Luisa Handem Piette

A polyglot, Bissau-Guinean, lover of arts and justice who adores her family and friends. Luisa lived in West Africa, Western Europe and the United States.

[Elizabeth Warren @SenWarren]

At 4am, Senate Republicans gave the greenlight for the IRS to drop ALL investigations into Trump and his family.

That means if Trump is evading taxes, we’ll never know.

I have a bill to make this illegal. And I won’t stop fighting to get it done.

[Gianl1974 @Gianl1974]

*BRITISH WRITER PENS THE BEST DESCRIPTION OF TRUMP*
Someone asked "Why do some British people not like Donald Trump?" Nate White, an articulate and witty writer from England wrote the following response:

A few things spring to mind. Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem. For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace – all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed.
So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump's limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief.
Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing – not once, ever.
I don't say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility – for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman.
But with Trump, it's a fact. He doesn't even seem to understand what a joke is – his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty. Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers.
And scarily, he doesn't just talk in crude, witless insults – he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness. There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It's all surface.
Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront. Well, we don't. We see it as having no inner world, no soul. And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist. Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that. He's not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat. He's more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege.
And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully. That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead.
There are unspoken rules to this stuff – the Queensberry rules of basic decency – and he breaks them all. He punches downwards – which a gentleman should, would, could never do – and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless or female – and he kicks them when they are down. So the fact that a significant minority – perhaps a third – of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think 'Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy' is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that:
• Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and most are.
• You don't need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man.
This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss.
After all, it's impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum. God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid. He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart. In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws – he would make a Trump.

[Tara Setmayer 🌻 🇺🇸 @TaraSetmayer]

Trump is repeating “2020 rigged election” lies again. Why?
He’s setting it up to deny the midterm results when Republicans lose the House.

[Luisa Handem Piette @HandemPiette]

@skiistiredasf 👏 wonderful, congratulations!

[Luisa Handem Piette @HandemPiette]

I believe if everyone from all ethnic backgrounds, understands this, we can move forward as a nation to happy place! 🙏🏽

[ɠɧıʂɧ @rirokpik]

U.S. poet and spoken-word artist Kyla Jenée Lacey’s viral poem, "White Privilege," offers a powerful and uncompromising examination of systemic inequality and historical erasure. Through vivid contrasts between the lived experiences of Black Americans and the often-unseen advantages associated with whiteness, Lacey challenges audiences to confront enduring social and racial disparities.

[Luisa Handem Piette @HandemPiette]

Sad indeed!

[Marco Foster @MarcoFoster_]

Richard Gere on Trump: “We’re living in the darkest moment that I’ve experienced on this planet. Whoever thought America could turn like this? Whoever thought that a maniac like this would be president and dismantle all the good things? America’s never been a perfect place, but it has a perfect ideal. First day this guy dismantled almost everything that was good about the US government and people”

[Luisa Handem Piette @HandemPiette]

We honor all Americans regardless of their sexual orientation. And btw, the fixation with how folks behave in their bedrooms may be a projection?

[Kamala Harris @KamalaHarris]

Pride is joy. Pride is courage. Pride is a celebration. And Pride is the ongoing fight to ensure every person can live as their authentic self.

This month and every month, we celebrate the LGBTQ+ community and all those continuing the fight for equality.

Happy Pride!

[Luisa Handem Piette @HandemPiette]

@DouglasEmhoff We miss you both so much! ♥️

[Pope Leo XIV @Pontifex]

Artificial intelligences do not undergo experiences, do not possess a body, do not feel joy or pain, do not mature through relationships, and do not know from within what love, work, friendship or responsibility mean. Nor do they have a moral conscience, since they do not judge good and evil, grasp the ultimate meaning of situations, or bear responsibility for consequences. They may imitate or even simulate, but they do not understand what they produce, for they lack the affective, relational, and spiritual perspective through which human beings grow in wisdom. #MagnificaHumanitas

[Democratic Wins Media @DemocraticWins]

BREAKING: James Talarico just torched Ken Paxton in a way we didn’t think was possible. Retweet this to make sure every Texan knows how corrupt Paxton really is.

