From kids driving forklifts to crippling foreign relations, Scott Morrison has made some truly questionable decisions of late, writes Paul Begley.
Category: Uncategorized
This could be a chapter out of a John Grisham novel. Will American justice ever be served or will the legal industry simply prefer to profit from a never-ending game? Will Trump ever pay his lawyers? No doubt the public purse is paying the investigators and the N.Y AG and the judges. How can Trump even be allowed to run for a 2nd term when he hasn’t fulfilled the obligations of his first. Tax returns have yet to be submitted a requirement of all eligible Presidents.
Only three of more than 5 million documents the company handed over in the two years since were actually produced by Trump, according to James’ office. Trump led the company for decades before his presidential inauguration in January 2017.
There is no Independent bipartisan system in the USA and the Republicans know that while the Democrats still dream of Democracy. Actual rule is from the top down and that needs to be guaranteed Republican no matter who is in government. Trump merely ensured that was welded into the system and all its major institutions. SCOTUS, the ultimate system’s safety switch.
It’s very hard to fathom why the right seems so determined to prolong the deadly COVID-19 pandemic but it’s obvious that they are. From politicians banning mask requirements to media celebrities pushing disinformation about vaccines, there is no escaping the fact that Republicans and their allies simply do not care that more than 850,000 thousand Americans are dead in less than two years from this scourge and that hundreds of thousands of them are still dying because they refuse to take life-saving vaccines. That the majority of them are their own constituents who have died because they believe right-wing conspiracy theories is just mind-boggling, but apparently they are convinced that this is good for them politically and gives them great ratings.
Source: The radical right’s takeover of the Supreme Court is complete | Salon.com
Many claimed early in the pandemic that COVID-19 would flatten inequality in a deeply unequal world. Luckily for the ultrarich, central banks stepped in, making the global elite richer than ever.
Source: The Central Banks Made the Superrich Even Richer During the Pandemic
Save the ABC! Improve Internet Freedom! Increase Media Diversity. While the LNP attacks the ABC, wants to control the Internet and rejects media diversity the MSM have his back. They supports their current quid pro quo arrangement with Murdoch Costello and Stokes but are certainly pissed at the way he zig zags them on a daily basis forcing their editors to play “Scotty Says”.
The mainstream media has eschewed objectivity in favouring the Liberal Party’s “let it rip” pandemic strategy, writes Dr Victoria Fielding.
Source: Mainstream media applauds Morrison’s ‘let it rip’ strategy
Morrison, the ‘ad man’, has gone from “Where the bloody hell are you?” to “Your not Welcome and never will be!” in selling Australia to the rest of the world. Now is it any wonder he was sacked as NZ and Australia’s CEO of Tourism.
The global media frenzy over Australia’s temporary detention of anti-vaccine tennis star Novak Djokovic has inadvertently drawn attention to the cruel mistreatment of refugees imprisoned in the same run-down, bug-infested facility in Melbourne. News reports showing Djokovic’s fans, and local anti-vaxxers, rallying in his support outside the Park Hotel, a makeshift detention center, have included images of protesters decrying the suffering of the dozens of refugees who are also there. Some of those people have been in Australian detention facilities for close to nine years, just for arriving in the country by boat, seeking asylum.
Source: Refugees Held With Djokovic in Australia Briefly in Spotlight
My thought for the day We would be a much better society if we took the risk of thinking for ourselves unhindered by the unadulterated crap served up by the government, the media and self-interest groups. PS: Contribute to my diary by making a comment. ( John Lord)
The decision to grant Novak Djokovic an exemption from Covid-19 vaccination requirements to play in the Australian Open in Melbourne has been labelled “appalling”, with some players expressing surprise at the late decision. On Tuesday night, the defending Australian Open champion posted on Instagram that he was coming to Melbourne to participate in the tennis tournament with an “exemption permission”. All Australian Open participants must either be fully vaccinated or apply for and secure a medical exemption in order to enter Victoria without undertaking the mandatory 14-day quarantine.
