In which the bromancer and a certain Jonathan tackle the crisis du jour, while Dame Slap tackles and owns the Vic Libs ...

 

It was inevitable that the reptiles would be in full war monger mode this day ...

So the pond must abandon the pleasure of reading Amanda Marcotte in Salon explaining Why Karoline Leavitt is so annoying to pay attention to matters of the moment ...

Oops …

LIVE ISRAEL-IRAN CONFLICT
Furious Trump drops F-bomb over shaky ceasefire; US strikes ‘delayed nuclear program by only months’
Iran and Israel’s shaky ceasefire holds after a call between Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump and after the US President scolded the two countries which have been fighting ‘for so long’ they ‘don’t know what the f. k they’re doing.
By Liam Mendes, Yoni Bashan and Lydia Lynch

Double oops after the strike of all strikes designed to ensure eternal peace ...

PICKAXE MOUNTAIN
After Fordow, Pickaxe: the secret nuclear site where Iran may have moved its stockpile
Pickaxe Mountain is said to be even more heavily fortressed than the subterranean Fordow which the US hammered with bunker busters, raising fears it could be used to assemble a nuclear weapon even as Iran is under attack.
By Amanda Hodge

Oopsie daisy, and over at the Beast (*archive link) there was an even bigger oopsie ...

Back at the troll-right Oz, that lesser member of the Kelly gang Joe was also on hand ..

ISRAEL v IRAN
Trump orders Israel to turn back jets to enforce fragile ceasefire
The US President has taken aim at Israel in a foul mouthed rant venting his fury at the Jewish state and demanding it turn back its planes to ensure his fragile ceasefire can endure
By Joe Kelly

But in times of crisis, the pond always turns to the bromancer, the lizard Oz's very own Reichsmarschall des Großaustralisch Reiches, and he was in triumphal mood ...

It's true the reptiles only rated it as a three minute read but within that time, the bromancer could be a fount of wisdom and celebration:

The header: Ceasefire may be fragile, but it’s still a diplomatic triumph for Trump, If the Israel-Iran ceasefire holds, it will be far from the end of the story, or the end of the dangers. For in the Middle East, the story never ends, and dangers seldom take more than a short holiday.
The caption: Soldiers and rescue workers carry a body from a residential building destroyed by an Iranian missile strike that killed several people in Beersheba, Israel, on Tuesday. Picture: AP
The mystical advice: This article contains features which are only available in the web version, Take me there

The bromancer began his musing with a bloody big IF, almost Rudyard Kiplingesque...

If the Israel-Iran ceasefire holds, it will constitute a tremendous ­victory for Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, for the US and for Israel.
It would also constitute a barely conceded massive defeat for Iran and its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Iran would not be accepting a ceasefire if it were in a position to fight.
But its three biggest nuclear facilities lie in smoking ruins, half or more of its missiles are destroyed, both its military leadership and its scientific leadership are dead, and its air defences and much of its conventional military infrastructure have been destroyed or degraded.

Here the pond must confess that in a moment of irrational madness the pond plunged into the sewer and swill on offer on what is known as DJT's Truth Social account. 

Thank you for your attention to this matter ... and enjoy the flag molestation ...

Sheesh, fully sick, but at that moment the bromancer began to have saucy doubts and fears ...

That is far from the end of the story, or the end of the dangers. For in the Middle East, the story never ends, and dangers seldom take more than a short holiday.
There are a thousand perplexing uncertainties, just as there were before Israel began its military operation against Iran nearly two weeks ago.
We have, for a start, very little detail of the ceasefire.

The reptiles decided on an AV distraction ... Both Israel and the Trump administration have raised the issue of "regime change" in Iran, with the U.S. president calling Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is in hiding, "an easy target." According to insiders, Khamenei's succession planners have stepped up their efforts to name who would next take the helm. Lucy Fielder has more.

But the pond was now so deeply mired in the stench of narcissistic admiration that it had to keep on making notes ... especially as there was an essential sponsor message attached ...

Straight out of Dr Strangelove or 1984. 

The pond trusts the bromancer is helping out the My Pillow guy as he muses on ...

