Kay 💜

Love my family. Love and respect others. Tweet others how you like to be treated. When is this madness going to stop?

[Kay 💜 @garfieldkay]

@Cazarellee Good morning, Caz. Yes I was thinking somewhere in Far North Queensland.

[Sandy Horne @SandyHorne61]

Hey men ...
Don't turn to Andrew Tate and his ilk when looking for a role model.
If you want to be liked, respected, heard, valued ...
If you want women to like you ...
be like Sam Neill.
There's your role model.

[Rod Emmerson @rodemmerson]

In today’s NZ Herald

[Sen. Bernie Sanders @SenSanders]

This is the year 2026. One might have hoped that, after thousands of years of war, humanity could have come up with a better way to resolve conflicts than killing and mass destruction. Unfortunately, that is not the case.  There is now more war and bloodshed raging across the world than at almost any point in decades.

In February 2022, Vladimir Putin, without provocation, invaded Ukraine. The result: hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians killed, millions displaced and a war that grinds on with no end in sight.

In October 2023, Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 innocent people and taking 251 hostages. In response, Netanyahu and the Israeli military did not simply wage war against Hamas — they waged war against the entire population of Gaza. At least 73,000 Palestinians have been killed, the real toll almost certainly far higher, most of them women, children and the elderly. Virtually the entire physical infrastructure of Gaza has been destroyed. I agree with the major human rights organizations around the world who call this a genocide.

Four months ago, in collusion with Netanyahu, Trump took a page from Putin's playbook: he started a war with Iran without provocation. The result of this war (and the ensuing Israeli war against Lebanon): 13 U.S. service members dead, thousands of Iranian and Lebanese civilians killed and more than $100 billion in U.S. taxpayer dollars spent.

And in the midst of all of this — Ukraine, Gaza, Iran — there is another horrific war happening now that is getting relatively little attention: the civil war and genocide in Sudan.

Sudan's two rival military factions, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), the country's national army, and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group, have been at war since 2023. The RSF descends from the Janjaweed militias that carried out Sudan's first genocide in Darfur two decades ago, killing as many as 400,000 non-Arab civilians. Today, the RSF is trying to finish what it started. The State Department has formally determined that the RSF is committing genocide, again, murdering men and boys and systematically raping women and girls because of their ethnicity. Last October, the RSF laid siege to the city of El-Fasher; in just the first three days after it fell, an estimated 6,000 people were killed. Right now, the same horror is unfolding in the city of El-Obeid, where nearly half a million people are trapped.

Let’s be clear. Trump’s good friend and staunch U.S. ally, the United Arab Emirates dictatorship, run by one of the wealthiest families in the world — has financed and enabled this genocide for years. And why is this happening? Billions of dollars of looted gold from Sudan is flowing straight into the pockets of Emirati oligarchs – making a multibillionaire family even richer. This has been documented by the United Nations, independent journalists, and international human rights organizations.

Here is the scale of what this war has caused: at least 59,000 people confirmed killed since 2023, with credible estimates running as high as 150,000. Fourteen million people driven from their homes. Thirty million people, two–thirds of Sudan's population, in need of emergency humanitarian assistance just to survive.

U.S. foreign policy must be based on a respect for democracy and human rights. We cannot be complicit in the face of genocide, no matter where it is happening. Congress must demand that the UAE cease its military support for the RSF and work with the international community and the Sudanese people to bring an end to this horrific conflict and provide the humanitarian aid that is desperately needed there.

[Kay 💜 @garfieldkay]

@PhilHazell1 @virgotweet Congratulations Phil, you LEGEND and of course, you could not have done it without your support crew, the ever faithful Margo and the beautiful Jan and Maddie 💐🌻 Thank you 🙏🏻 Maddie for reading it so eloquently.

[Kay 💜 @garfieldkay]

@lesstenny I am 69, went on 1 at age of 35, over the years doctor added another 1 and then another. Did own research, now back to 2, had side affects of painful swelling in lower legs and ankles. Had blood tests this week, all readings normal or excellent. I have white coat syndrome.

