The reptile Jimbo jihad, accompanied by the always active Albo ambush, swung into even higher gear early this morning.
Some might have thought that the reptiles couldn't crank it up beyond eleven, but little did they know ... with the echo Chambers the jihadist in chief ...
EXCLUSIVE Newspoll: Labor slumps as Jim ranks worst among ministers aka Newspoll: Labor slumps as voters mark down Jim Chalmers Jim Chalmers has claimed the mantle of the worst-performing senior minister, as Labor’s primary vote falls. By Geoff Chambers
EXCLUSIVE $3bn trusts tax raid looms as PM steps in to plot cost-of-living relief Trusts tax to rip most $3bn from business in first year of Jim Chalmers’ revenue crackdown Anthony Albanese has ordered rolling cabinet meetings with his Treasurer to finalise a savings package and non-inflationary cost-of-living measures in the mid-year budget update. By Geoff Chambers and Richard Ferguson
This echo Chambers is a one man threshing jihad machine, tilting at Jimbo windmills, with Fergo as his plucky Pancho.
It was a hive mind wet dream start to the week ... but remarkably the reptiles seem to have, at least temporarily, abandoned the search for golfballs ...
Over on the extreme far right, the Major was doing his level best for the Australian Daily Zionist News ...
Israel’s election result proves it is no apartheid state(dodgy but readable link) When the Middle East was at the forefront of Cold War hostilities, the focus on Israel was understandable. But why do global media outlets still stack Jerusalem bureaus? By Chris Mitchell Columnist
The Arab parties? Aren't they just a bunch of terrorists?
In a series of posts on X on Tuesday, Netanyahu attacked Arab voters, describing them as “Muslim Brotherhood supporters” and accusing them of “raiding the polling stations and stealing the elections”. In a separate post, Netanyahu referred to a picture of a large queue that appeared to show Palestinian citizens in Israel at a polling station, and called on right-wing Israelis to “go out and vote for Likud”, referring to his political party and describing the situation as a “matter of life and death for us”. Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, said on Tuesday that it had received numerous reports from Arab voters of attempts to discourage them from casting their ballots. Adalah said it had also been told that queues at polling stations in Arab-majority towns were moving very slowly and, in some instances, had stopped altogether. It also reported a lack of ballot slips printed in Arabic. (Here)
And the spawn didn't fall far from the racist tree (only as far as draft-dodging Miami)... per The Jerusalem Post (just to take a break from Haaretz)
The pond is well over these jihads, and what a relief that Lord Downer arrived to seize his natural place in the firmament, in the nick of time to save the pond from them ...
Did the pond say what a relief?
What a relief to have Lord Downer arrive on the scene, and with his infinite experience and skill prove that he was a nihilist and that voting was largely a complete waste of time...
What even-handedness, what skilled discernment, up there with the Major himself.
Did the pond mention His Lordship's hard won infinite experience and skill?
The pond was entranced yet again by His Lordship's sage advice to do nothing, and all would be well, and sameness and a lack of change would calm the universe ...
It's business as usual in Israel, and never mind the ethnic cleansing and the genocide, and it's business as usual in the States.
As His Lordship turned to eye off the mad King's kingdom, the reptiles were so excited by a little MAGA hat-tossing that they featured it bigly ...
Excellent. The mad King can dabble in a demented way in foreign affairs, while indulging every so often in a little show biz hat tossing.
What joy for Buddy Holly, as His Lordship did a final hat toss of his own ...
Indeed, indeed, it all fits His Lordship's motto: voting is a waste of time, why bother, everything stays the same ...
Every so often there's a reptile who tries to pander to the pond, and swim against the hive mind tide.
Forget the Uber driver stereotype: new data shows recent migrants are nearly twice as likely as Australian-born workers to hold a university degree. By Simon Benson Political analyst
The hive mind wasn't having any of that claptrap and nonsense.
Who cares about doctors and nurses? What geriatrics need are plumbers, tradies who can plug up a fractured artery, or pour some Drano into a blocked heart...
