In which the pond is forced to slog through the bromancer and the Ughmann, and it's worse than climbing Everest with "Ned" ...

 

The pond looked at the top of the lizard Oz edition early this Saturday and took a deep sigh ...

There was the bromancer second from the top, seemingly given the task of filling up the rag with verbiage in place of nattering "Ned", who has been ominously quiet of late. No Everest climb with "Ned
this day.

Even worse, the bro had settled on the mango Mussolini, that very stable genius, as his topic, and the pond had long ago reached saturation point with that mix of pro wrestling, reality TV and a tired sitcom.

Besides, if the pond wanted a guide, the bromancer would be well down the list. 

If the pond wanted a discourse on the state of the US government, the pond would turn to Susan B. Glasser in The New Yorker, scribbling Elon Musk Didn’t Blow Up Washington, but He Left Plenty of Damage Behind, The obits for the tech mogul’s time at the Department of Government Efficiency are, justifiably, vicious. (*archive link)

With an impending sense of doom, the pond turned to the extreme far right in a search for alternatives ...

Really? Dame Slap defending the indefensible, namely her? 

A gender spat in Labor to balance simpleton Simon on the gender gap?

The dog botherer defending the indefensible, and issuing a rousing call to arms and finish the job, complete the extermination?

There was nothing for it, the pond simply had to go there, all tedious ten minutes of it, or so the reptile clock said ...

As usual with the bromancer, always one for full blown hysteria, the header was apocalyptic: ‘Whole world waits’: Climatic episode looms in the Trump show, Few forces have stood against the US President and prevailed. Now he faces crises on multiple fronts.

Theoretically there's years to do, but these were the crises identified in the caption: The world still awaits Donald Trump’s reaction to the ongoing hostilities by Russian leader Vladimir Putin against Volodymyr Zelensky’s Ukraine; Benjamin Netanyahu is discovering that Trump’s interests are diverging from those of Israel; and Elon Musk has thrown in the towel over Trump’s ‘big, beautiful’ tax bill. Artwork: Sean Callinan

Sean, give the credit to AI, it will help your career, as that useless command followed: This article contains features which are only available in the web version, Take me there

The pond would like to be taken anywhere else...

Donald Trump is about to make a series of decisions that will determine how the planet and its eight billion people live in the decades ahead. Trump once said the difference between his first term and his second is that in his first term he ruled America, in his second he rules America and the world.
It’s an exaggeration, of course, but Trump is central to everything of consequence happening in the world today. The US Court of International Trade has ruled his punitive tariffs illegal. The Trump administration imposed them under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977. The court found there was no credible emergency.
Trump is challenging the ruling and was successful in keeping the tariffs in place until the appeal fully unfolds. His administration is also seeking out other ways he might legally impose tariffs if he ultimately loses this appeal.

The reptiles immediately interrupted with a visual distraction, the first of many to follow, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi and Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff are resuming talks on Friday, despite both Washington and Tehran taking a tough stance in public over Iran's uranium enrichment. Rachel Graham has more.

The real tragedy? There's plenty of memes to hand on the matter of tariffs, but apparently the reptiles have no interest in expanding their range and appealing to vulgar youff ...

There you go Sean, that's how to use AI and lighten the bromancer read ...

The global economy still waits at a crossroads, unable to work out what Trump will do. Russia, Ukraine and Europe await Trump’s considered reaction to Vladimir Putin’s determined aggression and his spurning of Trump’s call for a ceasefire and peace. Trump has fallen out of love with Putin, saying: “He’s killing a lot of people, I’m not happy about that” and “he’s gone absolutely crazy”.
China’s Xi Jinping waits for Trump’s next tariff move as Beijing gears up to take Taiwan by force. What will Trump do on tariffs? What would Trump do if Beijing blockaded Taiwan or invaded?
The Iranian mullahs have decided to run down the clock in negotiations with Washington. They’ve concluded Trump won’t attack them militarily, even if Tehran insists on retaining uranium enrichment. Enriching uranium means Iran gets a bomb eventually.
These lengthy negotiations, resembling Barack Obama’s, are distressing to Israel, which sees its interests substantially diverging from Trump’s, though he’s still a tight ally. Trump wants the fighting to end in Gaza. Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu says he’s not finished extirpating the terrorist group Hamas from Gaza. Netanyahu has concluded Israel itself must administer most of Gaza.

