Empire, Republic and Shadow Wars Podcast

Podcasting since 2017 about US history.

[Empire, Republic and Shadow Wars Podcast @shadowwarscast]

@MovieMedia @cosmic_marvel 🤣 🤣 Sure it did. 🙄

[NEW YORK KNICKS @nyknicks]

good morning from the 2026 NBA CHAMPS 🏆

[Adam Schefter @AdamSchefter]

From playgrounds…to Villanova…to Finals MVP and NBA champion.

[NEW YORK KNICKS @nyknicks]

KNICKS WIN!!!
KNICKS WIN!!!
KNICKS WIN!!!
KNICKS WIN!!!

[NEW YORK KNICKS @nyknicks]

that man is different 😤

[Sana Ebrahimi Ledene @__Injaneb96]

Americans have really become desensitized to how good they have it.

During my summer internship in Germany in 2018, I learned that the hard way. If you forgot to buy groceries on Saturday, you were out of luck, everything shut down on Sundays, so you’d go hungry until Monday.

Even during the week, if you left work a little late and missed the 8 p.m. cutoff, every grocery store in town was already closed.

On top of that, the food in the small town where I lived (Saarbrücken) was pretty terrible.
After that experience, I moved to the U.S. for grad school and I was genuinely mind-blown.
The abundance, convenience, and quality of everything felt almost unreal by comparison.

[Growing Up Retro @GrowingUpRetro]

It was so much fun 😊

[Empire, Republic and Shadow Wars Podcast @shadowwarscast]

@StarWarsDaily_ Nope

[Jon Elder @BlackLabelAdvsr]

I'm seeing my feed flooded with posts about Europeans realizing that they were lied to about America.

The consensus of their posts is that America is safer, more prosperous, and more welcoming than they were told.

This might be the most powerful effect of the World Cup.

[𝐃𝐔𝐓𝐂𝐇 @pr0ud_americans]

Elon Musk paid a record $11 BILLION in federal taxes in 2021 from Tesla stock sales — the largest individual tax bill in U.S. history.

His companies directly employ more than 160,000 people:
• Tesla: ~135,000 employees
• SpaceX: ~22,000 employees
• X and other ventures: thousands more

Those workers pay income and payroll taxes. The suppliers, manufacturers, logistics companies, and contractors supporting those businesses employ hundreds of thousands more and pay taxes too.

This isn't "paper wealth." It's electric vehicles, reusable rockets, Starlink, manufacturing jobs, and billions in economic activity.

Meanwhile, what has Mayor Mamdani built or delivered at even a fraction of that scale?

You can punish the people creating jobs and industries... or ask why cities keep struggling despite demanding more of other people's success.

Your choice.

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯_夏樹蒼依 @japan_nobunaga]

Somewhere in America, a movie theater. The boy at the concession counter asked me a question about architecture, and called it butter.

"You want that layered?"

Layered. I looked at the popcorn. I looked at him.

"Explain."

"Instead of all the butter on top, I do butter, popcorn, butter, popcorn." He mimed the strata with a flat hand. He had explained this before. He would explain it again. A craftsman, patient with the public.

I was not prepared. In my land, what is given is given; you do not direct the distribution of a blessing. Here, the boy stood ready to construct my popcorn in courses, like a stone wall — foundation, mortar, foundation, mortar — so that no kernel, however deep, would live unblessed.

"The ones at the bottom," I said slowly, "are usually…"

"Dry. Yeah. Not on my watch."

NOT ON MY WATCH. The oath of a sentry, sworn over popcorn. This is who they have guarding the snacks.

"Then layer it," I commanded, "as your conscience demands."

He built it like a man who would be judged by it. Pour, pump, rotate. Pour, pump, rotate. Four stories. A tower of equal blessings.

The film was fine. I do not remember it. What I remember is the eightieth minute, deep in the bucket, past the depth where popcorn hope usually dies — and finding the kernels there as golden as the first.

The bottom of the bucket. As rich as the top. I confess I held one kernel up in the dark and simply looked at it.

Butter on top blesses the surface. Butter in layers blesses the whole nation.

I tipped the boy on the way out. He had already forgotten me. The best masons forget the wall, and begin the next one.

Layered. Always layered. Some words you only need to learn once.

[NEW YORK KNICKS @nyknicks]

job’s not done. 0-0 mentality.

