Bruce Pascoe’s Dark Emu will continue to be granted recognition, if not immortality. But Sutton and Walshe’s Dark Emu Debate will undoubtedly be acclaimed. As a critique of Pascoe’s book, it’s just about perfect — a volume with the twin virtues of rigour and readability.
Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s record 12 years in office has come to an end, as the country’s parliament narrowly approved a new coalition government. Naftali Bennett, the head of a small ultra-nationalist party, was sworn in as prime minister on Monday (Australian time) after 60-59 vote in parliament. Mr Netanyahu immediately declared to stay on to fight the new government, and then took to Twitter to tell supporters “do not let your spirit fall. We’ll be back – and faster than you think”.
Source: Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu out after 12 years in office
Trump’s life after the White House doesn’t resemble that of a typical ex-president so much as a foreign monarch cast into exile—like Napoleon at Elba, but with golf and a bigger buffet.
Source: Attention-Craving Egomaniac Crashes Memorial Services At Mar-a-Lago | Crooks and Liars
Reporting on Friday revealed that Facebook knowingly allowed a digital marketing firm tied to a pro-Trump group to release a series of ads purporting to be from a fake left-wing organization ahead of the 2018 midterm elections, while election officials failed to investigate the group at the time. As The Guardian reported, a right-wing marketing firm called Rally Forge ran a $5,000 ad campaign beginning just days before the 2018 election, showing ads promoting Green Party candidates in an effort to split the Democratic vote and help Republicans in several close races. The ads were purported to be placed by a group called America Progress Now and expressed support for democratic socialism.
Source: Facebook allowed pro-Trump group to pose as leftists in attempt to split Democratic vote | Salon.com
It may well be the case but in “reality” it still exists and need to be called out and eradicated
The idea of “race” still matters in sociology only because racist oppression still exists. But, since the mapping of the human genome, biologically, the term is irrelevant, writes Dr A L Jones.
Netanyahu sent people from his circle to talk to people in the circle of Benny Gantz, leader of the center-right Blue and White Party, offering to resign “today” as prime minister in favor of Gantz if only the latter would defect from the Change coalition and join his far right likud-led government.
Former Australian PM Kevin Rudd has come up with a plan for Labor that he calls the “Fourth Way.” But on closer inspection, Rudd’s would-be alternative is a rehash of the timid, conservative approach to politics that has kept Labor out of power for a decade.
Source: Kevin Rudd’s “Fourth Way” Proves the Australian Labor Party Is Out of Ideas
The Minerals Council of Australia, a foreign-controlled mining lobby, has duped Australia’s major media in an $80bn PR scam by falsely claiming more than $72 billion of GST payments to exaggerate the contribution of the minerals industry to Australia. Callum Foote reports.
The sooner the news media act as watchdogs to maintain society’s fragile-grip on reality, rather than undermining it, the better. It is up to journalists if they want to use their power to be part of the problem of disinformation, or help solve it.
As we seem to have entered a phase where the level of spin in the country is so great that Shane Warne would have struggled to get a game in Prime Minister’s Eleven, I’ve started wondering how the various politicians in the Morrison government had been born in previous times.
Source: If The Morrison Government Had Been Historical Figures… – » The Australian Independent Media Network
There are a lot of totally gormless, Murdoch-manipulated, ill-informed intellectual midgets out there who keep voting for the worst, most callously inhumane, ineffective and corrupt regime – the LNP – over and over again! Tragically, it is these unspeakably stupid fools who believe everything they inhale from the twisted, totally biased, lying Murdoch press who keep propping up cruel, totally inept, misogynistic, self-serving, smug and elitist politicians – like Abbott and the current totally inept, smirking dullard, Morrison, who has a long, notorious history of taking credit for the hard work, blood, sweat, toil and good ideas and achievements of other people! Sadly, it is likely to happen again until gormless LNP voters attempt to learn more and research the backgrounds of the notorious types of ruthless psychopaths they put into power. In my experience there are three sorts of people who vote for the LNP:
Source: Scott Morrison: Who’s he trying to impress? – » The Australian Independent Media Network
I’m struggling to explain why a Fox News host would say to the American people, “they’re trying to take down the white culture!” But first, let me back up.
“Behind every great fortune lies a great crime.” Apparently, there are multiple great crimes behind the Trump fortune, stretching all the way back to his stealing most of his initial wealth from other members of his family, as his niece Mary Trump is alleging in a lawsuit.
