Scott Morrison has no power to extend cabinet confidentiality to his national cabinet meetings with state premiers, Senator Rex Patrick has charged in a first-of-its-kind challenge of the intergovernmental body.
National cabinet secrecy under fire in first-of-its-kind challenge to new arrangement | Australia news | The Guardian
My thought for the day Our lives should be subject to constant reflection, otherwise the way forward is locked into the constraints of today’s thoughts. PS: On concluding this piece I note that the NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has apologised “unreservedly” to anyone affected by community transmission resulting from the disembarkation of the Ruby Princess.
When ‘sorry’ seems to be the hardest word – » The Australian Independent Media Network
For years I have argued that privatisation of service provision ensures a lowering of standards of service and an increase in cost to the receiver of the service. I am yet to be persuaded that I am wrong, and to that I would add my belief that the fact that shareholders’ needs are put ahead of all other demands on the corporation, no service which involves caring for vulnerable people should ever be in private hands!
Is the concept of a caring corporation an oxymoron? – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The Great SchMo, laughingly labelled by a sycophant as the father of the country in a Trumpian inversion of reality is no hero. He’s a scheming serial avoider of accountability – a Duck Dodgers in a footy scarf.
The Great SchMo – Duck Dodgers in the 21st Century – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Political Blackmail Trump style “vote for me before I give you a cent yo pricks”. This is the voice of Mafia Don (ODT)
Trump has been more direct. Back in March, he blasted a different coronavirus rescue package from Democrats, telling Fox News, “The things they had in there were crazy … levels of voting that, if you ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.” The equation was pretty simple: More votes equals fewer Republicans.
via Donald Trump Is Committing A Crime Against Democracy | HuffPost Australia
![President Donald Trump is set to hold events in swing states during the Democratic National Convention [Evan Vucci/The Associated Press]](https://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/imagecache/mbdxxlarge/mritems/Images/2020/8/17/c52c04e88e7f4e5c975add81eda51399_18.jpg "Trump breaks tradition to campaign during Democratic convention")
Amid slumping polls, the president campaigns in battleground states Wisconsin, Minnesota, Arizona and Pennsylvania.
via Trump breaks tradition to campaign during Democratic convention | USA News | Al Jazeera
Anti-Warmists say we can adjust no need to be concerned. Said from the aircon studios powered by fossil fuels. (ODT)
via New global temperature record may have been set in California’s Death Valley
In refusing to call out the cartoon you are refusing, once again, to call out so very much more.
It is the faux purity of ignoring one cartoon so that you can continue to ignore the far more threatening task of addressing the foundational racism of News Corp that is most sickening.
via Why we must confront the racism of ‘The Australian’ cartoon
Wage growth has recorded its lowest growth since records were kept. Illustration: Greg NewingtonCredit:
Wage growth is the key to recovery because wages are the greatest single driver of economic activity and employment. But rather than thinking of ways to get wages up, both sides are working on ways to slow them further.
Not that private sector employers will need any help. They always skip pay rises during recessions because, afraid of losing their jobs, workers know they’re in no position to argue.
But, while as individuals, firms benefit from cutting the real value of the wages they pay, especially when all of them do it at the same time, they all suffer because the nation’s households have less money to spend on the products of the nation’s businesses.
Robbing Peter to pay Paul ain’t stimulus
Last October, Brennan announced her plans to retire. She was replaced in June by Louis DeJoy, a businessman and Trump loyalist recruited by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.
DeJoy had donated more than $2 million to GOP causes since Trump took office and cultivated a close relationship with Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel.
He became become a lightning rod this past week amid reports of mail-sorting machines being removed from postal facilities and blue collection boxes uprooted from neighbourhoods across the country.
via Tracing Trump’s unprecedented war on the US Postal Service
Even Iran seemed surprised by the magnitude of its victory over the US in Friday’s UN Security Council vote. President Hassan Rouhani said, according to US News and World Report, “I don’t remember the United States preparing a resolution for months to strike a blow at the Islamic Republic of Iran, and it garners only one vote. But the great success was that the United States was defeated in this conspiracy with humiliation.”
All the Security Council members except the Dominican Republic either voted against or abstained from the US resolution calling for a permanent arms embargo on Iran.
via Iran: “Isolated” US Regime must learn from its Humiliation at UN, as Trump rejects Putin Plan
This entire act of gross miscalculation did its fair share of harm, though not in the sense understood by Pompeo and his officials. It spoke to a clumsy unilateralism masquerading as credible support; to great power obstinacy misguided in attaining a goal. It was not the UN Security Council that had failed, but the US that had failed it, an effort that many at the UN are reading as directed at torching the remnants of the Iran nuclear deal. The assessment of the US effort by former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter was sharp and relevant. “You got the Dominican Republic on board (how much did that cost the US taxpayer?) Not a single other nation voted with you! The shining city on the hill has been reduced to a glow, like the embers of a dying fire.”
Collect the taxes they haven’t paid. Remember Abbott shrunk the Taxation Dept of 3500 of it’s most experienced tax investigators. Well, now they have jumped the gutter and are working for the tax minimisation industry.(ODT)
via You want a strong economy? Start by raising corporate taxes
When a Minister gets that flustered you know a nerve has been hit. (ODT)
The RMIT ABC Fact Check unit, funded jointly between the RMIT University and the ABC, describes itself as an “agenda-free zone” that does not allow staff of the unit to be members of political parties or activist groups.
via ‘Riddled with errors’: Paul Fletcher slams ABC fact check
This truly isn’t even a debate to allw it to become one is to blow smoke into the eyes of the Australian public. Tony Abbott lied in 2013 and the LNP has been doing it ever since with the aid of News Corp and now Ch9 suggesting there’s even a question! (ODT)
The only way we get back to normal is by facing this problem head on: The president is trying to steal the election, he has the means to do it, and he very well may succeed unless he’s met with massive, organized resistance.
