In which the pond naturally seeks out the government grant loving Caterist for a sensible perspective ...

Choices, choices, always so many choices ...

Naturally the reptiles led with the bromancer, putting him at the top of their gruesome and ghoulish tree-killing edition, sort of like Evil Dead on steroids ... and they also put the bromancer at the top of the digital page ...

Choices, choices. Naturally the reptiles put the female reptile further down the page ...

... while over at the Daily Terror, Caroline Marcus, never the sharpest tool in the Current Affair drawer, recanted her previous adoration of the Donald and elevated the debate by resorting to porcine, swinish language ...

 

Oh and that bit about killing the Kardashians? 

Just another stunning contribution to a newspaper dedicated to law and order by Vanessa de Largie, claiming the title of feminist when surely "and I don't have the first clue about anything except how to troll and scribble click bait" would have been a better sub-heading. She calls herself a sex-columnist, whatever that is, but mainly she's a measure of how desperate things are getting at the Terror in terms of attention-seeking.

Choices, choices, so many rich options.

Now first up the pond should confess to only having heard snatches of the debate. So what came across was the snuffling and sniffing of the Donald - so weird, maybe if not coke then a really strange physical tic - and the nasal grating of the monotonal Clinton accent which makes her almost unendurable. The pond missed the Donald's stalking and prowling and intimidating looming up behind, though when later seen, it made sense when viewed in the context of a predator with dictatorial ambitions to lock up political enemies and throw away the key.

What to make of it all? Well the pond has been indulging in American cable shows - only for the advertisements, so many drug solutions to so many ailments - and so wanted a decent socialistic perspective, from a safe downunder pair of hands. (More on this, thanks to a kindly, considerate reader for the link, at Will the rorts never end?)

And so who better than a man who believes in banking generous government grants and living on taxpayer welfare for some incisive insights?

Besides, at some point, the pond's irony alert will probably click in to gear as the head honcho for the Menzies Research Centre deplores the Washington elite, while listing the main contract address for the taxpayer-funded think tank as the corner of Blackall and Macquarie Streets, Barton, ACT, with a Kingston PO box.

Admittedly it's not mighty Manuka, but it's as close to what passes for a beltway in Australia as might be imagined ... so please indulge the pond in indulging in its beltway voice. 

After all, the pond has generously donated a portion of its tax return to keeping the Caterists afloat ...

The pond was immediately gratified by its choice. Has the Caterist ever failed his devoted leaders, railing about the political class and the forgotten Americans from his Barton eerie?

Ah, the pond knew that the irony alert would be triggered. Who could resist a follow-up line about a Barton welfare bludger living off the Australian taxpayer to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars without missing a beat ...

But that's what happens when you happen to be a moral narcissist, always clucking about the flaws in others, and with a serious dose of wealth envy, without contemplating for a nanosecond the mote in your own eye, or even the taxpayer-funded fluff in your navel ...

No doubt the taxpayers will have funded even more rhetoric about being an entrepreneur and deploring talk of trickle down failure, when everyone knows that taxpayer money can easily be persuaded to trickle into the Menzies Research Centre balance sheet...

And that's why the pond treasures the Caterist. Not even the grudging capacity of a Paul Ryan to distance himself from the Donald, as they start throwing the deck chairs off the Titanic, just a closing "assuming that there is one ..."

But there is an upside, because the Pope has been forced to return from his retreat - more papal advice here - and joined the pretty infallible* (*use licensed by News 24) David Rowe, and more Rowe here ...