Kelly C

[Justine Bateman @JustineBateman]

You can hold two ideas in your head at the same time.
You can be pro-men and also anti-sexism.
You can be pro-women’s rights and also support trans people.
You can be pro-environment and against alternative energy fraud and waste.
You can have an allegiance to a political party and also be fiercely critical of any of their mismanagement.
You can support freedom of religion, but draw the line when that religion wants to fundamentally change the structure of the US.
You can support people with new ideas, and also tell them when their ideas don’t hold water.
You can also change your mind whenever you feel like it.

[Reads with Ravi @readswithravi]

A reminder from Atomic Habits by James Clear:

“It doesn't make sense to continue wanting something if you're not willing to do what it takes to get it. If you don't want to live the lifestyle, then release yourself from the desire. To crave the result but not the process is to guarantee disappointment.”

[Dawid Pałka @Dawid_Palka_]

Po 20 latach małżeństwa muszę w końcu powiedzieć to głośno...

Z moją żoną nie łączy mnie już nic.

Poznaliśmy się na egzaminie na filozofię ponad 20 lat temu. Byliśmy młodzi i głupi, nie słuchając rozsądnych opinii szybko wzięliśmy ślub.

A potem życie zrobiło swoje i dziś żyjemy w dwóch różnych światach.

Ona: dzieci, szkoła, dydaktyka, nauka, góry, natura, koty, dramaty.
Ja: firmy, fundusze, inwestycje, biznes, miasto, beton, psy, komedie.

Ona: kreatywna, empatyczna, marzycielska.
Ja: analityczny, rzeczowy, osadzony w faktach.

Zero wspólnych pasji.
Zero wspólnych zainteresowań.
Nie śmieszą nas te same rolki na Instagramie.

Każdy terapeuta ze śniadaniowej telewizji wystawiłby naszemu małżeństwu akt zgonu. Znajomi pewnie się zastanawiają, kiedy ogłoszę rozwód.

No to ogłaszam...

Kocham tę kobietę bardziej niż 20 lat temu!

I kiedy wieczorem opowiada mi o rzeczach, które kompletnie mnie nie interesują, słucham jej z przyjemnością, której nie tłumaczy żaden poradnik.

Bo przez te 20 lat zrozumiałem coś, co przeczy wszystkiemu, co wciskają nam media.

Wspólne pasje to nie budulec związku. To dekoracja. Ludzie po latach idą różnymi drogami, w różnym tempie i to nie jest awaria. Tak wygląda życie.

Prawdziwy budulec jest inny. Chcesz dla drugiej osoby lepiej niż dla siebie. Jej potrzeby stawiasz nad swoje. Wolisz dawać, niż brać. Jeśli tego nie ma, nie uratują was nawet identyczne playlisty.

Więc jeśli twoja druga połówka to twoje przeciwieństwo, przestań to naprawiać. Może właśnie tam mieszka wasz sekret.

Nie musicie kochać tych samych rzeczy.
Wystarczą te same wartości, ten sam kierunek, szacunek do różnic i troska o drugą połowę większa niż o siebie.

I na koniec coś, co zrozumiałem dopiero niedawno...

Przez 20 lat moja żona każdego dnia miała powody, żeby wybrać inaczej. Innego człowieka, inne życie, inny świat; bliższy jej gór niż mojego betonu.
Mimo to każdego dnia wybierała to samo... mnie.

Miłość to nie jest coś, co się czuje. To coś, co się codziennie wybiera.
Od 21 lat jestem czyimś wyborem i jestem z tego naprawdę dumny...

[Dave Goitia 4 AZ FOP Lodge 12 @GlendaleFOP12]

I would like to personally thank all the acts who canceled for the America 250 concert....

We are having a better time with the military performers.

[Midwest vs. The Rest @midwestern_ope]

Reminder that 95° and humid is better than 10° and a wind chill

[John 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿⛽️ @BRFCJohn]

America, hear me out…

I love it here, and never thought I would… but I do…

But seriously, it stinks of weed, every place I’ve visited.

Don’t get me wrong, Boston stinks of piss and weed, and they seem more than ok with that.

But everywhere else? What’s with that?

Ps

I Still love my time here, before you all come at me with your red coat yellow teeth crap as usual.

[Second Thought @SecondThoughtFP]

Mayim Bialik (@MissMayim) says COVID radically changed how people treated anyone who asked questions.

“I’m a bleeding-heart liberal…The notion that if I questioned what we were doing about school closures, church closures, BLM marches—I just wanted to talk about it. And even in my own home, it did not always feel safe.”

Watch the full episode of Second Thought with @SnoozyWeiss: https://t.co/PHDmYlJi5s

[Michael Mathes @MichaelMathes]

“England historically has struggled here in Massachusetts”
— #WorldCup announcer on Fox
👀

[That's My Michelle @JamelleMyBelle]

Somebody said that World Cup is just the US having a giant sleepover with the cousins we never see because our parents hate each other. 😂

[Mildly Amusing @MildlyAmusing00]

YES! Out of all the World Cup countrymen to visit, I think the Scotts have been the most fun.

