In which the pond starts by burning comics, and ends with the bouffant one at the circus and "Ned" in a fog of despair ...

 

The pond has begun in recent days by showing off the glories of the Athens of the south (go away Adelaide), but this clip from the Herald and Review Decatur, Illinois Wed, 10 Nov 1948, was a delightful distraction ...

It came by way of Parker Molloy, The Folk Devils Keep Changing, But the Panic Stays the Same, What a 1948 comic book burning in West Virginia tells us about today's anti-trans hysteria (paywall)

It sent the pond off on a binge, 1948: The Year Comics Met Their Match, and The Great Comic Book Conflagration, In postwar America, the comic books blamed for juvenile delinquency were sent up in flames., and Illinois Officials Burned by 1950s Library Purge

Turned out there was a wiki listicle dedicated to burnings of all sorts ...List of book-burning incidents.
Of course there's also one for good old bannings and censorings.

It's pretty much the Trumpian way, and a handy distraction when egg prices get too high... Egg prices soar to record high as DOJ investigates America's largest egg producer

Ban, attack, bully, humiliate ... as him and his GOP minions and its barking mad fringes have been doing these past few years ...

But the reptiles were in no mood for international affairs this morning,  the hive mind was obsessed with election news and views, and the latest polling was uppermost in reptile minds ...

Over on the extreme far right, simplistic Simon was top of the digital reptile world ma, at least early in the morning, spinning the latest Newspoll as best he could...

It was as if simpleton "here no conflicts of interest" Simon had already run up the white flag on behalf of the Duttonator and the lizard Oz ...

Shock and awe on the way to new hung parliament
Both leaders claim to deliver the dream of home ownership and both have rewritten the fiscal rule books in their tax relief offerings, as voters expect a hung parliament is now the most likely election outcome.
Simon Benson
Political Editor

The reptiles tried to chamber another angle ...

Labor frontbenchers lining up to succeed Albanese

Despite three weeks of campaigning left to go, the confidence and hubris on show at Anthony Albanese’s campaign launch in the Perth Convention Centre was overwhelming.

Geoff Chambers

Chief Political Correspondent

There were a couple of attempts to look abroad, with the Major leading the way ...

Western media unmoved by Hamas lowering Gaza death toll
Probably worse than media ignoring revisions to Hamas’s own casualty numbers were the largely ignored Gaza protests in late March and Hamas’s murder of at least six young Palestinian protesters.
By Chris Mitchell
Columnist

For once the pond baulked at looking at the Major's insights, more Zionist than Sydney golfer. 

The Major's "insights" - the pond uses the word loosely - seemed singularly inappropriate and offensive, what with the ethnic cleansing and the genocide proceeding apace ...

Did the Major find the space to mention the fate of hospitals or of Rafah? Was there a single mention of either word?

Of course not, and so the pond thought it might treat the Major the way that the Major responded to ethnic cleansing.

Instead of brooding on the slaughter, as hospital and Rafah go down, the pond decided it had been neglecting domestic matters, and in the absence of the Caterist, the pond turned to the bouffant one for a positive, uplifting recounting of the Duttonator launch ...

Circus was next door, but plenty of elephants in the room for Peter Dutton’s Coalition election launch
Peter Dutton and the circus both came to western Sydney for a show and there was no doubt the Stardust Circus had a bigger venue, was more entertaining and certainly had a bigger crowd.
Dennis Shanahan

Elephants in the room? The Stardust Circus more entertaining? What a curious line for a member of the state opposition media to take ...

The pond was briefly reassured by a snap of the fearless leader, Peter Dutton after addressing the Liberal Party campaign launch held at the Liverpool Catholic Club at Prestons in western Sydney. Picture: Richard Dobson

... but the bouffant one kept on sounding curiously alienated and distant ...

Peter Dutton and the circus both came to Hoxton Park in western Sydney for a show and there was no doubt the Stardust Circus had a bigger venue, was more entertaining and certainly had a bigger crowd.
But, oddly enough the Liberal Party campaign launch at the Liverpool Catholic Club had more elephants in the room than there were under the big top.
On a rare day of double campaign launches – Labor and Anthony Albanese in Western Australia and the Opposition Leader and the Coalition in western Sydney – both leaders decided there was a new narrative for 2025 electioneering and that was that debt and deficit are no longer selling points in Australian campaigns.
It’s clearly possible to be elected and re-elected while facing a decade of deficits as long as there are plenty of promises for hard-pressed citizens, their children and grand children, even if they are unlikely to be fulfilled or have already failed.

