Election

Political parties must stop spending taxpayer money on campaign advertising

The Big Build advertising campaign was strongly criticised by the Auditor-General.

This seems more like an advertorial. A complaint on behalf of LNP’s Vic Branch’s attempt to excuse their up-and-coming loss at the election next month. Given that Ch9 didn’t complain or make an issue of this when the LNP were in power it seems rather calculated to headline it now. The Naphine government spent money and even signed unwanted infrastructure contracts when they knew they were going to lose. Contracts that cost this state more to cancel than any “overspend” on ads that failed to stop the ALP from winning government.

I could be wrong as the ABC has jumped on the current Grattan Institute’s report as well. The Grattan Institute has simply validated what the whole of Australia has known and experienced for years. Most of which were LNP-controlled. The research however, doesn’t address Victoria, or next month’s election as the data isn’t out. Is Dan meant to not advertise “closed roads” due to infrastructure works going on?

No analysis, costings or accusations can realistically be made before this election. The timing of this research’s past, released now, isn’t the point either. But, mainstream media headlining it is. Because, it does sound like a whine, and the voice of sour grapes on behalf of the LNP before the poll as their current ads show they aren’t cutting through. Has the State LNP run out of funds again or are they about to do a Trump and claim the election is in the process of being stolen?

Ch9 gives “Matt” Matthew Guy more air-time than they gave Dan Andrews when he was in opposition and running against Napthine. No research has been done on that. But memory serves us well doesn’t it? However, there has been a significant difference witnessed since Peter Costello was made head of Ch 9 and took over Fairfax and The Age in Victoria. Stokes is in charge of ch7, and Murdoch dominates Sky News and the regions. Any case of unfair obvious has been obvious as far back as Bolte. Even in opposition LNP ads might not look directly gov subsidised but more like undeclared donations to me. Murdoch’s always been a standout and Ch9 has become the new stronger player on the block. While the ABC has been whipped into line this past decade with the Federal government slashing and bashing them into submission.

Can Guy’s regular appearance on Costello’s CH9 News be regarded as an undeclared “donation”? How much would that be worth? How much is this article’s placement worth if costed as a donation?

The opposition, as well as minor parties and independents, are unfairly disadvantaged when governments exploit their incumbency and use public money to boost their image. Victoria has stronger rules than most jurisdictions. They prohibit politicisation of taxpayer-funded advertising – but there are no consequences for flouting these laws.

Source: Political parties must stop spending taxpayer money on campaign advertising

Data Retention

Optus Hack just tip of the iceberg. FinTechs harvest bank details and passwords, can sell them too

Manal al-Sharif, data privacy

Australian FinTech companies collect your bank customer registration number and your password to access your bank accounts; and they keep that access even if you no longer use their services. Cyber security expert Manal al-Sharif explores privacy rorts.

Source: Optus Hack just tip of the iceberg. FinTechs harvest bank details and passwords, can sell them too

Truth in Humor

Is Labor Stuck Between The Economic Reality And The Political Reality Or Has The Canberra Bubble Burst? – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Peter Dutton is committed to calling Labor liars at every opportunity, as well as suggesting that there’s a big rift between Albanese and Chalmers on the tax cuts. The Liberals are a “broad church”, but Labor have rifts.

Ah, just like the mainstream media I’ve spent all this time discussing something which hasn’t happened yet and I’ve completely ignored the story about how Mathias Cormann is stuffing up his job at the OECD and how 26 economists and academics have written an open letter expressing concern about how he has effectively shut down the New Approaches to Economic Challenges which they believe was working efficiently.

Yes, when Mathias left the Liberals to work at the OECD, he managed to reduce the competency of both groups. It’s really pretty amazing that a body like that could employ a man who didn’t even notice that he’d forgotten to pay “HelloWorld” for his holiday.

Source: Is Labor Stuck Between The Economic Reality And The Political Reality Or Has The Canberra Bubble Burst? – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Informed Comment

Informed Comment- Robert Reich Organizing People Power
Australian Politics

The Brisbane Greens Are Building a Mass Party With Unashamedly Left-Wing Politics

The Australian Greens won three new lower house seats and the Senate balance of power at the last election. By combining radical reforms and community activism, they are building a mass organization with the power to challenge the political establishment. Challe

Source: The Brisbane Greens Are Building a Mass Party With Unashamedly Left-Wing Politics

Truth in Humor

Newscorp polishes the knob – » The Australian Independent Media Network

, the Tories and their News Corp muck-spreaders will prosecute the culture wars to divide and conquer.

