Schmidt

[Elaine @elbh]

My mother was a family therapist. Years ago, when the especially gentle parenting trend became the overriding way to bring up children she told me things were going to get bad quickly.

She said, boundaries and expectations are not abuse. By the end of her career in 2016, she told me her office was full of families who were angry, exhausted, enmeshed and undisciplined,

We are ten years later and it’s even worse. Your job as a parent is to be a teacher and to endow your children as quickly as possible to take care of themselves. Not to entertain every whim,

We are the authors of our own destruction.

We are authors

[anna !!! :)) 🇵🇸🌸✨🌸🇵🇸 @frogs4girls]

went to the movies alone and u guys were right it does feel like this

[Nuella 💕🎀🌸 @dfw_ella_]

Watching the Odyssey in a Trojan horse (as Nolan intended)

[Jason Crawford @jasoncrawford]

A few centuries ago, the King of Spain could definitely afford better entertainment than you. Now, there is no better movie he can watch than the same movie everyone else is watching.

The democratization of entertainment, thanks to technology.

[littlebear36 @littlebear36_]

Best tweet of the World Cup

[vids that go hard @vidsthatgohard]

Disney live actions are FLOPPING

[1776 Live @250YearsAgoLive]

Thomas Jefferson buys a deck of cards and some beer.

It is thought that he wishes to celebrate the successful passage of the Declaration of Independence.

[Greg Lukianoff @glukianoff]

I’ve always found people who bristle at “American exceptionalism” kind of… weird. Not because I lack self-awareness — I’ve spent my career cataloging every way this country fails to live up to its own rules. But that’s exactly why I love it so damn much. We built a system designed to be shamed by its own founding documents, and it still delivered one of the most spectacular, world-altering runs in human history. A genuine force for human flourishing.

I also found the argument against American exceptionalism to be historically illiterate. Here’s a sample of what we were first at:

• The first large-scale democratic republic in human history — not a city-state, not a monarchy with a parliament bolted on, but a bold continental experiment in self-rule, popular sovereignty, and ordered liberty.

• A written Constitution (1789) with separation of powers and checks & balances — still the oldest national constitution in force anywhere.

• The Bill of Rights (1791): the first time a nation wrote “the government cannot touch these” into supreme law and actually meant it. A dare the world copied — from later rights charters to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

• Public land-grant universities and mass higher education (Morrill Act), opening college to ordinary people no aristocracy would have let near the gates. (but don’t get me started about what happened after we started. Massively federally funding it.)

• Kitty Hawk, 1903 — first controlled powered flight.

• The Moon, 1969 — still the only ones who’ve been there.

• The world’s largest economy since ~1890, powering unprecedented prosperity through grit and genius.

• The assembly line, skyscraper, transistor, personal computer, ARPANET — the backbone of the modern world.

• Telephone, phonograph, GPS — connecting and powering daily life.

• Surgical anesthesia, polio vaccine — saving and transforming millions of lives.

• Jazz, blues, rock ‘n’ roll — brand new American art forms that conquered the globe.

• Hollywood’s dreams, blue jeans, bourbon, and a culture so open a kid like me could devour sushi, burritos, stuffed cabbage, and tabouli in the same week and rightfully think of it all as American.

That’s the part that fills me with genuine love and pride: not just the power or the wins, but the appetite for freedom, creativity, and reinvention. The audacity to say “We the People” and keep trying to live up to it.

What do you love most about this truly exceptional country? 🇺🇸

[Gunther Eagleman™ @GuntherEagleman]

🚨🇺🇸 BEAUTIFUL MOMENT FOR AMERICA 250

U.S. Marine Corps Sergeant Diakaria Sangre received his American citizenship at Mount Vernon on the Fourth of July, the perfect day to officially join the greatest nation on Earth. (THE RIGHT WAY)

From serving in the Marines to becoming a full citizen on our 250th birthday… this is what the American dream looks like.

Welcome to the team, Sergeant. We’re proud and honored to have you. 🙏

H/T - IG Fox5DC

[Samuel L. Jackson @SamuelLJackson]

Wishing You a Blessed Fourth 🙏🏾🇺🇸
Much Love, UNCLE SAM

[meme bastard 🍕 @mask_bastard]

fun fact: there are two American flags in this photo

[Aakash Gupta @aakashgupta]

America burned Japan's first gift of cherry trees. All 2,000 of them, on President Taft's direct order.

The 1910 shipment arrived in DC crawling with insects and nematodes. Agriculture inspectors condemned the lot, Taft signed off on the bonfire, and the State Department braced for a diplomatic disaster. Tokyo's mayor, Yukio Ozaki, responded by sending 3,020 more, grafted from the famous grove along the Arakawa River.

Those trees have spent a century paying the friendship back.

Four days after Pearl Harbor, vandals chopped down four of them. Park officials renamed the survivors "Oriental" cherry trees for the rest of the war to protect them from axes.

