Meme of the Week

Doing the rounds on Twitter is this group portrait 

of the Morrison Coalition Government

Tweets of the Week

Here's @TurnbullMalcolm in 2015: "Hard work is important, but there are taxi drivers who work harder than I ever have and they do not have much money; there are cleaners who work harder than I ever have or you ever have and they do not have much money." https://t.co/DkgyoFXAAL

— James Jeffrey (@James_Jeffrey) August 2, 2019

The AFP raids on journalists have had a chilling effect across the entire Australian media — even @Sandra_sully and @10newsfirst.
🎫https://t.co/HodTVg69Kn #auspol #pressfreedom pic.twitter.com/gBeHNlDIFj

— A Rational Fear (@ARationalFear) August 5, 2019

Last night’s talking point at the table of knowledge

There’s no prize for correctly guessing the main item of discussion at the table of knowledge at the local watering hole last night.

Basil: “The voting for/against the bill to decriminalise abortion in the NSW Legislative Assembly on Thursday night was 59 Ayes and 31 Noes. My simple understanding of arithmetic says 59+31= 90, but there are 93 members of the Assembly, so what happened to the other three votes?”

Albert: “Well, I suspect the Speaker in the Assembly, Jonathan O’Dea, the Liberal Party MP for Davison, wasn’t required to exercise any right to vote, so had a very silent and private vote which he kept very close to his chest.”

Basil: “Okay, that accounts for 91, but what about the other two votes?”

Paddy (he’s our deep thinking member who knows a thing or two about just about everything but isn’t one to burst onto the scene and steal someone else’s thunder): “Seriously, fellas, it was just a simple matter of ticking the names of those who voted off a list of the names of all MLAs. According to my add-ups, take-aways and gazintas ... .”

Frank (interrupting): “Yes! My inspection of the names listed under the Ayes and Noes revealed the absence of two MLA’s names, Mark Coure (Liberal MP for Oakley) and Sonia Hornery (ALP MP for Wallsend).”

Charlie: “Hey, my mate who knows someone who knows someone told me that Ms Hornery had previously shown her hand as a prospective Aye in earlier votes in the debate and had also spoken along those lines. However, she was unwell and not in the Assembly when the final vote was taken, so it’s a pretty fair call to say she would have been an Aye.”

Basil: “Okay, but what about the other vote, that of Mark Coure?”

Errol: “Who’s Mark Coure?”

Paddy: “Exactly! Nuff said!”

Footnote: to be fair to Mr Coure, anyone with information about him in relation to this matter is asked to provide that information in the comments section below

NSW lower house votes to decriminalise abortion. Check out how MPs voted

The Sydney Morning Herald reports:

Abortion is set to be decriminalised in NSW, after lower house MPs voted to remove terminations from the state's criminal code.The bill to decriminalise abortion passed 59 to 31, but it created a split within the Liberals, with many of the party's 35 MPs opposed the bill.

The NSW Legislative Assembly’s Votes and Proceedings for 8 August 2019 shows how MPs voted:

AYES 59

Ms Aitchison, Mr Anderson, Mr Ayres, Mr Barilaro, Mr Barr, Ms Berejiklian, Mr Butler, Ms Car, Ms Catley, Mr Chanthivong, Mr Clancy, Mr Constance, Ms Cooke, Ms Cotsis, Mr Crakanthorp, Mr Daley, Mrs Dalton, Mr Dominello, Mr Donato, Ms Doyle, Mr Evans, Mr Greenwich, Mr Griffin, Mr Gulaptis, Mrs Hancock, Mr Harris, Ms Harrison, Ms Haylen, Mr Hazzard, Mr Henskens, Mr Hoenig, Mr Kean, Ms Leong, Mr Lynch, Mr Marshall, Ms McKay, Mr Mehan, Mr Minns, Dr O’Neill, Mr Park, Mr Parker, Mrs Pavey, Mr Piper, Mr Provest, Ms Saffin, Mr Saunders, Mr Scully, Mr Singh, Ms Smith, Ms Tesch, Mr Toole, Ms Voltz, Mr Ward, Mr Warren, Ms Washington, Mrs Williams and Ms Wilson.
 Tellers: Mr Crouch and Ms Watson

NOES 31

Mr Atalla, Mr Bali, Mr Bromhead, Mrs Davies, Mr Dib, Mr Elliott, Ms Finn, Ms Gibbons, Mr Johnsen, Mr Kamper, Dr Lee, Ms Lindsay, Dr McDermott, Dr McGirr, Ms Mihailuk, Mr Perrottet, Ms Petinos, Ms Preston, Mr Roberts, Mr Sidgreaves, Mr Sidoti, Mr Smith, Mr Speakman, Mr Stokes, Mr Taylor, Mrs Tuckerman, Ms Upton, Mr Williams and Mr Zangari.
Tellers: Mr Conolly and Mr Lalich

Clarence River under stress as it passes through Kyogle region

The Daily Examiner, 5 August 2019, p.13:

“It's pretty bad,” was how one Tabulam resident described the current state of the once mighty Clarence River. 

Residents have stopped pumping water from the river because of blue-green algae caused by low water levels. 

Three of four water trucks pass Mr McMillan’s front door every day, taking water from the river and he said they are likely to be doing this legally but it wouldn’t be helping with the river flow. 

“In 1991 people used to have ski boats and put them in behind the police station and ski upstream,” he said. 

Now that same area is a pasture with no sign of the river, the small flow hidden behind mounds.

Further upstream past the Tabulam Bridge there is an island of sand that was never there before, Mr McMillan said.... 

 “Council is aware that some residents supplement their rainwater tank supply with water sourced from the Clarence River. With the flows in the Clarence so low at present, it is likely that the ability to source this supplementary supply would be compromised.”.....

