The pond's correspondents have kindly suggested that Our Henry uses some ancient tome to spice his rants, but having seen him in his high tech streaming splendour, the pond wonders if he might not be using an app, especially when this ad hovered into view...
Everyone had something to say except him, and then he started spending 15 minutes a day learning from the world's best books?
That sounds like essence of Henry, though the thesis breaks down with "Now I always have something smart to say."
Instead Our Henry continued in what can only be described as rampant indignant Zionist mode, and so he had to be banished to the intermittent archive...
Branding public inquiries as ‘McCarthyism’ distorts history and undermines democratic accountability. Australia’s experience shows scrutiny can be firm, fair and grounded in law and evidence.
By Henry Ergas
The pond will only note Our Henry's peculiar attempt to wash away McCarthyism, mainly of note in these troubled times as a US King urges a reporter to smile when asking a question about survivors of sexual abuse.
Smile, darling, sexual abuse is fun, and so is distracting from it:
After even more of Our Henry's extended denunciation of filthy Commie swine back at the start of the cold war came this ...
With public anxiety mounting into panic, Truman’s hesitation created the space that was soon filled by the demagogy of McCarthy’s Permanent Senate Subcommittee on Investigations. It is beyond doubt that those hearings involved abuses of process. But it is equally beyond doubt that, as McCarthy’s stern critic, Sidney Hook, observed: “What contributed to McCarthy’s influence was the spectacle of scores of Communist witnesses remaining silent, or invoking the Fifth Amendment, as the picture of Communist penetration in American life unfolded.”
However, it is less the excesses than the correction that matters. The American courts intervened, with increasing vigour, to restrain abuses; and for all the widespread fear provoked by the intensification of the Cold War, McCarthy was speedily brought to heel, his career abruptly terminated.
That outcome was not accidental. It reflected the presence of institutional counterweights capable of reasserting legal limits even under acute pressure – something wholly absent in the Soviet empire, where inquiry slid seamlessly into terror and correction was structurally impossible.
The system, in other words, worked.
Does it? Has it? Is it? Will it?
Hush, don't you worry about that mob and certainly don't worry about Ming the Merciless's attempt to ban the Communist party ...
The Commonwealth Royal Commission on Espionage (1954-55), established following the defection of Vladimir Petrov, was scrupulous too – despite the havoc wreaked by the growing mental instability of HV Evatt, acting as counsel for two of those named in the Petrov documents, and by the communist witnesses’ strenuous efforts to discredit both the evidence and the commission itself. No less importantly, the release decades later of the decrypted Venona cables, together with the opening of Soviet bloc archives, ultimately validated each and every one of the commission’s findings.
Of course, none of that had any impact whatsoever on the left’s portrayal of the period; symbolic allegiances are impervious to refutation, and the belief that the left can never be wrong is as strong a pledge of allegiance as any can be.
“McCarthyism” therefore became the slur the left hurls when it has nothing intelligent to say.
Soon enough, “fascist” was complemented by “McCarthyite” and “McCarthyism” as the Communists’ insult of choice. In fact, it took barely a week after Robert Menzies announced that Petrov had defected for the Communist Party to declare “the American millionaires from whom Menzies takes his orders want him to launch a McCarthyite terror against Communists and all progressive people”.
Claiming that the royal commission was “intended to turn loose pimps, liars and perjurers”, the party – which repeatedly affirmed that “complete freedom of expression” exists in the Soviet Union – warned that “if spy scares begin with attacks on Communists, they end in McCarthyite attacks on all who dare to think for themselves”.
Actually, sensible folk sent Ming the Merciless packing, and to this day the Communist Party has remained on the fringes because sensible folk didn't have much interest in Stalin or Mao ...
Speaking of parrots ...
Australia’s democratic record is not one of paranoia unchecked. It is one of institutions capable of firmness without unfairness and scrutiny without injustice. Our processes of public inquiry have managed to expose and restrain conduct that seeks to intimidate, harass, silence or coerce, while remaining fully answerable to law and evidence.
To label such processes “McCarthyism” is not merely inaccurate, but an attempt to disarm democratic accountability itself. It arms fantasy against scrutiny – and, if allowed to prevail, it would make Adler’s personal hallucinations the nation’s living nightmare.
So she's just a slavish parrot, a slur the pond only deploys on a genuine parrot, Major Mitchell?
If you want a slavish parrot, think those lickspittles who fellow travel with the Murdochs...
And so McCarthyism lives on in the Australian Daily Zionist News, in the words of Our Henry and the deeds of Chris Minns, and above all in the words and deeds of King Donald and his minions, and never mind the way that News Corporation has encouraged that tyranny for the basest of motives...with the thought police very, very busy ...
