Barnaby’s back! To those of us who have witnessed leaders’ heads roll within the Coalition faster than their accusing fingers can point to “Labor, Labor Labor!”, it seems beyond farcical.
Author: peterimrich
Barmy himself may well say “I’m no Albert Weinstein“, confusing the iconic genius with the Hollywood sexual predator and zimmer frame test pilot, thereby both proving the point and rekindling memories of his past proclivities. He’s declared that after three years in back-bench penury he’s a changed man who does not intend to rejoin his fellow Pepé Le Pew Club members Porter, Tudge and Lamming trawling Canberra’s nightspots looking for knee tremblers behind the coat racks. His new crusade is to fuck the country not his staff.
Source: The Nationals have re-tooled – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The billionaire class isn’t just a group of people who happen to be superrich. It’s a dynastic oligarchy with a single overriding objective: controlling the government to protect its inherited wealth.
It’s true. The former so-called president wanted “his” Federal Communications Commission to find a way to sanction Saturday Night Live for their satire of his administration. What a stupid snowflake abuse of power move. If you thought it was just the tweets…
Source: Yes, He Wanted FCC To Go After SNL | Crooks and Liars
The forever wars that the US launched after 9/11 led to a surge in military suicides, a new study claims, with traumatized soldiers taking their own lives as they are repeatedly deployed in conflicts that have no public support.
Questions about the origins of Covid-19 raise concerns about the safety of U.S. biolabs.
Source: Expanding Research Complex Highlights Dangers of U.S. Biolabs
Israeli occupation forces killed the fourth Palestinian from the occupied West Bank village of Beita since May as settlers steal nearby Palestinian land. Israeli forces shot 15-year-old Ahmad Zahi Ibrahim Bani-Shamsa with a live bullet to the head on Wednesday afternoon during ongoing confrontations with villagers protesting the Israeli theft of nearby land. Bani-Shamsa and his 16-year-old friend Mahmoud had gone to a hilltop on the outskirts of the village to set some tires on fire, according to a field investigation by Defense for Children International Palestine. Israeli forces were deployed some 300 meters away. The boys approached an Israeli soldier and started chanting on a megaphone about their friend Muhammad Said Hamayel, a 16-year-old boy killed by an Israeli bullet to the chest last week. A soldier then fired a single live bullet, causing the boys to flee for cover. The boys returned to the area shortly after. The same soldier “assumed a kneeling sniping position” and fired approximately 10 bullets at the boys, DCIP said. Bani-Shamsa fell to the ground as a bullet entered one side of his head and exited the other.
Source: Israel kills teen friends one week apart | The Electronic Intifada
Burning wood for biomass energy is on the rise as an alternative to coal. But it is even more dirty than coal and is leading to alarming levels of deforestation. Elizabeth Minter, Tom Ferrier and Jane McIntyre report.
Source: “Worse than burning coal”: Hunter Energy powers on bid to burn wood – Michael West
Farmers will gain a chance to be “repaid” for helping to cut greenhouse gas emissions in a proposal from the Nationals that opens the way for a deal on climate change under new leader Barnaby Joyce. Setting out the terms for a negotiation on an ambitious new climate target, Nationals deputy leader David Littleproud warned that farmers had carried the cost of previous targets and needed compensation for stronger action.
Source: Nationals plan to pay farmers to cut emissions in deal on net zero
The online survey of 2,034 Australian news consumers finds two-thirds of respondents were unaware commercial news organisations were less profitable than 10 years ago. A small but significant proportion (14%) of respondents thought news companies were doing better than 10 years ago. A further 12% thought their profitability was roughly the same. Moreover, 41% of Australian consumers said they “don’t know” if news media are facing financial hardship.
Source: Australians are not aware news outlets are in financial trouble: new report
Hundreds of Australian farmers have called on Australia’s new Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce to make serious moves on climate change, saying the cost of doing nothing has already hit hard in their communities. Disquiet in the Nationals’ camp surrounding the Prime Minister’s softening stance on a net-zero carbon emissions target is thought to have prompted Mr Joyce’s return to the party leadership through a spill on Monday. The Nationals have flagged they are open to discussing the PM’s preference for net zero by 2050, but say they want to make sure regional Australia is kept financially comfortable in the process. In the past, Mr Joyce has taken a somewhat stiff stance against tackling climate change – in 2013, he said: “What is this insane lemming-like desire to go to renewables going to do to our economy?”
