A Saturday wasted, suffering along with the Ughmann and nattering "Ned" ...

Whatever else happened during the week, one certainty was that the excitement of following the carnival of clowns meant certain stories disappeared into the ether, into the cornfield, or up into the darkness of reptile fundaments.

For example, stories you won't be reading in the lizard Oz, part "n" where "n" is (∞). 

There's always the climate: ‘Same shit, different year’: Australia records hottest 12 months and warmest March on record, ANU climate scientist says ‘everyone is getting fatigued these records keep falling – it’s now incredibly predictable’.

And the cornfield is especially receptive to stories about that ongoing genocide... Evidence of ‘execution-style’ killings of Palestinian aid workers by Israeli forces, doctor says, Forensic consultant says multiple bullets were used from short range in attack that has caused global outrage

But no use complaining, the pond knows you have to leave the real world at the door when you step into the hive mind ...

News from Ukraine - apart from the Cantaloupe Caligula's desire to pander to Vlad the sociopath - is also scarce. You might need to check in to the Graudian to read Ukraine war briefing: Kyiv solving its troop shortages, says top US general in Europe, Gen Christopher Cavoli says Russia has lost 4,000 tanks, comparable to whole US fleet; Kremlin goes to war against Elton John. What we know on day 1,136.

Little hoppy toads popped out in that debrief:

The US has withdrawn from the ICPA, an international group collecting evidence of potential Russian war crimes in Ukraine, the president of its parent body, Eurojust, said on Thursday. Michael Schmid said: “We of course regret that but at the same time we obviously continue the work with the [other] participants.” The ICPA brings together investigators from several countries under the umbrella of Eurojust, an EU judicial body.

But inevitably things always turn back to the mango Mussolini and his latest folly, sometimes featuring an attempt to find some light in the darkness, as in Nathalie Tocci's piece, The far right has seemed unstoppable in Europe. Here’s how Trump’s tariffs could change that.

What might the political fallout in Europe be? The good news is that Trump’s trade war puts Trump-friendly far-right forces in Europe in a terribly uncomfortable position. It’s one thing for the European far right to support Trump in principle, or to support the administration’s tyranny over peoples it doesn’t care about, be it Ukrainians, Canadians, Mexicans or Palestinians. It’s quite another to defend Trump and his policies when the victims are countries that these far-right parties supposedly represent.
Far-right leaders in Europe have adopted two approaches. The most populist among them have remained as obsequious as ever. Matteo Salvini, the leader of the League party in Italy, claimed that Trump’s tariffs represented an “opportunity” for Italian business, without specifying why and how. And if that opportunity is not seized, it will presumably be because of the “grave mistakes” made by Brussels, as the Hungarian foreign minister, Péter Szijjártó, declared. Most other far-right leaders, however, are on the back foot, aware that they are damned if they speak in favour of Trump and damned if they don’t. Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, who called the decision “wrong” while meekly arguing in favour of transatlantic talks (as if this were not the position of the European Commission), is clearly uncomfortable.
Another political upside of Trump’s transatlantic trade war on Europe is that it could strengthen unity. This effect is already on display. Squeezed in between Russia’s war and US betrayal, Europeans have rediscovered their support for the EU. The latest Eurobarometer revealed that 74% of Europeans believe their country’s membership of the EU is a good thing, the highest figure in 42 years. Intuitively, citizens understand that by sticking together the EU can better defend their interests. And nowhere is this more true than in the area of trade, an exclusive competence of the EU. This means that the union can develop and deploy a coherent counterstrategy to Trump’s trade war that represents the bloc as a whole, with its second-largest economy in the world and more than 450 million citizens. On trade and the economy, the US can hurt the EU a lot, but the reverse is also true.

If only ... 

Meanwhile,  the pond has gone way beyond the point of tariff and clown carnival fatigue, but here we are again.

Of course the pond could join the Duttonator in his march against the Chinese in the north ... as usual the reptiles were keen for a war on China (and never mind who set up the lease) ...

Across in the extreme far right section, the pond could marvel at Dame Slap's blather at the radical left's march through the institutions, thereby ignoring the Cantaloupe Caligula's long march through News Corp...

A few of these offerings could serve as meretricious fodder for a meaningless Sunday meditation, but duty is duty, and key reptiles were still well down the mango Mussolini path ...

The Ughmann was showing signs of FAFO fatigue, and so went full tyke, as if that was some kind of solution ...

For those interested in the text portions of that opener, the header was a howl of despair: Labor, Coalition are failing to grasp that the world we knew is gone, The fundamental ideas that grounded us are shifting, for better or for worse. What is for sure; we will miss America when it is gone.

