AJeaL

The wise win before the fight, while the ignorant fight to win. ~O Sensei Ueshiba *** Proverbs 18:21

[AJeaL @RhythmFootPrint]

Capture Your Free Will... https://t.co/LGbGwBvEwb

[OLDSKOOLBBALL @oldskoolbballx]

It’s 8/24 today; we celebrate Kobe Bryant Day.

Remembering Kobe and Gigi, together forever.

[Midnight_Kelly_co @Not_By_Sight_11]

8/24 means a little different. 💜💛

24 for Kobe. 8 for Kobe. 2 for Gigi.

A father. A daughter. A bond bigger than basketball.

Gone from our sight, but the Mamba Mentality still echoes through generations.

Today we remember Kobe & Gianna Bryant. 🕊️🐍

Legends leave. Impact stays. Forever.

#MambaForever #MambacitaForever

[Kobe Bryant Stories & Motivation @kobehighlight]

3 years ago today, Kobe and Gigi Bryant courtside at the Nets game ❤️

[Law360 @Law360]

The National Credit Union Administration said Monday that President Donald Trump's pick to lead the federal credit union regulator has now formally taken office, ending its brief leaderless stretch without any sitting chairman or board members at its helm. https://t.co/lAi799gJqw

[Esotouric's Secret Los Angeles @esotouric]

The Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association didn't spring for a professional Zoom account, so sorry, you can't watch the Mayoral debate if you're just logging in now.
https://t.co/bSeAvP9iEL

Seriously, what is this amateur hour foolishness? The City has a television channel.

[Thomas Hawk @thomashawk]

Found this old undated Agfachrome slide from a family trip down Lombard Street and it still looks incredible.

Looking out over the twists toward Coit Tower with Alcatraz and the Bay Bridge hanging in the background.

That dark green hardtop and the station wagon with the roof rack put it somewhere around the early to mid 70s if I had to guess.

Back then the street already felt legendary but the story behind those eight hairpin turns is pure San Francisco practicality.

The block between Hyde and Leavenworth used to run straight up the hill at a brutal 27 percent grade. Early cars and even horse wagons just could not handle it so people parked at the top or bottom and walked.

In 1922 the property owners (Carl Henry gets a lot of the credit) convinced the city to rebuild it with the switchbacks we know today.

They dropped the effective grade to about 16 percent, paved it in red brick, and suddenly the street became drivable.

Residents have kept the flower beds going ever since and the whole thing turned into one of the most photographed spots in the city almost by accident.

Every slow crawl down those curves still feels like a little celebration of that old engineering fix. Nothing quite like it.

[T Wolf 🌁 @Twolfrecovery]

We should measure success on homelessness by independence. Not dependence. We do recover.

[AJeaL @RhythmFootPrint]

BOSTON MUTUAL AID! https://t.co/HKLfKn6rhX via @YouTube
#TY @SabbySabs2 😍🙏🏾👏🏾🙌🏾💐

[CBS LA @CBSLosAngeles]

Lineage will not finish cleaning up the rotting food from its burned Boyle Heights warehouse by the 45-day deadline, Mayor Karen Bass announced on Thursday: https://t.co/zprWQnn2JF

[AJeaL @RhythmFootPrint]

👀

[Joon Choi @ChoiJoon]

LAUSD Budget Crisis Remains Severe ~Howard Blume | @latimes (8.11.26)

#LosAngeles #California #PublicEducation (K~12) | @LASchools

"With Los Angeles public schools opening Wednesday, district leaders are downplaying fears that a looming BUDGET CRISIS could lead to a COUNTY TAKEOVER... as they navigate a mandate to move forward with plans to CUT thousands of jobs, pressure employees to accept UNPAID furlough days and CLOSE an unspecified number of school buildings or campuses..."

https://t.co/IQHgJJPwcN

[George Jarjour @GeorgeOnTap]

The Los Angeles Lakers just sold for $12.5 billion, the most expensive sale in American sports history. And there’s some for a lack of better words, interesting connections. The seller is Mark Walter, who is under active federal investigation.

The buyer is Josh Kushner who’s brother is Donald Trump’s son in law and the man whose firm tried to buy the FIFA World Cup. The most famous franchise in sports just passed straight from a man being probed by the feds to a man who tried to privatize the world's biggest tournament. Let’s take a look at the full picture, because the full picture is ugly.

Let’s start off with some of the facts because this story is LOADED.

Mark Walter bought the Lakers 14 months ago at a $10 billion valuation. He didn't buy them to just flip them. He tore up the front office, rebuilt the scouting department, overhauled the business side, all the moves of a man planning to own this team for a decade. Then, 14 months in, he sold the Lakers?! Nobody does that. You don't buy your dream asset and unload it before you've finished redecorating, unless something changed and changed drastically.

Here's what happened. Walter is under federal investigation, a probe into the insurance companies he controls, the same case where the FBI reportedly seized his phone and laptop off a private jet at a Chicago airport. Separate investigations by U.S. prosecutors and the SEC are underway.

