Scott Ward

Father, Husband, Veteran. "You can't go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending." C.S. Lewis

[Andrew—#IAmTheResistance @AmoneyResists]

$14 million “beautification” and just 3 days later it looks worse than ever because there was a reason we didn’t paint the reflecting pool dark colors like “American flag blue.” Mainly that it would raise the water temp and cause rapid algae growth.

[Scott MacFarlane @MacFarlaneNews]

OOF

Young MC has busted a move

[Scott Ward @scott_ward21]

#TeamRedBill

[OBVIOUS SHIRTS® @obvious_shirts]

Giving away a Kerry Wood signed Red Bill to celebrate the victory! Quote tweet #TeamRedBill to enter. Winner picked tomorrow at 1:20pm central. Must be following to win.

[Aaron Rupar @atrupar]

Ossoff: "What those who build ballrooms and monuments for themselves, who rake in billions from foreign prices while the people's savings disappear with their hospitals, what they hate the most is when people hold them accountable at the polls. So why Fulton County? I submit to you it is because the fact Black voters were instrumental to his defeat might be more offensive to this president than the defeat itself."

[Anish Moonka @anishmoonka]

Reid Wiseman told his two teenage daughters where to find his will before he got on this rocket. He’s raised them alone since their mom died of cancer six years ago. Right now, he is 252,757 miles from home, farther from Earth than any human being has ever been.

Wiseman grew up outside Baltimore. Got rejected from the Naval Academy, went to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute instead, studied computer engineering. Became a Navy fighter pilot, flew F-14 Tomcats (the jet from Top Gun) on combat missions over Iraq and Afghanistan. Two Middle East deployments by his mid-twenties. He saw a Space Shuttle launch in person in 2001 and couldn’t let go of it. Applied to NASA while at sea on the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower. They picked him. Nine people out of 3,500 applicants. His astronaut class, nicknamed “The Chumps,” included Jeremy Hansen, the Canadian who’s floating next to him right now.

Wiseman’s first trip to space was 165 days on the Space Station in 2014. Two spacewalks. Thirteen hours outside the hull in nothing but a suit. He climbed all the way up to Chief of the Astronaut Office, the person who decides which astronauts fly and which ones sit. Then he gave it up in 2022 to put himself back on the flight list.

His wife Carroll was a nurse in a newborn intensive care unit. She got cancer. Fought it five years. Died in May 2020 at 46. His mother died from Alzheimer’s just weeks before that. Wiseman raised both daughters by himself after that. NASA’s own bio says he considers being a single parent his hardest challenge and the best part of his life. Even while she was dying, Carroll told Reid not to step back from his career. She made him keep going. His brother is a Navy SEAL. His father is 83 and battling cancer too. The old man told reporters he wanted to stay alive long enough to see his son launch.

Before liftoff, Wiseman’s daughters snuck homemade cookies into his flight bag. He posted a photo with them in front of the rocket and wrote “I’m boarding that rocket a very proud father.”

The previous distance record from Earth belonged to the Apollo 13 crew. 248,655 miles, set in April 1970, and it was an accident. An oxygen tank blew up and the emergency route home happened to swing them farther out than anyone before. Wiseman broke that record by 4,100 miles, and his distance is on purpose. Today he flies within 4,600 miles of the Moon, photographs stretches of the far side that were too dark or at the wrong angle for any of the 24 Apollo astronauts to see, and watches a solar eclipse that nobody on Earth can see, only the four people inside that capsule.

Then he turns around and spends four days flying home to his girls.

[Patricia Murphy @MurphyAJC]

NEWS that Congressional staff are not going to like- Delta is suspending its special congressional desk service for members of Congress until the shutdown is over. @ajc https://t.co/q2w4VIkK7p

[James Tate @JamesTate121]

