One solution to the UK's economic and labour shortage problems is asylum seekers – if only the Government stopped to consider options other than sending them to Rwanda
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As financial safety nets collapse, regulators are letting insurers off the hook.
“There is criticism to which one responds, other criticism to which one replies. Wrongly perhaps. Why not lend an equally attentive ear to incomprehension triviality, ignorance, or bad faith? Why reject these as so many incidents, regrettable for family honor? Is one correct in believing them inessential to the activity of criticism? I wonder if […]
I’m not sure why this would be but it’s interesting: The latest national NBC News poll shows the third-party vote — and especially independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — cutting deeper into former President Donald Trump’s support than President Joe Biden’s, though the movement the other candidates create is within the poll’s margin of error. Trump leads Biden by 2 percentage points in a head-to-head matchup, 46% to 44%, in the new NBC News poll Yet when the ballot is expanded to five named candidates, Biden is the one with a 2-point advantage: Biden 39%, Trump 37%, Kennedy 13%, Jill Stein 3% and Cornel West 2%. I’ve wondered how many former Trumpers are anti-vaxers who think he betrayed them with the COVID vaccine and maybe there are more than we think? It seems hard to believe. I’d think more of the Kennedy voters would be lefty anti-vaxers, and there are quite a few. But who knows? The polling right now generally is imprecise. It’s possible that Kennedy’s sabotage campaign could end up being the greater threat to Trump or maybe just a wash like Ross Perot’s was.
Low rating news and opinion channel, Sky News Australia, has been tipped to be named as Australia’s future source of fuel with plans afoot to start mining the channel’s hosts for their nuclear outrage. ”This is a great move as... Read More ›
Let one old man deal with two others. I turn 80 in July, which makes me just over a year-and-a-half younger than Joe Biden and almost two years older than Donald Trump. And, honestly, I know my limits. Yes, I still walk — no small thing — six miles a day. And I work constantly. But I’m also aware that, on my second walk of the day and then as night approaches, I feel significantly more tired than I once did. I’m also aware that my brain, still active indeed, does forget more than it once did. And all of this is painfully normal. Nothing to be ashamed of, nothing whatsoever. I also know from older friends that we humans... Read more
Source: Old Man World appeared first on TomDispatch.com.
But he isn’t entirely stupid either This lede from The New York Times could be defined as an understatement but I’m not inclined to slam it. At least they aren’t sayihng Mike Johnson is the new Winston Churchill like some people are fatuously contending: The accolades directed at Speaker Mike Johnson in recent days for finally defying the right wing of his party and allowing an aid bill for Ukraine to move through the House might have seemed a tad excessive. After all, a speaker’s entire job is to move legislation through the House, and as Saturday’s vote to pass the bill demonstrated, the Ukraine measure had overwhelming support. But Mr. Johnson’s feat was not so different from that of another embattled Republican who faced a difficult choice under immense pressure from hard-right Republicans and was saluted as a hero for simply doing his job: former Vice President Mike Pence. When Mr. Pence refused former President Donald J. Trump’s demands that he overturn the 2020 election results as he presided over the electoral vote count by Congress on Jan.
Kevin Drum noted something very interesting in a recent Economist article about Americans’ lack of trust in institutions. As he says, we are all aware of this but draws our attention to this: Kevin draws the correct inference in my opinion: Collapse of trust in government is a purely American phenomenon. Why? Because we have Fox News and the others don’t. Oh, they have tabloids and conservative newspapers and so forth, but nothing like Fox News, which makes its living by spreading outrage over the way the country is run. The power of Fox News is truly spectacular. Outrage sells, and the fact that one of the two major parties amplifies Fox uncritically means it has a surprisingly large influence in setting the agenda for the mainstream media too. The truth is that US institutions mostly operate about as well as they ever have. But Fox pushes outrage over Dr. Fauci and trust in the CDC plummets. They push outrage over Donald Trump’s loss in 2020 and trust in elections plummets. They go all in on CRT and DEI and trust in schools plummets. They push climate denialism and trust in science plummets.