The reptiles tried to restore some semblance of sanity and balance by turning to an AV distraction, Peter Dutton has pledged to take action to address Labor’s “energy crisis”. “Chris Bowen’s renewables-only energy policy has been such a disaster,” Mr Dutton said during the Coalition campaign launch. “Labor’s out-of-control power prices have driven up the cost of everything across the economy.”

But jaundice kept creeping into the bouffant one, as if he were attempting to do a cracking Crace down under ...

As well as the interment of the decades-long mantra of trying to deal with debt and deficit here is also the assumption that no tough decisions – like those of the Hawke-Keating and Howard-Costello eras which increased productivity and put the nation back into a surplus and debt-free – can even be whispered.
The Prime Minister’s confident presentation on the other side of the continent of Labor’s achievements was a guarantee of more of the same from Labor.
As for the ability to pay for those promises from either side – forget about it!
Dutton’s launch was small on crowd size – less than 250 party faithful even including a raft of front benchers and the grey hairs of past leadership, John Howard, Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison.

Ah, the faithful, a chance at least to lead with that astonishing leader, the fundamentalist liar from the Shire, Peter Dutton shakes hands with former Prime Minister Scott Morrison as he arrives at the launch. Picture: Richard Dobson

For some peculiar reason, the bouffant one wasn't appeased, even as he tried to find plenty of substance ...

The launch was also deliberately low-key, no balloons, no booming music and no placards outside the modest western Sydney club next to the site of the circus.
In part this was a modern-day development of tighter security but it was also part of the Liberals’ appeal to no-fuss, low budget and no razzmatazz while asking people facing cost-of-living pressures in the outer reaches of Howard’s battlers for their vote.
There was plenty of substance and new announcements skewed towards restoring the “dream of home ownership“, extending the relief of the popular cut to petrol tax excise with a complementary (and temporary) tax cut aimed at lower-income earners, protecting retirement savings and superannuation, lowering energy costs, particularly gas, and creating new investment funds to help regional growth.

Perhaps a snap of the onion muncher to offer redemption, what with him having been such a singular success ...Peter Dutton greets former PM Tony Abbott at the Liverpool Catholic Club. Picture: Richard Dobson.

The bouffant one still didn't sound pleased ...

For a federal election campaign launch there was an extraordinary emphasis on the western suburbs of Sydney including a sombrely clad Melissa McIntosh, the prospective first cabinet minister for Western Sydney.
The reason for that is, as Dutton said, Western Sydney is a key battleground for the election – an election he says the Liberals “can and must win” to save Australia from the failure of the Albanese government.
Part of this emphasis is borne of a belief that there is a simmering and silent resentment among the outer suburbs and regions which is not captured in national polling or picked up by the “elites”.
There was even a pointed mention of the “silent” majority of the Morrison miracle victory of 2019.
But it seems that the old narrative and economic argument of addressing debt and deficit and managing economically with restrained spending are now part of that disregarded “elite” argument.

The caption for the next snap summed up the reasons for the bouffant one's pique, The risk of Dutton’s low-key launch is that it looks like the Coalition is still running slow and without momentum with only matching spending to offer. Picture: Richard Dobson

Just to make sure the hive mind got the message, the bouffant one ended his next gobbet the same way ...

While arguing that Labor has destroyed the economy and trashed people’s lives with its spending and fuelling of inflation the Coalition simply adopted the same approach of big-spending promises.
In dollar terms the Coalition matched Albanese’s $10bn for first-home buyers and effectively matched Labor’s budget tax cuts to take effect in late 2026.
Clearly conscious of the success of offering “immediate relief” through the petrol excise cut and not waiting for 15 months, Dutton announced his tax cuts for lower- and middle-income earners as being complementary to the cheaper petrol promise.
The risk of the low-key launch is that it looks like the Coalition is still running slow and without momentum with only matching spending to offer.

Et tu bouffant one?

There was a half-hearted attempt to bring the family together, The Opposition Leader with his family on stage at the campaign launch. Picture: Richard Dobson

But those bloody elephants returned for a dismissive finale ...

