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Does anybody else find it ironic that a would-be-dictator is bragging about killing a dictator of another country? I am talking about President Trump, who tells Americans there should be no separation between church and state, and the theocratic leader of Iran, the late Ayatollah Khomeini. Donald Trump previously claimed to be worthy of the Nobel peace prize, as the war stopper par excellence. Hey, he has obviously moved on from this deeply held moral standpoint. Boredom is Trump’s greatest threat, it seems. Donald Trump is, without doubt, the biggest liar that the American presidency has ever seen. Therefore, his claims are as credible as the boy who cried wolf.
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You know, a long time ago, I removed liars from my life. I made a conscious decision not to have people who dissemble around me. I suppose, I thought, that things can be fairly challenging without the added complications of not knowing if that person was spinning me a tale. Talking shit! Making stuff up to suit their own purposes. Since that self-imposed rule came into my life, things may not be as exciting as they once were but they are a hell of a lot simpler. This is probably why I have no time for Donald Trump at all. Once I worked out that the man is a compulsive liar and has zero respect for the truth, I will not waste my time listening to his crap. I do feel sorry for those Americans who have to endure such a waste of space pretending to be someone worthy of being their leader.
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Yet another, executive order from the President has been found to be unconstitutional and illegal. Lawless Trump regime tariffs struck down by Supreme Court. The economic wastage committed by this administration is enormous, as it fails to govern appropriately. No man is an island, not even, Donald Trump. Only Congress can enact these tariffs according to the SCOTUS ruling. No President can apply tariffs in this manner, as the US Constitution tells us that this is only a job for Congress. President Trump is spitting chips and saying nasty things about the supreme court justices that ruled against his tariffs.
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Day 3 of having no power due to a storm. No service: Profitability is the new power. Yes, this post is written under the duress of being cut off from electricity in my home and work. We live in a time, where being connected to the grid is more essential than ever before. Everything now runs on electricity. My gripe is that despite this clear and present reality, we are still dependent upon outdated and fragile infrastructure. 50 years ago, as I was growing up, I heard about the plans to put the power lines underground. Indeed, this has been achieved in many new suburbs. I do wonder why in this wonderful new world of privatised utilities how so many more established suburbs and towns have not been transformed in this subterranean fashion. Storms wreak havoc to power lines on poles.
The AFL has created a game that human bodies cannot actually cope with. How do we know this? Take a look at the number of soft tissue and knee injuries on the playing lists of AFL clubs. AFL a game unfit for human bodies. The evolution of the game has AFL players running at top speed, suddenly stopping, turning, twisting and being tackled. No bloody wonder that human joints and muscles cannot cope with the stress being applied to them under this kind of duress week in and week out. The physical conditioning experts employed by the clubs would know this but their well paid jobs encourage them to stay silent on this issue.
AI digital technology is coming for your job. AI heresy a betrayal of humanity. Big Tech is being run by oligarchs hell bent on profitability at all costs. Ruthless American capitalism has no interest in you or your family. This is a betrayal of us all and not merely a fight between doomers and boomers. Read all about it, if you dare. Of course, you might not be smart enough? Your brain may have already begun to atrophy? Is AI thinking for you and making decisions for you in your life? Robert Sudha Hamilton has written The AI Heresy: A Betrayal of Humanity as a warning to us all. A clarion call to wake up before it is too late. Do you have the symptoms?
Australia is on the eve of a federal election to decide which party will lead the country. Peter Dutton, the current Opposition leader, has taken his political party further to the right. The LNP Coalition Trumpian playbook is all about demonising enemies and alarming the electorate. How about a referendum to allow politicians to deport dual Australian citizens they deem unworthy? The courts already have this power but Peter wants to play politics with such authoritarian power invested into his own hands. The ex-cop from Queensland sees every complex issue as a job for the heavy hand of the law. Does this remind you of someone in the US of A right now?
