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Jeffrey Epstein - to whom do we owe justice
Grace Tame
Lawyer X
Raise in Newstart allowance
Doping in Swimming
Abortion - NSW law overturned.

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Cyberbullying - attempts to shift the power to the victim
Jeffrey Epstein - how one's position influences their accountability?
Trump - reforming the modern leader
Anti-Vaxing
Pill Testing
Israel Folau
Euthanasia Laws in Victoria
Abortion

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Pay-gap in sport
Gender fluidity/Gender reveals
Toxic Culture - how the extremes never help anyone see the centre
Intersex athletes

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Recycling - the small percentage of materials recycled
Coles Little shop
Climbing of Mt Everest
Student Climate Stikes

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The woman who sparked a legal review of Tasmania's sexual assault gag laws has finally won a supreme court exemption to tell her harrowing story of being groomed by a school teacher.

At the age of 15, Grace Tame was repeatedly sexually abused by her 58-year-old maths teacher, Nicolaas Bester, who was convicted and served time in jail for molesting her.

Over the years Bester has been able to speak about the saga but until now Tame has been known by the pseudonym Jane Doe.

Under Tasmania's Evidence Act, survivors of sexual abuse are prohibited from being named and telling their story. In 2012 a Tasmanian newspaper published the name of a rape victim, with her consent, and was fined $20,000.

Bester was interviewed by the sex writer Bettina Arndt last year in an online video in which he lamented losing his job, home and status in the community. Years earlier he had bragged on social media about his sexual relationship with his former student, characterising it as "awesome".

"The majority of men in Australia envy me," he wrote. "I was 59, she was 15 going on 25. It was awesome."

After Nicolaas Bester was released from jail, he took part in an interview with sex therapist Bettina Arndt, portraying himself as the victim. It was posted online for everyone to see including Jane Doe who was traumatised all over again, still silenced by Tasmanian law #60Mins pic.twitter.com/YVlBqOLTQQ
- 60 Minutes Australia (@60Mins) November 11, 2018

Two years ago, Tame teamed up with Nina Funnell, a freelance journalist and sexual assault survivor who began the #LetHerSpeak campaign in partnership with Marque Lawyers and End Rape On Campus Australia. The campaign was aimed at overturning the gag clauses in Tasmanian and Northern Territory law.

On Monday Tame, 24, became the first female survivor to be named after obtaining a court exemption to speak about her experience.

"He used various tactics to groom me, and that included isolating me from all my family and my friends and making it so that he was the sole source of comfort and that I was dependent on him entirely emotionally," Tame told the ABC.

Funnell said the process of applying for a court order exemption was time-consuming, expensive and re-traumatising for survivors. The legal bill covered by the campaign and its supporters was about $10,000.

"The victim has to make a case to a judge that their story is in the public interest," Funnell told Guardian Australia. "They're made to feel quite powerless throughout the process."

Thousands of people have signed a petition calling for law reform.

Funnell met Tame in person last week for the first time. "I printed off the petition of 5,000 signatures to remind her: here are 5,000 people in your corner," Funnell said.

Some of the signatories were former peers who had mocked and bullied Tame at school because they lacked the maturity to understand the power imbalance between a much older teacher and a schoolgirl suffering anorexia, Funnell said.

Tame had been called a "home wrecker" and "slut" at the time the abuse became public, she said.

"They've obviously gone on a journey too and come full circle and realised the seriousness of the offending that occurred, and that victims are entitled to be treated with respect and support," Funnell said.

Tasmania's attorney general, Elise Archer, is reviewing the law and considering submissions after releasing a discussion paper.

"My assault happened in 2007 in NSW and within weeks I went public," Funnell said. "That was important to me, in terms of taking ownership back."

The Queensland author of Eggshell Skull, Bri Lee, has said changing the law in Tasmania and the NT would help women "draw courage from one another's survival".

Funnell has been working with two other survivors in Tasmania and one in the NT to win court orders to speak out, and raising money to support legal action.

One of the Tasmanian women had been gang-raped 25 years ago and forced to dig her own grave afterwards, Funnell said.

*This article was amended on 28 January, 2021, to clarify payment of the legal costs for the court exemption as well as to that the #letherspeak campaign was started by Nina Funnell in partnership with Marque Lawyers and End Rape On Campus Australia.

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Grace Tame: Tasmanian survivor of sexual assault wins the right to tell her story

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The woman who sparked a legal review of Tasmania's sexual assault gag laws has finally won a supreme court exemption to tell her harrowing story of being groomed by a school teacher. At the age of 15, Grace Tame was repeatedly sexually abused by her 58-year-old maths teacher, Nicolaas Bester, who was convicted and served time in jail for molesting her.

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When the truth about the identity of Lawyer X was finally revealed earlier this year, we were told a story about a woman who had turned on her clients to feed police information about their criminal activities.

That information could now see them walk free from jail.

Today we find out how the double life of Nicola Gobbo came spectacularly undone.
CREDITS
Host/Producer: Claire Murphy

Executive Producer: Elle Beattie

Audio Producer: Ian Camilleri

Thanks to our special guest Age reporter Tammy Mills

The Quicky is the easiest and most enjoyable way to get across the news every day. And it's delivered straight to your ears in a daily podcast so you can listen whenever you want, wherever you are...at the gym, on the train, in the playground or at night while you're making dinner.

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Love the show? Send us an email [email protected] or call the podphone 02 8999 9386.

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The Undoing Of Underworld Informant 'Lawyer X'

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When the truth about the identity of Lawyer X was finally revealed earlier this year, we were told a story about a woman who had turned on her clients to feed police information about their criminal activities. That information could now see them walk free from jail.

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Updated August 19, 2019 16:58:41

Each generation of Australians has enjoyed a better standard of living than the one that came before it. But today's young Australians are in danger of falling behind.

A new Grattan Institute report, Generation gap: ensuring a fair go for younger Australians, reveals younger generations are not making the same economic gains as their predecessors.

Economic growth has been slow for a decade, Australia's population is ageing, and climate change looms.

The burden of these changes mainly falls on the young.

The pressures have emerged partly because of economic and demographic changes, but also because of the policy choices we've made as a nation.

Older generations are richer than before, younger ones are not

For much of the past century, strong economic growth has produced growing wealth and incomes. Older Australians today have substantially greater wealth, income and expenditure compared with Australians of the same age decades earlier.

But, as can be seen from the yellow lines on this graph, younger Australians have not made the same progress.

The graph shows that the wealth of households headed by someone under 35 has barely moved since 2004.

It's not young people's spending habits that are the problem - this is not a story of too many avocado lattes (and yes, they are a thing).

In fact, as the graph below shows, while every age group is spending more on essentials such as housing, young people are cutting back on non-essentials: among them alcohol, clothing, furnishings and recreation.

Wage stagnation since the global financial crisis and climbing underemployment have hit young people particularly hard. Older people tend to be better cushioned because they have already established their careers and are more likely to have other sources of income.

If low wage growth and fewer working hours become the "new normal", we are likely to see a generation emerge into adulthood with lower incomes than the one before it.

It has already happened in the United States and United Kingdom.

Our generational bargain is at breaking point

Budget pressures will exacerbate these challenges.

Australia's tax and welfare system supports an implicit generational bargain. Working-age Australians, as a group, are net contributors to the budget, helping to support older generations in their retirement.

They've come to expect that future generations in turn will support them.

But Australia's population is ageing - which increases the need for government spending on health, aged care and pensions at the same time as there are relatively fewer working age people to pay for it.

