By implicitly agreeing with Energy Australia that offsets don’t neutralise fossil fuel emissions, is the government signalling an overhaul of the Safeguard Mechanism? David McEwen reports.

Will the Government now consider phasing down unlimited ACCU (carbon credits) use by Australia’s big emitters?

Late last week, the Albanese Government quietly announced it was retiring the Climate Active scheme – the Commonwealth’s official certification program, which is used by companies to claim their business or product is “carbon neutral”.

The announcement landed without fanfare – in a consultation paper about how the scheme should end – but its implications could be significant.

The number one enemy of the First Amendment spewed bitterness and insults against the media and his political opponents Friday night, drawing little or no response from 700 journalists in attendance at a second iteration of the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) annual dinner.

White House Correspondents Association dinner

Trump berates the press, with little response

Patrick Martin

The dinner was originally set for April but was called off abruptly after a gunman broke through a security barrier and rushed towards the ballroom before being overpowered by police and Secret Service agents. The rescheduled dinner was moved to a much smaller location, with an attendance of only one-quarter of the 3,000 who turned out two months before.

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) effectively endorsed the US-Israeli war against Iran Wednesday with the passage of Resolution 2817 (2026). The text “condemns in the strongest terms” Iran’s retaliatory strikes on the Gulf states, while saying nothing about the nearly two-week-long bombardment of the country of 90 million people by American imperialism and its Israeli ally.

United Nations condemns Iran’s self-defence strikes amid American imperialism’s war of extermination

Jordan Shilton

12 March 2026

Trump’s war on the left blends “war on terror” language with Cold War McCarthyism.

The Trump administration’s drive to turn the machinery of counterterrorism against left-wing movements worldwide kicked into a higher gear this month surrounding its convening of an international “Ministerial on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism.”

The State’s War on the Left Didn’t Begin With Trump — But He’s Escalating It

By Chip Gibbons.  Truthout

Since his appointment as Secretary of State on January 21, 2025, Marco Rubio has been driven by two obsessions: ending communism in Cuba and succeeding Donald Trump in the Oval Office. With these objectives, Rubio — who, the following May, would also manage to combine the roles of National Security Advisor at the White House and Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development —devised a strategy that he implemented meticulously.

La reunión de Washington contra el "terrorismo de extrema izquierda"

La violencia macartista de Marco Rubio

Por Carlos Fazio

ST. PETERSBURG (Sputnik) - Russia sees dualism in US President Donald Trump's position on the Ukrainian conflict, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Sunday.

"We see such dualism in the American position. On the one hand, they supply weapons to Ukraine, although President Trump says, 'We don't know who we're supplying to, we're supplying to NATO, and everything else is none of our business,'" Peskov told reporters.

On the other hand, the US sincerely declares its readiness to facilitate a peaceful resolution, Peskov added. "This is where, of course, we're impressed, and we're using our readiness to support this," he stressed.

He added that Russia’s reaction to possible new proposals and formulas for a Ukrainian settlement will depend on how closely they align with Russia's interests.

In an open letter in August 1998, four former prime ministers expressed their concern about the upsurge in racism at the time of the Howard Government and the coming election.

The four said “racism is an unmitigated evil, it is immoral, it does Australia significant harm through Asia and the wider world, it destroys our self-esteem and self-respect. In Australia it would pit Australian against Australian. It would be destructive of our society.”

They urged voters “to put any candidate supporting any element of racism last in the election both to the Senate and the House of Representatives”. Fortunately, that is what voters did.

Will the leaders of the three major parties do the same at future elections?

The four signature prime ministers were Gough Whitlam, Malcolm Fraser, Bob Hawke and Paul Keating.

“Australians for Better Government” today firmly rejects claims that One Nation leader Pauline Hanson is unable to serve as Prime Minister of Australia as a Senator.

==================

Can a senator move to the House of Representatives and become Prime Minister?

Thanks for your question, Mel. The short answer to both parts of your question is ‘yes’!

A senator can become a member of the House of Representatives but only after they first resign from the Senate. They can then stand for election to the House of Representatives.

If they are elected to the House and become leader of the party or coalition of parties with the support of the majority of members in the House, they would become Prime Minister. By convention – tradition – the Prime Minister is always a member of the House of Representatives.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky are each scheduled to meet with US President Donald Trump next week.

Netanyahu will travel to Washington on Monday and will meet with Trump on Tuesday, according to a statement from Netanyahu’s office. Netanyahu will also attend US senator Lindsey Graham’s funeral, his office said.

The last time Trump and Netanyahu met in Washington was in February, just weeks before they launched a joint war against Iran. Since then, tensions have grown between the longtime allies, including over how to prosecute the war.

The US president can order a nuclear strike within minutes and without congressional approval, exposing the absurd danger of entrusting civilisation to one fallible person.

As William Perry, former Secretary of Defense under Clinton and Tom Collina state in The Button:

Within minutes, with just one phone call, President Trump could unleash up to a thousand nuclear weapons, each one many times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb. It would be the end of civilisation… For President Trump, starting nuclear war is about as easy as sending a tweet.

France's Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez says that 110,000 people have been evacuated as the wildfires have burned over 14,000 hectares (34,600 acres) in south-west France.
"We have never seen a convective fire of this magnitude," Nuñez tells French broadcaster TF1, explaining that around 50 firefighters have been injured today.

While visiting Paris on July 13, 2026, Ukraine’s unelected president, Volodymyr Zelensky, awarded his French host, President Emmanuel Macron, the Ukrainian Order of Freedom.
The Élysée Palace website makes no mention of this event.

Fascists as Guests of Honor at the July 14th Parade

Subsequently, French President Emmanuel Macron, outgoing British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz hosted 34 foreign delegations and the NATO Secretary General at the Hôtel des Invalides for a summit of the "Coalition of the Willing."
Germany, France, and the United Kingdom plan for this coalition to replace NATO once the United States withdraws from the alliance.

And Starmer sleeps with the fishy. Burnham's first call was to a man he vowed to have nothing to do with, Trump. His first act was to allow British bases to be used by US bombers to pound Iran, Or perhaps drop the big one on Pickaxe Mountain, where Iran's uranium is stored?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOIrheWjQWg

PLEASE VISIT:

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

Ukraine’s new commander-in-chief, Major General Mikhail Drapaty, has said that Russia had “no right” to exist and made derogatory remarks about the residents of Russia’s Donbass region, which Ukraine continues to claim as its own.

On Wednesday, the YouTube documentary channel Ukrainer W released an interview with Drapaty originally recorded in 2023. Speaking to journalist Karina Pilyugina, the general said that he had long anticipated a war with Russia.

“We see that you cannot call them neighbors. It is a nation, together with its leadership, that has no right to exist. Over thousands of years, nothing has changed there in civilizational terms – neither its mentality nor its imperial ambitions,” he said.