Kim Mickna retweeted
“When I see this pride flag, I see the flag of a regime change, an occupying army, the triangle with its alien colors aggressively penetrating the rainbow flag.”
@AmandaKovattana’s speeches are always provocative, leaving half the room in stunned silence & the other half clapping. You never quite know what she’s going to say next, which is why I love them so much! 👀
Kim Mickna retweeted
WATCH: A special tribute video honoring President Donald J. Trump’s uncle, Dr. John Trump, plays at the New Golden Age Summit.
Dr. John Trump was awarded the National Medal of Science by President Ronald Reagan in 1983. 🇺🇸
Kim Mickna retweeted
Reflecting on the COVID pandemic, Justice Samuel Alito framed it as a “stress test” of Constitutional rights.
That is exactly the right way to look back at what happened.
Alito pointed out that the pandemic created situations where leaders were willing to “downgrade” Constitutional rights in the name of public health.
He gave one example that really stands out.
ALITO: “The example of the casinos, I thought was telling…”
“The governor of Nevada at that time said that casinos are open, come back to Las Vegas. And so people came back to Las Vegas they were pictures of people in the casinos.”
“They were not wearing masks. Not all of them were wearing masks. But at the same time the state had a very severe limit on the number of people who could attend a house of worship, no matter how big that house of worship was.”
That is exactly the kind of contradiction Alito was talking about.
Casinos could operate while churches faced strict limits on attendance.
Kim Mickna retweeted
🔥🚨BREAKING — Dr. Oz just announced AMERICA.GOV as the one-stop shop for dealing with the federal government instead of hunting through 29,000 separate government websites.
The portal lets you talk to the government in one place.
Need Medicaid. Need a passport. Need the form that used to live on a URL nobody can remember. The pitch is you go to America.gov, and you stop getting bounced across a maze that only contractors and career staff know how to navigate.
Twenty-nine thousand sites is not service. That is a jobs program for web pages.
Oz said the goal is to start collapsing that pile, and this domain is the start.
If the Trump administration actually makes Washington answer in one window, that is the opposite of the agency fog Democrats spent years defending.
Use the site. Make them finish the rest of the teardown.
Kim Mickna retweeted
Why am I just learning now that public schools in the New York city ghetto don't assign homework, don't grade tests, don't respond to parents emails or phone calls, don't supervise feral, fighting kids at lunch, don't know or care if their students can read or do grade level math, and give them As on their report cards when they are actually doing F level work?
Why did Nikole Hannah Jones bury this explosive lede?
Why isn't she writing emergency front page @nytimes stories about this shocking, incredible, abject citywide failure that costs people who pay taxes over $50K per student per year?
Why isn't she holding emergency all-hands on deck meetings with @NYCMayor to shut this down, rescue these kids, fire everyone involved?
We all know why. But no one at the Times will say a word. LOL
Kim Mickna retweeted
The General Election
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New Hampshire has a unique, open, transparent system of government that is being exploited.
Those of us committed to keeping this State running for another 250 years must break free from our political silos, and come together in the halls of public government. Collaborating on the issues before us, to find the solutions for us all.
I’m running to be apart of the collaboration in the House of Representatives that will preserve our special mechanics of government, solve a tax system which burdens our citizens, protect an environment poisoned by industry, safeguard our civil liberties up against a digital prison; and much more.
Join me in this general election, and we will walk into the 170th General Court of our State with our heads held high; ready for the hard work necessary to ensure our State is here for the children of our grandkids.
Kim Mickna retweeted
A couple years ago, Mikala Sposito applied for a work ethic scholarship from my foundation. She asked for $2,700.00 to help realize her dream of becoming a welder. (Actually, her first dream was to become an Olympian. As a kid, she excelled at horseback riding, dance, soccer, and track, but not quite at the Olympic level. So, Mikala adjusted her dream and focused on something within her reach. Precisely the kind of commonsense approach to making a living we try to encourage.) Toward that end, Mikala filled out the application, jumped through all the necessary hoops, and signed the S.W.E.A.T. Pledge, as all applicants must.