It was a seven minute read, so the reptiles said, and should someone just have come in from Mars with Uncle Leon, the snap was identified, US President Donald Trump pumps his fist after delivering remarks on reciprocal tariffs at the White House on Thursday. Picture: AFP

And there was that usual, strange, deeply weird advice, This article contains features which are only available in the web version, Take me there

Let us go there together, muttering Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.

It is Lent. For Christians it’s a time to contemplate the great arc of their faith: life, death and resur­rection.
Whether you believe or not, there is beauty in the thought that hope can triumph over death. That life has a meaning science will never measure, a truth that can be revealed only by artists, musicians, poets and prophets.
The old faith is ebbing. Many would not now make the connection between the story of Christ and the holiday they enjoy as Lent ends.
They probably wonder why the date moves from year to year. The cross on the Easter bun is no more than a decoration. The season is now, for many, unintelligible, meaningless.
But this year Lent has given everyone pause to wonder about their beliefs.
It’s a time to ponder the twilight of a global order we took for granted. Time to marvel at the death of a secular faith: that the liberal, rules-based, democratic world would endure, expand and shelter us.

Oh FFS, does he really think the long absent lord is going to get us out of this man- and Faux Noise-made mess, especially when entirely meaningless visuals are added to his word stew? The new US tariffs imposed on China were far higher than Beijing had expected. Picture: AFP

Then came the Ginsbergian howl, the cry of despair.

On one level, President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs are just another trade distortion in a world already thick with them.
China manipulates its currency, subsidises whole industries and, as Australia has learned, uses trade as a weapon. The EU throws up regulatory walls and slaps carbon levies on imports from countries that don’t share its ideology.
But what makes this moment different is not the act but the actor. The US built the architecture of the post-war order: rules, alliances, institutions, open markets. Now it is walking away from all of it. The tariffs are another milestone on America’s march out of its own design.

How to handle the sobbing? How to deal with the incessant AV distractions that interrupt the flow President Trump spoke to reporters on board Air Force One, a day after he announced a 10% across-the-board tariff on U.S. imports.

The pond suggests sipping on the Ughmann's tears, perhaps fortified with the odd 'toon ...

On and on he sobbed ...

We now stand in the ruins of an empire of ideas fading like breath on a mirror.
Under Trump, allies are treated as rivals. Trade agreements are scorned. The moral confidence that once underpinned American power has curdled into grievance. There is no longer any real sense that the republic sees itself as steward of the global commons. It has grown weary of the burden and suspicious of those who once walked with it.
Australia was one of those nations.
A loyal foot soldier. We echoed the “rules-based order” rhetoric. We stood for the anthem. We sent troops to every war, no matter how senseless. Our soldiers died in the name of “alliance maintenance”.
We bet everything on the staying power of the idea of America, in the hope that it bought us security. But it was just an idea. A gamble. And Australia’s major parties never imagined it could be a busted flush.
Maybe Trump is doing us a favour. Maybe the liberal world order that Western politicians lauded was always an illusion. A long peace, for some, mistaken for permanence.

For some bizarre reason, the reptiles felt the need to repeat that mantra in a caption for yet another snap, Maybe Trump is doing us a favour by breaking the illusion of the liberal world order. Picture: AFP

Getting run over by a tank is some sort of favour?

Deeply weird, deeply cilice style masochistic Catholic shyte ...

Rules observed only in the service of the strong. Rules built on democratic and human rights follies that countries such as China and Russia always scorned.
Now, that illusion is breaking.
This is no small thing. Even a myth has value. Paper money is no more than a promise of payment, it isn’t actually worth anything. Ideas are how we make sense of the world and when ideas change, the world changes.
As Gustave Le Bon wrote in 1895: “The memorable events of history are the visible effects of the invisible changes in human thought.”
This is a time of memorable events because the fundamental ideas that grounded us are shifting. And while America retreats, China advances with the grim assurance of a returning empire. This new settlement will be much worse for Australia than the old one. We will miss America when it is gone.

But Faux Noise still marches on, and had the pleasure of watching capitalism at work in all its madness, Conservative cable channel Newsmax shares plunge 77% after a dizzying 2-day surge ...

Quick, look away, look to the threat from the north only the Duttonator can stop, Chinese President Xi Jinping has predicted the world in chaos with “great change”. Picture: Getty Images

The hapless Ughmann remained in melancholy mood and mode... what of the war on China?