Demographic bad luck is one thing (some generations will always be larger than others) but policy changes are making the burden worse.

A series of tax policy decisions over the past three decades - in particular tax-free superannuation income in retirement, refundable franking credits, and special tax offsets for seniors - mean we now ask older Australians to pay a lot less income tax than we once did.

Disturbingly, these and other changes mean older households now pay much less tax than younger households on the same income.

Added to this have been substantial increases in average pension and health payments for households over 65.

It has meant that net transfers - government benefits minus taxes - have dramatically increased for older households but not for younger ones.

The overall effect has been to make current working Australians increasingly underwrite the living standards of retirees.

A typical 40-year-old today contributes much more towards the retirement of others through taxes than did his or her baby-boomer predecessors.

As it happens, it is also more than the typical 40-year-old is contributing to his or her own retirement through compulsory super.

This can't be what Australians want

Most Australians want to leave the world a better place for those that come after them.

It's time to make sure we do it.

Lots of older Australians are doing their best, individually, supporting their children via the "Bank of Mum and Dad", caring for grandchildren, and scrimping through retirement to leave their kids a good inheritance.

These private transfers help a lucky few, but they don't solve the broader problem. In fact, inheritances exacerbate inequality because they largely go to the already wealthy.

We need policy changes.

Reducing or eliminating tax breaks for "comfortably off" older Australians would be a start.

Boosting economic growth and improving the structural budget position would help all Australians, especially younger Australians. It would also put Australia in a better position to tackle other challenges that are top of mind for young people, such as climate change.

Changes to planning rules to encourage higher-density living in established city suburbs would help by making housing more affordable.

Just as a series of government decisions have contributed to the challenges facing young people today, a series of government decisions will be needed to help redress them.

Every generation faces its own unique challenges, but letting this generation fall behind the others is surely a legacy none of us would be proud of.

It's time to share the burden, and perhaps an avocado latte while we're at it.
Kate Griffiths is a senior associate and Danielle Wood is program director of budget policy and institutional reform at the Grattan Institute. This article originally appeared on The Conversation.
Topics: business-economics-and-finance, community-and-society, australia

First posted August 19, 2019 06:00:36

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We've set a trap for millennials that none of us should be proud of

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A lot of older Australians are doing their best, supporting their children via the Bank of Mum and Dad, caring for grandchildren and scrimping through retirement to leave their kids a good inheritance. But it's not enough, write Kate Griffiths and Danielle Wood.

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Alan Jones, a man who has fantasised on radio about disposing of women's bodies in chaff bags, hanging them above the streets of Sydney, and suffocating them with socks, would like us all to be a little more careful with our language, please.

"The language used about me is just extraordinary," the 2GB broadcaster said in an interview with Nine News on Tuesday.

The vocal criticism has come in response to Jones' suggestion that Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison "shove a sock" down the throat of New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, in order to silence her on the subject of climate change.
Alan Jones speaks to Nine News. Post continues below.
"Here she is preaching on global warming and saying that we've got to do something about climate change," the 78-year-old said on his breakfast program on Thursday.

"I just wonder whether Scott Morrison is going to be fully briefed to shove a sock down her throat."

But alas. It is us, most of whom do not have a microphone, or a $4 million annual salary from our nationally syndicated radio show, who ought to think twice about the "language" we choose to use.

"It seems to be OK that you can in social media, about Alan Jones, say that we should kill him," Jones told Nine News on Tuesday, horrified.

Of course, no matter what an individual espouses, we would never endorse threats of violence. To do so is to immediately lose an argument.

Threatening to 'kill' Alan Jones feels not only barbaric, but lazy given how easy his actual ideas are to argue with.

But the irony of Jones - a man who has, with the words he is paid an astronomical amount to say, suggested a woman be thrown to sea in a body bag, or hanged, or suffocated - suggesting we all ought to tone down our language, is almost too much to bear.

Jones is also the same man who was found to have likely encouraged "violence or brutality and to vilify people of Lebanese and Middle-Eastern backgrounds on the basis of ethnicity," at the time of the Cronulla Riots.

More specifically, in April 2005, Jones referred to Lebanese Muslims as "vermin" who "rape and pillage a nation that's taken them in".

He used his enormously popular breakfast radio program to read out a widely circulated text message that said: "Come to Cronulla this weekend to take revenge... get down to North Cronulla to support the Leb and wog bashing day."

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"The language used about me is just extraordinary." The profound hypocrisy of Alan Jones.

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Alan Jones, a man who has fantasised on radio about disposing of women's bodies in chaff bags, hanging them above the streets of Sydney, and suffocating them with socks, would like us all to be a little more careful with our language, please.

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eganism has rocketed in the UK over the past couple of years - from an estimated half a million people in 2016 to more than 3.5 million - 5% of our population - today. Influential documentaries such as Cowspiracy and What the Health have thrown a spotlight on the intensive meat and dairy industry, exposing the impacts on animal and human health and the wider environment.

Our soils were almost dead. Now we have ​19 types of worm, and 23 species of dung beetle in a single cowpat

But calls for us all to switch entirely to plant-based foods ignore one of the most powerful tools we have to mitigate these ills: grazing and browsing animals.

Rather than being seduced by exhortations to eat more products made from industrially grown soya, maize and grains, we should be encouraging sustainable forms of meat and dairy production based on traditional rotational systems, permanent pasture and conservation grazing. We should, at the very least, question the ethics of driving up demand for crops that require high inputs of fertiliser, fungicides, pesticides and herbicides, while demonising sustainable forms of livestock farming that can restore soils and biodiversity, and sequester carbon.

In 2000, my husband and I turned our 1,400-hectare (3,500-acre) farm in West Sussex over to extensive grazing using free-roaming herds of old English longhorn cattle, Tamworth pigs, Exmoor ponies and red and fallow deer as part of a rewilding project. For 17 years we had struggled to make our conventional arable and dairy business profitable, but on heavy Low Weald clay, we could never compete with farms on lighter soils. The decision turned our fortunes around. Now eco-tourism, rental of post-agricultural buildings, and 75 tonnes a year of organic, pasture-fed meat contribute to a profitable business. And since the animals live outside all year round, with plenty to eat, they do not require supplementary feeding and rarely need to see the vet.

The animals live in natural herds and wander wherever they please. They wallow in streams and water-meadows. They rest where they like (they disdain the open barns left for them as shelter) and eat what they like. The cattle and deer graze on wildflowers and grasses but they also browse among shrubs and trees. The pigs rootle for rhizomes and even dive for swan mussels in ponds. The way they graze, puddle and trample stimulates vegetation in different ways, which in turn creates opportunities for other species, including small mammals and birds.

Little owls - one of five owl species found at Knepp - feast on the burgeoning dung beetle population. Photograph: Ned Burrell

Crucially, because we don't dose them with avermectins (the anti-worming agents routinely fed to livestock in intensive systems) or antibiotics, their dung feeds earthworms, bacteria, fungi and invertebrates such as dung beetles, which pull the manure down into the earth. This is a vital process of ecosystem restoration, returning nutrients and structure to the soil. Soil loss is one of the greatest catastrophes facing the world today. A 2015 report from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization states that, globally, 25 to 40bn tonnes of topsoil are lost annually to erosion, thanks mainly to ploughing and intensive cropping. In the UK topsoil depletion is so severe that in 2014 the trade magazine Farmers Weekly announced we may have only 100 harvests left. Letting arable land lie fallow and returning it to grazed pasture for a period - as farmers used to, before artificial fertilisers and mechanisation made continuous cropping possible - is the only way to reverse that process, halt erosion and rebuild soil, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation. The grazing livestock not only provide farmers with an income, but the animals' dung, urine and even the way they graze, accelerates soil restoration. The key is to be organic, and keep livestock numbers low to prevent over-grazing.

