What Israel Does!
The principal Israel lobby group in the Netherlands has removed three articles from its website containing smears against Al-Haq, a prominent Palestinian human rights group. After Al-Haq took legal action against it, the Center for Information and Documentation Israel (CIDI) admitted that the articles contained false claims harming “the good name of the organization.”
Source: Israel lobby admits to lying about Palestinian rights group | The Electronic Intifada
What Israel does, but doesn’t announce, is its ACTIONS. We and they are what we DO and not just what we say we will!
All Israeli settlements violate Article 49, paragraph six, of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949. They are, therefore, considered to be war crimes, according to Article 84, paragraph four of the additional first protocol of 1977; an annex to the 1949 Geneva Convention; and Article 8 of the 1998 Rome Statute.
Source: Heard the Phrase ‘Illegal Israeli Settlements?’ *All* such Squatter-Settlements are Illegal
Where talk is cheap and announcements ear-catching these two countries need the positive distraction. what better way than to “announce”
Wave power is at the moment too expensive to be more than a demonstration project, at 60 cents per kilowatt hour to as much as a dollar. Its advantages, however, are that it is zero-carbon and continuous. Solar power does not work at night, and windmills don’t make power when the wind dies down. Waves constantly keep coming, in contrast. Places such as California have been filling in the gaps created by the intermittency of solar and wind by firing up fossil gas plants, which is both expensive and environmentally destructive.
The longer time passes the deeper they sink.
By copying voting software and distributing it widely, people and organizations can “use the software to undermine, disrupt, or tamper with elections in a number of ways,” the letter included.
“I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters,” Donald Trump said famously in late January of 2016.
And yet, things seem different now, largely due to the unimpressive Republican performance in November.
Much like a television show in its fifth or six season, where the storylines have become strained and the performers spend much of their time thinking about their next project, the Trump campaign — and Donald Trump himself — are starting to look stale, fatigued and unbelievable, even to their own supporters.
In his TV series, Trump allegedly mentored and evaluated admirers who wanted to be his “Apprentice.” Now, the former president looks more and more like “The Biggest Loser.”
Source: The beginning of the end for Donald Trump? Probably. – Roll Call
Scott Morrison approved tens of billions in foreign takeover deals after secretly being appointed Treasurer last year, compromising Australia’s national interest. Sydney Airport, electricity giants AusNet and Spark Infrastructure. All gone. Michael West reports.
Source: A Royal Commission into Scott Morrison? He sold off the farm, in secret – Michael West
MP Stuart Robert has ducked questions regarding possible dodgy dealings with an offshore business, adding another blemish to his chequered political career.
Source: Stuart Robert, Paul Pisasale and a tale of two Rolexes: FLASHBACK 2019
Andrew Bolt’s hypocrisy has no parallels. While Smith has his addiction and mental illness as an excuse Andrew Bolt has only himself to blame for his record of female abuse. Abuse, he’s conducted publicly. His ex-fiance threatened to sue if he didn’t take back the bullshit he attempted to tell us about her in order to pump his own ego up. He collapsed like a cheap suit admitting he’d lied in order to save his own arse.
Then there was the case where a female magistrate took him to court for defaming her. That was a substantial loss to News Corp. It kept him on but has sacked Smith.
Bolt tried it on with Miranda Devine, on air no less, and ran red-faced or was let go by 2GB never to be seen again on Steve Price’s show. We have no idea of the number of undisclosed settlements that have been made to women because of the Blot. But here he is the loud-mouthed hypocritical ass playing moralist and Gallahad to the crowd when his history is as tarnished, if not more so, than Chris Smith’s.
Disgraced broadcaster Chris Smith has lost his roles with Sky News Australia and Sydney’s 2GB over drunken acts at a work Christmas party.
However, fellow Sky host Andrew Bolt was having none of it on his program The Bolt Report on Monday night. He called for Smith to go.
“Chris, all the very best to you getting over what you say is your addiction and your bipolar condition, but your recovery must take place somewhere else, not here,” he said.
