The pond realises it's doing a Tootle off the lizard Oz tracks, but talk about being Robert Redford/Dustin Hoffman irresistible...
Decades After Watergate, Justice Department Reviews Whether Nixon Got a Raw Deal (*intermittent archive link)
As Nicolle Wallace said, Making Crooks Great Again. (YouTube link)
And that link in the WSJ yarn?
How could the pond resist? Probe of Trump Foes Heats Up Under Acting Attorney General (*intermittent archive link)
Throw in Keystone Kash ...
“The president wants indictments. He wants people in handcuffs.” (*intermittent archive link)
By Sarah Fitzpatrick
How good is the DOJ and the FBI? How good is American justice? How good are "Western values"? How much does Vlad the Sociopath still have to learn?
The pond confesses that it needed to do a little "making justice great again" stuff before tackling Polonius's prattle for its Sunday meditation...
Croatian Six still haunted by failures of judicial system
6 min
The caption for a borrowed snap: Vico Virkez on a farm in Yugoslavia in 1991. Picture: ABC / Four Corners
The desperate desire to stay relevant behind a paywall: Make us preferred on Google
This was an outlier for Polonius, but at least it veered away from the usual malarkey of recent weeks, and so the pond was willing to go with the flow ...
This was one of the longest criminal trials in Australian history. It ran for 10 months and the jury was out for an extraordinary 68 hours.
However, on February 9, 1981, Maksimilijan Bebic, Vjekoslav Brajkovic, Ilija Kokotovic, Joseph Kokotovic, Mile Nekic and Anton Zvirotic were found guilty and sentenced to a maximum 15-year term of imprisonment. They were released after less than 10 years.
The outcome of these convictions has been contested for close to half a century – and the case is not closed. There have been a number of appeals and inquiries, most recently in June, when Acting Justice Robert Allan Hulme handed down his report on the Inquiry into the Convictions of the Croatian Six.
The Hulme inquiry was set up following a finding in August 2022 by Justice Robertson Wright that there were doubts about their guilt. In March 2023, Chief Justice Andrew Bell chose Hulme to undertake his inquiry.
The outcome of the Hulme inquiry was well explained by journalist Hamish McDonald (not to be confused with Hamish Macdonald of the ABC) in his address to the Sydney Institute last Wednesday, titled “The Croatian Six and Terrorism: Where are we at?”. McDonald is the author of Reasonable Doubt: Guns, Police and the Croatian Six (Doosra Media, 2019).
Reasonable Doubt is a devastating account of the failures of the Australian judicial system – all the way from the NSW Supreme Court to the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal and on to the High Court of Australia. And now the matter is going back to the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal.
After his lengthy inquiry, Hulme found that “no reasonable doubt arises as to the guilt” of Bebic, Brajkovic and Zvirotic. However, Hulme found that “there is reasonable doubt as to the guilt” of the Kokotovics and Nekic (who is deceased). A surprising decision, to be sure. Since, with respect to one finding, he refers to the Croatian Six as being “implicated … in the conspiracy”.
Hulme has referred his findings with respect to the three to the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal, which is expected to consider whether these convictions should be quashed. Not those of the other three who, as McDonald points out, “continue to protest their innocence”. He added that Croatian Australians are “finding it hard to accept half-exoneration”.
Half a century ago, Croatia was part of Yugoslavia. It was a communist totalitarian regime ruled by dictator Josip Broz Tito in Serbia. Yugoslavia broke up in 1990 and became independent of the other parts of the former federation – the largest of which was Serbia, followed by Croatia.
The pond knows little about the matter, and cares less, and struggled to find another title published by Doosra Media, but whatever, let's have another snap from the cardigan wearers, The ‘Croatian Six’: Max Bebic, Vic Brajkovic, Tony Zvirotic, Joe Kokotovic, Ilija Kokotovic and Mile Nekic. Picture: ABC
A more interesting question, perhaps, than the matter of contested guilt is why Polonius decided to hare off down this rabbit hole?
Murphy and Cairns in the late 1960s and early 1970s alleged that, under the Coalition government, ASIO was covering up terrorism by Croatian Australians against Serbian individuals and properties in Australia. This was not true. Sure, some Croatian Australians wanted to go to war. But against the communist regime in Serbia, not democratic Australia. However, it is acknowledged that Tito’s secret police force – the UDBA – was running false-flag operations by attacking Yugoslav properties in Australia – and elsewhere – and framing Croatian Australians.
The overwhelming evidence shows that the Croatian Six were the victims of a UDBA false-flag operation. The conspiracy commenced when Detective Sergeant Roger Rogerson raided a property in Sydney and arrested some of the Croatian Six. Rogerson died recently in prison having been convicted of murder.
