The Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post and Wall Street Journal ― both previous boosters of Donald Trump ― put the blame for the GOP’s less-than-stellar showing in the 2022 midterm elections squarely on the former president and his choice of candidates.
On its Thursday front page, the Post depicted Trump as the hapless nursery rhyme character Humpty Dumpty. “Don (who couldn’t build a wall) had a great fall — can all the GOP’s men put the party back together again?” the tabloid newspaper asked:
Fox News did everything in its power to help Republicans triumph in the midterm elections. But the “red tsunami” that the network hoped to create didn’t materialize, with Democrats pulling out unexpected victories in races across the country.
Source: Fox News lost the 2022 midterms. The only question is by how much. | Media Matters for America
The Republicans calculated that by focusing on inflation they could immunize themselves from the growing backlash against the Supreme Court’s abortion decision. They were wrong.
Source: The Midterms Are No Victory for the Democrats, but They Are a Defeat for the GOP
If Republicans cannot win against a near-octogenarian and historically unpopular president who has presided over the worst inflation in four decades, when exactly can they win? That is the question that any conservative trying to explain away the GOP’s absolutely abysmal midterm election performance must ask themselves.
Source: Republicans have no excuse for their shameful midterm performance | Washington Examiner
The schism between the lifters and leaners in corporate Australia has deepened. BHP, Rio and the banks are tipping in massive tax while tax paid by fossil fuel giants remains paltry, abjectly failing to merit a social licence to operate in Australia. Callum Foote peruses the latest tax data.
The results of the collapse of the single employer bargaining system appear on my desk each week. Individual employment contracts prepared by major corporations and their lawyers and signed en masse by their employees. There is no bargaining, no negotiation. And unless you’re Alan Joyce or another CEO represented by the Business Council of Australia, no real wage increase
. And as we now recognise, the collapse of single employer bargaining and the ascendancy of employment contracts has produced a decade of wage stagnation. Absent a functional collective bargaining system, the labour market reverts to no bargaining and no real wage increases.
Source: Secure Jobs, Better Pay bill: Big business needs to be cured of low wage addiction
What Australians do to their own…nothing!
Owen Bowcott on Italian investigative journalist Stefania Maurizi’s new book documenting attempts to demonise and destroy Julian Assange and WikiLeaks and her seven-year battle to access government information.
The rich get told , They Pledge in Public. Then do Sweet FA.
Leaders from poor countries criticised wealthy governments and oil companies for driving global warming, using their speeches at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt to demand that they pay up for damages being inflicting on their economies.
Source: Rich told to cough up for climate change – Michael West
Australia is warned the AUKUS submarine deal will be a huge undertaking that will involve “one of the biggest training and workforce development challenges Australia has faced”.
Rallying for Pennsylvania congressional candidates Summer Lee and John Fetterman in Philadelphia on Sunday, Sen. Bernie Sanders ripped U.S. billionaires for pumping record-breaking sums of cash into the midterm elections in an effort to sway the results in their favor.
Source: ‘That’s Oligarchy’: Sanders Rips Billionaires for Trying to Buy Midterm Victories – scheerpost.com
Nobody is surprised. You don’t hug haters of humanity who claim their defending themselves and their Nation
The rise of this Kahanist group will inevitably harm Israeli relations with the US, raising questions about the fate of the normalisation agreements and relations with Egypt and Jordan. The group’s public plans will pour more oil on the fire of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS), and the public support that Israel receives from many international forums, especially military aid, will decrease because the group continually seeks to exacerbate the situation with the Palestinians and incite against them.
Source: Israel: On the Road to International Isolation with the Rise of domestic Fascist Parties
American Democracy and Citizens United
Federal election law sets strict limits on how much you can contribute, as an individual, to your candidate of choice. That limit now stands at $2,900 per election.
Contribute more than that and you’ll be breaking the law. And you could face some hefty penalties, nearly $22,000 or even more depending on the specifics of your oversized contribution.
