Justin Blumenthal

Film, music, politics, oh my

[Justin Blumenthal @justblumenthal]

@DodgersNation Jesus Christ everything is just a scam now. They might as well say they’re being sponsored by Lou Gehrig’s disease.

[Justin Blumenthal @justblumenthal]

@atrupar Omg we’ve got a Democratic “leader” literally reading off the Fox News talking points.

[Justin Blumenthal @justblumenthal]

@atrupar “I don’t support the obvious fix that saves a trillion dollars & countless lives but I do theoretically want to fix healthcare I just don’t have any idea how to do that since I just wrote off the solution and actually I don’t really care sorry is this mic on?”

[Justin Blumenthal @justblumenthal]

@briebriejoy Very confused why he pled out to life in prison charges. Didn’t they already take the death penalty off the table? Was it related to state charges? I assumed he was going to use the trial to make similar points as you.

[Justin Blumenthal @justblumenthal]

The Stonewall riots gave you the right to marry. ACT UP gave you the right to marry. The Establishment are just the assholes who were sitting in power when the dam finally broke.

[Sir Rottweiler 🐾 🇺🇸🏳️‍🌈 @SireRottweiler]

The Establishment gave me the right to marry whomever I love.

The “progressive” DSAers helped Trump get into power twice, allowing him to pack the SC, which puts those very rights at risk.

Actions speak louder than words, and all I see DSA do is help MAGA.

[Justin Blumenthal @justblumenthal]

From the guy who can’t tolerate windmills near his golf course.

[NewsWire @NewsWire_US]

Trump says communities "can’t fight" data centers, should embrace them

[Justin Blumenthal @justblumenthal]

This criminal is a stain on UC Berkeley. What a shock the guy who gave Bush the green light to torture is frightened by the idea international law might be followed.

[Acyn @Acyn]

John Yoo says the DOJ should investigate Mamdani for his comments on possibly arresting Netanyahu

[Justin Blumenthal @justblumenthal]

@_iamblakeley This is the criminal who ignored the Geneva Conventions to pretend Bush had a legal right to torture. He has a very strong personal reason to ensure international law isn’t enforced.

[Justin Blumenthal @justblumenthal]

@davidsirota The modern Democratic Party was built by the New Deal and transformative civil rights legislation, but sure, the corporatists think a group that believes in social programs is hijacking the party from them.

[Justin Blumenthal @justblumenthal]

@katie_heid Now that you mention it, my childhood Los Angeles memories don’t include 80mph fire hurricanes during Christmas break. I think you’re onto something. Some type of change…hmm…Must be related to Canadians not sweeping their forests.

[Justin Blumenthal @justblumenthal]

@HeatvsHaters Pretty sure it’s the video evidence that made him lose.

[Justin Blumenthal @justblumenthal]

@AlexiLalas Gosh, I don’t know Alexi. Why don’t you ask Europe? You know, the people who do soccer 10 times better than us? I’m pretty sure they still make some decent money on the sport over there.

[Justin Blumenthal @justblumenthal]

These guys are complete morons if they can’t answer this. Silicon Valley is so mesmerized with being “disruptors” it never occurs to them that maybe there was a reason networks don’t wait 5 years to release new episodes. And 6 episodes is a mini-series, not a new season.

[Lucas Shaw @Lucas_Shaw]

Netflix's top shows have been losing 30-70% of their audience between seasons 1 and 2. Executives are trying to figure out why.

Netflix's second season swoon & more in this week's newsletter:

https://t.co/KuhrAb97Dj

[Justin Blumenthal @justblumenthal]

@ClayTravis This is a game where you often wait 90 minutes for a single goal to be scored. And now instead of erupting in celebration, it’s like you have to sit there and let the lawyers discuss it for 10 min. No chance it’s offside? Rewind the tape, maybe something else wasn’t perfect.

[Justin Blumenthal @justblumenthal]

@ClayTravis VAR is trying its best to ruin this World Cup. It’s become a tool to search for the butterfly effect: this tiny thing happened that we didn’t notice, & 5 min later it led to a goal which we’ll now disallow. I can’t imagine being a player under this nightmare system.

[Justin Blumenthal @justblumenthal]

This is a perfect encapsulation of how everything talent related works in the United States now. Nothing is based on ability; everything depends on your family’s wealth. A recipe for a society run by losers.

[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.

[Justin Blumenthal @justblumenthal]

@NealGardner_ Yes. Not because they lost but because of the way they lost. They looked like they’d never touched a ball before. Virtually no good stretches. Complete mental collapse. Seemed like they were distracted by some type of international firestorm surrounding them.

[Justin Blumenthal @justblumenthal]

All game all I could think about was Tonya Harding. Her laces break; she barely lands any jumps. Terrible mojo from the start & an unrecognizable performance - just like this US soccer team. Trump took an amazing run w incredible vibes & made it all about his corruption.

[Justin Blumenthal @justblumenthal]

@BonkDaCarnivore Looks like that San Diego show when a technical error caused every firework to launch at once.

[Justin Blumenthal @justblumenthal]

@CamJordan4Fins The sooner part is the problem. He’s saying if FIFA is going to now have a process to address underserved suspensions, it needs to be very fast so both teams can plan accordingly. Not waiting until the day before a match when a president intervenes.