Category: Uncategorized

Trump Cheats At Golf Too | Crooks and Liars

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Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump” (Hachette Book Group), out Tuesday.

In addition to the $95,000,000 of taxpayer moneys at one of his resorts, Donald Trump has spent an unbelievable 164 days golfing, or over five full months of his 26 months in office.

Turns out, even after spending that much time on the links, Trump has proven Malcolm Gladwell completely wrong: he has to cheat to win.

And he’s not shy about changing the lay of his opponent’s ball either. His caddy admitted to ESPN’s Mike Tirico that Trump himself threw Tirico’s ball off the green into a bunker.

Reilly also says that his scores at the individual club are routinely fudged and made up. But how could you expect anything else of someone with so little personal integrity that he’d lie about his club’s historic provenance in a fake Civil War battle?

Trump Cheats At Golf Too | Crooks and Liars

and

 

Ocean Heat hits Record High, in Bad News for Planet

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via Ocean Heat hits Record High, in Bad News for Planet

A progressive society needs common good economic policies – » The Australian Independent Media Network

society needs

How I look at the past few years. They have been the catalyst that might wake us from the political malaise that had bogged us down in a quagmire of narcissism. It’s the individual first second and third.

Every part of society, when you think about it, has been indoctrinated with a nefarious, me first attitude that has seen the common good almost vanish.

Where as the common good should be at the center of any political philosophy. However, it is more likely to be found on the left than the right.

via A progressive society needs common good economic policies – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Australia’s richest and poorest postcodes revealed in ATO’s 2016-17 tax statistics – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Couple enjoying a scenic coastal hike on the Barrenjoey Lighthouse Walk in Palm Beach, Sydney

Key points:

  • The ATO Taxation Statistics for 2016-17 is based on information from 13.9 million Australians
  • There is a difference of $209,741 in average income between the richest postcode (2108) and poorest postcode (2308)
  • The profession with the highest income was surgeons, with a national average taxable income of $394,866

via Australia’s richest and poorest postcodes revealed in ATO’s 2016-17 tax statistics – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Australian terrorist Khaled Sharrouf’s children out of battle zone after fleeing Islamic State – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Five kids sit on a set of steps.

The Collective Punishment of Children

Somewhere between 3,700 and 4,600 foreign children were taken to Syria to join IS — representing about 10 per cent of all foreigners — and a further 730 were born there to foreign parents, according to the UK-based International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation.

Save the Children estimates that more than 3,500 of those children now languish in the three refugee camps in Syria’s north-east.

The five Sharrouf children were taken to Islamic State territory in Syria by their mother, Tara, in early 2014
Only three children have survived their five-year ordeal, and since mid-March they have been held at the al-Hawl refugee camp in north-eastern Syria
Their grandmother Karen Nettleton is calling on the Australian Government to help her rescue the children, following similar actions by other Western nations

via Australian terrorist Khaled Sharrouf’s children out of battle zone after fleeing Islamic State – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Foreign Fiddling: If Dastyari Had To Go, Then So Should Hanson – New Matilda

new matilda, dastyari

via Foreign Fiddling: If Dastyari Had To Go, Then So Should Hanson – New Matilda

Eddie McGuire Dusts Off Heartfelt Apology He Gave Last Month – The Shovel

via Eddie McGuire Dusts Off Heartfelt Apology He Gave Last Month – The Shovel

Chinese-Australians have had a gutful of politicians’ tokenism

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Get real we are Australians not Chinese first (ODT)

Chinese-Australians have had enough of the political tokenism displayed by all sides of politics.

We are not political cannon fodder and we no longer want to serve as cash cows and walking ATMs at fundraising dinners. We’re tired of having candidates in non-winnable seats. We want to be recognised for our commitment to Australian democracy.

My advice to Bill Shorten and Scott Morrison to take a step away from WeChat and show some genuine interest in our community’s concerns.

via Chinese-Australians have had a gutful of politicians’ tokenism

Old Dog Thoughts- From Philosopher and Dreamer was it always about “me” Lachlan?

Andrew Bolt’s Blog,1/4/19. The sludge in the bloodstream of American politics;

Ocasio-Cortez says Green New Deal critics are making ‘fools of themselves’ | US news | The Guardian

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speaks to the media after a televised town hall in New York on 29 March.

Such assertions have no basis in fact: the resolution does not call for the elimination of animal agriculture or aviation. The extraordinarily large cost attributed to the plan by Republicans, typically $93tn, is also false.
Sign up for the US morning briefing

Ocasio-Cortez said she expected such attacks.

