Tag: Money

Guns Don’t Kill America: Republicans Do | The Smirking Chimp

May be an image of text that says 'TWO SUPREME COURT DECISIONS THAT WILL LIVE IN INFAMY. FREE TO CARRY. FORCED TO CARRY, Rittafod'

Republicans are trying to distract America from the easy access Audrey Hale had to weapons of war by discussing Hale’s personal life, but the availability of guns and the Republican embrace of death as a political weapon are the only real issues here.

We’re the only developed country in the world that unconditionally allows civilians to own military-style assault weapons, that allows “open carry,” and that lets gun manufacturers openly buy politicians (thanks, Republicans on the Supreme Court).

As a consequence, we’re also the only country in the world where the leading cause of death for children is being blown apart by bullets.

Source: Guns Don’t Kill America: Republicans Do | The Smirking Chimp

End the “Citizens United” Ruling with a “Democracy for All Amendment”

In the United States government has been privatized by the Citizens United ruling of the SCOTUS. Government is now really up for sale and auctioned off to the highest campaign contributors.

Source: End the “Citizens United” Ruling with a “Democracy for All Amendment”

RoboSuper OR “When Labor Run Out Of Money They Come After Yours”! – » The Australian Independent Media Network

So now that there are rumours that there may be some changes to the taxation benefits to people with superannuation balances of over $3 million, it’s Labor who’ve run out money and not the Liberals who doubled the debt BEFORE Covid hit and tripled it after. No, Labor have run out of money and they’re looking to raise revenue to balance the budget! Outrageous. The Liberals never worry about balancing it; they just tell us that they intend to because that’s what good housekeepers do.

Source: RoboSuper OR “When Labor Run Out Of Money They Come After Yours”! – » The Australian Independent Media Network

“Cabal of Secrecy”: political donations data dump features $119 million from nowhere, “dark money” – Michael West

Analysis of the Australian Electoral Commission’s 2022 donations data dump has revealed ‘dark money’ comprised up to 40% of major political party revenue. Liberals were the worst offenders. Callum Foote reports.

Source: “Cabal of Secrecy”: political donations data dump features $119 million from nowhere, “dark money” – Michael West

Bruce Lehrmann’s lawyer and Lachlan Murdoch should be charged with conspiring to intimidate Brittany HigginsKangaroo Court of Australia

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brittany Higgins, Bruce Lehrmann and Lachlan Murdoch

The trial has become a national scandal and Justice Lucy McCallum needs to take action for contempt of court against Bruce Lehrmann’s lawyer Steve Whybrow, Lachlan Murdoch, his attack dogs at News Corp and Senator Linda Reynolds. If Justice McCallum fails to do so her reputation and the reputation of the court will be trashed for many years to come and will likely become an example used at law schools on how not to run a court case.

Source: Bruce Lehrmann’s lawyer and Lachlan Murdoch should be charged with conspiring to intimidate Brittany HigginsKangaroo Court of Australia

Crikey and Media Watch v Friendlyjordies and IA

One needs to ask why is IA so readily flailing away at another independent media publisher rather than putting up a united stand against mainstream white man’s media? Why aren’t the other Independents responding and supporting them in their attack on Crikey? They don’t seem to feel Donavan and Pini have an argument worth backing.

Is IA just the sound of a single mouse roaring? Wailing against a competitor in a small Independent alternative market? They seem to have taken their eyes off the ball, the greater Australian media system? Or is this simply the sound of sour grapes? Do you really have to be poor to have both integrity and Independence?

Despite its claims of being small and independent, Crikey uses its cronies in the mainstream media, including ABC Media Watch, to promote itself and its funding campaigns and attack its competitors. Another eye-opening exposé by Dave Donovan and Michelle Pini.