It also meant Dutton had the elephants in the room of how is he going to pay for it, what is going to be the big-spending defence announcement to come, how is he going to deal with Donald Trump and why is his spending better than Albanese’s if there is the same outlook of a decade of deficits?
Stardust Circus doesn’t have elephants perhaps because they have all moved into political headquarters.

The mango Mussolini an elephant?

The pond wondered if it had made a terrible mistake. 

Over in the US, there were still many wonders and joys to behold, including RFK Jr., the demolition of medicine and science, and the disassembling of government by Uncle Leon and his minions.

Lunkhead Lutnick was in exceptional form and celebrated in New York magazine in Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s Most Lunkheaded Moments (paywall)

There were two lunkheaded moments that caught the pond's eye ...

Lutnick promises an employment boom (largely for robots)
So how exactly is Trump’s trade war going to create American jobs in a timely fashion when it takes years to build a factory? Robots!
In an interview with Fox News’ Jesse Watters, Lutnick claimed that low-wage factory workers in foreign countries are going to be replaced by fancy robots in the good old U.S. of A. That may sound like robots are taking our jobs, but the secretary explained Americans are going to … fix the robots or something? Honestly, Lutnick’s word salad was kind of hard to follow. But the bottom line is ROBOTS! Get excited!
Lutnick dreams of electric American sheep
When asked to provide details on the coming robot revolution on Face the Nation, Lutnick was hazy on whether that would actually come to pass, or Trump’s trade deals would just create American sweat shops.
“Well, remember, the army of millions and millions of human beings screwing in little – little screws to make iPhones, that kind of thing is going to come to America,” he said, “It’s going to be automated and great Americans — the tradecraft of America, is going to fix them, is going to work on them. They’re going to be mechanics. There’s going to be HVAC specialists. There’s going to be electricians, the tradecraft of America.”

That set up a splendid reversal, a double flip that the Duttonator could only aspire to, recorded in The New York Times ...(paywall, archive)

That also sent the WSJ editorial board off on an epic rant, with the Board apparently unaware of the diligent work of their kissing cousins at Faux Noise ...The Lessons of Trump’s Tariff Exemptions, It’s good to be Apple’s Tim Cook but not to be a small manufacturer that can’t afford a K Street lobbyist. (paywall, archive)

Tariffs are advertised in the name of helping American workers, but what do you know? They turn out to favor the powerful and politically connected. That’s the main message of President Trump’s decision to exempt smartphones and assorted electronic goods from his most onerous tariffs.
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) late Friday issued a notice listing products that will be exempt from Mr. Trump’s so-called reciprocal tariffs that can run as high as 145% on goods from China. The exclusions apply to smartphones, laptop computers, hard drives, computer processors, servers, memory chips, semiconductor manufacturing equipment, and other electronics.
The CBP notice takes the tariff rate on these products down considerably. Barron’s calculates that the exceptions cover $385 billion in 2024 imports. That includes $100 billion from China, or 23% of U.S. imports from that country. The tariff rate falls to 20% on the newly exempted Chinese exports.
These exemptions are good news for consumers who were facing much higher prices for smartphones that are a staple of modern life. How would you like a $2,400 iPhone? But the big winners are the giant companies that assemble these products abroad and now get a reprieve, at least for as long as they remain in Mr. Trump’s good political graces.
Apple CEO Tim Cook is a big winner, as are Dell Technologies’ Michael Dell, Jensen Huang of Nvidia, and the executives and shareholders of Hewlett-Packard and TSMC. This is no rap on them, since their job is look out for the best interests of shareholders and that means getting tariff carve-outs when they can. Some of the companies may not even have sought exemptions, though the opacity of the process for getting one is the Beltway Swamp’s dream.
The Trump exemptions carry several lessons that vindicate tariff critics. One is a rebuttal of the fantasy pitched by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to CBS News that an “army of millions and millions of human beings screwing in little, little screws to make iPhones, that kind of thing is going to come to America” and be automated.
Guess not. As CEOs and these columns have argued, there aren’t nearly enough American workers who could do that work. And even if there were, most of the economic value-added doesn’t come from final-stage assembly. It comes from design and higher-end component supply. It is no credit to the Trump Administration to have a Commerce secretary who knows so little about modern commerce. Oh, and on Sunday Mr. Lutnick said the tariffs on electronics could go up again in the coming months.
The exemptions also expose the fiction that foreign exporters pay the bulk of tariff costs. If that were true, China would absorb the cost and U.S. consumers wouldn’t pay more. No exemptions would be needed. Mr. Trump wants the exemptions to avoid the political blame for rising prices on high-profile products.
This is also a tacit admission that tariffs will make American companies less globally competitive, especially in the artificial intelligence race. That explains the exemptions for ASML’s chip-making equipment and Nvidia’s graphic processing units. Mr. Trump first makes U.S. companies less competitive, then he and his Administration, in their unerring wisdom, pick exceptions worthy of help to remain competitive. Politicians, not success in the marketplace, pick business winners and losers.
The exemptions also undermine the Administration’s legal justification that his tariffs are needed to meet a national “emergency.” Imports of glassware and umbrellas from China are an emergency but imports of electronics aren’t? What are the Chamber of Commerce and other business groups waiting for to sue to block this presidential overreach?
***
All of this exposes the arbitrary political nature of tariffs. Some industries benefit but others don’t. Too bad if you make shoes, or clothing, or thousands of other consumer products that must pay the tariffs but lack the political or market clout to win exemptions. Too bad, too, if you’re a small manufacturer that relies on a component from China but can’t afford a high-priced K Street lobbyist.
Welcome to the new tariff economy, where you still pay onerous taxes, endure punishing regulation, and now must also navigate the political minefield of arbitrary tariffs.