“With your record you still choose to drink, you did then, and allegedly assaulted and upset young women who must work here.”
Bolt continued to explain that “we’re all good people here at Sky with a culture of looking after each other.
Source: Media outlets sack Chris Smith over drunken Christmas party
Just as a fish can’t taste the water it swims in, it is hard for Australians to notice how bizarre our climate and energy policy debates have become. We have seemingly abandoned economics, climate science and even opinion polling when it comes to identifying options for reform. The only way forward is what the fossil fuel industry tells us to do. Imagine if we had taken that approach to tobacco control.
Climate Disaster Is Turning the Planet Into a Tinderbox As a United Nations report put it, we’re experiencing “a global wildfire crisis… turning landscapes into tinderboxes.”
Source: Climate Disaster Is Turning the Planet Into a Tinderbox – scheerpost.com
With colder winter weather looming, a new analysis released Tuesday shows that the nine largest energy utility companies in the U.S. raked in nearly $14 billion in combined profits during the first three quarters of this year—and dished out roughly $11 billion to their wealthy shareholders—as tens of millions of U.S. households struggled to pay their utility bills due to soaring costs.
Source: Customers Shiver As Energy Giants Reap $14 Billion In Profits | Crooks and Liars
A transition away from fossil fuels to renewable sources of power by 2050 will save the world $12 trillion, according to a new study published in Joule by Oxford researchers Rupert Way, Matthew C. Ives, Penny Mealy, and J. Doyne Farmer. Oxford’s press release points out that the paper foresees a 55% increase in power production that will be achieved by transitioning to renewables by 2050 and the authors think it is plausible for wind-solar-battery and hydro completely to replace fossil fuels by then.
Source: Rapid Move to Wind and Solar Power would Save the world $12 Trillion: Oxford Study
“These companies know their climate pledges are inadequate, but are prioritising Big Oil’s record profits over the human costs of climate change,” said Rep. Carolyn Maloney.
Laughing at you America.. What’s the Scam
Fox News contributor Kellyanne Conway repeatedly went out of her way to praise the efforts of the Republican National Committee around the midterm elections, saying the organization did a “great job” and touting its voter contact program. Neither Fox nor Conway disclosed that the RNC has paid Conway’s firm more than $800,000 since last year.
Creating a new international economic order “sounds like an impossible dream,” said the former Greek finance minister, but “not more impossible than the principle of one person, one vote, or of the end of the divine right of kings once sounded.”
Source: Varoufakis Details Vision for Ending ‘Global Empire of Capital’ to Avert Catastrophe
Maybe the Liberal Party has fallen victim to the biggest conspiracy theory this side of the Pacific in the last 20 years by believing the hype around Scott Morrison, generated by the same Scott Morrison. They sadly haven’t realised their gullibility yet as demonstrated by mostly voting against the censure motion brought to the House of Representatives when the real adults in the room. The ALP, Greens and Independents called his behaviour out for what it really was – a messiah complex combined with a confidence trick.
The snake oil salesmen of the early 20th Century would be proud of him.
Source: Have we got a deal for you – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The miscarriage of justice in the Bruce Lehrmann trial has highlighted the weakness in our democratic institutions and the betrayal of women such as Brittany Higgins, writes Dr Jennifer Wilson.
Source: Brittany Higgins’ bravery exposes struggle for women’s legal rights
Witness, written long before the Lehrmann trial. It was the issue about which she was invited to speak to the Women Lawyers Association of the ACT at their gala dinner on 21 October this year. It is a matter of obvious public interest. But Milligan has now found herself under attack, not only in The Australian and on Sky News, but in the Commonwealth parliament, for things she did not say and does not believe.
This is News Corporation’s version of “cancel culture” – a phenomenon it has so often condemned.
Its army of culture warriors see themselves as defenders of free speech – especially against the Twitter guerrillas and student censors who ‘cancel’ people of whose views they disapprove. For The Australian’s Janet Albrechtsen it has been a favourite topic.