“But I didn’t expect them to make total fools of themselves,” she told MSNBC on Friday. “I expected a little more nuance, and I expected a little more ‘concern trolling’,” meaning expressions of disingenuous concern.

Ocasio-Cortez added that politics in Washington DC often feels like “the upside down”, a reference to a distorted parallel reality depicted in the Netflix show Stranger Things.

via Ocasio-Cortez says Green New Deal critics are making ‘fools of themselves’ | US news | The Guardian

As Trump OKs Saudi Nuclear Projects, Rep. Sherman replies: “If you can’t trust a regime with a bone-saw . . .”

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President Donald Trump has pursued a close relationship with Saudi Arabia, saying openly that the kingdom was good for US business even if the powerful crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, is confirmed to have ordered the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October.

“If you cannot trust a regime with a bone-saw, you should not trust them with nuclear weapons,” said Sherman, a Democrat from California.

Prince Mohammed has warned that the Saudis will pursue nuclear weapons if their arch-rival Iran obtains them.

via As Trump OKs Saudi Nuclear Projects, Rep. Sherman replies: “If you can’t trust a regime with a bone-saw . . .”

75% of Scotland’s Electricity Now from Renewables

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Capitalism’s Protestant Ethic is Green (ODT)

via 75% of Scotland’s Electricity Now from Renewables

Israel kills two teens on Great March anniversary | The Electronic Intifada

via Israel kills two teens on Great March anniversary | The Electronic Intifada

Profits Tumble As Banks Now Required To Have Living Customers Only – The Shovel

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via Profits Tumble As Banks Now Required To Have Living Customers Only – The Shovel

How the Liberals got stuck in a long, demented cycle of vengeance

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i Tony, it’s Julie Bishop,” began the call. Long silence. Malcolm Turnbull’s prime ministership was collapsing. Bishop had decided to run for the leadership. She was making every call herself, even the difficult ones, to ask for support. No intermediaries, no numbers men.”I’m just doing you the courtesy of …”It was as far as she got. Abbott cut her off. “What about you do me the courtesy of being a loyal deputy?” He was still fuming about the collapse of his own prime ministership three years earlier. He blamed Bishop for colluding against him.

How the Liberals got stuck in a long, demented cycle of vengeance

One Nation: All The Drama From This Week In Australian Politics

via One Nation: All The Drama From This Week In Australian Politics

The callous, pointless vacuum at the dead heart of One Nation

Illustration: Reg Lynch

What they deny and the denials Bolt Jones and Sky support (ODT)

The comments were broadcast at the tail end of part two of last week’s Al Jazeera documentary on One Nation, the compelling result of the covert recordings.

“You cannot, in life, and especially in politics… take into account everybody’s emotions,” Ashby, Pauline Hanson’s chief of staff, tells Rodger Muller, the undercover operative he believes is the head of an Australian gun rights lobby group.

The men, accompanied by One Nation’s Steve Dickson, are about to board a plane back to Australia, having completed their piss-powered bumpkins’ tour of the odious Washington gun lobby, trying to solicit cash and pick up tips on how to weaken Australia’s gun laws.
Advertisement

via The callous, pointless vacuum at the dead heart of One Nation

Parliament House security upgrade derailed by construction firm Steelvision’s possible liquidation

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LNP organizing the safety of the parliament couldn’t organize a chook raffle (ODT)

A firm given the $14 million job of upgrading critical security at Parliament House in Canberra is in disarray with allegations of cocaine use, a sideline in an Uber-style app for escorts, debts to Russian friends and the intervention of a Morrison government minister.

Almost a year after the $75 million state-of-the art upgrade to protect MPs from acts of terrorism was due to be completed, the marble entrances of Parliament remain shrouded in scaffolding and 400 businesses across Australia are owed $21 million.