Venality unites the Tories. What they cannot understand is that empathy, the fair go, the helping hand unites the rest of us and so they will fail. Big time.

Source: Newscorp polishes the knob – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Uncategorized

Massive bridge explosion damages Russian supply route through Ukrainian peninsula Crimea | Salon.com

Black smoke billows from a fire on the Kerch bridge that links Crimea to Russia, after a truck exploded, near Kerch, on October 8, 2022. (AFP via Getty Images)

Putin calls Ukraine “terrorists” and his a “Special OP”. Call it a war and you’re jailed.

An explosion on the Kerch bridge that connects the Russian-occupied Ukrainian peninsula Crimea with Russia has caused a massive blow to Putin’s attack on Ukraine. The bridge, which was opened by Putin in 2018, is crucial for the transportation of both Russian military supplies as well as daily necessities for Crimea itself.

Source: Massive bridge explosion damages Russian supply route through Ukrainian peninsula Crimea | Salon.com

Informed Comment

Chris Hedges: The Puppets and the Puppet Masters – scheerpost.com

The Puppets and the Puppet Masters The judicial proceedings against Julian Assange give a faux legality to the state persecution of the most important and courageous journalist of our generation.

Source: Chris Hedges: The Puppets and the Puppet Masters – scheerpost.com

Uncategorized

Prominent Big Lie Grifter Is Behind Huge Dark Money Injection Into State Supreme Court Races | The Smirking Chimp

There’s more dark money being poured into state Supreme Court races. Last week, we found out that the Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC) is spending $2 million on these races, with dark money funding. That started a trend, because a new ultra-conservative PAC is jumping in with a plan to spend $22.5 million on judicial races in seven states.

One of those states is Kentucky where it plans to spend $1.6 million through Fair Courts American-Kentucky, a PAC under the umbrella of another arm money group, Restoration of America. It’s got an arm called Fair Courts America, that will be running the campaign to install rightwing state supreme courts. The Courier Journal accessed the group’s 12-page plan for its story Friday. (That file appears to have been removed as of this writing. Maybe they didn’t like the sunlight suddenly exposing them.)

Source: Prominent Big Lie Grifter Is Behind Huge Dark Money Injection Into State Supreme Court Races | The Smirking Chimp

Fascism

Fascists Are Benefiting From World Crisis

A series of crises have shaken the liberal triumphalism of recent decades and produced new antidemocratic forces. Historian Geoff Eley tells Jacobin why it still makes sense to speak of “fascism” — and why the new forms of reaction aren’t just a return to the past.

Source: Fascists Are Benefiting From World Crisis

Political Right, Right Wing

Polish PM joins Trump, Meloni and Orbán in addressing right-wing rally in Spain | Notes From Poland

It’s an International Right-Wing that wants to keep Labor National and domesticated and divided. Whereas humans while multicultural and diverse are materially united by their labour.

Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, has joined figures including Donald Trump, Giorgia Meloni and Viktor Orbán in addressing a global right-wing rally in Spain.

“The EU wants to turn its back on tradition…the Brussels bureaucrats are expanding their powers…to create a transnational beast without true and traditional values, without a soul,” said Morawiecki, who had been welcomed onto the stage by Santiago Abascal, leader of Spain’s Vox party.

Source: Polish PM joins Trump, Meloni and Orbán in addressing right-wing rally in Spain | Notes From Poland

Fight against Fake News, Fighting Fake News

Old Dog Thought- Some secrets are held tight but not yours

Fighting Fake News with REAL 10/10/22; Cost of Living; Truth about News; There a thought about housing; ALP Government & ICAC; Optus Hack; Your Passwords and access

Truth in Humor

Lazy, stupid and incompetent? – by John Birmingham

I’m glad I waited a week to write about the Optus ‘hack’. Enough time has passed since the catastrophic data breach to be confident that it wasn’t a sophisticated hack by an advanced persistent threat-actor, like Optus would have us believe. It was just a cock up.