[Empire, Republic and Shadow Wars Podcast @shadowwarscast]

@SkylarSkye3 @slhamlet Try Slow Bone. https://t.co/OFnxcXZGWF

[Empire, Republic and Shadow Wars Podcast @shadowwarscast]

@aec4444 @AdamSchefter @JordanRaanan Yep. And that's the problem. It is what it is. The argument will continue to rage.

[Cav Senpai @cavannastan]

Again for those in the back, Elon once offered to cut a check for $6 BILLION to the WFB to "eliminate World hunger" as they said the money could. His one condition was that the accounting was public.

They did not accept.

[Joey sussman @jsussphoto]

The Blue Angels and The Thunderbirds conduct a rare super delta formation over the White House

[Empire, Republic and Shadow Wars Podcast @shadowwarscast]

@aec4444 @AdamSchefter @JordanRaanan You’d have to use the hybrid grass with synthetic stitched in to help it hold. They do that in England. That and some of these multi use facilities would have to accept that during the NFL season they can’t be doing multiple other events.

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯_夏樹蒼依 @japan_nobunaga]

USA. There is a store where everything costs one dollar, and I went in to find the catch.

I am still inside, philosophically.

Scissors: one dollar. A mug: one dollar. Reading glasses, a birthday card, a chess set, gardening gloves, a ceramic frog: one dollar EACH. I held the ceramic frog for a long time. It is a perfectly acceptable frog. Some craftsman made this frog. The frog crossed an ocean, as I did. ONE DOLLAR.

In Japan, our hundred-yen shops are the same sorcery, so I thought I was prepared. I was not prepared. Yours has GROCERIES. Yours has READING GLASSES. A man can arrive blind and hungry with five dollars and leave seeing, fed, and holding a frog.

I asked an employee how any of this is possible.

She said: "Don't think about it too hard."

DON'T THINK ABOUT IT TOO HARD. That is not an answer, America. That is a warning on a sealed door. That is what the village elder says about the forest.

I disobeyed her, naturally. I have thought about it extremely hard, and here is my conclusion: the dollar store is not commerce. It is a TRAINING GROUND. Every item asks the same koan — "It is one dollar. Do you NEED it?" — and every aisle reveals your character.

I watched a man stand motionless before a dollar lighthouse figurine for two full minutes. He was not shopping. He was being EXAMINED.

He bought the lighthouse. He failed.

We all fail. I entered for tape. I left with tape, two mugs, a flag windsock, glow sticks, and the frog.

Seven dollars. Seven defeats.

A man does not ask the store what the catch is. He becomes the catch, holding a frog.

The frog sits by my door now. My wife asked where it came from. I said, "One dollar," and she nodded, because in this country that phrase is a receipt, an explanation, and an absolution, all at once.

A man who can leave the dollar store with only what he came for has completed his training. I have never met this man, America. I do not believe he exists.

The frog has a name now. His name is Mortgage. Ask me nothing further.

[Empire, Republic and Shadow Wars Podcast @shadowwarscast]

@SkylarSkye3 Cody Jinks and Whitey Morgan.

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯_夏樹蒼依 @japan_nobunaga]

USA. A hibachi restaurant. My American friends brought me here to enjoy the cuisine of my homeland, and I witnessed a ritual I have never seen in eight hundred years of being Japanese.

The chef stacked onion rings into a tower. He filled it with oil. And he set it on fire.

"THE VOLCANO!" my friends cheered. They knew the ritual. They had seen it many times. In Japan, I have eaten ten thousand meals. No one has ever built me a volcano.

I said nothing. A guest does not question the ceremony.

"Is this how they do it back home?" my friend asked, glowing with joy.

"...The technique is flawless," I said. A samurai may retreat. He may not lie. He may, however, aim the truth very carefully.

Then the chef flicked a shrimp through the air at my face.

"Catch it!" the table roared.

In my land, food is set before you with two hands and an apology for the wait. Here, the shrimp attacks. I caught it. With my mouth. The table erupted. The chef saluted me with his spatula.

I have received medals with less pride.

"You're a natural," the chef said.

"My family has trained for this for generations," I said. It was not technically a lie. We trained. Just not for this.

My friends drove me home, full and happy, honored to have shown me my own country.

A man does not question the volcano. He catches the shrimp.

Whatever this cuisine is, wherever it was truly born — the fire is real, the joy is real, and I caught what was thrown at me.

That is Japanese enough.