If the United States is not an empire, the word has lost all meaning.

No sparrow falls in the forest that does not provoke a national security assessment and response.

Dear John,

Let me say at the outset how much I respect your persistent calls for the Australian Labor Party to embrace significant internal change & reform.

Having said that, I would like you to be aware that, as a non-member but occasional supporter of the Labor Party in the past, no amount of organisation reform would persuade me to support your party again.

The wealthiest 400 people in the United States had their combined net worth grow thirteen percent to $2.29 trillion this year, amidst a surging stock market and record corporate profits.

The figures come from the Forbes 400 list of the wealthiest Americans, compiled every year since 1982 by the American business magazine of the same name.

In Britain, the mainstream media is in overdrive, trying to sell the latest war to the population. Prime Minister David Cameron and his sidekicks Theresa May and Philip Hammond are attempting to convince everyone that bombing Iraq and Syria is all about making Britain safe. To frighten the living daylights out of everyone, they talk of murderous jihadists and terrorists and how ‘British values' are under threat.

Even before the embarrassing backdown there were problems. For starters, it's not a burqa

A burqa is that particularly Afghan garment, usually blue, with the mesh covering the eyes.

One of the greatest conceits of the modern journalist may be the notion that she, or he, has a better idea of what is in the Australian national security interest or the public interest than the government of the day, the politicians of the day, or even the permanent public administration, including the military and security establishment.

Almost a third of Australia's largest companies are paying less than 10¢ in the dollar in corporate tax, according to a report that exposes a gaping hole in government revenues over the past decade.

As Australia prepares to host world leaders at the G20 summit in Brisbane in November, where a global assault on tax avoidance will be a key topic of discussion, the report found 84 per cent of Australia's top 200 stockmarket-listed companies pay less than the 30 per cent company tax rate.

One might think that by now even Americans would have caught on to the constant stream of false alarms that Washington sounds in order to deceive the people into supporting its hidden agendas.

If you can attend an Anzac Day ceremony and hear the Turkish ambassador read the famous words of Turkish president Ataturk without an enormous lump in your throat, my bet is you are a very rare Australian.

With the freedom lovers restricting freedom even further to defend freedom, (oh, and don’t forget security), I am reminded of this from Peter Arnett about Bến Tre city in Vietnam on 7 February 1968.

He wrote that a US army commander said:

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