God help the USA
https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2024/01/07/poll-trump-iowa-enten-acostanr-vpx.cnn

CNN senior data reporter Harry Enten breaks down new polling that shows a majority of Republican voters believe Trump's debunked election lie and a plurality believe FBI operatives were behind the riots at the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Cleveland/comments/18xn2v4/just_an_alert_epoch_times_buying_ads_on_led/?rdt=50205

Epoch Times saying they're "#1 trusted news."

Is this what social promotion has unleashed on the USA? The inability to think and reason?

The mad Abbott of Texass further proves himself a murdering bible bashing lowlife.

Woman, 2 children die crossing Rio Grande as Border Patrol says it was prevented from intervening.

He certainly can't stand on his morals, let alone anything else. I wonder when he'll start shooting them.

Texas national guards use riot shields to hold back horde of migrants trying to cross through razor wire in Eagle Pass with one person hurling a rock towards a soldier's head.

The rich get richer while the number of poor grows faster.

The filthy rich have enjoyed an unprecedented uplift in their fortunes, all while the rest of the world suffers.

.....Oxfam found that since 2020, the richest five men in the world – Elon Musk, Bernard Arnault, Jeff Bezos, Larry Ellison and Mark Zuckerberg – have doubled their fortunes.

In exact figures, their net worth has increased by $700 billion, or 114 per cent.

If each of the five wealthiest men were to spend a million American dollars daily (A$1.5 million), they would take 476 years to exhaust their combined wealth.

Cumulatively, billionaires around the globe have made $5 trillion in the years following the pandemic.

Billionaires are now 34 per cent richer than they were at the beginning of this decade.

To put that in perspective, this means their wealth is growing three times as fast as the rate of inflation.

Meanwhile, normal wage growth can’t even keep up with inflation. ......

These people certainly need to pay more taxes (that's if they're paying any at all).

These people certainly need to pay more taxes (that's if they're paying any at all).

But the dumb MAGAGOP want to give the rich even more and cut taxes.

It is far to easy to con the ignorant.

Also they get to complain about the national debt so they can cut safety net programs.

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It's just a shame that there arn't more like this small group.

250 of the world’s rich listers have asked to be taxed more, with one young heiress saying she wants to escape the “swamp” of her huge wealth.

Many millionaires and billionaires are infamous for moving their wealth around to skirt taxes, but a small group has set out to do the opposite.

More than 250 of the world’s extremely wealthy have penned a letter to governments, asking to be taxed more because they’re concerned by inequality.

The rich listers made their plea to political elite at a meeting for the World Economic Forum — an international NGO aimed at improving public-private sector collaboration — in Davos, Switzerland this week.

“Our request is simple: we ask you to tax us, the very richest in society,” they wrote.

“This will not fundamentally alter our standard of living, nor deprive our children, nor harm our nations’ economic growth.

“But it will turn extreme and unproductive private wealth into an investment for our common democratic future.”.....

I would love to know just who serves on company remuneration committees.
British Gas CEO says it's impossible to justify his salary
Ah, the debates held on this board over just that.

Well Donny caused an influx of American accents here, but the Irish accent is on the rise here of late and they don't have a Donny. Or do they?

The number of Irish people moving to Australia more than doubled in 2023, causing headaches at home. But those who move aren’t looking back.

Tens of thousands of Irish people were approved to live and work in Australia in 2023 sparking concern at home – but those who made the move aren’t looking back.

More than 21,000 Irish citizens were granted working holiday visas in Australia in the 12 months leading up to July 2023, making the highest recorded number in more than 16 years.

The mass exodus, understood to be mostly skilled youths, has some Irish leaders worried that the nation of little over five million people is haemorrhaging its younger generations at an alarming rate.

Responding to the recent working holiday data, the Higher Education, Innovation and Science spokeswoman for the nation’s republican, left-wing nationalist Sinn Féin party, Mairéad Farrell, lamented the situation in the Dáil Éireann (the lower house).....

Fun while it lasted
https://www.berkeleyside.org/2024/01/25/uc-will-consider-banning-political-statements-on-its-websites-by-faculty-and-others

Now we know who is behind MAGA
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68185317

Popular Chinese outlets have been suggesting that events in Texas have led to deep divisions in the US widening to a point where unrest has become a stark reality.
Trending social media posts in China allege Mr Abbott was preparing to go to war with US federal authorities.
Posts with the hashtag #TexasDeclaresAStateOfWar have been viewed and shared thousands of times on the popular social network Sina Weibo. Some posts have been from a user with millions of followers.
Users are circulating pictures of the Texas Military Department flying a picture of a flag above its headquarters with the words "Come and Take It", which have led to domestic perceptions the state is stoking independence.
Old videos from Fox News are also circulating of vigilante groups dressed in camouflage to "defend the border".
There are also multiple videos being circulated from Chile of military tanks that are being misattributed to Texas.
Media messaging has made the idea of civil war more believable, as Chinese state media have regularly suggested that political divisions in the US are now so polarised that the country has reached the brink of internal conflict.
Some have suggested that Texas could see a similar situation to Ukraine - which is at war with Russia - noting the two regions have a similar land mass.
The phrase "civil war" has been used repeatedly in Chinese newspapers since the January 2021 Capitol Hill riot.
Social media users in China on Friday, for example, were able to read reports that Florida's Republican governor Ron DeSantis is sending up to 1,000 members of the National Guard to Texas.

