In which the bromancer steals the show with a double play ...

 

As usual, the venerable Meade was out and about yesterday having reptile fun in Sinking feeling as Adelaide Advertiser chooses wrong week to run Aukus submarines sponsored series.

Poor old 'Tiser, but it does pander to, and live in, a Brigadoon which the pond mercifully escaped.

In another moment of exciting reptile media news, the pandering Devine had a divine moment on Kimmell, where her servile serving up of burger questions was duly mocked. 

She scored the astonishing news that King Donald had once trained as a 'flutist' ... (forget 'flautist', that's for the Poms).

The venerable Meade also noted the junket and the AIJAC making hay out of it ...

Kenny, Kelly and Stutchbury sign up for Israel trip
It was a public relations coup for the Australia-Israel and Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC). The three journalists the lobby group took to Israel were so enthused by the experience that they all wrote long features upon return: the three main pieces totalled 10,000 words.
While these sponsored trips are an annual occurrence, attended by journalists across the media industry, this year’s comes at a time when the relationship between Australia and Israel is more fraught than ever.
In The Australian, which sent two journalists on the sponsored trip, Paul Kelly’s article in the weekend paper came in at just under 5,000 words. He followed that up with an appearance on Sky News Australia with Sharri Markson in which he reflected on his visit.
The editor-at-large was one of a media delegation that visited Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, as well as the sites of Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack.
Among the dignitaries lined up to speak was Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, families of IDF troops fighting in Gaza and survivors of the Nova music festival.
Kelly’s colleague, Chris Kenny, wrote a 2,500 word feature and also provided live crosses on Sky News, where he has his own program.
“This is the diabolic dilemma deliberately created by Hamas,” Kenny wrote. “Every time Israel is criticised for its actions in Gaza, Hamas scores a propaganda win. The deaths of Palestinian civilians are central to the Hamas strategy. That is why Hamas shelters underground in its extensive tunnel network, leaving Gazan civilians above ground and exposed.”

So it should come as no surprise that the over on the extreme far right, the dog botherer was at it again for the Australian Zionist Daily News ...

What indulgent Australia could learn from Israel
Labor should stop attempting to portray Israel as a pariah state and instead take note of its strong sense of purpose.
By Chris Kenny
Associate Editor (National Affairs)

The venerable Meade noted All three men disclosed the trip was hosted by AIJAC at the end of their articles. AIJAC has not responded to a request for comment.

The pond searched high and low, very propaganda Lord Haw-Haw style low, for a disclosure accompanying all the latest Zionist claptrap, but couldn't find it. Not a sign, not a hint.

Apparently there's a time limit on disclosures when serving a state intent on ethnic cleansing ...

The pond did however find this dog bothering morsel of hate and loathing, dressed up as British empire claptrap  ...

...If you want a dynamic economy and a secure nation, you cannot afford to make your energy expensive and unreliable. Israel does not have the luxury of being able to make those mistakes, which is another key lesson for us.
We are taking our economic and strategic security for granted. Perhaps the best place to start a rebuild is around that sense of national purpose, or cohesion – we might even call up the old-fashioned concept of national pride.
Our children are taught that our country has been unfair to Indigenous people, women, successive waves of immigrants and those who have arrived illegally. This negative read of history overshadows what should be pride in our unequalled immigrant and social success story. Students also are taught that we have raped the environment and pollute the world.
Again, this puts the proud reality in the shade: the agricultural innovation, irrigation, conservation and productive developments that have created opportunities and prosperity for all-comers.
Our national flag is shunned, or lost in a sea of others, and welcomes to country are overdone, fuelling resentment. Activists and politicians refer to our land being “unceded” – effectively declaring our country illegitimate – so we undermine the idea of Australia.
We have squandered something precious, and we need to reclaim it. We do not need jingoistic patriotism; that has never been our way. We just need to embrace the shared project of our nation.

What a contemptible reptile he is ...

As usual there was no mention of the mass starvation and the ethnic cleansing, though the pond did note this in a New Yorker interview with Haaretz editor-in-chief Aluf Benn (*archive link):

...Netanyahu is still committed to the final occupation of Gaza and destruction of the Palestinians . . . of Hamas, and to eventually drive out the Palestinians from there, and follow what he calls the Trump plan: just giving the land to resorts and to Israeli settlements. This is still the official Israeli policy in Gaza.

Hush now, none of that talk of extermination, the reptiles were on a war mongering war footing...