[Willie Ross Jr. Knee Deep @RossKneeDeep]

By David Abbruzzes:

This Australian's reply to Trump's rant about “NATO not being there for America” is perfect.
"Mate. You run a country with 600,000 homeless people sleeping on the street tonight. A country where 40% of adults can't cover a $400 emergency without borrowing money. A country where insulin costs more than a car payment and people are rationing it to survive. A country where medical debt is the number 1 cause of bankruptcy. A country where women are dying in hospital car parks because doctors are too scared of abortion laws to treat a miscarriage.
You lock up more of your own citizens than any nation on earth. More than China. More than Russia. More than North Korea. The land of the free has 2 million people in cages, and a quarter of them haven't even been convicted of anything. They're just too poor to make bail.
Your life expectancy is going backwards. You're the only developed nation where that's happening. Your infant mortality rate is worse than Cuba's. Your kids do active shooter drills between maths and English while you sell the gunmaker's stock to your mates.
Your minimum wage hasn't moved in 15 years. You've got teachers working 2 jobs and veterans sleeping under bridges and you just spent a trillion dollars flattening a country that didn't attack you.
And you’ve got a convicted felon, adjudicating raping, paedophile protecting, porn star shagging insurrectionist running the biggest dumpster fire war campaign since the Taliban thanked you very much for losing again.
And you're calling Greenland poorly run?
Greenland has universal healthcare. Free education. One of the lowest incarceration rates in the world. Nobody goes bankrupt there because they got sick. Nobody dies in a waiting room because their insurance said no.
'NATO wasn't there when we needed them." When exactly was that, champ? September 11? Because NATO invoked Article 5 for the first and only time in history FOR YOU. Soldiers from dozens of countries deployed, fought, bled, and died in Afghanistan FOR YOU. Australia wasn't even in NATO and we still showed up. For 20 years.
And you pulled out at 2am without telling anyone and left them to deal with the mess.
So maybe before you start calling other countries poorly run, have a look at your own backyard, you spray-tanned aluminium siding salesman. The only thing poorly run in this picture is your f----- mouth."

Very well stated.

[Tyler Black, MD @tylerblack32]

Since Trump took office:

* Elon net worth is $980B (+$500B)
* Donald Trump's family ~$10B, up about $7B
* Top 15 billionaires: up 33%

And USAID was cut 6 billion, resulting in hundreds of thousands of or the poorest people needlessly dying and suffering.

/1

[Kay 💜 @garfieldkay]

Bridie is going through a tough time right now, and the last thing she needs is financial stress. Many of us want to help, and a GoFundMe has been set up to support her recovery. Every donation counts and can make a real difference. Please consider contributing or sharing this with others who might want to help. Thank you for showing your support during this challenging time. https://t.co/kTGZ7woNiw

[HUMAN WA$TE @Dplanet]

🚨🚨 Here's the world's richest man, Elon Musk, calling Nicholas Kristof "an utter piece of shit and a liar."

Look at what Kristof actually asked him first.

Just a simple question: we were saving a life every ten seconds, we cut it off with no time for anyone to adjust, so children died who didn't need to - and isn't it bad when children die unnecessarily?

There is no answer to that question that leaves you looking human. "No, it isn't bad" is monstrous. "Yes, and I did it anyway" is a confession. Every honest door was shut. So Musk didn't reach for an argument. There isn't one. He reached for "piece of shit."

A man proud of his work defends it. A man who calls his critic a liar, with not one fact to offer, isn't proud; he's cornered.

Let me be clear about what this is and isn't.

This isn't an argument against America First. I'm not saying America must fund the world. I'm not saying cutting waste is wrong, or that foreign aid is sacred, or that a government can't decide its own priorities. I grant all of it. Waste is real. Cutting it is legitimate. None of that is in dispute here.

This was never about whether to cut. It's about how.

