Don't complain about another jihad Sunday, it's not as if the pond doesn't offer plenty of detours and distractions ...

 

After a heavy Saturday on the turps with the reptiles and the 'toons, the pond often wakes with a Sunday hangover, wondering if that's all there is to life.

Consider this.

Instead of reading the reptiles at the lizard Oz, you might have headed off to The Atlantic to read Did the White House Not Understand What Putin Was Really Offering? Europeans can’t tell what American officials agreed to with the Russian leader. By Vivian Salama and Jonathan Lemire (*archive link)

The apparent lack of detail in the discussion between Putin and Witkoff has led many officials, who had been hopeful for a breakthrough, to face the reality that Putin’s demands have changed little since the start of the war. One top European official told us that the vague conversation between Witkoff and Putin over territorial claims, as well as questions regarding Washington’s future commitment to long-term security guarantees for Ukraine, are threatening to unravel any progress that might have been made through Trump’s outreach to the Russian leader. All the while, U.S. officials say, Trump is growing impatient.

While there you might have read ...

A Haunting Relic from America’s Past, On the 70th anniversary of Emmett Till’s death, his murder weapon goes on display in Mississippi. By Wright Thompson (*archive link)

“Nobody kills like America,” he told me once. I thought he was being literal, and he was. But I think he also meant something else. Erasing the history of a murder is a second death—a final killing. Salting the ground for generations. The National Park Service has been ordered to ask visitors to report any signs or displays at any of its sites that portray America in a negative light. Confederate statues that had been removed are being put back on their pedestals. The last names of Confederate generals are being restored to bases housing the soldiers of the very Army they tried to defeat.
Erasure is the first commandment of Making America Great Again, and the real question is how far back that lost greatness lives. Seemingly half the country believes in undoing many of the changes unleashed since 1965, when the Voting Rights Act was passed; since 1955, when Brown II forced the integration of schools not long before Till died, a direct catalyst for his death; since 1948, when President Harry Truman desegregated the Army.

You might have caught up with the dumbing down of America ...

‘It Feels Like the CDC Is Over’, The CDC’s departing leaders discuss the agency’s future—or lack thereof. By Tom Bartlett (*archive link)

Last night and this morning, current and former CDC employees told me that many scientists who remain wonder how they will continue, and whether the agency is still dedicated to providing science-based guidance to the nation. “People are at their wit’s end, and there has been trauma after trauma after trauma,” one longtime CDC official, who asked not to be named for fear of repercussions from HHS, told me today. “I just don’t know how much more our staff can take.”
Daskalakis and Houry told me that they had stayed at the agency despite their misgivings about Kennedy’s views and concern about those he appointed to key positions. They stayed after he cast doubt on the safety of the measles vaccine amid the nation’s largest outbreak since the disease was declared eliminated in 2000. They stayed after he canceled $500 million in funding for mRNA-vaccine development. They felt that as long as they were able to put out accurate data, remaining at the CDC was worthwhile. But after Monarez’s ouster, they no longer believe that’s possible.
They leave behind an agency that is now even more vulnerable to political interference, with fewer people standing between Kennedy and the career scientists whose work he has repeatedly maligned. Current and former officials I spoke with expect more resignations to come. 

You might have contemplated the Supreme Court in ...

The Supreme Court Made a Bad Bet, A recent decision tried to protect the Fed from the president’s interference. It didn’t go nearly far enough. By Lev Menand (*archive link)

If the courts permit this removal, in which the removed official has no opportunity to contest the charges, we shouldn’t be surprised if the president subsequently attempts to remove Powell for cause in connection with the building renovations. Lisa Cook’s case is about much more than Cook herself. It is about the rule of law and whether this is “an Empire of Laws, not of men.” If the courts water down “for cause” removal to allow the president’s firing to proceed, even if just while the litigation proceeds, it will be another example of what Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson last week called “Calvinball jurisprudence with a twist.” “Calvinball,” she explained, “has only one rule: There are no fixed rules.” The Court, she noted, appears “to have two: that one, and this Administration always wins.”

You might have been bemused and dived deep into the deep Cracker Barrel weirdness

Cracker Barrel’s Logo Was Never the Problem, No one should confuse a bland interstate chain with a real slice of Americana. By David A. Graham (*archive link)

The fried chickens have come home to roost. Cracker Barrel is reverting to its old logo, fewer than 10 days after announcing a new, stripped-down version. The ensuing controversy has been at once a welcome distraction from other news and an outgrowth of all the most annoying impulses in American life.
The right-wing backlash to the company’s redesign stems from the claim that an avatar of small-town southern authenticity is being overrun by woke culture. But nothing about the change suggests wokeness. More important, Cracker Barrel has always been a simulacrum of rural life, a corporate behemoth masquerading as a mom-and-pop lunch counter. (It is to genuine Americana what Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros are to Clarence Ashley.) When the first Cracker Barrel opened, in 1969, the country was at the inflection point of a long, steep shift toward urban life. In 1940, roughly 44 percent of Americans lived in rural areas. By 1970, barely more than a quarter did. Cracker Barrel intended to capitalize on nostalgia for a way of life that was already disappearing.
And its restaurants would hasten that disappearance. The chain was founded as a way to sell gas—the founder’s family was in the fuel business; its locations were (and still are) largely clustered along interstate highways. The interstate system is a modern marvel, but the creation of huge freeways that bypassed the old U.S. highways sapped commerce and population from towns that relied on car traffic, destroying truly eccentric culture—such as the old Route 66—and replacing it with drab chains that were the same, no matter which exit ramp you took to get to them.
At Cracker Barrel, the bric-a-brac and the addictive peg game were meant to make customers forget all of that. It’s neither old nor a country store, no matter what the signs say. Instead, it’s of a type with Walmart, another native southern chain founded in the 1960s—and one that, as my colleague Rogé Karma reported last year, “uses its low prices to undercut competitors and become the dominant player in a given area, forcing local mom-and-pop grocers and regional chains to slash their costs or go out of business altogether.”
Cracker Barrel has, however, become closely associated with Republican voters. The political analyst David Wasserman noted that counties with Cracker Barrels tend to vote more Republican, and counties with Whole Foods stores vote more Democratic. (Whole Foods is a perfect progressive foil to Cracker Barrel—a slick, Amazon-owned chain version of the local organic-food co-op.) The insistence that the restaurant chain had gone woke was driven in part by the conservative attention impresario Christopher Rufo, who is an unlikely spokesperson for rural America: He grew up in Sacramento, California; went to college in Washington, D.C.; lives near Seattle, on Puget Sound; and works at the Manhattan Institute. As in other Rufo-related news stories, determining where the paranoia ends and cynical agitprop begins is difficult.
But the drabness of Cracker Barrel’s quickly abandoned new logo—and it truly was dreadful—wasn’t an indication of wokeness. (This is a company that settled a lawsuit brought by the George W. Bush administration over alleged violations of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.) Instead, the rebrand was a natural progression of Cracker Barrel’s original mission, another way for corporate leaders to sand off rough edges of vernacular culture.