Oh the hive mind went wild with anger ...
The pond suspects that simpleton Simon only trolled the hive mind to make sure they were alive, and so in a position to receive the correct and proper message from the Caterist.
It takes a black sheep migrant to know the dark and sinister ways of black sheep migrants ...
Dammit, there are wretched trouble makers amongst us, but more of this anon, as the flood water whispering Caterist foamed on ...
The quarry whispering Caterist maintained the rage through a third gobbet ...
That culminated in a fiery denunciation, an inquisitorial denunciation ripe for the ages ...
...These people are non-citizens, owed nothing by Australia other than the civility we extend to visitors. There is no reason, other than naivety, why they should be allowed such a convoluted form of due process. Once a court finds a non-citizen guilty of anything more serious than an unpaid parking fine, they should be out on their ear. We don’t need the tribunal to re-litigate the character question when a check of their criminal history tells us everything we need to know. A successful migration program requires tough rules that are unflinchingly enforced. We must not allow it to be weakened by misguided sentimentalism or misplaced pity.
And what about those wretched sorts who act in a way that produces a massive defamation payout?
What good are these black sheep to the body politic?
Strip them of their citizenship, the pond says, having been lathered up into a righteous Caterist frenzy.
Send them back to where they came from ...
Does the pond have any candidates who come to mind?
How does a journalist who was recklessly indifferent to the truth, and indeed concealed information which might have led to an alternative understanding of events, still scribble for the lizard Oz?
Ah, that's the delightfully different way that migration has contributed to the hive mind...
Deport, deport, deport ...
And now, to take up Lord Downer's theme, what could possibly go wrong after the mid-terms?
When the pond signed up to the Murdochian Institute for Herpetology Studies (an affiliate of Trump University), the pond didn't expect to get a bonus subscription to the Australian Daily Zionist News.
As a result, the pond's studies have of late taken a dire and beyond tedious turn.
If it's not lectures on antisemitism and the joys of Zionism, it's extended bursts of Islamophobia.
As an atheist, this puts the pond in a difficult position. Once upon a time, the pond could berate all religions as stupefying nonsense.
But these days it's necessary to step in when stupid people carry their innate, drug-addled stupidity too far:
“There’s 500 million Arabs in the world and yet they don’t produce science,” Kennedy said on the campaign trail Monday. “They don’t win the Nobel Prize. They don’t win the Fields Prize. They don’t win the Wolf Prize. They don’t produce literature.” The health secretary’s comments — widely condemned overnight by critics as untrue and racially biased — were made while campaigning in a state with a large Arab American population... ...Arab refers to an ethnic and linguistic identification, while Muslim refers to a religious identity. So while Arabs can be Muslim, Christian, Jewish or of another faith, the vast majority of Muslims worldwide are not Arab.
There followed a list of "Arabs", who had won Nobel and Field Prizes.
Others get to read exciting stories, including wizard crypto heists ...
No such luck for the pond. These days the lizard Oz is just mind-numbing and unnervingly repetitive and boring.
Take Nick, please someone take Nick ...
Israel’s electoral diversity tests myth of apartheid Israel’s citizens have argued, organised and voted for competing visions of their future. Palestinians deserve precisely the same freedom. By Nick Dyrenfurth
The pond tried to summon up interest, but just couldn't be fagged (in an Etonian sense) ...it being just an elevated form of drivel ...
At the very end Nick tried a little both siderist balancing act...
...Israel is not a perfect democracy. Netanyahu’s disgraceful, Trumpian claims on X this week that the election was “stolen” by Arab parties, the influence of religious extremists, settler violence and the unresolved Palestinian question are serious challenges to its future. But democracies are not defined by rancorous debate or imperfections. They are judged by whether citizens can challenge authority and replace their rulers. That power belongs to every Israeli citizen, regardless of religion or ethnicity. Which returns us to Vayera. Abraham’s challenge to God reminds us that justice demands questioning authority, however legitimate its claims. Israel’s citizens have argued, organised and voted for competing visions of their future. Palestinians deserve precisely the same freedom.
