From whinging, whining and blowing snot bubbles to playing to the Klueless Klutz Klan

From objet d’ridicule to vile scrubber

“The real competition now is to see who is a bigger drag on the Liberal vote, Dutton or Ley. Either way it’s a race to the bottom.” (Dee Madigan).

The Tory capacity for feculence knows no boundaries. There are no dogs unwhistleable, no sewers untrawlable, there are no hypocrisies too breathtaking nor any lie too blatant in their campaign to re-establish their ‘rightful’ access to the national treasure to then divert to their mates – as is their entire raison d’etre.

There is no outrage that they won’t countenance. Do not doubt, say, that they carefully watch Benedict Orange and wonder admiringly how much of his behaviour they could get away with here.

“Drugs, criminals, gang members and terrorists are pouring into our country at record levels. We’ve never seen anything like it. They’re taking over our cities.” (Tangerine man and career criminal Rapey McScumbag).

Time to up the ante on John Howard’s Tampa and children overboard subterfuges. Step forward Sussan Lley:

“If you live in Frankston and you’ve got a problem with Victorian women being assaulted by foreign criminals, vote against Labor.

“If you do not want to see Australian women being assaulted by foreign criminals, vote against Labor. Send Labor a message.” (Suss’s tweet on the Dunkley byelection).

But let’s start on a positive note. Suss has some worthwhile attributes. As a qualified accountant she can do sums – adding up and taking away; a skill set that could prove handy in any future party room test of fealty, eh Spud <cough>Scott Morrison</cough>? Some say she can also read joined-up running writing and that, as a pilot, she has the unique talent in the Tory sunshine bus of well-developed hand/eye coordination. That’s it, that’s all I’ve got on the + side.

Suss’s feigned outrage is one of the Tories’ go-to-market strategies. If only she was a better actor. Her aesthetic of prolapsed whoopee cushion with duck-lipped pout is a manifestation of the realisation of disappointed expectations that would otherwise be shown by someone who hands out the towels at a Fyshwick rub ‘n’ tug. Suss comes fully armed with a lengthy whine list that seeds a suspicion that she pickles her own vag, denying the reality of her active membership of the most delinquent, corrupt and incompetent government in our history.

The Tories obviously believe that their constant whining handfeeds the lazy and vacuous hordes of flacks who dominate our complicit media, the Lib’s humbug and hypocrisy usually going unremarked upon. “Flooding the zone with shit” as Steve Bannon, one of their admired models of democratic integrity, has championed.

This humbug and hypocrisy is an area where Suss has demonstrated some particular talent, joining the pile-on of Anthony Albanese for his (shock, horror) travel as Prime Minister of a whole, actual country when she has taken 27 flights in and out of the Gold Coast over recent years where her partner owned a bin-cleaning business (some sort of metaphysical connection surely). Two minor details – the Gold Cost is about 270° and 1,400 kms off course from the travel between her electorate and Canberra. All done within the rules of course.

Her boss’s view of folks who don’t match the colours on his chart of acceptable tinges is hardly hidden. The Thug walked out on the apology to the Stolen Generation, he orchestrated a duplicitous campaign against The Voice, he figuratively poked refugee kiddies with pointed sticks, warned of African gangs and deployed black-uniformed goons to patrol Melbourne streets to quiz the dusky-toned. And our consonant abuser Suss is a proven Spuddist – during the 2018 Liberal leadership spills she voted for Dutton against Trumble in the first vote and again voted for Herr Shickltuber against Diddley Scott in the second spill days later. Add ‘fascist adjacent race baiter’ to her CV.

In 2001 Suss lost Tory preselection for the Victorian seat of Indi to the truly horrendous Sophie Mirabella. On a scale from ‘mildly disgusting’ to Peter Dutton, Sussan Lley is now a Pauline Hanson; the Tories’ very own version of the red dipstick. Is that how she rose from Indi reject to her current status as number 2? Because she’s worse than Mirabella?

Spud and Suss. Bubba and Squeak. The crème de la crims of the Tory Party. FMD!

*****

A random sampling of Suss’s greatest hits

What have the koalas ever done for us?

Ley successfully appealed a Federal Court ruling that she had a “duty of care to children to consider climate change harm when approving coal mines”.

She approved a Coalition decision to scrap 176 out of 185 recovery plans designed to prevent the extinction of threatened species and habitats, including the Tasmanian devil.

With 1600 threatened species she claims… we will destroy their habitat for jobs so “we just have to pick winners”

Hiding a document that was handed to the coalition government in December 2021, ahead of the 2022 Australian federal election. The document outlined the poor and declining health of the Australian ecosystem.

She voted consistently against:

• Ending illegal logging,
• Federal government action on animal & plant extinctions,
• Increasing marine conservation,
• Increasing protection of Australia’s fresh water,
• The Paris Climate Agreement.

