Essential Research’s fortnightly voting intention numbers, which include a 5% undecided component, have both Labor and the Coalition down a point on the primary vote, to 33% and 30% respectively, with the Greens steady on 14%, One Nation up one to 6% and the United Australia Party steady on 2%. The pollster’s 2PP+ measure has Labor up one to 53%, the Coalition down one to 42% and undecided steady on 5%. The poll includes has Anthony Albanese’s monthly personal ratings, on which he is down a point on approval to 52% and up one on disapproval to 35%.
Other findings from this fortnight’s survey include strong majority support for six proposed federal government measures to deal with the cost of living, ranging from 77% for electricity and gas price caps to 57% for changing industrial relations laws to make it easier for workers to negotiate pay rises. Fifty-four per cent now rate themselves as financially struggling or worse, up five since March, with 46% rating themselves comfortable or secure, down five. Asked how much impact federal government policies had on the cost of living, 31% chose a lot, 40% a little, 18% not that much and 5% hardly anything.
On climate change, 39% now rate that the government is not doing enough, down four from October and the lowest result this question has yielded going back to 2016, with doing enough up a point to 33% and doing too much up three to 16%. Fifty-one per cent support a national authority to manage the transition to renewable energy with 20% opposed, and 50% support government assessment of greenhouse gas emissions when considering new projects with 20% opposed, but only 34% support ending future coal and gas extraction projects with 35% opposed. Asked whether parliamentary approval should be required for a decision to go to war, the sample split 90-10 in favour of yes. The poll was conducted Wednesday to Sunday from a sample of 1133.
Also out yesterday was the latest Roy Morgan result, which had Labor’s two-party lead in from 57-43 to 54.5-45.5 from primary votes of Labor 34.5%, Coalition 34.5% and Greens 13%.
UPDATE: Also out this morning from The Australian is results from Newspoll on the Indigenous voice, which finds 54% in favour and 38% opposed, breaking down to 55-36 in New South Wales, 56-35 in Victoria, 49-43 in Queensland, 51-41 in Western Australia, 60-33 in South Australia and 55-39 in Tasmania. The results are aggregated from three polls conducted since the start of February, but sub-sample sizes are as low as 334 in the case of Tasmania, increasing to 1414 in the case of New South Wales.
Wranslide I asked if Paul is thinking of changing his un after keatings press club. I made the assertion it was as if he was booster for the CCP. Obviously he wasn’t paid by them, I said that because his blind defence of the country made it appear that way.
It then evolved from there. No need for it to continue rolling on. Even us on the left side are deeply divided about AUKUS – and that’s fine and passionate debate narratives should continue on it in the public discourse.
We want Paul: I apologise if offence was taken and I retract any grievances caused.
‘wranslide says:
Monday, April 10, 2023 at 1:34 pm
And the reference to the citizens of China as ‘chinaman’ is loaded with all sort of racial derogatory undertones. Leave it out please.’
—————————–
Agree.
Sorry, I’ve always used that like Frenchman, Dutchman, Welshman, Scotsman etc etc.
Moving forward I won’t use that phrase
“LOL. More personal abuse. You do do that when you get caught out bullshitting don’t you?”
Except I didn’t, you can declare yourself the winner of your little bad faith bullshit but my point stands, and every time you post looks a little bit stronger. Carry on digging dude.
“We want Paul: I apologise if offence was taken and I retract any grievances caused.”
I apologise for my overreaction, I certainly didn’t take personal offence, although when Keating addressed the ‘bought by China claim’ he did say it was offensive for that to be said about an Australian Prime Minister. No grievance either, except with the idea that the ‘China’ problem can be solved with might is right / war like the USA solved Iraq and Afghansitan etc etc etc.
The USA is very bad a war but seems to have no other cards to play.
WWP, you just strike me as young. Noticed a couple of times when you’ve clearly not been exposed to either history or context. From what I can see, you’ve taken on board context when you’ve been informed.
In the case of the ‘chinaman’ context, for many decades in Australia and around the world, this trope was associated with outrageous bigotry. You can look up the old posters and such. Kinda like the nazi bigotry against Jews. Gruesome stuff. It’s not like those other things.
Solid post @ 12:52pm WWP.
