In which the pond is deeply bored by the weekend's offerings, and after a serve of Ughmann denialism, heads back to celebrate independence day with Baker of The Times and the bromancer ...

 

The secret to mindless propaganda is mindless repetition, a never ending murmuration by the hive mind, squawking in unison.

See how it works this mindless weekend.

Look first at the "news" ...

Just the usual aggregation of mindless moaning and whining, though a little below that the reptiles attempted a pathetic attempt at relevance, a desperate attempt to appeal to vulgar youff ...

Dear sweet long absent lord, he hasn't even been to Glastonbury?

... then turn to the "'leet" commentary.

The reptiles have already done Glastonbury to death, yet felt the need to import a Pom to do it all again ...

The Glastonbury epiphany: Death-chanting foot soldiers of new genocidaires
Let’s be clear – this is not a movement for peace, it’s a movement for war on Jews.
By Brendan O'Neill
Columnist

Actually, as a correspondent noted, you didn't have to look as far as that for antisemitic tropes of an ancient kind ...

Donald Trump has defended using an antisemitic slur during a speech, claiming he had “never heard” it used as an attack on Jewish people before.
Trump was asked about his use of the term “Shylocks”–a reference to the Jewish moneylender in William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, who famously demands a “pound of flesh” from another character who cannot repay a loan—after he spoke Thursday at a rally celebrating the 250th anniversary of America’s independence in Des Moines, Iowa.
“No death tax, no estate tax, no going to the banks and borrowing from, in some cases, a fine banker and in some cases, Shylocks and bad people,” Trump told the crowd while praising his “Big Beautiful” spending bill, which the House passed Thursday.
Speaking to reporters after disembarking from Air Force One in Maryland, Trump claimed his use of the word differs from the meaning the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) describes as a “centuries-old antisemitic trope” that plays on negative stereotypes about Jewish people and money. The antisemitism watchdog called the trope “extremely offensive and dangerous.”
“The meaning of Shylock is somebody that’s a money lender at high rates,” Trump said, according to The Washington Post. “You view it differently. I’ve never heard that.” (*archive link to source)

What else? The worst of reptile minds - including our Henry - have already savaged the Yoorrook report, yet Dame Slap felt the need to do it all again ...

Truth is, in a single country Yoorrook a wasted opportunity
It’s a simple truth: the Yoorrook report fails to address basic needs of Indigenous children, but makes outlandish demands in serving the interests of the adults who drove it.
By Janet Albrechtsen
Columnist

Truth is, this sort of mindless repetition just helps lead AI down the pathway to reptile darkness.

In the same way, the reptiles have been blathering on about super for weeks, yet there was still room for another dropping of Pearls of Wisdom ... and ye sainted aunts and uncles, the man felt compelled to drag in a French clock lover for emotional support ...

Why Labor’s super overreach is a bridge too far for Keating
Paul Keating has long accused Coalition governments of trashing the superannuation system. His intervention over Jim Chalmers’ super tax proposal highlights the threat now comes from within.
By David Pearl

Snappy Tom showed a similar desperation by dragging in Bob Hawke, trading off on a familiar, suggesting intimacy and affection ...

Tell it straight like Hawkie and people will understand
The reform narrative out of the economic roundtable must be about the future of our kids.
By Tom Dusevic
Policy Editor

Tell it straight in crooked reptile la la land? Dream on snappy Tom ...

Simpleton "here no conflict of interest" Simon decided to invent an internecine war to liven up the hive mind's day ...

Albanese is rejuvenated, but his biggest threat might be his Treasurer
The success of the government’s aspirational reform agenda hinges on the relationship between the PM and his Treasurer.
By Simon Benson
Political Editor 

"Might be"? Come on simplistic Simon, announce a certain civil war. Conjure up a Cromwell ...

Was there any upside at all in this parade of reptile hacks, wannabes, never weres, losers and dropkicks?

Well "Ned" Kelly continues to be MIA, it being June 6th when he last disturbed the hive mind with Netanyahu is strong in war, but when does the peace come?

As for that climate science denialist, renewables basher and unreformed seminarian, guess what?

Here we go again, for the umpteenth time: Blind Milton could see net-zero is a lost cause, To measure the true weight of Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ words, we first need to decode them – because they are written to conceal.
The caption for a stock image that delights the reptiles: in 2024 the world burned more coal, oil and gas than in any previous year, surpassing the record set in 2023. Picture: istock
The ritual incantation: This article contains features which are only available in the web version, Take me there

The pond only regurgitates this crap because it's there ...