According to our internal ranking system, which is inherently subjective and relative to each batch of new applicants, Mikala scored a 94, and was awarded $2,100.00, or roughly 80% of what she asked for. This is typical of the average percentage awarded to an excellent applicant. As a rule, we almost never award the entire amount requested. We want our recipients to have some skin in the game, and we encourage all applicants to apply for additional scholarship funds elsewhere, which Mikala did. But in this case, if I had it to do over again, I think I’d have awarded Mikala the full $2,700.00. Why? Because this woman is precisely why I award work ethic scholarships in the first place, as recent headlines prove. Headlines all over the country that identify Mikala Sposito as the sole welder to represent Team USA in the upcoming @WorldSkills Competition in Shanghai.
This is a very big deal. The World Skills competition is often referred to as the Olympics of the skilled trades, so it looks like Mikala’s dream is coming true after all. And it seems to me her journey is worth a brief encapsulation. Before she applied for a scholarship from mikeroweWORKS, Mikala demonstrated an affinity for welding in SkillsUSA. As a senior at Dexter High School, she won 1st Place at the SkillsUSA Michigan high school competition and went on to place 14th nationally. Then, as a freshman at Washtenaw Community College, she repeated her success by taking 1st Place in the Michigan college division. She then advanced to nationals, where she finished 8th in the country. That earned her an invitation to the Team USA pre-trials, which whittled the nation's top 16 young welders down to three. At the final USA Weld Trials at the Robotics Technology Park in Huntsville, Alabama, each competitor was evaluated on precision, safety, technical execution, craftsmanship, and multi-process capabilities under extreme time constraints. Mikala Sposito took the Gold, officially becoming the first woman to represent the United States in welding at WorldSkills. Next week, she’ll face off against the absolute best of the best from all over the world.
I should point out that Mikala would prefer it if the press didn’t make a big deal of her gender, and I completely understand. (She’s a welder – not a “weld-her.”) But today, the industry is in desperate need of proof that women can and do excel in the trades. Nationally, just 4.3% of tradespeople are female. At mikeroweWORKS, our female applicants are closer to 20%, but I assure you that percentage could be much higher. Companies are anxious to recruit talented welders of any gender, and women need to understand and believe the opportunities are real. Mikala prove that in spades, and I want to offer her my sincere congratulations, and invite all of you to do the same. Because Mikala Sposito is exactly what our country needs a lot more of. People who understand that talent is never enough to compensate for laziness.
In her application, she wrote, “Hard work beats talent any day of the week, and nobody is going to outwork me. Period.”
She also connected with every point of the S.W.E.A.T. Pledge but said the final tenet resonated with her the most. “Some people choose to be lazy. Some people choose to sleep in. I choose to work my butt off.”
My favorite quote, however, is Mikala’s response to seasoned professionals who see her wield a torch and call her a “natural.”
“I’m not a natural,” she says. Far from it. And none of this came easy. I worked and trained 60-80 hours a week for two years to get here.”
Regardless of what happens in Shanghai, the job offers are already piling up, including the most recent from SpaceX. She hasn’t graduated yet, but the future looks bright, and I for one would not bet against her.
PS. I never do this, but since my name is in the title of the foundation, I suppose I can. Mikala – please accept the additional $600 you requested from mikeroweWORKS two years ago. Shanghai is expensive, and since you’re representing all of us, we’d like to provide you with a little walking around money. The check is in the mail.
Now…go get the gold!
Kim Mickna retweeted
After getting kicked out of the Portland Thorns FC game today, the same folks were kicked out of a local sports bar. For t-shirts. They didn’t do anything but wear @xx_xyathletics tees.
They ordered food and drinks then were told they had to leave.
Kim Mickna retweeted
Over 70 major cities/capitals around the world, from London, Paris and Rome to Madrid, Athens and New Delhi, all showcase beautiful arches. Interestingly, Washington, DC, is the only major Western capital without an arch. Now after 125 years of waiting, the most powerful capital in the world will be home of the most spectacular and beautiful arch of them all!
Kim Mickna retweeted
We are pleased to announce that after a very long wait (over 125 years!), we are preparing to start, over the next two-week period, the excavation work necessary for the Great Triumphal Arch and Military Observation Deck, at Memorial Circle on Columbia Island between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery. This will be one of the Great Pieces of American Architecture, honoring the history and significance of Arlington Cemetery and befitting the most powerful Capital in the World.
