With the ABC neutered these past decade and Murdoch media, Ch9 and other mainstream organizations tied to the Government and it’s donors for financial gain political media in this country holds any oppositions to account rather than the Government. Democracy is no longer being served and an autocracy is encouraged to flourish. Grass roots politics brought an end to the slippery slide and has temporarily allowed the nation to catch its breathe.
Revelations about Scott Morrison’s power-grab of five secret ministries raise serious questions about the health of Australian media and in turn, the media’s commitment to contribute to a strong democracy.
The core function of political media is to hold power to account. The fact that former Prime Minister Scott Morrison was able to secretly sign himself in as co-minister in the portfolios of health, finance, resources, treasury and home affairs, in collusion with the Governor-General, speaks volumes of journalists’ unwillingness to scrutinise the powerful.
They may have criticisms of him today, but the British media was all in for Boris Johnson when they saw him as a necessary alternative to Jeremy Corbyn’s socialism. And despite everything, they would do it all over again in a heartbeat.
Peter Costello’s AGE spent yesterday attempting to smear Dan Andrews for his relationship with the Sikh Community in Victoria. They seemingly tried to suggest that a positive and progressive relationship was nefarious and suspicious in nature the equivalent of what we have seen done in LNP’s rorts scandals. The Age was acting more as a PR agent in an effort of damage control for the shambles Matthew Guy and the Liberals had found themselves in. However, even Pr agents can be idiots and chose the wrong community and the wrong relationship to focus on even one one dating back to 2018.
But it’s during difficult times like these that Australians bond together to help each other out — and that can be seen by the efforts of Sikh Volunteers Australia, an organisation that aims to reduce distress in the community by providing free food to people in need. Sikh Volunteers Australia preparing food deliveries
Grace Tame’s refusal to appease Morrison with a smile has set off a typical reaction from privileged, middle-aged men, including Peter van Onselen whose smug arrogance and sexism should no longer be tolerated by Channel 10.
The Abbott/ Morrison Government had made a pact with the IPA and NewsCorp to rid Australia of ABC News. Abbott backed into a corner knowing the ABC was Australia’s most trusted media source found that direct task too difficult so he banned the government MPs from going on the ABC. Morrison did almost the same. The government has become a regular fixture on Sky News and 2GB their “cash for comment” propaganda arms . Even granting Murdoch a free unexplained $30M. Australia has never seen a concerted effort like we have in the past 8 years to turn Australian media into American with Australia’s Sky News a model of Fox News, without MSM diversity. Consolidation of our MSM into 3 privatized corporate arms run by Peter Costello, Kerry Stokes, and with Murdoch controlling the largest has seen our media metamorph into the Conservative Cyclops donor at the behest of the LNP, and the want of the IPA posing as a”think tank” but acting as the LNP’s mega- donor/lobbyist and even grooming politicians of the future.
Their aim to rid Australia of any organization designed to keep the bastards honest and Democracy the political system of choice for this country which demands the existence of at least two major parties both of which are prepared to lose an election but rule for all Australians. Unfortunately only one party today is prepared for that role and it isn’t the current government.
The year ended with the resignation of ABC news boss Gaven Morris and a public sledge by ABC chair Ita Buttrose, who accused the (LNP) government of political interference.
With a federal election around the corner, it is going to be a very busy and a very interesting 2022 for the public broadcaster.
“Woke” is Republican-speak. Murdoch Media-speak. Conservative political speak
“Woke” is versatile Conservative catch-all epithet: A form of abuse thrown at us who cry change
And the bigots and the hate-preachers and the supremacists are right to be afraid of us because we in our “wokeness” are going to make sure that they do not have the final word here. To Republicans, to be woke is to be deeply human, and that humanity will remain the foe they cannot defeat.
It’s woke to want fair elections. It’s woke to be anti-racist. It’s woke to be anti-fascist. It’s woke to trust Science. It’s woke to wear a mask in a pandemic. It’s woke to be the parent of a bullied child. It’s woke to want to be addressed with the gender you identify with. It’s woke to want a less-polluted community.
DOG’S BREAKFAST NO DOGS BARKING (POLITICAL ANALYSIS) – Quarantine and vaccine rollout. Not just Victorians shouldering the risk and blame but older Australians too, while the Liberals ‘get away with murder’.
