The approval by Netanyahu’s coalition government of thousands of new colonial settlement units in the Occupied West Bank comes in the midst of a nearly week-long wave of violence that has drawn international condemnation.
Putin’s doing a Trump or is Trump dreaming of doing a Putin? Putin disappears generals like Trump does lawyers
Russia’s most senior generals have dropped out of public view following a failed mercenary mutiny aimed at toppling the top brass, amid a drive by President Vladimir Putin to reassert his authority and unconfirmed reports of at least one arrest.
Source: Russia-Ukraine war: After aborted mutiny, Moscow’s top generals drop out of public view
Trump points to “something being done” about Jack Smith but also his “family”. Typical threats by the heads of Cartels.
“Trump is encouraging his followers, who we know have included the violent insurrectionists responsible for Jan. 6, to target the family and friends of Jack Smith,” added Norm Eisen, a lawyer and Brookings Institution senior fellow. “It is profoundly concerning.”
Noel Turnbull’s article about the treatment of black warriors who wore the Australian uniform make for some uncomfortable reading for those Australians who think Indigenous peoples have no need to control their own destinies. Historically, we have applied the claim that veterans are heroes very selectively.
Source: War service did not stop the racism – Pearls and Irritations
…chances of Barnaby return. ( James Robertson for The New Daily)
Source: National Times – ‘Overinflated opinion of himself’: Nationals MPs… | Facebook
Truth in Humor or anything else. Something Sky News, Andrew Bolt & Paul Murray are incapable of.
Anyway, as to the whole issue of trans women in female bathrooms, I’d like to announce I am a completely disinterested party here because a) I’m not a female; b) I’m not trans and c) I’m not a bathroom.
Having again said something that I’m sure will upset people so much that they’ll attack me so much that even if I don’t get to take over Bolt’s spot at least more people will respond than listen to his show on Sky After Dark (SAD, as I call it).
Source: Public Bathrooms Or “Don’t Ask; Don’t Tell!” – » The Australian Independent Media Network
If your whole life is devoted to policing toilets, you’d spend a lot of time trying to convince everyone that toilets need police, and it’s an important and serious thing to do, rather than something obsessive and creepy and weird.
Source: The toilet police are here and they want you to know they are very serious – The Shot
The man who was CEO of consultancy PwC Australia for the entire tax payments affair, Luke Sayers, has exited as chair of a charity he runs with his wife.
Source: PwC CEO Luke Sayers quits as charity chair amid tax leaks scandal
What’s the scam with PwC flogging its government consulting operation to private equity mob Allegro Funds Management?
The scam is that the scandal over selling government secrets has hurt PwC in a real way, there is pressure from the global partners over to exit to rehabilitate the brand, and they have found some private equity turnaround players in Allegro who will take on the risk of salvaging that $300m a year in government contracts.
Source: PwC sells government consulting operation for a dollar. What’s the scam? – Michael West
Australian ALP not only endorses India’s domestic agenda but Israel’s as well
Australia has implicitly endorsed Modi’s domestic agenda, including his attacks on democracy and on dissent. There is nothing in the interests of the Australian people that will be enhanced by this extreme position of deference to Modi and indifference to human rights concerns.
We readily decry Putin, but not Israel or America,
State sponsored violence (land theft, water theft, and militarized attacks) by the Israeli regime against Palestinians is happening with US financing. People in the United States are funding it. Religious leaders are not protesting and condemning it. This is wrong.
Source: Where’s the Prophetic Outcry Against Israeli Settlements in Palestine? – CounterPunch.org
The least the US government can do is refuse to be a party to this Apartheid situation, toward which this decision is a small step. But it is mainly symbolic. If the Biden administration wanted to do the right thing and was serious about a two-state solution (which by now is probably impossible), they would stop exercising their veto on Israel’s behalf at the UN Security Council. Israel’s law-breaking is so egregious that the UNSC would certainly place it under economic sanctions if the US didn’t block that step. But don’t hold your breath.
Another reading is also possible here, though it will have to be verified in due course. Putin had anticipated that this contingently loyal band of mercenaries was always liable to turn, given the chance. Russia is overrun with such volatile privateers and soldiers of fortune. Where that fortune turns, demands will be made.
Source: Babbling about Prigozhin – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Is Trump a reflection of America or are Americans a reflection of Trump. American Democracy has allowed for a minority to control attention and do away with the rules of bipartisan politics. When Capitalist money dominates politics representation fails. The corporate consolidation of media by Foxtel has allowed them 30% of the no-news market and over 75%+ of the dis&mis information market which has created chaos and divided America. That division isn’t the diversity once celebrated in the American model of Democracy where parties were once expected and prepared to accept an election loss.
