In which the bromancer wins the pond's Saturday hunger game ...

 

The pond is currently only up to the task of looking at one reptile a day. 

In past heroic times, the pond might tackle two, or even three reptiles in a day, a bit like ascending a Neddy Everest and then heading off to climb a bromancer K2 (nobody can produce a higher pile of drivel than "Ned").

There's an upside to the pond's indifference because the pond can start the day relaying invaluable information  provided yesterday by the keen Keane in Crikey, under the header News Corp, Santos, Qantas and other tax dodgers make up the usual suspects in latest tax data, News Corp, Transurban and Santos are yet again Australia's top tax dodgers, the latest tax data shows, while the big miners paid full freight (paywall):

Thanks to a handy search function in the yarn, the pond could cut to the chase and get the relevant figures for those who take an interest in the reptiles at the lizard Oz:

As for that company name, it's easy enough to find out the sordid details of a wholly American owned subsidiary offering hate, fear, loathing, contempt and division to the abject colonials, anxious to maintain the Emeritus Chairman and his spawn in the power and money they've become accustomed to ...

Pay tax to the colonials while flooding the land with right wing propaganda? What land above the Faraway Tree to do you live on?

And so to the tax-free drivel fest choice of the day, and here the pond was lucky in its choices, because the bro was by far the best option. 

Sure he drivelled on enormously, but with Dame Slap doing over Albo, yet again, re Joyce (at least she's briefly off her Lehrmann jag), and the dog botherer and "Ned" both doing Covid, there was no contest. (Incidentally Covid hasn't gone away - the pond's partner's office was shut down because of a plethora of cases and her mother's care home was shut down twice in the last month as infection stalked the oldies).

Come on down bro, pick of the day, sock it to the pond with Democrat blunders revive Trump’s fortunes, but can he close the deal?, It’s not so much that Americans must choose the lesser of two evils but that they face the evil of two lessers. After this exhausting, unbelievable contest, the momentum is with the strange guy with orange hair.

Yes, the bro is calling it for the Mango Mussolini (hereinafter MM), which is hardly a surprise if you caught up with the venerable Meade's Weekly Beast, News Corp’s The Australian pitches itself firmly in Trump tent at Madison Square Garden rally:

The Australian’s Washington correspondent, Adam Creighton, was at least upfront about where his publication stands when he filed his report for Monday’s paper from Donald Trump’s rally in Madison Square Garden
By 10.30am local time at least 3,000 supporters, including The Australian, were lined up to enter what will be remembered as the signature Trump rally, which featured a roll call of MAGA celebrities including for the first time on the campaign trail his wife, Melania, the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, ex-Fox News host Tucker Carlson, and former Democrat scion Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
It may have been unfortunate phrasing to include himself among the 3,000 Trump supporters but if it was accidental the newspaper’s editors made no attempt to correct it by Friday.
Unlike much of the press who described the comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s joke about Puerto Rico as racist, Creighton merely said it was “off colour”.
“Democrats seized on an off-colour joke by the first speaker on the program, Tony Hinchcliffe, an up and coming Republican-aligned comedian, who joked about Hispanics’ alleged proclivity to have children, and described Puerto Rico as a ‘floating island of garbage,’” he wrote.
For comparison the New York Times report was headlined: “Trump at the Garden: A Closing Carnival of Grievances, Misogyny and Racism”
NBC News: “Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally overshadowed by his allies’ crude and racist remarks.”

Sorry for that detour, but there was some delicious stuff assembled by the venerable Meade this week, and besides she's kept the pond informed of reptile matters this past month,  and besides, how could the pond miss out on such Killer fun? 

