In which the pond refuses to indulge the local media Mafia trying to carry out a hit job ...

 

It's always what the reptiles leave out that's more of interest than what the reptiles leave in ... like that story in the Graudian noted by an esteemed correspondent, Peter Dutton to be referred to national security watchdog over Benbrika case, judge says.

The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, may be investigated by the national security watchdog over the failure to disclose a crucial report that could have undermined efforts to impose post-sentence controls on convicted terrorist Abdul Nacer Benbrika.
The Victorian supreme court justice Elizabeth Hollingworth delivered a judgment on Wednesday that was scathing of Dutton’s handling of the undisclosed report while he was minister for the Australian federal police under the former government.

You won't find any of that in the lizard Oz headlines this day, as the reptiles seize the chance to bash the greenies for daring mention an ongoing genocide ...

So now Labor wants to travel in the company of the mutton Dutton and seek benediction from the reptiles and the bouffant one, occupying the far right 'top of the reptile world ma' position? 

Another good reason for abandoning them ...

What's perhaps more astonishing is that, the last time the pond checked, it's the 6th June in Australia, and therefore the eightieth anniversary of perhaps the most significant day in the second world war, and elsewhere King Chuck was out and about ...

Amazingly nary a note from the reptiles, while the Beeb managed to discover a couple of century+ old dames who'd contributed to the operation, now members of a rapidly disappearing tribe ...

Astonishing really, what happened to the jingoism of yore, especially as this was in truth a momentous day in the war, and not just a way for little England to remember dreams of Empire ...

More predictably, the reptiles also left out any mention of this ...

Naturally the story was featured in The Graudian and the Beeb ...

In his speech, Guterres announced new data from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) showing there is an 80% chance the planet will breach 1.5C (2.7F) in warming above pre-industrial times in at least one of the next five calendar years. The past 12 months have already breached this level, with the average global temperature 1.63C (2.9F) higher than the pre-industrial average from June 2023 to May this year, following a string of months with record-breaking heat, according to the European Union’s Copernicus monitoring system.

The Beeb even had a graph, which pleased the pond, recalling the days when the pond watched the ABC news and saw the finance report graphs, though perhaps this one wasn't so pleasing ...

The pond also felt inclined to throw in a celebratory cartoon or two ...

The infallible Pope spared a thought, reminding the pond of little Timmie Bleagh's poley bear jokes... how's his crusade in favour of tungsten light bulbs going? 

But the reptile hide is thicker than an elephant's or a polar bear's, and tougher than a field of rocks, and is impervious to graphs and 'toons, and a quick check down below the fold confirmed that the wretched rag hadn't paid any attention ...

Instead the outlandish performance by Michael Miller at the National Press Club was featured, together with a kowtowing effort by the lizard Oz editorialist ...

The pond isn't going to encourage these ratbags by offering their thoughts ... anyone who actually watched the Miller show on television would already have had more than enough of the man.

Instead the pond would like to take note of Mumbrella, yesterday reporting More executives fired in News Corp restructure.

As well as noting the fallen, the report ended with a promise more would fall:

Executive chairman Michael Miller confirmed last week in a staff email that “a number of roles will change and some impacted people will regrettably leave our business”.
“As we are now living at a time when the way news and information is created and consumed is changing faster than it has ever changed, we too must continue to evolve,” he said of the cuts.
More redundancies are expected in the next week; Miller promised staff last week that by June 12 they would receive “more information” on “what these changes mean for you and how teams will operate”, adding: “We will try to minimise these impacts as much as possible and will treat our affected colleagues with the utmost of respect.”

When Miller notoriously fronted the National Press Club, he was piously dressed as News Corp Australasia, so that he could blather on about "Australian values". 

News Corp Australia is of course a wholly owned subsidiary the American company News Corporation. Miller had a hack from Sky News on hand as a moderator, though little mention was made of the way that Sky News after dark besmirched and besoiled Australia (the Bolter was just a commentator offering opinions). With any luck, the hack moderator will someday get a job on the ABC.

Miller urged the Australian government to impose a social license on big tech, while astutely sidestepping any questions about a social license for the dung heap known as News Corp publications, just as he sidestepped the use of AI and Crikey-inspired questions about not paying tax and forming a substantial monopoly itself, and an SBS question about the anti-migrant campaign across the company (just an aberrant headline in the Terror, the company loved furriners).

