Author: peterimrich

Inconvenient truth

Barely half of aged-care workers now vaccinated, despite looming deadline

aged care royal commission

The deadline for all aged-care workers to be vaccinated looms next month, but barely half of the cohort have been able to access a jab. It comes as a new report finds Australia is already facing a shortfall of aged-care workers, requiring at least 17,000 each year “just to meet basic standards of care”. Health Minister Greg Hunt says he is confident all aged-care workers will be vaccinated by the September 17 deadline, but with less than 40 days to go, only 56 per cent of those workers have yet received even a first dose of vaccine.

Source: Barely half of aged-care workers now vaccinated, despite looming deadline

Informed Comment

Making important decisions requires meticulous judgement – it is something Scott Morrison lacks – » The Australian Independent Media Network

My thought for the day People often argue from within the limitations of their understanding and when their factual evidence is scant, they revert to an expression of their feelings.

Source: Making important decisions requires meticulous judgement – it is something Scott Morrison lacks – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Inconvenient truth

The government doesn’t like the story the Newspoll is telling

A Martian or some other extra-terrestrial being who dropped into federal Parliament’s question time on Monday would believe that Australia’s vaccine rollout is world beating and our reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is similarly spectacular. Sparking the government’s bravado was the need to address growing concerns in the nation over the pandemic. Concerns that clearly contributed to the continued collapse in support for the government, as shown in the Newspoll and the severe marking down of the Prime Minister Scott Morrison to levels not seen since his tin-eared handling of the Black Summer bushfires.

Source: The government doesn’t like the story the Newspoll is telling

Fight against Fake News, Fighting Fake News

Old Dog Thought- 8 years of LNP and 8 years of Woodside’s Super heist= coincidence. Question how much did Woodside donate to the LNP and was that sharing? Will the LNP pay any back?

Fighting Fake News with REAL 10/8/21; Rudd is crucified for speakink the truth; Morrison’s Admissions; IPCCC Report, LNP reaction to the IPCCC

COVID-19

‘Just Look at the Data’: Top US Health Official Calls for More Vaccine Mandates | Common Dreams News

Dr. Francis Collins

But there’s fierce pushback from some GOP leaders, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has blamed President Joe Biden and immigrants for his state’s record Covid-19 hospitalizations.

Source: ‘Just Look at the Data’: Top US Health Official Calls for More Vaccine Mandates | Common Dreams News

Murdoch Media

Why does he Hate our Freedoms? White Nationalist Extremist Tucker Carlson touts Orban’s Hungarian Fascism as better than America

Extreme white nationalist Tucker Carlson took his Fox Cable “News” show on the road to extreme white nationalist Hungary this week. It reminded me a little of when Stephen Colbert went to New Zealand and hung out with Prime Minister Jacinda Arden, except that both Colbert and Arden are very nice people (Colbert had me on his old “Colbert Report” once and couldn’t have been sweeter out of character) and both are democrats with a small “d.”

Source: Why does he Hate our Freedoms? White Nationalist Extremist Tucker Carlson touts Orban’s Hungarian Fascism as better than America

Capitalism

The Market Is Incapable of Creating Affordable Housing

There isn’t a single place in the United States where minimum-wage workers can afford to live near their jobs. Addressing the affordability crisis will require a major rollback of market influence over the housing sector.

Source: The Market Is Incapable of Creating Affordable Housing

IPCC

Monday’s IPCC report is a really big deal for climate change. So what is it? And why should we trust it?

On Monday, an extremely important report on the physical science of climate change will be released to the world. Produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the report will give world leaders the most up-to-date information about climate change to inform their policies. It is an enormous undertaking, and has been a long time coming.

Source: Monday’s IPCC report is a really big deal for climate change. So what is it? And why should we trust it?

Unmoderated opinion

Do we have a future? – » The Australian Independent Media Network

I am both a realist and an optimist, so I am not looking for a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ response, rather trying to start a conversation about how we can ensure that future world conditions will be viable for our descendants. Between the pandemic and global warming, the situation is not looking so rosy!

