Author: peterimrich
Key points:
UN chief Antonio Guterres told Asia it is “lagging behind” and said the rollback of coal could help curb rising global temperatures
Australia is the world’s biggest coal exporter
According to the Minerals Council of Australia, most of Australia’s coal production is sold overseas, and mainly to Asia
Howard declared it a crime to stop Australians waving or wearing the Australian flag. Morrison agreed. It was 2005 and a Patriotism and jingoistic nationalism enabled and encouraged ultra-right Nationalists to continue to wage war on migrants and Muslims after Cronulla. Howards Hitleresque response was to the Big Day Out banning the flag as it encouraged sectarian violence, arrogance and disrespect of Australia and who we were by White Nationalists and their ignorant camp followers. morrison saw it as a political advantage. (ODT)
Scott Morrison’s pledge to crack down on climate protesters is in part a deflection, a ruse to encourage climate change deniers by implying that there’s nothing wrong with building more coal-fired power station; it’s the “extremist, radical activists” who are out of line. And it’s a way of wedging Labor. Yet it would be wrong to see it merely as an act of bellicose posturing from a wannabe populist strong man.
Morrison’s past record suggests more than a hint of an authoritarian, if not autocratic, personality beneath the evasions, the secrecy and the cultivated, folksy veneer of the sport-loving, cap-wearing , beer-drinking suburban dad as populist leader.
Given the proliferation of national security laws which have hugely strengthened the power of the state, since 2011, moreover, we must challenge Morrison’s latest florid, rhetorical assault on democracy; resist all attempts at division and the silencing of dissent. Our future as a civil society; our freedom depends upon it.
Beyond a Morrison Police State. – » The Australian Independent Media Network
“Trump speaks with complete transparency; he says, “We want the oil. This is the American political reality since at least the end of the Second World War: ‘We want to get rid of so-and-so. We want to provide a service in return for money.’ This is the American political reality. What do we want more than a transparent enemy?”
via Syria’s Al-Assad: Trump, Openly Criminal, is the best US President we could Wish for
Trump is exactly who his critics have always said he was: a venal, narcissistic, corrupt, self-dealing wannabe autocrat. He has proven that over and over again, and the Ukraine scandal is just the latest demonstration of a plain fact. It’s impeachable on its own, but it’s also falls at the end of a series of condemnable conduct. His ideological compatriots should start taking the president’s critics seriously, instead of desperately trying to sweep Trump’s mountain of wrongdoing under the rug.
via The Ukraine Scandal Proves Trump Is Exactly Who We Warned You He Was | The Smirking Chimp
Employers claim the system is too complex, but others say the problem is that the rewards of ripping off staff outweigh the risks
So this is what we have sunk to – a Prime Minister who wants us all to be quiet and, if we don’t, he’ll make us.
He doesn’t want us to talk about his government’s woeful record on greenhouse gas emissions. He doesn’t want us to talk about reefs dying and rivers drying up and mass extinctions. He doesn’t want us to choose ethical investments in sustainable industries.
He wants to bully insurance companies into insuring unviable projects and he wants banks to lend money to uncommercial ventures. He wants to make our superannuation funds invest in what will inevitably become stranded assets.
The idea that one would get their investment advice from the likes of mummy’s boy Matt Canavan is hilarious.
We have a Minister in Peter Dutton who seems obsessed with sadistically inflicting pain and suffering. The Biloela family could have stayed at home, contributing to the community while all their matters went through the courts.
Instead, two innocent little girls have been treated so badly that we have almost certainly breached our obligations under the UN Convention on Children, while they have probably been as traumatised for life as have the victims of institutional sex abuse.
And the cost to the taxpayer has been exorbitant – certainly more than enough to settle all the excluded refugees in jobs and contributing to the economy!
Australia – the Lucky Country? – I don’t think so!
Australia – the land of the Fair Go? – Only if you are white and wealthy!
via The backlash of change – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Republicans and even Trump was wrong in thanking Tim Morrison (ODT)
With US President Donald Trump touting the completion of a trade deal, China has won the World Trade Organization’s permission to impose $3.6 billion worth of retaliatory sanctions against the US.
The WTO ruling may give Beijing some clout. The organization’s appeals judges agreed that the US was not in full compliance with a WTO ruling after Washington placed tariffs on Chinese solar panels, steel cylinders and wind towers.
In China’s big win, the WTO is allowing the country to impose higher tariffs than currently allowed by the global trade body, as well as giving China more freedom to target US products and sectors of its own choosing.