Source: Lazy, stupid and incompetent? – by John Birmingham

Media

Local man surprised after anal beads fail to improve chess game | The Shovel

72-year-old grandfather and amateur chess enthusiast Gavin Frampton said inserting a vibrating sex toy up his anus has not improved his win rate, despite chess prodigy Hans Niemann seemingly having success with the technique.

“I put the beads in, played 1.e4 as usual, and then waited for the magic to happen,” Frampton explained. “But after five minutes, it had had absolutely no impact. On the chess game,” Frampton explained.

Source: Local man surprised after anal beads fail to improve chess game | The Shovel

ALP Government,

Farhad Bandesh gets the letter – » The Australian Independent Media Network

This sadistic letter (see letter at the bottom of this article) is doing the rounds of Medevac survivors on Bridging Visas. It shows that Labor have yet to end the abuse meted out to those held offshore since 2013. This outrageous immigration stance reduces Labor to the low moral level of Dutton, Morrison and Abbott who used refugees as mere deterrents. Labor’s position is an electoral bonus for the Greens and Teal Independents.

My response:

Source: Farhad Bandesh gets the letter – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Informed Comment

A sickening thought: medical fund secrecy is a corruption incubator – Michael West

MRFF, NHMRC

Secrecy around a huge $20bn fund for government grants, Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF), makes it a corruption incubator: Rex Patrick

Let the light shine

The MRFF is an important public health initiative. It involves the expenditure of very large amounts of taxpayers’ money. The public have a right to examine the processes used in the awarding of grants and watch over the execution of the program, especially after grants have been awarded.

Those charged with managing the MRFF are likely to perform better when they know they are being watched. Those being watched are less likely to engage in malfeasance, misfeasance or wrongdoing. Conflicts of interest and failures of governance and process would be exposed, and indeed avoided because of the prospect of scrutiny.

The people at the Department and the National Health and Medical Research Council don’t seem to agree. They’re quite happy running a corruption incubator. But they’re about to be given a dose of transparency reality.

Source: A sickening thought: medical fund secrecy is a corruption incubator – Michael West

Informed Comment

Data Retention and the Devotees of Mass Surveillance – » The Australian Independent Media Network

It is a stinker in terms of policy, and unconvincing in effect, but the wholesale, indiscriminate retention of telecommunications data continues to excite legislators and law enforcement.

In 2015, when the Data Retention Bill was introduced, advocates and those in the telecommunications industry had reason to be worried. In testimony to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, Telstra Director of Government Relations, James Shaw, noted that the telco’s practice over peak times such as New Year’s Eve was to only retain some data for a few hours before being overwritten. This was markedly shorter than the Bill’s proposed two-year retention period.

Telstra’s Chief Information Security Officer Michael Burgess also issued a warning that such legislative requirements would embolden hackers. “We would have to put extra measures in place … to make sure that data was safe from those that should not have access to it.”

Electronic Frontiers Australia Executive Office Jon Lawrence was even more trenchant in explaining to the Joint Committee that such data retention requirements were an “unnecessary and disproportionate invasion of privacy” and would “literally be a honeypot to organised crime, to any sort of person who can potentially access it.”

Source: Data Retention and the Devotees of Mass Surveillance – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Australian Economy

Australia’s cost of living crisis pales in comparison to UK, Singapore and around the globe

In the US a coffee can set you back $8.

What is the message here? The LNP left us better off than the rest of the world? Casualisation of Labor hasn’t hurt us it’s given us more play time? That Australians are better off than most other countries our form of Capitalism works? Shut up and stop whining? The poor are better off here than elsewhere?

A global comparison isn’t a measure of how you feel. Do we feel better now than we did after a decade of LNP government? We need to slice and dice the very diverse Australian population to find that out and a global comparison of a cup of coffee won’t help answer that.

But while Aussie shoppers are suffering, CommSec’s chief economist Craig James, says our cost of living pales in comparison with some other nations. “I don’t believe cost of living is worse here,” says James. “The standard of living must be equated with the cost of living and Aussies have a very high standard of living and costs, in comparison, are relatively cheap.”

