Mark Prasek

@JamesSurowiecki Nothing is fixed? Private property Bill of Rights Free market economy Separation of powers These fixed ideas taken together make us exceptional. I see two or three off the top that Mamdani would love to change.

I'm an American exceptionalist, and I think Mamdani actually got this right: the true America is a place dedicated to the idea that nothing is fixed in place, that people are not bound by the past or by their identity, and that we are free to invent ourselves. It's an idea I wish more people today, on the left and right, embraced.

Me: “You’re having a cheeseburger for supper? You had a cheeseburger for lunch.” Son: “It’s Independence Day.”

@IronDuk05186191 You used a decimal point. England is 1.0 years old. 😏

The USA is 250 years old. England is way over 1.000 years old. No offence to Americans.

🚨#BREAKING: A 28-year-old confirms he has spent the last 10 YEARS of his life interviewing World War II combat veterans to keep their stories alive... ...in fact, for the last 10 years, he has interviewed World War 2 veterans EVERY SINGLE DAY He started as a teenager, ditching school to ride his BIKE to the local retirement home, walking up to the front desk and asking to, "meet some World War II heroes." His name is Rishi Sharma. He's crossed all 50 states and half the world. He's slept in his car and lived on gas-station food to afford it. He asks these men for hours of their memories, and then he hands the entire recording to their families... ...FOR FREE So that 200 years from now, a great-great-grandchild will know not just their hero's name, but how he laughed, how he cried, and what he sacrificed. Rishi has no military family, his parents immigrated here from India. He does it out of pure gratitude. In his words: "My parents were given the opportunity to immigrate and raise a family because of veterans like these. It's a debt of love I'll spend my entire life trying to repay..." As one 100-year-old Marine who stormed Iwo Jima told him, remembering the flag going up: "The hair on my arms still stands up when I think about how beautiful it was." THAT is America. 250 years of ordinary people doing extraordinary things... God bless our veterans. 🇺🇸🇺🇸

@D162Michele The nukes were the most humane way to end the war. A conventional attack would have taken much longer and killed far more people on both sides. The end result would have been the same -- Japan surrenders.

Why are the Japanese celebrating America’s Independence Day? This is a country that nuked you twice! Do they have no shame?

I want to be very clear about something. The homeless problem in the states has nothing to do with a social safety net. Those people have help if they wanted it or were forced to take it. They are severely mentally ill or have addiction issues 99% of the time. The issue is the solution became politicized and gamed for profit. Theres big money in pretending to solve the problem while keeping it around, if that makes sense.

People who have given up on their own dreams will usually try to discourage yours.

A Australian guy traveled across the world for soccer and somehow ended up having the time of his life at a random baseball game because a ball landed in his hands. America is incredible

Everyone says the same thing.... Americans are fun and chill. Other countries aren't?

@JamesSurowiecki I've been a homeowner for almost 30 years in Ohio. Not once has the grid collapsed. The problem is not A/C temps; the problem is those responsible for maintaining the grid.

At 78°, our basement would be very comfortable. The ground floor would be OK on the shade side of the house. The sun side would feel hot. The second floor would be uncomfortable on the shade side and too hot on the sun side. The best option is 74° during the day and 72° before bedtime.

The response to this has been bizarre. Setting aside that politicians regularly ask residents to use less power during periods when the grid is stretched, or less water in drought, do people really think 78 degrees is intolerably hot? Who goes outside on a 78-degree day and feels like they're burning up?

“Take Five” by Dave Brubeck Quartet was recorded 67 years ago today. Two years later it became a surprise hit and the biggest-selling jazz single ever.

I simply cannot believe that I had NEVER learned this in a textbook or anywhere else. You're watching me hear it from @TimDavidBarton for the first time. This seems like a pretty big deal.

How Communists Are Taking Over the DNC, Explained:

We should regard today’s SCOTUS ruling on “birthright citizenship” the same way Lincoln regarded the Dred Scott ruling on slavery. Here’s what he said about it: “…we think the Dred Scott decision is erroneous. We know the court that made it, has often over-ruled its own decisions, and we shall do what we can to have it to over-rule this. We offer no resistance to it. “[…] If this important decision had been made by the unanimous concurrence of the judges, and without any apparent partisan bias, and in accordance with legal public expectation, and with the steady practice of the departments throughout our history, and had been in no part based on assumed historical facts which are not really true; or, if wanting in some of these, it had been before the Court more than once, and had there been affirmed and reaffirmed through a course of years, it then might be, perhaps would be, factious, nay, even revolutionary, to not acquiesce in it as a precedent. “But when, as it is true, we find it wanting in all these claims to the public confidence, it is not resistance, it is not factious, it is not even disrespectful to treat it as not having yet quite established a settled doctrine for the country.”

@Phillip_Scotty @grok @SallyMayweather Approx half of those are suicides though.

@grok @SallyMayweather 44,000 gun deaths is still not something to be proud of. Just saying. That’s a lot of gun deaths.

@grok is it true that more Europeans die every year from lack of a/c than Americans die from gun violence?

@JamesSurowiecki @CoreyWriting So radical it made it to the Supreme Court. 🙄

@CoreyWriting How are you possibly endorsing a radical misreading of the 14th Amendment?

Repealing birthright citizenship needs to become the new Roe vs Wade project for the right. Only select SCOTUS justices who will vote to strike down birthright citizenship.

@wil_da_beast630 As an injured man, there's no way I'd take a seat before any of them.

Pregnant, wounded, baby, old.

@Atomsmade Complete nonsense. @grok was Christianity the root cause of these wars?

1, Crusades: 1–3 million people killed 2, Inquisition, witch hunts & heretic burnings: hundreds of thousands killed 3, European religious wars (e.g. Thirty Years' War): 8 million killed 4, Colonialism & transatlantic slave trade (justified by Christianity): 10–20+ million Africans + millions of Indigenous people in Americas, Australia, etc. murdered 5, Support for genocides and conquests in the name of spreading the Gospel Estimated total: tens of millions killed across centuries. Mass murder in the name of the religion of love 💔

Christianity has killed way more people throughout history than any other religion over the past 2,000 years!

This paragon of moral virtue left Congress in 2001 to become a pretend ‘investment banker’ for Lehman Brothers. He didn’t go to NY and hustle clients. He stayed in Ohio, taking a generous salary and bonuses - trading on his government connections. He was not qualified to be a real banker. He had no background or education in finance - he had a Rolodex full of politicians and ‘connected’ people which he sold. Lehman was one of the worst of the investment banks, getting so over leveraged in securities no one understood that it went belly up in 2008. That set off the financial crisis that ruined a lot of lives. But in 2008 this man here took a bonus of over $400 thousand. He’s not all that unique. He’s just another guy who got into Congress and turned it into a business. But such people have no right to claim moral high ground over anyone.