via Wear the bastards down – that’s what we have to do – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Category: Informed Comment
SINCE DONALD TRUMP became President, the relationship between the U.S. and China has deteriorated to the point that some observers talk of war. Why is this? In simple terms, America feels threatened by China’s rapidly expanding wealth and influence. Dangerous confrontation has resulted and Australia has been sucked in. How far remains to be seen, but it is not in Australia’s interest to be used by Trump or Murdoch.
Leaving Australians behind (ODT)
About two-thirds of our 331 COVID deaths have been of aged Australians. From the outset it was known that the deaths would be concentrated among the aged. Indeed, Australia has one of the highest aged death rates from COVID-19 in the world.
How was the virus allowed to run from one aged-care facility to another, from one aged-care cluster to another, without a decisive response?
The federal government has a clear, overarching responsibility for aged care, but this week it has moved to blatant blame-shifting. The Minister for Aged Care, Richard Colbeck, has told us that while the federal government is “responsible for the management and regulation of aged care”, it is the responsibility of the states to “manage the pandemic” because they are “responsible for the public health response”. What semantics. What a copout.
Reynald’s record is plain and clear to be seen here to remind us of just who she is. (ODT)
Oh Linda, we don’t forget.
So when Ms Reynolds takes time out from her sucking up to Donald Trump to issue a media release about Dan Andrews rejecting ADF help in Victoria’s fight against COVID 19, which was quickly refuted with facts from the actual person involved in Victoria’s emergency response, it is blindingly obvious that this woman is solely focused on petty party politics and will say whatever she thinks her bosses want to hear. She has a laser-like focus on where her bread is buttered.
Heaven help us if she is the best person we can find for the job of co-ordinating the defence of this country.
Linda Reynolds, you are the epitome of a political hack.
via Trust Linda Reynolds? Sure can’t – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Brilliant (ODT)
The American president lives to cultivate resentments, demonize his opponents, validate hatred. His main tool of governance is the lie; as of July 9th, 2020, the documented tally of his distortions and false statements numbered 20,055. If America’s first president, George Washington, famously could not tell a lie, the current one can’t recognize the truth. Inverting the words and sentiments of Abraham Lincoln, this dark troll of a man celebrates malice for all, and charity for none.
via How Covid-19 Signals the End of the American Era – Rolling Stone
While the UK’s Met Office is out there educating the public, BoM is remarkably coy about any public discussion of climate change. Questions have also been asked whether its senior leadership is too close to the gas industry. Sandi Keane investigates.
Since the days of the Howard government, effective action on climate change has been held hostage by the big polluters’ stranglehold on policy.
Last week’s leaked report from the National Covid-19 Coordination Commission Manufacturing Taskforce comes as no surprise from a commission stacked with executives from the gas and mining lobbies. Its recommendations are a bonanza for the fossil fuel industry and a chilling harbinger of the nightmare to come if, courtesy of the taxpayer, Big Gas is unleashed across our prime farmland.
via Bureau of Meteorology: under pressure to toe the Coalition line on climate change? – Michael West
The For-Profit Aged-Care Industry Has Led to Catastrophe
The epicenter of Melbourne’s COVID-19 outbreak is, predictably, aged-care homes, where years of marketization have led to an industry based on low wages, understaffing and cost cutting. Amid the tragedy taking place in aged care, we need to call for an overhaul of the entire for-profit system.
via The For-Profit Aged-Care Industry Has Led to Catastrophe
Albanese has been onto it, saying that Morrison must answer why he has made no effort to clean up these privately owned Aged Care Homes where profit comes before human health.
I for one would love to hear his answers.
The secret propagands wars the US funding mind bending religious sects (ODT)
Office bearers of US-backed Chinese language news service Decode China are linked with Falun Gong, the spiritual group that has spent millions backing Donald Trump through fake social media accounts. The same people are on the board of the National Foundation for Australia China Relations, raising scepticism about its ability to repair fractured relationships. Marcus Reubenstein investigates US state funding of anti-China media in Australia and links to global arms dealers via ASPI.
via Propaganda Wars: US state department funds anti-China news outlet in Australia – Michael West
Peter Leahy’s wife is a director of a company awarded $38 million in contracts from federal departments, mostly Defence and Foreign Affairs and Trade. The company had earned $2.2 million in revenue from federal government contracts before Leahy resigned as Chief. Michelle Fahy investigates.
Family Ties: Defence contracts go to company linked to wife of former army chief – Michael West
Russians as well as the French could not understand why Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky made waves in the US that blew into an impeachment trial and ended with the bombardment of Belgrade. Bill was unfaithful to Hillary? That’s not nice, but it is their private affair. President Clinton lied? Well, he was not in the confession booth. Traditional religions, be it Catholic or Eastern Orthodox, are quite tolerant of venial sin. Puritanism, the Old as well as its New offspring are deadly serious in everything, and are unafraid of killing or bullying a sinner to death. They may have begun with witches, but they are ending up targeting ordinary folk.