Cue another snap ... One of the ‘Croatian Six’, Vjekoslav Brajkovic, gave evidence at a judicial inquiry into his convictions, 44 years after he was charged.
For all of Polonius's powers of persuasion - some might think them limited - in the end he didn't seem to come up with much ...
Moreover, in the book Reasonable Doubt, McDonald makes the case that the trial judge, Alan Victor Maxwell, was hostile to the accused. And that when the six appealed to the Court of Criminal Appeal the chief judge was Gordon Samuels, one of Maxwell’s closest friends.
The principal evidence against the Croatian Six was supplied by Vico Virkez. Chris Masters, then an ABC Four Corners reporter, interviewed Virkez overseas in 1991. Virkez told Masters that he was not a Croat or a Christian, and that he had committed perjury at the trial of the Croatian Six. He was a Tito agent.
It seems extraordinary that after what Virkez told Masters, not everyone has conceded that there was at the very least reasonable doubt as to the safety of the convictions. By the way, Masters endorsed Reasonable Doubt.
The NSW Court of Criminal Appeal may quash the convictions of Nekic and the Kokotovics. It is unclear what, if anything, may be done with respect to the others.
And then there is the High Court. In March 1986, the High Court decided on an application for special leave to appeal in Mile Nekic and others v The Queen. Chief justice Gibbs and justices Mason, Wilson, Deane and Dawson considered the case.
At 12.07pm the court took an adjournment. At 12.16pm it returned and Gibbs said that “a majority of the court has reached the conclusion that if special leave to appeal were granted, the appeal would certainly fail”.
But would this have been the case? After all, the minority did not hold this view. That is, either one or two of Australia’s leading jurists at the time. It is possible a further application could be made to the High Court.
ASIO does not regard the Croatian Six as terrorists and it is better informed on such matters than the legal profession. It’s time for – and then there were none.
Gerard Henderson is executive director of The Sydney Institute.
As usual when the pond knows nothing, and can't hope to discover anything, the pond passed on making a comment, but did want to update the Polonial bio, which strangely lists him as a News24 man. Apparently turning up once a week in the lizard Oz doesn't count. He's been consigned to the Siberia of pay cable TV ...
Gerard Henderson is an Australian columnist, political commentator and the Executive Director of The Sydney Institute. His column Media Watch Dog is republished by News24.com.au each Saturday morning. He started the blog in April 1988, before the ABC TV’s program of the same name commenced.
While on the theme of innocence and guilt ...
And so to a couple of cheats.
Thanks to the revival of the intermittent archive, all the pond has to do is provide a link and a teaser trailer, and then correspondents can decide if they want to head off to the cornfield, and miss the rest (and they won't be missing much) ...
What happens when the legal club closes ranks
This just Dame Slap doing internecine legal warfare.
Janet Albrechtsen is an opinion columnist with The Australian. She has worked as a solicitor in commercial law, and attained a Doctorate of Juridical Studies from the University of Sydney. She has written for numerous other publications including the Australian Financial Review, The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Sunday Age, and The Wall Street Journal.
In a similar vein, the pond skipped much of Snappy Tom's offering.
Albanese struggles to adapt in world of shocks
About the only thing that appealed was the remarkable collage by Emilia, who proudly refused to blame AI for her work ... it's the sort of image that would be at home in Pravda in its heyday, or Der Stürmer, with a shifty Albo looking startled and a shifty Jimbo looking glum and downcast ...
Well played Emilia, you lifted Snappy Tom's hatchet job out of the reptile ruck.
This might tempt correspondents to abandon ship and head off to the intermittent archive for the full bashing with a blunt fiscal instrument (where's the talk of SI?)...
Tom Dusevic writes commentary and analysis on economic policy, social issues and new ideas to deal with the nation’s most pressing challenges. Formerly policy editor, he has been The Australian’s national chief reporter, chief leader writer, editorial page editor, opinion editor, economics writer and first social affairs correspondent. Dusevic won a Walkley Award for commentary and the Citi Journalism Award for Excellence. He is the author of the memoir Whole Wild World and holds degrees in Arts and Economics from the University of Sydney.
As we're speaking of pollies struggling to cope with shocks ...
And so to the Ughmann.
The story here is a simple one, which is why the pond reverted to screen caps.
The unreformed seminarian is a relentless hater of renewables, a devotee of dinkum pure, innocent, clean, virginal Oz coal, and a climate science denialist, and arguing with him is a bit like taking on some fanatical member of Opus Dei or the Jesuit fraternity.
Completely pointless...but before plunging in, the pond suggests that correspondents take a quick squiz at this AP report ... Households will pay more for energy because of federal policy changes, think tank says
The Energy Innovation analysis found that households will pay an average of $6,500 more for energy, cumulatively through 2040. In five states, households will pay roughly $9,000 more: Oregon, Mississippi, South Dakota, Virginia and Wyoming.
