A series of Philip Morris-sponsored articles about vaping published in the Australian may breach national tobacco advertising promotion laws, public health advocates have said.
Philip Morris-sponsored articles in the Australian could breach tobacco advertising laws | Australian media | The Guardian
Morrison’s On The Water Matters Department is excelling itself (ODT) Scott Morrison’s office complied with legally imposed deadlines in just 7.5% of the freedom of information requests it received last year.
Scott Morrison’s office met freedom of information deadlines in just 7.5% of cases | Freedom of information | The Guardian
China’s foreign ministry plans to target Australia’s human rights record on Indigenous affairs and aged care as it ramps up its dispute with the Morrison government. The escalation follows a sharp rejection of China’s threats by Prime Minister Scott Morrison who on Thursday said Australia would not compromise on national security or freedom of speech after the Chinese embassy released a list of 14 grievances with Australia that threatens up to $20 billion in trade.
China to target Australia’s human rights record on Indigenous issues and aged care
What the national audit office found was a carbon copy of the criticism that a 1999 New Zealand audit report had levelled at Scott Morrison when he was head of NZ’s Office of Tourism and Sport. Morrison had moved to NZ in 1998, reporting directly to the NZ tourism minister, as the inaugural director of the office. The NZ minister, Murray McCully, and Morrison were locked in a power struggle with the independent NZ Tourism Board. The NZ audit office report devoted a whole chapter to Morrison’s deceptive behaviour, which involved changing the focus of a consultant’s review to align it with Morrison’s political agenda and without conferring with the board or his minister. Morrison mysteriously departed the NZ Office of Tourism and Sport one year before the end of his contract term. Morrison’s disdain for transparency and the shirking of accountability, so evident during his tenure at Tourism Australia, persists to this day, with his continual deflecting and “move along, nothing to see here” attitude to journalists asking questions. Given the importance of the KPMG report the question can surely be posed “So where the bloody hell is it?”
Where the bloody hell is it? Did Scott Morrison lie about the report that saved his bacon at Tourism Australia? – Michael West
By Grumpy Geezer No grace, no dignity, no humility, no magnanimity, no class, no morals, no empathy, no soul. He has no friends, not even a dog. His wife can’t bear his touch, his daughter can’t avoid it.
Downfall. Bunker Boy starts his run for the big house. – » The Australian Independent Media Network
A low-income American earning $35,000 this year would be earning $61,000. A college-educated worker now earning $72,000 would be earning $120,000. Overall, the grotesque surge in inequality that began 40 years ago is costing the median American worker $42,000 per year. The upward redistribution of $47 trillion wasn’t due to natural forces. It was contrived. As wealth accumulated at the top, so did political power to siphon off even more wealth and shaft everyone else.
Who Wins from Trump’s Final Travesty? | The Smirking Chimp
Donald Trump has fired the director of the federal agency that vouched for the reliability of the 2020 election and pushed back on the president’s baseless claims of voter fraud.
Trump fires head of US cybersecurity agency that refuted voter fraud claims | US news | The Guardian
Fox executives have lined up behind Carlson before. Lachlan Murdoch reportedly gave personal support to Carlson after he went on an anti-immigrant rant in 2018. The Murdoch family knows exactly what Carlson stands for, and it’s exactly what they want the Fox brand to stand for.
Carlson has long been billed by Fox as a member of the network’s “entertainment” side. In September, a federal judge wrote, quoting Fox lawyers, that Carlson’s show “is not ‘stating actual facts’ about the topics he discusses and is instead engaging in ‘exaggeration’ and ‘non-literal commentary.'” U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil found that no “reasonable viewer” would take Carlson seriously.
Fox executives have decided to give you more Tucker Carlson | Media Matters for America
Right-wing media have championed Sweden’s “low-scale” approach to the coronavirus pandemic as an alternative to stricter government mandates deployed in the United States. On Fox News, pundits argued that Sweden’s policies would allow its population to swiftly reach “herd immunity” and questioned why the U.S. was “locking down” instead. Now that country is rushing to tighten restrictions following rapid increases in cases, hospitalizations, and deaths that are far in excess of those of its neighbors.
