Alyssa Zabloudil

[Echoes of War @EchoesofWarYT]

Everyone wants to fight about the smartest president, but honestly the best answer got handed down by another president. In 1962 John F. Kennedy hosted a room full of Nobel Prize winners at the White House and told them, "I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone." The whole room laughed because they knew he was barely joking.

Because Jefferson was a genuine freak of nature. He wrote the Declaration of Independence at 33, in about two weeks, and it still reads like scripture. He taught himself to read in something like half a dozen languages. He designed his own home at Monticello and then designed an entire university, buildings, curriculum, and layout, from scratch. He obsessed over science, farming, wine, food, and gadgets, and JFK described him that night as a man who could "calculate an eclipse, survey an estate, tie an artery, plan an edifice, try a cause, break a horse, and dance the minuet."

And here is the part people forget. When the British burned Washington in 1814 and torched the Library of Congress, Jefferson sold the country his personal library to rebuild it, close to 6,500 books covering basically every subject a human being can study. His private collection literally became the foundation of the national library. Who owns 6,500 books in 1815? A maniac. A brilliant one.

Purely on raw wattage, the man was operating on a different frequency than the rest of the list. Two hundred years later we are still living inside sentences he wrote alone at a desk.

[1776 Live @250YearsAgoLive]

Continental Congress HAS SIGNED A DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE! 

The UNITED STATES are OFFICIALLY INDEPENDENT from BRITAIN.

LIBERTY BELLS ring out throughout Philadelphia; the streets ERUPT IN ECSTASY.

[1776 Live @250YearsAgoLive]

Delegates have gone home for the night, some visibly distressed.

It is a hot and sultry evening in Philadelphia.

Perhaps something shall happen in the morning.

[Fox News @FoxNews]

Two hundred and fifty years ago, 56 men gathered in Philadelphia and committed treason against the most powerful empire on Earth.

Representing 13 colonies, they were landowners, entrepreneurs, politicians and others who had become gripped by new ideas flowing from Enlightenment thinkers and Christian teaching.

Those convictions led them to start a war no sane person believed they could win — and what happened inside the Pennsylvania State House did not just create a nation. It helped create the political world we still live in today.

[1776 Live @250YearsAgoLive]

After South Carolina reverses its position, Continental Congress votes to declare INDEPENDENCE from Britain, adopting a legal separation from the Crown.

Charles Thomson, Secretary for Continental Congress, uses hash marks to note how many colonies voted for the severance from the Crown.

John Adams writes in a letter to his wife, Abigail, that “the second day of July, 1776 will be the most memorable epoch in American history.”

But although newspapers report the independence, no mass celebrations break out.

[1776 Live @250YearsAgoLive]

Independence may be on hold, despite yesterday’s decision.

Continental Congress has been meeting to further consider the Declaration of Independence, which they have hastily revised to remove author Thomas Jefferson’s denouncement of the transatlantic slave trade.

More changes may be coming and independence may have to wait until August or later.

[Sarpy Scanner @Sarpy_Scanner]

While crews continue to search Wherspann Lake and the surrounding Chalco Rec Area, the missing victim’s mother has asked that we share his photo.

[NCAA Baseball @NCAABaseball]

“He would be over the moon.” 🩵

@michellachester talks with Erik Paulsen Jr.’s mom, Christine, about what it means to watch her son at the #MCWS and how proud his late father would be of this moment - watching his son in his @DiamondHeels blues.

[NCAA Baseball @NCAABaseball]

"It's OK to get emotional. It's OK to have some tears...I love him like a son and I hope he feels that."

@DiamondHeels HC Scott Forbes on witnessing Erik Paulsen's strength this Father's Day

#MCWS

[Selene Mariposa @Selene_Mariposa]

The World Cup has turned America into a discovery channel for the rest of the world.

And they are not handling it well.
In the best possible way.

Here is what they are discovering:

Free public restrooms. Europeans pay every time.
Free water at every restaurant. Just appears.
Free refills. Coffee. Sodas. Iced tea. Unlimited.
Free chips and salsa before you even order.
Free warm bread with dinner.
Ice in drinks like civilized people.
Air conditioning everywhere. Not a moral debate. A fact.
Parking lots attached to the actual place you are going.
Drive throughs where the food comes to the car while you sit in it.
Ranch dressing by the gallon.
Tex-Mex that cannot be explained only experienced.
Dental care that actually works.
Buccee’s. There are no words for Buccee’s.

Then they found the grocery stores.

Five of them within one mile.
Each one the size of an aircraft hangar.
Burgers. Steaks. Brisket. Ribs. Pulled pork. Lamb. Veal. Every cut of every animal ever domesticated by human civilization available in one refrigerated aisle at ten in the morning on a Tuesday.

The Germans stood in the meat section for forty five minutes.
In silence.
Processing.

They finally understand why we do not have trains.

We have roads wide enough for the cars we actually drive.
Parking lots the size of small European countries.
Airports in every city worth visiting.

Why would we need trains.

The Germans are taking ranch home by the bottle.
The Dutch found queso and briefly lost the ability to speak.
The Japanese are photographing HEB like it is the Louvre.
The Czechs are weeping in West, Texas.

Welcome to America.
Everything is free, enormous, air conditioned, comes with chips, and has five grocery stores within a mile that will sell you any cut of any animal you have ever imagined.