Words are the tools of public life, and how a politician chooses and uses them says a lot. Some words are designed to illuminate, some to disguise and some to deceive.
Communicating clearly should be the aim of anyone who works in public service. Sift the wheat from the chaff of a politician’s words, and you can weigh their worth. If they speak plainly, then you can benchmark their pledges against their deeds. In a subjective world, pointing to the gap between the two is often the only thing that still chastens them.
If a politician’s words are obscure or confusing, then the intent is to build a thicket of them and hide in plain sight.
That’s not to say that communicating complex ideas is easy. Sending a clear message from one mind to many is a constant struggle with language. How do you pick exactly the right word and put it in the perfect place to transmit meaning?
Nowhere is the search to find the right words more powerfully evoked than in the opening stanzas of John Milton’s Paradise Lost.

Say what? We're going to get a talk on climate science and renewables and the whole damn thing, and  the key talking point is going to be Milton? Yep ... Poet John Milton (1608-1674).

Why does the unreformed seminarian do it? 

Well he's completely clueless about the science, so best blather on in his own inimitable way ...

The poet begins with an exhortation to the Holy Spirit to “sing Heavenly Muse” as Milton seeks “thy aid to my adventurous song” because his ambition for this work is: “That with no middle flight intends to soar … while it pursues things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme”.
He prays “what in me is dark illumine, what is low raise and support” because he has a mighty purpose to “justify the ways of God to men”.
Milton’s words and his example are inspirational. How did a blind poet, who lent his voice to the republican revolution led by Oliver Cromwell and narrowly escaped execution after the return of a king, conceive and dictate the greatest epic poem in the English language as he set his sightless eyes on the heavens?
In dramatising Lucifer’s rebellion against God, his battalions of angels being hurled into hell, Satan’s defiant rise, the temptation of Adam and Eve, and humanity’s exile from Eden, Milton weaves a vast tapestry from the threads of Genesis, classical mythology, and Christian theology.
But at its heart lies a single, urgent question: how can evil exist in a world created by a just God?
Milton’s radical answer is that God gave angels and humans the gift of true freedom. That includes the freedom to defy God. It is why Satan’s defiance has a tragic grandeur and why the fall of humanity, though catastrophic, opens the path to redemption.
Paradise Lost is not merely a tale of rebellion and ruin; it is a profound meditation on the dignity and danger of freedom. As one of history’s great defenders of liberty, especially freedom of the press, Milton understood the peril that came with free speech.
You do not need to be a believer to admire the genius of Milton or to appreciate that attempting to justify the ways of God to men in blank verse is beyond the reach of just about everyone but him.
The only lesson here is that all of us should aim high in trying to express ourselves, and all should endeavour to use words to illuminate, not conceal. As Milton could attest, the truth will set you free.
Given the cause of most politicians is much lower than trying to explain the ways of God, the battle to find the right words to communicate thorny problems is not that high. A middle flight would be perfectly adequate.
So why do so many fail even the most modest of tasks?
Here, let’s descend from the heights of Milton’s poetry to ponder a single prose sentence buried deep in the text of a speech to the National Press Club by Jim Chalmers: “The global net-zero transition will also reshape our revenue from resources.”

It's beyond the furthest valley of caricature, so the pond won't attempt a comment on this meandering Xian effort.

At this point came the sudden realisation that the reptiles were trying to stay relevant by offering a repeat of Jimbo's National Press Club... on YouTube, a tentative step outside the hive mind...

The clueless unreformed seminarian eventually got on topic ...

This line didn’t attract much media interest at the time, probably because it sounds so bland. But is it? What could it mean? To measure the true weight of these words, we first need to decode them because they are written to conceal.
The “global net-zero transition” means, among many things, eliminating the trade in fossil fuels. Let’s assume that’s what the Treasurer meant when he used the word resources. For Australia, the fossil fuels that count are coal and liquefied natural gas.
Now let’s turn to the word revenue. In 2024, coal and LNG were Australia’s second and third biggest sources of export income, raking in a combined $160bn. That money creates jobs and wealth. It also helps fill government coffers.

Amazingly Sky Noise after dark has this Miltonesque clown on to discuss energy ... Sky News contributor Chris Uhlmann discusses the cost renewables are placing on energy grids around the world. “We have seen it around the world, everywhere you put in large-scale deployment of wind and solar – two things happen,” Mr Uhlmann told Sky News host Peta Credlin. “The grid becomes more fragile, and electricity prices soar.”

And so to a final, seemingly endless rant which the pond didn't have the heart to interrupt ...