The pond barely had time to note the Ughmann at the very bottom, still waging the reptile war on China. 

Perhaps a Sunday treat, because it was time to strike the snake, perhaps the sort of red bellied black you could take a swim with up Tamworth way ...

ATTACK
Israel’s strike on terror snake Iran signals long Middle East war
The Middle East faces a protracted war that could reshape the power balance of the region, after Iran launched its first wave of attacks in retaliation to Israel’s pre-emptive strike to destroy the head of its military and the heart of Tehran’s nuclear weapons program.
By Greg Brown and Jack Quail

Naturally the reptiles did the right thing, and dragged in a valiant Jewish warrior for an opinion (yes, yes, he's much loved by the AIJAC, but remember this is the Australian Zionist Daily News, rebranded from the Catholic Boys' Daily)...

COMMENTARY by Jonathan Spyer
This ‘real’ war is 40 years in the making
After four decades of feint and parry, stratagem and counter stratagem, the Jewish State of Israel and the Islamic Republic of Iran now stand four square against one another in open conflict.
But as always the pond must look past the bormancer, and even Jennings of the fifth form.

If you're going to be the Australian Zionist Daily News, might as well go for broke.

Speaking of broke, Jennings of the fifth form was also on hand...

Netanyahu saw one decisive opportunity to strike Iran – and he’s going for broke
Israel had no option but to mount these strikes, and Iran’s military leadership was caught sleeping. Here are six things to watch for in the coming days.
By Peter Jennings
Contributor

And what a splendid chance to ignore Gaza and help the dream of a new Riviera along...

All that noted, these were just the warm-up bouts...

The bromancer will always be the pond's main event ...

The header for what the reptiles promised was just a three minute read: Iranian nuclear threat meant Israelis had no choice but to strike, Israel’s military strikes on Iran take the Middle East to a point of maximum danger of wider conflict, but also perhaps a moment of maximum opportunity.

Never mind the Israeli nuclear threat, feel the caption: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday. Picture: Government Press Office

And as usual, there is here: This article contains features which are only available in the web version, Take me there

The bromancer could smell victory:

Israel’s military strikes on Iran take the Middle East to a point of maximum danger of wider conflict, but also perhaps a moment of maximum opportunity.
Israel has delivered a decisive blow to Iran’s nuclear weapons program. That development alone makes the Middle East safer over the medium term and allows a window of opportunity to re-engage in meaningful ­dialogue with Iran in time, perhaps with a rearranged internal political alignment.
On the other hand, Iran has begun its campaign of military retaliation and will make it as ­violent as possible.
A series of urgent questions present themselves.

Hold that beer, hold that thought, hold those questions. 

The lobbyists at the AIJAC then scored another coup in the Australian Zionist Daily News ...In Jerusalem, Bren Carlill — Middle East analyst and director of special projects at the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council — unpacks the latest developments on the ground. He explains what just occurred, why it matters, and what it could mean for the broader region.

Back to the bromancer, asking those urgent questions, though the lizard Oz sponsor had already answered everything ...

How many days will the ­Israeli campaign go on? How much damage to Iran’s nuclear programs have the Israelis actually inflicted? How many years will the Iranian nuclear weapons program be delayed by? How ­severe will the Iranian military retaliation be?
Will Iran attack Americans in the Middle East? Can Iran activate remnants of its proxy network to attack Israel? What are the consequences for the critical Israel/US relationship? Did the Trump administration really try to talk Benjamin Netanyahu out of this, or is Washington just establishing quasi-plausible deniability?
There’s too much conspiracy theorising about the timing of the Israeli operation. It’s as close as one minute to midnight as you can get. The Israelis really had no choice.
Which makes the equivocating comments by Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong all the more irrelevant.
If a hostile nation sitting near Australia was on the brink of ­acquiring nuclear weapons and vowed solemnly and repeatedly to wipe Australia off the map, and had spent decades repeatedly ­attacking us through terrorism, would a Canberra government ­really wait forever to take action?
The International Atomic ­Energy Agency had just issued a report saying Iran was in breach of its treaty obligations. Iran had ­enriched a quantity of uranium to a point for which there was no plausible civilian use.
Iranian leaders and officials have repeatedly asserted their ­determination to wipe Israel off the map and effectively commit a second anti-Jewish Holocaust.
Successive US administrations, from Barack Obama through ­to Donald Trump, have tried to negotiate an end to Iran’s heavy enrichment of uranium, which provides nuclear weapons grade material.
The Iranians run the negotiations as long as possible but never give up their enrichment program.