Source: Do we have a future? – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Scott Morrison

Business wants states to mandate Covid jabs for staff after Scott Morrison vacates the field | Industrial relations | The Guardian

Melbourne Exhibition Centre vaccination hub

Is it any wonder do nothing Morrison is poll sliding? Wait till the election and watch for the grant allocations otherwise known as rorts.

The Business Council of Australia says state governments, not employers, should step up and mandate vaccinations for some high-risk workers after the prime minister declared last week mandating jabs would be left to business.

Source: Business wants states to mandate Covid jabs for staff after Scott Morrison vacates the field | Industrial relations | The Guardian

Murdoch Media

EXCLUSIVE: Media ‘cop’ hides Sky News complaints data

Australia’s top media authority has been criticised for failing to investigate complaints made against Sky News over COVID-19 misinformation. Anthony Klan reports. AUSTRALIA’S MEDIA REGULATOR has not published its “quarterly” reports on complaints and investigations for almost a year and in October last year stopped publishing the figures in its annual report altogether.

Source: EXCLUSIVE: Media ‘cop’ hides Sky News complaints data

Uncategorized

When news is not enough : we make it up ! – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Sky News Regional – a new free-to-air television offering – has just launched in regional areas across Australia with such luminaries as Alan Jones, Andrew Bolt, Cory Bernardi, Paul Murray, Rowan Dean and Peta Credlin hustling to get into our loungerooms, to flood regional airways between Cairns and Kalgoorlie, with anti-immigration rhetoric, climate denialism, conservative claptrap and vaccine misinformation all masquerading as news.

Source: When news is not enough : we make it up ! – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Newscorp

Murdoch press’ lies and deceptions conflict with true Christian values

The latest debate was provoked by Greg Sheridan, a senior editor with Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, who has just published ‘Christians: The urgent case for Jesus in our world’.

The difficulty Sheridan’s public support for religious faith presents for some believers is that the organisation to which he has devoted much of his working life is actively hostile to the fundamental teachings of the Judeo-Christian faiths.

Deception is News Corp’s core business The evidence now seems overwhelming that News Corp is committed to the continual fabrication of falsehoods and the dissemination as widely as possible of lies concocted by others. In a recent U.S. court case, News Corp lawyers actually argued that Fox News reports were routinely falsified and that any “reasonable viewer” should know by now that their “news” was not truthful.

Source: Murdoch press’ lies and deceptions conflict with true Christian values

LNP Government

Popularity of Scott Morrison plunges as ALP retains 53-47 Newspoll lead

Morrison the marketeer follows the polls and his poopularity is on the rise.

The latest Newspoll conducted for The Australian newspaper and published on Sunday night found Mr Morrison’s approval rating had fallen from its high of 85 per cent in April 2020 to just 48 per cent in the latest survey conducted between August 4 and 7. It equates to a four-point drop in only three weeks, and is the first time the PM’s performance has fallen into net negative territory since March 2020. When translated to voting intentions, it leaves Labor leading the Coalition 53-47 on a two-party-preferred basis and the government facing its worst electoral position since the Black Saturday bushfires crisis in 2019-20.

Source: Popularity of Scott Morrison plunges as ALP retains 53-47 Newspoll lead

Fight against Fake News, Fighting Fake News

Old Dog Thought- Morrison’s Poopularity Continues to Rise
A primary school student washes her hands at a wash trough at Mango Hill State School, north of Brisban.