President Xi Jinping has read the signs of the times better than most. He speaks of a world undergoing “great change unseen in a century”.
“The most important characteristic of the world is, in a word, chaos,” Xi said, “and this trend appears likely to continue.”
We should be at least as concerned about the order Xi hopes to build as the one Trump wants to abandon.
Here the Albanese government is labouring under its own illusion – the belief that China can be managed as long as there is official silence on the long list of things Beijing finds irksome.
The government celebrates the end of China’s trade sanctions as proof that this plan is working. China’s ambassador to Australia has declared “relations have stabilised, improved and achieved a comprehensive turnaround” since the end of the Morrison government.
But all governments should be judged by their deeds, not their words. Based on this, where do we stand?

Where do we stand? Why we stand with another reptile AV distraction, Sky News Business Editor Ross Greenwood has examined the ASX 200 which has seen a "pretty heavy fall" after opening on Friday. The results follow US President Donald Trump's recent sweeping tariff announcements.

Speaking of things swept from mind by the latest ruckus ...

Back to the war on China, because that's the best distraction the reptiles have got at the moment ...

In February 2025, China sent three warships on a mission to circumnavigate Australia and conduct live-fire exercises in the Tasman Sea with minimal notice.
This forced the rerouting of 49 commercial flights. In response, Anthony Albanese said the warships were operating legally in international waters but a protest had been lodged with Beijing because more notice should have been given of the live fire.
The government’s disposition was that this event was unremarkable. But ponder this: there has not been a shot fired off Australia’s coast by a non-Allied power since the Imperial Japanese Navy sunk ships in World War II.
China showed us what gunboat diplomacy looks like and we met it with a whimper. Beijing now knows that our navy is incapable of circumnavigating our own coastline.
Now a Chinese research vessel has been observed travelling along Australia’s southern coast, closely shadowing key undersea communication cables.
Albanese says that while he would prefer the ship were not there, its activities are unremarkable and Australian agencies are monitoring its movements.
We speak sotto voce as China bellows: we are here and your world has changed. It does not seek war, it seeks submission. It seeks to underline our weakness and interprets silence as surrender. With each step back we take it will step forward.
Surely this should be at least as disturbing to the political class as a US-instigated trade war.
These are not just geopolitical moves. They are spiritual tremors. We once believed the future belonged to openness, to freedom, to democracy. That technology would flatten borders. That engagement would tame ambition. Instead, we are seeing the return of something older, darker, more primal: the logic of empires. The raw assertion of power.
The election campaign is a daily pantomime that screams we are not ready for this era. Not strategically, not economically and certainly not intellectually. Because to prepare would require naming the change. It would demand saying out loud what many fear to even think: that the world we knew is gone.
If appearances are any guide neither the ALP nor the Coalition has begun to grasp the scale of this moment.
The daily campaign fare is a study in tactics. The only thought on display about geopolitics is how it can be leveraged for a victory in May. If there is any strategic thinking beyond that it is well disguised.

Amazingly the reptiles decided to interrupt with an AV distraction suggesting that King Donald was on track in Ukraine, US President Donald Trump claims the government is “spearheading the drive” to get a deal done on a ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia. “We have an envoy from Russia, we’re talking about it, we’d like to see that stop as soon as possible because thousands of people are being killed,” President Trump said. “We’re spearheading the drive to get it done. Europe has not been successful in dealing with President Putin, but I think I will be successful.”

Apparently the reptiles forgot how Fortress America is relating to the world ...

The real reason for all the whimpering and crying? Won't someone think of the Duttonator, left out on his own DOGE limb ...

You can understand Labor’s thinking. Contempt has consequences. In Canada, Trump’s bullying has done what Justin Trudeau could not – revive long-dormant national pride and the hopes of the Liberal Party as that nation heads to the polls.
In Trump’s rhetorical wake, the once sky-high ambitions of a conservative landslide have dropped like a stone.
This should terrify the Coalition. Walking in the President’s shadow may work in Scranton or Miami but it’s a much harder sell in Sydney or Melbourne.
Claiming you are better able to deal with him may be interpreted as being the best mate of the guy in the bar with the broken bottle in his hand.
Labor will seize the opportunity to tie the Coalition to every part of the Trump agenda that unsettles Australians. There are already signs he is a drag on the Coalition’s ticket.
The Coalition derides Albanese as “weak” but there seems to be no credible idea about how to make Australia strong.

At this point, the reptiles slipped in a snap for those in the hive mind who'd forgotten the leadership, The difference between the major parties led by Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton are largely at the margins. Picture: AFP

That produced a final, seemingly endless bout of whimpering and whining ...