Yes, Benji had no choice. How else was he going to stay in power and consummate his dream of a new Riviera?

At this point the reptiles inserted a lengthy time line, which the pond only includes for completeness and to show what a one-eyed compilation can look like...

Anyone compelled can click on the segments, the pond didn't want to distract from the bromancer's stunning insights ...

At the same time, Iran is the chief state sponsor of international terrorism. It constructed a ­murderous network of death-dealing terrorist and state actors to threaten and attack Israel, ­including the Houthis in Yemen, Hamas in the Gaza Strip, other Palestinian terrorist groups, Hezbollah in ­Lebanon and its chief state ally in the region, Syria under Bashar al-Assad.
Netanyahu has destroyed or degraded each of those forces. Last year, Iran twice attacked Israel with hundreds of missiles and drones. In retaliation, Israel ­destroyed much of Iran’s air ­defence capability.
Israel has been grappling with the Iranian threat for a long time. Back in 2012 I interviewed ­Netanyahu in Jerusalem and he made international headlines by declaring that Israel would not allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons under any circumstances.
The Israelis always hoped that if they had to carry out such an ­operation, the Americans would join them. It’s extremely challenging and dangerous for Israeli pilots to strike so far from home. But they were always clear they would conduct the operation alone if they had to.
Another question is just what the Mossad operation within Iran has been up to. Israeli intelligence has completely penetrated Iranian society and indeed the Iranian state and military apparatus as well.

At this point, the reptiles decided to celebrate the dead ... the black snakes as it were ...

Then the bromancer could wrap up his apologia ...

Given that Israel has wrestled with the necessity of an action like this for many years, Jerusalem clearly decided that this was a one-off operation and it would make it as consequential as possible.
Thus Israel attacked Iranian missile facilities and military leadership as well as nuclear establishments.
You can be sure that Israel’s most formidable military scientists have worked for years on the ­question of how to damage facilities buried deep underground, or in the side of a mountain. Israeli ­officials didn’t believe they could completely destroy Iran’s nuclear program, but they did believe they could cripple it and set it back by years.
In the past, Israel has taken similar, though more limited, ­actions. In 1981 the Israeli Air Force destroyed the Osirak ­nuclear reactor near Baghdad and prevented Saddam Hussein from developing nuclear weapons.
In 2007, Israel destroyed an undeclared nuclear reactor in Syria.
On both occasions there was a lot of international criticism of ­Israel. But the world would have been a vastly more dangerous place if the Ba’ath regime in Iraq, or the Assads in Syria, had ­acquired nukes.
The Middle East is full of ­tragedy. Iranian nuclear weapons would magnify the potential for tragedy a thousandfold.

And as for the nukes of Israel? Fergeddit it Jake, it's reptile town.

And so to the bonus, the bromancer with a double play, and the reptiles clocked this as a 12 minute read, which will test the sanity of even the most determined of pond correspondents ...

The header: Is Albanese up to the Trump challenge on AUKUS? There’s more at stake than AUKUS if and when the two leaders meet, and Anthony Albanese has his work cut out to make the case for the pact with Donald Trump.

A caption credit to Frank's astonishing artwork: The Pentagon is to undertake a review of the AUKUS submarine pact to determine if it fits into Donald Trump’s America First policy priorities. Artwork by Frank Ling. Sources: iStock, AP, AFP

The mystical, mysterious command: This article contains features which are only available in the web version,Take me there

Before starting, please excuse the pond wondering whether anyone is up to working out the madness of King Donald?

Barking mad, and delusional as well, and yet it had to be faithfully noted, as in Reuters' Trump promises immigration order soon on farm and leisure workers.

He really is the flip flop King ...

Enough of all that, time to get on with AUKUS ...

