Karl Johan

[🐺 @LeighWolf]

This is, almost verbatim, how Osama bin Laden justified 9/11.

[The Chartist Formerly Known as Anth @xBuffaloAnth]

The names listed from 45-48 cannot be fucking real.

[Karl Johan @fourthyeardke]

@united worst flying experience ever. Trying to get to the World Cup game I. Houston. Diverted to San Antonio. Then back to Houston, go around, now at Houston and don’t have a gate. Just horrible service all around.

[Chris Goble @CGoble04]

Reason #14,756 of why guys like me hate the media:

For months, they screamed, "America isn't ready for the World Cup! It's gonna be a mess!"

Opposite proving true.

We didn't have to build a thing, and every stadium is shining like the new hot chick.

20-something Euro fans are falling in love with Buc-ees, country music, and the South. Country music and NFL stars are treating randos from X to luxury suites and concert tickets. Neighborhoods are throwing bbq's for VRBO foreigners.

America rules. This is incredible. Our best, everyday selves are on display, and we're crushing. Once again, reports of our racist, incompetent demise have been greatly overstated.

America forever 🇺🇸

[Aaron Levine @AaronLevine_]

The National Anthem just hits harder. Wow. #USA 🇺🇸

[Dr. Richard Harambe @Richard_Harambe]

Australians watching the World Cup

[River Cracraft Fan Club @CracraftFan]

Me and the boys leaving work early to go to our local Chili’s to watch USMNT dismantle Australia

[Nate Silver @NateSilver538]

I know Paraguay, homefield, etc. but that was literally the best half of World Cup soccer for the USMNT in 96 years.

[Josh Chavis @JoshChavis65]

So far this World Cup has been a great reminder that we make too many assumptions about one another, and that the vast majority of humanity is awesome.

It's been pretty damn refreshing, honestly.

[Kyle Tibbitts @KyleTibbitts]

The World Cup absolutely mogs every other sporting event. It’s what the Olympics wishes it was X100.

You’ve got Europeans road-tripping across America and having their minds blown by Buc-ee’s and Bass Pro Shops. You’ve got a small Kansas town falling in love with an Algerian club that chose Kansas City as their homebase. You’ve got South Korea training in Utah to prepare for the altitude in Guadalajara.

For one month, the whole world forgets we’re supposed to hate each other over differences that barely matter. It’s the closest thing we have to world peace.

[Jason Cohen 🇺🇸 @JasonJournoDC]

💥NEW: Stephen A. Smith: “I would give anything to be able to say something definitively in Karmelo Anthony’s defense. If there was a shred of innocence to the incident itself, I would say so. I don’t want to see another black young man going to jail.”

“But I don’t give a d*mn about what your race or ethnicity is. Just because you’re white and young doesn’t mean you deserve to be m*rdered. And just because you’re black and young … doesn’t give you a license to m*rder someone.”

“That’s what happened.”

[Crazy Vibes @CrazyVibes_1]

A Nazi commander loaded his pistol, pressed the cold metal barrel directly against the forehead of an American soldier, and gave a chilling ultimatum: "Order the Jewish soldiers to step forward, or I will shoot you right now."

What happened next in that frozen prisoner-of-war camp changed history forever, yet the man who stared down death kept it a secret for the rest of his life.

It was January 1945, and the bitter winter of World War II was at its peak. Inside Stalag IX-A, a notorious German prison camp near Ziegenhain, thousands of American soldiers were trapped behind barbed wire. Among them was Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds, a twenty-five-year-old from Knoxville, Tennessee. As the highest-ranking non-commissioned officer in his section, Edmonds was responsible for the lives of 1,275 men.

One day, the camp commander, a fanatical Nazi major named Siegmann, issued a terrifying directive.

He ordered that the following morning, all American prisoners of Jewish faith must step out of the ranks during roll call. Everyone knew what this meant. Separating the Jewish soldiers was the first step toward sending them to extermination camps.

Inside the dark, freezing barracks, the prisoners panicked. Some of the Jewish soldiers considered stepping forward willingly to protect their Christian brothers from Nazi wrath. But Edmonds refused to let that happen. He looked at his men and gave a clear, definitive order: "Tomorrow, everyone steps forward. Everyone."

