Morrison now faces multiple, serious threats Coupled with a poorly managed political crisis over the treatment of women, Morrison’s 2021 has been tin-eared. A sharp decline of public trust in government, in expertise, and in institutional competence looms as a clear and present danger for Morrison’s popularity.
Source: As Australia’s vaccination bungle becomes clear, Morrison’s political pain is only just beginning
Malcolm Turnbull, possibly making a subliminal point about revenge and how it is best served cold, sat himself in front of a cool blue curtain in calming botanical print… and set the room on fire.
As if screwing up a collection of Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers and wielding a flaming Zippo, Turnbull put Murdoch’s News Corp to the flame.
Source: ‘A market for crazy’: Turnbull serves cold fury for the Murdochs
With support from the Australian government, the Adani corporation is pushing ahead with an environmentally destructive coal mine in Queensland. But the traditional Aboriginal owners of the land, the Wangan and Jagalingou nation, are waging a determined fight to stop them.
Fossil fuel multinational Shell does not believe it will ever pay the Australian government a cent in resource taxes for the gas it draws from the country’s biggest gas project, Gorgon.
Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull says Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp poses a real threat to Australian democracy, claiming it has surpassed the Coalition or Labor as the most powerful political force in the country.
Source: News Corp the most powerful Australian political actor: Malcolm Turnbull
Campus Reform is published by the Leadership Institute, a nonprofit that has trained conservative activists for four decades through the generous funding of billionaire donors like the Koch family. The institute reported more than $16 million in revenue in 2018 alone. Over the last several years, Campus Reform has targeted hundreds of college professors like Hatemi, leading to online harassment campaigns, doxxing, threats of violence, and calls on universities to fire their faculty. Professors featured in Campus Reform stories have felt isolated and confused as they came under attack, often over public statements they made but sometimes over things they said in class or even academic research they published. Campus Reform stories have regularly been picked up by a host of established conservative outlets, from Breitbart to Fox News, amplifying outrage and unleashing abuse in a manner that observers of the site note mirrors how far-right extremists attack their targets online.
“The effects of Campus Reform stories can be similar to the online harassment often deployed by white supremacists,” said Isaac Kamola, an assistant professor at Trinity College who studies the politics of higher education and closely monitors the site.
Source: Right-Wing Student Group Campus Reform Tries to “Cancel” Professors
Tucker Carlson’s own family could easily be targeted by the hate he spews. Despite his WASP name and demeanor, Carlson is descended on his mother’s side from Cesar Maurice Lombardi (1845-1919), a Catholic Swiss Italian who immigrated to the United States during the big wave of 1850-1924.
Let us just recall that in 1891 some of New Orleans’ most upstanding and prominent citizens participated in one of the largest mass lynchings in US history, of 11 Italian-Americans. Tucker Carlson’s great-great grandfather could have been among the victims if he had immigrated to that city.
Source: Tucker Carlson touts ‘Replacement’ Conspiracy Theory; but his own Ancestor could have been Lynched
Source: Are the Murdochs preparing to unleash Fox News on Australia?
The rape problem isn’t going away and men must speak up against the entitled minority that furthers it, writes A L Jones.
*CONTENT WARNING: This article discusses rape
WHY IS THE PROBLEM of sexual assault so intractable? Why, despite increasing community awareness, is progress so slow?
Source: Real men need to speak up against the entitled minority
When Nazis marched in Charlottesville in 2017, they chanted “You will not replace us!” and, somewhat more clarifying, “Jews will not replace us!” The terrorist who gunned down 51 people in Christchurch, New Zealand, used this slogan (“The Great Replacement”) in his manifesto. Last night, Tucker Carlson appeared on a prime-time Fox News show to defend this theory, not only in substance but also by name.
“Replacement theory” imagines that an elite cabal, frequently described as Jewish, is plotting to “replace” the native white population with non-white immigrants, who will pollute and destroy the white Christian culture.
Source: ADL Demands Fox Fire Tucker After Anti-Semitic Rant | Crooks and Liars
The corporate interests that objected to Georgia’s assault on voting rights had, of course, read the bill. They had also read the political tea leaves. They knew that it made sense to join with civil rights campaigners, democracy defenders, and everyone else who has recognized the Republican legislation as a “new Jim Crow” assault on the franchise that seeks to make it harder for people of color to cast ballots.
As is so often the case with McConnell, it was necessary this week to read around the doublespeak in order to get to his actual point: The minority leader has a problem with CEOs who openly and publicly object to the enactment of noxious legislation in Georgia.
But McConnell has no problem with CEOs that give millions of dollars to his campaigns and then use the access they have purchased to further the enactment of noxious legislation in Washington.
Source: McConnell Has No Trouble With Corporate Speech—as Long as It Takes the Form of Bribery
Morrison has repeatedly said he’s a “full termer” and has no plans of calling an election any time soon. It may be one of the few pledges he can keep.
A drop in the polls – largely due to the government’s manmade “women issues” combined with backbencher woes – had already left the Coalition teetering on the edge of minority government, making many MPs nervous.
The abrupt change in the government’s vaccine fortunes – once thought so golden that announcements came attached with Liberal party branding – turned nervous into anxious on Friday.