Anthony Albanese is the most unambitious national leader in foreign affairs, defence and national security Australia has had at any time since World War II, perhaps in all our history. This singular lack of ambition is about to crash into the turbulent sea of Donald Trump’s presidential persona at the G7 meeting in Alberta, Canada, in the next few days.
This will happen, or not, just as Israel has launched an attack on Iran and the Trump Pentagon undertakes a critical 30-day review of the AUKUS submarine pact to determine whether it fits into Trump’s America First policy priorities. Amazingly, Albanese still has not secured his first one-on-one meeting with Trump.
The AUKUS submarine deal is on the ropes, although it’s such a good deal for the US it’s hard to imagine Washington abandoning it altogether. But much more than AUKUS is at stake. The ultimate meaning of the US-Australia alliance has never been more clouded, certainly not since the near breakdown under Gough Whitlam in the early 1970s. Nor is there any sign the Albanese government can profitably navigate the complexities of the Trump administration. Its strategy seems to be to curl up into a tiny ball and hope Trump never notices it.
The Pentagon’s timing in announcing its review is the most reassuring sign a Trump-Albanese meeting may proceed. It would be an unbelievable snub if Trump and Albanese both attended the G7 and Trump didn’t see Albanese. The Pentagon publicising the inquiry just days before Albanese and Trump may meet is designed to put pressure on Albanese, to maximise Trump’s leverage.
It’s not absolutely clear what Trump may want from his Australian counterpart. Certainly the Americans are contemptuous of Australia’s dismally low defence spending. Australia is a laggard, an alliance outlier, here. Mark Rutte, the secretary-general of NATO, wants a full commitment from every NATO member nation to get defence spending to 3.5 per cent of GDP. The Europeans are generally moving in that direction.
Canada, which really faces no existential security threats because it lives next to the most powerful nation on earth, the US, has traditionally been the NATO laggard. But Canada’s new Prime Minister, Mark Carney, from the centre-left, has committed to bringing defence spending to 2 per cent of GDP, Australia’s current level, by March next year.

Et tu, elbows up folk? 

You're handing the bro a cudgel, and he's gonna use it? Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney has committed to increasing national defence spending. Picture: Chris Young/The Canadian Press via AP

Back to the bromancer, to the tune of poor, pitiful us...

Australia is almost infinitely more exposed than Canada, with no powerful ally nearby and the would-be regional hegemon, China, undertaking the biggest military build-up since World War II. Yet the Albanese government is spending only 2 per cent of GDP, a sum it routinely and ludicrously represents as a historic high. It’s historically high in dollar terms only because of inflation and the natural growth of the Australian economy. As recently as the Keating government Australia was spending a higher proportion of GDP on defence in much more benign circumstances. As recently as the Hawke government Australia was spending more than 2.5 per cent of GDP on defence.
The Trump administration cannot possibly pronounce Canberra’s dismal defence spend adequate at a time when it’s demanding other allies significantly lift their military budgets, and almost all are complying.
While pretending it has nothing to do with Trump’s pressure, the Albanese government will likely make a series of defence spending announcements in the near future that will represent some increase.

The reptiles interrupted, just as the pond was hoping to read about the nuking of the subs and a big order of drones and kit from anywhere other than the Mafia shakedown specialists... Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is expected to announce new defence funding plans as the United States orders a review of its AUKUS pact with Australia. Labor is reportedly seeking to ensure the US delivers on its promise to service nuclear submarines from 2027. There are concerns AUKUS will deliver major defence capabilities to Australia, despite no commitment of support in a conflict over Taiwan. The government says it is confident with the progress of the pact under the Trump administration.

No such luck, the bromancer is always up for a Mafia shakedown, it being the patented house style.

Then the bromancer's next gobbet ended in spectacular fashion ...

These will focus on necessary expenditures to make adequate preparations to host a rotational presence of US and British nuclear submarines through HMAS Stirling naval base near Perth. That’s good, but if that’s all it is, it still does nothing for Australia’s military capability.
It’s not absolutely clear that Trump’s demands of Albanese will be only, or even primarily, about defence spending. Australia is not a high priority for Trump. Albanese seems to be a particularly low priority for him. Trump was elected six months ago and the two men have had two telephone conversations, perhaps three.
At the same time Australia is not a headache to Trump, or to Washington generally. Australia is genuinely popular across the US. Our soldiers over more than a century have earned a legacy of enduring goodwill, especially in congress.
Similarly, Australia has joined with the US in almost all conflicts it has been involved in since World War II. We routinely and hugely overstate our achievements here. In most conflicts Australia’s military commitment has not been remotely proportional to the US commitment. In two of the biggest wars the US was involved in, Vietnam and Korea, Australia was one of the chief beneficiaries as the US stabilised Asia and prevented communist expansion.
Legendary Singapore leader Lee Kuan Yew argued that the stable and prosperous Southeast Asia of recent decades could not have developed if the US hadn’t delayed communist conquest in Indochina by more than a decade.

