From tech and transport to hotels and media, chief executives in almost every industry across the US proclaimed they would take a pay cut during the economically tumultuous times of the pandemic.

But new research has shed light on why many of those cuts might have been better called "redistributions".

Researchers from the University of Melbourne, University of Sydney, and University of New South Wales examined the changes to chief executive (CEO) compensation between 2019 and 2020 and found evidence that some shifted their remuneration under the guise of a pay cut.

US President Joe Biden is set to visit the Vatican in January to seek solace and “relief” as his term draws to a close, according to the New York Times, citing sources close to the matter. The White House has confirmed that Biden accepted an invitation from Pope Francis during a phone call last week.

With less than a month remaining in his presidency, Biden will also meet with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and President Sergio Mattarella.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden and Pope Francis will discuss global peace efforts. The New York Times reported, however, that the visit may also serve a more personal purpose, offering comfort as he prepares to leave office.

Pope Francis has reportedly been a confidant for Biden, exchanging occasional phone calls that have been quite casual, including “friendly check-ins.”

 

Since the famous Time magazine cover of 1995, nation states have been struggling to control access to adult and illegal material on the Internet. In recent years, strategies for such control have shifted from the use of traditional policing- largely ineffective in a transnational medium - to the use of take down and especially filtering applied by ISPs enrolled as “privatized censors” by the state. 

On January 1, Hungary will pass the baton of the European Union's six-month rotating presidency to Poland, drawing a curtain on what has been a turbulent half-year for the bloc.

Earlier this month, in a post on Truth Social, Donald Trump announced his incoming administration’s nomination to head the Social Security Administration (SSA). Should he be confirmed in the Senate, the SSA’s next commissioner will be the wealthy corporate CEO, Trump and Ron DeSantis donor and Wall Street “fixer,” Frank Bisignano.

Rude gestures are rare on postage stamps, but Ukraine's best known stamp has one. It shows a soldier raising the middle finger to a Russian warship in reference to a stand-off at Snake Island on day one of the full-scale invasion nearly three years ago.

The Russians demanded surrender but the Ukrainians refused, using unprintable language.

The warship in question, the cruiser Moskva, was sunk by the Ukrainians two days after the stamp was issued, and it sold out within a week of going on sale.

 

Anthony Albanese appears to be strikingly lacking in ambition. I am convinced that making some bold decisions, and explaining them, would strengthen his prime ministership significantly. Some influential Australians now call for moderation and “centrism”. This would be a grave mistake. What is the “centrist” position on killing children in war zones, child sexual abuse, domestic violence, corruption, torture, the death penalty, cruelty to refugees?

 

2024: a year of racism and lying to ourselves    By Barry Jones

 

Racism, The Voice and lying to ourselves

The Albanese government with their policy is likely to turn Australia into the 51st state of the United States, writes former Prime Minister of Australia, Paul Keating.

A repost from Aug, 09, 2024

Introduction: Defence Minister Richard Marles and Foreign Minister Penny Wong have been in the US for talks with the Secretaries of Defence and State this week. Australia has pledged to increase the frequency of American troops rotating through the country.

Former prime minister Paul Keating is a critic of the Labor Party’s all-in support for the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine deal, and our growing military relationship with the US.

Friedrich Merz, an erstwhile rival of former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, has been a beacon of hope for the conservative CDU party. He now wants to unseat Chancellor Olaf Scholz and take over as Germany's leader.

Outgoing United States President Joe Biden has directed the country's Department of Defense to continue delivering weapons to Ukraine, on the same day Russia launched a Christmas missile attack on Ukrainian energy infrastructure in multiple cities.

The strikes targeted power stations in the north-eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv and the south-eastern Dnipro region killed at least one person and injured six more as the country woke on Christmas Day.

In the aftermath of the missile strikes, half a million people in the Kharkiv region were left without heating in temperatures just a few degrees Celsius above zero, while there were blackouts in the capital Kyiv and elsewhere.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVCl1x-jSg4

Joe Concha recaps 2024's most unbelievable political claims from Democrats

 

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

 

HYPOCRISY ISN’T ONE OF THE TEN COMMANDMENTS SINS.

HENCE ITS POPULARITY IN THE ABRAHAMIC TRADITIONS…

 

 

PLEASE DO NOT BLAME RUSSIA IF WW3 STARTS. BLAME YOURSELF.

 

SEE ALSO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXS8grqiLB0

Immediately after the collapse of the Bashar al-Assad regime, on the night of Saturday 7 to Sunday 8 December, it was learned that the Israeli air force had bombed 310 targets in Syria.

These targets were airports, planes, helicopters, ammunition depots, chemical weapons stockpiles, anti-aircraft batteries, chemical weapons production plants, ports, ships, command centres, tanks, etc.

At the same time, the American air force struck 75 targets in Syria, using B-52s (strategic bombers), A-10s (ground support aircraft) and F-15s (fighter-bombers). That is to say, a full range of aircraft.

From his home, the lauded documentary photographer began to work on a collection of images about Russia with the help of generative artificial intelligence (AI). He was unprepared for the consequences.

In the late 1980s, De Keyzer travelled to Russia 12 times in the space of a year. The USSR was in its death throes and De Keyzer photographed the rituals and pastimes which would soon disappear. He returned in the 2000s to photograph inside Siberia's prison camps. 

In November, three decades after he first visited Russia, De Keyzer published a series of AI-generated images in a book called Putin’s Dream. This time there were no human bodies, no moments in time, instead a vision brought to life with the help of computers.

In September, Olaf Scholz brushed aside a journalist's question about his legacy.

"I think you should be wary of politicians who think about that before their term in office has ended," he told Berlin's Tagesspiegel newspaper in response to the question of what he hoped would one day be written in the history books about his time in office.