The latest FBI data shows political attacks increasing again as Donald Trump dominates American politics. Alan Austin presents an update.
Source: U.S. violence surges as Trump and Murdoch cash in on anger and hatred
Australia once signed an international agreement to welcome asylum seekers and we saw that broken. The LNP called them “illegals” if they arrived by boat. First Nation Peoples were aware that promises of a Voice to parliament had been broken by Australian governments in the past so requested their right to a voice be enshrined in our constitution on moral and ethical grounds and we voted No. Treaties and promises can be broken at the drop of a hat, and have by governments like John Howard’s. We saw Peter Dutton’s attitude when he laughed about Pacific Islanders with Tony Abbott and Scot Morrison on TV no less. Treaties are easily broken Howard simply got rid of ASTIC.
In addition, the announcement this week of an Australia–Tuvalu Falepili Union Treaty is groundbreaking. Under this deal, Australia will provide migration pathways for people from Tuvalu facing the existential threat of climate change. It is the world’s first bilateral agreement on climate mobility.
Seven federal politicians, which could include the Prime Minister, had complaints of sexual assault made against them in the period from the 24th of February 2021 until the 30th of June 2022 which is the year-and-a-half period after Brittany Higgins’ allegations first became public knowledge.
Yet the Australian Federal Police failed to charge any of them which is consistent with how the federal police operate a protection racket for federal politicians.
Targeting Hospitals A hospital is the bedrock and ultimate symbol of Humanity. Israel’s open, systematic targeting of Gaza’s hospitals leaves no room for doubt: it has embarked on a barbarian war of total annihilation in Gaza.
A Poem said when the Israeli IDF comes knocking
You there, by the threshold of our door,
come in and drink Arabic coffee with us
(you may feel that you are human like us)
You there, by the threshold of our door,
get out of our mornings
so that we may be assured that
we are humans like you
A hunger for genocide and ethnic cleansing colours senior Israeli officials’ statements and has influenced their conduct in this war. Talk of civilian casualties is brushed off, and so are calls for a ceasefire, writes Vijay Prashad.
Source: Are You Human Like Us?
While Peter Dutton Pumps up Anti-Genocide as Anti-Semitism Jews around the world and in Israel are demonstrating for peace. Polls in Israel show 70% of Israelis want Netanyahu sacked.
several thousand Jews and their allies shut down the main terminal of Grand Central Station during rush hour in New York City, demanding a ceasefire in Gaza. Organized by Jewish Voice for Peace, the activists at the peaceful sit-in wore black T-shirts that read “Not In Our Name.” “It’s the largest sit-in protest the city has seen in over two decades,” Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman said. About 400 people were arrested, including rabbis.
American Jews have mobilized several thousand Jews across the U.S. to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. ADL calls these Jewish organizations “hate groups.”
Source: Anti-Defamation League Maps Jewish Peace Rallies With Antisemitic Attacks
What would Dutton do?
“In our thousands, in our millions, we are all Palestinians,” demonstrators chanted at Saturday’s march, described as one of the largest political protests in U.K. history.
Source: Hundreds of Thousands Join London March to Demand ‘Cease-Fire Now’ in Gaza
A profound division exists between Zionist advocates of Israel on the one hand, and both secular and religious Jews, on the other, who reject Zionism and thus the very idea of a separate state for the Jews. Most Jews must be somewhere in between. For years, they have cringed at Israel’s actions without, however, questioning the ethnocratic nature of the Israeli state. For them, “Israel’s right to exist” is sacred because they fear that the only alternative is a physical destruction of Israeli Jews. Even though most of them live in liberal democracies, it is hard for them to fathom that Israel may change its nature, like South Africa did a few decades ago, and become a liberal state with equal rights for everyone on the entire territory under Israeli control between the Mediterranean and the river Jordan.
Dutton’s folly protesting genocide is not anti-Semitism,
The worldwide protest movement against the Israeli atrocities in Gaza and the West Bank is growing. Hundreds of thousands are marching for Palestine in cities and towns all across the globe. Dr Martin Hirst looks at how far the movement has come and how far it has to go.
Source: Peace in Palestine needs us — in our thousands and our millions
Israel simply says “Evacuate”. But how do you evacuate severely sick people and premature babies from hospitals? The Israeli solution bit by bit
Reuters reports that Al-Shifa hospital complex has been forced to cease operations after its final remaining generator was hit in a bombardment. As I write, dozens of premature babies in incubators are in danger, and two have reportedly died.