“Donald Trump’s January 6 press event should be recognized for what it is: an opportunity for Trump to lie to downplay the violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and set up his 2024 presidential campaign,” said Angelo Carusone, president of watchdog Media Matters for America, in a Monday statement. He stressed that “it is critical that news networks do the right thing—refuse to carry it live, so they do not uncritically promote the lies and disinformation that is generated from Trump’s speech in real time.” “Trump has a well-established pattern of lying every time he opens his mouth,” Carusone noted. “He has also had ample opportunities to weigh in on the insurrection—including when Fox hosts begged Trump to take action in real time to stop the riot. To give Trump a platform to spread lies and misinformation on this tragic anniversary would be to repeat the very mistakes that helped foment the violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in the first place.”
Source: Media Watchdogs Warn Networks Against Uncritical Airing of ‘Big Lie’ Trump Event
There’s bad news for Scott Morrison, with polling predicting a heavy defeat for the prime minister at the upcoming federal election.The results of the latest quarterly Newspoll analysis show Labor has increased its advantage and the number of seats it would win from the Coalition has lifted from nine to 12 based on the state two-party preferred swings.
It has been a tough 12 months, and it was sometimes hard to find a silver lining. But AusPol in 2021 also offered its share of bizarre, unexpected and downright silly moments, giving rare moments of levity to an otherwise crummy year. In the spirit of looking for the light, here are some of the political happenings that made us giggle, shake our heads, or just stare in befuddlement.
Source: Auspol’s weirdest moments amid the bin fire that was 2021
As a result of yet another “Beulla peal me a grape ” announcement by Morrison, the States are having to mandate another strict program of protections like mask-wearing because all Morrison brings to the table is square dance-callers series of announcements. Which of course Morrison claims is sensible but rather a “personal responsibility” like Sunscreen and not necessarily enforced.
Albo sensibly reminds us that if you don’t put on Sunscreen your children and their friends freinds friends won’t catch your sunburn. Morrison, you’re the stand out example of Australia’s biggest KLUTZ.
Now Morrison wants the states to again step up and open up vaccination hubs to shoulder the burden of a booster program that suddenly looks as much of a race as the initial vaccination effort. Or as his apologists at The Australian put it, he’s “putting the heat on” the states. Meantime, GPs are complaining of a lack of funding and supply to meet the demand purely for those who are deemed eligible for one — which under the federal government’s rules is still only a minority of the population. There are “plenty of doses in the fridge”, Morrison says, but apparently insufficient funding to make it worthwhile for GPs to run vaccinations at scale. It’s early yet, but it looks increasingly like Morrison has again planned a Commonwealth rollout, it has again gone wrong, and he’s again demanding the states and territories save him. What will the price be this time?
But if UK electricity transmission tariffs are a centrifugal force, helping drive Scottish separatism, things like UK investment in wind turbine factories are centripetal, tying Scotland to the UK. Likewise, Scotland exports a good deal of its extra wind-generated electricity to England, and is responsible for 25% of UK wind energy. If I were them, I’d be nervous about losing access to that enormous market for green energy. So in some ways the UK constraints on electricity transmission do impel nationalist politicians to dream of being shut of London. But in other ways the renewables energy industry is binding Scotland more closely to the UK.
Source: As last Coal Chimney Falls, Will Green Energy Issue in Scotland Break up the United Kingdom?
Righto. Angus is on the job. Except … Australia’s largest producer of urea, Incitec Pivot, told the stock exchange last month it plans to close its main urea plant in Brisbane’s Gibson Island by the end of next year. The facility had been unable to secure “an economically viable long-term gas supply.” Paradoxically, Australia’s Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources said in its Resources and Energy Quarterly released June 28 that the global LNG market is likely to be marked by a surplus of supply over the next couple of years, which will place downward pressure on prices. “Given the large-scale expansion of global LNG capacity in recent years, import demand is expected to remain short of export capacity throughout the outlook period,” the report said. Then I read in the New York Times … Tanker ships carrying liquefied natural gas from exporters like the United States, Qatar and Australia have been steaming toward China and Brazil, drawn by higher prices.