The reptiles interrupted again, Donald Trump listens as Elon Musk, with his son X, speaks in the Oval Office at the White House in February. Picture: AP

Wouldn't it have been more amusing and relevant to recall King Donald's appearance on SNL back in 2004 doing the house of wings dance?

So many chooks, so little time ...

Back home, Trump wages war on Harvard and, less intensely, other Ivy League universities. The Ivy League universities have earned themselves such a toxic reputation with ordinary Americans that for Trump it’s a popular war, especially with his base, despite his normal excesses.

Actually if the pond wanted to read about the war on education, why not head off to Greg Lukianoff in The Atlantic, Trump’s Attacks Threaten Much More Than Harvard, If the government succeeds in bullying the richest university into submission, what institutions will be safe? (*archive link)

And so on, because the next line ...

The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, has left his Department of Government Efficiency. He reportedly remains on good terms with Trump but leaves disappointed, frustrated.

...entirely misses the yarn that's besotted the media since the NY Times broke it ...

What's more if you head off to the Graudian rip, you avoid the paywall ... and get the essence of the yarn ...

Elon Musk engaged in extensive drug consumption while serving as one of Donald Trump’s closest advisers, taking ketamine so frequently it caused bladder problems and traveling with a daily supply of approximately 20 pills, according to claims made to the New York Times.
The world’s richest man regularly consumed ketamine, ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms during his rise to political prominence, anonymous sources familiar with his activities told the Times. His drug use reportedly intensified as he donated $275m to Trump’s presidential campaign and later wielded significant power through his role spearheading the “department of government efficiency”, or Doge.
Musk announced his departure from government service on Wednesday evening, months after exhibiting erratic behavior including insulting cabinet members and making a Nazi-like salute at a political rally...
...The Doge leader developed what those sources described to the Times as a serious ketamine habit, consuming the powerful anesthetic sometimes daily rather than the “small amount” taken “about once every two weeks” he claimed in interviews. “If you’ve used too much ketamine, you can’t really get work done, and I have a lot of work,” Musk previously told journalist Don Lemon in March 2024, downplaying his consumption.
However, by spring last year, the Times reports that Musk was telling associates his ketamine use was affecting his bladder – a known consequence of chronic abuse of the drug, which has psychedelic properties and can cause dissociation from reality, according to the DEA.
His regular medication box contained pills bearing Adderall markings alongside other substances, according to sources with the Times who have seen photographs of the container.

And so on, while the bromancer pressed on ...

Trump has got his “big, beautiful” tax bill passed by the House of Representatives. It continues Trump’s first-term tax cuts, adds a few others, tightens work requirements for Medicaid, adds spending on border control and the like, and offers a defence budget of $US1 trillion ($1.5 trillion). Part of Musk’s disillusionment came from this bill. He thinks it will add $US2 trillion to the federal deficit over a decade, though it was touted as reducing the deficit.
Part of Trump’s defence policy is creating a “Golden Dome” missile defence system designed to protect the US from missile attack. It may cost, Trump thinks, a little less than $US200bn and be deployed by 2028. Most analysts think it will cost much more and take much longer. But Trump is ambitious.
The Senate will pass some version of the “big, beautiful” bill but a lot of horse-trading and rank pork-barrelling will go into it before it’s finalised in the next months.

"Trump is ambitious?" 

Trump is deeply delusional, apparently unaware that Canada has him over a barrel when it comes to the dome, and still stuck in the 1980s when Ronnie Raygun announced his big, beautiful 'Star Wars' missile defence system. (The only selling point was the use of "gold" in the name).

No wonder the reptiles kept offering visual distractions of the petulant Peta kind, Sky News contributor Kosha Gada discusses the “big beautiful bill” which went through Congress in the United States. Elon Musk has left DOGE after criticising US President Donald Trump’s tax bill, which could increase the federal debt by upwards of $US3 trillion. "Elon Musk, his time was coming to a natural end anyway,” Ms Gada told Sky News host Peta Credlin. “He did make some cutting remarks about how the cuts don’t go deep enough. “Spending cuts has never been Trump’s main thing. “He’s getting what he wants.”