Source: Israel’s War on Gaza’s Hospitals and Patients: al-Shifa Bombed again, as 20 of 36 Hospitals Go Dark
According to Peter Dutton to demonstrate against Israel is to be Anti-Semitic and anti-Australian. But to demonstrate against Asylum seekers, Muslims, Africans, and Indigenous Australians is being a true blue Aussie.
In Gaza, the 16 year old ghetto of two million people that Israel created, it seems that we are looking at Israel’s own hideous “final solution” with their collective punishment of a whole civilian population, their catastrophic genocidal practices and their mass ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. After decades of a systematic, sustained and strategic oppression, the Israeli policy appears to be nearing its final completion.
Source: Gaza: Israel’s hideous “final solution” – Pearls and Irritations
If Donald Trump wins back the presidency, he plans to quickly detain millions of undocumented immigrants in vast camps in Texas, try to end birthright citizenship, renew a version of his effort to ban Muslims from entering the United States, and deny visas to foreigners whose politics his advisers don’t like, the New York Times reported Saturday.
Source: Donald Trump Is Reportedly Planning an Anti-Immigrant “Blitz” – Mother Jones
Internal BP documents discovered in the Deepwater Horizon case in the US indicate CSIRO’s science was manipulated by the oil company
Lawyers from The Downs Law Group, a Miami (US) based law firm, have sent a letter to the CEO of the CSIRO alleging that global oil giant BP has had a significant influence over the organisation’s research.
The Downs Law Group is a personal injury law firm that works on a ‘no-win, no-fee’ basis. They are currently representing numerous response workers and Gulf Coast residents who were affected by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and have filed lawsuits alleging personal injury and medical claims against BP.
In a letter, sent to newly appointed CSIRO CEO Doug Hilton yesterday, the group alleged that BP engaged in a campaign of misinformation,
to promote the false premise in the scientific literature that the [Deepwater Horizon oil spill] and BP’s response were less harmful to people and the environment than independent science provides,
according to Jason Clark, an associate attorney at The Downs Law Group.
These studies all involved the environmental impacts of the Deepwater Horizon disaster that killed 11 crewmen and spilled over 700 million litres of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
Source: The BP Papers: CSIRO accused of helping oil major BP play down environment damage – Michael West
Julian and David are Spartacus. The Palestinians are Spartacus. People who fill the streets with flags and principle and solidarity are Spartacus. We are all Spartacus if we want to be.
Source: JOHN PILGER: We Are Spartacus
“Jewish people exterminating men, women and children in a concentration camp is _______.”
How do you finish a sentence like that? The words should fall like acid into your ear drums. It should be an impossible sentence. And yet, not so. We are witnessing it today in Gaza – the world’s largest open-air prison, home and hell to 2.3 million brutally repressed human beings – carried out by the Jewish State of Israel. Genocide.
Source: The Holocaust should be a lesson not a template – Pearls and Irritations
In the West Bank, the Israeli army has banned Palestinian farmers from reaching their land and groups of settlers are burning farmers’ crops. Jacobin spoke to olive growers about Israel’s draconian moves to destroy their livelihoods.
Source: In the West Bank, Israeli Settlers Are Burning Palestinians’ Olive Trees
The Gaza Health Ministry said Friday that at least 11,078 Palestinians—including more than 3,000 women and over 4,500 children—have been killed and upward of 27,000 injured by Israeli bombs and bullets.
Source: 750+ Journalists to Colleagues: ‘Tell the Full Truth’ About Israeli Atrocities in Gaza
MOWING THE GRASS
On the contrary, several analysts and experts were grinning at the reference to Israel’s strategy of mounting periodic attacks on the Palestinians to cull each new generation of militants. Such is the nonchalance of Washington’s policy-advising cognoscenti toward the ongoing and systematic genocide of Gaza’s oppressed population.
Source: Blades of Grass
If he wins the 2024 election, Donald Trump will be America’s first dictator. This plan of retribution is advancing rapidly in preparation for Trump’s return to the White House – an outcome that seems increasingly likely given early polls which show him leading President Biden in key swing states. Trump’s MAGA supporters and tens of millions of other Republican voters support the traitor ex-president and his attempt to end multiracial democracy and to replace it with a new form of American apartheid. The Republican Party is in Trump’s thrall.