In return for this disclosure to the public, in our interests, the whistle blower has today been doxxed by Chip le Grand, who has described his disclosures as a “hit job” against the government. Le Grand also does a good job of maligning the whistle blower in an attempt to discredit him. It is not a huge stretch to speculate that le Grand and the Sydney Morning Herald under the chairmanship of former Liberal treasurer, Peter Costello, are acting in the interests of a besieged LNP government, and not the public. Regardless of your personal opinion of the man, there can be no doubt that he acted in the public interest in taking his story, with videos and texts as proof, to van Onselen. Whatever his other motives are, and is there one among us without complex motives for much of what we do, he acted in the public interest, which is all that need concern us as citizens struggling to deal with the outrages visited upon us by a government entirely bereft of all morality.
“This is not America,” a woman said to a small group, her voice shaking. She was crying, hysterical. “They’re shooting at us. They’re supposed to shoot BLM, but they’re shooting the patriots.” ( Riots on Capitol Hill)
The mainstream media claims to prize objectivity above all else. But for every story scrutinizing corporate power, you’ll find 10 or 20 depicting CEOs and corporations as the great saviors of America.
Far-right e-celeb Lauren Southern is on the comeback trail. And Australian conservatives are more than happy to offer her a helping hand.
Her bid to be taken seriously as a journalist and commentator was given a small boost recently with a slot on Sky’s Fox News mini-me culture war platform, Outsiders.
The hosts of that program – both the ignominiously departed and those that remain — have never met a rightwing chancer they didn’t like.
But they seem to have a particular affection for Southern, now resident in Australia, who is coming off a curious hiatus from her frenetic work as a far-right influencer.
“A former people smuggler now living in Pakistan has been asked by his former bosses to return to Indonesia and test a future Shorten government by finding passengers willing to travel on boats to Australia.” Ch9
Media Matters: Channel bought Fairfax and has instatnly cahnged tack and taken on the Murdoch Model of business. This is a story you would have expected to see run in conservative fearmongering Herald Sun and Daily Telegraphs to gain attention. The carrot to raise numbers and make advertisersl follow. The ” people smugglers” in this article are unnamed, their “bosses” unnamed as is their location. Historic footage of a people smuggler is used. A fantasy yarn might make a great story and the conservatives happy to use it. Our MSM is a disgrace.
But Dutton was always ready to become Australia’s Paul Revere to let us know ” The boats are coming the boats are coming.” They have always been coming but an “on the waters government secret” but then the ELECTIONS are coming. (ODT)
“They want to push it. They want to send one, two, three, four, five, six, seven boats every week, twice a week … then I think it will be hard for the [Australian] government to handle it. All of a sudden 1000 people, or 2000 in a month or two,” he said.Ch9
Andrew Bolt tells us their ratings are HUGE off a small base. Reality Bytes (ODT)
“This could easily happen at any time,” one Sky insider said. “We’ve got hosts who aren’t journalists and people are just trying to get the programs to air. There’s no time to have a think about whether this is a good guest or not.”
Outside the Sky News studios, there is a view management manufactures outrage in a bid to grow the 24-hour channel’s relatively small audience. But staff say this isn’t the case.
Cutting the ABC and Concentration of Private MSM spells the era of Fake News is growing, Australia needs teh ABC more than ever (ODT)
“This proposed merger means it is about to get even more concentrated,” Ms Rowland said, declaring it “beyond belief” for Senator Fifield to proclaim his government supported media diversity.
“Democracy suffers if you have too few media voices, workers suffer when mergers inevitably lead to job losses and citizens, consumers and communities get less diversity, less coverage and less choice.”
Donald Trump’s former chief strategist has called Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner ‘the railhead of all bad decisions’ in a Vanity Fair interview
This is what Sean Hannity’s Fox News show is like on a daily basis. It’s pure propaganda, an effort to support the president at every turn, while castigating his enemies — particularly the press. His viewers are living in an alternate reality — one that he’s carefully crafted to benefit Trump.
Multiple women’s media outlets are condemning President Donald Trump’s July 25 speech, in which he linked gangs such as MS-13 to violence against women, saying he is exploiting the deaths of young women at the hands of immigrants, calling his remarks “xenophobic,” and explaining that his rhetoric is “effectively stereotyping all undocumented immigrants as gang members.” Trump has previously used MS-13 violence to justify anti-immigrant policies, but experts say that such policies “could actually make the gang stronger.”