Parliament House security upgrade derailed by construction firm Steelvision’s possible liquidation

Old Dog Thoughts- When Murdoch Media Protects Idiocy what can we expect? A fall in Australia’s International Corruption Index 85 to 77 from 7th to 13th

Andrew Bolt’s Blog,31/3/19; Alan Jones works for an organization once owned by Murdoch and the Saudis; Read about this Governments “organizing” abilities to keep themselves “safe”; So many things the cameras don’t see; Anti- Israel,Anti- Zionism,Anti-Semitism,Ilhan Omar;

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Calls Out ‘Far-right Propaganda…Dedicated to Maligning Me,’ Before Trump Rally Crowd Chants ‘AOC Sucks’

AOC far-right propaganda Donald Trump Jr. Green New Deal

She is a breath of fresh air “Simply the best better than all the rest” Tina Turner could well have been singing about AOC (ODT)

via Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Calls Out ‘Far-right Propaganda…Dedicated to Maligning Me,’ Before Trump Rally Crowd Chants ‘AOC Sucks’

Naked Truth: The Grifter-in-Chief will Leave us Bankrupt and Holding the Bag

Donald Trump wasn’t actually a successful businessman at all, not in the normal sense anyway. He was an economic magician (or, in classic American terms, a con man) who regularly ground business after business — a set of casinos (at a time when other casinos were thriving), hotels, an airline, and a series of other endeavors ranging from Trump Steaks to Trump Vodka to Trump University — into the dust of bankruptcy or failure. What made him such a magician was that, in case after case, his greatest “business” skill proved to be jumping ship, dollars in hand, leaving those who trusted him, had faith in him, believed in him holding the bag.

via Naked Truth: The Grifter-in-Chief will Leave us Bankrupt and Holding the Bag

A Mueller mystery: How Trump dodged a special counsel interview – and a subpoena fight

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the decision not to subpoena the President is one of the lingering mysteries of Mueller’s 22-month investigation, which concluded last week when he filed a report numbering more than 300 pages.

via A Mueller mystery: How Trump dodged a special counsel interview – and a subpoena fight

Palestinians recognize Texas as part of Mexico – The Beaverton

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via Palestinians recognize Texas as part of Mexico – The Beaverton

Israel Imposes Collective Punishment on Gaza Civilians Leaves Dozens Homeless after Tel Aviv Strikes

via Israel Imposes Collective Punishment on Gaza Civilians Leaves Dozens Homeless after Tel Aviv Strikes

Israeli Embrace of War-Crimes Tactics Leaves 200 Dead, Thousands of Peaceful Gaza Protesters Wounded, Facing Health Crises

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via Israeli Embrace of War-Crimes Tactics Leaves 200 Dead, Thousands of Peaceful Gaza Protesters Wounded, Facing Health Crises

LISTEN: Suffering in Gaza isn’t a humanitarian issue, it’s an Israeli political decision | +972 Magazine

A Palestinian man checks the damage following an Israeli air strike in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Yunis, March 10, 2019. (Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90)

That’s what shames the Jews today is Israel and it politicians not it’s citizens. Fighting for Palestinians today is fighting for Judaism not against it. (ODT)

Recent rockets fired into central Israel by armed groups in Gaza were not ‘mistakes,’ as both Hamas and Israel claim. The counter-intuitive context, Tareq Baconi explains, is a Hamas attempt to get Israel back onboard with a cease-fire agreement. Excerpts from The +972 Podcast.

via LISTEN: Suffering in Gaza isn’t a humanitarian issue, it’s an Israeli political decision | +972 Magazine

Old Dog Thoughts – Trump said he’d be shit himself was he fake media?

Donald Trump

Andrew Bolt’s Blog,30/3/19; Trump warned America he’d be a shit President; Climate Clown, TV Tech Turtle,

Old Dog Thoughts- Fighting Fake News and flipping rapists to victims of rape

Image result for Cartoon of two political conspirators

Andrew Bolt’s Blog,29/3/19. Hanson Abbott Bolt stand shoulder to shoulder and declare that Hanson and One Nation are the best Party they can work with;

Old Dog Thoughts- One Nation in bits and pieces playing victim again

Image result for Images of shooting oneself in the foot
Mark Latham speaks with Pauline Hanson in the background.

Andrew Bolt’s Blog, 28/3/19; 20 years of doing the same thing proves Einsteins other theory of insanity right; Latham’s an ideal candidate;

Guns, politics and policy: what can we learn from Al Jazeera’s undercover NRA sting?

via Guns, politics and policy: what can we learn from Al Jazeera’s undercover NRA sting?

‘This is a Crisis’: Aboriginal leaders want action on Indigenous youth suicide | NITV

Andrew Bolt insists they are their own problem and is ready more harshly than history has treated them already. They certainly aren’t part of his culture or team that hasn’t changed substantially since 1788. (ODT)

via ‘This is a Crisis’: Aboriginal leaders want action on Indigenous youth suicide | NITV

History tells us that it’s hard to believe him – » The Australian Independent Media Network

We have to thank Andrew Bolt for giving this embarassment more air to the detriment of himself and Gerard Henderson neither of whom laid a glove on Bolt’s media nemesis Waleed Aly. Who was invited to NZ unlike them (ODT)

My interpretation of Henderson’s words was that Aly had no right to question Morrison simply because he was the Prime Minister and he should have more respect.