The only way out of this is to go straight through it. So it’s time to open our eyes, get to work and make sure Trump can’t use an evil, stupid and blatantly obvious bureaucratic scheme to take away our right to vote.
The collective and global responsibility for now and the future
Until then, landlords have a decision to make. Make it easy for the tenant and hope that eventually you will get some income, or evict the tenant who is not paying as soon as you can? Since we are all in this together, since the conversation today is not about politics or countries bombing others, we all have a collective responsibility to help each other out.
This does not mean only during this crisis, it means way beyond it, adjusting to a new reality and a new way of thinking, globally. This means that governments have a global responsibility to set things which were veering dangerously close to the precipice, right.
There is no doubt that a dramatic reduction in the evil consequences of human activity has seen the environment recover dramatically and this is a lesson that nature has taught us. Another lesson is the trade in wildlife and the destruction of habitats, which are natural reservoirs for viruses. Imagine something like MERS (a cousin of Covid’s), another Betacoronavirus also having bats as its vector, with a mortality rate of not 3.4% but rather 34%. Thank God Covid has not (yet) learnt how to behave like its cousin, but what if there are even worse horrors out there lurking in the forests?
Nature has also taught us that if we pull together and share knowledge, instead of glaring at each other down the barrel of a gun, we can make a difference for the better. Nice words? Maybe but let’s put nice words into practice. Time for action.
“Showerheads—you take a shower, the water doesn’t come out. You want to wash your hands, the water doesn’t come out. So what do you do?” he said during a July 16 speech at the White House. “You just stand there longer or you take a shower longer? Because my hair — I don’t know about you, but it has to be perfect. Perfect.”
Seven senior officials had their security clearances withdrawn this week, making it impossible for them to continue in their roles. They included the chief financial officer and former interim CEO, Grant Turner, and the agency’s general counsel, David Kligerman, who both said they had been fired for their resistance to the politicisation of the organisation under its new chief executive, Michael Pack, a Trump supporter and ally of rightwing ideologue, Steve Bannon.
It’s worth noting that the same week of this press conference, some in News Ltd had been pushing a completely false story that the Victoria’s Chief Medical Officer Brett Sutton had resigned. Headlines around the country in the News Ltd press such as ‘Dan-Made Disaster’ are indicative of News Ltd’s bias and their preoccupation with promoting opinion as news.
After weeks of the national press gunning for the Victorian Premier, while neglecting to hold our Prime Minister to account for the pandemic wrecking ball swinging through the Federal Government-managed aged care sector, amongst other things, public anger at the media hypocrisy was a blister waiting to burst.
The relentless and desperate attempts to “get Dan” by some in the Victorian press was certainly worthy of criticism in my view.
Why should one be surprised that it’s Murdoch’s National Masthead that published it. (ODT)
So, when Johannes (son of Bill) Leak has his offensive cartoon published in “The Australian” what should one do? I mean, it’s tempting to ignore it because he’s obviously trying to emulate his father and drum up a bit of publicity, and it’s hard to do that when you lack the talent to make perceptive observations with your cartoons so you have to resort to racism in the hope that you’ll actually attract the sort of outrage that will actually alert people to the fact that you are not your father even though you basically copying his style because you never developed one of your own.
Yes, it’s tempting to just ignore it because you feel that outrage must be what he’s after because nobody could be stupid enough to think that it’s acceptable. Still something about the standard you walk past is the standard you accept.
And, like I said before, unless someone disagrees, people might actually think that nobody thinks what they’re saying is wrong.
I listen to the ABC news and comment programs and note that they employ an increasing number of conservatives including former politicians, like Amanda Vanstone.
Yet conservatives as a whole continue to accuse the ABC of left-wing bias!
And because it is so obvious that the ABC is not offering exclusively left wing opinions, those who are firmly left-wing in their personal beliefs, see the ABC now as becoming right-wing!
It is a crazy situation when each side of politics demands balance in their national broadcaster, and, when they get it, interpret it as bias!
It is worse than crazy, it is dangerous, when that results in the government effectively introducing strong right-wing bias into media, by cutting funds to the ABC and giving funds to blatantly right-wing Murdoch media outlets.
You have to ask yourself – how, in a democracy, can this be seen as legitimate? – particularly when that same government is passing increasingly dictatorial legislation which reduces our freedoms.
Not a good look from a government with so slim a majority!
No wonder they do not want Parliament to be sitting and discussing the government’s flawed program!
via Bias and balance – » The Australian Independent Media Network
America needs a major reboot.
The Buckley v. Valeo and First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti Supreme Court decisions of the 1970s gave corporations and billionaires the “free speech right” to own politicians and political parties, and the Patriot Act and other similar legislation since 9/11 have given the president vast police powers that, throughout history, we’ve only seen in authoritarian, strongman governments.
We must reevaluate, rescind and replace all of these, if our republic is to survive the fresh hell that Trump and his right-wing paramilitaries are apparently planning for this fall and winter.
If Democrats acquire federal power through holding the House and taking the Senate and White House, the entire country needs to be laser-focused on stripping the oligarchic and fascistic elements that have crept into our republic since the Powell memo, multiple Supreme Court interventions, and the Patriot Act with its associated war crimes and torture.
America today is at a turning point, and whether we continue our slide into fascism and oligarchy, or pull back to small-d democratic values will depend, in no small part, on the planning and work we do now, and the candidates and policies we support and put forward two and four years from now.
via If Biden Wins, Get Ready for Trump to Punish America | The Smirking Chimp
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