Category: Uncategorized
Not laughing now (ODT)
Under the Coalition’s “responsible budget management”, net debt has increased from $161,253 million at 31 August 2013, a week before the election, to $424,164 million at the end of February this year.
Still stuck in slogan land, Coalition language is changing.
We have gone from a “targeted, modest and scalable” response to “targeted, measured and scalable” and now Frydenberg is calling for “quick, strong and co-ordinated action” from the G20 countries.
The self-satisfied smirks, the ridiculing of the idea of well-being, and the draconian persecution of the unemployed have disappeared.
After more than a decade of their bullshit, all of a sudden, “we are all in this together”.
Stable Genius tells it as it is for once and GOP take a deep breath. HE’S YOUR PRESIDENT AMERICA!!! (ODT
HE’S YOUR PRESIDENT AMERICA!!!
TRUMP: I think New York should be fine based on the numbers that we see, they should have more than enough. I’m hearing stories that they’re not used or not used them right. We find anywhere from 2 to 4,000 that have been sent and aren’t used. We’ve done a job. Now, we’re still getting more ventilators. After this is over they’ll be selling ventilators for a dollar a piece, we’ll have a lot of them.
via Stable Genius Says New York Is Fine, Won’t Need Extra Ventilators | Crooks and Liars
Under a decaying and decadent political system, there is often a dangerous tendency to select public officials based upon ideological factionalism or the blandishments of self-interested lobbies. During normal times, this may lead to the sort of inefficiency and corruption that saps the strength of a society, but during a severe crisis, survival itself may be at risk. Until a couple of weeks ago, I had never even heard of Dr. Sarah Cody, but I am greatly relieved that my local officials are still appointed based upon the highest standards of meritocratic competence. The contrast with America’s national government could not be greater.
via The Government Employee Who May Have Saved a Million American Lives, by Ron Unz – The Unz Review
Trump suggested disposable eqipment be re sanitsed and reused(ODT)
Nurses at Kaiser Permanente hospitals and clinics in California could be fired immediately for wearing their own face masks, according to unions representing nurses at the facilities. The news comes after nurses were ordered to reuse disposable protective gear to save supplies in the face of shortages brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.
via Kaiser Threatened to Fire Nurses for Wearing Their Own Masks
The Hungarian parliament handed the country’s populist Prime Minister Viktor Orban the power to govern unchallenged for as long as he sees fit, a move rights groups said effectively suspends democracy in the European Union member state in the name of fighting the coronavirus.
via Coronavirus outbreak prompts Hungary’s Viktor Orban to reach for unchecked power
Hope in the time of corona lies in rebuilding the role of government, supporting the institutions that support people and dispensing with the proven lunacy that insists fattening corporations and “the market” delivers “healthier, wealthier, more motivated and productive workers”.
Because it doesn’t. As the times reveal; it never did.
via Hope in the time of coronavirus lies in rebuilding the state | Van Badham | Opinion | The Guardian
Check Centrelink, with its uncontrolled queues of impoverished supplicants lining up cheek-by-jowl, incubating and spreading as they beg for a handout.
Wanted: A prime minister able to deal with a crisis
and
JobKeeper Payment a gun to the heads of over one million temporary entrants
FAKE NEWS
NEWS CORP, SKY, MURDOCH, COMMENTATOR SPREADING THE PANDEMIC RECOMMENDING “IT’S TIME TO GO BACK TO WORK” & HERD IMMUNITY IN AN UNDERPREPARED AUSTRALIA. HE’S ALWAYS BEEN ISOLATED AND PRACTICED SOCIAL_ DISTANCING. (ODT)
PREPARE NOW FOR THE BANS TO END
March 22, our exit strategy was clear (to me): “Ring-fence the sick and old, but let everyone else get back to work… That could include… certificates of immunity — which we should start issuing soon.” Today: “German researchers plan to introduce coronavirus ‘immunity certificates’ to facilitate a proper transition into post-lockdown life.” (Andrew Bolt)
Andrew Bolt is promoting advice against the experts and the Government. He’s promoting Herd Immunity denied the world over. Is he breaking the LAW?? SHUT HIM DOWN & RING- FENCE HIM!! (ODT)
Personally, I’m not too worried about Chinese soft power. If Westerners look bad in comparison, that is only because of their own incompetence rather than the nefariousness of the Chinese. The Chinese State wants to make deals. The globalists want something much dearer: they want to bribe you into losing your national soul, your traditional values, your fighting spirit.
This crisis may come to be seen as the moment in which a declining and incoherent liberal-globalist West was geopolitically overtaken by an confident and organized national-authoritarian China. If so, we can also expect other countries may be tempted to change their political models.
via We Are All Totalitarians Now, by Guillaume Durocher – The Unz Review
Ten years after Citizens United, our elections are awash with money from mega-donors and corporations. They drown out the voices of everyday people and warp public policy, with serious consequences for racial justice and the economy.
An antidote is sitting idle on Senator Mitch McConnell’s desk: H.R. 1, the For the People Act, passed by the House a year ago this month.
In 2016, campaign spending on the presidential election totaled $2.4 billion. The average Senate winner in 2018 spent $15.7 million, with challengers needing on average $23.8 million to topple incumbents. Even local election costs can be forbidding. Spending in the recent Los Angeles County school board primary topped $6 million.
Although occasionally a candidate like Bernie Sanders can raise the money to compete from small donors, that’s the exception. The vast majority rely on a small class of large donors.
via A Civil Rights Issue: Less than 1% of Americans Provide most Money for Political Campaigns
History of America’s failed control of Latin American States has been told over and over again only to make fools of somany American leaders and can anyone make Trump look a bigger fool than he already is? (ODT)
The brazenness of the indictments in attempting to cast Venezuela as a narco-state, the lack of foresight regarding possible repercussions, the attempted sabotage of dialogue and the mixed messaging are all signals that the Trump administration is desperate to ensure its regime change policy shows results. The victims of this policy are the Venezuelan people, who would be much better off with a policy of de-escalation, dialogue and a removal of the deadly sanctions.
via Trump’s Narcoterrorism Indictment of Maduro Already Backfires | The Smirking Chimp
America isn’t Taiwan it’s indecisive leadership thinks it is and wants business as usual (ODT
According to news reports New Yorkers are leaving the city transporting with them the virus to other states, principally Florida. President Trump announced that he was considering locking New Yorkers in place but said he hoped not to do that.
Meanwhile, the Florida governor copying Trump’s indecision allows Florida with its large elderly population to fill up with likely virus carriers from New York.
via Escape From New York, by Paul Craig Roberts – The Unz Review
All Andrew Bolt does is spin the Fox Head Office line and he calls that work. He tried to convince us he works a 60 hour week plus, plus. Nothing he says rings of truth. (ODT)
via Could Fox ‘News’ Be Liable For Downplaying Coronavirus Risks? | Crooks and Liars
Keeping people at work seems counterintuitive if there is no work to keep them there for. Give the money to the workers not the businesses alone. The record of wage theft has been clear and evident. (ODT)
We are currently 13th out of 196 nations on the current virus rate count. Murdoch media’s Andrew Bolt claims we are winners and should go back to work. He’s allowed to spread dangerous fake news at will it seems without any consequences.(ODT)
via Most coronavirus statistics are depressing – but not all
This is what the 1% don’t want to happen (ODT)
These are the fans Trump claims he’s entertaining on his daily TV show for Trumpsters and others (ODT)
The coronavirus pandemic is defining for the globe what’s “essential” and what things we really can’t do without, even though we might not need them for survival.
In some US states, golf, guns and ganja have been ruled essential, raising eyebrows and – in the case of guns – a good deal of ire.
Dr Steven Hail believes that government spending can save the economy from serious recession in the wake of Covid-19.
In America, we make the working poor pay for the excesses of the crooked rich, while in Russia, the wealthy are asked to make sacrifices for the sake of the country. Which approach do you think is better?
via Putin says ‘the rich must pay’ for the corona-virus, by Mike Whitney – The Unz Review
“There’s a concept of economy and efficiency. You should have just enough beds for what you need tomorrow. You shouldn’t prepare for the future. Right? So the hospital system’s crashing. Simple things like tests which you can easily get in a country South Korea (Taiwan), you can’t get here.
So the coronavirus, which should be controlled in a functioning society, is going out of hand here. We’re just not ready for it. What we’re good at, what our leaders are good at, and have been very good at for the last 40 years, is pouring money into the pockets of the rich and the corporate executives while everything else crashes.” (Noam Chomsky on a US health system which has parallels with Australia’s).
Governor’s getting things done (ODT)
via Coronavirus leadership: New Yorkers love waking up to Governor Andrew Cuomo
Has anyone seen Trump or his family on the front line? Boris Johnson was and he has the virus to show for it. He’s Your President America!!! (ODT)
via Workers Are Warriors in the Fight Against the Coronavirus | The Nation
The US is the world’s leading narco-terrorist state — an indisputable fact!
Venezuela under Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro is the hemisphere’s main enemy of illicit drugs trafficking.
The CIA and DEA are actively involved in facilitating the proliferation of heroin, cocaine, and perhaps other illicit drugs.
Major Wall Street banks profit hugely by laundering billions of dollars of dirty money from the trade — supported by Washington’s bipartisan criminal class by failing to stop it.
Close US ally Colombia is a narco-terrorist state. Other Latin American countries allied with the US are involved in drugs trafficking.
In 2018, the Trump regime falsely accused Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro of “profiting from illegal narcotics shipments” — a bald-faced Big Lie.
The Big Lie that won’t die reared its ugly head again on Thursday. The Trump regime falsely accused Maduro and other Venezuelan officials of narco-terrorism — a longstanding US specialty, notably by the CIA since the 1950s, not how the Bolivarian Republic operates.
When repeated ad nauseam, Big Lies take on a life of their own, especially when establishment media suppress truth-telling by supporting the official narrative no matter how distorted, untrue and harmful to ordinary people.
As Trump regime’s CIA director from January 2017 to April 2018, Pompeo notoriously said: “We lied. We cheated. We stole.”
At State he operates much the same way, the latest example on March 26.
He falsely called democratically elected and reelected Venezuelan President Maduro “the previous president of Venezuela” —a bald-faced Big Lie.
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via Phony Trump Regime Narco Terrorism Charges Against Venezuelan Officials – Stephen Lendman
With Covid-19 restrictions closing at least 60 shoots and leaving 20,000 people out of work, the industry is fearful of how long it will take to recover
‘We’ll see bankruptcies’: how coronavirus has shut down Australian film and TV | Film | The Guardian
What Trump called a Hoax was any criticism of him which is worse than if it were a Hoax (ODT) He’s Your President America!!!
The U.S. power elite’s response to the coronavirus crisis has been delayed, halfhearted, and skewed. In an act of criminal negligence, the Trump administration initially ignored coronavirus throughout January and then Trump referred to criticism of his lethargy on the issue as a hoax in late February before spending the first part of March downplaying the severity of the threat that it posed, thus squandering precious time to adequately prepare. Only in the past couple of weeks, in the wake of the widespread diffusion of COVID-19 and reports that inaction could result in potentially as many as 2.2 million individuals dying in the U.S. alone, has the Trump administration been forced to gradually acknowledge the reality—and gravity—of the situation.
via The Coronavirus Effect: Pandemic Exposes Structural Violence of US Ruling Class | The Smirking Chimp
Compare and Contrast two Governments and two Crises (ODT)
Throughout various crises, including the COVID-19 pandemic, our Government has shown negligence towards the good of its people, writes Grant Turner.
He’s so predictable
Another advantage is that the briefings have become so predictable, with Trump endlessly repeating the same falsehoods and self-puffery. Indeed, CNN’s wonderful Daniel Dale recently broke them down into their fairly consistent constituent parts, each of which can be anticipated and prepared for:
Inaccurate progress reports
False, dubious or questionable medical claims
False pronouncements that this was all unforeseen
Media-bashing
Vague economic cheerleading
An empathy shortage
Self-promotion, complaints of victimhood
Trump being Trump
He’s Your President America and it’s All About Him and not You!!!(ODT)
Donald Trump’s biographer and Pulitzer Prize winner David Cay Johnston investigates the US stimulus plan and finds, unless a lot more is done, the country faces depression.
We ran the numbers and if Congress and Donald Trump act as cheapskates, it will be devastating — a recession rivalling the 30s.
The $1 trillion coronavirus relief package Congress passed won’t come close to making up for the damage caused by COVID-19 and the Trump administration’s lethal dawdling.
We need the government to act or we could fall into a depression rivalling the 1930s.
via Trumped: pandemic to cost America $5 trillion … or more – Michael West
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