The rest of this abomination is in the intermittent archive, so the pond can cut to the bog standard Islamophobia ...
...While the French have form when it comes to burning stuff to the ground, the recent riots felt and looked different. I never bought the “children demanding better education” line because of the many clearly non-school aged people involved in the violence and destruction. The second giveaway was the prominence of the Palestinian flag. Like the Holy Spirit, it is beginning to appear omnipresent. The third was the looting. Nothing says “give us better funding” than smashing a window at luxury designer boutique and running away with a late season bag... ...You may not want to accept it but extremist political Islam wants to destabilise Western democracies. It’s the playbook and they don’t hide it. Read the charter of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Actually if the pond wanted to read about attempts to destabilise Western democracies, it would just read Murdochian publications or ruin eyeballs watching Faux Noise, or perhaps indulge in a study of mad King Donald and his GOP minions, as good a set of planet wreckers as any currently doing the rounds, but do finish up ...
There are undoubtedly cost-of-living pressures among some cohorts in Italy and France, but the vague umbrella of “economic and education concerns” as the central motive for the riots is a false flag. It makes me fear for the naivety of this country; we can’t rely on our “she’ll be right” attitude any more. This week in Australia, ASIO confirmed that the Iranian regime, the greatest sponsor of proxy terrorism, targeted my colleague Sharri Markson and political figure Michael Kroger. The action was real and sophisticated. It should terrify us. We are not immune. Bondi told us that. Torched synagogues taught us that. An expelled Iranian ambassador showed us how serious it is. This past month I have been close enough to these riots to smell the smoke. “Europe is lost. The UK is gone,” a friend said to me over drinks in London last week. I don’t agree. It’s not in my nature to be fatalistic. But neither do I have my head in the sand. We must wake from our apathy, lest we end up with the kind of society others are prepared to riot for.
Or perhaps just send a dinkum Aussie to take out as many Islamics as he could find?
WELLINGTON, New Zealand — The man accused of carrying out the Christchurch mosque attacks will face 50 murder charges and 39 attempted murder charges when he makes his second court appearance, New Zealand police said Thursday. Police had earlier filed a single, representative murder charge against 28-year-old Australian Brenton Harrison Tarrant. He is due to appear via video link during a brief hearing on Friday, and won't be required to enter a plea. Fifty people died in the March 15 attacks on two mosques and another 50 were injured.
Waddya kno. Same message as you get in the lizard Oz ...
“In 2100, despite the ongoing effect of sub-replacement fertility, the population figures show that the population does not decrease in line with the sub-replacement fertility levels, but actually maintains and, even in many White nations, rapidly increases,” the alleged killer wrote in his manifesto. “All through immigration. This is ethnic replacement. This is cultural replacement. This is racial replacement. This is WHITE GENOCIDE.” (New Zealand Terrorist Manifesto Influenced by Far-Right Online Ecosystem, Hatewatch Finds)
For the love of the long absent lord, a KitKat or a 'toon break ...
Okay, you suggest being a mug and giving the pond a chance to segue, surely the heart of darkness, the lizard Oz editorialist, wouldn't confirm the pond's feelings?
Hold the pond's beer ...
Oh dear, that looks ominous, and yet entirely befitting the Australian Daily Zionist News, out and about on its regular jihad ...
Any chance of getting a balancing Haaretz editorial?
What was that you said Nick? Just asking for a friend ...
What supposedly irredeemably authoritarian society inspires such extravagant democratic fidelity?
Oh that ...
Please, please, a 'toon break to celebrate western democracy in action, and at its finest ...
And that inevitably brings the pond to Polonius's prattle for the Australian Daily Zionist News this weekend.
On the upside, the piece allowed Polonius to indulge in his chief passion, ABC bashing (down there with Snake Day bashing), though the pond did wonder if it would include his many repeated assurances that not a single conservative ever appears on the ABC...
Huzzah, it seems that the savvy Savva passed the Polonial conservative smell test, but there was more bad news to follow ... what with it being important to downplay the impact of Islamophobia.