“If you make trouble you are raising, that is, conjuring up, the accursed spirit of Cain. This is similar to several phrases that allude to calling-up or ‘raising’ the Devil. There’s ‘raise the Devil’ of course and also ‘raise hob’ and ‘raise hell’.”
Universities that fail to protect professors against the dishonest misinformation campaigns of conservative media are complicit in the rise in violent right-wing rhetoric on college campuses. A statement from AAUP, reported by the Chronicle, highlights the risk: “Threatening messages are likely to stifle free expression and cause faculty and others on campus to self-censor so as to avoid being subjected to similar treatment.” The conservative media that create the environment for these threats — and the mainstream media outlets that fail to aggressively counter this misinformation — are also at fault in creating less safe and less open universities.
We also have a problem in governance in Australia. The two major parties are now polarized between Capital Economics and Social Economics, and the problem has arisen that the application of one is seen to compete to destroy the other. This is a foolish beat-up used to belittle Labor’s capability to successfully meld the two to bring about great social and financial security for the nation. The AAA credit rating, the saving from the GFC, and the implementation of fantastic social necessities like Carbon Trading, NDIS, the NBN and Gonski are proof positive that social economics can be done with negotiation and respect.
Andy Fleming, a blogger broadly connected to the Antifa movement, said he did not advocate the assault of Andrew Bolt, though he believed that was not the protesters’ original intention.He agreed with Bolt on the principle of free speech but said it was reasonable for demonstrators to heckle and disrupt public meetings and events – particularly as fringe right-wing ideas encroached further on mainstream politics.”Which doesn’t necessarily mean glitter-bombing Andrew Bolt,” Mr Fleming said.But conservatives feel they are under unjust siege. Chris Berg, research fellow at the libertarian Institute of Public Affairs and now attached to RMIT, echoed Bolt’s concerns about anti-fascists increasingly using violence against mainstream conservatives.
Breitbart’s xenophobic “Sweden YES” tag is a dog whistle to the “alt-right,” and the misleading articles marked with the label serve as the foundation for the outlet’s anti-immigrant campaign in both Europe and the United States.In a March 17 interview with NBC News, Breitbart.com’ Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow at
At noon today, Donald Trump will swear the oath of office and become president of the United States. His ascent would not have been possible without the years of vitriol that the right-wing media directed at his predecessor.That hatred of President Obama, and the related scorched-earth efforts to smother his agenda, prepared the way for Tru
Breitbart.com appears to have falsely reported that “a mob of more than 1,000 men chanted ‘Allahu Akhbar’” while attacking police and setting a church on fire during New Year’s Eve festivities in Dortmund, Germany. Breitbart is engaged in an ongoing effort to amplify anti-Muslim sentiment in Europe in order to support the rise of xenophob
Instead of coming to the aid of George Ciccariello-Maher, who has received death threats, Drexel University issued a statement on Christmas condemning the associate professor’s tweet.
Earlier this morning I heard a rather strange interview with ACL head, Lyle Shelton, where he was suggesting that the police announcement that the explosion outside the Australian Christian Lobby office wasn’t motivated by politics or religion was “just a belief”. There was no way the police could know what motivated the perpetrator because they’d…
On Saturday, a false report was posted online. It was based on footage of a beating that took place in North Philadelphia last year, and it was altered to give the impression that the event had just happened—and that anti-Trump demonstrators were the perpetrators.
They come over here. They buy up all the farmland that we stole. And they don’t assimilate. I am, of course, referring to the impossibly clever Chinese. And we’ll get to the perennially screwed over First Australians in a minute. Reports out today cast some doubt on the never-ending xenophobia of Australians when it comesMore
University of Adelaide researchers call for government action on housing affordability, saying poor conditions can harm people’s physical and mental health
“Could it be that people are starting to question whether Miranda Devine and Ray Hadley and Gerard Henderson may not know quite as much as the experts?”
Peta Credlin’s wish to be able to use her own voice is about to come true with one of the most talked about figures of the Abbott set to join Sky television as an election commentator.
Andrew Bolt and his ilk more than any other industry are persuaders who battle for our hearts and minds while hiding, distracting and distorting the information news and facts we need to operate as as true Democracy. The only feeling they offer the Australian public in 2016 is expresses here.
