Noise pollution from drilling for oil and gas offshore devastates marine life, affecting not only food sources but oxygen levels. But neither the federal government nor NOPSEMA, which has environmental responsibility for approving offshore projects, takes such damage into account. Suzanne Arnold reports.
Source: Regulators ignore marine noise pollution from oil drilling – Michael West
So without Manchin, is the For the People Act dead? Probably, unless Biden can convince one Republican senator to join him in supporting it. Would Mitt Romney or Lisa Murkowski or Susan Collins be willing to do so and buck the voter-suppressing, Trump-dominated GOP? Or will history record that Republican senators were more united in their opposition to democracy than Democratic senators are in their support for it? The optimist in me says Romney will do it because he’s an institutionalist who’s appalled the authoritarianism that Trump has unleashed in the GOP. The cynical realist in me says no way.
Source: The Beginning of the End of Democracy as We Know it? | The Smirking Chimp
My thought for the day This Government’s performance over its time in office has been like a daily shower of offensiveness raining down on society. Surely performance or lack of it must mean something.
As Republicans refuse to investigate the Capitol attack and continue to embrace Trump, America remains at high risk of further political violence, writes George Grundy. THIS TIME there’s no doubt as to the protagonists. Donald Trump and senior members of his family and Administration fomented a violent attack on the United States Capitol, on the day the 2020 election results were due to be certified by the United States Congress.
Source: U.S. democracy at risk as Republicans condone Capitol riot
Anti-bigness types are not anti-capitalists, but their diagnosis of the problem with the current mode of production is quite similar to anti-capitalist diagnoses. Under a conventional capitalist system, a relatively small group of affluent people (the capitalist class) owns and controls the productive apparatus of society, and a much larger group of non-affluent people (the working class) must submit themselves to work for the former group, with the penalty for non-submission being death via starvation. This is an unequal and unfree way to organize a society, full of coercion and ripe with potential and actual abuse. The socialist solution to this problem is to have the working class collectively take ownership and control of the productive apparatus of society away from the capitalist class. Put differently, socialists want to replace rule by the few (oligarchy) with rule by the many (democracy), not just for the government but also for the economy.
Source: No, Small Isn’t Beautiful
We are Australia
What life’s like for young Australians who turned 18 in a pandemic. By Meghna Bali, Maddy King and Ange McCormack / triple j Hack Updated 6 Jun 2021, 9:58am Published 6 Jun 2021, 5:55am Share this story In the future, we’ll look back at 2020 and remember it all like a blur: the lockdowns, the late-night press conference panics, the toilet paper shortages, the Netflix binging and the sourdough-starting, the anxiety, the loneliness, the grief. Young Australians who were in their last year of high school will remember it as a generation-defining disaster.
Source: The ‘Quaranteens’ – ABC News
My thought for the day Having the ability to admit that you are wrong is an absolute prerequisite to discernment and knowledge.’ ( john Lord )
Source: There are consequences for reneging on a major promise – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Something I’ve just learned about Amazon – one of America’s most profitable and fastest-growing corporations, headed by the richest man in the world: According to the Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Amazon warehouse workers sustained nearly double the rate of serious injury incidents last year as did workers in non-Amazon warehouses.
An investigation by the NSW Environment Protection Authority has confirmed numerous bird deaths in western NSW were caused by the consumption of mouse bait. The finding follows reports of native birds suspected to have been poisoned in the state’s central-west.
Source: Dead galahs collateral damage in fight against mouse plague
The greatest danger to American democracy right now is not coming from Russia, China, or North Korea. It is coming from the Republican Party. Only 25 percent of voters self-identify as Republican, the GOP’s worst showing against Democrats since 2012 and sharply down since last November. But those who remain in the Party are far angrier, more ideological, more truth-denying, and more racist than Republicans who preceded them. And so are the lawmakers who represent them. Today’s Republican Party increasingly is defined not by its shared beliefs but by its shared delusions. Last Friday, 54 U.S. senators voted in favor of proceeding to debate a House-passed bill to establish a commission to investigate the causes and events of the January 6th insurrection. This was 6 votes short of the number of votes needed for “cloture,” or stopping debate – meaning any further consideration of the bill would have been filibustered by Republicans indefinitely. So there will be no investigation.
