AFL club Essendon has moved quickly to restore confidence after its disastrous 1-day appointment of ex NAB boss Andrew Thorburn, confirming it had asked former Hillsong boss Brian Houston to oversee the organisation until a permanent new CEO can be found.
America seems incapable of disproving Trump’s declaration that “there’s good on both sides ” made immediately after Charlottesville where the murder and assault were committed in plain sight by a white supremacists who were absolutely and clearly wrong. The storming of the Capitol on Jan 6th seems too difficult given the majority were white male ultra-right and far from moderate protesters after blood. No such leeway or time would have been spent if they had been black that’s for certain.
Everyone in public life — including leading Democrats, Joe Biden, and Republican leaders, including Mitch McConnell — must condemn Trump’s invitations to violence and bigotry. And they must also demand that Trump be held criminally accountable for his attempted coup, his instigation of the assault on the Capitol, and his theft of top-secret government documents.
The Commonwealth Bank, while publicly claiming to be an ethical bank, privately tells its perennial victims to go away, rendering them invisible, writes Dr Evan Jones.
Ok, I think that it’s time that we had a new acknowledgment of country… Something along the lines of: “I begin today by acknowledging the racists past and present and apologise for those who seem to think that the booing during the Welcome To Country was ‘understandable’ while ignoring the Nazi salutes from the same section of the crowd. I pay my lack of respect to the traditional rapists of our land and to racists past and present as well as emerging racists who should have been taught better by the elders who seem to think that they are above reproach and that nothing matters as long as you make money.”
How quick is a day in politics and media? There was Andrew Bolt bragging about the influence he had with the powers to be in Australia. His “besties” were Tony Abbott and the Dutchman John Roskam head of the IPA. He even got his son James a “mini-me” job with the think tank podcasting among other things.
But like puffing on a Dandelion, all that good fortune, or some might call arse-licking, has blown away. So much for being Murdoch’s top “influencer”. A legend in his own lunchtime Bolt is a squeak in a world of talking heads. Lachlan is suing “Crikey” for its public opinion. Just a sentence that Bolt once insisted was everybody’s “free speech” right. His boss obviously doesn’t agree. In America, there wouldn’t even be a case to answer, but Bolt’s boss a historic loser here thinks otherwise. Bolt now has turned to the “right of free silence”. He knows on which side his bread is buttered.
There was a time, not so long ago, when corporate Australia lined up…
“Twenty or 30 years ago,” says John Roskam, whose 17-year tenure as executive director ended a couple of months ago, “we had dozens of ASX 100 companies supporting the IPA. Now, there’s not one.
“Not one,” he repeats, for emphasis. “Not one of the ASX 100 companies supports the IPA.”
No wonder Roskam sounds dispirited. Big business created the IPA. It was set up in 1943 following the collapse of Australia’s major conservative political party, the United Australia Party, in opposition to the perceived “socialism” of the Curtin Labor government.
Its founders included the chairmen of BHP and Coles, as well as the head of the Herald and Weekly Times newspaper group, Keith Murdoch, father of Rupert, among many other business leaders.
The fact that corporate Australia now has largely abandoned the IPA – although the Murdochs, whose business is listed offshore, are still supporters, as is mining magnate Gina Rinehart, whose interests are held privately – may be the clearest indication of the declining influence of not just the IPA but right-wing think tanks in general.
“Many people, including myself as a Liberal Party member, are frustrated with the direction of the Liberal Party. The libertarian alternative through the LDP is becoming more and more attractive.”
Liz Truss’s government will not last a year, and the Conservative Party may then split, leading to an early election (due anyway by 2024). The Labour party is already seventeen points ahead in the polls, and its lead may even widen. It will be a wild ride, but the next British government will be led by Labour, which will rapidly reverse everything that Truss aspires to do.
Murdoch media intentionally act as agents for Putin. What would have happened had they done the same for Hitler?
Neoliberalism is a valueless marketing system of intended inequitable profiteering just like the Western Banking system is today. What may have once started as a service years ago has become corrupted. The $$ it’s sole interest fo minimal return. Both political parties in America and here support it, one less than the other maybe but neither is prepared to change it entirely. In fact, Australia had the ABC as a counterweight and the LNP set out to destroy it. Will the ALP save our ABC?
The Murdochs left Australia and the UK to wallow in America’s contradictions magnified by it’s lack of media mainstream diversity, corporate control and market regulation. Fox News today is an example of America at it’s worst and what could develop here. What would have happened had they had the power to do this during WW2 or the Cold War and advocated “for” Hitler and Russia back then? Would they have been able to abandon values for profit as easily as they are today?
Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s dubious allegation that the United States sabotaged a natural gas pipeline between Russia and Germany as part of a sinister “escalation” of Russia’s war with Ukraine echoed the Kremlin’s own propagandists. Carlson’s report is now getting substantial attention from Russian state TV, which is promoting his theory — and his suggestion for how Russia could strike back at U.S. interests in light of the supposed attack.
“Wait a Minute, Succession Is Real!”: CNN’s Long-Awaited Murdoch Saga Is Finally Getting Its Network Debut (By Joe Pompeo and Vanity Fair)
Once slated for CNN…
I asked the duo what they think viewers will take away from Empire of Influence that they haven’t already seen or heard or read in the prolific canon of Murdochology. “It really braids the story of the family and the story of the empire into a single narrative,” said Mahler. “I also think it gives you a unique sense of the global sweep of the empire and its influence. There have been plenty of stories about phone hacking, the Murdochs’ influence in Australia and the UK, and of course Fox News. But to have them all stitched together into one big, sweeping narrative—you’re seeing how he accumulates power, and you’re watching him wield that power to accumulate more power. Seeing that gives it a different kind of force.”
Privatisation, corporatisation of, and debt creation in Australian tertiary institutes have accelerated cheating on a scale that has become the new norm. However, despite the cheating, and a degree there’s always been a far more influential alternative to success. Who you know is by far the easier path far easier than what you know or merit, and that has been clear. Its effect is an influence way before the entrance to a university. Simply take a statistical look around you. 50 k untenured, educated higher degree staff suffering short hours wage theft are employed to teach each new crop of suckers chasing a false promise. Simply ask taxi and uber drivers what they do for a living and don’t be surprised that they’re looking for a “real” job having got a degree and now doing an MBA. Meanwhile, Lachlan Murdoch, James Packer, and the Trumps having squandered billions sit at the top of the tree by no means self-made.
A PROBLEM LABELLED “industrial scale cheating” is presenting a mortal threat to universities with students now routinely commissioning a proliferating range of online services to do their assignments. Has it yet got bad enough to jeopardise learning and standards, the quality of research and ultimately knowledge itself?
While so many nations since the French Revolution have declared themselves Republics it seems strange that Australia needs to be cautioned. Yes, Australia is unique in as much as has it denied the existence of the Indigenous first peoples here as the owners of this land. They had no rights until just over 30 years ago. The colony denied them citizenship as did the Federation. It ignored any need for treaties or recognition like other colonies had. It’s a country that’s Constitution hasn’t even a Bill of Human Rights. Given it’s a nation so uniquely lacking what other nations take for granted why need we be so careful that consequences must be “considered before moving forward as a Republic?
While much has been discussed about electing an Australian president, more consideration is required before moving forward as a republic, writes Professor John Quiggin.
Albanese and Dutton could cooperate to remove King Charles as our head of state in favour of a republic. Instead, early indications signal we will continue bowing to the monarchy for many more years, writes Stephen Saunders.
Shareholders in US social media giant Twitter have voted almost unanimously to approve a deal struck with Elon Musk earlier in the year to purchase the company.
Based on a preliminary tabulation of the stockholder vote, some 98.6 per cent of the votes cast at the Tuesday special meeting approved the proposal to adopt the deal.
This paves the way for Twitter to attempt to legally compel the Space X and Tesla head to go through with his acquisition of the company after he unilaterally terminated the deal in July.
In her ‘devotion to duty’ the Queen sacked an Australian PM described by Philip as a ‘socialist arsehole’. By John Menadue
In the mammoth royal love in we are enduring, we are told about the Queen’s cordial relationship with numerous PMs. But not Gough Whitlam. That would upset our colonial mind set. We try and shut out the Queen’s implausible and misleading denial on the Whitlam sacking.
Australia’s elites not only believe but speak much the same as do Newzealanders with one exception they have no treaty with their Indigenous peoples, no Bill of Rights and believe neither is needed.
Even though most Canadians would prefer an elected head of state, Charles III is the country’s new king. But enduring monarchism does suit Canadian elites, whose worldview is sustained by the idea of inherited privilege and power embodied by the crown.
Truss is noted for being against and then for Brexit, and then for and against Climate change. She’s nobody’s Truss. The UK is lost more than it realises.
Channelling Margaret Thatcher, her political idol, Truss donned a helmet and radio headset in images reminiscent of the former prime minister taking a spin in a tank while visiting British forces in West Germany in 1986.
In the months since, the 47-year-old has even been accused of deliberately dressing like Thatcher, the first woman to become British prime minister, whose decade-long reign in Downing Street remains divisive across the union decades on.
