The pond woke today to news of the Robodebt inquiry and realised just how much it had been disappeared, vanished by the lizard Oz mob ...
There are stories out there for googling and quite recent too ...
Make of them what you will ...
But at the lizard Oz, it's the 'sort of' royals and the bromancer blathering about Xi at the top of the digital page ...
Usually the pond would indulge the bromancer in his Xi obsession - deploring the autocrat is about the only thing the pond has in common - but what about other autocrats? The pond woke to news of the latest terror campaign by the sociopathic Vlad the Terrible, but he too seems to have fallen off the reptile twig, though it gets reported on elsewhere...
Never mind, the pond is inured to living in the reptile la la land bubble for a brief time each morning.
The commentary was also dull, with the lizard Oz editorialist acting as stocking filler ...
Never mind that the BBC was reporting that oil prices were rising while the lizard Oz editorialist was proposing that we might ignore the war and limit the damage ...
It was all too depressing, so there was nothing for it, but to look for lighter moments by indulging the Killer, making the startling discovery that the mango Mussolini might be a bit on the nose ...
But for that angle you have to head off to The Bulwark and Tim Miller and forgive the pond for quoting at length, but there's more at the link, and it's way better than Killer ...
While normal humans who denied Republicans their red wave were enjoying an epic sports weekend, an insular community of MAGA activists and online contrarians led by the world’s richest man (for now) were getting riled up about a cache of leaked emails revealing that the former actor James Woods and Chinese troll accounts were not allowed to post ill-gotten photos of Hunter Biden’s hog on a private company’s microblogging platform 25 months ago.
Now if you are one of the normals—someone who would never think about posting another person’s penis on your social media account; has no desire to see politicians’ kids’ penises when scrolling social media; doesn’t understand why there are other people out there who care one way or another about the moderation policies surrounding stolen penis photos; or can’t even figure out what it is that I’m talking about—then this might seem like a gratuitous matter for an article. Sadly, it is not.
Because among Republican members of Congress, leading conservative media commentators, contrarian substackers, conservative tech bros, and friends of Donald Trump, the ability to post Hunter Biden’s cock shots on Twitter is the number-one issue in America this weekend. They believe that if they are not allowed to post porno, our constitutional republic may be in jeopardy.
I truly, truly wish I were joking.
Here’s a synopsis for the blessedly uninitiated:
On Friday, Elon Musk promised to reveal “what really happened with the Hunter Biden story suppression by Twitter.” It turns out that he had provided a trove of internal corporate documents to the Tulsi Gabbard of Substack, Matt Taibbi, who said they amounted to a “unique and explosive story”—revealing the juicy details inside Twitter’s decision to suppress the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story, which had previously been rejected by such liberal outlets as Fox News and the Wall Street Journal due to its suspicious provenance. Taibbi agreed to divulge these private emails on Twitter itself rather than via his Substack as part of a “few conditions,” which he does not detail, that were imposed on him, presumably by Musk or a Musk factotum.
The documents Taibbi tweeted on Friday were titillating in the way that reading private correspondence revealing what people were really saying around a controversial subject always is, but nothing new was learned about the contours of the story. The leak mostly relitigates two facts that have already received much ink across the media: 1) How Twitter throttled the New York Post’s initial story about Hunter’s laptop based on what we now know was an incorrect assessment of its source; and 2) How political campaigns and government agencies have worked with social media companies—in this case Twitter—to flag troubling content.
On the first point, the emails confirm the essential consensus that has come into focus in reporting on the matter: Twitter got out over its skis on the ban and a typical corporate bureaucratic goat rope ensued as the company tried to “unfuck” the situation, as one employee put it. To say that this is not a new revelation would be an understatement given that Twitter’s former CEO Jack Dorsey admitted that this was a mistake over a year ago.
As such it was the latter point that drove the most hysterical discussion online on Friday.
The most retweeted installment in Taibbi’s thread (so far) was this, which purported to show the Biden campaign directing Twitter to delete specific tweets:
This supposed smoking gun resulted in Musk responding to his own journalistic stenographer on Twitter with a fire emoji and the comment “If this isn’t a violation of the Constitution’s first amendment, what is.” Musk was so impressed with this digital citizen’s arrest, that he made it his pinned tweet, after which the MAGA attaboys for Musky came hot and heavy.
Right-wing commentator Buck Sexton (real name), said this was a “bright red line violation” and that Biden should be IMPEACHED for it. Rep. James Comer (R-TN) was on Fox promising that everyone at Twitter involved with this would be brought before the House Oversight committee. Rep. Billy Long retweeted several MAGA influencers praising Elon for, among other things, “exposing corruption at the highest levels of society” (Projection Alert). Meanwhile Kari Lake hype man Pizzagate Jack Posobiec declared this the “biggest story in modern presidential election history,” claimed that “we can never go back to the country we were before this moment,” and donned this “a digital insurrection.”