Back to the bro. His piece was littered with snaps and videos, with the first carrying the caption Kamala Harris could still win, but the polls, and the wind, seem to be at Donald Trump’s back. Collage: Emilia Tortorella:

Oh dear, the pond is accustomed to more high end graphics, but to be fair the word stew that followed matched the collage:

It looks like Trump! After this exhausting, unbelievable contest, the momentum is with the strange guy with orange hair. Kamala Harris could still win, there’s still a strong chance of that in this statistically tantalising race, but the polls, and the wind, seem to be at Donald Trump’s back.
It was the best of campaigns – for drama; it was the worst of campaigns – for substance. It was a campaign of reason – in the vice-presidential debate; it was a campaign of madness – in the presidential debate. It was the campaign of hope – for each side as it surged; it was the campaign of despair – for each side as it was eclipsed. It was the campaign of constant movement – with more variables and moving parts than a moon shot; it was the campaign of monotonous sameness – the polls like a giant waterfall, always changing yet always the same.
We are all going direct to heaven, according to Trump, so long as America elects him. In that case, we are all going directly the other way, says Harris. But if we elect her, we will be surprised by Joy, so the Harris campaign proclaims. But if America does that, we are all going direct to hell, according to Trump, and from there there’s no redemption.

 Then, with the reptiles realising readers might drop off without a snap of the MM, up came another snap with the caption We are all going direct to heaven, according to Donald Trump, so long as America elects him. Picture: AFP

The pond would have preferred a 'toon ...

On the bro ranted ...

America is intensely polarised, full of mutual hatreds and recriminations. Each side is as bad as the other when it comes to ripping up the rule book and violating previously sacred norms. Each side – whether partisan Republicans of the conservative, cultural, nationalist, conspiracist or even libertarian inclination; or partisan Democrats obsessed with identity politics, green fantasies, racial reparations payments, Western and American historical, racial, economic and sexist perfidy, gender theory, policing speech, whatever – sees the other side as the embodiment of all evil.

Harris, her vice-presidential running mate Tim Walz, President Joe Biden and their designated surrogates accuse Trump of being a fascist, and routinely compare him to Hitler and his movement to American Nazism. This is clearly insane, but Democrats have talked themselves into this dark fantasy.

If Trump were a Nazi, it’s not his supporters but his opponents who would have gone to jail. If he were a Nazi, he wouldn’t have the support of the overwhelming majority of Orthodox Jews, not to mention a majority of Catholics, and rising support among Hispanics and blacks. If he were a Nazi, half of America wouldn’t be preparing to vote for him.

But because they see him as a Nazi, the Democrats believe anything is justified in stopping him, such as court cases that are a flagrant abuse of process, with astronomical financial penalties that are equally an abuse of process, or media bias of a stunning severity and consistency, and countless straight-out lies.

There have been two assassination attempts on Trump during this campaign. In one he took a bullet to the ear. It’s surely the height of irresponsibility and norm-breaking to label him the modern Hitler.

At this point came the first video offering, here rendered as a screen cap:

The caption reminded the pond why it was pleased not to have to deal with this sort of visual detritus and Sky News collateral fodder:

The Australian’s Foreign Editor Greg Sheridan has weighed in on US President Joe Biden's latest “dumb” remarks against Trump supporters. It comes as Biden took a swipe at a comedian from Donald Trump’s recent Madison Square Garden rally who referred to Puerto Rico as a "floating island of garbage". Mr Biden then proceeded to label Trump supporters as "garbage". “This is so dumb … don't attract his supporters. So half of America has suddenly been insulted by Joe Biden, whom Kamala Harris wants to be in hiding and not seen in public,” Mr Sheridan told Sky News host Steve Price. “So he couldn't have done more to sabotage her.”

It's funny to remember all the times that the MM raged at Democrats as Marxists, Commies and Fascists (the words mean little in his word salads). It seems the bro can't take a joke:

At this point, the pond decided to take a detour to Marina Hyde's outing Trump may become president again – but he’s already a useful idiot to the mega rich, mainly because it featured the bro's Master, the Chairman Emeritus, in the opening salvo:

During his term as US president, there was an established routine to Donald Trump’s evenings in public service. When he got into bed at 6.30pm with the big cheeseburger and the bucket of Diet Coke – boudoir TVs set to “channels talking about me” – Trump liked nothing more than yakking on the phone to this billionaire or that. He whined, he bitched, he divulged, and when they finally ended the call, whichever billionaire had been on the other end of the line promptly called one of the other billionaires to laugh about it all behind his back.

