via Brilliant creature: Clive James spent his salad days in good company
Category: Uncategorized
The PARADE of evidence against him (ODT)
via Trump was briefed on whistleblower before releasing Ukraine aid – officials | US news | The Guardian
The New York Times reported on Tuesday that Trump was aware of the whistleblower complaint when he lifted the suspension of nearly $400 million in military assistance for Ukraine. The funds had been approved by Congress but were stalled by the administration without explanation.
Presidential Trump believes he’s as short as Sylvester Stallone.. he is but it’s not short as but short of
via Trump posted a picture of himself as Rocky. No one knows what to make of it | US news | The Guardian
She’s Australian and she’s black and imprisoned by Trump’s Racist American Immigration in revenge. So much for any special relationship (ODT)
“This no-jail outcome must’ve infuriated [immigration] officials who proceeded (without Adau’s knowledge) to revoke her valid visa and subsequently arrested her for being in the country illegally,” it states.
“Meanwhile, a judge never ordered that Adau should leave the country. My sister has been in jail for over two months, she’s not been given any trial since arrest by [US immigration] nor found guilty of overstaying her visa, just kept in jail indefinitely.”
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Australian model locked in US immigration detention for months
Surely it’s been the failure of government management that needs the blame not high immigration that’s required in an aging market. Investment in ingenuity and short term politics have strangled us. We have Smart TV’s Smart everything but Smart Government. (ODT)
The International Monetary Fund’s latest report on our economy says we have “a notable infrastructure gap compared to other advanced economies”. Spending is “not keeping up with population and economic growth”. We have a forecast annual gap averaging about 0.35 per cent of GDP for basic infrastructure (roads, rail, water, ports) plus a smaller gap for social infrastructure (schools, hospitals, prisons).
That doesn’t mean it wasn’t a good idea since having a successful technology industry would still benefit voters who care nothing about it.
As it stands, the Australian economy remains reliant on (badly behaved) banks and companies that dig stuff up out of the ground. Between them, finance and mining generate $1 in every $5 of Australia’s economic output, Reserve Bank figures show.
Yet the biggest creator of wealth and prosperity in the 21st century will be technology. It’s what will allow us to raise productivity and enjoy economic growth without using up scarce natural resources.
Technology also generates jobs – good jobs.
via As far as political slogans go, it was over before it ever really began
Will this be appealed? (ODT)
via Judges Orders Trump’s Former White House Counsel to Testify Before Congress – Mother Jones
With Trump’s Roy Cohn-inspired attorney general William Barr acting as his authoritarian wingman, who can even predict how far a GOP-acquitted Trump will go next spring in retaliating against public servants that he and his angry mob have branded as “the Deep State” or the journalists he calls “the enemies of the people” — or in encouraging Vladimir Putin or other bad actors to meddle in his reelection?
No, the challenge for 2020 seems increasingly less about how to prosecute a president’s bribery and extortion, or even how to defeat such a bad actor in a general election, but whether America can figure out how to deprogram a cult before it’s far too late.
via Impeachment Inquiry Proved America Can’t Be Saved From a Cult Called the GOP | The Smirking Chimp
While the opposition might have dealt a blow to the Carry Lam administration, the victory is largely symbolic. District councils lack any political leverage and deal mostly with communal issues, such as transport, utility services as well as oversee the distribution of funds to be spent on recreational and environment activities.
a former senior official in the Department of Justice and a constitutional scholar has identified 12 impeachable offences committed by Donald Trump. But, as he notes, many of these constitutional violations are not unique to the Trump administration. They have been normalized by Democratic and Republican administrations. These long-standing violations are, for this reason, ignored by Democratic Party leaders seeking to impeach the president. They have chosen to focus exclusively on Trump’s attempt to get the Ukrainian president to open an investigation of Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, in exchange for $400 million in U.S. military aid and a visit by the Ukrainian leader to the White House. Ignoring these institutionalized violations during the impeachment inquiry, Fein fears, would legitimate them and lead to the death of democracy.
Doing what Big Tobacco has been doing for years (ODT)
“It gives the shrill voices someone with science credentials who they can use to support their claims about bogus science and conspiracy theories and so on.”
Dismissed by James Cook University, climate sceptic Peter Ridd sued for unfair dismissal and won. Now, he’s touring the globe, and being feted for insisting the Great Barrier Reef is fine and the science behind claims to the contrary is broken. By Max Opray.
via Peter Ridd and the climate sceptics | The Saturday Paper
On other matters, I have to say that I was gobsmacked by the story about China trying to get someone elected to Chisholm. All I can say is thank God we got Gladys who assured us that she was never a member of all those Communist Party groups and thank God that we have Scott who told the media that they take these allegations seriously, because I find it pretty hard to take anything coming out of Canberra seriously these days!
In Morrison’s Australia apparently it is acceptable (according to News Corp) that
the Home Affairs Minister personally intervened to help the nannies of wealthy and powerful friends dodge immigration rules and enter the country without hassle.
while he has refused the application of a Tamil family from Biloela whose only crimes were paying taxes, fitting into the community and bringing up their Australian born kids. Dutton’s Department has shipped the family off to Christmas Island (via Melbourne) while a legal case to keep this family in the country is being fought by the Morrison Government.
Makes you proud of the quiet Australians, doesn’t it?
via What goes around – » The Australian Independent Media Network
two lawyers for Lev Parnas say that Parnas tells them he arranged meetings for Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) in the Ukraine for the purpose of pushing investigations of Hunter Biden and Burisma. They say he has offered to testify to Congress.
Nunes as Fox Guarding Henhouse: Parnas alleges he was part of Ukraine Scandal
via
One thing strikes me as a no-brainer. If Brexit goes ahead, France will follow. Their inability to fund their social programs within the Eurozone will ultimately lead them to realize their only option is to leave the Eurozone and ultimately, the EU and restore their true sovereignty. If France goes, Italy will follow and gradually, over a period of many years, the EU and the Eurozone will collapse in much the same way the Soviet Union collapsed.
This then exposes Europe to the dangers of war. It’s a chilling scenario. I don’t expect to be around if and when it happens, but my grandchildren will be.
And that really frightens me. My concern is not for my future, but theirs.
via Is Europe drifting towards another war? – » The Australian Independent Media Network
We were one of 3 countries to avoid a recession during the GFC. Swann was voted the World’s best Treasurer and the LNP are trying to change that reality to save Morisson now (ODT)
We are seeing an attempt at revising history unfold right before our eyes. Over the past month, it has reached a crescendo. The PM went into full flight on Thursday when he said Labor had “lost its nerve” when it decided to borrow billions to keep money flowing through the economy as queues of redundant employees snaked out of Wall Street.
Tactically, it allows Morrison to avoid being accused of sitting on his hands amid the worst Australian economic results since September 15, 2008.
See freshman Liberal senator Andrew Bragg in October: “Labor overreacted and wasted billions of taxpayers’ money during the GFC. Worse still, the budget was structurally put into deficit with unfunded promises and disastrous taxes (some which raised no money).”
via Scott Morrison’s lessons from a Labor response to the GFC unfolding before our eyes
Contrary to what Science and Insurance Companies tell us but similar to what Tobacco companies would like us to believe about smoking and cancer. There’s no direct proof smoking causes cancer and the science is fake and the Insurance Companies wrong. (ODT)
As firefighters in four Australian states struggled to contain unprecedented bushfires that threatened life, property and wildlife, Prime Minister Scott Morrison argued that there is no direct link with Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Morrison claimed there is no “credible scientific evidence” that cutting our emissions could reduce the intensity of bushfires.
“I mean, I asked it very point-blank,” Trump continued. “Because we’re looking for corruption. There’s tremendous corruption. We’re looking for — why should we be giving hundreds of millions of dollars to countries when there’s this kind of corruption?”