Talk about entirely missing the point. 

Why be a king or an emperor if you can't lavish largesse on your lickspittle subservient peasants?

A little voice in the pond's head reminded it that there were still domestic matters to observe and what better way than with a "Ned" natter that the reptiles clocked at an astonishingly brief three minutes. 

Not so much a verbal Everest to climb, as a saunter away from base camp to read Election 2025: Delusion rules amid a dismal disregard to cost-of-living grief, The public, to a large extent, is being offered phoney and glib answers to its cost-of-living grief.

"Ned" was in a fog of grief and despair ...

For those having trouble with the small print caption, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at the Labor campaign launch in Perth and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton at the Liberal Party campaign launch in Sydney. Pictures: NewsWire, and there was that mysterious injunction, This article contains features which are only available in the web version, Take me there

The pond went for the magic carpet ride ...

It is a deadly troika. The fusion of an election, inflation and a housing crisis has taken Australian public policy to a dismal low. The public, to a large extent, is being offered phoney and glib answers to its cost-of-living grief.
The campaign bidding war between Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton has scaled a new peak: witness Dutton’s offering of a tax deduction for mortgage interest (a first in Australia), Albanese’s plan to deliver for first-home buyers with only a 5 per cent deposit and Dutton’s one-year tax relief offset of up to $1200, in addition to his fuel excise cut.
The leaders are sticking tight to a retail politics competition. Campaign 2025 is about spending and tax breaks to ease your pain and persuade you they care about your lost living standards.
These offerings run in tandem with a fierce negative campaign from both sides confirming the winner will be “who you distrust the least”.

The pond sensed the real reason for "Ned's" despair. 

The Duttonator was running like a dead horse, in need of a battery-fuelled flogging, while the man who never falls off anything was there to give "Ned" grief, Anthony Albanese at the Labor campaign launch in Perth. Picture: Jason Edwards/NewsWire

"Ned" was doing a simpleton Simon and giving the edge to the ebullient one ...

In a polarised sunny Sunday that saw Albanese and Dutton on different sides of the country – Perth and Sydney respectively – to formally launch their campaigns, the tactical edge still resides with Labor.
Dutton’s launch resembled an effort to prevent the election slipping away from the Coalition.
Albanese is ebullient. He doubles down on brand Labor – invoking renewables, equality for women, the Gonski agenda, rising wages, childcare and fresh initiatives on first-home ownership. But the icon in Labor’s kitbag is Medicare – the message being Labor’s identity claim on Medicare – while Albanese is now explicitly tainting Dutton with the Trumpian slur.

Indeed, indeed, but to be fair, the Price is Right managed that all on her own. 

What a flurry of floozies resulted ...

