Karen Rust

Enjoys travel, taking photos & meeting friends at the pub; favourite drink is Aspall's cider. Opinions shared are my own.

[Covie @covie_93]

Barack Obama at 48 vs donald trump at 50

[Anonymous @YourAnonNews]

Signed, the UK

[Human☮🇺🇸🇺🇦🇺🇸🌊 @4HumanUnity]

The man on the left can't even be honest about a photo.

That's not Trump at 20. He was 17 when that picture was taken at the New York Military Academy, a military school his daddy paid for so he'd look tough.

Two years later, when real war came calling, the same daddy paid his office tenant, a Queens podiatrist, to invent fake bone spurs so his son wouldn't have to go to Vietnam.

The same man who mocked POWs, "I like people who weren't captured". Trump himself couldn't remember which foot hurt. Left foot. Right foot. Both feet. Whichever foot kept him home.

That's just the beginning.

He was found liable for sexual abuse by a federal jury.
He is a convicted felon, 34 counts.
He cheated on every wife he's ever had.
He sold crypto coins from the Oval Office.
He accepted a $400M jet from Qatar.
He tripled his wealth in office while cutting food assistance for the poorest Americans.

The man on the right?
.@BarackObama. Who at 18 was just a kid in Hawaii, before going on to:

✅ Pull America out of the worst financial collapse since the Great Depression

✅ Save the auto industry and millions of American jobs

✅ Give 20 million Americans healthcare for the first time

✅ Kill Bin Laden

✅ Serve two terms with zero criminal indictments, zero sexual abuse verdicts, zero felony convictions

One of these men is one of the greatest presidents in modern American history.

The other can't even tell the truth about how old he was in a photo.

[OT @olivertudge1]

Just a message to everyone telling young people to "toughen up" because you had it harder...
Fine. We'll cancel your winter fuel payments.
Toughen up. It's not that cold. Put a jumper on.

[Mehdi Hasan @mehdirhasan]

Has Elon Musk tweeted about these men? If not, why not?

[David__Osland @David__Osland]

In 2015, Royal Mail was privatised. In 2017, it missed delivery targets and has never met them since. Yet again we see 'the superior efficiency of the private sector' in action.

[Keith Burge @carryonkeith]

Rather than a General Election, I think I'd favour a full investigation into Nigel Farage's finances.

[Michael Savage @michaelsavage]

The story of social media’s problem with news, in two posts

[GET A GRIP @docrussjackson]

🚨 Incorrect name for crocodile attack arrest circulates online, predictably including from @RestoreBritain supporters.

23 June 2026

What was claimed:

'The 30-year-old man arrested after a three-year-old boy was injured in a crocodile attack is called Adanawa Bolwada.'

This is false.

Like so many posts on @X and other trillionaire/billionaire-owned social media platforms, it's dangerously irresponsible polarising #disinformation.

A 30-year-old man has been arrested and bailed in connection with the incident, but this is not his name.

Posts on social media have incorrectly named a person arrested in connection to an incident which saw a three-year-old child injured in a crocodile enclosure as “Adanawa Bolwada”.

A 30-year-old man was arrested and bailed in connection with the incident, which happened at a zoo near Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire last week. However he has not been named, and @FullFact has confirmed with police that the name being shared online is not correct.

Cambridgeshire Constabulary reportedly said that the man who was arrested is white-British, is not believed to have known the child, and is understood to have learning disabilities. He was released on bail until 18 September after being assessed as “not being fit for interview”.

The incorrect name has also been shared by @grok, the AI chatbot created by @elonmusk’s start-up @xAI, though it later acknowledged this “remains unverified social media speculation”. It was a lie.

https://t.co/Q6btuLI8Pn

[Karen Rust @krusty01]

@GayTory @bphillipsonMP Why is Bridget a disgrace for having a different opinion and setting an alternate policy? Why add this to your argument? Your preferred party wrecked the country so much people hated them at the last election.

[Gordon Fielden @GordonFielden]

With Darren Jones now confirming that he will not be entering any leadership contest, I find myself, and I suspect many others, reflecting deeply upon our future within the Labour Party.

I did not join the Labour Party to witness a mandate, won through immense effort and entrusted to Sir Keir Starmer by the British electorate, quietly transferred to another individual through pressure, intrigue, and political calculation. Nor did I join in order to endorse a process which appears, at least to many ordinary members, to be drifting perilously close to a political coup rather than a democratic exercise.