The Japanese cleaning everything has been inspiring; Freddy and the Germans have been a blast; South Korea was ripping it up in Mexico.

Overall, everyone has been fun and I’d be just fine if they started to process to come here permanently. But the Scotts have been special. Their humor just works in America. It’s that dry, British humor, but more down to earth and with a twist I can’t quite quantify.
🇺🇸 ❤️ 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

[Mike Netter @nettermike]

Your heart should breaking as you read this. Because you all need to realize something about Usha Vance Karoline Leavitt Jennifer Hegseth and Jeanette Rubio These four women right now are each carrying something that most people will never fully understand. Usha Vance pregnant with her fourth child baby boy coming in July and JD chose no formal leave. She is home. Alone. Counting the days. While her husband carries America. Karoline Leavitt who stood at the most powerful podium in America for 39 weeks pregnant never missed a single day. Came back to work four days after having baby Niko. And today holds baby Vivi knowing another briefing is always just around the corner. Jennifer Hegseth who holds seven children together every single time Pete boards that plane. Every deployment. Every trip. Every morning the kids ask where dad is. She answers. Alone. And Jeanette Rubio who has watched her husband cross three continents in one week away from her away from their children for a country that may never fully know her name.

Four women. Four completely different sacrifices. One identical truth. They never asked America to see them. They never posted about what it costs. They never once made it about themselves. They just held everything together. Quietly. Completely. So their husbands could hold America. And today we just need every American to stop for one moment. And say something these four women have waited too long to hear. Thank you. Not for your husbands. For you. For everything you carry that nobody films.

God cover Usha. Cover Karoline. Cover Jennifer. Cover Jeanette. And remind every one of them America sees you. Even on the days it forgets to say it. Make sure to repost this today. Because these women deserve to be seen.

[Melissa Chen @MsMelChen]

Everyone has been so impressed by Japanese fans cleaning up after themselves but most probably missed this beautiful moment at the post-game (🇳🇱2 - 2🇯🇵) press conference.

Toward the end after reporters were done asking questions, 🇯🇵head coach, Hajime Moriyasu, asked to speak one more time.

🗣️ “May I speak?”

He turned to the Dutch reporters in the room.

🗣️ “I think there are many Dutch reporters here as well, so I’d like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to the people of the Netherlands once again.”

Moriyasu explained that when he became part of the Japan national team, Japanese football still had no professional league.

🗣️ “I was trained by a Dutch coach named Hans Ooft. It wasn’t just me. Japanese coaches in general were greatly influenced by him, which has led to the development of Japanese soccer today.”

He also mentioned another Dutch figure who shaped his career.

🗣️ “The legendary Dutch coach Wim Jansen served as the manager for J.League’s Sanfrecce Hiroshima and also as a coach for Urawa Reds, contributing to Japanese soccer.”

🗣️ “It’s not just those two. Many other coaches and players have contributed to raising the level of Japanese soccer, so I want to express my thanks. Thank you very much.”

What a masterclass in graciousness and gratitude. Imagine after a high-stakes match, instead of basking in glory and bravado (well-deserved in my opinion), the coach took to the microphone to... thank his opponents publicly and sincerely.

Japan's cultural operating system prizes harmony (wa), respect for precedent, and gratitude as a form of strength, not weakness. Japanese sports culture reflects its broader society where you'll see athletes bow to their opponents, thanking referees, and even crediting rivals or mentors.

Think of sumo wrestlers, Olympic athletes, or even bullet-train staff apologizing for a 30-second delay.

The Japanese have this concept of On (恩) - it is the sense of indebtedness to those who came before or helped you. It's what you'd expect from a culture that truly prizes continuity.

Moriyasu was acknowledging a real debt to Dutch coaches like Hans Ooft (who coached Japan in the early 90s and helped professionalize the game) and Wim Jansen. Japanese football openly credits foreign influences - Dutch "Total Football" philosophy, German organization, Brazilian flair - while building something distinctly their own. Few nations do this with such little ego.

Japan is pure class

[Mayor Guy Fieri @GuyFieri]

This is amazing.
Welcome to America!!
Welcome to Flavortown!!

[Frank Brown @FrankBr05713205]

I teach auto shop at a small high school. We work on students cars, teachers cars, students parents cars and some community people cars. We only charge for parts and not labor, so we saved some people a lot of money last school year. This last school year we did 126 oil changes, 68 brake jobs, 85 alignments, 4 steering racks, 22 tune ups, 32 struts, 20 shock absorbers, 4 transfer cases, mounted and balanced 82 new tires, 4 timing chains, 15 valve cover gaskets, 14 thermostats, 4 radiators, 12 in tank fuel pumps, 8 EVAP canisters, 6 exhaust manifolds, 4 mufflers, 15 AC repairs including evacuate and recharge, 8 alternators, 22 batteries, 9 starters and so much more! Proud of those students I am!

[Joe Borelli @JoeBorelliNYC]

Pro tip: If you’re in the market for some happiness, follow this random German fella as he explores the US for the WC and seems genuinely tickled to be experiencing America.

