Category: Uncategorized
From Abbott to Morrison we have seen the rise of Australia’s most Secretive non tranparent Government (ODT)
The National Parks Association of NSW and ex-Energy Australia chair Ted Woodley are considering a legal challenge to the $10 billion Snowy 2.0, which they say will push back the transition to renewable energy and destroy thousands of hectares of national park, in light of the fact that the whole project hinges on a 30-year-old report which is being kept secret writes Callum Foote.
via Snow Job: why the cover-up over Snowy Hydro 2.0? – Michael West
We might best understand our current predicament via recourse to what the institutional economist James Galbraith terms a “predator state”. In such circumstances, one group feasts on what is on offer in a decaying system that once served broader interests. The predatory class may be opposed by others who also possess wealth, power and influence. However, a carefully constructed network built on political donations, ideological affinity and personal relationships produces an influence over the government that results in the interests of the predatory class prevailing.
via Morrison’s COVID-19 Commission: Industry policy in reverse
Creating the framework for monopolisation in a predator State(ODT)
Ultimately, a long term plan for sustainable economic growth and broader prosperity for the Australian public is required. Not a continued push for the Coalition to fulfil its ideological wish list as the economy continues to sink beneath the icy waves.
Tim Wilson LNP/IPA federal MP couldn’t give a running fuck about COVID-19 neither the cases nor the deaths concern him rather than how it all seems in the eyes of the public. Now that it’s obvious that the Immigration and the Aged-Care sectors both a responsibility of the Federal LNP were the epicenter of the spread and deaths of the virus due to their total mismanagement from Abbott to Morrison. Wilson’s complaint is that the process was and is political and somehow has gone easy on Dan Andrews. Wilson’s problem however the opposite would seem to be the case if one simply looked at the MSM media. (ODT)
Victorian Liberal MP Tim Wilson has waded into the fight over Daniel Andrews’ handling of the coronavirus pandemic, saying the state government has not been scrutinised enough over its response to COVID-19.
Mr Wilson said the federal coronavirus committee had met many more times than its Victorian equivalent and was chaired by an opposition politician whereas the Victorian inquiry is headed by a member of the governing party.
via Federal Liberal MP swipes Andrews government over pandemic response
If all Trump ever did in his life was to be friends with the likes of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, that would be reason enough to consign him to the sixth ring of some kind of hell we haven’t even imagined yet. At the very least, he knew who they were and he knew the disgusting, illegal stuff they were doing with little girls. And you know what kind of man that is?
via Let’s Remember That along with Everything Else, Donald Trump Is a Total Pig | The Smirking Chimp
Far-right e-celeb Lauren Southern is on the comeback trail. And Australian conservatives are more than happy to offer her a helping hand.
Her bid to be taken seriously as a journalist and commentator was given a small boost recently with a slot on Sky’s Fox News mini-me culture war platform, Outsiders.
The hosts of that program – both the ignominiously departed and those that remain — have never met a rightwing chancer they didn’t like.
But they seem to have a particular affection for Southern, now resident in Australia, who is coming off a curious hiatus from her frenetic work as a far-right influencer.
Earlier this month, there were media reports that Liberal backbencher Craig Kelly had posted to Facebook advocating the anti-malarial drug, hydroxychloroquine, as a treatment for COVID-19.
Kelly went so far as to suggest Victorian Labor Premier Daniel Andrews might have to do some solid prison time after blocking its use. It might be recalled that Kelly’s preselection for the federal seat of Hughes had been in some difficulty before the last election, until he was reputedly saved by his leader, Scott Morrison.
via Australia’s politicians have learned that in the era of coronavirus, the future comes at you fast
Brilliant (ODT)
The American president lives to cultivate resentments, demonize his opponents, validate hatred. His main tool of governance is the lie; as of July 9th, 2020, the documented tally of his distortions and false statements numbered 20,055. If America’s first president, George Washington, famously could not tell a lie, the current one can’t recognize the truth. Inverting the words and sentiments of Abraham Lincoln, this dark troll of a man celebrates malice for all, and charity for none.
via How Covid-19 Signals the End of the American Era – Rolling Stone
The latest GALLUP POLL indicates, “[only] 13% of U.S. adults are satisfied with the state of the nation.”