The differences between major parties are largely at the margins. And when the dust settles on this campaign, what plan does either party have to navigate this new era? Our politics remains rooted in a world that no longer exists.
There is no sense of emergency, no organising vision, no admission that the assumptions of the past have collapsed. We are left with technocratic managerialism at the end of history.
By their actions in this campaign the major parties clearly demonstrate the belief that Australians won’t do hard things. That they are not capable of understanding that when the world changes, we must change – and that demands tough choices.
It is time for difficult conversations and some hard decisions. We need to talk about trade-offs. We need to review all spending and build financial buffers, and that means some will lose benefits. We cannot keep borrowing to fund our lifestyle. We must prepare for shocks – economic, military, political.
The bipartisan embrace of net zero is a fool’s errand that needs to end. In the real world, countries responsible for 60 per cent of global emissions have no intention of hitting this target. If we continue to pursue it we will make ourselves poor and next to net-zero effect on cutting global emissions.

Ah, the pond knew that link would come in handy,  ‘Same shit, different year’: Australia records hottest 12 months and warmest March on record, ANU climate scientist says ‘everyone is getting fatigued these records keep falling – it’s now incredibly predictable’.

Back to the liturgy and an Ancient Mariner determined to bring on hope in the form of invisible beings...

We sit on some of the richest energy resources in the world. If we do not harness them now, we will be weaker in the only terms that matter: industrial strength, national income and energy security. We cannot afford policies that privilege ideology over sovereignty.
In foreign policy we should do what we can to keep the US engaged in our region because, right now, we are incapable of defending ourselves. But we must spend more on defence and assume there will be no nuclear-powered submarines. Our goal should be clear: defend the homeland and make Australia a hard target.
Making Australia a hard target also means ensuring that we take social cohesion and foreign interference in our internal affairs seriously. The real threat to the nation is not war but comes in the grey zone of cyber theft and attacks, the insidious nature of some social media, the coercion of our people and the sinister voices of those who seek to divide us.
It is Lent. The lesson from the season is that we should never despair. There is always hope, no matter how difficult the times may seem.
But it is a time of reckoning. A time to contemplate what must die and what must be reborn.

Oh FFS, why if you watch Faux Noise, there's hope in abundance, an entire new range of classy models are going to be reborn in the showroom...

Anyone who has made it thus far would think it couldn't get any worse.

But it can ... "Ned's" Everest this day was an unholy 11 minute read.

The reptiles flung every visual distraction that they could find to help the hive minders make it to the end, but it was a struggle from the get go, with the reptiles offering up a truly feeble gif with floating thingies as the starter ...

For those wanting the text, there was the header, Unleashed Trump goes rogue before the world, The immediate task is to stay calm, keep making the trade argument for a concession but take the essential leap to greater defence self-reliance, and there was that weird injunction once again, This article contains features which are only available in the web version, Take me there

There we are ... standing by for "Ned" in full Chicken Little mode ...

The US, under Don­ald Trump, has gone rogue. Trump is now unleashed in his full devastating consequences. His exec­utive order seeks to dismantle the world trade system originating from 1947, threatening disruption, recessions and a new protectionist Fortress America.
Trump’s new tariff regime is the final termination of the age of trade liberalisation and globalisation that has lifted incomes around the world and been pivotal in Australia’s prosperity. His tariffs have been almost universally rejected by other nations and are imposed on countries whether “friend or foe”, revealing Trump discounts any strategic partnerships and historical ties in his pursuit of an inward-looking, protectionist America.

After just two pars came another visual distraction, Revealing the depth of his paranoia about free trade, Donald Trump casts America as the victim of the trade system. Picture: Saul Loeb/AFP

"Ned" whimpered on ...

His executive order is one of the most important documents emerging from the White House since World War II. It repudiates, literally, the foundations of the post-war trade prosperity model. It will transform the world economic order, risk a global trade war, further undermine trade links between the US and China, deepen the harm to the once prized system of US alliances and have grave implications for the world strategic order. The initial rout on Wall Street is entirely predictable.
Revealing the depth of his paranoia about free trade, Trump casts America as the victim of the trade system, saying: “For decades, our country has been looted, pillaged, raped and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike.” Casting America as the victim and himself as the liberator, Trump is likely to win immediate electoral kudos at home.

Immediately there was an AV distraction, with the dog botherer also whining and moaning, Sky News host Chris Kenny discusses President Donald Trump taking “aim” at the world with a 10 per cent tariff on every country. “Donald Trump took aim at the world today including Australia, this was classic isolationist Trump, turning his back on countries abroad, friends and foes alike,” Mr Kenny said. “In order to trumpet populist protectionist economics for his domestic audience.”