Source: Angus Taylor makes no sense – » The Australian Independent Media Network
I certainly have more trust in what I can glean from Independent media and journalists found on the Internet than any in any MSM. The ABC while severely diminished in the past 8 years under the unconstitutional attack of the LNP, IPA and Murdoch media still remains a greater source of trusted information. More than any found at News Corp Sky, Ch9, 7 or 10. The Government on the other hand has itself become the most mistrusted source of “alternative facts”, the greatest re-arranger of language and “normalizer of corruption practiced by politicians”. The LNP has redefined the concept of political representation and community service to simply regard us as a bull in a herd of cows. There is however still only one party in Australia that adheres to any sense of Democracy and whose policies are still based on the principle of service for the good of all humans rather than merely maintaining systems and organizations in place that have run past their use-by date and no longer do.
After a short renaissance in public trust in 2020, figures in this week’s Guardian Essential Report show the majority of Australians end the year with little or no trust in the information we receive from government, with similar disdain for the output of the traditional news media and other institutions involved in public discourse.
Local think tanks that previously supported offshore drilling have engaged in a wide-ranging campaign to stop the expansion of offshore wind farms.
Source: Oil-Backed Group Opposes Offshore Wind for Environmental Reasons
Does the Liberal Party’s claim to be “superior economic managers” stack up? No. We dig back to Harold Holt, through 60 years of Australia’s Treasurers, to find the best and worst. A Callum Foote investigation. “It’s not for me to tell the Australian people how they should spend their money”. That was Josh Frydenberg as Australia’s pre-Pandemic economy spluttered towards recession in 2019.
The LNP are outright liars so why doesn’t the MSM challenge them? If you sit down with a liar and accept their lies you are a liar even if you just want their business and profit. 3AW, 2GB, are LNP boosters that’s why the LNP are only too happy to sit and answer their softball questions. However should anyone want truth and to test what’s being said they’re boycotted and accused of bias.
Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg is ramping up the falsehoods as an election looms, writes Alan Austin. VETERAN MELBOURNE RADIO presenter Neil Mitchell asked Treasurer Josh Frydenberg point blank last Thursday if he had ever told a lie. Frydenberg immediately said “no” and Mitchell accepted this without challenge. Perhaps Mitchell hasn’t read any of the articles chronicling the multiple falsehoods. Or perhaps he has, but believes dishonesty and deception are essential for the Coalition to be re-elected.
Source: Fact checking Frydenberg’s flood of furphies and fabrications
Credit where credit is due but why on a Friday night? When most viewers aren’t paying attention? This seems a forced apology forced on Murdoch media under legal obligation. Credlin however wasn’t the only Sky presenter to have abused the South Sudanese, and she certainly isn’t leading an apology chorus. Andrew Bolt was an active smearer of the the Sudanese. He avoided referring to them as Christians when spitting his bile at Islam No apologies coming from him for tarring all African refugees with the same brush.
Sky News host Peta Credlin has issued a lengthy on-air apology to Victoria’s South Sudanese community after anger about a program in which she falsely blamed them for a Melbourne COVID-19 outbreak last year.
Source: Peta Credlin apologises for false South Sudanese claims
Albanese plays a political but straight ball. Why 43% and not 45% because Morrison put the Brakes on. for the past 3 years.
Go further, faster
Announcing the policy on Friday, Albanese said the planned emissions reduction was consistent with that of Canada, which has a comparable economy. If Labor wins government at next year’s election, Australia could “go to international climate conferences and not be in the naughty corner”, Albanese said. “I wanted to make sure we have a policy that doesn’t leave people behind, that supports industry, supports jobs and gets the balance right.” There’s no question that Labor’s target is inadequate. But it provides a solid framework for further action in the next decade. Any federal government that implements meaningful policy to reduce emissions will quickly realise it’s in Australia’s interests to go further, faster. Doing so will leave households better off, grow jobs in regional Australia, and ensure we play a role in the global effort to avert climate catastrophe.
Previously America said jump and Australia’s LNP sent our boys wherever we we were told, Vietnam, Afghanistan Iraq and Syria. Today we not only did a massive one-way trade deal double crossing the French who are our Pacific neighbors but we have handed our sovereignty over to America and become their foremost base in the region. Yes ,the yanks are hers and we have to set up that base to accommodate them. That will make us the single most target in the region for technological and tactical attack long before we even have a single submarine.
