Australian politicians blame Aboriginal people for social problems. Alexis Wright’s Grog War shows that when First Nations communities fight to improve society, they are attacked at every turn.
Source: How an Indigenous Struggle in Australia Pitted Sovereignty Against Profit
Accepted theft never charged or punished
According to an analysis conducted by Industry Super Australia (ISA), unpaid and underpaid superannuation has cost workers more than $33 billion over the past seven years.
“Only by aligning payment of super and wages will the government protect millions of Australians missing out on what they’re owed and falling off the unpaid super cliff,” ISA Chief Executive Bernie Dean said.
Source: Payday super touted as solution to stolen funds – Michael West
One of the most visible manifestations of the climate emergency is heat waves. The earth’s climate is incredibly complex, and climate change can produce freezing “bomb cyclones” as well as unseasonably sweltering weather. Still, the past ten years are the hottest in recorded history on average, and extra heat is being injected into the climate by greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide.
With corporate criminality essentially unchecked worldwide, Dr Evan Jones diagnoses democracy as an ‘unachievable work in progress’.
The meaning of the “reverse ferret” Murdoch’s shitting on Republicans and the NRA
A new Fox News poll shows massive support for stricter gun laws and enforcement in the United States, laying waste to every elected Republican official who bows down to the NRA.
Source: Fox News Poll On Gun Control Destroys GOP Gun Myths | Crooks and Liars
Walking up to the edge of what might destroy Fox News, and then doing an about-face, is the business strategy of the network’s owner. About-Face,
Source: Ejection of Tucker Carlson Is Classic “Reverse Ferret” by Rupert Murdoch
What is certain is uncertain mathematical and social scientific theories attempt to explain reality. Certain theories don’t and miss reality all together
It is obvious that the nation is harmed by weaponised unreality. Evidence in the US and UK suggests that the damage also hits the forces that aim to ride the wave. Australia has time to halt this civic damage: the Albanese government must act more firmly on challenging lies if the right will not reform itself.
Source: Weaponised Unreality – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Neoliberalism and chasing the American dream down the rabbit hole. Privatised mental health in Australia has grown uncontrolled without delivering the wanted outcomes
Mental health care in the US is a disaster. The private insurance industry is a major reason why.
Just as we needed institutional and legal checks and balances against monarchs, high time to confront the tyranny of willful individualism run amok. As Russell Kirk summarizes, “Individualism is a denial that life has any meaning except the gratification of the ego; in politics it must end in anarchy. It is not possible for one man to be both Christian and Individualist.” What about being a genuine democrat vs. a radical, anti-democratic individualist? Or a Constitutionalist vs. a rebellious individualist, per Jan. 6 infamy? It’s really become an either/or dilemma and nothing less than everything is at stake.
Source: The Rampage of Reckless Individualism Matches Climate Change as a Global Threat | The Smirking Chimp
Should we be surprised Murdoch simply sees settlements as a cost of doing business. He makes far more when breaking rules to get sensationalist stories and knows royalty is high on the British must-watch and hear-about list.
Murdoch firm ‘paid secret phone-hacking settlement to Prince William’
Source: Report: Newsmax Offering Their Network To Tucker Carlson | Crooks and Liars
Whatever Fox does this time won’t be pretty.
Source: Fox News ratings collapse is a disaster. Its response will be too. | Media Matters for America
Back in May, we learned that a Trump-commissioned report found there was no proof of widespread election fraud that could have affected the 2020 results. That means former President Donald Trump knew he legitimately lost the election. And now we find that a second firm Trump’s campaign quietly commissioned to study election fraud claims found no irregularities.
Source: Second Firm Debunks Trump’s Claims Of Election Fraud | Crooks and Liars
We need to tread carefully until the U.S. has a leader who can be trusted. Joe Biden is 80 years old. At his age, how long can we rely on his common sense? His main opponent will probably be Donald Trump, who is crazy, old and unstable. This then is the horse we have hitched our wagon to. In Australian terms, “have we backed the wrong horse?”
Source: Is our alliance with a Trumpian America worth it? – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Australia risks a “futility syndrome” among its Indigenous youth if it votes ‘no’ to the voice to parliament, leaving them without hope for their futures, former minister Ken Wyatt says.
Source: Voice ‘no’ vote could leave youth hopeless: Wyatt – Michael West
Melanie Mitchell, an academic who knows a thing or two about the field, was bemused and tweeted as much. “Senator, I’m an AI researcher. Your description of ChatGPT is dangerously misinformed. Every sentence is incorrect. I hope you will learn more about how this system actually works, how it was trained, and what its limitations are.”
Source: Anxiety as Socialism: AI Moratorium Fantasies – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Anger at the institutions hurtling us toward climate breakdown is not only okay and understandable. In the fight to rein in the climate crisis, it might just be our best hope.
Source: Capitalism Is Killing the Planet — and It’s Okay To Be Angry About That | The Smirking Chimp
As my birthday approaches, I grow more and more anxious because a professional organization of trained terrorists that calls itself an army wants me to be one of them. And if I say no, a prison sentence will be the result. Fred Hidvegi Apr 27, 2023 Common Dreams
Source: Opinion | Why I’m Saying No to the IDF as a 17-Year-Old | Common Dreams
We seem to be at odds with what most Australians would like to see.