Meanwhile, the bromancer retained his ambivalent fascination for the Cantaloupe Caligula ...

In all these issues, what Trump decides – not what his administration thinks but what he personally decides – will be the critical factor. That doesn’t mean Trump will get his way every time. On many issues he’ll be thwarted and frustrated. But few forces have stood directly against him and prevailed. His most intractable opponents at the moment are the courts. The Democrats hardly count.
Of the eight billion or so people on the planet today, Trump has the greatest agency, the greatest influence, the greatest raw power. Trump is the most famous man in the world and the most powerful.
Ethically Trump is a black hole. His businesses, his family, are getting much richer because he’s President. That doesn’t faze his supporters. It certainly doesn’t happen in the shadows. Trump’s pre-emptive self-defence is epic chutzpah, sheer brazenness. Simultaneously, Trump is pursuing serious policy aims. Trump derangement syndrome takes many forms but paying close attention to Trump is not the problem. Understanding his purposes is key.
Before the court quashed, temporarily, his tariffs, Trump was politically resurgent. He had stellar poll numbers at his inauguration in January. But then when he launched his Liberation Day global tariffs, targeting virtually the whole world, his numbers dived. When Joe Biden’s numbers collapsed after the grossly mismanaged retreat from Afghanistan, they never recovered. Trump’s different.
The bond markets tanked. Americans realised widespread tariffs would mean big price rises on goods they regarded as life’s essentials. So, partly to avoid a financial crisis and a collapse in domestic support, Trump retreated on tariffs, delaying their application so trade deals could be negotiated.

Again the reptiles interrupted, with the topic not particularly relevant, except as another real estate deal, China threatens Australia over Port of Darwin call #china #australia #trump #darwin China has just threatened Australia, saying the Albanese Government's vow to take back the Port of Darwin could destroy the two countries' relationship. Before the 2025 Australian federal election, Labor pledged to win the Port back if they were re-elected. The Prime Minister said Landbridge, the Chinese company that currently leases the Darwin port, would either have to sell it, or Australia would take it back by force. Now, China’s Ambassador to Australia says this would jeopardise our relationship, calling the decision “ethically questionable”. His comments come just months after a series of Chinese warships were spotted near Australian waters. It also follows reports an American firm linked to the Trump administration is showing interest in acquiring the port lease. As tensions continue to rise, what will Australia do next?

Never mind the cognitive decline, trot out a Greek god reference ...

Astonishingly, his numbers came back. In April, Trump’s poll numbers had crashed. According to the RealClearPolitics average of polls, his approval rating was 45.3 per cent and his disapproval rating 52.4 per cent, a gap of 7.1 points. But the most recent poll average has Trump’s approval rating recovering to 47.7 per cent and his disapproval down to 49.3 per cent, a gap of 1.6 points. So Trump is still under water but in two months he has improved by 5.5 points.
Trump is truly protean. The word might have been invented just for Trump. Proteus was a disagreeable and unpredictable Greek god who, when asked difficult questions that he didn’t like, changed his shape and became something else altogether.
Kim Beazley once remarked that Trump didn’t have developed policies or indeed a consistent policy framework. He has prejudices, hostilities, attitudes. These can be translated into policies. The one exception is tariffs. Trump has passionately believed in the effectiveness, indeed the shining virtue, of tariffs, for decades.
Economist Chris Richardson tells Inquirer that Trump believes trade deficits are bad for America and inherently unfair, and his only remedy for them is tariffs. But, Richardson says, the true remedy is quite different: “There are imbalances in the world trade system but I wouldn’t try to fix them with tariffs. The US budget deficit is about 6.5 per cent of US national income and the trade deficit is about 3 per cent of US national income. We used to call them the twin deficits. China has a very inadequate social credit problem.”

Ye ancient cats and dogs, then came another snap, with a typo to emphasise the uselessness of education, Trump’s war on he (sic) Ivy League universities such as Harvard is popular with his base. Picture: Spencer Platt/Getty Images/AFP

On with the idle speculation, and incredibly simple solutions ...

