Croweater chaos ... a Lord Downer special ...

 

Having created all the necessary conditions for a lurch to the extreme far right, the reptiles at the lizard Oz took fright.

Keen to avoid more talk of the war and King Donald, the pond joined the reptiles in their navel-gazing, as they plunged hard into crow eater land and the chaos they'd produced.

But given the abundance of performing seals and pundits, the pond had to be selective.

There could be no room for the likes of Penbo, railing at trendies and snobs ...

After that taster, it was off to the intermittent archive with him.

It will be noted that Penbo, using his rat cunning, tried to shift the focus to Labor, in a reflex reptile move, but a cursory examination of the score card would show that the damage was done primarily to the Liberal party.

In that sort of existential crisis, the pond will always turn to Lord Downer, with His Lordship in a filthy mood ...

After that opening flurry, the reptiles chipped in with a reminder of the keen dress standards in play in SA politics, SA Liberal leader Ashton Hurn with MPs on Sunday. Picture: Brett Hartwig

His Lordship continued to rail, it apparently all being the fault of the woke ...

...These are certainly legitimate issues for public concern. For example the political class has tried to convince voters that building windmills and solar farms will produce much cheaper electricity when obviously the complete reverse has happened.
In the past decade, SA electricity prices have increased by about 100 per cent. Yet 85 per cent of the state’s electricity comes from renewables. Go figure. But talk to people in SA who have moved from voting Liberal to voting One Nation, and it is clear that it is as much non-economic issues that have caused their defection.
Many are saying Australia is changing and they use the phrase “we are losing our country”.
Some of their anger is directed at absurd overreach on symbolic issues. The overuse of welcome to country ceremonies and, in particular, acknowledgment of traditional owners is a good example of woke policies that drive a lot of people nuts.

Sorry, Your Lordship, that invokes the pond's contractual obligation ...

Do carry on, remember the pesky, furriners and your glory days ...

It’s not that these Australians are disrespectful towards Indigenous Australians. It’s that they have deeply embedded in their psyche a laudable belief in the equal value of all people, regardless of race, religion, political beliefs and, for that matter, their sexuality.
Most Australians were born in this country and have no other nationality. They rationalise it this way, for right or for wrong. Progressives think they are not just wrong but downright racist. A recent poll showed 63 per cent of Australians didn’t want welcome to country ceremonies at sporting events. That’s a big majority and those people think Hanson is the one person who’s prepared to say she doesn’t like these ceremonies.
But there’s no doubt immigration is the most potent issue driving up One Nation’s vote.
Thanks to the Howard government’s Tampa policies we have a negligible problem with illegal immigration. But there are a very large number of migrants coming into Australia from all corners of the world.
Those migrants who don’t integrate and who have been playing out the tensions and hatreds of the parts of the world from which they have come have turned a sizeable proportion of the population against immigration.

The reptiles briefly interrupted with an unfortunate reminder of the current ethnic cleansing, Anthony Albanese and Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke have been heckled as “genocide supporters” during Eid celebrations at a mosque in south-west Sydney. The pair made an appearance this morning at Lakemba Mosque, the largest in the country, which sits within Mr Burke’s electorate of Watson, when hecklers tore into them over the Israel-Gaza conflict.

His Lordship took the cue ...

Events such as the massacre of the Jews at Bondi Beach last December only inflame private hostility to immigration. The scene last Friday of Anthony Albanese being heckled and abused at a Lakemba mosque in Sydney plays into this same sentiment.
Hanson may say hurtful and insensitive things, in particular about Muslims, most of whom are perfectly reasonable law-abiding citizens, but her comments play into the private views of many, many people.
These are just examples of how many South Australians and indeed Australians from around the country feel and why they are increasingly flocking to One Nation. It’s not that One Nation has any particular policies that would address housing shortages, the cost of living, electricity prices and so on. It’s that a lot of perfectly patriotic and decent Australians think she stands up for Australia.
It’s as simple as that. They know if they speak out on these issues they will be accused of being racists and fascists and so on.
Instead of speaking out, they vote in the privacy of the ballot box and they are increasingly voting for One Nation.
This is the Australian version of a phenomenon that has been under way in Britain and the EU for quite some time. A sizeable percentage of their populations is fed up with the progressive agenda promoted by the centre-left and often supported by the centre-right.
They are upset about illegal immigration and the restructuring of society to accommodate migrants rather than encouraging the integration of migrants. As in Australia, disruptive and aggressive demonstrations over issues such as Middle East wars only exacerbate this sentiment.
Sure, they have cost-of-living issues, rising electricity prices and escalating housing prices, just as we have, but it’s not those issues driving the rush to populist politics. The answer to the rise of populist politics, including One Nation, is not to ape their positions, but it will require imagination and leadership to address the concerns of the public. That includes addressing, not ignoring, the overreach by progressives.