Say what? Polonius in praise of faux ranga Pauline? To be fair, she really does encapsulate the lizard Oz agenda ...
...In November last year, Pauline Hanson, an Australian senator and leader of One Nation party, wore a burka in parliament to push for a ban on the Muslim garment. She was suspended for a week. Then, earlier this month, she was again censured by the Federal Senate after she made comments questioning whether there were 'good' Muslims. Community leaders like Kheir say that politicians like Hanson have legitimised racism - and that there's evidence in the numbers of threats his mosque and community face. "We're talking astronomical figures," he said. "We're talking about women being spat on in the street. We're talking about women whose scarves have been pulled off. "Our Facebook posts used to have five to 10 comments. [Now] we're getting a thousand plus comments of the most bigoted, vile, racist comments. People feel empowered and emboldened because [politicians] like Pauline Hanson have enabled this sort of racism to be rampant and normal." Experts say the issue isn't treated seriously enough. "Imagine [if Hanson] said the same thing for Jews in Australia – that there are no good Jews in Australia," said Dr Zouhir Gabsi, senior lecturer in Arabic and Islamic Studies at Deakin University and author of Muslim Perspectives on Islamophobia: From Misconceptions to Reason. "There would be a huge backlash." Kheir agrees not enough is done to rein in racism. "The fear that I have is Pauline Hanson and her dog whistling has such an effect on the Labor and Liberal Party that they are too scared to take the defence of the Muslim community, because it's political suicide for them," he said. "So we're left to fend for ourselves." A cumulative effect Earlier this month in the Australian city of Ballarat, a man who declared himself "far-right" allegedly threatened children outside a community hall where Muslims were enjoying Iftar. The man proceeded to barge into the hall and hurl racist abuse - but, controversially, was not immediately arrested and has not been charged. Days later, in the same city, a man racially abused staff at a pharmacy, yelling Islamophobic and racial remarks including "go back to where you came from". According to Malik, the Special Envoy to Combat Islamophobia, these attacks all have a cumulative effect. "Each impact reinforces a sense that Muslim identity is not welcome, nor part of Australia's social fabric," he said last week, in a speech to mark UN International Day to Combat Islamophobia. "This has the immense danger of reducing institutional legitimacy and fraying social cohesion." (BBC)
Oh please, don't worry about any of that, Polonius will do his best not to help out by diminishing, distracting, and amplifying the very worst people ...
The answer is: Don't ask the Australian Daily Zionist News about bigotry, hate and fear mongering. It's their main mission ...
And now, as the pond has featured the lizard Oz editorialist, and as the pond couldn't be bothered to hang around waiting to see if the dog botherer turned up to contribute to the Australian Daily Zionist News, more inspired lizard Oz thinking ...
Is it only the pond that thinks this talk of a magical shield is mystical nonsense of the mad King Donald kind?
It's not just the Maginot Line or the Great Wall of China.
History is littered with military strategists and strategies designed to halt invaders, but defending the castle has never been a top notch strategy, from the walls of Jericho to nimble Greeks bringing gift horses as a way to trick and treat ...
Good luck with that, as if we haven't already flung enough AUKUS dung against the wall.
Will anyone at all in the lizard Oz pay attention to the way that the much smaller Ukraine has held off Vlad the sociopath's wannabe colonising Russia?