She approved the clearing of 52hectares of koala habitat for a quarry.

She identifies as a feminist

“While men speak on a variety of topics, they also speak for women so I’m very comfortable with the leadership of our party.”

She has also promised to travel widely throughout Australia to listen to women. Noting her pile-on of PM Albo’s travel.

Moron says what now?

“We know we’re not going to have electric vehicles tomorrow,” Ms Ley said. “And no one in the world is making an electric ute, by the way, and even if they were it would be unaffordable.”

Sussan Ley, Question Time 6 Feb 24

“Will the PM rule out any changes to the current tax treatment of neg gearing?”

Sussan Ley, Sky News 7 Feb 24

“I’m not going to play the yes, this is good, no this is bad, the rule in, rule out. I’m not going to do that.”

*****

‘A bit rich’: Laura Jayes questions Sussan Ley over Anthony Albanese travel criticism as Liberals head to conference. Sky News

Multimillionaire Sarina Russo hosted Sussan Ley at New Year’s Eve parties. The Guardian

Ley twice travelled at taxpayer expense to the Gold Coast to attend events with Sarina Russo, one of Australia’s richest women, whose companies won multimillion dollar contracts under the Abbott government.

The Lib’s number two

This article was originally published on Grumpy Geezer

Meme from The Shovel

There go my people. I must follow them, for I am their leader * (Image from mbbshrabdullah.medium.com)

This article was originally published on Grumpy Geezer.

The recrudescence of Donald J Trump

It was a perfect verdict, a beautiful verdict. Probably the most beautiful verdict the world has ever seen.

A jury has awarded Trump rape victim E. Jean Carroll $US83.3 million in damages all while Perp#1 sweats on the outcome of an in-progress New York civil fraud trial that is seeking the return of $US370 million from dodgy deals he made by cooking the books. The karma bus has big, orange bug spatter all over its windscreen; the eviscerated Gropenfuhrer adding a new word to his vocabulary – consequences.

He’s been rejected, reviled, lampooned, impeached, probed and indicted. He stole highly classified documents to trade for profit or leverage. He incited sedition. He exploited the office of POTUS to further enrich himself and his spawn. He faces 91 criminal indictments. Eleven of his associates have been charged with crimes. He endorsed cookers and election deniers as mid-term candidates, and he threatens and denigrates anyone who dares challenge him. Mafia Don is unconstrained by any notion of decency or compliance with civil norms.

There’s evil and there’s vile. Bleach Boy spans both, yet the MAGA cult remains impervious. The cos-play ammosexuals, the beer belly putsch of Gravy Seals, Green Buffets and other camoed, AR15ed people-of-girth, the douche coup seditionists and the IQ defaulting, credulous simpletons and the morally-agnostic detritus continue to genuflect in his general direction.

A proven sexual predator. (Trump once told a lawyer he didn’t find her attractive enough to sexually assault.)

“He’s our boy.”

Putin’s bitch.

“A true patriot.”

A demonstrably compulsive liar.

“Alternative facts.”

A grifter, serial bankrupt, fraudster and thief.

“Gonna send him my last $20.”

An overt racist.

“Now we’re talkin’.”

A covetous vulgarian.

“Classy guy.”

A petulant, whiney bitch and grievance-mongering, bloated, shit-fit throwing toddler.

“An American hero.”

A wanna-be despot, a bully and a bone-spurred coward.

“I like how he stands up for the little guy.”

Donald Trump has been arrested more times than he’s been elected. A malice-driven, junk food epicure. A fatuous, bloviating braggart. A daughter-fondling sleaze, a homicidal exhorter to violence. A pretender – an inheritance squandering, multiple bankrupts. A veteran-denigrating yellow, scabrous dog. A habitual loser with a mange-ravaged merkin glued atop an umber stuccoed pout that brings to mind a dog-groomer’s floor sweepings humping a jack-o’-lantern.

He is physically repugnant (some have put forward the proposition that he literally smells of loaded Depends), morally bankrupt, mentally damaged and cognitively challenged. An odious chum bucket of every human failing, bar, so far, the machine-gunning of orphans’ creches – but hey, if there’s a buck in it…

He’s a paean to smug ignorance and gracelessness.

Geographer. Specialising in SE Asia – “Thighland”, “Nipple”, “Button”.

The Balkans and the Baltic are the same to Donny Dorito. (Author’s note: his latest wife is Slovenian.)

Historian. Revolutionary War airstrips, WWII ending in 1917.

Physicist. “All I know about magnets is this, give me a glass of water, let me drop it on the magnets, that’s the end of the magnets.”

Meteorologist. “Nuke the hurricanes.”

Epidemiologist. Drink that bleach, stick that lava lamp up your ass.