Source: The Greatest Danger to American Democracy | The Smirking Chimp
More than 100 scholars of democracy on Tuesday released a joint “statement of concern” calling on Congress to combat ongoing GOP attacks on voting rights and ensure fair and free future U.S. elections with federal legislation. Published online by the think tank New America, the scholars’ statement comes as Republican lawmakers nationwide continue to propose and enact state-level voter suppression bills. This past weekend, Texas House Democrats staged a walkout to block state Senate-approved legislation widely denounced by voting rights advocates and other critics across the country, including President Joe Biden.
I suppose it’s impossible to know everything, but I know that Australians should make a more meaningful attempt to know something about their everyday politics. About what’s going on in the world, particularly their homeland.
Source: When what I do know is only surpassed by what I don’t – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Snigger at that if you think I’m being ridiculous, but remember that this is the government that had Dan Tehan tell us that the vaccine rollout “wasn’t a race”. Why not? Well, because the Melbourne Cup is a race, so…
This is the last in my series on ‘manipulations,’ and since I have been throwing a lot of mud on who does it, it would seem fair if I explained how they do it and why we should fight it.
Source: You are being manipulated politically. Here’s how. – » The Australian Independent Media Network
It is not just Scott Morrison and his ministers disseminating dubious data. The head of at least one federal department is making factually questionable assertions of a political nature, writes Alan Austin.
Source: Australia’s post-COVID economic recovery lags behind comparable nations
The great advantage of having retired, is the time and opportunity it provides to see how things could be improved. The first observation relates to the ability to compare progress – or otherwise – over time. One unfortunate example is the very obvious increase in inequality. I can remember, back in the UK in the 1950s and ’60s, that the top tax rate was 90%. Should any modern government seek to raise tax rates to such a level nowadays, all hell would break loose!
Source: The damage done by inequality – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Republicans in Arizona are hoping to overturn their state’s presidential election result, creating a template that they can apply in Georgia, Wisconsin, and beyond. Meanwhile Sen. Mitch McConnell (to no one’s surprise) is making it clear that no Democratic policy objective is going to make it past his filibuster. Does a strategy of legislative obstruction and retroactive electioneering hold any promise for the party? Activist Lauren Windsor and former Senate staffer Eli Zupnick join Ryan Grim to discuss.
Joel Fitzgibbon is trying to walk both sides of the street on coal and climate. As everyone knows you can’t. This week the Labor member for the federal seat of Hunter asked whether his party had the “agility” to appeal to residents of progressive inner Sydney and Melbourne suburbs and resource-rich regions. Two-faced politics rarely succeeds, certainly not over time and on issues as serious as climate change.
Source: False prophets and snake oil will fail coal communities
My thought for the day We dislike and resist change in the foolish assumption that we can make permanent anything that makes us feel secure. Yet change is, in fact, part of the very fabric of our existence.( John Lord )
Source: You are being manipulated much more than you think – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The Fair Work Commission must reject calls for “wage restraint” from the business lobby at a time when many are banking record profits – with some even pocketing Jobkeeper allowances – at the expense of struggling workers. Emma Dawson reports.
Source: Suppressing wages is economic vandalism in the current climate
Maybe it’s wishful thinking to declare the pandemic over in the US, and presumptuous to conclude what lessons we’ve learned from it. So consider this list a first draft.
Source: Workers Matter and Government Works: Eight Lessons from the Pandemic | The Smirking Chimp
No wonder there are shortages of workers at the wages and working conditions employers are willing to offer. If you believe in its omniscience, the market is signaling corporations and businesses that employers must offer more.
Source: On How there is no Restaurant Worker Shortage, only a Shortage of Safe Jobs with Adequate Pay
Maybe it’s wishful thinking to declare the pandemic over in the US, and presumptuous to conclude what lessons we’ve learned. So consider this a first draft.
My thought for the day The common good should be at the centre of any political philosophy. However, it is more likely to be found on the left than the right. ( John Lord )
The mining industry has exaggerated its contribution in taxes and royalties to Australian governments by an estimated $45 billion over the past 10 years. Callum Foote reports on the findings of an independent research project by Michael West Media.
Source: Mining lobby exaggerates taxes and royalties paid by $45 billion – Michael West
Every human being has certain basic needs, and it should be the task of the government to do as much as possible to ensure those needs are met.
