Khole 🎀

[Aaron Smith @aaronsmith]

Dave, you've responded to a detailed fact check by introducing an entirely different argument.

Whether government should be smaller is an interesting discussion. It just isn't the discussion we were having.

We were discussing whether your description of Australia's economic history in a 90 second clip was accurate.

It wasn't.

What I think is extraordinary isn't that you got things wrong. Everyone does. It's that you've conceded precisely nothing.

Not one factual error. Not one correction. Not one "Fair enough, I got that wrong".

You have a remarkable ability to turn economic fiction into confident public performance. The problem isn't just the mistake. It's that once the performance is over, the fiction is simply left behind for your audience to keep repeating.

You haven't acknowledged that you confused government debt with the Future Fund. Your reply now explains how the Future Fund grew from around $60 billion to $255 billion which is a baffling addition, given you previously spoke about it as though it had ceased to exist.

You haven't acknowledged that you claimed the GFC stimulus was funded by the Future Fund. Or that your broader account of Australia's response to the GFC was wildly misleading.

Instead, you've simply changed the subject, which is a perfectly respectable debating tactic, provided nobody remembers what the original discussion was about.

When the errors are painstakingly explained, you don't correct the record. You simply move on, leaving the misinformation behind for your audience to repeat as though it were true.

I’m reminded of a line from Jackson Lamb in Slow Horses - Explaining this to you has become rather like trying to explain Norway to a dog.

[Aaron Smith @aaronsmith]

Thank you, Dave. I appreciate you reaching out to ask what you got wrong.

The clip we’re discussing is less than 90 seconds long. What I’m about to do demonstrates Brandolini's Law: where the amount of energy required to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude greater than that required to produce it. Or, in this case, it takes around 600 words to correct 90 seconds of your economic fan fiction.

1⃣ Between 0 and 30 seconds

You begin by confusing government debt with the Future Fund and appear to suggest that the Future Fund can't exist along side Govt debt.

They’re different things. One can exist without the other, and in Australia they do.

Australia's Future Fund was established in 2006 with an initial govt investment of about $60B. Its first annual report, in 2008, showed assets of around $64 billion - not the $100B you suggested.

Then, at around 27 seconds, you talk about the Future Fund as though it ceased to exist (you used the word 'had' as in past tense).

It still very much exists Dave. In fact, it's grown every single year since it was created. Today it's worth around $270 billion, or over $330 billion once the other funds under management are included (eg Medical Research / Housing Australia / Drought).

So before we're even 30 seconds into the clip you've managed to confuse government debt, the Future Fund, its size, and whether it still exists.

That’s a lot of economic history to get wrong in under 30 seconds.

2⃣ Around 32 seconds

You then claim Kevin Rudd used the Future Fund to "flush money through the economy".

Again, that’s simply false. The Future Fund wasn't used to fund the stimulus. It wasn't used to build school halls. It wasn’t used for any of the things you’re describing. In your defence, you do briefly flirt with the possibility that you don’t actually know what you’re talking about. Sadly, it was a very short-lived relationship.

The GFC stimulus was funded through government borrowing.

For context, construction approvals were collapsing, more than a million Australians worked in construction, and the objective was to stop unemployment exploding during the worst global financial crisis in generations.

You're welcome to argue that was the wrong policy (but you didn't). You’re not entitled to rewrite where the money came from.

3⃣ At about 44 seconds

You say, "I might be wrong".

I concede you were correct during this part of the video.

4⃣ From 44 seconds onwards

You make a series of broad claims about the GFC response.

Yes, government debt increased. That's true.

What you omit is that Australia's stimulus largely went directly to households rather than primarily rescuing financial institutions, as happened in many other countries.

The aim was simple: keep people spending, businesses operating and Australians employed while global demand collapsed. It's known as counter-cyclical fiscal policy.

Whether you agree with it politically is your business.

The specific outcome for Australia isn't contested though - Australia was one of only two economies in the OECD to avoid recession during the Global Financial Crisis. There's no reality where that wasn’t a comparatively impressive outcome.

The money didn’t need to "trickle down". The entire point was that it started at the bottom.

5⃣ Government debt

Throughout the clip (and in life generally) you repeatedly return to the theme Labor is responsible for Australia’s debt (which btw is comparatively low).

Here are the actual numbers of net debt added by each Govt since 2007.

> Rudd/Gillard: about $190 billion over six years.
> Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison: about $366 billion over nine years, around two-thirds of which pre-dated COVID.
> Albanese: about $75 billion over four years.

Those figures don’t support the story you've been telling people. And that’s really the issue.

This isn't about getting one date wrong or misremembering one statistic. Nearly every claim in your 90-second clip turns out to be either wrong or misleading.

If you're going to publicly lecture Australians about economic history, the bare minimum expectation is that you’ve first acquainted yourself with it.

Because once the errors have been pointed out, as they have been to you multiple times, every repetition stops looking like an accident and starts looking like a strategy.