There is a version of this that a serious person could have done. Review the programs. Find the waste and cut it. Wind down what doesn't work. Keep the eight-year-old on her HIV medication through the transition. Hand off to other funders with time to adjust. That's cutting. It's slow, and careful, and afraid of getting it wrong - because the person doing it understands they are holding millions of lives in their hands.

That is the weight of a decision like this. Anyone who grasps what USAID did - an agency a Lancet study credits with preventing more than 90 million deaths - moves carefully, because the cost of moving carelessly is measured in human lives. Most of us, handed that, would feel the burden of it. We'd agonise. We'd run the scenarios, weigh the harm, look for the version that cut the waste without losing the child.

Is there any sign Musk felt one ounce of that weight?

He got a chainsaw. He put on the cap and the dark glasses and walked on stage like a rock star, vamping for the cameras. He posted about the parties he skipped to do it. He handed the job to a team with no expertise in aid, no evidence of waste presented, and let them hack the whole thing into a wood chipper over a weekend.

And now that the dead have names - Yamah Freeman, who died in childbirth when the diesel for the ambulances stopped; Achol Deng, eight, whose HIV medicine ran out; the children Kristof went to the villages and heard their parents' stories first hand - his answer is that the reporter is a liar.

Here is the part that should reach even those who cheered the cut. America First means protecting Americans. During an Ebola outbreak, as the agency was gutted, his appointees stopped the screening of US-bound air passengers - the people flying onward into American airports. That didn't put America first. It left the front door open during an outbreak. You could have voted for every dollar of it and still see that this was not what you were promised.

Because there is a difference between "we shouldn't be the world's charity" and "it's fine that children died." The first is a position millions of decent people hold in good faith. The second is where the chainsaw took them. Most people who voted for the first did not vote for the second.

I'm not going to reach for a clinical word. I don't need one, and neither do you. Watch what Elon does when the exits are shut, and call it whatever you think it is.

But I'll say this much, and I'll flag it as a moral judgment and not a legal one: to hold in your hands an agency that kept 90 million people alive, and to end it with a chainsaw and a grin and no visible weight at all - that belongs, morally, in the company of the great crimes. Not because a court would say so. Because a conscience would.

Why can't the man who cut the aid own the decision?

Why cry that Kristof is a liar if the work was righteous?

Where is Mr. Chainsaw now, when the names of the dead arrive?

[Kay 💜 @garfieldkay]

@EmergencyBK Take care and look after yourself 🌷🪻🌹🌻🩷🌸

[Kay 💜 @garfieldkay]

@stockwell_c Thank you 🩵

[Kay 💜 @garfieldkay]

@EmergencyBK 🌺🐶 ❤️ Bingo, my pup and I care. Take care of yourself, your dogs need you 🌷big hugs 🥰 grief is terrible, I lost my Mum and Dad young, each year it seems to get harder as you think about the time lost. Be kind to yourself you are a beautiful 😍

[Kay 💜 @garfieldkay]

@L_DeWeaver @deniseshrivell @JamesDeWeaver

[Kay 💜 @garfieldkay]

Protect the NDIS: Don’t cut the supports people need to live ordinary lives - Sign the Petition! https://t.co/fnz19Gg1rI via @ChangeAUS

[Kay 💜 @garfieldkay]

@ShiannonC @virgotweet @Jeanetteandco Keep up your good work @ShiannonC ❤️ love reading your posts. We live in the same state. Yes, our next car will be an EV too, presently a hybrid.

[Arojinle @arojinle1]

This is so cute. You'll watch it more than once

[Explosive Media @ExplosiveMediaa]

The way to crush imperialism has been shown to the world.

Trump Surrendered.

IRAN WON.

TACO will always remain TACO.

[Kay 💜 @garfieldkay]

@JaneCaro @rmabennett * Ever change

[Kay 💜 @garfieldkay]

@JaneCaro @rmabennett Jane, you are, how I would like to be, I have admired you for a long time. Don’t every change 💛