Arthur Brooks: Why Won’t the Boomers Grow Up? thefp.com/p/arthur-brooks-bo…
Kim Mickna retweeted
In 1990, Dolly Parton went on vacation in Ireland.
She walked into a local pub in County Kerry and delivered a flawless performance of Coat of Many Colors.
A heart of pure gold who made people smile across oceans.
Kim Mickna retweeted
BREAKING: Enes Kanter Freedom just told me what happened with him and Natasha Cloud that led to his ejection.
"Sophie Cunningham shot a three, and I put my hands up to celebrate... Natasha came back and started screaming and yelling and said, ‘She’s not gonna sleep with you."
Kim Mickna retweeted
Nikola Tesla invented the twentieth century. Edison got the credit. This is not a footnote. It is the whole argument.
1. The alternating current system that powers the entire electrical grid of the modern world — every light, every motor, every factory, every hospital, every city on earth — is Tesla’s. He conceived it, designed it, and demonstrated it, over Edison’s sustained, well-funded, and deliberately dishonest campaign to destroy it. Edison’s direct current was inferior. He knew it. He electrocuted elephants in public to prove AC was dangerous. He had the institutional power, the financial backing, and the name. Tesla had the correct answer. The correct answer won. Eventually.
2. The deal with Westinghouse is the most consequential and most one-sided in the history of technology: Tesla sold the AC patents for a lump sum and walked away from the royalties. He did this because Westinghouse told him the company couldn’t survive them and the technology might die. Tesla believed him. He tore up the royalty agreement. He never collected a cent on the invention that powers the world. Either the most generous act in the history of engineering or the most catastrophic failure of Machiavellian awareness in the history of genius. Probably both.
3. He then conceived, largely alone, in a series of rented laboratories: the radio, the radar, the remote control, the robotics, the bladeless turbine, the rotating magnetic field, the induction motor, and something he called the World System – a global wireless transmission network for information and energy, designed in 1900, that is recognizable as the internet and the wireless power grid simultaneously. He was not ahead of his time. He was ahead of several times that hadn’t happened yet.
4. JP Morgan funded his most ambitious project – the Wardenclyffe Tower, designed to transmit electricity wirelessly across the Atlantic. When Morgan understood that the system would make electricity free and unmeterable, he withdrew the funding. The tower was demolished for scrap metal during the First World War. The man who wanted to give the world free energy was destroyed by the man who understood that free energy is not a business model. The side that controls the capital wins.
5. Edison had something Tesla never acquired: the institutional infrastructure of success. Patents filed in the right sequence. Partnerships with the right financiers. Press relationships that ensured his name appeared in every story. Tesla understood electricity better than anyone alive. Edison understood power better than Tesla ever did – and in the collision between the two, power won in the short term. The correct answer won in the long term. Tesla powered the world. Edison powered the narrative.
6. He died alone in room 3327 of the New Yorker Hotel in 1943. He had been living there for ten years, fed largely by the hotel out of respect, paying nothing, receiving no royalties. The FBI seized his papers immediately after his death – some never fully declassified. The man who invented the electrical infrastructure of the twentieth century died in debt, feeding pigeons from the window because he said they were his only friends. This is not a tragic ending. It is a civilizational indictment.
7. Tesla is the proof of concept for everything we have been arguing about genius and institutions. He did not fail. The system failed him – selecting for the person who could monetize the discovery over the person who made it, rewarding institutional power over intellectual achievement. Edison is remembered as the inventor. Tesla powers your home. The man who gave the world alternating current, radio, and the conceptual foundations of the internet died feeding pigeons in a hotel room. We owe him everything. We gave him nothing. Remember that the next time someone tells you the market always rewards the best ideas.
Human genius is about joy. It is flamboyant. It doesn’t accept the mediocre. It is always looking for the heights.
Look at that face. That is not ambition. That is not strategy. That is a man who can hear something nobody else can hear yet – and cannot wait to show them.
This is what built Western civilization. Not the committee, not the administrator, not the careful man who manages his impression and files the right forms. The laughing man with his arms in the air. Michelangelo firing his assistants and repainting what wasn’t right. Sobieski riding down the hill when everyone else was calculating. Franklin flying the kite in the thunderstorm. Tesla hearing the alternating current in his mind before he built it. Mozart dictating the Requiem on his deathbed, correcting Salieri in real time, the complete structure present simultaneously in one mind while the competent man struggled to keep up.