Now there is no proof of guilt yet. No one has pointed out for sure that the investigation forced this sale. Walter hasn't been charged with anything. The teams themselves are not named in the probe. Every serious outlet says the connection is unproven, and it is.

But you're allowed to look at the picture, and the picture is ugly. A man under federal investigation does not sell his trophy asset 14 months after buying it, at $2.5 billion above what he paid, in a matter of days, for no reason. That's not a normal exit. That's a fast, wildly profitable, remarkably clean getaway from the spotlight, executed at the precise moment the spotlight turned into a liability. You don't liquidate the Los Angeles Lakers this quickly unless you have a reason to want out. What that reason is, only the investigation knows. But the timing is not small.

But then who is buying it is a whole new story.

The buyer is Josh Kushner, founder of Thrive Capital. Weeks ago, that same firm was the lead investor in Gianni Infantino's $20 billion plan to sell off the commercial rights to the FIFA World Cup, the scheme that collapsed under a global revolt and nearly cost the FIFA president his job. Same man. Same firm. Different sport, different continent, weeks apart.

And there's a layer under the Kushner name that makes this bigger than sports. Josh Kushner is the brother of Jared Kushner, who is married to Ivanka Trump. Which means the most famous franchise in American sports is now owned, in part, by the sitting President's son-in-law's brother. Not the President himself, to be clear. He has no stake in this and no role in it. But the Lakers just became connected by marriage to the First Family, at the same time the seller is under a federal investigation run by that same administration's Justice Department. You don't have to allege anything to notice that's a crazy plot twist.

Two of the biggest money scandals in sports right now, a federally investigated owner on one side and the private equity operator who tried to buy the World Cup on the other, just resolved into a single transaction. The investigated man sold America's most famous team to the FIFA guy, in days, at a record price, and most people are reading it as a fun headline about the Lakers getting a new owner.

Here's the thing about the money at the very top of sports. Fans watch 30 teams, 30 owners, 30 separate franchises with their own colors and cities and rivalries. But the capital behind all of it is a small room. It's the same few dozen people, and they keep turning up in each other's deals. The Lakers, the Dodgers, the Giants, the Heat, Liverpool, the World Cup itself, pull the thread on almost any of them right now and you find the same handful of names, buying from and selling to one another.

That's the lesson that runs underneath all of this. At the level fans watch, sports is a game. At the level that actually owns it, sports is an asset class, and it is a far smaller and more connected world than anyone lets on. The Lakers didn't just get a new owner. They moved one square on a board most people don't know they're looking at, from a man under federal investigation to a man connected by marriage to the President.

The Buss family owned the Lakers for 46 years. Mark Walter owned them for 14 months. The next chapter belongs to the man whose firm tried to privatize the World Cup, and whose brother is married into the White House. That tells you everything about how fast the money moves at the top now, and how very few hands it moves between.

[Charlie Bilello @charliebilello]

No tariff dividend checks. Just higher prices.

[AJeaL @RhythmFootPrint]

👀

[Charlie Bilello @charliebilello]

Tariffs went up and companies raised prices.

Tariffs are now being refunded and companies are keeping the price increases.

Funny how that works.

[twindad @hip_hop_purist]

@LaInaMinute https://t.co/jOvh5IugJu
I Wonder how mom got it so right for 5 decades as others can’t do anything right for the past 2 decades…why tell her story of success when it’s going so much better since she passed???

[All day Astronomy @forallcurious]

TOMORROW: on August 12: six planets at dawn, an eclipse at dusk and Perseids meteor shower peaks with dark new moon.

Four events in one day. The six-planet parade comes first, before sunrise, with Jupiter, Mercury, Mars, Uranus, Saturn and Neptune spread wide across the sky.

Then the total solar eclipse. Totality runs over Greenland, Iceland and northern Spain. The UK gets a deep partial instead, up to 96% covered, per BBC Sky at Night. Certified glasses the entire time.

Then the Perseids peak, with a new Moon meaning no moonlight to wash them out.

[L.A. in a Minute @LaInaMinute]

The Magic Castle home is more than a century old, but for the last seven decades it’s been the official clubhouse & funhouse of magic - not just in Hollywood, but as the official magic capital of the world

Let’s get into it!
@MagicCastle_AMA

[AJeaL @RhythmFootPrint]

#Hiroshima performing their hit song One Wish LIVE !! Long Beach Jazz Festiv... https://t.co/5oHCwB9vOl via @YouTube

[Antidepressant Content @depressionlesss]

Look at the baby's interaction with the horses, it's so nice how the horses greet him gently

[Catherine @cath2060]

@PierreKory "A government that can tell your doctor what he's allowed to say can tell your doctor to lie to you. Yesterday, a federal judge told CALIFORNIA it can't do that anymore."

"Four years. We sued. We won. Free speech prevailed."

CONGRATULATIONS
https://t.co/iWh2T0LdF8

[Pierre Kory, MD MPA @PierreKory]

A government that can tell your doctor what he's allowed to say can tell your doctor to lie to you. Yesterday, a federal judge told California it can't do that anymore. Four years. We sued. We won. Free speech prevailed. Full story below👇 https://t.co/q6CFUB6WxH