Source: Australia’s cost of living crisis pales in comparison to UK, Singapore and around the globe

Climate Change

In Irony, $9.7 bn. GigawattFactory Hub for Battery, Renewables, to be Built by Coal Firm on Wasteland its Open Mining Created

“The GigawattFactory combines innovative storage solutions, green hydrogen and future-proof power plants and makes environmentally friendly energy available as a secure service – this is a whole new quality in energy supply,” said LEAG CEO Thorsten Kramer, presenting the plan at the East German Energy Forum in Leipzig. “This will make us a pioneer in the safe energy transition.” The project will also be a powerful job engine for eastern Germany and help make energy affordable again, Kramer added.

Photovoltaic and wind power turbines will also be installed in LEAG’s former mining sites. The 7 GW hub will be able to supply four million households with green energy, said the company.

 

Source: In Irony, $9.7 bn. GigawattFactory Hub for Battery, Renewables, to be Built by Coal Firm on Wasteland its Open Mining Created

UK

Liz Truss’ speech does little to assuage abysmal approval ratings

Never underestimate the power of failure. 

As the Liz Truss disaster show demonstrates, the next pitfall is probably just around the corner. The UK Prime Minister has shown, along with her distinctly oblivious Chancellor of the Exchequer, how to balls up the economy in the shortest timeframe imaginable.

Source: Liz Truss’ speech does little to assuage abysmal approval ratings

Power

United States and Russia: Dangerous export of democracy and dictatorship – Pearls and Irritations

President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin participate in a tete-a-tete during a U.S.-Russia Summit on Wednesday, June 16, 2021, at the Villa La Grange in Geneva.

The United States and Russia are powers with self-serving ambitions, but their covert actions have produced more failures than successes. Even so-called short-term “successes” such as the coup in Iran have become long-term failures or liabilities. Clandestine Soviet activities in East Europe in the Cold War have created an East European membership for the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation that is passionately anti-Russian. U.S. covert action in Central America merely increased the violence in that region, bringing great embarrassment and substantial emigration to the United States.

“Whatsoever a man sowed, that shall he also reap.”

Source: United States and Russia: Dangerous export of democracy and dictatorship – Pearls and Irritations

Putin

Putin really could fall — but will that help the West as much as we think? | Salon.com

Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers a speech during a ceremony to receive credentials from foreign ambassadors to Russia at the Alexander Hall of the Grand Kremlin Palace in Moscow on September 20, 2022. (GAVRIIL GRIGOROV/SPUTNIK/AFP via Getty Images)

Putin faces multiple crises and his grip on power may be fading. None of that will solve the West’s problems

The demagoguery of Trump and his Fox News heralds is more a symptom of this spreading virus than the main cause of our crisis. That cause is partly conspiratorial and malevolent, but often it’s just mindless: Americans (and other Westerners) have been increasingly stressed and dispossessed in recent decades by the frantic financialization and consumerization of civil society. It’s groping and goosing us 24/7, bypassing our minds and hearts on its way to our lower viscera and our wallets by titillating us, intimidating us, tracking us, indebting us and leaving us enmeshed in a spider’s web of commercials come-ons and pressures.

Unlike Putin, Donald Trump is both a product and an accelerant of that social malady. Putin has his oligarchs and his rubber-stamp parliament, but he hasn’t mastered the new autocrats’ learning curve, which may be transforming the West even as he clings to the weakest elements of Russia’s old authoritarianism: a society running on fear more than on love.

Source: Putin really could fall — but will that help the West as much as we think? | Salon.com

America

Will a Jury Actually Convict White Insurrectionists of Seditious Conspiracy? | The Smirking Chimp

 

In the case in question, we know the Oath Keepers followed through.

One of the turncoats, Joshua James, swore in his plea deal that he accompanied Rhodes on the run after J6 and saw him buy and distribute thousands of dollars worth of weapons that he intended to use to stop the transfer of power. James also claims that on Jan 20, Rhodes gave him an AR15-style rifle and said he would “not be taken by law enforcement without a fight.”

This is a test of whether the 19th century statute still has teeth and, moreover, whether a jury is willing to apply it to white insurrectionists.

