26 comments

1. New England CockyMarch 23, 2023 at 8:50 am

   Truly the American Dream has morphed into the Nightmare on Main Street.

2. Keitha GranvilleMarch 23, 2023 at 9:00 am

   Ron De Santis is going to be republican choice for sure. God save the USA

3. Phil PryorMarch 23, 2023 at 9:10 am

   A rigid, erect, romanist raving ratbag, De Santis, is so USA from family origins; he never has to think because infallible fraud and fable guides him. Mediaeval, savage, barbarian, benighted, a hun type, De Santis is also known as De Plorable, De Mented, De Luded, De Spicable, De Structive. Festering skinfuls of filth abound in the republican gang currently and like the pre 1945 lot, must be eliminated from public life for the sake of civiisation, which is again threatened with deep core criminality.

4. Terence MillsMarch 23, 2023 at 9:19 am

   Amazingly the crook George Santos remains in Congress !

5. Gangey1959March 23, 2023 at 9:46 am

   I’m confused. Who started the “reds under the bed” thing ?

   Just a thought, but where is mrs olsen hiding, hanging her head in shame?

   Long live Rock n’ Roll, but the plug needs to be pulled on the rest of it.

6. KathrynMarch 23, 2023 at 10:11 am

   WOW, as each day passes, these war mongering, anti semitic, misogynistic, homophobic lunatics and nauseating bible-thumping hypocrites in the Republican Party just get worse and worse! When that corrupt, self-serving, totally deluded misogynist, Donald Trump, rose like a Behemoth to the helm of the Republican movement, the rest of the world looked on in horror, rolled our collective eyes and thought “ONLY in America!” Fortunately, common sense reigned, and Joe Biden and the Democrats rose to power!

   However, sadly, like the Republican movement in America, Australia has the same deluded, misogynistic racists and religious hypocrites rising up in the LNP who have proven to be every bit as dangerous and undemocratic! These type of born-to-rule, “alpha male”, totally deluded, ultra-conservative fruit cakes ALWAYS seem to pop up on the right-wing side of the political fence which is WHY Australians need to be so careful to keep a very close watch on the type of fanatical politicians now being propped up and promoted in right-wing regimes like the LNP and One Nation. Ever since the war criminal, John Howard and his acolyte, that inarticulate oaf, Tony Abbott, rose to become two of the worst, most internationally-condemned prime ministers in our history, the LNP is NO LONGER rational, democratic or inclusive! The LNP has become a party of corrupt self-serving miscreants, insufferable misogynists, shrieking harridans, nauseating religious hypocrites and unconscionable pathological liars (like the appalling Scott Morrison) – none of whom truly represent ordinary working- and middle-class Australians.

   Sadly, the Republican movement in America has reached an appalling and dangerously undemocratic level with the rise of autocratic right-wing extremists like Trump and the homophobic lunatic, De Santis! History has proven that democracy is indeed fragile and tenuous and, as such, it is imperative we keep a very close watch on the war mongering lunatics, sanctimonious religious hypocrites, xenophobic racists, undemocratic autocrats and irrational right-wing extremists like Abbott, Morrison, Sussan Ley and Dutton et al, who have “taken over” every dark corner of the LNP and – with considerable assistance from the conniving, lying Murdoch press and his army of talentless, totally right-wing-biased Z-rated hacks – are now hell bent on attaining total control over our nation and don’t care how low they have to stoop to attain it and maintain it!

   The infiltration of war mongering right-wing extremism has not only impacted the LNP, but its ugly face is now rising in the ALP with Albanese’s insane and irrational decision to expend countless BILLIONS of hard-earned Australian taxpayer funds on two or three submarines – that will become obsolete even before they are delivered and will not serve ANY purpose other than to irritate our BIGGEST trading partner, China, and turn our isolated nation into a TARGET!

7. CanguroMarch 23, 2023 at 10:48 am

   Roswell, sorry to be a meddling proofreader, but… at the top of the essay, in the para beginning with ‘My piece’…

   ‘I did not except that in the short number of days since …”

   You need to flip the c & p, so that it reads ‘expect’

   Cheers, Canga.