Fox has a long history of attacking overtime protections, recently complaining that the then-rumored proposal amounted to “left-wing economic engineering” and was “probably going to hurt a lot of other people.”
Robert Reich blasted overtime opponents for warning of “unintended consequences” from stronger wages “without an ounce of empirical data to back it up.”
Overtime Pay Is the Minimum Wage for the Middle Class
by Robert Reich and Nick Hanauer
The Department of Labor just proposed raising the overtime threshold from $23,600 a year to $50,440, and from the fearful squawks coming from the business lobby you’d think the sky was falling. But all this trickle-down scare-talk about job-killing regulations and unintended economic consequences is just that — trickle-down scare talk — without an ounce of empirical data to back it up.
We call it: Chicken Little Economics.
In fact, far from the end of the world, middle-class Americans never did better than when the overtime threshold — the annual salary below which workers are automatically entitled to time-and-a-half overtime pay — was at its peak. A half-century ago, more than 60 percent of salaried workers qualified for overtime pay. But after 40 years in which the threshold has been allowed to steadily erode, only about 8 percent do. If you feel like you’re working longer hours for less money than your parents did, it’s probably because you are.
Today, if you’re salaried and earn more than $23,600 dollars a year, you don’t automatically qualify for overtime: that means every extra hour you work, you work for free. But at the Obama administration’s proposed new threshold, everyone earning a salary of $50,440 a year or less would be eligible to collect time-and-a-half pay for every hour worked over 40 hours a week. That would add nearly 5 million more workers to the numbers eligible, substantially increasing both middle-class incomes and employment. It’s not as high as the $69,000 threshold it would take to return to 1975 levels, but it’s a courageous step in the right direction. It’s like a minimum wage hike for the middle class.
Everybody knows Americans are overworked. A recent Gallup poll found that salaried Americans now report working an average of 47 hours a week — not the supposedly standard 40 — while 18 percent of Americans report working more than 60 hours a week. Indeed, overtime pay has become such a rarity that many Americans don’t even realize that the majority of salaried workers were once eligible. We just keep working longer and harder. And ironically, the longer and harder we work, the more we weaken the labor market, weakening our own bargaining power in the process. That helps explain why over the last 30 years, corporate profits have doubled from about 6% of GDP to about 12%, while wages have fallen by almost exactly the same amount. The erosion of overtime and other labor protections is one of the main factors leading to this worsening inequality. But a higher threshold would help reverse this trend.
Under the new salary threshold, employers would have a choice: They could either pay you time-and-half for your extra hours worked, or they could hire more workers at the standard rate to fill your previously unpaid hours. The former would put more money into your pockets. The latter would put more leisure time at your disposal while directly adding more jobs. And either would be great for workers and great for boosting economic growth.
Lower- and middle-income workers don’t stash their earnings in offshore accounts the way CEOs do — the more they’re paid the more they spend on goods and services. When workers have more money, businesses have more customers; and when businesses have more customers, they hire more workers. Whether through an increase in consumer demand or through a reduction in unpaid hours, a higher overtime threshold would increase total employment, tightening the labor market and driving up real wages for the first time since the late 1990s.
Of course, conservative pundits and politicians will attempt to preserve the status quo by warning that a return to more reasonable overtime standards would somehow cripple our economy, hurting the exact same workers we intend to help. But that’s what they always warn about every regulation — from the minimum wage, to Obamacare, to child labor laws. Yet it never turns out to be true. The sky never falls. And trickle-down economics looks more like Chicken Little Economics with every passing day.
Robert Reich served as the Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton. Nick Hanauer is a Seattle-based entrepreneur.
Mr Dutton took aim at the Q&A program and its host Tony Jones, whom he accused of acting disgracefully.
At noon today, Donald Trump will swear the oath of office and become president of the United States. His ascent would not have been possible without the years of vitriol that the right-wing media directed at his predecessor.That hatred of President Obama, and the related scorched-earth efforts to smother his agenda, prepared the way for Tru
Credlin has all the fundamentals in place for a commanding screen turn but she remains a stranger.
There’s a split in conservative ranks between those who support Turnbull and the ‘delusional conservatives’, who yearn for Abbott’s return at any cost
olddogthoughts 