CoolHandLuke @chluke_me

Someone asked me to name a politician with a background relevant to their portfolio in response to my critique of Pauline HANSEN’s appalling performance in Parliament. Here’s just a few: Jim Chalmers — Treasurer. PhD in Political Science & International Relations (ANU). First class honours in public policy. Former Chief of Staff to the Federal Treasurer. The only minister with a PhD across two parliaments. Inherited a massive Liberal deficit — delivered the two biggest back-to-back budget surpluses in Australian history. First consecutive surpluses in nearly 20 years. Michelle Rowland — Attorney-General. Senior telecommunications lawyer at Gilbert + Tobin before parliament. Mark Butler — Health & NDIS. Arts/Law degree. Led health and aged care policy across multiple governments. Former union secretary representing healthcare workers. Dr Anne Aly — Small Business & International Development. PhD in counter-terrorism. Professor at two universities. 100+ published academic papers. Founded Australia’s first anti-extremism NGO. Advised the UN Security Council. Spoke at Obama’s White House counter-terrorism summit. Also ran her own policy consulting firm — actual small business experience. Daniel Mulino — Assistant Treasurer. PhD in Economics from Yale. Larissa Waters — Greens leader, Environment. Bachelor of Science + Law. Environmental lawyer for a decade before parliament. Dr Mehreen Faruqi — Greens. Civil engineer with a PhD. Practising environmental engineer before politics. David Shoebridge — Greens, Justice. Honours Law degree, Sydney University. Former barrister and solicitor. Family Court associate. Directly relevant to his justice portfolio — and one of the few senators actually holding the government to account on arms exports to Israel. David Pocock — Independent ACT Senator. Masters in Sustainable Agriculture. Former Wallabies captain. Conservationist. Co-founded multiple not-for-profits. Involved in small businesses. One of the most effective crossbenchers in the Senate. Pauline Hanson — self-appointed expert on immigration, Islam, Indigenous affairs, and everything else. Ran a fish and chip shop. Found guilty by the Federal Court in 2024 of racially vilifying Dr Mehreen Faruqi — a PhD engineer — by telling her to ‘piss off back to Pakistan.’ Currently appealing the decision. I’ll take the qualifications thanks

DEAR MR. TRUMP, THANK YOU FOR SUBMITTING YOUR APPLICATION TO THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE COMMITTEE. WHILE WE REVIEW YOUR "LIVING IN HELL" STATEMENT OF LOVE AND PEACE, WE SUGGEST YOU APPLY TO THE INTERNATIONAL COURT AT THE HAGUE. YOU ARE EXACTLY WHO THEY'RE LOOKING FOR.

Context you will never hear in media coverage is that the Strait of Hormuz IS NOT international waters.

Hey @RichardMarlesMP, @SenatorWong, @AlboMP how are those shared values going?

EDITORS: If the full “Fuckin’” quote is not in the lede of your story today, you’re not doing it right. Stop editing for this guy.

@aaronsmith @Richard_D_Boyle Then Tuesday is US War Crimes Day.

Australia’s insistence on treating this as the behaviour of a responsible ally is untenable.

@shanaka86 How did both aircraft become “stuck”?