In other words: Why should Trump have given Ukraine its military funds until they promised to investigate his wild conspiracy theories?
So there it is. For all of the Republicans who say there isn’t enough evidence to conclude Trump was withholding the military aid to get investigations he desired — i.e., soliciting a bribe — the president just put the whole story together on national TV.
A crime that ineffect was unsuccessful isn’t a crime according to GOP. Planning and conspiringt to spy on America isn’t a crime. Planning a Murde isn’t a crime. (ODT
It’s a reoccurring theme in the Trump story: The president tries to do something but ultimately is not effective enough to actually get it done. So, should we penalize him for those attempts? Does the attempt . . . reach that bar for Congress to remove the president?
It’s the Republicans’ biggest impeachment lie, and Americans could fall for it | Salon.com
Calls for Republican Rep. Devin Nunes to resign spread rapidly on social media Friday night following reports that Lev Parnas, an indicted associate of President Donald Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, is willing to testify to House impeachment investigators that Nunes met with a former Ukrainian prosecutor in an effort to dig up dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden.
Parnas’ attorney Joseph Bondy told CNN Friday that his client “learned from former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Victor Shokin that Nunes had met with Shokin in Vienna last December,” news that sparked the trending Twitter hashtag #NunesResign.
Can you believe this?? Should any Kurd??(ODT)
Isn’t this what Trump is doing currently and is going to do in 2020 along with the Russians, Nth Koreans and any other donations he can muster. Fox has a Quid pro Quo arrangement withhim under the guise of “news” and “opinion” Trump has excluded other media agency access to the White House even cancelling subscriptions. Is domestic Quid pro Quo not required to be declared as a political donation? (ODT)
“If you pay them, Facebook will run any ‘political’ ad you want, even if it’s a lie. And they’ll even help you micro target those lies to their users for maximum effect,” he said.
“Under this twisted logic, if Facebook were around in the 1930s, it would have allowed Hitler to post 30-second ads on his ‘solution’ to the ‘Jewish problem’.”
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via 
The image of x2 puppets the puppet master hidden
Fighting Fake News with REAL; 24/11/19; Politicians Lobbyists, and the Fossil Fuel Industries; Americanisation of Aussie Politics;
The word “aggression” seems so out of place here when you consider the ADF is present in Afghanistan, Iraq,and Syria and China has only 1 overseas deployment. Throughout our history we have been more suspicious of China than China has been of us. While we are ever increasing the “Blanket of National Security” over our own citizens China has been loosening it over theirs. If we wish to go on an overseas junket we used to prepare ourselves for running into brash Americans, or groups of Russians today it’s the Chinese so much so we prefer to go off season because there is a tsunami of Chinese tourists everywhere.
It strikes us that our AFP, ASIO, Security Services along with think tanks and other advisors are short of work or there just too many, They have gone off warning us to the threat of Muslims and Africans terrorising the country and with little or nothing to do have now focused on the Chinese. But currently with an ever increasing public intensity since the LNP took over the government and Peter Dutton became head of the mega-bumbling Homeland Department particularly now with the coming of Morrison. Abbott was named the Pivot of the Pacific in the eyes of the Americans but oops, he wanted to be a part of NATO. He gave away Radio Australia the heart beat of the region for 75 years in places like Vanuatu. He more than anyone opened the doors to China without the current atmosphere of suspicion and that wasn’t so long ago. He cut Foreign Aid allowing the Chinese to help develop the region. The Pivot was seen as the Pillock who created the vacuum. While Tasmania begs the Federal Government for money to run 62% of it’s economy whose there to help the Chinese boogie man in whose eyes the LNPs
The Americans seemed to have whispered in somebody’s ear and the whole nature of friendship changed and we are back to the old paranoia that two wongs don’t make a white. That’s LNP diplomacy ASIO and the AFP are in the forefront again and the National surveillance a necessity and secrecy a must… Blame the Chinese. (ODT)
How China and the CCP aggressively push beyond their borders
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