Write that down. 🦋

[Omaha Scanner @omaha_scanner]

.@DCSheriffNE @DCSheriffHanson is providing a warning to parents of kids who are riding illegal street vehicles. DCSO will begin citing the parents. Watch the video for more information.

[College World Series of Omaha @CWSOmaha]

Up Next in OMA: The Men's College World Series! 🎬🏆

#MCWS x #RoadToOmaha

[Hurrdat Sports @HurrdatSports]

Omaha will see 23 different teams across the 2024, 2025 and 2026 MCWS fields. 🤯

(via @_robanderson)

[Chace Chambers @ChamberofFit]

If I were 25lbs overweight with a big belly & my goal was to become unrecognizable ASAP, here's everything I'd do:

1. Cut out alcohol as much as possible. It kills your sleep, recovery, fat loss, gut health, and more.

[Yogi @Houseofyogi]

Chicago lost the Bears this week. A team that's been in the city since 1921.

They didn't lose them to a bigger market or a better deal. The Bears decided they'd rather be a tenant in Indiana than deal with Illinois for one more year.

Think about how badly you have to run a place for that to be the smart move.

They lost them for two reasons.

The people running Illinois would rather villainize a builder than keep one. And they're bad at their jobs.

In 2021 the Bears spent $197M on the old Arlington Park racetrack.

Before they could break ground, Cook County valued the empty lot at $192M (Bears said $60M). They were salivating at the chance to extort a building that didn't even exist yet.

That fight dragged on for years.

The Bears were ready to put $2B into the stadium. All they wanted was a promise the county wouldn't reassess them into oblivion, plus $855M for infrastructure everyone uses. Roads, transit, utilities. A $3B project, two thirds of it private money pouring into Illinois.

Springfield had since 2021 to get this done. They dragged it to the final night of session, passed it through the Senate at 3:39AM, and the House went home without voting.

So now it's all gone.

The funniest part? This started because Cook County tried to grab the tax early. They knew a built stadium would pay $53M a year. Now they get under $4M on a vacant lot. No jobs, no buildout, no new anything.

Congrats on fighting for scraps and losing the whole prize.

Pritzker: they're "an $8.5B valued business" that doesn't need propping up.

But be smart for a second. Almost every NFL city throws in public money for a stadium. Not charity. The return is real. Tourism, hotels, restaurants, jobs, game days, property tax on a huge development. The math works.

Indiana did the math. While Illinois sat on it for years, Indiana passed a bill in months, put up $1B, and took the team.

And the Bears took a worse deal to get there. In Illinois they were going to own their stadium. In Indiana they rent it from the state. A team that wanted to build its own home gave up ownership just to escape Chicago.

Nobody won but Indiana. The Bears lost their stadium. Illinois lost the team, the $2B, and $53M a year in taxes.

Pritzker after they left: "I wasn't willing to give up billions of dollars of taxpayer money to give it to a billionaire-owned family or team."

There it is. "Billionaire-owned."

That's how Democrats talk about any business right before they run it out of town. Call them a billionaire, act like you're saving working families, take a victory lap while the tax base drives across the state line.

Meanwhile they're running the whole state into the ground. And you already know how this ends. You're living in it.

Pensions are $143B in the hole, worst in the country and not close. You pay $6,285 a year in property taxes, double the $2,969 national average, for a city that's $1.15B in the red. The mayor called its finances "the point of no return."

When you run things this badly, you sell what's left.

They leased the parking meters for 75 years to Morgan Stanley and a sovereign wealth fund in Abu Dhabi. Took $1.15B and burned through it in two years. The investors already made it all back, with 58 years left to collect.

Sold the Skyway. Sold the downtown garages. Every asset that made money, gone for one check.

But a fixed property tax rate for a team that's been here 106 years? That's "propping up billionaires."

Companies are leaving. Boeing for Virginia. Caterpillar for Texas. Citadel for Miami. In 2023 alone Illinois lost 56,000 people and $6B in income to other states. The ones who left earned a third more than the ones who moved in.

Indiana didn't outbid anyone. AAA credit, 16 years straight. A $676M surplus. Fourth-lowest debt per person in the country. They just weren't a disaster.

Illinois could have collected $53M a year. It chose zero. Ignore all the bad management but make sure to stick it to those evil, pesky billionaires.

[Holly Rowe @sportsiren]

Jordy Frahm really pitched in the #wcws pregnant. Epic doesn’t begin to describe her performance. Congrats Momma❤️ @jordybahl

[Roger McAfee @rmcafee8]

Jordy Frahm

1x Player of the Year
4x All-American
1x Gold Glove
Only player w/back-to-back seasons with 20+ wins and 20+ home runs

Pitching
91-17
19 SV
1.29 ERA
687 IP
398 H
937 K
0.84 WHIP

Batting
.422 BA
.512 OB
.842 SLG
1.354 OPS
43 HR
126 RBI

One of the best

[Jessica Coody @JessicaCoody]

More than the wins and the records, this right here is what I’ve admired and will remember the most about this team. Just as they were once inspired, they too have most definitely inspired and then some. ❤️ #GBR @HuskerSoftball

[Hail Varsity @HailVarsity]

Jordy Frahm reflects on her college journey, and her accomplishments as a Nebraska Cornhusker.

[Nebraska Softball @HuskerSoftball]

New day, new opportunity.