Source: Crikey and Media Watch v Friendlyjordies and IA

More about the Crikey crowdfunding con

Is this a fight between two competitors where one, IA, fears it’s about to lose, and lose out big-time, the pot of gold- subscription money? According to them the crowdfunding of Crikey needs to be stopped why? Because they are already well funded? Well, there goes the Monthly or any other Independent publisher fighting to deliver better quality REAL News and Information. Are Murdochs funding IA or has AI merely jumped ship and joined the Murdochs of their own accord? What value is there when IA have turned to play the man and has taken it’s eyes off the ball and the man happens to be on their own team?

CRIKEY … “INDEPENDENT”? 

Long before Crikey decided to stick its head above the parapet and issue this challenge to Lachlan Murdoch, Independent Australia was being mauled by Murdoch’s minions. We were being attacked, scorned and subjected to almost innumerable legal letters from News Corp, practically all of which threatened our very continuation as a publication. That’s because we were actually broke — not pretend poor, like Crikey. IA

The deeper you dig into Crikey’s crowdfunding in its defamation case against the Murdochs, the muddier it becomes.

Source: More about the Crikey crowdfunding con

How to deal with fossil fuel lobbying and its growing influence in Australian politics

A recent investigation details a campaign by the car industry to have its (low) voluntary standards on fuel efficiency legislated into national standards. This campaign fits into a broader pattern of lobbying by the fossil fuel industry to hinder effective climate action and highlights the importance of democratic integrity in addressing the climate crisis as well as the urgent need for robust regulation of lobbying.

How to deal with fossil fuel lobbying and its growing influence in Australian politics

LIV Golf Series: Donald Trump tells British Open champion Cameron Smith and PGA Tour golfers to take Saudi money, Ian Baker-Finch urges caution

Ian Baker-Finch, Donald Trump and Cameron Smith.

Here’s a reason not to “take the money” If Trump had not been the failed businessman he is, he’d have $12 B just from investing his father’s gift conservatively when he first started. Today he has $2B and 4000 court cases in his wake. Hardly a person to take business advice from.

‘If you don’t take the money now, you will get nothing after the merger takes place, and only say how smart the original signees were.’ Donald Trump

Source: LIV Golf Series: Donald Trump tells British Open champion Cameron Smith and PGA Tour golfers to take Saudi money, Ian Baker-Finch urges caution

‘Top Gun’: The thinly disguised Pentagon recruitment drive

The link between film and the military-industrial complex has never been more evident than in the ‘Top Gun’ movies— a relentless advertisement for the U.S. defence sector, writes Dr Binoy Kampmark.

Source: ‘Top Gun’: The thinly disguised Pentagon recruitment drive

Fossil fuel subsidies soar past disaster relief, even public schools funding. What’s the scam? – Michael West Media

Fossil fuel subsidies, TAI

This week on Q&A Barnaby Joyce said “we are a government who only spends money where we see a return on investment and growth in GDP”. Well we know that!! So little has been devoted to Age-Care, flood disasters, pensioners, job seekers yet debt blew out 400% above 2013 levels. It went from 10% of GDP to over 40% and is heading to 50%. So where did the money go and why doesn’t it matter now?  It mattered ever so badly when the ALP were in government. The LNP are currently screaming taxes taxes will go up under the ALP yet they have constantly been the highest under the LNP.

The scam is that flood and fire victims and other ordinary Australians don’t have lobbyists and don’t pay political parties. What are they thinking, that politicians will just help them because …?

Cruelling somewhat the Budget pitch euphoria in corporate media today, The Australia Institute has sallied forth with its annual analysis of hand-outs to coal and gas multinationals, state and federal, finding they cost the public $11.6b in 2021-22, or $22k per minute.

It’s a $1.3b (12%) increase on last year thanks to the feds. Across all budgets there is $55b committed, which is 11 times the balance of Australia’s Emergency Response Fund ($4.8b in Dec 2021), while $11.6b in 2021-22 is 56 times the budget of the National Recovery and Resilience Agency.

The subsidies cost the Federal government more than it spent on public schools in the same year ($9.7b). Now *that’s* a scam … and we are yet to see the Budget.