China’s willingness to seek approval from the WTO, rather than impose such sanctions on its own terms, shows that Beijing is willing to take a measured approach to resolution. Trump has previously threatened to withdraw from the WTO if the organization doesn’t “shape up.”
The ultimate American Trumplican “Sales Pitch”(ODT)
Something you don’t hear every day but it’s very Trump and very the USA (ODT)
It has been suggested there is a video showing this same officer more than enthusiastically beating a defenceless protestor with his baton for little or no cause. If this is the case is he the role model for the new recruitment campaign for 3000 more in Victoria? (ODT
via Police officer faces disciplinary action over crude ‘EAD Hippy’ sticker
It takes some chutzpah to stand up with a straight face and deliver a speech foreshadowing a government crackdown on protest activity while in the same breath declaring that a new insidious form of progressivism is intent on denying the liberties of Australians.
But Scott Morrison has never lacked confidence.
In a political world full of harmful ideologies, Kyle Mervin explains how to spin them to the masses and make them work.
Lie number one: Make out that you are more popular than you are
Lie number two: If you don’t have an actual enemy, you have to create one
Lie number three: Create your enemy’s arguments for them
Lie number four: If you do find yourself under attack for your ideas, guide your argument away from the detail and argue your right to say it
America protects its drug business in Aghanistan which began in the 70s could one imagine the profits made over that period. budget The global monetary value of the heroin market is of the same order of magnitude as the defense budget of the USA $717 billion .
Needless to say, the Pentagon not to mention the CIA which launched the opium economy in Afghanistan in the late 1970s are intent upon protecting this multibillion dollar industry. The proceeds of the Afghan drug trade were initially used to finance the recruitment of Al Qaeda Mujahideen mercenaries to fight in the Soviet-Afghan war.
Israel doesn’t care what your religion is if your not Jewish or Palestinian. (ODT)
via The Israeli Ethnic Cleansing of Palestinian Christians that nobody is talking about
The current drought in Eastern Australia has focused the attention of all Australians on water but effective policy responses are missing in action. Isn’t it time to call it a water emergency? Quentin Grafton and John Williams report.
via Declaring a water emergency means putting people before profit – Michael West
If you encourage the banning of branded opioids or benzo you might be prosecuted under Morrison’s new laws. BDS, Sleeping Giants calling for a boycott on Helloworld will be made illegal. Encouraging boycotts against Israeli settlement goods, Alan Jones or Sky News after dark could land you in jail. The government wants to become an open and visible arm of Corporations Mussolini would be pleased. You can’t boycott News Corp (ODT)
The witness, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, is a decorated Iraq War veteran who advises the National Security Council on Ukraine and Russia. According to his prepared testimony, Vindman notified White House lawyers on two occasions in July that President Donald Trump and his aides had politicized aid to Ukraine, by pressing Ukraine’s president to help smear Democrats in return for nearly $400 million in security assistance.
While Republicans leaned in to the anti-Semitic trope of dual loyalty, framing Vindman in a manner once used to attack the French army captain Alfred Dreyfus — a Jewish French army officer falsely accused and convicted of spying for Germany in 1894 — the colonel told the House inquiry that he had a refugee’s “deep appreciation for American values and ideals and the power of freedom.”
via Republicans Accuse Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman of Dual Loyalty
The Liberal senator James McGrath and the former Liberal candidate Jacinta Price have fronted an Institute of Public Affairs advertisement attacking any proposal for an Indigenous voice to parliament, claiming it will divide Australians by race.
The inflammatory intervention comes just a day after the minister for Indigenous Australians, Ken Wyatt, launched a co-design process with Indigenous people on the voice to parliament.
The negative advertising suggests the rightwing thinktank and aligned Coalition conservatives will continue to campaign against a voice despite the government’s repeated efforts to signal that the First Nations representative body will be legislated rather than enshrined in the constitution.
Because of a corrupt Supreme Court, oligarchs and the corporations that made them rich have taken over the American political system. If we don’t take it back from them soon, the entire experiment of an American democratic republic will come to an end.
via How the Supreme Court and the Morbidly Rich Are Ruining Democracy in America | The Smirking Chimp
Trump still contends that the summary of the July call released by the White House clears him of any wrongdoing, a claim that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has distanced himself from and that acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney has effectively contradicted.
via Trump Allies Smear Decorated Veteran Testifying In Impeachment Inquiry | HuffPost Australia
If even Israel cannot count on US help in a fight, what chance does any other US ally have? Trump’s America may defend its own most immediate and most obvious interests. But we are learning that Trump does not include American allies in that definition.
via Trump’s gloating of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s death diminishes trust of allies
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