Diplomat. Publicly fellating Putin, Kim Jong Un, MBS, Xi – actual murderous despots.

And so on. And on. Ad nauseam.

A self-proclaimed billionaire bilking donations from hardscrabble rubes and swampies.

Trump provokes their grievances, victimhood and anger as his business model. John Steinbeck once said that socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires. Trump cultivates that notion, blaming “radical leftists”, Democrats, the woke, antifa, BLM and immigrants as the cause of the MAGA’s disaffection from the American Dream© that should be their due.

Monetising a white, American Jesus is a doddle for a crude, faithless phony who could not believe his luck when credulous hordes of evangelising creationists jumped into his canoe. He didn’t even need to bait his hook. Low-information chuckle-fuck MAGAs with attention spans that would embarrass a goldfish cheer an angry old man’s vindictiveness, they revel in his outrages and his fuck you politics all while voting against their own best interests in favour of a man who would steal their last dime without a second thought.

Trump may be the GOP’s nominated presidential candidate for 2024 yet despite the angst of the psephologists and opinionista, the cheerleading of the Fox sewage farm and Putin’s inevitable interference the tangerine tyrantosaurus will never again inhabit the White House. Either he will go to jail, the hamburger grease that functions as plasma in his veins will kill him or the meth party being held by the family of raccoons that live in his head will assume full control.

Trump thinks a second term will save him, a prophylactic against pending criminal charges, but sadly for him he’s a serial loser:

“In 2018, Republicans lost the House. In 2020, they lost the Senate and the White House too. And last week, many of Trump’s handpicked candidates lost the midterm elections and delivered a great deal of humiliation to their party, which, instead of a predicted “red wave”, had to settle for a ripple. The party failed to retake the Senate, and might even end up with fewer numbers than in the outgoing chamber…”

House arrest with an ankle-bracelet, a Norma Desmond-like existence at his tacky Palm Beach motel, Tawdry-Sur-La-Mer, is perhaps the best he can hope for provided it’s not sold off to recover some of his defamation and fraud outstandings and to pay his discount shopping mall lawyers.

Maybe his future is to gibber incoherently to guests as he shuffles between tables or to whine self-pityingly about how unfair it all is, shadowed by his security goons with defibrillator and poop bags at the ready. The botoxed patsies and shit-grinning marks with their MAGA tat will pose for Instagram selfies so that their future progeny may wonder at what gormless morons their forebears were to be suckered by a sleazy, criminal dirtbag with creeping dementia.

As the walls close in he will get increasingly desperate, calls for violence and retribution will be more open, and he will frame the inevitable election result as stolen. He’ a loser – a loser’s loser. The question remains – will a palatable, mutant strain of Trumpist authoritarianism rise to take his place?

* * * * *

*Junk food epicure. The family of raccoons that live inside his head: Hat tip to @itsJeffTiedrich.

11 Trump associates have now been charged with crimes. CNN.

The long list of legal cases against Donald Trump. The Guardian

What Ads Work With MAGA Voters. Rick Wilson

“The now-unsealed indictment in the case of United States of America v. Donald J. Trump and Waltine Nauta has it all, seemingly every Trump flaw condensed into 49 pages and 38 counts of squalid detail. It is a devastating legal document, but it is also a damning character study of a man whose faults are all too familiar yet retain the power to shock and appall.” The WashingtonPost.

“Donald Trump is facing five years in prison and a felony because of a law HE SIGNED in attempt to punish Hillary Clinton in 2018. The law HE SIGNED upgrades the crime of wrongly moving classified material from a misdemeanor to a felony. Trump signed the bill after spending the 2016 presidential campaign accusing Hillary Clinton of improperly handling classified information.” Salon.com

 

 

“He is under a dozen investigations for crimes ranging from espionage to seditious conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and is going to prison.

He committed treason, sedition, and incited a deadly insurrection.

He lost in 2016 by 3 million votes. Lost the GOP the House in 2018, lost them the Presidency (by 9 million votes) and the senate in 2020 and lost them the senate (again) and prevented their red wave in 2022.

He’s a 76 year old malignantly narcissistic morbidly obese drug addicted dementia-ridden abomination who doesn’t believe in exercise.

Accomplishments of his administration, nepotism Barbie. Just crimes, disgraces, embarrassments, impeachable offenses, abuses of power, abrogations of oath, and violations of the U.S. constitution.” Andrew Wortman

 

 

This article was originally published on Grumpy Geezer.

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An arsehole is in plain view

Just over half a term ago the prune juice kicked in and Australia had one of its more satisfying movements – the Great Schmo was number two-ed by the voters.