The reptiles tried to calm Lord Downer by trotting out the beefy boofhead from down Goulburn way, with some prime Angus rib insights...

Dear sweet long absent lord, the beefy boofhead entirely ignored Lord Downer on the matter of patriotism and furriners and all that jazz, and instead insisted on numbing the hive mind with talk economic matters, like a beekeeper spraying smoke to quieten the buzzing ...

...Australia needs disciplined economic management again and a government that lives within its means so Australians can live within theirs.
This is ultimately a choice about the kind of economy we want. Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers are turning Australia into a government-directed economy.
The Coalition will tip the scales back towards a free-enterprise economy, with a freedom agenda at its core. We want workers to keep more of what they earn through lower taxes.
We want businesses freed from excessive regulation that stifles initiative. We want industries unshackled so we make more here, not offshore. And we want Australians to have more choice, with less interference from government. Because when government gets out of the way, it drives aspiration, investment and growth.
That is how you bring inflation down, take pressure off interest rates and rebuild confidence.
Economic policy should be judged by a simple test. Does it improve the lives of Australian families? Right now too many Australians are going backwards. That must change. We will protect Australians’ way of life and restore their standard of living.

Talk about entirely missing the Lord Downer point. 

Anyone wanting more of this idle, unpatriotic guff about folks living within their means will have to head off to the intermittent archive ...

It won't take long because the best the beefy boofhead could manage was three minutes of bluster and blather...

It was left to the Caterist to contemplate the ultimate solution ...

Oh dear, not Tamworth's enduring shame, not the man who trained as an accountant and keeps on performing as a cocky, not the bull in the back paddock that's all horn and no head, always willing to butt brain with furriners ...

Won't someone remind him that the Caterist is something of a black sheep, sent out to the colony to perform the duties of a whingeing Pom.

As if to prove the point, the Caterist almost sounded like a woke humourless fright ...

Is it a Liberal Party in the sense of being opposed to conservatism, like the governing Canadian Liberal Party? Or is it liberal in a conservative, 19th-century manner, accepting that while our institutions are not perfect, the last thing we should do is knock them down to clear the ground for the new utopia? The tension between the two visions manifests itself in issues such as climate change, hate speech laws, Aboriginal special privilege and immigration.
More often than not, the Liberal Party has tried to smother the argument with polite silence. It hasn’t worked. Sooner or later, a One Nation-shaped thing was bound to fill the gap in the market for plain talking. One Nation’s campaign line – “we say what you’re thinking” – is more than just a slogan. It’s the complete mission statement of a party that is strong on conviction but light on policy. All talk but no action.
When the Liberal Party was in the hands of solid-blue conviction conservatives such as John Howard and Tony Abbott, One Nation’s appeal was limited. Yet the more bland the Libs become, the more One Nation thrives. Outrage, clarity and conflict work well in the era of political TikTokisation. Measured, relaxed and comfortable fall flat.
Cory Bernardi clocked up tens of thousands of “likes” by standing in front of the Ngangkiku Ngartuku Kukuwardli (otherwise known as the Adelaide Women’s and Children’s Hospital) to mock SA Health’s dual naming policy. “Why?” he asked. “No one knows where the Googa Waggly centre is.” You don’t have to be a hum­our­less fright to find lame jokes such as this unworthy of a state political leader.
If One Nation wants to change the policy, it must build an intelligent and persuasive case, as the No campaigners did at the voice referendum. Yet One Nation has no intention of mastering the art of persuasion. It is not and never will be a party of government, not while it remains a Hansonite party, one of limited ambition, content to barrack from the grandstand rather than lace its boots and get on to the field.