AUKUS – viewed from both a foreign policy and as a defence structure policy – is just bonkers.
That the modern Labor party has joined the mad rush to retreat back into the anglosphere, after all the hard work that Whitlam and Keating did to realign ourselves intellectually with our own neighbourhood is frankly astonishing. The most cra-cra thing I’ve witnessed in this country in my adult life.
Lars Von Trier @ #1713 Monday, April 10th, 2023 – 1:08 pm
I take pleasure from playing, singing and listening to beautiful music, designing and hand building beautiful houses and furniture, helping people less fortunate than myself, consuming worthwhile (to me) reading matter, (fiction, historical and scientific) and being as good a Dad to my four children, and Grandad to my seven grandchildren as I am able.
I also enjoy working with my four current clients to continue development and ongoing use of the mathematical optimisation computer models I have built with them. I get a terrific charge when a big LP goes feasible and optimal for the first time. Sort of like giving birth, but not really painful. Just now I am finding out why column 3N09FCBL is going infeasible when we directed *N*** farm collections into a blended stream via ***W*** transfer station, rather than going to **L** for conversion to FC powder plus cream.
Clothes, fashion, status symbols and associated pointless ephemera I am not much interested in. Reliability research in the US shows that you have switched from 3rd most reliable car brand (BMW) to the 24th, and bottom (Mercedes). But never mind the quality, feel the prestige, and watch the money that you could have spent productively disappear into a depreciation, lease interest and servicing black hole, rather than being spent on something worthwhile, like a contribution to Sukkar’s branch stacking fund.
https://www.whichcar.com.au/news/toyota-lexus-and-bmw-top-reliability-survey
[‘Due to his whistleblowing efforts, which exposed Australian special forces officers having committed war crimes in Afghanistan, former Australian Defence Force lawyer David McBride is a hero to many in this country.
So, it’s difficult to have heard him say at recent events that he expects to be spending time in prison following his trial, where the prosecution will argue that he, in having divulged classified information, threatened national security.
“When I am in gaol, which is likely to happen, because the Americans want it to happen, and Albanese can’t say no to the Americans, you people will make me smile,” McBride told a crowd of Julian Assange supporters, out the front of the prime minister’s Marrickville office on 10 December.
McBride leaked classified ADF documents to the ABC over 2014 to 2016, which contained the details that went on to form the basis of the 2017 Afghan Files report. And David only did this after he’d first gone to his superiors in the military with his concerns, which failed to trigger any internal action.
The father-of-two is now set to appear before the ACT Supreme Court early next Tuesday morning, 11 April, to set the date for his criminal trial, which will see him tried over face five national security offences that could result in him spending the rest of his life in prison.’]
https://www.sydneycriminallawyers.com.au/blog/mcbrides-criminal-trial-date-set-next-week-as-the-adf-whistleblower-faces-hard-time/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=week-15
Why hasn’t Dreyfus exercised his power to nolle the indictment against
this man? Perhaps McBride’s postulation is correct.
From Canada:
Mavis
Dreyfus and Albanese shame Labor with their attack on whistleblowers.
“WWP, you just strike me as young. Noticed a couple of times when you’ve clearly not been exposed to either history or context. From what I can see, you’ve taken on board context when you’ve been informed.
In the case of the ‘chinaman’ context, for many decades in Australia and around the world, this trope was associated with outrageous bigotry. You can look up the old posters and such. Kinda like the nazi bigotry against Jews. Gruesome stuff. It’s not like those other things.”
So two things, thanks for calling me young, I know it was just another put down / insult, but that is the way here. Accidental flower in a sewer, so thank you never the less.
Now I didn’t make my point eloquently, but IMHO the reason the far right has been so successful in their pivot from islamophobia as a way of population control to using the racism and bigotry you describe and which I’m very aware of, in relation to China.
So I’m not sure why I’m getting called out on that, I recognised it immediately for what it is, but didn’t want to fight that war. But still it is my honest opinion that the current popularity of the far right’s anti China pivot as islamophobia waned as a motivator to hot wars around the globe is that exact bigotry you identify. The same bigotry in kid overboard, and the same bigotry that has dominated both sides in the bipartisan refugee response in Australia that carried on, *checks notes* carries on unabated.
I see we have a monologue going on here today….yawn….
