SC_Steve 🇺🇸 @rays5906

So let me make sure I understand. Abortion is bad under any and every circumstance including rape and incest but unaliving a 1 year old black baby is okay as long as it’s because their mom allegedly stole a pack of diapers from Walmart? Did I get that right?

⚽️🏈 Why Do Americans Call It Soccer? Blame England. Americans get a lot of grief for calling it soccer. It is, the argument goes, a typically obtuse piece of American exceptionalism, a nation so convinced of its own importance that it renamed the world’s most popular sport just to be difficult. The rest of the world calls it football. The Americans call it something that sounds like a position in a law firm. How very them. Except it isn’t them. Not originally, anyway. The word soccer comes from Association Football, the formal name given to the game when the Football Association was founded in England in 1863. A few decades later, schoolboys at Rugby School and then Oxford, with that particular genius the English have for mangling perfectly good words, took “Assoc,” short for Association, and bolted on the suffix “-er,” a standard piece of Victorian public school slang used to make anything sound more cheerful. Rugby football became “rugger.” Association football became “soccer.” The English invented the word. They used it cheerfully for decades. It appeared in British newspapers and formal writing well into the twentieth century without anyone apparently clutching their pearls about it. There is a lovely wrinkle here, too. “Soccer” was largely the word of the upper class, while the working and middle classes preferred “football.” So when the upper class began losing its grip on British society from the 1960s onward, “soccer” went down with it, quietly dropped the way you abandon a phrase once it becomes unfashionable, and then pretend you never said it at all. By the time America was building its own professional leagues, “soccer” had become entirely natural there, partly to distinguish the sport from American football, which had arrived earlier and planted its flag on the word “football” with the confidence of someone who got there first and has no intention of moving. So the next time someone sneers that Americans can’t even name the sport correctly, you can point out that Americans are faithfully preserving a word the English coined, used for generations, then quietly abandoned and somehow turned into evidence of foreign stupidity. Which, when you think about it, is a very English thing to do. Stay connected, Follow @Gandalv

So we could have just not gone to war with Iran at all, and we would have saved $400 billion. The economy would have been great. Low inflation. Low gas prices. And Iran still wouldn’t have had nukes. This administration is complete trash.

