In which the hive mind is part of a vast conspiracy, with a bonus gassing of the country to save the planet ...

 

The pond is an extremely slow learner.

Each day the pond scans the reptile headlines for a mention of the current vast conspiracy ...

Nope, nothing, nihil, nada, zip ...

The pond slowly, all too slowly, realised that the reptiles at the lizard Oz were part of a vast international conspiracy to conceal a vast conspiracy ...

No chance for the pond to segue andto enjoy the sort of musing provided by Jonathan Chait in The Atlantic in Why Trump Can’t Make the Epstein Story Go Away, His brainwashing powers are finite. (that's an archive link)

Donald Trump’s ham-fisted reversal on his promise to release a secret list of Jeffrey Epstein’s clients has accomplished something long considered impossible by virtually everybody, including Trump himself: He has finally exceeded his followers’ credulity. The Epstein matter is so crucial to Trump’s base, and the excuse offered is so flimsy, that the about-face has raised questions within perhaps the most gullible movement in American history.
Over the past decade, Trump’s hold on his fan base has been a mysterious and unchanging fact of American political life, the inspiration for innumerable journalistic diner safaris and the source of agonized self-reflection on the left. Trump understands that his most committed fans will believe almost anything he tells them. Any discomfiting fact is instantly dismissed as a lie coming from the “Radical Left” (Democrats), the “FAKE NEWS” (non-Republican-aligned media), the “Deep State” (any government statistic or official finding), or “RINOs” (whenever a Republican has the temerity to question him).
Crucial to this cultlike epistemology is that Trump himself defines what is true, and can alter the nature of that reality at his whim. A journalist or politician may go from Well Respected to Failing Loser and back again as many times as needed. Extravagant promises (to give everybody “terrific” health care, to end the Russia-Ukraine war in a day, to bring down grocery prices) could be issued and then memory-holed.

And so on and too delicious ...

When his supporters continued raising questions, Trump floated a new line on Truth Social: The files did exist, but they were anti-Trump disinformation created by the Democrats.
“Why are we giving publicity to Files written by Obama, Crooked Hillary, Comey, Brennan, and the Losers and Criminals of the Biden Administration, who conned the World with the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, 51 ‘Intelligence’ Agents, ‘THE LAPTOP FROM HELL,’ and more?” he wrote. “They created the Epstein Files, just like they created the FAKE Hillary Clinton/Christopher Steele Dossier that they used on me, and now my so-called ‘friends’ are playing right into their hands. Why didn’t these Radical Left Lunatics release the Epstein Files?”
Not only did this new line blatantly contradict the repeated promises to release the files that Trump’s allies had made, but it was not even internally consistent. Barack Obama had concocted the Epstein files to smear Trump … but Democrats had refused to make them public, for some reason? And because the “Radical Left Lunatics” had kept them secret, Trump needed to do the same thing?
But whatever. Trump’s lies often lack even the veneer of plausibility. His devotees have generally not made him work very hard to maintain their trust. You could almost picture Trump lazily mouthing the same tropes—“fake news,” “Russia, Russia, Russia”—expecting the same result.
Except this time, Trump pushed the buttons, and nothing happened. Trump fans just grew angrier; how could Trump pretend that a pledge to uncover a sinister cabal had never mattered at all?

Exceptionally delicious ... much like Chris Stirewalt in The Hill exploring this third rail in Trump offers MAGA a third option on Epstein .

This looks like Trump employing the “widening gyre.” In a rhetorical corner but unable to simply shrug it off, Trump raises the stakes. It’s not that they’re covering up the Epstein files, you see, it’s much, much bigger. It also has the benefit of making clear that anyone pushing for the release of the files is working for the bad guys, not against them.

Please allow the pond one more delicious treat ... Arwa Mahdawi in The Graudian featuring one of the deep state's co-conspirators, Does Kash Patel deserve to run the FBI? Of course he does – and I’ll take a lie detector test to prove it

Mahdawi had the pond from the get go ...

Once upon a time, in the land of the free, there lived a wizard called Kash the Distinguished Discoverer.” That piece of verbal wizardry is the opening line of a children’s book trilogy called The Plot Against the King (aimed at children aged three and above) by a Mr Kash Patel. The first book, published in 2022, is like Harry Potter for conspiracy theorists. Kash helps King Donald battle Hillary Queenton and a “shifty knight”, who have been spreading lies about the king working with the Russionians. In the final book in the trilogy (The Plot Against the King 3: The Return of the King) a couple of villains called Comma‑la‑la‑la and Baron Von Biden make an appearance.
Not so long ago, publishing deeply weird books about the president while also promoting wild QAnon conspiracy theories would get you put on some kind of watchlist. Now it gets you a top job as the guy in charge of watchlists. Patel is not just a children’s book author; he is also the director of the FBI. His chief qualification for the role appears to be his extreme devotion to President Donald Trump. He certainly didn’t have any FBI experience before getting the job as head of the agency.