Um, could it be that Cory and the Hansonites sound Über-reptile? 

And only now, in a dim way, looking into the darkness, have the reptiles realised they are Dr Frankenstein, and this is their monster? One Nation SA leader Cory Bernardi speaks to supporters at an election night event at the Kent Town Hotel. Picture: NewsWire/ Emma Brasier

Oh dear, that triggered another contractual obligation ...

Carry on cratering ...

Pauline Hanson made that point explicitly this month. “I don’t want any ministerial positions,” she told Sky News. “I want to remain completely independent to judge the legislation that’s being put up.”
Hanson appears indifferent as to which party gets to put forward legislation. Yet Saturday’s result confirms that it inevitably will be Labor, since a fractured centre-right cannot win government. Indeed, a Balkanised conservative movement serves to make Labor’s job easier, so long as it keeps itself tidy and resists the temptation to go the full woke monty.
Just follow the numbers. Labor’s 33.8 per cent of the popular vote in 2013 under Kevin Rudd was labelled disastrous. Nine years later, 32.6 per cent was hailed as a stunning triumph for Anthony Albanese. On current polling, Labor could secure a dominant lower house majority with a vote in the upper 20s. On Saturday, Alexander Downer declared the result the worst in the Liberals’ history. It wasn’t. In the 2021 WA election Zac Kirkup shrank the WA parliamentary Liberal Party from 13 seats to two all by himself.
Before Ashton Hurn became leader in December there was a widespread expectation the SA Libs would suffer a similar fate and would be replaced by One Nation as the official opposition. Yet while the Liberal Party has been humbled, it is institutionally intact.
Under the leadership of a country girl from Nuriootpa High, the Liberals are on track to return as a plausible seven-member opposition, albeit as a diminished force, but a basis from which to begin turning the party around.

How could the reptiles resist a restatement of croweater fashion sense, straight out of Paris, by way of Dutch and willow pattern decor? 

They simply couldn't ... State Liberal Leader Ashton Hurn speaking about the Liberal election results with Liberal. Picture: Brett Hartwig

The Caterist returned to sorting out the implications ...

Angus Taylor and Matt Canavan’s leadership offered a clean break, but the real resurgence is coming from the grassroots, driven by the realisation that, despite One Nation’s rise in the polls, a Liberal-National government is the only viable alternative to a bad Labor government.
The pattern of support for One Nation on Saturday revealed the party’s vulnerability if the Coalition can return to its traditional strengths. The Farrer by-election will test whether its strong performance in country electorates can be repeated in NSW, Victoria and Queensland, where the Nationals are a strong force.
One Nation also ran well in Adelaide’s northern growth belt among two-car families with mortgages. By returning to their traditional role as a party of homeowners and responsible economic management, the Liberals can win back the mortgage belt on the outer metropolitan fringes where the dual pressures of interest rates and fuel prices will only intensify.
Labor also lost votes to One Nation, albeit in smaller numbers, and with no erosion of its parliamentary strength. Yet it is a reminder that One Nation, properly contained, can be the Coalition’s ally rather than an irritant.
Yet we can forget the fanciful notion that the Liberals, Nationals and One Nation can form government in a grand coalition. The century-old National-Liberal partnership endures for a reason.
It evolved to adapt to Australia’s singular instant run-off voting system. The convention that prevents two parties from competing for the same electorate, together with a tight preference exchange, maximises the efficiency of conservative votes and avoids wasting energy on internal fights.
With the best will in the world, it is hard to imagine One Nation maturing into such a responsible partner.

So that's it, the beefy boofhead is on his own.

For a final flourish, the reptiles forgave the Caterist for having gone eastern stater, and reminded the hive mind that for all his expertise on the movements of floodwaters in Queensland quarries, he was heart of hearts, the very worst thing that troubled Lord Downer - a bloody furriner - and yet at the same time, a crow eater...