Wait. How can ordinary Americans face substantial penalties for contributing too much to their favorite candidates when we regularly see headlines about the multiple millions America’s wealthiest are legally investing in our elections?
Trump, despite losing the 2020 election by 7 million votes nationally and by 306-232 in the Electoral College, became the first president in more than two centuries of elections to refuse to hand over power peacefully. His incitement of the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol ― his last-ditch attempt to remain in office ― led to the deaths of five people, including one police officer, the injury of 140 officers and four police suicides.
Source: If GOP Fails To Win Back Senate, It Can Thank Trump. Again. | HuffPost Latest News
It’s unclear whether the “Red Wave” the Republicans have been talking about since early 2022 will eventually materialize, but one thing is certain: Something is happening in early voting and it’s helping the Democrats.
Trump, moreover, lost these midterms decisively. With the exception of the shockingly bad author J.D. Vance in Ohio, Trump’s prominent personal picks did not appear to be faring very well on election day, and while things may change slightly, this conclusion is unlikely to be altered.
Source: Biden Holds Red Wave to a Ripple, as Trump Loses Big Time in Midterms
Eyes are off the ball and haven’t noticed The AGE crying out for attention
I don’t live in Victoria and I don’t vote in Victoria but from a distance it appears to me that the two main contestants in the upcoming state election are the current Premier representing the ALP, Dan Andrews and Newscorp although, in the latter case it is not clear if it is the dirty digger himself standing or the prodigal son who may be living on his yacht in Port Phillip Bay – but is he on the Victorian electoral roll ?
Truth is it’s neither and they don’t seem all that fussed about the Liberal Party but they both dearly want to destroy the ALP.
Source: Vote for Newscorp ! – » The Australian Independent Media Network
It’s a Sports Rorts whitewash. Scott Morrison’s former chief-of-staff and top bureaucrat Philip Gaetjens fortuitously found “no evidence” of pork barrelling by Senator Bridget McKenzie. Rex Patrick on how disappearing documents and political double-speak converged for an artful cover-up.
Australia’s top economists have overwhelmingly endorsed intervention to restrain gas and electricity prices, with only three of the 47 leading economists surveyed believing the best thing the government can do is to leave things to the market.
Source: Leading economists back federal government action to curb rising gas and electricity prices
Yes, Murdoch is heavily invested in Fossil Fuels and is on the board of Genie Oil. Exploring for black gold illegally in the Israeli occupied territories of Syria https://michaelwest.com.au/compromised-genie-energy-and-the-murdoch-medias-climate-denial/
The UN has issued a dire warning at the start of COP27 that our world is speeding down a “highway to climate hell”.
Australia is prone to devastating natural disasters, from the current flooding to the recent Black Summer bushfires. In this article from 2019, Dr Norm Sanders examined how the Murdoch media is fuelling the flames of climate change denial.
Source: Rupert Murdoch is leading Australia to climate ruin: FLASHBACK 2019
Australian mining magnate Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest has accused energy companies and businesses selling single-use plastics of forcing customers to “destroy the planet”.
Source: Andrew Forrest says big companies are ‘forcing’ customers to ‘destroy the planet’ – ABC News
It’s small wonder a major fossil fuel producer like Australia has relied so heavily on carbon offsets. Plant new forests – or say you will avoid clearing old ones – and you can keep approving new gas and coal developments. This year, whistleblower Professor Andrew McIntosh claimed up to 80% of these offsets weren’t real. They didn’t actually offset emissions.
Israel is hardly Jewish
AIPAC and Jewish Republicans are a puzzlement. They are financially supporting over 100 racists, climate deniers and election deniers running for Congress, because they express unqualified support for Israel’s occupation, expansionist settlements and denial of Palestinian human rights. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), one of the more powerful lobbies in the country, has targeted progressive Jewish candidates such as California’s Sara Jacobs for unseating. How can such smart people become so deeply invested in causes and candidates destructive to our interests as Jews and Americans? As Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN) has pointed out, AIPAC itself is a sort of “hate group,” which uses charges of anti-Semitism as a campaign tool, while fueling anti-Semitism by its ugly tactics at the same time.
