Australian politicians seem to go weak at the knees over US power.

The WikiLeaks cables and Julia Gillard's initial supine response - agreeing with American politicians who claimed without evidence that Julian Assange had acted illegally, and by implication that the Australian government would not stand in the way of his rendition to the US for punishment - was, to say the least, cringe-making.

After his appointment as chairman of the United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs, California's representative Howard Berman told The Forward: "Even before I was a Democrat, I was a Zionist." This is the man, one of the Zionist lobby's most influential stooges in Congress, who introduced House Resolution 1734 which gives President Obama his new orders.

Israel's instructions to Obama

Thoroughly disingenuous, the resolution, which was drafted by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and in my view is an indication of panic on its part, was approved unanimously by the House of Representatives on 15 December. It

The NSW Parliament will not discipline or even identify staff members or MPs who used the parliamentary computer system to access websites that contained ''sexually explicit images of young people''.

The Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, Richard Torbay, and the President of the Legislative Council, Amanda Fazio, have declared the matter closed despite confirmation that nine inappropriate websites were accessed.

In a statement yesterday, they confirmed that advice from the Crown Solicitor was that there was ''no legal obligation to refer the information in the report to the NSW Police Force''.

In all the excitement about Julian Assange, Oprah and Hugh Jackman our foreign minister has been flying under the radar more than somewhat. He has gone rogue and is daily presenting PM Gillard with a problem.

First he became a champion of Julian Assange saying he alone had the right to suspend passports, then dipping into the schools' laptop allocation to send one to Julian in prison. He also gave the US a kicking saying it was its fault all the stuff leaked out and maybe it should be more careful.

"History will be the judge of what has happened in Cancun." These are the last lines of the Bolivian Government's press release yesterday about the outcome of the climate negotiations here in Cancun. The talks ended here today after two weeks of negotiations by a 192 governments. It is a deal that will be remembered by our future generations as one that killed the climate treaty, unless we radically change course.

We need a more coherent and confident sense of ourselves. We don't have to choose between America and China, but America needs to understand that on several issues Australia's national objectives will not coincide with hers. This has been so in the past but over the past 15 to 20 years we have become too compliant, too subservient in the false belief that that would create security for Australia.

from Crikey .....

Doug Cameron joins Labor Left rally to support Julian Assange

Crikey senior journalist Andrew Crook writes:

Home borrowers will be given a one-page fact sheet outlining their monthly mortgage repayments and how they can shop around for a better loan, under new banking reforms unveiled today.

Exit fees, which can run into the thousands, will also be banned from July 1, 2011 and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission will be given the power to investigate price collusion among banks.

The federal government has also pledged to spend another $4 billion on residential mortgaged-back securities to help smaller lenders, taking to $20 billion its investment in non-bank players since the onset of the global financial crisis.

The latest batch of the several hundred leaked US diplomatic cables concerning Australia, provided by WikiLeaks to the Fairfax company's Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age, provide further extraordinary evidence of Washington's direct involvement in the anti-democratic coup against former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd last June.

Writing in a live chat on The Guardian website from an undisclosed location believed to be in Britain, Assange responded to the Australian government's WikiLeaks investigating taskforce and its stated support for America's international manhunt.

The website's founder, who earlier called for the resignation of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, again took direct aim at his accusers.

Despite the aura of omnipotence most empires project, a look at their history should remind us that they are fragile organisms. So delicate is their ecology of power that, when things start to go truly bad, empires regularly unravel with unholy speed: just a year for Portugal, two years for the Soviet Union, eight years for France, 11 years for the Ottomans, 17 years for Great Britain, and, in all likelihood, 22 years for the United States, counting from the crucial year 2003.

It is with great sadness that we record the passing of Ernest (Ernie) William Graham, a regular & valued contributor to Your Democracy over the past three years.

Ernie is survived by Rosie, his loving wife & life companion of 35 years.

To honor his life & show our respects, Rosie has agreed to our publishing the following Eulogy for Ernie.

Ernest William Graham was born on the 20th May 1930.

He was a truly remarkable man, who displayed a fearless conviction in his pursuit of excellent principles.

Ernie always said he wanted to be loved or hated but never ignored - he was never ignored.

He was a man who had the courage to swim against the tide - to speak up for what he believed in & was always there to give encouragement & support to others.

Ernie's handshake was his word & people trusted & respected him for that.

The Australian Labor Party (ALP) lost its majority in the Australian parliament in September this year, and had to cobble together a fragile coalition. One likely reason for this loss of power is the apparent ALP disunity when it suddenly and unexpectedly overthrew their Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, and installed Julia Gillard, only weeks before the national elections (1). To add to the suspicion surrounding this infighting, no convincing explanation was given for this foolhardy action. According to the Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott, this coup was conducted by "faceless men" (1).

Just as american politicians want Bradley Manning executed because he revealed crimes of the US government, they want Julian Assange executed. In the past few days the more notorious of the dumbshits that sit in the US Congress have denounced Assange as a "traitor to america."

What total ignorance. Assange is an Australian, not an american citizen. To be a traitor to america, one has to be of the nationality. An Australilian cannot be a traitor to america any more than an american can be a traitor to Australia. But don't expect the morons who represent the lobbyists to know this much.