Source: Farmers demand Barnaby Joyce take action on climate change
Legal or not, moral or not, consistent with American values or not, honestly or blatantly dishonest, they’ll do whatever it takes to seize and hold power. The For The People Act will clean up a lot of this, but not the GOP’s resetting how election systems work in the states so GOP officials can simply throw out votes from precincts or areas they simply “believe” (but cannot demonstrate or prove) have “fraud” (also known as “Black voters”). That’s going to require additional federal legislation.
Source: How Far Will the GOP Go To Steal the 2022 Election? | The Smirking Chimp
From spinning conspiracy theories as “forbidden knowledge” to painting the insurrectionists as martyrs instead of villains, the right has clearly settled on a playing-the-victim strategy in order to rewrite the history of January 6.
Source: The mythologizing of Jan. 6: From Fox News’ whining to Ashli Babbitt’s “martyrdom” | Salon.com
This is Trumpland
Leaflets convinced many Somali militants to switch sides, but America is less interested in hearing from people hurt by its drones.
Source: Why Hasn’t the U.S. Used Leaflets to Find Somali Airstrike Victims?
The greatest danger we face today is not coming from China. It is our drift toward proto-fascism. We must be careful not to demonize China so much that we encourage a new paranoia that further distorts our priorities, encourages nativism and xenophobia, and leads to larger military outlays rather than public investments in education, infrastructure, and basic research on which America’s future prosperity and security critically depend. The central question for America—an ever more diverse America, whose economy and culture are rapidly fusing with the economies and cultures of the rest of the globe—is whether it is possible to rediscover our identity and our mutual responsibility without creating another enemy.
Source: Our Biggest Enemy Isn’t China. It’s Right Here at Home. | The Smirking Chimp
“In our Chinese international student circle, we often joke about the internet in Australia — we say it’s ‘turtle’ speed.”
Koonin frames his book as a brave attempt to reveal how the climate science we’ve been relying on all these years is, in fact, uncertain. But the book’s major flaw is to imply these uncertainties are news to climate scientists. This is patently untrue. Science is never settled. But there is enough confidence in the science to justify significant climate action.
New extreme-right Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett came out on Sunday to argue that the election of an extreme-right Iranian cleric (Ebrahim Raisi) as president of that country should cause the Biden administration to back off reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Bennett called Raisi the “hangman of Tehran” and said, “of all the people that (Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali) Khamenei could have chosen, he chose the hangman of Tehran, the man infamous among Iranians and across the world for leading the death committees that executed thousands of innocent Iranian citizens throughout the years.”
Who’s Mining the Store Barnaby is
There are real fears in the Morrison government that junior Coalition party – the Nationals – will derail its carefully laid re-election plans.
Source: Barnaby Joyce restoration spells trouble for Scott Morrison
On 19 June 2021, rallies were held around the country in support of the Biloela family. Below is the speech IA columnist Dr Abul Rizvi gave at a Canberra rally.
Source: The Morrison Government’s three big furphies on the Biloela family
In my previous post I mentioned that I would post a list of Coalition misdemeanours over their term in office. There are many, which to most of us would come as no surprise as to the depths of the Coalition’s dirty dealings and the realisation of how rotten these two parties are.
Source: Coalition misdemeanours: the list is long – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Barnaby Joyce proves that a long history of questionable conduct, pork barrelling, and obtuse dealings with nonexisting water is no obstacle to National Party leadership. Here are “six of the best” from our QED database – living, walking proof of the need for a Federal ICAC now. $5300 for Barnaby Joyce’s three NRL games
Source: Barnaby Joyce is back – questions about his conduct remain! – Michael West
We should let science and evidence prevail while recognizing what my reporting suggested back in 2013: that science, like any other discipline, is shaped by competing interests. Lipsitch, the Harvard epidemiologist, underlined that point in a Brookings Institution event with Chan earlier this month.“I’ve come to the view that we shouldn’t trust scientists more or less than we trust other people,” Lipsitch said at the event. “We should trust science. And when scientists speak science, we should trust them, because we should recognize that they are speaking in a way that is based on evidence. When scientists express political views or policy preferences or even claims about how the world is that are not citing evidence, we should not give those scientists undue deference.”In those moments, he continued, scientists are not being scientific. “They are people. We are people.”
