Cat Vandermark

I read, I write, I tweet and retweet

[Hanan Ashrawi @DrHananAshrawi]

Thank you William Dalrymple for persistently debunking myths of erasure & revealing the truth about Palestine, its history, culture,& people.

[Assal Rad @AssalRad]

I just saw a little girl in Gaza, barely more than a baby, in a blood-soaked shirt and the back of her head split open. She was killed, along with her mother, because Israel is killing Palestinians every day.

The decline in reporting isn’t because the genocide ever stopped. It’s because Israel killed the journalists and their Western colleagues want you to believe there’s a “ceasefire.”

[mass ave curmudgeon @mass_ave]

If this ain’t it in a nutshell

[Ed Krassenstein @EdKrassen]

Joe Biden completely demolished Trump yesterday.

"It's not just his vanity projects: Tearing down the East Wing of the White House, making room for his ballroom, putting his name on a Kennedy Center, building an arch in his own honor, even hiring his own pool guy to fix the reflecting pool. Whoa, what a loser."

[MFWitches @MFWitches]

There’s nothing the mainstream media won’t make the fault of women, even the murders of other women.

Here, @DailyMailAU publishes a piece claiming men marry “traditional” women because those in western countries are too assertive, too masculine, too overbearing, and too bossy … just two days after an Australian man literally murdered an Asian woman.

The implication is men go to Asia and unfortunately end up killing women there at least partly because western women won’t give them what they want.

They disgust us.

This is fully shit.

#WarOnWomen

[stranger @strangerous10]

Sarah Hanson-Young says it beggars belief that One Nation, who say they stand for Australia, “are running their political campaign from offshore” using digital bot factories in “Indonesia, Vietnam & India”
Calls for ON to to be investigated,
“This is foreign interference”💥💯

[Acyn @Acyn]

Biden: The reflecting pool reflects something even worse than the narcissism and incompetence at the core of this administration. It’s the corruption. The corruption. The brazen, blatant corruption. Corruption on a scale never seen before in American history in any administration.

Trump has made billions of dollars since returning to the White House. Simply stunning to me.

He has no shame. Frankly, it’s embarrassing for the country. Trump couldn’t care less.

Making money off the presidency is one of the reasons he wants to be president

[Mike Carlton @MikeCarlton01]

This is staggering. KPMG is a seething den of shonks and charlatans. It should not be getting one cent of taxpayers’ money. And teaching ethics ???? That’s like getting Dezi Freeman to teach bushwalking…

[a blast from the past @a_past24460]

Morning!

[sarah @sahouraxo]

Israel is burning the forest in Markaba, South Lebanon.

Israel isn’t only committing genocide in Lebanon — it is also deliberately wiping out ecosystems, wildlife and forests.

This is ecocide.

[Rich Raho @RichRaho]

Pope Leo at Mass opening Extraordinary Consistory: “War is never worthy of humanity, and it is never blessed by God, because, even if we are equipped with high-tech weapons, the Creator has endowed us with intelligence and free will to resolve conflicts as human beings and not as beasts.” https://t.co/MCHhsoAowT

[Dr Tracy Westerman AM @TracyWesterman]

Karl playing the victim of “free speech”. Now positioning himself as the saviour of “hard working Aussies” who deserve the truth from his hard hitting journalism.
Just a walking, talking right, wing cliche.

[Reggie B. @reggiebblue]

Michelle Obama: "What Barack offered this country was a mature president, was a highly intelligent president, was a selfless president. The hope and the joy that people felt during our administration had to do with the character of this leader. He made this country proud in a very unique way."

[Craig F̶o̶s̶t̶e̶r̶ @Craig_Foster]

Football is multicultural.

We believe that all Aussies should respect their ancestral backgrounds, while being wholly committed to Australia.

As the Socceroos said:

‘Many backgrounds. Shared purpose.’

That does not mean, nor has ever meant one culture, but many cultures in the same game, same country, with shared identity as Aussies.

Any attempts to argue otherwise, or misappropriate our history of the game which has always reflected Australia’s cultural makeup, from our British roots to our immigration story (and sadly not yet fully our ancient history), are opportunistic and misconceived.

In football, like in Australia, we celebrate our many backgrounds while uniting as Aussies.

In our clubs, our players, our game, our national teams.

The new doco ‘Wogball’ explains how the game helped integrate many communities over more than a century, and created the Socceroos team, and country, we see today.

Our crowds are proudly multicultural. Our players are proudly multicultural. Our clubs are proudly multicultural. And the National Teams are proudly multicultural.

And all equally Australian.

Many backgrounds. One purpose.

Anything else is an insult to football.

And the @Socceroos

[Euripides Arxidias Tsoutsounas @JoycesLovechild]

Karl Stefanovic, Kyle Sandilands, Dave Hughes all magically begin to support Pauline Hanson, burning bridges from their old income. What dark money is paying their new income so it can buy our elections? Rage for the machine #auspol

[Joyce Carol Oates @JoyceCarolOates]

(it is still baffling to many people. granted, some wealthy individuals are vain & self-aggrandizing but if so, why not endow a cancer research center, or children's hospital, or public park?--the donor could swagger about accepting praise & compliments. some good would come of it. but to use wealth to stoke animosities between people, to be all but openly urging a "race war," is incomprehensible.)

[Bernard Keane @BernardKeane]

Intriguing how the media subjects the "teals" to far more critique than they give Hanson, even though community independents are a more authentic expression of the much vaunted "fed up" voter vibe.

Kinda like an admission the media know ON is a con, but prefer not to mention it.

[Nick Volpe @nvolpewild]

I’m going to RIP MY HAIR OUT!
AUSTRALIA, WAKE UP! 😡
You have the most beautiful temperate rainforest on earth… PROTECT THEM! 🌳❌

[Norm Clark @Normsmusic]

James Robison
What Joyce Carol Oates wrote to Elon Musk on Twitter. I am told it rattled him. I love it.
“So curious that such a wealthy man never posts anything that indicates that he enjoys or is even aware of what virtually everyone appreciates – scenes from nature, pet dog or cat, praise for a movie, music, a book (but doubt that he reads); pride in a friend’s or relative’s accomplishment; condolences for someone who has died; pleasure in sports, acclaim for a favorite team; references to history. In fact he seems totally uneducated, uncultured. The poorest persons on Twitter may have access to more beauty & meaning in life than the ‘most wealthy person in the world.’”

[Hunter Biden @HunterBiden]

I'm not running for office. But if I were, these are some of the lessons I'd take away from what happened in NY yesterday.

1. Authenticity is measurable. Voters can smell a focus group from a mile away.

2. Endorsements from the current Democratic leadership now read like warnings. The establishment wing of the party is no longer a sword. It's a question mark.

3. Conviction beats caution. The candidates who said hard things about rent, about who pays for what, about Gaza, they won. The triangulators lost.

4. Cost of living is everything. Everything else is wallpaper.

5. The middle is not a strategy. It's an empty room. Voters reached past the establishment to grab someone who actually believes something.

6. Don't fear the base. Court it. The Democrats who ran from their own voters lost. The ones who ran toward them won.

7. If you want to lead a party you have to be willing to fight inside it. Mamdani didn't ask permission. He took the field.

The lesson under the lessons: the country is tired of being managed. People want to be led.