Trump just made the claim that Germany gets 70% of its energy from Russia (via imports of natural gas). It is being pointed out that this assertion, like most things that come out of Trump’s mouth, is completely untrue.
via No Trump, Germany doesn’t Get 70% of its Energy From Putin; it gets 41% from Renewables
‘Fox’ will be home to Fox News, the 24-hour cable news channel, which for better or worse, (mostly worse) has had a bigger impact on the world than anything else the Murdochs have done.
Fox News has dominated conservative politics in the US for the better part of the past two decades. It’s also widly profitable.
The new Fox (which also will house the Fox Business and Fox Sports cable channels, plus the Fox free to air broadcast network in the US) is expected to spit out $US10 billion in annual revenue, and $US2.8 billion in earnings (before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation).
But almost all of those earnings, or $US2 billion of them, according to Credit Suisse, will come from Fox News.
via Lachlan: the unlikely winner from the Murdoch family’s latest saga
THE FAILURE of negotiations between the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation and the Australian National University has ignited a culture war in the opinion pages of The Australian. One that has seeped into Federal politics and now poses a threat to the independence of universities.
The Ramsay Centre was launched back in 2017 with a $3 billion bequest from healthcare-magnate and top Liberal party donor Paul Ramsay. The half lobby group, half trust is staffed by Liberal party giants John Howard and Tony Abbott, among others.
To create this pro-Western degree, the Ramsay Centre advocated the establishment of new institutions and methods in breach of academic independence. Abbott said the group will form a committee inside ANU that will make staffing and curriculum decisions. The group’s CEO, Professor Simon Haines, reportedly said they would pull their multi-million dollar donation if the degree wasn’t sufficiently pro-Western, which would include not hiring academics who have been critical of the West. The group also wanted to send representatives to sit in on courses to carry out “health checks” on the teachers and removed “academic independence” from their memorandum of understanding with the university.
via The Australian starts new culture war over Ramsay Centre and threatens academic independence
Australian Press needs inclusion here as well just read Andrew Bolt’s cooentaries but even more the lack of commentary on Israel. We can imagine just how much attention kites and balloons would get at International arms shows when they are portrayed by Israel’s IDF as deadly. Israel is no doubt copying them to sell commercially. (ODT)
Journalists in Britain and Ireland often refer to the summer months as the “silly season.” Little of consequence is happening, the media apparently decide, so we can treat trivia as newsworthy.
I’m not sure if hot weather is to blame but much recent coverage of Gaza is quite silly. Perspective has been discarded as kites and balloons have been depicted as major threats.
These are “weapons that are designed to kill,” according to an Israeli military spokesperson quoted in a Financial Times feature. Fixated on these high-flying incendiary devices, the feature omitted a pertinent fact: nobody has actually been killed by them.
Silly reporting of this nature serves Israel well. An aggressive state that has committed a number of massacres this year alone is cast as a victim.
Intentionally or not, the press is offering pretexts for Israel to launch another major offensive against Gaza. Any such attack would then be presented as an act of retaliation – or even of self-defense.
While every form of Palestinian resistance gets maligned, Israel’s weapons industry is treated with the greatest imaginable respect.
Dozens of Israeli firms took part in a Paris fair earlier this month. Eurosatory – as the event is called – was jointly organized by France’s defense ministry and arms lobby.
via Press gives Israel pretext to attack Gaza | The Electronic Intifada
There is a foul stench emanating from planet earth. The noxious smell emanates from a single destructive paradigm. That festering greed is known as capitalism. On a single planet with finite resources, the philosophy of capitalism is terminal for the planet and all who reside on it.
