Most of the 74,222,957 Americans who voted to reelect Donald Trump – 46.8 percent of the votes cast in the 2020 presidential election – don’t hold Trump accountable for what he’s done to America. Their acceptance of Trump’s behavior will be his vilest legacy.
Trump’s Vilest Legacy | The Smirking Chimp
Social media’s replacement of local news outlets as the primary source for community information will likely contribute to an absolute deluge of conservative misinformation and the spread of local conspiracy theories in the years ahead, both issues we have already seen play out this year during the election cycle and the pandemic. The year 2020 has proven yet again that protecting resources for local reporting is essential — and could even save lives.
How right-wing misinformation filled the void left when local newsrooms cut staff | Media Matters for America
“Trump’s ‘leadership’ just cost hundreds of thousands of families in Georgia a week of unemployment benefits that they won’t get back.”
Perdue and Loeffler Silent on $2,000 Checks While Praising Trump for ‘Leadership’ on Covid Relief | Common Dreams News
Indigenous women are discouraged from reporting domestic violence by fear of having their children removed and the threat of being left homeless.
Reluctance to report family violence ‘a lot worse than we thought’
This year was a lot. Especially in the field of politics. That’s why we decided to distill it down for you in an easy-to-remember, alphabetised format. We’ve brought you A to M and as sure as day follows night, and pivot follows unprecedented in the most-used words of the year list, here is N to Z.
Australian politics: N to Z in the alphabet of 2020 | The New Daily
Australian PM Scott Morrison is often compared to Donald Trump. Morrison is certainly a race-baiter who serves the rich, but his brand of reheated “populism” borrows far more from Britain’s Margaret Thatcher and former PM John Howard. Unfortunately, it’s not dead yet.
Scott Morrison Isn’t the Australian Trump — He’s a Margaret Thatcher Tribute Band
Top economists want the dole permanently increased in 2021 and a closer review of the federal government’s wage subsidy scheme JobKeeper to determine the future of the $100 billion lifeline.
Economists back JobSeeker extension, wage subsidy review
If the veto override succeeds on the heels of his disgraceful behavior with the stimulus bill, Trump will not sit still and take his medicine. He will see betrayal on every Republican face and react like Vesuvius. There are still many ways for him to pull the building down before he’s gone, and if I know the man like I think I do, he will try every one of them before he leaves or is removed. That cramp in your stomach (and mine) is going to be there for a little while longer.
Trump Is Humiliated and More Dangerous Than Ever
Trump has brought impunity to the highest office in the land, wielding a wrecking ball to American democracy
Americans’ acceptance of Trump’s behavior will be his vilest legacy | Donald Trump | The Guardian
The Biden administration will have to make hard choices around the pandemic and climate change while continuing to spend close to $1 trillion a year on its military. Adding yet another military service when American states are reeling from the economic fallout of COVID-19 and the warming oceans are churning out superstorms is something neither the U.S. nor the world can afford.
The U.S. Needs COVID Relief and Renewable Energy, Not a Space Force
Since the beginning of the pandemic, Fox News has been a major source of COVID-19 misinformation and conspiracy theories — but none of the network’s personalities have attained the same level of consistency and recklessness in their coverage as prime-time host Tucker Carlson.
A 12-month timeline of Tucker Carlson’s unhinged COVID-19 coverage | Media Matters for America
As of Sunday, there have been nearly 19 million recorded COVID-19 cases in the U.S. and more than 331,000 deaths nationwide.
December Sees Highest COVID-19 Death Toll In U.S. Since Pandemic Began | HuffPost Australia
#9 TOP STORY OF 2020: World’s largest economy in free fall
ECONOMISTS WORLDWIDE are watching the extraordinary collapse of what was until recently a seemingly indestructible economy. The United States still has the world’s largest economy measured by gross domestic product (GDP). But among developed nations, it is now at or close to the bottom on most rankings of economic health.
#9 TOP STORY OF 2020: World’s largest economy in free fall
For all their flaws, the media does serve a purpose: they are the primary sources with access to the politicians. The media reports their actual words, and while the media does spin the facts, the ability of intelligent people to see the spin, bias and other shtfckery is our power. The media provides the primary evidence, on which we use our analytical scalpel to get at a far closer approximation to the truth than these propagandists will ever profer.
