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Scientists round the world are looking aghast at the politics of climate change in Australia.
It’s one of the most vulnerable countries on the planet to rising temperatures, yet there is still denial about the impacts of rising CO2 levels on events like the current wildfires.
There is no serious doubt among scientific institutions that rising global temperatures are leading to record heat.
The heatwaves are driven by a natural phenomenon but they are adding to an already over-heated planet.
In the election, the victorious Liberal (conservative) Party categorised climate change as a metropolitan fad for urban professionals, and gained support for the world’s biggest coal mine.
Coal is the dirtiest fuel and scientists say we shouldn’t be building more coal-fired power stations if we want to stabilise the climate.
There is no difference, the Afghanistan Papers make clear, in the mendacity and incompetence of the policymaking apparatus no matter who controls Congress or the White House. No party or elected official dares defy the military-industrial complex or other titans of the deep state. The Democrats through impeachment have no intention of restoring constitutional rights that would curb the power of the deep state and protect democracy. The deep state funds them. It sustains them in office. The Democrats are seeking to replace the inept and vulgar face of empire that is Trump with the benign and decorous face of empire that is Joe Biden. What the Democrats, and the deep state that has allied itself with the Democratic Party, object to is the mask, not what is behind it. If you doubt me, read the six-part series on Afghanistan in the Post.
No accident that this type of relationship was born in Australia as far back as the 1970’s with the destruction of Whitlam’s ALP. Rupert Murdoch went to America where he knew there was better ground on which it could flourish. From there he consolidated and refined his corrupt business plan and took it to the rest of the English speaking world. We can see him losing money in Australia. We saw him do an Alan Bond in the UK but America restored him and from there he prospers to the detriment of the notion of any COMMON GOOD> (ODT)
Trump sustained his well-documented fixation on the network, continuing his practices of giving the vast majority of his national televised interviews to Fox hosts, maintaining a revolving door between his administration and the company, and relying on Fox personalities for private counsel. He kept watching hours of daily programming from Fox News and its sister network, Fox Business, basking in sycophantic coverage from shows like Fox & Friends, Lou Dobbs Tonight, and Hannity. And continuing the Trump-Fox feedback loop, he maintained his habit of firing off hyperaggressive tweets in response to what he saw on those networks, sending 613 such live tweets this year through December 17.
But more than ever before, Trump’s Fox fanaticism this year drove the federal policymaking process and political reality, with a tangible impact on the lives of the American public.
via President Trump’s Fox obsession reshaped the political universe in 2019 | Media Matters for America
The place for a TRIAL is the SENATE but the Senate is a Republican Chamber so there will be No Trial, No Witnesses, and a prepped Jury whose decision has already been announced. All this by Senators obliged to swear to objectivity under the American Constitution. What went on in Congress was merely an inquiry which Trump called a trial. It wasn’t in any legal terms more than a question whether the evidence showed he had charges to answer. (ODT)
Instead, responding to the destruction of those towers in Manhattan and part of the Pentagon, the Bush administration essentially launched a war against much of the planet. They soon dubbed it a “Global War on Terror,” or GWOT, and key officials almost instantly claimed it would have more than 60 countries (or terror groups in them) in its sights. Eighteen years later, the U.S. is still at war across a vast swath of the globe, involved in conflict after conflict from the Philippines to Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq to northern Africa and beyond. In the process, that GWOT has produced failed state after failed state and terror group after terror group, enough to make the original al-Qaeda (still going) look like nothing at all. And of course, in all these years, the U.S. military, hailed here as “the finest fighting force that the world has ever known” (and similar formulations), lacks a single decisive (or even modest) victory. Meanwhile, everywhere, yet more towers, real or metaphorical, continue to fall; in fact, whole cities in the Middle East now lie in rubble.
via Gatsbyed Half to Death: Is America’s Trump Gilded Age another 9/11?
The US has been at war since the end of WW2 both physically and with trade sanctions on any companiy that doesn’t play their game. The EU Iran Cuba Venezuela and others have felt their sting. Isn’t it time there really was a free market and not the pretence of one? (ODT)
The angle taken by the European Union, Germany and Russia can hardly surprise. Themes of energy security are reiterated. The Nord Stream 2 consortium makes the claim that, “Completing the project is essential for European supply security.” Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova spikily condemned the sanctions measure. “A state with a $22 trillion national debt prohibits creditworthy countries to develop the real sector of their economies!”
For a EU spokesman, this constituted “the imposition of sanctions against EU companies conducting legitimate business.” A German government spokesman suggested that such actions “affect German and other European businesses, and we see the move as meddling in our internal affairs.” Finance Minister Olaf Scholz has sees it as an infringement of sovereignty. “It is up to the companies involved in the construction of the pipeline to take the next decisions.”
Nothing is quite so simple. Gas pipeline politics has always been contentious. One state’s sovereign promise is another’s weakening. Concessions made to corporate monopolies are risky, capable of fostering insecurity as much as reassurance. Those who control the tap control a country’s future.
But the imposition of any sanctions regime signals another bout of economic violence. In the international market, where governments operate as ready gangsters for corporate interests, prompted by such motivations as seeking more natural resources, tools of state become handmaidens of economic self-interest. And in all this, the prospect of ecological devastation remains genuine but an aside to the jabbering disagreement of political interests.
via Sanctions, Security and the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline – » The Australian Independent Media Network
“These are the realities that make me wonder at how corrupt must be the souls of people who have the power to stop this and fail to act.”
via Pouring Coal on the Fires, Aussie PM Rejects Climate Solutions as Country Burns | Common Dreams News
Donald Trump has been on the campaign trail from the day he got elected. He’s been planning nothing but winning in 2020 and beyond. Morrison’s LNP has been doing nothing but much the same wearing baseball caps and being the salesman without a product. (ODT)
Suite of policy measures? A set of trite slogans and a hyper-partisan party stalled in continuous campaign mode is a suite of policies? And it’s back to the old “selling the message”, regardless of how meaningless, or morally bankrupt. “Angus doesn’t have the ability to sell a positive climate change message.”
