RickA2Z

#MarComm #PR #newsmedia; @BallState grad; @gvsu/@poynter studies; @bsu_sjsc alumni leader; @bsuccim honoree; fab wife, fam & pet 😎 #BeKind #WeFly #PureMichigan

[RickA2Z @RickA2Z]

I lost #Twitter at 6:55 a.m. on Aug. 18, 2023. X doesn’t mark the #socialmedia spot for me. #RIP, #Tweets

[Seth Abramson @SethAbramson]

Musk is the leading example of an illegal immigrant living off public welfare in human history and the man spends every day pretending the real problem is a woman cleaning motel rooms in West Murfreesboro

Our species has let this evil man prosper and we will pay the price for it

[Jim Acosta @Acosta]

Kennedy Center Update: Trump has left his tarp up. Looks like he is still sulking over his name being removed.

[Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library @Ford_Library]

Happy Flag Day! Celebrated on June 14, Flag Day commemorates the adoption of the flag of the United States by the Second Continental Congress on that day in 1777.
Congressman Ford discussed the history of Flag Day in a 1955 film for his constituents in Michigan’s Fifth District.

[Lenny Padilla @lenny_padilla]

Here's some wild stats about the Hudsonville Unity Christian girls soccer team. They were 24-0-0 this year.
1 - Only one goal allowed this season
4 - Consecutive state titles
55 - Current game streak without a loss. Haven't lost since May 24, 2024.
75 - Total shutouts in the past four years (24 this year)
89-2-5 - Combined record in the past four years.

[Marc E. Elias @marceelias]

Here's what you need to know about DOJ's approval of the Paramount deal:

David Ellison gets what he wants -- control over a vast entertainment empire.

Donald Trump gets what he wants -- a neutered CBS and CNN.

Fight back by supporting independent media. https://t.co/bZLgVCQ4Xq

[Frank Luntz @FrankLuntz]

Last month, solar power generated 12.8% of electricity in the U.S. while coal was responsible for 12.2%.

It��s the first time in history that solar accounted for more energy than coal. 🔋 https://t.co/yMxwOduobq

[Praise @tufpraise]

Hitler killed himself and Germany surrendered. Japan got nuked. Do they teach history in Ohio?

[Nathan J Robinson @NathanJRobinson]

Instead of discussing how Elon Musk is now the world's first trillionaire, we should talk about how he killed hundreds of thousands of people through his dismantling of food and medical aid to poor countries
https://t.co/8kY171r5w1

[Alex Maloney @AlexMaloney62]

Ball State Baseball ranks among college baseball best with 6 MLB players in 2026!

[RickA2Z @RickA2Z]

@Bill_Beck78 @VinnysCorner1 Not Swen Nater?

[Brian Allen @allenanalysis]

🚨 🔥 SHOCKING REVELATION: DOGE Cut Funding For Screwworm Monitoring Programs.

Now a flesh-eating parasite that was eradicated from the United States in 1966 has been detected in Texas.

The question practically asks itself.

How much money was saved…

and what did it cost?

[Lenny Padilla @lenny_padilla]

Detroit Tigers pitcher Tarik Skubal looked good during a rehab start here with Class A West Michigan Whitecaps. He went five innings, giving up two hits, no walks and struck out six batters.

[Anderson Cooper 360° @AC360]

Watchdog group Public Citizen found that White House ballroom donors won more than $50 billion in government contracts after giving to the project. One of the authors of the report says, "the donations from these companies... are no gift, they're a grift."

[RickA2Z @RickA2Z]

@martincarbaugh @MVHarper @ChicagoBears @purduemitch @GovBraun @tmhuston @Fran_Tarkenton @Vikings @martincarbaugh: Two other teams I follow: @RedSox and @Cubs … It was a long wait for their #championships, too. Go find someone else to antagonize.

[Mike Levin @MikeLevin]

This is really stupid, and it’s not getting enough attention.

The Trump administration is pulling a working $368 million ocean monitoring system out of the water, equipment taxpayers already bought, built, and sank into the deep ocean.

