“Trump’s campaign machine is bleeding cash for legal expenses,” Reuters reports. From interviews and a review of court records and campaign finance reports, Reuters has identified 13 potential witnesses or co-defendants who were represented by law firms that received payments from Trump’s Save America super PAC. Those payments were disclosed in the finance reports as general payments to entities rather than specific compensation to individuals.
With its misinformation and mistruths, News Corp has a stranglehold on Australian democracy that needs to be held to account by a royal commission, writes Belinda Jones.
Source: Crackdown on News Corp urgently needed to save our democracy
Why do so many of my fellow non-Indigenous Australians seemingly have such a deep aversion towards the Aboriginal peoples of this land? Sadly, I am compelled to ask that question as we approach a referendum asking for constitutional recognition of Australia’s First Nations and an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voice to parliament.
Source: The referendum: So little asked, so graciously, but seemingly too much – Pearls and Irritations
Establishing the Indigenous Voice to Parliament will provide an opportunity for First Nations Australians to make a better life for troubled youth, writes Eleanor Limprecht.
Source: Voice to Parliament a chance to minimise Indigenous child imprisonment
with Porter forced out of politics, and Pezzullo unlikely to ever return, there’s at least some sense of justice slowly working in relation to the appalling persecution of Collaery and Witness K.”
It now looks passing strange that Pezzullo gave evidence on the need for secrecy in the name of national security when he was so eager to share confidential material — freshly handed to the prime minister and his own minister — with an unelected party machine man and businessman.
Source: “The… – The Fiberal Party of Australia – Lies & Misdemeanours | Facebook
Since Covid people have opted to work from home turning a proportion of their homes into office space as we know Stuart Robert did when he claimed expenses for his Fax copier among other things. Are homeowners being charged CGT on that proportion of their homes claimed as an investment? Will Stuart Robert be made to pay Capital Gains on the sale of his house?
What about renters can they claim a proportion of their rent, gas, and electricity as tax-deductible expenses or should they invoice their place of work and declare it as added income?
Despite the housing crisis, despite the rentals crisis, holiday house landlords claim year-round tax breaks on short-term rentals often vacant. In a letter to Tax Commissioner Chris Jordan, Tim Evans asks why.
This in part has resulted from the common practice among owners of Airbnb and short-term/holiday rental properties claiming up to 100% of annual expenses on these properties simply because they have made the properties “available to rent”, even though they may only be rented out for a fraction of the year.
Source: Airbnb tax rort: why is the government subsidising holiday landlords? – Michael West
Is Dowling’s information accurate?
A Channel 7 personality who has been charged with child rape and torture has been granted suppression orders to override the new Queensland laws, which start on the 3rd of October, that allows alleged sex offenders to be named before they are committed for trial.
The University of Melbourne is a flashpoint in the wave of industrial action against job insecurity, wage theft, overwork, and profit-seeking in the academy. Now staff are preparing an all-university strike — and the outcome may be decisive for the sector.
Source: Melbourne University Workers Are Gearing Up for a Second Weeklong Strike
The UK Tory Government is acting under the advice of Tony Abbott trying to follow the “Australian Model” to gain political advantage, not do what is regarded as morally or ethically correct. Let’s also remind ourselves the UK like Australia, China, Russia, and Nth Korea has no Universal Bill of Human Rights in it’s Constitution only laws which it now wants to change. Like the Australian LNP, which wanted to rid itself of UNHRC or its Racial Discrimination Acts. Had a Bill of Rights been written both nations’ Constitutions Abbott would have had no impact.
Lord Justice Underhill underlined the lower court’s own admission that the Rwandan government was “intolerant of dissent; that there are restrictions on the right of peaceful assembly, freedom of the press and freedom of speech; and that political opponents have been detained in unofficial detention centres and have been subjected to torture and Article 3 ill-treatment short of torture.”
As a result, Braverman finds herself at sea, struggling to find a port, or centre, to park her own, brittle dogmas. In July, she told the House of Commons that she disagreed “fundamentally” with the view of the court “that Rwanda is not a safe place for refugees.” She went on to say that her government took their “international obligations very seriously and we are satisfied that the provisions of the Illegal Migration Bill comply with the refugee convention. The fundamental principle remains, however, that those in need of protection should claim asylum at the earliest opportunity and in the first safe country they reach.”
Source: Cruel Prerogatives: Braverman on Refugees at the AEI – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Nearly twice as many Americans believe that smoking cigarettes is more hazardous to your health than smoking marijuana. They’re right.