Now, after a fruitless 18 months of unreturned phone calls Schmo (“If you’re good at your job, you’ll get a job”) has finally announced his pending resignation from politics to almost universal relief, not least from the Liberals. With some clear air replacing the stale waft of curry a certain truncheon-headed autocrat thinks the planets are aligning in his favour.

It’s not easy to imagine a slight upward tic at the corner of Peter Dutton’s mouth – an animation not often manifest given Herr Shickltuber’s narcoleptic personality. Watching flies crawl across his eyeballs is usually the most captivating aspect of his lugubrious presence. Yet with Albo’s and Big Jim Chalmer’s fixes to Schmo’s stage 3 tax wedge an aroused gruppenfritter senses another opportunity to indulge the Tories’ favoured practices of fear and division – the emboldened Dutton no doubt thinks this “broken promise” will seal the deal of his ascension to the big, green swivel chair despite his appeal being lower than that of tertiary syphilis.

Dud & Suss’s bedpan rodeo has hitched up to the Murdochrities’ RWFW hypocrisy bandwagon, loaded their confected outrage, mounted their high horse and taken to the airwaves for a wall-to-wall tantrum & humbug expo.

No-one does tits-caught-in-a-mangle, faux indignation as does the gaffe incontinent Suss Ley. Desperately shrieking Sussan, with the face of a half-deflated hemorrhoid cushion underlining the quality of her discourse, announced that the Libs when again in power would reverse the Labor tax initiatives thereby denying 92% of voters (and about 98% of her own constituents) an increased tax cut. Thinking is hard hence Suss’s outbursts, guided by a numerologist, are usually subject to blow-back. A no doubt blistering phone call from Lib H.O. had Suss in Trumpian denial that she’d ever said what she’d plainly said.

“…deputy leader Sussan Ley told Sky News when asked if the Coalition would roll back the changes “this is our position. This is absolutely our position”. For good measure, when asked again if the Coalition would restore the original package, Ley replied “we’ve made it very clear that this is our policy. The policy is the legislated position that stands today.”

Cuddly Pete, self-declared convert to working class hero, copped some derision of his own making for his latest foray in the interminable Tory culture wars by attacking Woolworths as being woke for not stocking Australia Day made-in-China tat – oi oi oi themed bucket hats and double pluggers. The icing on the you-fucked-that-up cake was Cuddly-Spuddly’s notion that Australians should boycott Woolies – the employer of some 200,000 of his new BFF cohort – the working folk. When made aware through the hoots and guffaws of the idiocy of such a call and the consequent vandalising of Woolies stores by his real constituency (i.e. fuckwits) Pete pulled a Schmo and went into hiding. What a guy.

Dutton on same sex marriage: “unconscionable that companies are morally coerced by campaigns to boycott their products.”

Dutton on Woolies: boycott them over Australia Day merch.

Spud is not a deep thinker. Look at how easily his amateurish coup to unseat Turnbull was out-manouvered by an unholy trinity of pentacostalist Mammonites – Schmo, Brother Stuie and Alex Hawke. “We prayed that righteousness would exalt the nation.” The upgraded tax changes require legislation to be voted on in Parliament. It will be hugely amusing watching Spud squirm as the Tories either vote against bigger tax breaks for the majority or they go along with Labor’s changes. Would you like butter on that popcorn? The massive Chalmers wedgie he’s going to cop would bring a tear to a fish’s eye.

By being as thick as a QC’s carpet Spud is also predictable. Spurred by the success of his cynical sabotage of The Voice, Spud will be amping up the negativity, and the conflict and division to indulge his natural instincts for cultivating the culture wars, to invent or provoke outrage, to victimise and to bully.

He re-purposed Australia Day; let’s see what he has in store for Anzac Day.

This article was originally published on Grumpy Geezer.

One man’s journey

It is self-evident that anyone aspiring to be PM has a robust self-regard. Even the wiser ones harbour some illusions about their indispensability, but it is the bovine dullards and the zealots who despite all evidence to the contrary are the most convinced of their own exceptionalism. Overlay that conceit with an intransigent religious literalism and we have Tomás de Torquemada redux (sans the austere lifestyle but with the familiar sparse coif and man boobs) – a happy-clapping, prosperity gospelling mutation of that Old Testament fantasist Mad Abbott where their shared dogma is righteousness (theirs) vs the unworthy (check for daily specials). Government to them was a comforting, authoritarian patriarchy where the womens do the ironing, grateful they’re not shot when they get a bit toey (but they are useful for explaining the nuances of rape. Not good according to Jen). And it’s where the flock need not trouble themselves with the Godly mission of the annointed one.

He was a smug windbag, a smirking oaf who lost a staring competition with an electric arc welder and who thought it a good idea to publicly wash the hair of a stranger – a laying on of hands for a retinue of obsequious press flacks to help cultivate an image of not-a-weirdo.