“What a fucking idiot,” Rupert Murdoch once remarked after getting off a call with Trump in which Murdoch had had to explain that actually, the Silicon Valley elite did not “need” Trump’s help, as he imagined, having just enjoyed eight years where they “practically ran” the Obama administration. Obviously, Murdoch’s a notorious bitch; almost the Regina George of it all. But – also obviously – he was one of the special guys officially given “cleared caller” status in Trump’s White House, meaning they could get through to him any time. Plastics gotta plastic.

Sob, after the pleasure there's always pain, and so it was back to the bro tipping the fucking idiot as the winner:

Trump, for his part, is as bad, calling Harris variously a Marxist, a bum, a low-IQ person, persisting with his demented lie that he actually won the 2020 election but it was stolen from him by ballot fraud, and that the Democrats could well steal this one too; and that if Americans should elect Harris, the nation will never recover, it may be the last election people get to vote in. Oh, and illegal immigrants are eating domestic cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio. Like the Democrats calling Trump a new Hitler, this stuff is insane.

(Note the discreet way that the bromancer fails to mention the way that the MM flung around the word "fascist" like a drunk in charge of the confetti at a wedding. Never mind, on with the weevils routine).

It’s not so much that Americans must choose the lesser of two evils but that they face the evil of two lessers.

Yet Trump and Harris are both plainly sane people; most Americans are perfectly sane, America is generally a sane, friendly, productive society. Some amalgam of the dizzy fact-free fantasies of social media, combined with the dominance of celebrity dynamics everywhere, the modern bias against seriousness, the plague of distraction, the hydra-headed growth of multivalent conspiracy communities, the plain mediocrity of so many institutions, the collapse of belief in transcendent truth, or any kind of truth, the hollowing out of education – all of these things together have produced this weird campaign, disconnected from reality and floating free above the mundane earth, blown by unpredictable cosmic breezes of random malevolence.

The story of the campaign is surely completely implausible. If the script writers of Homeland had juiced up their conspiracies a thousand times they couldn’t have come up with this sequence.

After the 2022 midterm congressional elections, Trump looked a busted flush. The Republican candidates most closely aligned with him, most backed by him, did poorly, much less well than more conventional Republicans. Republicans barely took the House of Representatives and made no impression in the Senate. At that stage, Trump was being well out-polled among Republican likely primary voters by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

A Democratic district attorney in Manhattan then took the single most ludicrous legal case against Trump – that he misrecorded the nature of hush money his organisation had allegedly paid to porn star Stormy Daniels – and turned it, unbelievably, into felony charges. This is a blatant and grotesque abuse of the legal process.

Initially Democrats got what they wanted, making Trump the centre of attention, leading Republicans, rightly enraged by the sick cynicism of the case, to rally around Trump, running other Republican contenders out of the contest. It was also meant to fatally damage Trump with the broader electorate. It failed at that.

But Trump was Biden’s only chance. Biden has been a poor President with a dismal record. America’s budget deficit is near enough 7 per cent of GDP, year after year. This year the US spent more on servicing debt than it spent on defence.

Cue anther useless illustration, with accompanying caption, and never mind minor details such as Wall Street making out like record-breaking bandits, unemployment low, inflation in check, the economy in good shape, Joe Biden has been a poor President with a dismal record. Picture: AFP:

At this point, the pond would like to revert to the Hyde, still marinating over Murdoch and his billionaire chums:

So yes – much as I am enjoying all the miles of complex in-depth coverage wondering what it is the current crop of Trump-backing billionaires want from him, I can’t help being reminded of a remark by the tech billionaire in Succession who is attempting to buy into American power and is attending a pre-election party. “I thought these people would be very complicated,” he reflects. “But they’re not. It’s basically just money and gossip.” “Oh yeah, that’s all there is,” comes the reply. “Money and gossip.”