This is not to say that cannabis smoke exposure is altogether innocuous. Cannabis smoke does share some of the same toxins and particulates that are found in tobacco smoke. And some studies have linked marijuana smoking to temporary increases in sputum production and wheezing, as well as an increased risk of bronchitis.
That said, exposure to combustive toxins can be significantly reduced by using a vaporizer. In laboratory studies, herbal cannabis vaporizers have been determined to be an “effective and apparently safe vehicle for THC delivery … [that] do not result in exposure to combustion gasses.”
Cannabis compounds can also be infused in a multitude of products that don’t require smoking, including food products and drinks.
The findings of these studies are clear and consistent: The risks associated with cannabis smoke and tobacco smoke are far from equal.
Source: The Science Is Clear: Marijuana Is Safer Than Tobacco | The Smirking Chimp
This week, Victorian Premier Dan Andrews resigned. And the mainstream media suffered a collective conniption.
What will they ever find to write or complain about? (On second thought, give them a few days to circle in on another victim.)
He leaves office with the latest poll indicating a commanding two-party preferred lead for Labor of 56.5-43.5 — an increase on its 55-45 lead at the last election.
Source: Dan Andrews retires on top despite relentless, mindless media abuse
The latest questioning in the Senate Inquiry into regional bank closures has demonstrated how out of touch banks are with the needs of regional Australians. Dale Webster reports.
Source: Banking Inquiry highlights immense disconnect with regional Australia
It’s called “posturing” by an inquiry that will be a whitewash rather than a genuine investigation into QANTAS and the fiefdom Joyce once controlled.
Former Qantas boss Alan Joyce has been threatened with jail time if he refuses to front a public inquiry into the blocking of extra flights from Qatar.
Source: Former Qantas CEO Joyce faces extraordinary jail threat
Remember tax evasion and the Pandora Papers or was that the Paradise Papers? Where the fuck did that go? Glen Wheatly put his hand up and confessed. They threw him into jail and we were done with it. The Caymans simply laughed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandora_Papers
Waffle, fastidious yet unadulterated waffle. This is the day of the PwC whitewash. Michael West reports on two cover-ups, that of PwC and PwC Global.
The Accountants of Fortune at PwC hired Ziggy Switkowski to conduct an ‘independent’ review into the governance of the Big 4 firm. Nobody knows better than PwC that you don’t commission an ‘independent expert report’ if you don’t know what it’s going to say. And so it is that Ziggy has delivered a humbling admonishment spectacularly lacking in evidence of any wrong-doing, but long on motherhood statements.
Source: Ziggy plays for time: PwC’s dual ‘independent reports’ a dual whitewash – Michael West
The media desperate for news are compelled to create it. If it is Brand their focus is on destroying someone.
There are times when we would all be best advised to keep quiet and wait. But given that almost no one seems willing to hold their tongue on the latest claims being made about Russell Brand, I feel compelled — wisely or unwisely – to make a few tentative observations: not on the allegations, but on all the noise.
Over the weekend, Israel marked Yom Kippur when it is supposed to atone for its collective sins. Yet Israel never thinks to ask for forgiveness from its biggest victims: the Palestinians.
Source: When will Israel seek forgiveness for its crimes against Palestinians? – Pearls and Irritations
Now that Robert Kennedy Jr. says, “I’ve always been aligned with libertarians on most issues” let’s look at how libertarianism would work out in America, and where it came from in the first place…
How Libertarianism is a Poison that’s Crept into America (Part 1)
And
Their principal argument was that if everybody acted separately and independently, in all cases with maximum selfishness, such behavior would actually benefit society. There would be no government needed beyond an army and a police force, and a court system to defend the rights of property owners. It was a bizarre twisting of Adam Smith’s reference to the “invisible hand” that regulated trade among nations.
Source: National Times – Trump crowd members with union signs revealed to… | Facebook
A judge ruling that the former president defrauded banks and investors for decades should, in theory, be a crushing blow against Trump’s profile as a successful business genius and serve as fodder for his Republican primary opponents. Yet right-wing media have already begun sweeping the ruling under the rug, following the Trump family’s lead in downplaying the alleged fraud and raging against the judge and prosecutor.