Something is Rotten – » The Australian Independent Media Network
“We reiterate our call to Israel’s Parliament to oppose the bill, which would constitute a serious breach of press freedom,” said the International Federation of Journalists
Israel’s Solution to Global Condemnation of War Crimes? Punish Anyone Who Documents Them
“Free Press America” is Trump’s “greatest enemy” except for Fox News of course also according to Donald Trump himself. Have you heard of “fake news”? It’s been his most useful idea to date. (ODT)
After triumphantly boasting in a tweet on Friday that North Korea is “no longer a nuclear threat” following just a few hours of vague discussions, an absolutely “bonkers” video presentation, and several photo ops with Kim Jong Un, President Donald Trump declared that the “biggest enemy” of the United States is now “fake news”—otherwise known as journalism Trump doesn’t like.”They are fighting hard to downplay the deal with North Korea,” Trump tweeted, apparently referring to journalists who have highlighted the fact that the “deal” reached with North Korea is thin on substance, non-binding, and just the first step in a long diplomatic process.”Our country’s biggest enemy is the Fake News so easily promulgated by fools!” Trump added.
Israel claims it kills and wounds those supported by Hamas only but is full aware what is doing to the uninvolved citizens of Gaza ensuring their Hospitals and Health systems collapse. Basically they are intentionally killing the sick elderly and children and that is their intent when they use dum dum bullets while pleading they have no other choice (ODT)
The number of injuries resulting from Israeli attacks against unarmed protesters on the eastern boundary of the Gaza Strip nearly broke the back of an overstretched and under-resourced sector, exacerbating the pressure on health professionals and straining provision.
Medics even found themselves in the crosshairs, and two – Razan al-Najjar on 1 June and Mousa Jaber Abu Hassanein on 14 May – were killed while carrying out their duties.
The highest casualty count of the Great March of Return came on 14 May, and was followed by more protests – and more wounded – on 15 May. Both days brought with them shocking scenes at Gaza Strip hospitals.
With a huge number of wounded – more than 3,100 over those two days alone – there were no available beds and people were being treated in hallways or even at hospital entry gates.
There was an acute shortage of medicine and supplies, according to Ashraf al-Qedra, a health ministry spokesperson, who said hospitals had used 80 percent of ministry stores during those days.
“This crisis caused a huge deficit in hospitals in the Gaza Strip. Patients who seek public hospitals for treatment, cannot find the medical care they need due to hospitals overwhelmed with injuries,” al-Qedra told The Electronic Intifada.
via Gaza’s health sector near collapse | The Electronic Intifada
The Citizens of Israel don’t have the ABC and it shows. The Israeli government relies on an uninformed nation. They even complain about an informed Australia and the ABC (ODT)
In the midst of the Great Return March protests in Gaza, during which Israeli snipers killed well over 100 protesters inside the besieged territory, Social TV asked regular Israelis on the street what they think of the Israeli army’s actions.
via WATCH: What do Israelis think of the violence in Gaza? | +972 Magazine
James Cook’s actions are premised on the belief that the University is greater than just the individuals within it and unlike Thatcherites Society does exist and it’s patterns of behaviour are there to deliver an outcome beneficial to everyone in the excercise and methodology of in this case Marine Science. Ridd demands a bigger space and the breakdown of the rules of discourse declaring in doing so that there is no such thing as a university as Thatcher did when she said there is no such thing as Society only individuals and the power they can enforce. He refuses to see James Cook as a Collective and bring down it’s traditions like a card house. Here we have a conservative fighting for academic anarchy and being supported by the Murdochians of the media. However James Cook isn’t soapbox corner nor does it feel the need to be reduced to it. So they are assisting Ridd in his right to remove himself and find a soapbox to from which to continue his opinions (ODT)
I hate to say it because we know what this is really about. The cause of Ridd has been championed by those parts of the media and certain institutes – well, the Institute of Public Affairs – that have done all they humanly can to stop serious action in this country against climate change.