Why no clips from Faux Noise? 

Have faith, have trust, have Ughmann style hope, the "Judge" will set you right  ....Jeanine Pirro: “I don't really care about my 401(k) today. You know why?... I believe in this man.”, Pirro: “Donald Trump is the only one who can do it”

It's boom times for Media Matters and those interested in Faux Noise's contributions to the mess, but on all that "Ned" is strangely silent, preferring his own brand of whining ...

But his revolution will come with higher inflation in the US, a loss of investor confidence and the prospect of trade retaliation from other nations. Trump misconstrues the meaning of tariffs, denies they function as a tax and proclaims a new golden age for the US with its industry being reborn. The hope, perhaps forlorn, for a reprieve may arise when the economic damage to America becomes manifest.
While Trump has some justification in China’s manipulation of trade rules, his assault on the global system is a false and chaotic answer. The calculations that form the basis of his “reciprocal” tariffs are imprecise or fraudulent. The rational assessment is that these are not serious people – yet they have the power to change the world, a pointer to genuine danger.

Then came another visual interruption, The new US tariffs imposed on China were far higher than Beijing had expected. Picture: AFP

Not a mindless repeat of that bloody meaningless snap of a meaningless container ship laden with meaningless boxes ...

Sheesh reptiles, you don't make navigating the hive mind an easy experience ...

Trump signals he will now be ready to negotiate with other leaders with his executive order providing for him to ease or increase his tariffs, depending on the response. China, the EU and Canada are likely to retaliate. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned nations that retaliated would face even higher tariffs and said: “As long as you don’t retaliate this is the high end of the number.”
Trump imposes so-called reciprocal tariffs on many nations and also imposes a 10 per cent “baseline” tariff on any nation selling into the US market.
The upshot is Trump’s tariff on China’s goods is now 54 per cent (the new 34 per cent added to the existing 20 per cent) while other tariffs include the EU 20 per cent, Japan 24 per cent, South Korea 26 per cent, Taiwan 32 per cent, India 27 per cent and Indonesia 32 per cent. Australia’s new tariff is the baseline 10 per cent.

Wary that "Ned's" incessant whining was wearing, the reptiles hastily flung in another Sky Noise down under distraction, Trade Minister Don Farrell has described US President Donald Trump’s move to slug Australia with a 10 per cent tariff as a “bad decision”. “We want to continue discussions with the United States government to get that 10 per cent tariff reversed,” he told Sky News Australia. “I see yesterday as the start of another process with the United States government where we sit down with them – cooly, calmly, constructively – and work through what they think are the issues between our two countries and, as we did with China, get those tariffs removed.”

Where's the hope? Sean's full of hope, or full of something, Sean Hannity offers tariff prediction: “My level of confidence is pretty near 100% that this is all going to work out fine”

How can "Ned" ignore the tremendous work of his American kissing cousins, dissing the neighsayers? Is "Ned" something of a neigher, or a brayer, himself?

Australia is damaged but gets off with the least worst harm. Trump’s “reciprocal” calculations in relation to Australia are fraudulent since we impose virtually no tariffs on US exports to this country. Australia is not specifically targeted.
But this is a direct assault on Australia’s trade, agricultural exports, our beef industry and economic interests levied by our traditional alliance partner on an unjustified basis. The real impact on Australia will arise from the wider attack on world trade and economic growth from Trump’s unprecedented actions. The upshot is likely to see the Reserve Bank shift more to interest rate cuts.
Anthony Albanese said the tariffs on Australia were “totally unwarranted”. He said: “The administration’s tariffs have no basis in logic and go against the basis of our two nations’ partnership. This is not the act of a friend.” The Prime Minister said any reciprocal tariff for Australia would be zero, not 10 per cent.
In a direct repudiation of Trump, Albanese said the decisions “will push up costs for American households” and that it was “the American people who will pay the biggest price for these unjustified tariffs”. For that reason Australia would not retaliate by seeking to impose its own reciprocal tariffs on America. This is a sound decision. Retaliation by Australia would be counter-productive.

Then came another visual distraction, Anthony Albanese – accompanied on the campaign trail in Victoria by Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Trade Minister Don Farrell – speaks on tariffs announced by US President Donald Trump. Picture: Jason Edwards / NewsWire

"Ned" had a panic attack about what this might mean for the Duttonator ...