And so on, and it leads to a great punchline, and oh pretty please, one last pleasure ...Trump Makes Bonkers New Threat Against AOC and Jasmine Crockett (*archive link)

Take the test, take the test ...

Please sir, the pond would like another.

Poor old Marge...  Marjorie Taylor Greene Mocked for Blatant Epstein Hypocrisy (*archive link)

On the upside, the reptiles seem to have finally gotten over their China obsession for the moment with this the lead news story, a genuine EXCLUSIVE ...

EXCLUSIVE
Myffed: ABC accused of ‘covering up’ star’s leading role in fiery feud
A feud over Myf Warhurst’s fence erupted amid explosive allegations the ABC ran a ‘one-sided’ journalistic ‘hit job’ on her neighbour – without revealing the starring role their longstanding presenter played. WATCH the videos from both sides.
By Steve Jackson

Stunning work Steve, but the pond deeply regrets that an argument over a fence isn't sufficient a disguise for a hive mind conspiracy to cover up, ignore or excuse a deep state conspiracy.

Steve's astonishing EXCLUSIVE pushed Gough and Albo and the great wall and all that jazz well down the list.

Meanwhile, it seems that the China hysteria continues to flourish over on the extreme far right of the lizard Oz ...

Say what, this is the best petulant Peta can offer?

If Albanese has his way, we’ll be the Switzerland of the South Pacific
Like Gough Whitlam, the PM is more emotionally connected to China’s liberation struggle and quest for developmental justice than he is to the US as a bastion of market capitalism and the world’s policeman.
By Peta Credlin

Hang on, hang on, after WWII, the Swiss came out filthy rich, even more rich than they'd been before the war, and all they had to endure was a quote ...

In The Third Man, Orson Welles’ character Harry Lime says, “In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.” Graham Greene, who co-wrote the script with director Carol Reed, said that it was “the best line of the film”—and that Welles wrote it. Welles recalled, “When the picture came out, the Swiss very nicely pointed out to me that they’ve never made any cuckoo clocks—they all come from the Schwarzwald in Bavaria!”

If we end up with a nice line in very private banking, very succulent chocolates and cuckoo clocks, perhaps adapted to a magpie theme, who but a petulant Peta would complain?

Tamworth's pride and joy ...

Jack was also still in the maw, the grip of the much feared Orient ...

Albo’s postcard from China … and the things he can’t talk about
Human rights, Uighurs, Tank Man, AUKUS, China’s nuclear subs, the South China Sea, destroyers in the Tasman, Taiwan … all are on the list the PM can’t talk about on tour. Then there’s the person he can’t seem to talk to …
By Jack the Insider

They probably didn't discuss the ongoing death in custody of Aboriginal people as well ...

Never mind, here, have an infallible Pope likely to ensure he and the pond are banned yet again in China ...

But hang on, hang on, some keen-eyed punters will have noticed a single attempt over on the extreme far right to deal with the vast international conspiracy involving a certain Epstein ... by bringing in a certain legal eagle, the dissing Dershowitz ...

The header: The inside scoop on Jeffrey Epstein,I was his lawyer. I know things that court orders won’t allow me to disclose.

The caption: British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell and US financier Jeffrey Epstein.

So the reptiles tried to quash the whole files saga by turning to a punter who literally had skin in the game, albeit allegedly hidden by alleged underwear ...

(YouTube link for that news story)

Amazingly it was just a humble two minute exercise in apologetics, but do go on ...

I was Jeffrey Epstein’s lawyer. I know the facts, some of which I can’t disclose because it is privileged or subject to court-imposed sealing orders. But what I can disclose makes several important things clear.
Epstein never created a “client list”. The FBI interviewed alleged victims who named several “clients”. These names have been redacted. They should be disclosed, but the courts have ordered them sealed. I know who they are. They don’t include any current officeholders.
We don’t know whether the accusations are true. The courts also have sealed negative information about some of the accusers to protect them.
Neither the Justice Department nor private defence lawyers are free to disregard court sealing orders. The media can and should petition the courts for the release of all names and information so the public can draw its own conclusions.

The reptiles flung in a snap as a distraction, Donald Trump watches as Tucker Carlson delivers remarks during a Turning Point Action campaign rally.