8. ajogradyMarch 23, 2023 at 11:27 am

   Thoroughly agree Kathryn with mst of what you posted. Like the USA, Australian fascists have dexlared war on democracy and their weapom of choice is capitalism.
   Labor under Albanese, Marles and Wong has morphed into the L/NP. Labor once stood for peace and prosperity. Now Labor, like the L/NP, stands for war and adversity.
   Besides peace, prosperity and security throughout the world and avoiding Armageddon
   what else will happen if the AUKUS bullies don’t get their war?
   Politiccians should regard diplomacy as a key macroeconomic tool. Governments seeking peace and cooperation rather then war and provocation will create the best remedies and outcomes to dangerous rising by the day economic and climate risks.

   https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/oct/07/biden-warns-world-would-face-armageddon-if-putin-uses-a-tactical-nuclear-weapon-in-ukraine

   The geopolitics of peace in a post-Western world

9. RoswellMarch 23, 2023 at 11:33 am

   Don’t be sorry, Canguro. I’m glad you alerted me to the error, which I have now fixed.

   You saved me heaps of embarrassment.

10. Harry LimeMarch 23, 2023 at 4:31 pm

    Florida’s got a lot to answer for,didn’t the Supreme Court,stacked with Republican appointments refuse to allow a continuation of voting in Florida which gifted the presidency to that fucking moron,George W. Bush? My memory’s a bit chequered,but didn’t that turn out well? The way things are going now,hitching ourselves to the coattails of a demented Uncle Sam is the last thing we need.

11. CanguroMarch 23, 2023 at 6:47 pm

    The following lengthy essay is by Seymour Hersh, the veteran American journalist who has fingered the USA as being responsible for the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines. It has been copied from Substack, the online facility where Mr Hersh chooses to post his observations.

    THE COVER-UP

    The Biden Administration continues to conceal its responsibility for the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines.

    It’s been six weeks since I published a report, based on anonymous sourcing, naming President Joe Biden as the official who ordered the mysterious destruction last September of Nord Stream 2, a new $11-billion pipeline that was scheduled to double the volume of natural gas delivered from Russia to Germany. The story gained traction in Germany and Western Europe, but was subject to a near media blackout in the US. Two weeks ago, after a visit by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to Washington, US and German intelligence agencies attempted to add to the blackout by feeding the New York Times and the German weekly Die Zeit false cover stories to counter the report that Biden and US operatives were responsible for the pipelines’ destruction.

    Press aides for the White House and Central Intelligence Agency have consistently denied that America was responsible for exploding the pipelines, and those pro forma denials were more than enough for the White House press corps. There is no evidence that any reporter assigned there has yet to ask the White House press secretary whether Biden had done what any serious leader would do: formally “task” the American intelligence community to conduct a deep investigation, with all of its assets, and find out just who had done the deed in the Baltic Sea. According to a source within the intelligence community, the president has not done so, nor will he. Why not? Because he knows the answer.

    Sarah Miller—an energy expert and an editor at Energy Intelligence, which publishes leading trade journals—explained to me in an interview why the pipeline story has been big news in Germany and Western Europe. “The destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines in September led to a further surge of natural gas prices that were already six or more times pre-crisis levels,” she said. “Nord Stream was blown up in late September. German gas imports peaked a month later, in October, at 10 times pre-crisis levels. Electricity prices across Europe were pulled up, and governments spent as much as 800 billion euros, by some estimates, shielding households and businesses from the impact. Gas prices, reflecting the mild winter in Europe, have now fallen back to roughly a quarter of the October peak, but they are still between two and three times pre-crisis levels and are more than three times current US rates. Over the last year, German and other European manufacturers closed their most energy-intensive operations, such as fertilizer and glass production, and it’s unclear when, if ever, those plants will reopen. Europe is scrambling to get solar and wind capacity in place, but it may not come soon enough to save large chunks of German industry.” (Miller writes a blog on Medium.)