Bolt and Dean will continue to claim it’s normal “nothing to see here” 4 La Ninas in a row
Flood and severe weather warnings are in place across parts of Victoria, Queensland and NSW as Australia’s east coast braces for another wet spring and summer.
Andrew Bolt said it years ago, that he preferred writing Obituaries because journalism was too disiplined, too professional, and hard work. He then moved on to be what Justice Mordecai Bromberg called a “lazy journalist” with no respect for facts and guilty of racial vilification, fake news and discrimination under the Act.
Andrew Bolt, Rowan Dean et al all cry foul and declare their right to “freedom of speech”. It’s their yardstick which relativises everything.The flat earth society beliefs are as valid as any other. It justifies these idiots saying they are experts on anything and everything the chose. That they are equal to any professional, scientist or journalist whose work and process standards Bolt once declared he found far too difficult to be interested in. Yes two neanderthals Bolt and Dean have levitated themselves to being experts in anything they chose science, economics, sex, disciplines no more relevant than what Bolt and Dean say because speech is free.
What is held as truth for them is the Goebellian power of distributed opinion and thats what fuels News Corp’s business model whose destination is profit not truth. The title News Corp is in fact an oxymoron the corporation isn’t a harbinger of news or truth. It manufactures whatever it wants propaganda for profit operating in the marketplace of wealth and among those with the most money and doesn’t waste its time informing the majority at all but rather influencing them. It’s no coincidence their business model aligns them with the IPA, the LNP and the interests and ideology of 1% of the nation.
University of Western Australia law professor Michael Douglas said that “Lachlan Keith Murdoch v Private Media Pty Ltd” would be the first high-profile test of amendments to Australia’s defamation law passed last year.
Thousands of people young and old lined up to pay their respects and view the body of Mikhail Gorbachev
Russian President Vladimir Putin did not attend the funeral of the former Soviet leader
Many Western leaders were absent from the funeral due to tense relations between Moscow and the West
The man affectionately known as ‘Gorby’ in the West and who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990 for his role in ending the Cold War is buried at Moscow’s famous Novodevichy cemetery alongside his wife Raisa, who died in 1999.
Some 8 influential Russians against Putin have now died under suspicious circumstances and others are incarcerated, Gorbachev ex-President hasn’t been awarded a State Funeral and Putin didn’t bother to attend. Nevertheless, Trump still is in awe of the Russian State and Putin’s power.
A recent Lowy Institute poll showed that just over half the Australian population is not in favour of supporting the United States in a war against China.
A 6 year trial and a 12 year sentence Israel declares Halabi “lucky” to gey 12years. However,they can’t and won’t show you or even his his defence team any of the evidence that brought about their fair and balanced sentence.
World Vision Australia was the Charity’s biggest donor and after forensically auditing the accounts didn’t find a shekel misused.
Israel has kinapped they say arrested, imprisoned they say held for trial others in similar fashion. They murdered an Australian and called it suicide assinated people outside their borders and used fake Australian documents as a cover. Simply said they have acted in much the same way as the Saudis did and yet have never been held to account for their crimes. Jews must feel ashamed what is being done today in their name by this Apartheid State..
World Vision International worker accused of funnelling aid money to Hamas in trial largely held in secret
cash transfer increased CCKC4’s assets from $37 million in 2019 to $1.3 billion at the close of 2020.”
“CCKC4 presumably stands for ‘Charles Chase Koch 501(c)(4).’ It has no website nor public presence. CCKC4 filed IRS 990s in 2018 and 2019, and received its determination letter confirming its tax-exempt status in May of 2020,” CMD reported.
Lets face it where you find Tony Abbott and Nigel Farage you find a vacuum in intelligence. They are the litmus test’s warning.
It is easy to mock the Australian CPAC, a tawdry echo of its toxic American model. What is crucial to note, however, is that the lies and distortions inherent in culture wars are the tool that Dutton hopes to use to turn his 17% approval rating into electoral success. The damage done to the US and UK by culture war wielding “conservatives” is inestimable and should not be underestimated. Above all, they foster bigotry and division, creating chasms in the civic space that cannot be bridged by civil discourse. Without an overlapping reality, democracy must fail.
Andrew Bolt lays claims to being Dutch and dreams of retiring in Amsterdam. In the meantime he makes it clear he hates Australia and in particular Melbourne which is far too progressive for his tastes. What’s that make him other than a hypocrite and of the worst kind. Amsterdam where he dreams of retiring on a barge to write a book has twice the population of Melbourne. Is far more multicultural, multi-ethnic and has a far greater Muslim population. The city is far more progressive and leans more aggressively left politically, culturally and economically. All the characteristics he whines about here, The country on the whole is even much greener. It seems they wouldn’t want Bolt. He’s simply not Dutch enough for them.
