Barnes

[Jonah Goldberg @JonahDispatch]

A big reason for the trade imbalance? We were buying oil at below market rates from Canada. We had a sweat heart deal. Take oil imports out of it and we had a trade surplus. This thing with Canada is moronic. And the people buying into Trump's bizarre misunderstanding of basic facts and economics are telling on themselves.

[Sam Stein @samstein]

This is really incredible. Docs released by Trump tonight confirm RUSSIA tried to spread claims Biden was engaged in criminal activity vis-a-vis Burisma and that it advanced those narratives "with US officials" and planed a "high-profile corruption scandal... at the peak of the 2020 US presidential campaign."

[Aakash Gupta @aakashgupta]

In Germany, a talented 14-year-old earns his club money. In America, his parents pay the club $15,000 a year.

That single inversion explains why "we will not" is the most accurate line ever written about US soccer.

FIFA built a global system for this. Training compensation and solidarity payments send a cut of every transfer fee back to the clubs that developed the player, from age 12 onward. Develop one future pro and your academy gets paid for a decade. Barcelona's La Masia, Ajax, every Bundesliga academy runs on this logic. The kid is the asset.

US Soccer refuses to enforce those rules. When Seattle's Crossfire Premier claimed its $60,000 share of DeAndre Yedlin's transfer to Tottenham, it got nothing. Claims on the Dempsey and Bradley transfers died partly because the federation couldn't even produce the youth training records.

So American clubs earn zero dollars when a kid turns pro. They earn when a kid enrolls. Which makes the parent the customer, and the product is whatever keeps the parent writing checks: travel tournaments, hotel weekends, $500 showcase events, private training at $100 an hour. Elite pathways run $8,000 to $20,000 a year. A comparable academy spot in Italy costs about 120 euros.

Follow the incentive one level deeper and it gets darker. A club dependent on fees can't cut its weakest paying players, so rosters optimize for retention over development. The scouting pool shrinks to families who can afford the cliff, which appears around age 11, exactly when development matters most. The country runs a talent filter sorted by household income instead of ability.

Every four years someone proposes fixing this. The proposal always requires the people profiting from the $15,000 model to vote themselves out of business.

They will not.

[Ritchie Torres @RitchieTorres]

There is no contradiction between July 4th and Juneteenth. All Americans should take pride in both.

July 4th celebrates the founding promise of equality and liberty for all.

Juneteenth celebrates the enforcement of our founding promise.

Both are chapters in the ever-unfolding American Revolution.

[sam @sam_d_1995]

it’s kind of ironic that the French government better understands and captures the true aesthetics and ideals of America than the groyper weirdos at the White House posting cringe anti-American MAGAslop

[Jeremiah Johnson 🌐 @JeremiahDJohns]

This is fascinating to me, because beyond the surface level it illuminates why conservatives are often so full of shit.

The baseline here is that there's a heatwave, and Mamdani asked New Yorkers to adjust their thermostats to help the grid. This is regular practice in red and blue areas of the country. Daniel posts a defiant "I'm not gonna do what mommy tells me!" style post. He surely thinks he's a very clever boy here.

Now if the message is "This is a free country, and I love my AC, and by god it's my house and no government bureaucrat can force me to change", then fine. Sure. But there is no law being proposed here. No police are bursting down your door demanding to check your thermostat. It's a request from a community leader, a polite ask that you engage in a very small pro-social sacrifice.

You would think conservatives would understand the idea that local communities should pull together in times of need. For the 'common good', perhaps. You'd think. And that they'd be happy if no government force was involved, if they could act merely because they had strong moral character and believed in private charitable action.

"Nobody should ever ask anyone to sacrifice for the common good, even if it's just a polite request" is just dipshit nihilism.

But I suspect Daniel doesn't actually believe in those conservative ideas. Or if he does, they're a distant second to the true guiding star of conservative thought: owning the libs. Given the chance to help people or own the libs, conservatives will always own the libs. Given the chance to demonstrate strong principles or own the libs, they'll always abandon the principle to own the libs. The actual philosophy of the right is merely "We hate the left". And it's sad.

[Intelschizo @Schizointel]

Happy Interlocking fields of double canister grape shot day to those who celebrate!

[Clash Report @clashreport]

Obama:

It is possible for me to be a great admirer of George Washington and also acknowledge he was a slaveholder. And that does not negate his greatness.

That simply acknowledges that there is a profound, deep flaw in these Founding Fathers, who were also geniuses and gave us these tools.

Which is true of all of us, right? It's true of every president. We're this mixed bag.

We've got contradictions and embody the country's contradictions.

Source: MS NOW

[Daniel Dale @ddale8]

I think I’m going to consume every single piece of “World Cup visitor enjoying mundane things in the United States” content, what a genre. Really hope we get some Pauls and Freddys in Toronto too

[Michael Jolley @mjolley22]

When you capture Nicolas Maduro so he can advise you on economic policy.

[Sickos Committee @SickosCommittee]

Playoff points:
Texas A&M: 3
Ohio State: 14
James Madison: 34

[Kibbie Dome @KibbieDome]

You fucking wish

[Jake Tapper 🦅 @jaketapper]

President Trump now admitting that he called African countries “shitholes” in that 2018 meeting with Senators, which he denied at the time.

https://t.co/gjqBsx4HUb

[RedditCFB @RedditCFB]

The correct answer to the last 2 spots in at 9 & 10 is Miami, Notre Dame, in that order. Sorry if this bothers you.

[David Burge @iowahawkblog]

I'm proud to have a VPN
Where at least I know I'm free
To engagement bait from Pakistan
That I live in Tennessee

[Jake Tapper 🦅 @jaketapper]

In which a GOP pollster cautions Loomer that “digging in” on addressing the GOP’s “Nazi problem” will “alienate younger voters which Republicans need to win.”

[Oversight Dems @OversightDems]

🚨🚨HERE IT IS: We got Trump’s birthday note to Jeffrey Epstein that the President said doesn’t exist.

Trump talks about a “wonderful secret” the two of them shared. What is he hiding? Release the files!

[Adam Cochran (adamscochran.eth) @adamscochran]

As much as I’d like to blame Patel and Bondi here it’s this guys problem.

Thomas Fugate III, a 22 year old Trump intern who was appointed to lead counter terrorism & threat prevention at DHS.

He gutted the department firing 75% of the staff, suggesting “domestic terror” and “domestic born shooters” weren’t the problem and that the department needed to “focus on illegals”

This department coordinates cross-agencies tips, and helps power online monitoring programs for proactively catching things like mass shootings before they happen.

But, given it’s got basically no staff, I imagine they are drowning in backlog, and too busy focused on the President’s made up agenda, and so didn’t catch the fact that the shooter was blatantly posting about his planned crimes online.

This is why we hire qualified people for offices; not partisan loyalists.

Today Trump’s loyalty pledge literally cost children their lives.

[Commissioner Joe Bishop-Henchman | Eckington @joe5f6]

Step 1. Ban DC from spending local funds, forcing the city to cut $300 million and scale back trash collection

Step 2. Activate the National Guard at $1 million a day to collect trash

Step 3. ???