Kamala Harris has more billionaires backing her, we keep hearing in news I think is supposed to be a matter of accomplishment for the vice-president. But the particular billionaires pulling for Trump stand on the potential threshold of huge money-and-gossip times. Among the mogul class’s truths-universally-acknowledged is the idea that money is best obtained via deregulation and tax cuts – and, in the case of, say, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, ever-more lucrative government contracts. As for how gossip is obtained … People say showbiz is mean and gossipy, but there really is no business as mean and gossipy as “mogul”. Money does not buy you happiness but it totally buys you a better quality of gossip, with the likes of Murdoch, Bezos, Steve Wynn, Stephen Schwarzman and all the others operating at an absolute weapons-grade level.

The gossip-money continuum is sort of everything to these guys, and most of them see Trump as their useful idiot. Or useful fucking idiot, in Murdoch’s case.

Speaking of useless fucking idiots, back to the bro:

“A great power which spends more on debt than on its military doesn’t stay a great power for long,” according to British historian Niall Ferguson. US federal debt today is more than $US35 trillion ($53 trillion).

Biden’s wildly extravagant spending, while unsustainably juicing up the macro US economy in the short term, led to savage inflation that hit the wealth, such as it is, of both low-income and middle-class Americans.

Biden has been weak internationally. He didn’t deter the Taliban in Afghanistan, nor Russia’s Vladimir Putin, nor Iran, nor China’s Xi Jinping from militarisation and aggressive actions in the South China Sea, and in the air and waters around Taiwan and Japan. But all these dictators deterred Biden.

Worst, Biden, unlike any previous Democrat president, but in thrall to the left wing of his party and determined to reverse Trump’s controversial actions, abandoned any serious attempt to control America’s southern border so that millions of illegal immigrants, drawn not just from Latin America but all over the world, walked into the US.

Even Biden, well certainly his handlers, realised he couldn’t run on that record, so he decided to manoeuvre Trump into the candidacy, then make the election not a referendum on Biden, as most attempts at a second term are a referendum on the incumbent, but a referendum on Trump.

Harris has inherited Biden’s strategy in full. This has led to one of the remarkable paradoxes of the campaign. Trump won in 2016 because many of the populist things he said were true and resonated with ordinary Americans – why have we sent so many of our factories to China, why are old industrial and mining towns economic wastelands, why are these limousine liberals always mocking America, why doesn’t someone call out China for its trade cheating, why are our allies military freeloaders?

Oh yes, on with the trade wars, and tariffs as a form of tax on the Chinese, at least if you join Alice in Wonderland in the economics-free rabbit hole.

At this point came another caption, with screen capped video: Wonder Land: Rather than accept Ms. Harris's 'return on investment' response to her spend and tax agenda, Donald Trump and the media should ask her if she ever disagreed with President Biden's economic policy.

Then came a long bro burst:

By 2020, Trump had a defensible record as president, even taking account of Covid. But all through that campaign he talked about himself – his persecution at the hands of congressional Democrats and their sympathisers in the media, the machinations of the so-called deep state, the lies told about him, the persecution of his allies.

As a result, not enough people heard a compelling reason to vote in favour of Trump. They didn’t hear anything about how he was going to make their lives better.

Now, in 2024, it’s as if the two campaigns have switched sides. Harris and the Democrats talk only of Trump, their only political rationale to demonise and oppose him. Theirs is a two-word slogan: Not Trump!

Although the Democrats have hundreds of millions of dollars more campaign money than Trump, and the overwhelming support of the media/entertainment/academic woke-industrial complex, it doesn’t seem to be enough.

Early on in the campaign Trump began to hurt Biden badly by calling him out on three key issues – illegal immigration, the cost of living, and crime. Further, Biden was manifestly unfit to serve as President. Trump opened a small but significant lead. In the first presidential debate, on June 27, Trump performed a political assassination. Each candidate had his respective microphone turned off when the other guy was scheduled to speak.