They have no interest in fair-minded coverage of the weight of scientific evidence, now overwhelming, that human action is causing global warming, and that urgent action is required globally to limit its dangerous impacts. Their interest is ideological, with an endearing lack of self-awareness in their charge that the “warmists” are the ideologues. They leap on the 3% or so of scientists who argue their colleagues have got it all wrong, and would risk everything on those odds.So, it is not that these Ridd champions – Andrew Bolt, Terry McCrann, the Australian, which now reports as fact that Ridd is a “marine science whistle blower”– have any inherent concern about academic freedom.
via Peter Ridd’s sacking pushes the limit of academic freedom | Gay Alcorn | Opinion | The Guardian
What the Israelis have done over the past few weeks—killing at least 112and wounding over 13,000people (332 with life-threatening injuries and 27 requiring amputation)—is a historical crime that stands alongside the Sharpeville Massacre (69 killed), Bloody Sunday (14 killed), and the Birmingham Fire Hoses and Police Dog Repression as a defining moment in an ongoing struggle for justice and freedom. Like those events, this month’s slaughter may become a turning point for what John Pilger correctly calls “the longest occupation and resistance in modern times”—the continuing, unfinished subjugation of the Palestinian people, which, like apartheid and Jim Crow, requires constant armed repression and at least occasional episodes of extermination.
Stormy Daniels at Erotica Los Angeles 2009. (James Chang / Wikimedia)
Suddenly, the emphasis in the term sex workers has shifted to sex workers.
It has happened in a matter of months.
My friends on the left, and some in academia, will say, oh no, it’s been going on for a long time. It has, in certain segments. But not in the mainstream. Not in the general public. Until now.
Much of the credit has to go to Stormy Daniels
A porn actress is in a dispute with the president of the United States, and the sex worker has more credibility than Trump.
When she appears on television, she is more composed, more coherent and more contained than the petulant, pugnacious president.
His tales are ever-changing. According to him—directly, and through various spokespersons, including Hope Hicks, Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Michael Cohen—he never had sex with that woman. Nonetheless, she was paid $130,000. The money came through Michael Cohen, with one of Trump’s pseudonyms on the contract.
“I share it with the house because I believe it to be in the national interest. My duty, first and foremost, is to the Australian people and the preservation of the ideals and democratic traditions of our Commonwealth.” The Chinese Communist Party, Hastie claimed, was “working to covertly interfere with our media, our universities and also influence our political processes and public debates”.
While such revelations are delivered with a sense of heavy moral responsibility, much of it is stretched. Trade Minister Steve Ciobo was almost dismissive in claiming that the content was hardly novel. Turnbull dumped some cold water on Hastie’s fire by claiming that “the specific allegations that were made… were not new.” But getting on the China bandwagon of condemnation is all the rage. Parliament has already sought to curb that vague and immeasurable term “influence” with legislation that muddies rather than clears the water. When the National Security Legislation Amendment (Espionage and Foreign Interference) Bill 2017 was introduced, it signalled a new front in an inchoate war that, on closer inspection, merely looks like a good stab at civil liberties and an attempt to harness paranoia.
via Australia’s China Syndrome – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Move along, nothing to see here… except for more than 100 unarmed protestors shot dead by Israeli snipers and thousands more injured Palestinians, including over 700 children. Michael Brull reviews Australia’s political and media response to Israel’s latest atrocity.
The Chinese read our papers and listen to our public commentator’s opinions. Andrew Bolt is an active and consistent News Corp China basher and the consequences aren’t just verbal coming back. Don’t forget Murdoch left or was kicked out of China where no love was lost and his style not forgotten.( ODT }
Australian business leaders said Chinese officials had been furious that China had been singled out for criticism and used as a means to score domestic political points.
One chief executive with close China ties said he had no doubt the trade difficulties being experienced by some Australian exporters was a deliberate tactical move by China.
Last year, China decided to boycott South Korea’s tourism industry due to Seoul’s installation of an American anti-missile system. Chinese tourism numbers to South Korea fell by 60 per cent in a matter of months and Korean car sales to China also plummeted.
WHEN SNIPERS ARE VICTIMS OF BAD PRESS
Ahmed Abu Hussein was shot by Israeli snipers during a protest near the Gaza-Israel border two weeks ago. He was standing at a distance from the fence and was wearing a PRESS jacket.
