The rich run society in the interest of profit - and we can’t vote them out come July, explains James Supple

Elections are about deciding who runs the country, they say. But most of the power in our society is not held in parliament, and even the choices of elected governments are heavily restricted.

There is a lot of misinformation flying about the status of the Great Barrier Reef — mostly coming from you-know-where.

This rubbish comes from the Turnbull/Abbott government. This crap is repeated ad nauseam by the Murdoch Press, especially The Australian and The Daily Telegraph. The Great Barrier Reef Marine park Authority was decimated by Tony Abbott and now has become a rubber stamping Authority for whatever the Minister for the Destruction of the Environment, Greg Hunt, says.

The Australian flag is a relic of our racist past, and we haven't bothered to reclaim it.

In Pasadena, California, Black Lives Matter organizer Jasmine Richards is facing four years in state prison after she was convicted of a rarely used statute in California law originally known as "felony lynching." Under California’s penal code, "felony lynching" was defined as attempting to take a person out of police custody. Jasmine was arrested and charged with felony lynching last September, after police accused her of trying to de-arrest someone during a peace march at La Pintoresca Park in Pasadena on August 29, 2015.

A Patriot Movement supporter, approved by the Trump campaign, talks of violently overthrowing the federal government.

Today's topic — planetoid Greedo.

Not leaving it to divine chance, the state Catholic Conference has turned in recent years to some of Albany’s most well-connected and influential lobby firms to help block a bill that would make it easier for child sex abuse victims to seek justice.

Tony Abbott's former chief of staff Peta Credlin has rubbished claims her old boss wants his job back, labelling deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce's comments "horse s--t".

The Nationals leader, a political ally of Mr Abbott, on Tuesday said he believed the former PM still harboured leadership ambitions but would realise a comeback wasn't possible.

"He will want to, but he'll realise he can't," Mr Joyce told AAP. "To say that he doesn't have a desire is ridiculous - to say that he can't overcome that desire by the reality that's just not going to happen [is another]."

Spain ‘betrays NATO allies’ hosting Russian warships – oh, really?

Returning to the United States in an election year, I am struck by the silence. I have covered four presidential campaigns, starting with 1968; I was with Robert Kennedy when he was shot and I saw his assassin, preparing to kill him. It was a baptism in the American way, along with the salivating violence of the Chicago police at the Democratic Party's rigged convention. The great counter revolution had begun.