America. What is being opposed to is the lack of hierarchy, universal public health and good old male dominance over women their breeders.
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Texas GOP delegation in Congress, led by Rep. Chip Roy and Sen. Ted Cruz, are threatening to shut down the federal government over vaccine mandates, according to the Houston Chronicle. The Chronicle quotes Roy’s interview at Fox News: “Congress needs to man up, stand up and fight for the American people — and that means don’t fund a government that is tyrannically forcing people to get a vaccine that they don’t want to get.’ So it is tyranny for the government interfere in the personal privacy of the body. Then the Chronicle quotes Ted
Source: Republicans reject Gov’t Vaccine Mandates for Men, seek state Pregnancy Mandates on Women
Former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner has been speaking the blunt truth about Donald Trump’s criminal conduct for years. He’s not stopping now just because most of the media, and most Democrats in Congress for that matter, have moved on. I spoke to Kirschner, who is now an NBC News legal analyst…
“We don’t live in a democracy anymore. We live in a plutocracy. The Australian political system is a wholly owned subsidiary of big corporations.” Investigation by Stephanie Tran, Ashley Sullivan and Joseph Chalita reveals donors paying top dollar at political fundraising events for exclusive access to ministers.
The Australian Senate’s Privileges Committee, oft described as its most ‘powerful’ body, has found Australian Tax Office commissioner, Chris Jordan, not in contempt of the Senate for refusing to release the data on large companies who received JobKeeper payments reports Callum Foote.
Key crossbench senator Jacqui Lambie says she will not vote for the government’s proposed voter ID laws, significantly reducing the chance of them passing.
The Nest of Vipers
The Prime Minister pretended to be as relaxed about Archer’s actions this time as he was last time, saying what close friends and colleagues they were and what a grand old party he led which allowed members to express themselves freely. He does that often. Boasts about being good friends with people when really it’s just heavy duty Spakfilla patter, sealing up the cracks or covering his own poor behaviour. He has done it with Berejiklian too, even though she confided several times to friends he tried to bully her, and while Premier she got her office to tell Morrison’s office to stop undermining and backgrounding against her. His defence of her last week, describing the NSW ICAC as a kangaroo court, was a calculated exercise. He used it to excuse his failure to introduce a credible anti-corruption commission; he is desperate to get Berejiklian to run against independent Zali Steggall in Warringah, and it would serve to undermine in advance any adverse finding.
OLD DOG, OLD TRICKS, GRABS CENTER STAGE, TO SELF PRAISE AFTER HAVING PLUNGED THE GOVERNMENT INTO PUBLIC DISREPUTE LIKE NO OTHER. CAPTAIN BUNJEE.
Morrison’s media claim is that “he’s the fastest gun in the West” when it comes to “recoveries”. The fastest ever “economic recovery”, the fastest “to change parliamentary culture”, the fastest “freedom providing” government. The fatsest to react to what we need. Of course he is, and nobody would deny that. When you hit the end of the bunjee the only way is up, and for a short moment it’s what seems a fast recovery but it’s not. For every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction. That’s Newton’s Law. But inevitably that’s not the best but only blinkered explanation of what’s going on. Einstein’s Relativity provides a much broader context and clearer view. In Morrison’s do-nothing world it’s often the worst. It’s why ScaMo grabs center stage and the mike to control the narrative and whatever positve outcomes others achieve as his initiative.
Basically, it’s just another opportunistic photoshoot with a bullhorn applied domestically, blinkered, linearly and never globally comparative. The ALP has had gender equality policies as their priority for over 40 years and brought women in to battle with what is essentially LNP culture and not “parliamentary culture”. They brought in quotas and still today Morrison’s autocratic LNP capture of what happens in parliament remains. He’s going to investigate Tudge no independant third party is. The system will remain untouched.
As Australian of the Year and sexual abuse survivor Grace Tame put it: ‘Parliament’s ecosystem of abuse has been revealed … 15 minutes after the 500-page Review launched today, Scott was already claiming it’s a safer workplace than when Brittany was there. This, days after he coercively orchestrated the ambush of Bridget Archer.’ If indeed there have been any improvements in the workplace culture since the Brittany Higgins allegations first surfaced in February, they have happened in spite of this Prime Minister.