An Australian university has unearthed millions of Tweets by fake accounts pushing disinformation on the Ukraine war, Peter Cronau reports. The sample size dwarfs other studies of covert propaganda about the war on social media.
No simple answers
So, to return to where we began: is the internet a liberation technology? Or are social media incompatible with democracy?
There are no simple yes or no answers. There is, however, evidence that digital media impact political behaviour globally. This evidence warrants concern about the adverse impacts of social media on democracy.
Last night I saw Pussy Riot, on the London leg of their Riot Days European tour to raise money for a children’s hospital in Ukraine. Their producer, Alexander Cheparukhin, came on stage to introduce them. I guess he was about my age, I couldn’t be precise because I didn’t have my glasses. He vibed the sort of age, where you can’t see things without glasses. He described how he met Maria Alyokhina (who also goes by Masha Alekhina), one of the founding members of the band who was first imprisoned in 2012 and then under constant surveillance, harassment, house arrest, arrest-arrest and persecution, until she escaped from Russia to Iceland earlier this year. When her sentence was handed down 10 years ago, he said, it was the first time in his life he had witnessed the political imprisonment of artists.
It’s been election cycle after election cycle packed with misinformation and conspiracy theories. So why do so many people believe the lies?
Source: Why do our brains believe lies even when we’ve been told the truth?
The strategy of the current Coalition in Opposition is to continue its campaign of deliberate malicious falsehoods, as Alan Austin reports.
Source: New Parliament, new Coalition leaders, same old lies
So much for the Separation of Powers
“We are seeing an inordinate number of elected MPs, particularly in the Liberal Party, who come from Pentecostal backgrounds, who come from Mormon backgrounds, who come from very conservative religious backgrounds,” she said.
“And that is not reflective of where the community stands.
“Those organisations represent a very small percentage of Victorians and Australians, yet they are remarkably, I would say, over represented in Liberal Party preselection.”
In a massive feat of irony, Coca-Cola, the world’s largest plastic polluter, is sponsoring COP27, the world’s largest annual environmental conference, which will take place in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, from November 6–18.
Source: Coca-Cola, the world’s largest plastic Polluter, is sponsoring COP27. Here’s why that’s a problem
Australia is desperate to get into the Industry
Authoritarian governments like those in Egypt and Saudi Arabia have funded a boom in France’s arms industry. Now, with war in Ukraine, it’s setting its sights on rearming Europe.
Source: France’s Weapons Industry Is Growing Rich off Dictatorships
The planet’s race to hell in a handbasket
Unless polls, pundits and precedents are wildly wrong, Democrats will crash and burn in this week’s US midterm elections. Given the problems he inherited, Joe Biden’s presidency was always likely to end in tears. Expected Republican gains on Tuesday herald a descent into bareknuckle political fisticuffs and legislative gridlock before the 2024 White House race.
A Moderate point of view seeing hope for Israeli Democracy. Not all Israelis like what’s happening in their Democracy. However, politics is a game and a business and Netanyahu is the wiliest of politicians. However, who would want their nation’s Democracy modelled on America’s?
Doomsday predictions about the consequences of Israel’s election are overwrought. Some of the proposed legal reforms would bring Israel’s system closer to the U.S. model.
There back those that Putin and Trump say don’t exist
Russian trolls and bots are coming back online ahead of the midterms—this time, amplifying right-wing vitriol on Gab, Parler, Gettr, and other minor social media platforms serving far-right audiences. Cybersecurity researchers have identified the reactivation of inflammatory accounts linked to the Internet Research Agency, a propaganda group associated with the Kremlin that has interfered in US elections since at least 2016, the New York Times reported on Sunday.