The Pandemic: Late in April, the U.S. had 1 million coronavirus cases (and 56,000 deaths). Now we have 5 million cases (and 163,000 deaths).
Trump bypasses Congress to push through his very much REDUCED payout for Economic relief. The Dems wanted a $3 trillion dollar package to be passed Trump $1 Trillion. Instead of $600 which the unemployed were receiving it will now be $200 less. This Ch9 report seems to have overlooked that detail of Trump’s flamboyant generosity (ODT)
President Donald Trump on Saturday afternoon openly vowed to permanently “terminate” the funding mechanism for both Social Security and Medicare if reelected in November—an admission that was seized upon by defenders of the popular safety net programs who have been warning for months that the administration’s threat to suspend the payroll tax in the name of economic relief during the Covid-19 pandemic was really a backdoor sabotage effort.
Putting up prices not reducing them. You can rely on Trump to doublecross everyone and act like Kim Jon -Un (ODT)
The announcement, which came just a little over a month after the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) entered into force, could upset one of its most important trading partners.
via US re-imposes 10 pct tariff on aluminum from Canada – World – Chinadaily.com.cn
Easy money for the private contractor (ODT)
The Louisiana supreme court wants to lock Fair Wayne Bryant away for life. Here, we reprint the dissenting opinion by one black judge, Chief Justice Bernette Johnson
Let me just underline that. One of our foremost epidemiologists, a man whose talents we desperately need during a pandemic, has been receiving death threats and his daughters have been harassed to the point of needing protection.
It is Americans on the far right and Trump supporters who have made these threats on the lives of innocents. Fauci has also been viciously attacked at Fox News, the Leni Riefenstahl of American Fascism.
So it turns out that a desire to murder innocents and savagery and anti-science fundamentalism are not absent from America, either.
ISIL thugs also issued death threats to a scientist, targeting Dr. Khaled al-Asaad, who headed the scientific mission at the fabled city of Palmyra in Syria’s eastern desert. It had a rich heritage of Near Eastern paganism and was then taken and ruled by Rome for centuries. The city is one of the world’s most precious archeological sites. Queen Zenobia launched her wideranging but ultimately unsuccessful bid to take the Near East from Rome from there in 270 A.D., for a brief moment ruling from Alexandria to Ankara.
From March 2018… Nothing has changed!!
via The decline of the American empire starts with the decline of the era of American washing machines
Tik Tok is nothing compared to our own government’s data farming. Peter Dutton is looking to advance it even more. (ODT)
Practically everything TikTok critics and China hawks say about the country’s data collection applies to the United States and its tech firms, too. We should be finding ways to protect privacy and free speech from governments and corporations everywhere — including our own.
via Silicon Valley’s Vast Data Collection Should Worry You More Than TikTok
No businesses are now safe in America since Trump abolished the “free market” with his big-government action. All businesses in America are under the threat of a Trump takeover and National Security excuse (ODT)
But it seems there’s still room for ideology
Education and Music and the Arts all export industries have been left to go it alone during COVID. Is it because of their tendancy not to be LNP voters but more critically thinkng Australians. The 1 million temorary visa holders certainly aren’t voters and they are trapped here without support and the government simply doesn’t care. 450 applicant foe a job no Australians applied for shows theis governments compassion.(ODT)
At a pragmatic level, the Government will also not view universities as the powerhouse of one of our most successful export industries, that therefore might be worth supporting, let alone investing in through some sort of strategy to bring them back from the abyss?
And it will not do anything serious about another major export earner, contemporary music.
Autocratic leaders have obscured coronavirus data, cracked down on doctors and reporters, and used the health crisis to further erode democracies worldwide.
In terms of public health, the primary focus is on ensuring visa applicants and arrivals are free of tuberculosis. But the Auditor-General’s report of 2007 states visa applicants and holders must also be
‘…free from a disease or condition that would result in a threat to public health or a danger to the Australian community.’