Meanwhile ...

He's a Charlie Kirk figure, he's part of the deep state denialist conspiracy, allegedly trusting whatever deep state pap the government puts out (or so the pond's conspiracy-addicted friends allege) ...

There also has been speculation about incriminating videos taken by hidden cameras in Epstein’s guest bedrooms. There are videotapes, but they are of public areas of his Palm Beach, Florida, home. Epstein reported the theft of money and a licensed firearm from a drawer in his living room, so the police installed a video camera. I am not aware of video cameras in guest bedrooms.
Open records show an acquaintance between Epstein and Donald Trump many years ago. That relationship ended when Trump reportedly banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago, long before becoming President.
I have seen nothing that would suggest anything improper or even questionable by Trump.
It is clear from the evidence that Epstein committed suicide. What isn’t clear is whether he was assisted by jail personnel. That seems likely to me, based on the evidence of allegedly broken cameras, transfer of his cellmate and the absence of guards during relevant time periods.
I have absolutely no doubt that Epstein never worked for any intelligence agency. If he had he would surely have told me and his other lawyers, who would have used that information to get him a better deal. (He wasn’t satisfied with the so-called sweetheart deal he got, which required him to spend 1½ years in a local jail and register as a sex offender.)

The reptiles tried another visual feint and distraction ... Robert Maxwell

But look at the company he keeps if the illustration for a 2019 New Yorker profile (*archive link) is anything to go by ...

What a sordid and sorry set of tales there is in that profile, but the pond must press on ...

My sources in Israel have confirmed to me that he had no connection to Israeli intelligence. That false story – recently peddled by Tucker Carlson – probably emanated from credible allegations that Robert Maxwell (1923-91), father of Epstein’s former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, worked with the Mossad.
Conspiracy stories attract readers, viewers and listeners. They are also fodder for political attacks.
The Epstein case has generated more than its share of such theories, and there is nothing more annoying to gossipmongers than when stubborn facts (or the absence of facts) get in the way of a juicy theory.
Sorry to disappoint you, but there is really nothing much to see here, beyond what has already been disclosed.
Alan Dershowitz is a professor emeritus at Harvard Law School and author of The Preventive State: The Challenge of Preventing Serious Harms While Preserving Essential Liberties. This article was first published in The Wall Street Journal.

Well, he would say that wouldn't he. 

Nothing to see here, nothing at all ...

By golly, that final link to New York magazine is a tidy one, with a tidy tale to tell, albeit deeply sordid, dark and enormously corrupt and corrupting.

See Philip Weiss, The Fantasist, on 7th December 2007 (*archive link)

Not sorted reptiles, not hidden in a broom closet just yet ...

Let the many conspiracies continue to flourish, let the killings on Fifth Avenue commence ...

And so to a minor matter for the bonus, the ongoing need to gas Australia to save the planet because nuking it, and giving the pond an SMR for its backyard, and all that jazz, seems to have fallen by the wayside ...

The header: Gas deadlock won’t break without a policy short circuit, Australia’s energy transition to net zero will include a critical, albeit diminishing, role for gas. The government’s immediate challenge is to make that role clear and compelling.

The caption for the snap of the sort of kit the reptiles just love: A worker walks through the Queensland Curtis Liquefied Natural Gas project site.

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

Gas away ...

The federal government is reviewing policy mechanisms designed to ensure that a country blessed with enough gas to be a significant global exporter also supplies domestic needs at a reasonable price.
This should be a no-brainer yet, sadly, there is little agreement on how this objective should be achieved. Natural gas has been a major energy source for Australian homes and businesses since the 1960s. For most of that time the east coast domestic gas market has been internally focused, with demand and supply in balance.
Two developments upset this balance. In 2015, liquefied natural gas exports began from Gladstone, Queensland. By 2024, export volumes of more than 1400 petajoules were 75 per cent of total east coast demand. Concern arose that the LNG terminals would suck the market dry.
The Turnbull government introduced the Australian Domestic Gas Security Mechanism to avoid this. Its threat of direct intervention in the export contracts was enough to ensure that demand has been met since then.
In 2022, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine lifted global demand for non-Russian gas, driving up the price, including for Australian exports. Wholesale gas prices on the east coast soared from $10 a gigajoule to $30. The Albanese government had to act.
It imposed a $12 price cap and established a heads of agreement with the exporters. Central to the agreement is that the domestic market gas will be supplied at prices no greater than what international customers pay. The government also introduced a Gas Market Code that imposes $12 a gigajoule as a “reasonable price” for wholesale contracts.
The central and critical focus of the current review will be on these three instruments with the simple objective to ensure Australian consumers have sufficient supplies at a reasonable price while supporting Australia’s position as a reliable trading partner.

