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AFLW 2024 - Round 4 - Chat, game threads, injury lists, team lineups and more.
Politics The Hangar Politics Thread
- Thread starter Ben the Gooner
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All of which were not protected under freedom of speech because obscenity, in the form of pornography, was deemed a crime unto itself. Furthermore, as I hope you actually realise, freedom of speech contentions have almost always been focussed on political speech, which is relevant to Twitter prosecutions but not to pornographic material.
If American leaders and intelligence services are inept enough in their corruption and chicanery for amateurs (
) to uncover it, Russian leaders and intelligence services probably are too.
It's still speech, restricted on the basis of moral claims despite "sharp disagreements in what is and isn't moral".
If that were the case there wouldn't be a freedom of speech problem in Australia given political speech is already protected.
You're seeing a hole that isn't there. Laws defining criminal behaviour is generally, or at least meant to be, defined by commonly agreed values. This is why what the US defines as 'imminent lawless action' is not protected by freedom of speech.
Except it is no longer certain that all such things regarding personal beliefs are actually protected. This is why this issue is coming up in the first place, as shown previously.
And yet often isn't - that's the point.
Anyway, I've picked enough holes to show that the noble British tradition of free speech has always been highly selective. I'll leave it at that.
It never was certain. The shoe is simply on a different foot now.
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If American leaders and intelligence services are inept enough in their corruption and chicanery for amateurs (
I don't know how much you know about these scenarios so I have to bite.
The situations are completely different.
The US establishment narrative wants us to believe that Putin is the puppet master, the root of all evil, rigger of elections, the real life Ernst Stavro Blofeld.
Conveniently enough his people always leave a calling card. First it's the Cyrillic code in the DNC servers that he ordered hacked (according to the FBI's source who worked in a building near the Kremlin). That hacked DNC server has never left the custody of the DNC's contractor, Crowdstrike, and has never been examined by the FBI. The FBI/Mueller investigation team, in determining that it was "Russia" that hacked the server, concluded on the basis of a draft Crowdstrike report that it was the Russians that hacked the server (because the draft report said it). Kind of seems odd to me that in the middle of a $25 million investigation no one thought to add 1 more subpoena, to the thousands which had been issued, in order to examine the most significant piece of forensic evidence (in trying to work out who it was that proved that Hillary Clinton's campaign literally assumed control of the DNC via a funding agreement and then proceeded to rig the Democrat primary against Sanders).
This isn't a minor investigative oversight and not a negligent omission. It's a deliberate to avoid the investigation of something so fundamental to an investigation. Do the cops ever ignore the murder weapon when they know where it is?
It gets really interesting because the Wikileaks Vault 7 dumps, I think it is number, contain evidence (which is not refuted and Wikileaks maintains 100% reporting accuracy to this day) which proves that the CIA had developed the capability to leave the "calling card" at the scene of a hack.
Then we move on to Novichock and the Skripals. Where are the Skripals? Why have the Russians been denied all access? Am I really supposed to believe that the Russians, knowing the further sanctions it would result in and the wedge that would be driven between it and Europe (when the Nordstream 2 pipeline to Germany was still capable of being terminated), would poison an irrelevant double agent who they held in prison for a few years before trading him to the UK, as part of a prisoner exchange, after the passage of enough time that all of the classified information he had was no longer relevant, would decide it all got too much and attempt to kill him theatrically using Novichock, the perfect link to prove that it was Putin who dun it? Was he playing the long game, double bluff and killing him only after he thought he was safe to prove that no one was ever safe?
How does anyone survive an encounter with Novichock? It's basically impossible.
Interestingly enough the lab at Porton Down, just down the road from where the poisoning took place, is capable of and has synthesized Novichock. It acouldn'tlso conceded that it couldn't actually prove that it came from Russia and that there is no antidote. So then we bring in the OPCW (we'll see how credible that organization is later).