Daanyal Saeedjun, who asked the Crikey questions, wrote up the experience in ‘Wasn’t intended to bully’: News Corp chair Michael Miller defends coverage of prominent women, Crikey travelled down to the nation's capital to watch News Corp's executive chair face the music at the National Press Club. (paywall)

SBS chief political correspondent Anna Henderson asked about fact-checking standards and accuracy, as well as content produced during the Voice referendum by the likes of News Corp commentator Andrew Bolt. Miller said he realised not everything the company produced was “liked by all, but that is part of what our democracy is, ensuring that various views are surfaced”.

Miller also disputed the premise of a question from the ABC’s Monte Bovill asking whether the level of News Corp reporting on the ABC was justified. In Senate estimates last week the ABC’s managing director David Anderson said the broadcaster hadn’t cowered to a “News Corp pile-on” over political journalist Laura Tingle’s recent comments that Australia was a “racist country”. While Miller refuted that News Corp was obsessed with the ABC, he made multiple mentions of the ABC’s Media Watch (he also mentioned the program in an interview on Radio National on Wednesday morning).

Asked by Crikey about whether News Corp’s tax record — the company paid no tax in Australia despite making $1.4 billion in profits in 2023 — was a model of a company that operated with a social licence, Miller dodged the question, insisting the company had “no issues with the tax department”. Further pressed by Crikey on the issue of media concentration, Miller said “Australians [have] never had more choice for media … we don’t have a monopoly on news.” 

That is of except for print papers in Queensland. 

Miller also decried the likes of Meta and X as “a protected species”, and told the Press Club that social media algorithms had “turned us into addicts”, with negative effects of social media felt by a generation of young people whose leading cause of death was suicide. 

At the end of the piece, there was at least a chuckle ...

One person told Crikey that the “irony was not lost” that a News Corp executive was speaking on social licences and corporate responsibility. 

The Graudian made a joke about it ...

News Corp chair hails ‘early wonder years of the internet’
The News Corp executive chair Michael Miller continues at the press club:
"No company should be too big to regulate. Let’s pause here and go back in time to those early wonder years of the internet and imagine for a moment we had a crystal ball.
If we could have looked into the future and seen a world where a handful of companies had privatised the internet, created multibillion-dollar advertising monopolies, and exposed billions of people to harmful content while turning their noses up at nations around the world, would we have been OK with that?"
(He is talking about big tech companies like Meta, in case you were wondering.)

The Graudian had a more extensive report in News Corp aren't 'obsessed' with the ABC, executive chairman says ...

Miller was in fine dissembling and deflecting form as he urged the Australian government to go it alone and to kick Meta out of the country, while mourning the way that News Corp kept on subscribing to Meta's platform as a necessity of doing business (never mind that News Corp could go it alone if it wanted to). 

Behind it all was a barely concealed resentment at Meta having stiffed News Corp, with the quest for a social license sounding very much like an attempt to shake down Meta and get them back to paying News a decent stipend.

The pond has never used Facebook but couldn't see how Meta was two legs bad, while Google was suddenly four legs good, except of course that Google pays a stipend.

It's the way that the Mafia does business, purporting community concern and making charitable donations, while running the rackets that depletes the community, and not wanting any competition while running the rackets, and resenting someone better at the rackets ...

Zuck and Meta have their own problems, what with the nonsensical Metaverse a gigantic piece of silliness, as the Crikey readership raged at Miller, with this from a reader passing as Hmmmm...

Hmmmm indeed ...

Watched and couldn’t help laughing at such a ridiculous performance. Miller might have been reading out a hysterical piece from one of NewsCorp’s scurrilous rags. I must say though, I wish I had one thousandth of his audacity. These past 60 years would have been a whole lot easier and so will whatever’s left to come.
Kudos to all the journalists who sat through that with a straight face.
So far, the Let Children be Children campaign has prompted four Letters to the Editor in our local rag – all from grandparents. Not a great return on all the pages devoted to the topic so far I suspect.
The whole thing got me wondering:
1. Does NewsCorp think this might be a way to attract a younger audience (of parents)?
2. Is the Coalition planning to wind up a massive election campaign going after social media whilst trying to convince us of its free speech credentials?
3. Are R&L planning a new social media platform and has the spruiking just begun?
4. Are R&L going to start promoting Truth Social?
Because not for one minute do I believe NewsCorp cares about Australian children or those Australian values continually referred to in that performance.
I also wondered how all the Australian small businesses who rely on Facebook will be reacting if they discover NewsCorp is seeking to have the platform banished from Australia, especially as spending is contracting.

