It is not just Scott Morrison and his ministers disseminating dubious data. The head of at least one federal department is making factually questionable assertions of a political nature, writes Alan Austin.
Source: Australia’s post-COVID economic recovery lags behind comparable nations
The great advantage of having retired, is the time and opportunity it provides to see how things could be improved. The first observation relates to the ability to compare progress – or otherwise – over time. One unfortunate example is the very obvious increase in inequality. I can remember, back in the UK in the 1950s and ’60s, that the top tax rate was 90%. Should any modern government seek to raise tax rates to such a level nowadays, all hell would break loose!
Source: The damage done by inequality – » The Australian Independent Media Network
We don’t help Labour Governments as far as we are concerned they are CUBA and GAZA rolled in one
Scott Morrison has ignored calls for urgent assistance for Victorian workers affected by the latest COVID lockdown, saying the federal government has already sent billions in help and that Queensland or Western Australia didn’t need extra support during their latest restrictions. It came after an extraordinary spray unleashed by Victoria’s acting premier and treasurer, who called the Prime Minister and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg “disgraceful”. “This idea we are working hand in glove, when they have never put their hand in their pocket, is nothing short of a disgrace,” state treasurer Tim Pallas said. “It is about time the Commonwealth stop with the words, stop with the empty gestures, the rallying speeches, with nothing behind them.”
Source: Victoria lockdown: Scott Morrison ignores calls for worker, business help
By virtually any metric, the United States Senate is one of the most undemocratic legislative bodies in the advanced capitalist world. Given the geographic distribution of America’s population, the majority living in nine states wields a mere eighteen votes to the minority’s eighty-two: a balance of forces so disproportionate, most citizens of other countries would probably find it incomprehensible. In no other country could a jurisdiction the size of California (home to nearly 40 million people) possess the same legislative clout as Wyoming (home to less than 600,000). The Senate, in fact, is not so much undemocratic as it is antidemocratic — its design acting as a check on majority rule by default.
The absurdity of the Republican Party’s culture wars has reached new heights. A slew of GOP-led state legislatures are enacting new laws that ban teaching “critical race theory” an academic framework that has become the latest conservative boogeyman. Do you want to learn about racism, discrimination and privilege? Well, Republicans are trying to make it really hard to do so with a slew of bills designed to muzzle educators. In Texas, House Bill 3979 would limit how teachers talk about current events and historic racism in their classrooms. It also bans schools from teaching the 1619 Project, a New York Times endeavor which investigates US history starting with the year the first slaves were brought to what would become the United States. After some political maneuvering, the controversial bill appears to be headed to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk.
Source: Republicans Are Passing Laws to Keep Teachers From Talking About Race – Mother Jones
Germany is taking another step towards achieving a fully renewable power system by completing the first electric cable connection with Norway, heads of government and ministers from both states have said at the official launch event of NordLink. The green transformation cannot be achieved by countries on their own, chancellor Angela Merkel said. Integrating different energy sources in different countries, e.g. wind power in northern Germany with hydropower in Norway, is helping to ensure a secure power supply and stabilise energy prices, Merkel said. Energy minister Peter Altmaier said that the result is a win-win situation for both countries and consumers, as the energy transition would get cheaper the better European countries are interconnected.
Speaking with his supposed authority “as Israel’s former defense minister,” Bennett purports to “explain why innocent people are sometimes caught in the crossfire in our just war against terrorism.” “Ever hear of the Shifa hospital?” Bennett asks. “It’s the largest medical complex in Gaza. It’s also where Hamas’ headquarter is located, while they are conducting terror actions against Israel.”
Source: Former Israeli war minister confuses Pakistan for Palestine | The Electronic Intifada
Mixed Israeli cities and towns saw the worst intercommunal violence in decades — but Israeli police raids swept up almost exclusively Palestinians. Dalia Hatuqa
Source: Jewish and Palestinian Mobs Dueled in Israeli Towns — but Crackdown Came for One Side
In a world awash with psychopathic tyrants, kleptocrats, killers and loons such as Trump, Putin, Bolsinaro, Netanyahu, Erdoğan et al and their hordes of grifting toadies it is still so very easy to loathe a comparative non-entity, a vapid mediocrity and serial underachiever like Smirkin’ Scotty Morrison.