Fighting Fake News with REAL; 9/8/21, Morrison’s Poopularity on the rise, The Shovel, Schools and Covid-19,

Trump

Trump praised Hitler’s “economic miracle” — and that’s even worse than it sounds | Salon.com

Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler (Photo illustration by Salon/Getty Images)

In April 1933, for instance, less than three months after Hitler was appointed chancellor, the Nazis passed the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service, which excluded Jews from civil service jobs. That same month, the Nazis passed legislation to reduce Jewish enrollments in schools and universities and restrict Jews’ options for practicing law and medicine. Within a few months, the Nazis put strict legal limits on Jewish professionals’ ability to work with state or state-regulated entities. The list of suffocating professional restrictions only grew over the next few years, extending to the media, the military, education, business ownership and beyond. Advertisement: Of course, removing one person from a job to replace them with another doesn’t reduce the number of people out of work. So to accomplish their goal of reducing the unemployment rate, the Nazis redefined who counted as “German” and who qualified as “unemployed.” Under the new laws, a non-Jewish German man without a job could be officially counted as “unemployed” (women were also legislated out of the job market). After 1933, he could increasingly count on the Nazis to help find him a job — often ba

Source: Trump praised Hitler’s “economic miracle” — and that’s even worse than it sounds | Salon.com

Trump

Revealed: Secret Donors to Hub of Election Fraud Conspiracies

First-time voter Baylee Fidler, 19, waits in the doorway for a voting booth as Tom Davis, background, completes his ballot at the Boot City Opry near Terre Haute, Ind., on Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2020.

Like the larger group, the Bradley Impact Fund has given money to groups that promote election fraud conspiracies and sought to overturn President Donald Trump’s 2020 election defeat. Bradley Impact’s donors, which were ostensibly cloaked in anonymity by the nonprofit’s structure, are being revealed here for the first time.

Source: Revealed: Secret Donors to Hub of Election Fraud Conspiracies

Pandemic

Crowd cheers Republican conspiracist over low vaccination rates as state dumps 65,000 doses

COVID conspiracy theorist Marjorie Taylor Greene speaks at a Republican rally in Georgia.

“This is the hardest one for me, that it does appear there’s a partisan connection,” Lee told WAMU. Nearly 60 per cent of Republicans say they are unwilling to get vaccinated, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll of 1517 US adults released last month. Meanwhile, Republican leaders, including Greene, have opposed vaccine requirements, arguing in favour of individual choices. “The messaging here in the United States has been consistently around how it’s a personal decision to get vaccinated, but pandemics by their definition are collective problems,” Lee said. “We have to think more about our actions protecting our loved ones and our communities.”

Source: Crowd cheers Republican conspiracist over low vaccination rates as state dumps 65,000 doses

Jewishness

Israeli Olympic Gold Medalist Isn’t “Jewish Enough” to Marry in Israel

Go figure Hitler defined me a Jew fit enough to be gassed, The Rabbinate says I’m not I’m just a bastard child of an unrecognized marriage. My mother is on the Wall of the Righteous a Goy, to some and a  ‘Shiksa’ to others. She saved the lives of Jews but Israel has turned it back. My father was a Jew.

If someone’s dad is/was Jewish but the mother isn’t, that’s good enough for me if they want to be a member of the tribe. If someone has a personal epiphany or thoughtful study that leads to this decision, then OK by me.

Source: Israeli Olympic Gold Medalist Isn’t “Jewish Enough” to Marry in Israel

Informed Comment

A Dossier of Lies and Falsehoods • Crikey

A Dossier of Lies and Falsehoods Archives

This Crikey investigation labels the prime minister something no leader would want to be called. We don’t really want to do it. But the time has come.

‘Without truth, no democracy can stand’: why we are calling out the prime minister

Today Crikey publishes an uncomfortable but important investigation that exposes the prime minister as a systemic, consistent and unremitting public liar.

Source: A Dossier of Lies and Falsehoods • Crikey

Informed Comment

Informed Comment- Penny Wong

https://fb.watch/7eRSfZedAj/

LNP

Coalition counts on deathly silence from ‘quiet Australians’

One is reminded that American President Richard Nixon repeatedly made the claim that he was speaking for “the great silent majority” of his country. One can note that he was not a member of such a group since he was making a noise in speaking.