Source: Fossil fuel subsidies soar past disaster relief, even public schools funding. What’s the scam? – Michael West Media

The new hasbara campaign Israel doesn’t want you to know about

Young Jews from around the world celebrate 10 years of the Birthright program at an event held at the International Conference Center in Jerusalem, May 12, 2010. (Dudi Vaknin/FLASH90)

This isn’t in any way new!

The Israeli cabinet approved on Sunday a project that could inject up to NIS 100 million [$30 million] toward covertly funding government propaganda in the United States and other Western countries. Led by Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, the initiative is expected to revive a failed plan entrusted until recently to the now-defunct Strategic Affairs Ministry, which closed in 2021. The plan is to transfer money indirectly to foreign organizations that will spread Israeli propaganda in the countries in which they operate, all while hiding the fact that they are backed by the Israeli government.

Source: The new hasbara campaign Israel doesn’t want you to know about

Want a sporting chance at making the big bucks? Maybe avoid tennis

Ash Barty wimbledon

But soccer is a very competitive field. The ratio of professionals to amateurs is 1:3000. Is there a sport that does better? To answer this question we do not have to look far from home. AFL teams are big. You need 18 players on the field at all times. And crowds are large. There’s money in this sport. The ratio of professionals to amateurs in men’s AFL may be the best in all pro sports: 700 professional men and (the AFL claims) 1 million amateur male players. That’s a ratio of professionals to amateurs of 1:1400. What’s more, if they get drafted by a local club, a fair few young AFL players can probably turn pro without even moving out of mum and dad’s house. And they can look forward to being paid an average $350,000 a year, with a much fairer distribution than you see in tennis.

Source: Want a sporting chance at making the big bucks? Maybe avoid tennis

Evangelical Politicians, using Israel as a Pretext, are Gutting the Constitution by Banning Boycotts

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BYE BYE- The Constitutional Separation of Powers between the Church and State. Fuck what America’s Jews want. Legislate Discrimination instead.

Israel has concluded a very unholy alliance with the American Evangelical Community, as support among progressive U.S. Jews for its settlement policies in the West Bank continues to wane. For this reason, in 2017, the Arkansas Senate passed Act 710, forbidding all “public entities from contracting with and investing in companies that boycott Israel.” Call me old-fashioned, but I miss that old Separation of Church and State principle. In Arkansas, legislation is now directly tied to the Second Coming. There is a painful irony to American Evangelical politicians using Zionism as a cudgel to exacerbate the political divide, and punish resistors. The act prohibits all state agencies, departments and contractors from doing business with any company that supports the Boycott-Divest-Sanction (BDS) movement.

Source: Evangelical Politicians, using Israel as a Pretext, are Gutting the Constitution by Banning Boycotts

Revealed: Rupert Murdoch’s crack team of Liberal Party fundraisers – Michael West Media

“At the federal level the position is really dreadful, because donations do not include money that’s paid to fundraisers and events where people pay to sit at the same table as politicians. I think therefore it does mean that we’ve got to absolutely reappraise the whole system to avoid those sorts of perceptions of undue influence and too much access.” (former judge Anthony Whealy, QC.)

Source: Revealed: Rupert Murdoch’s crack team of Liberal Party fundraisers – Michael West Media

Ultranationalists Are Seeing an Organizing Boom in Australia

There’s a German warning drawn from historic experience. “If 10 people sit and dine with a Nazi you have 11 Nazis dining”

At a recent anti-vaccine rally in Melbourne, observers identified supporters of the Ustaše, a Croatian fascist movement with Nazi-collaborationist roots. It’s no fluke: the radical right is attaching itself to the anti-vaccine movement everywhere.

Source: Ultranationalists Are Seeing an Organizing Boom in Australia

Why Big Pharma Is Winning Again | Washington Monthly

Political Contributions: What America does transparently Australia’s LNP wants kept secret. We are among the world’s most secretive nations when it comes to political donors.