And they are doing it right when the oceans are behaving in ways that alarm the scientists who study them.

Record-breaking temperatures.

A system of Atlantic currents that may be lurching toward collapse.

The response?

Yank out the instruments and walk away.

That is not budgeting. That is smashing the gauges while the engine is on fire and calling it efficiency.

For what? The Trump administration dressed it up as a “nimbler approach” and “smart lifecycle management,” which is fancy nonsense for “we shut it off and hoped nobody would ask why.” There is no return-on-investment analysis. They cannot show taxpayers save a dime, because the gear is already paid for and the science it produces protects real money and real lives.

The kicker: the same people killing the monitors want to mine the deep sea for minerals. So they are destroying the only tools that could measure what that mining does. That is not an accident.

That is the point. You cannot see the damage if you break the instruments first.
https://t.co/MzE4AW1QBv

[RickA2Z @RickA2Z]

@martincarbaugh @MVHarper @ChicagoBears @purduemitch @GovBraun @tmhuston @Fran_Tarkenton Believe whatever you’d like, @martincarbaugh. You’re talking to a lifelong @Vikings fan and I ain’t going to change. #Skol

[RickA2Z @RickA2Z]

@martincarbaugh @MVHarper @ChicagoBears @purduemitch @GovBraun @tmhuston Not since the #PurplePeopleEaters and Scramblin’ @Fran_Tarkenton under Coach Bud Grant but the #Vikings will rise and return some day. #SKOL

[RickA2Z @RickA2Z]

@MVHarper @martincarbaugh @ChicagoBears @purduemitch @GovBraun @tmhuston

[New York Magazine @NYMag]

The meltdown at ‘60 Minutes’ has transfixed the media world this week, as Bari Weiss fired deeply respected staffers and correspondents, installed broadcast-news outsider Nick Bilton as the show’s executive producer, and sparked a messy standoff with Scott Pelley, who grilled his new boss and accused Weiss of “murdering” the show — all before being shown the door himself. A pointed termination letter, along with a stream of good-bye emails, statements, and rebuttals, have laced the saga with claims of insubordination, incompetence, and bias toward the Trump administration.

To Steve Kroft, who spent three decades at ‘60 Minutes’ before retiring in 2019, the show, “as the audience has known it, no longer exists.”

“They’ve made it clear — they being the new management, Bari Weiss and David Ellison — that they want to go to a completely different format, model, call it what you want,” he says. Kroft is not sure, precisely, what 60 Minutes will look like when it resumes: “It seems almost impossible for me to imagine what kind of a show they can put on in September.”

Read our full interview with Kroft: https://t.co/sXA4ZxtxhV

[Mike Young @micyoung75]

Nick Bilton walked into the 60 Minutes newsroom four days after Bari Weiss fired the people who built the show. He tried to pretend he didn't know about the firings. Scott Pelley, in front of the remaining staff, would not let that stand.

"She loves 60 Minutes," Bilton said. "She's murdering 60 Minutes," Pelley said back. "She does not love this place. She was brought in to kill it - and she's doing exactly that."

One of Weiss's lieutenants kept interrupting to say Pelley was being rude. Pelley kept going.

JVL's framing is the right one. The corrupter depends on the existing institution being too polite to say the obvious thing out loud. Christopher Wray resigned quietly to "preserve the integrity of the FBI." John Kelly gave print interviews after he left. Thom Tillis, John Cornyn, Mitch McConnell, Jim Mattis, Bill Barr - all of them saw it. All of them objected privately. None of them said it in the room where it was happening, to the person doing it, while the cameras were still running.

Pelley said it in the room. To the person's face. In front of witnesses. While he still worked there.

That is a different thing entirely. Not a memoir. Not an anonymous source in a tell-all. Not a carefully worded statement issued after the resignation letter was already filed. The true thing, said out loud, to the people who needed to hear it, at the moment it could still matter.

Authoritarianism counts on politesse. It counts on people deciding the fight isn't worth the awkwardness, the career risk, the label of being difficult. Scott Pelley decided it was worth it. The republic needs more of that calculation to come out the same way.