Source: The Lab-Leak Theory Has Only Sharpened Ethical Questions Around Virology
There are more secrets among the Vaccine manufacturers secrets protected in law than there is suggested in Wu Han. These secrets also kill. Why did Scott Morrison choose AstraZeneca? Was he pushed or did he jump? What were his priorities at the time? He certainly wasn’t telling the Australian public the truth but only making political announcements to lessen the damage already done.
The Indian government’s free-market approach to vaccine distribution has privileged profit over lives.
Source: India’s Vaccine Makers Are Profiteers, Not Humanitarians
After claiming “official” discussions with Pfizer had only started in December, Health Minister Greg Hunt has finally confirmed that the government met with Pfizer last July to discuss purchasing the Pfizer vaccine. Sources say Australia was given options for as many doses as needed to be delivered in January this year, yet government officials turned down the offer Callum Foote reports.
Source: Government’s “appalling” error, rejects offer of 40 million Pfizer doses in July 2020 – Michael West
If our kids are caught out lying, there is most certainly a discussion on why the behaviour is unacceptable. If someone in a court of law is caught out lying, it is actually a crime called perjury. If you lie on an insurance claim or in an application for finance and it is found out, the company will void the contract. That Morrison seems to believe lying and deceit are acceptable is concerning enough – more concerning is that those with the ability to produce and promote the evidence that he is doing it have apparently chosen not to.What do you think?
Source: Pants on fire – » The Australian Independent Media Network
It has emerged that Mr Morrison – who sparked outrage on social media last week for visits to several Cornish pubs while in Britain – also ducked off to explore his convict roots. The extracurricular journeys all came despite the PM repeatedly publicly arguing that Britain remains too risky a destination for Australian travellers. Last Sunday’s trip to a village about 45 minutes away from the G7 summit in Carbis Bay was never disclosed to the media, despite being on Mr Morrison’s agenda for a fortnight
Source: Morrison defends secret G7 side trip to delve into family history
Yes his trip was little more than a photo shoot. Well, “that’s his job”!
Scott Morrison has fobbed off continued criticism of his secret family tour of Britain, describing it as “pretty innocent” – despite publicly deeming the United Kingdom too risky for everyday Australians to visit.
Source: Expat anger as Scott Morrison defends secret UK family tour
The problem is that Critical Thinking is Democratic, slow, complex, reasoned, and solutions delivered from the bottom up. Neoliberalism is fast, simple, and laid on a foundation of division, fear, doubt, and simple solutions that only need to be promised not delivered from the top down. The best way to counter a sociopath isn’t another sociopath
The long-term solution – unlikely while vested interests find sociopaths useful – is to educate people to look beneath the surface. Most progressivists have intuitively practiced this all their lives. Educate everyone, particularly young people, to think critically, question everything they hear, and collect and weigh any evidence before accepting its veracity. Educate to raise intelligence, which steadily increased throughout the 20th Century… until neoliberalism dumbed us down, kept us anxious, and sold us stuff for (temporary) relief; repeat. While narcissistic sociopathy cannot be shifted, laboratory experiments suggest that conservative, fear-driven attitudes might be. So the answer is to educate to shift them early. And the best way to expose the Trumps and Qs of the world, researchers say, is to publicly counter their spin and find genuine leaders to support. It’s hard to argue with that. Where are they?
Source: Sociopaths and why we elect them
So what does it mean that the most influential voice in Republican politics trafficks in white nationalism, conspiracy theories, and outright falsehoods while at the same time wielding the power to shape public and legislative opinion? The GOP now largely has to deal with issues on Fox’s terms, and Carlson’s bad-faith hysterics over critical race theory, transgender people, the coronavirus pandemic, Black Lives Matter, anti-fascism, immigration, and myriad other issues have created a climate in which legislative priorities do not match the tangible needs of the American people. Instead, conservative politics has been consumed by a feverish race to the far-right on issues that appear in Fox News’ prime time — with Tucker Carlson setting the agenda and enforcing the new party orthodoxy.