Nick Cater was state political editor for The Advertiser, 1990-93.

Phew, the pond escaped the 'Tiser and croweater land in the nick of time ... and it was left to the immortal Rowe to conjure up the dire situation ...

Sheesh, the ongoing impact of climate change regularly offers shocks to the system.

Meanwhile, the reptiles had assigned simplistic Simon to deal with the war...

We’re at the edge of a crisis, so how will Future Made in Australia help?
There’s an urgent need to repurpose the nation’s bureaucratic architecture to plan for the new age of uncertainty.
By Simon Benson
Political analyst

Splendid stuff, but that teaser trailer is more than enough and anyone wanting more can head off to the intermittent archive.

Confronted by a crisis, the pond will always turn to the Major on a Monday to explain the correct Zionist view ...

The header: Experts reveal path to victory over Iran despite media pessimism; Media opinions this soon about whether the US and Israel can win the war against Iran are worthless.

The caption for the snap of chaos: The remains of a residential and commercial buildingin the Shahrak-e Gharb neighbourhood of Tehran, Iran. Picture: Getty Images

Before carrying on with the Major, the pond wanted to at least note the suffering of the poor b*ggers (*google bot aware) caught between the hard place of Zionist war mongering and King Donald.

Notes on that can be found in The New Yorker:

What the War Has Done to Iranians
A civilian in Tehran chronicles a country trapped between bombardment and repression—too terrorized to move, let alone start an uprising.
By Cora Engelbrecht

Sadly the formatting made it impossible for the intermittent archive, but this was the last entry...

“Even when there were air strikes, people would cheer again, celebrate, make noise, express joy,” Hadi told me. “At the same time, everyone is still waiting for the Islamic Republic to surrender. The war is still ongoing. The Islamic Republic’s forces are still in the streets, armed. Innocent people are still being killed. We truly didn’t want things to come to this. We just hope that in the new year, everything finally stops—that this cycle ends, that people with weapons stop roaming the streets.”
“As for me, my situation is clear,” he added. “I want to remain close to what’s happening. I’m staying here in the middle of the war until the very end, until my home, what I consider my home, is taken away from me.”

Abandoned and betrayed, and don't expect any hope from the Major, intent on settling media scores...

Media opinions this soon about whether the US and Israel can win the war against Iran are worthless.

As a meta-ironic opening that takes the cake, what with the Major proposing at the outset that his opinions are entirely worthless, and who could argue with that, but the Major carried on at great length being completely worthless ...

