Oi. Michael Taylor, I know I haven’t written for a couple of years Mr Taylor and I wouldn’t have except many of your writers have gone to far and I mean the crome domed one who writes all that filth about a government that we should be all thanking God for. He is so popular that his name escapes me. Thank the Lord. John Lord thats hin. I mean there is just no limit to how far he will stoop, no gutter to low to slide into, no sewer to murky for him to loosen himself in
Source: A letter to the editor from Morrie Moneyweather – » The Australian Independent Media Network
When resignation is only a political stunt to deflect the revelations to come! Berejiklian knew the path that lay ahead. Nobody ever said she wasn’t a canny operator! She knew that ICAC knew where the skeletons were buried after the initial silent and private investigation was done and also knew it would be “publicly tested”. So she acted first. However NSW voters deserve “transparency” from all its politicians.
Mike Baird and Stuart Ayres were among the witnesses at ICAC’s first week of hearings Mr Baird told ICAC he was “incredulous” when he found out about Ms Berejiklian’s secret relationship ICAC also heard the Wagga Wagga shooting grant proposal was questioned by senior public servants
There are three ways to approach climate change – one, do nothing and hope; two, dig in, and go slow, because it’s ‘the economy, stupid’; or three, step into the change and maximise the opportunities it presents.
Source: There are three approaches to climate, Australia is choosing the wrong one
For the Coalition LNP it’s a Sunday too Far Away prospect
Fully switching to electric vehicles within the next decade and a half could save Australians up to half a trillion dollars, new research suggests.
Source: New study tallies up the billion-dollar benefits of electrical vehicles
Israel are now the world’s most active script writers and false flag fliers. They are a State that’s no longer Jewish
Israel designated six leading Palestinian human rights groups “terrorist organizations,” but refused to reveal any evidence to prove the accusation.
Source: Palestinian Rights Activists Branded “Terrorists” by Israel
The camera crew had walked off the set earlier that day in protest of working conditions. Producers threatened to call security on them before bringing in non-union replacements. The prop gun had already misfired multiple times. These are just some of the details emerging about the events that led up to Alec Baldwin fatally shooting cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on Thursday, according to a new Los Angeles Times report.
Source: Stories of Terrible Conditions on “Rust” Set Were Emerging Even Before Fatal Shooting – Mother Jones
By penetrating the realities of war and pulling it out of its carefully orchestrated public context, by publicizing its raw horrors, he became a danger to the country’s political status quo.
Source: Opinion | Assange: A Threat to War Itself | Robert C. Koehler
As President Eisenhower warned long ago, excessive military spending is “a theft” from the people: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”
Source: Gravy train: Corporate Profiteering on National Defense | The Smirking Chimp
Anyone who knows the history of abuse in the Congress’s prerogative of subpoenaing witnesses and holding people in contempt for declining to testify is a little uneasy about the vote today to refer far-right gadfly Steve Bannon to the Department of Justice on charges of contempt of Congress. Mary Clare Jalonick at AP reports that the vote was 229-202. Of the 213 Republicans, all but 9 voted “no” on the motion to hold Bannon in contempt. That is, the 202 “no” votes were all Republican representatives.
DWAC and SPAC are the sounds you’d expect to see in a cartoon voice bubble. DJ Trump is currently the total commercialized product of a comic character like the Joker, an entertainer, a fraudster, a wannabe politician and the living head character in a updated version of Springtime for Hitler on Wall st. He’s the total package and he’s being marketed by people far smarter than him. Money Guns and Lawyers are all involved and are there to protect their asset.
DWAC is what’s known as a “SPAC,” or special purpose acquisition company. The strategy, which has become popular in recent years as a way to sidestep the typically onerous regulatory process of taking a company public, typically occurs when a non-public company merges with a shell company that is already public. In this case, DWAC is set to merge with “Trump Media & Technology Group.”