Of course, there were a number of articles this morning about what a shocking job he’d done and how the voters were just idiots who didn’t know how oppressed they were. Phil Coorey who is best remembered for his article on how Gladys saved Australia wrote in this morning’s Financial Review that his government came “stone motherless last on every metric in terms of handling the pandemic”. Interesting that the paper he writes for was also critical of Mark McGowan for closing off his state and streeting the rest of Australia in every metric and lost very few people to Covid meaning that he can’t be accused of being stone motherless last. Surprisingly, Coorey was terribly impressed with Gladys in spite of the Ruby Princess, the untested chauffeur setting off a wave and various other things that one would have thought rivalled any alleged mistakes that Andrews made.
As Steve Bannon said: “The Democrats don’t matter. The real enemy is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit.”
Next time Peter Dutton announces on Sunday that he’ll hold another referendum if elected, only to say that he won’t on Thursday, or Dan Tehan tells us that Albanese should call off the referendum (which can’t happen without the approval of Parliament which won’t sit before the vote), then ask yourself if they haven’t decided to take Bannon’s advice.
Source: Dictator Dan Quits And Victoria Is Free… – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Government spending on Indigenous services has been exaggerated, with the reality painting a harsh picture of how Australia treats its First Peoples, writes Gerry Georgatos.
Source: Lies and myths continue of ‘over-funded’ Indigenous services
The bottom line is that attacking the “media” as phony undercuts public trust in receiving factual information from all medium conduits. Democratic institutions can only survive with an informed citizenry. If the owners of the mediums distributing this corrupting message care more for their profit margin than providing valid information, then the institutions that guarantee their existence will collapse. (Nica Lacata)
We have an obligation to address the question of truth and its political meaning during a time of widely communicated nonsense. We have an obligation to support the values of reason and human freedom. The role of social scientists and truly independent media is to disturb, bear witness to, resist systems of oppression not support them. These principles, in the age of emerging fascism, are under attack by a horde of far-right members of the LNP and gangster Capitalists and anti-media crying out their sponsored right to “free speech” in a quid pro quo chorus.
Independent Statutory Bodies like the ABC are essential to ongoing Democracy
Shane Dowling demonstrates why his argument for “free speech” doesn’t really make sense to me. He’s an example of why any argument about “free speech” can’t be run without being accompanied by discussions about “for what”, ” Individual or common” “liberating or restricting”, “public or private”, “small or mass- media” and/or “who owns the technologies that distribute it?
Simple arguments for and against the notion of “free speech” simply never cut it and have been shown to go nowhere. It simply doesn’t exist in any real world as we know it. He’s right when he says government tinkering doesn’t help or strike a balance either. Maybe it’s time to break the stranglehold of private corporate media has been able to build over the years like an East India Company once did and colonize us. After all the condition in which we find ourselves in today Climate, Indigenous Affairs, Homelessness, etc is History and requires the strength of action to move forward and that’s neither random or free. The Independence once intended for the ABC was intended to make governments accountable while the many and varied smaller voices squabbled over their sponsored interests to flourish and discover the meaning of the terms Common Good, News, and Information seemingly lacking today.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Labor Party are in the process of trying to legislate new “misinformation laws” which if passed will give a few people, a lot of power, to override free speech in Australia.
What always struck me at the time was that Mike Pezzullo was the most go-to Public Servant in the country when questions arose for Peter Dutton to answer. One wondered at the time, who was in fact the Minister. That was while Immigration was about to collapse and when Dutton took Pezzullo to Home Affairs it seemed necessary because Dutton was totally incompetent. There in plain sight it seemed Pezzullo for all intent and purpose was the Home Affairs Minister and not simply the Public Servant.
Journalists from The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and Sixty Minutes have at last exposed the efforts by Mike Pezzullo, Secretary of Home Affairs, to influence government in favour of conservative politicians and by insisting that press freedom be stifled.
Source: The despotism of Mike Pezzullo – Pearls and Irritations
When the tax scandal could no longer be ignored, the PwC board commissioned an “independent review” into its “governance, culture and accountability,” appointing former Kodak, Telstra and Optus CEO Ziggy Switkowski to conduct it. So what’s the scam?
Source: Ziggy Switkowski’s “independent” review of PwC is out – missing the obvious – Michael West
Murdoch’s own media elevates him to Sainthood
If you don’t subscribe to The Wall Street Journal, you probably missed their editorial written in craven praise of their departing boss, Rupert Murdoch, the propaganda minister of the American right (ever so untrustworthy about most everything, but always sanctioned or praised by Murdoch and his merry band of truth molesters).