The thing about China that is unique, is that people associate China with race, language, culture and nationality. None of them fit. There is no one chinese race, language, culture, and the only one that might fit ‘nationality’ is problematic too. The ‘chinese’ association you might have in your head is going to be radically different than a ‘chinese’ person standing in front of you. They may have zero of those associations, but it won’t stop people making those associations in their heads. I know this by having relations that are 8th and 9th generation ‘chinese australians’.
It’s hard to disassociate those biases from discussions about ‘china’.
WWP: “So two things, thanks for calling me young, I know it was just another put down / insult,”
Nothing could be further from the truth. I was informing you in good faith. Fun fact; I didn’t even know there was a Jewish trope until I was in my late twenties. For me, it was all a historical thing. Until I met an actual anti Semite. I said “oh. you’re one of them.” He tried to explain his rationale to me. My partner, a very smart lady, explained it. I didn’t know the feld/berg names was even a thing.
I see the Boer has been nitpicking about WWP’s statement that ‘China hasnt changed’.
One of Boer’s problems is that he reads and absorbs the propaganda rag Global Times. I’d rather have vogon poetry recited at me as I removed my left arm with a cheese grater.
Boer draws Hitler comparisons at a drop of hat, usually backed up by asinine listicles.
WWP’s ‘sin’ in this instance pales when compared to Boer’s over the top, and unhinged rampages when it comes to all things Xi and ChiComm.
Also, Paul is fundamentally correct: China hasn’t changed. At least not it’s soul or zeitgeist if you will. The only things that have changed is the opportunity that now running either the world’s largest (PPP) or second largest (by nominal GPD) economy brings. This is just a matter of degree and emphasis. China always thought of itself as the Middle Kingdom – the centre of all things. it always viewed itself as a having a claim to preeminence in its own hemisphere. In fact the ChiComm leadership is entirely at one with the KMT nationalists on all of these points (and including the treatment of the Uyghurs, Tibet and Hong Kong etc).
Now hyped up by a duplicitous media (who self censored for the whole of the Howard years, and in fact joined the LNP in being hostile to Labor voices on human rights issues right up until about 2018) collectively ‘the brains trusts’ in the Canberra establishment are now running around like so many headless chooks trying to work it all out. Unfortunetly they have trashed the 52 year road map to the future that was first drawn up by Whitlam and Fitzgerald: its in the bin, with all the good work that other cartographers like Keating, Evans, Carr and successive ambassadors done in filling in that road map with useful detail in favour of … well … 100% shitfuckery.
“Why hasn’t Dreyfus exercised his power to nolle the indictment against
this man? Perhaps McBride’s postulation is correct.”
There is also the ATO where the prosecution is continuing. I think Dreyfus is an institutional centrist and thinks those prosecutions should continue. How many lawyers that make it to the top of law aren’t institutional centrists (well if you exclude the right wing ones whose father and grandfather and etc etc filled the benches of the Parliaments and Courts of Australia since Cook rocked up and stole the place).
If Dreyfus let the ATO guy off and continued with McBride I would say the USA angle is the most likely.
And I see I’ve posted enough for some, so I’ll let someone else take over the monologue and go and enjoy some Monday.
Thanks Yabba – it still sounds joyless to me.
The problem with the utilitarian lifestyle is you end up knowing the cost of everything and the value of nothing.
It also often derives from family background. People born in the 30’s and 40’s are often inherently mean because they grew up in financially straitened circumstances.
Does your family share your utilitarianism ? Often the children react against these sort of parental imposed regimes in time – or do they all rave about the tiny showers in the granny flat and the $2000 car gifts?
A_E “China always thought of itself as the Middle Kingdom”
Ugh.
Oh as I go thanks Andrew I know we’ve disagreed before and that you post what you believe, but I appreciate you taking the time here.
Rex Douglas:
Monday, April 10, 2023 at 2:05 pm
[‘Mavis
Dreyfus and Albanese shame Labor with their attack on whistleblowers.’]
With McBride & Boyle, Dreyfus has been dragging his feet. And with a trial date being set down tomorrow, it’s now probably too late for McBride, but not Boyle whose trial is not due until October, after his PID defence was turned down by Judge Kudelka – a clear message, if there ever could be, that whistleblowing is not countenanced.
leftieBrawler @ #2334 Monday, April 10th, 2023 – 1:15 pm
Because he’s proven, time and again, how thin-skinned he is? Then used it as the basis for more manic posting?
And they try and call me the ‘100 a day’ poster!?!
“ Because he’s proven, time and again, how thin-skinned he is?”
Pot. Kettle. Much?
But on steroids.
@Pi:
“ Ugh”
Metamucil mate. Get in ya.
‘Andrew_Earlwood says:
Monday, April 10, 2023 at 2:16 pm
I see the Boer has been nitpicking about WWP’s statement that ‘China hasnt changed’.
One of Boer’s problems is that he reads and absorbs the propaganda rag Global Times. I’d rather have vogon poetry recited at me as I removed my left arm with a cheese grater.
Boer draws Hitler comparisons at a drop of hat, usually backed up by asinine listicles.
WWP’s ‘sin’ in this instance pales when compared to Boer’s over the top, and unhinged rampages when it comes to all things Xi and ChiComm.
Also, Paul is fundamentally correct: China hasn’t changed. At least not it’s soul or zeitgeist if you will. The only things that have changed is the opportunity that now running either the world’s largest (PPP) or second largest (by nominal GPD) economy brings. This is just a matter of degree and emphasis. China always thought of itself as the Middle Kingdom – the centre of all things. it always viewed itself as a having a claim to preeminence in its own hemisphere. In fact the ChiComm leadership is entirely at one with the KMT nationalists on all of these points (and including the treatment of the Uyghurs, Tibet and Hong Kong etc).
Now hyped up by a duplicitous media (who self censored for the whole of the Howard years, and in fact joined the LNP in being hostile to Labor voices on human rights issues right up until about 2018) collectively ‘the brains trusts’ in the Canberra establishment are now running around like so many headless chooks trying to work it all out. Unfortunetly they have trashed the 52 year road map to the future that was first drawn up by Whitlam and Fitzgerald in the bin, with all the good work that other cartographers like Keating, Evans, Carr and successive ambassadors done in filling in that road map in favour of … well. … 100% shitfuckery.’
———————————–
1. Nitpicking! Oh Noes! ‘shitfuckery’ Oh Deep!
WWP’s WHOLE argument was based on the assertion that China has not changed. Pointing out that China has changed, and hugely so, is not ‘nitpicking’. It goes to the core of WWP’s whole case. Apart from asserting ‘bad faith’ and listicles and all other sorts of rubbish, WWP has now conceded that China HAS changed. That being so we can get to the nub of the argument: how has China changed and what does that mean for Australia’s trade, national security and defence policies? You appear to think that China has not changed. There is not a single China expert who would even remotely agree with you.
2. I read the Global Times NOT because I believe a word in it. Of course it is pure propaganda! I read it because it is what Xi wants us to believe. You seem to have absorbed it hook, line and sinker.
3. One of the things that China has changed for us all is that it is now prepared to deploy its economic power to determine outcomes in other countries. It did not used to do this. It does so now. There is a new tranche of economic punishments being levied on wicked Taiwan as we post. Some of the $20 billion in trade punishments levied on Australia still stand. South Korea and the Philippines have both been taught these totally brutal and unsubtle lessons. The Blind Sinophiles resolutely ignore this because it simply cannot fit with their notion that a state can indefinitely have two hegemons indefinitely – one an economic hegemon and the other a military hegemon.
3. Australians are quite right to be extremely sceptical of deals, agreements and AUKUSes that depend on Trump, or someone similar, NOT becoming the next POTUS. Australians are quite right to be extremely sceptical of deals, agreements and friendly discussions with a China that is ruled by a monomaniac. There is simply no good guarantee that either Trump or Xi will behave rationally.