Albanese was strong but measured, careful not to personalise an attack on Trump. Significantly, Albanese issued two warnings: our shared friendship and alliance were bigger than this “poor decision” by Trump and his decision “will have consequences for how Australians see this relationship”. But Trump doesn’t care how other nations regard him. Indeed, he will risk recession to impose his trade dogma.
This is a hostile act against Australia. Most Australians, unimpressed by Trump, will turn further against him. Trump’s decision inevitably injects him into the Australian election campaign. But the pro-Trump bandwagon in Australia, already badly depleted, will soon resemble a broken jalopy.
Albanese and Peter Dutton have a near identical policy response to Trump’s tariffs, rejecting them and pledging to negotiate a better deal. Yet Trump’s intervention is likelier to favour Albanese, who has spelt out a firm position in the national interest. Albanese will depict the Opposition Leader as closer to Trump and the risk for the Coalition lies in a mini Canada effect.

There immediately followed yet another AV distraction with a very long caption, helping explain that things might not be so grum ...

The Australian agricultural industry is bracing for impact from the recent 10 per cent tariff imposed on goods exported to the US, with the beef and canola sectors expected to be particularly affected. According to Dennis Voznesenski, agricultural economist at CBA, the beef industry is likely to bear the brunt of the tariffs. "Beef is likely to be the one that is most impacted and most directly impacted by the 10 per cent tariff," he explained in an interview with Sky News Business Editor Ross Greenwood. However, Mr Voznesenski noted that the timing of the tariffs might actually be at a relatively favourable time. “Last year, around 28 -29 per cent of all of our beef exports went to the US, but it actually might be at a relatively favourable time,” he said. “The US is desperately short of beef. They have a cattle herd that's the lowest in multiple decades, and their beef demand is still incredibly strong. “So the question is, yes, one, the tariffs are getting put on, but who wears the burden in the end? “Because the US importers, do they actually have the ability to negotiate for us to take the burden on it? I don't think so. “They just don't have enough beef, and they really need it at the moment.”

That's the spirit, that's the Laura message ... Laura Ingraham: “I personally know a lot of people who are buying into this market. That's how people always make money.”

Poor "Ned" didn't seem to understand, and wasn't buying ...

Conservative parties in Western democracies are being undermined by potential similarity with Trump. Being seen to be a better manager of Trump – or close to Trump – is more a negative than a plus. The Coalition badly misjudged Trump and now is stranded, engaged in a U-turn. Dutton’s response on Thursday was tactically flawed. For months he has been locked into the Coalition negative campaign insisting any problem in the Trump relationship was the fault of Albanese and Kevin Rudd. When no other leader won an exemption from Trump’s recent tariffs on steel and aluminium, Dutton blamed Labor, making the spurious claim he could have got an exemption.
This week Dutton doubled down on his tactical blunder – engaging in the absurd pretence that, unique among world leaders, he could have achieved a better deal for our country over the 10 per cent tariffs. Who would be fool enough to believe this? Dutton blames Albanese for Trump’s tariffs on Australia – yet that is obviously false. The person to blame is Trump. Trump’s mission was to dismantle the liberal trade system, punishing enemies and allies alike, and that would have included Dutton had he been prime minister.

At this point the reptiles introduced a piece of "artwork" - the pond hesitates to defame art, but the reptiles do it regularly, The Trump factor makes it harder for Peter Dutton to prosecute Anthony Albanese’s obsessive accommodation of China. Artwork: Frank Ling

Oh Frank, just stop, stop it at once, all that does is make the pond feel queasy and remind the pond of that recent king tide taking out Sydney beaches ...

The pond has to focus on "Ned" ...

Dutton says he would use the critical minerals card in negotiations with Trump. But Labor has used this for weeks in its intense negotiations with the Trump administration. Nothing new there. Dutton cannot offer any reasons why he could get a better deal from Trump and has to fall back on the past success of the Turnbull and Morrison governments, but that is irrelevant now. The related problem for Dutton is that the Trump factor makes it harder for the Coalition to get clean air on Albanese’s real security weakness – his obsessive accommodation of China at the precise time when China’s navy engages in great power provocation of Australia, an omen of our future.
Albanese cannot summon the strength to even address China’s provocation and engages in virtual excuses for the activities of its navy, even pretending that an Australian ship in the South China Sea is equivalent to Chinese navy intelligence-gathering activities off Australia’s coastline. Why didn’t Dutton run a tactic of political unification on Trump and maximum differentiation on China? When, pray, will the Coalition release its increased defence budget and will the increase be meaningful?

Lest anyone think that "Ned" had gone a little hard on the Duttonator, the reptiles wheeled in the dog botherer to give Albo a hard time,  Sky News host Chris Kenny says Anthony Albanese’s “weakness” on China is on display for the Australian people. Mr Kenny said Labor’s handling of China in the lead-up to the election is a “major vulnerability” for the party. “Beijing has come out strongly on Albo’s side, the communist regime have praised their handsome boy. “It all stems back to how our prime minister has rolled over in the face of Chinese intimidation.”

