Joe Dad

Does not wear sunglasses indoors.

[Joe Dad @CroppDuster]

@JoshEakle If “underpaid,” you are excused from fraudulent behavior.

[Peter Girnus 🦅 @gothburz]

I am a senior coordinating producer for the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. I have worked eleven of these. I was backstage at the Washington Hilton when the shots were fired.

The first thing I heard was not the gunfire. It was glass.

A champagne flute hit the floor of the International Ballroom at approximately 9:47 PM. Then a second. Then the sound that I have since been told was a 12-gauge shotgun, which from inside the ballroom sounded like a heavy door slamming in a parking garage. Then the Secret Service moved. They moved the President, the Vice President, the First Lady through the east corridor in under ninety seconds, which is protocol, which is practiced, which is the one part of the evening that worked exactly as it was designed.

Everything else was improvised.

I know this because I ordered the wine. 94 tables. Two bottles per table. 188 bottles of a Willamette Valley pinot noir that the Association selected in February after a tasting committee spent three meetings debating between Oregon and Burgundy. Oregon won. The budget was $14,200. I signed the invoice. I can tell you the vintage. I can tell you the distributor. I can tell you the per-bottle cost because I negotiated it down from $89 to $76.

What I cannot tell you is how 147 of those bottles left the building during an active shooter evacuation.

I can tell you what I saw. A correspondent from a network I will not name picked up two bottles on her way to the east exit. Full bottles. One in each hand. She was wearing heels and she did not spill. A man in a tuxedo tucked one inside his jacket the way you'd shoplift a paperback at an airport bookstore. A woman picked up a bottle, looked at the label, put it back, and took a different one.

She checked the vintage. During an evacuation. That's editorial judgment under pressure.

The theme of the dinner was "A Free Press for a Free People." The banners were still hanging when the evacuation began. I know because I hung them. Twenty-three banners, navy blue, gold serif lettering, $11,400 for the set. They were still hanging when 2,600 guests were directed to the exits by Secret Service agents, one of whom had just taken a shotgun round in his ballistic vest and walked to the ambulance on his own feet.

The agent's vest costs approximately $800. The wine that left the building was worth $11,172 at Association cost. At restaurant markup, roughly $29,000. The guests saved more in wine than the vest that saved the agent.

That's priority.

The video went viral by 10:15 PM. Not the video of the evacuation. Not the Secret Service response. The wine. Three guests in formalwear grabbing bottles off white tablecloths while being told to move toward the exits, while a man with a shotgun stood in the same motor entrance where John Hinckley shot Ronald Reagan 45 years ago.

A woman near the service entrance was crying. She said "I just wanna go home." She was not holding wine. She was holding her phone. She was the only person I saw that night who looked afraid rather than inconvenienced.

That's the distinction. The rest of the ballroom did not look afraid. They looked interrupted. An active shooter at the WHCD is a logistical problem. The dinner was disrupted. The timeline was off. The after-party at the French Ambassador's residence would need to be rescheduled. These are contingency matters. Contingency matters have solutions. Fear is for people who attend events without security details.

I have produced eleven of these dinners. I have managed seating charts that require diplomatic-grade negotiations. I have handled comedians, cabinet secretaries, network anchors, and the editor of a major newspaper who once threatened to leave because his table was behind a column.

I have never, in eleven years, seen a guest leave a $76 bottle on the table during an evacuation. I have also never seen a guest check the label first. Both observations are consistent. The bottle is worth taking. The evacuation is worth surviving. The instinct is to do both simultaneously.

188 bottles placed. 41 recovered. 147 unaccounted for. One agent shot. Zero guests injured. Zero bottles broken.

A free press for a free people. The press is free. The wine was $76 a bottle. They took it anyway.

[Bark @barkmeta]

Let me explain what just happened 👇

5 minutes before the President announced a halt to attacks on Iran… someone placed a $1.5 BILLION bet on stocks going up and dumped $192 million in oil.

5 minutes…

These trades were 4 to 6 times larger than anything else in the entire market. Whoever did this wasn’t guessing. You don’t risk $1.5 billion on a hunch.

There was zero public indication this announcement was coming. No leaks. No press. Nothing. The only people who knew were in the room when the decision was made.

Someone in that room picked up a phone.
And within minutes they made more money than most Americans will earn in a thousand lifetimes. In a single trade. On a war that cost you $4+ a gallon gas and $16 billion in tax dollars.

American citizens funded this war. Politicians are profiting from it.

This is not the first time. Every major announcement from this administration has had massive suspicious trades right before it dropped. Tariff reversals. Policy shifts. War decisions.

This is the most blatant insider trading operation in the history of American politics. It’s not even close. And it’s happening over and over in broad daylight.

You would go to federal prison for trading on a tip from your cousin. These people are front running war decisions with billion dollar bets and nobody will ever ask a single question.

Nobody will be investigated. Nobody will be charged. By tomorrow this will be buried under the next satisfying headline. Just like last time. And the time before that.

The game is rigged. And they’re not even trying to hide it anymore…

[Joe Dad @CroppDuster]

If you build it, they will co…..
#RoyalRumble

[Joe Dad @CroppDuster]

@netflix no one cares about listening to Tina. We want to hear Alex. #Skyscrapperlive

[Dave Portnoy @stoolpresidente]

There is absolutely no difference between this play and the Buffalo play. Adams did not make any move. He caught it, secured it as he was tackled and then stripped on the ground. Same exact thing. Same exact. This is why fans hate the NFL refs. No consistency game to game

[Ryan Hart @thisdudelikesAI]

After 2 years of using ChatGPT, I can say that it is the best technology that has revolutionized my life the most, along with the Internet.

So here are 10 prompts that have transformed my day-to-day life and that could do the same for you in 2026:

[Wrestling Pics & Clips @WrestleClips]

This John Cena tribute video is the best thing WWE has ever done.

So f*cking beautiful.

We will miss you John 🐐❤️

#ThankYouCena https://t.co/igTyvg5vcX

[Joe Dad @CroppDuster]

@DearS_o_n Your struggles and willingness to deal with and solve them determine your success.

[internet hall of fame @InternetH0F]

This is the best use for of a drone I've ever seen 😭

[James Melville 🚜 @JamesMelville]

Mohammed Qahtani won the Toastmasters World Championship of Public Speaking. It’s easy to see why.

Please watch his speech. Words have power. Words can unite or divide. Words can spit venom or can mend a broken soul. Words absolutely matter.

[Joe Dad @CroppDuster]

@CreditUnion1Amp The sun is in my eyes so I can’t see…any movement?

[eve @eveforamerica]

What if Trump sang “Landslide”.

This may be my favorite.😆

[Joe Dad @CroppDuster]

@iamnotlarry_ @WestLoopTom Yep. Had plywood “reinforcing” the floor and thumbtacks holding up the cloth on the roof.

[Joe Dad @CroppDuster]

@iamnotlarry_ I was trying to find it a couple weeks ago and it’s not streaming anywhere.

[Joe Dad @CroppDuster]

@difficultpatty Those propagated hydrangeas are really taking off.

[Joe Dad @CroppDuster]

@EskimoLiberty @GigaBasedDad By very definition…relying on new investors to payout early ones.

[TomPaints トムは絵を描 @tom_paints]

There should be an app for dudes who just want to play catch. Nothing serious. No commitment. Just like, idk. Let’s go toss a ball around.

[Joe Dad @CroppDuster]

@cheygoulet Excuse me?

[jamie 🐾 @jordynsleftbrow]

Oh the new powerade ad is so good 😭