The Australian government has scrapped plans to introduce fines for social media platforms that fail to stop the spread of “seriously harmful mis and disinformation” online. The ruling Labor Party acknowledged that its Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill stood no chance of garnering enough support in parliament.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The White House promises sprint efforts to preserve the "legacy" and "productive" work of outgoing US President Joe Biden, who failed to win re-election for a second term and spent more than a third of his first term in country residences and on the beach.

"President Biden is focused on ensuring the remainder of his term is as productive as any other period in the last four years," the White House press service said in a statement.

It notes that the remainder of the current administration's time "is a sprint to build on the historic progress we've made under his presidency."

In the new era

Despite the punishments

We are grown

We are alert

We are more alive

To rescue each other

 

In the new era

Despite the dangers

Of brute force

Of the frightening night

We are in the struggle

To survive

 

So that our hope

Is more than revenge

Is always a path

That is left as an inheritance

—Lyrics from “Um Novo Tempo” (“A New Era”) by Ivan Lins 

Multiple nuclear peer adversaries challenge the U.S. and its allies' and partners' security, according to the Defense Department.

"We are now in a world where we're facing multiple nuclear competitors, multiple states that are growing, diversifying and modernizing their nuclear arsenals and also, unfortunately, prioritizing the role that nuclear weapons play in their national security strategies," said Richard C. Johnson. 

The House easily passed a bill that would give Donald Trump and future presidents a bludgeon to target and silence dissenting nonprofits on Thursday, in what opponents warned is a step toward allowing the executive branch to wield unchecked, authoritarian power.

H.R. 9495, nicknamed the “nonprofit killer” by critics, passed 219 to 184 with 15 Democrats voting “yes.” The legislation, which civil liberties groups have said could deliver a huge blow to the rights to free speech and dissent across the U.S., now goes to the Senate for consideration.

The bill would give the Treasury Secretary the ability to revoke the tax-exempt status of any nonprofit they deem to be a “terrorist supporting organization” without due process or substantial evidence, effectively dealing most groups a killing blow.

Keir Starmer and David Lammy have the “blood of Palestinian children on their hands” for supporting Israel, a lawyer from Gaza has said.

Ahmed Abofoul, who has seen over 60 members of his family killed by Israel, said the UK prime minister and foreign secretary are “monstrous war criminals”.

 

STARMER AND LAMMY ARE ‘MONSTROUS WAR CRIMINALS’ – PALESTINIAN LAWYER
Bereaved attorney accuses Britain of “active participation” in Israeli war crimes, as International Criminal Court issues arrest warrant for Netanyahu.
PHIL MILLER

 

His comments come as the International Criminal Court (ICC) issues an arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu.

There is more to the eye in the official photo and video of Indonesia President Prabowo on the phone to President-elect Trump. Australia misses the vital details.

It’s a carefully composed and staged official photograph and video that says it all. No, it’s not the ‘where’s Wally’ photo that has President Biden wandering behind a palm tree at the G20 official group photo.

 

From non-aligned Indonesia, a picture paints a thousand misunderstandings   By Daryl Guppy

 

Donald Trump has selected Mike Huckabee, Governor of Arkansas from 1996 to 2007 and a right-wing evangelical preacher with a messianic view about Israel, as U.S. ambassador to Israel.

Huckabee has voiced strong support for Israel’s war on Gaza even though it has engaged in egregious war crimes, and acts of ethnic cleansing and genocide.

Newsweek reported that Huckabee’s appointment led to rejoicing among Israel’s right-wing settlers and advocates of Israel’s territorial claims in the occupied West Bank, which Huckabee supports.

Nothing to see here. Just a hypersonic demo. Well, not really. The average American is only capable of making (some sort of) sense of the world through movies. So let’s go back to a classic: the opening sequence of Coppola’s Apocalypse Now – the Vietnam war counterpart to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, set in the Congo.

 

BY PEPE ESCOBAR

 

In the movie, Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) is barely capable of enacting a drunken soliloquy alone in his room in Saigon. He’s waiting for his assignment: a special mission all the way to the Heart of Darkness (in the movie, represented by the illegal American incursion/indiscriminate bombing of Cambodia).

Simeon Boikov on his 700 days 'imprisonment' in the Russian consulate in Sydnay. And how the Zelensky regime is tearing down the statues of partisans

INTERVIEW: Aussie Cossack rides on

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=800ld2vh4MU

 

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

 

“It’s hard to do cartoons without the truth…”

         Gus Leonisky

 

AUSSIE COSSACK IS A STRANGE CHARACTER WHO, AS FAR AS GUS CAN MAKE OUT, TELLS THE TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA, BUT SEEMS TO DELIGHT IN TELLING a few PORKIES ABOUT EVENTS IN AUSTRALIA...

A banana duct-taped to a wall was sold for $6.2 million at a New York auction. Mauritzio Cattelan is the artist who came up with the $6.2 million banana which is titled "Comedian." The banana art comes with a 14-page instruction manual that serves as proof of authenticity. It tells you how to "refresh" the work by buying a new banana and new duct tape. Inside Edition's Alison Hall has more.

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

 

 

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

 

“It’s hard to do cartoons without going bananas…”

         Gus Leonisky

At a moment in time when lost causes could lead to the annihilation of all life on our planet, the big genocide coverup in Gaza draws to an end. The imagery of Pope Francis kissing an Ukraine flag and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strolling through Gaza tell us the end is pretty near. Here are some relevant thoughts.

 

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky is acting like a child after Moscow conducted a strike with a new hypersonic missile this week, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova claimed on Friday.

The Russian military used the Oreshnik ballistic missile to attack a Ukrainian military plant, President Vladimir Putin said in a video statement on Thursday. The “test” came in response to Kiev launching Western-donated ballistic and cruise missiles into Russia’s Bryansk and Kursk regions earlier in the week, he added.

Donald Trump has nominated Scott Bessent to lead the US Treasury Department, a post with wide oversight of tax policy, public debt, international finance and sanctions. 

The selection ends what has proven to be one of the more protracted decisions for the president-elect as he assembles his team for a second term.

Bessent, a Wall Street financier who once worked for George Soros, was an early backer of Trump's 2024 bid and would bring a relatively conventional resume to the role.

On the campaign trail, he told voters that Trump would usher in a "new golden age with de-regulation, low-cost energy, [and] low taxes".

Stealth and surprise are related tactical characteristics that are key to a submarine’s success in battle. They are also, it seems, key tactical characteristics for the Government advancing a highly controversial AUKUS submarine program. Ex-submariner Rex Patrick explains.

Those familiar with the classic work of Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, will remember the scene where Arthur Dent lies in front of a bulldozer to stop his house being demolished to make way for a new freeway bypass.

 

AUKUS waste plans. The hitchhiker’s guide to nuclear approvals

     by Rex Patrick