Will the ceasefire hold? Iran was still launching missiles at ­Israel after the ceasefire had ostensibly begun. Ceasefires in the ­Middle East are often fragile. There was a ceasefire in place on October 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists flooded into Israel and murdered 1200 innocent people.
There is not a scintilla of goodwill between Iran and Israel, so maintaining the ceasefire will be challenging.
At the time of writing, Iran appeared to have fired missiles at ­Israel after the ceasefire came into force and Israel was preparing to respond. As soon as the ceasefire began, it seems, Iran broke it.
Who can tell exactly what their motivation was?
Without remotely equating ­Israel and Iran, it’s fair to say there would be forces within both countries that would oppose a ceasefire, preferring to keep fighting.
Nonetheless, bringing about the ceasefire at all was a diplomatic triumph for Trump. I think he acted poorly and counter-productively over Ukraine but he seems to have achieved everything he wanted in Iran.
As Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz said, speaking with a clarity the Australian government could well study and emulate, Israel’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities was “dirty work Israel is doing for all of us”.
Merz also said there could be no doubt that Iran was working towards acquiring nuclear weapons.
Given those undeniable realities, Trump and Netanyahu have advanced the cause of civilisation by destroying, or at least gravely damaging, the Iranian nuclear program.

At this point the reptiles interrupted with a grim reminder ... Emergency responders work at a building where at least four people died in a missile strike on Tuesday in Beersheba, Israel. Picture: Getty Images

But the pond was entranced by that talk of the cause of civilisation ... surely that involves fine art and ads ...

At this point the bromancer confessed to being a little confused ...

But what comes next is very confused.
Trump, backed up on the whole by his European partners in NATO, will want an agreement with Iran that involves an absolute commitment from Tehran not to enrich uranium at all, and to allow intrusive inspections that make such a commitment credible.
Even with all the missile strikes they have endured, it’s extremely unlikely the Iranian leadership would agree to such a deal. That’s been the problem all along.
We also still don’t know where the 400kg of uranium enriched to 60 per cent has ended up. It’s hard to believe the Israelis have no idea where it might be.
If they were certain it was destroyed, in the attack on Fordow or somewhere else, they probably would have told us.
One consequence of the close alliance between Trump and Netanyahu has been to strengthen the domestic position of both leaders, as happened in Trump’s first term.
If Trump has pulled off the combination of a massive strike on Iran’s nuclear program, a short US military involvement – in fact the American B2 bombers spent only 25 minutes in Iranian air space – and thus no danger of a forever war, while reinforcing the credibility of American deterrence and helping Israel gravely weaken Iran’s ­regional influence, he will be a winner not only with his base but with other Americans as well.
Similarly, Netanyahu certainly has his pluses and minuses. After the shocking intelligence, and to some extent operational, failure by the Israelis in failing to prevent the October 7 terror attacks, Netan­yahu looked finished politically.
Since then, he has completely reordered the strategic relativities of the Middle East and greatly reduced the existential threat to Israel that Iran has long represented.
In the light of experience, it’s right to be sceptical of any good news in the Middle East.
But a ceasefire would be a good outcome, at least for now.

Oh come now bro, it's a done deal, and remember to buy your pillow ...

Thank you for your attention to this matter bromancer, but the pond must hesitantly, humbly chastise you for not berating the federal government at this moment.

Must all the work of this kind be left to cartoonist of the infallible Pope kind?

Another pleasing bit of nose art, genuinely on the nose ...

It's always in the detail, while over on the extreme far right of the digital lizard Oz, it was a typically mixed bag ...

It was pleasing that Dame Slap was in her usual place, top of the lizard Oz world ma ...

But much as the pond would have liked to spend time with Dame Slap this morning, it being a local story and all, there was nothing in it to entice the pond, much as the chully windswept Melbourne streets do little to invite a walk at the moment  ...

The Pesutto-Deeming farce is all about saving Jeff Kennett
The Liberal Party officials who inked a $1.55m deal to save John Pesutto from bankruptcy have unleashed a whole new chapter of dysfunction.
By Janet Albrechtsen
Columnist

It was a handsome presentation, full five fathoms deep, and full of gossip and bile of a peculiarly Melburnian kind, but the pond could only handle a little and certainly couldn't handle all the snaps of errant Victorian liberals ...

It was the opening snap of a man doing a more than passable imitation of a cane toad, followed by a snap of certain bigot, that made the pond think a snap-less presentation might be more tolerable...

Buckle up, and prepare for a deep, relentless, seemingly never ending dive ...