“This is not normal” says New South Wales Liberal Minister Matt Kean who is vilified The Australian for breaking ranks; noticing that Australia might be in the grip of record drought, heat and catastrophic bushfire.
Kean’s on to something. Voters may, indeed, be expecting the Federal government to do more than send its PM on top secret holidays with his pal Tim. But credibility and sincerity? Morrison’s got no show.
This is not normal, Mr Morrison. – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Murdoch and Fox Corp Profit Trumps Common Good (ODT)
via Americans want an End to Fossil Fuels, but Corporate Media won’t Tell You So
The LNP, IPA, Corporate Donors and News Corp (ODT)
An Excuse for a PM (ODT
When our accidental-Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, took office, he swore an oath to ‘be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, Her heirs and successors according to law.’
No mention of his duties to his wife and daughters. They are a private matter and, as long as he remains Prime Minister, his duties lie to the high office to which he has (sadly) been elected, and for which it appears he totally lacks competence!
Prime Minister – this is not all about you.
You really don’t have a clue, do you?
It is not about your promises to your daughters.
It is not about sharing the grief of people whom you have let down.
It is not about getting a few more photo ops, showing the caring Prime Minister comforting the distraught property owner who has lost everything.
Or the grieving widow with a young family whose partner died fighting the fires because he cared about his community.
That is all hypocritical flim-flam which highlights your failings.
Australia, along with all inhabitants of this planet, is facing an existential crisis.
The Coalition climate deniers have also been denying their country the ability to take actions which might have – at least to some extent – mitigated the current catastrophic conditions, and without which we can guarantee this is not the end but the beginning of a growing disaster.
Yes – we are not the only country needing to take action – but we are the developed country with the highest per capita level of emissions of greenhouse gases.
Yes – countries like China, India and the USA are lagging behind in taking action, but that does not give us licence to do nothing. Instead it gives us an obligation to put them to shame by showing how a relatively small country can rapidly become carbon neutral.
via Scott Morrison should resign – » The Australian Independent Media Network
His lie about doing nothing illegal continues (ODT)
President Donald Trump has criticised House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi for holding off on sending the articles of impeachment against him to the Senate.
“It’s so unfair,” Trump said on Saturday, days after he was impeached by the House, during a speech to conservative student group Turning Point USA, saying that Pelosi adopted the strategy because she has “no case”.
About 90 minutes after US President Donald Trump spoke with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, the White House ordered the Pentagon to suspend all military aid to Ukraine, according to emails released following a freedom of information request.
via Ukraine military aid frozen 90 minutes after Trump spoke to Zelensky
Trump regime actions against the country exceed the high crimes of his predecessors, wanting its economy crushed, its people immiserated, including by banning imports of essentials to life and welfare.
Healthcare industry companies were warned not to sell drugs and medical equipment to the country.
Iran’s Chief Justice Ebrahim Raisi said Trump regime actions are violations of international humanitarian law.
No nation in world history did more harm to more people over a longer duration than the US, responsible for tens of millions of deaths, vast destruction, torture, along with virtually all other imaginable high crimes and indignities against humanity — blaming victims for its viciousness.
via World’s Leading Human Rights Abuser USA Blames Others for Its High Crimes – Stephen Lendman
LNP Government, Murdoch Media have all declared this as JUST WEATHER (ODT)
India at war wit 200 mill of it’s own Citizens (ODT)
via India’s Government Is Going to War Against Its Own People | The Smirking Chimp
It seems clear that [Attorney General William Barr] will do or enable anything to keep Trump in office. And Trump will do anything to stay there. Suspension of the election, negation of the results, declaration of martial law are not simply fanciful, alarmist or crazy things to throw out there or to contemplate. Members of Congress, governors and state legislators, leaders in civil society, lawyers, law enforcement figures and the military need to be thinking now about how they might respond”
Tearing up the Constitution Mitch McConnel declares if a Senate trial is to be held he and the R-Senators are not there to swear they will be impartial (ODT)
Already, we know what Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell has promised. “I’m not an impartial juror. This is a political process. There’s not anything judicial about it.” For Senator McConnell, the entire episode regarding Trump has been a matter of highest and most venomous partisanship. “The House made a partisan political decision to impeach. I would anticipate we will have a largely partisan outcome in the Senate.”
The Politics of Trump’s Impeachment – » The Australian Independent Media Network
This is what Murdochians call normal weather (ODT)
via Climate Crisis Rages in Australia, with 14 of 15 hottest Places in World and Sydney Fire-Besieged
“I deeply regret any offence caused to any of the many Australians affected by the terrible bushfires by my taking leave with family at this time,” he said in a statement. It came after the deaths of two fire fighters and the injury of others, and Morrison’s decision to cut short his Hawaiian holiday.
But the prime minister still remained quite focused on why he’d taken leave just now, telling 2GB how he’d had to bring his holiday forward because of his commitments to visit India and Japan in January, missing a break at the coast. So he’d wanted to give his girls a surprise with this family trip to Hawaii. Etc. Etc.
He didn’t seem to grasp that while he likes to emphasise his relationship with the ordinary Australian, as prime minister he is not an ordinary Australian.
olddogthoughts 
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