Too, too tasty ... and as orange as American cheese and the President.

You might have puzzled along with Ashley Parker and Nancy A. Youssef in Why Is the National Guard in D.C.? Even They Don’t Know. The presence of the National Guard on the streets of D.C. has terrified some, relieved others, and left even the troops themselves confused. (*archive link)

Even the men and women of the National Guard seemed flummoxed, at times, over what exactly they were supposed to be doing in the nation’s capital.

“We’re the president’s patrol, ma’am,” one trio from South Carolina told us when we spotted them along the waterfront and asked what they were up to.

“Just walkin’ around,” replied another gaggle—also strolling along the Potomac.

“Smiling and waving,” a third group, up from West Virginia and stationed along the National Mall, told us.

You might have chortled with Chait (the pond's quotes are getting longer as intellectual doom looms)

MAGA Has a New Favorite Slogan

Donald Trump and his allies would like to remind you that “no one is above the law.”

By Jonathan Chait (*archive link).

Whenever the White House announces a new criminal investigation into one of Donald Trump’s enemies—an event that occurs with Stalinesque frequency—the administration and its allies have a go-to line: “No one is above the law.” FBI Director Kash Patel, Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte, and others have gleefully deployed the tagline. It’s a smirking, knowing stand-in for the claim that Joe Biden did the same thing to Trump while insisting that Trump was not above the law, and so turnabout is merely fair play.

As defenses of the naked politicization of federal law enforcement go, this rejoinder is not terribly convincing. But it is essentially the only defense that can be found for Trump’s campaign to turn the law into a shield for his allies and a weapon against critics and dissenters.

The first problem with this argument is that the Biden administration did not politicize law enforcement—in fact, it went out of its way to avoid doing so. Biden put the Justice Department in the hands of Merrick Garland, a widely respected figure who had bipartisan support and who pledged to operate independently, and who followed through on that pledge by appointing a special counsel to insulate the federal Trump investigations from political influence. Trump nominated Pam Bondi, a crony with almost no Democratic support and who doesn’t even pretend to value the department’s independence. “We are so proud to work at the directive of Donald Trump,” she declared in March. (Trump nominated Bondi only after his first crony with no Democratic support, Matt Gaetz, proved too noxious even for some Republican senators.) Biden kept in place an FBI director chosen by Trump; Trump then replaced him with a cartoonish loyalist.

Conservatives have an answer for this, of course. Biden, they say, maintained the appearance of prosecutorial independence while secretly manipulating the Justice Department. The only difference is that Trump isn’t hiding it. “He’s cast aside any pretense that the Justice Department is independent (and Mr. Biden had turned this into a pretense) and is openly issuing directives for investigations,” the Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley Strassel argues.

This defense makes sense if you believe, as Strassel writes of the Biden administration, that “almost all their efforts aimed at politically hamstringing one man: Mr. Trump.” If, however, you were sentient during the Biden years, you will recall that Biden’s DOJ went after a long list of Democrats, such as Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey, New York City Mayor Eric Adams, Representative Henry Cuellar of Texas, and Representative T. J. Cox of California. Most inconveniently for Trump’s defenders, the Biden DOJ even prosecuted Hunter Biden. What’s more, the department appointed an independent prosecutor, Robert Hur, to look into Joe Biden’s retention of classified documents during his time out of office. Hur produced a devastating report describing Biden as elderly and suffering from memory loss. Merely trying to imagine Trump’s Justice Department investigating a Trump ally, let alone, say, Don Jr., gives a sense of how wildly the two administrations differ.

The second flaw in the turnabout defense is that it pretends the cycle began under Biden. “It was Democrats who introduced the noxious art of lawfare, though master retaliator, Donald Trump, is perfecting its use,” Strassel claims.

Wait—Democrats introduced the idea that presidents should lock up their opponents? In fact, this concept was totally absent from the American political debate until Trump introduced it as a major campaign theme in 2016. His conceit was that Hillary Clinton should be locked up for using a private email server. Here again, this theme was available only because Clinton was being investigated by the FBI under a Democratic administration—under the very administration in which she had served as secretary of state—demonstrating levels of independence that would be unimaginable today.

And so on.

Or you might have been content with Jonathan Freedland in The Graudian, Step back and take it in: the US is entering full authoritarian mode

It’s the same picture on every front, whether it’s plans for a new military parade in Trump’s honour or the firing of health officials who insist on putting science ahead of political loyalty. He is bent on amassing power to himself and being seen to amass power to himself, even if that means departing from economic conservative orthodoxy to have the federal government take a stake in hitherto private companies. He wants to rule over every aspect of US life. As Trump himself said this week, “A lot of people are saying, ‘Maybe we’d like a dictator.’” The former Obama adviser David Axelrod is not alone when he says, “We have gone from zero to Hungary faster than I ever imagined.”
The trouble is, people still don’t talk about it the way they talk about Hungary, not inside the US and not outside it. That’s partly the It Can’t Happen Here mindset, partly a reluctance to accept a reality that would require, of foreign governments especially, a rethink of almost everything. If the US is on its way to autocracy, in a condition scholars might call “unconsolidated authoritarianism”, then that changes Britain’s entire strategic position, its place in the world, which for 80 years has been predicated on the notion of a west led by a stable, democratic US. The same goes for the EU. Far easier to carry on, either pretending that the transformation of the US is not, in fact, as severe as it is, or that normal service will resume shortly. But the world’s leaders, like US citizens, cannot ignore the evidence indefinitely. To adapt the title of that long-ago novel, it can happen here – and it is.