Bolt loves the attention he’d be jobless without the ABC. Murdoch Media’s loss of $1,5 billion has resulted in the wholesale sacking of journalists diminishing it’s News content but not it’s opinions and public relation activity yet it continues to falsely portray itself as selling News. Sporting and entertainment maybe but not sufficient to describe it as a News organisation selling news. Peter Foster Australia’s infamous con man was jailed for selling product under false pretences.
Murdoch is an American who has been increasingly involved in interfering with our elections with heavy editorial influence and modelling Sky News on Fox News the USA. When will this foreign interference in Australian Democracy be addressed for what it is foreign interference? After all how does a company run and what is its purpose with a $1.5 billion loss paying no taxes given subsidies but losing readers and viewers but being largest organisation in the country not selling news (ODT)
It really is and the media just go along with the loop (ODT)
When Axios‘ Jonathan Swan asked Trump about the 158,000 and counting deaths that happened on his watch, the president responded flatly, as of course he would, “It is what it is.” Indeed, but not for long.
via Help, I’m Stuck in a Trump Time Loop. And So Are You. – Mother Jones
LNP use Neoliberal Logic (ODT)
via Liberal strategy to lower greenhouse gas emissions is to use more fossil fuels
While the UK’s Met Office is out there educating the public, BoM is remarkably coy about any public discussion of climate change. Questions have also been asked whether its senior leadership is too close to the gas industry. Sandi Keane investigates.
Since the days of the Howard government, effective action on climate change has been held hostage by the big polluters’ stranglehold on policy.
Last week’s leaked report from the National Covid-19 Coordination Commission Manufacturing Taskforce comes as no surprise from a commission stacked with executives from the gas and mining lobbies. Its recommendations are a bonanza for the fossil fuel industry and a chilling harbinger of the nightmare to come if, courtesy of the taxpayer, Big Gas is unleashed across our prime farmland.
via Bureau of Meteorology: under pressure to toe the Coalition line on climate change? – Michael West
When Dan Andrews said he would not put his parents into an aged care home in Melbourne, he spoke truth to tragedy.
via Flag, stockade or discovery: Australia’s Eureka dilemma – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The For-Profit Aged-Care Industry Has Led to Catastrophe
The epicenter of Melbourne’s COVID-19 outbreak is, predictably, aged-care homes, where years of marketization have led to an industry based on low wages, understaffing and cost cutting. Amid the tragedy taking place in aged care, we need to call for an overhaul of the entire for-profit system.
via The For-Profit Aged-Care Industry Has Led to Catastrophe
Albanese has been onto it, saying that Morrison must answer why he has made no effort to clean up these privately owned Aged Care Homes where profit comes before human health.
I for one would love to hear his answers.
It wasn’t so long ago Morrison was warding off Australia’s crisis with the success of Victoria’s Economy he didn’t emphasize that then. Now they are ready to blame Australia’s Economy on Victoria. (LNP
But while we are living as two Australias, we are one country. That means the huge whack the virus is inflicting on Victoria is dragging down the rest of the nation, holding back recovery.
The dire turn of events is affecting political leaders’ responses. Risk averse premiers are running their states as gated communities.
Morrison maintains a level of public solidarity with Andrews but the PM may find himself under mounting pressure from those within his party and its base who want the economy given a much higher priority.
via Grattan on Friday: COVID divides the nation and isolates MPs from Victoria
All of the social media sites have made explicit that they see misinformation about coronavirus as belonging to a specific category of post, which will attract more strict censure than other posts that break its rules, even those that propagate falsehoods about other issues. As such, the decision by all three sites to remove the recent remarks by Mr Trump may simply be a result of those specific policies.
Both sites have in the past appeared to give the president extra leeway within their rules, because of his high-profile and the newsworthy nature of his posts. As such, they may have been expected to take a similar tactic with coronavirus posts, but some of the sites have already indicated that they will treat Mr Trump’s posts on the issue more critically than they might with other topics.
olddogthoughts 
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