The pond hasn't quite matured because it's still reading the reptiles ...

It was of course only serendipity and comebychance that the pond, after reading the bleating of Chris Uhlmann, sat down to watch Trumbo, the story of one of the Hollywood Ten, and the author of one of the pond's favourite sword and sandal flicks (did he write the lines about the oysters?) ...

It isn't a good movie - the intermingling of real events and people is mishandled, and the shots of typewriters pounding are interminable - but it did remind the pond of one of the great moral panics in the United States, curiously overlooked by Uhlmann in his history of freedom of speech with an American twist ... summarised in those titles above, which turn up at the end of the movie.

But then Joe McCarthy is probably still a folk hero for the reptiles ...

Now if they could only supply a similar example of the suffering of the American right in politics in the twentieth or even the twenty first century ... if they agree that freedom of speech includes the right to speak in support of sublimely silly notions, such as witchcraft, Ayn Rand and communism ...

Oh okay, we only wanted to find an excuse to run that cartoon, and you can exhaust your free quota of New Yorker reads in the cartoon section here ...

Meanwhile, the circus that's American politics continues ... and apart from the obvious ...

... the pond was vastly amused by one little bit of fall-out, involving one of the pond's favourite pundits, never celebrated enough in these pages because others do it so much better ...

DAVID BROOKS: The press thought Bush was coming back until — and he’s — I think if he hangs around 10, he can stay in until Florida. He’s got the money. 
JUDY WOODRUFF: Ten percent. Yes. 
DAVID BROOKS: I think he’s performing well. People have sort of closed their mind, but if he falls down to around 5 or 6, you know, then, nationally, he’s at 4, so that’s not good. And so I think he can hang around, just because I — he may feel… (here).

That was on the Friday on the PBS News Hour - what a strange app it is, how quaint the subject matter online - and the next thing you know, JEB! had done 7.8% and was gone. Now if only the pond was paid as handsomely as David Brooks for getting it as wrong as regularly as Bill Kristol ...

Will it ever dawn on the one per cent just why so many people are pissed off, and want now, like lemmings, to get behind any passing demagogue who can lead them off the cliff in reality TV style?

And speaking of hoots, the prat Cameron now has his hands very full, with Boris on the prowl ...

The rest at the BBC here, but the pond is now content, with its plotting now in full flower. 

Britain leaves the EU, the Scots leave Britain and finally there might be no need to have a British monarch down under ... thanks Boris. That prat Cameron could never have managed it ... and good luck with your campaign to white ant and destroy the prat. Oh and don't forget to take down Britain while you're at it ...

And now we must do a tremendously agile pivot, thanks to the HUNsters ...

Well yes, but how could he, at least with a straight face?

At his age, his medical condition is unlikely to improve. So if he couldn't fly back to give evidence, how could he at some future point fly back to do anything else, without charges of hypocrite and fraud hanging around his head even more heavily than they do now?

But it whetted the pond's appetite for more news of the Pellists, and naturally the Bolter was on hand shrieking his rapture for the fundamentalist tykes ...

And the reptiles of Oz were also on hand to oblige ...

Hang on, hang on. What's the sub-text here? Are we insinuating that the royal commission is innately biased and won't give Pell a fair go? Are we doing special pleading because the royal commission is notoriously incapable of being even-handed? Or are we just doing special pleading to try to sway and to intimidate?

Well you won't see the reptiles asking any of the hard questions; instead down in the opinion pages, you'll discover this bizarre offering ...

Uh huh. Now it turns out if you don't pay detailed attention to what Livingstone has to say, you might conclude that Tim Minchin's warbling and those unhappy with Pell down under are actually just part of an extensive conspiracy, minions and pawns doing the bidding of the Vatican old guard and the mafia (no, no, we don't mean the mafia per se, we mean the Vatican old guard mafia, but why let English get in the way of communication?)

At the end of it, the pond came away bemused. 

What was the point of confusing and conflating the Vatican old guard, the mafia and the heavies, with Tim Minchin, the Victorian police, the leaker and the blogosphere (such a quaint, almost anachronistic concept now so many have shifted to the twittersphere)?

How are these two things alike?

And then there was the denialism, and lines like "it's hard to understand why supposed 'victims' would not have come forward", when it's actually terribly easy - with the slightest bit of empathy - to understand why not coming forward would seem like an appropriate response, not least because at the same time Livingstone lets fly with hoppy toad words like hatred and hot air ...

The result was quite the opposite to Livingstone's intent ... this sort of fetid denialism surely hints at a deep, deep problem still not confronted or resolved...

And so to Rowe who couldn't resist the American circus with a bad pun eminently suited to the occasion ... and as always more Rowe here ...