Former Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) marveled at the willingness of the former president to make absurd comments.
By Monday morning, after the non-coup, Wagner posters were back up in most major cities, and Wagner recruitment centers reopened. Wagner merch could once again be purchased online: the bull’s eye skulls, with their slogans, “Blood. Honor. Motherland. Courage.” “Nothing Personal. We’ve Been Paid.” “Our Business is Death. Business is Booming.” T-shirts and baseball caps, patches, and stickers, they’re popular with the kids.
Source: What It Was Like to Be in Russia and Watch a Failed Coup – Mother Jones
The Labor government made an election promise, a budget promise, a legislative promise and held two consultations on landmark legislation to implement global tax transparency for multinationals. Now it has bent to corporate pressure. Landmark legislation for public country by country reporting was set to be implemented as of 1 July. Late last week, it was announced that implementation will be pushed back for at least a year.
1. Scott Morrison led the worst ever Government in the history of the Australian Commonwealth
The fact is that moral disengagement has been normalised in government (politics), and the Australian Public Service. It’s widespread and granular, corrupts everything, and causes long-lived harm to individuals, communities, and our society.
Are the actions of the Albanese Government sufficient to deal with the prevalence of moral disengagement in our institutions? NO.
Is the Australian Public Service willing or capable of eradicating moral disengagement? NO.
Should the National Anti-Corruption Commission be publicly using the mechanisms of moral disengagement as a tool to proactively prevent corrupt and corrupting behaviours and practices? YES.
Do we need to do so to provide a great government that actually serves people? YES.
Source: National Times – The Morrison Government: A textbook case of… | Facebook
Propaganda and censorship are the two most important tools of imperial narrative control, and it’s very telling that Australia is ramping them both up as the nation is being transformed into a weapon for the US empire to use against China. Steps are being taken to ensure that the Australian populace will be on board with whatever agendas the empire has planned for us in the coming years, and judging from what we’re seeing right now, it isn’t going to be pretty.
Source: Australia keeps escalating its censorship and propaganda campaign – Pearls and Irritations
Radio New Zealand (RNZ) Digital Editor Mick Hall has been suspended for what are called ‘inappropriate edits’ to foreign-sourced materials, mainly from Reuters. RNZ chief executive Paul Thompson said that “It’s so disappointing that this pro-Kremlin garbage has ended up in our stories” and promised to tighten control over staff.
Both truth and Mick Hall are likely to be casualties in the short term, but there is reasonable hope that both, in time, will be victorious. The battle is continuing.
The Yanukovych government was indeed elected, the Maidan revolution was violent, there was a referendum in Crimea in which the population voted overwhelming to return to Russia, and his description of the Donbas war is more informative and accurate than Reuter’s. The uncritical acceptance by NZ media and politicians of the description of these edits by RNZ management as ‘pro-Kremlin garbage’ is indicative of a deep malaise within New Zealand.
The Grayzone obtained an exclusive look at the massacre some of America’s top Russia experts carried out against their own credibility.
It was as though the Soviet Union was collapsing all over again, and Prigozhin, a character named on the F.B.I.’s most wanted list whom the U.S. government has sanctioned for leading what it described as a “transnational criminal organization,” was suddenly a white knight storming into Moscow to liberate Russia from “the Putin regime” on the back of a tank. Move over, Juan Guaido.
What was really a protest was called a coup. Actually, the mercenaries were being double-crossed by Putin and the Western media helped in the process calling it a mutiny.
Prigozhin’s statement appeared to confirm analysts’ view that the revolt was a desperate move to save Wagner from being dismantled after an order that all private military companies sign contracts with the Defense Ministry by July 1.
Prigozhin said most of his fighters refused to come under the Defense Ministry’s command. He said the force had planned to hand over the military equipment it was using in Ukraine on June 30 after pulling out of Ukraine and gathering in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don. He accused the Defense Ministry of attacking Wagner’s camp, prompting them to move sooner.
Russian political analyst Tatiana Stanovaya said on Twitter that Prigozhin’s mutiny “wasn’t a bid for power or an attempt to overtake the Kremlin,” but a desperate move amid his escalating rift with the military leadership.