The right-wing case for Sweden’s pandemic response has completely collapsed | Media Matters for America
Joe Hockey Joe Hockey is one of the most striking examples of someone who has put their neck on the line for Trump. The former ambassador and Trump golfing buddy has developed strong connections to the president’s administration through his DC lobbying outfit Bondi Partners. Hockey will have an interesting time trying to build bridges if he wants to secure a future as a lobbyist in the halls of a Biden White House. The most awkward conversations will no doubt be around Hockey’s recent support for Trump’s election fraud claims. He may need to rely on his partner, Alex Tureman, a former operative inside the Democrats, to help mend the relationship.
Joe Biden’s presidency will be a problem for Australia’s loudest Trump fans.
How Murdoch regulates Murdoch Sky News is broadcast on Foxtel, the pay TV platform majority owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. As a broadcaster Foxtel must obey a code of practice which is developed by subscription television industry body the Australian Subscription Television and Radio Association (ASTRA). ASTRA might sound like an umbrella group for a wider industry. In reality it appears to be little more than a front for Foxtel and Murdoch interests.
How Sky News gets away with pushing conspiracy theories
Murdoch has them by the balls. What is it that Rupert Murdoch has that enables him to demand of our government millions of dollars of taxpayer’s money whenever he wants it? I first came across this story in 2017 when the government kicked in $30 million dollars to Foxtel to promote women’s sports. It appeared as a one-line item in the budget of that year.
Government dishonesty continues unabated – » The Australian Independent Media Network
My thought for the day
The ability of thinking human beings to blindly embrace what they are being told without referring to evaluation and the consideration of reason never ceases to amaze me. It is tantamount to the rejection of rational explanation. (John Lord)
Home Affairs minister Peter Dutton is seeking added powers to grant to ASIO to strike at freedoms granted to journalists and citizens alike, activist group GetUp! alleged on Sunday.
Dutton’s bidding to put press freedom under threat, again: GetUp! – » The Australian Independent Media Network
More smoke and mirrors from Rupert Murdoch, as News Corp gets all “scientific” with Big Tobacco, writes Rhys Muldoon. WITH PROFITS down, News Corp, like many media companies, has had to find new revenue streams.
News Corp’s new-found belief in science
Several of the MAGA marchers who brought violence to downtown Washington, D.C., on Saturday night used their Trump flags as weapons.
Violence Breaks Out After Dark In D.C. As MAGA Marchers Bring Thug Tactics To The Capital | Crooks and Liars
In what critics are calling a parting gift to the fossil fuel industry, the Trump administration on Tuesday will ask oil and gas companies to choose which areas of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska—which is the sacred homeland of the Gwich’in Indigenous people—they would like to drill.
Trump Administration Rushes to Auction Off Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Drilling Rights Before Biden Inauguration | Common Dreams News
![A group of protesters demonstrate against a KKK rally in Charlottesville in 2017 [File: Steve Helber/AP Photo]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/AP_17199454813505.jpg?resize=770%2C513)
Hate crimes in the United States rose to the highest level in more than a decade as federal officials also recorded the highest number of hate-motivated killings since the FBI began collecting that data in the early 1990s, according to an FBI report released on Monday. The report was alarming to advocacy organisations, including the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which tracks hates groups.
Hate crimes in the US rise to 10-year high | US & Canada | Al Jazeera
The 2020 U.S. presidential election brought into sharp relief the contrast between the American and Israeli Jewish communities, the two main centers of the Jewish world. According to post-election surveys, American Jewish support for the Democrats remains extremely high, at 77 percent (up from 70 percent in 2016). President Donald Trump was estimated to have received a mere 21 percent of the Jewish vote. In Israel, however, surveys have shown that Israeli Jews prefer Trump to Biden by 70 percent to 13 percent.
The global right is threat to US Jews — but a natural home for Israelis
Scott Morrison won’t do anything!
The senior ministerial media adviser who went public with her workplace treatment following her intimate relationship with her boss at the time, Alan Tudge, may have lost further work after speaking out about her experience. Rachelle Miller had been due to start a contract with a defence contractor, but Guardian Australia has confirmed a tweet from Louise Milligan, the ABC journalist Miller told her story to, that the offer was now under consideration. Miller declined to comment further.