 

Source: Will a Jury Actually Convict White Insurrectionists of Seditious Conspiracy? | The Smirking Chimp

Fight against Fake News, Fighting Fake News

Old Dog Thought- The Aussie who hates living here or who just hates living?

Fighting Fake News with REAL 9/10/22; Religion in a Secular Democracy; Racism; Media and neo-Nazis; Sky News; Fox News; Fake History;

Education

Jim Mamer: Fake Journalism Is Only the First Draft of Fake History – scheerpost.com – Podcast

Ron DeSantis, is the governor of Florida, although he’s this Trumpian, maybe alternative to Trump from the right wing, was educated at the best schools in America. What is it? Harvard and Yale.

Jim Mamer: Harvard.

Scheer: And yet he mangled history so badly, and in your column, you raised a question of whether it was out of ignorance or malice or what have you, but really, tell us about the state of historical knowledge among young, well, any Americans. You’ve been at it for a long time and you just pointed out these blatant errors. So let’s go there. Do we Americans really know anything about our history, the world’s history, and whose fault is it?

Source: Jim Mamer: Fake Journalism Is Only the First Draft of Fake History – scheerpost.com

Informed Comment

Racism and all its ugliness (Part two) – » The Australian Independent Media Network

John Lord is much too polite in his summary of Andrew Bolt whose career has been built on sensationalism and muddying the waters of real journalism, news, and information while trashing us as a society with a somewhat belief in universal human values and rights for years. Bolt’s even admitted to being a lazy journo and it’s why he became an obit writer. To escape the work and verification involved. Basically, Andrew Bolt has been a privileged a-licker in News Corp’s corporate world and been handed a megaphone to argue he’s “free” to be a shit and citizen who can say and promote whatever he wants in our democratic and civilised society without consequence. Yet in the same breath, he complains he’s been treated unfairly and demonised for being a champion of civilised, mannered and polite debate in leftist boganville. Bolt from his platform of privilege freely spits on Australia’s multiculture, our diversity, and even the means by which we search for truth declaring science simply another fact-less religion.

Bolt has fundamentally made it clear he hates Melbourne and lets us all know he does. Whether its fo for theatrical emphasis, showmanship or money it doesn’t matter does it? The man has spent years complaining us and Melbourne and Australia have returned the feeling. So much so that Bolt hides and even holidays outside of the country whining he and his family walk in fear. He’s living proof that hate begets hate and it shows in his ratings that aren’t really even “his” but are shared ratings with others in the Murdoch stable and they’re either shrinking or small in this land of 25 mill.

Bolt is a self-made idiot. An isolated man who dreams of retiring to an Amsterdam barge one day. There was no mention of his family in that dream. Or the fact it’s a city twice our size and the problems he claims he hates here. Basically, Bolt wants to hide from people and count his money read books written by others look at paintings and listen to opera in the bowels of a boat. It’s a very very individual thing he has going to be paid by a corporation that does much the same globally for money. News Corp has simply abandoned journalism, news and information in exchange for cash for propaganda, influence and putting lipstick on pigs.

My thought for the day

Why do we, as a supposedly enlightened society, need to enshrine in legislation the right to hate each other? That isn’t enlightenment at all. ( John Lord )

Source: Racism and all its ugliness (Part two) – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Truth in Humor

Do The Saints Keep Losing Because Jesus’ Father Didn’t Marry His Mum… – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Peter Dutton thinks that Andrew Thorburn should be re-instated, and not just because Dan Andrews thought that removing him was a good idea. No, it’s like I said: religious institutions have the right to consider religious views when hiring and firing, but nobody else does.

Source: Do The Saints Keep Losing Because Jesus’ Father Didn’t Marry His Mum… – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Neo nazis

How the media helps neo-Nazi child ‘groomers’

A vanishingly small group of neo-Nazis protested a family-friendly event in Moonee Ponds last weekend.

Source: How the media helps neo-Nazi child ‘groomers’

Media

Sky News’ Chris Kenny fails to read fine print over Facebook’s IPA ‘censorship’ | Amanda Meade | The Guardian

Chris Kenny

Kenny is such a lazy journalist he says anything for effect. He claimed Nauru detention centre was a tropical “holiday resort” he’d happily take his family to. He didn’t even apply for permission to do so. Big mouth small foot always deep in it.