Meanwhile America is cooperating with China on Climate, trade and taking the commerce we once had with China. Trade in wine,beef, diary and education have slipped away. Good one …Scott Morrison Marketeer where is any Quid Pro Quo? We are now China’s fully fledged enemy and an American vassal.
There is an unabashed encouragement of greater U.S. garrisoning and military presence in Australia. Australia would commit to investing in and expanding naval facilities in Darwin and on the west coast. This, in turn, ‘could be matched with a greater U.S. naval presence at these facilities, for the purpose of joint activity through the Indian Ocean and up into Southeast Asia’. The authors take issue with conservative U.S. troop numbers that had been present through Marine Corps rotations in Northern Australia during the Obama era. It was time to roll up the sleeves and co-opt Australian real estate and resources to advance Washington’s agenda. The report said: ‘Specifically, the United States should forward deploy Navy surface, subsurface and uncrewed vessels to Australia; expand the Air Force rotational presence to include larger numbers and more frequent presence of high-endurance intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance platforms; and increase both Marine and Army presence to facilitate greater training and integration within the alliance.’
Source: Pentagon to expand military presence in Australia against China
Morrison is a total Trumper and also believes that the medium and ratings deliver the message. The media can turn lies into pure gold as long as it’s privatized and not independently funded by public money. That guarantees his message will be heard over and above any coming up from a disgruntled less funded citizenry. That is simply the process and fundamental rule of Autocratic Capture. Capture the culture and the systems under which we now operate, finessing, and control them is LNP politics today. It’s a lesson taught by Mussolini who gave it the name Fascism and the Reactionary Evolution here but Revolution in the US we are witnessing to form a Corporate State.
While Trump isn’t really a conservative but a grifter. He saw the GOP as a perfect vehicle by which to take over the Republican Party in America. Today it’s legitimising the process of Autocratically Capturing all the grassroots systems and institutions of voting in America and it’s become the model Morrison’s LNP is also following. Media , Education, Integrity, Grants, Political Funding, Voter ID, Labor and the ABC etc are all slowly being eroded reimagined with no focus on electorate needs only the LNPs. Murdoch Media is currentley promoting Hungary, Turkey and Russia as the “Liberal Democracies” to follow simply because they have elections.
Yes, Scott Morrison simply has a plan, a leaflet he doesn’t want any independent bodies like the ABC, or ICAC vetting him he wants privatised media photographing and praising him. Outsource Public Service and make it all private contract, the organ-grinder’s monkeys with KMPG and Delloites the Treasury. It’s the dream as they already work entirly for his kind of people, those who can pay.
A person could grow very weary trying to keep up with Scott Morrison’s lies. Below is a section of his falsehoods, which by no means is an exhaustive list and some of them you no doubt know, while others may be new to you. Either way, there are many more out there.
Oops!! Shoot the Copy Writer– was it Scotty who coined that? Or only “Where the bloody hell were you? ” Whoever it was finds trouble.
The answer of course is yes and, as EV’s are part of the technology not taxes slogan why is it that governments insist on imposing punitive taxes on imported EV’s ? For instance an imported EV will attract a Luxury Car Tax of 33% on values above the declared threshold plus a GST of 10% and a state Stamp Duty of around 5%. In the case of the popular Tesla Model 3 the federal taxes amount to approximately $10,000 (LCT $2,029 and GST $7857) plus around $3500 in state stamp duty. So the slogan is going to have to be tweaked perhaps to technology and taxes on a need to know basis – and you don’t need to know and Scotty will deny it anyhow !
Source: Technology Not Taxes ! Oh wait a minute. – » The Australian Independent Media Network
MALICE in WONDERLAND
In a monumental display of hypocrisy on Sunday, a Fox News anchor and his guest attacked President Joe Biden for the fact that America’s vaccination rate against COVID-19 is too low. “This year we have lost more people in this country to COVID than we did during the first year of the pandemic, when Donald Trump was president — and now we have the vaccines,” anchor Jon Scott said. Hugo Gurdon, editor-in-chief of the Washington Examiner, further pointed out that “the vaccination rate is only 58% here, considerably lower than in other places. So [Biden] hasn’t got his arms around it.” But Fox News itself has undermined the Biden administration’s vaccination campaign relentlessly, running at least one claim that undermined vaccines nearly every day in a six-month period. At the same time, the company has implemented its own stringent health policies, including vaccination and testing mandates and masking at company offices — even as the network has elevated those who refuse the vaccine in other places into culture war heroes, calling for Americans to “fight back.”