The California-based think tank said there will be more demand for natural gas for electricity because the administration is canceling new wind, solar and hydrogen projects and there will be more gasoline demand for transportation because Trump and Congress are revoking policies that incentivized efficient and lower-emissions vehicles. Higher demand increases prices.
Energy prices are elevated in many countries. The International Energy Agency said after Russia invaded Ukraine, record prices were observed between 2022 and 2024 in the European Union, the United Kingdom, Japan and Korea. In many countries, the rise has outpaced income growth and inflation since 2019, including the European Union and the United States.
In some areas of the U.S., demand from data centers is being blamed. The Iran war has sent oil and gasoline prices sharply higher, too. The Energy Information Administration expects residential U.S. customers to pay about 18.6 cents per kilowatt-hour in 2027, compared to 17.3 cents in 2025 and 18.2 cents in 2026.
The independent research firm Rhodium Group has also examined the issue, saying in April the U.S. has entered a new period of rising electricity prices. It cited increasing price volatility in natural gas, which is increasingly used to generate power; needed grid improvements; inflation; storm recovery and wildfire mitigation; and shifting policies.
Absent significant policy action, electricity prices likely will continue their significant rise over the next five years, the firm said.
The pond will concede a certain rat cunning, as in the Ughmann flung in AFL for the aerial pingpong mob, while also appealing to the nerds with his treatment of that falling apple ... Newton’s apple: The real story:
“After dinner, the weather being warm, we went into the garden and drank thea, under the shade of some apple trees…he told me, he was just in the same situation, as when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasion’d by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself…”
More importantly did everyone put their money on the very short odds that there'd be a snap of fiendish windmills in the story, for the tilting at by Chris "Don Quixote" Ughmann?
If you bet the right way, get ready for a big win ...
Would the mango Mussolini be reprimanded for the way his war of choice has plunged the world and the Unites States into pain and misery?
The pond has no idea why the "journalists" are labelled "journalist". It hardly adds to the allure, the appeal, or perhaps explain who was conducting the inquisition, or is that a jihad?
The pond didn't want to do a spoiler on that exquisite Sean image, especially as the brave lad didn't try to foist it onto AI (or even SI), but instead nobly took the credit himself.
As for the "journalist", the next gobbet gave a tantalising clue, but was it the Ughmann or the dog botherer or some other Chris? Who can say?
The pond covered Michele yesterday thanks to the immortal Rowe ...
The Ughmann is more than a match when it comes to beating a climate science-denying drum... because all that blather ultimately is in aid of returning the country to coal, with perhaps a little nuking thrown in for good measure ...
Credit where credit is due ...
Chris Uhlmann is a Walkley Award winning journalist and broadcaster, having begun his media career at The Canberra Times and as a radio producer for the ABC in the late 1990s and early 2000s. He was most recently the ABC's political editor on its flagship 7.30 program.
Strange, no mention of his time as an unreformed seminarian, nor any mention of his impeccable credentials in climate science.
As for the tolling bell, it's tolling loud enough, and not too far in the distance.
Maybe, in fact, that bell is tolling right now ... May heatwaves, deaths, ruined harvests: study of Europe’s summer paints grim picture for the future
And the Ughmann does the Labor party a disservice.
They really are trying their level best, especially the mindless Minns mob, with a certified cretin as their leader ... Matt Kean warns climate crisis ‘isn’t someone else’s problem’ as largest coal project in NSW history greenlit
There'll be a better version of this infallible Pope to hand later, but it seemed to be relevant, so the pond rushed to include it ...
And so to conclude on the usual note of 'toon optimism ...
As for AV distractions, this?
Croatian Five. Germany today.
ReplyDelete"With the Trial of ‘Ulm5’ Activists, Germany Looks More and More Like a Police State
Posted on October 3, 2026
...
"Now, Germany is again displaying worrying signs of authoritarianism, as evidenced by the meteoric rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. However, Germany’s love affair with authoritarian rule runs deeper than the current surge of the AfD. Its legal and judicial system has become notorious for its restrictions on freedom of speech and its penchant for framing dissent “not as a democratic expression but as a threat to public order.”
"The Ulm5 trial underway in Stuttgart, and now approaching its final stage, has exposed for all to see not only Germany’s increasingly neofascist playbook for silencing dissent but complicity in Israel’s genocide.
"In the early hours of September 8, 2025, five young pro-Palestinian activists broke into the German branch of Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems in Ulm, southern Germany. Once inside, they broke windows and destroyed furniture and technical equipment. They also sprayed slogans on the walls, such as “Free Palestine” and “Germany finances, Israel bombs.” No one was injured in the attack, and the activists not only remained on site but called the police themselves and waited to be arrested.
