Trump-Musk feud goes nuclear; KWM's cautionary China tale; Joe Aston on Planet Ark
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In today's news, Elon Musk says Donald Trump should be impeached, law firm KWM reveals a cautionary tale about China, and Joe Aston dissects Planet Ark's collapse.
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ABC News
38 minutes ago
- ABC News
WorldPride Washington DC strikes a protest note on Donald Trump's doorstep
About a mile from the home of a president who has been rolling back LGBT rights, popular drag queen Gottmik is firing up a crowd of fans in Washington. "Sometimes it feels like a lot," she tells the crowd at the 'Drag is Not a Crime' event, part of the WorldPride festival. "Every day you wake up and your own government is trying to shut you the f--- down and tell you that you're not a person. "WorldPride being in DC could not have come at a better time. Now it's our time to fight." Washington DC was chosen as host city for the biennial festival — a cluster of LGBT+ parties, conferences and parades — well before last year's re-election of Donald Trump. But his presence in the White House has sent a strong fight-the-government theme running through all its events. On day one of his presidency, Mr Trump ordered government agencies to start recognising only two unchangeable sexes, including on official documents like visas and passports. Subsequent orders have sought to ban trans people from the military, block funds for gender-affirming care for people under 19, and shut down diversity and inclusion programs across all arms of government. Many Republican states have taken the policies further. The president even effectively installed himself as the chair of Washington's Kennedy Centre, known as the nation's premier performing arts venue, and declared an end to drag performances "targeting our youth". The political backdrop has generated a very different vibe to the previous WorldPride event in Sydney in 2023, which the Australian government used to announce millions of dollars in funding for LGBT+ organisations. "It couldn't be a starker contrast," said Monash University human rights law professor Paula Gerber, who attended both events. "Sydney was a celebration. We were really rejoicing in how far we'd come with human rights protection "Here, there's no celebration. This is a call to action. This is realisation of how quickly our rights can be wound back." The political environment has also discouraged corporate sponsors from continuing to back pride events in the US. Several big ones have pulled out of WorldPride this year, and others have asked for their logos to be removed from signage. The Marriott Hotel group asked for banners to be changed so they no longer said "presented by Marriott", according to a report in the Washington Post. But the Marriott has continued to host the festival's human rights conference, just 500 metres from the White House, with keynote speeches and panels examining the state of play for LGBT rights around the world. The administration said it was defending women's rights and protecting "freedom of conscience" with its changes to transgender policy. "Efforts to eradicate the biological reality of sex fundamentally attack women by depriving them of their dignity, safety, and well-being," the White House order said. White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt this week said there were "no plans" for it to recognise Pride Month. Illinois Republican Mary Miller introduced a resolution to Congress to instead recognise June as "Family Month" to "reject the lie of 'Pride' and instead honour God's timeless and perfect design". Some speakers at WorldPride voiced fears the political rhetoric around LGBT rights was spurring hate crimes against the community. Media advocacy group GLAAD said it had tracked more than 900 anti-LGBTQ incidents in the US between May last year and March this year, and said many more incidents have likely gone unreported. They included violent attacks resulting in 84 injuries and 10 deaths. "For so many of us in this time right now, there's this very real sense of fear," GLAAD's senior manager of news and research, Sarah Moore, said. "This sense of distress, this sense of worry, is really heightened right now around Pride with that attention on our community." The three-week festival is wrapping up this weekend with a street parade, a party on the National Mall and a two-day music festival headlined by Melbourne pop star Troye Sivan and US singer Jennifer Lopez. Attendance numbers are not yet available, but hotel bookings for the opening and closing weekends were down compared to the same time last year. The city had initially expected 3 million people to visit for WorldPride, but organisers later halved that estimate. "We anticipated bookings to be much higher at this time for WorldPride and do know that the climate, the concern for folks internationally to travel to the United States is real," Ryan Bos, the executive director of organising body Capital Pride Alliance, told NPR. Professor Gerber told conference attendees they should consider "boomerang advocacy" to keep up the fight for rights in the US. That is where local human rights advocates harness overseas groups and global institutions to increase pressure on repressive regimes. "It's a strategy that's used when the government in a country is too hostile for local LGBTI activists to safely advocate for reform," she told the ABC. "I never in a million years thought that I'd be coming to America to talk to Americans about using boomerang advocacy."