In 2023-24, Australian state and federal governments collected about $28bn from coal and LNG through royalties, company taxes and resource rent levies. The flow of this cash is now directly threatened by the political decision to eliminate fossil fuels. That’s a big hole to fill.
That’s why the use of the word reshape is intriguing. Obliterate would seem more appropriate.
So, seeking the Muse’s aid to illum­ine what is dark in the Treasurer’s words, let’s recast this sentence as: “By agreeing to eliminate fossil fuels, the government has signed up to exterminating Australia’s coal and gas exports, which will shake the economy’s foundations and blow a multibillion-dollar hole in the federal budget.”
If the Treasurer had said this, it’s a fair bet his speech would have generated more headlines. The more literary among you might be able to render this statement in blank verse. Feel free to have a crack in the comments section.
His next sentence was: “This evolution in our revenue base is one of the reasons tax reform is so crucial to budget sustainability, on top of restraining spending, finding savings and working on longer term spending pressures.”
In a nutshell, this means the government is going to have to raise taxes and cut services to fill the yawning gap left by torching our resource revenue as we hurtle into the abyss of a permanent structural deficit.
Note the use of the word evolution, which makes it sound like we have no choice in abandoning our resources because there is a global Darwinian reordering of energy.
Is that true? Well, no.
The Energy Institute has just released its annual Statistical Review of World Energy, a publication that for more than 70 years – first under BP and now independently – has served as the gold standard in documenting global energy production and consumption across every nation and fuel type.

Hang on, that "first under BP" is too rich not to note. Please, carry on ...

And what did it show? That in 2024 the world burned more coal, oil and gas than in any previous year, surpassing the record set in 2023. That about 82 per cent of the world’s total primary energy demand was met by fossil fuels. That the rapid growth in wind and solar generation is not replacing hydrocarbons but merely adding to the world’s ever-increasing demand for power.
It also recorded that global carbon dioxide emissions rose again in 2024, reaching yet another all-time high. Whether you choose to deplore or ignore this finding does not change the cold, hard fact.
The numbers have their own eloquence and they don’t lie. They show there is no “global net-zero transition”. There is no evolution away from fossil fuel. There is an energy addition, as the globe consumes more of everything.
The world’s politicians have been committed to cutting carbon emissions for more than a quarter of a century. Trillions of dollars have been torched in the quest for this solitary goal. Trillions more are dedicated to the task and, measured against achievement, it is an abject failure.
At some point everyone will stop even pretending that this goal is achievable.
So Australia is making a deliberate decision to destroy its own revenue base and trash its electricity system in the process. This is a deliberate act of self-harm, with zero benefit to the planet. This is no small matter because energy is the master resource. Everything else in the economy depends on it.
The Treasurer needs to start making the link between productivity and cheap, abundant power. One will not flow without the other.
Everywhere, the lights on the government’s “transition” are flashing red. It comes in now near-daily reports of rising electricity prices, business collapse and the evaporation of green hydrogen dreams.
Australia is deliberately squandering its wealth in pursuit of a false god. A blind poet could tell you that we are on a highway to hell.

Truly, utterly pathetic, and if that's how the Ughmann wants to do his science, why didn't he revert to AC/DC for his highway?

Truth to tell, if you wanted to read about what's going down in the world, you'd be better off visiting an aged rock 'n roll magazine ...

The Worst Parts of Trump and the GOP’s Disastrous Tax Bill, The keystone of the president’s legislative agenda is a disaster for the environment, health care, and the nation’s dignity (*archive link)

And so on and on, but instead the pond wound the clock back a little and turned to Baker of The Times, celebrating King Donald by turning him into emperor Donald ...

The header: Imperial Trump shows how to get things done, You may loathe the man and think he is a menace to all that is good and decent on planet Earth, but from the simple analytical perspective of making government work he has no equal in the modern world.

The caption: As the US enters the 250th year since its rejection of kingship, what better way to celebrate than by crowning an emperor?

Making it work? The pond supposes that depends on a bizarro world definition of what "making" and "works" means ...

Okay, okay, the pond only went there because there were 'toons handy to offer some relief ...and there was a chance to rectify an omission and celebrate independence day with Baker of The Times offering a coronation ...

If politics is the art of the possible, Donald Trump is a political Renoir. Or, if you prefer, considering the artwork, maybe a Jackson Pollock. You may loathe the man, think he is a menace to freedom, democracy and all that is good and decent on planet Earth, but from the simple analytical perspective of making government work he has no equal in the modern world.
While Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour government toils ineffectually with a majority of 170 seats in the House of Commons in a parliamentary democracy once described as an elective dictatorship, Trump rules like a monarch in a federative political system specifically designed to limit the power of any one branch of government, where his party has majorities of just a handful in both houses of the legislature.

Never mind the pompous references to the y'artz, if the pond wanted to read about Keir it would turn to Marina delivering her usual Hydeing in Starmer's reno of the UK is going brilliantly. If you don't count the walls falling down ...

Speaking of brill, Baker of The Times finds it all positively brillig ... all mimsy was this borogrove ...