The Victorian Liberal Party won’t be moving on from the defamation saga involving its former leader any time soon. The party officials who inked a $1.55m deal to save John Pesutto from bankruptcy after his mammoth defamation loss to Moira Deeming have unleashed a whole new chapter of dysfunction. By saving Pesutto, his shame in this matter has now been wholly acquired by the Victorian Liberals.
And Deeming may not have done herself any favours either. This has become, in the words of one senior Victorian Liberal who voted against the rescue package, a case of mutually assured destruction. The other losers, through no fault of their own, are the angry rank-and-file Liberal Party members who are funding Pesutto’s rescue package, along with disappointed Victorian voters, who still don’t have any sign of an alternative state government.
In his email to the party faithful, Victorian Liberal Party president Philip Davis said the administrative committee “resolves that Moira Deeming should be paid what she is owed”. Behind those 11 words is another story.
The Australian has been told by members of the Victorian Liberal Party administrative committee that the deal struck last Thursday was less about saving Pesutto, or even doing the right thing by Deeming. It was rammed through to protect former premier Jeff Kennett and others who potentially faced legal action for third-party costs if Pesutto went bankrupt and couldn’t pay what he owed Deeming.
That explains why Deeming received no apology from Pesutto last week. She was, after all, surely owed that, along with full payment of the legal costs incurred to defend her reputation. A scathing judgment found the former Liberal leader had made several highly defamatory comments about Deeming, including that she associated with neo-Nazis and was unfit to continue to be a member of the parliamentary Liberal Party. How could Pesutto, with a straight face, ask Liberal Party members to save himself and his family from financial ruin, without offering Deeming an apology last week?
Easy. It was never canvassed at Thursday’s meeting, even though the administrative committee had the bargaining power to demand that much from Pesutto in return for the $1.55m loan.
Even more unlikely was an apology from the Liberals, including former Liberal premiers Kennett, Ted Baillieu and Denis Napthine, and senior Liberal MPs Georgie Crozier and David Southwick, all of whom were cited by Deeming as egging Pesutto on, aiding and assisting Pesutto in ploughing ahead, trying to defend the indefensible, using tactics that compounded Deeming’s distress. Even though they surely owed Deeming an apology too.
The Australian has been told by members of the administrative committee who voted against last Thursday’s rescue package for Pesutto that Deeming’s tactics had unwittingly backfired. She had gone too far when, through her lawyers, she tried to rope Kennett and co into a possible third-party costs litigation to recoup costs if Pesutto could not stump up the money.

Tired, exhausted already? Why not sample a Saturday Paper editorial, outside the paywall, Who is Janet Albrechtsen?

Inter alia ...

...Albrechtsen occupies a curious place in the Australian media. Where there is an ideological grift, she is often there grifting. She has spent half a lifetime fighting culture wars. She is a studious defender of conservative power and its belief to be forever under attack, a useful female voice in the lonely role of guarding men’s rights.

When Alan Tudge was accused of an inappropriate relationship with a staff member, and was removed from the front bench by Scott Morrison, Albrechtsen jumped on a slender inquiry to vindicate him. She said some women had legitimate complaints. That was only so she could say what she really meant: “For the sake of a few votes, Morrison made it known he was willing to snivel in the face of a bunch of graceless women.”

For Albrechtsen, the Me Too movement has distorted the courts. It has emboldened prosecutors to pursue men. She points out justice is a lady. “Lynch mobs come and lynch mobs go – from the women of Salem to the Ku Klux Klan to McCarthyism – but until political leaders are prepared to stand up to this behaviour, it will get worse.”

It was Albrechtsen who raked through the diaries of the dead woman who accused Christian Porter of rape, a claim he denies. It was Albrechtsen whose obsession with the Brittany Higgins case infected an inquiry into its handling.

It was Albrechtsen who published pieces describing Higgins’s partner as her “puppet master”. It was Albrechtsen who described Scott Morrison’s apology to Higgins as “nothing short of grotesque”. It was Albrechtsen who wondered in print if the compensation paid to Higgins after she was raped was “for services rendered”.

Albrechtsen knows what these words imply. Double meaning is essential to columns that say the opposite of what is true. There is always in her work a cruelty and a cleverness. She is a good writer and a bad person.

The line between Albrechtsen’s columns on the Sydney gang rapes and the Bruce Lehrmann case is not so crooked. It helps to understand that in both cases she is writing only about the men. Two decades ago they were dark skinned and haunting public toilets. Now they are Liberal Party staffers.

The women in these stories disappear. Her empathy is built of binaries. Maleness is where power is held and it is there she finds her purpose: a ruthless and effective agent of a group whose privilege makes them feel besieged. 