More Than Meets The Eye: The Media and Politics – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The Age believes, however, that there is a more sensible path. The Victorian and federal governments should work more closely together to ensure that programs such as the Jiangsu grants operate in a way that ensures Australian intellectual property can be protected and there is no military application. Australia needs to get smarter in its dealings with China. We need to work out where we can co-operate for mutual benefit and resist the urge to simply shut down programs in the face of difficulties.
A smarter way for Australia to handle its dealings with China
Senator Bernie Sanders blasted Trump’s refusal to sign the negotiated COVID relief plan because ‘we have a pathologically narcissistic in the White House.”
Bernie Sanders Blasts Trump: ‘What The President Is Doing Right Now Is Unbelievably Cruel’ | Crooks and Liars
When America faces a leader with totalitarian impulses who thinks he can will his way into another term, it is also facing its greatest democratic crisis in decades. The passage of time always heals wounds, including political wounds. But what can be done to revive public trust in elections in the meantime is not just an open-ended question. Democracy’s fragile skin has been stretched as never before, when tens of millions of voters say that they don’t trust the results from the best-run election in years.
A Deepening Democracy Crisis: More than 70 Percent of Trump Voters Distrust the Best-run Election in Years | The Smirking Chimp
Forty-five years ago, under a cloak of secrecy, Operation Condor was officially launched: a global campaign of violent repression against the Latin American left by the region’s quasi-fascist military dictatorships. The US government not only knew about the program — it helped to engineer it.
The CIA’s Secret Global War Against the Left
With Trump’s defeat and other setbacks for the Right around the world, some commentators have proclaimed the death of right-populism. But the structural factors that gave rise to it remain in place, and only a recharged left-wing movement can address them.
Right-Wing Populism May Be Wounded, But It’s Certainly Not Dead
Here are some of the Informed Comment stories that most excited readers this year:
Peril in the Middle East, Peril at Home: Our Top 10 Stories of 2020
“Such a decision attempts to legitimize settlement-manufactured goods as well as the theft of Palestinian land and products,” said Palestine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Palestinians, Advocates Blast New U.S. Rule Requiring ‘Made in Israel’ Label on Settlement Goods | Common Dreams News
we present our alphabet of 2020, pulling in everything you’ll remember about this year we’d rather forget (and probably a few things you’d managed to put out of your mind already). Whet your whistle with the first half.
Australian politics 2020: A to M of the biggest moments across the nation
Investigation: how political donations protect a cosy loophole for Australia’s plutocrats – Michael West
“Political donations buy access to parliamentarians, they buy policy outcomes, and they buy a post-parliament career with the revolving door between politics and business”. Stephanie Tran and Michael West investigate the dark money which flows from Australia’s family business empires to the major political parties and identify a raft of failures in the donations system.
Investigation: how political donations protect a cosy loophole for Australia’s plutocrats – Michael West
Israeli squatter-settlers disrupted Christian prayer at the oldest monastery in Palestine. On Thursday 17 December, hundreds of Israeli settlers gathered in order to intimidate the monks who were at the beautiful ancient monastery of St Saba near Bethlehem.
An un-merry Christmas for Palestinians, as Militant Israeli Squatters attack Monastery, Church
Accountability doesn’t matter. You don’t need to fear the consequences of misuse of taxpayer funding. “The standard you walk past is the standard you accept,” David Morrison famously said. For the Morrison government, it hasn’t merely accepted the low standards that have mired federal politics in sleaze, it has actively promoted them. This is the result.
Scott Morrison’s ‘mates first’ policy is rotting Australia from the inside
The common thread running through 2020 is not merely “shit”, unprecedented or otherwise. It is environmental degradation, accumulated over decades, now accelerating out of control and rebounding upon us in exactly the ways we’ve been told they would. Unprecedented? Possibly. But then consider this year the precedent.