Let me be perfectly clear. I do not wish to see Andy Burnham become Leader of the Labour Party, and I certainly do not wish to see him become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

That is not born of personal animosity. It is a matter of principle. Leadership should be earned, not assumed. Mandates should be won, not inherited. Legitimacy should flow upwards from the membership and the electorate, not downwards from a collection of parliamentarians, advisers, commentators, and newspaper columnists who appear increasingly determined to decide the outcome before the contest has even begun.

What troubles me most is the growing sense that some believe the membership should simply acquiesce and accept whatever arrangement is placed before them. Such an attitude betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of what the Labour Party is. It does not belong to the Parliamentary Labour Party. It does not belong to newspaper editors. It does not belong to political factions. It belongs to its members.

Those members pay for the party. They campaign for it in all weathers. They knock on doors, deliver leaflets, defend its values, and devote countless hours of their lives to its success. They are not an inconvenience to be managed. They are the very foundation upon which the party stands.

If Andy Burnham genuinely believes he is the right person to lead Labour, then he should place that proposition before the membership and allow them to render their verdict. Let there be a contest conducted openly, honestly, and democratically. Let the 350,000 members exercise the rights afforded to them by the party's constitution. Let us discover whether the enthusiasm proclaimed by certain sections of the media and elements within Westminster truly extends beyond those circles and into the wider Labour movement.

For my part, I remain unconvinced. More importantly, I remain profoundly uneasy at the manner in which this entire affair is unfolding. The Labour Party has always prided itself on being a democratic movement. If that principle is to mean anything at all, then the members must be permitted to determine their own future free from coercion, manipulation, or prearranged outcomes.

Anything less would not merely diminish the authority of a future leader. It would represent a profound disservice to the very people upon whom the Labour Party ultimately depends.

[Alonso Gurmendi @Alonso_GD]

Meaning they are *not* “illegal migrants” but legal refugees. What kind of reporting is this lol

[Anna Turley MP @annaturley]

Note to all the pearl-clutching Tories out in force today…

You don’t HAVE to send your kids to private school. We have universal education provision in this country.

If you *choose* to do so, the rest of us shouldn’t pay for you to have a tax break for the privilege.

[Bridget Phillipson @bphillipsonMP]

📈 3,008 more teachers in secondaries & special schools
📈1,646 more teachers in colleges
📈Trainee teachers up 13%
📈 Teacher pay up 9.5%
📈 Record investment in schools

If standing up for state schools makes me a spiteful class warrior, I’ll wear it with pride.

#PMQs

[Farrukh @implausibleblog]

Tulip Siddiq made a point of order in the House of Commons after Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch attacked Bridget Phillipson, again,

"Kemi Badenoch called the Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson a spiteful class warrior"

"And previously she's compared Bridget Phillipson to a gestapo officer"

"Madame Deputy Speaker, I started out working in parliament as a teenager, and for 25 years of being involved in politics I have never seen the atmosphere here in parliament and outside quite so hostile and intimidatory, especially towards female elected representatives"

"Madame Deputy Speaker, words matters and inflammatory language contribute to this hostility towards politicians, especially women"

"Could I ask your advice whether the language that was used by the leader of the opposition today, towards the Secretary of State for Education, who is a woman who grew up in poverty, on a council estate, raised by a single mother, on free school meals, and worked her way up to Cabinet, is appropriate language to be used in the chamber"

"Not only does this language contribute to hostility, it also puts off women, from coming into this very important profession"

[Anna Soubry 🇬🇧🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇺🇦🇪🇺🖤🤍 @Anna_Soubry]

Can you imagine the complete sh*t storm if #KeirStarmer or @KemiBadenoch had received a £5 million bung!

[Larry the Cat @Number10cat]

It's 30c in London at 1030 in the morning. This is not a day to be covered in fur. I wonder if the Prime Minister of Iceland needs a cat?

[Good Law Project @GoodLawProject]

So a crypto billionaire with fossil fuel interests gives you £5m and you announce policies supporting crypto and fossil fuels.

Whose business is that?
https://t.co/Ymg97f12tV

[Michael Spicer @MrMichaelSpicer]

Farage: I can spend my £5m on Ferraris if I want it's none of your business.

Reform voters: He's one of us.