He believed his guile had his deity’s imprimatur – further evidence that the worst people are commonly those affectedly professing their godliness. Having a God whose interests always align with your own is a self-sustaining contrivance – ‘because I have God’s favour everything I do is God’s will’. Quite useful whether you’re burning heretics, brutalising toddler asylum seekers or steering Covid vaccines away from a Labor-oriented state.

He thought of himself as special. Not just the smartest guy in the room but on a mission from his God who showers the pious with earthly wealth but has little sympathy for the poors or the non-believers – a convenient celestial licence to intimidate, silence and persecute.

Bad things only happen to bad people according to the handbook for Jesusing neoliberals:

“There shall no evil happen to the just: but the wicked shall be filled with mischief” Proverbs 12:21.

The Public Service was told to unquestioningly toe the line, the AFP raided the ABC, universities were nobbled, whistleblowers were prosecuted, welfare recipients were demonised and harassed while wealthy fridge magnates, party mates and the temples of Yahweh wallowed in buckets of public largesse – no strings attached.

Endorsement from the ethereal realm also over-rides the scientific method. Voices from burning bushes prevail over the observable phenomena of quantum mechanics, expert concensus of pending ecological collapse are ignored because, ya know, the Rapture. Selective, credulous acceptance of biblical contradictions facilitates literal beliefs in comical superstitions that excuse all sorts of bad behaviour – persecution of non-conformers being an historical favourite. It also dispenses with any need for accountability to anyone other than a omniscient, omnipotent yet paranoid phantasm whose tantrums kill millions. The Oaf’s whole Jesusing routine was more than just a PR ruse; he truly believes that secularists are ungodly heretics to be re-educated or reviled.

“Australia is not a secular country… As US Senator Joe Lieberman said, the Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, not freedom from religion. I believe the same is true in this country.” (From his maiden speech to Parliament).

He was fully onboard the 7 Mountains Mandate looney train, at least in spirit (no pun intended).

He facilitated the infiltration of fellow pulpit pushers and the punishers and straighteners of the anti-gay/anti-trans bigots and he sought succour through fellow fabulists – flight risk Brother Stuie and personal bag carrier and co-conspirator Alex Hawke.

He has not introduced one single policy of benefit to this nation – indeed he has failed to even articulate any vision or forethought beyond politicking. During his tenure the country has not progressed in any way – going backwards in most international rankings.

His incompetence, the vindictive nastiness, government as a manelovent force, the hypocritical piety, the cultivation of division, the rampant cronyism and graft, the secretiveness and intolerance of dissent, the five ministries megalomania, the incoherent gibberings designed to frustrate enquiry, the bullying, the tearing down of conventions and standards, the denigration of expertise – the whole horrendous revivalist circus of the worst PM in our history; a national embarrassment who is deserving of the most humiliating removal from our consciousness.

Serial fuck-ups and the application of the smirk removal cream of public approbrium for his failures and his facile, dress-up brand management failed to dent the impervious narcissism of belief in his own ‘genius’ and self-image as a ‘master strategist’. His shamelessness has survived his ostracism to the opposition backbenches where his unemployability stands out like a hi-vizzed walrus at a choir practice – the guy whose smarm included “if you’re good at a job you’ll get a job“, the guy who initiated the dob-in-a-bludger hotline. This is schadenfreude tied in a big, pink bow.

The denigration from his Tory cohort was shrugged off:

“He fucked us and his fingerprints are absolutely fuckin’ everywhere on that. The bloke thinks he is a master strategist. He is a fuckwit.” (Anonymous federal Lib MP).

“Everyone wants him to piss off. But people don’t want a by-election,’’ a senior Liberal source told news.com.au. (Julia Banks, ex Lib MP – “menacing controlling wallpaper”).

Catherine Cusack ex Lib MP – “… it’s just all come a bit late for the Liberal party. The party I joined 40 years ago and loved. The party he has ruined.“

Concetta Fierravanti-Wells – an “autocrat [and] a bully who has no moral compass”, “He has used his so-called faith as a marketing advantage.”

Gladys Berejiklian – “a complete psycho”.

His appearance before the Robodebt Royal Commission elicited humbug not humility.

It took 330 years before Torquemada’s remains were dug up and belatedly burned auto-da-fé. The NACC may be a more timely seal on The Oaf’s deserved humiliation but I doubt we’ll see any genuine contrition.

In 2007, Howard repealed the Parliamentary Pension scheme. This means that he is not entitled to any pension besides his 15.4% Public Service super than cannot be accessed before he turns 65 . Bwahahahahaha!

