When offered the position of Governor-General by Prime Minister Whitlam in 1974, Sir John Kerr consulted friends and colleagues as to whether he should accept the appointment. One of them, Justice Robert Hope, queried why he would take such “a dead-end job, a hopeless job.” Kerr’s response was: “Oh, no, it’s a very powerful position. Continue reading »
Reading
The land the Palestinians dream about returning to is no more, and the land that Israelis dream about possessing forever has turned into an immoral and unsustainable nightmare. The Australian Jewish Democratic Society grieves for the future of Palestinians and Israelis. The AJDS is also concerned at the deteriorating domestic political environment, particularly with the Continue reading »
China’s offer to negotiate the removal of its ‘tariffs’ on imports of Australian wine is seen by many as a generous act to facilitate the current visit by the Prime Minister. There is little if any generosity involved. Simon Birmingham, trade minister at the time of the imposition of the ‘tariffs’, recently restated his long-held Continue reading »
The US is reluctant to ratify international conventions despite endlessly expounding on the importance of all countries abiding by the vague Rules Based International Order (RBIO). I have a direct and personal interest in the reluctance of the United States to ratify United Nations Conventions, arising from my involvement of over two decades in the Continue reading »
The elections we’re watching today in Ohio, Maine, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia, and more.
The post Do Voters Care More About Online Sex Than Abortion Rights? appeared first on The Intercept.
G. Elliott Morris of 538 (the man who took Nate Silver’s place) has thoughts on the polls. I think you will find it reassuring: Where does the 2024 election stand one year out? We modeled six scenarios for the presidential race. American voters cast 158 million ballots in the 2020 presidential election. Yet the winner was ultimately decided by about 43,000 voters across Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin — the states that carried President Joe Biden over the 270 Electoral College votes he needed to win the presidency. The 2016 election, also closely contested, was similarly settled by about 78,000 votes in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. And if the 2024 election were held tomorrow, it would likely be very close too. At least, that’s what the polls say. According to an average of national 2024 general election polls I’ve run using 538’s current polling average methodology, Biden and former President Donald Trump are currently neck-and-neck among likely voters, with Trump at 42.9 percent and Biden at 42.4 percent. Support for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The Prime Minister's flimsy new government programme suggests he leads a Government that is fresh out of ideas
This winning image of a match catching fire brings to mind the wildfires engulfing our increasingly flammable world.
The post When Fire Feeds Fire appeared first on Nautilus.
Prosecutors: Trump “stands alone in history” Famous? Infamous? What’s the difference? So long as Donald Trump can wiggle out of accountability yet again, this time for conspiracy to overthrow the 2020 presidential election. His attorneys filed a motion to dismiss the federal charges brought against him over events leading to the Jan. 6 insurrection. Law & Crime: Urging a federal judge to disregard Donald Trump‘s latest attempt to cast off his indictment in Washington, D.C., for allegedly conspiring to overturn the 2020 election, prosecutors at the special counsel’s office argue Trump’s criminality “stands alone” in history and that even if he genuinely believed the 2020 election was stolen, he still used “fraud and deceit” as a means to achieve illicit ends. In his 79-page motion filed Monday, Jack Smith challenges Trump’s attempts to rewrite history and recast himself as victim. What he did leading up to Jan.
The RSA said it disagreed with the decision and criticised the IWGB trade union for pursuing the case against it
Perhaps you’ve heard of “Makin’ Thunderbirds,” a hard-bitten rock & roll song by Bob Seger that I listened to 30 years ago while in college. It’s about auto workers back in 1955 who were “young and proud” to be making Ford Thunderbirds. But in the early 1980s, Seger sings, “the plants have changed and you’re lucky if you work.” Seger caught the reality of an American manufacturing infrastructure that was seriously eroding as skilled and good-paying union jobs were cut or sent overseas, rarely to be seen again in these parts. If the U.S. auto industry has recently shown sparks of new life (though we’re not making T-Birds or Mercuries or Oldsmobiles or Pontiacs or Saturns anymore), there is one... Read more
Source: Weapons ‘R’ Us appeared first on TomDispatch.com.
The MVC team is joined by writer and director Boots Riley to discuss his 2018 telemarketing industry satire.
If you’re ineligible to run for president…. If Donald Trump wants admission to the dictators’ club with Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orbán and Kim Jong Un, he’ll have to prove himself worthy. That’s his plan. You laugh? Just you wait. Right now he’s busy being prosecuted. The former and would-be president’s antics on the witness stand Monday in his Manhattan financial fraud trial were as Michael Cohen predicted. Question his net worth and he’ll lose it. Trump was so fixated on maintaining his Richie Rich image that according to press accounts he never once mentioned the 2020 election being stolen from him. It’s that important to him. Trump rambled. He blustered. He bragged. He insulted the judge and New York Attorney General Letitia James. New York Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron multiple times urged Trump’s attorneys to get their client under control. It was as useless as expecting a fussy two-year-old to behave in a fancy restaurant. Former Watergate prosecutor Jill Wine-Banks said of Trump’s courtroom misbehavior, “This is why we need cameras in the courtroom.
Israel is losing the information war. But that is not because they aren't trying. MintPress' Alan MacLeod breaks down how the government of Israel has spent millions of dollars on targeted ads aimed at Westerners, all in an attempt to whitewash a genocide.
The post Behind Israel’s Propaganda Campaign, with Alan Macleod appeared first on MintPress News.
The crafting of 'ceasefire' marches as a transgression of Remembrance Sunday looks like a throwback to a top-down colonial mindset, argues Suriyah Bi
To analyze the ideology of Silicon Valley, one can take two approaches. One is to start “from the bottom” and qualitatively examine the writing and influence of key intellectual figures in the community. This method will yield a host of arcane and idiosyncratic ideologies and worldviews, which may or may not be reflected in political […]
Q: I’ve just learned I have COVID. Should I—
A: Wait. Are you over seventy, and/or are you functioning without an immune system, and/or did you actually listen when we told you to get a booster?
Q: Uh, no, no, and yes.
A: Ah, you’re one of the boring COVID cases then. Go ahead. Ask your questions.
Q: Basically, is there anything I need to do now that I know I have COVID?
A: You should stay home. Unless you don’t have symptoms. If you don’t, you can go out. Or you can stay home then too. Either or.
Q: Should I mask?
A: Yes?
Q: You don’t sound super sure about that.
A: If you want to mask, mask.
Q: Are you guys masking?
A: No. Well, except Linda in phlebotomy.
Q: Have any of you had COVID?
A: Yes. Dozens of times. Linda missed three consecutive months of work in 2020. It was bonkers.
Q: Okay, so I guess I’ll mask. Do I need to stay home from work?
A: Can you work from home?
Q: No, I’m a teacher.
A: Oh, thank you. Our future is literally in your hands.
Open Rights Group has responded to the proposed amendments to the Investigatory Powers Act, announced in the King’s Speech today. The amendments could mean that global tech companies are forced to get permission from the UK government if they want to make changes to security features of their products and services. This is likely to […]
Germany's laudable commitment to remembering its dark past means that marches in support of Palestinians are banned
Introduction ORG would like to express concern regarding the proposed changes, which seem to be squarely aimed at reducing the possibility of the introduction of encryption to protect user data from unwanted access. The Home Office appears to regard encryption, especially “end to end encryption” (E2EE), where a service provider is unable to see the […]
In today's BCTV Daily Dispatch: Stranger Things, SAG-AFTRA, Friends/Matthew Perry, Doctor Who, Rick and Morty, Invincible, Reacher, and more!
- by Erica X Eisen
- by Shayla Love