On October 1969, in a quiet advertising office in Los Angeles after midnight, Daniel Ellsberg stood alone at a Xerox machine feeding page after page of classified documents through the feeder. Each sheet was stamped TOP SECRET. Each copy he made was a federal felony. He was not a radical or a traitor. He was a 38-year-old former Marine Corps officer with a Harvard PhD in economics, a senior Pentagon analyst who had helped shape U.S. Vietnam policy, and one of the few civilians granted the highest security clearances in the country. He had believed in the war. He had briefed cabinet members, advised ambassadors, flown combat missions as an observer. He had seen the inside of the machine. Then he read 7,000 pages that proved the machine had been lying for a quarter century. The documents—later known as the Pentagon Papers—were a classified, 47-volume study commissioned by Defense Secretary Robert McNamara in 1967. They traced American involvement in Vietnam from World War II through 1968. Their central revelation was stark: four consecutive presidents—Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson—had privately concluded the war was unwinnable yet continued to escalate it, sending tens of thousands of young Americans to their deaths to avoid the political cost of withdrawal. By late 1969 more than 40,000 U.S. troops had been killed in a war the government knew it could not win. The public had been told victory was near, progress steady, the dominoes safe. The documents showed the opposite: deliberate deception, manipulated intelligence, repeated decisions to prolong a lost cause for reasons of credibility and domestic politics. Ellsberg faced a choice: protect his career, his freedom, his family—or expose the truth that was killing thousands. He chose truth. Copying 7,000 pages alone at night was excruciatingly slow. Every passing headlight outside could be the FBI. Every jammed sheet risked exposure. The risk was not abstract: under the Espionage Act he could face life in federal prison. Then Ellsberg made a decision that still stuns people who hear it. He brought his children into the room. His son Robert was 13. His daughter Mary was 10. On the nights they helped, Robert ran the Xerox machine—feeding pages, collating stacks. Mary sat cross-legged on the floor with scissors, carefully cutting the words TOP SECRET off each photocopy so the duplicates would not be immediately identifiable as stolen classified material. Years later Ellsberg explained why he involved them: “I expected to be in prison very shortly. I wanted them to know that their father was doing something in a businesslike way—a calm, sober way—that I thought had to be done.” He told Robert directly: this would probably put him in prison. He wanted his children to understand that conscience sometimes demands sacrifice, that doing the right thing is not always safe, and that a parent’s most important legacy is not wealth or status but the example of moral courage. For nearly two years Ellsberg tried to act through official channels. He approached six senators and several congressmen, urging them to enter the documents into the Congressional Record so they could be published legally and protected by the Speech or Debate Clause. Every one of them declined—some out of political caution, some because they feared the legal consequences. So in March 1971 he gave copies to The New York Times. On June 13, 1971, the Times published the first installment. The Nixon administration reacted with fury. For the first time in American history, the federal government sought prior restraint—asking a court to block a newspaper from publishing. A federal judge issued a temporary injunction against the Times. Ellsberg responded by giving the documents to The Washington Post. When they were blocked, to the Boston Globe. Then to more outlets. The truth spread faster than the government could contain it. President Nixon did not merely want the leak stopped. He wanted Ellsberg destroyed. He formed a secret White House unit nicknamed “the Plumbers,” tasked with discrediting the leaker by any means necessary. They broke into the office of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist, Dr. Lewis Fielding, searching for compromising personal material. They found nothing usable, but the break-in was a felony. The Justice Department charged Ellsberg with espionage, theft, and conspiracy. He faced 115 years in federal prison. The trial began in Los Angeles in 1973. Prosecutors portrayed Ellsberg as a traitor who had endangered national security. They demanded he be made an example. Then the government’s own misconduct began to surface. The Fielding break-in became public. Evidence of illegal wiretaps and prosecutorial overreach mounted. Most explosively, it emerged that Nixon had offered trial judge William Matthew Byrne Jr. the directorship of the FBI—while the trial was under way. The offer was blatant judicial tampering. On May 11, 1973, Judge Byrne dismissed all charges against Ellsberg with prejudice, citing “improper government conduct that precluded a fair trial.” Daniel Ellsberg walked free. The Pentagon Papers did not end the Vietnam War overnight, but they changed everything. They confirmed what millions already suspected: the government had systematically lied to the public for decades about a war that cost more than 58,000 American lives. Public opposition surged. Congress began restricting funding. The war that could not be ended politically was finally being ended by exposure. There was one more consequence Nixon had not foreseen. The same Plumbers unit that burgled Ellsberg’s psychiatrist later broke into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex. Nixon’s obsession with destroying Daniel Ellsberg helped set in motion the scandal that destroyed his presidency. Ellsberg did not just expose lies about Vietnam. He inadvertently helped expose corruption at the highest level of American government. He lived to 92, dying on June 16, 2023. For the rest of his life he remained an antiwar activist, whistleblower advocate, and lecturer on government secrecy and conscience. He never regretted his decision. His children, Robert and Mary, grew up understanding something profound: that citizenship sometimes requires courage. That doing the right thing is not always safe. That their father chose conscience over comfort, even when it meant risking prison and involving them in an act that could have cost him everything. The Pentagon Papers did not stop the war immediately. But they changed how Americans view their government. They proved that citizens have both the right and the responsibility to demand truth from their leaders. Today Daniel Ellsberg is remembered as one of history’s most consequential whistleblowers. The phrase “pulling an Ellsberg” entered the language as shorthand for exposing government wrongdoing at great personal risk. But in late 1969 he was simply a man in a friend’s office at night, feeding classified pages into a Xerox machine while his 13-year-old son collated and his 10-year-old daughter cut TOP SECRET stamps off the copies. He could have stayed silent. Kept his clearances. Protected his career and family. Instead he handed scissors to his daughter and told her to start cutting. Because sometimes the most patriotic act is to tell the truth—even when your government calls it treason.

@PamelaSOCFEN @AAGDhillon @CivilRights @TheJusticeDept Sounds like you’re the type to have your kids taken away for neglect. 🤷‍♂️

@JoJoFromJerz @krschwartz1957 @ossoff Side note: if these guys are so great with their AR-15s, why do they always shoot at something 25 yards away or less. Take it out to 300 yards with iron sights and let’s see how these schmucks do.

@lanabeesfw They sound like the kind of dudes who might have more dating success if they were more consistent with their hygiene. 🤷‍♂️

@atrupar The ONLY group of people trying to foist their culture on us are “Conservative Christians” at this point in time. Taking away the rights of women - even floating the idea of repealing the right to vote. They hate educated intelligent people, esp those who don’t resemble them.

His name is Kohen Kartier Wiley. He was a one-year-old Black child from Senatobia, Mississippi, described by family as a “happy baby full of love, smiles, and laughter.” Kohen was killed by the Senatobia Police Department on June 14th. The toddler was shot when an unidentified officer opened fire on his family’s car in a crowded Walmart parking lot while responding to an alleged shoplifting call. Wiley’s mother was holding him in the passenger seat when the officer fired, and his aunt, who was driving the car, was also critically wounded. Police on the scene witnessed the presence of Kohen prior to the individuals entering their vehicle, but they proceeded to shoot regardless. Contrary to claims that the car was traveling “in the direction of” the officers, cellphone footage shows the vehicle moving away from them. We will continue to support Kohen Wiley’s family until they receive full accountability, transparency, and justice.