Morrison is doing what was done 40 years ago NOTHING and he’s calling that PROGRESSIVE and a world-leading strategy.
The report was stamped CONFIDENTIAL twice on each page, with the customary warning it should “not be released to any other government except Britain, Canada, NZ and US.” About 40 years ago this week, the spooks at Australia’s intelligence agency, the Office of National Assessments (ONA), delivered the 17-page report to prime minister Malcolm Fraser. The subject? “Fossil Fuels and the Greenhouse Effect.” Michael Cook, the agency’s director general, wrote in an introduction how his team had looked at the implications of rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere “with special reference to Australia as a producer and exporter of coal.” Cook wrote: “Scientists now agree that if such emissions continue it will some time in the next century lead to a discernible ‘greenhouse effect’ whereby the Earth’s atmosphere becomes measurably warmer with related climatic changes.”
Source: Australia’s Spy Agency Saw Climate Crisis Coming 40 Years Ago – Mother Jones
Global green bond issuance grew for the ninth straight year, climbing to a record high of $269.5 billion at the end of last year, up from $266.5 billion in 2019, according to the nonprofit organization Climate Bonds Initiative. The United States had the largest issuance of green bonds with $51.1 billion, followed by Germany with $40.2 billion and France with $32.1 billion. China and the Netherlands rounded out the top five with $17.2 billion and $17 billion, respectively. Green bonds involve money borrowed to invest in environmentally-friendly projects, and can be issued by central and local governments as well as banks or corporations. According to the Climate Bonds Initiative, the green bond market has been accelerating sharply over the past five years, with 60 percent average annual growth since 2015. It also predicted that 2021 could be another record year, with issuance rising to as high as $450 billion. Let’s take a look at the top 10 countries leading the way in green bond issuance last year.
Source: World’s top 10 countries in green bond issuance – Chinadaily.com.cn
Amy Coney Barrett, the token Aunt Lydia of the 6 conservative judges, kept circling around the argument that women don’t need abortion rights, because “in all 50 states, you can terminate parental rights” after giving birth. It was a question that only makes sense if one assumes women are merely ambulatory uteruses, with no feelings or internal lives at all. In the real world, however, pregnancy is a difficult process, not just physically, but emotionally. Pregnancy isn’t a houseplant you stick in the corner of your house and ignore until someone comes to pick it up. You carry it with your body. People ask you about it — indeed, as anyone who has been pregnant can tell you, it’s basically all people can talk to you about when you’re showing. It causes all sorts of hormonal and emotional reactions, and giving up a baby your body has created is notoriously wrenching, even for those who are ready to do it.
After Congress lifted a ban on crude exports in late 2015, oil and gas production in the Permian Basin soared while domestic consumption remained flat—leading to a massive build-out of pipelines and other infrastructure that culminated in the U.S. “flooding global markets” with fossil fuels at the expense of humanity, in general, and vulnerable Gulf Coast communities already overburdened by pollution, in particular.
Source: Since Congress Lifted Crude Export Ban in 2015, US Has Dropped ‘Climate Bomb’ on World
Eric Metaxas, the anti-vax talk show host, finally came back on air after a two-week absence and explained how devastating COVID was to him and his family. “If you been wondering where I have been, I have no idea where I’ve been. I’ve been in a perspiring haze for days and days and days,” Metaxas told his audience. COVID is no f**king joke. Back in July this evangelical talk show host told Steve Bannon’s War Room that he’s not afraid of getting COVID and wants people to rise up and rebel against it.
Source: Anti-Vaxxer Eric Metaxas’ Family Devastated By COVID | Crooks and Liars
But, because we like lists when it comes to opinions about how to fix things, here’s a list of ten dreams that, by dreaming them, might make it possible to improve things. You’d think a rich and great country could nourish such dreams, and even accomplish them. In random order, then, here are some pretty obvious things necessary to allowing us to think outside the box we’re in.
Source: Impossible American Dreams? Really? Why Should That Be? | The Smirking Chimp
My thought for the day Good democracies can only deliver good government and outcomes if the electorate demands it and it doesn’t come about by good people disengaging from the process. (John Lord )
Couple this with the government’s efforts to limit class action suits. Disallowing and smothering individuals from uniting in any action against either the government, MPs, or any mega-corporations in the country. Under the Morrison LNP the wealth at the top has seen growth at an accelerated pace while, the middle class diminished, compounding the acceleration of poverty but more so inequality. It’s an example of government abuse and the bullying of its citizens in the only world nation not a signiture to Bill of ( Human ) Rights.