Palestinian journalist Ahmed Abu Hussein is seen receiving medical treatment after being shot by an Israeli sniper during a protest on the Gaza border, April 13, 2018.Palestinian journalist Ahmed Abu Hussein is seen receiving medical treatment after being shot by an Israeli sniper during a protest on the Gaza border, April 13, 2018.
Ahmed Abu Hussein, a Palestinian journalist based in Gaza who was shot by Israeli soldiers two weeks ago, died of his wounds on Wednesday at Tel Hashomer Hospital in central Israel. Abu Hussein is the second Gazan journalist to be killed by IDF snipers over the past month, and one of 40 Palestinians killed during the Great Return March protests.
via Second Palestinian journalist dies of wounds from IDF sniper fire | +972 Magazine
Given the Trump administration’s all-out war on working people, a government by billionaires and for billionaires considerably more blatant in its class warfare than the ordinary White House, it has long puzzled me that some activists insist on giving it the benefit of the doubt when it comes to trade issues.
via Fooled Again? Trump Trade Policy Elevates Corporate Power
The next time you hear Donald Trump bluster and harumph about something he’s angry about, you should assume Sean Hannity is his anger translator. Trump doesn’t need speechwriters as long as he can call up Hannity and get his lines for the next day.
The Washington Post’s Robert Costa, Sarah Ellison and Josh Dawsey published an excellent story today, outlining just how embedded Fox News personality Sean Hannity is with Donald Trump’s White House.
News Corp’s best anti- Australian work
China: The freeze in diplomatic relations between China and Australia is on, despite official denials – and business executives are clearly despondent about it.
via China-Australia tension as biggest trading partner gives us the cold shoulder
Oh my…Fox accidentally posts the truth for a change, and quickly takes it down.
Oopsy.
A Palestinian journalist covering the Great March of Return in Gaza died Saturday after being wounded by live Israeli ammunition Friday.
via Israeli Snipers assassinate one Palestinian Journalist, Wound 3 others | Informed Comment
“The invasion of Iraq is often spoken of in the United States as a ‘blunder,’ or even a ‘colossal mistake.’ It was a crime. Those who perpetrated it are still at large. Some of them have even been rehabilitated thanks to the horrors of Trumpism and a mostly amnesiac citizenry.”
via How Iraq War destabilized the world and why the neocons aren’t finished yet — RT Op-ed
To make matters worse for the young victim, officials at the Columbia Road Baptist Church blamed and shamed the girl, forbidding her entire family from attending services until she apologized to the youth pastor’s wife.
Australian Conservatives believe White Western Christian Culture is definitively Australian and should be in our Constitution. Ex President of Malaysia still believes Australian elite are Europhiles and aren’t an ASEAN nation. Peter Dutton and Tony Abbott agree as do media men like Andrew Bolt. If only 25% of Australians claim to be Christian and they consist of Indigenous, Pacific Islanders, Sudanese, Lebanese and other minorities logic dictates Conservatives are talking BS as they don’t welcome these immigrants or refugees into the country. It seems their 25% falls to much less than 18%. and if one considers their extreme factions as exceptional. These Conservatives have a voice which actually represents less than 3% of Australians. Ergo the are amouse that Murdoch allows to roar and their constituents are made up of Christians that appear as bent as radical Islamists but unfortunately have an easier pathway to guns in America and and advocate in Peter Dutton in Australia who wants our gun laws eased.( Old Dog Thought )
via Pastor Rapes Teen, Church Asks Victim To Apologize To Pastor’s Wife
A white woman may make public threats to run down with her car a brown Muslim woman, simply because she disagrees with her. If you are white and have a platform, you can threaten people of colour with violence, injury and death merely for speaking words you don’t like. There are no repercussions for the white woman. Had it been the other way around, there would have been serious consequences. Indeed, Abdel-Magied was horrifically abused by conservative media for many weeks because they did not like her words. Unlike MacSween, she threatened no one.
via Dutton, Sunrise and the invisible system of white privilege
Here lies the Real News one needs to ask why our Government is in the business of selling Fake News ( OD)
“That happens, certain kids get out of custody and back to offending,” he said. ”We have got a core group of offenders who we have to work on all the time,” he said.
