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Three years is a long time in any democracy. Three years of callous disregard for the vulnerable, the ill and the homeless, for the voiceless First Peoples, for the disabled and the elderly, the unemployed and the underemployed, and those held in detention without trial — some of whom have already attempted suicide this week. Three years is also a long time to spruik religion to a secular society, spit in the face of science and ignore the havoc we are wreaking on our natural world.
Morrison has already wasted $185 million on a stunt purely to stop critically ill asylum seekers (including children) from receiving medical attention. Morrison voted against a banking royal commission 26 times. He believes coal is the answer to our problems. Morrison is a failed Treasurer, who managed to double our debt. And ScoMo campaigned with only one policy: tax cuts.
via The price of not paying attention: Five ministers we cannot afford
The New York State Assembly passed a bill Wednesday that would allow Congress to get President Donald Trump’s state tax returns.
The Assembly voted 84-53 to require New York’s tax commissioner to release any state tax return requested by the Joint Committee on Taxation, the Senate Finance Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee for any “specified and legitimate legislative purpose.”
“Transparency is essential, especially when it comes to the conflicts or potential conflicts of those who craft public policy,” Assemblyman David Buchwald (D), the bill’s sponsor, said during the floor vote, according to Bloomberg.
The Assembly also voted Wednesday 85-49 on an amendment to the bill directing the New York Tax Department to give Congress state tax returns specifically for elected officials. The original bill would have let Congress request any New York resident’s state tax returns.
via New York Assembly Votes To Allow Release Of Trump’s State Tax Returns | HuffPost Australia
Trump’s Posturing is the Cover Up on a Grand Scale and he’s crawled out of the TV sets of the USA (ODT)
He then held a press conference in the White House Rose Garden that was unexpected but not necessarily unplanned.
via Trump storms out of Democrats meeting, impeachment likelihood increased
President criticized Fox News at a rally on Monday for giving Democrats airtime after candidate Pete Buttigieg appeared on the channel
via Trump turns on Fox News over 2020 coverage: ‘What’s going on there?’ | US news | The Guardian
I, like many others, are just coming to grips with the stunning victory of the conservative side of politics. While doing so we should keep in perspective that as of this moment it is only around 181,000 votes that separate the two parties.
Hardly a ringing endorsement of the conservative forces.
via The one that got away (Part one) – » The Australian Independent Media Network
LNP won the Wholesale Price of Electricity went UP. Lowering interest rates is boosting the poor into debt to spend to survive. Winners the banks who have trailing commissions are safe. They promised the dead won’t be given money to spend or charged for not spending it. However you will. (ODT)
He is planning to do it because the economy is weak, much weaker than his political masters suggested during the election campaign. Consumer spending is “unusually soft”.
via Cutting interest rates is just the start. It’s about to become much, much easier to borrow
Jesus says Iran can’t take a joke for God’s sake (ODT)
Washington’s peace-oriented threats towards Iran have paid off – at least according to Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, who says that the Islamic Republic had to “put on hold” its violent plans thanks to US efforts.
While Iran has repeatedly denied allegations that they are responsible for recent tensions and said that they prefer diplomacy to threats, Shanahan on Tuesday was certain that Tehran’s dangerous behavior had only been curbed by the US’s proactive measures.
These peace-keeping gestures presumably include sending a navy strike group to Iran’s border, ratcheting up crippling sanctions and President Donald Trump’s amiable threat to end the country altogether.
Thirty-seven percent of American citizens are socialist or communist. That’s far more people than voted for either Hillary Clinton (28% of eligible voters) or Donald Trump (27%) in 2016.
The majority is voiceless. A privileged minority rules. The United States is a political apartheid state.
If the Left were allowed on the ballot in this fake democracy, given space in newspapers and on television, invited to join political debates, and if it wasn’t brutally suppressed by the police and FBI, the Left wouldn’t need to wage a revolution in order to take over the country. Leftists could easily win at the ballot box if America were a real democracy.
Australians immune to Murdoch think past sloganeering and read policy lost. It shows the power of negative media fake scare mongering does win elections even when its simply sold as a choice between Bill and Me. Education matters and civics is badly missed in our schools. We need governments that work for Australia not firestarters that burn for it and their pockets. (ODT)
The left made up ground in Melbourne’s traditional Liberal-leaning south-east, while losing support in the western suburbs.
In the seat of Melbourne, the Greens’ Adam Bandt now holds the electorate he first won from Labor in 2010 with a margin of 23.3 per cent.
Election results 2019: The left-right identity fault line cracks through the quinoa curtain
The Salesman has to now the Murdoch/IPA product (ODT)
Kill Bill is a theme eagerly taken up, sadly, by Nine News and even our ABC, too cowed by budget cuts and calls to the top floor to dare not to follow the pack.