Source: Inside the “weird” world of DWAC, Trump’s already soaring social media SPAC | Salon.com
Western Media tells us “It’s all China’s doing” Note how the “peace-makers” are defending us with nuclear warheads at the ready but not any Australian of course for politically sensitive reasons. Fuck the French we are America’s “Pillocks of the Pacific”.
this all-Anglo alliance comes perilously close to locking the world into just such a conflict that could all too easily become a hot, even potentially nuclear, war between the two wealthiest, most powerful countries on the planet. If you’re too young to have lived through the original Cold War as I did, imagine going to sleep fearing that you might not wake up in the morning, thanks to a nuclear war between the world’s two superpowers (in those days, the United States and the Soviet Union). Imagine walking past nuclear fallout shelters, doing “duck and cover” drills under your school desk, and experiencing other regular reminders that, at any moment, a great-power war could end life on Earth.
Source: Taking the World to the Brink: The Australia-UK-US Nuclear Sub Alliance against China
All Liberals are doing their part in ensuring Australia’s appetite for boom or bust risk but with none on their part.
Dominic Perrottet’s controversial hedge fund is lending to Russia, China, Saudi Arabia and Cayman Islands. What is the NSW Premier doing funding dictators with NSW taxpayers’ money? Michael West reports on the New Generations Fund.
Source: Perrottet invests in Putin not Parramatta – Michael West Media
That old saying “we get what we pay for ” certainly doesn’t apply to the caliber of our politicians any longer. We can put that old cherry to bed.
That was best distilled when Barnaby Joyce complained that the Nats couldn’t resolve the issue in their party room meeting this week because they didn’t have enough time. As though the government hasn’t had years to think about this. It was like watching someone start cramming the night before an exam, having not cracked open the textbook all year.
Source: COP26 Glasgow summit: On net zero, the Nats can’t go quietly
Angus Taylor’s $240bn is doing Australia’s share in the dirty lifting
The report notes, “G20 countries have directed around USD 300 billion in new funds towards fossil fuel activities since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic — more than they have toward clean energy.” The only way to cap the temperature increase at a sweltering but perhaps not catastrophic 2.7F would be to slash those investments in half. In other words, if they stay on their current path, the richest 20 nations are making a laughingstock of themselves with their CO26 pledges next month.
Trump’s new “come in suckers” scam is about to sink the myth that “Trump was ever Midas” and on the day it opened he showed just what a tech head he really is. Trump however didn’t invest a single cent of his own money in it. Anyone can register on Trump’s “Truth” ( Pravda) and apply with any email address that doesn’t even exist.
This dude has often proved he’s not a businessman’s jockstrap. He’s lost more money, other people’s, including his own than he has ever made. He has proved the rule that “inherited wealth” is extremely difficult to lose and that inherited capital and property even if protected is a path to borrowed money,other people’s which you can take use, abuse and lose . He was Atlantic City’s human wrecking ball and just kept on keeping on.
Aw, Trump’s “Truth Social” is having problems and it’s only one day old! Tengrain noted he successfully signed up for the username “Wilma Ballsdrop” at YabbaDabba @ doo.com. Apparently the social media site about to give “big tech” a run for its money isn’t filtering non-existent email addresses? Oh noes.
Source: One Day Later Fake Accounts On Trump’s ‘Pravda’ Are Hilarious | Crooks and Liars
The TRUTH is out there, according to known factualness provider Donald Trump. On Wednesday the former president, who has been banned from the major social media platforms since January, announced that he will be launching his own social media company called Truth Social. Although, in typical Trump style, it’s styled TRUTH Social.
It’s got Trump’s Brand on it but offers nothing promises everything and protects Trump from any liability. Trump’s credits of Atlantic City Casinos and other failed brands are left off the prospectus. It must be remembered he too $82 mill out of Atlantic C which like Nero he left burning for decades after along with a trail of human destruction. Another Wolf on Wall St boiler room scam.
Nine months after being expelled from Twitter and Facebook for his role in inciting the January 6 Capitol insurrection, former president Donald Trump has announced he’s launching a new media company with its own social media platform.