”When they are not in custody, they are offending. That’s what can happen.”
He added that social media helped offenders to gather and organise.
”You are talking about some core offenders putting a bad name to that whole community … they just see that as the way they are going to make money and get on with life for some reason,” Mr Ashton said.
via ‘Core group’ of repeat offenders behind home invasions, top cop says
Shari Markson from Murdoch’s stable didn’t break the Barney Story but did raise it to political thunder to discredit Malcolm Turnbull our PM
Only after billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch gave the nod to his News Corp foot soldiers last week to proceed with publishing the truth about some of the scandals surrounding Mr Joyce, did other journalists suddenly somehow discover their reporting mojo and investigative capabilities.
Over the past week, news headlines in Australia have involved almost nothing else apart from the struggles facing Mr Joyce. The headlines have even travelled around the world with media in the USA and UK reporting on Mr Joyce’s troubles and travails. Clearly and obviously this story was in the public interest. But why not in October and November last year when Mr Joyce was facing an important by-election in New England caused by his own ignorance of his citizenship status?
When you force the ABC to take down an article that questions your logic you know something is wrong. Since when has Turnbull taken on the role of ABC editor?
On Friday, the ABC took down Alberici’s analysis, citing that it did not conform to the broadcaster’s editorial standards. Frankly, the article – which has been republished on John Menadue’s blog, is not all that different in focus from analyses by Ian Verrender published by the ABC last year, The Age’s Peter Martin and various others, including myself.
Arguing that company tax cuts may not have the impact that the beneficiaries say will result is hardly controversial.
As I noted in January, Moody’s credit rating agency said of the US company tax rate cut from 35% to 21% (compared with a reduction from 30% to 25% proposed here) that “we do not expect corporate tax cuts to lead to a meaningful boost in business investment”.
But given most people don’t get excited by business investment (or increased business profits), companies here have followed the lead of their US counterparts, and are saying a tax cut is needed to increase wages.
It’s all a bit of smoke and mirrors.
Asked why police suspected that was the case, he said: “We know things like Inspire Magazine and some of the online publications of both al-Qaeda and ISIS can be a source of inspiration.”
“When that radicalisation occurred is the subject and real focus of the investigation,” he said.
The case highlighted “that the threat in relation to terrorism in Australia is real and ongoing”.
This sounds very much like a definitive political and irresponsible statement by the police rather than an investigative one. The trial seems to have run it’s course. If Penthouse magazines were found in Robert Doyle’s garage would that make him a predator guilty of sexual assault? Why are the police being so public and wait till Dutton and Andrew Bolt gets hold of this one? (Old Dog)
via Woman charged with terrorism after alleged ‘Islamic State’ stabbing
Is the Cashless Welfare Card suddenly a cure-all for addiction, child neglect or abuse, unemployment, being a single parent, being ill or disabled, being a student, for the very ‘crime’ of being in receipt of a Social Security payment?
via The vilification of Australia’s most vulnerable people – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Global warming skeptics advertising in The Australian deny funding from the fossil fuel industry, but the evidence suggests otherwise, writes Dr Norm Sanders.
via The Lavosier Group, Peabody Coal and the climate deniers
It is often noted during outrage about youth crime gangs of a certain ethnicity that this panic has been seen before: fears about white kids, Middle-Eastern kids, Vietnamese kids, stretching back to the 1950s.
But none of those kids stood out like D does. None of them was tall and black.
“There’s good police, but there’s a lot of bad ones, too.
“How can you respect someone who doesn’t respect you?”