So, Richardson says, the solution is simple. If the US budget were in balance the US would have 2 per cent of GDP less to spend on goods and services. That would mean fewer imports.
If the Chinese provided greater social welfare, they would spend a lot more on goods and services and save less because they wouldn’t have to provide for life’s contingencies entirely on their own. They would buy more, including more imports.
The US would spend less, export more and import less. China would spend more, export less and import more. But it’s not likely to happen.
Trump faces fateful decisions, especially on Russia-Ukraine and Iran. What clues can we get from his behaviour so far this term? Consider these three episodes, which are clearer now in retrospect than they were in real time.
Episode one: Musk. Musk is the richest man in the world and must be, therefore, one of the smartest men in the world. But it seems he has been effectively played by Trump.
Trump seduced Musk into becoming a lavishly munificent, wildly enthusiastic supporter. He held out to Musk the chance to remake the federal government, appealing to Musk’s ego, sense of manifest destiny and no doubt his desire to do some good. Musk thought that at DOGE he would transform the behaviour and size of government. He talked about taking $US1 trillion or $US2 trillion out of government spending.
Musk did disrupt some agencies, especially in US aid, cultural policy and the Education Department. Some of his mass firings were reversed in court. But DOGE now claims it has cut only $US150bn of federal government spending. That’s almost certainly a substantial exaggeration. Nonetheless, it’s significant money.

Significant money? That's what you have to say to dress up a small amount of ketamine pissed into a pot? 

Cue this NY Times story, For Federal Workers, Musk’s Chain Saw Still Reverberates, Employees of federal agencies continue to wrestle with the shocks of Elon Musk’s drive to purge the government of diversity programs and slash employment even as the billionaire leaves Washington. (*archive link)

A Forest Service employee spent his own money to mow the lawn at a government property he manages. Spending freezes and new bureaucratic sign-off requirements meant the agency could not pay for the routine service in a timely way.
A social scientist with the Internal Revenue Service went into the office after months on leave and found that his co-workers had already left the government or were on their way out.
Calls to the General Services Administration about routine work might or might not be answered because so many people have left, an official there said. Employees depart without any planning for who will take over their roles.
Elon Musk’s time with the federal government is up, but his chain saw approach to firing workers, freezing spending and canceling contracts continues to reverberate in the empty halls of agencies in Washington and around the country.
Current and former federal workers describe a government that in some cases remains paralyzed with uncertainty, waiting for direction from senior officials. Everyday tasks now take much longer, with added layers of supervisory approvals that they say make their work harder. Thousands of government employees are now being paid not to work, all in service of Mr. Musk’s efficiency mandate, which President Trump billed as a way to purge the government of diversity initiatives and as a cost-cutting initiative to better serve the American public. (There is scant evidence of any savings.)
And while Mr. Musk is going back to running his companies, the federal work force reductions he set in motion have yet to fully take effect. Tens of thousands of government workers have been braced for layoffs for more than a month.
Moreover, some of the aides that Mr. Musk installed in agencies remain in place, seeking to continue their version of the efficiency and modernization drive.
The current and former federal workers who described morale and working conditions in the wake of Mr. Musk’s initiatives did so on condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation. Even people who have left government asked to remain anonymous out of concern that speaking out could jeopardize their severance agreements.
“Musk leaving is a little bit like the departure of Godzilla after there’s an attack on the city,” said Max Stier, the president of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit that works to promote best practices in the federal government. “There’s a lot of stuff that’s been flattened, and the damage is profound, but it’s not actually over.”

And so on and on, and what about this for the closer to that Times' tale?

...The goal for many is to stay out of the line of fire, an archaeologist with the Department of Agriculture said. If they or their work does get hit, she said, the goal is to direct the bullet to the leg instead of the heart, so that there is still something left once the destruction ends.

So far there is no end in sight, and Mr. Musk’s loyalists are still embedded in government agencies.

On Wednesday, Bryton Shang, a former tech executive now serving as a senior adviser at the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, was spotted in one of the agency’s elevators, an employee there said. Mr. Musk was never actually around the office, she said. But his staff is very much still there.

Donald F. Kettl, professor emeritus and the former dean of the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy, said Mr. Musk’s departure from government casts a long shadow.