    In early March, President Biden hosted German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Washington. The trip included only two public events—a brief pro forma exchange of compliments between Biden and Scholz before the White House press corps, with no questions allowed; and a CNN interview with Scholz by Fareed Zakaria, who did not touch on the pipeline allegations. The chancellor had flown to Washington with no members of the German press on board, no formal dinner scheduled, and the two world leaders were not slated to conduct a press conference, as routinely happens at such high-profile meetings. Instead, it was later reported that Biden and Scholz had an 80-minute meeting, with no aides present for much of the time. There have been no statements or written understandings made public since then by either government, but I was told by someone with access to diplomatic intelligence that there was a discussion of the pipeline exposé and, as a result, certain elements in the Central Intelligence Agency were asked to prepare a cover story in collaboration with German intelligence that would provide the American and German press with an alternative version for the destruction of Nord Stream 2. In the words of the intelligence community, the agency was “to pulse the system” in an effort to discount the claim that Biden had ordered the pipelines’ destruction.

    At this point, it must be noted that Chancellor Scholz, whether or not he was alerted of the destruction of the pipeline in advance—still an open question—has clearly been complicit since last fall in support of the Biden Administration’s cover-up of its operation in the Baltic Sea.

    The agency did its job and, with the help of German intelligence, concocted and planted stories about an ad hoc “off the books” operation that had led to the destruction of the pipelines. The scam led to a March 7 report in the New York Times citing an anonymous American official claiming that “[n]ew intelligence…suggests” that “a pro-Ukrainian group” may have been involved in the pipeline’s destruction; and an online report the same day in Der Zeit, Germany’s most widely read weekly newspaper, stating that German investigative officials had tracked down a chartered luxury sailing yacht that was known to have set off on September 6 from the German port at Rostock past Bornholm island off the coast of Denmark. The island is a few miles from the area where the pipelines were destroyed on September 26. The yacht had been rented from Ukrainian owners and manned by a party of six: a captain, two divers, two divers’ assistants, and a doctor. Five were men, and one a woman. False passports were involved. (Holger Start, author of the Die Zeit report, told me after publication of this report that he had been following the criminal investigation into the yacht and its whereabouts for months, and he and the newspaper decided to rush to publish what they knew upon learning of the New York Times report. He had no contact with German intelligence.)

    The two publications included cautions in their stories noting that, as the Times put it, “there was much they did not know.” The new information was, however, also said to have given officials “increased . . . optimism” that a firm conclusion about the perpetrators would be reached. But it would take a long time, according to various senior officials in Washington and Germany. The message was that the press and the public should stop asking questions and let the investigators unravel the truth. Which, of course, would never come. The experienced Stark, who heads Der Zeit’s investigative unit, went a step further and noted that there were some “in international security services” who had not excluded the possibility that the yacht story “was a false flag operation.” Indeed, it was.

    “It was a total fabrication by American intelligence that was passed along to the Germans, and aimed at discrediting your story,” I was told by a source within the American intelligence community. The disinformation professionals inside the CIA understand that a propaganda gambit can only work if those on receiving are desperate for a story that can diminish or displace an unwanted truth. And the truth in question is that President Joe Biden authorized the destruction of the pipelines and will have a difficult time explaining away his action as Germany and its Western European neighbors suffer as businesses are shuttered amid high day-to-day energy costs.

    [ends].

12. Michael TaylorMarch 23, 2023 at 7:32 pm

    Canguro, are you having trouble posting?

13. CanguroMarch 23, 2023 at 8:15 pm

    I was, Michael. The above post included a lower section which took the form of an interview with a podcast allied to the New York Times, and was a typical Host & Interviewee format, the person interviewed being a NYT journalist.

    It began as such…

    “Ironically, the most telling evidence about the weakness of the New York Times report came from one of three Times reporters whose bylines were on the story. A few days after publication of the story, the reporter, Julian Barnes, was interviewed on the popular Times podcast The Daily by host Michael Barbaro. Here’s the transcript:”

    … and continued along these lines:

    HOST: [asks a question]

    REPORTER: [responds]

    GoDaddy (?) refused my number of attempts to upload the entire Hersh piece. I almost gave up, but then stripped out the interview and was allowed to post.