Um, did the pond miss something, or is Vietnam still run by a Communist cabal? 

That's the bromancer, always fighting yesterday's wars with yesterday men, Former Singapore prime pinister Lee Kuan Yew. Picture: Toshifumi Kitamura/AFP

On the upside, the pond is grateful it wasn't a snap of Ming the Merciless... now do go on ...

In any event, Trump likes Australia, so far as it goes. More important, so does virtually the whole of congress, most of the American public and almost all Republicans (Democrats prefer France). 

Say what? Didn't his first act as cultural kingpin was to bung on a season of Les Mis? And a pretty miserable affair it was.

Never mind, carry on with the delusions ...

Over the years Australian sporting and cultural figures such as Greg Norman, Lleyton Hewitt, Mel Gibson, Hugh Jackman, Paul Hogan, Nicole Kidman, Margot Robbie, Cate Blanchett, diverse as they are (not least in their views), have contributed to an extremely positive image for Australia in the US, a kind of soft power, difficult to measure but very real. We may not be the Taylor Swift of nations in popular American culture exactly, but we rank somewhat higher than a Beach Boys cover band.
For a president who emerges from the worlds of reality TV, entertainment, beauty pageants, golf and real estate, there’s a natural affinity with Australia. But of course Trump is brutally unsentimental. He likes the English king, partly because of country estates and castles, and he likes Norman because of golf.

Trump dislikes China but has just done a trade deal with it that he says will be stable. According to Trump, the US will charge 55 per cent tariffs on Chinese imports, while China will charge 10 per cent tariffs on US imports. Trump also said China would resume export to the US of rare earths minerals, which are used in batteries and many hi-tech applications.

55% tariffs are stable? Inflation here we come... but do go on in that inimitable bromancer way....

It’s impossible to know if Trump is accurately describing the deal or how stable it will be. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that Trump had changed his position on tariffs 50 times since the “Liberation Day” tariffs he announced on April 2.
This all affects how Albanese will try to negotiate with Trump. A major offer of the Albanese government to the Americans is for a rare earths stockpile. But very little development is happening of Australian rare earths deposits. Americans would already be welcome investors in the sector. The government is likely to announce something, but whether it ultimately amounts to much is unclear.
However, if Trump and Albanese do have any kind of formal sit-down meeting, both will want “announceables” to take away from it.
Trump administration trade grievances with Australia are fairly petty. The US would like better access for its beef, no or minimal restrictions on social media companies, better prices for its drugs and compensation for American investors in NSW mining leases cancelled by the state government some years ago.

Fairly petty? That's the entire brand, as the reptiles interrupted with a burst of joking Joe on Sky Noise down under, Sky News contributor Joe Hildebrand discusses the Pentagon’s review of the AUKUS deal, slamming the Trump administration for using the alliance as a “political football”. “We need America, without the USA, we basically don’t exist in the Asia Pacific,” Mr Hildebrand told Sky News host Paul Murray. “It’s pretty poor form for the Americans to now try to use that alliance as a political football, and I don’t like what Donald Trump is doing at all. “However, AUKUS is going to last for decades, Donald Trump is going to last three and a bit years.”

The pond must have missed Joe rebranding himself as a pundit, as it's back to the bromancer for an extended burst ...

Albanese is getting divided advice on what trade strategy to follow. Australia, like nearly all other nations, faces a general US 10 per cent tariff and has no exemption from industry-specific tariffs the US is applying globally, such as 50 per cent on steel.
Parts of the Australian system are steeped in the lore of trade negotiations and free trade agreements and feel that by fighting the Trump tariffs they are saving the world’s trading system, which is a key part of the liberal international rules-based order.
But that ship has long since sailed. It seems pointless to have Trade Minister Don Farrell relentlessly campaign and fail with the Americans. Similarly, it’s no use the government intoning that allies deserve better; these are not the actions of a friend. That style gets nowhere with Trump.
More important, given how unstable policy is under Trump, if Australia turns itself inside out to get some kind of deal, it’s by no means clear it would last very long. And the impact of US tariffs on the Australian economy is pretty minor anyway.
The germ of wisdom here is for Australia to do its best on trade arrangements with Trump, and by all means give him some goodies if they’re not too costly, but not to get into too much of a sweat about it. So far the Albanese government is managing the alliance poorly.
One insider describes the great success Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had with Trump. He would make his pitch something like: the US-Japan alliance is going to Make America Great Again, and make Japan great, too, and here are all the things Japan is going to do to help you, Mr President.
Incidentally, the G7 itself really had significance for Washington only when it could line up the democracies against Russia and China. With Trump beating up on Canada and Europe on tariffs, that’s not plausible at this meeting.
Several senior Australians think that, because Trump is so fixated on China, this puts Australia in the box seat. They may be overestimating this. The Pentagon certainly regards Australia as an important ally against China.
But the Americans don’t regard Australia as important because of anything it does, just purely because of where it is. They know Australia’s anaemic military capabilities contribute almost nothing to allied deterrence. They are deeply frustrated that Australia is making such a pitiful effort on defence.
US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth told Defence Minister Richard Marles to increase defence spending to 3.5 per cent of GDP. US Under Secretary of Defence for Policy Elbridge Colby had earlier told congress that Asian allies, including Australia faced a much bigger security challenge than the US’s European allies but was spending a smaller percentage of its GDP on defence. They’re also frustrated Albanese never explains to the Australian people why AUKUS is necessary or indeed why defence spending is necessary.