Back to the snake pit and Dame Slap's snake wrangling ... all by way of devotion to a trans basher, while the pond is left yearning for the good old days...

Hey ho, on we go ...

Though last Thursday’s bailout was presented as one to save Pesutto and to save the party from a by-election in his seat of Hawthorn (a certainty had he become a bankrupt), many members of the admin committee were in no doubt about the unstated motive. “Phil Davis worked hard to force us across the line for one reason only. And that is to protect Kennett and co from litigation,” said one admin committee member on Monday.
Deeming’s legal team had received a letter from the Victorian Liberal Party’s organisational wing informing it that the party was not liable for any costs arising from the defamation. That meant that if Deeming were successful in securing costs against Pesutto – let alone third-party costs against Kennett or others who helped Pesutto – those individuals would be personally liable.
Threatening to pursue Kennett and co – even if it was entirely reasonable for Deeming to do so – immediately launched this saga into a higher realm. Pesutto was no Liberal luminary. He had only been leader for a matter of months before he defamed Deeming. But once Kennett and co were in the line of fire, a rescue package for Pesutto was a done deal. Unwittingly, Deeming had transformed this debacle into one aimed at saving Kennett and co. It meant Deeming’s legal costs, funded by property developer Hilton Grugeon, would be paid even as she slammed the rescue package as “institutional abuse”.
Facing possible financial ruin, Pesutto entered last Thursday’s meeting with a beaming smile on his face. Did he know the rescue package was not, primarily, about saving him? After that meeting, Pesutto said he felt “humbled” by the decision to bail him out. It was the perfect choice of word. The dictionary definition of being humbled by something is “causing someone to feel less important or proud”. This bailout was about saving more important people than Pesutto. And it is not lost on those unhappy with last week’s rescue package that those people who funded and egged Pesutto on have walked away without a scratch.
In her letter dated June 8, in which she set out an offer to resolve the legal costs drama, Deeming demanded a public written apology from the Liberal Party, through current leader Brad Battin, for how she had been treated. That was not going to happen. She demanded that her preselection be endorsed by a special resolution. That was not going to happen either.
“Moira started out with a great deal of goodwill towards her, and that has now largely evaporated. She has miscalculated that all this antipathy toward Pesutto automatically translates to support for her. Well, it doesn’t, not now,” said one member of the admin committee who voted against the rescue package for Pesutto. “She won’t get preselection,” the Liberal predicted.
The flip side of the MAD equation is the way Pesutto’s rescue package was struck: it promises more dysfunction and disunity.
It was obvious the controversial bailout, opposed by at least seven people on the administrative committee, was stitched up in secret before the meeting began last Thursday evening. Committee members weren’t given much information. The Australian has been told they received a one-line item number on their agenda paper – “Proposal from the member for Hawthorn” and a few pages explaining why section 18.8 of the constitution for the Victorian division of the Liberal Party allows for the loan to Pesutto.
No written motion, nor details about the 16 or 18 or was it 20 people who, according to Davis, had agreed to guarantee $900,000 of Pesutto’s $1.55m loan from the state Liberals’ investment arm, Vapold Pty Ltd. Could the committee call in the loan should a guarantor go bankrupt? Were the guarantors joint and several? In another oddity, committee members were told to vote on the deal by secret ballot.
The Victorian Liberals are nothing if not predictably dysfunctional. The same evening the administrative committee of the Victorian Liberal Party was saving Kennett (and others) from any potential litigation, the very same former premier was reportedly telling a private function that senior ranks of the state party need to be cleaned out and he wasn’t sure Battin is up to winning the next state election. How’s that for thanks. Even if Kennett is right about cleaning out some “seniors”, why stop at those currently in parliament?

What a singular feat. Not one mention of Dame Slap's own Victorian skin in the game.

But talk about a snake pit, they deserve to have Dame Slap doing her snake mistress routine, admonishing and chastising and using her whip to keep the snakes in her preferred order ...

Luckily in the United States there's much more winning ...

Sheesh, Tom, you need to read Miranda and then you'd be feeling Devine (click on to enlarge at your own peril) ...

And so to the bonus, featuring a certain Jonathan ...

It was a four minute read, so the reptiles alleged, and the pond offers it in the spirit of finding out what is being fed into the hive mind ...