The attack that started on February 28 was only days old when many journalists began claiming it was lost because Iran was blocking oil through the Strait of Hormuz.
No surprise many were negative: outlets such as The New York Times were always going to criticise the campaign after Donald Trump started claiming victory on day two.
By last week, foreign policy conservatives were joining US Democrats and the left-wing US media establishment to declare Trump had lost – all by day 18.
It’s too soon to know.
This column reckons it was always obvious Iran would try to disrupt the oil market, attack its Sunni Arab neighbours and try to shut the Strait. It’s done all three before.
Critics who claim Israel and the US are running out of defensive weapons are wrong. Israel’s military Substack, Mission Brief, says Iran’s rate of fire is only a fraction of what it was last year, and much less than a fortnight ago. Israel says it has large stockpiles for the Iron Dome.
It’s also far too early to claim the Iranian regime will survive and Hormuz cannot be reopened.
Mehdi Parpanchi, executive editor at US-based Iran International TV, says the signs from Tehran suggest not that the regime is holding on – as Trump’s critics claim – but rather that prepared plans for how the revolution might survive even if the centre were destroyed are already in operation.
In 2012 the regime drew up contingency plans, Parpanchi wrote in a piece headlined “What Looks Like Resilience in Iran Is Its Collapse Plan”.
“The Islamic Republic prepared for the moment when its centre would be hit, and its command structure would fracture. In that scenario regional units keep firing, security forces keep repressing and the state projects fragments of normality even as central control collapses.”
He argues that “quiet streets do not mean public submission”, and says the US should not believe the authorities have reasserted control, or that people have “rallied around the flag”. They are staying indoors because Reza Pahlavi, the last shah’s son, has urged them to.
Continued missile strikes from Iran “do not show strategic coherence”.
Parpanchi quotes Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who was asked about Iranian strikes on Oman, one of Iran’s closest allies. He replied: “What happened in Oman was not our choice.”
The military units involved were acting “based on instructions given to them in advance”.
The IRGC machine keeps firing “because it was built to outlive” its leaders. It only needs to keep going “until the United States loses the will to continue”. President Trump’s strategic advisers will understand this.
How about global media pessimism at the blockage of oil tankers through Hormuz?
Middle East Forum executive director Gregg Roman published three lengthy essays last week outlining a path to success. Most pertinent to the oil question is the third, “Breaking the Gate”, which describes the blocking of the Strait as an insurance problem rather than a military issue.
Published on March 16, Roman says the US is not facing a naval blockade. Neither has the Strait been mined, and some boats are proceeding with IRGC permission.
“An insurance-driven shutdown has been achieved by a handful of drones that cause war-risk underwriters to pull commercial shipping coverage,” Roman says.
He argues the US needs to step up degradation of Iranian naval power and use financial pressure across its allies to force underwriters back into the insurance market.
Roman says most of the coastal provinces along the Iranian coast are Arab rather than ethnically Persian. Four million Ahvazi Arabs who live in the south have faced “discrimination, cultural suppression and economic marginalisation by Tehran”.
Most are in Khuzestan Province, which produces 90 per cent of the country’s oil. Roman urges more dialogue with Ahvazi resistance movements.
This does not need to threaten Hormuz directly: “It needs to force IRGC ground forces … and logistical capacity away from Hormozgan Province, where the Strait narrows to 21 miles and where … remaining drone and fast-boat capability is concentrated.”

Eventually the reptiles got around to interrupting this splendid analysis ... entirely worthless, but with a snap of kit in action, A navy vessel is seen sailing in the Strait of Hormuz. Picture: AFP

The Major carried on with the important business of being worthless, quoting others at length and shedding tears for King Donald and Xian Karoline ...

Roman outlines a detailed plan for military escorts through the Strait and points out Pakistan is already doing this with its commercial shipping.
Remember too that despite Trump’s denials that he plans to send in troops, 2200 Marines are being moved into the area. The Wall Street Journal on Friday outlined how they could be used to take control of Iran’s various island oil export facilities.
All this may prove too optimistic. Neither critics nor supporters can know yet.
While Trump and Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt have complained about US media coverage, both knew in advance the liberal US media never gives a Republican president a fair go.
A Wall Street Journal editorial on March 16 said: “Journalists have a right and a duty to report bad news and Pollyannaish reports from the US government. But many seem to be going beyond that and rooting for America to lose – against an enemy that is the world’s biggest state sponsor of terror.”
The New York Times has reported what it calls a schism inside Trump’s MAGA movement driven by criticism of the war by Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly.

At this point the reptiles reminded the pond of the woman who believed in a white Jesus, and at one time was all in on the war on Xmas, Political commentator Megyn Kelly. Picture: Getty Images

The Major decided to defeat the heartless harridan with a poll ...

Batya Ungar-Sargon, in The Free Press on March 17, corrected the record.
“A poll of Americans who voted for Trump found that even 74 per cent of libertarians approve of the campaign. The same poll found that the vast majority of respondents who get their news from the very podcasters denouncing the war as ‘Israel’s war’ support the war – and Israel.” That support was 78 per cent.

All that did was remind the poll of the enormous stupidity of the 'new' CNN when it comes to polling, celebrated by Colby Hall in Mediaite ...