I used to wonder how it was possible that Trump could have won in 2016, and then again in 2024, given how emotionally toxic and depraved he is.
I don’t wonder anymore. I think he won for that exact reason. Because he carried at least one broken shard to reflect the broken shards in millions of others.
If you’re a racist, you found your guy. If you’re a misogynist, you found your guy. If money is your only religion, you found your guy. If your heart is armored shut, you found your guy. If you mock the disabled, you found your guy. If intelligence makes you insecure, you found your guy. If you’re a sexual predator, you found your guy. If you trade in humiliation and conspiracy and filth, you found your guy.
If you’ve never done a single hour of emotional inventory, you found your guy. If you cheat, stiff contractors, bankrupt your obligations, and call it savvy, you found your guy. If you lie as easily as you breathe, you found your guy. If cruelty feels like strength, you found your guy. If white grievance is your comfort food, you found your guy. If your ego is a black hole no title can fill, you found your guy. If warmongering fuels your ego, you found your guy, If empathy feels like weakness and dominance feels like oxygen, you found your guy.
If he’d only carried one or two of these pathologies, he might have been dismissed as just another loud, damaged man. But he carried a buffet of them. That was the appeal. Millions could locate themselves somewhere in the wreckage. They didn’t have to agree with all of it. They just had to recognize a piece of themselves in it.
It was never really about him. It was about the validation. The absolution. The permission. He didn’t invent the resentment; he amplified it. He didn’t create the cruelty; he normalized it. He gave millions the intoxicating relief of hearing their ugliest impulses echoed back at rally volume.
Trump is a symptom. The deeper illness is collective. If there’s one sentence that defines his power, it’s this: “He says the things I’m thinking.”
And that’s the part that should chill us.
Because what does it say about us that so many were thinking those things? That tens of millions of Americans harbored resentments so deep, so seething, that they were simply waiting for a demagogue to baptize them as virtue? That after decades of supposed progress on race, gender, and equality, so many white men felt so threatened, so displaced, so furious, that cruelty became a political platform?
Maybe we were living in a fool’s paradise, mistaking silence for healing, politeness for progress.
Now the mask is off. Now we know.
And knowing is a far more dangerous place to stand.
– Michael Jochum, Not Just a Drummer: Reflections on Art, Politics, Dogs, and the Human Condition.

[pagliacci the hated 🌝 @Slatzism]

never forget what you’re fighting for

[💛September💜Rayne🖤 @EndFascism90069]

Real Housewives of the White House: Season One

[Adam Mockler @adammocklerr]

THIS is the media strategy we need

[Badlydone Emma is with her #Harris2024 @chemimommy]

Rep Neguse talking to the press the way Democrats should talk to the feckless media.

He handled that question spectacularly.

[Graham Platner for Senate @grahamformaine]

"If I stand with you, will you fight with me? Will you stand up for me?"

My answer:

[Protect Kamala Harris ✊ @DisavowTrump20]

🚨NEW: Democrat Graham Platner is ahead of Susan Collins by 16 points according to a new poll of the U.S. Senate race in Maine.

RETWEET if you support @GrahamforMaine as he runs to beat Susan Collins!

[Mike Nellis @MikeNellis]

I’ll donate to Texas Democrats like @JamesTalarico and others fighting the GOP’s gerrymandering scam:

💰 $0.10 per like on this tweet
💰 $0.50 per retweet
💰 $1 per follow

(Starting at 86,373 followers)

It costs ~$500/day for each Dem to block the TX GOP from rigging the midterms.

Let’s help them hold the line.

P.S. If this blows up, I will cut y’all off eventually. 💙

[Scott Ward @scott_ward21]

@JAYChi_Cubs Go Cubs Go!

[Just Another Year Chicago: Cubs @JAYChi_Cubs]

🚨All-star week giveaway! 🚨

In honor of the All-Star game, we're giving away a PCA and Kyle Tucker NL All-Star jersey!

To enter;
-Like & RT this tweet
-Follow @JAYChi_Cubs
-Comment "Go Cubs Go!"

Winner announced 7/18.
*Make sure it's us if you win*

EXTRA ENTRY in thread

[Cubs Zone @CubsZone]

Retweet if you love this team 🥹

[Bill Madden @maddenifico]

Welcome to Trump America. 😳👇 https://t.co/YaqZTPsGYO

[Mike Nellis @MikeNellis]

Okay, the people have spoken—I will donate to @KamalaHarris and downballot Democrats $.10 for every like on this tweet, $0.50 for every retweet, and $1 for every follow. 💙

I will focus my donations on local Democrats in close races where the money can do the most good. I will cut folks off around $2,500 again.

And yes, I told my wife in advance this time 😂

(91,980 followers at the start)

[Mike Nellis @MikeNellis]

Let's get 500 retweets for this video of Colin Allred completely demolishing Ted Cruz at last night's debate: