He always was if you look at his history (ODT)
Category: Uncategorized
As Santos reports its profits this week, there is one number you are unlikely to hear from chief Kevin Gallagher: $7 billion. That’s $7 billion in gas losses over five years. Bruce Robertson reports on the government’s penchant for backing a big loss industry, future gas liabilities and the Federal Government’s gas deal with the states.
via Santos blows $7 billion in five years and no relief for gas customers – Michael West
Economic growth has halved, debt has rocketed, but the share market is up and bond yields have collapsed. Female representation in Cabinet is down to one quarter, yet women on top boards have edged up to nearly 35%. This is the MW30, a quarterly snapshot of Australia.
via Scott Morrison Scorecard: before Triple Black Swan of bushfires, floods and virus – Michael West
Virtually every bit of “evidence” that Jeffrey cites is either false or inflated, to include the claim of use of chemical weapons and the responsibility for the refugees. As for who actually created the terrorists, that honor goes to the United States, which accomplished that when it invaded Iraq and destroyed its government before following up by undermining Syria. And, by the way, someone should point out to Jeffrey that Russia and Iran are in Syria as allies of its legitimate government.
Ambassador James Jeffrey maintains that “Russia needs to change its policies.” That is not correct. It is the United States that must change its policies by getting out of Syria and Iraq for starters while also stopping the deference to feckless “allies” Israel and Saudi Arabia that has produced a debilitating cold war against both Iran and Russia. Another good first step to make the U.S. a “normal, decent country” would be to get rid of the advice of people like James Jeffrey.
Why would 28 states legislate against the US Constitution? One explanation is that the state governments were bought by the Israel Lobby with money under the table, by promises of political campaign donations, or by threats of financing rival candidates. How else do we explain 28 state governments imposing censorship in behalf of a foreign country?
Abby Martin is one person who will not stand for it. She has brought a lawsuit that—if the US Supreme Court is still a protector of the First Amendment—will result in the 28 state laws and Trump’s executive order being overturned. The protection of Israel against boycotts parallels state laws passed in the 1950s that prevented Martin Luther King’s movement from boycotting businesses that practiced racial segregation. These laws were overturned by the Supreme Court.
The outcome of Abby Martin’s suit will tell us whether the US Constitution is still a living document.
via Will Censorship Prevail over the First Amendment?, by Paul Craig Roberts – The Unz Review
“Amusing Ourselves to Death”: News media and the public’s desire to be entertained vs. its need to be informed
Even Christenson is right for a change (ODT)
via Julian Assange: Australian MPs call on UK to block US extradition | Media | The Guardian
“They are trashing our democracy in the way they are dealing with this disgusting political cover-up,” Penny Wong [says] on Wednesday. “… This is all about protection of the prime minister, who is up to his neck in the sports rorts scandal. Well, I’ve got some news for the government: it’s too late. It’s too late for a cover-up when you’ve already been caught.”
Is it consternation or apoplectic rage? The shocked disbelief on Senator Erich Abetz’s typically saturnine features, Thursday, at a senate select committee on Administration of Sports Grants, or sports rorts sums up a disastrous fortnight for the Morrison-Gaetjens duumvirate that rules Australia when it’s not blaming the states, the COVID-19 Coronavirus, The Greens “creeping environmentalism” or Labor for its own failures.
via Trashing our democracy – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Dutton read Trump’s political tactic practices it the bigger the lie the more likely some people will believe you and those that don’t simply find it entertaining (ODT)
Can we stop tiptoeing around the fact that Trump is behaving like a dictator?
We’re slipping further into fascism as Trump indulges all his worst instincts, with the help of his toadies
via Can we stop tiptoeing around the fact that Trump is behaving like a dictator? | Salon.com
But the more clearly the American public understands the falsehood and the moral, legal and political bankruptcy of the justifications for our country’s disastrous wars, the more clearly we can challenge the absurd claims of warmongering politicians whose policies offer the world only more death, destruction and chaos. Trump’s blundering, murderous Iran policy is only the latest example, and, despite its catastrophic results, U.S. militarism remains tragically bipartisan, with a few honorable exceptions.
When the U.S. stops killing people and bombing their homes, and the world starts helping people to support and protect themselves and their families without joining U.S.-backed armed forces or the armed groups they are fighting, then and only then will the raging conflicts that U.S. militarism has ignited across the world begin to subside.
via Afghan Troops Say Taliban are Brothers and War is “Not Really Our Fight” | The Smirking Chimp
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that the neoliberal establishment residing within the U.S. Democratic Party would not want Bernie Sanders to get the presidential nomination.
It’s a simple matter of logistics. Capitalism is tanking, profiteering is harder to achieve, ergo a candidate gunning for health care for all and financial reform, higher taxes and a nationalised electricity grid creates problems for the establishment.
It’s not so hard to imagine the Democrats doing whatever they can from behind the scenes so the right person (for them) gets the nomination. It’s not hard to imagine any powerful political groups anywhere doing this — such is the corruption bar of the present time.
All this is a sign of just how far to the right the American Jewish establishment has lurched in during the Netanyahu era. Had he remained in Israel on the kibbutz, Sanders would likely be just another septuagenarian supporter of the left-wing Zionist Meretz party. But in many Jewish communities in the United States, even views like those of Meretz have long been considered beyond the pale.
via Why are American Jews so afraid of one of their own? – +972 Magazine
God Bless for the gift of the Corrupt Miracle (ODT)
It’s so easy to become complacent, so easy to accept the corruption, let alone the sheer incompetence of the Morrison government, so easy to let our preoccupation with the cricket or the football or the golf distract us from how our nation is being governed, how poorly our government is addressing the crucial issues of climate change, inequality, and a stuttering economy, and how incompetent, dishonest and corrupt our politicians have become. As the image that heads this piece highlights, money, and with it power and influence, is at the heart of all corruption, as the recent ‘sports rort’ saga so strikingly demonstrates.
If we let our leaders off the hook, we will have only ourselves to blame.
So this piece is a heartfelt call to be aware of the peril we face while the Morrison government is in charge, an earnest call for the courage to speak up loudly, a plea to call out its corruption, its self-serving behaviour, and its incompetence. Otherwise we are doomed. The corrupto-virus epidemic will continue unchecked. Unless we can bring about a change, our beloved country will wither, and we with it.
via Corrupto-virus threatens world governance – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Humour as only John Clarke could (ODT)
via Another John Clarke Inspired Sketch: Mr Saye De Pledge – » The Australian Independent Media Network
So much for the Separation of Powers and Contempt of Court (ODT)
via Tucker Carlson And Fox News Set Up Roger Stone Jurors For Retaliation | Crooks and Liars
Looking at The man who tried to market a miracle (ODT
Looking back over the last few years, I would sum it up like this:
We have a prime Minister who is not interested in honesty, does not seek the best for the Australian people, and has a single focus which is keeping his party – and himself – in power.
Integrity? MIA.
Transparency? MIA.
Suitability for office? Absolutely none!
Once more – this is my 2020 new Year Resolution:
“I will do everything in my power to enable Australia to be restored to responsible government.”
via The 3 Cs: Collusion, Corruption and the Coalition – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The US Senate, long the lap dog of the man who would be king, President Donald Trump, appears to have finally remembered its proper constitutional role.
Last week, the Senate voted 55/45 for a new bipartisan War Powers Act to constrain military action against Iran. The Congress voted a similar act. Both are designed to start returning the right to make war to Congress, as the Constitution clearly intended. The president is not the Warlord-in-chief in spite of what he thinks.
Israel against American Jews (ODT)
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee is helping to fund a Super PAC launching attack ads against Sen. Bernie Sanders in Nevada on Saturday, according to two sources with knowledge of the arrangement. The ads are being run by a group called Democratic Majority for Israel, founded by longtime AIPAC strategist Mark Mellman.