Good old champers Pete, US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth and Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles meeting in Singapore in May. Picture: Alexander Kubitza/US Department of Defence)

Put it in Beast lingo:

Pentagon Insiders Reveal Hegseth Is Angry and Unshaven Post Leak Scandal
SOUR AND STUBBLY
With the Pentagon plagued by scandal, the defense secretary’s behavior has taken a turn. (* archive link)

No need to read the Beast's rip. The original New York profile is here as Playing Secretary As war looms, Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon is beset by infighting over leaks, drugs, and socks. How long will Trump stand by his man? (* archive link)

Inter alia ...

...Hegseth was different after Signalgate, according to six people in a position to know. He was more prone to anger and less likely to be clean-shaven in the morning. He seemed reluctant to make decisions; scared of doing the wrong thing, paralyzed as he awaited orders from the White House. The Pentagon had ceased, one source says, to be “creative”; it was a mechanism for implementing executive orders. Each new leak contributed to Hegseth’s sense that he was surrounded by moles in league with his enemies. It was “consuming his whole life,” says one source, “when he should have been focused on, you know, our national security.” Unclear on how to move forward, he retreated into spaces where he was comfortable. “Kicked off the day alongside the warriors,” posted Hegseth against an image of himself doing a burpee.
His circle grew smaller and, to people more accustomed to a traditional Defense Department, stranger. Why was his personal lawyer, Tim Parlatore, always around? And his brother Phil? Hegseth began including his wife, Jennifer Hegseth, in meetings at the Department of Defense, a development that was reportedly “confusing” to foreign officials. Jenny directed the communications staff to “draw up a PR package” in a way that offended them; they did not work for her. In the secretary’s office are a half-dozen prints known as “jumbos.” Typically these would be pictures of tanks and troops in battle. In Hegseth’s office, instead, are seven giant pictures of Jenny Hegseth, many of them showing her in the same pink dress. “Without those two J ’s,” Hegseth once said to Megyn Kelly, “I wouldn’t be sitting here right now.” The other J was Jesus.
In late March, Hegseth and his team met with the prime minister of Japan. “Who in their right mind,” asked someone on X, “snags a high-level meeting, in a seat of honor, with the Japanese Prime Minster, and dresses and sits disrespectfully like that, with no socks and casual loafers?” The account posted a picture with a circle around Joe Kasper’s unsocked ankle. It was, as one source close to Hegseth described it, “a minor diplomatic scandal.”
The inspector general launched an investigation into Signalgate. “Starting off the day with a motivating run alongside some of America’s finest,” Hegseth posted, below a photo of himself mid-push-up.
More significant scandals followed, mostly attributable to leaks: Hegseth had a second group Signal chat, with his wife and brother and Parlatore, that could not be blamed on Mike Waltz. He had introduced an unsecured internet line into his office. People in the Pentagon were using an obscure Israeli version of Signal that was even less secure than the normal one and had, according to research done by Micah Lee, been hacked while they were using it. John Ullyot, a former press official and vocal supporter of Hegseth, published a piece calling the preceding weeks at the Pentagon “the month from hell,” stating that the DoD’s top ranks were “near collapse.” He was, like everyone else, talking to the strongman at the top. The president, he wrote, “deserves better than the current mishegoss.”

And so on and on, it being very long and detailed read, and ending on a high ...