4. As for the comparisons with Hitler, thanks for reminding me that I have to update the dreaded listicle. None of the list is deterministic. Only a fool would ignore the parallels. For the diversion of the angry I have started adding some ways in which Adolf and Xi are either not, or not yet, similar.
parallels
1. A single person in charge of civil and military.
2. Aggressive nationalism.
3. Aggressive xenophobia.
4. Routine military threats
5. Recent history of using force and threats of force to ‘solve’ problems
6. Massive military building programs
7. Use of history as a grievance generating machine
8. Use of military to add to national resources
9. Official ideology that held to be superior to all other official ideologies
10. Vilification and suppression of minorities
11. Economically difficult times
12. Megalomaniac(s) in charge.
13. Irredentist war justifications.
14. Huge spends on domestic and international propaganda
15. Swingeing censorship
16. A poor understanding of the motivation and likely responses of potential military enemies
17. Systemic jailing and murder of political opponents.
18. Systemic suppression of the MSM
19. Systemic control of the police and the judiciary for political purposes.
20. Massive debts.
21. A lack of representative democracy
22. Loathing of liberal values.
23. Legitimacy issues.
24. The use of concentration camps.
25. Spurious appeal to national characteristics in governance. ‘national’ governance ideology. “National” socialism and democracy “with special Chinese characteristics”.
26. Both Hitler and Xi were persecuted politically.
27. Both moved populations around in a form of apartheid
28. Both Hitler and Xi were persecuted politically.
29. Both wrote a book or books explaining their philosophy: ‘Mein Kampf’ and ‘The Governance of China.’
30. Both murder/ed their political opponents.
31. Both attended major warship launches.
32. Both abused the Olympic games.
33. Both changed governance rules to cement their lifetime autocracy once they reached power.
34. Both organized massive public demonstrations of support.
35. Both love the centre of the raised dias with massed military parades.
36. Both appreciate the goose step.
37. Both had/have specially developed vehicles for public display.
Not parallels either absolutely or not yet parallels:
38. Hitler benefited from the disarmament movements in the democracies.
39. Hitler benefited from pacifist movements in the democracies.
40. Hitler benefited from head-in-the-sand politics in foreign countries.
41. Hitler benefited from like-minded people/active supporters in the democracies.
42. Xi has enough nuclear weapons to trash Earth.
43. Xi’s suppression of Falun Gong is unique.
44. Enforced sterilization as opposed to enforced one child policy leading to abortion of 30 million female foetuses.
45. Policies to engender bigger families.
46. Hitler had a tache.
47. Hitler’s parents were commoners. Xi’s father was a chicommie elite.
48. The Third Reich was short-lived. The Chicommie Reich is hanging around.
There seems to be one of point of agreement from a range of posters with very different points of view on here – and hint it’s not politics.
A quick check confirms my impression that C@tmomma posts at least three times as many comments as WeWantPaul. With that no doubt ill-advised bit of factual commentary out of the way, I will now be requiring an end to circular spats and name-calling for the time being.
One of life’s small pleasures is watching dogs run themselves ragged when given a ball or some toy to chase after in the park opposite my house.
I reckon, that there is a bludger comparison to those dogs in the park with a ball: Just mention Xi and Hitler in the same sentence and stand back and watch Boer go to work. A young cattle dog lacks the energy for its task when compared with Boer on his mission.
Go, you good thing!
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-30/vatican-rejects-discovery-doctrine-indigenous-peoples/102168520
‘A disaster’: Dominion has painted Fox into a corner after Rupert Murdoch ruling
Appearing on MSNBC on Sunday morning, former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti explained that a recent decision by the judge who will be overseeing Dominion Voting System’s $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox has painted the conservative network into a corner.
Speaking with host Ayman Mohyeldin, the legal analyst reacted to the judge saying he was agreeable to forcing Rupert Murdoch to testify if Dominion called him to the stand before noting the case is turning into a “disaster” just waiting to happen to Fox.
“If you are Rupert Murdoch, do you want to be on a witness stand answering questions, trying to explain the inexplicable, defend the indefensible?” Mariotti asked rhetorically.
“I think, of course, this gives an incentive for Fox to pay, to settle — to pony up to Dominion,” he continued. “It is a very smart move by Dominion there.”
He later added, “I have to say, this is just an absolute disaster for Fox.”
‘Andrew_Earlwood says:
Monday, April 10, 2023 at 2:41 pm
One of life’s small pleasures is watching dogs run themselves ragged when given a ball or some toy to chase after in the park opposite my house.
I reckon, that there is a bludger comparison to those dogs in the park with a ball: Just mention Xi and Hitler in the same sentence and stand back and watch Boer go to work. A young cattle dog lacks the energy for its task when compared with Boer on his mission.