“DOGE was never so much an entity, but an unguided missile that crushed programs and people in its way, and a recruitment machine” that embedded DOGE staff throughout the government, he said.

An unguided missile? Could a golden dome help?

Cue another AV distraction, this time a drone gap, reviving fond memories of Dr. Strangelove, Will an increase in defence spending enable the U.S. to close the gap in the drone market? According to North Carolina Rep. Pat Harrigan, 'China's drone output in 2024 was $29.4 billion, at least four times the amount of money that the United States is spending, with far lower, by an order of magnitude, unit costs.'

The bromancer then continued with another set of demented "insights" ...

But Trump never let Musk and DOGE anywhere near the real concentrations of US spending. The big money goes in transfer payments, especially Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and Defence.
Musk, along with some other Make America Great Again types, once thought he could cut defence spending yet deliver a more effective military. In truth, like all allied nations, Washington needs to spend more on defence. Trump wouldn’t let Musk touch at least 85 per cent of federal spending.
Yet the whole DOGE episode was immensely useful to Trump. Clearly, Trump has no intention at all of seriously tackling the US budget deficit, which is about $US2 trillion. But he wanted DOGE to make it look as though that’s what he planned to do. Trump understood that DOGE would drive liberal commentators insane, enrage the deep state, send the moral denouncement meters off the charts. But it was actually a cover for doing too little, not an effort to do too much.

So owning the libs was immensely useful, though it was all a nonsense?

No wonder the reptiles kept on interrupting, Yemenis check the rubble of a building hit in US strikes in the country's northern province of Saada on April 29. Picture: AFP

On with the listicle, as the bromancer tries to evoke 5D chess at play ...

Episode two: In February, against the opposition as we now know of Vice-President JD Vance, Trump began a big bombing campaign against the Houthis in Yemen. Trump hates foreign military entanglements. But in his first administration he undertook one big campaign, to destroy Islamic State. This served to reinforce the message of US deterrence. After that, Trump was very reluctant to get involved in any direct military action. He’d threaten such action but never take it. Those who think Trump a uniquely dangerous President should bear that in mind.
Washington was bombing the Houthis, allegedly to protect US shipping in the Red Sea. But the Houthis had effectively already stopped attacking US shipping. At some point Washington and the Houthis agreed the campaign would end. Trump declared victory and even said something nice about the Houthis. Yet even as they were concluding the agreement, the Houthis fired missiles at Israel, at least one of which hit Tel Aviv airport.
Trump didn’t really care about that. Like DOGE, the Yemen bombing campaign was a species of Trump theatre. He undertook one safe military campaign just to answer the critique that Trump never carries out his threats. The primary objective of the bombing campaign was not to eliminate the Houthi threat, though of course that was a secondary objective. The primary objective was performative, theatrical. Look at me! I can do a real military campaign if I want to.
Episode three: The April 2 Liberation Day tariffs. These were not just theatre, they established negotiating leverage. They were theatrical in that they weren’t designed ever to be implemented, apart from the 10 per cent base tariff, which Trump wants as a perennial revenue raiser. The Financial Times coined the term “TACO”, meaning Trump always chickens out from carrying out his worst threats. That seems a slightly strange term as surely the FT wants Trump to chicken out.

At last he mentions the meme, but this was the interrupting snap? Trump seems to have completely misread Vladimir Putin in thinking Putin was interested in peace. Picture: AFP

This should have been the snap ...

... or perhaps a more general evocation of the meme ...

Sheesh, is there not a single stand-up comedy bone in the ever so solemn bromancer?

Trump often makes real mistakes, then fraudulently claims they were always part of his subtle, if not inscrutable, negotiating strategy. On the other hand, he does also engage in negotiating tactics. Clearly he never planned to impose most of the tariffs but to use them to get beneficial deals for the US. Naturally, we all have to take the President at his word, so there were many semi-apocalyptic economic analyses of what the tariffs would do.
Trump was forced to change perhaps more quickly than he planned because the bond markets became unstable and US Treasury bonds needed higher interest rates to attract borrowers. Indeed the only two powers in the world that to some extent have been able to force Trump into reversals are the bond markets and US courts.
By taking an extreme position initially, Trump makes a lesser position, which once would have looked extreme enough, seem mild. Often the key to understanding Trump is to recognise the theatrical shape and purpose of an episode.
What’s Trump going to do about Russia and Iran? Malcolm Davis of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute tells Inquirer that Putin has no interest in a ceasefire or peace deal because he’s making gains on the battlefield.