Sydney Morning Herald
an hour ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
J.D. Vance chastised Europeans on free speech. He wasn't wrong
There is a counterfactual fantasy, not much indulged but not dismissed entirely, in which Prime Minister Anthony Albanese went to his second election in the brief 'vibe shift' between Donald Trump's triumphant return to the US presidency in 2024 and his clumsy tariff whammy in 2025. Perhaps, if the Australian election had taken place before 'Liberation Day' the outcome would have been different for Peter Dutton. More likely, it would not. In any case, such imaginings are of no use to the Coalition. It's as helpful to them as the reverse counterfactual is to the Social Democrats I spoke to in Germany this week. Germany held its election in February. The incumbent government was led by a chancellor from the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the German analogue of the Labor Party. Perhaps if the election had come after Trump's global tariff day, the SPD might also have retained power. But as the German election was set for February, only 20 per cent of German voters chose the SPD. The Social Democrats now have a lower primary vote than the Alternative for Germany (AfD), an economically conservative-turned-far-right party that has made immigration control its primary platform. If the Albanese government cared to take the German experience as a cautionary tale – a possible but avoidable future – it could reflect that what occurred there is just part of a pattern rolling through the Western world. These trends come to Australia late and slowly. But they do seem to come eventually. US Vice President J.D. Vance described what was about to happen to Germany at the Munich Security Conference in February. He warned that European governments must listen to and respect their citizens, even when the message is not agreeable to the official and intellectual classes. And in this context he urged the conference to bear in mind that 'when political leaders represent an important constituency, it is incumbent upon us to at least participate in dialogue with them'. The problem is one of free speech. The precise amount of it which should be permissible, the dose which inoculates against social strife and what constitutes an overdose which would poison the social waters. Germany has taken the homeopathic approach to free speech, hoping that a minuscule amount, heavily diluted, will cure what ails the nation. Vance's words generated indignation among European leaders and officials. But it spoke from the soul of many voters. Days later, the German public delivered a historic high primary vote for the AfD. The gulf between what is said and what is thought was dramatically exposed by democracy.
The Age
an hour ago
- The Age
J.D. Vance chastised Europeans on free speech. He wasn't wrong
There is a counterfactual fantasy, not much indulged but not dismissed entirely, in which Prime Minister Anthony Albanese went to his second election in the brief 'vibe shift' between Donald Trump's triumphant return to the US presidency in 2024 and his clumsy tariff whammy in 2025. Perhaps, if the Australian election had taken place before 'Liberation Day' the outcome would have been different for Peter Dutton. More likely, it would not. In any case, such imaginings are of no use to the Coalition. It's as helpful to them as the reverse counterfactual is to the Social Democrats I spoke to in Germany this week. Germany held its election in February. The incumbent government was led by a chancellor from the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the German analogue of the Labor Party. Perhaps if the election had come after Trump's global tariff day, the SPD might also have retained power. But as the German election was set for February, only 20 per cent of German voters chose the SPD. The Social Democrats now have a lower primary vote than the Alternative for Germany (AfD), an economically conservative-turned-far-right party that has made immigration control its primary platform. If the Albanese government cared to take the German experience as a cautionary tale – a possible but avoidable future – it could reflect that what occurred there is just part of a pattern rolling through the Western world. These trends come to Australia late and slowly. But they do seem to come eventually. US Vice President J.D. Vance described what was about to happen to Germany at the Munich Security Conference in February. He warned that European governments must listen to and respect their citizens, even when the message is not agreeable to the official and intellectual classes. And in this context he urged the conference to bear in mind that 'when political leaders represent an important constituency, it is incumbent upon us to at least participate in dialogue with them'. The problem is one of free speech. The precise amount of it which should be permissible, the dose which inoculates against social strife and what constitutes an overdose which would poison the social waters. Germany has taken the homeopathic approach to free speech, hoping that a minuscule amount, heavily diluted, will cure what ails the nation. Vance's words generated indignation among European leaders and officials. But it spoke from the soul of many voters. Days later, the German public delivered a historic high primary vote for the AfD. The gulf between what is said and what is thought was dramatically exposed by democracy.