Does any society need non-tax paying Billionaires, Corporations, and purely interest accruing non-productive, inherited wealth and capital gains none of which trickle down?
When conservatives claim that we can’t afford new social programs, what they really mean is that they think individuals and families should figure out how to handle the costs of necessary care on their own.
Source: On Social Spending, the Question Isn’t “Can We Afford It?” but “Who Will Pay?”
Some anti-vaxxers are infected by narcissism that refuses even to consider the risks and costs they’re imposing on others. If we blame the far Right-Wing and the culture that produced them, we’re missing a character trait that may offer a fuller explanation. In fact, I think it’s a stubborn, selfish, me-first individualism. One that ignores family, community, or anything social.
Source: Trump stoked Covid in red states – but there are blue anti-vaxxers too | Robert Reich | The Guardian
With the resurgence in the EU, UK, USA bigger than the first wave, coupled with the coming of the Sth African strain Omnicron mutation Matthew Guy has planted “a Lie in waiting”. Dan Andrew is a world-leader ahead of the game, a collaborative forward thinker and an attentive witness to what lies over the horizon. He is preparing for the worst possible outcome. Matthew Guy is on the bleachers in Dandenong, not in the City, vaccinated, bantering to the cries of a very mixed minority of the self-indulgent far-right QAnon, the Base, Proud Boys Australia Party Nazis and totally misguided extremists who aren’t all “unvaxxed”. When more than 90% of Victorians have been jabbed 60% have openly said they support Dan and the rest obviously LNP supporters do too. How thick is Mr Guy?
As a vast crowd assembled in Melbourne’s CBD to protest vaccine mandates and the Labor government’s stalled Pandemic Bill, state Opposition Leader Matthew Guy has vowed there will be no more lockdowns under a government led by him.
Source: Vic opposition leader pledges ‘No more lockdowns, not ever‘
Pol Pot, Hitler couldn’t and Christensen can’t come to grips with the fact that they were and are just drops of water in a social ocean. The state of the ocean determines their relevance not them. In the case of George C that’s none. He’s little more than an oil stain hoping to spread before being washed away. Pity about the media seagulls that for a second yell Farrk and check him out.
Queensland Nationals federal MP George Christensen has been a vocal opponent of COVID-19 lockdowns and vaccinations He’s compared state leaders’ pandemic responses to Hitler, Mao, Stalin and Pol Pot Labor is accusing Mr Christensen of using a social media post to incite violence
Source: George Christensen likens COVID-19 restrictions to Hitler, Pol Pot regimes – ABC News
Turning the USA upside down. Discombobulating a nation, the purpose being to fragment the nation mentally. To raise the intensity of emotion to diminish, no destroy any sense of rational objective analysis of proven sentient facts . Yes, thats simply the purpose of getting up close and personal with Rittenhouse and support him in the loudest of possible ways. he really couldn’t give a fuck about the kid he’s using as a tool.
Trump’s existence has been based on nondiscovery of any personal real from fake facts in order to blur and control the noise and consequently the narrative, and if that didn’t work just delay by throwing everything into the mix like a stun grenade, relying on time, a human sacrifice, or the 24/7 news cycle to do the rest. Grab the media space, the ratings, and the promise of profitand the media will be your dancing bears. Let your band of advisors like Steve Bannon et al do the rest.
Trump hasn’t changed he simply lost the Presidency for now.
On Wednesday, QAnon supporter and January 6 coup-plotter Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia introduced a bill to award a Congressional Gold Medal, the highest honor of the legislative branch of the US Congress, to Kyle Rittenhouse. Although the full text of Greene’s proposed legislation has yet to be drafted, an official summary states, “H.R.6070 – To award a Congressional Gold Medal to Kyle H. Rittenhouse, who protected the community of Kenosha, Wisconsin, during a Black Lives Matter (BLM) riot on August 25, 2020.”