Twenty years ago, our soils at the farm - severely degraded after decades of ploughing and chemical inputs - were almost biologically dead. Now we have fruiting fungi and orchids appearing in our former arable fields: an indication that subterranean networks of mycorrhizal fungi are spreading. We have 19 types of earthworm - keystone species responsible for aerating, rotavating, fertilising, hydrating and even detoxifying the soil. We've found 23 species of dung beetle in a single cowpat, one of which - the violet dor beetle - hasn't been seen in Sussex for 50 years. Birds that feed on insects attracted by this nutritious dung are rocketing. The rootling of the pigs provides opportunities for native flora and shrubs to germinate, including sallow, and this has given rise to the biggest colony of purple emperors in Britain, one of our rarest butterflies, which lays its eggs on sallow leaves.

Not only does this system of natural grazing aid the environment in terms of soil restoration, biodiversity, pollinating insects, water quality and flood mitigation - but it also it guarantees healthy lives for the animals, and they in turn produce meat that is healthy for us. In direct contrast to grain-fed and grain-finished meat from intensive systems, wholly pasture-fed meat is high in beta carotene, calcium, selenium, magnesium and potassium and vitamins E and B, and conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) - a powerful anti-carcinogen. It is also high in the long-chain omega-3 fatty acid DHA, which is vital for human brain development but extremely difficult for vegans to obtain.

Much has been made of the methane emissions of livestock, but these are lower in biodiverse pasture systems that include wild plants such as angelica, common fumitory, shepherd's purse and bird's-foot trefoil because they contain fumaric acid - a compound that, when added to the diet of lambs at the Rowett Institute in Aberdeen, reduced emissions of methane by 70%.

In the vegan equation, by contrast, the carbon cost of ploughing is rarely considered. Since the industrial revolution, according to a 2017 report in the science journal Nature, up to 70% of the carbon in our cultivated soils has been lost to the atmosphere.

So there's a huge responsibility here: unless you're sourcing your vegan products specifically from organic, "no-dig" systems, you are actively participating in the destruction of soil biota, promoting a system that deprives other species, including small mammals, birds and reptiles, of the conditions for life, and significantly contributing to climate change.

Our ecology evolved with large herbivores - with free-roaming herds of aurochs (the ancestral cow), tarpan (the original horse), elk, bear, bison, red deer, roe deer, wild boar and millions of beavers. They are species whose interactions with the environment sustain and promote life. Using herbivores as part of the farming cycle can go a long way towards making agriculture sustainable.

There's no question we should all be eating far less meat, and calls for an end to high-carbon, polluting, unethical, intensive forms of grain-fed meat production are commendable. But if your concerns as a vegan are the environment, animal welfare and your own health, then it's no longer possible to pretend that these are all met simply by giving up meat and dairy. Counterintuitive as it may seem, adding the occasional organic, pasture-fed steak to your diet could be the right way to square the circle.

Isabella Tree runs Knepp Castle Estate with her husband, the conservationist Charlie Burrell, and is the author of Wilding: The Return of Nature to a British Farm

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If you want to save the world, veganism isn't the answer | Isabella Tree

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eganism has rocketed in the UK over the past couple of years - from an estimated half a million people in 2016 to more than 3.5 million - 5% of our population - today. Influential documentaries such as Cowspiracy and What the Health have thrown a spotlight on the intensive meat and dairy industry, exposing the impacts on animal and human health and the wider environment.

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I heard about this horrible fire in the Amazon. Googled Amazon fire and hit News and this is all that came up.....Earth - it was fun while it lasted. pic.twitter.com/IWOn8VbgRo

- Patrick J Adams (@halfadams) August 21, 2019

"I honestly can't think of a more fitting way for this, the final summer of the decade, to end," read one tweet.

"The Amazon is burning now, and if you Google "Amazon fire" you get ten pages of ads for Jeff Besos' f*cking tablet."

In the last few hours, the hashtag #PrayforAmazonia has begun to trend, with many sharing images and videos of the destruction.

Perhaps global awareness will put more pressure on President Bolsonaro to act.

In stark contrast, the ashes had not yet settled on the 4th arrondissement of Paris when President Emmanuel Macron addressed the nation.

"I tell you solemnly tonight: We will rebuild this cathedral," he said, standing outside the Notre Dame Cathedral.

The fire still burned as Macron said, "Notre Dame of Paris is our history. The epicentre of our lives. It's the many books, the paintings, those that belong to all French men and French women, even those who've never come."

We watched as Parisians covered their mouths in horror, as they felt a piece of themselves burn.

That same horror, for a Cathedral that could be rebuilt, with beams and wood and stained glass windows, needs to be applied to a rainforest that won't be so easy to put back together.

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Notre Dame burned and the world stopped. The Amazon has been on fire for three weeks.

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I heard about this horrible fire in the Amazon. Googled Amazon fire and hit News and this is all that came up.....Earth - it was fun while it lasted. pic.twitter.com/IWOn8VbgRo - Patrick J Adams (@halfadams) August 21, 2019 "I honestly can't think of a more fitting way for this, the final summer of the decade, to end," read one tweet.

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It hasn't always been plain sailing for women in sport. With a history marked by division and discrimination, it looks like things could be about to get a whole lot more complicated for female athletes, after the International Olympic Committee) announced changes to its transgender policy.

Transgender athletes will now be allowed to compete in the Olympics without having to undergo sex reassignment surgery. Which is possibly set to impact women's sport more than men's. Achieving eligibility to compete in male competition is now easy - you just have to say you are male. Whereas eligibility to compete in female competition is subject to a number of tests for hormone levels.

For some, this step away from surgical requirements was enthusiastically welcomed and considered an important milestone towards greater equality and inclusion in the sporting world. But there were also much more critical responses. These included concerns around the possible impact on the integrity and fairness of competition. And fears that women in particular would be even further disadvantaged within sport than they already are.

Questions of biology

The Times columnist Janice Turner said the new policy was "great news - unless you are a woman athlete" and that "trans athletes are unfair to women". Her concerns are based on assumptions that male-to-female trans athletes will always have a biological advantage in terms of size, muscle mass and lung capacity.

For Turner, the new policy, while seemingly more inclusive, is bound to be exploited by "medal-hungry male athletes in unscrupulous nations". One example Turner mentions is the case of the Iranian women's football national team, which allegedly includes eight men who are currently "awaiting sex change operations".

But female athletes, especially the most talented ones have long had their gender called into question. In 2009 Caster Semenya the female South-African middle distance runner, was forced to undergo sex testing after her 800-metre victory at the 2009 World Championships was considered too fast for a woman. Which is another example that demonstrates how debates about unfair competitive advantage intersect with concerns around "real" female athletes' marginalisation.

Testing time

The move towards using hormone levels for purposes of sex testing and in transgender inclusion policies is useful. It is hormones, especially androgens such as testosterone - and not reproductive organs - that are linked to muscle mass, speed and strength and competitive advantage.

But here's where the trouble starts. The "female" sex hormone oestrogen is generally found in higher levels in women. And men tend to have higher levels of androgens like testosterone. But both oestrogens and androgens are also found in men and women. Making any cutoff point, such as trans women requiring a consistent testosterone level below 10 nmol/L - the level set by the IOC - is pretty arbitrary, and ultimately useless.