Source: Now for some constructive criticism – » The Australian Independent Media Network
It is 1986. A blood test to screen for non A, non B Hepatitis, costing just 5 cents per test, has been shown to significantly reduce the amount of contaminated blood being collected and given to people needing transfusions. It is not a specific test, so it also rules out a small percentage of healthy donors due to occasional false positive results. Blood banks throughout the US are using the test for medical, ethical and legal reasons. What was Australia to do? Queensland’s Blood Service started using the test but no other Australian blood service did so. Many thousands of people were infected as a result. Elizabeth Minter reports in this third of her series on Australia’s infected blood scandal.
Agriculture has a huge role to play in both the mitigation of, and adaptation to, climate change. It is in their best interests to lead the way to a sustainable future and there is enthusiasm to do so from this generation of farmers. So why do they keep electing Luddites?
Tim is the archetypal Liberal. No expertise other than self-promotion, jobs for the boys, rapid u-turns for political expediency, maximise your expense claims, deals for mates, feather your financial nest, and get your photo taken a lot. He will probably go far. And isn’t that … so disappointingly inadequate?
Nearly all the words and phrases used by the Democrats, Republicans and the talking heads on the media to describe the unrest inside Israel and the heaviest Israeli assault against the Palestinians since the 2014 attacks on Gaza, which lasted 51 days and killed more than 2,200 Palestinians, including 551 children, are a lie. Israel, by employing its military machine against an occupied population that does not have mechanized units, an air force, navy, missiles, heavy artillery and command-and-control, not to mention a U.S. commitment to provide a $38 billion defense aid package for Israel over the next decade, is not exercising “the right to defend itself.” It is carrying out mass murder. It is a war crime.
My thought for the day At the time of the election, the coalition will have been in power for nine exhausting years and want another three. What as a legacy do they have to show for it? Has this Government raised your standard of living? ( John Lord )
Source: The budget: A layperson’s dilemma – » The Australian Independent Media Network
With the babble about Cold War paranoia becoming a routine matter in Canberra, the treacherous ground for war with China is being bedded down and readied. The Yellow Peril image never truly dissipated from Australia’s politics. It was crucial in framing the first act of the newly born Commonwealth in 1901: The Immigration Restriction Act. Even as China was being ravaged and savaged by foreign powers and implosion, there was a fear that somewhere along the line, a reckoning would come. Charles Henry Pearson, a professor of history at King’s College London, penned his National Life and Character: a Forecast (1893) with fear in mind. The expansion of the West into all parts of the globe and its claims to progress would soon have to face a new reality: the threat posed by the “Black and Yellow races.” Pearson fastened on various developments. The population of China was booming. The Chinese diaspora, the same, making their presence felt in places such as Singapore. “The day will come and perhaps is not far distant, when the European observer will look round to see the globe girdled with a continuous zone of the black and yellow races, no longer too weak for aggression or under tutelag
Source: “Elbowed and Hustled”: Australia’s Yellow Peril Problem – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Scott Morrison’s 2019 election campaign speech: “To run a stronger economy requires a government that knows how to manage money. If you can’t manage money, you can’t run the country.
Source: Scott Morrison’s “promise to Australia” – » The Australian Independent Media Network
My thought for the day Why does western art always depict Jesus as white when as a middle eastern Jew he would have been brown-skinned.
Politically, this budget had to offer a convincing response to the report of the royal commission on aged care. Reports have suggested fixing the broken system would take extra spending of about $10 billion a year. He settled for spending an extra $3.5 billion a year. Major patch-up at best. The scandals will continue. Politically, Morrison had to make this a women-friendly budget, to prove he valued women’s contribution to the economy and remove impediments to their economic security. Making childcare free would have been a big help to young families, as well as greatly increasing employment. That would have cost about $2 billion a year. Morrison settled for $600 million a year, or one childcare-using family in four by excluding the great majority, who have only one child in care.
The truth is, at this stage the economy is still running on the stored heat of last year’s massive budgetary stimulus, much of which has still to be spent. The purpose of public-sector stimulus is to get the private sector – households and businesses – up to ignition point, so it keeps going under its own steam.
That hasn’t happened yet. So the purpose of the further stimulus in this year’s budget is to keep the kick-starting going until the private sector’s engine gets going.