It didn't really help, "Ned" was determined to be gloomy ...

Albanese, in addition, faces the task of quarantining anti-Trump hostility from spilling into the alliance and reinforcing the campaign against AUKUS and its nuclear-powered submarine agreement to which Labor is committed. During the election campaign, at least, it is vital for Labor to keep the broader strategic relationship separate from Trump’s trade campaign against Australia.
Yet the pressure for a rethink of the alliance partnership will intensify; witness the Malcolm Turnbull-inspired conference in Canberra last Monday.
Speaking at this conference three days before Trump’s tariff statement, Heather Smith, former departmental chief and G20 sherpa for the Abbott government at the 2014 summit, offered a prescient analysis: “The fragmentation of the international economic system is now a fact. The US is dismantling the foundations of its global hegemony, along with the norms and values that have underpinned the US-Australia relationship. And this dismantling cannot be reversed by a change of administration; once gone, always gone!

At this point the reptiles seemed to want to become a broadcaster, providing The latest news from Australia and around the world.

What a relief the pond can only provide an indicative screen cap, while "Ned" rambled on, deep in the thickets of despair, or ennui, for those crying out "that's way more than enough already" ...

It's hard having to quote the thoughts of others to boost the word count:

“The US has adopted a mercantilist view of the world with conflicting goals, where tariffs are the answer to everything. We are in uncharted waters. It will be lonelier and more fraught for Australia in this multipolar world, as demonstrated by both the US and China having engaged in economic coercion against us.”
Smith argued that in this world a strong, reform-based Australian economy was essential now as a national security policy imperative. Obviously, this should be the Coalition brief – yet it lacks an economic reform-based agenda for the 2025 election. Major problem.
The nation seems immobilised before the looming crisis identified by Smith: how to balance our interests in a world where the US retreats from the global order and China positions to become the regional hegemon “earlier than ever it expected.”
Unsurprisingly, Paul Keating seized on what he saw as the transformation inherent in Trump’s assault on the global trade system.
“Today’s tariff announcements change the world geo-economic settings and, with it, the world’s geo-strategic settings,” Keating said. He said the phalanx of American acolytes in Australia “must have choked on their breakfasts as Donald Trump laid out his blitzkrieg on globalisation, with all its implications for the rupture of co-operation and goodwill among nations.
“The announcement represents the effective death knell of NATO, a severing that will inform all other allied relationships with America including ANZUS with Australia.”

The reptiles doubled down with two huge snaps, Malcolm Turnbull addresses the National Press Club on ‘Sovereignty and Security - Australia and the new world disorder’. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman, Paul Keating seized on what he saw as the transformation inherent in Trump’s assault on the global trade system. Picture: Mick Tsikas-Pool/Getty Images

 

The pond can't remember a time when the reptiles needed to interrupt "Ned" with so many visual distractions, but lordy lordy, were they needed, or what ...

Neither Labor nor Coalition will accept this view. Nor should they. Australia must await Trump’s plans for the Indo-Pacific where he can be expected to uphold the alliance with Australia.
Our immediate task is to stay calm, navigate the best strategic passage with Trump, keep making the trade argument for a trade concession but take the essential leap to a bigger defence budget and more defence self-reliance.
Trump’s response to the sharemarket rout and massive criticism of his tariff decision was predictable: he doubled down. On Wall Street the S&P 500 fell almost 5 per cent, the worst result since mid-2020. Trump delivered the immortal line: “Remember there are no tariffs if you build your plant or make your product in the US.”

Just a few pars and then came another visual distraction, Sky News US Analyst Michael Ware spoke on the recent tariffs put on by US President Donald Trump claiming that consumer confidence is “absolutely plunging”. Mr Ware claimed the American economy will “stagnate” and prices will "just go up”. “There’s a trade war, it’s going to lead to a trust deficit … and the downstream effects politically could most hurt the Trump MAGA base.”

Consumer confidence is plunging? Not so fast, trust Jesse ... Jesse Watters: “If you're worried cars are going to cost more, buy American”

It was at this point that the pond realised that the more links it provided to Faux Noise distractions, the longer it would take to get to the end of an interminable "Ned" ... 