The header: Donald Trump’s ‘ceasefire’ demand offers no lasting victory for Israel, The bottom line is that Iran emerges from the latest round of fighting with its capacities significantly reduced but with the regime still in existence and determined to push ahead with its project for regional hegemony.
The caption: US President Donald Trump speaks to the press before boarding Marine One from the South Lawn of the White House.
The dangling invitation: This article contains features which are only available in the web version, Take me there

For reasons of perversity of perhaps a love of Kipling, Jonathan also began with a bloody big IF ...

If the tenuous ceasefire declared by Donald Trump after 12 days of fighting between Israel and Iran holds, then the dramatic events of the past few days will have failed to produce a fundamental change in the strategic situation in the Middle East.

Sheesh, Jonathan, what's with the IF? You need to spend more time in the cess pit with the other adoring, fawning, lickspittle, shoe licking cultists ...

No one in history for ever and ever!

That's how it's done Jonathan!

But do go on ...

Israel and the US have demonstrated their vast tactical superiority over the Iranians. Tehran had no adequate defence against Israeli air power and intelligence penetration. Israel built and maintained an air corridor to Iran over the unguarded skies of Syria and Iraq. It then struck at a wide range of targets going far beyond sites related to the nuclear project. Senior personnel from the various branches of Iran’s military, scientists, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps facilities, even Iran’s central prison were all within the range of Israel’s planes.
Iranian missiles on occasion penetrated Israeli air defences, causing significant damage to property and infrastructure. Tehran failed to achieve the mass civilian casualty event it was looking for. But when the smoke clears, it will be apparent that the Iranian regime and its various projects have survived – battered and diminished, certainly, but intact.
Much now will depend on continued Israeli and international willingness to maintain the pressure on the Iranian regime and to prevent it from rebuilding its capacities. This is perhaps most crucially the case with regard to the nuclear program.

At this point the reptiles interrupted with a full disrespect Sharri situation report, naturally fully down with Benji, Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs’ Maurice Hirsch says Iran has brought itself to this situation after it breached the ceasefire agreement just hours ago. “There are still many targets for Israel to strike – it’s a shame really that the Iranian regime has brought itself to this situation,” Mr Hirsch told Sky News host Sharri Markson. “This was a fundamental breach of the ceasefire.”

And meanwhile the ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza goes on ... but never mind ...

The location of Iran’s stockpiles of enriched uranium remains unaccounted for, according to a statement by International Atomic Energy Agency director general Rafael Grossi. Tehran claims to have moved uranium and equipment from the Fordow and Isfahan enrichment facilities before the US strike on Sunday.
If the ceasefire holds, the fighting will have concluded without any Iranian commitment regarding uranium or any new arrangements for inspection of nuclear facilities. The nuclear project, though heavily damaged and diminished, will have survived, as has the ambition to repair and continue it. Will Israel now retain the right and the diplomatic space to continue and take ongoing kinetic action against the program, and against Iranian efforts to restart it? Much will depend on the answer to this question.
Similarly, Tehran’s assets across the Middle East have been significantly weakened across the past 20 months of conflict but they have not been entirely eliminated.
Regarding the proxies, something fundamental became apparent across the past 20 months and conclusively clear in the past 12 days. Before the current conflict, the IRGC’s various proxies and clients were widely believed by Israeli and Western experts to constitute a fully crystallised, united alliance. Armed, trained and equipped by Tehran, it was believed that they were a military reserve, held in place to be activated at a moment of Iran’s choosing. It is now clear that this is not the case. Rather, in a manner familiar with ideological movements in other periods, it is evident that whatever their origins, each of the components of this alliance have developed their own interests.

In their usual way, the reptiles couldn't get enough of Benji, not the dog, the disreputable far right extremist, Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a press conference on June 23, 2025.

Despite the reassuring presence of Zionist fundamentalism, Jonathan continued deep in the grip of saucy doubts and fears...

