Within pretty broad limits[1], I’m an advocate of historical ‘presentism’, that is, assessing past events and actions in the same way as those in the present, and considering history in relation to our present concerns. In particular, that implies viewing enslavers, racists and warmongers in the same light, whether they are active today or died […]
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This image is the current logo for the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel. When, in 1963, Samuel Beckett endorsed “Playwrights…
The Reserve Bank conducted its sixth triennial Consumer Payments Survey (CPS), which provides detailed information on how Australians make their payments. The 2022 CPS provides the first comprehensive snapshot of consumer payment behaviour following the changes brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. The survey shows that most in-person payments are made by tapping cards or mobile devices, even for small purchases. This means the share of in-person transactions made with cash halved, from 32 per cent to 16 per cent, over the three years to 2022. The demographic groups that traditionally used cash more frequently for payments – such as the elderly, those on lower incomes and those in regional areas – saw the largest declines in cash use. Cash usage has generally been replaced with card payments. While Australians are aware of and use a range of other newer payment methods, such as digital wallets and buy now, pay later services, they still make up a small share of payments.
There is no end to the corruption. The NY Times with an epic tale of pardon abuse: Even amid the uproar over President Donald J. Trump’s freewheeling use of his pardon powers at the end of his term, one commutation stood out. Jonathan Braun of New York had served just two and a half years of a decade-long sentence for running a massive marijuana ring, when Mr. Trump, at 12:51 a.m. on his last day in office, announced he would be freed. Mr. Braun was, to say the least, an unusual candidate for clemency. A Staten Islander with a history of violent threats, Mr. Braun had told a rabbi who owed him money: “I am going to make you bleed.” Mr. Braun’s family had told confidants they were willing to spend millions of dollars to get him out of prison. At the time, Mr. Trump’s own Justice Department and federal regulators, as well as New York state authorities, were still after him for his role in an entirely separate matter: his work as a predatory lender, making what judges later found were fraudulent and usurious loans to cash-strapped small businesses. Nearly three years later, the consequences of Mr.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro agrees with me: Josh Shapiro isn’t yet worried about President Joe Biden’s standing. Rather, the governor of Pennsylvania attributes Biden’s recent polling slide behind former President Donald Trump to voter “brain fog” that he thinks will clear once the general election cycle kicks into gear. “I’m not sure folks remember just how chaotic it was, how divisive it was, how he was just in your face in your living room every day,” Shapiro said, referring to Trump. “I don’t think people want to go back to that.” […] “As people are reminded of what it was like and they are forced to tune back in and listen to that during the course of a presidential race, they’re going to reject his extremism, his chaos and his danger,” he said of Trump. I think he’s right. (I hope he’s right?) But it’s going to take effort to remind people about what it was really like. There is a lot to work with so there’s no excuse for failing to do it.
Imagine this: humanity in its time on Earth has already come up with two distinct ways of destroying this planet and everything on it. The first is, of course, nuclear weapons, which once again surfaced in the ongoing nightmare in the Middle East. (An Israeli minister recently threatened to nuke Gaza.) The second, you won’t be surprised to learn, is what we’ve come to call “climate change” or “global warming” — the burning, that is, of fossil fuels to desperately overheat our already flaming world. In its own fashion, that could be considered a slow-motion version of the nuking of the planet. Put another way, in some grim sense, all of us now live in Gaza. (Most of us just... Read more
Source: A Slow-Motion Gaza appeared first on TomDispatch.com.
They got power… This interview with Tim Alberta is riveting. Highly recommend: This is one of the most disturbing stories in American politics and there are a lot of them. We need to pay attention.
Australia’s favourite billionaire, according to low rating news channel Sky News Australia, Gina Rinehart, has booked the Federal court for her families Christmas lunch. ”The Federal court is a wonderful place to hold an event,” said a friend of the... Read More ›
“Let’s face it, the universe is messy. It is nonlinear, turbulent, and chaotic. It is dynamic. It spends its time in transient behavior on its way to somewhere else, not …
The post The empire of lies (and its consequences) appeared first on The Gower Initiative for Modern Money Studies.