They’re going to keep this up. They’ve kept up the fiction of the Lost Cause of the South’s defeat in the Civil War for more than 150 years, so why shouldn’t they keep pushing the Lost Cause of Donald Trump’s defeat in the election of 2020? The South has been enslaved by the lies they have told about the Civil War. Look at John Bell Hood! They even managed to get a United States Army base named after the man who lost more Confederate soldiers on a single day than anyone during the entire war! Why give up now? Next thing you know, they’ll be pushing to erect monuments to General Michael “Let’s have a coup!” Flynn! If they can celebrate the criminally incompetent Hood, why not the criminally pardoned Flynn? Why not rename the FBI building after Rudy “Hunter Biden! Burisma!” Giuliani? Or re-name the building housing the Department of Justice after William “What Mueller report?” Barr? Or erect a grand statue of Mitch “I forgot where I was on January 6” McConnell? Or name a federal courthouse after Sidney “I lost every election lawsuit I filed” Powell?
When Fran Bailey moved from Brisbane to Melbourne in 1970, one big cultural difference stood out between the two cities. “I was constantly amazed at how often I was asked what school I went to,” says the former Liberal MP and Howard-era minister. “You would be invited to someone’s house for dinner and you would meet people and they would invariably ask.”
Source: Bags of money and the old school tie: Private schools and their impact on Melbourne
This argument began well after Abbott was deemed the “Pivot of the Pacific” by America and really did absolutely nothing focusing on Russia and the EU. So what came first? When all is said and done Trump did and China responded. prior to Trump, the world greeted China in a much more positive light. Australia was an easy target given it saw itself as a predominantly White Western Christian country under Morrison. Now everyone is turning to Japan to do the job Morrison couldn’t do.
In order to safeguard regional economies and security infrastructure, it is essential for governments to take a firm stance against China much like what Japan, Australia, India and the U.S. have done. As Chinese aggression threatens to undermine democratic markets, it is imperative that Asian nations follow Japan’s footsteps and take action before it is too late.
Source: Asia must follow Japan in fighting against Chinese regional aggression
The criminals behind the Timor-Leste operation remain at large. The wrong man was convicted. Senator for South Australia Rex Patrick released a sombre statement claiming to be “ashamed to be an Australian.” Collaery, for his part, has refused to plead guilty. His fate, largely being determined behind closed doors, is likely to be a harsher one.
Source: The Conviction and Sentencing of Witness K – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Albo has all the characteristics of a politician who has given long service to his electorate, party, and country. He has held several portfolios and has served as deputy Prime Minister. However, his main attribute is that he has a clean slate without scandals: Nothing on which Morrison (or the media) can pin a controversy. In other words, he is more trustworthy than Morrison. And that, of course, also applies when words like decency, transparency, lying, honesty, morality and fairness are used to describe a political candidate.
Source: Who do you trust? – » The Australian Independent Media Network
This is Australia
Racial profiling for many is part of their daily life, say Australians of African background, particularly for young men. Media reports highlighting young offenders of African appearance has impacted many young peoples’ ability to be in public spaces with the ease that most Australians would not think to question. Joseph Wan, 25, was born to an Ethiopian mother and Sudanese father in a Kenyan refugee camp and moved with his family to Melbourne in 2004. He is about to graduate with a nursing degree and has been offered graduate nursing jobs. Mr Wan is also pursuing a career in acting has appeared in TV shows such as Neighbours and Mad As Hell. Despite these successes, it’s the daily activities of shopping or taking public transport that make him unsure about his prospects in this country. “I avoid going to the shops a lot because of the general aspect of being profiled,” he said, recalling how security guards single him out.
Source: African-Australian youths tell of prejudice and stereotyping
Anyone who argues the Trump Republican rioters were mere tourists, were sekrit FBI agents, or Antifa in disguise, are lying. It’s clear what the Republican Party is defending in this video: rabid white nationalists using violence in an attempt to overthrow democracy.
Source: New Body Cam Footage From Jan 6 Shows A Lack Of ‘Tourists’ | Crooks and Liars
Legislation “purporting to outlaw” the teaching of critical race theory has passed in Idaho, Iowa, Oklahoma and Tennessee.
Source: Opinion | Politically Correct Racism | Robert C. Koehler
As noted, in 2018, Trump breached the agreement and put Iran under a financial and economic blockade of unprecedented severity. As he intended, these moves crashed the Iranian economy and created public unrest. The US strangulation of the Iranian economy did not accomplish what Trump was aiming for. It did not cause the government to collapse. It did not make Ayatollah Ali Khamenei come begging to Trump for a photo op and a new treaty. It did make people in Iran angry, so that there were some vigorous and sometimes even violent price protests, but those did not turn into politics. Random people in various cities torching gasoline stations doesn’t affect the political scene unless they organize around their grievance and engage in party politics. They didn’t.