Source: Donald Trump meets with Kenosha shooter Rittenhouse at Mar-A-Lago – World Socialist Web Site
Brexit has crippled the UK economy and Johnson blames the pandemic. Pay attention Australia pay attention Morrison. Ambulance driver shortages, hospital staff shortages, farm worker shortages trade shortages, coupled with poor wages and people forced to leave, Brexit has left, no food on shop shelves and services crippled. The UK the supply chains have been decimated. The Pandemic didn’t help but Brexit did it.
Nothing makes sense. Along the east coast of England, British employers scan the horizon. They are desperate for any migrant workers whom Boris Johnson will bless with visas to pick fruit, kill turkeys, staff hotels or care for elderly people. At the same time along the south coast British politicians howl with horror at boatloads of just such people as they come ashore, desperate to offer their services. Brexit is a shamble of hypocrisies.
Sweden’s International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance finds this year that the United States of America has joined the ranks of “backsliding democracies,” joining India, Brazil, Hungary, Poland and Slovenia.
Morrison, leading Australia’s biggest ever Government, wants the private sector to make all the decisions for him. His role to do nothing but photoshoots and prMos. He no longer wants to look in that filthy rear vision mirror because all he can see is the shit and confusion he left in his wake. He certainly doesn’t want to look forward over the horizon because the obvious might just contradict what it is his biggest donors want and that’s just nothing.
So for $500,000 pa plus expenses he wants to opt-out of any decision-making. If only he could have a Hawaiin holiday and leave all the policy decisions to private enterprise. He doesn’t hold the fucking hose. How many ways has he said it? Private enterprise “systems” hold it. They are the nations decision-makers doing the things where the bottom line is the rudder and guides them. Besides they get paid more. It’s as if Morrison is captain of a rudderless ship have others save him. If they go wrong and mess up he’s Scott and free because it won’t be his doing. If all goes well he’ll take the credit for the “freedom” he gave. All for just photoshoots at the cost of $500,000 plus expenses .
Senator Lambie said people who worked with vulnerable people needed a police check, taxi drivers needed to get licenses and it was not discrimination to expect some workers to be vaccinated. “That is the way it is and we do that to keep people safe. How about that? We put others before ourselves,” she said.
Source: Australia vaccines: PM wants businesses to set vaccine rules as some senators vote with One Nation
Federal Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor has labelled potential reforms to his own Government’s Safeguard Mechanism as a “tax by stealth” while admitting the mechanism was never designed to compel companies to reduce emissions.
Dutton is regarded as the worst Minister ever recorded with Scott Morrison out staging him as the worst ever PM. Josh Frydenberg has outdone Joe Hockey to become the worst Treasurer. The list could go on Stuart, Robb Barnaby Joyce, Kevin Andrews, Bridget Mckenzie, Susan Ley etc etc. Wake up Australia and watch what’s really going on. Shanghai Sam resigned LNP micreants merely get a few months in the sin bin and are returned to the Morrison cabinet. Under Abbott totally forgiven unless they are unwanted like the Speaker Peter Slipper. He was sliced diced and quartered by his friend Tony for a $900 cabcharge taken to court and found innocent
A New Zealand man resisting deportation on the basis he has been culturally adopted as Aboriginal has won an order freeing him from immigration detention. On Friday the federal court ruled the former home affairs minister Peter Dutton “failed to give any degree of consideration” to Shayne Montgomery’s claim of Aboriginality, ordering the government to reconsider his visa cancellation. But despite the order for Montgomery to be released from detention, his future is still uncertain as the decision not to restore his visa can simply be remade after consideration of his Aboriginality.