Cue another AV distraction, aimed at the Bolter's very small audience, Former US Army vice chief of staff General Jack Keane says US President Donald Trump should have “taken action” on Ukraine sooner when it was obvious Russian President Vladimir Putin was not interested in a peace agreement. “(Putin) is pulling out all the stops here not to go to any negotiated settlement, unless major concessions were being made to him that would make Ukraine vulnerable,” Gen Keane told Sky News host Andrew Bolt. “If the Europeans continue to support (Ukraine), which I think they would very steadfastly, it would protract a war for a number of years.”

Back to the important business of giving Europe away to Vlad the sociopath ...

Davis says Putin wants a clear win in Ukraine, which doesn’t mean controlling all of its territory. He could then use this as a basis in a few years for an attack on the Baltic states, perhaps Lithuania or Estonia. NATO would not go to war for these states. Certainly Trump wouldn’t. Putin could thus re-establish Russian dominance of east and central Europe, shatter NATO’s credibility, destroy the trans-Atlantic alliance and extend his co-operation with China and Iran.
Trump seems to have completely misread Putin in thinking Putin was interested in peace. In fairness to Trump, his flawed instinct on Putin was similar to that of Obama. Remember Hillary Clinton as Obama’s secretary of state producing a “reset button” for relations with Moscow? Before that George W. Bush made similar efforts to use a personal relationship with Putin to effect geo-strategic change. All failed.
Trump was much tougher on Putin in his first term. Assuming Putin won’t do a peace deal, Trump has threatened to walk away from the Russia-Ukraine war. If that walking away means no more American weapons and intelligence support to Ukraine, the embattled nation will struggle mightily, with only European assistance. It would be a dreadful legacy for Trump. Alternatively, Trump could ratchet up pressure on Moscow by continuing military support and also levying secondary sanctions on countries that trade with Russia.

Then came a final interruption, a truly delusional one, GOP Pollster and Messaging Strategist Brent Buchanan has reacted to a new poll gauging the US public’s reaction to the direction the country is heading. According to a new Rasmussen poll, 50 per cent of Americans believe the country is on the right track. “There’s definitely a trend to where Donald Trump’s image has improved,” Mr Buchanan told Sky News Digital Presenter Gabriella Power. “In the last 30 days there’s been a bit more stability into how much change is coming.”

Throughout this the pond has shown incredible restraint in the matter of 'toons, especially ones celebrating how much money has been coming into assorted grifter pockets...

Even the bromancer found it had to swallow the stability line in his closer...

On Iran, Trump must decide whether, if Iran won’t give up enriching uranium, he will back an Israeli strike on its nuclear facilities. Trump hates that kind of unpredictable conflict but the Israelis rightly see Iran as an existential threat. Moscow and Tehran will search for formulas that let Trump declare victory but safeguard their key interests.
Any American administration would struggle mightily to handle all these issues simultaneously. What is unique in our moment is that Trump is handling them all personally. That gives him great flexibility, but it’s a disastrously amateurish approach that militates particularly against institutional follow-up and stability.
Still, the whole world waits on him. But there’s nothing institutional about Trump, and he never promised stability.

Actually like pretty much else the bro says in his dissembling about a notorious liar, that's not true. 

King Donald has continually heiled himself as "a very stable genius."

There was even a book about him that took it for a title. Per its wiki:

The title refers to a phrase Trump has repeatedly used to describe himself, starting in January 2018 when a book, Fire and Fury, raised questions about his mental stability. Responding in a series of tweets, he said "Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart" and that his achievements in life qualified him as "not smart, but genius....and a very stable genius at that!" He continued to describe himself as "a very stable genius" on multiple subsequent occasions.

And Luckovich put out a collection celebrating the notion ...

And so, after that exhausting read to the bonus, not because it matters but because it's there ...

The header: A marriage of lies and deepfake deception, Maybe it’s a sign of age, or the times, but bald lies now seem more common and more shameless, as agreed facts have become artefacts and the tools of manipulation have grown more sophisticated.