Saturday sees the finale of the one-month ScoMo Unplugged solo tour. Our narcissist-in-chief, benches the rest of his team to perform a solo populist parody: a beer-chugging, footy-kicking, basketballing, bingo-calling, razzle-dazzle hoopla-variety show while he repeatedly puts the boot into Bill Shorten. Pure vaudeville.
Look out! He’s behind you! Shifty Bill’s after your savings. Hell-bent on raising massive taxes. Look out. He’ll “take money from your pocket.”
Is it a spin-off from the Trump beats Clinton Show; the same franchise that brought us fake news and alternative facts? There are many alarming parallels. What is certain is that whilst Scott Morrison’s Coalition may get the votes he needs to form government, he has neither the statesmanship, nor the policies, nor the record of success to inspire any form of confidence. History suggests the very opposite; government by SNAFU.
Expect instead, a continuation of the ScoMo circus, lurching from chaos to catastrophe with nothing but the prompting of its sponsors and its mining, banking and other corporate lobby groups to guide it, – forever reacting to self-inflicted disaster – a vitiated democratic state that rules by force and fear and favour; not a democracy nor a meritocracy but a one-man band and his cronies, The ScoMo oligarchy.
via Hello ScoMo. Goodbye democracy – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Bill Shorten threatened our hip pocket – or at least the one we aspire to have – so he was punished too. And maybe he was punished because the Australian people never much warmed to him. He has resigned as Leader, though he says he will keep going until the ALP chooses a new leader. Maybe it will be one a little more inspirational than Bill Shorten.
The Coalition ran a cynical, deceptive and negative campaign. They labelled every one of Shorten’s initiatives a new tax. The catchphrase “The Bill you cannot afford” was powerful and effective. It may have been the last thing many voters thought of before they entered the polling booth. Labor can’t really complain. The template was Paul Keating’s anti-GST message before the 1993 Election — the unlosable election that John Hewson lost.
Keating lost the subsequent election in a landslide. Which heralded a decade of Howard conservative rule — a divisive decade from which Australia has, clearly, still not recovered.
A government can win one election too many. Three years of Scott Morrison at the helm might just be enough to keep the liars and the cheats out of power for a decade.
We can only be optimistic. It is all we can do right now. The alternative is unthinkable.
The laxity of political finance regulation at the federal level also creates loopholes at the state or territory level, where genuine progress has been made in limiting political expenditure by parties, candidates and lobbying groups.It is equally important that allowing paid political advertising in electronic media drives up the costs of political campaigns and increases dependence on wealthy donors.Australia could rein in the ever-increasing role of private money in its federal elections. Labor and the Greens are committed to greater transparency for political donations and spending caps on federal campaign expenditure, while the High Court has shown it is now unlikely to strike down reasonable (“proportionate”) regulation of political finance.Democracy should be about political equality, not about the deep pockets of billionaires.
Conclusion
I realise that all of these ideas may not be practical, and I have not worked out all the details. Rather, I hope to start a conversation here. Australia needs to get its democracy back. A major way we move towards this is by removing the poison that is Murdoch’s media empire and banning the wealthy from purchasing elections.
via The 2019 Election and The Need for Media Reform – » The Australian Independent Media Network
“Our democracy is built on an understanding that one branch of government won’t systematically obstruct another,” said Rep. Ro Khanna. “Mueller named McGahn as a critical witness: the American people need to hear his testimony.”
via ‘This Is the Cover-Up’: Trump DOJ Instructs McGahn to Disregard Subpoena by House Judiciary
Perhaps the only way to attract the well financed, educated and presumably white immigrants Trump seeks is to declare war on a Nordic country, hoping they will come because we are there.
“We are here because you were there” was a slogan of 1980s immigrants rights campaign in Britain
via We are here because you were there: Refugees at the US-Mexican Border
Trump hasn’t clue on how to make a deal he’s an expert in breaking relationships fake news no!!
“The trade war launched by the US is becoming more and more like real war. At its core is the US resorts to unscrupulous means to suppress China while China is committed to crushing US arrogance.”