But the IPA warriors might have saved their outrage for another day if they had just read the fine print. It was not the content of their ad that was the problem.

Facebook’s rules require ads which have political content to carry a “disclaimer, disclosure and ad labelling”. From the Heart, the campaign for the voice to parliament, had an ad removed earlier for the same reason.

Source: Sky News’ Chris Kenny fails to read fine print over Facebook’s IPA ‘censorship’ | Amanda Meade | The Guardian

Banks

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance hacked – Michael West

Governments guarantee citizens’ savings in banks. However, they don’t subsidise Cryptocurrency savings.

Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, may have lost more than $US100 million ($A156 million) following a hack of its Binance Smart Chain blockchain network.

Source: Cryptocurrency exchange Binance hacked – Michael West

War on Drugs

The Irrational War on Drugs – Consortium News

The lack of emphasis on prevention is revealing. Rather than tackle the drug crisis as a demand-side problem, the U.S. and other Western governments pretend that it is a supply-side problem that can be dealt with by using military force against petty drug dealers and peasants who grow the coca plant. Petro’s cry from the heart at the United Nations attempted to call attention to the root causes of the drug crisis:

“According to the irrational power of the world, the market that razes existence is not to blame; it is the jungle and those who live in it that are to blame. Bank accounts have become unlimited; the money saved by the most powerful people on Earth could not even be spent over the course of centuries. The empty existence produced by the artificiality of competition is filled with noise and drugs. The addiction to money and to possessions has another face: the drug addiction of people who lose the competition in the artificial race that humanity has become. The sickness of loneliness is not cured by [dousing] the forests with glyphosate; the forest is not to blame. To blame is your society educated by endless consumption, by the stupid confusion between consumption and happiness that allows the pockets of the powerful to fill with money.”

 

Source: The Irrational War on Drugs – Consortium News

Russia -Ukraine

Ukrainian Nobel Peace Prize Winner: “What We Need Is Weapons”

“This war is not between two countries, but between two systems: between authoritarianism and democracy.”

Source: Ukrainian Nobel Peace Prize Winner: “What We Need Is Weapons”

UK

The Liz Truss Disaster Show – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Barely into her prime ministership, Truss has laid the basis for its demise. When she and her party return to Westminster, the sense of vultures circling will be palpable. While recent years tell us that polls are nonsensical excursions of fancy, rarely to be trusted, it is hard to sense that the current figures are off. Should they remain at their current levels, a massacre at the ballot box is in the making.

Source: The Liz Truss Disaster Show – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Trump

Political warlord Trump now targets his enemies — and Mitch is first on the list | Salon.com

Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell (Photo illustration by Salon/Getty Images)

Ultimately, as Donald Trump becomes more desperate, he will reveal more of his true self: a violent predator who will almost always attack instead of retreating or otherwise surrendering.

 Last Saturday, Donald Trump took one more step on this journey when he threatened the life of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. On his social media platform Truth Social, Trump accused McConnell of having a “death wish” because he has (on a few specific occasions) supported legislation sponsored by Democrats. Trump also used a racial slur to describe McConnell’s wife, former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, calling her “his China loving wife, Coco Chow!”

Political scientist Brian Klaas, author of “The Despot’s Apprentice: Donald Trump’s Attack on Democracy,” wrote on Twitter that Trump’s threats were “[t]otally detached from reality, inciting political violence — putting a target on a senior member of the U.S. Senate — and a new racist nickname. We can’t just pretend this isn’t happening, because these posts are radicalizing more and more extremists every day.”

Like a cornered animal, Trump is ready to lash out — and he longs to make his violent fantasies come true

Source: Political warlord Trump now targets his enemies — and Mitch is first on the list | Salon.com

corruption

For Proof Reaganomics Was a Sham, Look to American CEOs’ Pay

CEO pay has jumped nearly 1,500 percent since 1978. It had nothing to do with hard work or greater productivity. Corporate bosses simply grabbed what they could.