These evidently play as important a role in their decision-making as do their alliance commitments. This has been distinctly and notably apparent in recent days.
In Lebanon, the Hezbollah organisation, once the jewel in the crown of the IRGC’s proxy militias, is a shadow of its former self. The mauling it received at the hands of Israel in the last quarter of 2024 means this group is unlikely to be mobilised by Iran. Reduced and under heavy pressure from other political forces now rising in Lebanon to stay out of the fighting, it made clear that its support for Iran would be verbal only.
In neighbouring Iraq, Tehran’s Shia militias remain largely intact. The most significant and capable of these groups – Kataib Hezbollah, Asaib Ahl al-Haq, al-Nujaba and others like them – have advanced capacities in the field of drone and rocket warfare.
Yet they did not attempt in any meaningful way to intervene on Tehran’s part. These militias in their political iteration are a key component in the current Iraqi government of Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani.
But rather than turn the Iraqi state into a fully fledged tool or ally of Iran, this appears to have had the opposite effect: causing the militias to think about their own considerable political and economic assets and interests, and to choose not to risk them.
The Yemeni Houthis remain similarly intact and similarly failed to come out with guns blazing for their Iranian patrons during the past two weeks.
When considering the array of capacities still available to Iran, it is important also to note the presence of Iranian regime-supported cells in the West. Both the IRGC and the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security maintain extensive networks on Western soil, available for mobilisation at the appropriate time.

For no particular reason, the reptiles decided to slip in a snap of the aforementioned Rafael Grossi

Just when the pond thought it was all over, Jonathan seemed to think that more needed to be done ...

Across the past decade the Iranian regime has tried to assassinate opposition political activists resident in Denmark and The Netherlands, has assaulted and threatened opposition media in London, and has sought to blow up a rally of the opposition in Paris.
In 1994 Iran took revenge for Israel’s killing of a Lebanese Hezbollah leader by attacking a Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires, with the loss of 86 lives. This capability represents an important tool for Iranian policy. It also gives the lie to the claim that Iran represents an exclusively Israeli or exclusively Middle Eastern problem.
So the bottom line is that Iran emerges from the latest round of fighting with its capacities significantly reduced but with the regime still in existence and still determined to push ahead with its project for regional hegemony. The nuclear, missile and proxy components of this strategy appear to be damaged but not destroyed. What is key now will be the determination of Israel and its allies to continue to maintain Iran’s weakened state and to extend it.
Jonathan Spyer is a Jerusalem-based journalist and analyst on Middle East affairs.

(Actually if you wanted more details of Israeli citizen Jonathan, start with his wiki ...)

Say what Jonathan?

It's not done and dusted? More bombing might required? Perhaps troops on the ground? Can't we just return to eating the cats and the dogs?

And so to the immortal Rowe of the day ... as meanwhile the ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza goes on ... but never mind ...

And now to further reveal the pond's hopeless plunge into a social media presence, the pond couldn't help but note Marge being called a shameless nitwit by a completely useless tool doing a Donakd...

As with the pawn, so with the master ...

Poor Marge, but thank you for your attention to this matter ...

Take it away Marge ...

Memo to self ... must avoid further forays into social media at all costs ...

It's best left to experts who can spend all day tracking the endless flip flops and demented 180 degree course changes as in Will Sommer's MAGA Doves Learn to Love The BombWar, what is it good for? Exposing some hypocrisy, for starters.

The flip-flops from MAGA pundits have been so plentiful that the “Thiss_You” X account has taken over the task of chronicling them. And while seismic Trumpworld changes are nothing new—as in the decision among right-wing figures that the once-heroic Elon Musk was now a villain after he attacked Trump—there’s something depressing about this episode. That might be because it offers the clearest illustration to date of MAGA figures’ unabashed willingness to abandon whatever previous positions they held in order to maintain their faith in Trump.
Consider YouTuber Benny Johnson, who has built a career as one of the president’s most over-the-top enthusiastic fans. Once a fierce critic of foreign intervention in the Middle East, Johnson decided after the bombs fell to throw his hands up and trust the plan. Call it faith not seeking understanding.
“Donald Trump has earned my respect and trust,” Johnson wrote on X on June 21. “I don’t have the intel, Trump does. I trust his team.”

And again ...

..Even Catturd, the influential X user whose posts perhaps best represent the unfiltered reasoning of the Trump base, has fallen for this. In March, Catturd posted that American regime change has always ended in “absolute disaster.” But after Trump suggested he might try to topple the Iranian government entirely, Catturd posted that Trump was only “trolling.”
The ideological battle lines became extra confused once conservative influencers began suggesting that some personalities were on the take. Meghan McCain posted vaguely on X that pundits should avoid taking pay-offs from foreign governments.
“I know people get paid by foreign countries to sell propaganda because I have been offered it myself,” she posted. “I obviously declined because I have ethics, morals and the only country I will ever be loyal to is America.”
(Despite her campaign against foreign propaganda, McCain neglected to mention that her husband, conservative writer Ben Domenech, once made tens of thousands of dollars writing articles supporting the Malaysian government.)

And so on and on and on and on ...