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.

miraculous

Two former political heavyweights from different sides have joined forces to combat the corruption and damaging inaction of the Morrison government. 

Former Liberal leader John Hewson and I have teamed up as joint patrons of the Truth and Integrity Project, a social media-focused advocacy campaign targeting Scott Morrison’s record on integrity matters and climate action in the lead-up to the federal election.

BY BARRY JONES

We are also patrons of Climate 200, an organisation driven by Simon Holmes à Court that is supporting candidates committed to strong action on increasing Australia’s commitment to mitigate climate change and embracing a post-carbon economy.

 old WO

The unhinged pursuit of profit is destroying us

Neoliberalism has insinuated itself into every corner of contemporary life and society. In the midst of the global financial crisis, journalist Matt Taibbi gave us the eternal metaphor of Goldman Sachs as “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money”. No social, cultural, family or personal relationship problem or opportunity is free from the relentless search for monetisation. Entire societies have caught this virus, which leaves little independent space for love, generosity and care without someone searching for an angle. We literally have financial devices to clean Grandma out of her house and home.

 twins

"Globe and Mail is running a story for all the paranoid conspiracy theorists among us: "Eleven microbiologists mysteriously dead over the span of just five months.... Throw in a few Russian defectors, a few nervy U.S. biotech companies, a deranged assassin or two, a bit of Elvis, a couple of Satanists, a subtle hint of espionage, a big whack of imagination, and the plot is complete, if a bit reminiscent of James Bond.”… 

the wrong way

The true rate of suicide among serving defence members and veterans is likely to be higher than current surveys indicate, a royal commission has been told on its first day of public hearings.

In an opening address to the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide, senior counsel assisting Kevin O’Connor SC said veteran’s organisations had long disputed the official suicide statistics reported by the Department of Defence and Veterans’ Affairs.

“Their concern was that the official number was low and not reflective of what they were seeing on the ground,” Mr O’Connor said on Monday.

“This appears very much to be the case.”

 pimps

"According to US lawyer Geoff Shepard (...), documents found at the National Archives in Washington show that Watergate was not a Nixon plot to spy on the Democratic Party, but a plot orchestrated by the Democrats against him.”

Yesterday, in a obvious “set-up”, our Prime Minister, Scott Morrison  "the purveyor of ‘freedom', dressed in a grey flannel suit reminding us of marketing execs from the 1990s and of the daggy-dad of the year 2007” was playing football or soccer or whatever with a group of young girls — and taking selfies with them. Had I been a parent I would have confiscated ScoMo's smartphone...

gamble...

The money laundry: Pubs and clubs the next frontier for crime

Over five years, a single young woman put $38 million in dirty money through the pokies. But she wasn’t doing this in the glitz of a casino, she was visiting your neighbourhood club.

By Nick McKenzie and Joel Tozer

In August last year, amid a cacophony of flashing, whirring poker machines in a NSW club, a 33-year-old Sydney woman got to work. Gambling was not the Vietnamese-born woman’s primary business, nor was it her hobby. Rather, she was in the business of cleaning dirty money. Millions and millions of dollars of it.

popgun

China’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson has lashed the “extremely absurd and irresponsible” remarks made by Peter Dutton as Senator Penny Wong declared the Defence Minister “does Australians no favours by amplifying Beijing's fatalism”.

Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian said Mr Dutton was “driven by selfish political gains” as he was asked to comment on the Minister’s latest remarks about China’s acting ambassador to Australia Wang Xining during a press conference on Monday.

Mr Wang had slammed Australia’s plan to acquire nuclear-powered submarines under the AUKUS deal in an interview with The Guardian – with Mr Dutton describing his comments as “silly” and “funny”.

"We don't see it from any other ambassador here in Australia," Mr Dutton told Channel 9.

macy's

President Biden and First Lady Jill Biden phoned in to NBC’s Al Roker during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on Thursday to deliver a holiday message to Americans. “My message is after two years, you’re back, America’s back,”Biden said. “There’s nothing we’re unable to overcome.”