“The US has been telling its people that China would soon make compromises, and we must break such lies by making clear China will not sign any unequal deal.”
via China Warns the Trump Regime Against Going too Far – Stephen Lendman
Problem the electorates that count don’t watch Q&A (ODT)
If you were wondering what the newly-elected Morrison government has in store for the next three years, Q&A was the place for you to come … and leave with absolutely no idea.
via Alan Jones revels in Q&A’s free kicks but there is no clear path ahead
Rationality and reason never really overcomes fear. Morrison put the fear of God into those already suffering these past 6 years. 2013 Australia’s economy was 1 or 2 in the world now its wages are down down down like Coles prices, and the economy is on a slippery slide down too. The wealthy did their bit bullshit scared the poor and the Bejeezus out of them, and the man of God calls it a miracle? Guess he believes Clive and Rupert work for God in a game of Liar’s Poker against Rationality and Reason. Even now, we are waiting to see their hand. We know what it isn’t. (ODT)
A mandate to who the fuck knows they had no plan so the banks are overjoyed by the man who voted against the Royal Commission. The good start looks a concern banks are overjoyed and power prices surged (ODT)
Wholesale electricity prices shot up on Monday following a surprise election win by the Coalition on Saturday. Forward trading prices, which set the curve for future quarterly power costs, rose 13 per cent in NSW and shot up about 7 per cent in Victoria once markets opened. (see graph below)
Wholesale electricity prices account for about a third of power bills. Reducing this wholesale price has been a major focus of the Morrison government, which had pledged earlier this month to slash it by up to a quarter. The Age
He didn’t take much of an agenda to the election, so he can start a new term with pretty much a blank page. His campaign was mostly a demolition of Labor, and not much creation.
Morrison’s campaign tool of choice was the hammer and he wielded it relentlessly against Labor. By contrast, Bill Shorten carried around an Ikea flat pack of policy, assembly required. He’d take out his Allen key and start to fit all the pieces together as Morrison smashed away.
via Election Results 2019: Scott Morrison’s rare opportunity to shape the country
Redefining America Trump Ugly (ODT)
Master of the profane: Donald Trump is swearing like no president before
The agreement reached is nothing has changed all is back to where it was before Trump imposed the tariffs. Translated into reality Trump wimped. His method of dealing is clear impose a threat. Go back to normal and have it called a victory. Art of the deal = Fake News, Kim Jong Un does way better than Trump he actually gains ground. (ODT)
via Trump cools trade war by lifting North American metal tariffs | US news | The Guardian
The truth even the Right-Wing Goverment in Israel today need Hamas for it’s identity and survival. After all what can the Right-Wing do without Occupation, Settlers,Segregation and Palestinian Resistense? If none of this existed they’d have to invent it. Trump the chump is chasing his Nobel Prize. for doing nothing at all but creating FAKE NEWS (ODT)
The true objectives of more than half a century of Israel’s military occupation over the Palestinians are clearer in Hebron than anywhere else – to achieve Palestinian subjugation in a segregated and unequal reality.
If we were in 1950s Alabama, would Greenblattsay that a joint meal between white and black people was the way forward? Or would he recognise that the way to achieve equality is to end the legal system of discrimination and ensure the protection of equal rights? Hebron is no different – the only solution is the end to the occupation.
Trump continues the gasoline Dream and the world is moving on (ODT)
via You’ll Soon be Driving an Electric Car, but it will be Made in China and You won’t be Great Again
I don’t think logic failed however fear prevailed with a negative campaign and an $80 mill push in areas where change was needed most. It was liars poker but played against one almighty cashed up liar pushing another in front. (ODT)
The real election was those that couldn’t be scared got rid of Abbott swung too the ALP as in Kooyong. However those that could be scared were under the LNP ‘s fake campaign backed by Clive Palmer’s $80 million. Sorry to say it wasn’t all Morrison by any means. After 6 years, poorer and and deperate Qld in particular and and others elected for more of the same too scared of change. The liars in this game of poker won the country lost an opportunity out fear and pure negativity (ODT)
And he did not lose in a whisper. It was a resounding holler of a result against him – Abbott picked up only 42 per cent of votes in his formerly safe, blue-ribbon electorate, compared to the 58 per cent won by his independent opponent Zali Steggall.
via Election results 2019: Tony Abbott is gone, and he will never be forgotten
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has slapped down Tony Abbott for his “partisan” tribute to their late Labor predecessor Bob Hawke following the 89-year-old’s death on Thursday.
Mr Abbott shocked the community with a statement that attempted to score political points just hours after Mr Hawke’s death, describing the Labor legend as having “a Labor heart but a Liberal head”, and bemoaning modern Labor’s drift from his legacy.
Former prime minister Tony Abbott said his predecessor Bob Hawke had “a Labor heart but a Liberal head”.Former prime minister Tony Abbott said his predecessor Bob Hawke had “a Labor heart but a Liberal head”.Credit:Janie Barrett
Mr Morrison said those were not the words he used in his own statement and that he hoped Liberals paying tribute to Mr Hawke “would not be seen to be partisan”.
He praised Mr Hawke as a “unifier” and “a man of enormous intellectual capacity”, as well as Labor’s greatest prime minister.
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via Bob Hawke death: Scott Morrison cautions Tony Abbott on ‘partisan’ statement