Source: Federal budget 2021: Josh Frydenberg, Scott Morrison’s good effort at marketing misses main chance
Most Republican voters believe him. It is natural to want to put all this unpleasantness behind us. We are finally turning the corner on the pandemic and the economy. Why look back to the trauma of the 2020 election? Because we cannot put it behind us. Trump’s big lie and all that it has provoked are still with us. If we forget what has occurred the trauma will return, perhaps in even more terrifying form.
Source: Republicans Tried to Overturn the Election. We Must Not Forget. | The Smirking Chimp
America prefers to look forward rather than back. We’re a land of second acts. We move on. This can be a strength. We don’t get bogged down in outmoded traditions, old grudges, obsolete ways of thinking. We constantly reinvent. The downside is a tendency toward collective amnesia about what we’ve been through, and a corresponding reluctance to do anything about it or hold anyone accountable.
Source: Republicans tried to overturn the election. We can’t just forget that | Robert Reich | The Guardian
The highest level of home care support for older Australians costs $52,000. This $1000 a week buys, on average, less than nine hours of support. There’s plenty of skimming going on by aged care providers, some of whom are the nation’s biggest corporatised charities. With the budget expected to boost the number of home care packages without demanding any oversight, providers will be rubbing their hands with glee. Dr Sarah Russell reports.
Source: Aged Care fail – and now a Budget bonanza for Home Care freeloaders – Michael West
Spokesman: War with China is practically inevitable. I mean, just look at all the people saying it. If we don’t declare war on them soon, they’ll think we all talk and no action and refuse to take us seriously. Rossleigh: Well, if we’re going to war with them, why are we still selling them iron ore? Spokesman: I’m sorry, but I must take this phone call.
Source: Why The Media Is So Unfair On Scott Morrison… – » The Australian Independent Media Network
“The days of subsidies in energy are over, whether it is for coal, wind, solar, any of them,” the treasurer said. “That is the way I think you get the best functioning energy market with the lowest possible price for businesses and for households and that is what the national energy guarantee and our energy policies are designed to achieve.” Fast forward to this week when Keith Pitt, the minister for resources, water and northern Australia, blocked a loan for the Kaban green energy hub which had been approved by the Northern Australian Infrastructure Facility (Naif) in January. The blocked funding would have helped build a 157-megawatt windfarm and 100MW battery and included a 320km transmission line upgrade. Pitt’s reason for overruling the decision was that investment in “mature technologies” like wind and solar energy would be driven by the private sector whilst the government’s policy was to support dispatchable generation. I’m not sure what Mr Pitt thinks batteries are for.
1) Have you ever been reluctantly drawn into one of those political discussions that just seem to flare up randomly in the office, on the train home, during a dinner party or at half time at the footy or the local pub? You know, the sort that takes you by surprise. After many years of experience, I learned that by giving them five minutes of listening time, which ones were worth engaging in and those that weren’t worth the pain. The ones that usually end with a loud. “What would you know anyhow?”
Source: What would you know anyhow? – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The NSW Liberals and Nationals have snuck through floodplain harvesting legislation that allows upstream irrigators to take up to five times (500 %) their licensed water allotments, potentially devastating the already fragile Murray Darling system. Callum Foote reports.
It is a given that a Coalition government will, rightly or wrongly, promote their credentials on national security. Who could forget Tony Abbott’s ludicrous promise to shirtfront Vladimir Putin. The tough talk might appeal to some but this political posturing has real-life consequences for people.
Source: The drums of hairy chest beating – » The Australian Independent Media Network
By almost any measure, Joe Biden’s first 100 days have been hugely successful. Getting millions of Americans inoculated against COVID-19 and beginning to revive the economy are central to that success.
Source: Biden’s First 100 Days and the GOP’s First 100 Days Without Trump | The Smirking Chimp
Our current Environment Minister, Sussan Ley (number four to try the job), has just reannounced, for the umpteenth time, our commitment to capturing blue carbon greenhouse gases in mangroves, marshes and seagrasses. It’s a worthwhile endeavour, as it was when Julie Bishop made the same announcement in 2017. These systems are not just valuable because of the carbon they capture, they are valuable for a whole multitude of reasons around fisheries, around coastal protection, around supporting our marine biodiversity. But they are under threat. Since European settlement in Australia, we’ve lost about 25% of our sea grasses, 50% of our tidal marshes, somewhere between 50% and 70% of our mangroves, and that loss is continuing.
Source: Blue carbon sounds nice… again – » The Australian Independent Media Network
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