Tag: Anti-Democracy
Beyond Scrutiny
Australia’s TV media companies have told the National Anti-Corruption Commission committee that they should be exempt from being investigated for corruption by the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC). I captured it on video, as per below, and it is amazing how brazen the media companies are thinking they can publicly demand to be above the law.
Likewise, more that 3/4s of Republican evangelicans want to declare the United States a “Christian” state, essentially repealing the First Amendment with its Establishment Cause. They want to control people’s bodies in the U.S., even if they have to do it undemocratically, just as the ayatollahs have the same goal in Iran. Iran has the Guardianship of the Jurisprudent. America’s Red States have the Guardianship of the Pastor and Priest. In neither case are we autonomous adults. We are wards of the state, reduced to being juveniles in custody.
Because of evangelical Republican rule of some US states, we already have elements of the Christian Republic of America, to mirror the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Corporations are underwriting the thuggery of Trump and his allies – all because they want to pay as little tax as possible
Conservatives Reversed and polluted the term WOKE as they did Racism Climate. They said White Lives Matter too, Heterosexuality matters as well, that Women are Misandrists, Poverty is the fault of the poor, not the system, and in the case of the failure to set up an ICAC, it’s their opposition’s fault. They claim Morrison hasn’t been able to rule the nation because the opposition does.
No, what Morrison is actually saying is “Australia isn’t a Democracy” ” It’s My Way or the Highway” There is no place for an opposition in Australia no place for Democracy in his church. He is the voice an Autocrat an evangelistic pastor of Australia. .
Prime Minister Scott Morrison says he will only introduce his highly criticised model for a federal anti-corruption body if Labor promises to let it through parliament unchanged.
Source: Scott Morrison refuses to budge on Labor backing anti-corruption model
NYU’s Democracy Program director explains the importance of passing H.R. 1 in the face of a relentless assault on voting rights by Republican state legislatures. On the eve of the passage of the For the People Act, Wendy Weiser, the director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU’s law school, told The New York Times, “Voting rights in America are under significant attack, more than they have been in decades — an attack through racially targeted efforts to restrict access to voting.” She also explained:
Fox News absurdly claims it is unconstitutional for Congress to protect the right to vote | Media Matters for America
In December 2019, the high court heard its first fast-track applicant (CNY17), and declared that the IAA review of his protection claim had been “infected by apprehended bias” because of what Justice James Edelman called “irrelevant and prejudicial material involving prejudicial opinion, innuendo and tacit suggestion” shared by Dutton’s Department of Home Affairs.
This issue of bias is highly relevant to Australia’s lopsided assessment of refugees, where the mere fact of arriving by boat has destroyed the lives of people like our client and more than 500 others, many of whom are entering their eighth year in detention.
Dutton’s confidence in ignoring the judiciary makes a mockery of Australia’s system of government, which rests on the separation of powers enshrined in our constitution, between the judiciary, executive and legislature. Unless each respects the role of the other, the very foundations of our democracy are at risk.
Voters want change. Elites in D.C. and the media — both liberal and conservative — are actively obstructing it
It is quite rare for a day to pass without one inciting remark or another by politicians against Israel’s minority.
Source: Israel’s war on liberal democracy – Al Jazeera English
Wednesday January 06, 2016 18:01
by Alternative Information Center (AIC) 
On Wednesday, the Israeli parliament will discuss the “law of the Sabbath,” a new law that aims to ban all trade on the Sabbath.
The Sabbath is a holy day in Judaism during which agricultural, industrial and commercial activities are prohibited.
The bill was proposed by Likud MK, Miky Zohar, and adopted by the Council of Ministers. It seeks to ban businesses opening on Saturdays without special permission from the Economy Minister. Violating the ban would be considered “an injustice against citizens.” Business owners will be able to file a claim against franchise operators who force businesses to open on the day of rest.
For Zohar, the law is not about religious coercion, but the defense of “social rights and the Jewish character of Israel.
“To be a Jew it is necessary that your mother is a Jew. But, a nation that wants to endure must have a tradition, a way and principles,” Zohar said in an interview with the Israeli newspaper, The Marker.
“If you lose your tradition, your way and your principles, you will end up becoming something else,” he continued, adding, “if Israel is a democratic state, the existence of this nation would be in danger.”
The Likud legislator made it clear that he not only opposes a democratic project, but also sees the ideas of the Enlightenment as disastrous for the Jewish people.
“We are still paying the price for adhering to the ideas of the Enlightenment,” he explained, stressing that “if we give up the Jewish idea our children will be living in a democratic country.”
“I say: Israel could easily transform into a democratic country within a few decades and this would jeopardize the existence of the Jewish people.”
“I will continue fighting for the existence of the Jewish people,” Zohar concluded.
Zohar was elected to the Israeli parliament in the March 2015 elections. He previously served as president of basketball club Maccabi Kiryat Gat.
AIC archives: Netanyahu Renews Efforts to Define Israel as Jewish State
The following is a post from November 7 from the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC)
#BREAKING. Scott Morrison has introduced another new draconian Bill called “Australian Citizenship and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2014″. It gives him the unreviewable power to cancel the citizenship of any Australian without any criminal conviction at all. Think about that. Being able to lose your Citizenship despite not having been found guilty of a criminal offence. (P.S This is not just for refugees but EVERYONE not born in Australia). Just 6 days was given for the public to make submissions (closed yesterday). Good news is we made a submission & will be appearing before the committee reviewing it on Monday, to fight the good fight to stop it!
This is an excerpt from the second reading of the Bill by Paul Fletcher on October 23.
“On occasion, the minister makes personal decisions under the act. The bill makes it clear that the minister can specify that such a decision is made in the public interest. As it is not appropriate for merits review to be available in respect of decisions that have been made by the minister personally the bill protects them from merits review. Judicial review will remain available.
The bill also provides the minister with a power to personally set aside certain decisions of the AAT if it is in the public interest to do so. The Minister for Immigration and Border Protection is concerned that some decisions made by the AAT have led to outcomes that are outside the community standards that citizenship policy is intended to meet, including recent occasions where the AAT found that people were of good character despite having been convicted of child sexual offences, manslaughter, people smuggling or domestic violence.
These amendments to protect the minister’s personal decisions from merits review and to allow the minister to set aside decisions of the AAT in certain circumstances will bring the minister’s powers under the Citizenship Act in line with similar powers under the Migration Act.
The bill also provides the minister with a power to make legislative instruments.”
As Susan points out, “This is causing an enormous amount of fear and polarising the community. Idiots are posting that we should be trusting of our government’s intentions, that it is a good thing to behave to prevent certain communities from damaging Australia. This is further frightening all those that were not born here.”
Article 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states
(1) Everyone has the right to a nationality
(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality
which brings into question the legality of these new powers.
One by one, the Ministers of this government are changing the laws to give themselves personal power bypassing review – Scott Morrison, George Brandis, Greg Hunt – all are winding back our rights and removing avenues to have their decisions reviewed.
This is NOT democracy.
olddogthoughts 