Coronavirus Australia: This year wasn’t unprecedented. If anything, it set the precedent
“Beware of what you wish for” constitutes a wise warning! Updating our view of the future is an essential element of moving into a New Year. We have yet to see how much damage the current POTUS will be able to inflict on his country – and the world – before he reluctantly exits the White House, while, no doubt, immediately launching a new campaign for re-election in 4 years time! It is worth noting that there has only ever been one US President who has served two non-consecutive terms in office We have the misfortune to have, as our current Prime Minister, a man who shares many of the traits of Donald Trump, which does not bode well for our future.
A vision of a new world – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Have Australia’s wealthiest old families bought off the political process? Despite myriad attempts over the years to repeal the cosy “grandfathering” exemption, the billionaires are still permitted – like no other Australians – to keep their companies “dark”. Today Michael West Media unveils the first in a series of investigations by Luke Stacy and Stephanie Tran involving more than 5,000 corporate searches to find the people and the labyrinthine structures behind the Secret Rich List. Luke Stacey and Michael West report.
Inside Australia’s Secret Rich List – Michael West
Meanwhile, Trump has thrust Republicans into the ninth circle of political hell. No matter which way they turn, a large segment of the base will be unmercifully pissed. If they back Trump, then their assurances of fiscal frugality will tank; if they oppose him, well, you know. Notwithstanding the delightfulness of all this Republican infighting, the totality of urgent relief legislation is now in doubt. And that alone ain’t so delightful.
On the Covid Bill, Trump Has Hurled Republicans into Hell’s Ninth Circle | The Smirking Chimp
Maybe nothing better could be expected in a year that saw denial and delusion, led by President Donald Trump, presage a wave of illness and death coupled with evictions, bankruptcies, hunger and ruined livelihoods. But after enduring so much, Americans can hardly be blamed for feeling outrage at yet another indignity at the hand of their leaders.
Americans suffer at Christmas while Trump golfs and sows chaos – CNNPolitics
Hidden in the bill combining Covid relief and government spending is a cool $200 billion in tax breaks. An estimated $120 billion of those tax breaks will go to the richest 1 percent of Americans. Those giveaways include:
How the Richest 1 Percent Came Out Big Winners in the Covid Relief Bill | The Smirking Chimp
![Cuban medical personnel arrive at Tocumen International Airport in Panama City, on December 24 [Aeropuerto Tocumen/AFP]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/000_8XQ2UM.jpg?resize=770%2C513)
Panama’s health ministry has said more than 200 Cuban doctors arrived on Thursday morning to reinforce the Central American nation’s healthcare system and help in the battle against the COVID-19 pandemic.
Cuban doctors arrive in Panama to boost COVID fight | Coronavirus pandemic News | Al Jazeera
Israeli jets flew very low over parts of Lebanon early on Friday, terrifying residents on Christmas Eve, some of whom reported seeing missiles in the skies over Beirut. Minutes later, Syria’s official news agency reported explosions in the central Syrian town of Masyaf. Other Syrian media said Syrian air defences responded to an Israeli attack near the town in the Hama province.
Israeli jets fly over Beirut terrifying residents on Christmas Eve
“What we have is a pattern where people who create content consumed by the far-right, aren’t shunned or excised from the media environment — but they’ve reached a level of success unseen since the Christchurch attack. That’s the most terrifying thing.” Their existence in these spaces can help set people on the path to terrorism, counter terrorism, and political violence, analyst James Cutler told Junkee.
How Do You Solve A Problem Like Sky News?
Look, I think the National Cabinet was a great initiative of mine. The states and territories needed to make their own decisions. I mean, I don’t hold the hose and I don’t hold the hose of wimpy — I mean, hand, of wimpy premiers. ~ Prime Minister Morrespin
IA Talks: Exclusive interview with Scott Morrespin on ‘The Sun Rises’
Let’s get one thing straight: Donald Trump does not care about the American people. Whatever Trump may say, he is not threatening to blow up the coronavirus stimulus bill Senate Republicans finally agreed to pass because the bill isn’t generous enough. Trump could not care less if all Americans starve to death, and he certainly isn’t breaking a sweat trying to get the COVID-19 vaccine out to the public. He was not defending working Americans when he released a video calling the GOP-endorsed coronavirus bill a “disgrace” and pushing for a Democrat-friendly plan to send out $2,000 checks instead of the $600 ones Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell agreed to.
