C David Kotok

Watched the Omaha Union at Morrison Field Saturday. great atmosphere, engaged fans and outstanding soccer. Looking for some fun? Can’t beat this high level of Soccer at a beautiful stadium.

@peterbakernyt @cowellcnd As a embedded reporter in Ramadi, I decided to tell the little stories, ala Ernie Pyle, because there was no way to top John Burns. I knew my limits and his! A giant.

RIP John Burns, perhaps the last of a generation of swashbuckling, straight-from-central-casting war correspondents who ran to the sound of the guns and filed exquisite copy at the end of the day. A spendid tribute by @cowellcnd nytimes.com/2026/03/13/wor…

@JamesHu27192912 I watched on my dad’s shoulder as his train passed St Joe and he stepped out to wave at the crowd.

Washington, D.C., January 20, 1953. Dwight D. Eisenhower had just been sworn in as the 34th President of the United States. The ceremony ended. The crowds thinned. And Harry S. Truman—who had led the nation through the final months of World War II, authorized the atomic bomb, and launched the Marshall Plan—walked to Union Station to catch a train home. Not a private railcar. Not a military aircraft. A regular passenger train. He bought his own ticket. There was no press spectacle. No staged farewell. Truman simply boarded a Baltimore & Ohio train bound for Independence, Missouri, and took a seat among ordinary travelers. No security cordon cleared the aisle. No one was removed from the car. Within minutes, passengers began to recognize him. They didn’t panic. They approached him. They shook his hand, asked questions, shared opinions. Truman chatted easily, smiling, looking like a man relieved of an immense burden. One passenger later recalled him saying he was glad to be going home—that he had done his job. What makes that ride even more remarkable is where he was going: not to wealth, but to financial uncertainty. In 1953, former presidents received no pension. No staff. No office allowance. No benefits. Once out of office, they were private citizens again. Truman’s only steady income was his modest Army pension from World War I—just over $100 a month. He had a house in Independence (owned by his wife Bess’s family) and little savings. Corporations offered him lucrative board seats. Companies proposed endorsements. Speaking tours promised easy money. He refused them all. Truman believed profiting from the presidency would cheapen it. The office, to him, was a public trust—not a brand to monetize. So he returned home and lived modestly. He wrote his memoirs to earn income. He sold family land. He walked the streets of Independence without escort, stopping to greet neighbors, visiting the barber, mailing packages himself. This wasn’t performance. It was character. Yet his financial strain embarrassed lawmakers. By the late 1950s, leaders in Congress agreed that former presidents should not face hardship after serving the nation. In 1958, the Former Presidents Act created a pension system for ex-presidents—largely in response to Truman’s situation. Ironically, Truman hesitated to accept it. He worried it looked like charity. Eventually, he agreed—saying the system mattered more for future presidents than for himself. That train ride symbolized something larger than a journey home. It reflected a time when a president could step away from immense power and return to ordinary citizenship. Truman never confused the office with his identity. He had served, and now he was done. Today, security realities and modern expectations make such a scene unimaginable. Former presidents travel with protection, staff, and lifelong benefits. The presidency has grown into something far more insulated. Truman died in 1972, still living in the same modest home in Independence. He never sought grandeur in retirement. The man who helped shape the postwar world returned quietly to private life. That image—Harry Truman on a passenger train, chatting with strangers—remains a reminder of leadership defined not by privilege, but by humility. Power, in his view, was temporary. Character was permanent. And when his time was over, he simply went home. #EducationalPurposesOnly #educationalcontent #knowledge #educationalpurposes #informationalpost

No fan of Trump but I found the best coverage of Iran war on Fox. All CNN and MS could do was bitch about him not taking Questions and inviting Ds on to trash it.

Much of the mourning for the late great @washingtonpost has rightly focused on how democracy dies in darkness at the national level, which is hugely important. But the evisceration of Metro coverage is every bit as devastating because there is no comparable news outlet keeping local governments and institutions honest. Eight of my 20 years at the Post were spent on Metro, which was the heart and soul of the Post under the legendary @dongrahamdc1. The undertakers now running the paper have all but wiped out the metro staff, leaving just 12 reporters, according to reports, to cover a region of 6.5 million people. We had twice that many journalists in Fairfax alone back in the day. And it mattered. Reporters are the eyes and ears of the community, keeping tabs on people in power. We were there for every supervisors meeting, every school board meeting. We pored through planning commission documents and campaign filings. When county officials wasted taxpayer money, raised taxes on overstretched homeowners, gave sweetheart zoning deals to developers who filled their election coffers, we were there. When teachers who sexually abused students were quietly transferred to other schools to do it all over again, we were there. We were there for the more uplifting stories too, the cops who broke a cold case, the educators who turned around a struggling school, the residents who rallied to help neighbors in trouble, the student athletes who won the big game, the entrepreneurs who started something new. Our friend @SariHorwitz who has won more Pulitzers than I can count, wrote so movingly online about the Post (facebook.com/share/p/1AZLTT…). To recognize how indispensable local coverage is, you need only look at her holy-shit investigations of a broken child welfare system, rampant police shootings and the corporate-fed opioid crisis, stories that opened eyes and led to change. Democracy is not just what happens at the White House and the Capitol but in our own backyards. The Post has just turned the lights down at home too.