Given your very public coffee with Angus Taylor last week, perhaps people are entitled to ask what that strategy might be.

[Hunter Biden @HunterBiden]

I spent the last few months talking to people across the political spectrum, and to people who want nothing to do with politics at all. Here is what I learned.

We are not a divided country. We are a country being divided, on purpose, by an American oligarchy that profits from the fight. They’ve captured our government, denied our healthcare, looted our treasury, and saddled us with crippling debt.

I believe in a New New Deal. Healthcare as a human right. The right of every family to a decent home, and an end to endless wars.

And a dividend paid to every American from the AI economy, because these machines were built on the whole of human inheritance. That inheritance belongs to all of us, and not just to the handful of men playing God with our very existence.

And none of it happens if we just move on. Donald Trump, his family, and his administration are robbing us blind, not just of our money, but of our faith in one another, and they have to answer for it. Truth and reconciliation, not revenge. Then we break the system that let them do it.

The question is not whether we will lose our democracy. The question is whether we will fight to take back what has already been stolen.

I learned in recovery that you can’t heal what you won’t name. Neither can a country.

[Kon Karapanagiotidis @Kon__K]

More women have been murdered since 2024 by men than all Australians killed by terrorism globally in the past 100 years. Yet there are no Royal Commission’s for women still. No emergency task forces. No addresses to the nation. No days of mourning

[💧Mary Kostakidis @MaryKostakidis]

First Dog on the Moon

[💧Mary Kostakidis @MaryKostakidis]

Israel has been outed. Over and over again. The more evidence there is of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including their own incitement, the louder the ‘blood libel’, ‘antisemitism’, ‘obsession with Israel’ cries from the perpetrators and their defenders.

[Jeremy Corbyn @jeremycorbyn]

A UN commission has found that Israel is committing genocide through a "deliberate strategy to destroy the future of the Palestinians in Gaza by targeting their children".

The truth always comes out in the end — and we must never, ever let it be forgotten.

[Tom the whistleblower @blowingtom2]

If you think Hanson is for Australians, her boss wants to give away our islands to a trillionaire and then have Israeli’s use our country to make missiles. Fuck you Gina. Fuck you Hanson.

[Hunter Biden @HunterBiden]

Dear Joe,
I wish I could sit down with you face to face and explain why so many of us were offended by the UFC fight on the South Lawn of the White House.
For me, it had nothing to do with the UFC or who showed up for the fights. The brand you and Dana have built is a bona fide American success story. More power to you. As for the fighters, in my book, anyone brave enough to put it all on the line in the arena is remarkable to witness. Their dedication and discipline inspire me. I don’t understand anyone who can’t admire that.
And as for the people who attended, I, for one, love Shane Gillis. I think he’s hilarious and brilliant. It was a show. A once-in-a-lifetime spectacle. I can’t blame anyone for wanting to witness it firsthand.
My problem is that I believe some of our public spaces are sacred. And unlike many of the great powers that came before us, these American monuments belong to all of us. Not to whoever happens to hold power at the moment.
The White House does not belong to Donald Trump. It does not belong to any President. It belongs to the people. To treat it as Caesar treated the Colosseum is antithetical to everything our founding fathers fought for.
This is not Rome. Presidents are not emperors doling out bread and circuses for the peasants. The White House is the People’s House. This “celebration” could have happened in any stadium within a stone’s throw of the South Lawn. No one would have had an issue with it.
But that was obviously Donald Trump’s whole point. By holding the event on the South Lawn, what he was saying to the rest of us is:
“This is my house. I own it. I will do with it what I please. I’ll build a colosseum and have the gladiators fight under my gaze. I’ll tear down the East Wing. I’ll pave over the Rose Garden. I’ll cover everything in gold and marble. I’ll erase the names of all the men who came before me.”
The fights were an exhibition of imperial domination, not a celebration of our 250th anniversary as a democracy.
The White House is not Buckingham Palace. It is not the Palace of Versailles. It is not the Forbidden City of Beijing. It does not belong to an emperor, or a king, or a commissar.
The White House belongs to us. All of us. The person who sits behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office is nothing more than an honored guest. A temporary caretaker.
The President is our servant. Not our Caesar.
Respectfully, Hunter

P.S. Cage match between me and Don Jr.? Your call on the venue. Anywhere but the South Lawn.

[Mary @maryturfah]

I wrote about yoga, genocide, and moral injury for @thebafflermag
https://t.co/uwpErPSs9y

[Sarrah Bellus @sarrah_bellus]

Hunter Biden is going to be a big, big problem for the GOP. Listen to what he’s saying here. He literally has receipts.

[Iranian Force @MrImranPk]

Israel killed every single child in this photo in South Lebanon within less than 30 days.

They were not combatants.

They were children.

[Gianluca Martino @gianlucamart1]

🧵"Desidero che la Papamobile venga trasformata in una clinica mobile e donata ai bambini di Gaza"
Questa è una delle ultime volontà di Papa Francesco prima di morire.
Ad eseguire la disposizione di Papa Francesco, il Vaticano incarica il cardinale svedese Anders Arborelius che a sua volta incarica la Caritas svedese per la trasformazione del veicolo.