Fears Rachelle Miller may lose new job after speaking out over affair with Alan Tudge on Four Corners | Australia news | The Guardian
The truth is gas is both too expensive and too dirty. We’ve known this for nearly a decade
Gas won’t fuel Australia’s recovery or reduce emissions. It’s a mirage | Greg Jericho | Business | The Guardian
Defence investigates itself How “independent” or effective a review is it when a department secretly investigates itself and its contractors by appointing an existing contractor to conduct the review, does not make public the review’s existence or its terms of reference, and keeps any resulting report secret?
Defence says the review found “no evidence” of inappropriate excess charges. This is despite three stories the same day in The Weekend Australian containing detailed allegations. So serious were the allegations, they were escalated up to Defence’s assistant secretary of fraud control who reportedly then referred several matters to the Independent Assurance Business Analysis and Reform Branch of Defence. Is Defence saying multiple audit and fraud officials, including at the most senior levels, all got it wrong? Are we being asked to conclude that senior Defence fraud officials cannot accurately identify inappropriate excess charges? It seems there is a serious problem then, no matter which way we look at it.
Department of Defence captured by foreign weapons makers Thales, BAE – Michael West
We’ve got more deaths from this virus than the number of soldiers killed in World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam and the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. The president of the United States we just voted out of office is sitting around watching Fox News, filing phony lawsuits, firing people he thinks are “disloyal,” and running a new scam on his way out the door to line his pockets with dollars from his adoring base. Donald Trump is living up to every expectation we ever had about him. He’s going out exactly the way he came in: lying, cheating and stealing.
Trump Is Going out the Way He Came In: A Loser, a Liar and a Cheat | The Smirking Chimp
Courting the chameleon: how the US election reveals Rupert Murdoch’s political colours
At elections, Murdoch has two priorities. One is always to try to ensure the new regime, whatever its political colour, does not implement regulatory change that will disadvantage the business.
Courting the chameleon: how the US election reveals Rupert Murdoch’s political colours
“He’s lined up votes on SIX Trump judicial nominees (for lifetime seats) instead of passing meaningful Covid relief. That’s his priority as the pandemic rages on,” added Gupta.
“That’s His Priority as the Pandemic Rages On”: McConnell Readies Lame Duck Push to Further Pack Courts With Trump’s Judicial Appointees | Common Dreams News
THE STATES IN THE USA which have most avidly supported soon-to-be-ex-President Donald Trump have paid a heavy price for their fealty. Deaths from suicide, gun violence and the COVID-19 pandemic have been much higher there than where Trump’s toxic authority has been rejected.
Trump’s Republican death cult soon to lose office
Despite his authoritarian tendencies, Donald Trump never came close to dragging us into fascism. But he did drag us further toward a xenophobic, anti–working-class, right-wing-populist abyss. Those forces will continue to destroy American and global politics — if we don’t take them on and defeat them.
Here’s What We Learned About the Far Right From Donald Trump’s Presidency
Claiming that the election was a Democratic “power grab” financed by (of course) George Soros, Gingrich threw a bone to anti-Semites in the Republican base. He concluded that “it is very hard for me to understand how we [Democrats and Republicans] are going to work together,” which is really his point. This is all pretext for massive resistance to anything President Biden tries to do. The plan is to deny Biden legitimacy. Right-wing media will give Republicans cover to maintain the lie by obsessing about “investigations” and “reports” of a “stolen election.” Meanwhile, GOP voters will encourage them while failing to hold their leaders accountable for refusing to govern. That strategy worked pretty well for Republicans during the Obama presidency. With a few tweaks, they’re teeing it up once again.
“Stolen Election” is the New “Birtherism” | Washington Monthly
The Middle East is likely to plummet in significance for the United States over the next two decades. Let’s face it, the main reason we hear so much about Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait (as opposed to Senegal and Uruguay) is that they produce petroleum, and the world transportation system depends on that commodity. The US, despite what Trump keeps saying, isn’t energy independent, and still imports on the order of six or seven million barrels of petroleum a day.
Importance of Middle East Plummets as Britain, Ireland, Denmark announce 2030 Funeral for New Gasoline Cars
Nine Entertainment chief Hugh Marks dumped for having sex, Christine Holgate chopped at Australia Post over $20,000 in bonuses. Meanwhile, the top brass at Lendlease, having presided over a billion dollar tax scam, nonchalantly claim they are “continuing to engage with the ATO and await the finalisation of its draft determination”. Michael West reports.