Source: Donald Trump launches Truth Social App as rival to Twitter and Facebook
To be precise Trump has done Nothing and Wall St Wolves have done everything. The numbers he cited $1.7 billion are huge for a company without any apparent cash flow. Like ” a lot of things that happen with Trump are not great with details and formalities, it’s perhaps not surprising.” However it’s not the norm in SPACs.”
For many investors, it apparently doesn’t matter that former President Donald Trump’s new media venture has yet to create, well, anything.
DWAC is what’s known as a “SPAC,” or special purpose acquisition company. The strategy, which has become popular in recent years as a way to sidestep the typically onerous regulatory process of taking a company public, typically occurs when a non-public company merges with a shell company that is already public. In this case, DWAC is set to merge with “Trump Media & Tec
It’s also important to note that a key feature of SPAC deals are the unique incentives that protect company insiders while other investors bear much of the risk if a deal fails to garner expected returns.
Trump’s last publicly traded venture, a casino company called Trump Entertainment Resorts, also ended in heartbreak for investors after it lost hundreds of millions of dollars in just over a decade, a period during which it filed for bankruptcy numerous times. Though if the past is any indication, Trump will likely come out on top — Fortune Magazine reported at the time that he earned more than $82 million from the company before it went bust.
Unfortunately, Goward Is Not Alone Here But while it’s all well and good to point the finger at Goward, it’s also important to remember that she is far from the only Australian who shares this view. Not only did the Australian Financial Review publish it, but thousands of — presumably upper-middle class — Australians will read it and continue to hold this belief that the “proles” are villains that are tearing down our great country, rather than our neighbours and friends who deserve support.
Source: The AFR Compared Poor People To “Weasels” In A Completely Cooked Op-Ed
In the tradition of Coalition environment ministers, Sussan Ley has knocked back a large renewable energy project while waving through three new coal mines. Callum Foote reports on an Environment ministry which has found more renewable projects “clearly unacceptable” than coal mines.
History will demonstrate that I have always executed my duties with the highest degree of integrity for the benefit of the people of NSW. That is precisely the proposition ICAC is testing. Its investigation into whether Berejiklian engaged in conduct that “constituted or involved a breach of public trust” will substantially shape the historical record.
Source: After a bombshell day at ICAC, questions must be asked about integrity in Australian politics
Like most things the Morrison Government implements, recent sweeping changes to Medicare rebates affect our most vulnerable citizens and have been rushed through under cover of night, with scarcely a murmur from the Government or its media cheer squad.
Source: Medicare cuts prove the Coalition is bad for our health
The veteran Liberal MP Russell Broadbent, chair of the privileges committee, naturally assumed the Porter controversy was about to land in his lap, because the government opposing that motion, in his understanding, would have been unprecedented in the history of the Australian parliament. Normally, once the Speaker has made a prima facie determination, these things are waved through on the voices. Bridget McKenzie in the Senate Chamber at Parliament House Bridget McKenzie warns ‘it will be ugly’ if Morrison commits to net zero target without Nationals support Read more But Broadbent was in for a rude shock. Peter Dutton, managing business for the government in the house, opposed the referral. The government’s numbers were mobilised to block the proposal.
This should not be surprising to even a casual observer. Anecdotally, people feel that asking the Parliament to legislate its own anti-corruption body is a bit like asking a horse to build a fence. You’re not likely to get a fence, but you are likely to get a load of horse shit.
Source: Government unaccountability: Over 1,000 days and counting
As Donald Trump would say, nobody does an announcement like Scott Morrison, nobody. What is the substance to the US oil reserve deal so praised by the PM and his energy minister Angus Taylor? Special correspondent Jommy Tee reports.
Source: Slick dealings: Australia on wrong end of Trump era oil play – Michael West Media
New data shows that Elon Musk’s fortune grew by 750% during the pandemic. It’s not because he worked 750% harder than the rest of us.
Source: US Billionaires Got 70% More Wealth Under COVID. They Didn’t Deserve Any of It.