Source: For Proof Reaganomics Was a Sham, Look to American CEOs’ Pay

Trump

Trump Lawyers Reportedly Told By DOJ Trump Still Has Documents

ANCHORAGE, ALASKA - JULY 09: Former U.S. President Donald Trump walks on stage during a "Save America" rally at Alaska Airlines Center on July 09, 2022 in Anchorage, Alaska. Former President Donald Trump held a "Save America" rally in Anchorage where he campaigned with U.S. House candidate former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and U.S. Senate candidate Kelly Tshibaka.

The New York Times reported on Thursday a top Justice Department official informed former President Donald Trump’s lawyers that the government believes Trump has still not returned all the documents taken from the White House.

Source: Trump Lawyers Reportedly Told By DOJ Trump Still Has Documents

Fight against Fake News, Fighting Fake News

Old Dog Thought- Global Protest “Free Assange”

Fighting Fake News with REAL; 8/10/22; FREE ASSANGE 8th October GLOBAL DEMAND; Australia Too Late; Ukraine, Trump Epionage Act Unpunished;

religion

Voting Liberal is neither liberal nor conservative – » The Australian Independent Media Network

The parties of the right in Australia are changing faster than their voters might recognise. It is increasingly the case that a vote for the “conservatives” is a vote for the radical or religious right.

“Let’s make Victoria like Arizona” after that US state made the medical procedure illegal. The implication can only be that this group aims ultimately to plant the most extreme Christian Nationalist abortion bans from American states in Australia’s civil soil.

Source: Voting Liberal is neither liberal nor conservative – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Informed Comment

Michael West Media – What do you think the arms trade is, a charity? Actually yes, that’s what it is

What do you think the arms trade is, a charity? Actually yes, that’s what it is

All’s not fair at the warfare Expo, where taxpayer-funded arms merchants hobnob with military types by invitation only. “Aggressive” journalists not allowed. Persona non grata Callum Foote reports on Land Forces 2022, Australia’s biggest War Fair.

Source: Michael West Media – investigative journalists – always independent

Fossil Fuel Industry, Fossil fuels

A secretive legal system lets fossil fuel investors sue countries over policies to keep oil and gas in the ground – podcast

An offshore oil platform that is flaring gas.

A new barrier to climate action is opening up in an obscure and secretive part of international trade law, which fossil fuel investors are using to sue countries if policy decisions go against them.

Source: A secretive legal system lets fossil fuel investors sue countries over policies to keep oil and gas in the ground – podcast

America

The most terrifying case of all is about to be heard by the US supreme court | Steven Donziger | The Guardian

The Moore case would in practice strip people of the right to fair elections by placing electoral power in the hands of a small group of officials at the state level who set district maps.

A supermajority of six, unelected ultraconservatives justice – five of which were put on the bench by presidents who did not win the popular vote – have aggressively grabbed yet another batch of cases that will allow them to move American law to the extreme right and threaten US democracy in the process. The leading example of this disturbing shift is a little-known case called Moore v Harper, which could lock in rightwing control of the United States for generations.

Source: The most terrifying case of all is about to be heard by the US supreme court | Steven Donziger | The Guardian

Informed Comment

Our Democracy Was Stolen A Long Time Ago w/ Chris Hedges and Jimmy Dore – scheerpost.com

 Our Democracy Was Stolen A Long Time Ago w/ Chris Hedges and Jimmy Dore “American democracy has been steadily eroding since the Reagan administration, Hedges says, and if you think Donald Trump’s arrival on the political scene is what killed democracy you have not been paying attention.”

Source: Our Democracy Was Stolen A Long Time Ago w/ Chris Hedges and Jimmy Dore – scheerpost.com

Fossil Fuel Industry

As Saudis stab Biden in the Back with OPEC+ Oil Cut, Only Electric Vehicles can Make US Independent

One good thing about the OPEC+ production cut and consequent likely rise in gasoline prices? It will help even more consumers see the beauty of having an electric car. We just plug ours in at home. During the day (I don’t work 9-5), it is taking in electricity generated by our solar panels, which is free. The idea of running my car on clean, free sunlight is a trip. I look forward to the time, which is rapidly nearing, when everyone can afford to do the same, and can in fact save loads of money in doing so, not to mention saving the earth from a baleful climate emergency.