Source: Coalition counts on deathly silence from ‘quiet Australians’

Healthcare

How Australia Won Universal Health Care — And How Workers Saved It With a General Strike

In 1974, the Whitlam Labor government introduced Australia’s first universal health care system. Despite its flaws, Medibank was a huge step forward — and Australia’s unions organized a general strike to defend it against conservative attacks.

Source: How Australia Won Universal Health Care — And How Workers Saved It With a General Strike

COVID-19

Younger adults can get very sick and die from COVID too. Here’s what the data tell us

We learned this week of the tragic death of a 27-year-old man from Sydney who had COVID-19. This follows a 38-year-old woman who died from the virus last month. Throughout the current Delta outbreak in New South Wales, we’ve heard young people are making up a greater proportion of people in hospital compared with earlier in the pandemic. We’re seeing similar patterns overseas.

Source: Younger adults can get very sick and die from COVID too. Here’s what the data tell us

Fight against Fake News, Fighting Fake News

Old Dog Thought- Pentecostalist’s speak in tongues Morrison speaks jibberish too like Robert Di Niro in Cape Fear
CARTOON: It's Simple As ABCD

Fighting Fake News with REAL 8/8/21 A COVID Message; Morrison’s Pick, Polluting Plastics, Taylor’s Coal,

Class War

The Murder of the Middle Class Began 40 Years Ago This Week

Members of PATCO, the air traffic controllers union, hold hands and raise their arms as their deadline to return to work passes. All strikers were fired on the order of President Reagan on August 5, 1981.

Forty years ago, on August 5, 1981, President Ronald Reagan fired 11,345 striking air traffic controllers and barred them from ever working again for the federal government. By October of that year, the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization, or PATCO, the union that had called the strike, had been decertified and lay in ruins. The careers of most of the individual strikers were similarly dead: While Bill Clinton lifted Reagan’s ban on strikers in 1993, fewer than 10 percent were ever rehired by the Federal Aviation Administration.

Source: The Murder of the Middle Class Began 40 Years Ago This Week

Trump

DOJ notes revealed: Trump’s coup was longer in the making than we thought | Salon.com

Donald Trump and Jeffrey Clark (Photo illustration by Salon/Getty Images)

“Stand by and stand back” sounds more like “be prepared” for ready made plan rather than and order to disband.

“These notes reveal that a sitting president, defeated in a free and fair election, personally and repeatedly pressured Justice Department leaders to help him foment a coup in a last-ditch attempt to cling to power. And that should shock the conscience of every American, regardless of political persuasion.” But it gets worse.

Source: DOJ notes revealed: Trump’s coup was longer in the making than we thought | Salon.com

Healthcare

‘This Ain’t Right!’: Top US Insurers Made $11 Billion in 2nd Quarter | Common Dreams News

Public health workers, doctors, and nurses protest over lack of sick pay and personal protective equipment outside a hospital in the Bronx on April 17, 2020. (Photo: Giles Clarke via Getty Images)

The LNP in Australia & Greg Hunt MP see the American model of healthcare the best model for Australia. Americans certainly don see it as such.

Five of the most profitable health insurance companies in the U.S. brought in over $11 billion in profits in the second quarter of 2021, it was reported on Friday—an outrageous amount of money, especially during a pandemic, that progressives said provides further evidence of the need for Medicare for All. Between April and June of this year, UnitedHealth Group, Aetna, Anthem, Cigna, and Humana reported profits of $4.37 billion, $2.78 billion, $1.8 billion, $1.47 billion, and $588 million, respectively. Health insurance companies’ second quarter earnings contrast sharply with the hardships faced by many Americans.

Source: ‘This Ain’t Right!’: Top US Insurers Made $11 Billion in 2nd Quarter | Common Dreams News

Informed Comment

Guns, Desperate Migrants, and Dangerous Drugs | The Smirking Chimp

When the biggest illegal gun runners are their manufacturers and they don’t smuggle them over or through fences

Even as Republican members of Congress accuse Joe Biden of failing to secure the nation’s southern border, Mexico is facing a growing problem of securing its northern border. Guns from America are pouring into Mexico, arming violent drug gangs. Mexico has tried just about everything to stop the flow of firearms from the north – passing strict gun control laws, imposing stiff penalties on traffickers, and pleading with U.S. authorities to stop the trafficking – but nothing has worked. So now it’s doing what any litigious American would do: it’s suing.