Average Australians could not afford to sue for defamation and any potential costs awarded would be swallowed by legal fees. Rather, the Tories’ ambitions will help the powerful to silence critics or to retaliate should that fail. Spud even had the front to suggest a fund from tax payers be established to cover the legal costs of the pursuit of their adversaries because even rich guys need our money to pay expensive silks to sue us and to intimidate inquisitive journalists. First they came for the ABC. Then they came for journalists and whistle-blowers. Now they’re coming for the tweeters. None of this is meant to imply that Spud is an actual Nazi or a sympathiser of the Stasi, Oprichnina, Geheime Staatspolizei, NKVD, DINA, the Bureau for the Repression of Communist Activities or any other secret police organisation or goon squad for any repressive regime whatsoever. His resemblance to a versatile root vegetable is however indisputable.
Source: Spud, Godwin’s Law and the Streisand Effect – » The Australian Independent Media Network
What Morrison says is divorced from Reality
Despite Morrison saying this week that he wanted these laws “to protect women”, defamation is a tool mostly used by the rich and powerful, especially politicians and especially men. Related Article Sydney teenager Tilda, 15, uses Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat. Social media Dossiers and cover-ups: Facebook puts profits before safety, whistleblower reveals This year alone, Defence Minister Peter Dutton, former attorney-general Christian Porter, federal MP Andrew Laming and NSW deputy premier John Barilaro have all sued for defamation and either settled out of court or won. Greens Senator Sarah Hanson Young and former treasurer Joe Hockey have also successfully sued for defamation in the past. Dutton even suggested a few months ago that politicians should have access to a fund of public money to pay for defamation cases as a workplace entitlement. Yet despite Morrison calling social media a “coward’s palace”, in each of these cases the politicians were suing someone who put their name to their statements.
Source: Defamation isn’t the biggest worry about social media
Tudge’s strategy is just another example of the Morrison Government tendency to issue so-called plans and strategies that are not worth the paper they are written on.
Morrison has turned Australia into an American post and in doing so given up sovereignty. Biden is now intervening on our behalf about trade with China. Morrison has us jumping to the tune of “The Yanks are Coming” and that we need to get prepared to welcome them. Will Trump be our PM or President in 2024?
Get the Marines ready. Store the supplies. Marshal the allies. The United States is getting ready for war (the preferable term in Washington is policing) in the Indo-Pacific region, and is hoping to do so with a range of expanded bases across client states, or what it prefers to call friends.
Source: Arming Against China: The US Global Posture Review – » The Australian Independent Media Network
While rich countries like Australia are reaching 80% or more double vaccination rates, less than 5% of people in many low income countries have received COVID-19 vaccines. Millions are dying while new more infectious strains of the virus develop, reports Patricia Ranald.
Purdue Pharma and the Sacklers were successfully prosecuted for misinformation after enormous effort. They weren’t prosecuted for producing Oxy which is still available. However their false advertising managed to lead to the unwanted deaths of 500M people isn’t. How is it the Murdoch’s are free to peddle their totally harmful bullshit on vaccinations making America one of the planet’s least vaccinated OECD countries and assisting in 700M deaths?
Giselle Maxwell is currently being prosecuted for assisting Epstein in child molestation,abuse and human trfficking. Julian Assange on the other hand has been hounded for a decade for allowing truth to be released and published. Surely the Murdoch’s and Tucker Carlson deserve to be prosecuted for assisting in the deaths of millions of people. They certainly don’t practice what they preach at News Corp.
Oxy hasn’t been removed from the market place neither should news or information, but misinformation is sinking the nation and a yardstick needs to be set for it’s abuse.