The IOC's use of hormone levels to measure or test sex has replaced earlier "gender verification" practices. These previously involved asking female athletes to drop their underwear, but eventually a less humiliating method was found: checking swabs of cheek tissue for chromosomes, as "proof" of an athlete's sex. Women have vaginas, ovaries and XX chromosomes, and men have penises and XY chromosomes. Sounds simple right? Wrong.

The move away from using reproductive organs or chromosomes was linked to scientific evidence which showed that "nature" is a lot messier than we think. There is no neat and clear distinction between "male" and "female" - and no way of "measuring" or "testing" sex based on reproductive organs or chromosomes alone.

xrender/Shutterstock

There are much greater variations of sex chromosomes than simply XX and XY, including XXY, XXXY, XXXXY, XXYY, XXXYY . And chromosomes themselves also don't have a direct impact on the body's physical characteristics - they only do so when combined with certain hormones. Then add intersex people, discrepancies between internal and external sex organs and mismatches between genitals and chromosomal sex into the mix - and you've got a whole lot of complication. As was the case with Semenya.

Facing the future

On the whole, the physical differences among men and among women are bigger than the differences between men and women. Semenya might have higher testosterone levels and greater muscles mass than the "average woman" - but the same might also be said about Usain Bolt when compared to the "average man".

The IOC's new policy is then, perhaps, the best we can do, at the moment, given that sport is a gender-segregated context.

Removing the need for transgender athletes to undergo sex reassignment surgery is a welcome acknowledgement that bodies don't come in neatly defined categories. And using hormone levels as a measure seems a pragmatic compromise. That said, the increasingly popular sport of roller derby puts the rest of the sporting world to shame with its move away from gender-segregation and its refreshingly progressive policies for trans people, genderqueer and nonbinary inclusion.

Assuming mainstream sport will remain gender-segregated for the time being, what is needed then is education to prevent prejudice, exclusion and knee-jerk reactions by sports policy makers, governing bodies and the media. And continuing conversations between those promoting equality for women in sport and advocates for transgender inclusion are vital to iron out any unproductive misconceptions on both sides.

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Do transgender athletes have an unfair advantage?

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It hasn't always been plain sailing for women in sport. With a history marked by division and discrimination, it looks like things could be about to get a whole lot more complicated for female athletes, after the International Olympic Committee) announced changes to its transgender policy.

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Raise Your Gaze: “Islamic feminism is overlooked in the mainstream’ | World news | The Guardian

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Official site of The Week Magazine, offering commentary and analysis of the day's breaking news and current events as well as arts, entertainment, people and gossip, and political cartoons.

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I am accustomed to being hectored by Islamists, frightbats, anti-vaccination fruitcakes and an assortment of social justice warriors - aka government-funded Twitter trolls.

But last week, I had the surreal experience of being scolded by an ABC host for not being sufficiently supportive of an Islamic activist advocating for sharia law.

ABC radio drive host Rafael Epstein had the gall to admonish me, a migrant who escaped a country under Islamic law, for not supporting an advocate of Islamic law.

It's akin to a freed slave being criticised for a fear of slavery and reluctance to support slavery advocates.

Can you imagine the indignation from feminists if a privileged, white, private school-educated, heterosexual, conservative male was castigating an immigrant woman of colour about how their experience and opinions "distort the debate"?

Epstein is all of the above except he is a typical ABC Leftist and so his behaviour is excused and even applauded by those who most enthusiastically embrace identity politics.

Ignore the utterly false fantasies proffered by activists like Yassmin Abdel-Magied about Islam being a feminist faith that empowers women. The reality is that around the world, sharia law is abhorrent and anti-women whether practised in its harshest forms in countries like Iran, Saudi Arabia and Qatar or in its mildest forms as seen in sharia courts in the UK.

There is no place for it in Australia and anyone who openly advocates for it is not a moderate in any meaningful sense of the word. And yet our taxpayer-funded broadcaster gives a platform to those pushing sharia as some "kind" and "merciful" belief system that is just misunderstood by ignorant Westerners and Islamophobes.

Last year, a video went viral of British Islamic reformer Maajid Nawaz - precisely the type of Muslim we should be listening to - being utterly dumbfounded by another favourite ABC hijabi.

A bemused Nawaz was berated on the ABC program, The Drum, by Sarah Saleh, who calls herself a "human rights advocate", for the crime of championing secularism and fighting against theocracy and Islamism.

Those who push theocracy and/or sharia are poor representatives of the many Muslims in Australia who simply want to live in peace without turning their new country into a version of the dysfunctional homeland they fled.

But if you listen to the posturing fools at the ABC, anyone who questions the nonsense spouted by sharia fans is a bigoted bully.

My Twitter tiff with Epstein started with his blind defence of a sharia advocate who he called a "moderate Muslim".

I advised Epstein that moderate Muslims are not typically fans of sharia law. To which he responded that Abdel-Magied "is the sort of Muslim voice that deserves more support not less. but (sic) I'm sure you'll continue to distort the debate".

Distort the debate? With indisputable facts and my own experience? Really, Raf?

And, how much more support does one sharia fan girl need?

Abdel-Magied already has multiple platforms on the public broadcaster to push her agenda - plus the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade paid for her to go on an international book tour to some of the most repressive Islamic regimes around the world.

But according to Epstein, we mustn't question her absurd assertions, including her claim that it was Europeans who turned Islam from a progressive female friendly religion to one that systematically subjugates women.

The truth is that the regions where Islamic law is most intolerant and discriminatory toward women were not colonised by the British and Dutch.

To try to blame the evils of honour killings, FGM, child marriages, forced marriages, forced veiling and a plethora of other ills on Western imperialism is stupid.

When Epstein was taken to task by other Twitter users for his unquestioning support of a sharia advocate, he doubled down with rhetoric that exposed an ignorance that was breathtaking.

No amount of world-class obfuscation could mask Epstein's lack of knowledge of sharia law, both theological and practical.

He claimed people were being "deliberately simplistic" in saying there was one version of sharia, that shared by Islamic State.

The evils perpetrated against women, children, homosexuals, nonbelievers and many other minorities in the name of sharia are not limited to the backward savagery of IS.

There are 10 countries, some of them sitting on the United Nations Human Rights Commission, where homosexuality can be punishable by death.

These aren't terrorists throwing allegedly gay men off buildings; they are governments of Islamic nations such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Sudan and Yemen.
Read full column here.

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I am accustomed to being hectored by Islamists, frightbats, anti-vaccination fruitcakes and an assortment of social justice warriors - aka government-funded Twitter trolls. But last week, I had the surreal experience of being scolded by an ABC host for not being sufficiently supportive of an Islamic activist advocating for sharia law.