Source: Guns, Desperate Migrants, and Dangerous Drugs | The Smirking Chimp

History, Union History

Frank Sinatra vs. Australia’s Trade Unions

Touring Australia in 1974, Frank Sinatra launched into a sexist tirade against female journalists. Trade unions hit back — by shutting down Sinatra’s tour.

Source: Frank Sinatra vs. Australia’s Trade Unions

LNP, LNP Government

Barnaby Joyce wasn’t drunk, that was just an Oscar-worthy performance

You’ve got to hand it to the Deputy PM, he does a pretty good WC Fields with practically no theatrical training. Sure, parliament is theatre, but a NIDA admission would elude most of them. Talentless. Barnaby Joyce, on the other hand, makes it look easy, especially when he is channelling a movie star whose schtick is playing a drunk. Probably due to cultural cringe, the Australian media largely ignored Barnaby’s bravura performance in last Wednesday’s Question Time and left it to the UK’s Daily Mail to write a glowing revue:

Source: Barnaby Joyce wasn’t drunk, that was just an Oscar-worthy performance

COVID-19

Doctors, chemists, hubs to deliver 2 million jabs a week when supply arrives

COVID-19 vaccine rollout chief Lieutenant-General John Frewen with federal Health Minister Greg Hunt.

While these rates represent a significant improvement, Australia still lags behind the two dose vaccination rate of most OECD countries at a time when Sydney’s outbreak is worsening and both south east Queensland and Victoria are in lockdown because of community cases.

Source: Doctors, chemists, hubs to deliver 2 million jabs a week when supply arrives

Murdoch Media

After ‘Dictator Dan’, Tele goes all warm and fuzzy for Gladys’s lockdown in Sydney | Amanda Meade | The Guardian

The Daily Telegraph Page 1 and 2. 5th July 2021.

The Murdoch tabloid is all for solidarity in NSW. Plus: Andrew Bolt on a ‘lie spread around the world’

Source: After ‘Dictator Dan’, Tele goes all warm and fuzzy for Gladys’s lockdown in Sydney | Amanda Meade | The Guardian

Fight against Fake News, Fighting Fake News

Old Dog Thought- The radical christian minority our now the government and any notion of a democratic secular state is shrinking fast.
The Daily Telegraph Page 1 and 2. 5th July 2021.

Fighting Fake News with REAL; 7/8/21; Ring of Steel; Racism; Murdoch Media;

COVID-19

Nation at risk without ‘ring of steel’ around Sydney, epidemiologists warn

New South Wales “urgently” needs to implement a “ring of steel” around Sydney to stop the Delta variant spreading across the country, epidemiologists have warned. So far, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian and Prime Minister Scott Morrison have both rejected calls to ring-fence Sydney.

Source: Nation at risk without ‘ring of steel’ around Sydney, epidemiologists warn

Health & life, Healthcare, Public Health

US ranks last in healthcare among 11 wealthiest countries despite spending most | US healthcare | The Guardian

The other countries analyzed in the report were Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK.

Greg Hunt Australian Health Minister so admires the American Medical System he believes we should adopt it here. The latest report however thinks otherwise.

The US is last on a ranking of healthcare systems among 11 of the wealthiest countries in the world, despite spending the highest percentage of its GDP on healthcare, according to a new report from the Commonwealth Fund.

Source: US ranks last in healthcare among 11 wealthiest countries despite spending most | US healthcare | The Guardian

Climate Change

‘Unimaginably Catastrophic’: Researchers Fear Gulf Stream System Could Collapse | Common Dreams News

Gulf Stream

“The likelihood of this extremely high-impact event happening increases with every gram of CO2 that we put into the atmosphere.”