Source: Putin Says Failed Coup Played Into Hands Of Russia’s Enemies | HuffPost Latest News
Putin has an amazing method of recruitment
He contracted mercenaries to arrange, form, and train a privately paid army as an adjunct to his Russian forces. Recruitment of volunteers was en-mass from Russian prisons and volunteers. It allowed promises to be made that no regular army grunt could think of. Now after that was done he’s sacked the head contractor and “blackbirded” the private forces into his regular army cutting out the middleman and saving himself millions in the process and saving any further embarrassment of comparing the competency of the two forces at the same time. After all the prison rabble couldn’t be seen to be better-trained fighters than his own Russian Force.
Russian intelligence services threatened to harm the families of Wagner leaders before Yevgeny Prigozhin called off his advance on Moscow, according to UK security sources
Source: Russian agents’ threat to family reportedly made Prigozhin call off Moscow advance
Throughout history, tyrannical rulers have created their own private operations outside normal chains of command, run by people like Prigozhin, who are personally loyal. This give tyrants flexibility to do what they want without bureaucratic opposition. It protects them against revolt by their subordinates in the chain of command. And it gives them deniability when operations go badly.
Source: Putin, Trump, and the Privatization of Tyranny | The Smirking Chimp
What’s the Scam America? It’s your money!
Former President Donald Trump has been siphoning money raised for his 2024 presidential campaign into a political action committee (PAC) that covers his personal legal finances.
Source: “Illegal”: Trump caught diverting campaign donations as legal bills pile up | Salon.com
The recent proposal for legislation to require social media companies to crack down on misinformation and disinformation has some positives but it’s also something that needs careful consideration. For a start there’s a big difference between misinformation where a person is just repeating incorrect information because they believe it to be true and disinformation….
So leaving aside the areas of dispute, it does seem strange when Sussan Ley gets up in Parliament and asks if the Voice will be able to advise the Reserve Bank… I mean, leaving aside the whole idea that the Reserve Bank is independent and doesn’t even have to listen to the government and the Voice is a voice to Parliament and the Executive and it doesn’t mention the Reserve Bank anywhere in the Referendum so you might as well ask, “Will the Voice be able to give advice on what shows I should watch on Netflix?” or “Will the Voice be able to give me advice on whether I should add any extra letters to my name in the hope that it gives me extra ssuccesss?”
But apart from Sussssann’ss absurdity, there does seem an underlying element of the Voice being just a bit too uppity. You know, stepping outside their area. You know, giving advice to more than just, well, things that should concern them… You know… like well, I’m not racist but we know that some of those people, you know… And, you know, if they were to express an opinion, you know… I mean, as if they’d know, you know… As if it’d be worth listening too…
Well, I’m not racist but…
And as for Peter Dutton, well, he’s a swell guy who just wants what’s best for everybody and the idea that foreigners could come here on boats and disrupt the whole way of life for those living here is something that only convicts from a couple of centuries ago should be able to do. As for African gangs, that wasn’t racist because we all know that African gangs are scarier than Caucasian gangs… Don’t believe that leftie stuff about Dutton! He’s a swell guy with a great sense of humour… Don’t you remember his great joke about Pacific Island people having no sense of time with water lapping at their door? Not racist at all.
Source: How The Voice Will Force Us All To Become Vegans! – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Is this the sort of reporting we want the ABC to do? Strikes me as more 60 minutes than holding our government and politicians to account. As interesting as it might be it seems more a weekend magazine feature.
Strip club scheming
Australia’s largest tax fraud isn’t dreamed up in a plush office with a dazzling harbour view.
It begins at a strip club.
Source: Plutus Payroll tax scam’s downfall captured in police phone taps and surveillance video – ABC News
A new CEO has been parachuted in to run embattled consultancy firm PwC Australia, which is offloading its government business for $1.
Source: New CEO for PwC as it offloads consultancy business for $1
The latest life expectancy data is good news for Australians but bad news for Americans, as Alan Austin reports.
Source: Cost of being sucked in by criminal grifters more than just money
“At the end of the day, either the Communists destroy America, or we destroy the Communists.” ( Trump )
And here are more of Dönitz’s words:
“It is my first task to save the German people from destruction by the Bolsheviks.” (Hitler )
Source: Trump’s “Final Battle”
( Middle East Monitor ) – Israel’s National Security Minister, on Friday, urged tougher military action against Palestinian resistance fighters in the Occupied West Bank and urged Israeli settlers to expand their presence there, despite surging violence and international calls for a halt to new construction, Reuters reports. Itamar Ben-Gvir, a far-right member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, was speaking at a settler outpost – one of several the Israeli military said had been discovered across the West Bank since Thursday but were not authorised. They would be dismantled ‘according to enforcement priorities’, a military statement said, without elaborating.