Confession time for Lendlease as Tax Office bears down on humungous tax rort – Michael West
The gas industry will inevitably decline as an energy source for industry and homes due to both economic and environmental issues, and will not deliver the Morrison government’s promised “gas-led recovery”, a new report finds.The gas industry will inevitably decline as an energy source for industry and homes due to both economic and environmental issues, and will not deliver the Morrison government’s promised “gas-led recovery”, a new report finds.
Benefits of Coalition’s ‘gas-led recovery’ overstated and declining usage inevitable, report finds | Environment | The Guardian
So when, exactly, would we need to worry? If Trump’s desperate tweets and lawsuits fail, he will be faced with a stark choice: going out with a whimper of sore-loser tweets or attempting to send armed federal officers into the streets and calling out supporters who are currently standing back and standing by. “At the end of the day, if he wants to stay in power, he either has to get the courts to side with him or he’ll have to get the support of people with guns,” said Chin. “The [Defense Department] doesn’t see its role as propping up this or any president, but Trump has mobilized other security forces — as he did against Black Lives Matters protests this summer. If there’s a reprise of those types of deployments or he gets armed supporters to back him, that would be quite troubling.” In other words, keep your eyes on the streets, especially if mass demonstrations begin to occur around the country. To this point, if he’s actually trying to conduct an autogolpe, Trump has bungled it as badly as any fiasco of the last four years. But we’re not out of the woods yet. “A nightmare scenario could still happen,” Chin warned. “Between now and January, we’re still in a heightened danger zone.”
Trump’s Desperation After Election Loss Isn’t Yet a Coup
“He plans to wreck Fox. No doubt about it,” a source with detailed knowledge of Trump’s intentions told Axois.
Could Donald Trump build a media empire to rival Fox News?
It’s no secret that the president cares a lot about size. Nearly four years ago, in his debut as White House press secretary, Sean Spicer falsely claimed crowd sizes at Donald Trump’s inauguration were bigger than pictures suggested, saying images were “intentionally framed” to minimize the “enormous support” for the president. He said that the event drew the “largest audience ever to witness an inauguration, period,” a lie which Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway infamously referred to as “alternative facts.” Not much has changed over the past several years. Spicer may have long since resigned, but he’s been channeled by current press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, who said Saturday that pro-Trump crowd sizes at DC’s Million MAGA March surpassed 1 million attendees. “More than one MILLION marchers for President @realDonaldTrump descend on the swamp in support,” McEnany tweeted. “Best base in political history — we LOVE you guys!!!”
Trump Is Going Out Like He Came In: With His Press Secretary Lying About Crowd Size – Mother Jones
In the aftermath of the 2020 election, many pundits were asking how Donald Trump could have garnered over 70,000,000 votes and made the presidential race much more competitive than pre-election polls indicated. After all, here was a man who repeatedly and unabashedly lied to his supporters, endangered their lives by encouraging them not to take precautions during a global pandemic, and openly remarked how his desire to win reelection was all about him, and not the good of the country.
There is no great mystery to Trumpian cultism. The answer is as old as human nature itself
I
Proud Boys’ Post-Election Crackup Offers Revealing Glimpse Of Their Deep White Nationalist Nature | Crooks and Liars
nternecine warfare is a natural state for right-wing extremists; they are, after all, uniformly paranoid, suspicious, confrontational, and narcissistic (not to mention deeply unpleasant) people. The proto-fascist street-brawling Proud Boys have never been an exception, as observers in Portland well know from the days when they and members of their far-right colleagues in Patriot Prayer were threatening to kill each other. Their latest internal dustup, however—in which an early cofounder of the group dubiously claims to have fired their current national leader while embracing an explicitly racist approach—is more revealing than most. Although the claims are mostly toothless grandstanding, the episode lays bare how the Proud Boys’ disavowals of white nationalism are really just a risible burlesque.
Proud Boys’ Post-Election Crackup Offers Revealing Glimpse Of Their Deep White Nationalist Nature | Crooks and Liars
Trump has touted vaccines and therapeutics, including therapeutics that may have saved his own life when he was hospitalized with the infection. But there aren’t nearly enough therapeutics for all the patients in need — nor the top-notch care the president received — and the vaccines won’t be ready for full distribution into well into 2022. On Friday, Trump announced that the vaccines will be available in April, though he had previously said it could be distributed last month, in October, which never happened. And right now, the administration has no plan to stop surging virus. Most Republicans are following his lead, and even Democratic governors who might prefer to take a more aggressive approach are hamstrung by a lack of federal resources. There is no plan to stop the virus. The federal government just intends to let it spread through all of us. It’s a plan for mass death, because they don’t care enough to stop it.