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Patrick Blower on protests in #HongKong over #Chinese #extradition - political cartoon gallery in London https://t.co/dePcTdnXF6

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Welcome to the Political Cartoon Gallery Original Cartoons for sale

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The Political Cartoon Gallery and Cafe is based in London by the River Thames in Putney. Do visit us to see the very best in original cartoon artwork. Not only do we put on regular exhibitions of political cartoons but we also sell original gag and strip cartoons by the likes of Martin Honeysett, Fougasse, H. M. Bateman, Reg Smythe (Andy Capp), Alex Graham (Fred Bassett) and Barry Appleby (The Gambols). We also have on permament display in the gallery some of the most famous, original and iconic political

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Patrick Blower on protests in #HongKong over #Chinese #extradition - political cartoon gallery in London https://t.co/dePcTdnXF6 pic.twitter.com/ObmPk3gtkr
— Political Cartoon (@Cartoon4sale) July 2, 2019

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Welcome to the Political Cartoon Gallery Original Cartoons for sale

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The Political Cartoon Gallery and Cafe is based in London by the River Thames in Putney. Do visit us to see the very best in original cartoon artwork. Not only do we put on regular exhibitions of political cartoons but we also sell original gag and strip cartoons by the likes of Martin Honeysett, Fougasse, H. M. Bateman, Reg Smythe (Andy Capp), Alex Graham (Fred Bassett) and Barry Appleby (The Gambols). We also have on permament display in the gallery some of the most famous, original and iconic political

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Welcome to the Political Cartoon Gallery Original Cartoons for sale

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The Political Cartoon Gallery and Cafe is based in London by the River Thames in Putney. Do visit us to see the very best in original cartoon artwork. Not only do we put on regular exhibitions of political cartoons but we also sell original gag and strip cartoons by the likes of Martin Honeysett, Fougasse, H. M. Bateman, Reg Smythe (Andy Capp), Alex Graham (Fred Bassett) and Barry Appleby (The Gambols). We also have on permament display in the gallery some of the most famous, original and iconic political

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Hong Kong gains nothing from the shattering of its peace

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The Hong Kong protests have been used as political leverage by pro-independence forces in Taiwan, and the US media. But the young people of Hong Kong can gain little from the continued chaos and media glorification.

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WILLIAMSTOWN - What will China do to deal with the massive protests convulsing Hong Kong - especially as the demonstrations center on a sense of identity that is increasingly distinct from the rest of China, and upon a demand for a democratically elected government that is not under Beijing's thumb?

It is rational to worry for Hong Kong, but there are also reasons to temper concerns.

For the moment, the size and peacefulness of Sunday's protest march by 1.7 million Hong Kong people - nearly a quarter of the city - has replaced the images of violence between demonstrators and police that dominated recent news reports.

Raising the presumption of military intervention also conjures up certain images, like tanks rumbling into Beijing's Tiananmen Square and crushing the pro-democracy protests there in 1989. To raise the specter of a military response in Hong Kong implicitly assumes that the central government cannot sit idly by while the contagion of democracy spreads.
A DIFFERENT CHINA
These are reasonable worries given the track record of a Communist government that rules without popular mandate, fears public opinion and is preoccupied with round-the-clock monitoring and shaping its image at home and abroad.

To worry about use of force also carries the presumption that the Chinese Communist Party is somehow genetically incapable of keeping its promise to let Hong Kong run by its own rules until 2047, as agreed by China and Britain before Hong Kong's reversion to China in 1997.

Many people - including this writer - have openly feared that Beijing would revert to its playbook in order to halt the demonstrations that have been occurring in Hong Kong for nearly three months. Intervention is still not out of the question.

But we need to be careful when seeking to draw parallels. Past is not always prologue.

Today's China is different from the China of three decades past. It's an expansionist China, with a robust military posture and growing assertiveness. Its foreign policy clearly announces global intent, and China leaves no doubt about its willingness to push back whether over Huawei or Hong Kong.

At the same time, it is a defensive regime, ever wary of foreign intervention into whatever is defined as its internal affairs - and what could be more internal to Beijing than whatever constitutes being a physical part of China, or whatever it means to be a Chinese? Hong Kong now finds itself at the crosshairs of both questions.

Just as Hong Kong today is not comparable to Beijing 30 years ago, nor is the central government under President Xi Jinping comparable to Beijing in the era of Deng Xiaoping.

Deng was the undoubted paramount leader and that is what Xi wants to be. Xi is sometimes called the chairman-of-everything to underscore his penchant for heading every important body. By contrast, Deng - a skilled card player - ran the show even when his only formal title was as head of the Chinese Bridge Association.

In Deng's day, China was just beginning to pull out of the decades of misery under Chairman Mao Zedong and start transforming into the world's factory, whereas Xi's China is at the top of the industrial standings.

Perhaps most importantly, we now live in the information age, and both the Hong Kong citizenry and Chinese government are far more sophisticated when it comes to messaging and the media. That gives Beijing some latitude beyond muscle.

In 1989, the term "social media" was yet to be coined. The troops that were ordered into Beijing during the pre-dawn of June 4 were drawn from rural army units. They had no idea of events beyond the propaganda they were being fed and no idea what they were facing.

The students within Tiananmen Square were largely at the mercy of the rumor mill. There is no comparison with today's speed and ubiquity of communications.

This is the era of smart phones, Google Earth and photo-taking drones. Hong Kong, a leading financial and media center, is integral to the worldwide web and its people are amazingly tech savvy. The demonstrators' hit-and-run strategies are based on instantaneous messaging. If Chinese troops head across the border, Hong Kongers will know instantly.

Beijing is technically advanced, using both social and official media to spread propaganda, plant competing narratives, post favorable images, instill fear, spew spam and spark rumors. It has an arsenal of options that include thuggery but so far come up short of taking up arms.

The Hong Kong's government's messaging often resembles preaching to the choir. On Monday, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam offered up a "platform" for negotiation that was superficially conciliatory, but compromised on nothing and was promptly rejected.
NOT A RAGTAG GROUP
Which leads to another reason to temper worry: public perception.

The throng in Hong Kong's streets was not some ragtag assemblage. It included office workers, lawyers, chambers of commerce, domestic helpers, students and even civil servants.

When Beijing declared that Cathay Pacific Airways crew who backed the demonstrations were barred from flying in China's airspace and demanded their names, it was sent a list with only one name - Cathay's CEO, Rupert Hogg, who resigned instead.

Hogg is being lauded as a hero.

At the moment, Beijing's is occupied by a trade dispute with the U.S., and Washington's announcement of arms sales to Taiwan.

The Chinese army soldiers in Hong Kong remain barracked.
Francis Moriarty was the senior political reporter for public broadcaster Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) covering the return of Hong Kong from British to Chinese sovereignty in 1997.
If you'd like to leave a comment (or a tip or a question) about this story with the editors, please email us. We also welcome letters to the editor for publication; you can do that by filling out our letters form and submitting it to the newsroom.

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Francis Moriarty: What are China's options in Hong Kong?

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WILLIAMSTOWN - What will China do to deal with the massive protests convulsing Hong Kong - especially as the demonstrations center on a sense of identity that is increasingly distinct from the rest of China, and upon a demand for a democratically elected government that is not under Beijing's thumb?

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Should women with naturally elevated levels of testosterone be able to compete in women's events? That's the question with which athletics has been grappling over the past decade. Last week, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas), international sport's highest court, ruled that such athletes could be banned unless they took medication to reduce their testosterone levels.

The Cas case had been brought by Caster Semenya, the South African Olympic champion, who, after winning her stunning 30th consecutive 800m victory in Doha on Friday, insisted that she would carry on racing in middle distance events, but would not take testosterone-reducing medication. From the moment she burst on to the international stage a decade ago, questions were raised about her sex. Semenya is hyperandrogenic - she has a much higher level of testosterone than most women.

Most people accept the case for separate male and female categories in sporting events in which physical prowess matters

The IAAF, the governing body of international athletics, defines athletes like her as having "a difference of sexual development (DSD)". And last year, it introduced regulations forcing such athletes to reduce their testosterone levels if they wished to compete in certain events. Semenya challenged this in court.

Cas described the rules as "discriminatory". But, it added, such discrimination is "necessary, reasonable and proportionate".

If that sounds confused, it is.