After that wave of hate speech and fear of and assault on the other, came this piece of irony...
After recent terror threats and the Bondi attack, a reflection on Australia Day at the Opera House highlights Indigenous mourning, antisemitism, and the importance of remembering and listening.
By Ariela Bard
Apparently this Bard isn't aware she's scribbling for the lizard Oz hate machine, but then she's been a writer for the UK Telegraph, scribbling fluff travel pieces, so 'nuff said ...
And with that unpleasantness out of the way, the pond can note that this day the reptiles remain obsessed with giving "daughter of lettuce" a fighting chance...
Light reading in question time, the ‘secret’ meeting, and the three MPs who were certain the spill was on.
Greg Brown, Sarah Ison and Elizabeth Pike
It took three reptiles to do nine minutes of navel gazing and fluff gathering?And all the pond got out of it was a terrible Emilia collage?
The pond simply couldn't inflict the entire madness on a long-suffering world ...
Say what? There's been a "tidal wave of public support for Hastie in recent months"?
How did the pond miss that? Who knew the spawn of creationists was in such big demand?
Oh dear, you live by the bigoted far right Xian nationalist trolls online, and you die by them ... and the pond discovered something new.
2,300 people in a country of c. 26.8 million constitutes a tidal wave, in which case the lizard Oz has a tidal wave of readership ...
Read on for the tidal wave ...
The pond does recall recently stepping into a puddle after some rain. Who knew it actually came from a tidal wave?
Apparently the tidal wave dried up at the last minute, and it's all the fault of far right influencers and assorted online ratbags ...
Yes, at last the reptiles have had to acknowledge a world usually outside their ken ...
Nine minutes to explain he lacked the ticker? And that a bag of online ratbags couldn't give him the ticker?
And after all that, the beefy boofhead from down Goulburn way is still in the game?
"Daughter of lettuce" should freshen up for an extended campaign?
What else?
Push for council of elders to oversee Libs-Nats crisis fix
A powerful council of Coalition elders – from John Anderson to John Howard and Tony Abbott – may be called in to save stalling reunion talks between Sussan Ley and David Littleproud.
By Dennis Shanahan and Sarah Ison
The idea to introduce the ex-leaders into negotiations on reforming a Coalition came as Nationals told Ms Ley on Thursday that, should a temporary suspension of their three senators who crossed the floor be pursued, the penalty would have to be applied to the whole frontbench.
That's a lizard Oz EXCLUSIVE?
That's a karnival of irrelevant komedic klowns.
Second thoughts, what a splendid idea. Call in the onion muncher to show that if it's broke, there are ways to make it even broker.
Always shooting, rarely scoring ...
Why, he could end up with a knighthood for his efforts
Meanwhile, the reptiles are only interested in using "agencies" to look at just one aspect of the sordid Epstein files, thereby sanitising King Donald and his consort Melania...
‘I am sorry,’ embattled British PM tells Epstein victims
Keir Starmer has apologised for appointing Peter Mandelson as US ambassador but blamed the security services for failing to vet the disgraced peer properly.
By AFP
If you must go there, go the Graudian ...
Starmer apologises to Epstein victims as he seeks to weather Mandelson scandal
If you must brood about it, why not head to a document the House thoughtfully turned into a pdf and put on public record?
Sorry, the lizard Oz never does King Donald, and with all that done, the pond will note only one other reptile distraction ...
The Japanese are headed for a snap election on Sunday, with Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi likely to romp home. A win could put Australia in a difficult position on China.
By Yoni Bashan
North Asia Correspondent
The alternative headline on the actual piece downplayed the panic mode paranoia of the digital edition splash:
"Reverberate" is a distant cry from the nuclear "bracing for the fallout", or even a "difficult position".
Yoni put himself in contention for an eggbeater award and seemed to be posing as a possible rival to Greg "bromancer" Sheridan, who has been notable of late for not being notable ...
But there are pressing questions: how does Australia align with Tokyo’s posture when China is our biggest trading partner? How do we balance security commitments against an economic reality in which China has proven it’ll weaponise trade at the drop of a hat – and may well do so over the Port of Darwin dispute?
These aren’t hypotheticals anymore.
Sunday’s votes will be counted in Tokyo, but the bill will come due in Canberra.
Um, and King Donald is barking mad, and entirely untrustworthy, and we've already put down huge down payments on a never ending bill, so your point is?
Lordy, long absent lordy, AUKUS help us ...
And so to the one certified treat of the day. Killer of the IPA turning feminist ...