Republicans enabled Trump for four years — of course he’s betraying them in the 11th hour | Salon.com
President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced that he’s granted yet another spate of pardons to 26 people, including his friend and confidant Roger Stone, former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Charles Kushner, father of Trump’s son-in-law, Jared. Trump also gave sentence commutations to three people. The move comes just a day after the president announced his decision to pardon or commute the sentences of 20 people, including three corrupt former Republican congressmen, two subjects of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation and four Blackwater security guards who were involved in the 2007 killings of Iraqi civilians.
Trump Pardons Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, Charles Kushner In Another Pardoning Spree | HuffPost Australia
Investigators for the military and the FBI later described the shootings, in which the contractors unleashed a blaze of gunfire and grenade explosions in a busy Baghdad square, as unprovoked and unjustified. Federal prosecutors said that many of the victims, including women and children, some with their hands in the air, “were shot inside of civilian vehicles while attempting to flee.”
Trump Pardons Blackwater 4 for Nisour Square Massacre in Iraq, because Whites must never Suffer for Killing Innocent Brown People
It was the first time Liberal government had lost a vote in the house since Peter Gutwein took over as Premier in January this year. Sue Hickey is often described as “maverick Liberal MP”. Maverick or not, it is highly unusual for parliamentarians to cross the floor, to side with their political adversaries rather than their colleagues, and Hickey’s decision spoke volumes about the subject matter at hand.
A Guaranteed Job? Radical idea to combat automation, alienation gathers momentum – Michael West
the Bush administration’s Justice Department sent me a letter saying it was conducting a criminal investigation into “the unauthorized disclosure of classified information” in my 2006 book, “State of War.”
Snowden and Assange Deserve Pardons. So Do the Whistleblowers Trump Imprisoned.
It’s interesting to compare the major economic models in the Western world: the Anglo-Saxon model, the Rhineland model and the Scandinavian model.
How Australia can learn from Scandinavian countries
Charging exorbitant prices for travellers stranded overseas while raking in record government subsidies. Qantas and Virgin are the quintessential cases of “privatise the profits, socialise the losses”. Tasha May.looks at the airlines’ fine balancing act in corporate socialism during the pandemic.
Balancing Act: Qantas reaps $1bn from taxpayers, but jobs, flights, fares all up in the air – Michael West
So can we expect Barr and Pence to swing into action and charge Patriot Prayer members who rioted in Salem with sedition, sending federal agents in to whisk them away in unmarked vehicles? No.
Trump sent Feds to Portland, but will coddle White Supremacist militias who invaded Oregon State House
Top White House adviser Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law, personally signed off on keeping salary payments to top campaign officials off the books, according to a person involved with the arrangements. Federal Election Commission records show that the Trump campaign has made no salary payments to chief strategist Jason Miller, who came on board in June, or to campaign manager Bill Stepien, who joined the campaign in late 2018 and took over the top job from Brad Parscale in July. Kushner agreed to both arrangements, and personally directed the payments to Miller, the person involved said.
Jared Kushner signed off on secret payments to top campaign officials, source says | Salon.com
Trying to make the GOP look generous (ODT)
Senator Rand Paul rose up in rebellion against his own party Tuesday, objecting to the idea of helping people with their bills with a pittance of a payment to help with the pain of a pandemic they didn’t cause. “If free money was the answer… if money really did grow on trees, why not give more free money?” Rand mused. “Why not give it out all the time? Why stop at $600 a person? Why not $1,000? Why not $2,000?” “Maybe these new Free-Money Republicans should join the Everybody-Gets-A-Guaranteed-Income Caucus?” he snarked. “Why not $20,000 a year for everybody, why not $30,000? If we can print out money with impunity, why not do it?”
Rand Paul Rants About COVID Relief Payments: ‘Why Not $2000?’ | Crooks and Liars
olddogthoughts 
You must be logged in to post a comment.