Relax, the R&L inspired rage would immediately subside should Meta ever decide to resume making payments. 

Australian values would disappear out the door the moment there was cash in the paw, just as community values have nothing to say about Google and AI.

It was a reminder that the enemy of your enemy remains your enemy; the wolf at the door is just one of many wolves, and if you happen to be grandma or Little Red Riding Hood, be careful of the wolf that talks of Australian values to get your sympathy and invite you to dinner and a campaign for Australian values.

So it goes, and so News Corp remains a baleful influence on the country, and while taking out suits is all very well, the pond wants to know when there'll be a cleansing of the barking mad scribblers. 

Sadly Miller refused to mention numbers or names in his Press Club performance, as you'd expect of a power-crazed, furtive and secretive cult, but the pond has a list ...

As some day it may happen that a victim must be found
I've got a little list — I've got a little list
Of reptile offenders who might well be underground
And who never would be missed — who never would be missed!
There's the pestilential ratbags who write jeremiads 
And all the hacks who have flabby minds and irritating thoughts

"Ned", the dog botherer, the bromancer, the Dames, Groan and Slap
...but he task of filling up the blanks I'd rather leave to you
It really doesn't matter whom you put upon the list
For they'd none of 'em be missed — they'd none of 'em be missed!
(Chorus)
You may put 'em on the list — you may put 'em on the list;
And they'll none of 'em be missed — they'll none of 'em be missed!

But if the pond has ruled out reprinting naked Mafia shakedown material, what can run instead? 

There must be at least a little material for dedicated herpetology students...

Luckily Mein Gott was out and about yesterday, and although it was just a reheated tin of ancient beans, it would have to do ... what with Mein Gott not just a stunning expert on economic matters and on defence, but on the US election and the orange Jesus ...

Mein Gott is a little out of date ... the big story, which sent Morning Joe into a frenzy, was the hit job on Biden performed by the WSJ, quoting Kev McCarthy as the named source. The Hill wrote it up in White House fires back at Wall Street Journal over Biden story (the pond mentions this source because it should be paywall free).

Silly Kev and the WSJ forgot to mention some of the things he'd said in private conversations about Biden's mental acuity back when Kev was a thing ...

It was a classic whack job, as you'd expect from the Mafia media and a notorious liar seeking to curry favour ...

To be fair, the reptiles gave Mein Gott an abundant set of visual distractions ... even clustering them all together and neutering them wastes an inordinate amount of space...

Mein Gott went over some very old and stale ground ...

More to the point than Mein Gott's blather was the way that Fani had ground to a halt ... as reported in the Daily Beast (paywall)

A Georgia appeals court ruled on Wednesday that proceedings in the election interference case against Donald Trump and his co-defendants would be halted until the court decides whether District Attorney Fani Willis should be disqualified.

The decision is the latest legal move in the months-long saga into the Fulton County case alleging the former president and his allies attempted to subvert the Georgia 2020 presidential election. Since January, the case has been plagued with allegations of prosecutorial misconduct, revelations of a secret affair between Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and a former special prosecutor Nathan Wade, and a fiery televised evidentiary hearing.

The Wednesday ruling pauses the criminal case while the appeals court considers Trump and his co-defendants’ bid to disqualify Willis from the racketeering case. Tentative arguments on the appeal will be heard in October before Judges Trenton Brown, Benjamin Land, and Todd Markle. There is no set trial date for the criminal case.

So that one gets disappeared, while the Florida case disappeared long ago ... while Mein Gott struggles to keep up ...

Dear sweet long absent lord, of course breaking federal election law could have been an issue, but the actual law cited was a New York law ...

It's not like it was a carefully concealed secret ... most of the mainstream media mentioned it at the time ...

Merchan told jurors that the prosecutors only need to prove that Trump had the intent to commit or conceal another crime, rather than prove the other crime was committed or aided.

Prosecutors allege that Trump falsified the records to hide a violation of New York Election Law Section 17-152 – a rarely used law that prohibits groups from using unlawful means to influence an election.

Here's a link to Section 17-152 for the reptiles and for Mein Gott ... meanwhile ...

What a tired heap of old rubbish, and as the reptiles flooded Mein Gott with copious illustrations, he sputtered out in a final short gobbet ...