Most people accept the case for separate male and female categories in sporting events in which physical prowess matters. Defining who belongs to the two categories has, however, created much debate. Different methods have been adopted, from crude physical inspections to genetic tests. All have proved unsatisfactory.

The latest dividing line is functional testosterone. Testosterone levels in women are, in most circumstances, lower than in men. So the IAAF decided to limit the testosterone level that makes women eligible for certain events. The trouble is, while all male elite athletes lie in the high testosterone band and most female athletes fall into the lower testosterone class, a few women, such as Semenya, have elevated levels that take them into the "male" category.

The IAAF suggests that excluding such women, or forcing them to reduce testosterone levels, helps create a level playing field and protects the integrity of women's sports. That's why Cas accepted IAAF regulations as necessary, reasonable and proportionate, even if discriminatory.

Elite sport, by definition, is an uneven playing field. The best athletes are not like the rest of us

Testosterone certainly aids athletic performance, increasing muscle bulk and the number of red blood cells. Hyperandrogenic women have an advantage over athletes whose testosterone is in the "normal" range.

But why is that unfair? Elite sport, by definition, is an uneven playing field. From Dina Asher-Smith to Lionel Messi, the best athletes are not like the rest of us. That difference is partly due to genetic traits. Why should Semenya not be able to take advantage of her genetic attributes, as every other athlete does?

If the debate about hyperandrogenic athletes has caused controversy, that over transgender athletes is generating an even fiercer storm. Prominent female athletes, from Paula Radcliffe to Martina Navratilova, have raised fears about transgender athletes similar to those about hyperandrogenic ones.

While the two debates are linked, the contexts are different. Semenya was born and has lived as a woman but happens to have naturally high testosterone levels. Female transgender athletes, such as the cyclist Rachel McKinnon, were born and lived as males but have transitioned to being female.

Many trans activists argue that anyone who identifies as female should be allowed to compete in women's sport. Critics argue that, given the advantages conferred by a male physique, it would be unfair to allow anyone who has been through male puberty to compete as a woman, even if they have transitioned from male to female by taking hormone treatment.

Neither claim seems reasonable. From the perspective of fairness and justice, it would be wrong simply to allow self-identified women who have the physical attributes of men to compete in women's events. It would be equally wrong to have a blanket ban on transgender women competing in female sports. There is little evidence either of trans athletes dominating sport (there has not been a single trans Olympian) or of athletes who have transitioned from male to female continuing to have an advantage over those born female.

The latest International Olympic Committee regulations allow transgender women to participate so long as they have taken hormone therapy to reduce their testosterone level to below a set figure for at least a year.

These rules have been criticised from both sides. For some, they place too great a burden on transgender athletes; for others, they make it too easy for athletes not born as women to compete in women's events. There is a debate to be had over these issues. What seems indisputable, though, is that some such regulations are required. Whereas the IAAF's hyperandrogenic rules are irrational and discriminatory, regulations allowing transgender athletes to compete under certain conditions do seem "necessary, reasonable and proportionate".

* Kenan Malik is an Observer columnist
Topics

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Caster Semenya is a victim of rules that are confusing and unfair | Kenan Malik

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Should women with naturally elevated levels of testosterone be able to compete in women's events? That's the question with which athletics has been grappling over the past decade. Last week, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas), international sport's highest court, ruled that such athletes could be banned unless they took medication to reduce their testosterone levels.

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On Thursday the South African government tried to end the controversy over the sex of Caster Semenya, the runner who was crowned world champion in August for the women's 800 meters, by declaring that an agreement had been reached to let her keep her medal and not release the results of gender tests carried out after her victory.

In a statement posted on the Web, the South African Sports Ministry said that it had reached this deal with the International Association of Athletics Federations, or I.A.A.F.:

Because Caster has been found to be innocent of any wrong, she will then -
* Retain her gold medal
* Retain her title of 800m World Champions
* Retain her prize money.

We have also agreed with the I.A.A.F. that whatever scientific tests were conducted legally within the I.A.A.F. regulations will be treated as a confidential matter between patient and doctor. As such there will be no public announcement of what the panel of scientists has found. We urge all South Africans and other people to respect this professional ethical and moral way of doing things.

The implications of the scientific findings on Caster's health and life going forward will be analyzed by Caster and she will make her own decision on her future.

Reuters reported that "The I.A.A.F. said it could not confirm the details in the statement but said it had accepted the resignation of Athletics South Africa (A.S.A.) President Leonard Chuene from the I.A.A.F. Council and had opened a formal investigation into the handling of the Semenya affair by Chuene and A.S.A."

On Wednesday the international body had posted a statement on its Web site confirming that it was "in discussions" with "the South African Ministry of Sport and Recreation and Caster Semenya's representatives ... with a view to resolving the issues surrounding Caster Semenya's participation in athletics." The statement also said: "The I.A.A.F. will not comment upon the medical aspects of Caster Semenya's case. The medical testing of the athlete is still to be completed."

As Reuters also reported, in September Australia's Daily Telegraph, citing an unnamed source, wrote that that the international federation's gender tests had revealed that Ms. Semenya has both male and female sexual characteristics.

The I.A.A.F. has refused to confirm the Australian newspaper's report.

In South Africa attention has turned to the handling of the matter by athletics officials.

Questions were raised about Ms. Semenya's gender after her dominating win at the world championships, and the international athletics association conducted a battery of gender tests. South Africa's Mail & Guardian newspaper reported that South African athletics officials had failed to head off the controversy by concealing the results of their own gender testing done before the event.

One unidentified official told the South African newspaper that the earlier tests results were "not good." The same official told the newspaper that a doctor for the South African athletics team had advised officials in charge of the track team to withdraw Ms. Semenya from the world championships before she ran, after hearing the results of those gender tests.

Earlier this month the nation's track association released a statement saying:

Athletics South Africa wishes to publicly and unconditionally apologise to Caster Semenya and her family, the President of South Africa as well as to all South Africans for the handling of her gender verification processes and the subsequent aftermath.

The same day, South Africa's Olympic governing body posted a statement on its Web site saying that it had "suspended Athletics SA president Leonard Chuene, the Board of ASA and its members 'with immediate effect pending the outcome of a disciplinary investigation and further action' over their handling of the Caster Semenya saga."

In September, Ms. Semenya told a South African magazine that she was not disturbed by the controversy: "I see it all as a joke, it doesn't upset me." She added, "God made me the way I am and I accept myself. I am who I am and I'm proud of myself."

Last Saturday, though, Donald McRae of The Guardian wrote that Ms. Semenya told him during a recent interview: "It's not so easy. The university is okay but there [are] not many other places I can go. People want to stare at me now. They want to touch me. I'm supposed to be famous but I don't think I like it so much."

While it seems entirely appropriate that the results of the tests should be kept confidential, and the world governing body has apparently concluded that Ms. Semenya did not cheat, the statement from the South African government does not make it clear if Ms. Semenya is eligible to run in future events.

Even if the final ruling is that Ms. Semenya is eligible to compete in women's track events, the controversy has served as a reminder that some people are born with both male and female sexual characteristics. According to the Intersex Society of North America, it is hard to say how many people may be neither clearly male or clearly female. The society says:

Here's what we do know: If you ask experts at medical centers how often a child is born so noticeably atypical in terms of genitalia that a specialist in sex differentiation is called in, the number comes out to about 1 in 1500 to 1 in 2000 births.

Even if Ms. Semenya is not in this category - and since the results of the gender tests will apparently not be released, it is likely that we will never know - this whole case does raise the question of whether it is fair that people who live as women but have some male sexual characteristics should be banned from competing in sports events not open to men.