Was Aly supposed to concede that politicians are the citadels of all knowledge?

Aly is an author, journalist, newspaper columnist, radio and television presenter, lawyer, academic, guitarist, songwriter and thinker.

Scott Morrison is the Prime Minister of Australia has a BSc (Honour’s) from Sydney University.

Central to Aly’s criticism was the proposition that Scott Morrison had, at a shadow cabinet meeting in 2010 “urged the shadow cabinet to capitalise on the electorate’s growing concerns” about Muslims and appeal to the public perception of their “inability to integrate”

This followed his questioning in the same month after forty-eight asylum seekers died in the Christmas Island boat disaster. In February 2011, Morrison publicly questioned the decision of the Gillard Labor government to pay for the relatives of the victims to travel to funerals in Sydney, arguing that the same privilege was not extended to Australian citizens.

After fellow Liberal and shadow treasurer Joe Hockey disagreed with Morrison’s statements, Morrison said that the timing of his comments was insensitive, but did not back away from the comments themselves.

via History tells us that it’s hard to believe him – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Machine guns, mansions, and Muslim immigration: Recordings capture One Nation behind the scenes – Politics – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

How to sell a massacre

via Machine guns, mansions, and Muslim immigration: Recordings capture One Nation behind the scenes – Politics – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

One Nation met with Koch Industries last year. These are the brothers behind it – Politics – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

A composite image of Charles and David Koch.

The Koch Industries representatives appeared interested in both the rules and regulations, but also how political donations were viewed “culturally” in Australia.

Watch the second part of the Al Jazeera investigation on Thursday on ABC TV or watch the full documentary on iview.

via One Nation met with Koch Industries last year. These are the brothers behind it – Politics – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

What Ashby and Dickson want us to believe – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Ther was amajor Qatari investment partnership with Rupert Murdoch is Ashby pointin fingers at him too? oh Dear!! How almighty crumble. (ODT)

Firstly, we are supposed to believe that the Qatari government have launched a three-year sting operation employing spies to influence the elections in Australia and, in order to exert influence over our government, they sought out James Ashby.

Sorry James, but that’s narcissism on steroids. As if the Qatari government has ever heard of you and as if One Nation will ever have any actual influence over government in this country. You can’t keep a Senator long enough for them to even get letterhead printed at the exorbitant rates you charge for your monopoly on One Nation printing business.

via What Ashby and Dickson want us to believe – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Old Dog Thoughts- a much needed review of an APC decision made 5 years ago

A screenshot of Glen Le Lievre's contentious cartoon in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Andrew Bolt’s Blog,27/3/19; What Bolt never talks about; Morrison wasn’t smeared; Burnside is but by who and why? Madness Of Bolt and his paucity of effort to harm the ABC ;Charges dropped;

The world is slowing down at an alarming speed

Wall Street fell sharply on Friday as recession fears gathered steam.

Conditions aren’t being helped by the crude trade policies being pursued by the US, which are damaging its major trading partners with flow-on effects to the rest of the world, while hurting segments of its own economy in the process.

Donald Trump's unconventional trade negotiations are having a detrimental effect on US economic conditions.
Donald Trump’s unconventional trade negotiations are having a detrimental effect on US economic conditions.Credit:AP

The Fed has now backed off on its attempt to use what had been benign conditions in the US – where the economy was growing strongly, if perhaps unsustainably, in response to the debt-funded Trump tax cuts and spending – to normalise its policies.

via The world is slowing down at an alarming speed

Old Dog Thoughts -Hitler’s application of science proposed by the new Right-Wing Senator in NSW

Andrew Bolt’s Blog,26/3/19/; No DNA testing can prove Aboriginality. So Bolt could well be Indigenous and not Dutch; The Russians again; Media loving Trump; Bolt and Morrison team;

Old Dog Thoughts – handballing the blame to the Greens. Doesn’t wash.