Or you might have wanted to give up on talk of the fascists and so headed over to The New Yorker to read an in-depth study of Sotheby's...Sam Knight's How a Billionaire Owner Brought Turmoil and Trouble to Sotheby’s, Patrick Drahi made a fortune through debt-fuelled telecommunications companies. Now he’s bringing his methods to the art market. (*archive link)

While there you might have read Thessaly La Force's The Orgasm Expert Who Ended Up on Trial, Jurors in New York were asked to decide whether Nicole Daedone’s once high-profile California company, OneTaste, promoted a culture of empowerment or exploitation. (*archive link)

36,000 smackeroos for an intensive course!

Yes, the pond has been obfuscating, offering alternatives, anything to delay the inevitable, because here you are ...

Orgasms are always fun, but this is meditative Sunday time, and suddenly fun times are over as you've strayed into the reptiles, carrying on with a familiar jihad. 

Here no orgasms, no orgasms here ...

Just Polonius and his endless jihad prattle ...

The header: It’s Jewish citizens who have most to fear, whatever the commissioner may say about ‘Islamophobic hate’, While the Gaza conflict continues, in Australia it is Jewish citizens who have most to fear for their safety.

Trust Polonius not to scribble "while the Gaza genocide continues ..."

The caption for the dire snap: Australia’s Race Discrimination Commissioner Giridharan Sivaraman said the war in Gaza had triggered a terrifying surge of anti-Semitism, anti-Arab racism, anti-Palestinian racism and Islamophobic hate. Picture: Tara Croser.

The reptiles clocked it as a four minute read, but the pond found it almost unendurably long, tedious and far too familiar ...

It was a speech devoid of hindsight or foresight. On August 6, Australia’s Race Discrimination Commissioner Giridharan Sivaraman stood at the podium of the National Press Club in Canberra. His topic was There’s Nothing Casual About Racism: Getting Serious About Racial Equity.
Close to halfway through his address, the commissioner turned his attention to “current times”, which he described as “febrile”. And then there was this: “The war in Gaza has triggered a terrifying surge of anti-Semitism, anti-Arab racism, anti-Palestinian racism and Islamophobic hate.”
Sivaraman added that “mentioning those different forms of racism doesn’t mean equating them; mentioning one doesn’t invalidate another”. This is just fudge. By August 6, there had been widespread attacks on Jewish Australians and their property. This was not the case with Arab and Palestinian Australians and those of the Muslim faith. In this instance the commissioner was in denial.

To help with the Polonial jihad, the reptiles flung in an AV distraction with a hideous sub-Matrix thumb illustration, Israel’s Minister for Diaspora Affairs Amichai Chikli claims Israeli intelligence assisted in helping ASIO pin down the source of the Iran-plotted antisemitic attacks. “The intelligence did help the Australians with the information regarding the involvement of the Iranians in the terror attacks,” Mr Chikli told Sky News host Chris Kenny. “We share intelligence with Australia and with many other Western countries.”

As an aside, the pond should note that Chikli is a raving ratbag of the first water, and so appealing to the reptiles at Sky Noise down under ...

...He equates criticism of Israel and its actions against Palestinians or war in Gaza as anti-Semitism. Last month, he was part of a heated debate with British broadcaster Piers Morgan, calling him anti-Semitic for criticising Israel's actions in the Gaza Strip where it has been waging a devastating war for 21 months.
He has described pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses in the US as a “pandemic spreading on American campuses … not so different and not less dangerous than the fentanyl epidemic”.
Mr Chikli has frequently attacked media outlets that he considers left-wing. He has often accuses the Hebrew daily Haaretz of incitement and causing damage to the country, and has called for the government to close down the public broadcaster Kan.
He also stirred controversy in March when he opened the government's International Conference on Combating anti-Semitism with an apology to far-right European politicians for the controversy surrounding their participation in the event.
The anti-Semitism event, organised by Mr Chikli's ministry, was boycotted by leading Jewish and Zionist groups due to the attendance of far-right foreign politicians, some of whose parties have origins in the Nazi era.
On Tuesday this week, Anthony Albanese stood in the courtyard of Parliament House in Canberra. He was accompanied by Foreign Minister Penny Wong, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke, director-general of security Mike Burgess and Australian Federal Police commissioner Reece Kershaw.
The Prime Minister said that since the “terrible events of October 7, 2023, we have witnessed a number of appalling anti-Semitic attacks against Australia’s Jewish community” that he had asked “ASIO and the AFP to investigate as a priority”. He added: “ASIO has gathered enough credible intelligence to reach a deeply disturbing conclusion – that the Iranian government directed at least two of these attacks.”

And so on and there's no starvation in Gaza and so on, and the reptiles interrupted with a snap of a villain (in their eyes), Australia’s Race Discrimination Commissioner Giridharan Sivaraman. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Polonius went off on a bog standard litany of grievances...