To sample just one, Jacinta Price says Coalition will ‘make Australia great again’ – then accuses media of being ‘obsessed with’ Trump

Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has rejected comparisons to Donald Trump after announcing she wanted to “make Australia great again” at a campaign rally in Perth.
Standing next to the opposition leader during a speech to party supporters gathered at a bowling club on Saturday morning, Price said she wanted to “make Australia great again” – a political war cry popularised by the controversial US president.
The federal opposition leader, Peter Dutton, has appointed the shadow minister for Indigenous Australians, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, to lead a new ‘government efficiency’ platform before the 2025 election
“We have incredible candidates right around the country that I’m so proud to be able to stand beside and to ensure that we can make Australia great again, that we can bring Australia back to its former glory, that we can get Australia back on track,” she said.
Moments later, in a press conference, Price said she hadn’t “even realised” she made the comments, before adding she wanted to ensure Australia got “back on track”.
Price was appointed to lead a government efficiency unit if the Coalition government is elected after 3 May. The unit, which would sit within the prime minister’s department, has been compared to one led by US tech billionaire Elon Musk, whose Department of Government Efficiency, or Doge, is taking a razor to US government departments.

The outspoken Northern Territory senator joined Peter Dutton in the seat of Tangney in Perth’s inner suburbs as the Coalition looks to win back Labor’s “red wall” in the western state.

And so on and didn't everyone have fun with that one ...(L'Age paywall, archive)

Splendid stuff ...

Back to "Ned" doing his best to ignore the comedy ...

Albanese talks up a second term that builds on the first. He offers more of the same and believes that’s enough. The risk is that flawed public policy – high spending, high tax, weak productivity and inadequate defence – will be authorised at the election and shape the next term.

The reptiles seized the chance to slip in an AF distraction, Political Reporters Rhiannon Down and Jack Quail are on the campaign trail this week in the lead up to the 2025 Election.

"Ned" refused to be distracted, and instead preferred to wallow in despair ...

Dutton’s agenda is being rolled out too late. He delivered an effective speech to a low-energy event in western Sydney embracing an idea long shunned in our policy – interest payment tax deductions for first-home buyers on the first $650,000 of their mortgage, to be provided for new-build homes and allowed for five years.
The tax break is available for individuals on a taxable income of up to $175,000 and $250,000 for couples. There is no cap on the overall mortgage size or home price. The Coalition said a first-home buyer earning $120,000 with a $650,000 mortgage at 6.1 per cent would receive a benefit of about $12,000 a year.
This is either an act of audacity or desperation. Designed as a circuit-break for the Coalition, it aims to boost supply but will surely boost demand before extra supply arrives. Meanwhile, Dutton’s $1200 one-year tax rebate, combined with the cut in fuel excise, aims to position the Coalition as doing more for cost-of-living relief.
Dutton’s theme was beware of “more of the same under Labor – a weaker, less secure, worse off Australia”.

Hard to come back from that one, This is either an act of audacity or desperation, but the reptiles doubled down with a snap of the desperately audacious old Queensland copper with a desperate desire to live in Kirribilli ... Peter Dutton at the Coalition campaign launch in Sydney. Picture: AP

Instead of elephants and circuses, "Ned" decided a fog metaphor was the best way to show his state of mind, and his deep sense of loss, and his way of coping with the existential futility of being a reptile ...

His problem is the chocked-up Coalition policy rollout in the campaign – from the gas strategy to the housing tax deduction to the defence budget (still not released) that has undermined the Coalition’s pulling power for voters disillusioned with Labor.
The Coalition policy profile needed to be in headlights far earlier. Moreover, having the two leaders launch on the same day hardly helped Dutton. He needs clear air but had to share media coverage with Albanese.
Albanese’s housing initiative is sold as a “generational change” – with the median home price today at $820,000, Labor says its plan means only 5 per cent or $41,000 is needed as a deposit.
It will be available for homes valued up to the average price in every city and region.
Meanwhile, the world is being transformed in economic, trade and strategic terms. There is mutual agreement in this country – between the politicians and the public – to ensure such matters don’t interfere with our domestic priorities. The election is lost in a fog of delusion.

Surely not, buck up "Ned", think of the noble work being done by Faux Noise to help transform the world ...

And think of the cartoonists, think of The Price is Right ... think of the immortal Rowe celebrating Kirribilli dreaming ...

Think of the details, there's always details deserving to be thunk about ...

Good old SMRs ... why there hadn't been a single word about them in all of the above ... nor for that matter the nuclear solution ...

Instead there was just the donning of the Donnie's cap ... perhaps marked "return to sender, address unknown" ...