The Trump Plan for Mass Death Is Unfolding Before Our Eyes | The Smirking Chimp
Like Freddy Krueger, the serial killer in A Nightmare on Elm Street, Donald Trump could still return to haunt us. It all depends on the Electoral College, a system unique to the U.S.
A nightmare on Pennsylvania Avenue: Trump could retain the White House
The International Energy Agency just issued a report concluding that wind and solar are growing rapidly, unlike beleaguered fossil fuels, and that in only five years they will be generating a third of the world’s electricity, overtaking coal. They will overtake natural gas sooner, in 2023. Coal is the dirtiest fossil fuel, producing enormous amounts of carbon dioxide, a dangerous heat-trapping gas that is rapidly heating the earth and its oceans and endangering our way of life.
As Wind, Solar, surge, Renewables to be Globe’s largest Source of Electricity by 2025
Donald Trump’s assault on democracy is outrageous, but it doesn’t appear to trouble ScoMo and his Coalition colleagues, writes Mungo MacCallum.
MUNGO MACCALLUM: Trump’s treachery and Morrison’s meek response
The Coalition government is pushing hard to get rid of responsible lending obligations, but it doesn’t seem to realise that removing these obligations will pull the rug out from one of its signature pieces of legislation that Scott Morrison championed when he was treasurer – mandatory comprehensive credit reporting. Elizabeth Minter reports.
Responsible Lending? Coalition’s left hand not sure what its right hand is doing – Michael West
“He knows it’s over,” one adviser said. But instead of conceding, they said, he is floating one improbable scenario after another for staying in office while he contemplates his uncertain post-presidency future. Advertisement
US election 2020: Donald Trump floats improbable survival scenarios as he ponders his future
His fear became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Republican voters, who once used mail-in balloting disproportionately, abandoned the practice. Democratic voters, meanwhile, embraced it. This led Republicans to engage in various sabotage efforts, which my colleague Eric Cortellessa has been tirelessly uncovering for months. These include banning swing states from processing mail-in ballots prior to election day (in order to engineer the very counting delays Trump has warned are a sign of fraud) and, in Pennsylvania, outright refusals by some GOP elections officials to count mail-in ballots that are postmarked by November 3 but arrive after that date despite a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that they do so. How this developing constitutional crisis will play out is anyone’s guess. It was certainly beyond my wildest imagination that vote by mail would be at the center of such a crisis when we first started to promote the policy eight years ago. But rest assured, my colleagues and I will be covering events as they unfold as carefully and relentlessly as we can.
How Vote By Mail Saved Democracy and Defeated Trump | Washington Monthly
Federal officials in the United States on Thursday rejected President Donald Trump’s claims of fraud in the 2020 elections, and said that the polls were the “most secure in American history”.
2020 US elections: Officials dismiss Donald Trump’s fraud claims, say polls most secure in history
A beaten, battered, and depressed Donald Trump who has been hiding from public view after his humiliating loss to Joe Biden… now tweets (yeah) that his administration gave America the most secure election security of all time.Twitter has taken to a red font to deny Trump’s claims.
Trump’s Upside-Down View On Election 2020 | Crooks and Liars
WASHINGTON—Coming to the realization in front of millions of viewers during the broadcast of his show, a horrified Tucker Carlson stated, ‘I…I am the mainstream media’ Wednesday as he began spiraling live on air. “We’ve discovered evidence of rampant voter fraud, and the president has every right to call for an investigation even if the mainstream media thinks…” said Carlson, who trailed off, stared down at his shaking hands, and felt a sudden ringing in his ears as he looked back up and zeroed in on the production crew surrounding him. “The media says…wait. Those liars on TV will try to tell you…oh God. We’re the number-one program on cable news, aren’t we? Fox News…Fox ‘News.’ It’s the media. It’s me. This can’t be. No, no, no, no. Jesus Christ, I make $6 million a year. Get that camera off me!” At press time, Carlson had torn the microphone from his lapel and fled the set in panic.
‘I…I Am The Mainstream Media,’ Realizes Horrified Tucker Carlson Spiraling Live On Air
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