Bloomberg columnist John Authers said: “Tariffs at these levels would turn America into its own economic island, trading only with itself. Horizontal links with the rest of the world are out.
“Yes, the globalised status quo isn’t working, but it’s difficult to see how this will be any better. Back-of-envelope math suggests that this is even bigger than the Smoot-Hawley tariffs at the beginning of the Great Depression.”
The Wall Street Journal said: “There will certainly be higher costs for American consumers and businesses. Tariffs are taxes and when you tax something you get less of it. Car prices will rise by thousands of dollars, including those made in America.
“Mr Trump is making a deliberate decision to transfer wealth from consumers to businesses and workers protected from competition behind high tariff walls. Over time this will mean the gradual erosion of US competitiveness. The cost in lost American influence will be considerable. Mr Trump’s new tariff onslaught is giving China another opening to use its large market to court American allies.”

Quick, another distraction, wheel in some more containers, US hikes China tariffs to 54%, scraps $800 duty-free loophole; Beijing vows retaliation as ASEAN supply chains reel from new duties.

"Ned" was still being devastated...

Asia has been particularly hard hit. Trade diplomacy will get turbocharged and Australia, presumably, will be involved. Already Japan and South Korea are talking with China about a form of co-ordinated response.
Frankly, these decisions reveal Trump to be brain-dead in terms of national interest economic and strategic sentiment in Asia. While Trump demands that allies do more and spend more on their own defence, he punishes them with high tariffs and says allies are often worse than enemies in their use of tariffs. He is clueless about trade policy as an instrument of broader strategic policy. He is alienating most nations in Asia – whether America’s partners or not – and virtually inviting them into deeper economic dialogue with China.
This is a devastating blow for Australian foreign policy.

Not another meaningless visual distraction, China was always destined to be the target of Trump’s punishing tariffs, however it’s the rest of Asia that has been sent reeling by the trade hit. An electronic board shows Japan’s Nikkei 225 index on the Tokyo Stock Exchange on Thursday. Picture: AFP

Look, it's just a learning moment ...

At this point the pond thought that "Ned" had reached a conclusion ...

The only conclusion is that Trump’s America has no viable trade and economic game plan for Asia to serve as a counterpoint to China, the precise role Australia wants the US to play.
In the process Trump undermines the image of the US as a trusting and responsible nation on whom other countries can rely as a great power. This confirms his determination to end America’s role as a post-war economic and strategic guardian of the global system in favour of a rudimentary withdrawal, perhaps even to the Western Hemisphere.
As Bob Carr told Sky News this week, Trump’s tariff decisions destroy the mantra of his apologists that Trump should be taken seriously but not literally. Wrong – he must be taken literally.
Think about Greenland, Panama, Ukraine and Canada. Trump says the US “will get Greenland”. New Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney says Canada’s relationship with the US based on economic integration and security co-operation is “over”.
Trump does not just view tariffs as a bargaining tool. He sees them as pivotal to the re-industrialisation of America, the curing of its trade deficit and as a revenue mechanism to reduce personal income tax. He embarks on an experiment plagued with contradictions and a change agenda where his success is improbable.
Financial Times trade policy analyst Alan Beattie said: “This isn’t part of a carefully designed industrial policy or a cunning strategy to induce compliance among trading partners or a choreographed appearance of chaos to scare other governments into obedience. It’s wildly destructive stupidity.”

It seems that the local reptiles had finally caught up with the work of their kissing cousins in Faux Noise, and that this was the final visual interruption, Trump’s tariff table includes entities that are not even countries. Picture: Brendan Smialowski/AFP

Could the pond provide its own final 'toon supplement?

And so to a final mercifully short "Ned" summation ... (if only he'd been this pithy earlier, and cut the read down to five minutes) ...

The incompetence of Trump’s tariff table is an insult to US governance. It includes entities that are not even countries. This administration is a danger to itself and the world.
The core of the problem is the erosion of trust in the US. Trump’s intellectual failure is his view of trade and tariffs as a zero-sum game – gains for one nation are losses for another nation.
Having an American president embracing this false proposition and then making global policy based on this falsity will not only damage global growth but generate trade resentments on top of existing strategic rivalries.
Trump will punish all other nations in his quest to “Make America Great Again”. There will be many unpredictable consequences but one guaranteed consequence – he will turn people and nations against America, and that’s a tragedy.

Of course "Ned" didn't get to the heart of the incompetence.

For that you have to look elsewhere.

After joining the "Elbows Up" movement, and reviving an acquaintance with CBC, one pleasure has been watching Andrew Chang's segment About That. This episode was about those tariffs, and the calculations to arrive at them, and shows the difficulty of applying logic and reason when confronted by narcissistic insanity, with neither the Ughmann's "hope" or "Ned's" endless pomposity helping ...