Source: Opinion | Donald Trump Must Be Prosecuted for His Crimes | Thom Hartmann
“If he is not held accountable, Ali, if we don’t prosecute him then what we are doing is we are encouraging tomorrow’s version of Donald Trump,” he warned. “We have to prosecute today’s version of Donald Trump to send the message that we will not tolerate a run away criminal president.” Watch:
ProPublica’s bombshell report on America’s super-wealthy paying little or nothing in taxes reveals not only their humongous wealth but also how they’ve parlayed that wealth into political power to shrink their taxes to almost nothing. Jeff Bezos, the richest man in America, reportedly paid no federal income taxes in 2007 and 2011. Elon Musk, the second richest, paid no taxes in 2018. Warren Buffett, often ranking number 3, paid a tax rate of 0.1 percent between 2014 and 2018. The real scandal is it’s legal.
Yet again, both Republican and Democratic party leaders are attacking Rep. Ilhan Omar for telling the truth about American and Israeli war crimes. And yet again, Omar has nothing to apologize for.
On Monday, Omar posted on Twitter her exchange with Secretary of State Antony Blinken. There she raised what should be a fairly tame question: What mechanisms exist to investigate war crimes and crimes against humanity in Palestine and Afghanistan?
The United States government opposes the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) jurisdiction to hear alleged cases of human rights abuses by both Israel and Hamas, the United States and the Taliban. If domestic courts won’t investigate war crimes, and if the United States opposes the ICC’s ability to do so, where can victims of war crimes go for justice?
Israeli forces invaded the headquarters in Ramallah of the Palestinian Health Worker Committees. They stole the computers and memory drives in the office and banned the organization for six months. The HWC has been a key actor in the Palestinian response to the coronavirus pandemic, which is still ongoing in the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza. Its workers have helped get the word out about the dangers of the virus, have told the public how to avoid it through social distancing and masking, and the HWC hospitals and clinics have treated victims, even sending out mobile clinics to remote communities. Despite being the Occupying power with responsibilities for the health of the occupied population, Israel has refused to vaccinate the Palestinian population, and its attacks on the Palestinian economy have left the Palestine Authority, which only has influence in 40 percent of the West Bank, unable to afford expensive Western vaccines. Only about 6.5 percent of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza have had at least one shot, whereas over 80 percent of Israelis are vaccinated.
Nearly half of students at public schools are considered disadvantaged – either living remotely, with a disability, having an Indigenous background or from a low socio-economic background – compared to just 20 per cent at private schools, yet private schools receive far more government funding. Trevor Cobbold reports.
Source: Governments back privileged in education, public schools bear burden – Michael West
My thought for the day The right to vote is the gift that democracy gives. Suppose a political party is not transparent in supplying all the information necessary to exercise this right. It is destroying the democracy that enables it to exist. ( John Lord )
We could provide you with dozens of individual examples of ministers from Tudge to Pitt, Fletcher and Tehan all lying openly in parliament and misleading parliament about the Cashless Debit Card (CDC) but we won’t. Instead, we will focus on what happened during the last CDC “bill process” in the Senate in December 2020 as it’s fresh in everyone’s minds and offers perhaps the clearest insight into just how little trust anyone can place in this policy, and in those who are promoting it.
What the Fuck? To pull this family out of the miserable bog our government has dropped them in, we need no “courage,” no “ifs” no “buts” and no Old Testament-type laws to hide behind. No “thou shalt nots!” It is simply evil to do the inhumane thing, the barbaric thing, the thing that is done in the darkest heart of a jungle. It is a quintessential part-and-parcel of being human. –– ADVERTISEMENT –– It’s what humans do.
Source: This word “courage” – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The super-rich have bought armies of lobbyists to keep their taxes minuscule and to create tax loopholes large enough to drive their Lamborghinis through
If we could just avoid getting tangled up in our own rope, if we could remember the struggle that was going on for so long before we got here, if we could cut the crap and speak as plainly as AOC does, we could yet overcome.
Source: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: You Gotta Love Her | The Smirking Chimp
Al-Watan reports that the Israeli-controlled Jerusalem municipality on Tuesday issued a letter to 13 families in Silwan near the Old City of Jerusalem giving them 21 days to get their families and possession out of their homes, after which the homes would be demolished. The homes were built on land owned by the Palestinian residents, but Israel had refused to issue them building permits, so from the point of view of Israeli officials, the buildings were erected illegally. This is typical of the mind games the Israeli government plays with the 370,000 Palestinian residents of Jerusalem (pop. 900,000). Actually it is Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem and part of the West Bank that is illegal in international law.
Lee’s book is laden with research – podcasts, budget reports, soul-jarring statistics (to choose just one: in 2019, Australia’s four richest schools spent more on new facilities and renovations than the poorest 1,800 combined). But Who Gets to be Smart is light on listening. This book yearns for interviews, for the voices of those who are falling into the dark of education’s ever-growing equity gap: parents of children with disabilities, who have to fight for inclusive teaching; Indigenous students who quietly learn to dream smaller; the vast army of casual adjuncts, keeping universities open but teaching for crumbs; the principals of public schools struggling to repair the toilets when the private school down the road has on-site baristas; the women who’ve dropped out of higher ed because Covid-era caring commitments have made study untenable. Seated next to a high-profile vice chancellor on a plane, Lee delights in reading his emails over his shoulder, but she never asks him a question. That feels like a metaphor, too.