Namely, the firebombings of Lewis’ Continental Kitchen in Sydney on October 20 and the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne on December 6 last year. Both could well have led to deaths. In the Melbourne case, it was only an early detection of the arsonists that made it possible for individuals to escape with their lives.
To criticise Iran is not to criticise Iranians. There are many Persian Australians who have made a significant contribution to the country to which they immigrated or in which they were born. However, after the mullahs came to power in 1979 following the fall of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and the return of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iran became a totalitarian theocracy. It has remained so due to the brutal repression of the regime.
To those who have followed Iran for the past half century, it should have come as no surprise to learn that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which protects the current supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and projects the power of the Islamic Republic beyond Tehran, is into state terrorism. The IRGC is independent of the Iran Army.
The IRGC was responsible for the bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires in March 1992 that was conducted by its proxy Hezbollah. The car bomb killed 29 individuals – Israeli diplomats, locally employed staff and passers-by alike.
This demonstrated that the IRGC had the capacity to operate well beyond the borders of Iran. From Argentina in 1992 to Australia in 2024 – and more between.
The Albanese government acted correctly, if somewhat belatedly, in expelling Iranian ambassador Ahmad Sadeghi and his staff from Australia and breaking off diplomatic relations with Iran. The ambassador during this time in Australia had posted several anti-Semitic statements on X.
During the Prime Minister’s press conference, it was evident that the expulsion of one anti-Semitic ambassador from Australia would not lead to any dramatic reduction in local anti-Semitism.
The ASIO chief made this clear on Tuesday. Burgess, a non-political engineer by training, said: “For the past 10 months, anti-Semitism has been one of Australia’s most pressing priorities involving full use of our capabilities and powers.” But, Burgess added, ASIO did not “believe the (Iranian) regime is responsible for every act of anti-Semitism in Australia”. Quite so.

At this point the reptiles felt the need to introduce a "digital creator",  an ASAF job description as the pond has encountered in recent times, smirk-speaking with simpleton Sharri  (full disrespect)... Digital creator Montana Tucker discusses being the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors and the responsibility she feels in using her social media platform to fight antisemitism. “For me, having over 14 million followers across platforms, I have to use my voice and my platforms to combat antisemitism, all forms of hate, to speak out for Israel,” Ms Tucker told Sky News host Sharri Markson. “Because I know my grandparents would have done the same if they had social media back then.”

Next Polonius lined up Bob Carr for a beating ...

Bob Carr, the foreign minister in the Gillard-Rudd Labor government and former successful Labor premier of NSW, was a founder of the Labor Friends of Israel. Currently he is a fierce critic of Israel in its attempt to achieve its war aims – the elimination of Hamas, which controls Gaza, in the Israel-Hamas war the terrorist group started on October 7, 2023. Carr, along with some other prominent Australians, was photographed at the start of the Sydney Harbour Bridge march on August 3 with a banner of Khamenei behind him. He said that he did not know this. Fair enough.
But Carr did place the photo on X that day under the heading “Some of the Labor people, including Ed Husic, with Lord Mayor of Sydney (Clover Moore)”. This was poor judgment since the banner honouring Khamenei is visible in the shot.
It seems that Carr is in poor judgment mode. On August 22, he appeared on the OnePath Network and was interviewed by Malaz Majanni. The former foreign minister referred to the “Israel Jewish lobby” as putting “the interests of Israel above the interests of Australia and its foreign policy”. He went on to describe this (alleged) reality as “a distortion of democracy”.

Never mind the ongoing mass starvation and genocide in Gaza, have another distraction, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

Note the cunning way that Polonius labelled Carr anti-Semitic, and then offered him a cracker barrel of redemption via a "however", the sort of billy goat butt Polonius loves ...

This is a serious and unproven allegation that has been used by anti-Semites in the past.
However, on Wednesday, Carr posted a message stating that “expelling Iranian Ambassador was appropriate given its organisation of anti-Semitic attacks”. So, perhaps his judgment has improved.
It is likely that the internal tension in Australia will remain until the conflict ceases irrespective of whether the UN gets additional support for the creation of a Palestinian state.
Senior Hamas leader Ghazi Hamad has said “the fruits of October 7 are what caused the entire world to open its eyes to the Palestinian issue”. And US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has stated that “the talks with Hamas fell apart on the day (French President) Macron made the unilateral decision that he’s going to recognise the Palestinian state”. It’s an unusual unity ticket to be sure. While the conflict continues, in Australia it is Jewish citizens who have most to fear for their safety, whatever the Race Discrimination Commissioner may say about “Islamophobic hate”.
Gerard Henderson is executive director of The Sydney Institute.

Please allow the pond to pause and celebrate an inspiration to the world of violence with a cartoon chaser ...

Best way to get over a 'toon hangover, a bit like downing raw egg, Worcestershire sauce, vinegar and pepper.

Back to business, and whenever the hive mind gets in this sort of mood, all the reptiles jump on the same bandwagon.

The dog botherer was also out and about harping on in the same way as Polonius...

What a hideous collage, no wonder no one took the credit.

Now the pond still has to cover "Ned's" Everest climb this day, all 10 minutes of it, so the pond took the liberty of putting the dog botherer into the archive ...

Anthony Albanese has handed Iran’s ayatollah his ultimate prize, It’s mission accomplished for Ahmad Sadeghi: our Prime Minister has given Iran just what it wanted.

The only thing the pond will note is this ...

Australian cricketer Usman Khawaja travelled to Canberra this week and scored a meeting with the Prime Minister and Treasurer to push his views. “I am here today because I want the government, our government, to increase their sanctions on Israel and on Prime Minister Netanyahu,” Kawaja said. “I want us to stop trading with Israel until they stop killing innocent children.”

(In the spirit of overloading the pond with double bunger dog botherer, and generating either a sinking or exploding letter box feeling, the reptiles included an AV distraction, Sky News host Chris Kenny reacts to Australian cricketer Usman Khawaja weighing in on the Middle East conflict. Cricket star Usman Khawaja challenged Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to “show courage” and impose sanctions on Israel, warning Australia cannot continue to hide on the global stage. “Khawaja's intervention on the Middle East today was deeply unwise and wrong-headed,” Mr Kenny said. “Khawaja made no criticism of Hamas, the terror group that deliberately started the war and refuses to lay down its arms. “Khawaja only had criticism for Israel, and he got a meeting with the prime minister and treasurer.”)

If you speak out of turn, you will incur the wrath of jihadist reptiles ...