This is a historic watershed that the world is living through right now. What China is after is true multilateralism. What’s very important to understand is that most of the world also does not want the U.S. as the global preeminent power. Most of the world wants a truly multipolar world, and is, therefore, not lined up behind the United States’ sanctions on Russia, says Jeffrey Sachs in an interview with Democracy now.
Source: China’s “Historic” push for multipolar world to end U.S. domination – Pearls and Irritations
It’s not in America were politicians “cash in”
“When government officials cash in on their public service by lobbying, advising, or serving as board members and executives for the companies they used to regulate, it undermines public officials’ integrity.”
Source: ‘Brass for Gold’: Warren Report Details Revolving Door Between Capitol Hill and War Profiteers
A startling new development in battery technology underscores why John Kerry is right that the US needs to cooperate with China on combating the climate crisis. The Washington Blob, the combination of lobbyists, permanent bureaucrats, national security professionals and think tanks, is always looking for an enemy to demonize. China is now being marked as a demon du jour inside the Beltway. There isn’t any doubt that the US has significant policy differences with Beijing. There is no reason, however, to allow those differences to be unnecessarily militarized. Moreover, there is no reason to allow differences in some areas to forestall cooperation in others.
The Chinese battery company Contemporary Amperex Technology Co.( CATL) announced at the Shanghai auto show a few days ago that it has succeeded in developing a whole new kind of battery for EVs and even airplanes, which is twice as efficient as our current lithium ion batteries. The new battery is a sodium ion technology, different from the reigning lithium ion battery that fuels most electric cars. If the new battery performs as advertised, it is potentially a huge game changer in electrification.
Cook suggests Carlson was a victim. A hero playing both sides???
Yes, over the years Carlson played on white fears, placing him firmly on the right. But he also gave over his massive corporate platform at Fox News to some of the most critical and thoughtful independent journalists and pundits around — from Glenn Greenwald and Aaron Matè to Jimmy Dore.
Carlson not only brought them into the living rooms of Main Street, he also undoubtedly helped them grow their audiences and influence.
In that way, he exposed ordinary Americans to critical perspectives, especially on U.S. foreign policy, that they had no hope of hearing anywhere else — and most certainly not from so-called “liberal” corporate media outlets like CNN and MSNBC.
Source:
In 1789, Thomas Jefferson wrote that “wherever the people are well informed they can be trusted with their own government.”
Fox’s business model is antithetical to Jefferson’s vision. It makes billions by challenging the nation with an existential question:
Can democracy die from too many lies?
Fox News makes money by telling its audience what it wants to hear, even if Fox knows it’s a lie. The settlement preserves its lucrative business model.
Democracy lost.
Source: Democracy Lost: Dominion v. Fox | The Smirking Chimp
The Australian Government doesn’t appear to be the body able to do the job
The pressure is on the Government to address a near $1 trillion debt and spiralling cost of living when it presents the Budget on May 9. How different things would be if we had the sense to make multinationals pay properly for the billions they make mining and drilling Australia’s natural resources. Daniel Bleakley reports.
Source: A tale of two fossil superpowers: what Australia can learn from Norway – Michael West
The oceans are hot. They are hot in a way that surprises and distresses climate scientists, Everyone knew they would heat up because of the climate emergency. But no one thought it would happen this fast and with this intensity. Moreover, some of the side effects we are seeing, like less oxygen in the oceans, are positively frightening.
Source: Rapid Heating of Oceans Frightens Scientists: Threatens Marine Life, Coastal Areas
Under FOI, I requested Commissioner Woolcott’s briefing, minutes and talking points associated with the March 8 bureaucratic talk fest. Woolcott, a Coalition appointment (and former staffer to Andrew Peacock and Chief of Staff to Alexander Downer) retires in 4 months, has refused access to the documents he holds, claiming it’s not in the public interest to release them.
Source: Robodebt Cover-Up: documents on repairing Australian Public Service buried – Michael West
The answer to those 2 questions is quite simple. It is a dirty deal between Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition leader Peter Dutton to cover-up political corruption on both sides.
The ACT inquiry into the attempted cover-up of Bruce Lehrmann’s alleged rape of Brittany Higgins is due to start public hearings on Monday (1/5/23). The ACT Inquiry’s public hearings will be in contrast to the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) which will also investigate the Australian Federal Police (AFP) cover-up, but in secret hearings. The federal…
With a Federal Labor Government and Labor governments in all mainland states, and with the Murdoch machine facing increased pressure in the U.S., managing editor Michelle Pini proposes that this is the opportune moment for a royal commission into the Murdoch media.
The sacked Fox News host was one figurehead of a misinformation industry that has reshaped rightwing politics across the world
Always a Thug
The judge hearing the civil sexual assault lawsuit against Donald Trump warned his attorneys on Wednesday that their client needs to stop posting on social media about the case. The admonition—which seemed to carry a veiled threat that Trump could face a contempt of court ruling or other legal consequences if he’s not more careful with his public statements—came after the former president used his Truth Social platform to slam accuser E. Jean Carroll and her attorney.