FBI believes conspiracy theory-driven extremists are likely to be active during the 2020 presidential election cycle

FBI Intelligence Bulletin, excerpt, 30 May 2019

Yahoo! News, 2 August 2019:

The FBI for the first time has identified fringe conspiracy theories as a domestic terrorist threat, according to a previously unpublicized document obtained by Yahoo News. (Read the document below.)

The FBI intelligence bulletin from the bureau’s Phoenix field office, dated May 30, 2019, describes “conspiracy theory-driven domestic extremists,” as a growing threat, and notes that it is the first such report to do so. It lists a number of arrests, including some that haven’t been publicized, related to violent incidents motivated by fringe beliefs.

The document specifically mentions QAnon, a shadowy network that believes in a deep state conspiracy against President Trump, and Pizzagate, the theory that a pedophile ring including Clinton associates was being run out of the basement of a Washington, D.C., pizza restaurant (which didn’t actually have a basement).

“The FBI assesses these conspiracy theories very likely will emerge, spread, and evolve in the modern information marketplace, occasionally driving both groups and individual extremists to carry out criminal or violent acts,” the document states. It also goes on to say the FBI believes conspiracy theory-driven extremists are likely to increase during the 2020 presidential election cycle.

The FBI said another factor driving the intensity of this threat is “the uncovering of real conspiracies or cover-ups involving illegal, harmful, or unconstitutional activities by government officials or leading political figures.” The FBI does not specify which political leaders or which cover-ups it was referring to.

FBI Conspiracy Theory Redacted by Kelli R. Grant on Scribd

https://www.scribd.com/document/420379775/FBI-Conspiracy-Theory-Redacted

The Sydney Morning Herald, 4 August 2019:

At a few minutes before 11 am on Saturday in El Paso, Texas, a gunman in his early 20s opened fire on a crowd of shoppers in a mall killing at least 20 and wounding dozens of others, placing the suspect’s rampage among the top ten deadliest mass shootings in US history.....

As hospitals in the local area deal with what can only be described as the bloody battlefield carnage, federal and state authorities are moving closer towards establishing the suspect’s motive for carrying out the mass casualty attack.

Federal law enforcement investigators have told CNN that they are reviewing writings they believe to have been posted online by the suspect, Patrick Crusius, a 21-year-old white man from Dallas, but are yet to publicly confirm.
 
Essentially, the gunman’s alleged manifesto reads as a carbon copy of that espoused by those who carried out the recent and respective attacks on the mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, and the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh.

"This is a response to the Hispanic invasion," it reads, according to the FBI. It then goes on to accuse the Democratic Party of "pandering to the Hispanic voting bloc”, while also expressing his contempt for “race mixing” and support for “sending them back.”

These right-wing extremists are not only channelling neo-Nazi borne “Great Replacement” conspiracy theories, which frame demographic change as a threat to white Europeans, but also taking a cue from the words and policies of President Donald Trump.

It was only two weeks ago when Trump inspired an auditorium full of his supporters to chant “send her back” in reference to the country’s first elected black Muslim congresswoman, Ilhan Omar, who was born in Somalia and migrated to the US as the young daughter of refugee parents.

Earlier in the year, Trump smeared all immigrants approaching the US-Mexico border as invaders when he said, “People hate the word ‘invasion', but that’s what it is.”

Trump has also referred to Latin American refugees and asylum seekers as “rapists”, “criminals”, drug dealers” and “terrorists”.

It’s worth remembering that when a Rwandan politician described Rwanda’s Tutsi minority as “cockroaches” it started a genocide that resulted in the deaths of upwards of one million people in that country.....

Under Prime Minister Scott Morrison's own peculiar mix of politics & social engineering the 'haves' are relentlessly screwing the 'have nots' into the ground

ABC News, 2 August 2019: 

Whistleblowers are warning a $351 million Government program aimed at getting parents back to work is exploiting vulnerable single mothers, and even the homeless. 

Key points: 

ParentsNext is a $351 million scheme to get parents on welfare to meet work and study goals, then return to the workforce 

Employment service providers receive $600 for every client who is on ParentsNext 

Whistleblowers say service providers have kept parents in the scheme who should be exempt. 

At the centre of the controversy is ParentsNext, a program some people must take part in to receive parenting payments from Centrelink. 

It is also the first Australia-wide program to allow private employment service providers to decide who must participate. 

Background Briefing has interviewed current and former employees in Australia's lucrative employment services sector who claim some caseworkers are pressured to sign up and retain people who face significant personal crises, even though departmental guidelines stipulate they should be exempted. 

Homeless but signed up anyway Mel, 33, is one of more than 3,000 homeless Australians who've been signed up to the compulsory employment training program ParentsNext despite having no fixed address to take a shower or prepare a warm meal for her kids. 

A mother of four, Mel's spent more than two years on Tasmania's public housing waiting list. 

She was furious when she received a letter demanding she undergo an eligibility assessment for ParentsNext or else her parenting payments would be cut off. 

 "It's degrading, it's making us feel like we're lazy, like we're not doing nothing for our kids," said Mel, whose last name is being withheld for privacy reasons. Guidelines from the Department of Jobs specify Centrelink could have exempted her from participating on the grounds of her homelessness. 

Mel was instead referred to a local not-for-profit community provider, Workskills, which were paid a government fee just for her turning up. Under ParentsNext, employment service providers are paid $600 for each new recipient they take on. 

Mel was exempted at her first meeting with Workskills, but will be re-examined for eligibility in 12 months. She says she can't understand why the Department did not exempt her at the outset.

Despite being exempted from ParentsNext, last week Mel's parenting payment was cut off after she forgot to tick a box declaring her zero income to Centrelink.

ABC, Background Briefing, "Welfare to Worse", 2 August 2019 podcast here.