Go, you good thing!’
———————–
You engage only to abuse and to condescend and yet you still expect to be taken seriously? It must work for you at home and/or in the courts. It certainly does not work for you on Bludger.
Those papal bulls!
I assume that, having done mea culpa, the Vatican will now get round to earthly restitution.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-30/vatican-rejects-discovery-doctrine-indigenous-peoples/102168520
Did you hear the PBS announcement? A bunch of new life saving drugs are going to be included in the scheme:
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2023/apr/10/australia-live-news-easter-weekend-weather-drownings?page=with:block-643378fb8f08495ac86cb081#block-643378fb8f08495ac86cb081
I hear they’re even allowing prescriptions for ChillaxTM. Talk to your doctor.
Much harrumphing from the China hawks in SMH stenographer Lakita Bourke’s article:
https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/after-visit-with-xi-macron-warns-europe-on-support-for-taiwan-infuriating-china-hawks-20230410-p5cz6t.html
Go Macron!
Contrary to the conclusions by the china hawks that Macron’s comments justify tearing up the Attack class contract in favour of AUKUS, the opposite is the case. The Attack class contract – or a pivot to French nuclear SSN technology – would have bound one of our closest South Pacific neighbours (and certainly the most powerful South Pacific neighbour) to Australia and aligned our strategic interests.
In fact, if one reads Macro Rubio’s ill considered reaction then one can also see the risks involved with an AUKUS pivot and an ‘all the way’ allaince relationship with America that is not underpinned by a proper treaty relationship. A future ‘Secretary of State Rubio’ could well be in the retaliation business if an ally doesnt bend the knee automatically to America, even an America emitting foreign policy brain farts at the rate that the last two Republican administrations did.
Lars Von Trier @ #1751 Monday, April 10th, 2023 – 2:23 pm
You continue to prove how extraordinarily shallow some people of apparently reasonable intelligence can be. Spending money on ‘keeping up appearances’ with your boring, mindless peer group of ostentatious consumers is the way your type apparently need to prove that you have some self worth to yourself.
The last time we went to France to drive around after joining up with my daughter after her latest stint of study there we dined at 3 one star, and one 2 star Michelin restaurants, as well as many little village bistros. We also spent time at an ‘AirBnB’ disintegrated mediaeval castle, sleeping in the old servants’ quarters, and enjoying a long lazy Sunday afternoon with a bunch of delightful Frenchpersons, eating delicious tarts cooked in a wood-fired oven, and playing recorder accompanied by a squeezebox.
Our per day costs while doing this were probably less than your wasted daily depreciation, lease interest and service losses on your ‘prestige’ car. Your ‘values’ are not my values or my family’s values, and I am very grateful for that.
William Bowe @ #2377 Monday, April 10th, 2023 – 2:36 pm
It’s nowhere near ‘100 a day’, every day, is it? Purely out of interest’s sake.
Did Xi politely hang fire on this until his house guest was safely out of the way?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/10/china-simulates-strikes-on-taiwan-from-aircraft-carriers-as-drills-enter-third-day
Whatever it is, it’s far, far more than would be posted by a person in possession of self-restraint and concern for the common good.
‘Data transparency’ and the Chicommies’ various versions of the truth are water and oil:
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202304/1288764.shtml
Also, if you were any kind of a decent person, you would apologise to Rex Douglas (who, unlike yourself, has never once made a sneering comment about the colour of a black person’s skin) for calling him a white supremacist, to WWP for your unprovoked and gobsmackingly un-self-aware attack on him just now, and for God knows how many other things.
THIS time the trajectories were stopped just above Taiwan. Next time it might be different!
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202304/1288744.shtml
This one is a long bow, even for the Chicommies. Finland has joined NATO. Asia look out!
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202304/1288763.shtml
They have boxed themselves into an epidemiological corner. The accidental data release must now be integrated into the Xi-approved explanation:
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202304/1288727.shtml
Wow, I thought I had been posting a lot less lately. Okay, so I will restrain myself even more. I’m going to be starting to do something else soon that will be taking up my spare time, so that will help. Let me know if it’s still not enough to satisfy you.
Also, apologies to Rex Douglas. Of course he’s not a White Supremacist and probably very far from it.