Source: If Hard Liner Raisi wins Iran’s Presidential Election, he has Trump to Thank
Is it any wonder Palestinians are reluctant to get vaccinated?
The Palestinian Authority (PA) has cancelled a deal to receive soon-to-expire COVID-19 vaccines from Israel, just hours after the deal was announced on Friday. The initial Israeli shipment showed an expiration date sooner than had been agreed, the PA health minister said. Israel and the PA announced a vaccine swap deal earlier on Friday that would have resulted in Israel sending up to 1.4 million Pfizer-BioNTech doses to the PA in exchange for receiving a reciprocal number of doses from the PA later this year. The doses were due to “expire soon,” Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s office said in a statement announcing the deal. The PA said they had been “approved in order to speed up the vaccination process” in the occupied West Bank and Gaza. “They told us the expiration date was in July or August, which would allow lots of time for use,” PA Health Minister Mai Alkaila told reporters later on Friday. “But (the expiration) turned out to be in June. That’s not enough time to use them, so we rejected them,” she said.
Source: Palestinian Authority rejects Israel offer of soon-to-expire vaccines
Never run after a bus, a lover or a conspiracy theory — there’ll be another one along soon. When a new conspiracy, say QAnon, comes along, don’t bother asking why. In the touted sapientia (wisdom) of Homo sapiens, it’s just a thing we do. So instead of asking why, ask who’s running it and to what end. That’s my enquiry here.
Having given nods of approval for encryption as “an existential anchor of trust in the digital world”, the ministers took aim at the various platforms using it. On this occasion, it was the “challenges to public safety” posed by the use of encryption technology, “including to highly vulnerable members of our societies like sexually exploited children.” (The battle against solid encryption is often waged over the bodies and minds of abused children.) Industry was urged “to address our concerns where encryption is applied in a way that wholly precludes any legal access.” This would involve companies having to police illegal content and permit “law enforcement to access content in a readable and usable format where an authorisation is lawfully issued, is necessary and proportionate, and is subject to strong safeguards and oversight.” Cases like Anom demonstrate that there is seemingly no need for such intrusions, bells of alarm, and warnings about safety. The police have sufficient powers and means, and more besides. As with such matters, the danger tends to be closer to home: police zeal; prosecutor’s glee; a hatred of privacy. Joseph Lorenzo Hall, senior vice president at the non-p
Source: Wither Encryption: What Operation Trojan Shield Reveals – » The Australian Independent Media Network
In Ray Bradbury’s 1953 book Farenheit 451, Captain Beatty states that, ‘A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it, take the shot from the weapon. Breach one man’s mind. Who knows what might be the target of the well-read man’. In this dystopian novel, Beatty is justifying the burning of books. While Farenheit is a novel, there is a long history of book burning going back centuries. The burning of books is intended to control knowledge, to prevent free thinking, to make sure everyone thinks the same and an affront to liberalism. Book burning is a political issue, and similarly, the 21st century equivalent is Internet Censorship, which, in a political context, has became a hot topic since the propagation of mistruths became so visible during the Trump Presidency.
On August 23 1966, Vincent Lingiari and his fellow Aboriginal stock workers walked off the Wave Hill cattle station in the Northern Territory. Their action, in pursuit of fair working conditions, wages and land, was supported by unions across the country, and lasted nine years – the longest in Australian history.
Source: Stolen wages: Northern Territory class action will hold the Commonwealth to account
A few weeks ago, various Australian MPs were expressing their outrage at China for holding secret trials. I understood their concern. Secret trials are something that should be reserved for the enemies of capitalism and not something that those lefty Chinese should be engaging in.
Dutton wants access to encryption and the weakening of privacy to catch criminals operating on the web. In the same breathe Morrison is bragging that he was a big player in the encryption sting that netted 800 crims worldwide. Proof enough that Dutton is asking for overreach and something he doesn’t really need the weakening of our privacy. Proof further, that this LNP government is our Dark Net.
Source: What About The Other Secret Trial? – » The Australian Independent Media Network
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