oil...

After Congress lifted a ban on crude exports in late 2015, oil and gas production in the Permian Basin soared while domestic consumption remained flat—leading to a massive build-out of pipelines and other infrastructure that culminated in the U.S. “flooding global markets” with fossil fuels at the expense of humanity, in general, and vulnerable Gulf Coast communities already overburdened by pollution, in particular.

fryed

The ambush of Bridget Archer is the latest incident of poor behaviour from Josh Frydenberg and he’s now admitted that the ambush was preplanned with Scott Morrison.

dead

Russiagate, that fraudulent fable wherein Russian President Vladimir Putin personally subverted American democracy, Russian intelligence pilfered the Democratic Party’s email, and Donald Trump acted at the Kremlin’s behest, is at last dead.

No, nothing sudden. It has been a slow, painful death of the sort this destructive beast richly deserved. But its demise is now definitive — in the courts and on paper. We await the better historians to see this properly into the record.

porter

Christian Porter bemoans the fact that there are few “constants” left in the political landscape and he and his supporters blame the media for his downfall (“Porter’s exit could save seat for Libs”, December 2). One of the constants used to be that ministers held themselves responsible for keeping to the highest ethical standards and would swiftly resign at the smallest deviation. Unfortunately without a powerful federal integrity commission, it’s been left to the media to hold a mirror up to the systemic failings of integrity in this government. The solution to the problem of “trial by media” is this government’s to implement – a federal integrity body with teeth. 

Elisabeth Goodsall, Wahroonga

laws

As parliament wrapped its final sitting week of the year on Thursday, three key pieces of legislation were left looming over the lead-up to the federal election in early 2022.

Long-awaited proposals for a federal anti-corruption commission and religious discrimination laws dominated debate, but neither came to a vote. Meanwhile, the government’s contentious voter identification proposal – only recently heralded as essential by the Coalition – failed to get up, after Mr Morrison was met with ferocious opposition from Labor and the crossbench.

hunt

One will depart from Parliament a deeply disappointed man, dragged down by scandal, with hopes for a brilliant career dashed by an allegation surfacing from his youth.

The other will leave with a solid record of performance, despite some criticism and ambition for higher things unfulfilled.

Christian Porter, 51, on Wednesday announced he will not run again for his Western Australian seat of Pearce. It was a surprise to no one.

Health Minister Greg Hunt, 56, is also set to quit at next year’s poll, with his announcement due on Thursday.

Both had previously said they were recontesting their seats.

palmer

It was 12 years ago on Wednesday that Tony Abbott knifed Malcolm Turnbull to become leader of the Opposition and start breaking Australian politics.

It remains broken.

Mr Abbott and his accomplices so poisoned the well that neither of our major parties can propose rational, efficient climate policy.

In private, off-the-record, there are plenty of Labor and Liberal Party members who know what would best be done for Australia to pull its weight on climate change, to our own and the world’s advantage. But both sides are hamstrung by Abbott’s legacy of “Total Opposition”.

question

According to the weekly satirical newspaper Le Canard Enchaîné, President Macron recently called Boris Johnson “a clown” and a “proud knucklehead”.

“I think we are in pantomime season, aren’t we, and there is a French election coming. It is a pretty unhelpful word. Of course, the prime minister is not a clown, he is the elected prime minister of this country with a very big mandate, leading this country through a pandemic,” Science Minister George Freeman told Sky News.

patch...

If a deal isn’t struck before midnight on Friday, those payments will force Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to impose another set of “emergency” spending measures -- on top of those that have been in place since October -- before the government’s ability to pay its bills is finally exhausted on or about December 15.

If that were to occur, which is admittedly unlikely, it would be catastrophic for the US, and chaotic for the rest of the world.

In 2009, Andrew Weldon did the cartoon above… At the time, the Liberal (CONservative) Party of Australia was searching for a new leader. Labor was somewhat cruising along, despite constant attacks by the MSM, the Mudochian media especially… Throwing mud at Labor is the Murdoch media specialty. Kevin Rudd had dethroned John Howard in 2007. The mud from the Mudochian media eventually led to the replacement of Kev by Julia, 27th prime minister of Australia, from 2010 to 2013… but this is another story… Kevin was his own enemy always looking for a “shitstorm”...

sovereignty...

Singapore: Australian cattle farmers and abattoirs lost half a billion in exports to China in the last two years, cotton producers were down $870 million, copper exporters $1.5 billion.

But the Chinese importers did not miss those products. Australia’s great Indo-Pacific ally, the United States, was happy to make up for the shortfall.

The same happened with timber and coal. As Australia’s coal exports fell by $11 billion, the US added $1.8 billion to its usual load over the same period. Russia, Canada and Indonesia also sent more.

Markets are unsentimental; when there is a gap they fill them. The US and Australia have made much of their united front on China’s economic coercion, but the truth is American exporters have been eating Australia’s lunch.

rb

American Pravda: Giants Silenced by Pygmies

Media Suppression of Our Leading Journalists and Scholars

By 

The Unz Review • An Alternative Media Selection

A Collection of Interesting, Important, and Controversial Perspectives Largely Excluded from the American Mainstream Media

Glenn Greenwald and The Intercept

coincidence

honest

Federal parliamentarians who sexually harass staff could have their salaries withheld and be suspended from Parliament after a landmark report found a third of parliamentary staff surveyed had been victims of harassment.

The harrowing report heard from multiple women who had been sexually assaulted in Parliament House but felt powerless to complain. The review was commissioned after former government staffer Brittany Higgins went public with allegations that she was raped by a colleague in a ministerial office.

Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins’ report called for a new code of conduct for federal MPs and their staff, enforced by an Independent Parliamentary Standards Commission with the powers to punish those who breached it.

napoleon

PARIS — Perhaps France was always going to have a hard time with nonbinary pronouns. Its language is intensely gender-specific and fiercely protected by august authorities. Still, the furor provoked by a prominent dictionary’s inclusion of the pronoun “iel” has been remarkably virulent.

Le Petit Robert, rivaled only by the Larousse in linguistic authority, chose to add “iel” — a gender-neutral merging of the masculine “il” (he) and the feminine “elle” (she) — to its latest online edition. Jean-Michel Blanquer, the education minister, was not amused.