The caption for the unaware hive mind: France's President Emmanuel Macron (L) claps with his wife Brigitte Macron.

The essence of existential futility: This article contains features which are only available in the web version, Take me there

Funnily enough, the French 'bedroom rule' brings together the Ughmann and Pauline Bock scribbling furiously in The Graudian ...

The image of red-jacketed arms shoving Emmanuel Macron, framed in the doorway of his presidential plane, ricocheted around the globe this week.
The French President’s visit to Vietnam had begun badly. The Elysee Palace media team whirred into damage control and it is telling that its reflex was to lie, claiming the image was a deepfake.`
That is disturbing. It may not be the first time a Western leader has taken refuge in the fog of the digital age, but it won’t be the last.
Welcome to the era of political illusion: no longer a nod to something real but excuses that rely on a world unmoored from reality.

There wasn't much to the tale, and the reptiles quickly interrupted, Sky News host James Macpherson has reacted to “extraordinary footage” of French President Emmanuel Macron being shoved in the face by his wife, Brigitte. “You can see his reaction there when he realises there are cameras and his stern face becomes a quick smile, waves, and then disappears back in,” he said. “It’s very weird footage.”

The pond's main interest was how, when, whether the Ughmann could somehow use the incident as an excuse to drag in George Orwell, who does almost as much service for the reptiles as Ming the Merciless ...

In an age where images can be seamlessly manipulated, who knows what is true? In the haze of doubt lie new possibilities for deceit. When everything can be fake, anything can be denied. But when democratic governments step into those shadows, we are in dangerously uncharted waters.
When the lie didn’t fly because there were witnesses to the altercation, the second gear was to gaslight: you did not see what you thought you saw. What did it look like? As if French first lady Brigitte Macron was having such a furious argument with her husband that she lashed out, pushing both hands into his face.
Most people in a healthy relationship would find this deeply disturbing. If the roles had been reversed, Emmanuel Macron would now be facing calls to resign. Perhaps divorce.
To counter the evidence of our eyes, the state’s ministry of appearances workshopped a line delivered by the President.

The reptiles flung in a distracting snap of a master of the art, Politicians of all dispositions have already adopted US President Donald Trump’s catchcry of ‘fake news’. Picture: Mandel NGAN / AFP

Then came a masterclass in sophistry.

You see at one point the Ughmann scribbles Let’s be clear: the Macrons’ relationship is of vanishingly little importance to this column.

Then why spend a whole column using it as a springboard? Why not spend time on Melania and her mysterious absences, as Michael Wolff is wont do to? (YouTube link).

The truth, the reason, is coming. Orwellian!

“There’s a video showing me joking and teasing my wife, and somehow that becomes a sort of geo-planetary catastrophe, with people even coming up with theories to explain it,” Macron said.
This sentence is a masterclass in sophistry. First, minimise: “joking and teasing my wife”. Here the shove is erased and Brigitte Macron becomes a bit player as Emmanuel Macron shifts focus to himself, cast in the role of loving husband. This is designed to normalise the event, even frame it as fun, a reasonable man caught in an absurd over-reaction. It invites us to doubt what we saw.
Next, overstate: “geo-planetary catastrophe”. This hyperbole turns scrutiny into a perversion. The implication is that anyone discussing the video is hysterical, conspiratorial or unhinged.
Macron also builds a straw man. No one but the President said the incident was a global emergency. But by exaggerating the reaction, Macron sets himself up as the voice of calm in a storm of irrational outrage.
Let’s be clear: the Macrons’ relationship is of vanishingly little importance to this column, but the state’s attempt to retouch a shopsoiled official portrait is a vivid display of how most governments instinctively respond under pressure. It’s no revelation that politicians evade, distract, dissemble and sometimes lie, for good reasons and bad. It’s behaviour as old as the profession. Maybe it’s a sign of age, or the times, but bald lies now seem more common and more shameless, as agreed facts have become artefacts and the tools of manipulation have grown more sophisticated.
That toolkit now includes artificial intelligence, deepfakes, synthetic voices and real-time image manipulation. Politicians and their minders will find it hard to resist crying digital foul to cover future missteps, or arming themselves with these powerful weapons and using them in political warfare.
Around the world, politicians of all dispositions have already adopted US President Donald Trump’s catchcry of “fake news”, weaponising partisanship, stoking doubt, denying reality and reframing the truth to manipulate public opinion. This is why governments and public servants should never be entrusted with deciding what is and isn’t true. Because, globally, politicians and bureaucrats are among the most prolific sources of lies.
A survey of 81 countries produced by the Oxford Internet Institute in 2021 showed organised social media manipulation campaigns in every one.