Yet Kawaja said nothing about Hamas. He made no call on Hamas to end its campaign of terrorism against Israel or its reign of terror over the people of Gaza. Neither did Kawaja mention the hostages still being held by Hamas, or the innocent men, women and children butchered by Hamas.
“This is not political, it’s not religious, it’s for human rights,” said the cricketer.
But if it is about human rights, why would he not mention the hostages or condemn the terrorists who triggered the war and perpetuate it?
And if it is not about religion, why have we not heard Muslim community and religious leaders here and around the world pleading for Hamas to lay down its weapons? If it is not about politics, why has Iran been deliberately fomenting anti-Semitism in our country?
To give credence to the arguments put by the anti-Israel activists you have to forget the facts and believe in a series of myths that begin with a fantasy about some preordained basis for a state of Palestine.
It is a reinterpretation of history that ignores how if Israel had lost its war of independence in 1948 there never would have been a state of Palestine – what is now Israel simply would have been subsumed by expanded borders from Lebanon and Syria in the north, Jordan in the east and Egypt in the south.
In this sense, the only reason we talk about a Palestinian state is because of Israel. And there is only one way the Islamists want the Palestinian question resolved: through the elimination of Israel.

Yet the dog botherer never says anything about the genocide, and it seems that he's singularly unaware of the history of Palestine, including that extended period of Mandatory Palestine, wherein the British helped ruin everything ...

In fact whenever the reptiles get to doing a jihad, it's amazing what they ignore, and that's why the pond feels the need to fling in other accounts...

Such as ...

What Trump Signals to the World by Banning Palestinian Leaders From the U.S., The real question is not whether Abbas will speak at the UN, but whether the international community is willing to comply with American dictates as it attempts to block any route Palestinians might use to bypass Trump and Netanyahu (*archive link)

Or perhaps a mention of the ongoing, never ending, devious and deviant cruelty ...

The Israeli Army Cut Down Their Trees. They Fear the Next Step Will Be Forced Transfer, In an attempt to locate a Palestinian assailant, the IDF launched an operation in al-Mughayyir: 70 hours of curfew, house raids, stun grenades and arrests. When residents emerged, they discovered the soldiers had also cut down thousands of olive and almond trees (*archive link)

Or how about a little thinking about the future, 'Some Say It's the End of Zionism, and I Say That's All Right' Shaul Magid, Jewish studies professor at Harvard Divinity School, thinks it's time to consider the future of Israel beyond Zionism (*archive link)

Just a taster from a little further down the page:

Q: How does what you call counter-Zionism differ from the one-state solution?
Magid: "I don't understand a one-state solution; I understand a reality of one state, which is the present situation. There is at present one undemocratic state. What I argued in the book is that Zionism succeeded very much in establishing the state from scratch, but as a political, cultural ideology, that could not continue when there are 25 percent non-Jews in Israel, and another 30 percent non-Jews in Gaza and the West Bank. It's time to shelve Zionism. I am not against Israel, but we need to consider the future of the country beyond Zionism. That is the true challenge."
Q: So what's the problem with the two-state solution?
Magid: "I am not against the two-state solution, but I am against its conceptual foundation: namely, the notion that the whole land is ours, and that we are willing to give the Palestinians a part in it. That is not a compromise in my view. A number of countries, including Canada, France and Britain, say they will recognize a Palestinian state, and immediately Israel is shocked into a feeling of, 'No one will impose anything like that on us from the outside.'
Bibi is a Revisionist. It's true that he also craves power and is a liar, but he does have an ideology. His views are very close to Kahanism. He sees the whole world as his enemy: Everyone hates us, antisemitism is eternal. That is his world.
"It's really interesting psychologically because, after all, it's clear that one day it [a Palestinian state] will have to happen and Israel will have to deal with it. But in my opinion, a change is taking place. Initially, the demonstrations [in Israel] were only for the hostages, and now there are demonstrations against the war and against what is happening in Gaza. There is a certain revolution, albeit very small at the moment."

And with that please allow the pond to celebrate with another serve of raw egg, what with the tariffs being illegal again until they aren't again ...

And so at last to "Ned's" epic Everest natter, and please no whining, pleading or begging.

The pond has provided any number of alternatives and options. Anyone who leaves base camp to embark on this Everest climb deserves all the existential ennui on offer...

The header: Labor’s Iran blind spot: The cost of deceptive diplomacy, Albanese Labor prides itself on its diplomacy. But in the case of Iran it has delivered meagre gains, truckloads of misjudgements and hollow outcomes for Australia.

The caption: In the case of Labor and Iran, diplomacy has delivered meagre gains and truckloads of misjudgments and hollow outcomes for Australia. Picture: Frank Ling

Oh Frank, Frank, still completely clueless? 

Next time, remember to blame that hideous monstrosity on AI, save your career, dream of life after reptile servitude.

Now the pond isn't in the business of defending the mad Mullahs, but the pond also isn't in the business of using the mad Mullahs to pound away at the Federal government.

The pond's business is to catch up on a Sunday snooze, while "Ned" pounds away ...

Iran’s attack on Australian soil brings home to the local community the fanatical nature of its Islamist regime and Australia’s previous inhibitions to act decisively against Iran – in bilateral diplomacy at home or in the deadly regional confrontation between Israel and Iran.
Albanese Labor prides itself on its diplomacy. But diplomacy is deceptive – it usually satisfies the practitioner but in the case of Labor and Iran it has delivered meagre gains and truckloads of misjudgements and hollow outcomes for Australia.
Iran has been the subject of political dispute between Labor and the Coalition across a two-year period, over the bilateral relationship and, beyond this, over the Israeli military campaign against Iran and its efforts to dismantle the nuclear facilities. The Coalition has been distinctly tougher: more alert to Iran’s quest to eliminate Israel, more supportive of Israel’s military actions and calling for stronger domestic action by proscribing Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Such divisions were obliterated this week with the historic hardening of Australia’s policy towards Iran by the Albanese government – decisions that were justified, unprecedented and bipartisan. Yet this obscured a complex series of differences within and between parties over how to manage Iran’s behaviour in this country and in the Middle East.

Actually the attack brought home yet again the monomaniacal nature of the Murdochian regime and its relentless devotion to jihads ... as the reptiles slipped in a mysterious snap, more reptile promotion than revelation, Iranian Ambassador held-up at Sydney Airport

It being "Ned" in full hysterical Chicken Little mode, the sky is once again falling ...