In a statement issued Friday after a jury had found Kyle Rittenhouse “not guilty” on all five counts against him, President Joe Biden declared that the verdict left him “feeling angry and concerned,” as it did many other Americans. Reacting to the verdict in the trial, which polarized the nation and was passionately politicized by liberal media, Pres. Biden expressed his anger and concern, while acknowledging that “the jury has spoken:
Pres. Biden: Rittenhouse’s Acquittal Leaves Me ‘Angry and Concerned’ | CNSNews
and
‘Vigilante hero’: Rittenhouse verdict ricochets across divided America
Morrison even admitted that he wasn’t ready for the job of PM when the Party room had the choice of Bishop, Dutton and Morrison. We got Walter Mitty and media man who from day one sold Australia an on going ad of the daggy dad and it’s played on a loop for 3 years. However like all ads it’s past it’s use-by date and the historically highly incompetant leader, liar, sacked by NZ and Australia’s tourism boards is in plain sight. However, the camera keeps rolling and even Sky News and the other media can’t keep polishing ScaMo the lying dipstick that’s about to seize the government
Whether or not he belongs in the same diagnostic ballpark as Caligula or Henry VI, Scott Morrison remains a dangerous and prolific peddler of damaging misinformation, his message amplified by a compliant and complicit commercial mass media. Whether or not he buys into the delusional myth he shared with Neil Mitchell, or the myth itself is yet another of his lies, Australians should be rightly perturbed by the fact they let someone who’s either ill-suited, or just plain ill, ascend to Australia’s highest political office. Yet Morrison may survive the looming election, propped up by people like Riminton’s neighbours: “They like (the PM) because ‘he’s moderate’; she doesn’t like (Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese) because ‘he’s snarky’ and doesn’t seem to do anything. She had to be helped to remember his name,” he wrote. “(It’s) a reminder to us all that elections are decided by the unengaged.”
Tha ABC is an Independant Statuary Body protected under our Constitution that Morrison has reduced to a “nobody” Under our constitution even our governments are open to more scrutiny. In fact wasn’t that the sole reason the ABC was established in the first instance to scrutinise those in power. Currently Morrison is trying to rush an increased Voter ID Bill through parlaiment as if voter fraud was a problem in Australia. Next it will be ridding us of compulsory voting. There is an apparent rush to Americanise Australia’s political system. Morrison is certainly working for someone but it’s certainly not the Australian people.
But when asked about Buttrose’s criticism in his latest electioneering press conference, the PM insisted the inquiry was a normal process. “There is nobody above the scrutiny of the Senate,” he proclaimed. “I don’t know why they would consider themselves an exception to business as usual,” said the leader of a government that regularly treats itself as an exception to the rule, and has done all it can to prevent scrutiny of its actions, ministers and policies.
Source: Scrutineering | The Monthly
Scott Morrison and Angus Taylor – sitting atop the party that destroyed Julia Gillard’s carbon tax in 2013 and Bill Shorten’s climate plan in 2019 – have done the unthinkable. For the first time, they have acknowledged Australia cannot and will not get to net zero by 2050 without a carbon price of some form. The stunning and politically explosive concession, which is embedded in modelling released without fanfare last Friday afternoon of the government’s long-term emissions reduction plan, reveals every household may need to pay a carbon price equivalent of more than $1400 a year. That’s because the full reduction in net emissions by 2050 that Morrison and Taylor promised the world at this month’s UN climate summit in Glasgow requires a carbon price of $80 a tonne, according to the model. Clearly, for the Coalition, such a price is completely politically untenable. Which is why the government’s plan is modelled on a far less threatening price of $24 a tonne. The irony? Gillard’s short-lived carbon price – before Tony Abbott’s government legislated to abolish it – began at $23 a tonne.
Morrison’s do-nothing fence sitting, naval gazing is Tump, post Charlottesville, to a tee. Sitting on a right-wing fence he’s claiming a false equvalency between self interest and the societal common good. Between me an we and that the extreme right has the interests of all of us in mind. In fact he’s denying the notion of society for the battlefield of self interst. Voted in and claiming for no service on his part is required.
Still, as the PM is now arguing, he’s the underdog in the coming election and needs to come up with something – anything! – to galvanise the electorate; and if demolishing science, the notion of public good and the functioning of government itself is the outcome, then hey: you can’t make an omelette without destroying civil society, right?Is Morrison game to suggest that the vaccine strollout, quarantine mismanagement and virus spread through aged care and cruise ships was actually a bold strike by the Liberals against their own COVID policies? If polls suggest it would save Kooyong from falling to the Greens, maybe don’t rule it out just yet.
Source: Trump-lite: Scott Morrison’s silence over Melbourne is telling – The Big Smoke
THE ADVICE FROM NATIONS COMING OUT OF SUMMER AND FACING A RESURGENCE
In the UK, daily case numbers are hovering around the 40,000 mark, with weekly deaths now averaging over 1,000. Boris Johnson’s government has faced criticism for its COVID approach since its so-called ”freedom day” in July, which included the scrapping of mask mandates and the end of most restrictions. About 68 per cent of the total population is double-vaccinated, ranking it 18th out of the 38 OECD countries. Australia is 14th on the list, with 70 per cent of the total population fully vaccinated.
The US
Some states in the US have had loosened restrictions for more than six months.
COVID cases are sitting at a 7-day moving average of 83,000, with an average of 1,100 deaths a day across the country.
About 69 per cent of the country’s population aged over 12 is fully vaccinated, with a booster program now being rolled out across the country.
Singapore
Singapore is going through its most challenging period of the pandemic.
With one of the highest vaccination rates in the world, the tiny island nation had planned for a phased reopening once 80 per cent of the eligible population were fully dosed.
But over the past two months, it has faced its steepest curve of infections and deaths of the pandemic so far, with daily case numbers rising to a seven-day average of about 2,700 and 13 deaths a day.
There is one final perversion in all this. In essentially condemning human trafficking, the EU and its counterparts are condemning the right to asylum, which such trafficking aids. With that sentiment, von der Leyen would regard Oskar Schindler and his more recent equivalent, Iraq’s Ali Al Jenabi, as traffickers worthy of punishment.
The media might it’s a joke. A product to sell globally Murdoch inc certainly does and it uses it to boost right-wing support. LNP politicians joining a crowd yelling Kill Bill aren’t ANTIFA nor could be called a falselag. The mob are an organized core of right-wing potentially dangerous domestic terrorists. The numbers of demonstrators may be inflated by a mix of genuine protestors but that mob was nevertheless a very organized one performing for International attention and cameras. This wan’t a demonstration against oppression Vietnam or South African Apartheid. It wasn’t and demand for better working conditions, asylum seekers or Indigenous rights. It was the promotion and celebration of Jan 6th in the US and an organized not spontaneous demonstration against Democracy which unlike America’s is still trusted here. Because Bill has the support of 60% of Victoria’s voters.
Several state Liberal MPs have encouraged a large and sometimes angry group of protesters gathered on the steps of Parliament House, some of whom had earlier chanted violent slogans around a full-sized gallows and called for people to “dance on the end of a rope”.
Dr Laura Murphy’s “claim” that forced labor is a serious in China’s Xinjiang province is just a “claim”. Readily jumped on by the usual suspects the members of the LNP’s anti-renewable faction Angus Taylor etal and the attention-grabbing ALP senator Kerry Kitching. What the article shows is that ABC is certainly not biased and does report news.
However, what’s annoying is the LNP wants its ‘work for the dole’ policies in place with a Job Seeker remittance among the lowest in the OECD, proven next to impossible to live on. What is that, if it’s not modern-day government sponsored slavery? It currently affects indigenous Australians more than any other social group in this country and they represent 3% of Australian’s population. China’s Uyghur minority are far less than 3% of the Chinese population and their living conditions better than Indigenous Australians.
The Chinese have publicly denied their actions are a form of modern-day slavery just as does the LNP who claim their programs would be ‘re-training’ and integration program while denying that the Chinese is.Taylor of course clutches at straws and grabs onto any unproven statements. He ignores the fact that housing, health, education housing jobs and freedom of movement have improved for 1.3 billion people within China but have fallen for 25 million Australians in the last 8 years. Meanwhile Laura Murphy’s claims still have to be substantiated.
Key points: China has been accused of persecuting the Uyghur minority in the Xinjiang region Xinjiang produces a key ingredient needed to manufacture solar panels A researcher says the solar industry’s exposure to forced labour is clear
Lachlan Murdoch once a Philosophy student is the worm that turned his brother James walked as did his sister.
When Fox News isn’t busy openly peddling white nationalism — and doing so with the full support of its top executives — it is now trying to manufacture a scandal to claim that President Joe Biden is the real racist.
Source: Fox News lies about Joe Biden speech to imply a racial slur | Media Matters for America
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