Meanwhile Andrew Bolt, Rowan Dean, etal keep pumping out the notion that global science is just a hoax, a new religion, and that the planet isn’t subject to man-made climate change,or that the warming we are experiencing is in fact good for the planet, why? Because if we accepted otherwise CO2 emitters and producers might just have to change the course of history and forgo the profits they have been making.
Climate change has drastically affected water levels in famed rivers across Europe. Whole territories are vanishing with the current drought — possibly the worst in 500 years, writes Dr Binoy Kampmark.
Critics like to paint a picture of debtors as overeducated elites demanding a handout while idly snacking on $15 avocado toasts. But I’ve worked hard and lived modestly, and my debt is still haunting me — even after the White House’s partial cancellation.
Lately, Donald Trump has been screaming into the void. He is taking to his own social media site, Truth Social, to complain about the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago, but not many people (bar a few reporters) seem to be listening. That’s a far cry from his days as a Twitter influencer before he was finally booted from the platform.
We’ve always lost agents. We’ve always had traitors who sold those names for personal profit.But we never suspected a president.Time to indict Trump, and found out what he’s done.
Trump’s White House issues an ominous request for a list of top U.S. spies
According to the affidavit, the government previously found in Trump’s possession 184 documents marked ‘classified’, 67 marked ‘confidential’, 92 marked ‘secret’, and 25 ‘top secret’
First, expand the Supreme Court to add balance to a branch of government that has been stolen by radicalized Republicans. This is not a far-fetched idea. The Constitution doesn’t specify how many justices there should be — and we’ve already changed the size of the Court seven times in American history.
Second, impose term limits on Supreme Court justices, and have them rotate with judges on the U.S. courts of appeals.
Third, Congress must restore federal voting rights protections and expand access to the ballot box. We need national minimum standards for voting in our democracy.
But these congressional reforms can only happen if Democrats retain control of the House in the midterm elections and add at least two more senators willing to reform or abolish the filibuster.
Your vote is important, and not just in federal elections. Make sure you also vote for state legislators who understand what’s at stake and will preserve our democracy.
Because, as this Supreme Court case shows, the future of our democracy is not guaranteed.
The ability of thinking human beings to blindly embrace what they are being told without referring to evaluation and the consideration of fact, truth, and reason never cease to amaze me. It is tantamount to the rejection of rational explanation.
We would be a much better society if we took the risk of thinking for ourselves, rather than allowing ourselves to be manipulated and obstructed by the unadulterated crap served up by the media, self-serving government and self-interest groups. (John Lord)
The former prime minister, who faces a legal probe into his decision to secretly appoint himself to multiple cabinet portfolios, has updated his financial interest register to parliament.
It reveals he was paid an undisclosed cash amount and given free business class flights to Tokyo and luxury accommodation when he skipped the first week of parliament in July.
Crikey’s article did not name Lachlan specifically, but “the Murdochs” in general. So if Rupert agrees with Lachlan about this article, shouldn’t he also be suing? And if he doesn’t, might we conclude that Rupert doesn’t mind the imputation of being Trump’s co-conspirator? Or, at the very least, that Rupert doesn’t consider Crikey’s article damaging enough to sue over? And if that’s not it, then why hasn’t Rupert sued?
In the legal correspondence with the Murdochs that Crikey published this week, it quoted Lachlan’s own words back at him. In his 2014 Keith Murdoch Oration (Keith Murdoch was his grandfather), Lachlan Murdoch argued “censorship should be resisted in all its insidious forms”.“We should be vigilant of the gradual erosion of our freedom to know, to be informed and make reasoned decisions in our society and in our democracy.”
Lachlan Murdoch’s business record in Australia hasn’t been all that great. One Tel springs to mind “At the time, Mr Packer and Mr Murdoch,lost $1 billion invested by family vehicles PBL and News Corp, They said they’d had been misled about One.Tel’s financial position.“
Why does Lachlan Murdoch, a Philosophy major, believe his reputation will be improved by this legal action against Crikey?