Biden was at his absolute incoherent worst, failing to finish sentences, thoughts completely muddled. Trump’s (enforced) silence enabled Biden to strangle himself. For the only time in his life, Trump showed not only wit but restraint.

“I have no idea what he said just then,” Trump remarked after a Biden sentence had collapsed, “and neither does he.”

Then the first assassination attempt was made on Trump and, miraculously, a bullet grazed his ear. Whatever you think of Trump generally, he showed great personal courage through this. Then Iranian agents tried to hire a hit man to kill Trump. This was revealed by intelligence agencies run by Biden’s administration and confirmed in court. Yet hardly anyone seemed to take any notice.

At that point Trump looked a certain winner. This led to two moments of hubris from Trump. The Republican convention was brilliantly staged, right up to the 30th minute of Trump’s acceptance speech, which to that point was gracious and magnanimous. But then, as ever, Trump’s instinct for self-sabotage kicked in and he spoke at inordinate length and in his old rancorous tone.

The other moment of hubris was choosing JD Vance as his running mate. At first Vance was disastrous because of some foolish things he’d said on cable TV. In due course, he turned out to be a major asset for Trump, but not initially.

Only an Opus Dei addict could see Janus Vance as an asset, but that's the bro for you, and sure enough there came a snap with fawning caption, JD Vance turned out to be a major asset for Donald Trump, but not initially. Picture: AFP

Don't get fooled by the "finally" that starts this selection. The bro likes to rabbit on:

Finally, Biden was humiliated and badgered into standing down. Biden endorsed Harris, his Vice-President. Barack and Michelle Obama and their team were working for her behind the scenes. On paper, Harris was a pretty terrible candidate. She’d achieved nothing as Vice-President and made a mess of the southern border when for five minutes she had responsibility for it. Biden had chosen her in part because she was so mediocre and had been so insignificant in the Democratic primary that he thought she would never be an alternative to him.

But then the overwhelming relief of all the Democrat establishment flowed into positive energy for Harris, who was crowned as the candidate even though she had never won a vote in a Democratic primary.

She then became a media celebrity creation. She was allowed to avoid all press conferences, long-form interviews, any scrutiny at all, really.

Hollywood manufactured her as the contemporary feminist woke version of Mr Smith Goes to Washington. She was running on the vibe. For one crazy moment her slogan was “Joy”, as vacuous as any slogan could be.

This is of course old grist in a quaint mill, what with Harris having got out and about and the MM ducking and weaving away from mainstream media and shows like 60 Minutes, but it was worth a snap with the caption Kamala Harris became a media celebrity creation. Picture: AP:

Speaking of media celebrity creation, the bro proceeded to recycle the French lies routine:

Trump was his old overbearing self in their one televised debate. The TV moderators relentlessly presented Trump as a pathological liar and Harris as the saint of all virtue. Momentum switched to her. Trump got grumpy, foul-mouthed, forgot his key messages and spent his time complaining.

But Trump is protean. Nothing with him is permanent, even bad performance. He changed the dynamics. Robert Kennedy, of the Kennedy immortals, running as an independent, dropped out and endorsed Trump. b Vance clobbered Walz in their vice-presidential debate. Vance did two critical things: he put the Biden-Harris record front and centre, and he stopped the Harris momentum.

Then Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, not only endorsed Trump, not only gave his campaign desperately needed cash in huge quantities, but became Trump’s most enthusiastic backer.

Trump did a pretend shift at a McDonald’s, serving fries. The invocation of American popular culture drove Democrats mad. No, no, no, they railed, he’s not an authentic person. Harris claimed she had really worked at McDonald’s, but no one could work out where or when. Was this a case of the stolen valour of the french fries?