A Black girl killed over orange juice, a Black boy killed over bottled water, a Black baby killed over diapers. This is America

🚨BREAKING: In Queens, New York, ICE agents were caught on video violently shoving, and threatening, U.S. citizens because they dared to stand on a public sidewalk. The U.S. citizens weren’t blocking traffic. They weren’t interfering. They weren’t even yelling… They were filming, while another agent stood right next to them, without issue. Then, out of nowhere, an ICE agent came charging from off camera, screaming, “BACK THE FUCK UP,” and then violently shoved one of the men multiple times. Even as the U.S. citizens backed up, the ICE agent continued to violently shoved one of them, held pepper spray inches from his face, as the other agent threatened the second man with a taser. When you’re walking down the street, observing a traffic stop from the sidewalk, normally police officers don’t sprint over, scream profanities at you, assault you, and then threaten you with weapons… And that’s because watching law enforcement activity, from a public place, is protected by the First Amendment. Recording law enforcement performing their duties, in public, is constitutionally protected. The law generally only allows officers to use force when they’re facing an actual safety threat, active physical resistance, or someone trying to flee… not because U.S. citizens are standing on a public sidewalk, watching and filming. And the most telling part? If these U.S. citizens, standing on a public sidewalk, were really a threat… the ICE agents wouldn’t have instantly turned their backs to the threat, and walked away. Because that just proved they were never a threat at all. So, why did ICE agents violently shove U.S. citizens, and threaten them with weapons?

💩PAMELA'S POOP REPORT! Pamela "Brain Trust" Evette has spoken like a career politician who’s never actually had to send her kid to the underfunded public school she’s about to gut in South Carolina. "A child’s zip code should never decide their success" cute line. Too bad her "universal school choice" doesn’t... 💩change zip codes; 💩doesn’t fix poverty; 💩doesn’t provide transportation; 💩doesn’t force private schools to accept the special-needs kid; 💩the behavior problem; 💩the one who can’t pay the rest of the tuition after the voucher runs out. It just lets the already-advantaged skim public money for their preferred academy while the rest of South Carolinians are left holding the bag for the schools that actually have to take everyone. SC public education is already near the bottom in the country. Evette's solution? Drain it faster and call it "freedom." Spare us the campaign-trail pablum, Lieutenant Governor Pamela Evette. If she actually cared about every child, she’d fight to properly fund the system that serves the vast majority instead of selling vouchers as some magical fix while her dark money big donors cash the checks.

@KellyLMcCarty @PamelaEvette @realDonaldTrump Can we make it every other time? Otherwise, hospitals all over the state are going to be jammed with alcohol poisoning cases.

@PamelaEvette @realDonaldTrump Just say no to Yankees.

HAHAHA the 300 billion in reparations to Iran is real. So much for your DOGE checks. For those keeping score in the home game, Trump cost the country 500 million dollars a day in elevated gas prices, went through 7 years of munitions stockpiles, spent 113 billion dollars, got 15 soldiers killed, 2 billion dollars worth of damage to US military bases, hundreds of billions in damage to Middle Eastern infrastructure (gas fields in Qatar, hotels in Dubai, etc.) and gave a terrorist regime about 1/3 of a trillion dollars....just to return to the status quo of before the war. All because Trump didn't want people to keep asking about Epstein. Art of the Deal! #Winning

Data centers are literally changing the environment around them. A new study found they may be raising temperatures for miles around their facilities, harming plants, animals, and people alike. We deserve answers before more of these projects are approved across our state. Sign our petition to stop these AI data centers >> claytontuckertx.com/stop_ai_centers #Texas #ProtectTexas #AIDataCenters #PeopleOverProfits

She did NOT steal the diapers but even if she did IT’S NOT A CAPITAL LEVEL OFFENSE or even a FELONY in most states, the threshold is too low. Trigger happy cops playing judge jury and executioner over $50 diapers?! We say Black Lives Matter because y’all need to be reminded

Maryam @hell_line0

20 hours ago

the diapers were paid for. walmart called the cops on a pack of diapers that were paid for. a mother lost her precious baby. kohen wiley lost his entire life over a pack of paid diapers. acab. defund the police. fund necessities for children. create an actual safety team that is

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Democrats invented affordability, eh?

ICE isn’t done in the Twin Cities. This was just hours ago.