When the Liberals run out of money they come after the poor

 

“Calculated assaults on the most vulnerable and marginalised are reduced to the natural order of things.” Maeve McGregor, Crikey

The Robodebt royal commission’s findings clearly demonstrate why the Tories fear scrutiny and accountability. They have long abandoned any pretence of principled governance, relying instead on the complicity of the Murdoch spitoons’ fabrications and the fever swamp of RWNJ radio to provide cover for their mendacity. Their behaviour was always there to see for those who could be bothered to look beyond the propaganda but now their ugliness has been paraded down the main street like a turd on a flat-bed truck accompanied by brass band and marching girls.

The ‘guilty til proven innocent’ atrocity that was Robodebt is only now the cause of some red-faced shoe inspections by those who would rule over us, and while they may modify their artiface it won’t change their innate bastardry. They’ll amp up the dissembling, projection and obfuscation; dead cats will be thrown onto tables, dogs will be whistled but they will never demonstrate any humility or genuine contrition and will be only briefly distracted from opportunities to practice their nasty craft.

Aware of the pending exposure Brother Stuie Robert legged it for the exit, following the onomatapaeic Alan Tudge into the perdition of historic damnation for “venality, incompetence and cowardice”. The hubris of Christian Porter, of the born-to-rulers’ catalogue of big swinging dicks, has seen this once PM-in-waiting reduced to Lionel Hutz status, touting his wares on sandwichboards on servo station forecourts.

Brother Scotty still haunts the periphery, trousering the public coin as corporate Australia, conscious of reputational damage, lets his calls go through to voicemail. Never before has the country been led by such a repugnant, bullying blowhard who, convinced of endorsement from his eagle-staffed deity, saw a licence to ignore propriety and undermine anyone who stood in the way of the acclaim he thought was his God-given due. A feckless drudge who’d struggle to meet the KPIs of school hall monitor, a shonk who “disappeared” billions in rorts, a spiv who’d eBay his crusty undies as the shroud of Turin and a serial sackee who through guile and happenstance failed upwards into his risible, karaoke performance of PM – the role he debased with a “sly contempt for political norms” as Maeve McGregor of Crikey puts it.

Spud Dutton has walked into the cubicle after Morrison. A year after the Tories were thoroughly rinsed across the country it would be reasonable to expect he’d take the opportunity to air the place out. Spud’s Cuddly Pete re-imaging is a work-in-progress – stitching together a human skin suit as cover for his mix of Myra Hindley warmth and Norman Bates bonhomie – a teddy bear tied to a bin lorry, a ruse that won’t cover the smell. (Surely though it’s apocryphal that visitors to the Chez Spud basement find themselves coughing up moth pupae.) This Silence of the Lambs metaphor should be qualified with the observation that Buffalo Bill at least showed an artistic bent that entirely escapes the beige that is our real-life lockless monster.

Spud’s newly deployed Clark Kent specs don’t disguise his inner Tubermensch – a truncheon-headed autocrat we’ve grown to loathe and despise since he came to notice with a range of outputs from his racist oeuvre. Untroubled by the burdens of either wit or intelligence he has ridiculed drowning Pacific Island nations, tormented toddler asylum seekers, denigrated Melbourne’s Sudanese communities and exploited division and rancour in the Voice debate, all as supplements to his hobbies of drowning puppies and putting nails in the hoola-hoops at daycare centres.

Spud’s predictable duplicity with his response to the Indigenous voice to Parliament shows a change-over of personel has not improved the Tories’ amorality. His framing of the Libs as victims of Labor’s scheming in the Robodebt saga is Trumpian in its up-is-down audacity.

Not to be outdone in the scorched earth approach to acceptable standards the Lib’s partners in crime, the Nationals, are reportedly again considering a return of pink pachyderm spotter Barking Barmy Joyce. When Barmy remains a viable option it says so much about the lack of talent pool that is the ignorant oik’s party of choice. Temporary leader, the nominative-deterministic David Littleproud projects an image of himself looking for his own brain, but aesthetics aside he’s yet another National committed to their cause of steering pork and the white elephants to regions in need instead of some fundamentals such as health and education that could be serviced by, and hear me out, a fully functional NBN.

Barmy’s mouth is the source of fevered allusions to a woke, left-wing dystopia and home to a random placement of teeth like long-forgotten headstones in an abandoned graveyard. His lack of credibility is not matched by the certainty that his name is amongst the wideboys, spivs and persons of interest who have been referred to the newly opened National Anti-Corruption Commission.

The outcome of the royal commission provides some succour to those citizens demonised and persecuted by their own government. The NACC will provide huge amusement for those of us who can’t wait to see these toads cop some real consequences for their bastardry.

“Given the opposition is clearly in a state of denial over the report of the robodebt royal commission, it has obviously learnt nothing from past mistakes and would, if re-elected, presumably not hesitate to repeat them.” (Editorial in The Canberra Times).