Then came that bizarre interruption which has started to appear in the digital lizard Oz again with monotonous regularity.
Who knows what it means? Except that it was the one visual distraction in the entire Killer slog ...
Correspondents should however relax - as if Killer of the IPA would ever turn feminist.
Why there's simply too many womyn already, ruining things for men.
It's all woke reverse discrimination ...
Given the government’s predilection for gender “milestones”, who could doubt Chief Justice Stephen Gaegler will be replaced by a woman when he retires in 2028, to make for a “historic” majority female court? If the Australia Day Honours list was a failure, it wasn’t because only a quarter of the nominations were for women, it was because it made a mockery of the awards themselves.
Meanwhile, in its determination to pick a female winner, the selecting council of the Australian of the Year Awards opted for astronaut Katherine Bennell-Pegg, who is no doubt a brilliant, highly intelligent and patriotic Australian, deserving of civic recognition. But she hasn’t even made it into space yet – a fact most Australians would consider an essential part of an astronaut’s job. Bennell-Pegg was mocked on social media given US pop star Katy Perry and her all-female crew of 10 had been into space without receiving any official gong.
Moreover, these selection panels should prioritise unity over gender. Given the controversy over government censorship, was it wise to award eSafety commissioner Julie Inman Grant a public service medal for censorship on top of her $816,000 pay package?
This isn’t just an Australian phenomenon. I first noticed the possibility of reverse discrimination against men in the US in 2023. The furore over nationwide anti-Israel protests had drawn attention the most elite American universities: Harvard, MIT, Columbia and Pennsylvania. These are universities whose Nobel prize recipients are dominated by men, and yet I was surprised to learn that all four had female presidents.
My journalist friend Helen Andrews caused quite a stir in October on the publication of her essay, The Great Feminisation, which warned that the new-found dominance of women in law, medicine, politics and (in a few years) the corporate world would change society for the worse. Andrews argued that “female group dynamics (favoured) consensus and co-operation”, which wasn’t at all conductive to risk-taking and leadership. “In short, men wage conflict openly while women covertly undermine or ostracise their enemies.”
“If wokeness really is the result of the Great Feminisation,” she argued, “then the eruption of insanity in 2020 was just a small taste of what the future holds. Imagine what will happen as the remaining men age out of these society-shaping professions and the younger, more feminised generations take full control.”
I’m not sure about this thesis, but it’s surely time to stop the routine bleating about discrimination against women when, evidently and increasingly, it is the opposite.
Killer's not sure? Killer's troubled by the thoughts of a womyn ?
The pond's sure of one thing. Its contractual obligation had been triggered ...
After that, Killer could just manage one final bleat ...
Some people argue it’s only right that men be discriminated against systematically given the centuries of obvious sexism and discrimination women have endured. But it’s hard to see how this helps the “social cohesion” Anthony Albanese says his government is so keen to foster.
Adam Creighton is chief economist at the Institute of Public Affairs.
Ah yes, cats and dogs and all that and bloody wonym and you won't see any of that nonsense at the IPA ...
Oh noes, way too many womyn ...
And now the pond must note that there's a new Killer in town, celebrated in The Atlantic...
Today’s layoffs are the latest attempt to kill what makes the paper special.(*archive link)
By Ashley Parker
Jeff Bezos, the billionaire owner of The Washington Post, and Will Lewis, the publisher he appointed at the end of 2023, are embarking on the latest step of their plan to kill everything that makes the paper special. The Post has survived for nearly 150 years, evolving from a hometown family newspaper into an indispensable national institution, and a pillar of the democratic system. But if Bezos and Lewis continue down their present path, it may not survive much longer.
Over recent years, they’ve repeatedly cut the newsroom—killing its Sunday magazine, reducing the staff by several hundred, nearly halving the Metro desk—without acknowledging the poor business decisions that led to this moment or providing a clear vision for the future. This morning, executive editor Matt Murray and HR chief Wayne Connell told the newsroom staff in an early-morning virtual meeting that it was closing the Sports department and Books section, ending its signature podcast, and dramatically gutting the International and Metro departments, in addition to staggering cuts across all teams. Post leadership—which did not even have the courage to address their staff in person—then left everyone to wait for an email letting them know whether or not they had a job. (Lewis, who has already earned a reputation for showing up late to work when he showed up at all, did not join the Zoom.)
The Bulwark was also distressed, and at some length ...
Civic vandalism and the mutilation of a great paper.
Jonathan V. Last
Lewis’s tenure has been an unbroken streak of failure. Every single initiative he has undertaken became a cost-sink: The “third newsroom”; the pivot to Trump; the remaking of the Opinion section; the creation of an aggregator called “Ripple”; and, finally, the restructuring of the paper.