Source: Israeli Squatters Build new Outposts in Palestinian West Bank amid Rising Violence
Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World. Loewenstein explains that Israel’s military-industrial complex has used the Occupied Palestinian Territories for decades as a testing ground for weaponry and surveillance technology that it then exports around the world for profit. “You find in over 130 countries across the globe in the last decades, Israel has sold … a range of tools of occupation and repression that have initially been tested in Palestine on Palestinians,” Loewenstein says.
The West’s interpretation is significantly different to that of the Russia-phile view presented on Youtube of Putin always in full control of the Wagner group. What do you think?
In the last 18 months he has been dealt two great blows entirely of his own creation: his failed attempt to take Kyiv and bring Ukraine to heel, and now the rebellion by his own protege, with forces he enabled. The uncertainty and humiliation may make him more dangerous. While Mr Prigozhin’s uprising appears to be over, its consequences are only starting to unfold.
Source: The Guardian view on Prigozhin’s mutiny: Putin’s problems aren’t over | Editorial | The Guardian
The Wagner Group has tens of thousands of mercenaries in Ukraine, according to UK military intelligence.
What is Wagner Group and who is fighting for it?
What is the Wagner Group doing in Ukraine?
How was the Wagner Group started?
How has Wagner clashed with Russia’s military commanders?
Where else is the Wagner Group operating?
What crimes is the Wagner Group alleged to have committed?
Source: What is Russia’s Wagner Group of mercenaries in Ukraine? – BBC News
In the duel between the Wagner Group’s Yevgeny Prigozhin and Russian President Vladimir Putin, both men lost their nerve.
Ethical accountants are groaning in the wake of the PwC scandal which has thrashed the reputation of the profession. While most accountants abide by ethical standards, the Big 4 have dragged the profession into the mud. Wally the Chartered Accountant reports on the decline of ethics and self-regulation.
Source: Cheats never prosper! Or do they PwC and KPMG? – Michael West
Corruption in politics has to stop and on the Labor side at the federal level Bill Shorten is at the heart of it and the Labor Party needs to take action fast otherwise in a year or two the federal Labor Party will be embroiled in corruption scandals the same as the Liberal and Nationals are now.
Australia has little problem revealing it’s outrageous war crimes but stays shtum to Israel’s which are collective and systemic in intent rather than individual
“The total lack of accountability for Israeli killings on the part of the Biden administration is now an open farce among the press corps.”
Israeli Minister of National Security, Itamar Bin-Gvir called on Israeli squatters on the Palestinian West Bank to take over the territory and to settle it with support from the far right-wing government.
Russian Democracy.
Wagner rebel chief halts tank advance on Moscow ‘to stop bloodshed’
Source: National Times – Wagner rebel chief halts tank advance on Moscow… | Facebook
Newspapers around the world raced to cover fast-moving events inside Russia, with many assessing what it could mean for Vladimir Putin
Official TV usually ignores inconvenient news – during the 1991 coup attempt it showed a tape of Swan Lake. Yevgeny Prigozhin’s action was different
Putin walks back on his promise to the Russian people, and unlike Trump, pays the Wagner group to stand down. Let’s be frank Mercenaries aren’t patriots they are there to do a job. Trump’s lawyers need to learn from Wagner if they want to be paid.
The criminal case against Wagner Private Military Company (PMC) founder Evgeny Prigozhin will be dropped and he will leave Russia, the Kremlin announced on Saturday evening.
Spokesman Dmitry Peskov revealed that Prigozhin, a Saint Petersburg tycoon who made his initial fortune in catering, “will go to Belarus.”
He added that Wagner’s fighters will not be persecuted, taking into account their efforts on the frontlines of the Ukraine conflict. Peskov explained that President Vladimir Putin’s team “have always respected their exploits.”
Source: Kremlin reveals details of Wagner deal — RT Russia & Former Soviet Union
On the 30th of August 2022, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese held a press conference with Minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney and gambling ad spokesperson Dr Shaquile O’Neal to announce a referendum on the proposed Indigenous Voice to Parliament, an advisory body of First Nations people who talk to Indigenous groups on a state and local level to try represent the diverse opinions of Indigenous people.
Eleven months later, the referendum bill passed, leaving many to wonder whether the ‘Yes’ campaign will ever start?
Source: The disappointing failure of the non-existent ‘Yes’ campaign – The Shot
We all toy with the idea of changing the world but never consider changing ourselves.
Source: The ugly side of politics – » The Australian Independent Media Network
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