Source: As Saudis stab Biden in the Back with OPEC+ Oil Cut, Only Electric Vehicles can Make US Independent

Israel

‘Refusing is the minimum’: Why these Israeli teens are objecting to army service

Left to right: Evyatar Moshe Rubin, Einat Gerlitz, Nave Shabtay Levin, and Shahar Schwartz, conscientious objectors refusing to enlist in the Israeli army, August 2022. (Oren Ziv)

Ahead of imprisonment, four conscientious objectors share their reasons for refusing conscription and their hopes of inspiring opposition to apartheid.

Source: ‘Refusing is the minimum’: Why these Israeli teens are objecting to army service

Israel

Alleged recruiters for Israeli military face criminal charges in Canada | The Electronic Intifada

A woman in a white t-shirt stands in front of an Israeli army jeep

Nora Barrows-Friedman Lobby Watch 6 October 2022 A woman in a white t-shirt stands in front of an Israeli army jeep Sar-El Canada must respond to allegations that it acts as an intermediary to recruit Canadians to volunteer in a non-combatant role with the Israeli military. (Sar-El promotional video)

For the first time, criminal charges have been pursued in a Canadian court over alleged recruitment for the Israeli military.

On 22 September, a judge issued a summons order to Sar-El Canada on allegations that the organization has encouraged or enticed Canadians to volunteer with Israel’s army. Legal experts say that is in violation of Canada’s Foreign Enlistment Act (FEA).

Source: Alleged recruiters for Israeli military face criminal charges in Canada | The Electronic Intifada

Russia -Ukraine

Putin’s generals face public backlash as invasion crumbles

A missile has demolished an apartment block in a Ukrainian region that Moscow says it has annexed, killing seven people.

In rare, but growing, public criticism of Russia’s top military officials, Kirill Stremousov, the deputy head of the Russian-backed administration in Kherson region, slammed “generals and ministers” in Moscow for failing to understand the problems on the front lines.

There was no immediate comment from Russia’s defence ministry.

Discontent has begun to bubble up among even loyalist state TV hosts.

“Please explain to me what the general staff’s genius idea is now?” Vladimir Solovyov, one of the most prominent Russian talk show hosts, said on his livestream channel.

“Do you think time is on our side? They (the Ukrainians) have hugely increased their amount of weapons … But what have you done in that time?”

Source: Putin’s generals face public backlash as invasion crumbles

Russia -Ukraine

Pathos and Panic: Russians Are Mobilized for an Undeclared War – Mother Jones

Russia is not at war, despite what you may have heard. Despite the mobilization of reservists, the stories and images of destruction and death, despite the refugees fleeing. Russia is not at war, as Dmitry Peskov, press secretary of the Kremlin stressed in a recent interview. Instead, it is conducting a special military operation “to fulfill certain goals in Ukraine.” Reservists have had to be mobilized for this special military operation, half a year since it began, because “we have been de facto confronted…with the NATO block and all its logistics capabilities.”

Source: Pathos and Panic: Russians Are Mobilized for an Undeclared War – Mother Jones

Putin

Putin Commits ‘Blunders Of Shakespearean Proportions’ | Crooks and Liars

 

Putin Commits 'Blunders Of Shakespearean Proportions'

So they’re playing a strong hand, but what does that matter when the guy across the table has nukes? The good guys have no choice but to keep doing what they’re doing and hope for the best.

Hope, as we know, is not a strategy. But in the absence of any other options, it’s all we have to fall back on.

Source: Putin Commits ‘Blunders Of Shakespearean Proportions’ | Crooks and Liars

Fight against Fake News, Fighting Fake News, Uncategorized

Old Dog Thought- CPAC was the celebration of the new Religious Right Christians. Like ISIS but normalised. The intolerant anti-Secular new MAGA Party

Fighting Fake News with REAL 7/10/22; Evangelism and Politics; MAKE AMERICA”S GOP AUSTRALIAN is here; ISIS showed them the way to the Christian State;

ALP Government,

Tanya Plibersek should seize the moment

Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek delivers her Press Club address.

Will she side with her environmental constituency which is calling for an end to more coal mines, gas fracking and oil wells? To be blunt, is Plibersek there to protect Australia’s environment or the Labor Party?

Source: Tanya Plibersek should seize the moment