Despite its pretensions to lecture Australia about its values and how it should be run, the Murdoch family’s News Corp really has nothing to do with Australia. It is a foreign company, and it serially pays no tax here, despite earning billions in revenue on our shores. In 2024-25, according to the Australian Tax Office’s corporate tax data released today, News Australia Holdings — the official name of News Corp’s Australian subsidiary — racked up 10 years of paying precisely zero tax. For that year, it earned $1.89 billion in revenue, made more than $300 million in profit (a record for the past decade) and paid nothing in tax. Indeed, there’s a peculiar steadiness to News Corp’s tax dodging. For the past four years, it has earned around $1.8 billion in revenue and paid no tax on around $300 million in profits in 2023-24 and 2024-25, and $200 million in profits in 2021-22 and 2022-23. You can go all the way back to when the first corporate tax transparency data was released for 2014-15 — the result of a Rudd-Gillard government initiative (opposed by the Coalition) — and find News Corp’s main company has paid no tax across those years, on revenue of, in total, $23.9 billion and profits of $1.38 billion. The only News Corp entities to pay tax in that time were an investment company, which paid $200,000 (sic) in 2017-18 on $291 million in profits, and a pay TV financing arm, which paid $8 million in 2015-16. Real estate listing oligopolist REA Group, which News Corp part-owns, paid $246 million in tax. Otherwise, News Corp’s only contributions to Australia are social division and the fostering of hate and resentment.
Oh yeah, they must pay their way.
And so to close with another visual celebration of western civilisation and democracy in action ...
Crucial insights. May be applied to the understanding of domestic Murdochians ...
On the other hand, there's Tom. Everyone loves meme Tom ...
The pond realises that timelines means this is already an old, much featured and loved meme, given an outing on Kimmel and endlessly on the likes of MS NOW, but dammit, if only one correspondent missed it, then repeating it will be worthwhile, especially as it involves Faux Noise...
“You mentioned the rally getting started here in Rock Hill,” Fox correspondent Lucas Tomlinson said during The Faulkner Focus. “We’ve got Tom right here, kind enough to answer a few questions. Tom, why are you here this morning?” “Well, in the late ‘70s, I was a little too young to get involved and, um, go to South America for the Jonestown Massacre, but this is as close as I’ll ever get, so that’s why I’m here,” the man replied. Tomlinson was caught off guard by the man’s candid response referring to the mass murder-suicide orchestrated by Jim Jones, the leader of the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project cult, in 1978. “Wait, the Jonestown Massacre?” the reporter asked. “That’s right,” Tom confirmed. “There’s nothing like seeing a cult right up front, man.” Tomlinson, visibly embarrassed, immediately scrambled to find another MAGA supporter to save the segment. “Alright, so maybe—maybe this is not a Trump supporter right now,” he said, patting Tom on the shoulder and walking away. “See, there are some, uh, pro—anti-Trump here people now.” (Fox News Duped by Anti-MAGA Troll at Trump Rally)
One critic, riffing on the comparison to the Trump rally and the infamous Brian Jonestown Massacre, said,"The only difference between Jim Jones and Donald Trump is that Trump would charge his followers money to drink the poison."
And what better way to introduce the bromancer, regular sipper of kool aid, for this weekend's domestic hive mind entertainment?
The header: Greg Sheridan Foreign Editor The US midterms herald ugly rise of far-left Democrats
The cry to listen to the bot: Listen to this article 9 min
Fulfilling a minimum reptile demand for any reptile column - a snap that makes a politician look as much like a noisy, shouty harridan as possible: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speaks at a campaign rally. Picture: Getty Images
The plea for attention to be paid by the mighty G: Make us preferred on Google
Deep down the bromancer is more than MAGA curious, he's MAGA friendly, so, whatever the outcome of the pending midterm elections, how pleasing it is to see him writhing on his own spit of bile and bigotry ...
These tumultuous, gripping US midterm elections will decide much more than just which party – Republican or Democrat – controls the Senate and House of Representatives for what will be an action-packed last two years of Donald Trump. They will profoundly influence the political evolution, even the identity, of each party. The Democrats, benefiting from Trump’s epic unpopularity, could see a big chunk of their party enact a dismal red-green alliance – Islamic-themed activism focused on Palestine and antisemitism in partnership with ideological leftists. This combination is poisoning Europe and has its nasty counterpart in Australia. Meanwhile, the Republicans, heading for defeat in the house and trouble in the Senate, are making feeble progress at best towards a viable post-Trump program.
The bromancer tried to carve out his own angle, his own truly unique approach, but truth to tell, it was just a way of serving up his reliable brand of patented fear mongering ...