...Hegseth still does not have a chief of staff or a deputy chief of staff; according to new leaks, the department is having trouble hiring anyone with relevant experience. Who actually shared the Panama intel with Courtney Kube remains anyone’s guess. Colin Carroll’s bike is still in the Pentagon, and he doesn’t know how to get it back. Darin Selnick is in San Diego, figuring out what to do with a yearlong lease on a D.C. apartment he no longer needs. Joe Kasper says he somehow has a new job at the Pentagon; he’s just now signing the paperwork. In late April a parked $67 million fighter jet slipped off an American aircraft carrier and disappeared into the Red Sea. Mike Waltz was finally reassigned. (“Loomered,” Laura messaged a reporter.) Less than a week after that, on the day the U.S. announced a cease-fire with the Houthis, another American fighter jet landing on the same American aircraft carrier slipped off the boat and disappeared, which, while unfortunate, was only an insignificant percentage of what had been lost in the attacks in Yemen, months of combat that cost over a billion dollars and depleted American munitions others in the Pentagon hoped could be reserved for a potential conflict with China. No one seemed to know what comprised winning or what had justified the deaths of hundreds of Yemeni people, many of them civilians. The department in any case has moved on; in June, Hegseth approved the deployment of 700 Marines in response to isolated protests in Los Angeles. When Hegseth was asked, in congressional hearings, what law gave him the authority to do so, he could not say.
“No more pronouns,” Hegseth told Special Forces at a conference in Tampa. “No more dudes in dresses.”
Laura Loomer got three more people fired but failed, once again, to find employment herself. She found it curious that the people around Trump, the people presumably opposed to her employment, were not telling Trump about the disloyal operatives around him. Her voice was pure acid. “I mean, we’re told these are the best people, right? We were told, what is it? I only hire the best people. Right? That’s what we were told … Only the best people get to work for Trump.”

Back to the bromancer, apparently unaware of champers Pete's many predicaments ...

Hegseth reiterated these points in recent public statements. US allies must do more for their own defence. “We can’t want their security more than they do,” he declared.
But Australia is a very useful place for some US troops, planes and ships to be based, as part of Washington’s strategy to disperse its forces in the region.
Our geographic location was the basis for the key allied communications facility at Pine Gap. Billions of dollars have been invested in Pine Gap. It plays a key role in signals intelligence, especially in detecting missile launches and the like. US satellites communicate directly with Pine Gap when their position in orbit means they can’t communicate directly with US ground stations.
However, whereas once that was necessary for US global intelligence and military warning time, now satellites can communicate more easily with each other. So Pine Gap is still immensely useful but no longer necessary. The US could live without it.
Albanese’s weakness with Trump is that he has no positive vision to sell to the President, beyond possibly a deal on critical minerals. Albanese has no story to tell Trump about Australian military investment; no story to tell about the Australian economy, which is once more in per capita recession and still experiencing negative productivity growth; no story to tell about Australian industry when Australia has been effectively deindustrialising with grossly excessive energy prices; and no story to tell about Australian regional leadership. The minor exception is the continuation of Canberra’s efforts to keep Beijing’s strategic footprint in the South Pacific as small as possible.

Ob come now, can't we wish him happy birthday and a grand military parade worthy of the old Soviet regime?

Sorry, the pond had to interrupt because the bromancer became entranced by his ability to deliver quality verbiage ...

Stand by for another long burst:

The Albanese government no longer even mentions this in public as it has apparently decided never to say a disobliging word about the Beijing government except when Marles is speaking in person in front of the Americans. Certainly no disobliging word about Beijing passes Albanese’s lips these days.
So Albanese has nothing to offer Trump, no policy ambition he can present in a Trump-friendly fashion, no personal connection with Trump or with anyone significantly in Trump’s inner circle.
With Australia’s appalling military budget, there’s nothing for our natural allies around Trump, notably US Secretary of State Marco Rubio but also, increasingly, Hegseth, to argue a pro-Australian case with. As many commentators have pointed out (including most recently the anti-American Hugh White), Albanese shows great discomfort when confronting national security or foreign affairs issues. He often gets facts wrong if he moves beyond tightly scripted talking points and cannot enlarge on strategic purpose or context.
It would have been normal Australian diplomatic practice for Albanese to seek a Washington visit and a White House appointment with Trump before or after the G7.
But the Albanese government didn’t do this. The assumption must be that Albanese is scared of having a White House sit-down with Trump, especially if journalists get to ask Trump if he thinks the Australian defence budget is adequate. Or what he thinks of Australia imposing sanctions on Israeli government ministers. Or to compare and contrast Washington’s and Canberra’s views of China.
Indeed, Albanese wouldn’t want a direct question on China where he couldn’t easily equivocate. Or a million other things. But it is frankly pathetic, almost wickedly unambitious, for an Australian leader to avoid the White House because he doesn’t think he has the skill to finesse the presidential encounter.
Albanese’s blushes may be saved altogether. There’s every chance Trump won’t attend the G7. Israel has launched a military strike against Iran, and Iran has threatened to retaliate against US bases in the Middle East. And Trump is also in the midst of domestic political conflict, with demonstrations spreading through numerous coastal cities against his deportation of illegal immigrants.
Trump’s numbers don’t remotely approach the deportations carried out under Barack Obama. In 2013, Obama’s administration deported more than 35,000 illegal immigrants a month. But for those who hate Trump, his deportations are uniquely wicked.
Apparently Trump has not formally booked any bilateral appointments at the G7 meeting yet, so it’s possible Vice-President JD Vance or Rubio could attend in his place.
Could Colby possibly recommend the US ditch AUKUS? Colby is a China hawk and believes the US needs to lead a coalition in the Indo-Pacific to prevent China achieving regional hegemony. This, in Colby’s view, and more importantly in Trump’s view, would be bad not only for the region but for the US. Yet Colby has a perfectly sane belief that the US will be short of nuclear submarines in the 2030s and won’t have any spare for Australia.
In his congressional confirmation testimony, Colby remarked of AUKUS: “If we can produce the attack submarines (the Virginias) in sufficient number, then great. But if we can’t, that becomes a very difficult problem.”
As Malcolm Turnbull pointed out this week, the US Navy in March gave evidence to congress about the pace of nuclear attack submarine construction. It’s going at about 1.1 boats a year. It needs to be two a year just for the US to catch up, over some decades, to what it needs for itself. To meet that and have three to five more to sell to Australia, as the AUKUS agreement specifies, it needs to go at a pace of 2.3 a year. There’s no sign the US can get up to that pace any time soon. It takes seven years to build a nuclear submarine. Under the provisions of the AUKUS pact, the US sells a nuclear sub to Australia in 2032 only if the President determines this sale won’t harm US national security.

Dear sweet long absent lord, has it come to this, the bromancer quoting Malware and the reptiles running a snap of him? Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull. Picture: Martin Ollman/NewsWire

Sounds like AUKUS is pretty much fucked and Malware would know, having done his level best to fuck broadband in country ...  and so at last to the final gobbet ....

But the Albanese government says it’s not committed to joining any US conflict with China in the region. Unless we have by then reached a time of universal peace, why on earth would any US administration take nuclear subs out of the US line of battle and sell them to Australia?
Mainly to keep the Americans committed to the deal, Australia has committed to paying the US $5bn to help it expand its industrial capacity. Marles has already paid the first $800m. This is one reason Washington may keep AUKUS going. But it could still be that we don’t get the subs. Washington could keep taking the Australian money, help Australia establish nuclear submarine maintenance facilities, gainfully use Australian sailors and tradesmen, and then in good faith decide it can’t spare us a Virginia in 2032.
The US might reasonably conclude we’re not ready. It might sell us a much older boat for training purposes. Or it might promise to increase the rotation of its own subs through Stirling. It’s not remotely guaranteed we get any subs. The British program, which is supposed to furnish the balance of the eight subs fleet (manufactured unbelievably in Adelaide) in the 2040s and 2050s, is of course way behind schedule itself. Given the AUKUS time lines are so distant, while the maximum threat is likely in the next decade, you could make the case that AUKUS is a fantastic waste of time.
But that would miss its real purpose. The deep truths of Australian strategic culture seemingly never change. Before and after World War I the Australian public held fundraisers and, with the government, contributed money directly to Britain’s Royal Navy in the hope it would defend Australia because we couldn’t defend ourselves. Pretty much the first AUKUS.

Um, hello, World War II? Singapore? In the Poms and Churchill we trust? Pretty much the first stupidity ... and now it's Brexit, and everyone's rushing to the exit, and we must turn to King Donald for salvation?

Some salvation, some chook, some neck for the wringing ...

And so to the immortal Rowe, adding his own commentary to the matters at hand ...