Carlson’s claim that the campaign to vaccinate Americans against COVID-19, and thus prevent deaths, is a “failure” is a conclusion that can be reached only if you ignore every shred of relevant information and consider instead just the fictionalized vision of the vaccine that exists on Fox News. Carlson has dedicated an extraordinary amount of airtime not just to lying about and undercutting COVID-19 vaccination efforts, but also to attacking vaccines as a whole. To name just a few recent examples: Earlier this month, Carlson hosted notorious anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to tell viewers that vaccines are one of the “key suspects” behind a rise in cases of autism. During the interview Carlson asked, “Will any thinking person ever trust vaccines again?” Carlson has repeatedly claimed that the COVID-19 vaccine is killing Americans and called it the “single deadliest mass vaccination event in modern history.” Frequent Carlson guest and COVID-19 truther Alex Berenson told Carlson’s viewers that “there’s just no evidence that the vaccines halt infection or transmission in any way.” Even though Fox has its own incredibly strict vaccination and testing policy for staff,
That this is a deliberate strategy and not just idiocy was confirmed yet again over the weekend through the actions of Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, who gave two separate interviews — one on Fox News and one on CNN — where she offered extremely different claims about the vaccine. For her Fox New audience, Mace claimed “natural immunity gives you 27 times more protection against future COVID than a vaccination.” On CNN, while trying to hoodwink the Jonathan Chaits of the world into thinking Republicans aren’t that bad, she claimed she wanted people to get vaccinated.
Steve Bannon Trump’s adviser is a Leninist and simply wants to tear the system down
the GOP is mob rule arising from the right. It seeks to maintain, to the point of open warfare, the hierarchies of power by which rugged white individuals stand on top. Lenin and his revolutionaries were mob rule arising from the left. They sought to flatten Russian society to the point of wholesale murder. That it takes, however, an international media outlet that sees American politics from a European perspective to point out the similarities between them is instructive. The right’s rhetoric of slander has such a hold on Americans, most can’t see what’s in front of them.
Simply take the money out of politics and you’ll get more Democracy. After all, Palmer is wealthy, an Independent whose money shouldn’t be his advantage over your’s or my vote. Surely same applies to the members of the LNP. But with private media waiting for a return on their 3 year investment. Their business model dictates they perform for the money which flows from the top down. The ABC’s charter and reason for being an Independant Statuary Body is to question all forms of power no matter the wealth. Why is it the LNP sees them as their enemy?
There is no place for “Blind Trust” yet Porter exhonerated by the privileges committee and he was declared innocent of any wrong doing. Isn’t a fundamental principle in law that “ignorance is no excuse”, but it seems power is? Despite his ignorance Porter went ahead and used that Blind Trust money. Our prisons are filled with the powerless innocent despite their claims of ignorance.
Arguably, the Gillard Government that relied on the support of the trio of Bob Katter, Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor was the most effective government Australia has had in the past 50 years. The reason is simple – to survive the government of the day had to actively listen to the concerns, aspirations and ideas of people ‘outside the ALP tent’. Gillard and current Opposition Leader Albanese (who was Leader of the House) did so, which is to their eternal credit.
Source: Lies, damn lies and economics – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Oops!! Shoot the Copy Writer– was it Scotty who coined that? Or only “Where the bloody hell were you? ” Whoever it was finds trouble.
The answer of course is yes and, as EV’s are part of the technology not taxes slogan why is it that governments insist on imposing punitive taxes on imported EV’s ? For instance an imported EV will attract a Luxury Car Tax of 33% on values above the declared threshold plus a GST of 10% and a state Stamp Duty of around 5%. In the case of the popular Tesla Model 3 the federal taxes amount to approximately $10,000 (LCT $2,029 and GST $7857) plus around $3500 in state stamp duty. So the slogan is going to have to be tweaked perhaps to technology and taxes on a need to know basis – and you don’t need to know and Scotty will deny it anyhow !
Source: Technology Not Taxes ! Oh wait a minute. – » The Australian Independent Media Network
In spite of the Liberal party’s small-government rhetoric, Prime Minister Scott Morrison is running the most expensive government in recent memory with departmental expenses outstripping both tax revenue and Australia’s GDP; and dwarfing Labor government. Callum Foote investigates.