Source: ‘Unimaginably Catastrophic’: Researchers Fear Gulf Stream System Could Collapse | Common Dreams News

Electricity

What electric vehicle manufacturers can learn from China – their biggest market

Buy, lease or share EVs?

Source: What electric vehicle manufacturers can learn from China – their biggest market

Transparancy

Nowhere to hide: the significance of national cabinet not being a cabinet

When is a cabinet not a cabinet? When it is really an intergovernmental body that is pretending to be a cabinet so it can avoid transparency? Simply calling itself a “cabinet” is not enough to trigger an exemption in freedom of information legislation.

Source: Nowhere to hide: the significance of national cabinet not being a cabinet

COVID-19

Australia’s vaccination plan is 6 months too late and a masterclass in jargon

But, as the plan admits, there is no exhaustive detail for any of these initiatives, and in particular for how to reach the vaccination target. And any substance competes with jargon and sloganeering.

Source: Australia’s vaccination plan is 6 months too late and a masterclass in jargon

Murdoch Media

Sky News Australia to face Senate inquiry after week-long YouTube suspension | Kevin Rudd | The Guardian

News Corp Australia journalist Sharri Markson on Fox News attacking YouTube’s suspension of Sky News Australia. Sky News Australia is to face a Senate inquiry as Kevin Rudd calls for media watchdog to take tougher line on broadcaster.

Tucker Carlson and Sharri Markson on Fox News Sharri Markson says YouTube suspension of Sky News Australia is ‘cancellation of free speech’  Markson and Carlson are both paid Murdochians. Well paid, millionaires in fact but nevertheless still simply workers working for the billionaire and claiming they’re “fair and balanced” (ODT)

Rudd told Acma that claims broadcast on Sky included: “Covid-19 is not a pandemic; the vaccinated are more likely to die than the unvaccinated; hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin are proven, safe treatments for Covid-19; the medical profession are concealing these treatments from the public for political purposes and face masks do not inhibit the spread of Covid-19.” “While it is unrealistic to believe that we can ever stamp out misinformation, especially in the age of social media, it is especially alarming that so much of this content has been crafted and distributed by the country’s largest media company, News Corporation, principally through Murdoch’s Sky News,” Rudd wrote.“Freedom of expression is essential to the functioning of our democracy, but Australians expect that opinions will have a reasonable basis in fact.” The Guardian has approached Sky News Australia for comment. Hanson-Young said she wanted to ask the media watchdog why the spread of misinformation wasn’t allowed on the internet but appeared to be OK on TV. “G

Source: Sky News Australia to face Senate inquiry after week-long YouTube suspension | Kevin Rudd | The Guardian

Media

Sanitising Censorship: The Twitter-AP-Reuters News Partnership – » The Australian Independent Media Network

The battle against misinformation can very often become a battle against information you do not particularly like or want people to access. The line on this is not always clear, though hope springs eternal that the marketplace of ideas, to use that increasingly empty expression, can sort the wheat from the chaff. Twitter’s calculating pivot towards this new information landscape shows a new strategy to anchor itself in an ecosystem already marginalising independent journalism. In doing so, it is courting the high priests who determine what counts as news and what doesn’t. Soon, a sanitised platform will simply be code for a censored one.

Source: Sanitising Censorship: The Twitter-AP-Reuters News Partnership – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Informed Comment

The Abbott years – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Leaders on the extreme right of politics seem to have the same human characteristics of nastiness, offensiveness, spite, resentment, malice, contempt and bad manners. Abbott, like others on the conservative right, seemed to fit into a slot in history. One that was utterly rejected by his colleagues who, in due course, sacked him. He was subsequently replaced by Malcolm Turnbull, who was not right-leaning enough. He, in turn, was replaced by Scott Morrison, who had planned his ascension in precise detail where he continues the work of Abbott.