The problem is growing. :-(

Mulch containing asbestos has been identified in at least 22 sites in NSW — how is this happening?

A child incidentally took a piece of bonded asbestos home from mulch at a newly opened park in Sydney a month ago.

The state's Environment Protection Authority (EPA) has since confirmed it's aware of at least 22 sites that have mulch containing the potentially cancer-causing material.

The contaminated locations include multiple parks, infrastructure project sites, various rail corridors, a school, and a hospital.

And with the potentially deadly friable variation of asbestos discovered for the first time on the weekend, experts are concerned about the risk to the community and the environment.

Some politicians fear this is just "the tip of the iceberg".......

The stuff has been banned here since the '80's so are they mulching old fibro houses?

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And it's well past time for this farce to end.

Federal MPs pass motion urging US and UK to allow Julian Assange's return to Australia.

The prime minister and other federal MPs have voted in favour of a motion urging the United States and the United Kingdom to end the prosecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and allow his return to Australia.

The 52-year-old Assange is wanted in the US for espionage, and faces 18 charges related to the publication of a range of highly classified information relating to the US-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Next week, the High Court of Justice in the UK will hold its hearing into whether Mr Assange can appeal his extradition to the US.

Mr Assange has been held in London's high-security Belmarsh prison since 2019 and potentially faces up to 175 years in prison.

Independent MP Andrew Wilkie successfully moved the motion with 86 votes in favour and 42 against, with support from Labor, independent and Greens MPs.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and the Coalition voted against the motion, while Liberal MP Bridget Archer crossed the floor to vote in favour.

The prime minister has previously labelled the punishment of Assange as disproportionate and called for the matter to come to a "conclusion", but this latest vote indicates his strongest position yet.........

It maybe time for our national capitol to get with the times and agenda and start building high density living instead of having the place look like suburbia in the middle of nowhere.

Housing development that could house 30,000 people may see NSW-ACT border moved.

The pollies down there are always urging the states for higher density living and surely it's time for them to do the same and show the same initiative by building some high rise stuff themselves.

You really have to wonder what their parents are like to have such privileged little pr!#ks for sons.

Former female staff at Sydney's elite Cranbrook School warn of 'toxic' culture as it prepares to go co-ed.

I pity those first 40 female students that are set to attend that school.

Left-wing extremists from a “Vulkan Group” today carried out an attack on the power supply of the Tesla gigafactory Grünheide near Berlin. The surrounding villages and the entire factory are without power. Production in the only European Tesla factory was stopped. The extremists torched a pylon connecting the 110 kilovolts overhead line to the underground cable supplying the factory.

Source: news, main article in: "MAZ - Märkische Allgemeine Zeitung", regional newspaper (in German), photos...

There have been previous attempts in recent years by this group to carry out attacks on the construction site of Tesla's gigafactory.

excerpt of a letter of confession found after similar attacks:

“Let the air out of the tires of fat cars? Great. Even better: set Teslas on fire everywhere! A few grill lighters and spring can begin!”

After our nuclear power plants are shut down, the coal-fired ones are facing the end; combustion engines soon banned, the next target is: Tesla, owned by a super-rich capitalist who brutally exploits the working class to accumulate more wealth.

Since way back in the late 80's they've been constantly told that they were over doing it, but did they listen? No they didn't and now a lot are whinging because their crops are virtually worthless.

Riverland grape growers call for moratorium on vine plantings to ease red wine oversupply crisis.

Grape growers in the nation's biggest wine region are calling for a moratorium on planting vines in a bid to solve the red wine oversupply crisis.

The sugestion was one of several solutions raised by farmers at a wine industry meeting in South Australia's Riverland amid historically low prices for grapes.

The Riverland has been the hardest hit by the issue, and is one of three regions in the Murray Darling Basin that contribute grapes to almost every Australian-produced wine bottle or cask.

But how did the situation get so bad?...

...He said while winemakers became aware of a looming oversupply in 2004, a lack of action meant by 2015 red wine grapes accounted for 64 per cent of all vines in Australia.

"They thought this never-ending export and domestic boom would last but nothing lasts forever," he said.

By August last year, according to Rabobank, Australia had amassed a wine glut of more than 2 billion litres — enough to fill 860 Olympic swimming pools......

The Gestapo are firmly ensconed in the UK.
What's next?

This elitist school is again back in the news for more of the wrongs reasons.

Cranbrook School headmaster Nicholas Sampson resigns from private Sydney boys' school.

Sounds like this school is in bad need of a thorough clean out as well as getting rid of any "old boys" on the school council (of which there are usually several of the privileged pr!#ks embedded in them).

A bit of chemical castration wouldn't go astray with this pair.

Court approves UK's extradition request of online influencer Andrew Tate and his brother.

A Romanian court has approved a British request to extradite internet personality Andrew Tate and his brother, but only after local legal proceedings have finished.

The pair are under house arrest in the town of Voluntari, near Bucharest, where they are awaiting a separate criminal trial on allegations rape, human trafficking and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women.

Andrew, 37, and his brother Tristan, were detained on Monday after UK police obtained an international arrest warrant from Westminster Magistrates' Court.

The pair's spokesperson, Mateea Petrescu, said they had been accused of sex offences in Britain dating between 2012 and 2015.

They fronted the Bucharest Court of Appeal on Tuesday, where a judge ruled they should be extradited, but only after their case against them in Romania had been finalised.

The judge also ruled the siblings should be released from custody......

But will they do a runner?