Millions of dollars in legal costs are expected to be spent as News Corp co-chairman and Fox Corporation chief executive Lachlan Murdoch, eldest son of media baron Rupert, sues a comparative minnow in Australia, Crikey, for defamation over a June 29 article.
It is all but impossible, if you are a tourist, to enter Gaza. Entry via Israel is prohibited to everyone except Gaza residents, international aid workers, journalists, and diplomats; so too, under Israel’s watchful eye, is entry via Egypt. If you do not have a Gaza hawiyya (ID), do not expect to be allowed in.
THE WORLD enjoyed a monumentally satisfying series of moments recently, moments that don’t come often enough, of watching a key far-right figure get their comeuppance.
When the Separation of Powers were all but forgotten and Howard thought he was in control when feting the extreme religious sects to come to and join the Liberal Party.
By ruling in secret, the Morrison Government was not being responsible to the parliament and was not accountable to the people — who are the basis of its legitimacy, writes Bilal Cleland.
Bombshell legal advice from the nation’s solicitor-general examining Scott Morrison’s secret power grab is “scathing” of the decision to trash time-honoured conventions that ministerial changes are made public.
“(The system) is just not delivering that strong responsible sustainable wages growth that we need to see, which has been absent from our economy for the best of the decade,” he told ABC Radio on Thursday.“
We’re not naive about this issue being contentious.”
Dr Chalmers said working Australians had gone backwards under the current enterprise bargaining system while businesses were recording large profits.
Recently released Australian Bureau of Statistics data for the June quarter showed pay packets were falling behind the rising cost of living.
The business community has broadly opposed the multi-employer bargaining proposal.
The good news is that the revolution we have all been waiting for is already happening. We just don’t hear much about it, as the fossil fuel industry has run a relentless fear campaign to protect their corporate interests. The truth is that change is already sweeping the world, from boardrooms to homes right across the planet.
This is humanity’s moment to right the wrongs of the past, to heal our relationship with each other and all life on Earth. It’s now time to meet the visionaries who are already showing us that another world is not only possible, but inevitable. And unstoppable.A new day is dawning.
Will the LNP argue too much or too little? Has the ALP caved? What is the % increase?
Research shows 90% of coal and 60% of oil and gas reserves must stay in the ground if we’re to have half a chance of limiting global warming to 1.5℃ this century.
The reality is less rosy and more delicate. Australian diplomacy, practised in its ignorance, has little understanding about the importance of not losing face, and how it remains the precept that governs the cultural considerations of many of its neighbours. Coarseness, and an unqualified resolve to go to war in comradely fashion with the United States, remain dominant. Instead of being an accommodating bridge between East and West, Canberra remains a fashioned spear for Western power.
The man who should be President and knows he never will be
Bernie Sanders is holding rallies in cities across the country — not to stump for candidates but to broadcast ordinary people’s struggles, build enthusiasm for the labor movement, and promote pride among the working class. That’s exactly what we need.
Robert Pape, a professor at the University of Chicago who studies political violence, has conducted half a dozen nationwide polls since the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and repeatedly found that between 15 million and 20 million American adults believe that violence would be justified to return Trump to office.
Trump’s claim that America has become more violent and dangerous over the last year and a half is true. But this is not because of Biden and the Democrats. It is largely because of Trump — and the Republican violence machine he has created.
When in Opposition the LNP can be relied on being far more Socialist. The “cost of living” for ordinary Australians suddenly becomes foremost and not the cost of labor weighing down the economy.
Forget the past. The problems start now and they lie with Labor and the blind promises they made when not knowing what the LNP had kept hidden. Hidden for the seeming sake of their “integrity” and openness in tact. Susan Ley and Peter Dutton keep talking about electricity prices but not that report about their increase well hidden and buried 6 months before the last election. Now that’s the price we bear for her “integrity”
Yep, I think that about covers it. Ignore the past, don’t have talkfests to talk about the future, act without consulting, build nuclear reactors to bring prices and emissions down sometime before 2050.