Source: Muzzling Milligan: free speech for some, but not for others – Pearls and Irritations
From the day Abbott came to power Murdoch and Abbott played China with a two-faced and double hand. Abbott took credit for the ALP’s economic gains which he could ill afford to let slip by. While Murdoch bad-mouthed China with a well-intended Culture war for his own personal revenge for having been kicked out. What was once a solid relationship between two, we saw wither for politics, and an individual’s personal hate which exacerbated and amplified after 2016 when Trump entered the scene.
During the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told journalists on Nov. 15 his country “seeks a stable relationship with China.”
This is because, as Albanese pointed out, China is “Australia’s largest trading partner … worth more than Japan, the United States, and the Republic of Korea… combined.” Since 2009, China has been Australia’s largest destination for exports as well as the largest single source of Australia’s imports.
For the past six years, China has largely ignored Australia’s requests for meetings due to the latter’s close military alignment with the U.S. But in Bali, China’s President Xi Jinping made it clear that the Chinese-Australian relationship is one to be “cherished.”
Why isn’t this happening here?
A total of 48,000 are on strike, making this the largest and most important strike in the history of American higher education. As labor historian Nelson Lichtenstein says, it could not only raise the incomes and the status of those who work in an “industry” that now employs more workers than the federal government, but also transform higher education itself.
Slavery continues and it’s predominantly still black
“Covid pulled the curtain back on what has always existed in New York, which are these slave-like conditions for people who are incarcerated.”
Source: Prisoners Forced to Do Asbestos Work During Covid Pandemic
For years, blood lusting Murdocrats and garden variety reactionaries have been hoping for a conflict they have no reason to participate in, nor provoke. Australia’s blessings of distance, and its prospects of being a broker rather than a provoker, are matters of scorn rather than praise. The scented anti-China oils and myrrh from Washington have proved so seductive, we are repeatedly treated to the prospect that Australian personnel will commit to a conflict over Taiwan.
Source: It’s a season to be a warmonger – Pearls and Irritations
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said over the weekend that if she had led the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol that “we would have won” and that people would have been “armed.” “I come to Washington, I swear in on January 3, I get accused of giving insurrection tours which I thought was hilarious because I couldn’t even find the bathroom in the Capitol. True story,” Greene, a Georgia Republican, said while speaking at an event by the New York Young Republican Club, according to video posted by the Twitter user @patriottakes. “Then January 6 happens, and next thing you know, I organized the whole thing along with Steve Bannon here. And I gotta tell you something:
If Steve Bannon and I had organized that, we would have won. Not to mention, it would have been armed. Yeah. See, that’s the whole joke isn’t it?”
Source: Rep. Greene says she and Bannon ‘would have won’ January 6
The mask is being lifted from the face of Israel’s apartheid state, exposing a grinning death’s head that portends the obliteration of the few restraints against killing Palestinians.
The new $850 billion military budget, which the House just approved and the Senate will take up soon, is a giveaway to the arms industry. Is it a coincidence that House supporters of the bill got seven times more money from military contractors than opponents?
Source: The Arms Industry Owns Congress
President Vladimir Putin will not hold his traditional televised year-end news conference this month, the Kremlin says, 10 months into Russia’s stuttering invasion of Ukraine.
But not the National Party
More than 60% also say they support the Indigenous voice to parliament, with the Liberal party at risk of alienating younger voters if it backs the Nationals’ position
Six people have been killed, including two police officers and an innocent bystander, during an incident at a remote property in Queensland.
Reynolds, Robert, Molan and Hastie all ex-military personnel. It says a lot about the militaristic character they brought with them to Australia’s parliament.
The Australian Capital Territory’s top prosecutor privately complained of the “disturbing” conduct of former cabinet minister Linda Reynolds during the trial of Bruce Lehrmann, including her alleged coaching of his defence team, her attempt to solicit transcripts and the presence of her partner in court.
Guardian Australia revealed last week that the director of public prosecutions, Shane Drumgold SC, had sent a letter of complaint to the chief of police, Neil Gaughan, on 1 November, just after the trial against Lehrmann collapsed.