 What Peters, Schrader, and Sinema have in common, however, is that each received substantial support from pharmaceutical companies before coming out against the bill. Both Peters’s and Schrader’s list of top contributors includes Pfizer and AbbVie. Sinema, whom Kaiser Health has called a “pharma favorite,” recently had her most successful fund-raising quarter ever, propelled by contributions from pharmaceutical company PACs, Gilead Science’s CEO Daniel O’Day, Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks, and Merck board chair Kenneth Frazier.

Source: Why Big Pharma Is Winning Again | Washington Monthly

Old Dog Thought- Democratic Experiment in a bi-political parliamentary system fails when one party wants power for power’s sake

May be an image of text that says 'DIVIDING UP THE MONEY Grants in minister's seat 3 Grants to seats held by the different parties 5 14 Minister Michael McCormack (Nat, Riverina) David Littleproud (Nat, Maranoa) Kevin Hogan (Nat, Page) Mark Coulton (Nat, Parkes) 19 5 17 Cost of grants to these electorates* 143 $57.9m .9m *Based on The Australian's analysis COALITION SEATS ALP SEATS INDEPENDENT SEATS One grant listed as going to 'various' locations Source: Senate documents, The Australian'

Fighting Fake News with REAL, 10/5/21; Morrison’s Fascist Policy Free self interest, Looking Labor Lite a distraction, Dividing the Money; Post Politics; A ray of light in Tassie;

Christian Porter allegation: Annette Kimmitt’s MinterEllision departure is not surprising

Minter Ellison chief executive Annette Kimmitt has agreed to leave over an email she sent to staff.

When I was sexually harassed as a young lawyer at a top-tier firm, even though the HR department upheld my complaint, the miserable person who departed the company a few months later was me, not my harasser. He still works there.

Christian Porter allegation: Annette Kimmitt’s MinterEllision departure is not surprising

Trump’s niece blasts his ‘chutzpah’ towards her inheritance lawsuit

Trump’s niece blasts his ‘chutzpah’ towards her inheritance lawsuit
Mary Trump, right, has sued Donald Trump, left, and other family members in a Manhattan court.

Donald Trump’s niece has accused him of trying to dodge accountability for defrauding her out of a multimillion-dollar inheritance by claiming she took too long to sue. Lawyers for Mary L. Trump made the accusation on Friday (Saturday AEDT) in a New York state court in Manhattan, where the 55-year-old psychologist is suing the former president, his sister Maryanne Trump Barry and his late brother Robert’s estate. “The offensiveness of defendants’ past conduct – stealing tens of millions of dollars from their own niece – is perhaps surpassed only by the chutzpah of their current arguments for dismissal,” the lawyers wrote.

Trump’s niece blasts his ‘chutzpah’ towards her inheritance lawsuit

Tucker Carlson falsely says there is “no evidence that white supremacists are responsible” for January 6. Capitol Police keep disproving him. | Media Matters for America

Tucker-Carlson-white-supremacists-rhetoric-about-women.png

Fox News host Tucker Carlson insisted again Monday night: “There is no evidence that white supremacists are responsible for what happened on January 6, that’s a lie” — and furthermore, that the attack on the Capitol was not an “armed insurrection,” either.

Tucker Carlson falsely says there is “no evidence that white supremacists are responsible” for January 6. Capitol Police keep disproving him. | Media Matters for America

Desperate to win back viewers, Fox breaks its promise to advertisers | Media Matters for America

fox ads
Color of Money screwed the Advertisers

Fox News’ unprecedented ratings losses in recent weeks have forced the network to choose between its right-wing viewers and its corporate advertisers. Its decision to side with its audience has left the companies that financially support the network holding the bag for its incendiary coverage of the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Desperate to win back viewers, Fox breaks its promise to advertisers | Media Matters for America

Wall Street opens its wallets for Biden

Executives from the likes of Blackstone, Bain Capital and Soros Fund Management are among those donating to Biden.