Then came the twist. By 1952 the original Arakawa grove in Tokyo, the parent stock, had nearly died from wartime neglect. Japan asked Washington for help. The Park Service shipped budwood from DC's trees back across the Pacific and restored the grove that created them. When a flood wiped out more Japanese trees in 1982, horticulturists took 800 fresh cuttings from the Tidal Basin.

These 250 new trees solve a real problem too. The Tidal Basin is sinking, and a $133 million seawall rebuild forced crews to rip out roughly 150 trees. Japan offered replacements before anyone asked, timed to America's 250th birthday.

So the genetics run in a loop. Tokyo's grove seeded Washington's. Washington's saved Tokyo's. The saplings going in this spring descend from both.

114 years of diplomacy, running on grafted branches.

[Matt Van Swol @mattvanswol]

🚨#BREAKING: A German soccer fan who flew to the USA but was fearful about coming because of news about criminals and people being mean...

...breaks down into TEARS, live on air saying he has FALLEN IN LOVE with America after a random man named "Bob" in Boston gave him a ride home after he was stuck at a game with no way back to his hotel

The German soccer fan's name is Sebastian, he said after meeting Bob, he extended his entire trip.

He said leaving America will hurt worse than watching Germany get knocked out of the World Cup.

"I fall in love with America. I'm sorry, it's just so emotional. Americans are not rude... if we are together, we can achieve great things."

THIS IS THE AMERICA I KNOW!!!!!! 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

[1776 Live @250YearsAgoLive]

For some unknown reason, Thomas Jefferson is preoccupied this morning with recording the temperature.

He writes that upon awaking at 6 AM, the temperature is a pleasant 68.0 degrees Fahrenheit, but that it is creeping up toward 70.

On his way to Congress, Jefferson purchases a thermometer. It costs three pounds and 15 shillings.

No-body knows why he is so concerned with the temperature today, especially, and for what reason he desires an accurate read.

[Arnold Schwarzenegger @Schwarzenegger]

Happy Independence Day!

There’s a story from the end of the Revolutionary War I want to tell as we celebrate America’s 250th Birthday, and it’s one everyone in the world can learn from.

George Washington, at that moment, after commanding the American forces to victory, was the most powerful man in the new country. Many people talked about making him King of America.

Across the ocean, King George was sitting with an American painter, and asked what he thought Washington would do now that the war was ending. The painter said he believed he would go back to his farm.

The King said, “If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.”

As the war officially ended, Washington came to speak to Congress and said, “Having now finished the work assigned me, I retire from the great theater of Action.” He returned his commission they’d given him in 1775 - after more than 8 years of leading the Americans to victory without pay, and he was home at Mount Vernon for Christmas.

Of course, he was elected as our first President a few years later, and after two terms, showed the same selflessness again when he willingly gave up his power and went back to Mount Vernon again.

That’s true greatness. He had all the power in the world. But power, alone, does not make you great.

Washington’s greatness came from being a true servant - to a cause much bigger than himself. His greatness was his complete lack of selfishness.

The whole story of American Independence is a story of selflessness. It’s a story of people who set their self-interest aside and worked for each other.

We’ve all heard the line about “We must all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”

Apparently, Ben Franklin might have actually never said that.

But that’s fine, because the same mentality is right there in the last line of the Declaration of Independence, published on this day 250 years ago:

“And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

We mutually pledge to each other.

No one was in this alone. No one was in it for themselves. This was a group of people with different backgrounds who were in it for each other.

Today is a reminder: greatness comes from what we do for each other, never what we do for ourselves.

That’s a lesson that applies no matter what country you call home.

It’s a lesson that doesn’t require any law passed by a politician, because, let’s be honest, if you’re waiting for selfless politicians, I really hope you are not holding your breath.

All of us have the power to be there for the people around us. For our families and friends. For our neighbors. For everyone.

All of us can reach for greatness.

It’s as simple as looking beyond yourself, seeing past the mirror, picking your eyes up from your phone, and pledging to be there for each other.

Happy Fourth. May you all find your own version of greatness today by lifting each other up.

Lift up your neighborhood. Lift up America. Lift up the World.

[American Conservation Coalition @ACC_National]

Happy 250th, America.

Here's to 2,500 more.

[Schmidt @MrRileySchmidt]

New USA soccer traditions:
Auburn eagle flies around the stadium pre game.
Sandman as team enters.
Warchant after every goal.
Rotate CFB bands to play during game.

[Random SEC @therandomsec]

America really just said nah to soccer traditions and started doing our own football chants.

[Random SEC @therandomsec]

America really just said nah to soccer traditions and started doing our own football chants.

[Matt Walsh @MattWalshBlog]

She’s right, of course. Mealtime is a big part of this problem. Lots of parents negotiate with their children, allow them to not eat what was served, or just serve them chicken nuggets or mac and cheese for every meal. They don’t teach table manners. They don’t require that their children ask to be excused before leaving the table. They let their kids use electronics at the table, etc. Complete disaster.