Source: A message to Quiet Australians® – » The Australian Independent Media Network
A World Health Organization report into the origins of COVID-19 found the virus likely started with bats before spreading to humans via another animal But in recent days, US intelligence officials have been investigating a previously dismissed theory the virus may have leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan Medical virologist Dominic Dwyer, who visited Wuhan with the WHO team, says no new evidence supporting the lab theory has emerged
But the filibuster, a Senate rule requiring 60 votes to advance a bill, allowed Republicans to kill the commission on Friday even though 54 senators voted to move forward and 35 senators voted in opposition. (Several senators missed the vote entirely.) This proves once and for all that the filibuster doesn’t encourage bipartisan compromise. It impedes it.
Analysis: one of America’s two major parties now falls outside the democratic mainstream but are Democrats taking the existential threat seriously?
Republicans in Arizona are hoping to overturn their state’s presidential election result, creating a template that they can apply in Georgia, Wisconsin, and beyond. Meanwhile Sen. Mitch McConnell (to no one’s surprise) is making it clear that no Democratic policy objective is going to make it past his filibuster. Does a strategy of legislative obstruction and retroactive electioneering hold any promise for the party? Activist Lauren Windsor and former Senate staffer Eli Zupnick join Ryan Grim to discuss.
Gerrymandering, voter suppression, losing Congressional control—the January 6 attack on the Capitol is just a preview of the GOP nightmare to come if Democrats don’t act now.
Source: The Republican Assault on Democracy is Worse Than You Think
There is no excuse for delay. No long, drawn out policy review is needed to recognize that there is a food crisis in Cuba due in part to U.S. policies, and that helping alleviate it is a moral obligation—an extension of the responsibility to protect. Moreover, these are actions Biden promised he would take during the presidential campaign. Every day he delays is another day that Cubans go hungry.
Source: Hunger as a Weapon: How Biden’s Inaction Is Aggravating Cuba’s Food Crisis | The Smirking Chimp
Israeli officials depict Iron Dome as a near-infallible shield against Hamas rockets. But the system’s real purpose is to sustain the illusion that Israel can rule over the Palestinians while pretending they don’t exist.
Source: The Iron Dome System Is a Monument to Israel’s Hubris
Paul Taucher and Dr Dean Aszkielowicz argue that war crimes justice does not work the way commentators generally suggest it does. AFTER THE SECOND World War, the victorious Allies prosecuted German and Japanese civilian leaders and military personnel for war crimes. The decision to hold these trials was based partly on a belief that the decades prior to the war had seen a genuine awakening among nations that some rules should apply to the conduct of wars and that efforts must be made to avoid devastating conflicts.
Source: The problem with war crimes law and what needs to be done
Joel Fitzgibbon is trying to walk both sides of the street on coal and climate. As everyone knows you can’t. This week the Labor member for the federal seat of Hunter asked whether his party had the “agility” to appeal to residents of progressive inner Sydney and Melbourne suburbs and resource-rich regions. Two-faced politics rarely succeeds, certainly not over time and on issues as serious as climate change.
Source: False prophets and snake oil will fail coal communities
An Australian breakthrough in drone technology that makes it easier to locate hidden enemy on the battlefield could also be used to target civilian protesters. The US government has already used surveillance drones to monitor Black Lives Matters protests while Israel last week reportedly used small drones to drop tear gas on Palestinian protesters. Michelle Fahy investigates.
Source: Breakthrough Aussie war drone may target civilian protestors – Michael West
An inequity stacked system
While the financial well-being of everyday Australians has been hit hard by COVID-19, it’s quite the opposite at the top end of town. “Australia’s billionaires have thrived during the pandemic year”, is how the AFR puts it. But let’s not laud this as an achievement. It’s a glaring signal the system is stacked. Through the worst economic crisis in a generation, the elite got richer while millions of Australians just hung on, or saw their slim assets evaporate.
Source: The AFR’s 2021 Rich List shows we’re not all in this together
There are several efforts ongoing to wean the Republican Party of its addiction to Trump. Perhaps a more important first step would be to reclaim the term “conservative” so that it applies in the United States to the same system of values that inspires conservative parties in Europe. Only then will the Republican Party have a chance of becoming once again a defender of the status quo rather than its chief wrecking ball.