Another interesting bit about this scenario is that the gossip which proves Putin did it came from Christopher Steel, the one and same author of the bullshit dossier used against Trump.
In relation to the Douma gassing. Of course, Obama announces the red line as gassings and then Assad, who has now led a 7 year war in Syria, so it's not like he wanted the holiday, couldn't help but gas his own people? He's just another lunatic, isn't everyone? I've always thought it was probably at a mates Bucks party. A few lines and 10 drinks in Assad starts with the "lets go gas some people". His handlers all try to stop him but they get too loaded and the order is given.
Wikileaks has just released documents which prove that the OPCW investigators who attended the site, almost to a man, voiced disagreement with the final report. That part of Wikileak's website is down at the moment. Caitlin Johnston has a good piece on the whole Douma saga: .
The difference is that Biden is on record almost a year before corruption in Ukraine became a thing when Trump called a foreign president and asked for assistance with the investigation of endemic corruption that has cost the US tax payer billions, while lining the pockets of politicans and their families, for absolutely no benefit. Biden's problem is that he thought that the carpetbagging was bi-partisan (and it was). This is why the Senate doesn't want to call witnesses at the Impeachment Trial, despite Trump's desire to hold a full trial, too may Republicans will get caught in the crossfire.
The difference with the US situations is that Trump was never supposed to win the election. The status quo, to the even limited extend that Trump has been able to challenge it, was never supposed to change. We know how sloppy the conspiracies are. We know the conflicts Rumsfeld and Chaney, in particular, had when it came to the Iraq war and the Iraq recovery. It's been "hiding" in plain sight the whole time.
Just have a look at the lack luster efforts by the FBI who could never have thought their work, lying to the FISA Court to obtain warrants to spy on Carter Page (and at least 1 other), would be exposed to scrutiny. I know the Horowitz report is ignored but it is absolutely damning, and his testimony in the last few weeks has been even more so.
From Right wing conspiracy theorist and probable racist John Solomon:
From Communist and probable Zionist settler Glenn Greenwald: https://theintercept.com/2019/12/12...-not-only-for-the-fbi-but-also-the-u-s-media/
Even the New York Times couldn't spin the FISA court orders demanding the FBI answer fo its conduct: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/17/us/politics/fisa-court-order-fbi-surveillance.html.
Biden, apart from being clearly finished mentally, was obviously not aware that it would become an issue. It doesn't really matter because, in any event, he admitted to getting the prosecutor fired (he did not say why). His motive or explanation doesnt really matter. Perhaps he wasn't aware of everything that was already in the public record. Just because Biden made mistakes or, as is even more likely, was incompetent doesn't mean that by default everyone else was too.
I'll believe that it's mistakes when it's not the incompetents who are spinning the narrative (i.e. when there is some proof and a motive that would withstand a grand jury empaneling). I don't see how Putin can be both incompetent bumbler and puppet master controlling every election and every world event.
We should be getting ready for any and all of James Comey (former FBI director), Andrew McCabe (ABC Australia contirbutor and Comey's debuty), Rod Rosenstein (former deputy AG who has cut a deal with Barr), John Brennan (scumbag former head of the CIA), James Clapper (former head of the NSA and serial perjurer) and a large support cast to be indicyed. Hopefully it gets to the politicians but that will be harder. It won't be a partisan exercise, which is how it will almost certainly be spun.
For years independent journalists have been covering the full extent of the corruption, in a weird way everything is tied together, and it is all now being corroborated by Barr (current AG) and Horowitz (IG who looked into FISA abuse) with Durham's (US Attorney and lead investigator looking in to Russiagate, etc) report to come.
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Re: Hitchens and Douma
www.dailymail.co.uk
www.dailymail.co.uk
Sexed-up dossier furore over alleged poison gas attack by Assad
A dissenting scientist, employed by OPCW says in the email that investigations on the ground at Douma have produced no hard evidence that the alleged gas attack took place.