Source: The secret to Trump’s revenge plot: He’s making his plans for vengeance public | Salon.com
My thought for the day
Commitment to the use of critical reason, factual evidence, and scientific methods of inquiry, rather than faith and mysticism, is the best way of providing solutions to human problems.
American exceptionalism has a lot to answer for. ( John Lord )
Source: Who is this guy? – » The Australian Independent Media Network
As I said, I’m skeptical of any “planning” going on inside Trump’s head. But I’ve become convinced that a small band of Trump sycophants (likely including the lapdog authoritarian trio of Roger Stone, Mike Flynn, and Steve Bannon) is right now clearing the runway for an even more neofascist regime than was Trump 1. As I said, I don’t believe he’ll be reelected.
But if he is, there’s reason to be worried. Very worried.
Source: What Is Trump Planning if He Gets a Second Term? Chaos and Consolidation. | The Smirking Chimp
“What Aboriginal people ask is that the modern world now makes the sacrifices necessary to give us a real future. To relax its grip on us. To let us breathe…” This quiet ask became the Uluru Statement’s gracious invitation to walk together to a better future for all. That such modesty and generosity was so cruelly snubbed was a shameful betrayal of our Indigenous peoples’ faith in the fundamental decency of their fellow citizens, their hope for a future in which their children can flourish, and their love for a shared idea of Australia in which they can take their rightful place.
IA’S VOICE We have published extensively in favour of the Voice. Most recently, the words, studies and investigations of Ranald Macdonald, Dr Victoria Fielding and Anthony Klan have shed light on this shameful chapter in our history.
Independent Australia will continue to use our voice to publish in favour of First Nations people being actively involved in the decision-making process over their own lives and the future of their children.
We will reject arrogant attempts at solutions to problems of which non-Indigenous Australians have no real understanding.
And we will advocate for the rights of First Peoples, who cared for this land for 60,000 years before our pale-by-comparison, yet destructive, 200-year blip in time.
Source: IA’s last word on the Voice
By Andrew J Constable, University of Tasmania and Jess Melbourne-Thomas, CSIRO | – (The Conversation) – While the Southern Ocean around Antarctica has been warming for decades, the annual extent of winter sea ice seemed relatively stable – compared to the Arctic. In some areas Antarctic sea ice was even increasing. That was until 2016, when everything changed.
Source: Winter Sea Ice in Antarctica’s Southern Ocean is in Disturbing Decline: 200 Scientists Sound Alarm
I was wondering what was taking prominent Christian Zionists so long to visit Israel. And then I saw him…Scott Morrison landing with the arrogance of someone totally convinced he’s betting on the winning horse.
Source: Scott Morrison’s heartless yearning for Armageddon – Pearls and Irritations
We have failed you. This is the awful guilt we carry. We tried. But we did not try hard enough. We will go to Rafah. Many of us. Reporters. We will stand outside the border with Gaza in protest. We will write and film. This is what we do. It is not much. But it is something. We will tell your story again.
Source: Chris Hedges: Letter to the Children of Gaza – scheerpost.com
To make a distinction between combatant and non-combatant, the molten fired freedom fighter and the mindful parent, is one of those fictional games that entertains the classroom of undergraduate fantasy but proves impossible to apply in battle. The agenda here is unmistakable: Israel, with the assistance and encouragement of the United States, is intent on burying any toothy, sprightly, worthy Palestinian resistance for the next generation. Should they succeed, they will only do so for a few years, if that.
Source: Viciousness Regnant: Humanitarianism as a Weasel Word – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Mark Curtis looks at the current war in Gaza from the perspective of Britain’s imperial past in this edited extract from his book Secret Affairs: Britain’s Collusion with Radical Islam.
The official policy of “non-interference” had the effect of assisting the stronger side, meaning acquiescence in Israel’s take-over of most of Palestine and “ethnic cleansing,” which included the “transfer” of Palestinian Arabs into Jordan.
Source: When Britain Aided Israel’s Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Gaza-Israel war has been the deadliest conflict for media workers since the organisation began counting statistics in 1992.
Source: More than one journalist per day is dying in the Israel-Gaza conflict. This has to stop
BREAKING: Donald Trump makes a stunning admission during a new interview and lays out exactly how he plans to abuse his powers to become a dictator if he wins in 2024.
This should send a chill down the spine of every democracy-loving American…
During an interview with Univision, Trump once again falsely claimed that he is being unfairly targeted by President Biden and the Department of Justice.