With Senate Republicans expected to use the filibuster on Thursday to block a commission to investigate the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol instigated by former President Donald Trump, fears are mounting that his “Big Lie” about the 2020 election was just a “test run” for future GOP assaults on American democracy. “If Democrats don’t make some changes to our election laws and if they lose some races that they really need to win in 2022 and 2024, then we’re in real trouble.” —David Faris, Roosevelt University As Ryan Cooper lamented Wednesday in a column at The Week, “The truth is that the insurrection never actually stopped.”
Source: Fears Mount That GOP’s Big Lie on 2020 Just a ‘Test Run’ for What Comes Next | Common Dreams News
and
Human rights advocates and journalists applauded the Israeli newspaper Haaretz for its “unprecedented” cover story Thursday—one featuring the photos and stories of 67 Palestinian children killed in the latest bombardment campaign by the Israel Defense Forces. “This is the price of war,” the headline read. The article came a day after the New York Times published its own extensive account of the youngest victims of Israel’s most recent 11-day offensive, in which the IDF frequently targeted residential areas of Gaza, known as the world’s largest open-air prison. Haaretz’s focus on the children killed in Gaza was especially noteworthy, said author and Brooklyn College professor Louis Fishman, considering the newspaper’s “readers also send their children to fight in Israel’s wars.” “This is unprecedented,” Fishman tweeted.
Climate action advocates reiterated demands for urgent measures to rein in global heating after the World Meteorological Organization warned Thursday that there’s a 40% chance the planet will temporarily hit 1.5°C of warming in the next five years. The WMO, a United Nations agency, also said in its update that there’s a 90% chance at least one year between 2021 and 2025 will be the hottest on the books—a record currently held by 2016.
Source: World Edging ‘Inexorably’ Closer to 1.5°C Warming Threshold: WMO | Common Dreams News
The COVID-19 variant responsible for Victoria’s latest outbreak is one of three Indian variant sub-types, which spreads more easily than the original strain. Here’s what we know so far.
Victorians are waking to their fourth lockdown in 15 months, once again sparked by hotel quarantine, but the state’s chief health officer said it was “absurd” to blame a failure of contact tracing. More than 10,000 close contacts have been identified as the Melbourne cluster grew to 26 infections on Thursday, and virus detectives are racing to track everyone down. The list of exposure sites also swelled to more than 100 locations.
Source: 10,000 contacts and 100 exposure sites as Victoria lockdown begins
It’s a convenient falsehood that Victoria could have avoided a lockdown if it weren’t for the mistakes of other jurisdictions. Again we are told to believe that this was a crisis inflicted on Victoria, not inflamed or aggravated by it.
The lockdown purpose isn’t to stop the virus but its “spread”. The spread can’t be stopped without effective vaccinations and quarantine. Morrison failed on both counts and continues to do so. However, this Ch9 writer says Victoria has to share the blame. Vaccination reduced the spread in the UK from 60k a day to 2000 similar massive reductions have been seen in the US. Yet Smethhurst says Vic should “share the blame”. Morrison’s 2% vaccination success certainly doesn’t cut it yet Hunt and Morrison keep chest banging. They refuse sole responsibility for quarantine on our borders because if they make a mistake they then can’t “avoid the blame”. Politics is their priority for Morrison is the first to deny any blame and first to share the state’s success. The virus well it’s a political opportunity as long as he can seem to be doing something while doing nothing and control the narrative with Ch9’s help.
Source: Victoria lockdown: Victoria needs to accept that mistakes were made
As they enter the “circuit-breaker” lockdown, Victorians are entitled to be dismayed by the multiple failures in Australian government pandemic policies that have required the use of such blunt but necessary measures to contain this outbreak. By the end of 2020, the Australian people had done the hard work required to achieve sustained zero local transmission of Covid-19. Victorians had endured a 15-week winter lockdown that eliminated Australia’s most serious and deadly outbreak of Covid-19. Having done so well in the emergency phase of the pandemic response, Australians were entitled to expect that the federal government would rapidly implement policies on quarantine and vaccination critical to securing these magnificent achievements, and to bolster our defences against the virus.
Victoria is entering yet another lockdown, but Victorians shouldn’t be blaming contact tracers or the State Government, they should be blaming Scott Morrison for his inaction on purpose-built quarantine facilities, writes Hayden O’Connor.