Source: Scott Morrison’s bureaucracy bloat: cost of government soars to $100 billion – Michael West Media
It’s all photoshoots and posturing. That’s the Morrison Way. It’s as if he was like playing Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard. “Where ready for your next scene Mr Morrison”
In the lead up to Morrison introducing the Religious Discrimination Bill there was much speculation that the entire debacle was meaningless posturing. Some argued it was set up to fail, having been introduced too late in the parliamentary term. Peta Credlin guessed that “this whole debate will turn out be more about striking an election pose than making a difference before polling day.” With the bill set to go before a Senate inquiry over summer, it is unclear whether it will pass before the next federal election — which could be as early as February 2022. And so once again millions of workers now wait patiently to see how their careers and livelihoods will be affected by the greed and game-playing of a handful of religious bosses, factional bigwigs, and parliamentary buffoons. They do bear a striking resemblance to Alice, buffeted by others’ madness and only able to declare, “How queer everything is to-day! And yesterday things went on just as usual…”
Source: Australia’s Religious Discrimination Bill Is About Attacking Workers’ Rights
Governments, like all living organisms, suffer from physical entropy. They have a limited life span and their end days are marked by a distinct decline in functionality. It’s not surprising as the Coalition is about to enter its ninth year in office, three prime ministers later and after the resignation of some of its most competent ministers over that period, the Morrison government is tired, and it is running scared. I do not make this claim lightly.
Source: Paul Bongiorno: The Morrison government is decaying before our eyes
Using GDP to assess wellbeing is a flawed view which has led us to narrow, short-term decision-making
MALICE in WONDERLAND
In a monumental display of hypocrisy on Sunday, a Fox News anchor and his guest attacked President Joe Biden for the fact that America’s vaccination rate against COVID-19 is too low. “This year we have lost more people in this country to COVID than we did during the first year of the pandemic, when Donald Trump was president — and now we have the vaccines,” anchor Jon Scott said. Hugo Gurdon, editor-in-chief of the Washington Examiner, further pointed out that “the vaccination rate is only 58% here, considerably lower than in other places. So [Biden] hasn’t got his arms around it.” But Fox News itself has undermined the Biden administration’s vaccination campaign relentlessly, running at least one claim that undermined vaccines nearly every day in a six-month period. At the same time, the company has implemented its own stringent health policies, including vaccination and testing mandates and masking at company offices — even as the network has elevated those who refuse the vaccine in other places into culture war heroes, calling for Americans to “fight back.”
But we’re not as generous now. Even though the American economy is far larger than it was then, the middle class is a smaller share of it. For the last four decades America has been dividing into well-off professionals who don’t feel any connection to the poor, and a beleaguered working class that’s easily convinced any help to the poor will cause their taxes to increase. Hence, in 1996 even a Democratic president decided to end aid to poor kids, largely because polls showed that most Americans — including the vast majority of the working class — no longer supported welfare. Twenty-five years later — and even after the awful consequences of that decision have become apparent — a Democratic Congress has chosen not to provide permanent help to the nation’s poor kids. In other words, I don’t think we’ve prioritized the elderly poor over poor children. The big difference is we have become far less equal as a society, which has made us less willing to remedy poverty at all.
BYE BYE- The Constitutional Separation of Powers between the Church and State. Fuck what America’s Jews want. Legislate Discrimination instead.
Israel has concluded a very unholy alliance with the American Evangelical Community, as support among progressive U.S. Jews for its settlement policies in the West Bank continues to wane. For this reason, in 2017, the Arkansas Senate passed Act 710, forbidding all “public entities from contracting with and investing in companies that boycott Israel.” Call me old-fashioned, but I miss that old Separation of Church and State principle. In Arkansas, legislation is now directly tied to the Second Coming. There is a painful irony to American Evangelical politicians using Zionism as a cudgel to exacerbate the political divide, and punish resistors. The act prohibits all state agencies, departments and contractors from doing business with any company that supports the Boycott-Divest-Sanction (BDS) movement.
Source: Evangelical Politicians, using Israel as a Pretext, are Gutting the Constitution by Banning Boycotts
Does the money Israel gets in Foreign Aid go to fund Anti-BDS Laws? ”
Anti-BDS legislation is not only unconstitutional, critics argue, but it also sets a dangerous precedent. Texas legislators have used the state’s anti-BDS law as a template to pass bills that keep businesses that boycott fossil fuels and firearms from securing state contracts. At least four other states have introduced similar legislation, the film notes. One scene in “Boycott” imagines the possibilities, showing the text of a bill changing from punishing support for BDS to other positions like “supporting Black Lives Matter” or “supporting Greenpeace.” “You may not care about Israel-Palestine,” Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, says in the film. “But you should care if it’s being used as a hook to legislate in your state and at the federal level against free speech.”