Coal baron Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia has succeeded in blocking the part of President Biden’s Build Back Better bill that would have moved the U.S. electricity grid quickly to green energy. This development is very bad news for the earth, since human beings burning coal, petroleum and natural gas contribute the bulk of the 6.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide that the United States farts out into the atmosphere every year, and which is causing the earth rapidly to heat up to uncomfortable levels. Although the U.S. only has 4% of the world’s population, it is responsible for 20% of global CO2 emissions. And that is just today. Through modern history, only Britain has been more of a carbon hog than America.
Political Contributions: What America does transparently Australia’s LNP wants kept secret. We are among the world’s most secretive nations when it comes to political donors.
What Peters, Schrader, and Sinema have in common, however, is that each received substantial support from pharmaceutical companies before coming out against the bill. Both Peters’s and Schrader’s list of top contributors includes Pfizer and AbbVie. Sinema, whom Kaiser Health has called a “pharma favorite,” recently had her most successful fund-raising quarter ever, propelled by contributions from pharmaceutical company PACs, Gilead Science’s CEO Daniel O’Day, Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks, and Merck board chair Kenneth Frazier.
Source: Why Big Pharma Is Winning Again | Washington Monthly
As Harry Truman once said, “Socialism is a scare word they’ve hurled at every advance the people have made. Socialism is what they called public power, social security, deposit insurance, and independent labor organizations. Socialism is their name for anything that helps all people.”
Trump’s gift of a free hand to America’s foreign partners enabled, among other things, accelerating Israeli colonization of the West Bank and Jerusalem; a Turkish-backed war between Azerbaijan and Armenia; and an escalated Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen that killed thousands of civilians. Feeling little need to compromise, regimes on good terms with Trump pressed their advantages to the fullest.
Source: Saudi-Iran Rapprochement Was Unthinkable Under Trump
The billions splurged on the form of appropriation euphemistically called “pork barrelling” makes headlines. What we don’t generally see is the disheartening flipside – the “opportunity cost” of needs unmet because of politicians’ preferences.
Source: Michael Pascoe: The opportunity cost of the Pork Party – ‘tens of billions’
If you add the $90 Bn that went to the US for subs which was certainly without a tender process the total is $150Bn
Almost half of $60.2bn in federal government grants awarded over the past four years did not go through a competitive open tender process, a new report on grant spending has found.
The Infrastructure Department was unable to tell the federal government whether its plans to spend almost $400 million on car parks at suburban railway stations had merit or could even be built just days before Prime Minister Scott Morrison signed off on the promises.
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 )
Let’s start with NSW. On the one hand, Premier Dominic Perrottet and his new Treasurer Matt Kean are signalling that the state will lead the way climate-wise, relying on a $3 billion green hydrogen strategy to create 10,000 jobs by 2030. Without explicit details on how this policy would be developed into action, the Perrottet Government may be using the same spin as Morrison — slogans.
Source: Environment in peril as Premier urged to increase population
Morrison and Frydenberg paint themselves as being the world’s “greatest” survivors? When we are running 8th out of the pacific nations this year and predicted to be 7th in 2022 according to the IMF. That’s last out of actual Pacific nations in 21 and second last in 22. Why don’t we see these statistical hard facts on the front pages of our main stream media? Why are we treated like mushrooms?
Despite successfully containing COVID-19 in 2020, some economies in the region, including Australia, faced setbacks from an initially slow vaccination rollout, the IMF says in its regional economic outlook.
Source: IMF says Australia to emerge from pandemic in fastest-growing region
When offered the title of Pivot of the Pacific whe he was PM. Europhile Abbott turned his back preferring to build monuments in France, shirtfront Putin, become a member of NATO and hail China as his new bestie. Today he shows what a self interested Pillock he’s always been. Don’t be surprised if he doesn’t want his old job back and he’s putting on a show for Rupert. He hasn’t defended France he’s cheered Boris on and he’s giving Xi the bird. Has Australia ever seen a worse effort by an ex PM playing Statesman in it’s history?