[John Handem Piette @JohnHPiette]

It’s incumbent on young Texans not only to vote, but to ask their parents and grandparents who & what they’re voting for and if they even know what they stand for any more.

[Renee @PettyLupone]

Black people started Memorial Day.

It was originally called Decoration Day and it included a parade, but the most remarkable detail to me is that the newly freed dug up bodies of Union soldiers from mass graves, identified them and gave proper burials.

👇🏽

[Occupy Democrats @OccupyDemocrats]

BREAKING: Pope Leo XIV enrages MAGA by formally apologizing for the Church's role in legitimizing slavery and for failing to condemn it for centuries, calling it a "wound in Christian memory."

This is truly historic and Republicans are furious...

“It is impossible not to feel deep sorrow when contemplating the immense suffering and humiliation endured by so many in stark contrast to their immeasurable dignity as persons infinitely loved by the Lord. For this, in the name of the church, I sincerely ask for pardon," Leo wrote in “Magnifica Humanitas,” his much-anticipated first encyclical.

While previous popes have apologized for the Christian involvement in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, none has ever delivered such a direct apology for the broader role that the Church played in the survival of that deeply evil institution.

The Vatican at times gave European monarchs express permission to colonize and enslave foreign peoples, slathering their brutal crimes against humanity in a veneer of Christian piety. In the 15th century, Pope Nicholas V went so far as to give the Portugese throne authority to subjugate and rob “Saracens, and pagans, and other infidels, and enemies of the name of Christ” as well as "reduce their persons to perpetual slavery.”

Leo took that history on head-first—

"Already in the early modern period, the Apostolic See of Rome, responding to the requests of sovereigns, intervened several times in order to regulate and legitimize forms of subjugation, and, in certain cases, including the enslavement of ‘infidels,'" he wrote.

"In the development of her doctrine, the Church has gradually come to a deeper awareness of the gravity of these issues," Leo stated. "It is true that past events cannot be judged anachronistically, as though the moral criteria that matured over time had always been available. Yet neither can we deny or diminish the delay with which both society and the Church came to denounce the scourge of slavery."

He added that it "took eighteen centuries" for the Church to "explicitly" recognize its "full incompatibility with slavery."

“This constitutes a wound in Christian memory, one from which we cannot consider ourselves detached,” Leo added.

The pronouncement has already been met with outrage from many members of the online right, who believe that the Western world should never apologize for anything it's done, not even slavery. Social media is aflurry with MAGA accusations that Leo has succumbed to "suicidal empathy" and "white guilt." These are the same people who believe that the Civil War was fought for "states' rights" and that the Confederacy was an admirable endeavor.

“For descendants of enslaved persons, this is once again a much needed apology from the pope,” said Anthea Butler, senior fellow at Oxford University's Koch History Center. She added that the apology empowers Leo to “speak to the current issues of technological enslavement.”

The Pope's slavery apology was part of a much lengthier document whose title translates to "Magnificent Humanity." It's largely focused on humanity's roles and responsibilities as artificial intelligence reshapes the world around us. Leo connected the topic to slavery by warning that these emergent technologies are leading to new forms of human exploitation and debasement, as neocolonialist labor practices are implemented to provide the rare minerals necessary to build AI chips.

The situation in the Congo is particularly dire, with untold masses of men, women, and children being paid next to nothing — and in some cases nothing at all — to work in inhumane, unhealthy conditions mining cobalt.

While so many of our world leaders are failing to confront the challenges and evils of the modern world, Pope Leo is boldly leading the way.

Please ❤️ and share if you're a big fan of Pope Leo!

[Mykhailo Rohoza @MykhailoRohoza]

On the evening Barack Obama was elected President of the United States, he didn’t rush off to the loud celebrations.