Two years ago Foreign Minister Penny Wong and then Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus successfully countered a push from the Home Affairs Department to list the IRGC as a terrorist organisation. Diplomacy prevailed at the time because severing diplomatic ties would have long-run consequences and branding an organ of the Iranian government a terrorist organisation – which it was – created legal difficulties.
But this week such problems were swept away. Ties with Iran were fundamentally broken. Its character as a purveyor of terrorism was the basis for action. The Iranian ambassador and three staff were expelled; our diplomatic staff in Tehran were removed to a safe third country; the IRGC was listed as a terrorist organisation. Australia followed the action taken by the US in 2019. It was a milestone event for Australia and a significant policy change by Labor.

The reptiles followed with a clearer image of Satan, Iran’s ambassador to Australia Ahmad Sadeghi waves and smiles as he leaves the Iranian Residence in Canberra. Picture: Supplied

Terrifying, deeply sunglasses sinister, and "Ned"would go on to be terrified ...

The juxtaposition cannot be missed. During the current Middle East conflict Albanese Labor has conspicuously failed to support Israel’s military campaign against Iran’s regional aggression – its aim being the elimination of Israel – only to now discover that Iran’s aggression against Australia has forced Labor’s own form of diplomatic retaliation.
The foundation stone for the decision last Monday was ASIO advice that the Iranian government was involved in at least two attacks on Australia – on Lewis’ Continental Kitchen in Sydney on October 20 and the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne on December 6 last year. This is probably just the start. Ministers signalled that Iran was likely implicated in other attacks.

Quick, another image to break up the incipient turgidity ... Prime Minister Anthony Albanese visits Adass Israel Synagogue in Ripponlea, which was destroyed in an attack on December 6 last year. Picture: Instagram

And so it was time to ignore the current genocide, mass starvation, whatever ...

Sorry, the pond was meaning to go cold turkey on the 'toons, and now must have another shot of "Ned" to the old eyeball ...

Suddenly, Anthony Albanese appeared in reverse mode: as an anti-Iranian security hardliner, a sharp break from his long critique of Israel and his pro-Palestinian commitment seen in the decision to recognise a Palestinian state.
The optics were dramatic. Albanese listened and acted at once on advice from director-general of security Mike Burgess about Iran’s aggression against this country.
The zeitgeist took a big check. With Australia consumed by anti-Israeli and pro-Palestinian street marches including support for pro-Iranian terrorist proxies, a new paradigm arrived: the Iranians conspire to harm us at home; this is an Iran we cannot tolerate. Yet it is the same Iran where Labor’s diplomacy and strategy have been far too feeble.
The lesson again is the pivotal impact in this world of ASIO and our security agencies. Albanese hitched his decision to ASIO and confidence in the Australian Federal Police under Reece Kershaw. The Prime Minister said ASIO found “clear evidence” and was “very specific” in tracing links from Iran to criminal operations in Australia that conducted the anti-Jewish attacks. Just as ASIO was pivotal in the Coalition’s move against China’s foreign interference, so it is decisive again in Labor’s move on Iran.

Cue yet another snap, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, ASIO Chief Mike Burgess, and Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong, hold a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra on August 26, 2025. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

It got so that "Ned" could only come out with a couple of pars before the reptiles feared terminal boredom ...

This is more serious. Albanese said: “We speak about foreign interference. This is another level. This is foreign action and foreign violence being committed against Australians, funded and using criminal elements here.”
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke, keen on the Palestinian cause, now said: “This is an unprecedented attack on our society. It’s true that no one was injured in these attacks; it is not true that no one was harmed. The community of the Adass Israel Synagogue was harmed, the community that shopped at the Lewis’ Continental Kitchen and the owners were harmed. But simply Australia was attacked and Australia was harmed.”

... and so they flung in another AV distraction, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke says the decision to designate the IRGC as a terrorist organisation was to “protect the safety” of Australians. “And protect the sovereignty of Australians, that’s what we’ve done,” Mr Burke said. It has been revealed that Iran had directed at least two antisemitic attacks in Australia since October 7, 2023.

It always amazes the pond how the reptiles can spot barking mad fundamentalism in the mad Mullahs, but remain completely oblivious to the barking mad fundamentalism currently abroad in Israel ...

Burgess warned that for 10 months anti-Semitism had been “one of ASIO’s most pressing priorities” with the security service investigating “dozens of incidents targeting Jewish communities” and individuals. ASIO was investigating other attacks, the implication being Iran’s aggression was even wider. Burgess said the IRGC used a web of proxies to hide its role: “Iran and its proxies literally and figuratively lit the matches and fanned the flames.” Whether Israel’s security service, Mossad, unparalleled in its knowledge of Iran, played any role is unknown.
Relying on ASIO advice, Wong said Iran’s actions “have crossed a line”. That’s true. But it’s also designed to defend the government from not acting two years earlier.
A Senate committee headed by Liberal Claire Chandler recommended in February 2023 that a tougher stance be taken against Iran including branding the IRGC a terrorist organisation and reducing relations “to the greatest extent possible”. Labor was firm in its rejection while documenting the increased sanctions it was taking. The government relied on Attorney-General’s Department advice that the IRGC as an organ of a nation-state was not covered by our Criminal Code. It relied on Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade advice that keeping open the communications lines was the best option. Labor prized working the diplomatic route.
The Senate committee dealt extensively with Iranian dissidents and reports of persecution, arbitrary arrest, torture and murder by the regime against its own people.
From 2023 the Coalition has called for Australia to proscribe the IRGC as a terrorist body. In October 2024 it called for the expulsion of the Iranian ambassador, Ahmad Sadeghi, after he praised the assassinated Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and called for Israel to be wiped out of Palestine.

Cue a Satantic figure to keep the jihad bubbling along, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, centre, reviews a group of armed forces cadets during their graduation ceremony, accompanied by commanders of the armed forces, at the police academy in Tehran, Iran in 2022. Picture: AP

There never seems to be any images to hand of matching war mongers ...

Never mind, on with the climb ...