That was accompanied by a video celebration, with the caption Donald Trump claimed, without evidence, that his opponent Kamala Harris lied about her previous work experience at McDonald’s during his visit to the fast food restaurant near Pennsylvania:

Perhaps it was an attempt at balance - who could swallow the French lies routine? - but in reality it was a reminder that the bro, much like his MM hero, is a policy free zone, but loves himself some of that media French lies celebrity stunting (strange how that stumble to the garbage truck went missing):

But as Bob Carr once remarked, Trump is a genius without talent. So he was all set for a triumphant Madison Square Garden rally but some idiot on his staff booked a comedian who told a racist joke, calling Puerto Rico garbage.

It looked as though Trump once more had sabotaged himself, his genius as lethal to his own interests as to those of his opponents. Yet the fates seem with Trump this time.

Biden rode to Trump’s rescue, labelling Trump’s supporters garbage. Biden had wanted to do a joint campaign appearance with Harris but she treated him like he had the plague. Biden could not more effectively have sabotaged Harris than with the garbage line, recalling Hillary Clinton dismissing Trump’s supporters as “a basket of deplorables”.

Neither Trump nor Harris has remotely grappled with America’s immense fiscal, social or geo-strategic challenges in this bizarre campaign. Both presidencies are utterly unpredictable. Harris has implausibly promised to implement many of Trump’s policies, while everything Trump says is, at best, a starting point for negotiation. But deplorables have a tendency to rebel, deplorably.

You can’t be sure, but it looks like Trump.

If it looks like Trump, we have a pretty good idea of what the USA will look like:

The pleasing thing about doing only one reptile is that the pond can indulge in other matters. 

There was no way the bromancer could mention Tucker, cast out from Faux Noise into the freelance wilderness, but together with RFK Jr and his whale and his bear, Tucker has been a most excellent part of the circus.

It perhaps reached peak form with a turn celebrated by Arwa Mahdawi in the Graudian, in Tucker Carlson is fantasizing about Daddy Donald Trump spanking teenage girls:

...Carlson’s spanking fantasy encapsulates everything supporters love about the presidential candidate

Rather than ignoring Trump, as he was once so excited to do, however, Carlson – who was booted from Fox News last year – seems to have become a confidant of the ex-president and is now making disturbing speeches on his behalf. During the rally Carlson, who has three adult daughters, compared the US under Trump to a naughty girl being disciplined by her father. “If you allow your hormone-addled 15-year-old daughter to slam the door and give you the finger, you’re going to get more of it,” Carlson said. “There has to be a point at which Dad comes home.” At this point the crowd erupted into raucous cheers.

“Dad comes home and he’s pissed,” Carlson continues. “He’s not vengeful, he loves his children. Disobedient as they may be, he loves them … And when Dad gets home, you know what he says? You’ve been a bad girl. You’ve been a bad little girl and you’re getting a vigorous spanking right now. And no, it’s not going to hurt me more than it hurts you. No, it’s not. I’m not going to lie. It’s going to hurt you a lot more than it hurts me. And you earned this. You’re getting a vigorous spanking because you’ve been a bad girl, and it has to be this way.”

Clearly this struck a chord with the crowd. Later, when Trump came on stage, they screamed “Daddy’s home” and “Daddy Don”. Sigmund Freud almost rose from his grave.

That reminded the pond of an ancient Zappa song:

If she were my daughter, I'd

What would you do, daddy?

If she were my daughter, I'd

What would you do, daddy?

If she were my daughter, I'd

What would you do, daddy?

Smother my daughter in chocolate syrup

And strap her on again, oh baby

Smother that girl in chocolate syrup

And strap her on again

Don't ask the pond why it remembers chocolate syrup, just know that if Freud were to rise again, he simply couldn't handle it:

But Tuckyo understands the imperative. 

Always get in the public eye, always be in the face, always say whatever to attract attention:

The pond wandered off to the WSJ just to hunt out the demon references in a profile done a while ago, back on 18th July by Bojan Pancevski,  Inside the Strange New World of Tucker Carlson, A visit to the former Fox News host’s Maine home shows why he’s become a spokesman for millions of Americans disillusioned by mainstream politics (paywall).