With each passing month, the Post’s financial losses snowballed under Lewis. And yet he is still at the Post.1
If a newspaper’s publisher makes a bunch of decisions that lose money, and then the owner keeps the publisher while firing the staff who puts out the paper—none of this is really about the money, is it?
Jeff Bezos is worth something like $250 billion. This past weekend he chose to lose about $60 million on a worshipful film about Melania Trump. In 2019 he spent $5 million on a 30-second ad for the Washington Post during the Super Bowl.2 He has spent $40 million building a clock inside a mountain that will supposedly keep time for 10,000 years.3
A man like Jeff Bezos does not do anything because he has to. It has been decades since he was constrained by anything other than his own desires. What happened to the Washington Post over the last three years happened for one reason and one reason only: Because Jeff Bezos wanted it to be so.
Because he gets off on civic vandalism.
It would be nice if some other billionaire would buy the Post from Bezos. But that’s not going to happen as long as we live in an authoritarian context, because owning a media company is not safe unless you are a supplicant to the regime.
All of which leaves us in a bad place. The free market will not save the Post, because its owner is immune to market signals. Politics will not save the Post, because so long as Republican voters demand authoritarianism, no one can own a media outlet without taking on outsized risk. As sad as it is to admit, the Washington Post is beyond help.
Ruth Marcus, who had skin in the game, also had a go for The New Yorker:
The Amazon founder bought the paper to save it. Instead, with a mass layoff, he’s forced it into severe decline.
By Ruth Marcus (*archive link)
I had written a column critical of the non-endorsement decision several months earlier. The paper published it without any substantive changes. But, when I wrote a column disagreeing with the no-dissent-allowed dictum, I was told that Lewis had killed it—it apparently didn’t meet the “high bar” for the Post to write about itself—and declined my request to meet. I submitted my letter of resignation. A new editorial-page editor went on to shift both unsigned editorials and signed opinion columns dramatically to the right, to the point that no liberal columnists remain. One recent editorial praised the President’s plan for a new ballroom and excused his unauthorized bulldozing of the East Wing, saying that “the blueprints would have faced death by a thousand papercuts.” Another endorsed the move to rename the Defense Department the Department of War as “a worthy blow against government euphemism.” There are some editorials critical of Trump, but the inclination to fawning praise is unmistakable. Had I not defenestrated myself, I would, no doubt, have been advised to take my buyout and go.
Ruth even dragged in one of the pond's favourite movies ...
In the 1941 movie “Citizen Kane,” Charles Foster Kane, a newspaper publisher who, like Bezos, is one of the richest men in the world, is confronted by his legal guardian, Walter Thatcher, about the folly of funding his paper. “Honestly, my boy, don’t you think it’s rather unwise to continue this philanthropic enterprise, this Inquirer that’s costing you a million dollars a year?” Thatcher demands. “You’re right, Mr. Thatcher. I did lose a million dollars last year,” Kane replies. “I expect to lose a million dollars this year. I expect to lose a million dollars next year. You know, Mr. Thatcher, at the rate of a million dollars a year, I’ll have to close this place in sixty years.” Update Kane’s outlays to assume losses of a hundred million annually, in perpetuity. By that math, Bezos would have more than two millennia before needing to turn out the lights
What a dream, what a rich fantasy life. As if Bezos has much on his mind apart from Rosebud and perhaps turning his body into a teddy bear temple ...
The pond was reminded of an ancient, still relevant Koan ...Time to Die
“This is natural,” explained the older man. “Everything has to die and has just so long to live.”
Jeff producing the shattered newspaper, adding: “It was time for the newspaper to die.”
Now that's an ingenious Killer, a man with such an insatiable lust for money he'd kill anything when the mood takes him.
He gave us Melania, what more could we want?
The pond is content, so long as The Bulwark allows Will Sommer occasionally outside the paywall, as they did with...
Sex, lies, and audiotape—and the hypocrisy of the trad lifestyle project.
After a day toiling in the reptile hive mind, what better way to find a little release?
One MAGA figure has dubbed it the “trad hoe scandal.” Others have said it’s proof you can never trust an “e-girl.” Many more are starting to suspect that their trad heroes may not be so trad after all.
And that's just the beginning of a romp though the foothills and mountains of the deeply weird.
And that's where the pastie Hastie saw his future?
It's a barking mad rabbit hole which only the brave will venture down with Alice...
And so to one last thought, never mentioned in the Australian Daily Zionist News, courtesy of Wilcox ...
What a gormless, gutless government it is ...