* * * * *

Refrences

Is Barnaby Joyce after the leadership again? – The Saturday Paper

Taxpayers forked out $2.5m in legal expenses for eight former Coalition ministers, including two prime ministers, to be represented in the robodebt royal commission, with almost half a million for Scott Morrison. – The Guardian.

When too much RWFWittery is not enough

How to succinctly describe Australia’s worst ever Prime Minister? A miasma, an effluvium, a whiff of eau de low tide… a funk that clings to clothes and hair long after his departure? The unlamented ScoMo’s™ awfulness was so all-encompassing that no one pejorative was sufficient to capture the spectrum of his deficiencies. Scotty From Marketing, Scummo, Smirk & Mirrors, Scooter, Sooty, Skiddy, Liar from the Shire, Diddley Scott, the Great Schmo, Scurry, Shirko and more were all wryly derived from his own facile marketing contrivance and thrown back in his face as a “no way, get fucked, fuck off” chorus from the sentients in the crowd.

Phone in hand as he scrolls through Seek while languishing on a nose-bleed seat on the backbenches, his calls going unreturned, he’ll be struggling to reconcile his current status as unburied landfill with his self-image as God’s emissary. But really, who gives a fuck? Now he’s nothing more than a phantasm representing Tory decline into neo-fascist bigotry and wretchedness; a benchmark for whether they can go subterranean in their search for the ultimate in nasty. Turns out Scooter was no outlier; he was a symptom. Enter Bubba and Squeak – a lumpen tuber with the head and attitude of a copper’s truncheon with the befuddled Suss as the Lib’s no.2 slot showcasing her sad loser pique, her misplaced ambition and a lack of self-awareness that, in comparison, promotes Liz Truss to icon of perspicacity.

“Conservative, Dutton-supporting MPs said that Ley had been taking soundings from the backbench for weeks, but they rubbished the prospect of the Liberal moderate becoming the party’s leader.” (James Massola, SMH, 31/3/23).

If you’re the Tories’ Leader Of The Opposition yet also Labor’s best weapon, when your own party hides you away from electors in favour of defrosting the cadaverous John Winston Howard to waddle the streets quacking at startled passers-by, when you’re a hard-right head-kicker in a party abandoned by once conservative, heirloom electorates as the entire country rejects your antediluvian, divisive manifesto then a prudent politician would indulge in some considered introspection. Such sissy reflections are not for our potato-headed hard man Herr Shickltuber – he’s doubling down on the nasty (“I yam what I yam”).

Spud has marked his territory – Abbottesque blanket negativity, culture wars, fear and division, accusing opponents of that for which they themselves are guilty and that old Tory favourite of nurturing resentment by demonising those least able to fight back – cultivating suspicion of the gay folks, blatant transphobia and not so much dog-whistling their racism as broadcasting it by loudspeaker from the back of a truck.

People in outer suburban areas were “very worked up” about trans rights claims Spud, the Libs lost Aston because Labor was mean to them, there’s no need for him or the Coalition to change their brand, they just have to wait for electors to come to their senses. All very amusing given that in a party of roadside dumpers, shrunken intellects, onanists, P76ers, pelvic thrusters, doggers, Trumpers, pimps, Nut Bush lip synchers and shout absconders he’s the best the unelectable Tories have to offer.

What is not amusing is Spud’s response to the proposed referendum for an Indigenous Voice To Parliament. Just as Donald Trump gave permission for the worst of American society to be open and proud about how stupid and ugly, they really were Spud’s “No” campaign has given permission for the racists to be openly racist – albeit clothed in the pretense that they actually give a fuck about the welfare of our Indigenous fellow citizens.

The referendum will be a pivotal moment in our history – an opportunity to capture a mutual generosity of spirit, to give a voice to the longest surviving culture on the planet, for Aboriginal Australians to no longer be marginalised in their own unceded land. It’s a time for empathy and good will, for inclusiveness, and for leaders to show themselves. And it’s only that very last bit that applies to the loathsome Dutton.

His dishonest framing of “the Canberra Voice” or “Albanese’s Voice”, the dishonesty of claimed Voice interference in everything from the Reserve Bank to tying up the High Court in endless litigation, never ending calls for “more details”, a fantastical Aboriginal veto on ANZAC day. The whole No case rests on misinformation, deceit and lies.

Alice Springs revealed Dutton’s true, vile character. Recent images of street crime has been represented as a new phenomenon, except it is evidence of institutionalised, generational failure – failure that Spud cared not one whit for when he was in power. However, exploiting child sexual abuse to paint a picture of undeserving Blacks to score opportunistic political points for his “No” campaign is a new low for a bloke who has form when it comes to demonising those of a darkish hue.

Dutton is as stupid as he is odious. If the “Yes” vote succeeds in the referendum he’s toast – a minor footnote in political history. If “No” prevails his reputation as a naysayer and wrecker will challenge that of Tony Sluggos Abbott but with racist overtones.