Lehrmann, who has consistently maintained his innocence, pleaded not guilty to one charge of sexual intercourse without consent. The collapse of his trial leaves him with the presumption of innocence.
This matter will not go away until there is a public hearing to deal with widespread cover-up and interference in the administration of justice.
The latest official statistics confirm Australia’s economy is back among the world’s leaders, as Alan Austin reports.
Source: We expected an economic turnaround, but not this swiftly
Should we be surprised?
Coalition financial services spokesman Stuart Robert is refusing to say whether he had been doing business with an offshore entity controlled by his business partner while also serving as a minister.
Source: Stuart Robert ducks question about offshore business
According to a report published in 2020 by the Global Alliance for Tax Justice, corporate ‘profit shifting’, a.k.a. ‘tax avoidance’, cost countries $620 billion in lost tax revenue in that year alone. Nowhere is this kind of behaviour more evident than in the operations of the global fossil fuel industry.
Again, China is taking positions here that have been never been pushed by the U.S. or from which Washington has retreated before the Israel lobbies. That East Jerusalem should be the capital of a Palestinian state that will be quickly brought into being, that Israel should cease sending in squatters to steal private Palestinian land for their squatter-settlements and should cease ruling the West Bank in a unilateral fashion — all of these are principles that the U.S. State Department has acknowledged in the past but on which the U.S. has proved fickle.
Symbolically speaking, nothing could underline the growing closeness of China to the Arab countries more than these frank and straightforward endorsements of the Palestinian cause by Beijing.
In a scathing 90-minute video analysing Russia’s execution of the war, Girkin said the “fish’s head is completely rotten” and that the Russian military needed reform and an intake of competent people who could lead a successful military campaign.
INDEPENDENT AND Peaceful Australia Network (IPAN) members discussed and consulted directly with thousands of everyday Australians from all walks of life during its “people’s inquiry” which ran for well over a year under the title, ‘ A People’s Inquiring: Exploring the case for an Independent and Peaceful Australia. What are the costs and consequences of Australia’s involvement in U.S.-led wars and the US-Alliance? What are the alternatives?’
Source: Verdict of groundbreaking ‘people’s inquiry’ presented in Parliament
A case for the Prosecution vs the case for the AFP aren’t they on the same side? If so who is Brittany?
Drumgold’s letter, released under freedom of information, made a series of extraordinary allegations about police conduct during the investigation and trial stages, saying he felt there was “a very clear campaign to pressure” him not to prosecute the alleged rape of Brittany Higgins.
He alleged investigators had bullied Higgins, forcing her to insulate herself from further contact with them, and that police “clearly aligned with the successful defence of this matter” during the trial.
Drumgold told Gaughan he wanted a public inquiry into police and political conduct during the case.
Wow $12 and everybody is happy while we the people get screwed and pay
Be suspicious, be very suspicious! Albo is capping off Labor’s first year in office triumphant, his deal to cap gas and coal prices even lauded by the pro-gas corporate media. What’s the scam?
Source: Be suspicious: behind Albo’s masterstroke to cap fossil prices, ease power bills – Michael West
It’s been a good week for Peter Dutton because – now that the Albanese government has announced something on energy prices – Dutton knows what it is that he’s against. For the past few weeks, he’s been reluctant to express a view on the subject in case it turns out that Labor have ruled it out and he’ll be left agreeing with them.
So what’s the big plan that the Liberals have on energy prices?
Well, from what I can work out it seems that their plan is not to cap prices and to encourage a gas-led recovery from Covid and that will mean that we’ve all got plenty of gas and…
Oh wait, that was Mr Morrison’s plan that he didn’t implement because he can’t do everything.
Let’s see… The plan now seems to be to take the restrictions off nuclear energy and in about ten years or so, we should have plenty of cheap nuclear power with a reactor in every home.
Mm, that doesn’t seem to fix the price of my next gas or electricity bill. No, I don’t think the Liberals are on a winner there, even if they’re on a winner with nice guy Pete.