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We have seen a spate of one-size-fits-all welfare payments and subsidies. You know, instead of governments helping the most needy they make stuff free for all. This is done for political purposes in attracting votes at elections. All this does is increase wealth inequality. Well off property owners should not be receiving government assistance in maintaining their lifestyles. This brings us to the Alan Kohler call for free childcare downunder. While I support the general idea, I question why wealthy Australians should qualify for these types of assistance. How about a carve out for those over a certain income and capital asset threshold? We need to reverse the widening wealth divide after decades of American style neoliberalism funnelling riches to a select few in Australia.
Democracy Fresh Government Politics Power Workers We have seen a spate of one-size-fits-all welfare payments and subsidies. You know, instead of governments helping the most needy they make stuff free for all. This is done for political purposes in attracting votes at elections. All this does is increase wealth inequality. Well off property owners should not be receiving government assistance in maintaining their lifestyles. This brings us to the Alan Kohler call for free childcare downunder. While I support the general idea, I question why wealthy Australians should qualify for these types of assistance. How about a carve out for those over a certain income and capital asset threshold? We need to reverse the widening wealth divide after decades of American style neoliberalism funnelling riches to a select few in Australia.
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We have seen a spate of one-size-fits-all welfare payments and subsidies. You know, instead of governments helping the most needy they make stuff free for all. This is done for political purposes in attracting votes at elections. All this does is increase wealth inequality. Well off property owners should not be receiving government assistance in maintaining their lifestyles. This brings us to the Alan Kohler call for free childcare downunder. While I support the general idea, I question why wealthy Australians should qualify for these types of assistance. How about a carve out for those over a certain income and capital asset threshold? We need to reverse the widening wealth divide after decades of American style neoliberalism funnelling riches to a select few in Australia.
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Trump starts war with Iran in concert with Israel and vandalises the world economy. This irresponsible fool then passes the buck to America’s former allies, demanding they re-open the Strait of Hormuz. Nobody wants to follow the US into this mess of their own making. This is what you get when you elect a convicted felon and multiple bankrupt to the presidency. The stupidity of America is on full display. The greed and selfishness of Americans is up on the world stage for all to see. Listening to a lying, loud mouthed idiot is taking the United States and the world to the brink of collapse and destruction.
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We need an Inquiry into why LPG gas deals have been so financially bad for the nation as a whole. Why do the gas companies pay so little tax and royalties on the huge amounts of gas they export for enormous profits? When elected representatives are deaf to their constituents, you know something is wrong with our democracy. Polling has indicated that 75% of Australians support a 25% export tax on LPG gas. Yet, this federal Labor government has knocked back proposed legislation to make this happen.
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Do you want to know the fundamental difference between Left and Right political parties? The Left is committed to bringing everyone along for the ride, whilst the Right is about winner takes all. Have a look at the United States, where right wing politics has prevailed for much of its history. President Trump’s rendition of the Republican party is probably the most extreme far right version we have seen in a good while. What are the major themes running through Trump 2.0? White supremacy is pretty hard to ignore with ICE agents running amok, detaining and murdering Americans based on the colour of their skin. Right wing thugs are not the sharpest tools in the shed and plenty of US citizens have been wrongly targeted in these storm trooper type raids upon unarmed Americans.
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I have to share with you that I am profoundly disappointed with where the world finds itself. I have been around for six decades and I must say I expected better. The rise of Donald Trump has pulled me into a deep concern for world affairs. This turn toward out and out greed and aggrandisement by the ‘so-called’ leader of the free world upsets me more than I can say. However, it is his complete disrespect for factuality and an adherence to the truth that riles me the most. If you cannot trust your leaders, then we are fucked, to put it plainly. When truth is the victim, faith in any future is lost.
I could have also used the terms selfish, greedy, disinterested and trapped in the past. Look around you at the current crop of right wing governments in the United States and Israel as illustrations of this. The MAGA supporters are, on the whole, focused on what they can get from a Trump administration and turning the clock back to a less integrated multiracial America. You do not get the sense that these folk are interested in what is good for all Americans, no matter their skin colour, gender or sexual preference. This is why right wing voters tend to be more stupid.
