In Trump’s America, the shooting of a journalist is not a one-off. Press freedom itself is under attack
The video of a Los Angeles police officer shooting a rubber bullet at Channel Nine reporter Lauren Tomasi is as shocking as it is revealing.
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12 June 2025
A Joycean defence of Harvard (and Australia’s universities?) from Trump’s derangement Part 2 of 2
In the context of President Donald Trump’s all-embracing appetites and hatreds, Harvard being under attack by his administration should, almost reflexively, be easy to defend.
11 June 2025
Is the US on the path to becoming a failed state?
The deliberate undermining of democratic norms and the conflation of personal power with national interest are consistent with patterns seen in states that have tipped into authoritarian rule.
11 June 2025
Trump’s attacks on Harvard: Cardinal Wolsey and the prologue to an Australian encounter? Part 1 of 2
The White House is now more accurately described as an Imperial War Room: from it, President Trump directs indiscriminate attacks on whatever is enraging him.
10 June 2025
US unlikely to be able to hold its own against China
Were the US to come up against China in a war in the Pacific, indications are that Washington would have the worse of the exchanges.
10 June 2025
Weaponising the Department of Justice: echoes of the Star Chamber
Instead of acting as a guardian of the law, the Justice Department will use judicial power to pursue political vendettas and silence dissent.
10 June 2025
What Trump is building is the problem, not the man himself
We treat Donald Trump as the primary obstacle to a smooth trade order but he is not the problem. What he is building is the problem because it replicates the rising mechanisms of democratically elected political fascism.
9 June 2025
China takes a softly-softly approach to diplomacy in the US
China’s ambassador to Washington, Xie Feng has adopted a less assertive approach than some of his predecessors.
8 June 2025
‘Strategic clarity’ over Taiwan is just so much American bombast
Ally or not, no one with a decent sense of self-preservation can afford to take a security guarantee by the United States at face value nowadays.
8 June 2025
Friday essay: let’s rethink Australia’s national security – and focus on fairness and climate action, not blind fealty to the US
The change in the US after Donald Trump returned to power should make us think deeply whether Washington's aims and policies will offer us the security we need.
7 June 2025
Warren Report: Musk leveraged government access for personal gain
Since Election Day, Musk's staggering net worth has increased by over $100 billion, the report states.
7 June 2025
Build-up to the ultimate surveillance state has just begun
While most of us are transfixed daily by more horrific atrocities, potentially deadlier operations are likely to far outlast the genocide in Gaza.
7 June 2025
US military waste contractor with flawed safety record backing Australian N-waste dump
A US military mega-contractor assisting an Australian company to develop a proposal for a nuclear waste dump in Central Australia has a flawed safety record in handling nuclear waste storage.
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