Consider what, in less than six months, Trump has achieved so far in his second term.
Small boats may continue to wash up on Britain’s shores in great numbers but in just five months Trump has in effect stopped illegal immigration into the US. The latest data from Customs and Border Protection show that there were 6,000 illegal border crossings into the US in May, down from 80,000 in May of last year and a monthly peak of 250,000 in December 2023. Deportations of those here illegally are accelerating. Daily arrests of suspected illegal immigrants are running at around 750, up from 350 on average in the previous decade.
The fanfare over his “Liberation Day” tariffs in April gave way to a quiet climbdown as he paused or cut most of the duties, and just as quietly, elevated levels of tariffs have remained in place on most imports into the US, radically changing the economic system. The Budget Lab, a nonpartisan economic research unit at Yale University, estimates that the average tariff paid by American importers today stands at around 15 per cent, up from 3 per cent before Trump took office and the highest level since 1938.
Despite this, and the panicked warnings of economic Armageddon that would follow such an embrace of protectionism, the US economy continues to grow at a fair clip. Yesterday (Thursday) the Labor Department reported another month of job gains in June - 147,000 - and the unemployment rate remained near its recent low of 4.1 per cent.
While the president has suffered a slew of defeats in court over the scope of his volley of executive orders on immigration, government spending, universities and other matters, he has won the biggest cases, affirming his unprecedented bid for expanded executive authority. Last week the Supreme Court ruled that a lower court judge cannot issue a nationwide injunction against a presidential mandate but can only limit his powers within a relatively narrow geography confined to the actual litigants. His opponents had been using such injunctions in effect to stymie much of Trump’s programme. Now that’s off the table.

That slender Republican majority in Congress has passed one of the most consequential pieces of domestic legislation in the past 50 years. No chaotic and destructive backbench rebellions here: just a few squawks of protest from some isolated Republican critics. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) enshrines in permanent law deep corporate and personal tax cuts (take that, Kemi Badenoch), makes significant reductions in welfare programmes (eat your heart out, Rachel Reeves), while spending heavily on defence and border security (how do you like that, Nigel Farage?). Though the bill adds trillions of dollars to an already heaving pile of federal government debt, the yield on ten-year US government bonds is down from the day Trump took office (can anyone say “Liz Truss"?).

At this point the reptiles interrupted with a snap ... New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani with supporters. Picture: Getty Images

The pond could match that with another celebration ...

Back to more celebration ...

His domestic political enemies are divided, confused and finding themselves increasingly tempted by a destructive extremism likely only to rally support behind Trump. To the alarm of more moderate Democrats, the most prominent figures in the party have been helping illegal immigrants violently defy immigration enforcement; denouncing presidential actions against the nation’s enemies, and defending the “free speech” of jihadi-supporting students and demonstrators. The party’s current leading figures in the media are a pair of thirtysomething self-described “democratic socialists": Zohran Mamdani, the party’s candidate for mayor of New York City; and his fellow New Yorker, congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
On the world stage, Trump has shown he is an eager exponent of the imperial presidency. His territorial threats against Greenland and Canada have, mercifully and predictably, come to nought. But his activism in defence and foreign policy has yielded significant results. Last week Nato members agreed to do what every American president for the past 40 years has tried to get them to do: significantly raise their contribution to the alliance’s total defence spending.

Cue another snap ... US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Picture: AFP

The pond can match that with another female contributor to the state of the nation ...

And so to a final short celebratory gobbet ...

By ordering an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities last month, he demonstrated his willingness to take the sort of military action against the country from which his predecessors have all shied away. There is no sign of the end to the Russia-Ukraine war he promised, but Israel and Hamas seem to be on the brink of a ceasefire he has spent a good deal of time trying to organise.
There are plenty of caveats. While it’s hard to dispute that Trump has got so much done, we don’t yet know what exactly he has done. The effect of tariffs on the economy has still not been fully realised and may yet produce headwinds. The Big Beautiful Bill Act’s fiscal costs could come to worry bond markets and its political effects could haunt Republicans. The strike on Iran may have only increased Tehran’s determination to get the bomb. Ukraine could yet stain his presidential record. The authoritarian way he has wielded executive power may be badly damaging the foundations of America’s constitutional republic.
But for now, on this July 4, as the US enters the 250th year since its rejection of kingship, what better way to celebrate than by crowning an emperor?

And with the drollery done, please feel free to join Baker of The Times in the pot...

Is Milton in there too? And the Ughmann?

And so to the bonus, and unnervingly the reptiles clocked it at a 12 minute read, even worse than "Ned" and full of visual distractions ...

It was timed to go out on 4th July to celebrate the day ...

The header: With friends like us, who needs AUKUS?, Anthony Albanese is about to embark on an extended trip to China, where he will have his fourth meeting with President Xi Jinping. By contrast, he has never met Donald Trump. With friends like us, who needs AUKUS?

There was no caption for the truly pathetic collage, no doubt driven by AI slush, which meant there was only the usual incantation: This article contains features which are only available in the web version, Take me there

Why does the pond do it? Why does the pond always make room for the bromancer?