Source: Russia Revives Its Botnet to Hit Swing-State Democrats – Mother Jones
The political writer’s life was much easier when the previous government was in power – almost a scandal or some form of corruption every day. We didn’t have to think much about what to write. Now with a more sensible government in power, we have to think more deeply about what keys our ever-sensitive fingers hit.
But that is not to say there isn’t anything to write about; here are a few examples.
Source: There’s always something to write about – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The Age’s attempt to make out that Dan Andrews is pushing to make public reporting of IBAC leaks illegal, and that Matthew Guy, is a crusader for press freedom is actually propaganda built on a house of cards. Buried yet again in the Age’s biased report is the hidden fact. It’s IBAC and QC Redlich who is appealing for stronger laws against the leaks in their investigations. Leaks well before any formal report is even released and leaks before any conclusions have been reached. The new Age is in the full conspiracy swing of an American a PR agency modelled on Fox News, News Max and OAN in competition with Murdoch’s Herald Sun for number one spot.
IBAC now wants to go a step further and is pushing the government for “urgent” legislation that would make it an offence for any person to report the contents of draft IBAC reports.
In a strongly worded statement, IBAC said it was a “critical” part of the natural justice process to give people the chance to respond to preliminary findings.
It said this natural justice process had forced it to seek the injunction to prevent The Age from publishing information from the draft report. (The Age)
Daniel Andrews has issued a blistering statement about the “smear and innuendo” surrounding an anti-corruption investigation.
Source: Daniel Andrews blasts ‘smear and innuendo’ – Michael West
this is all general and has nothing to do with the recent brouhaha about the Essendon CEO who lasted less time in the job than your average Tinder date.
When it comes down to it, he should have never got the job for the obvious reason that he was the person in charge of finding the next CEO.
Let’s be clear here: If you tasked me with the job of finding a replacement for Shaun at “Mad As Hell” and I came back a few weeks later and said after due consideration, I think it should be me, you’d have to think that I was far from a disinterested party and that maybe there was the sort of conflict of interest that meant that I should consider becoming the next Liberal leader rather than a comedian…
Germany does while we sit and watch. It’s been the Australian way. Oh yes, we invented the collapsable cheap wine cask and the system that allows the media to invest in gambling and advertise it simultaneously without having to declare our interest..
“Our goal is clear: Deutsche Bahn will be climate-neutral by 2040. We are also helped by creative solutions such as the overhead contact line island for battery-powered trains.”
History forgotten, Losers in past conflict, Vietnam, Aghanistan, Iraq, Syria,
How do we explain that half the Australian community thinks we should go to war with China? After twenty years of conflict in the Middle East, will our addiction to war and our insouciance about its consequences finally catch up with us in an American war over Taiwan?
Source: Australia is addicted to fighting other people’s wars – Pearls and Irritations
The foreign affairs establishment describes Australia as a “middle power” in the “rules-based global order.” They’re wrong — Australia should be understood as a subordinate beneficiary of US imperialism.
Source: Australia Is a Subimperial Enforcer of the US-led Order
Privately owned COMMUNICATION
What’s Musk going to do with Twitter? After months of trying to walk away from his commitment to buy the platform, and just before entering what was looking to be a long, potentially embarrassing and costly court battle to enforce his original agreement, Twitter is now privately owned.
Source: Why Elon Musk’s first week as Twitter owner has users flocking elsewhere
During more than five hours of oral arguments in two cases that will probably spell the death of affirmative action in colleges and universities, the racism of the six right-wingers on the Supreme Court was on full display. It appears the court will overrule existing precedent that permits limited affirmative action.
Source: The Racism of the Supreme Court’s Supermajority Was on Full Display This Week – scheerpost.com
Russia and China have again blocked plans supported by the European Union, the United States and 23 other nations to protect three vast stretches of ocean around Antarctica from most fishing.
olddogthoughts 
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