Last month, The Times published an article by Alice Dreger, a professor of clinical medical humanities and bioethics at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, in which she looked at some of the issues involved. Ms. Dreger wrote:

The current policies of the International Association of Athletics Federations are vague, incomplete and contradictory. For example, one states that some women with some male-typical aspects (including, in some cases, a Y chromosome and testes) can play as women, but it doesn't specify which combinations disqualify an athlete. This means a woman like Semenya can't really know for sure, in advance of competition, if she should show up.

The I.A.A.F. requires that transsexual women have their hormone levels kept female-typical through removal of the testes and ingestion of female-typical hormones.

Fair enough. But it allows born-females with adrenal tumors to compete as women, even though their bodies may have higher levels of testosterone than the average male. Not too consistent.

A reader named Kahla writes with this comment:

This "controversy" illuminates a double standard with respect to sex/gender as against other genetic rarities in sports. In one case, a female athlete, who may (or may not - as it remains unconfirmed) have male attributes due to a genetic rarity, could be denied the ability to compete in future matches because of the perceived unfair advantage that follows from it. Yet, where rare genetic traits do not implicate concerns over the proper gender assignment of the sports participant, such disqualifications are not contemplated, much less fathomable. A rare genetic trait (Marfan's Syndrome) gives swimmer Michael Phelps a competitive edge and he is revered as the greatest swimmer of all time rather than investigated and subjected to genetic testing. Moreover, no discussion of disqualification from future matches ensues. Understandably, "gender testing" is unlikely to disappear from sports (and perhaps shouldn't for numerous reasons not relevant here). But, these two cases illustrate that our fastidious adherence to rigid categorical distinctions between the sexes lends to disparities in the treatment of individuals whose genetics do not match with these predefined, and some would argue socially constructed, sex/gender categories.

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South Africa Says Gender Controversy Is Over

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The South African government has attempted to end the controversy over the gender of Caster Semenya, the runner who was crowned the women's 800-meter world champion in August, by declaring that an agreement had been reached to not release the results of gender tests.

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Hannah Mouncey was denied entry into the AFLW draft.

It has been reported that Mouncey had more than satisfied the International Olympic Committee's requirement of having a blood testosterone level less than 10 nanomoles per litre (nmol/L) for at least 12 months. Serious questions should be asked about why the AFL is ignoring the IOC standard and relying on Victorian anti-discrimination legislation to reject Mouncey's draft bid.

I suspect they are waiting for Mouncey's body to feminise further, as the longer one is on hormone replacement therapy, the more effect it has. While I'm not privy to the specifics of Mouncey's medical transition, I know from my own experience the effects of HRT on my strength, stamina and athletic performance. Now into my fourth year of HRT, I am 14 kilograms lighter, with my strength and endurance significantly less than it was pre-transition. However, it hasn't impacted my 183-centimetre height.

The AFL is imposing an unpublished standard that Mouncey may never be able to meet, which is simply unacceptable. It amounts to gatekeeping on what constitutes a woman. Mouncey's physical attributes simply make up the range and diversity in women. Women come in all shapes and sizes. I am sure there are basketballers or netballers that are taller, and other female athletes that weigh more than Mouncey.

Is the AFL going to police the entry of all women seeking a draft in the AFLW? It is going to reject all women of a similar height and weight to Hannah into the AFLW because they also have an advantage due to their strength, stamina and physique? If a genetic female player naturally has a slightly increased testosterone level, will the AFLW allow them to join the league?

I've seen some absurd comments claiming the inclusion of trans-woman athletes is part of some wily scheme for has-been male athletes to "make it" in sport. This reinforces incorrect assumption that being trans is a choice. I haven't heard of any one who is transgender who hasn't suffered greatly from the internal struggle with their identity or social stigma and rejection in coming out.

The AFL's decision is a missed opportunity to further promote acceptance and inclusion of the transgender community in sport. It would have enforced the notion that trans athletes are just part of the natural diversity of sporting participants, such as US triathlete Chris Mosier, who is building on the ground-breaking efforts of past athletes including golfer Mianne Bagger and tennis player Renee Richards.

I was devastated by the AFL's decision, but Mouncey's dignity and class in handling disappointment has been an inspiration. It is unfortunate someone's womanhood has been judged by an organisation with no expertise or right to do so. However, I remain hopeful we will see her in the AFLW following a second successful season in Canberra AFL next year.
Dale Sheridan is a lawyer and transgender woman.

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In rejecting Hannah Mouncey, the AFL is setting standards she may never meet

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It has been reported that Mouncey had more than satisfied the International Olympic Committee's requirement of having a blood testosterone level less than 10 nanomoles per litre (nmol/L) for at least 12 months. Serious questions should be asked about why the AFL is ignoring the IOC standard and relying on Victorian anti-discrimination legislation to reject Mouncey's draft bid.

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el paso shooting political cartoon - Google Search

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President Trump left zero doubt Monday that he's not serious about stopping the sort of mass shootings that left three dead in Gilroy, nine in Dayton and 22 in El Paso, the San Jose Mercury News and East Bay Times editorial boards wrote the Monday after the Dayton shooting.

In a 10-minute speech to the nation condemning bigotry, hatred and racism, Trump made no mention of meaningful gun control.

By contrast, California Senate Majority Leader Bill Monning, in a commentary in the same publications, outlined what California lawmakers have already done to prevent mass shootings: "In California, we have taken bold steps, in the face of gun advocates' opposition, to ban the acquisition of automatic assault weapons; to require background checks; to limit the size of ammo clips; and to raise the age to buy guns to 21. We have also authorized the California Attorney General's Office to disarm convicted felons and others who cannot legally own a weapon in California."

Monning goes further, making new legislative recommendations and endorsing U.S. House Resolution 8, a bill in Congress that would require background checks for any firearms purchase, make purchase and possession of most military weapons and expanded ammo clips illegal and authorize courts and law enforcement to confiscate weapons from people who pose a threat to their communities.
For more political cartoons, CLICK HERE

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Political Cartoons: Congressional inaction on mass shootings

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President Trump left zero doubt Monday that he's not serious about stopping the sort of mass shootings that left three dead in Gilroy, nine in Dayton and 22 in El Paso, the San Jose Mercury News and East Bay Times editorial boards wrote the Monday after the Dayton shooting.

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All those who have helped to spread the worldwide myth that Muslims are a threat have blood on their hands.

By

Contributing Opinion Writer

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Flowers near the Linwood mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand. Credit Credit Kai Schwoerer/Getty Images

For Muslims, Friday Prayer is like Sunday Mass for Christians. It's the day of community prayer. We travel to our local mosques, our religious sanctuary. Our families gather in the early afternoon to pray as a community. Kids run through the halls as the imam recites the Quran in Arabic. We eat together and mingle outside.

This week, as those of us in the United States attend Friday Prayer, the Muslims in Christchurch, New Zealand, are preparing for funerals.

People around the world are praying for the dead in Christchurch after terrorist attacks at two mosques. The authorities say a 28-year-old Australian walked into two mosques with assault rifles and killed at least 49 people.New Zealand's prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, called it "an extraordinary and unprecedented act of violence."

Thoughts and prayers are not enough. These attacks are the latest manifestation of a growing and globalized ideology of white nationalism that must be addressed at its source - which includes the mainstream politicians and media personalities who nurture, promote and excuse it.

If the gunman's 74-page manifesto and social media posts are to be believed, he was inspired by a thriving online ideological structure that recruits and radicalizes mostly men to save "Western civilization" from a foreign "invasion."