Quando la stampa dà la notizia dell'incarico alla Caritas svedese di trasformare la Papamobile in clinica mobile per i bambini di Gaza, scatta la solidarietà dei cittadini svedesi che in pochi giorni inviano alla Caritas cospicue donazioni.

Grazie alle somme raccolte, la Caritas, non solo riesce a trasformare la Papamobile in una clinica mobile fornita di attrezzature mediche di ultima generazione, ma acquista altre 12 ambulanze da inviare a Gaza.

A novembre dello scorso anno, quando i lavori sulla Papamobile sono ultimati, per celebrare l'evento e assolvere all'ultima volontà di Papa Francesco, il Vaticano sceglie Betlemme, la città simbolo per eccellenza della cristianità, la città dove nacque Cristo.
In Piazza della Mangiatoia, il cardinale Anders Arborelius benedice la Papamobile e le ambulanze in partenza verso Gaza.
La Papamobile viene rinominata "Veicolo della Speranza".

Passano giorni, settimane e poi mesi ma gli occupanti israeliani non consentono alla Caritas di fare entrare il Veicolo della Speranza a Gaza.
I rappresentanti del Vaticano e della Caritas chiedono più volte spiegazioni ma Israele si prende gioco di loro inventando storie assurde.
"Non è pervenuta alcuna richiesta di autorizzazione"
E poi ancora: "I materiali sanitari all'interno della Papamobile potrebbero finire nelle mani di Hamas ed essere usati come armi".

E intanto la Papamobile, trasformata in un gioiello della tecnologia medica, in grado di curare 200 bambini al giorno, è ancora lì, dopo sette mesi, sotto una teca in un parcheggio a pochi metri da Piazza della Mangiatoia in attesa di raggiungere i bambini di Gaza.

In uno stupendo articolo scritto dal cardinale Arborelius su ICN, Independent Catholic News (*link nel primo commento) il cardinale si rivolge alle autorità israeliane, chiede, quasi supplica, di lasciare entrare il Veicolo della Speranza ma non rinuncia a scrivere: "Negare le cure mediche ai bambini significa oltrepassare un limite morale che dovrebbe turbare tutti".

Limite morale che non turba i leader politici occidentali che ostentano senza ritegno la loro fede cristiana ma restano in un vile silenzio mentre la colonia di plastica denominata Israele umilia il Vaticano prendendosi gioco delle ultime volontà di un Papa.
Che schifo!

[neyi kaybettiğini hatırla @neyikaybettik]

Hussam Ebu Safieh, "İsrail'in rehineler için ölüm cezası" ile öldürülecek olan Filistinli doktorlardan biridir (diğer 95 doktor arasında).

Onu öldürmelerine izin verme.
Bunu yeniden yayınlayın.

[Ounka @OunkaOnX]

Bezalel Smotrich: "The Palestinian Authority needs to be dismantled. The Oslo Accords - this terrible disaster - need to be erased. We need to take control of the entire territory."

They aren't hiding it. They are announcing it. Openly.

[Ounka @OunkaOnX]

A message to Australian PM Anthony Albanese from participants of the gaza freedom flotilla and global sumud flotilla Spring 2026 flotilla mission

[Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald]

Note that the UK Government just banned entry of two American citizens -- @cenkuygur and @hasanthehun -- not because they criticized or worked against the interests of the UK.

It was solely because they criticize and oppose the one country deemed sacred and off-limits in the UK and so many other wester countires: Israel.

The UK under Labour is also regularly arresting its own citizens for peacefully protesting Israel's genocide in Gaza (including old British ladies and countless Jewish activists at these protests, though they remain free to protest *in favor* of Israel or against any other country).

This is all driven by the same dynamic that caused the Trump Admin -- as one of its very earliest top priorities last year -- to force US universities to expel American students protesting Israel, to deport others who merely criticized Israel, and to implement aggressive speech codes to protect Israel from common criticisms (even though one is free to say all the same things about any other country, including the US).

Why does this one small country command such special, elevated, supreme status and attention in so many western countries? It's way past time to give that question the attention it deserves and to finally put and end to it.

[Gwared.bsky.social - Brazda, Seel & Son✊🔻 @Gwared]

I have some gossip about the Tom Hardy/Helen Mirren/Mobland thing.

Whilst discussing Londoners she mentioned how 'people don't realise the hurt being caused by the Marches for Palestine' and Hardy laughed in her face and left the table some of the cast/crew were sat at.

[Overland Journal @OverlandJournal]

“To conduct her so-called “audit”, Jillian Segal appointed a man who’d had not only found the universities guilty of tolerating antisemitism but had described them as “subscribing” to it.”

Jeff Sparrow on Greg Craven's antisemitism audit. https://t.co/XwVeg7iR3R