“They’ve weaponized the Justice Department, they’ve weaponized the FBI and they’ve come at me with the worst indictments,” whined Trump.
“If they want to follow through on this yeah it could certainly happen in reverse, it could certainly happen in reverse…” he said ominously.
“What they’ve done is they’ve released the genie out of the box,” said Trump.
It is perhaps worth noting that genies are traditionally kept in lamps or bottles, rarely boxes. It seems that Trump, as usual, got confused and mixed up “genie’s lamp” and “Pandora’s box.”
“They have done something that allows the next party I mean if somebody… If I happen to be president and I see somebody who’s doing well and beating me very badly I say ‘Go down and indict them,'” said Trump.
“Mostly what that would be, you know, they would be out of business!” he added. “They’d be out! They’d be out of the election.”
Trump could not be any more clear here. By falsely claiming that Biden is abusing his powers to weaponize the Justice Department, Trump is laying the groundwork to weaponize it himself.
He wants to turn the FBI into his personal Gestapo who he can then sic on political rivals based on fabricated charges. Trump is threatening nothing less than the total dismantlement of the American judicial system.
The remarks also indicate that Trump fully intends to illegally run for a third term if he wins in 2024. Why else would he need to worry about rivals polling well once he’s in the White House? He would only care about such a thing if he plans on running in 2028.
This man is a dire threat to democracy. It is your patriotic duty to vote blue.
Bannon’s show is a staging ground for Trump’s plans to gut the civil service and normalize deploying the military against civilians
Occupy Democrats
@OccupyDemocrats
BREAKING: Donald Trump has a hysterical meltdown after it’s revealed that Special Counsel Jack Smith will likely call numerous Mar-a-Lago witnesses to testify in the classified documents case. This is how you know that Trump is getting very worried…
Taking to Truth Social, Trump complained that “Fake News CNN” did a story “leaked by Deranged Prosecutor Jack Smith and his massive team of Radical Left Lunatics” that “various people saw papers and boxes at Mar-a-Lago.” The story in question was reliable and well-sourced and stated that Smith might call a plumber, a maid, a chauffeur, and a woodworker from the Florida estate to testify. “Of course they did!” Trump went on. “They may have been [sic] the boxes etc. that were openly and plainly brought from the White House, as is my right under the Presidential Records Act. I even supplied, upon request, Security Tapes to these Election Interfering Thugs.”
At this point, it should be clear to every American that Trump did not have a right to smuggle classified documents out of the White House as it is a federal crime. As for supplying “Security Tapes” we now know that Trump and his minions (allegedly) engaged in flagrant obstruction of justice and tried to hide and move things around from investigators.
Not done just yet, Trump went on to complain that the CNN story is not really “Breaking News” but is in fact “Breaking Fake News.” Gee, how clever of him. True to form, Trump then pivoted to attacking and smearing “CROOKED Joe Biden” for having documents at his house. The huge difference, of course, is that Biden had them accidentally and immediately handed them over instead of attempting to obstruct justice.
“Deranged Jack Smith has spent over $100,000,000 investigating me on this phony Russia, Russia, Russia, type Scam,” Trump added. “How much $’s have they spent investigating Crooked Joe on his much bigger boxes deal?”
It should go without saying, but Trump doesn’t give a damn about the government spending money. He skyrocketed the debt and deficit during his tenure. No, Trump just hates that money is being used to finally bring him to justice after a lifetime of crime. As far as we’re concerned, this is money well spent.
The ex-president’s niece said, “I think the simplest way to put it is this: Every lie he’s told, every ounce of psychic energy he’s spent over the decades has been in the service of protecting him from the truth about who he is. And the closer he gets to being confronted with that truth, the more dangerous he is going to get, the more out of control he is going to get. yes, we saw some fireworks in the courtroom, but that was a mere prelude to what we can expect, especially if, hopefully, he loses in 2024.”
The wise Australian that got away
Though, sadly, it is now too late to explain to his father in person, Varoufakis’s new book Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism answers the question in the form of an extended reflection addressed to his father.
Source: Is capitalism dead? Yanis Varoufakis thinks it is – and he knows who killed it
The Coalition government was not in power in 2023 and so the Labor party took up the baton the Morrison Government handed over, in what looked initially like a carte blanche endorsement of this as a constitutional change. And yet, with the shattering defeat of the referendum, the Labor party appears to have either dropped the baton, or it was knocked out of their hands? How did the 60% support, which had been reasonably stable for a number of years, plummet in just 5 months?