Source: Judge Threatens Trump With Legal “Liability” Over New Attacks on E. Jean Carroll – Mother Jones
“The absence of even a single woman at the defense table,” Rubin wrote, “was not a great look in a case all about an alleged sexual assault.”
The spiders web of Government Accounting
PwC leaked secret tax data from its government work to foreign tax avoiders, potentially costing Australians billions. Like nothing ever happened, they are now picking up multimillion dollar public contracts again. Callum Foote reports. Three months
Source: Pity about the corporate treason; PWC is back winning juicy government contracts – Michael West
Despite promises to leave no Australian behind, the Labor Government has turned its back on JobSeeker recipients stricken by poverty, writes Dr Jennifer Wilson.
Source: Albanese Government leaving JobSeeker destitute behind
One might well ask what the % gain is for Pharmaceutical Companies compared with the % of medication scripts written and not used. How much medication is sold and unused? Who stands to gain the most by this government’s generosity?
Millions of Australians with chronic medical conditions will find it much cheaper to obtain medicines under a new measure to be included in next month’s federal budget.
Source: Sick to get more bang for their buck on prescriptions – Michael West
It doesn’t get any less self-reliant and sovereign than just handing over your nation’s military to a more powerful nation with a “There ya go mate, use it however you reckon’s fair.” You really could not come up with a more egregious abdication of national sovereignty if you tried.
And yet Australia’s prime minister babbles about sovereignty and self-reliance while doing exactly that.
Just annex Australia and make it the 51st state already. At least that way Australians would get a pretend vote in America’s fake elections.
ACMA findings are merely the result of a tree counting with no consideration or concept of the forest that will continue to generate the same unwanted results that breach the ACMA standards. In other words, they’re not a critical analysis of the system that underpins Sky News. The business model that lends structure to, and operates Sky News. They can’t or aren’t interested in seeing the forest only the trees and not the foundation on which Sky News and The Outsider’s corrupt practice is based. Anchors are chosen to model themselves on Fox News’s Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity et.al to be numbers and rating chasers that attract audiences for advertisers and create a platform to attract and influence the widest audience possible with no ethical or journalistic standards in mind. They are there to simply lobby for ultra-conservative monied interests which happen to align with the regressive far right and not news.
They are simply Murdoch’s Media a business for profit first and news merely incidental. Best seen and understood through the prism, blueprint or business framework of PR, propagandists and lobbyists for hire. A tool for the sale of influence by any means an unwitting but voting public. Fox News USA has recently magnified the very nature of Murdoch’s corrupt practices and put them on show globally. However, you won’t hear about it on Sky News or in 65% of Australia’s mainstream print media.
The authority found the program, which is hosted by Rowan Dean, Rita Panahi, and James Morrow and broadcast on Sky News, had breached its responsibilities to present news accurately and fairly and to distinguish clearly between factual material and commentary on four separate occasions between October and December 2021.
Tanvir Rahman, one of Grossberg’s attorneys, said in a Monday statement that Fox’s cutting ties with Carlson “is, in part, an admission of the systemic lying, bullying and conspiracy mongering claimed by our client.”
Everyone knew Murudoch’s business model was the priority. He and Carlson were a marriage made in heaven. Everyone also knew Murdoch serially divorced if disenchanted.
“When I got to Tucker, it was different,” explained Grossberg. “As the texts came out, it revealed my suspicions, he was looking for ratings bait purely and was looking for power. It was a combination of ratings and power and manipulating the audience and manipulating the political system.”
How did this fellow who professed to be an honest broker of truth become a racist demagogue and promoter of far-right disinformation and dangerous conspiracy theories? As evidence in the Dominion lawsuit revealed, there is no longer any question that Carlson sold his integrity. On air, he was a champion of Donald Trump and provided a platform for Trump’s Big Lie about the 2020 election. Off air, he told his colleagues that Trump was a liar and that he despised Trump. No media figure as prominent (and as well-paid) as Carlson has been shown to be such a cowardly hypocrite. From crusading journalist to con man—that’s quite the trip.
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One global news network has already extended a welcome: the Russian state television channel RT.
Source: KremlinTV Offers Tucker Carlson A Job | Crooks and Liars
But having put the ABC under a critical spotlight it must be said that Australia does need a strong and vibrant public broadcaster – to be adequately funded after years of erosion inflicted by successive Liberal governments.
Source: ABC Veto of “Secular Voice” a Mockery of “Inclusion” – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Developments in the U.S. courts concerning the Murdoch media empire have implications well beyond the USA, as Alan Austin reports.
Source: Latest evidence for Turnbull thesis good news for battered Americans
Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek will decide this Friday whether to approve what could be Australia’s newest coal mine, but there will be no fanfare. Callum Foote reports on a government busy rolling out new fossil fuel projects despite the strong advice of international agencies.
Source: All Fossils Go? Tanya Plibersek new coal mine approval due Friday – Michael West
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