The Nevada attack ads, which will air in media markets in Reno and Las Vegas, follow a similar spending blitz by DMFI ahead of the Iowa caucuses. Like the ads that aired in Iowa, the Nevada ads will attack Sanders on the idea that he’s not electable, Mediaite reported.
via AIPAC Is Helping Fund Anti-Sanders Super PAC Ads in Nevada
The state of Israeli, its ruling authorities, and military officials have been and continue to be guilty of the highest of high crimes against Palestinians, Syrians, Lebanese, Iranians, and other innocent victims of their lawlessness.
via Israel Tried and Found Guilty of War Crimes and Genocide – Stephen Lendman
It goes to show just how American we have become. (ODT)
The worst of the worst is here (ODT)
Not content merely to smite the poor, immigrants, his political enemies, constitutional checks and balances and the rule of law at home and abroad, the president seems dedicated to bringing forth the collapse of a decent and organized human existence — and indeed the downfall of life on Earth. It’s no wonder Chomsky calls Trump “the most dangerous criminal in human history.”
Hitler’s goal, Chomsky notes, “was to rid the German-run world of Jews, Roma, homosexuals and other ‘deviants,’ along with tens of millions of Slav ‘Untermenschen.’ But Hitler was not dedicated with fervor to destroying the prospects of organized human life on Earth in the not-distant future [along with millions of other species].”
The president seeks the total sublimation of the Justice Department and the whole US government to his will. THE MAKING OF THE SWAMP
By now, you know the basics: After the Justice Department requested a seven-to-nine years sentence for Roger Stone, a longtime Trump intimate who was convicted of lying to Congress and witness-tampering (to protect Trump in the Russia scandal), Trump tweet-whined that this sentence would be too harsh, and the DoJ dutifully rescinded it. Four federal prosecutors, apparently in protest, withdrew from the Stone case, with one quitting the department. Then Trump attacked the federal judge handling the case. Still on the rampage the next day, Trump—again in a tweet—threatened to withhold assistance for New York State if it did not smother investigations related to Trump.
He sacked impeachment witnesses Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and Ambassador Gordon Sondland. Next he moved onto the Justice Department and the judiciary. At the same time, Barr set up a special “intake” channel at the department for Trump’s henchman Rudy Giuliani to feed rumors, dirt, and supposed leads about Trump’s rivals.
All this is crooked and horrific. Trump is rigging the justice system, trashing norms that have been in place for decades, and attacking the notion that the rule of law is essential for democratic governance. Early in his presidency, facing the Russia investigation being run by the FBI, Trump exclaimed, “Where is my Roy Cohn?” He was referring to the thuggish mob lawyer who had been red-baiting Sen. Joe McCarthy’s chief hatchet-man years before becoming a mentor and consigliere for the young Trump. Though Trump placed Barr, his own lapdog, in charge of the Justice Department last year, Trump has become his own Roy Cohn, consolidating power and seeking vengeance. And extracting revenge has long been one of Trump’s primary psychological motivations, as I first explained before he was elected president.
via Trump Unleashed: The Trump Presidency Enters Its Most Dangerous Phase – Mother Jones
Goodbye Separation of Powers in America. Hello a Despotic Fascist State. He’s dictating who he wants pardoned and who he wants charged (ODT)
Conservative media and many Republican officials have championed Flynn, calling for Trump to pardon him. On Tuesday, Trump retweeted a pro-Trump Twitter account suggesting that he grant both Stone and Flynn full pardons.
Suggest a correction
It doesn’t bear contemplating, now they’re gone, what they might have thought about a country that allowed its entire store of gas to be flogged off without first setting aside enough of the stuff to ensure the nation’s power grid continued humming and that consumers could afford to turn on a light switch.
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Most jurisdictions in Australia have an independent body that investigates apparent corruption in politics and government. The Federal Government doesn’t. Taylor has questions to answer over the water rights dealings noted above, as well as the apparent falsifying of data for political ends. McKenzie only ‘resigned’ once she became a political liability to Morrison.
In addition, it is currently being reported that Infrastructure Minister (and Deputy Prime Minister) McCormack awarded 94% of infrastructure grants to areas represented by the coalition political parties.
And they keep refusing to consider legislation for a ‘Federal ICAC’.
What do you think?
via Accountability in the Canberra bubble – » The Australian Independent Media Network
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