And remember that John Howard is always available to promote his book and to remind you that the Liberals believe in the free market so they’re prepared to spend vast amounts of government money to ensure that the free market works effectively.
To add insult to high farce, Scott Morrison also came out at his own press conference where, apart from bleating for almost an hour about tempests and ships at sea and how he’d been up there on the cross for us thanks very much you thankless bastards, he offered a singular apology to his fellow government colleagues. Yes, his mea-not-really-culpa was just to them.
There is no better example of how Australia’s defamation laws enable the rich and powerful to intimidate their critics than Lachlan Murdoch suing Crikey.com over a comment piece concerning Fox News, Donald Trump and the Washington insurrection of January 6, 2021.
Governor-General David Hurley had a meeting with the board of the fraudulent $18 million charity, Australian Future Leaders Foundation, on the 18th of August 2022 which is the day after Scott Morrison held his press conference trying to justify his secret self-appointment to 5 ministerial positions.
It is blatantly obvious that Governor-General David Hurley’s meeting (18/8/22) with the board of the Australian Future Leaders Foundation (AFLF) was a crisis meeting as their fraud is certain to come under close scrutiny given Morrison’s pathetic attempt to justify his self-appointments.
Attention surrounds the actions of Scott Morrison in appointing himself to extra ministries, unbeknown to the nation, even colleagues. But this is not the only area where the Coalition played fast and loose with our governing conventions. And in doing so it has opened the office of the Governor-General to another controversy, writes #Mate.
Opinion | China Suffers Through ‘Worst Heatwave Ever Recorded’ | Andy Rowell
In a year when climate records—from floods, fire, and drought—are being shattered daily like shards of glass, there is one country that bests them all: China. The country is experiencing a heatwave like no other.
It has lasted over seventy days, with record breaking temperatures at day and at night.
Over 100 million people are affected in an area covering 500,000 square miles of the country, experiencing record temperatures exceeding 104°F (40°C). To put this into perspective, this is equivalent to the size of Texas, Colorado and California combined.
Experts are calling it the “worst heatwave ever recorded in global history,” or “Worst heat wave known in world climatic history.”
Israel found Mohammed El Halabi guilty of diverting $50 million from World Vision charity, ignoring compelling facts: the total budget for 10 years was under $23 million; El Halabi’s alleged ‘confession’ was directed by Israeli authorities; independent audits showed Israeli charges were unfounded; and both the Australian government (a major donor to World Vision) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) conducted special reviews and found no wrongdoing.
In violation of international law, Israel kept Mohammed El Halabi in prison for weeks before he was allowed access to an attorney, and before informing his family of his whereabouts. He reported that his Israeli interrogators beat him – the UN says his treatment “may amount to torture.”
Israel’s reliance on highly questionable “secret evidence” to convict El Halabi (and thousands of other Palestinians) indicates a deeply flawed judicial system.
Western estimates of Russian dead in the Ukraine war have ranged from more than 15,000 to over 20,000 — more than the Soviet Union lost during its 10-year war in Afghanistan. The Pentagon said last week that as many as 80,000 Russian troops have been killed or wounded, eroding Moscow’s ability to conduct big offensives.
We cannot accept the LNP’s and Dutton’s cry to “forget the past and get on with it”
Morrison is not yet telling the full story. We have no reason to believe anything he says. There is clear evidence of trying to get around the requirements of the constitution and breaking any number of conventions and understanding about how responsible democratic government operates. There’s been a long pattern of this. Morrison may now be dead meat, but the smell, the feel and the taste of his lawless regime will persist until there is a searching investigation.
Former prime minister Tony Abbott has refused to defend Scott Morrison’s decision to secretly appoint himself to five ministries, following scathing advice from the nation’s top lawyer.