The next morning, the ground was thick with snow. Major Siegmann walked out onto the parade ground, expecting to see a small, isolated group of Jewish soldiers standing apart from the rest. Instead, he stopped dead in his tracks. All 1,275 American soldiers had stepped forward together in perfect unison.

The commander turned red with anger and stormed over to Edmonds. "They cannot all be Jews!" Siegmann screamed.

Edmonds stood completely still, looked the Nazi straight in the eyes, and replied: "We are all Jews here."

Enraged, Siegmann drew his Luger pistol and pressed it against Edmonds' forehead. The tension was suffocating. Hundreds of men held their breath, waiting for the gunshot. But Edmonds did not blink.

"According to the Geneva Convention, we only have to give our name, rank, and serial number," Edmonds said, his voice steady and calm. "If you shoot me, you will have to shoot all of us. And when the war ends, you will be tried for war crimes."

Edmonds knew the German army was collapsing and the Allies were advancing. Siegmann knew it too. The Nazi commander looked at the wall of unified men, realized he could not break their spirit, and slowly lowered his gun. He turned around and walked away without saying another word.

Because of that moment of defiance, two hundred Jewish-American soldiers survived the Holocaust. When the war ended, Edmonds returned to Tennessee, married his sweetheart, and raised a family. He never bragged about his actions, never looked for medals, and never even told his own children what he had done. To him, protecting his men was simply his duty.

Decades after his death in 1985, his son uncovered the truth by talking to the survivors. In 2015, Edmonds was officially recognized as Righteous Among the Nations, the highest honor Israel bestows upon non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. He remains the only American soldier to ever receive this recognition.

True heroism does not look for applause, and love will always be louder than hatred.

By standing together in the snow, those soldiers proved that when we refuse to abandon each other, ordinary human beings can become absolutely invincible.

[WW2 The Eastern Front @ShoahUkraine]

General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the man who led Allied troops on D-Day, reflects on that historic day 20 years later, in 1965.

[Christopher Hale @ChristopherHale]

“If you think the world is selfish and rotten, go to the cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer overlooking Omaha Beach. See what one group of men did for another on D-Day, June 6th, 1944.” — Andy Rooney

[Kristin Reid @KristinMReid11]

Sam Harris has written the perfect piece.

“Why does antisemitism matter? Well, for the Jews, it’s obvious why it matters, but why should it matter to everyone else? It matters because when you look at what antisemites also hate, you find they hate everything that makes culturally rich, diverse, open societies possible. Real antisemites bring with them more than just their hatred of Jews: they bring censorship, political repression, conspiracy thinking, and the politics of dehumanization and scapegoating. So decrying antisemitism is not an act of special pleading. It is a defense of the moral and institutional architecture that makes free societies possible.”

https://t.co/ECQk6P7KL1

[Dovi Safier @safier]

“It was one of the most monumentally unselfish things one group of people did for another.”

-#DDay veteran Andy Rooney on the young 🇺🇸 🇨🇦 🇬🇧 soldiers who stormed the beaches of Normandy 82 years ago.

Required watching for every young person today!

[alex kershaw @kershaw_alex]

Thousands of women lost their loved ones today. Here's the story of one.

https://t.co/JpuELtvOwk

[Not a Good Jewish Girl✡️ @estherzelda0514]

I agree with every word Sam Harris says here about Israel, and I'll go further. The preoccupation with this country is antisemitism. There is no other explanation for how that, of all the world's many brutal dictatorships and ongoing famines, all of Europe and the Middle East is obsessed with this tiny scrap of land and what the people that rule it defensively and democratically, in a sea of aggressive tyrants, are doing. Any country subjected to such unrelenting scrutiny by those already predisposed to be suspicious of it would come out looking evil, and that's before the lying and semantic games.

If you believe that no criticism of Israel can be antisemitic, and that the antisemitic Arab world is not interested in destroying it, with the applause of most of antisemitic Europe, I'm sorry, but you live in an alternate reality and we have nothing to discuss.

[Kyle Smith @rkylesmith]

Every word of this Sam Harris essay on Israel is obviously true and it’s crazy that we live in an intellectual environment where this is called contrarianism.