This column will be one of few on the midterms not focused on which party wins but, rather, who wins within each party. As election results emerge on Wednesday Australian time, focus on four key Senate races: Michigan, Maine, Texas and Kansas.
One of the few?
How he treasures his delusions.
First came the demonising of the Islamic, following on the ugly tradition of racism in the GOP:
In Michigan the Democrats chose Abdul El-Sayed as their Senate candidate. He’s a doctor and former health official. He’s also as near to an outright antisemite as modern, mainstream elective politics in the US has produced. He reacted to a terrorist attack on a Jewish synagogue in Michigan initially by saying: “Hurt people hurt people … violence is a cycle.” He declares Israel as evil as Iran. He wants to end the US’s small aid funding to Israel (which goes entirely on Israel buying US military equipment). In his own rhetoric he has ludicrously implied the US can’t afford necessary social spending because it’s spending too much money on Israel. He’s also suggested US foreign policy is controlled by Israel.
But, billy goat Zionist butt, that last line just happens to be true, what with mad king Donald falling into line with Benji, and bermb, bermb, bermbing Iran, as instructed, and now to enhance the fear ...Michigan Democrat senatorial candidate Abdul El-Sayed speaks at a midterm campaign rally. Picture: AFP
Inspired by that snap, the bromancer ran hard on the fear ...
Recently a political committee supporting his candidacy, controlled by friends of his, has run a TV ad in which a wife tells her husband: “You’re going to have to put those eggs back. We have to set that $7 aside for killing Palestinians.” The husband in the ad comments that Israelis get universal healthcare, don’t they, “we probably pay for that as well”. This is pure conspiracy-laden, Jews are to blame for everything, nutty and deranged classical antisemitism. El-Sayed’s campaign says it has nothing to do with the ad yet won’t denounce or criticise it. El-Sayed routinely issues instant, extravagant, almost endless moral judgment about everything else. But he won’t stand up against even the most outrageous, dishonest and blatantly antisemitic advertisement in modern mainstream politics, supporting his candidacy. El-Sayed campaigns in the Senate race mainly on universal healthcare and cost of living, but frequently intrudes Israel. He strikes a macho pose, does a lot of sub-Pete Hegseth fitness posing and knows how to get noticed on TikTok and social media. Three important things about his Jewish/Israeli obsessions: they have been part of his entire political life, they were important in his Democratic primary victory, and they will define his foreign policy approach if he gets to the Senate. He’s always been on the far left and for years held Barack Obama’s presidency in contempt from a left standpoint. This latest offensive ad has been denounced by numerous senior Michigan Democrats. But Obama campaigns enthusiastically for El-Sayed, as do Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other senior Democrat leftists. None of the candidate’s extreme and prejudiced positions and past actions have ruled him out of mainstream politics, as, say, support for the Ku Klux Klan would automatically and rightly rule out a Republican candidate. That’s bad news for Democrats, and for America. The Michigan Senate seat was held by a Democrat who is retiring. The Republican candidate, Mike Rogers, is a perfectly respectable former congressman and former FBI agent. If El-Sayed wins a big battleground state such as Michigan, it will convince Democrats they can win the presidency in 2028 with a far-left politician like Ocasio-Cortez.
Eek, not the appalling Cheesecake Factory man: Barack Obama speaks at a rally in support of Abdul El-Sayed in Detroit, Michigan. Picture: Getty Images
Time for more lies, distortions and warped realities ...
For an almost exact reverse of all that, look at the Senate race in Maine. This is a state that normally votes Democrat. But it has a long-term incumbent Republican senator in Susan Collins. She’s stubbornly independent and decides issues as she sees the merits of each case. She is one of very few Republicans to maintain her independence from Trump.
Susan Collins stubbornly independent?
Must the bromancer force the pond to hie off to the both siderist NY Times?
A New York Times analysis of Ms. Collins’s voting record over the last decade paints a more complicated picture. It shows that she breaks with her party more than any other Republican senator. It also reveals that her defections — which frequently helped Democrats block parts of Mr. Trump’s agenda during his first two years in office — have rarely thwarted the president during his second term.