If you were asked who sits atop the business/economic pyramid, who would you nominate? If you answered shareholders you would be correct. These investors are the owners of companies and businesses. CEOs and boards do everything in their power to increase the value of their companies. Often enriching themselves in the process, of course, via stock buybacks and such like. Consumers and company employees sit well down on the hierarchical ladder of importance these days. Keeping prices high and wages low are part and parcel of increasing the value of company stock. This economic greed is destroying our lives, as it is completely out of balance.
Trump’s US forces bombed Venezuela and snatched its President. Trump illegally invades a sovereign nation. No declaration of war. No congressional approval. This was one corrupt regime attacking another corrupt regime. This was about oil. Donald Trump is a convicted felon, he is a mob boss running a super power. Trump lives in the past, this old white man, almost an octogenarian, thinks he can turn back the clock. The United States treating Central and South American nations with disdain is something that many thought belonged in the 20C. Latin America has been bedevilled by American corporate greed for centuries. You have heard the term ‘banana republics’, well, this is where it was coined.
Project 2025 and Project Esther are right wing authoritarian blueprints for the disempowerment of progressive influence in the United States of America. Antisemitism has been weaponised by the Far Right as a witch hunt. This is a global campaign supported by the Trump regime and […]
The last refuge of the incompetent is violence, to paraphrase a line attributed to Isaac Asimov. This truism is particularly apt for Donald J Trump and his regime in the United States. Busy stuffing up the world’s greatest economy, Trump and his cronies are now turning to violence to compensate. Venezuela is their first port of call, amid BS about attacking drug dealers, they are going after this nation’s oil. Venezuela has the world’s largest reserves of thick crude oil. The bully in the White House is picking on a weaker opponent, as bullies always do. You do not see Mister Trump taking on Vladimir Putin and Russia. This is despite the fact that Putin’s Russia is clearly the biggest villain in international terms. No, Trump and his kind pick on the weak, like undocumented immigrants in America.
Let’s take a peek inside the Aussie racist bubble. This is where those wrapping themselves in the national flag and marching against immigration reside. The thinking goes that if we keep out all those brown skinned people, we will not see horrendous events like the Bondi Beach mass shooting. White folk from, predominantly, Anglo stock do not commit such vile acts, according to their script. Shutting the big bad world out will protect us from the atrocities. Yes, some of our business elite sell weapons to war torn countries and our superannuation funds invest for profit in such stuff the world over, but that is beside the point. Yes, our soldiers have fought in wars in Afghanistan and the Middle East but that is not our concern, either.
I see reports that the alleged Bondi Beach gunmen were on ASIO’s radar. Well, further investigative reports tell us that they travelled to the Philippines in November and attended militia training there in the south. This would involve firearms training and learning strategies for shooting people, I would suggest. It seems that our security agencies are not all that we might hope, if the evidence is anything to go by. This in conjunction with gun laws that allowed an individual to have licenses for 6 firearms. What do you need to have this many guns for? It is time to stop treating gun owners with kid gloves and get real about the dangers these deadly weapons pose to the greater community.
We can bang on about terrorism and causes but it was guns that made this horrific Bondi Beach incident so costly in lives. Why does a gun licensee need 6 weapons? For those that might require reminding, guns facilitate massacres by making it easier to kill people. 16 people are dead from this mass shooting event at the time of writing. It is lax and over generous gun laws which have provided these killers with 6 guns to use in this devastating attack on multiple victims. Nobody needs 6 guns, whatever their circumstances; and the Bondi Beach victims have paid the price.
How the ‘Gig economy’ feeds on its workers to profit its corporate masters and their shareholders? Technology has facilitated more services and cheaper rates for consumers. Delivery drivers and riders provide their own assets, like vehicle and smart phone, to make those deliveries possible. These, often, expensive assets depreciate through use and the gig worker must bear the cost and not the parent platform. The risks are all with the worker and not the platforms. Indeed, Uber has a pathway where drivers, often, end up paying for the shopping with their own money, which is to be reimbursed days later. If the worker was being paid extra for these financially onerous uses of their assets it might be OK, but they are not.