More like spokesweird:

...What ensued was an extraordinary five-hour discussion of his familiar and less familiar preoccupations, ranging from his critique of what he calls U.S. imperialism and “gay race ideology,” to his disgust with America’s current political system, admiration for Putin’s leadership, hatred of social media and belief in aliens as manifestations of demons and angels.

...Some of his own views certainly qualify as extreme. For instance, he dismisses climate change as a “climate lie,” claims that the CIA killed President John F. Kennedy and that the government hasn’t told the truth about 9/11. He also holds some esoteric beliefs: He insists that UFO sightings are in fact spiritual events that ancient societies and the Bible rightly understood to be visitations by angels and demons.

...During the lawsuit filed by the voting-machine company Dominion against Fox for its reporting of election fraud in the 2020 election, Carlson’s private messages to executives were made public in court documents. In them he vehemently rejected the election-fraud conspiracy that he repeatedly aired on his show and said he loathed President Trump, calling him a “demonic force.” 

...Standing in the shadow of a statue of Peter the Great, Putin told Carlson in a hushed voice, he says, that he was worried that his invasion of Ukraine might escalate into a nuclear conflict—Putin himself has repeatedly raised that prospect as a threat—and complained that he hadn’t spoken with President Biden since the war started. According to Carlson, Putin voiced what he said was his frustration and alleged, without evidence, that some members of the Biden administration with family roots in today’s Ukraine were obstructing peace efforts.

Carlson then indulged one of his own peculiar obsessions, quizzing Putin about the secret Soviet files on Rudolf Hess, Adolf Hitler’s deputy who defected to Britain in 1941 and allegedly told interrogators that the Nazi leader had been possessed by demons. A practicing Christian with a degree in history, Carlson says “demonic possession is real, I happen to know for a fact.” Putin seemed unable or unwilling to respond.

Instead, according to Carlson, Putin outlined his alleged peace plan: He would be ready to pull his troops from Ukraine’s territory surrounding Crimea, known as the land bridge, in exchange for a treaty guaranteeing a demilitarization of the region and Russian use of civilian infrastructure to supply the annexed peninsula. Carlson wouldn’t speculate whether this was a genuine signal to the U.S. administration or empty rhetoric. Western officials familiar with previous negotiations with Russia say that such proposals are unlikely to be sincere.

...Carlson rejects any suggestion that he himself might be fanning the flames of radicalization. In a recent show, however, he wholeheartedly agreed with Steve Bannon, Trump’s former adviser, when he called for a “war to the knife” against the “illegitimate regime of neo-Marxists, from the Justice Department to the FBI” should Trump return to power.

He finds solace in his Protestant faith, reads the Bible and regularly goes to an Episcopalian church, even as he believes that Christianity is now divorced from the churches, which he says have become liberal and secularized. The “woke” political movement and its ideology, he says, have replaced Christian spiritual values and “effortlessly moved into the husk of Protestant Christianity in the U.S. It was a hollow tree, and they just occupied it, like a family of raccoons.”

And so on and on ...

If the bromancer's dream comes true, that family of deeply weird raccoons will infest the White House yet again ...

Meanwhile, in Politico:

Meanwhile, in Glendale, Arizona, the former president:

— Used violent rhetoric to go after former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney. “She’s a radical war hawk — let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK?” Trump said. “And let’s see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face.”

— Claimed he was on track to win the election “if we can keep that cheating down.” It’s the latest in his attempts to lay the groundwork for claims of a rigged election if he loses, after baselessly challenging his defeat in 2020.

— Referred to himself as a “genius” for the meandering speech pattern he calls “the weave.”

— Insulted the physical appearance of California Rep. Adam Schiff, the lead prosecutor in his first impeachment trial, saying he has “the smallest neck I’ve ever seen” on a human.

— Insulted the intelligence of Harris, President Joe Biden and former national security adviser John Bolton.

— Referred vaguely to his political opponents as proponents of both communism and fascism while calling them “sick puppies” for accusing him of authoritarian tendencies.

And so on.

And so to a few closing cartoons, celebrating the bromancer's prediction of joy to the world.