Source: The Abbott years – » The Australian Independent Media Network

LNP Corruption, LNP Government, LNP Tactics

Morrison’s stench of corruption is becoming all-pervasive in Canberra

When Tudge crept out from under a rock to hold a media conference on Wednesday, Nine’s Jonathan Kearsley was waiting for him and chased him back to the ministerial wing demanding answers about his role in formulating a list of marginal seats where the car parks were to be allocated, in consultation with Scott Morrison. If the footage looked like a dodgy tradie being pursued by an A Current Affairs reporter, that was entirely appropriate, except that Tudge had rorted far more money than any tabloid TV crook ever has.

Source: Morrison’s stench of corruption is becoming all-pervasive in Canberra

Fight against Fake News, Fighting Fake News

Old Dog Thought- We’d survived GFC and had the world’s 2nd best economy when a cold shadow took over this country and has never left

Fighting Fake News with REAL 6/8/21; The shadow remains; “On the Water Matters”- Morrison; Dutton and our Allies; The West’s Wheel of Racism;

Extremists

GOP’s Civil War in Nevada Erupts into ‘Ugly Scene’ as Far-right Extremists Try ‘To Bully Their Way into a Takeover’ | The Smirking Chimp

There is a civil war brewing within the Republican Party in Nevada. According to The Las Vegas Sun, tensions began to rise when members of the Clark County Republican Party (CCRP) expressed concern about the state party’s director Michael McDonald who is accused of recruiting members of the far-right group The Proud Boys to run for public office. The move was reportedly an effort to increase the extremist presence in the state’s political party. On July 20, CCRP members held a meeting to select officers. However, that meeting was interrupted when individuals affiliated with The Proud Boys crashed it. The publication offered a clear depiction of how the scene erupted.

Source: GOP’s Civil War in Nevada Erupts into ‘Ugly Scene’ as Far-right Extremists Try ‘To Bully Their Way into a Takeover’ | The Smirking Chimp

America

1/6 Committee: Can a Pinochet-Style Chilean Dictatorship be Forestalled in the United States?

As the congressional investigation into the January 6 insurrection gets underway, we’re learning disturbing new details about Trump supporters’ violent attempt to overturn the 2020 election. As I watch, I see a chilling parallel to the rise of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. Steve Stern’s book Remembering Pinochet’s Chile opens with a couple greeting the 1973 military coup that launched Pinochet’s dictatorship by toasting the fighter jets with champagne. Decades later, they still remember Pinochet fondly. Their version of their country’s history differs starkly with its reality — and they aren’t alone. They politically opposed the leftist Allende government that Pinochet overthrew, but that alone doesn’t explain why they would cheer a regime known for torturing and murdering its political enemies. So, why did they support Pinochet? Because he provided an entirely false and easily disproved story to justify his illegal coup and the brutality that followed — and they believed it.

Source: 1/6 Committee: Can a Pinochet-Style Chilean Dictatorship be Forestalled in the United States?

UK

The UK’s Parliament Is Full of Landlords

No less than 115 UK members of parliament — 90 of them Tories — are landlords. The housing crisis won’t be solved until that changes.

Source: The UK’s Parliament Is Full of Landlords

Right Wing

Why the Right give the top jobs to the wrong people

Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s promotion this week of alleged rapist Christian Porter to the important role of acting leader of the House has left many people angry and aghast.

Source: Why the Right give the top jobs to the wrong people

Uncategorized

National cabinet thrown open to scrutiny in ruling it is not a cabinet

Secretary of the Prime Minister’s Department, Phil Gaetjens, Prime Minister Scott Morrison and then-Chief Medical Officer Professor Brendan Murphy, speak with NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian (on screen) during a National Cabinet meeting.

A federal tribunal has ordered Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s department to release secret documents about the workings of national cabinet after rejecting government claims the peak group is a committee of federal cabinet. The tribunal backed an appeal from independent senator Rex Patrick in a significant decision that opens national cabinet to public scrutiny through requests for its agendas, minutes and other documents.

Source: National cabinet thrown open to scrutiny in ruling it is not a cabinet