Naturally whenever climate change and such like religious cults are involved, it's important to turn to real experts ...

Come on down Canavan caravan, let the reptiles go for a ride, Nationals Senator Matt Canavan joined Sky News Australia to discuss the Chamber of Commerce pitch, raising concerns over Labor's out-of-reach target. “Rather than focus on the target ahead of them in 2030, which they are not going to meet, they’re now going to set an even greater and bigger target that they are not going to be around for in 2035 or 40,” Mr Canavan said “I hope the Australian people are seeing through this because this net zero obsession is the principal reason why productivity is in the slumps, it’s clearly the reason why electricity prices have risen 31 per cent since we signed up to net zero and gas prices have risen 39 per cent, that’s on top of an already major increases over the past couple of decades as we obsessed about this green energy scam. “The Australian people, they’ve had enough of paying high bills, high electricity bills, it’s flowing through to food prices now, the cost of everything is going up, why don’t we focus on using our energy resources again why don’t we focus on a target of reducing the cost of living in Australia before we focus on a target of reducing astray emissions which are barely anything of global emissions in any case.”

Splendid stuff, and never forget there's no need for gas when you can have sweet, dinkum, clean, virginal Oz coal, the stuff that batters...

On with gassing the country ...

So far the gas industry has been unable or unwilling to put forward a politically acceptable solution. It pleads for removal of government interventions, arguing that unfettered exploration for more gas will solve all problems. Governments and regulators, as well as consumers and environmental groups, will reject such positions outright.
The review’s consultation paper seeks proposals on options for change. Considering previous attempts and mixed results on both the west and east coasts, there are two conceptual alternatives worth considering.
Some form of policy to reserve gas for Australians is an attractive idea and recent statements by the Prime Minister were interpreted as him supporting the idea. Since 2006, Western Australia has had a reservation policy that mandates LNG producers reserve 15 per cent of their LNG exports for the state’s domestic market. The reserved volume has been enough to keep prices low. The policy was highly contentious at the outset but suppliers and consumers generally learned to work with it, although recent price increases suggest tensions are re-emerging.
Reservation brings two problems. First, determining a target volume seems arbitrary and static in a rapidly changing market. While the consultation paper says national gas demand is expected to remain steady across the next 20 years, that is debatable.

And so to another interrupting snap with strange advice, NETWORK SPECIAL. NO AUS, NO NEWS.COM , PLEASE CONTACT NETWORK PICTURE DESK BEFORE PUBLISHING. , Chris Bowen, Minister for Climate Change and Energy of Australia speaks first time since the election.Australian Energy Week held at Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. Picture: Jason Edwards

Please don't expect the pond to decipher that all caps code, the pond merely reports and correspondents decide.

If the reptiles want to date John Curtin as being alive and well with Sir Tom at Adelaide's central railway station in 1948, despite clearly erroneous reports that he died in July 1945, it's not for the pond to explain or reconcile. 

The pond merely transcribes for the amusement of correspondents...

And so to a final gassing, strictly for the pleasure of fucking the planet ...

Climate change policy, including the quest for new-zero emissions, will have substantial consequences for gas demand that will vary across gas usage sectors and lead to a more seasonably volatile demand. Second, reserving enough gas on the east coast to drive down the price significantly would require volumes of production well beyond what is currently available or envisioned.
A different approach would be to retain but streamline the current instruments into a single framework. After all, they have demonstrably worked on supply security for the past eight years.
Instead of an imposed reasonable price, with exemptions that render it almost irrelevant, a better approach would be to impose a wholesale price obligation based on export parity. Governance could be tightened by giving the regulatory monitoring role to the Australian Energy Regulator, with powers of contract price discovery and penalties for breaches.
The debate will be heated. Gas consumers would prefer a closed domestic market. Gas producers would prefer no export controls.
But a combination such as the above could provide the clear and predictable market arrangements under which both could make their long-term investments with confidence. The Coalition’s intervention idea put to the election in May even suggests potential for bipartisan support.
A sharp review should be followed by broader strategic considerations that will flow from climate change targets and related policies. Australia’s energy transition to net zero will include a critical, albeit diminishing, role for gas. The government’s immediate challenge is to make that role clear and compelling.
Tony Wood is energy and climate change senior fellow at the Grattan Institute.

And in the spirit of the Canavan caravan, the pond concludes with a consoling thought, thanks to Wilcox...