In which the pond almost misses out on US events thanks to the Caterist and the swishing Switzer, but then came the craven Craven ...

 

It goes without saying, and the pond will say it anyway, that the pond would rather vote for a corpse or someone deep in the grip of dementia rather than vote for that fraudulent narcissist orange Jesus snake oil salesman currently running the GOP as a cult, but then the pond doesn't have a vote, so it's no matter... but when the United States sneezes, the lizards of Oz catch a fever, and so it was this morning, with news of Joe dominating the top of the digital edition ...

Look at that ... simplistic, here no conflict of interest Simon and the Newspoll pushed right down to the bottom of the top of the digital edition ...

Naturally the bromancer was on hand to blame Joe for blowing up the democratic process - apparently the bro is still unaware of the attempted coup way back on 6th January 2021, which was just one of many attempts to blow up the democratic process ... and now the GOP is still backing the coup lover, an old man deep into his own form of dementia and still intent on blowing up the democratic process with a litany of lies ...

What a relief then to turn to the Caterist for a bog standard bout of climate science denialism, these days dressed up as a form of caring environmentalism and a deep disdain for any form of renewables ...

As usual, the Caterist effort was bedecked with snaps and a video clip featuring Twiggy and his henchmen ...

Bloody Twiggy, always blathering on about the science and wanting to do something about it.

Meanwhile, the Caterist ploughed on, doing a Slim Pickens impression of riding that bomb all the way to the ground ...

Around this point in a Caterist monologue, the pond likes to interrupt the quarries in flood waters whisperer with tales of the planet, with the pond's attention drawn to a recent (bad, desperate to appeal to vulgar youff) Beeb video on the permafrost. 

For some reason, it turned up in the pond's logarithms, though you might be better off heading to this New Scientist story ...

Things are looking pretty grum (to speak Kiwi about it, especially as the Kiwis have abandoned any interest in action), and the pond doesn't mind a few mis-steps along the way for those aware of the unfolding crisis and trying to do something about it. 

The Caterist's response is simply to sail on serenely and sublimely unaware, or perhaps just sit on his arse, with his finger deeply entrenched within it ...

Meanwhile, what of the planet, with the gloating Caterist not giving a toss? 

Sadly The Conversation's tag on the topic only leads to a gloom deeper than enduring the Caterist, and things get no better when you click on the carbon emissions tag, or the global warming tag ...but at least you won't get brain rot ... though you might be pleased to discover baby bull sharks are booming as the Gulf of Mexico warms.

Back to the usual Caterist bull for a final short gobbet ...

That blather about a neo-Marxist fantasy from a fellow deep into government cash in the paw at the MRC and even worse, the  Orbán fellow travelling DI, is surely worth a cartoon ...

Any chance of the Caterist being convicted of climate crimes in due course?

Meanwhile, the swishing Switzer had fallen from the pond's eye (or ear) of late, but he was back to promote a new campaign ... and naturally, being a prize maroon, it featured "virtue signalling", with the pond never sure which sounded more stupid, "virtue signalling" or "woke" ...

Toadying to so-called progressive agendas? Ah, yes, what was that in Luke?

... I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you,

Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you.

And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; and him that taketh away thy cloak forbid not to take thy coat also.

Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again.

And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.

For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them.

And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same.

And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? for sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again.

But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.

Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.

Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven:

Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.

Phew, talk about a heaps big dose of woke virtue signalling. 

Best not carry on with him spaking that parable about the mote in the eye and rampant hypocrisy ...

It gets worse elsewhere. What virtue signalling woke mind virus thought it was good to open the preamble this way?

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

At least they left womyn and slaves out of it, as any swishing Switzer would do, but the bloody pedants somehow thought that womyn and slaves might be peeple and so you end up with this ...

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Promote the general welfare? What were they on, promoting that sort of woke progressive agenda ...

Meanwhile, there was the usual array of snaps because nothing says swishing Switzer like a snap of Nigel making plans...

It's really tedious noting all the snaps used as spacer, but it's even more tedious taking the Switzer straight, with no breaks ...

Yep, it's time to return to black bashing and Woollies in relation to Australia Day - perhaps it was a bit too early in the season to revive the war on Xmas and Xians ...

There you go, there's the swishing Switzer sticking up for Nigel ... busy making plans ... and so to the final gobbet and the punchline ...

There's something sublime, or perhaps fully sick, about the swishing Switzer, who once happily took a dollar or two wearing a cardigan at the ABC, now rabbiting on about Milton Friedman and feral, unrestrained, nihilistic, destructive capitalism ... all the more so as the CIS itself is clearly a corporate activist of the first water...

As for the planet? Well the Caterist already established it was fucked, and the swishing Switzer is just hammering a nail into the coffin ... because if you only go into business to make money, why should you care about the way your business might happen to be driving the planet into the ground? Or ruining lives or flogging vapes or cancer sticks, or whatever else, so long as there was a buck to be made ...