But before we get to Orwell, we have to go through comrade Dan and the Ughmann doing a tiresome Killer Creighton impersonation, Former Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews.

Eek, not the whole Covid rap yet again ...

“Governments, public relations firms and political parties are producing misinformation on an industrial scale,” the report said.
From Vladimir Putin’s 2014 claim that no Russian troops were involved in taking Crimea, to the Spanish government’s insistence that its recent nationwide blackout had nothing to do with the fragility of wind and solar generation, tyrants and democrats alike are proving that when facts become inconvenient, they turn their hand to fiction.
Those in power always resort to the classical rhetorical concept of ethos, that authority bestows credibility and truth. If the government says it is so, who are we to say otherwise? Alas, the cry of “trust us, we are the government” rings pretty hollow around the Western world these days, and politicians only have themselves to blame.
Examples are legion, and here are some lowlights from the home front.
In the Robodebt scandal, politicians and bureaucrats repeatedly insisted the automated scheme to claw back money from welfare recipients was fair and legal, even after internal legal advice made clear it was not.
The response to Covid-19 is a deep well of administrative deceit, but there were few darker chapters than the curfew imposed in Victoria. Documents uncovered under Freedom of Information legislation reveal people were stripped of their liberty not for their safety but for the convenience of police enforcing lockdowns.

Actually there's a new COVID variant out and about, and a warning about the need to keep booster shots up to speed might have been useful. (Some vulnerable types might even think of wearing a mask in public spaces!)

Never mind, we've arrived at peak Orwell:

This was cloaked in the doublespeak that confinement was care. That imprisonment was protection. This subversion of language was distilled in the slogan that appeared behind Victorian premier Daniel Andrews at every press conference: “Staying apart keeps us together.” It’s a cliche to reach for George Orwell when criticising politicians, but the Victorian dictum would have fitted effortlessly into the official creed of The Party in Nineteen Eighty-Four: “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”

And of course there had to be a snap, George Orwell.

This is of course the first refuge of a scoundrel, and involves projection, what with the Ughmann usually proclaiming that climate science isn't science, it's a religion ... but at last the pond has reached the end ...

Covid revealed something disturbing about our governments. And about us. For a moment, Oz stepped out from behind the curtain. In lockdowns, mandates and curfews, we caught a glimpse of how quickly governments drift towards authoritarianism, how readily fear becomes a tool of control and how easily we surrender our freedom.
Those who questioned lockdowns, mask mandates and vaccine orders were vilified, assaulted by police, lost their jobs and imprisoned. The thousands who drove to Canberra in protest were dismissed as “cookers”, Australia’s version of the deplorables.
This disturbing descent into autocracy was led by both major parties, with the imprimatur of our health aristocracy. It was well-intentioned. It was pitched as for our own good. And it was profoundly misguided, deeply undemocratic and did lasting damage to our community. History will show the long tail of the cure did more harm than the disease.
Is it any wonder that trust in authority is now at such a low ebb? That most precious of commodities has been squandered by politicians who lie about trivial things, such as fights on a plane, and serious things, such as why power prices will keep rising.
The only defence against this is a healthy scepticism of those in power and the democratic right to dissent. As a rule of thumb we should trust no government to arbitrate truth and resist every effort to limit free speech, no matter how noble the cause might seem.
If we don’t, one day we may wake up and discover that we all love Big Brother. And that the Macrons have a perfect marriage.

All that from a domestic tiff and a feeble attempt at a cover up, and not even a decent gossip about the age difference and how the pair came together?

No wonder the pond likes to turn to the immortal Rowe for a bit of closing comedy ...

It's always in the details, especially when there's a delightful portrait to be found there ...