For starters, it's always a pleasure to see how deeply he wants to tug the forelock, bend the knee, fall prostrate on the ground, and kiss the ring, or whatever other part the newly crowned Emperor Donald offers ...

There's something nauseating about the spectacle, and yet entrancing, like watching a train go off the rails in slo mo ...

Anthony Albanese has achieved something astonishing for an Australian Prime Minister, only ever accomplished once before. He now knows, relates to and benefits from the leadership of the People’s Republic of China much better than he knows the leadership of the United States of America.
The Prime Minister is about to embark on an extended trip to China, where he will have his fourth meeting with President Xi Jinping. By contrast, he has never met Donald Trump, who served as president for four years from 2016 and who was elected president again more than eight months ago.
Albanese finds political comfort in Beijing and apparently political terror in Washington. Stop and stare at the strangeness of this reversal of all common sense and history. The last time this seemingly impossible inversion occurred was when Gough Whitlam, who very nearly destroyed the US alliance, was prime minister in the early 1970s. Whitlam was big in Beijing, detested in Washington.

It's all to do with the bromancer's desire to bung on a war with China by Xmas, which explains the reptiles dragging in Gough and Mao...Chairman Mae Tsetung meets with Prime Minister Gough Whitlam at Chungnanhai in Peking in 1973.

Might not it have resonated more if the bromancer had assembled four pests?

Sorry, it's a long trek this one, best keep trudging ...

The US is our closest strategic ally, in war and peace, in love and thunder, in values and interests, in life and death. It saved our independence and sovereignty in World War II. All our military capability depends on it.
The PRC, on the other hand, is ruled by the Leninist Chinese Communist Party. In the PRC there are no human rights, elections, religious or civic freedom. There is illegal occupation of islands in the South China Sea, Australians periodically taken hostage, frequent hostile and dangerous interactions with Australian military ships and planes.
Yet Beijing provides political comfort to Albanese, Washington perplexity at best. Politics here reverses reality.
These days, Albanese won’t utter any criticism of Beijing, even when its actions are illegal or hurt Australia. Yet he’s happy to tell the Trump administration to mind its own business on Australia’s woeful defence budget, though this directly impacts alliance capabilities.
Albanese ran in part against Trump, tying Peter Dutton to Trump. His senior ministers routinely criticise Trump policies.

At this point the reptiles offered even more bromancer, blathering away ...The Australian’s Foreign Editor Greg Sheridan says Australia has gone into a "monastic silence" on anything bad relating to China. “We are absolutely lacking credibility on defence and now Albanese won't say boo about China ever, never disagree with China publicly,” Mr Sheridan told Sky News host Steve Price. “He’s gone into a sort of monastic silence on anything bad that China does.”

Of course it's going amazingly well in the States ...

Enough already, time to dine on bromancer tears ...

Perhaps without even realising fully what it’s doing, when you take all its actions together, the Albanese government may be fatally undermining the long-term viability of our US alliance. If that’s so, it will be the single bleak achievement for which history remembers the Albanese government.
Canberra is telling everyone it’s trying to organise a meeting between Albanese and Trump. Albanese talks of getting together with Trump in the margins of a big international meeting, a Quad, G20 or APEC summit, maybe the UN General Assembly meeting in New York in September.
When it looked as though Albanese would meet Trump on the sidelines of the G7 meeting in Canada, senior government figures were glad it would be that kind of meeting, short, informal, unlikely to involve a joint media appearance, rather than a dedicated one-on-one in the Oval Office.
So here’s an acutely important question. Is Albanese now seeking or dodging a meeting in the White House? Either answer is disturbing, for no meeting is forthcoming.
If Albanese is actively seeking a Washington appointment and is being put off by Trump, that’s a startling and unique moment in Australian history. Richard Nixon and Whitlam loathed each other but Nixon saw Whitlam.
If Albanese wants to go to the White House and Trump won’t receive him, that’s a revolutionary loss of influence and access for Australia. Trump is undoubtedly challenging to work with, but this nonetheless indicates hopeless management by the Albanese government.
But perhaps Albanese doesn’t want to see Trump in the White House and is asking for a meeting only on the sidelines of some summit.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong recently raised the vexed meeting question with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the Quad foreign ministers’ gathering. She reports Rubio expressing regret Trump had to cancel the appointment with Albanese at the G7 in Canada. Trump had to go back to Washington to handle Iran. Notably, Trump rang the Indian Prime Minister and the Mexican President to apologise for cancelling their meetings. He didn’t ring Albanese.

The reptiles again interrupted the bromancer... to provide more bromancer ...The Australian’s Foreign Editor Greg Sheridan says Australia has moved to a "third-tier" alliance partner with the US. “It’s a very shabby state of the relationship, the alliance is in the US interest as well as ours,” Mr Sheridan told Sky News host Steve Price. “We’ve moved from a first-tier alliance partner to a third-tier alliance partner. “Albanese was stupid not to go there before the inauguration.”