"Since their arrest, the five activists—Daniel Tatlow-Devally (an Irish citizen), Leandra Rollo (a Spanish-Argentinian citizen), Crow Tricks and Zo Hailu (British citizens), and Vi Kovarbasic (a German citizen)—have been held in separate prisons and under highly degrading conditions. They are subjected to solitary confinement conditions lasting 23 hours a day, with just a couple of very short family visits per month. Irish politicians who visited Daniel Tatlow-Devally in prison were shocked by what they witnessed.
"The Ulm5 activists are being treated like terrorists; in fact, they are being treated in a similar fashion as were the kidnappers, bank robbers, and murderers of the militant “Red Army Faction” group during their arrest in the 1970s. It is thus no coincidence that the trial of the Ulm5 activists is being held at Stuttgart-Stammheim, the very venue where the terrorist trials of the 1970s were held.
"The defense team of Ulm5 has asked repeatedly why...
...
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2026/10/with-the-trial-of-ulm5-activists-germany-looks-more-and-more-like-a-police-state.html
DP praise... "Rare as red beryl"...
ReplyDelete"Where did all the funny, wry and witty writers go? Alan Howe
"Rare as red beryl and fragile as gossamer, the truly brilliant observers of life can skewer our foibles with the precision of a champion archer.
But can they be replaced?
...
http://amediadragon.blogspot.com/2026/10/where-did-all-funny-wry-and-witty.html
Dorothy, please don't bite my head off, but, what of your replacement?
Or are you timeless?
And. Is there a history of Loonpond please? Anyone?
Even by Reptile standards, there’s some real weirdness on offer today. Polonius’ choice of subject matter and its timing is indeed odd; is it possible that he actually scribbled this column some months ago, around the time of the Hulme enquiry, and simply misplaced it under his blotter until now? Or does he maintain a reserve supply of offerings for those weeks when inspiration has run low? Whatever the reason, you have to admire the wily old pedant’s tactic of citing ancient and possibly self-published tomes that would have been seen by few other than himself.
ReplyDeleteAs for the Ughmann, it’s interesting that his CV also makes no mention of his time with the NineFax media outlets. Surely in the world of Murdoch Media that less horrific an offence than having worked for the dreaded ABC and the pinko “Canberra Times”?
While the Ughmann’s screed was the usual rubbish, its highlight was that magnificent graphic by Sean Callinan, who must surely be up there with Frank and Emilia in terms of equality. Nothing screams “Lizard Oz demographic!” louder than an image depicting Albo and Bowen as characters from a tv show of almost 50 years’ vintage that will be meaningless to pretty much everyone under the age of 65.
Hi Anony. Re Sean Callinan's gratuitous graphic, I am over 65 and had no idea what that illustration meant - apart from tasteless parody.
DeleteAnonymous - it seems to be of a piece with Rita, the fading ingénue, on Noise24, identifying one of her contacts across the waters as being an editor with the 'Washington Star'. The only such 'Star' I can identify was extinguished 45 years ago, but I guess the simple minds watching Ms Panahi are not troubled by minor details.
DeleteOh, and 'Speersy' on 'Insiders' for this day showing that you can take the lad out of Sky Noise, but you cannot inculcate smart interview style, even when he has 20 minutes or more to build up an effective interrogation.
Newscorpse Scribbler's are all wounded and out for revenge...
ReplyDeleteThe only difference is Scribbler's turn their violent rhetoric on others distant from themselves...
"Third, our interviews revealed that participants [Scribbler's] often read violent behaviour [behacior we don't like due to perceived slights] as proof of who someone was, rather than how that person had responded to a situation.
"Psychologists call this the fundamental attribution error, or our tendency to explain behaviour through features of a person’s character rather than circumstance. But the men turned this error most mercilessly on themselves.
"Accepting violence [rheroric] as part of who they were made their future involvement in violence more likely [and therefore useful idiots for Rupert]
...
https://aeon.co/essays/early-violence-is-a-bad-teacher-but-the-mind-can-learn-anew
A little thought on Trump's lunch with AI billionaires, on September 29, and whatever their 'agreement' means. Jensen Huang, of Nvidia, sat to the Dictator's immediate right at table. This was very soon after Nvidia's media arm was required to publish 'NVIDIA Announces a $150 Billion Share Repurchase Authorization Increase', which brings their total reserve for buy back to something like $260 Billion.
ReplyDeleteSo just what is actually happening behind all the publicity about taking civilisation into an amazing new era, of, well - 'Super intelligence'? Or should we focus on good ole stock jobbery, which has been celebrated since the time of Pierpoint Morgan? So many billions, so little time to scoop them into the allegedly blind Trump Trusts.