Reuters also reports on Oceans of Energy’s offshore floating solar array. Solar panels are bulky and take up a lot of space, which is at a premium in a densely populated country such as the Netherlands. Putting the panels offshore resolves that problem, since the Netherlands has plenty of sea coast. The Oceans of Energy program deployed a floating solar array in rough waters and high winds in 2020, and it has functioned fine. They have plans gradually to expand it to a megawatt this year, and then 15 megawatts in 2023.
“President Trump wants the Attorney General to know that he has been hearing from people all over the country about the raid. If there was one word to describe their mood, it is ‘angry,’ ” a Trump lawyer told a senior Justice Department official three days after the search at Mar-a-Lago. “The heat is building up. The pressure is building up. Whatever I can do to take the heat down, to bring the pressure down, just let us know.”
“As questions ricochet around Scott Morrison’s secret ministerial powers, a rhetorical one hovers above: Why is anyone surprised?
There’s been a pattern to Morrison’s activities for years, even just those we knew about. It goes to a disregard for proper process, a whatever-it-takes attitude to securing and wielding personal power, a disconnection between words and actions, and a propensity to dissemble and operate away from the light.
Why is it we seem so far behind other countries where business relationships aren’t adversorial? Relationships elsewhere tend to be based on problem solving. Whereas here in Australia history has shown we are great problem creators. We are still locked in a class war where your problems aren’t mine fo fuck off.
The Jobs summit is already beginning to appear to be a show. Let’s not prove Dutton right because if he is heaven help a united Australia. Bigger changes are necessary.
Jobs summit: Business and unions in accord but Canberra clash looms
Business Council of Australia (BCA) chief Jennifer Westacott expressed hesitation on Sunday about what she styled as unintended consequences, including the potential for employers in one part of a supply chain to face pressure to grant concessions they could not meet but which had become a standard after they were agreed to by businesses in other parts of an industry.
“At an industry level, we [could] try to fix one problem and end up with a lot more,” she told the ABC on Sunday.
As the jobs summit talks skills – we predict which occupations will have shortages and surpluses in the next 2 years
3 Suggestions
encourage and enable people to qualify quickly and cheaply for occupations where supply is not keeping up – in particular, personal carers, education aides and the construction-related occupations. This may require more places to be offered in existing courses at TAFEs or other vocational education providers, and it may require design of new, shorter qualifications. Fees for these qualifications should be reduced or removed altogether
offer more domestic bachelor degree places for students to study nursing and midwifery. These students may be diverted from other bachelor degree courses. These courses necessarily take time to complete, so including nurses in our migration intake will also need to play a role
allow wages to climb in low-skilled, less fulfilling jobs such as checkout operators and sales assistants, until such time as automation becomes worthwhile. After that, people who would have been doing these jobs can instead address shortages in hospitality, which is more difficult to automate, or undertake a small amount of training to qualify as personal carers and assistants or education aides.
Australia’s constitution is outdated, antidemocratic, and has consistently blocked social democratic reforms. That’s why we need to rip it up and write a new one.
At the same time, new analysis this week revealed that the CEOs at the top ASX-listed companies earned 132 times the average Australian salary. Some made even more: the boss of CSL raked in $58.9 million.
How about that? 132 times! Of course, these disparities will always be with us: risk, reward — all that. But I wonder if I’m going to hear Mr Tens of Millions gripe in the near future about lack of growth, poor productivity and the need for better training, while women with three degrees take his kids through the alphabet?
Lately, Donald Trump has been screaming into the void. He is taking to his own social media site, Truth Social, to complain about the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago, but not many people (bar a few reporters) seem to be listening. That’s a far cry from his days as a Twitter influencer before he was finally booted from the platform.
THE WORLD enjoyed a monumentally satisfying series of moments recently, moments that don’t come often enough, of watching a key far-right figure get their comeuppance.
Will the LNP argue too much or too little? Has the ALP caved? What is the % increase?
Research shows 90% of coal and 60% of oil and gas reserves must stay in the ground if we’re to have half a chance of limiting global warming to 1.5℃ this century.
Attention surrounds the actions of Scott Morrison in appointing himself to extra ministries, unbeknown to the nation, even colleagues. But this is not the only area where the Coalition played fast and loose with our governing conventions. And in doing so it has opened the office of the Governor-General to another controversy, writes #Mate.
olddogthoughts 