Not a nano second's thought as to the crucial question ... what Merchan might actually do with the orange Jesus when it comes to sentencing. 

For that you need a cartoonist ...

Killer was also out and about this day, and if you want a fatuous and meaningless comparison, why not compare an island with a country with a huge land border?

The pond appreciates Killer's attempt to be deliberately offensive by deploying the term "illegals", but to what avail?  

Killer might also have noted that Biden has also embarked on a tariff war with China, but possibly the illustrations distracted him ...

Frankly the pond is only in it for the comedy, as in Fuming Marjorie Taylor Greene Agrees the Republican Party Is ‘Useless’ (paywall)

Killer's fatuous comparison of an island nation with a nation with a long border simply doesn't cut the comedic mustard ...

It would be interesting to check out the employment behaviour of Republicans and Democrats alike ...

It's not news, it's been going on for years ... per this story in 2022 by Ruth Conniff in the Wisconsin Examiner ...

...Across the United States, employers in the construction industry as well as food service, hospitality and especially agriculture are heavily dependent on undocumented immigrant labor. All the racist immigrant-bashing you hear from Republican candidates like Michels is not just mean-spirited, it’s hypocritical. The Wisconsin road builders whom Michels led know they rely on undocumented immigrants. That’s why they opposed a bill that would take away lucrative contracts if they employed them.
For my new book, “Milked: How an American Crisis Brought Together Midwestern Dairy Farmers and Mexican Workers,” I spent a lot of time with Wisconsin farmers who voted in big numbers for former President Donald Trump, but who also employ undocumented immigrants. By some estimates, undocumented workers, mostly from Mexico, now do 80% of the work on Wisconsin dairy farms. (Because there is no U.S. visa program for year-round, “unskilled” farm work, dairy workers, unlike seasonal farm laborers, are almost all working in the U.S. without documents.)
I traveled to Mexico with a group of farmers who go every year to visit the families of their workers. They expressed a feeling of kinship and pride in the success of the hard-working people from rural Mexico who have spent years laboring on their farms and built homes and businesses back in Mexico with the money they make milking cows. 
These workers are carrying the economies of two places on their backs — rural Wisconsin, where they are doing the work that keeps our dairy industry going, and their rural villages in Mexico, where the money they send home rivals petroleum as a share of Mexican GDP, causing Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to praise them as “living heroes.”
Most of the Republican farmers I interviewed for my book voted for Trump because they were upset about the North American Free Trade Agreement and other bipartisan policies that have accelerated the “get big or get out” trend that is killing family farms in Wisconsin. Trump’s attacks on Mexicans made them uncomfortable, but they hoped he would shake up a system that for too long has not done enough for rural people.
To their credit, members of the Dairy Business Association have worked with the immigrant rights group Voces de la Frontera to set up skeleton crews on their farms that allowed their workers to take time off for a Day Without Immigrants rally and lobbying day at the Capitol in Madison. The workers delivered milk bottles to legislators’ offices with the slogan “Got Milk? Not Without Immigrants.” Among the issues they lobbied on that day were the restoration of driver’s licenses — which Republicans in our state Legislature took away from undocumented immigrants in Wisconsin in 2007 — and the defeat of a bill that would turn local law enforcement officers into immigration police. 
Lots of Republicans recognize the contributions of immigrants to our economy. As one Trump-voting farmer put it, admiring the way a whole community in Mexico pitched in to help someone build a house, “Small town Mexico, small town U.S.A. — same thing.”

And so on and on ...

It's a bit like deploring the gun violence and the gangsters in Mexico while making sure that US manufacturers of weapons can make out like bandidos ...

But Killer is only interested in a 'by the numbers' story ... and he's more titillated by conspiracy theories ...

Really? It's all a conspiracy to keep Democrats in power, and that established by quoting the conspiracy theorist in chief?

Is that the best that the media mafia can do, regurgitating whack jobs from a well-known whacker?

On the upside, it helps take the pond's mind off domestic defence problems ...

And with that at last came the final Killer gobbet, and the final fatuous comparison ...

On the upside, at least the pond didn't have to put up with another celebration of triumphant Hindu nationalism ...

The pond had spared itself a serve of barebones Babones blathering about the Indian elections, and was pleased instead to close with an immortal Rowe being provocatively offensive about religious fundamentalism ...