bookworm

Recovering fundamentalist. She is too fond of books. Views are my own.

[bookworm @lorbla]

@timwillin1 @DrOBrienMD

[Narinder Kaur @narindertweets]

This is possibly the saddest thing I've seen in a long time..an immigrant nurse talking about fleeing her home..she saved her UNIFORM. So she could still WORK for our communities.

I'd fill this country with a thousand of this woman than one of those good for nothing thugs.
God help this poor woman.

[GfB 📚 @Dr_Gavin_Brewis]

Fascism has arrived.

Dress it up with whatever language you like, but when you have masked men, dressed in a uniformal order, attacking people on the street based on skin colour, any argument about concerned citizens or frustrations about government are redundant. We are here.

[Squinter @squinteratn]

I'd have settled for 5% of this testosterone-soaked anger and passion for Natalie McNally and her unborn child.
But hey, ho.
Didn't fit the template.

[bookworm @lorbla]

@jonny_pat1 @AmandaFBelfast

[Democratic Coalition @TheDemCoalition]

These quick thoughts by Michael Jochum on the disturbing reason Trump gets as much support as he does is a must-read 👇

I used to wonder how it was possible that Trump could have won in 2016, and then again in 2024, given how emotionally toxic and depraved he is.

I don’t wonder anymore. I think he won for that exact reason. Because he carried at least one broken shard to reflect the broken shards in millions of others.

If you’re a racist, you found your guy. If you’re a misogynist, you found your guy. If money is your only religion, you found your guy. If your heart is armored shut, you found your guy. If you mock the disabled, you found your guy. If intelligence makes you insecure, you found your guy. If you’re a sexual predator, you found your guy. If you trade in humiliation and conspiracy and filth, you found your guy.

If you’ve never done a single hour of emotional inventory, you found your guy. If you cheat, stiff contractors, bankrupt your obligations, and call it savvy, you found your guy. If you lie as easily as you breathe, you found your guy. If cruelty feels like strength, you found your guy. If white grievance is your comfort food, you found your guy. If your ego is a black hole no title can fill, you found your guy. If warmongering fuels your ego, you found your guy, If empathy feels like weakness and dominance feels like oxygen, you found your guy.

If he’d only carried one or two of these pathologies, he might have been dismissed as just another loud, damaged man. But he carried a buffet of them. That was the appeal. Millions could locate themselves somewhere in the wreckage. They didn’t have to agree with all of it. They just had to recognize a piece of themselves in it.

It was never really about him. It was about the validation. The absolution. The permission. He didn’t invent the resentment; he amplified it. He didn’t create the cruelty; he normalized it. He gave millions the intoxicating relief of hearing their ugliest impulses echoed back at rally volume.

Trump is a symptom. The deeper illness is collective. If there’s one sentence that defines his power, it’s this: “He says the things I’m thinking.”

And that’s the part that should chill us.

Because what does it say about us that so many were thinking those things? That tens of millions of Americans harbored resentments so deep, so seething, that they were simply waiting for a demagogue to baptize them as virtue? That after decades of supposed progress on race, gender, and equality, so many white men felt so threatened, so displaced, so furious, that cruelty became a political platform?

Maybe we were living in a fool’s paradise, mistaking silence for healing, politeness for progress.

Now the mask is off. Now we know.

And knowing is a far more dangerous place to stand.

– Michael Jochum, Not Just a Drummer: Reflections on Art, Politics, Dogs, and the Human Condition.

[Kenneth Roth @KenRoth]

Rich Trump appeals for patience from Americans struggling with soaring gas prices due to his pointless war of choice with Iran, all while trying to justify his ballroom vanity project and a slush fund for his cronies. https://t.co/zfiw4YZ5Bg

[The Bulwark @BulwarkOnline]

"I also want to know if I’m a good man—to know if I’ve lived a life worthy of the sacrifice of so many throughout our history. We must earn it. We must make it matter. On this Memorial Day, and on every day."
https://t.co/EZ7hXbzlwy

[Karly Kingsley @karlykingsley]

🎯

[Mehdi Hasan @mehdirhasan]

I'm trying to imagine Muslim kids chanting something similar about the Jewish or Christian faiths at a rally in London. The Prevent folks, counter-terrorism police, the entire British media would be all over the story, asking why Muslims are so extreme & brainwashing their kids.

[bookworm @lorbla]

@Ike_Saul ChatGPT argued with me that trump had not demolished the east wing and that I was a victim of Ai generated deceit. Only when I posted news reports from all over the world about the demolition did it admit that it was wrong.

[Kim W. Chafee @RevKimWChafee]

Truly.

[Tony @Mesnia1016]

@SarahLongwell25

[𝗱𝗮𝗻𝗻𝘆🫧💚 @beyoncegarden]

OH HE ATE HIM UP SO BAD LMAOOO😭😭😭

[Furkan Gözükara @FurkanGozukara]

Famous author Wajahat Ali completely destroys Pastor Doug Wilson on live TV. He exposes the Pentagon's religious extremism, calling out Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth as a cosplay crusader getting innocent civilians killed in an illegal and unwinnable war in Iran.

[Daniel Dale @ddale8]

Trump said Friday that the Strait of Hormuz situation was "over." It very obviously wasn't.

Trump said Friday that Iran agreed "to never close the Strait of Hormuz again.” The next day, Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz again.

Trump said yesterday that Vance isn't going to Pakistan for the talks. Officials quickly said Vance is going to Pakistan for the talks.

Trump said this morning that Vance had left and would be there tonight Islamabad time. Officials quickly said Vance is actually leaving tomorrow.

Trump said Iran has no military anymore and that "everything's gone." Iran continues to have a military with destructive capabilities.

Trump said the pope issued a statement saying Iran can have a nuclear weapon. That never happened.  

Trump said nobody expected Iran to retaliate against Gulf countries. That was widely expected.

Trump said the only planes the US has really lost in the war have been to friendly fire. He said this at the same event at which he had spoken at length about what happened after Iran shot down a US plane.

Story on the president's ever-growing number of false claims on big and small
matters related to the war – and his triumphant claims about supposed Iranian concessions that we just can't assume are based in reality: https://t.co/cmbHv302aR

[bookworm @lorbla]

@NickCohen4 I always think of these lines when I think of Trump.

"Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away."

[bookworm @lorbla]

@IsmanameKibs @atrupar