What a stupid maroon he is, and a likely devotee of the cult of the orange Jesus, who mainly went into business to make bankruptcies and sell nonsense ...

The pond was reminded of a piece by David Frum in The Atlantic (paywall) - the pond had never imagined quoting Frum approvingly, but this suited the moment ...

...The Trump theory of his presidency is that Trump deserves credit for the good times of 2017, 2018, and 2019 and no discredit for the crisis of 2020. But both halves of that are backwards. The economy started growing fast in 2014, so Trump arrived in office just in time to claim credit for work that had been done by his predecessors. Managing crises is what Americans hire presidents to do, but Trump’s crisis management was almost uniquely bad. He responded to the pandemic with a blend of denial, callousness, and quackery; then he responded to 2020’s nationwide spasm of riots and the crime spike that occurred on his watch by casting blame upon others.

One of Trump’s skills is that he is a superb marketer of terrible products. Anybody can promote a great steak or an elegant hotel, but Trump’s a genius at touting bad steaks and tacky resorts as if they were actually quality items. He’s doing the same with his record as president. He wants accolades for the strong economy in place when he arrived, while he effaces the memory of the wreck he bequeathed.

The truth is that Trump’s record as president was the same as his record as a businessman: rich until the inheritance ran out.

If only the swishing Switzer was as good at being a bad salesman ...

And that naturally leads to the bonus for the day, though it's a fair argument that a serve of the craven Craven is more an insult than a bonus ...

The pond didn't expect anything better from the craven Craven than playing the Godwin's Law card, but that does free the pond up to note the way that the Catholic church and Xians generally are riven by corruption and crime, and the easiest way to have a go at their enemies is to pronounce them heretics and to cast them into hellfire for all eternity ...

There were the usual set of distracting snaps to accompany this celebration of the right to break laws ...

The craven Craven won't have a bar of juries, and naturally is onside with the deeply corrupt SCOTUS and coup lovers storming the Capital ... it's all just political ...

It would be tedious to point out the errors and omissions in that bundle of both siderism claptrap, but dragging the Clintons into this is part of the tawdry craven Craven game. It really does stick in the intestines, this love of coup lovers ...

The pond will just settle for a re-write of the opening line in the next tawdry gobbet ...

It should begin ... "Take the charge - so far accepted by twelve jurors, peers of the mango Mussolini - who convicted the orange Jesus for breaching election laws in the state of New York ..."

You could do an extensive rewrite of the rest of the craven Craven's carry on, but the pond's patience began to wear thin ...

As for the misrepresentation of the deeply corrupt SCOTUS and the implications of its ruling, and the deeply corrupt Justice Thomas, making out like a bandit in approved swishing Switzer style, or the hint in his ruling seized on by the kowtowing Judge Cannon, and then throw in the notion that it's all a Democrat conspiracy,  and what have you got left?

Why you've got the mango Mussolini as a habitual breaker of laws, and a a habitual escaper from any form of punishment, and with the full approval of the craven Craven, because those tykes just love criminals who can get away with it ... just look at the Papacy ...

As for the rest, you can't get much lower than using an attempted assassination and the sight of blood to overlook the behaviour of the conspirator in chief and the deaths, blood and mayhem that erupted on January 6th. Unless you happen to be a craven Craven ...

If the craven Craven's arguments were followed to their logical conclusion, he would have politicians escape from the consequences of criminality, up there and down under ...

Pardon the pond if it doesn't think that a tiff about superannuation somehow equates to an attempted coup and a storming of the Capital, or the stealing and deliberate withholding of nuclear secrets, or even corrupting election laws

... and so, with the craven Craven's permission, the orange Jesus rambles on. 

If the pond and Frum had their way, he'd be convicted of the crime of boredom, tinged with the crime of dementia ...

At the climax of the Republican National Convention last night, former President Donald Trump’s nomination-acceptance speech was a disheveled mess, endless and boring. He spoke for 93 minutes, the longest such speech on record. The runner-up was another Trump speech, in 2016, but that earlier effort had a certain sinister energy to it. This one limped from dull to duller.

Somebody seems to have instructed Trump that he was supposed to have been spiritually transformed by the attempt on his life, so he delivered the opening segment of his address in a dreary monotone, the Trump version of pious solemnity. After that prologue, the speech meandered along bizarre byways to pointless destinations. A few minutes before midnight eastern time, Trump pronounced a heavy “to conclude”—and then kept going for another nine minutes. Perhaps it was the disorienting aftereffect of shock, perhaps the numbing side effect of painkillers.

Whatever the explanation, Trump demonstrated in Milwaukee that President Joe Biden is not the only national politician diminished by the years. Trump too is dwindling into himself, even more isolated from such facts about the external world as elapsed time and audience impatience.

And now perhaps there are other, more significant crimes in the offing ...