He climbed a ridge. That is where the story turns. When the F-15E was hit on Friday morning, both crew members ejected over the mountains of Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad Province in southwestern Iran. The pilot was located first and extracted by HH-60 rescue helicopters within hours, under small arms fire that wounded crew aboard the recovery aircraft. The weapons systems officer landed deeper in hostile terrain. He was alone on the ground in a country where state television was broadcasting a bounty for his capture and Basij militia were flooding the mountain roads below. According to reports now confirmed by Fox News citing two senior US officials, the WSO used his SERE training, the survival, evasion, resistance, and escape doctrine drilled into every American combat aircrew. He moved on foot through rugged terrain. He climbed to an elevated ridge near the city of Dehdasht. He activated his encrypted emergency beacon. And he waited. The beacon was the thread. Everything that followed pulled on it. US Joint Special Operations Command launched a night extraction package. Reports indicate Delta Force operators and Pararescuemen from the 24th Special Tactics Squadron inserted via helicopters from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, the Night Stalkers, the unit that flew the Bin Laden raid. A-10 Warthogs from the 355th Wing provided close air support, running gun passes on IRGC and Basij convoys advancing toward the WSO’s position. HC-130J tankers kept the package airborne. Multiple aircraft were dispatched to establish a temporary fire zone around Dehdasht, a no-entry perimeter enforced with precision strikes on a telecommunications tower and approaching vehicles. Iranian local officials reported at least four killed and several wounded from the strikes. Then the operation went sideways. According to reports corroborated by Fox News’s confirmation that US forces destroyed “aircraft which have sensitive equipment,” two C-130 transports landed at a remote forward arming and refuelling point inside Iran to support the extraction. Both became stuck. Rather than allow the aircraft and their classified systems to fall into IRGC hands, American forces destroyed both planes on the ground. The deliberate destruction of two US military aircraft inside Iran to deny equipment to the enemy is the detail that separates a clean extraction from an operation that nearly failed before it succeeded. Additional transports arrived under A-10 cover. The Delta operators and Pararescuemen who were now themselves stranded at the destroyed landing zone loaded the WSO and extracted under ongoing fire. Fox News reported that the WSO “and the members of the rescue team are all safely out of Iran.” Zero American casualties. Desert One in 1980 ended when a helicopter collided with a C-130 on a remote Iranian airstrip, killing eight Americans before the mission reached Tehran. Forty-six years later, C-130s were destroyed on Iranian soil again. This time the destruction was deliberate. This time the team got out. This time the man they came for came with them. The operation confirms two truths that cannot be separated. American special operations forces can penetrate, fight inside, and extract from Iran. And the war that was supposed to be over required the most elite soldiers in the US military to fight a ground battle in Iranian mountains to recover one man from a country with no air defences. Both statements are true. The rescue proves American capability. The need for the rescue proves Iranian capability. And the 48-hour countdown is still running. open.substack.com/pub/shanakaans…

They might find something new on the moon now they’ve sent a woman up to look.

Un programador egipcio ha creado una página dedicada a cada víctima del genocidio palestino. Hasta ahora ha registrado 72 000 nombres. Cada punto de luz representa una víctima y, al pulsarlo, verás su nombre y fecha de nacimiento. Puedes filtrar por edad. bkhmsi.github.io/i-am-not-a-num…

Behind the curtain.

@AnitaMontanaro @FurkanGozukara indeed. He actually says "reports of clashes, not confirmed". Misleading intro to this post; disappointing

@FurkanGozukara It's not chaos then.

Absolute chaos on the ground in Iran. A prominent journalist reports intense clashes between US and Iranian forces desperately racing to find the downed American pilot. Iran has completely sealed off the area, leaving Washington totally blind and scrambling.

Nearly 200 slaughtered schoolgirls didn't bring "a human dimension to the war" for this despicable creature 🤯

Let's frame it another way. People have become so poor they need to steal food.

This thought just hit me hard… Left photo, my father is somewhere there and I’m not. Right photo - I’m there but he isn’t. Time moves forward slowly and quietly replacing us - temporary passengers on this beautiful spaceship

As usual, the brilliant Peter Brookes hits the darkly bleak comedic target.

The US priority has gone from preventing weapons that were not being made, to opening a strait that wasn't closed, to rescuing pilots who weren't missing.

@LlJuju2022 Also the food ingredients, electricity, council rates etc do not cost 15% extra on a PH. Only the staff costs do, and then only IF they are paying adequate PH rates.

The only half decent food for my son when we are in a hurry is GYG. Adding a 15% public hol surcharge by a $4.5bn petrol company (bought OTR in 2024 for $1.5bn) is fucked. They pay next to no tax. But my hard earned money from getting up at 5am subsidises them Pass the pitchfork