Image result for Images of washing blood off your hands

Andrew Bolt’s Blog,25/3/19; Washing Blood off his hands; The Jimmy Olsen of News Corpse; Adau isn’t an individual to Andrew Bolt;

Old Dog Thoughts- Media’s whose who the Coyote and the Road Runner

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Andrew Bolt’s Blog,24/3/19; The Coyote and the Road Runner in the media; Women and Shooters are the Grinners;

Yo-yo Morrison And The Ups-And-Downs Of Making A Decision! – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Image result for Images of Andrew Bolt yelling

Yes, leadership has its ups-and-downs, but I don’t think that I’ve ever seen someone who moves up and down as much as the human yo-yo, Scott Morrison. You know how the yo-yo works: it reaches the end of the string and it hurries back up to the top only to immediately sink again.

I guess the thing that struck me about Yo-yo Mo’s threat to sue Aly was the simple fact that Waleed was reporting something that had been widely reported in various sources years ago. When it was first reported, our PM told us that he didn’t comment on Cabinet discussions. Not so last night, where he assured us that he brought up concerns about Muslim immigration because he wanted to “address them”. He didn’t explain how he hoped to address them as Shadow Opposition Immigration minister. Maybe he planned to help promote unity by complaining about the taxpayer funding flights to the funeral services of asylum seekers who perished when the ship crashed on Christmas Island.

Or perhaps he was trying to help last night when he assured us that there were over fifty people on Manus and Nauru who had “character” concerns. When asked how many of them were actually “rapists, murderers and pedophiles”, he was less clear, but it was clearly “significantly more than one”…

Is three significantly more than one? It is 300% after all.

Still, I’m not sure what the point is. Is he suggesting that a non-convicted pedophile with a life-threatening condition which couldn’t be treated on Nauru would be allowed to die because we couldn’t keep them under control if they came to Australia? I mean, George Pell was taken to hospital because he’s got the flu and he’s an actual convicted sex offender.

Watching last night, I couldn’t help but think that this Waleed Aly interview will be called a “trainwreck” which – as I wrote a few weeks ago, trains actually have tracks which they go off; this mob in Canberra resemble a car where the fighting for the steering wheel has become so intense that the wheel itself has ended up in the boot.

via Yo-yo Morrison And The Ups-And-Downs Of Making A Decision! – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Old Dog Thoughts – Murdoch’s and the Right’s Toxic Voice

Andrew Bolt’s Blog 23/3/19; Sociopathy of the Right Murdoch’s toxic media voice permeates Australia; Morrison’s low shots against Islam can’t begin to compare with Andrew Bolt’s; Truth the difference matters facts and fiction News Corpse is killing the difference;

Killing the innocents and other misdemeanours – » The Australian Independent Media Network

via Killing the innocents and other misdemeanours – » The Australian Independent Media Network

The Nation

White Supremacy in Australia Set the Stage for the Christchurch Massacre
The mainstreaming of hate has become routine, in both the media and politics.
Antony Loewenstein

via The Nation

Christchurch shooting: The culture wars are real and represents a sad, broken state of Australian conversation

The Australian conversation is breaking down and could have dangerous consequences.

Ask Bolt if he recognises tribalism he’ll say no thenlook at his blogs. They ere consistent to a tee. (ODT)

Christchurch shooting: The culture wars are real and represents a sad, broken state of Australian conversation

Scott Morrison tells Waleed Aly he always sought to confront Islamophobia, not exploit it – Politics – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Key points:

Scott Morrison said he never told senior colleagues to exploit community concerns about Muslim migration
The Prime Minister accused Waleed Aly of being “very emotional” and “over the top”
Mr Morrison refused to say whether his party should preference One Nation and Fraser Anning last.

via Scott Morrison tells Waleed Aly he always sought to confront Islamophobia, not exploit it – Politics – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Coalition refuses to release Tony Abbott letters to Queen on knighthoods | Australia news | The Guardian

Tony Abbott and the Queen

via Coalition refuses to release Tony Abbott letters to Queen on knighthoods | Australia news | The Guardian

WATCH: Israeli soldiers break into Palestinian school, arrest 10-year-old | +972 Magazine

Fully armed soldiers enter the school in occupied Hebron, threaten teachers, and take away a child they likely exceeded their authority to arrest because of his age.

via WATCH: Israeli soldiers break into Palestinian school, arrest 10-year-old | +972 Magazine

Jacinda of New Zealand vs. Trump | The Nation

via Jacinda of New Zealand vs. Trump | The Nation

Trump endorses Israeli control of the Golan Heights

The business man’s boys club sharing the spoils, (ODT)

via Trump endorses Israeli control of the Golan Heights