This is dumb timing when Morrison heads to the G7 summit in London this weekend to discuss global security with leaders like United States president Joe Biden. At the very time he urges G7 leaders to show unity against autocracy, he exaggerates the divisions at home.
Asked a straight question about border controls and drug imports, Morrison blamed Labor for blocking three draft laws that would help the police stop transnational crime. But he was too eager to start a political fight. And he got some of his facts wrong. This has gone down badly on both sides of politics. One Labor MP calls Morrison’s remark a kind of “vandalism” against the PJCIS. “Everyone knew it was bullshit, and it was cheap,” he says. Liberals also know the Prime Minister was out of line. The Prime Minister blamed Labor for blocking transnational crime laws and got some of his facts wrong. The PJCIS does not get along easily, but it gets along.
And here we have Morrison bagging the PJCIS committee which holds a Liberal majority and with who Labour agrees with most of the time. Morrison is either dumb or he believes his media audience is. Sales men rarely think in the rush of selling a lame horse.
Source: Morrison uses international crime bust to target Labor but misfires
The trees were cut down, the profits of timber exporters have been rising strongly, yet the losses of VicForests are spiralling. What’s the scam?
Australian retail billionaire Gerry Harvey has rightly been vilified for describing COVID-19 as an opportunity for profitmaking. But Harvey was just stating the facts: the pandemic has enabled his class to get even richer off the backs of the working class.
Source: Gerry Harvey Is an Emblem of Australia’s Corrupt Economic System
At the insistence of outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli cabinet authorized the so-called “Flag Day” march of militant Israeli squatter-settlers through Palestinian East Jerusalem for next Tuesday. So reports Mahmoud Mujadala at the Arab 48 Israeli newspaper. Netanyahu denied charges that his fixation with humiliating Palestinians with this march through their neighborhood was intended to cause a social explosion and forestall the formation of a new government, which will be voted on this Sunday, and which will end his 12-year run as prime minister. However, it seems likely that he is hoping that the ensuing tensions with Palestinians and with Israelis of Palestinian heritage (20% of the population of Israel proper) will damage the incoming government.
Australians do the right thing each week by separating recyclables into colour-coded wheelie bins, yet most of it is destined for landfill. Luke Stacey investigates the secret agenda of the plastics industry: promoting recycling in order to ramp up production of virgin plastic.
Source: PET Project: petrochemical giants exploit recycling to ramp up plastics production – Michael West
Legal experts were in no doubt whatsoever that Christian Porter had given up but News Corp madly spun the line that it was a humiliating backdown by the ABC. Michael Tanner dissects the coverage of what had been billed ‘the defamation trial of the century’.
Source: Tamed Estate: Christian Porter ‘zero for three’ but News Corp claimed Porter victory – Michael West
Tensions with China resulting in economic sanctions are the result of Australia’s blind allegiance to the USA that began decades ago, writes Bruce Haigh.
Source: Australia is in denial over one-way relationship with U.S.
A $600m gas power plant promised by the Morrison government is not needed and has no prospect of generating enough revenue to justify its cost, according to a new analysis. A report by Victoria University’s energy policy centre suggested the case for the Hunter Valley plant, to be built by the publicly owned Snowy Hydro with taxpayers’ funds, failed on several grounds.
I’ll bang on about this until my last dying breath. It is the abject failure of our Fourth Estate (the mainstream media) to fulfil its democratic role and hold government to account. Worse, on top of that they run a protection racket for their favoured horse in the race; the LNP.
Source: Woeful media equals woeful government – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Reporting by the mainstream media has resulted in a propaganda machine for the Government in place of actual truth-telling, writes Dr Victoria Fielding. IN THE PAST FORTNIGHT, there has been a distinct shift in the media’s willingness to hold Scott Morrison to account for his responsibilities as Prime Minister. Journalists and commentators are asking why he has not delivered on his two key pandemic jobs — to efficiently roll out the vaccine and to deliver effective quarantine facilities.
Source: Journalists responsible for Scott Morrison’s lack of accountability
A new study shows that disparities in pulmonary health between the rich and poor have been widening for six decades, setting the stage for vastly unequal, devastating outcomes during the pandemic. The rich quite literally breathe easier than the rest of us.