The influential Spanish language broadcaster isn’t kowtowing to the boss or to Trump The Washington Post reports: The most prominent U.S. journalist at Univision, the country’s largest Spanish-language network, wrote Saturday that reporters had a moral obligation to ask hard questions of Donald Trump during his campaign to retake the White House. Jorge Ramos devoted his weekly column to making that case in the wake of his network’s recent friendly interview with Trump, which was attended by three senior executives at Univision’s relatively new parent company. Ramos wrote that it had “put in doubt the independence of our news department.” The column by Ramos, an influential anchor of Univision News since 1986, goes to 40 U.S. and Latin American newspapers, and he speaks on Univision Radio and other television shows. His most recent column, headlined “The Danger of Not Confronting Trump,” addressed the recent interview and recounted the ex-president’s separation of immigrant families and lies, including that he won the 2020 election.
This is just ridiculous: Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie on Sunday sought to play down the potential consequences if rival Donald Trump loses the 2024 primary race but refuses to concede — or even keeps running as a third-party candidate. “No one will expect him to concede. He hasn’t conceded the 2020 election. Who cares,” Christie, a former governor of New Jersey and a Trump supporter-turned-critic, told ABC “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl. While Trump maintains a huge lead in national polling of Republican primary voters, he is in a slightly weaker front-runner position according to surveys in Iowa and New Hampshire, the first two states to vote, where Christie and other challengers are hoping for an upset. Pressed by Karl on how Trump’s continued presence in the race could be an ongoing problem if he loses — like if he contests the results or runs third-party — Christie dismissed that notion, arguing that at that point, “the public en masse will begin to ignore” the former president because of his repeated defeats at the ballot box.
Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – November 26, 2023
by Tony Wikrent
The deep state unleashed oligarchy
Patrick Lawrence: What Died 60 Years Ago? A President and a Nation’s Promise
[Scheerpost, via Naked Capitalism 11-24-2023]
The 2000 residents of Diego Garcia were forcibly removed to make way for a giant US military base. Will the same happen to the Australian residents on the Cocos Islands that lies south of Sumatra in the Indian ocean? When Julia Gillard allowed US marines to be rotated/based in Darwin there was speculation that this was just Continue reading »
Entrepreneurs occupy a pivotal role in bridging the gap between Australia and China, especially when it comes to climate collaboration. Collaboration between Australia and China on solar energy technologies stands as a testament to the potential of entrepreneurship and international partnerships in driving innovation and sustainability. The synergy had led to various successful joint ventures Continue reading »
China’s economy today is around 50 times larger, in real terms, than it was 50 years ago. A World Bank report in 2022 confirmed that during this period, China lifted at least 800 million people out of extreme poverty, contributing close to 75% of the total reduction in extreme poverty, globally. You won’t find these Continue reading »
US Congressional report argues that Australia’s acquisition of nuclear submarines would actually undercut deterrence of China by depleting the US submarine fleet. With the promise of nuclear submarines becoming ever distant, it may be time to reconsider other options. Recent surprising disclosures have revealed that nuclear-powered submarines, which Australia plans to acquire under the trilateral Continue reading »
West Australia’s council elections seem a strange place to pinpoint a warning about American radicalising political games infiltrating the Australian landscape. While it is strange, it is nonetheless important. American conservative and commentator Andrew Breitbart declared a (contested) doctrine that “politics is downstream from culture.” According to his institutional heir, Steve Bannon, this means strategists Continue reading »
Recently, the issue of “Publish-or-Perish” has come back onto the Australian science policy agenda, with the Chief Scientist, Dr Cathy Foley, saying that existing narrow research metrics are creating a “Publish-or-Perish” culture, perversely incentivising researchers to “publish iteratively”, chasing publication volume and citations rather than quality research. Dr Foley was referring to the recent ACOLA Continue reading »
In March 1995, Pakistan’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting took a bold step by granting a 15-year license to M/s Pay TV to establish a wireless TV network. The intention was clear: to harness the potential of wireless technology for the nation’s development. Years later, we find ourselves at a crossroads, with the promise of Continue reading »
The Palestinian-Israeli conflict, which spans over seven decades, serves as a potent illustration of the persistent failures of Western nations, particularly the United States, to facilitate an equitable and enduring resolution. Over the past month, the world has been appalled by unprecedented violence which has prompted critical contemplation of the efficacy of international law, the Continue reading »