We've seen this before. The gunman's justifications for his act of terrorism were similar to those in the 1,500-page manifesto that the Norwegian Anders Breivik posted before he killed 77 people in 2011. Mr. Breivik wanted to punish Europe for its multiculturalism and welcome of Muslim immigrants. His manifesto and attacks are said to have inspired the white nationalist Christopher Hasson, who was recently arrested on charges of stockpiling weapons with the desire to commit mass murder, especially against Muslims.

If the idea that Muslims are a threat sounds familiar, it's in part because it was used by President Trump to argue for a wall to protect America from a "caravan" of Central American migrants seeking asylum. He asserted that "Middle Easterners" were in the caravan, a claim he admitted he could not back up. During a summer trip to England, Mr. Trump warned that Britain was losing its "culture" and that immigration had "changed the fabric of Europe - and unless you act very quickly, it's never going to be what it was."

Arguing for his travel ban aimed at mostly Muslim countries, Mr. Trump said, "I think Islam hates us," lied about seeing Muslims celebrate the Sept. 11 attacks, and retweeted a fringe anti-Muslim group's fake videos of Muslim refugees committing violence. No wonder the Christchurch manifesto praised Mr. Trump as "a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose."

It's clear that the dangers of white nationalism aren't limited to the United States. This attack is a reminder that this dangerous ideology also threatens immigrant communities worldwide, and that it's fueled by leaders around the world.

Australia, where the gunman is said to be from, has plenty of its own anti-Muslim, xenophobic rhetoric.

In 2015, a movement called Reclaim Australia organized protests against the "enforcing of Shariah law in Australia" and "the teaching of Islam in government schools." The Conversation reported that placards displayed by the group at a rally read "Islam is an enemy of the West." A key policy goal of the far-right political party Australian Liberty Alliance is to "stop the Islamization of Australia." Its website warns, "Islam is not merely a religion, it is a totalitarian ideology with global aspirations."

While Australia's prime minister, Scott Morrison, described the suspect as "an extremist, right-wing, violent terrorist," an Australian senator, Fraser Anning, responded to the Christchurch attack by blaming "the immigration program which allowed Muslim fanatics to migrate to New Zealand in the first place."

It seems the senator shares similar sentiments with mass murderers.

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Ambulance workers transported a man outside a mosque in central Christchurch, New Zealand, on Friday. Credit Mark Baker/Associated Press

In his manifesto, the gunman, who referred to himself as a "regular white man," wrote that he was carrying out the attack to "directly reduce immigration rates to European lands by intimidating and physically removing the invaders themselves."

The manifesto reveals an obsession with white supremacy, discussing the Battle of Vienna in 1683, which is glorified by white nationalists and Mr. Breivik as the critical moment when Europe staved off the Ottoman Empire's advance and protected itself from Islam. Text scrawled on the gunman's weapons appears to refer to military battles such as the 1189 Siege of Acre, a victory for the Christian Crusaders seeking to retake Jerusalem from Muslims. He mentioned Alexandre Bissonnette, who shot and killed six people in a Quebec mosque in 2017 and was a known white nationalist with anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim resentment.

His ideas - and their sources and supporters - were familiar to me. As a researcher for the Center for American Progress Action Fund's 2011 investigation "Fear Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America," I connected fringe anti-Muslim conspiracies - such as the made-up threat of Shariah law in America - to the funding sources, think tanks, media personalities, grass-roots groups and politicians who created and promoted them.

These entities have worked together to reinforce the message that Muslim Americans are inherently radical and represent a "demographic time bomb" that will overtake the white population. Mr. Breivik repeatedly cited these groups and people, many of them now closely linked to the Trump administration. Although they should not be blamed for Mr. Breivik's violence, Marc Sageman, a former C.I.A. officer and a consultant on terrorism, said Mr. Breivik nonetheless emerges from the same ideological network.

Among white nationalists' major motivators is "the great replacement" conspiracy theory. They fear that Jews, blacks and Muslims will replace white people and eventually subordinate them. Jews are often viewed as the diabolical head of the cabal, the nerve center, who use their infinite wealth and power to reduce and weaken the white man.

In October, Robert Bowers walked into the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh and killed 11 Jewish worshipers. He posted on the right-wing social network Gab that the Jewish refugee resettlement agency HIAS "likes to bring invaders in that kill our people " and "I can't sit by and watch my people get slaughtered." He also re-shared a post about punishing "filthy evil Jews" for bringing "filthy evil Muslims into the country." This echoed the anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that Jewish billionaire George Soros funded the migrant "caravan" - a lie that was promoted by President Trump and other prominent conservatives.

Representative Steve King, an Iowa Republican, recently asked, "White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization - how did that language become offensive? He once tweeted, "We can't restore our civilization with somebody else's babies," referring to the children of Latino immigrants. Steve Bannon, President Trump's former chief adviser and former head of Breitbart News, has recommended the racist, dystopian novel "Camp of the Saints," in which brown immigrants invade and take over France.

While news of the New Zealand shooting was breaking, President Trump tweeted a link - which he has since deleted - to the home page of Breitbart News, a site that has regularly published anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant conspiracy theories.

Upon learning about the massacre in Christchurch, a Muslim friend messaged me, "How will we keep our kids safe?"

I didn't have a good answer. But I know the threat we're facing isn't just individual terrorists. It's the global ideology of white nationalism and white supremacy. We have to take it seriously, and call out politicians, academics and media personalities who give it a platform under the guise of exploring both sides, fostering debate or avoiding political correctness.

The cost is too great. Just look to Christchurch and the 49 worshipers who should have returned home to their families and community instead of attending their last prayer.

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Opinion | The Roots of the Christchurch Massacre

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All those who have helped to spread the worldwide myth that Muslims are a threat have blood on their hands. By Contributing Opinion Writer For Muslims, Friday Prayer is like Sunday Mass for Christians. It's the day of community prayer. We travel to our local mosques, our religious sanctuary.

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Should transgender athlete Hannah Mouncey be allowed to play in the AFLW? | 60 Minutes Australia

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We're jumping into your ears today to talk about the NSW Abortion Bill.

The debate has been hijacked over the past two weeks so here at Mamamia Out Loud, we wanted to share the pro-choice side, and why it's so important that if you believe in abortion being decriminalised, you rally around your local MPs.

To share use the hashtags: #ProChoiceNSW #VoteForProChoiceNSW #GetItDone

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We're jumping into your ears today to talk about the NSW Abortion Bill. The debate has been hijacked over the past two weeks so here at Mamamia Out Loud, we wanted to share the pro-choice side, and why it's so important that if you believe in abortion being decriminalised, you rally around your local MPs.

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Posted April 08, 2019 21:19:13

Host: Ellen Fanning
Panel: James Hennessy, Feyi Akindoyeni, Amanda Vanstone, Katharine Murphy
Guests: Tani Khara, Christopher Munnings
The panel discusses vegan protests, Scott Morrison records his best Newspoll result, electric car targets, intergenerational fairness and has the election been delayed?

Source: The Drum | Duration: 58min

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Host: Ellen Fanning Panel: James Hennessy, Feyi Akindoyeni, Amanda Vanstone, Katharine Murphy Guests: Tani Khara, Christopher Munnings The panel discusses vegan protests, Scott Morrison records his best Newspoll result, electric car targets, intergenerational fairness and has the election been delayed?

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It's No Laughing Matter - For Teachers (Library of Congress)

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In this online activity, students explore political cartoons from the civil rights era and learn to identify persuasive techniques used by cartoonists.