I would like to share a public secret: Donald Trump and the Republican Party’s coup attempt was not defeated on Jan. 6. The war against American democracy continues — and is gaining momentum. All one has to do is take off one’s blinders to see it. Unfortunately, too many Americans, including the Democratic Party’s leadership, the professional smart people and other members of the country’s mainstream media and chattering class, have waited for months to acknowledge what has been happening in plain sight. Republicans have rejected any independent investigation into the events of Jan. 6. Why? Because they feel implicated, explicitly or otherwise, in supporting and collaborating with Trump’s coup attempt and the assault on the U.S. Capitol. By rejecting any efforts to properly investigate those events, Republicans are also giving permission and encouragement for similar acts of right-wing political violence and terrorism in the future. Instead of being cowed by President Biden’s victory and the events of Jan. 6, the Republican Party and Trump’s larger neofascist movement have only been further empowered in their campaign to end America’s multiracial democracy.
Source: Guess what? The Trump coup against American democracy never stopped | Salon.com
An Insult to Democracy trying to be delicate when Trump certainly wasn’t.
On Tuesday morning, a new Senate report revealed even more of what is increasingly obvious: The January 6 Capitol insurrection was both surprisingly predictable and yet widely ignored by the people who had the power to stop it. “The U.S. Capitol Police had specific intelligence that supporters of President Donald Trump planned to mount an armed invasion of the Capitol at least two weeks before the Jan. 6 riot,” the Washington Post reports, “but a series of omissions and miscommunications kept that information from reaching front-line officers targeted by the violence.” The report itself is incredibly bureaucratic and, being bipartisan, overly delicate with the fragile feelings of Republicans who continue to support Trump despite his overt incitement of the insurrection. But the most important and remarkable aspect of the report is how it lays out that Capitol intelligence officials downplayed the threat of violence, even though, to quote the report author Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., “The attack was, quite frankly, planned in plain sight.”
Following former President Donald Trump’s June 4 remark that the idea of becoming speaker of the House after the 2022 midterm election is “very interesting” to him, political media has been abuzz with speculation. The idea has been making rounds in right-wing spheres in various iterations since January, when it was first championed by former White House chief strategist, election conspiracy-theorist-in-chief, and enchanted pile of dirty laundry Steve Bannon.
Source: House Speaker Trump? A brief history of the idea | Media Matters for America
ProPublica has obtained a vast trove of Internal Revenue Service data on the tax returns of thousands of the nation’s wealthiest people, covering more than 15 years. The data provides an unprecedented look inside the financial lives of America’s titans, including Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch and Mark Zuckerberg. It shows not just their income and taxes, but also their investments, stock trades, gambling winnings and even the results of audits. Taken together, it demolishes the cornerstone myth of the American tax system: that everyone pays their fair share and the richest Americans pay the most. The IRS records show that the wealthiest can — perfectly legally — pay income taxes that are only a tiny fraction of the hundreds of millions, if not billions, their fortunes grow each year.
According to two witnesses, settlers shot Tubasi after they began setting fire to Palestinian-owned fields and trees in al-Rihiya. The eyewitnesses said Tubasi and other Palestinians had headed to the fields to try and put out the flames. There, settlers armed with guns, axes, and batons began chasing him, after which the witnesses heard a number of gunshots. Get Our Weekly Newsletter One of the witnesses, Tubasi’s nephew, said that he saw his uncle laying on the ground after being hit by a bullet, yet did not see any wounds on his face. The nephew then fled the scene out of fear that the settlers, who were approaching the wounded Tubasi, would come after him next. When Tubasi was evacuated to a hospital half an hour later, however, his face was bloodied by fresh and deep wounds, which were not there when he was shot. According to the testimony, Tubasi was allegedly attacked by a sharp object while incapacitated.
Source: Settlers shot Palestinian and mutilated his body as he lay dying
Email Twitter2 Facebook LinkedIn Print I’m guessing you earn less than A$200,000. And I’m guessing you think you’re missing out. People keep telling you so. On one side of politics Labor leader Anthony Albanese says anyone earning $200,000 dollars a year “can’t be described as being in the top end of town”. On the other, Prime Minister Scott Morrison parries with interviewers when asked whether people on $180,000 to $200,000 (the biggest beneficiaries of his planned 2024 Stage 3 tax cut) are “high income”. Support non-profit journalism you can trust. “They’re hardworking people working out on mines and difficult parts of the country,” he says. “They deserve a tax cut.” Hardworking or not, Australians on more than $200,000 are rare. And an awful lot of them don’t work at all. $200,000 is unusual
Source: Other Australians earn nothing like what you think. If you’re on $59,538, you’re typical
Noise pollution from drilling for oil and gas offshore devastates marine life, affecting not only food sources but oxygen levels. But neither the federal government nor NOPSEMA, which has environmental responsibility for approving offshore projects, takes such damage into account. Suzanne Arnold reports.
Source: Regulators ignore marine noise pollution from oil drilling – Michael West
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