The same submission spells out that youth offending is decreasing, but a smaller group of offenders are committing more crimes, and that those aged 10-17 who were born overseas averaged more offences than those born in Australia.
Meanwhile, he fears being attacked. It has almost been forgotten that, 10 years ago, a Sudanese teenager who also had his troubles with police, Liep Gony, was beaten to death by a pair of men, one of whom had earlier yelled he was going to “take my anger out on some niggers”.
“How are we supposed to assimilate if we keep being told how different we are?” Sebit asks.
via African youth crime: ‘How can you respect someone who doesn’t respect you?’
“Each new report of apparent African gang crime brings forth a wave of social media commentary calling for suspected gang members and their families to be deported, dealt with by vigilante groups, or even lynched.
“Anytime that I choose to speak, every time that I want to say something publicly, I have to decide whether I am ready to deal with the bigoted and the racist backlash,” Nyuon says. “It is stifling.”
Andrew Bolt is a first responder when it comes to the media and he defines the South Sudanese as he does the Indigenous of Australia and even you and me and claims he’s entitled to his narrative as he is however his his elite position in the media and Fakenews Corp tears away the equal playing field. Bolt holds his position on a daily basis the South Sudanese voice or narrative is lucky if it gets a hearing once a year and if and when it does because it hasn’t the advantage of the repetiton given Bolt and his ilk it simply doesn’t get heard and that what Bolt claims to be the legitimate structure of free speech in the social market. He denies any attempt that attempts to redress his privilege within the system in particular the ABC or any other Institutional public authority that simply qusestions what he has to say particularly those he is talking about. It’s what makes this article so important.
via ‘We’re not a gang’: the unfair stereotyping of African-Australians | Australia news | The Guardian
This is certainly not the first time Israel Hayom has targeted people, and government employees in particular, for being insufficiently Zionist, for being too left-wing, or for being Palestinian. Netanyahu’s confidants as well as his supporters are busy the cleansing civil service of those whose views do not match the prime minister’s. This is especially true for teachers who dare to express opinions seen as left wing, and that do not conform to the idea that militaristic education and violence are morally justifiable. Employees in the Education Ministry are legally allowed to express political opinions. However, as the list of persecuted teachers grows longer, the message is clear: some opinions are legitimate, others aren’t — and you better think twice before writing words like “peace” on your Facebook page.
Israel Hayom’s new target: Conscientious objector’s mother | +972 Magazine
Keurig could not have anticipated the firestorm it created Saturday when it instructed Fox News to pull its ads from airing on Sean Hannity’s program. The coffeemaker company informed Media Matters president Angelo Carusone that it made the move following Hannity’s defense of U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore, who was accused last week of improper sexual conduct with a 14-year-old girl when he was 32.
via Fox News viewers boycott Keurig after it pulls ads from “Hannity” – Salon.com
Now let me add that there is nothing wrong with opinions so long as there is a diversity of them. But the fact is we don’t have a diversity and we would be a much better society if we took the risk of thinking for ourselves unhindered by the unadulterated crap served up by the media and self interest groups.
An observation
“Lying in the media is wrong at any time however when they do it by deliberate omission it is even more so. Murdoch’s papers seem to do it with impunity.”
Day to Day Politics: Being Conned with Bullshit – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Asked about the recent revelation that the Trump campaign had been subpoenaed over a sexual assault allegation, the president said: “All I can say is it’s totally fake news. It’s just fake. It’s fake. It’s made-up stuff, and it’s disgraceful.”
Source: Women accusing Trump of sexual harassment are lying, says White House | US news | The Guardian
![‘The massive coral bleaching in recent years was no cause for concern, because coral grew back, [Ridd] claimed.’ Bleached coral on the Great Barrier Reef near Port Douglas, February 2017.](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/91ff9ab7733de6c06e062fd090946db00b95ce2d/0_158_2499_1500/master/2499.jpg?w=300&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&s=7d474a25580629050fc3f7559c66818e)
olddogthoughts 
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