Instead, he stayed inside a hotel room in Chicago playing Scrabble with his daughters — Malia Obama and Sasha Obama.

A simple moment.

But it revealed a great deal about the man who entered history that night.

While millions of Americans celebrated his victory, Obama wanted his daughters to remember the evening not as a political spectacle, but as time spent with family.

On January 20, 2009, Barack Obama took the oath of office as the 44th President of the United States, placing his hand on the same Bible used by Abraham Lincoln in 1861.

For the first time in American history, an African American became president.

But Obama’s story was never only about grand speeches and historic ceremonies.

During the campaign, he still made time to read Harry Potter to his daughters before bed.

As a child growing up between Hawaii and Indonesia, the future president loved comic books and superhero stories.

Even his political career began in an unconventional way: in 1996, he won his first seat in the Illinois Senate after a difficult legal battle over the signatures submitted by his opponents.

Then came the White House.

But even there, Obama refused to abandon simple habits.

He personally read letters from ordinary Americans and often replied to them himself — sometimes late at night. He believed a president should hear people directly, not only through statistics and reports.

Obama is left-handed — like only a handful of U.S. presidents before him.

He wore nearly identical dark suits and the same style of shoes every day so he wouldn’t waste energy on unnecessary decisions.

And he had one tradition he never broke: on Election Day, he always played basketball. The only election he had ever lost happened when he skipped it.

Michelle Obama once shared that even in the White House, her husband made his own bed every morning — a habit taught to him by his grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, whom he lovingly called “Toot.”

Even while living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, he never forgot who he had been before becoming president.

And perhaps that is why millions of people around the world saw in him not just a politician —

but a human being.

A man who, amid power, fame, and history-changing decisions, tried to preserve the things that mattered most:

family,
simplicity,
humanity,
and a connection to the people for whom all of it was meant to matter.

[Luisa Handem Piette @HandemPiette]

Ditto, many thanks Justice Ketanji Brown!

[ABC News @ABC]

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson says her colleagues' handling of the Louisiana voting rights case may have compromised the court's impartiality in political matters. https://t.co/O4VhYXUR3q

[Luisa Handem Piette @HandemPiette]

Let’s learn the truth!

[Save Our Citizenships 🔻 @LetsStopC9]

Why They Fear Black History

As Nikole Hannah-Jones makes clear, they ban Black history because it exposes the lie of American innocence, Black history doesn’t radicalise children, it teaches them to recognise a country that needed erasure to call itself great.⁩

[Elizabeth Warren @ewarren]

Trump sued his own IRS.

Settled with his own government.

Secured a $1.8 billion slush fund to siphon toward his allies.

Blocked the IRS audits against himself and his family. 

This is corruption in plain sight.

[Luisa Handem Piette @HandemPiette]

No more visa needed for visitors with an African passport staying for up to 30 days in Togo!

[Ministère de la Sécurité - Togo @MSPC_TOGO]

LE TOGO SUPPRIME LE VISA POUR TOUS LES AFRICAINS !

Le Togo franchit une étape historique dans le renforcement de l’intégration africaine. Désormais, tous les ressortissants des États africains détenteurs d’un passeport national valide peuvent entrer sur le territoire togolais sans visa, pour un séjour allant jusqu’à 30 jours.

À travers cette réforme majeure, le Président du Conseil réaffirme sa volonté de faire du Togo un espace d’ouverture, de mobilité, d’opportunités et de coopération au cœur du continent africain.

Les voyageurs doivent toutefois effectuer leur déclaration de voyage sur la plateforme officielle https://t.co/CsFa9PI7k2 au moins 24 heures avant leur arrivée afin d’obtenir leur bordereau de voyage.
Le Togo confirme ainsi son leadership en matière d’intégration régionale et de rapprochement des peuples africains.

#Togo
#Afrique
#integration
#Libre
#panafricanism
#voyage
#cooperation