Sea life is facing two major challenges from the heat-trapping carbon dioxide we spew out when we drive internal combustion engine (ICE) cars or heat our homes and businesses with coal or fossil gas. Extra CO2 in the atmosphere prevents heat from the sun from radiating back out into space the way it used to before 1750, so instead it heats up the surface of the earth, whether dry land or the oceans. One challenge is that as carbon dioxide is absorbed by the ocean, it makes the water more acidic. It is like throwing hydrochloric acid into your pet’s fish bowl.
Gantz’s politics, like those of the wider Israeli “center,” mimic many of Likud’s right-wing policies in all but name; his new alliance with Gideon Sa’ar, a former rival of Netanyahu within Likud, reaffirms that ideological kinship. And when it comes to the Palestinians, Gantz — like his coalition partner Yair Lapid — has promised to deliver more of the same: a regime that has no qualms with waging constant violence to keep Palestinians under Israeli control, from fighter jets over Khan Younis to bulldozers in Masafer Yatta.
The second truth is that the defense minister, while clearly emboldened by his impunity, is also hounded by insecurities. It is no coincidence that the Palestinian NGOs targeted by Gantz’s order have listed his name as a key suspect for the International Criminal Court to investigate as a war criminal, and are on the frontlines of exposing his crimes and turning international opinion against Israeli apartheid. Even as Gantz rides on his power trip, Palestinians and their allies are still fighting to make sure he does not sleep soundly at night.
Extremism expert Stephanie Foggett: How the far right is winning the “information war” | Salon.com
It will be an anti-democratic world. This world is one where the “white race” deserves to be at the top. White supremacists believe they were made to be at the top. For the far-right and white supremacists, there are people they should rightfully defend, and everybody else is a threat. America and Europe will be white ethnostates, with white heterosexual males at the top of the social and political order who are protecting white heterosexual females (if they conform) and white children. Anybody who doesn’t fit this mold will be subjected to persecution and violence. It’s a genocidal political worldview, underpinned by racism, antisemitism, misogyny, homophobia and anti-liberalism.
It is truly tragic to see that there are people in the Republican Party, Trump movement and the larger “mainstream” right who are mainstreaming such vile beliefs and the horrors they want to force on the world.
The impetus for the decline is being driven by the Christian White Right Males who believe they are being replaced. Not by the working class but by their Multicultural equivalents.
Scott Morrison’s actions are the standard for democracy in decline and it is time for Western governments to be held accountable for their hypocrisy, writes Sam Leckie.
It seems what Chris Stirewalt, ex-political editor at Fox for 11 yrs who was fired after being the first to declare Arizona for the Dems in 2020, hit the nail on the head in his book on the Murdoch’s and Fox. They aren’t in the business for any ideological reasons. They are in it for the money and ratings. While they currently seem to be losing badly they are making an enormous leap in profits and that’s all that matters.
The Murdochs are losing that battle on all counts in Australia. Money, ratings, and who they support are all losers and have been for years so they are now suing the opposition media who have far less money why? Because they can and and not because their personal feelings have been hurt. It’s an attention seeking shot across the bows of their critics down under. Many have said a lot worse than Crikey and their publishers. But Sky News need something to rant about to attracy attention. Meanwhile in America Fox is being sued for billions by Dominion the voting machine company for the damages Fox has caused their business and not their feelings.
what Fox’s kingmakers look for in candidates — unhinged demagoguery for Carlson and unthinking fealty to Trump for Hannity — doesn’t necessarily appeal to swing state voters. And Fox is now floundering to respond as its hand-picked nominees imperil the GOP’s chances of taking control of the Senate.Some network personalities are acknowledging that the party’s nominees are unusually weak — albeit, not the ones they themselves supported.
The recent scandal involving former PM Scott Morrison has shown that he is still a threat to our democracy even out of the top job, writes Paul Begley.
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