No one can stop him. He can barely stop himself. The former Australian prime minister, Tony Abbott, seems to be everywhere, fighting the poor cause. At the very least, he is everywhere with the press cameras, the niggling concerns, the irritations that make it into the twenty-four-hour news cycle before sinking with toxic charm. He is the perfect ingredient in a stew of conflict, the agitator, the irritant.
Source: War Talk from the Mad Monk: Tony Abbott goes to Taiwan – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Congress is back this week, so you can expect more of the “we can’t afford it” bullsh*t from every Republican member of Congress and two Democratic senators (Manchin and Sinema) — aimed against Biden’s and the Democrats’ social investment bill. Behind the scenes, big corporations and Wall Street are paying huge bucks to feed this hokum to the public. And the mainstream media is doing their bidding. So it should be no surprise that Americans are utterly confused and many are misinformed about what’s at stake in this important legislation, which will come to a head in the next few weeks.
Source: Week Ahead: The “We Can’t Afford It” Bullshit | The Smirking Chimp
A frustrated voting public is becoming increasingly louder against the Government’s lack of climate policy and endless incompetence, writes Dr Jennifer Wilson.
“There’s little point in relying on the Labor opposition to deal with this on our behalf. As Ilic noted in an interview with CNN, we have to lead because we have no leaders.
We do have power, other than at the voting booth. We have our voices. We have social media platforms on which to use them. We can’t all do billboards or organise marches, but we can support those who are willing to take on these tasks. Morrison has revealed, inadvertently, that it is in fact our voices he most fears, because if enough of our voices consistently criticise, humiliate and refuse him, he will not hold onto power. Forget the opposition. It’s down to us.”
Source: The people versus Scott Morrison
A four-hour meeting of the 21 Nats on Sunday ended without a conclusion, despite assurances from Energy Minister Angus Taylor their coal backers and fossil fuels mates would be receiving billions worth of sweeteners. Mr Joyce insists his party is “not chained to a script,” he derides modelling put up by anybody – the Business Council, CSIRO, the government, you name them – as make believe. Further undermining whatever decision the government arrives at is the sniping from former resources minister Matt Canavan, who on his arrival back in Canberra told the media scrum “the Prime Minister doesn’t have a plan, he has a dream”.
Source: Paul Bongiorno: Nationals’ theatre of absurd drains government credibility
The Christian coalifate and crime cartel is running rampant The NSW Lib’s sanctification as Premier of the Brylcreemed Li’l Dabble Dooya, better known as Dominic Perrottet, a man resembling a pelican emerging from an oil spill, has re-animated conjecture about the capture of the conservative parties by religious nutters.
Source: Rule by the Divine Right – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Students at the prestigious University of Melbourne only receive the support they need during remote learning because their tutors work unpaid, says a staff member who is risking his job to blow the whistle.
Source: University of Melbourne staff doing unpaid work to give students feedback, tutor says – ABC News
There is not one reason for this biased treatment of Labor scandals as compared to Liberals. Some of it constitutes conscious bias on the part of many Murdoch journalists who set out to use their media power to smear progressive politicians. However, much of this bias results from unconscious assumptions about the differential legitimacy of Labor and Liberal politicians. In a nutshell, Labor politicians are assumed to be scandal-plagued, are assumed to be less legitimate and so when Labor scandals break, journalists say “I told you so”. Liberals, on the other hand, are taken for granted as legitimate, so are treated with kid gloves by journalists, even when involved in equivalent scandals or even more serious scandals than Labor. Media inequality leads to unequal accountability between Labor and Liberal politicians, which results in inequitable democratic accountability. Although journalists love a political scandal, they apparently love a Labor scandal more than they love a Liberal one.
Source: Media inequality shows Labor scandals covered more than Liberal
The British Empire should be a fading memory. But modern-day conservatives have turned imperial nostalgia into a powerful weapon in the country’s culture wars, vilifying those who want a more honest reckoning with Britain’s historic crimes.
Source: Britain’s Imperial Heyday Is Nothing to Be Nostalgic For
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