The only thing that confuses me is that Dutton was so unpopular within his own party that they elected Morrison rather than let him become PM.
I guess they just didn’t know him well enough!
Source: Peter Dutton’s Plan For Cutting Energy Prices! – » The Australian Independent Media Network
From flights to rewards QANTAS is not performing but is profiting how is that?
If the airline sector is so essential – and it clearly is in a vast country like Australia that is so far from other nations – healthy competition is vital. The federal government is happy to hand over billions of taxpayer dollars to Qantas to “save it” during the pandemic. Its surging return to record profits has made something of a lie of its pandemic era pleading.
Far better to place some restrictions on Qantas regarding landing rights, put some protections in place for Bonza – and perhaps Rex, consider forcing Qantas to divest Jetstar and give the industry the regulator which it has long needed.
Customers also need a no-nonsense legislated regime of money-back guarantees for cancellations, delays and other issues as they have in the EU, UK and New Zealand.
Catherine King, it’s your move.
Qantas is pulling back capacity to keep airfares up despite a lacklustre ACCC report which found ‘nothing to see here’ in airline competition
The imprisoned publisher was attacked during a big-name counter-intelligence event in Washington this week with the same kind of innuendo that a larger gang, back in 2019, threw at the Hunter Biden laptop story.
It’s time to call a spade a spade. They’re lying. And they want us to believe their lies. I was at the C.I.A. too. I underwent the same training that they underwent. And if there was one thing the C.I.A. taught me, it was that if I was going to make a judgment or draw a conclusion, I had to offer proof. I wasn’t allowed to hide behind language like, “all the hallmarks of” or “leads me to believe…”. If you don’t have any proof, keep your mouth shut.
In the meantime, I was greatly heartened by the confidence that Pollack exuded at the National Press Club event. Julian Assange is in good hands. Barry will provide him with the best defense possible.
As for these other characters, it’s up to the rest of us to counter them and their propaganda. It’s up to us to demand the truth.
Source: JOHN KIRIAKOU: The Lies Spies Tell About Assange – scheerpost.com
Hartcher can’t see the difference between Democracies, Protest and what people want,
Just who this message is meant for is uncertain. The economic gains of democracy are probably not all that high on the priority list for Iranian demonstrators, or for the Chinese who are increasingly demanding change. Democracy for these courageous people is about freedom and for the chance to live without fear of arbitrary arrest. It’s certainly not about electing one group or party to organise a capitalist economy that will deliver better economic returns to a minority.
Source: China and Iran protestors fighting for real democracy, not capitalist capture
There’s a fishy smell in Canada and it ain’t Salmon
A report from George Washington University reveals that the Canadian Armed Forces trained a far-right Ukrainian group. Despite corroboration by its own internal documents, the Canadian military is calling the report “Russian disinformation.”
Source: Canada’s Military Trained Ukrainian Fascists. Now It’s Claiming “Russian Disinformation.”
Singling out Bout as the cartoonish gangster who endangered US lives ignores the fact that the United States remains the world’s biggest arms exporter, thereby endangering the lives of citizens across the globe. Between 2017 and 2021, the US accounted for 39 percent of the major arms transfers globally. This was twice that of Russia, and almost 10 times what China sent its customers.
Another excruciating point is that one can only become a merchant of death if the merchandise, and the interest in buying and using it, is there. As Bout himself put it, if you were going to prosecute a figure such as himself, you might as well prosecute US arms dealers whose weapons eventually end up being used against US citizens. (The National Rifle Association, take note.) “They are involved even more than me!”
Source: Basketball, Viktor Bout and Troubling Exchanges – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Mary Trump is not surprised because it is who he is
In an analysis on how things are going for Donald Trump since his overly-hyped 2024 presidential campaign launch at Mar-a-Lago weeks ago, Guardian political analyst David Smith claims the former president has lost the “sizzle” that made him such a hot property in 2016 as he skips the type of politic…
olddogthoughts 
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