ararubyan.bsky.social
I came to this country on a boat. I didn't have a penny to my name, owning only the clothes on my back. I didn't speak a word of English. Of course, I was only 6 months old, but in time, I overcame those handicaps and became the man I am today. #Democrats
1,803 posts
4,528 followers
1,816 following
Regular Contributor
Active Commenter
comment in response to
post
The Constitution would like a word with you, Senator.
comment in response to
post
revised to say "nearly a century"
comment in response to
post
Remember it's 1971 or so.
comment in response to
post
They’re watching him do the war dance again, and half of them are shocked—shocked—to find out the guy who ordered the drone assassination of Soleimani might not be a Quaker.
comment in response to
post
They painted murals of Trump air-humping American flags and promised he’d be the first president in decades not to bomb a country just to keep defense contractors turgid. Now?
comment in response to
post
Israel bombed Iran, and now the most self-righteous political movement in modern history has no idea what it believes anymore—except that it must be right.
The MAGA crowd spent eight years chanting “No more forever wars” like it was a verse from the Gospel of St. Don.
comment in response to
post
When I was in college we used to watch his show like a later generation watched the Daily Show.
comment in response to
post
Her lip filler was leaking.
comment in response to
post
thanks! I've been reading Chernow's biography of Twain and was inspired.
comment in response to
post
Either way, I was to appear on national television, a device which I quickly gathered was a kind of electric campfire where people gathered nightly to be misled in comfort.
comment in response to
post
Now, the details of my return were murky, even to me. I presumed it was a mix-up in the bureaucracy of Heaven, or perhaps I’d been summoned by an overzealous booking agent with access to a Ouija board.
comment in response to
post
In the next, I was shaking coal dust off my cuffs at Pennsylvania Station, squinting at the skyline of New York City like it owed me money.
comment in response to
post
I’d been absent from public life for nearly a century, and when a man goes that long without publishing a book, folks begin to talk. But one evening, I was resting peaceably in that great celestial library where the whiskey is warm and the publishers are honest.
comment in response to
post
This isn’t diplomacy through strength—it’s diplomacy through devastation.
comment in response to
post
The numbers tell a brutal story. At least 224 Iranians dead since Friday. Twenty-four Israelis were killed. Iran has fired over 370 missiles at Israel using weapons that travel at five times the speed of sound, reaching Israeli cities in just 12 minutes.
comment in response to
post
The Ukraine conflict rages on after 144 days of his presidency. Gaza burns despite the “six-week ceasefire” that collapsed in March. Now Iran and Israel trade missiles while Trump posts evacuation warnings on Truth Social. His peace deals have turned into declarations of war.
comment in response to
post
Thank you @bluestormcomin1.bsky.social 💙
@smith83k.bsky.social
@annettebeebe.bsky.social
@burntundertones.bsky.social
@6j1.bsky.social
@abbarsha.bsky.social
@brittboosts.bsky.social
@licketysplit6.bsky.social
@kbalivewell.bsky.social
@fump-truck.bsky.social
@debbiedemocrat.bsky.social
comment in response to
post
wait what does this even mean
comment in response to
post
"And number two, every single nonviolent political movement that hits at least that three-and-a-half percent threshold of the country’s population being engaged in the movement has succeeded.”
comment in response to
post
The pair studied 100 years of uprisings and came away with two findings that every organizer—and every would-be strongman—should memorize. As pod-guy Jon Favreau summarized: “Number one, nonviolent protests are twice as likely to succeed as armed conflicts.
comment in response to
post
And it’s why what happened on No Kings Day might matter more than any headline gave it credit for.
comment in response to
post
According to Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan, every nonviolent movement in the past century that mobilized just 3.5% of its population succeeded. Authoritarians know this. That’s why they fear the streets more than the courts.
comment in response to
post
In the beginning, it was simpler.
comment in response to
post
I could feel the room turn. Forty pairs of eyes swiveling from the stage to my seat, waiting for my answer. Waiting to see if I’d play along, get defensive, or somehow become part of the show I’d paid twenty dollars to watch.
I’ve heard “where you from?” my whole life.
comment in response to
post
“You,” he said, pointing directly at me. “Yeah, you. Where you from?”
The question hung in the air. Like I was a specimen that needed classification before he could proceed with his set.
comment in response to
post
I knew what was coming. There’s always a moment of recognition that happens between people who don’t quite fit the default setting of a space. A quick nod, a raised eyebrow, the silent acknowledgment that says, “I see you seeing me.”
comment in response to
post
It started with a stare. The Iraqi-American comedian scanned the crowd like a customs agent at passport control. Forty white faces. And me. His eyes landed on mine, paused, and locked in. The only other brown-skinned guy in the room.
comment in response to
post
Each person decides what they will do or not do. Congressmen are no different than you, sir. I'm sure you are doing everything you can do as one person, right? RIGHT?? YOU would NEVER wait around for someone else, anyone, to do something before you act as one individual. Bravo!
comment in response to
post
The Republican Speaker of the House declares the Democratic Governor of California should be tarred and feathered. So there's that.
comment in response to
post
You’re no longer writing the story. At this point, the story is writing you—and it has notes.
comment in response to
post
Reality Status: Corrupted. Fractured. And declining by the keystroke. You are about to enter a shared workspace governed by the whims of the dead, the young, and one deeply insecure algorithm.
comment in response to
post
Time: 4:23 AM. Or perhaps 4:23 PM yesterday. Definitely Friday the 13th. Or the exact moment before reason gave way to chaos. The clock is unreliable and may, in fact, be counting down.
Location: Somewhere between the cloud and the mind’s last reliable firewall.
comment in response to
post
A literary demolition derby populated not by editors, but by a hard-boiled ghost detective from the pulp era, a middle-school kickflip boyfriend with a shaky grasp on reality, and a malfunctioning AI in the throes of a digital identity crisis.
comment in response to
post
It was a grunt—an oafish, narcissistic pantomime of power, soundtracked by “God Bless the USA,” which has now achieved the cultural status of a monster truck rally hymn.
comment in response to
post
It would be poetic, if it weren’t so squalid: a convicted felon standing at Fort Bragg, playing soldier for the cameras while the actual military, brass and all, stands there like expensive garden statuary. This wasn’t a speech.