PETER HITCHENS reveals UN suppressed report on Assad gas attack
PETER HITCHENS: This newspaper has now obtained the team's original, uncensored interim report which differs sharply from all later versions, including the March document.
I don't have time in my life to follow to that degree of detail, so interesting, cheers. What I will say is much of the geopolitically-odd moves (as opposed to the sanction-busting etc.) Putin makes are for domestic consumption, because that's where his weakness is. The whole point of offing irrelevant defectors (and there's enough of a track record here to make any questions over the Salisbury episode almost incidental) is that everyone knows you did it.
Putin does not have problems domestically. He's genuinely as popular as it gets. His popularity dipped into the high 60s after imposing a very unpopular pension reform.
Russians have had to deal with the Soviet Union and then the complete and utter chaos of the 90s (when it was basically Mafia run).
Russians are also very conservative and the Orthodox Church has returned to prominence despite it being outlawed during the Soviet era.
Under Putin there is a strong guiding hand who has built Russia into something of the the power the West pretends it has been.
I'm just trying to provide a quick summary of the circumstances and cultural differences that help to understand how it is he can be in the place he is without being a dictator (which he isn't).
The progressive movements, which ABC covers here, usually coinciding with Russia and Syria making important gains in the war, get coverage which is completely disproportionate to their popularity and acceptance in broader Russian culture.
Look at the social attitudes of Easern European members of the EU, Czech Rep, Poland and Hungary. They are very conservative and at odds with the EU because of it.
As for the assassinations. None other than Christopher Steele is, again, the guy responsible for those rumours. They are not credible.
The Russian economy remains a fundamental weakness, and state-sponsored killings have been openly occurring almost uninterrupted since the end of the USSR. 
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Militarily, Russia is also far from a powerhouse, and is pretty unlikely to be the kind of threat that justifies the continued existence of NATO, long after the Warsaw Pact disintegrated.
The Russian economy remains a fundamental weakness, and state-sponsored killings have been openly occurring almost uninterrupted since the end of the USSR.
And the state sanctioned doping...
ant555
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What annoys me about politics apart from the spin that seems to be standard practice is the fact how few people actually know how things work.
For example ScoMo cops flack about funding for the Rural Fire service. I know people are upset and distressed. I know what it is like at the fire front having been a CFA volunteer but the RFA or CFA are state government funded with some projects jointly funded by the Commonwealth through a grants program run through the state governments.
This is basic information that is easily available but no we just jump on the band wagon without actually knowing what is going on.
For example ScoMo cops flack about funding for the Rural Fire service. I know people are upset and distressed. I know what it is like at the fire front having been a CFA volunteer but the RFA or CFA are state government funded with some projects jointly funded by the Commonwealth through a grants program run through the state governments.
This is basic information that is easily available but no we just jump on the band wagon without actually knowing what is going on.
Half the funding States get comes from the Commonwealth, and half of that comes with strings attached. The Feds have a substantial say.
When a football team dosent perform the figurehead coach is first to cop flack and go, even if it's not all on his brief.
He's just copping the whiplash effect of being a plastic leader, granted he was unlucky he was away when it kicked up a notch but the moment hung in Hawaii he was always going to be pushing uphill, each misstep since has been his own.
Not sure physically forcing people into a handshake then scoffing it off as them bring 'tired' is solid policy. Project will have a field day
DapperJong
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Pantskyle
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Yeah so annoying 
There are definitely certain sections of people who wouldn't be happy unless he was locked up in a cage.
Albo now to tread the fine line between points scoring and being a de facto leader in a time of need
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Not me.
I’d like to see him slowly roasted over hot coals.
Which would work out great, because he loves coal.
If you actually feel this way about any human, I feel sorry for you.
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Great, I need all the sympathy I can get!
Now I’m just wondering what herbs and spices what we should baste on Scomo before the BBQ.
quotemokc
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I think Morrison has shown during the course of these fires that he is incredibly tone deaf and truly doesn't have his finger on the pulse when it comes to relating to the general population.