This week Chandler said: “It shouldn’t have taken until now for the Australian government to act. Throughout the Senate inquiry I heard incredibly concerning reports from Iranian-Australians concerned about their own safety.”
The committee said: “It also acknowledges that there is a significant fear of the IRGC in the Iranian-Australian community – a fear which is founded in the clear evidence that the IRGC operates well beyond Iran’s borders with the express purpose of threatening, intimidating and committing acts of violence against individuals it believes threaten its ideology.
“The IRGC is a terrorist organisation and should be recognised as such. Doing so would not just send the right message, it would better empower agencies in Australia to place a greater focus on the IRGC’s activities and operations in Australia. Listing of the IRGC as a terrorist group is not only the request of hundreds of submissions to this inquiry but it is the subject of a worldwide campaign.”
Labor senators dissented from several of the committee recommendations.
On February 15, 2023, the opposition legal affairs spokesman at the time, Julian Leeser, told parliament: “The Iranian regime is a criminal regime … Iran’s crimes against their own people have destroyed the resemblance of legitimacy. That’s why I support moves to make Iran’s IRGC listed as a proscribed terrorist organisation. The IRGC are feared; they operate at home and abroad. The Australian Signals Directorate has confirmed that Guard-affiliated actors have targeted Australian organisations with ransomware attacks. They’re a known supporters of listed organisations such as Hezbollah and the Assad regime in Syria.”
Leeser said the concern about the Criminal Code could be resolved by legal amendments the Coalition would support – the method now being adopted as Burke has indicated.
On the bigger strategic landscape Iran is Israel’s greatest enemy. Over the past year Benjamin Netanyahu has won a series of military victories over Iran and its proxies – he has largely dismantled Hamas, broken Hezbollah’s hold on southern Lebanon as a platform to attack Israel and, along with Donald Trump’s support, has rendered serious damage to Iran’s nuclear facilities. These actions have made Israel and the world safer.
Yet Labor, led by Wong, has had a consistent message: restraint, ceasefire, no more escalation. Labor didn’t support Israel’s ongoing and sustained military actions on any of these fronts and if Netanyahu had taken Labor’s advice – or that of the UN – the Israeli nation and its people would be far more exposed to Iran today, Israel’s on-the-ground situation would be far more precarious and Iran would be a much stronger regional power instead of being diminished and forced on to the defensive.

At this point, "Ned" decided to deliver a very small billy goat butt ...

This is not to endorse Netanyahu’s current campaign or tactics in Gaza, which are counter-productive, militarily flawed and have done grave damage to Israel’s moral and political standing in the world. But it is to recognise the way Israeli military power has transformed the region’s balance against Iran.

Oh you silly billy, the entire point of this endless jihad about Iran is to take the heat off the current genocide, and to celebrate the wisdom of Benji, as per the caption for the next snap, If Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, had taken Labor’s advice – or that of the UN – the Israeli nation and its people would be far more exposed to Iran today. Picture: AFP PHOTO / Handout /GPO'

There you go, you did have a snap of a genocidal warrior in action, and the reptiles at lizard Oz do know how to pander to genocide and mass starvation ...

Why that snap of that smiling mass murderer and war criminal says it all ...

Australia’s foreign policy under Labor is big on diplomacy, international norms and symbols, and conspicuously weak on hard power. But it is hard power that is reshaping the world today, from Europe to the Middle East to East Asia. Labor has trouble responding to a world where geo-strategic rivalry, increased defence budgets, more defence self-reliance and strategic deterrence against China are the enduring priorities.
Nowhere has Australia’s diplomacy been so presentational and ineffective than in the Middle East. And nowhere has its strategic outlook been more restrained and cautious than in relation to Iran. Indeed, even after Trump took decisive military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities, Albanese Labor seemed paralysed, struck dumb, upset at the breach of international norms and, incredibly, neither the PM nor any senior Labor figure was able to appear on the media to respond for an entire day. They were frightened about what to say, immobilised by the use of US military power.
When Labor went public it was weasel words. Wong said: “We cannot allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon” and therefore “we support action to prevent Iran getting a nuclear weapon”. That’s it. By contrast the Coalition said it “stands with the United States of America today”.

We should stand with that barking mad mob? And today of all days?

If the pond might be allowed another detour, this time to Christopher Warren in Crikey ...(*archive link)

Trump, Putin, Netanyahu — Australian media has Daddy Issues, A pop psycho-analysis of ‘great men’ has replaced the hard grind of understanding the institutional politics of clashing interests.

We’ve witnessed the final triumph of X’s hot-takes culture in how legacy media talks about international, and national, security.
Readers have been inundated with months of over-eager “whatever will Trump think about Albo?” speculative tittering, feeding into the political media’s enduring fascination with when (or whether) the two will meet.
Since the government recognised the state of Palestine, we’ve also had to endure puffed-up media outrage over people affiliated with Hamas’ “welcoming” of it, as well as a personalising of Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s inevitable pushback, using the right’s favourite tag of Albanese as “weak” (a commentary applauded by The Australian as both “blistering” and “extraordinary”). 
Not to be left behind, the Nine mastheads had an “insider” from the US international relations blob dismissing the recognition with a particular right-wing term of abuse, calling it “virtue signalling” (originally dropped into digital usage courtesy of the Brexiteering Spectator in 2015).
What didn’t we get? Any analysis of what the recognition actually means — either as part of Australia’s attitudes to the Middle East, or how or whether it reflects a creaking turn away from the US first-last-and-always approach of the former Liberal government — still staunchly upheld by their media wing, the Delaware-based News Corp.