Source: How Much Bullshit Can You Eat? Test Your Gag Reflex at the Wall Street Journal | The Smirking Chimp
While the liberals ( Democrats) do not dismiss all media as being too conservative, they argue that big corporations’ concentration of media ownership limits the breadth of opinion and promotes conservative views, such as promoting a smaller federal government.
Ultra-Orthodox parties demanded authorization of gender segregation in public. They want women to sit at the back of the buses that go through religious areas, want to segregate state educational institutions by gender, and want separate seating for women and men at government-funded entertainment events.
One critic called it “an outrageous endorsement of the Israeli government’s systematic discrimination against Palestinian Americans and a reward to the most extremist, racist government in Israel’s history.” Jessica Corbett Sep 27, 2023 6
Source: ‘Affirming Apartheid’: Biden Admin to Allow Israel Into Visa Waiver Program
While Rupert Murdoch has announced his stepping down as the head of News Corp, his empire still continues to be a blight on journalism, writes Dr Binoy Kampmark.
Source: The ‘anger-tainer’ steps down: Rupert Murdoch’s non-retirement
There’s always a vacuum without rules things could simply get worse when evil steps out of the room. Why is that? Because the Privatisation of media was never in the interests of the common good. Variety is and unless there are Statuary Independent Media Present consolidated mass media is the enemy of Democracy.
Joe Rogan, Steve Bannon, and Charlie Kirk are ready to rot the brains of GOP voters even more
Scott Morrison certainly believed in the Steve Bannon theory of Power ” Flood the zone with SHITS”. Not trusting anyone he appointed himself to half a dozen Ministries and did it in secret. Bannon Trump’s advisor intent was to, Flood the Public Service with partisans and Mike Pezzullo was a standout example. To say Peter Dutton was ignorant is to state the obvious not of the tactic but plain ignorant as a Minister. He proved it in all the portfolios he ever held. and Boomgate was the public demonstration. One could have asked why Pezzullo’s fist seemed so up his clacker when he was asked any questions on Immigration or Home Affairs? Who was really appointed to head that Ministry for Scott Morrison who was focused on having his photos taken?
Leaked messages from Home Affairs secretary Mike Pezzullo are under investigation for improperly influencing political decisions, writes Dr Jennifer Wilson.
Source: Leaked Pezzullo texts evidence of attack on democracy
Will the Mike Pezzullo case be a line in the sand?
The case of the Head of the Department of Home Affairs, Mike Pezzullo, now stood down on full pay, is an extreme manifestation of the fact that in our democracy, too often public servants flout what the High Court said in 2019 is essential: an apolitical bureaucracy.
Source: Amidst the shattered remnants of an impartial public service – Pearls and Irritations
1) Mundine says he will join the Uluru Council if YES23 wins. However, he doesn’t even begin to say who will vote for him.
2) He wanted to run for preselection in Marise Payne’s vacated seat and better represent his white constituency as does Jacinta Price. Backed down for flipflopping on the No Campaign
3) Indigenous Australians see them as “Plastic” Dutton’s Ken and Barbie
4)“The fact is that most Indigenous Australians are doing fine,” he said. 60% live below the “poverty line”. Another 30% live either on the edge or under a glass ceiling
5)“It is wrong to tell young people growing up in these families that they are disadvantaged because they are Indigenous. So Mundine Speaking for himself and a very small minority. While 83% simply recognize a statistical reality that’s not “doing fine”
6)”It’s wrong to tell them, as I’ve heard many times during this campaign, they are more likely to go to prison than to university. Because it’s just not true.”
Source: (1) National Times – Leading No campaigner Nyunggai Warren Mundine… | Facebook
In his landmark book The Sociological Imagination, C. Wright Mills argues that social scientists (and educators) have an obligation to address the question of truth and its political meaning during a time of widely communicated nonsense. He further argues that in addition to a politics of truth, social scientists have to support the values of reason and human freedom. He also believed that the role of social scientists was to disturb, bear witness, and resist systems of oppression. In this view, intellectuals have to have a deep sense of commitment and civic courage while “writing with vigor and clarity for the general reader [in order] to sustain the idea and the hope of a public culture.”[1] These principles, in the age of emerging fascism, are under attack in the age of gangster capitalism by a horde of anti-public intellectuals and far-right members of the GOP.