Jeffrey Sterling is a former CIA officer and whistleblower, jailed on trumped-up charges under the Espionage Act. He spoke to Jacobin about how he was victimized — and why the district court that convicted him is sure to be stacked against Julian Assange.
Source: CIA Whistleblower: “Julian Assange Will Not Receive an Impartial Jury”
The Coalition government’s signature employment policy for young people JobMaker has created just 609 jobs. And thanks to the flawed design of JobKeeper, which shut out many young people from key financial support, superannuation accounts were emptied, for which the young will pay a heavy price down the track. Kathryn Daley, Belinda Johnson and Patrick O’Keefe report.
The mainstream media is giving racial extremists such as Tom Sewell a platform to spread his message of hatred to potential recruits, writes Tom Tanuki.
Source: Uncovering the plans of Australian white supremacists
Apr 8, 2021
Host Reed Galen is joined by Michael Cohen, the former personal attorney to Donald Trump. Galen and Cohen discuss 45’s pending litigation, how ingrained the former president continues to be in the Republican party, and how Trump completely blundered the COVID-19 pandemic. Plus, will Donald Trump run for president in 2024?
Advocates of stricter firearms laws on Thursday welcomed President Joe Biden’s announcement of six initial actions to address what his administration is calling the nation’s “gun violence public health epidemic.”
Source: Biden Praised for Taking ‘Crucial First Step’ to ‘Prioritize People Over Guns’ | Common Dreams News
Joe Biden has announced a series of policies aimed at curbing gun violence in the US, a phenomenon the President described as an “epidemic” and “international embarrassment”.
Source: Joe Biden announces gun violence executive orders after mass shootings
Democrats are seeing the largest advantage over Republicans in nearly a decade according to a recent Gallup poll.
Source: Republican affiliation in US at lowest level since after Mitt Romney’s 2012 loss | Salon.com
Murdoch at 90 runs America his poll; ratings and bank balance. GOP is his fund raiser
Fox News has signed Mike Pompeo, former U.S. secretary of state, as its latest network contributor. Pompeo joins a growing list of ex-officials who have been recruited to the network since former President Donald Trump left office, further cementing Fox’s status as not so much a news organization but a sort of Republican administration-in-exile, working to promote the party’s agenda in future campaigns.
It’s kind of disheartening when the people who make our laws and have complete control of our commonwealth admit that their only goal is to get rid of the other side.
When The Sun-Herald and The Sunday Age invited federal MPs to attend a one-hour Zoom demonstration of what an empathy training course entails, five agreed – and their responses demonstrate exactly why we must change, not only our government but our whole system of governance.
Source: “This isn’t an outcome-oriented workplace” – » The Australian Independent Media Network
We were never going to meet anything close to Morrison’s vaccine march and rollout, as he arrogantly pronounced. It was foot in mouth disease, a muppet show. The European supply issue was totally predictable from early last year even when Morrison placed his solo order on behalf of Australia and backed it up with the one and only domestic manufacture of the same product.
Now, the 2021 Australian Constitutional Values Survey by CQUniversity and Griffith University shows over 60% of Australians remain in favour of a First Nations Voice to parliament in some form.
Source: Most Australians support First Nations Voice to parliament: survey
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said Tuesday voters waiting in line in Georgia could order food from Grubhub or UberEats after a new state law criminalized offers of free food and water near polling stations.
“They can order a pizza,” Kemp said on the conservative cable news network Newsmax. “They can order Grubhub or UberEats, right?”
Source: Georgia Governor Suggests Voters Waiting In Long Lines Order Uber Eats | HuffPost
Clots
And as for sermonising desperate marketplace or ‘legal eagle’ politicians like Morrison and Hunt, they should just keep their ministerial phlebotomy and mouths shut on the subject, since if you have no empathy for others’ true-life experiences you are not going to learn them in a mandatory training module, just as you won’t learn ethics and how to manage ethical dilemmas from not listening to other people’s including women’s concerns. You just don’t have the goods, the prerequisite character and traits to learn it in the first place, other than pretending you do, yes, Mr Morrison I am speaking particularly to you.
Source: Ministerial phlebotomy: Evasion of the bleeding obvious – » The Australian Independent Media Network
To reach the government’s biggest goal of giving every Australian at least one shot of the two-dose vaccine by October, somewhere in the region of 140,000 to 190,000 shots will have to be administered every day from now.
Far from being “front of the queue” for vaccines, as Prime Minister Scott Morrison said last year, Australia’s rollout started later and is running slower than many comparable nations.
Mr Morrison protests that Australia’s rollout is going better than Germany, Japan and South Korea were at the same stage; health department secretary Brendan Murphy says plans are “going well”.
Under pressure from political opponents and medical experts over shifting vaccination figures, Mr Morrison stressed “circumstances change”, claiming it was “unwise” to expect a level of certainty.
But with deadlines missed and current targets looking shaky, let’s check back in on what the federal government had spruiked, and how those are going.
Source: Vaccine rollout: Government’s promises fact-checked, clarified
The tawdry sex scandals plaguing the Morrison Government are drawing attention to its deeper and far more serious problems, writes managing editor Michelle Pini.Source: Sex, lies and iPhone pics: Scott Morrison’s imperfect storm
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