In reality, all they really had was a digital erection.
The offending material that Taibbi revealed was removed by Twitter at the Biden campaign’s request turns out to have been a bunch of links to Hunter Biden in the buff.
There was a tweet from a Chinese account featuring a naked woman on top of Hunter Biden, as well as a family photo. Two pictures of Hunter Biden’s penis, one with another woman in the background. Taibbi’s next list of material was removed by Twitter after being flagged by the Democratic National Committee. They include a picture of Hunter Biden smoking crack and getting his feet rubbed and a link to a Hunter Biden sex tape.
And that’s the big hubbub. Social media company removes unwanted dick pics: News at 11...
And so on, and sadly there'll be no cock pix here, just more Killer observations ...
Meanwhile, over at The Bulwark, Charlie was in a fighting mood ...
But it's so hard, Charlie, to let go.
These are Killer's people ... and on Killer 1.0 there are good people on both sides ...
For what it's worth ...
Donald Trump has mocked rival Ron DeSantis over a resurfaced campaign video featuring excessive praise of the one-time president.
On Sunday, the Democrat-aligned Twitter account Patriot Takes shared an old DeSantis campaign ad from 2018 in which the then-candidate for Florida governor and his family swear fealty to Mr Trump in an over-exaggerated fashion.
Mr Trump himself responded to the clip going viral this week - as the pair ramp up their bitter battle over the GOP - by writing on Truth Social: “Thanks, Ron!”
In the video, Mr DeSantis’s wife is heard explaining all the ways that the governor is a good father, while her husband is seen teaching his infant daughter to “build the wall” with blocks and reading from Mr Trump’s book, “The Art of the Deal”.
At the end of the ad, Mr DeSantis is seen placing his infant daughter in a crib adorned with a large Trump flag.
The ad was part of Mr DeSantis’s 2018 campaign for governor, when the Republican rising star defeated his opponent Andrew Gillum by less than one percentage point and went on to turn his administration into a champion of conservative culture war issues. (Independent)
On Sunday, the Democrat-aligned Twitter account Patriot Takes shared an old DeSantis campaign ad from 2018 in which the then-candidate for Florida governor and his family swear fealty to Mr Trump in an over-exaggerated fashion.
Mr Trump himself responded to the clip going viral this week - as the pair ramp up their bitter battle over the GOP - by writing on Truth Social: “Thanks, Ron!”
In the video, Mr DeSantis’s wife is heard explaining all the ways that the governor is a good father, while her husband is seen teaching his infant daughter to “build the wall” with blocks and reading from Mr Trump’s book, “The Art of the Deal”.
At the end of the ad, Mr DeSantis is seen placing his infant daughter in a crib adorned with a large Trump flag.
The ad was part of Mr DeSantis’s 2018 campaign for governor, when the Republican rising star defeated his opponent Andrew Gillum by less than one percentage point and went on to turn his administration into a champion of conservative culture war issues. (Independent)
And so to the pond''s obligatory Tuesday ritual ... a kind of Angus Dei for coal ... (oh okay it's Agnus, but does the pond have to explain the pun, has that prize windmill-hating Angus bull already been forgotten?) ...with Dame Groan having her usual jolly good groan ..
.
The great thing about rituals is that there's never any need to think. Even a slight variation - such as a shot of a power grid rather than satanic windmills or solar panels ruining the world - can be absorbed into the ritual.
No need to think outside the grid, no need to mention climate science, no need to mention global warming and related issues ...
Sure there are stories out there, and quite recent too ... and Sky News was doing its bit regarding the royals...
But back to the groaning, and the great thing about Dame Groan is that she's never started putting the address on the climate science envelope, and is still in the business of shedding copious tears for gas and coal and all that jazz ...
Luckily the infallible Pope was out and about today to show how to win the hearts and minds of vulgar youff ...
Now back to the Groaner, because it's easy to ignore the cries of vulgar youff when your entire game is to focus on costs and yet be sublimely unaware of the costs being incurred on a planetary-wide level now and for the foreseeable dismal future ...
Little lumps in the dreck and dross of this day -
ReplyDeleteInterwoven with any mention of Hunter Biden is the deep investigative journalism of the unlovely Miranda Devine, who, unfortunately, seems still to be an Australian citizen, so we cannot disown her to our cousins across the water as we can with Rupert. She is, um, enjoying (?) something of a resurgence in recent days, being interviewed by Tucker.
To continue - Killer referring to ‘controversial’ radio show host Alex Jones. There is some nuance there to which I am not sensitised. Perhaps he - Killer - is collecting notes for a volume with Connor Court on Vlad Putin - public intellectual/conservative champion.