Source: Anti-BDS Laws Could Upend the Right to Engage in Boycott
Morrison says the LNP are the best economic managers and that’s no lie. Well the facts prove otherwise.
Today we heard him say that his government has instituted more changes than any other to deal with bullying and sexual abuse in the work place. When you bunjee jump and publicly take the LNP to the lowest state ever in the history of the parliament any changes made could be considered the “most” ever. However the historic record public humiliation still shows the Morrison government the worst. So much so the changes were in fact slow and forced on him by the victims and not really any SNAGs male or female in the LNP ministry or Scott Morrison himself. How clear was he whe he said he wasn’t going out to speak to the protesting women. He was too busy. Compared with the ALP the Morrison LNP remains lower in the eyes of the public than any other time in history. Victims sacked, mocked and gone while the perpertrators merely slapped on the wrist praised and then promoted.
I’ve just finished watching Dopesick about the Sacklers,their Pharmaceutical Company, Oxycontin and how they managed to avoid prosecution for years by applying the same token strategies as Morrison. Who like the Sacklers was found praising himself for some nominal changes while continuing to carry on down the same road. Morrison has the ad-mans confidence but he certainly lacks any real leadership skills.
Recent economic data brings the tally of failures in economic management by Prime Minister Morrison and Treasurer Frydenberg to 40, as Alan Austin documents. WORLD BANK DATA shows the value of manufacturing in Australia as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) was 13.83% when that dataset began in 1990. It stayed above 12% until 1999, when a decline began. This fell to an all-time low of 5.64% in 2019, six years after the Coalition was elected on promises to ‘re-invigorate manufacturing industry’. The 2020 level was 5.72%, the second-lowest ever. The Australian Sovereign Capability Alliance reports that Australia now has the lowest manufacturing self-sufficiency of any country in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
Source: Morrison Government notches up 40 ‘worst on record’ economic outcomes
Remember the days when the Coalition’s game plan was all about debt and deficit and how only they could manage money? Back in black next year?Well now that the debt is rapidly approaching $1 trillion, this bunch of financial wizards think it’s a great time to cut taxes for the wealthy, costing the budget more than $184 billion over the next decade.And since we don’t care about being in debt anymore, they are increasing military spending for the 9th straight year to over $122 million per day. The Defence Forces have so much money they can’t spend it even with the billions they are wasting on abandoned contracts.Must we really waste hundreds of billions of dollars just so the Coalition can say Labor taxes more and is weak on national security?If Scotty takes away the game-playing, what’s left?
Morrison’s usual escape hatch is to blame someone else. He admits he doesn’t run the country and that the first rule of the Morrison government is ” I dont hold any hose” the ALP does. So why not just call an election and retire hurt? The tradesman in the hi-viz vest and hard hat who keeps blaming his tools applied for the wrong job in which there’s an opposition. “ScaMo it’s called a Democracy and you do more than have your picture taken”.
The Coalition government has no plans to introduce a long-promised federal integrity commission and has blamed the delay on a lack of support from the Opposition – despite making no changes to a proposed model blasted by experts as the weakest in the country.
Source: ‘Stunned’: Government reveals no plans for federal ICAC but blames Labor
Does any society need non-tax paying Billionaires, Corporations, and purely interest accruing non-productive, inherited wealth and capital gains none of which trickle down?
When conservatives claim that we can’t afford new social programs, what they really mean is that they think individuals and families should figure out how to handle the costs of necessary care on their own.
Source: On Social Spending, the Question Isn’t “Can We Afford It?” but “Who Will Pay?”
Scott Morrison enters the final parliamentary sitting week of the year facing fresh questions about the Coalition’s record of administering grants to government electorates. New analysis has found, since 2013, the bulk of government grant money has gone to government-held seats. The analysis says $3.9bn has been allocated under seven federal programs since the Coalition came to power, and $2.8bn, or 71% of the total taxpayer-funded pool, has gone to projects in government electorates.
olddogthoughts 
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