Read the whole thing. It's more informative than the soothing bromancer nonsense doing his best to help out Collins:
She has managed at times to moderate Trump policies, a rare and precious skill in his increasingly undisciplined second term. Her Democrat challenger, Troy Jackson, is from the left. He has all the left obsessions on Israel, wants to abolish immigration enforcement and favours wildly unrealistic government spending. If Collins survives in Maine, it’s a great fillip for common sense and reality in US politics.
As for Talarico, the only question is whether the bromancer would toe the vegan line, and spew on about his devotion to meat, aaah, but he discovered easier paths to tread ... "a little bit left" and "weird" is more than enough to damn that pasty-faced wimpy Texan in the minds of lizard Oz readers:
A different equation applies in the Texas Senate race. Trump campaigned against a sitting Republican senator, John Cornyn, and helped Ken Paxton unseat Cornyn in the Republican primary. Paxton is the Republican candidate from hell. To describe all the scandals he has been involved in would take up all the words in this column. Trump didn’t care about that. He just wanted a toadying loyalist. The Democrats chose a smart candidate, James Talarico. He’s a little bit left, and has in the past said some weird things on gender issues. But he’s also a teacher studying to become a Presbyterian pastor. His version of Christianity allows him to support abortion up until birth and other progressive social positions. But Republicans have made such obvious political use of Christianity, with even Trump himself claiming to follow Christian policies while dishonouring the Christian ethic every day, that they certainly have no serious grounds to question any Democrat’s Christian faith. Texas is the second-most populous state in the US. With Florida, it’s the heart of Republican politics, as important to Republicans as California is to Democrats. If Paxton loses to Talarico it will demonstrate yet again that in picking sycophants Trump imposes the very worst candidates on the Republican Party. The road to post-Trump Republican recovery will run away from Trump. When Trump leaves the White House, his backing will surely count much less in primaries.
Eek, another shocking sight: Bernie Sanders speaks in support of Wisconsin Democratic Congressional candidate Rebecca Cooke in Wisconsin. Picture: Getty Images
The bromancer's deep Xian streak continued ...
Talarico can speak in a plausible conservative dialect. That’s clever politics, the opposite vibe to the red-green alliance in Michigan. Talarico is also a member of an important, growing class, Democrat pastors. The most fascinating of these is Adam Hamilton, the Democrat Senate candidate in Kansas. You could hardly imagine a more solidly Republican state than Kansas. But the incumbent Republican senator, Roger Marshall, is very unsympathetic. He seems to spend much of his time in Florida. He was formerly a medical practitioner famous for suing patients who couldn’t pay their bills, charging them 18 per cent interest and getting them arrested. He never expected to face a competitive contest. His Democrat challenger, Hamilton, is a Methodist megachurch pastor. He’s on the liberal side of Christianity but there’s no serious dispute about his religious convictions. If Democrats find that Christianity is a winning political credential for them, that would be good for American politics. It would surely at least keep them away from antisemitism. For Republicans, if they can’t hold Texas and Kansas, they’re in a world of pain.