Source: Scott Morrison to blame for latest Victorian lockdown
Right-wing media and Republican politicians have been railing against the teaching of critical race theory — a broad academic discipline that seeks to explore how the history of racism in America still has an effect on modern life and society — and attempting to depict this simple concept as an imminent threat to the country, and an insidious effort to “warp the minds of American children” and make them feel guilty for “being born white.”
Email Sometimes people refuse to ask a question when they know the answer will be painful. Instead, they convince themselves that not asking the question will make the underlying reality change. Donald Trump and his regime committed many criminal, evil and otherwise despicable acts in plain sight. Those include, with no attempt to be comprehensive:
Hasn’t his lawyers told him to just “shut the fuck up”. He has blocked his taxes from being revealed for years and expects special treatment.
“This is purely political, and an affront to the almost 75 million voters who supported me in the Presidential Election, and it’s being driven by highly partisan Democrat prosecutors,” Trump said in a statement. “Our Country is broken, our elections are rigged, corrupt, and stolen, our prosecutors are politicized, and I will just have to keep on fighting like I have been for the last five years!”
Source: Trump lashes out after reports of a grand jury leak | Salon.com
Journalistic integrity is helping to diminish support for Israel and encourage a global human rights movement, writes Bilal Cleland.
Source: Freedom of speech helping to fade the Israeli narrative
Journalists at the Jerusalem holy site documented police arbitrarily denying access, delivering beatings, and firing on reporters with rubber-coated bullets.
Source: Israel Police Target Palestinian Journalists at Al Aqsa Mosque
The Australian Labor Party’s fossil fuel faction claims that Labor lost the Upper Hunter by-election because it didn’t back coal enthusiastically enough. But this strategy is the road to nowhere for workers and the ALP alike. To win back its lost supporters, the ALP must back a Green New Deal.
Source: To Win Back Support From Coal Miners, Labor Must Back a Green New Deal
My thought for the day We dislike and resist change in the foolish assumption that we can make permanent anything that makes us feel secure. Yet change is, in fact, part of the very fabric of our existence.( John Lord )
Source: You are being manipulated much more than you think – » The Australian Independent Media Network
When it comes to thinking, progressives do it better than conservatives do. Progressives embrace novelty, nuance and complexity, while social conservatives struggle to process complex tasks.
The Morrison government has come under attack over “failed” quarantine arrangements and the sluggish pace of the national vaccine rollout as Victoria enters a seven-day “circuit breaker” lockdown. There is mounting concern the latest virus wave could have become “uncontrollable” with almost 30 cases in the Melbourne-based cluster. The acting Victorian premier, James Merlino, on Thursday pointed to vaccine delays and “aged care facilities where not one person has been vaccinated” as practical problems in managing the response. Both are the responsibility of the federal government. His Labor colleagues in Canberra declared the situation could have been avoided.
From New York to Bristol, Jewish communities have organised globally in protest over Israel’s brutal and ongoing displacement of Palestinian people. A look at American activist group Jewish Voice for Peace’s site shows a map of rallies and campaigns across all of the U.S.; many of them are organised by Jewish groups outright, or in concert with Palestinian-led groups. Jews are showing up en masse. Anyone surprised by this is not paying enough attention.
It is common these days to compare the institutional racism in Israel, and its occupation of Palestine, to Apartheid South Africa. Up to a point, it’s a reasonable comparison. Up to a point. For all its horrors and brutality, the apartheid regime in South Africa never used fighter jets and artillery to bomb the oppressed people living in the townships. Israel has, and continues to do so. Indeed, this has now become almost routine, and thus “acceptable” to the international community, allowing Israel to act with impunity. The effects are appalling.
Source: Stop comparing Israel to Apartheid South Africa; it is worse
Huge numbers of people all over the globe have been protesting in solidarity with Palestinians this month as Israel intensified its killing campaign in the Gaza Strip, and a massive uprising swept cities and villages all over historic Palestine. Demonstrations swept Arab capitals, from Rabat to Amman, Beirut to Baghdad, Sanaa to Tunis.
Source: Video: World stands with Palestine | The Electronic Intifada
Ok, here’s a brief timeline of events in the vaccine rollout. August 2020: Scott Morrison announces that Australia has secured 25 million doses of the Oxford Astra-Zeneca vaccines and that it would mean “early access” for all Australians. The vaccines would be “as mandatory as you could possibly make it.”
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