For reasons known only to the bromancer, he seemed to think Sir Keir showed the way. 

Perhaps he needed a good Hydeing before coming out with this sort of supine support...

If Albanese is scared to go to the White House, the contrast with his view of Beijing is striking. Albanese is about to embark on an extended trip to the PRC.
What would Albanese have to fear in an Oval Office meeting with Trump? Of course, Trump is mercurial and unpredictable. After the way Trump humiliated Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, some leaders are scared of getting monstered by Trump.
Yet look at the White House success Britain’s Keir Starmer had. Starmer not only managed the personal dynamics with Trump well, he raised British defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP this year, committed to 3 per cent in the short term and 3.5 per cent within a decade. Australia’s stagnant defence spend of just a tiny tick over 2 per cent of GDP is manifestly inadequate.

So you fuck the country, but you get to shake hands with the emperor, and that's a job well done? US President Donald Trump shakes hands with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer during a meeting in the Oval Office in February. Picture: AFP

At this point the reptiles only allowed the bromancer a few words ...

In so far as Trump ever thinks of Australia, it’s positive. He has Australian friends such as Greg Norman and projects on to Australia a personality of rugged good cheer, sports prowess and can-do, pragmatic, sun-worshipping, hedonistic, patriotic, MAGA-Down-Under types. Australia is popular in the US, especially in congress. It’s unlikely Trump would set out intending to monster Albanese.
But Albanese may well fear Trump pushing him into some kind of commitment, something on the defence budget, maybe some remark about China.

... so they could provide a visual example of comrade Albo's perfidy ... Anthony Albanese and Chinese leader Xi Jinping in the Great Hall of the People in 2023. Picture: AAP

That set the bromancer off and naturally he turned to little Johnny to say what veteran liars do ...

The first question Trump would be asked in a press appearance is about Australia’s defence spending.
If Albanese is delighted to go to Beijing, the Great Hall of the People, the Zhongnanhai leadership compound and the Forbidden City but is effectively trying to dodge going to the Oval Office, there’s something very strange going on.
Former prime minister John Howard thinks Albanese has comprehensively mishandled the US relationship since Trump became president.
Howard tells Inquirer: “I think he (Albanese) has managed the optics of the association with Trump very badly, and you can’t separate this from the optics of the relationship with America generally. He’s allowed this to get out of hand. There’s really no substitute for the Prime Minister going to see the President in Washington.”
Perhaps Albanese should have gone to see Trump shortly after the President’s election, even before his inauguration. He should certainly have made clear his desire to make a bilateral visit to Washington. By trying to precisely engineer the circumstances of his first meeting with Trump, Albanese has been “too clever by half”, in Howard’s view.

The lying rodent's reward? A snap ... Former Prime Minister John Howard says Anthony Albanese has been “too clever by half”. Picture: Getty

Age really does take its toll, and the pond can feel itself ageing because next off the bromancer's block of shameless references is the disgraced, disgraceful Mike, still doing a rehabilitation tour in the lizard Oz ...

Howard says: “He allowed sensitivity over whether he could get a deal on tariffs to take over from the need to meet Trump.”
Howard’s point is that however annoying tariffs might be, the US-Australia alliance needs long-term affirmation and management at the top. Howard believes Labor’s unexpectedly large election win is leading Albanese into a false sense of superiority, causing him to seriously miscalculate on issues relating to both the US and China: “They (the government) run the risk of damaging the national interest. On China, they’re just paralysed into silence.”
Many observers are struck by Albanese’s silence over Beijing’s strategic behaviour.
Defence Minister Richard Marles, especially when speaking overseas in the presence of senior Americans, will very occasionally, gently call Beijing out. But Albanese, Wong and most senior ministers won’t say boo.
The PRC’s navy conducted live-fire exercises in the Tasman Sea without giving Canberra notice and disrupted Australia-New Zealand flights. It then circumnavigated Australia.
Albanese’s reaction was to stress that Beijing was behaving legally and Australia did the same thing to China when our navy sailed through the South China Sea. This was wrong on the facts as Australia doesn’t recognise PRC sovereignty over the islands Beijing has occupied or built in the South China Sea. But the cringing tone was the most telling aspect.
Chinese ambassador to Australia, Xiao Qian, wrote an op-ed for the Australian in which he instructed the Albanese government not to increase its defence spending as the US has requested. This was a blatant interference in Australian politics. Yet the only displeasure Albanese expressed was directed at the journalist who had the bad manners to ask him about the ambassador’s behaviour. Will the Australian ambassador in Beijing now write an article calling on the PRC to reduce its massive defence spending?
Mike Pezzullo, former head of the Home Affairs Department and before that a deputy secretary in Defence, believes the government’s strange silences on Beijing damage Australia.
He tells Inquirer: “The Australian government’s clear preference is to principally speak about China in bilateral terms (the stabilisation policy narrative).