    It was frustrating. I almost sent a query wondering why I wasn’t allowed to post. All good now, though.

    Can you unpack the issue?

14. Michael TaylorMarch 23, 2023 at 8:29 pm

    Canguro, I’ll give you a tip:

    To prevent it happening again – if it’s a long comment with a number of links – post only a part of your comment, then after it’s published go in and edit it (add the rest of the comment).

    It seems to work.

    One thing I can do is go into the GoDaddy firewall and add your ISP to the white list (to prevent any blocking).

15. Michael TaylorMarch 23, 2023 at 8:36 pm

    PS: Our security program is very touchy. Whenever there’s a malicious attack or a hacking attempt it reverts back to its default settings. Given that a couple of people have had trouble commenting today indicates that we’ve recently had an attack, and the security program has tightened up accordingly.

16. CanguroMarch 23, 2023 at 8:39 pm

    Thanks Michael. By all means add my ISP to the white list…hahaha…better than being on the black list!

    There were no links though. I’d copied the HTML from the Substack website and pasted it into a Notepad file, and from that file into this environment, so it was as vanilla as is possible. Lots of colons, per Host & Reporter to & fro.

    I’ll keep in mind that if I ever try that again – this being my first time at a copy & paste – I’ll do it in chunks. Thanks for responding.

    Heading down your way tomorrow, the grape harvest at Munderoo – between Tumbarumba & Jingellic – is about to begin, and I’m donning the tractor driver’s hat for the duration.

17. Michael TaylorMarch 23, 2023 at 8:40 pm

    PPS: Since we started The AIMN on 2/01/2013 we have had 698,886 brute force attacks or malicious login attempts.

18. CanguroMarch 23, 2023 at 8:47 pm

    Final word goes to Randy Newman…

19. Michael TaylorMarch 23, 2023 at 8:48 pm

    I love that show. I see they’re getting together again to make a movie.

20. Lambchop SimnelMarch 23, 2023 at 10:12 pm

    The last time I saw something like it was on teev years ago, with a group of Brownshirts burning a pile of books, back in 30’s Germany.

    Thank heavens I thought, at last we have moved from the Dark Ages.

    Until the last year or so…

21. Michael TaylorMarch 23, 2023 at 10:29 pm

    Lambchop, no chance of that happening in Florida. Most books are banned. There be nothing left to burn.

22. KenMarch 24, 2023 at 8:10 am

    A bit of perspective. There is a backstory to why some politicians in the US are trying to make changes. Illegal border crossings into the USA last year were 2.76 million. According to war correspondent Michael Yon, who questioned migrants moving through the Darien Gap in Panama, there was a ‘convoy’ of migrants from over 100 countries including China & India. There was about 1,000 per day through the Panama route alone. All of the Chinese spoke Mandarin, none Cantonese. The Chinese had paid on average $7k each to get assisted travel to Panama, Indians up to $20k each. I don’t see the threat of legal action changing the agenda of those pushing migrants towards the US, it is too much of a good little earner.

23. GoogMarch 24, 2023 at 9:28 am

    It’s amazing they don’t bring back slavery , the bible talks of piecing the ears of slaves . What about dietary prohibitions as well mentioned in the bible . Maybe also there are some modern demons that have to be cast out

24. GLMarch 24, 2023 at 2:07 pm

    I do believe Little Donnie is starting to become more than a little worried about his future.

    Trump calls for removal of every top official investigating him

25. FredMarch 25, 2023 at 7:15 am

    Yea i think America is due for another civil war,might clean up the country a bid,and after the place has been decimated,maybe they could put Berni Sanders in charge,he was robbed last time by the corrupt sandbagger Hilary Clinton,and unlike the rest of the mob he seems have a hint of real intelligence,im sure he would be able to bring peace to the world,and not the constant conflict we live in now,anyway we all have our dreams

26. leefeMarch 27, 2023 at 2:45 pm

    DeSantis is very much worse than Trumplethinskin, because he’s a lot smarter.