But he will never take Scooter’s crown as our worst ever only because he will never be PM.

References

The gravedigger. Rachel Withers, The Monthly.

‘Dog act’: NT police minister reacts angrily to Peter Dutton’s claims of Alice Springs child sexual abuse. Peter Dutton’s claims that “young Indigenous kids are being sexually assaulted on a regular basis” in Alice Springs. Lorena Allam Indigenous affairs editor, The Guardian.

This article was originally published on Grumpy Geezer.

Australians all lettuce rejoice

They may have dropped the constant, asinine, look-at-moi dress-ups of the moronic galoot but they’ve not abandoned the concept entirely. It’s now band camp for the miffed – the smirking, one man band in hi-viz has morphed into collective, performative outrage to feed to a conflict-hungry media pack.

Their chutzpah is admirable – their acting skills not so much.

High dudgeon from the scolds seems to be the key theme for the Tories right now, filling the void of their miserable, ideas-free existence. The entitled, senior girls’ hockey team from St Salubrious School for Pretentious Mingers’ rampage through the lolly shop ended at the check-out when the electorate, insufficiently whelmed, refused their credit cards. And they’re not happy.

Proving that awfulness is no longer gendered in the “natural party of government” the ladies ga-ga is a rich pallette of Prus and Trudes, trolley ragers, flabbagers and dimwits.

Whine sommelier Sussan Ley, taking advantage of her natural expression of perpetual bewilderment is the ladies’ team captain – sooking and sulking and blowing snot bubbles at her media displays of disaffection. Rather than gravitas her performances convey a tone of ‘a few too many slides down the banisters’. LeyZ has assumed the mantle of national whinger from the bright red dipstick from Queensland, deciding that constant complaint is an easier gig than regaining credibility through, here’s an idea, actual thought and effort.

 

I see dud people (Haley Joel Osment from The Sixth Sense)

 

The Tories have two major problems (well, that is apart from their record of corruption, incompetence and depravity). Bullying and misogyny is their brand. Their game plan so far is to accuse the dog of farting – pointing the finger at Labor for their own failings, where their every accusation is a confession. Their latest, rather too obvious ploy was to accuse Albo of shouting at one of their own. These are the crumb maidens from the Ditch The Witchers, the party that believes it is owed some gratitude for not shooting women protesters, the party of accused rapists, up-skirters, sexual harrassers and desk-jizzers. Their <eye roll> faux indignation </eye roll> is at a pantomime level of authenticity.

The Team Karen line up is a dial-up modem in a broadband world – squawky, slow, unreliable and not fit for purpose:

While not present at Operation Finger Albo it was good to see a return to form of Michaelia Blah Stupenda Cash who’s fully invested in her own well-paid ‘kick-the-workers-in-the-nuts’ persona, complaining loudly (obv.) that any concession to those worst off would “broing Astroiya to its knoise“.

Bam Bam McKenzie always looks as if she’s been dragged from storage in a cardboard box under George Christensen’s bed. Changing gears without using the clutch has loosened Bam Bam’s grasp on reality, or perhaps it’s her Trumpian version of alternative facts when complaining of the kyboshing of her sport rorts (i.e. theft of public money) followed her declaration that “Australians have no tolerance for corruption in sport”.

Holly Hughes – a Joan of snark and what a UTI would look like if a bag of flour blew up in its face, is a self-righteous windbag of no identifiable achievements beyond complaints that Labor has not yet fixed nine years of Tory theft and incompetence.

Jane Hume, with the obsequious eagerness of a head prefect, would happily serve the canapés at a puppy drowning if directed to do so by the Big Swinging Dicks club. Linda Reynolds of “lying cow” infamy is as suspect as a scoutmaster’s lolly bag when it comes to credibility on bullying. Sarah Henderson, Anne Ruston, Melissa Price, Nola Marino and the anonymous et als of the backbench were all complicit in the illegal hounding of Centrelink recipients that went far beyond bullying. None has any credibility nor a sense of shame.

Meanwhile in the UK, thick Lizzie’s 4.1 Scaramuccis as PM, outlasted by a leafy vegetable, you’d think would have set a low water mark for Tories. A neoliberal dogmatist crashing the world’s 6th largest economy in just one day with her Hayekian brain farts had the Tory press rapidly dropping Truss from their Christmas card list.

Here in Oz within a global conservative shift to crazy we can be grateful our RWFW vegie patch is now no more than bubble and squeak; left-overs pushed to the side and largely ignored. Our version of Liz Truss is reduced to bleating her whinges to an audience that has lost interest <cue sad trombone>.

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Good read: UK’s Tory papers call it: it’s Boris! No, wait… Crikey

This article was originally published on Grumpy Geezer.