Society as a whole has a critical interest in the direction of technological innovation. This cannot be left uniquely to a limited group of capitalist bosses. Consultation with all the key interest groups and government regulation have a critical role to play in ensuring future economic growth and a fair go for all. This article Continue reading »
The continuing horror in Gaza touches us all deeply, even if only vicariously. It leads us ineluctably to the question, often asked in exasperation: Is there no solution? But we’ve been here before and some point to the 1998 Belfast Good Friday Agreement (BGFA), which ended the Troubles in Northern Ireland, as a possible model Continue reading »
On February 28, 2022, four days after Russia had attacked into Ukraine, Moscow and Kiev began peace talks. The Russian attack had aimed to force Kiev to promise neutrality – i.e. not to join NATO. It also aimed to put an end to eight years of neo-NAZI and other militant bombing of the two Russian-speaking Continue reading »
Recently, a former Prime Minister (who also once served as Health Minister) was quoted as declaring “the Morrison government’s Covid response as a ‘grotesque overreaction’ to a ‘relatively mild pandemic’”. Presuming the quotation is accurate, this incorrect and irresponsible comment needs to be debunked by some facts. These facts derive from World Health Organisation statistics Continue reading »
In the last three months, processing of primary level asylum seeker applications increased from 1,002 in December 2023; to 1,479 in January 2024 and 2,037 in February 2024 (see Chart 1). Applications processed exceeded new applications lodged in February 2024 for the first time since early 2022 when international borders re-opened and new applications again Continue reading »
It was a particularly technical legal point. The colleague was an experienced trial advocate with a case in which he felt there was a slim plot of fertile ground on which he might be able to appeal. But he just couldn’t quite work out how all the pieces might come together. His written materials raked Continue reading »
With the federal budget just over three weeks away, researcher Chelsea Hunnisett has some pointed questions for the Albanese Government, including: what happened to plans for a wellbeing economy, and where is your commitment to intergenerational investment for health and wellbeing? Hunnisett is a Laureate PhD Candidate and Government Relations Specialist in the Planetary Health Continue reading »
Some time back I watched SBS’ ‘The Australian Wars’. It was, to many, a completely different viewpoint of settler colonialism, the impact of invasion, and the very legitimate defence of land by Australia’s indigenous native population. It is often not highlighted that resistance to invasion and settler-colonialism is a fair and justified fight for indigenous Continue reading »
The destruction of Gaza proves the entire mainstream western worldview is bullshit, because if the mainstream western worldview was accurate, the destruction of Gaza would not be happening. By the mainstream western worldview I mean the general consensus about what’s going on in the world which is prevalent among mainstream western politicians and pundits and Continue reading »
This is a time of seismic change in the Middle East. At the heart of this region, the United Nations Agency for Palestine Refugees – UNRWA – is a stabilising force. Today, an insidious campaign to end UNRWA’s operations is underway, with serious implications for international peace and security, says Philippe Lazzarini. Statement by the Continue reading »
Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – April 21 2024
by Tony Wikrent
Strategic Political Economy
Will the American Oligarchy Accept Limits or Choose World War Three?
Posted on April 14, 2024 by Conor Gallagher
Database Exposes ‘Illicit Network Undermining Democracy Around the World’
Brett Wilkins, April 05, 2024 [CommonDreams]
It looks like Rupert and company have had it with her. Au contraire Marjorie: Of course it’s partisan. Propaganda is a hell of a drug.
And I mean that Those of you who read this blog regularly know that I have been very critical of MSNBC and CNN for making what seemed to me to be a rather self-righteous decision not to show Donald Trump to their audience. They talked about him incessantly but they refused to show him and that was a mistake. Yes, he lies but people needed to be reminded that he’s a disgusting narcissistic sociopath. Many of them seem to have forgotten. Anyway, Nate Cohn of the NY Times has observed the phenomenon: Donald J. Trump appears to be a stronger candidate than he was four years ago, polling suggests, and not just because a notable number of voters look back on his presidency as a time of relative peace and prosperity. It’s also because his political liabilities, like his penchant to offend and his legal woes, don’t dominate the news the way they once did. In the last New York Times/Siena College poll, only 38 percent of voters said they’d been offended by Mr. Trump “recently,” even as more than 70 percent said they had been offended by him at some point.
Check out a new teaser for Doctor Who Showrunner Russell T. Davies and series stars Ncuti Gatwa & Millie Gibson's new season of adventures.