Source: The Voice of the Coalition – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Rugby League players Latrell Mitchell and Jack Wighton were saved from criminal convictions because the nightclub they were at in Canberra had CCTV otherwise the perjured evidence of 9 police officers would have likely been enough for conviction.
Is the Albanese government aiding and abetting the Israeli military and intelligence services in actions in Gaza which are serious violations of international human rights laws?
Source: Legal case set to expose Australia’s facilitation of war crimes – Pearls and Irritations
With most hospitals closed, Gaza’s doctors struggle to care for premature babies — often without power.
The medical providers called on the WHO and rights groups to hold accountable the group of Israeli physicians who betrayed their profession by endorsing the bombing of a hospital in Gaza. By Julia Conley Common Dreams Physicians who have been working for four weeks to save as many lives as
“We as doctors are ambassadors of peace. We save lives,” said the doctors, led by Dr. Marwan Shafiq Al-Ham, director of Muhammad Yusuf Al-Najjar Hospital, in a statement.
“Israeli doctors who signed a letter promoting [the] bombing of hospitals with patients inside have committed a betrayal to their noble profession and bear responsibility.”
The medical providers called on the World Health Organization and human rights groups that work in the healthcare field to help hold the signers of the letter accountable.
Source: Doctors in Gaza Respond
As its indiscriminate assault on Gaza continues, Israel is ramping up repression of its own citizens for speaking out against the brutal war. The clampdown demonstrates the fragility of a “democracy” premised on occupation and apartheid.
Israel has forgone it’s right to exist “Never was and never should be”
While the world’s attention has been focused on Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, Israel’s military and settlers have been relentless in their violence against Palestinians across the occupied West Bank.
Source: With all eyes on Gaza, Israel sets West Bank ablaze | The Electronic Intifada
The true face of Israel. The serpent has two heads.
In the Palestinian West Bank, Israeli squatters have gone beyond scattered attacks to threaten the Palestinians with ethnic cleansing. This happened in the village of Deir Istya In Salfit district where the Israeli squatters posted leaflets on the villagers’ vehicles telling them to leave to Jordan and if they failed to do so they would face another Nakba (catastrophe, as befell them in 1948) and would be forced out of their homeland violently. This long-term dream of the Israeli Right has already begun being implemented, as inhabitants of some hamlets have already been forced out of their homes. While the world is transfixed by Israel’s aerial destruction of Gaza, another sort of population transfer has begun in the West Bank.
Netanyahu is primarily a politician you can’t for a moment believe he believes what he says. He has an audience he is performing for.
Netanyahu is notoriously secular in his private life. But, ever the shrewd politician, scripture is his language of choice to sell his war to Jewish supremacists in Israel and right-wing Evangelicals in the United States.
Source: Opinion | Who’s Drinking Neanyahu’s Genocidal Amalek Kool-Aid? | Common Dreams
Last week I published an essay arguing that “To Censure Rashida Tlaib Would Be to Censure Democracy Itself.” And the next day, quite predictably, I was called an “anti-Semite” who supports Hamas, promotes terrorism, and endangers my own Jewish students.
Source: Understanding the Difference Between Anti-Semitism and Pro-Palestinian Activism | The Smirking Chimp
“It is hard to understand what basis there is for the assertion that Israel is not striving to escalate the situation. One could assume that an armed response by the Popular Resistance Committees or Islamic Jihad to Israel’s targeted assassination was taken into account. But did anyone weigh the possibility that the violent reaction could lead to a greater number of Israeli casualties than any terrorist attack that Zuhair al-Qaisi, the secretary-general of the Popular Resistance Committees, could have carried out? “In the absence of a clear answer to that question, one may assume that those who decided to assassinate al-Qaisi once again relied on the ‘measured response’ strategy, in which an Israeli strike draws a reaction, which draws an Israeli counter-reaction.”
Since Israel’s creation in 1948, Israeli political and military leaders have demonstrated a pattern of repeatedly violating ceasefires with their enemies in order to gain military advantage, for territorial aggrandizement, or to provoke their opponents into carrying out acts of violence that Israel can then exploit politically and/or use to justify military operations already planned.
The following fact sheet provides a brief overview of some of the most high profile and consequential ceasefire violations committed by the Israeli military over the past six decades.
Source: Self-defense or provocation: Israel’s history of breaking ceasefires | IMEU
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