The thing about Lidia Thorpe though, you still have the wrong end of the stick about it. What I said was in no way meant to be racially insensitive, as I explained previously, and simply referred to her as she refers to herself. But whatever, I don’t want to die on a hill over it and if it upset you, then I apologise and I apologise to Lidia Thorpe wherever she is.
Thank you.
Good on you for posting that apology c@t.
We should all move on from here.
The US and Ukraine are quite concerned about this reported Pentagon leak:
“ The US Department of Defense says it has launched an interagency effort to assess the impact that leaked intelligence documents could have on US national security and on its allies and partners, as it hunts for the source of the leak.
“The Department of Defense continues to review and assess the validity of the photographed documents that are circulating on social media sites and that appear to contain sensitive and highly classified material,” the department said in a statement.
The Pentagon has also referred the issue to the Department of Justice, which has opened a criminal investigation, Reuters reports.
One of the documents, dated 23 February and marked “Secret,” outlines in detail how Ukraine’s S-300 air defense systems would be depleted by 2 May at the current usage rate.
Such closely-guarded information could be of great use to Russian forces, and Ukraine said its president and top security officials met on Friday to discuss ways to prevent leaks.
Officials say the breadth of topics addressed in the documents, which touch on the war in Ukraine, China, the Middle East and Africa, suggest they may have been leaked by an American rather than an ally.
“The focus now is on this being a US leak, as many of the documents were only in US hands,” Michael Mulroy, a former senior Pentagon official, told Reuters in an interview.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2023/apr/10/russia-ukraine-war-live-pentagon-assesses-impact-of-apparent-intelligence-leak-zelenskiy-condemns-palm-sunday-shelling
It seems like this was a deliberate attempt to sabotage Ukraine’s war effort. It also seems clear there are Moscow plants in the Pentagon or some other closely connected American defence or intelligence agency. The US needs to weed these elements out. 😡
“I am a centrist. So are most Australians. Most Australians vote for centrists.”
There is no centre. ‘Centrists’ are people who use that label, as a veil to hide what they really are., Most often neoliberals.
Boerwar says:
Monday, April 10, 2023 at 3:09 pm
This one is a long bow, even for the Chicommies. Finland has joined NATO. Asia look out!
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202304/1288763.shtml
—————————————————————————
The GT missed the question that begs to be answered, why did Finland join NATO (and why does Sweden also wish to join)? Because if the GT did establish the reason, it would totally unwind its argument for the chimera that it is. If Russia hadn’t invaded Ukraine, the status quo would’ve continued. Once Russia proved itself a threat, the status quo was shattered. The expansion of NATO was Russia’s doing.
As for NATO expansion into Asia, Phtttt. GT must do better and at least apply logic to its arguments.
More from this leak:
“ A bit more on the leak: One of the most eye-opening revelations from the documents is that Ukraine’s air defences risk running out of missiles and ammunition within weeks, according to the New York Times, potentially changing the course of the war.
One of the documents, dated 23 February and marked “Secret”, outlines in detail how Ukraine’s Soviet-era S-300 air defence systems would be depleted by 2 May at the current usage rate. It is unclear if the usage rate has since changed.
Ukraine’s Buk air defence systems, which it relies on along with the S-300 to protest vital sites from Russian air power, could run into trouble by mid-April, and air defences protecting troops on the front line could be “completely reduced” by 23 May.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2023/apr/10/russia-ukraine-war-live-pentagon-assesses-impact-of-apparent-intelligence-leak-zelenskiy-condemns-palm-sunday-shelling
I’ve said this before, but the US is expecting ground-based air defence systems to be doing more of the heavy lifting against the Russian Air Force than they were ever really meant to. Ukraine needs modern aircraft of its own in big numbers to properly combat Russian air-launched missile strikes. The US has a nerve to be standing by tut-tutting Ukraine’s rate of consumption of ground-launched artillery rounds, while at the same time intentionally depriving Ukraine of modern aircraft.
@Enough already
What is it with the Russians using S300s to attack civilian targets?!?! It’s my understanding that those missiles aren’t cheap, and is their less capable rough equivalent of the patriot air defence system. They wouldn’t be particularly suited to land attack, nor carry much of a payload in the scheme of things. Running out of artillery and proper long range strike missiles?