...Enten, CNN’s chief data analyst, was brought on Wednesday morning to answer a specific question: is there a ...growing divide in MAGA world? It was a reasonable question. There have been prominent voices on the right publicly furious about Trump’s war with Iran, citing his promise of no new wars. Tucker Carlson has broken publicly with the administration. The segment had an actual story to chase.
Enten waved it off before the data even appeared. “Tucker Carlson be darned,” he said, and pivoted to the number he wanted to talk about instead.
That number: MAGA Republicans approve of Donald Trump at 100 percent. Zero disapprove. “You don’t have to be a mathematical genius to know you can’t go higher than 100%,” Enten said. “He is the 1972 Miami Dolphins,” breathlessly referencing the only NFL team to go an entire season undefeated and win the Super Bowl.
The thing is, he is right that you don’t need to be a mathematical genius, but for all the wrong reasons. You only need to be able to read a label to come up with his really basic, not-so-newsy conclusion.
You see, MAGA is, by definition, the pro-Trump faction of the Republican Party. Polling MAGA on Trump approval doesn’t produce a finding. It produces a tautology — a conclusion that was never in doubt because it’s built into the premise.
Think of it as polling Catholics on whether they believe in God. Or Cubs fans on whether they love the Cubs. Or asking people who just joined a Trump fan club how they feel about Trump. The answer is baked in before the first call is dialed.
Enten confirmed the circularity on air without appearing to notice — when pressed on Republicans who disapprove of Trump, he explained they “are not members of the Make America Great Again movement.” Correct. The category excludes dissenters by design. CNN then packaged the absence of dissenters as the news.

There's more on Enten's nonsense ...

There’s a real story in this poll if you want one. On Iran, 52 percent of registered voters say the U.S. should not have taken military action, against 41 percent who say it should. That’s a majority against the war. The data also shows the fracture Enten was ostensibly brought on to examine — non-MAGA Republicans approve of military action in Iran at just 54 percent, against 90 percent among MAGA Republicans. That’s a real split inside the GOP. Complicated. Requires context. Doesn’t end with a perfect score.
So CNN led with the tautology instead. The segment closed with anchor and analyst finishing each other’s sentences. “MAGA has the floor,” Sara Sidner said. “MAGA has the floor, 100%,” Enten confirmed. It had the cadence of a bit, not a briefing.

... but the pond must get back to the Major's war mongering ...

Whatever Western journalists say, the media and political leadership of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states are urging Trump to finish the job in Iran.
The UAE Minister for Industry, Sultan Al Jaber, told the WSJ last week: “Any long-term political settlement must address the full spectrum of threats, including Iran’s nuclear program, ballistic missile capabilities and their network of regional proxies.”
Supporting action against Iran, Khalid Al Malik, the editor-in-chief of the Saudi state daily, Al Jazirah, wrote on March 10: “It is important to note that what Hamas did on October 7 has brought destruction on several countries, causing the deaths and injury of thousands.’’
Finally, to journos claiming on X that Israel has been lying about Iran’s nuclear intentions.
MEMRI (the Middle East Media Research Institute) last week quoted leading Iranian nuclear scientist Fereydoon Abbasi, a former head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organisation, saying on May 26 last year that Iran was working on tactical nuclear weapons that “may not fall under the definition of WMDs (weapons of mass destruction)”.
“Now is the time for Israelis to leave,” he said. “No location inside the Zionist regime should be regarded as immune.”
Abbasi was killed by Israel in June.
Why doubt the scientists when their leaders have sworn to destroy Israel and the US?

The pond settled in for the world going through a major slump, all thanks to Benji, rampant Zionism, and a deluded, demented, deeply narcissist King, keen at every turn to avoid the Trumpstein files ...

And here the pond must revert to its promise of offering a Lord Downer special this day

After all, the pond had regretted that yesterday, because of space limitations, there had been no room for His Lordship's appearance in the Sunday Snail ... (it's not just the cane toaders who have their own snail. Once upon a time, the croweater version made a living on a Sunday flogging entirely useless furniture available in the LeCornu store).

Here it is, shorn of interruptions, in screen cap form, a reminder of the apparent ability of His Lordship to repeat himself endlessly ....

The pond isn't going to interrupt, that would be rude, and anyway, why add to the repetitions?

And so to close with poor old Horsey trying to cope.

He began his cartoon with this analysis ...

And then in the second part, he tried to encourage rebellion ...

Fat chance, you're deep in the hole ...