President Eisenhower warned us against the MIC over 60 years ago in his “Farewell Address” of January 20, 1961. Among other remarks he said:
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”
On September 4, Russian anti-fascist Azat Miftakhov was released from jail, only to be instantly rearrested. Vladimir Putin claims to be fighting Ukrainian Nazis — but he persecutes anti-fascists in Russia itself.
Source: Vladimir Putin’s Russia Claims to Be Fighting Nazism, but It’s Persecuting Anti-Fascists
GUILTY AS CHARGED
Engoron also ordered the cancellation of certificates that let some of Trump’s businesses including the Trump Organization operate in New York, and ordered the appointment of a receiver to manage the businesses’ dissolution. The judge described how Trump, his adult sons Donald Jr. and Eric, the Trump Organization and other defendants made up valuations and inflated Trump’s net worth to suit their business needs.
Source: Donald Trump is found liable for fraud in New York civil case | Reuters
BOOMGATE Australia’s Shame
Tony Abbott and his road to irrelevance
As many have noted the Voice is an advisory body only and placing it within the Constitution merely stops it from being abolished, like ATSIC was, by John Howard.
The Voice, whether enshrined within the Constitution or not, can be ignored. That is the salient point of the whole issue. The fact of Constitutional recognition is nice, but it does not help ‘close the gap’.
That objective lies with us, as to whether we demand that governments listen, and having listened, act to redress wrongs, and build a reasonable future for our fellow citizens. It is the least we can do.
Source: Dutton reminds us of Abbott, but not in a good way – » The Australian Independent Media Network
“Nowhere in the world, I would venture, is the message more stark than it is in Australia. We simply cannot sweep injustice aside. … the starting point might be to recognise that the problem starts with us non-Aboriginal Australians. It begins, I think, with that act of recognition. … Down the years, there has been no shortage of guilt, but it has not produced the responses we need. Guilt is not a very constructive emotion. I think what we need to do is open our hearts a bit. All of us.”
By guest columnist Tess Lawrence It may be premature to write Emeritus Chairman Rupert Murdoch’s epitaph now that he’s ostensibly handed the keys of his media empire to his favoured scion and heir, Lachlan. Bubba Lachie, you will recall, is the infantile drongo recently forced to payout on a rather silly defamation action against our…
Source: Murdoch: King Lear or Citizen Kane? – » The Australian Independent Media Network
It can’t be ignored just how influential Murdoch has been to harm Democracy for the sake of increasing his Monopoly.
It has been astounding that a world-scale monster such as Rupert Murdoch has thus far fared well at the hands of his various profilists and biographers. Criticisms of him have either been too broad-brush to be useful, or too tempered with Waugh-derived facetiousness about press barons. Murdoch is far too fearsome an affront to any civilized values to escape with mere facetiousness.
Source: A Journey Into the Soul of Rupert Murdoch – CounterPunch.org
How is it for these wanna-be fascists to be normalised when they once lurked in the shadows?
By Steph Preston | Sep 25, 2023
A man at the centre of an infamous alt-right push to take over the NSW Young Nationals in 2018 has been unceremoniously dumped from the office of the first ever independent MP for Wagga Wagga, after Michael West Media informed him he had unwittingly hired an extremist.
Source: Michael West Media – investigative journalists – always independent
Personally, I always wondered why Peter Dutton our one-time Home Affairs/Immigration Minister always bowed to Pezullo when being asked questions about his Ministry. It seemed that Pezzulo was in fact the Minister.
The Home Affairs boss has stood aside while investigators look into whether he flouted the public service code of conduct or shared inside information improperly.
In the latest revelations, a series of text messages show that Pezzullo sought to convince political leaders to introduce a system of “D-Notices” to allow government agencies to pressure media organisations not to publish stories deemed damaging to national security.
Pezzullo pursued the issue after his anger was stoked by a report by then-News Corp journalist Annika Smethurst – who is now state politics editor for The Age – about his secret proposal to allow the nation’s external intelligence agency to spy on Australians.
In other messages, Pezzullo wrote that the government could “criminalise” journalists in certain circumstances for reporting on what they were told by government whistleblowers.
Source: Mike Pezzullo stands aside as Home Affairs secretary
Yet another revelation on how Trump went about servicing the world without providing even the minimum of service.
A recent analysis by the German nonprofit Urgewald estimated that the World Bank spent nearly $4 billion on fossil fuel financing last year, when it was under the leadership of a climate denier nominated by former U.S. President Donald Trump.
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