More than $US50 million ($71 million) has been ploughed into the Democratic challenger’s campaign coffers by the finance industry with executives from the likes of Blackstone, Bain Capital and Soros Fund Management among those donating to Biden’s party, according to the non-partisan Centre for Responsive Politics. By comparison, the US finance industry has raised just under $US30 million for Donald Trump, marking only the second time during an election or midterm year since 1992 that Democrats have gained more donations from the executives.

Wall Street opens its wallets for Biden

While their ads are prevalent, drug companies and medical journals will remain uneasy bedfellows – Michael West

Prof Peter Gøtzsche, the paper’s third co-author, believes it was about censoring the research. “The medical publishing system is broken. There are far too many financial connections between big publishers and big pharma,” he said. “The system doesn’t ensure that solid research which goes against financial interests can get published without any major obstacles.”Informed Comment

via While their ads are prevalent, drug companies and medical journals will remain uneasy bedfellows – Michael West

Money and power completely out of balance – » The Australian Independent Media Network

To be honest, I struggle sometimes these days to understand why we elect and pay politicians, because it is increasingly hard to find any benefits to the general population of such work as the politicians might do to justify the level of benefits they claim!

via Money and power completely out of balance – » The Australian Independent Media Network

War is Good for Business & Organized Crime: Afghanistan’s Multibillion Dollar Opium Trade. Rising Heroin Addiction in the US – Collective Evolution

America protects its drug business in Aghanistan which began in the 70s could one imagine the profits made over that period. budget The global monetary value of the heroin market is of the same order of magnitude as the defense budget of the USA $717 billion .

Needless to say, the Pentagon not to mention the CIA which launched the opium economy in Afghanistan in the late 1970s are intent upon protecting this multibillion dollar industry. The proceeds of the Afghan drug trade were initially used to finance the recruitment of Al Qaeda Mujahideen mercenaries to fight in the Soviet-Afghan war.

War is Good for Business & Organized Crime: Afghanistan’s Multibillion Dollar Opium Trade. Rising Heroin Addiction in the US – Collective Evolution

The Coalition money shuffle – » The Australian Independent Media Network

One of Joe Hockey’s first acts as Treasurer in 2013 was to gift the RBA $8.8 billion. The main reason for this was to make Labor’s deficit look bigger. As a side bonus, it allowed the RBA to invest in the forex market, banking on the Australian dollar losing value as the mining boom subsided.

And that is exactly what happened allowing the government to draw…wait for it…$8.8 billion in dividends over the last six years. That’s all very well (if we ignore how the Coalition screamed like stuck pigs when Labor took a one-off dividend of $500 million in 2013) except Hockey borrowed the $8.8 billion so we are still paying interest on it.

via The Coalition money shuffle – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Share market correction may be imminent for ASX, stockbrokers warn – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

A screen displays stock market prices dropping in Sydney on Monday, June 4, 2012.

How to rip off peoples savings 101. What the government wants you to see a boom for you to follow in a world of debt. They want your money and you to spend spend spend until you can’t anymore.

  1. Cut interest rates to record low margins and drive people with savings into the stock market spend and watch it boom.
  2. Wait for the correction and then watch people suffer.Fake booms real busts losers and winners neither the realm of the elderly whose money is managed by others and only want to reach end of days without worry.
  3. Self Managed Savings advice it’s safer under the bed than with sharks. (ODT)

Key points:

Australian shares are near record highs while interest rates are near record lows
Analysts say the disconnect between the two usually means that one market will be “spectacularly wrong”
However, analysts also the Australian share market is not heavily overvalued

Share market correction may be imminent for ASX, stockbrokers warn – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

‘Defied all odds’: Australia’s sharemarket continues to shock

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Housing Crashes Stocks Boom, Stocks Crash Housing Booms, Swings and Merry-go-Rounds how to stop them taking your money (ODT)

Despite a backdrop of troubling economic signals, the nation’s benchmark S&P/ASX 200 Index rallied almost 10 per cent in the first quarter — its best-ever performance to begin a year in data going back almost three decades. Strong commodity prices and promises of easy monetary policy from central banks are working in the gauge’s favour even as Australia’s property slump deepens and its economy continues to wane.