The closer we get to Election Day, the more hysterical Republican rhetoric has become when targeting Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic U.S. Senate nominee in Michigan. Donald Trump, predictably, has helped lead the slanderous charge, condemning the candidate as a "jihadist" who "should not be allowed to serve in our Senate." As is too often the case, the rest of the party has followed the president's lead and headed for the gutter. Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana said El-Sayed "sleeps in a bin Laden jersey." Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. campaigned in Michigan this week and thought it would be good idea to trash the scientific and literary accomplishments of a half-billion Arab Muslims. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas this week explicitly said that "there is a very real risk that Americans will die" if El-Sayed is elected and serves on the Senate Intelligence Committee. But it was something Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno of Ohio said during a Wednesday night rally that stood out as unusual. Making the case to Buckeye State voters who can't cast ballots in Michigan's Senate race, the GOP senator suggested that El-Sayed should be disqualified from serving in the chamber because he does not accept divinity of Jesus Christ. "This character, Abdul El-Sayed, can be nowhere near Washington, D.C.," Moreno said. "Do you think he understands that concept, that our rights come from God Almighty? That Jesus came here for our salvation? He should be nowhere near Washington, D.C., and [Republican candidate] Mike Rogers is going to kick his ass on Tuesday." So, a few things. First, whether Moreno understood this or not, he was speaking at a rally that was intended to generate support for the GOP ticket in Ohio — a ticket led in part by Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republicans' gubernatorial candidate, who is Hindu. Second, when Moreno was sworn in as a senator, he swore to support and defend the Constitution, which includes Article VI, clause 3 — a provision that says "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." And third, as Moreno really ought to know, roughly 1 in 3 Americans are not Christians, and the idea that they should be disqualified from congressional service because of their beliefs is plainly insane. Indeed, let's not forget that there are Jewish Republicans in Congress and the White House Cabinet who would disagree with the senator's belief that that "Jesus came here for our salvation."
All that and more, but always, the bromancer remained tone deaf and clueless, as in closing he attempted his own form of pitiful and pathetic bothsiderism:
It goes without saying that Trump and other Republicans make personal attacks on their opponents as dishonourable as those of the left Democrats. Bad behaviour flourishes on both sides. But while the worst of MAGA seems to be unravelling (with some of its good bits remaining), and Republicans must find a new synthesis of traditional values and contemporary policies, the Democrat far left is accelerating. American politics, and the whole world, need decent Republicans and decent Democrats, which, policy differences notwithstanding, we mostly had until the past 10 or 15 years. The battle within each party is as important as the battle between the parties. I’d rather see a Marco Rubio v Gretchen Whitmer (successful Democrat governor of Michigan) presidential contest in 2028, than an Ocasio-Cortez v Tucker Carlson match-up. Just kidding about Carlson being a possibility, of course, but you get my drift. Greg Sheridan is The Australian’s foreign editor.
Marco Rubio, that lickspittle quisling, spineless, cynical fellow traveller who sold his soul to Trump long ago is the hill on which the bromancer wants to die?
What else? Well the reptiles have cannily taken to holding back their big guns - the Ughmanns, the dog botherers, even "Ned" - until later in the weekend.
That just left the likes of snappy Tom following up on a bog standard jihad ...
And the Angelic one getting agitated about breeding issues, in the way of fundie tykes ...
The childcare subsidy is an economic money pit Why is it normal that some babies and children spend more of their day in these places than with their parents? By Angela Shanahan Columnist
Go trad stay at home wife!
The pond did its duty - the pair are there in the intermittent archive for masochists interested in a read - but decided to cheat, because how could they possibly compete with the Ughmann, sneaking in to deliver his standard climate denialist sermon?
The Ughmann bobbed up just in time...
Splendid stuff. It's all the way with stuffing the planet.
Can Vlad the newspaper-suppressing, Ukraine invading, sociopath help out? Sure can ...
Yes, yes, let's all muck in, let's dirty the planet bigly. What could possibly go wrong?
Fiddlesticks. As if the Ughmann cared for any of that nonsense ...
Now let's hear it for the cockroaches, because all Minnsy were the borogroves ...
Thank heavens for that snap of satanic coal mills looking good, but here the pond came to a dilemma.
The pond wanted to honour the way that the reptiles managed to drag in a bog standard snap of windmills looking truly evil and threatening ...
... but at the same time the pond wanted to honour the dog botherer's role in spreading more FUD about EVs ...because, you know, who better to talk about it than the flood waters in quarries whispering Caterist ...because, you know, who could have heard about using solar power to charge your EV for free?
Having nuked the country to save the planet - as if the planet needed any saving - it was time for a last gobbet for the unreformed former failed seminarian ...
The pond might have missed out on the recent lizard Oz BoM jihad, but when it comes to stuffing the planet, there's a new reptile contribution coming along with monotonous reliability.