Well yes, and so on, and there was also the keen Keane ... (*archive link)

...This has been the government’s preferred method of handling AUKUS since it was elected: minimal transparency and no accountability. To this day, neither Marles nor anyone else in the government has ever made the case for exactly why Australia needs nuclear submarines and for what purposes they will be used. Again, we’ve had to rely on the Americans — via their unsubtle demand that we provide a commitment to use them in a war with China — for that.
A pro-AUKUS pamphlet from a US security think tank this week warns that the project is in danger from questioning about its delivery and lack of real outcomes. The “report”, unsurprisingly championed in The Australian, is somewhat hard to take seriously given it contains an absolute howler: in justifying the Trump administration’s review of AUKUS, its authors claim “the only AUKUS member that has not conducted its own review of the agreement since its inception is the United States”.
This is patently false: there has been no review, or even a parliamentary inquiry, into AUKUS since Scott Morrison announced it and Labor fell into line within minutes in 2021. The authors confused a review of the disastrous start of the ASA, by defence veteran Dennis Richardson, with a review of AUKUS itself.
And they dismiss concerns about the impact of AUKUS on Australian sovereignty as “overblown”, while acknowledging that “the Trump administration’s emphasis on clarifying Australia’s commitment to support the United States in a possible defense [sic] of Taiwan is therefore an especially difficult issue for Canberra.” Their solution? “The United States and Australia should initiate a robust contingency planning process that incorporates Australian SSNs. Planning, in which military strategists from the United States and Australia would jointly undergo a comprehensive process of strategising and organising military operations to achieve specific objectives, would provide US officials with more concrete reassurances that submarines sold to Australia would not disappear if and when needed.”
That is, Australia and the US should jointly plan a war with China involving Australian submarines. What better way to demonstrate Australian remains a sovereign nation and what better way to signal that we have made no commitments about the use of our vessels?
But to come back to the key point: at least the Americans are talking about what they want AUKUS for. Richard Marles, on the other hand, seems like the last person who will ever tell us anything about AUKUS. Ever after his US patrons have abjectly humiliated him.

Well yes, but sadly, now back to "Ned" for a terrifying snap ... US President Donald Trump is seen with members of his Cabinet, in the Situation Room of the White House on June 21, 2025 in Washington, DC, after US military carried out attacks on three Iranian nuclear sites. Picture: AFP PHOTO / WHITE HOUSE

Hmm, no sign on that hand of the decline and decay, but you've got to wonder (*archive link):

Out of the frying pan into the fire, or out of the fire into the frying pan with CFer Vance, or from one quagmire to another, though if a Politico story about the witless Witkoff triggers CFer JD, it must be good ... (*archive link) ... as "Ned" pressed on to the summit...

Under Labor, Israel has been the constant target of Australia’s diplomacy while Iran, the driving force behind Hamas and Hezbollah, has received far less attention and pressure.
Iran would be pleased to see the fractures in Australia’s social cohesion, the large pro-Palestinian demonstrations and the calls for the elimination of the state of Israel. Former foreign minister Alexander Downer told Sky News this week that Labor’s decision to recognise a Palestinian state was a huge propaganda victory for Hamas and “above all for Hamas’s funders, the Iranians”.
Opposition home affairs spokesman Andrew Hastie said the Albanese government had made the right call. Hastie said that as chair of the intelligence committee under the former Coalition government he was “always keen” to list the IRGC, that extensive discussions were held at the time with senior Coalition ministers but, in the end, it wasn’t listed. “We called for it to be listed up to 10 times since 2023,” Hastie said. He warned that authoritarian powers were now working to undermine the social cohesion of Western democracies.
Former ambassador to Israel and Liberal shadow minister Dave Sharma said that during Labor’s time there had been “cause to act some time ago” in relation to the IRGC and expelling the ambassador who was “fanning the flames of anti-Semitism, which is not proper conduct for a diplomat”.
Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council executive director Colin Rubenstein said: “AIJAC has been calling for the proscription of the IRGC for years. It met Australia’s legal definition of a terrorist organisation long before it began attacking Australian Jewish targets in 2024.”
In its formal response to the Senate committee in 2023 the Albanese government said it had “taken stronger action against Iran on human rights than any previous Australian government”. That is correct. Wong wrote to state governments and universities encouraging them “to put on hold any existing co-operations with Iranian entities”. All reports of foreign interference were assessed and investigated.
While declining to proscribe the IRGC, Labor said it was “focused on taking meaningful steps to put pressure on the IRGC”. The government imposed packages of thematic human rights (Magnitsky-style) sanctions that included 27 individuals and 21 IRGC-linked entities. Labor said it been “active and consistent” in public condemnation of the regime’s egregious human rights violations. This included strong comments from Albanese and Wong. The Foreign Minister had raised with her Iranian counterpart reports of protesters and their families being harassed and intimidated.
Previous home affairs minister Clare O’Neil had encouraged her department to engage with Iranians in Australia on the pressure and intimidation they had faced. O’Neil said the Australian government would not tolerate hostile acts in the form of surveillance, harassment or intimidation against people in Australia.

And so to a final terrifying snap, A protester raises a portrait of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, during a pro-Palestinian protest across Sydney Harbour Bridge, on August 3, 2025. Picture: AFP

That helped "Ned" maintain the rage in his final gobbet ...

In response to attacks this week from opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman Michaelia Cash that Labor had “some serious explaining to do”, Wong told the ABC: “The IRGC has been sanctioned by Australia for many years. We took stronger action against the IRGC than she ever took when she was part of the Coalition government for nine years, including as Attorney-General. She did not put a single new sanction on the IRGC. They stood by while Iran was elected to the UN body dealing with discrimination against women. We put some 200 sanctions on Iran and the IRGC. We took action at the UN. We took much more decisive action in relation to the IRGC than the Coalition ever did.”
Labor is justified in saying a violent attack on Australia as documented by ASIO is a new and unaccepted action and requires an “unprecedented” response. It is the first expulsion of an ambassador in the post-war period. It constitutes a decisive break in relations with Iran – but nonetheless the evidence suggests Labor waited for too long. Both at home and in the region, it has lacked resolution in coming to grips with Iran’s behaviour, its aggression and its unacceptable quest to eliminate Israel.

And as for Israel's unacceptable quest to eliminate the Palestinian people? To first destroy all that's on the land, and then ethnically cleanse the people, and then establish a new Riviera? 

Ah, for that, better not read "Ned" or any of the other reptiles, as they flock together on their jihad, best compared to a murmuration of starlings, trapped together and wheeling in unison in a hive mind.

And so to an up note for the few stragglers to make it to the bitter end, a cartoon that's only about the movie business ...though some might see it as at least a partial explanation for the current American madness, led by a reality TV star ...

And now to end with a useful summary of the past US week, presented with a reliably sane tone ...