But wait - it comes with stake knives - our Dame skipping between sacred contracts inscribed in stone for the long term, and spikes in spot prices. But always leaving space for the standard caution that taking anything more than a pittance from corporations harvesting our fossil resources will just lead to lower investment - exactly as it did for Norway, or, as it is in the news now, Qatar.
Still - that does show that she still speaks fluent boardroom.
Now that sumer is icumen in, the bullshit isn’t even useful to warm the bare feet of our kiddies on frosty mornings - as so fondly recalled by readers of ‘Quad Rant’.
“Controversial” may be the most variable word used in commentary, used to describe everything from issues that have attracted some debate (eg, the government’s recent IR legislation) through to someone like Jones who even mainstream conservatives would agree is a delusional, opportunistic scumbag. The Reptiles also appear unaware that a crackpot running a fringe webcast site is not actually presenting a “radio show”, which would imply some sort of position in the mainstream media. But I suppose it’s a bit much for the likes of the Killer to be fussed with such fine details.
Delete"The gas crisis in Europe, for instance, predated the Ukraine war". Meh - the massive rise around February 2022 needs an explanation.
Deletehttps://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/natural-gas
"There is no doubt that the best solution to higher prices always is more supply". Well, domestically that is not true. Gas supply has gone up markedly but the price has gone up even more.
I know I am engaging in the same sort of simplistic interpretations as the reptiles but, you know, goose/gander. Perhaps if the world was swimming in gas the price would come down - shame about the planet.
Lastly, there is nothing sacred about contracts, the gas crises largely proceeds from governments repudiating contracts because they thought other things were more important. In the reptile world the theories are not to be questioned but that requires the facts to be ignored.
"the best solution to higher prices always is more supply". And there we go again: prices have continually been getting "higher" throughout my lifetime and yet, in almost every case, there's also been "more supply".
DeleteIs there anybody out there who actually takes any notice at all of what is happening all the time all over the world ? That prices, wages and supply have been in a continuing round of chasing each other's tails ever since 'free markets' were invented. And that they never will stop doing this whilst 'free markets' continue.
Yet more evidence of the strange and eerie power of the Groaner and her groaning, and why she's a cult, setting off not just Chadders, but BF and GB, as if sensible comments could possibly sway her from her mystically-charged path of distorting the marketplace with a deeply embedded climate science denialism and fervent love of fossil fuels ...
DeleteQuite entertaining in some respects: for the Groany the world never changes, it's always the same whereas for KillerC the world changes radically day by day: one day the Mighty Maga is the mighty maga, but next day he's something else.
DeleteWhereas the Mighty Maga actually changes by the hour - or however long it takes to make up a fresh bunch of lies.
“The answer to high prices is high wages” - what a rib-tickler that is from Jolly Judith. Except I have no idea what that means. Is it just another example of sloppy writing and editing (subbies - who needs ‘em?) and perhaps meant to be “the answer to high wages is high prices”? Or is that what actually passes for an amusing comment in Groanland?
ReplyDeleteI didn't realise that "high prices" is/was a question. I just thought it was the normal way of the 'free market' world. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but prices have been getting higher every year throughout my entire life. After all, a standard box of 50 matches cost the incredible price of one penneth-hapenny (1.5d) in 1944. What do you reckon they cost now ? (about $3.30 for a pack of 10 boxes of 45 matches per box, I think).
DeleteSo there it is: if prices increase every year, then, ipso facto, salaries and wages must increase every year in proportion. But then as soon as salaries and wages increase, so prices must also increase else we'd all end up very wealthy.
And that's the way of it: high prices are met by high wages that cause prices to rise which has to be met by higher wages and so on and so on and so on. And it cannot ever stop, can it.
KillerC: "Rapper Kanye West - who know calls himself Ye and is one of Trump's most prominent supporters..." Yeah, hoo needs subeds ? Besides, it was "Ye" who was saying Trump should support him - as Ye's Vice Pres candidate - not the other way around.
ReplyDeleteCan't these reptiles hear or read ?
Good to see you back GB, for a moment the pond was worried by the alarming silence ...
DeleteJust a painful runin with aging body parts and faulty posture, DP. Fortunately relatively treatable (whoever thought Voltaren actually worked ?).
Deletealso in the subby basket - if there were one - Killer invents Trump calling for Constitution to be "suspended" when Trump's in print - over and over and over - calling for "termination" of rules. Easy mistake to make I guess - both words have the letter "e" in them.
DeleteBut vc, that isn't the same as calling for the termination of the Constitution; even without any surviving rules, the Constitution would still be the Constitution on which the SCOTUS could just make up 'rules' as they do now.
DeleteThe pond's partner has been alternating between pain killers and physio. Too much time spent gazing at computer screens and then thinking you can bounce up like a 15 year old ...
DeleteAs for your suggestion VC, surely Killer was just wanting to avoid any comparison between his orange Jesus and the Daleks ...