Mike also gets a reward, by way of a snap, Mike Pezzullo says the government’s strange silences on Beijing damage Australia. Picture: Martin Ollman

You'd think Mike was an authority figure rather than a disgraced, disgraceful former cardigan wearer ...

On the bromancer went, and the pond trudged in his wake ...

“China also prefers this approach. This means there is no official discussion of regional security in concrete terms, in relation to questions such as: what is the risk of conflict, say over Taiwan; does Australia agree with the US strategy of deterring China from using military force; does Australia wish to see the US remain as the regionally dominant military power; would conflict with China inevitably draw Australia in, given the presence here of US facilities, joint and otherwise?”
Pezzullo continues: “The silence over these questions undermines our democracy, as the public is more reliant on government pronouncements in the field of defence and strategy than it is in any other area of public policy.”
The Trump administration has made clear Australia’s pitiful defence spend of 2 per cent of GDP, the same percentage as when Albanese first came to government, is inadequate and constitutes “free-riding” by a US ally. The US provides 99 per cent of Australian security. Australia provides perhaps 1 per cent of US security. The US spends about 3.5 per cent of its GDP on defence. Without the US, we are effectively defenceless. Without us, the US is still overwhelmingly strong.
US Under Secretary of Defence for Policy Elbridge Colby is reviewing AUKUS to see whether it fits with Trump’s policies overall. Colby has been an AUKUS sceptic, thinking the idea of the US selling Australia three Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarines in the 2030s, when the US will desperately need those subs to balance Beijing’s burgeoning forces, is unrealistic.

Yes, it was time for the bromancer to go into full panic, abject hysteria mode, with an ominous snap, US Under Secretary of Defence for Policy Elbridge Colby is reviewing AUKUS. Picture: Getty

Immediately the bromancer buckled and wilted like a precious petal in the noon day sun. 

Was there a ring some where he might kiss, any ring would do ...

Recently Colby had a meeting with a senior Australian Defence official that went very poorly.
Analysts have speculated Colby’s inquiry may be a way of Washington applying pressure on Australia to increase defence spending. There’s another way of looking at it. Why would Washington give up three of its nuclear submarines to an ally that manifestly doesn’t take its own military capability seriously?
Albanese declares he won’t increase defence spending to please the US. It’s extraordinarily damaging to Australia’s national interests for Albanese to frame the issue that way, when everyone whom the Albanese government has commissioned to guide it on defence policy has publicly said Australia needs to spend at least 3 per cent of GDP.
Albanese, Marles and Wong all say Australia won’t commit to a particular percentage of GDP but will assess what capabilities it needs and acquire these.
Leave aside the dishonesty inherent in the fact the Albanese government has routinely itself spoken in GDP percentage terms.
The Albanese government did commission a report, the Defence Strategic Review, to identify necessary capabilities. Yet at no stage has the Albanese government pursued the capabilities the DSR said were essential.
The DSR called for ground-based missile interceptors to provide missile defence for key Australian bases and other potential targets. It called for asymmetric drone capabilities. More prosaically, it called for navy supply ships so our navy could operate further from shore, and for demining ships. The Albanese government has shelved all these capabilities.
Further, as the Australian National Audit Office made clear in a scathing report this week, it has become so penny-pinching it can’t even provide sustained performance and reliable availability for simple vessels such as the navy’s landing helicopter docks, our biggest ships. It’s tempting to attribute all this to simple incompetence and a level of political cowardice involved in being unwilling to divert any social spending to defence.
But there’s another interpretation consistent with the facts. Albanese may not have his heart in acquiring nuclear-powered submarines at all. By providing such an absurdly inadequate defence budget, Albanese makes it harder for Australia’s friends in Washington to justify AUKUS.
If the Trump administration ultimately says to Canberra, you need to significantly lift your defence effort or we can’t justify selling you nuclear subs, the Albanese government may well decide it can live without the subs after all and present the decision as sticking up for Australian sovereignty.
Politically, Albanese and co don’t want to be the government that lost the US alliance. They apparently believe the US so values access to northern Australia that there are no circumstances in which it would abandon the alliance. However, that’s an incredibly dangerous and, in its way, basely transactional, view of the alliance. You Americans need access to our northern air fields and Indian Ocean naval bases, so in giving you that, we’ve reached the limit of our contribution to the alliance.

That was a long one, but the bromancer did provide a little comedy at the end, discussing Emperor Donald and deploring "basely transactional".

As if the cantaloupe clown wasn't "basely transactional" and a master grifter and snake oil salesman to boot.