Currently their targets have a lot of wampum, for it is no fun to bully a person for no material gain. Us, impecunious men, we have nothing to be afraid of yet. But it might be wise to save society before the New Puritans bring down disaster onto all of us. In my opinion, America’s influence on the world should be reversed, or at least limited. Let America get influenced by Europe for a change. Mercifully, Europe is suffering from a very light case of New Puritanism that may be entirely cured with a healthy dose of Anti-Americanism. I hear the vaccine is under development.
When I talk to local people, like a city council or a schools’ committee, I say, “What cost are you willing to accept for being wrong? What is an acceptable cost to you?” Frankly, we got lazy, and we’re not prepared for something like this. Even people like me and my colleagues, we would look at the data and kind of think, can it really be that bad? It’s hard to admit to yourself that it really can be that bad, but you have to know in the back of your mind that it may well be.
via How Our “Balkanized” Health Care System Made the Pandemic Far Worse – Mother Jones
Rio Tinto has just announced an astronomical profit, largely on the back of its continued exploitation of Indigenous land in WA. Yet Rio still does not have an Indigenous Australian in a senior executive role. To maintain its social licence the company must also move its headquarters to Australia and up its royalties, writes Stephen Mayne.Indigenous Land,
via Rio Tinto: ditch the colonial baggage and get with a 21st-century program – Michael West
We are witnessing what their deregulation and erosion of job security and ignoring of expert warnings deliver. Rather than learn any lessons during this pandemic, our Treasurer invokes Thatcher and Reagan who hugely increased inequality and diminished workers’ rights and protections. Persistently high rates of income or wealth inequality are bad for social cohesion, political inclusion and crime. The evidence for this is overwhelming.
Coalition pork-barrelling during the 2013 and 2016 election campaigns involved “zombie” grants that had not a hope in Hades of getting off the ground. Yet those grant applications are still on the books just waiting to be revived. How many grants from the 2019 election await a similar fate? Jommy Tee investigates.
via Coalition Zombie Grants: a slush fund to be reawakened for the next election – Michael West
Surely history speaks loudly to not repeat the mistakes of the past (ODT)
Reaganomics and Thatcherism were characterised by huge transfers of income and wealth from the poor to the rich, writes Roger Beale. Even such august institutions as the Productivity Commission argue that there’s little to be gained by going down the road of labour market flexibility.
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has suggested we look to the Reagan and Thatcher legacies for inspiration to climb out of the Covid-19 recession – i.e. supply side economice. In lay terms, this means bringing forward tax cuts, increasing workplace flexibility and reducing green tape.
via Are Thatcherism and Reaganomics your best answer, Josh? – Michael West
The deaths of 80 elderly people are imminent as a result of COVID-19 spreading through private aged care homes. Aged care behemoths were granted an extra $200m to cope with the pandemic but refuse to provide critical paid pandemic leave to an overwhelmingly casualised workforce, claiming it’s the government’s responsibility. The government says the buck stops with aged care operators. Meanwhile, Victoria’s publicly owned homes, with mandated staffing requirements, have few reported cases of COVID-19. Dr Sarah Russell investigates.
Compare this with staffing in privately owned residential aged care homes, where a single registered nurse is often required to look after more than 100 residents.
Not surprisingly, data from the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission indicates outbreaks in Victoria are almost exclusively a private sector aged-care issue. State-owned nursing homes comprise about 200 of the 750 in Victoria, but of the 66 aged care homes that have reported a COVID case since June, just six are state-government run.
Passing the Buck: why Victoria’s Covid is raging in private aged care homes – Michael West
Key points:
From the start of July, a quarter of COVID-19 infections have been in Victorians aged in their 20s
Four children are in hospital and 20 per cent of the state’s coronavirus patients are under the age of 50
A senior ICU nurse manager says there is no doubt that that younger adults with coronavirus will die
Intensive care nurse’s blunt warning over coronavirus risk to younger adults – ABC News
Why Covid-19 in Victoria is rife stimulus is not going to individual survival and anxiety is contagious. Universal benefit not companty benefits are required, (ODT)
Key points:
- When economic conditions are relatively favourable, the number of businesses going into administration is about 8,000 a year
- Despite the COVID crisis, the latest number of businesses folding is below that, raising fears that stimulus measures may be keeping zombie businesses afloat
- There are calls for regulators to be given greater funding to go after companies that may be trading while insolvent
Premier Daniel Andrews is damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t, but Prime Minister Scott Morrison, despite much evidence to the contrary, remains the mainstream media’s golden boy, writes managing editor Michelle Pini.
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