via ‘Defied all odds’: Australia’s sharemarket continues to shock

Networks Accused of ‘Capitulating’ to Deceitful President as #BoycottTrumpsAddress Surges

“Trump’s primetime stunt is a campaign dog-whistle to his base, not a legitimate policy speech about a genuine crisis. Shame on every TV station that airs it.”

via Networks Accused of ‘Capitulating’ to Deceitful President as #BoycottTrumpsAddress Surges

US Evangelicals have Sent $65 mn. to Support Israeli Squatters in Palestinian West Bank

Evangelical Christian groups have invested up to $65 million in projects in the “Biblical Heartland” over the past decade, however, that doesn’t include services they provide free of charge, such as volunteer laborers, according to a Haaretz investigation.

Haaretz news outlet reported that about 1,700 volunteers were sent by Christian Evangelical groups to the illegal Israeli settlement of Har Brakha, south of the northern occupied West Bank district of Nablus.

via US Evangelicals have Sent $65 mn. to Support Israeli Squatters in Palestinian West Bank

Big bucks for political parties: How Australia’s politicians are selling us out

Actually, when you come to think of it, the problem is not what they do with all that moolah, but what they do for it. And, again, because you are a simple person, you understand that if you give somebody money, you’d expect that person to do something for you. That’s the way the world works: your friend fixes a door hinge for you, so you buy him a drink; your wife helps out a neighbour and gets a sponge cake for a thank you; you drop your son’s friend off to school and his father takes you to the football a few times a year.

So you can only imagine what you would be prepared to do if someone actually gave you $95 million. You strongly suspect the folk in government must be feeling grateful to those who gave them all that money. Look, we said you are no genius and have only a vague idea what a government could do to thank those donors, but you feel they will get something for their contributions and you will miss out.

It’s actually worse than that. It isn’t just that they get something that you don’t: they get something at your expense and that of others like you. In other words, each of you pays a small amount of the reward which those donors receive. You pay it in small cutbacks in benefits to which you are entitled; in the rundown of your children’s school, in the roads that, in the old days, used to be free; in a dozen little helpings that enable the top ten per cent of the population to recoup a profit on the donation they have made to the political party.

via Big bucks for political parties: How Australia’s politicians are selling us out

Meet the CIA: Guns, Drugs and Money

Given these areas of mutual interest it is not surprising that since its inception the Central Intelligence Agency has been in permanent collusion with narco-traffickers, assisting their safe passage, protecting their activities, rewarding drug lords, hiring them for covert missions and using money derived from these operations for other activities. The fact that these drugs end up in American veins has never deterred the Agency and, given the hue of the skin often covering those veins, has perhaps even been seen as a positive outcome.

via Meet the CIA: Guns, Drugs and Money

Barnaby Joyce scrambles to hand back $40,000 prize awarded by Gina Rinehart

Minister Nigel Scullion, Gina Rinehart and Barnaby Joyce at the National Agriculture Day celebration in Canberra on Tuesday.

“This is very unhealthy for our democracy. It’s not right, it doesn’t look right, it doesn’t smell right. This is very, very unusual and concerning conduct,” Mr Shorten said.

Mr Joyce – who is fighting a byelection after being booted from Parliament for holding dual citizenship – said on Tuesday night that “all I’m thinking about now is the things I’m going to do on my own farm” with the money.

When handed the novelty oversized cheque, he exclaimed: “Hooley dooley! Rightio.”

Barnaby Joyce scrambles to hand back $40,000 prize awarded by Gina Rinehart

America gives $700bn to the military – but says healthcare is a luxury | Trevor Timm | Opinion | The Guardian

On Monday, the Pentagon received even more money than it had asked for. Funding war is something that both Democrats and Republicans can agree on

Source: America gives $700bn to the military – but says healthcare is a luxury | Trevor Timm | Opinion | The Guardian