Official @springsteen video of Streets of Minneapolis. Powerful. #springsteen #Minneapolis

Hawkeye here, cheering for a Husker W utah, as I did 4 Gopher, our oldest, bitterest rival. On you Husker, cheer 4 Hawks v SEC Vandy? Say no, you our out of Big10 family.

One last sunset from Puerto Vallarta. Life is good.

@Mr_Andrew_Fox Bibi released terrorist who did much worse. He fears a Palestinian Mandela who would unify all factions. A Hebrew speaker who might make a two-state solution inevitable.

I’m nearly 50, I don’t use TikTok. I listen to primary source evidence daily. I’m a conflict analyst who has studied the Middle East for the last 12 years and served in the Army for 16. I’m writing my PhD on the Gaza war. The evidence I’ve seen is that genocide claims are a hoax.

So the lefties are pissed at the deal. They know how to turn a W into a L. Keep it shut through the holidays and watch the public turn on the Ds. So 8 Dems not up in 26, (not facing AOC primaries) vote to reopen. Well played. Rs face ACA votes.

What does an old political reporter do on election day? Kick off the 25/26 ski season in Colorado? Who cares about results when you can enjoy a glorious day in the mountains.

The People of Israel are one collective soul. When even one of us returns, the entire soul breathes better. Welcoming our hostages back to our homeland is a shared breath of relief 🇮🇱 That’s how profoundly we are bound to one another.

@BBGreatMoments Roberto Clemente

What are your thoughts and memories of Tony Gwynn?

CNN’s David Axelrod: “We can go one of two ways in this country. We can, embrace this notion that somehow we're at war and where there'll be more killing and more violence. Or we can learn from this moment. I — you mentioned history. I was a kid when, we went through a period of assassination in the 1960s. I remember when Martin Luther king was killed. Robert Kennedy went onto the streets of Indianapolis. He was a candidate for president at that time and it was very, very dangerous, frankly, for him to be out there. But he insisted on going, and he spoke to the crowd and he finished and I wanted to share this. He finished with a poem by Aeschylus, the ancient Greek poet. And it was, “even in our sleep pain which cannot forget falls drop by, drop upon the heart, until in our own despair, against our will comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.” The question is, have we seen enough to embrace wisdom here and recognize that this is not a path that we want to go as a country? And let's be clear, I heard what those folks said. We've had political assassinations of Democrats and Republicans of the left and the right. This is not something that is exclusive to one or the other, but I will say, if we continue to embrace this notion that if we disagree that we're not only political opponents, but you are an enemy, you are an evil. You want to destroy the country. You want to destroy our way of life. That is a prescription for disaster.”

"Freddie is looking down and giving y'all a standing ovation. That's spectacular!😍💗 The most INSANE Bohemian Rhapsody Flashmob you will ever see!! With 30 musicians in the STREET of Paris 😍 Cre : Julien Cohen Pianist " / X x.com/khnh80044/stat…

@megynkelly apsolutelyLots are given later. I know Vets who didn’t know the were awarded a bronze star. Takes time, and if you are in hospital, all you know is a purple heart. Never, ever put down a service member who served!

To the military vets: what do you make of Wes Moore’s claim that he thought he’d been awarded the bronze star when he hadn’t? Is this smthg one could be confused about? Isn’t there a ceremony &an actual medal? Is it possible to think you got it but that they skipped those things?

From NYT obit: “Pres Nixon made return of POWs priority … a manipulative move to drag out the conflict…” Replace Nixon’s name with Bibi and POWs with hostages. History repeats. So sad that I witness the division from Vietnam to Gaza.

@meridiansam I have no problem with your arsenal. I believe in responsible gun ownership. You would have no problem with universal check and delay. We may disagree on Aks and large magazines. Not for repeal of 2nd Amend, but for common sense regs. Agree about the loss of local reporting

@CKotok I own many guns. Not once has one of them got up, walked out the door , pulled its own trigger and killed somebody. Second amendment is sacred. And it always will be. And can you please go back to the OWH so we have competent political reporting.

Guns don’t kill people. Transgenders don’t kill people. MENTALLY ILL souls who have hearts full of evil kill people.