Category: Uncategorized
The day after Mueller’s testimony, Trump called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and pressured Zelensky to help him win the 2020 election by investigating former Vice President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday. In the weeks that followed, Trump refused to grant Zelensky a meeting at the White House and halted $250 million of congressionally authorized military aid to the country, raising the possibility that the president was, as The Washington Post put it in an unsigned editorial, “not just soliciting Ukraine’s help with his presidential campaign” but using U.S. military aid to “extort it.”
via Donald Trump Is Asking A Foreign Country To Help Him Win. Again. | HuffPost Australia
Michael Atkinson, the US government’s intelligence inspector general, has described the whistleblower’s August 12 complaint as “serious” and “urgent,” but he has not been allowed to turn over the complaint to Congress, a move that he created a fresh clash between the government’s executive and legislative branches.
It also has raised questions about whether Joseph Maguire, the acting director of national intelligence and Atkinson’s superior, is working with the Justice Department to protect the President.
Maguire has refused to discuss details of the whistleblower complaint, but he has been subpoenaed by Schiff’s committee and is expected to testify publicly on Thursday. Maguire and Atkinson also are expected to appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee this week.
Democrats say the administration is legally required to give Congress access to the complaint. The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, has said he will go to court in an effort to get it if necessary.
Schiff argued on Sunday that Trump is pushing Democrats closer to seeking his removal from office if the newest allegations are proven.
via Trump: ‘I discussed people like Biden with Ukraine’s President’
But no politician should believe his or her own propaganda. And no politician should believe Donald Trump’s.
via Sugar and smiles can’t dissolve the risks in getting too close to Trump
And how right the PM was, a man of undoubted perception, seeing in Craig Kelly something that had eluded the rest of us. Namely his grasp on climate science and his ability to understand and explain to the uninformed the vagaries of climate change.
I give you the honourable member’s speech to our parliament as recorded by Hansard :
Mr CRAIG KELLY (Hughes) (13:55): I understand how persuasive peer group pressure can be for teenagers, with their desire to conform and fit in with the crowd. However, I would say to any student considering joining the so-called climate protest: don’t be a sheep; think for yourself. You are being used and manipulated, and everything you are told is a lie. The facts are: there is no link between climate change and drought. Polar bears are increasing in number. Today’s generation is safer from extreme weather than at any time in human history. There is no 97 per cent consensus. Such claims are a fraud. Crop yields have increased remarkably. Wildfires have declined 25 per cent over the past two decades. We are seeing fewer cyclones, not more. Cold weather kills many times more people than hot weather, including here in Australia. The sea ice is not melting away; in fact, where the ill-fated Franklin expedition sailed in the year 1845 is blocked by thick sea ice this year. Renewables ain’t renewables, and they certainly don’t make electricity cheaper.
On Thursday night, the Post reported that the complaint “centers on Ukraine,” fueling speculation it is related to the Trump team’s public efforts to compel that nation’s government to reopen an investigation with the intention of damaging the 2020 presidential campaign of former Vice President Joe Biden. In a combative CNN interview later that night, Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani confirmed that he had “ask[ed] Ukraine to look into Joe Biden.”
It’s early in the life of this story and while the reporting thus far seems ominous, there are a host of unanswered questions.
The event comes at a dramatic crossroads for climate action. Young Americans are more worried about climate change than ever, but federal action to address the phenomenon has only been rolled back since the ascendency of President Donald Trump. Over the past two years, the White House has rolled back or eliminated dozens of the country’s key environmental laws and withdrawn the U.S. from the landmark Paris climate agreement.
At the same time, scientists have been tolling warning bells loudly. Global carbon emissions — the main driver of climate change — rose to a record high in 2018, which was also the fourth hottest year on record.
via From Sydney To San Francisco, Millions Are Striking For Global Climate Action | HuffPost Australia
I’d understood the dilemma of normalising Trump’s ideas and policies – the racism, misogyny and demonisation of the free press. But watching just one press conference from Otay Mesa helped me understand how the process of reporting about this president can mask and normalise his full and alarming incoherence.
As a foreign reporter visiting the US I was stunned by Trump’s press conference | Lenore Taylor | Opinion | The Guardian
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Mm, and then there’s Gladys Liu. While she may not be a card carrying member of the Chinese Communist Party, she’s certainly belonged to organisations which are meant to advance China’s interests in other countries. When Scottie hears this, does he announce that he’ll ask the security forces to check it out? No, he calls her a great Australian and accuses people of racism for even suggesting that there are questions to answer.
Good on him, says the Chinese newspaper. (This is real, I’m not making it up).
Now imagine if Jeremy Corbyn or Bill Shorten had introduced a card to control people’s spending, presided over raids on journalists and then was praised by the Communists for standing up for a possible Chinese propaganda stooge. Yeah, I can see the Murdoch press calling for their extradition to Guatanamo Bay as a threat to the nation.
–– ADVERTISEMENT ––But Scott, it seems, is ok right up until he says, How Good is the Socialist state?
via How Good Is Communism? OR ScoMo The Trotskyist – » The Australian Independent Media Network
So here comes Sinclair, and Breitbart (ODT)
So while I do not doubt that Trump is unpopular at Fox and that his detractors have become more audacious, it’s also true that his supporters are sticking by him as strongly as ever, if not more so.
In other words, Fox News civil war. Grab the popcorn!
via Stable Genius Reportedly Very Unpopular Among Fox News Personnel | Crooks and Liars
All this is not to mention US support for the Saudi-UAE war on Yemen. Although Iran is not deeply entangled in that largely local conflict, it does side with the Houthis, which the war aims at destroying– at the cost of some 80,000 Yemeni lives, millions displaced, ten million food insecure– a modern apocalypse.
Maximum pressure was supposed to make the Iranians fold. But there was always another possibility.
via Trump Has been Waging a Brutal War on Iran for over a Year, in Alliance with Saudi Arabia & Israel
Remember the Weapons of Mass Deception and how they convinced the world to invade Iraq. John Howard insisted on Weapons of Mass Destruction despite the Intelligence Service. Goes to show how far politicians will go and how little respect they have fot the electorate (ODT)
It only takes 30% of the population to change a governments policies. In the case of the LNP it was less than 30% of it’s members to hold policies of the moderates back,(ODT)
Despite warnings and scientific advice, our Government hasn’t budged on the issue of climate change so it’s time to strike back, writes David Ritter.
Pro Israel? Rupert Murdoch is a Director of Genie Oil illegally exploring in Syria’s occupiedGolan Heights for an oil discovery believed to be bigger than the Saudi’s. Why isn’t this promoted on his global front pages? Support, however of Israel is but not it’s criminal support of terrorist groups in that war. Why is Australia ready to jail and silence anybody talking about their criminal bugging of the East Timor governments offices simply to screw them out of oil. Commercial espionage by our government and no politicians brought to account, how did they not believe they were working on sound princples of International Crime? Even now they are doing what they can to shut any inquiry down. (ODT)
We all know what these wars have been about. Even those who don’t know the specifics can all see oil dripping from between the lines. Oil seeping from the writing on the wall. You pretty much taste petroleum in every mouthful of bullshit we are served. But soon, unfortunately, we will be feeling the crunch ourselves, rather than offshoring the destructiveness associated with our lucky country to the war-torn Middle East. We may want to blame others. We may want to jump on the US bandwagon and point the finger at Iran. But make no mistake, we are not the victims, we are minor villains in this story. Sycophants sucking up to the big boss in the hopes of maintaining our supply of crumbs. Crumbs we are willing to trade millions of lives and the fate of our world for.
via Petroleum Crumbs – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Abbott/Trunbull/Morrison and America;s Cold War took us to war against Vietnam. Now they are asking Australians to sacrify their relationships in the Pacific again. (ODT)
Key points:
Scott Morrison hasn’t been able to secure a bilateral meeting with Xi Jinping
He has however been invited to a state dinner with US President Donald Trump
The failure to net a bilateral meeting with Mr Xi stems from Australia and China’s icy relations
While the authenticity verifiers marshalled across platoons of fact checkers might well be thinking they are doing us a service, nothing ever replaces the sceptical reader who covers multiple sources to identify an account and question it. Never just read lines, but between them; never just accept news, but monitor its content and those who produce it. To the informed sceptic go the spoils of enlightenment.
via Fake Arguments on Fake News – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The wealthy can delay the legal process for a lifetime. The US justice system is becoming Indian. (ODT)
via Manhattan DA Subpoenas 8 Years Of Trump Taxes | Crooks and Liars
olddogthoughts 
Trump is a walking, talking national security liability