[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.

[Jennifer Sey @JenniferSey]

No Bob.

That’s right, I find this insulting.

We all age. Menopause sucks. I’m sure men have shitty symptoms from aging too.

I don’t want special treatment. It’s infantilizing. I worked for 30 years while getting my period. I was fine. I’m fine now too. I can handle it.

[AG @AGHamilton29]

The data is even more revealing when you remove suicides.

In 2024, America had 15,364 gun homicides.

The same year, Europe had around 62,700 deaths from summer heat.

America had ~2000.

That's a policy choice.

[Robert Sterling @RobertMSterling]

I just had the craziest experience at the airport.

We are about to board a flight to Atlanta when the pilot from the incoming plane walks out of the jetway. Guy is probably late 50s, salt and pepper hair, military look. The kind of pilot you instantly feel good about seeing on your flight.

Pilot walks over to the counter, gets on the PA system, and starts addressing everyone. “Folks, I’ve been doing this a long time. Flying one of these jets is easy. The hard part is looking at 130 people and telling them their flight is going to be delayed.”

Audible groans throughout the boarding gate. Most people here are flying to Atlanta as a layover before another flight. 130 people just had their day become a complete mess.

The pilot goes on. “I get it, trust me. But here’s the deal: During our landing, we had a small mechanical issue. I’m not your pilot for the next leg, but I don’t feel confident the jet’s safe to fly until we have a mechanical team look it over, and I don’t feel comfortable asking the next pilots to fly you guys until we get confirmation.”

He points at the agents next to him behind the counter: “Now, none of this is the agents’ fault. Please be kind to them. I’m the one who made this decision, not them, so any inconvenience you experience is my fault. Just please know that I don’t do this lightly, and I’m only doing it because I believe it’s in the best interests of everyone’s safety.”

Now this is where the story gets crazy. The pilot puts the microphone down, grabs his suitcase, and all the people in the gate…

Start clapping.

I’m not joking, everyone starts clapping for the guy. 130 people who just had their travel plans ruined give an ovation to the guy who made the decision and delivered the message.

All because he addressed them with decency and transparency, took ownership of the decision, made it clear that it was necessary, and explained why it was in everyone’s best interest.

It’s honestly one of the best examples of strong communication—of strong leadership, for that matter—that I’ve seen in a long time.

@Delta, whoever your Atlanta to Wichita pilot was this morning, he’s one of the good ones. Please tell him the delayed passengers of flight 1637 appreciate what he did.

[Dustin @r0ck3t23]

Elon Musk just defended America better than every politician in Washington combined.

Musk: “After World War 2, the US could have basically taken over the world and any country. Like we got nukes, nobody else got nukes. We don’t even have to lose soldiers. Which country do you want?”

One nation on earth held a weapon nobody else had.

Total dominance. Zero competition. No risk of retaliation.

Every empire in history that held that kind of advantage used it.

Rome. The Mongols. The British. The Ottomans.

They conquered until they collapsed.

America had a bigger advantage than all of them combined.

And it rebuilt the countries it just defeated.

Musk: “The United States actually helped rebuild countries. So it helped rebuild Europe, it helped rebuild Japan. This is very unusual behavior, almost unprecedented.”

Almost unprecedented?

It had never happened before. Not once in 5,000 years of recorded history.

The Marshall Plan wasn’t foreign aid.

It was the most radical act of restraint any superpower ever committed.

America turned its enemies into allies. Turned rubble into economies. Turned surrender into partnership.

Germany went from ashes to the economic engine of Europe in a generation.

Japan went from unconditional surrender to the third largest economy on earth.

Three years after the war, America was flying food into Berlin.

A city in the heart of the nation that just tried to destroy it.

That’s not policy.

That’s a civilization deciding what it is at the exact moment it has the power to be anything.

You’re being told a story right now.

That America is the villain of history.

You hear it everywhere. Media. Universities. Social platforms.

Musk: “There’s always like, well America’s done bad things. Well of course America’s done bad things, but one needs to look at the whole track record.”

Every nation on earth has dark chapters. Every single one.

The difference is what a country does when nobody can stop it.

And when nobody could stop America, it fed its enemies and rebuilt their cities.

Musk: “The history of China suggests that China is not acquisitive. Meaning they’re not going to go out and invade a whole bunch of countries.”

Probably right.

China has historically built walls, not fleets.

But the real question isn’t about borders anymore.

We’re approaching a moment that mirrors 1945 in ways nobody has fully processed yet.

AI is going to give a handful of people a power advantage that makes nuclear monopoly look quaint.

If someone is going to hold that kind of power, who do you want it to be?

The country that conquered when it could? Or the one that rebuilt when it didn’t have to?

Every alliance. Every trade route. Every economy.

Billions lifted out of poverty.

All of it traces back to one act of restraint that had never been done before.

And carries no guarantee of being repeated.

The most powerful thing America ever did wasn’t building the bomb.

It was what it didn’t do after.