You really can't go past the bromancer for that sort of joke, as the reptiles interrupted a last time with their favourite snap of a downcast pair, Politically, Albanese and co don’t want to be the government that lost the US alliance. Picture: NewsWire/Martin Ollman

Even glummer looking than the Glums sounding glum on old time radio.

Time to don the spurs and ride the bromancer home in a last, seemingly endless rant ...

Wong is the strongest intellect in the government. In her speeches on the region she has a formulation that Australia seeks a region in which no one dominates and no one feels dominated. This is taken as opposing Chinese domination. It’s also a formulation that opposes US dominance.
But for the past 80 years Australia has desperately wanted US strategic leadership, indeed dominance, in Asia. Wong talks frequently of “ASEAN centrality”. Almost no one who says that, including most Southeast Asians, actually means it. But perhaps Wong does.
Australian officials have been known to say Australian policy should look more like ASEAN policy. This line of thinking actually goes back to Donald Horne and his 1964 book, The Lucky Country, and finds many echoes down the years in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
The idea is that Australia might keep the US alliance as an antique ornament on the mantelpiece but really become effectively quasi-neutral, accepting that China will dominate the region eventually. If there’s a conflict between the US and China, in this view, Australia just rides it out. This approach is not only dangerous and amoral but wildly unrealistic.
In one very strange speech in London in 2023, Wong explained foreign policy in Asia as a species of identity politics. The Albanese government is the first Labor government, since Whitlam’s, dominated by the left. Whitlam’s disastrous government was so poorly regarded that not only the US but also for a time Britain and Canada cut off intelligence co-operation with Canberra while Whitlam was prime minister.
Albanese and Wong both grew up entirely in the left, initially the student activist far left. It was a modern counterpart of the far left ideologues who dominated and destroyed the Whitlam government. Of course, both Albanese and Wong have matured and cast off their old views. But if you grow up in the left, you’re never attuned to thinking seriously about national security. It’s not part of the left’s intellectual DNA.
Labor leaders who grew up in the party’s Right, like Kim Beazley and Bill Shorten, pondered national security all their lives. Bob Hawke, Labor’s greatest post-war prime minister, had been on the Left but made a complete conversion to the Right. His defence minister, Beazley, and foreign minister, Gareth Evans, were in the Right.
The contemporary left view of international affairs is to see it as a battleground of identity politics. The US is toxic masculinity representing white racial hegemony and neo-colonialism. Israel even more so. Only a rejection of all this, and a Third World, gender-focused, anti-colonial mindset is good.

That last bit is deeply weird, but so deeply bro ...

iI's worth interrupting with the immortal Rowe ...

Eeek, it's a giant white whale,  or a giant squid, or perhaps a pile of useless blubber of the kind that can be found in an ocean garbage patch.

How the bromancer loves the beast, and wants to take it home, and slobber all over it ...

It would be wrong to think the Albanese government subscribes fully to this type of formulation, but it’s consistent with its weird strategic silence on China, fear of Washington, refusal to take defence seriously, cliches about ASEAN and instinctive multilateral woolliness.
Especially on China, this marks a disastrous evolution away from its declaratory positions in its first year in office.
Justin Bassi, head of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, thinks the US alliance will survive but the new situation is full of political danger. He believes our geography makes us important to the US, even if our defence effort is feeble, but it’s dangerous to let this breed complacency. 
He says: “It’s not going unnoticed that Australia is willing to be more critical of our strategic ally than our strategic rival. The principle of ‘co-operate where you can and disagree where you must’ (is) in China’s interests, not ours, because the ‘must’ shrinks to almost nothing. Australia should not be limited to criticising our friends because they won’t punish us. If we continue to avoid criticising countries that might coerce us, that’s coercion in itself.”
Historian of China John Fitzgerald argues similarly that “we’ve gone silent on China while we feel at liberty to criticise Washington”.
Labor may have imposed another wicked constraint on itself and on Australia. Labor has ruthlessly convinced ethnic Chinese Australians that any criticism of the Beijing government by the Liberals or Nationals is a criticism of them. During the last campaign Liberal frontbencher Jane Hume made a shockingly stupid comment about “Chinese spies” being part of Labor’s campaign. This was unspeakably dumb and deserved to be punished. Wong, however, immediately made a WeChat video accusing the Coalition of targeting ethnic Chinese. This video received 500,000 views.
Fitzgerald comments on the video: “Senator Wong’s response was cynical, playing on sensitive community issues for political gain and damaging public trust.”
The gobsmacking lack of urgency with which the whole Albanese government now approaches defence and national security could be attributed to incompetence, poor management, laziness, hubris, provincial myopia, domestic obsessions.
Frankly, those are the benign interpretations. For if it’s instead the result of considered strategy, our nation is in much more trouble than it realises.

Oh come on bromancer, we know the planet is fucked, and fascism is on the march, and you think the reptiles are the way forward/

Keep on with your delusional dreaming ...