Genius is joy because it is the full expression of what a human being is for. Not comfort. Not safety. Not the managed, administered, ideologically approved life. The heights – because the heights are simply where the music lives, and anything less would be dishonest.
On the opposite side: Salieri. The mediocrity with institutional power, who can recognize the genius but not equal it, and uses every instrument of the system to manage the threat that excellence poses to his position. The Emperor who says "too many notes." The committee that waters down the proposal. The HR department that flags the difficult personality. The content moderation policy that removes the unauthorized voice. The prize committee that rewards the compliant over the excellent. They are all Salieri – and they are all, in the end, footnotes.
The Sistine Chapel was painted by this man. The Odyssey was written by this man. The Winged Hussars were led by this man. The Requiem was composed by this man, dying, in debt, laughing at the ceiling.
Genius is just humanity to the fullest.
Protect him. Fund him. Get out of his way.
And whatever you do – don’t be Salieri.
Kim Mickna retweeted
Just this morning I wrote an account of what I thought the WNBA meeting might be like. It was parody. Turns out I was pretty right. Here's what I wrote:
WNBA EMERGENCY ELIGIBILITY MEETING (Boardroom. Fluorescent lights. Half-eaten bagels. Cathy Engelbert at the head of the table looking like she’s aged six years since Monday. Cheryl Reeve is wearing a bright “Trans Kids Belong” t-shirt over her coaching gear. A couple of nervous PR people, one very progressive policy director and two veteran executives who have clearly already started drinking.)
ENGELBERT: Okay. We are in crisis mode. The internet is on fire, the sponsors are texting in all caps and someone just asked me on live television to define the letter W. We need a statement that says something without saying anything. Ideas. Go.
PR WOMAN: We announce a comprehensive, multi-year, independent study into the complex interplay of identity, performance and competitive equity. Research is always safe. Research buys time. Research is the Swiss bank account of bad PR.
POLICY DIRECTOR: Yes. And we reaffirm our unwavering commitment to inclusion while simultaneously protecting the integrity of women’s basketball. The usual word salad. Season it with “lived experience.”
CHERYL REEVE: (leaning forward, shirt glowing) But trans kids belong.
VETERAN EXEC #1: Cheryl. There are no kids in this league. The youngest player is twenty-two. That sentence has nothing to do with anything happening in this room.
CHERYL: Trans athletes belong. Full stop. We do not gatekeep womanhood.
VETERAN EXEC #2: We currently have five males on the roster. If we actually do sex testing, those five are gone by Thursday. The league just becomes . . . women again. Which, I’m told, is now the controversial option.
ENGELBERT: We are not defining the W. We are not testing anyone. That’s invasive! There can be no genital checks! Defining the W is a trap. Testing is a trap. Biology is a trap! Saying the word “female” out loud is a trap.
PR WOMAN: What if we just say we’re “listening and learning” and then form a task force that reports back in 2028?
CHERYL: If Enes Kanter and Royce White try to declare for the draft we’re finished. Those are men pretending to be women.
VETERAN EXEC #1: Aren’t all the other ones also . . . ?
CHERYL: Yes, but Kanter and White aren’t pretending hard enough. They still have beards. And deep voices. And testosterone. It’s disrespectful to the authentic trans experience. To the men actually living as women.
POLICY DIRECTOR: Okay, now you’re gatekeeping femininity. Some women have beards. Some women have penises. Some women have testicles, win Olympic gold medals in women’s boxing and father children. It’s 2026. Get with the program, Cheryl.
ENGELBERT: (rubbing temples)
Here’s the thing, ladies. We need language that makes the activists feel heard and the sponsors feel protected and the actual female players feel . . . managed. We cannot look like we’re choosing biology. Biology is the third rail. And it is so yesterday. The biology people are stuck in the past. They’re like flat-earthers. Or anti-vaxxers.
CHERYL: Trans kids belong.
VETERAN EXEC #2: I’m going to say it one more time. There are no kids here. You keep saying that like it’s a magic spell that makes the 6’8” center with the five o’clock shadow disappear.
PR WOMAN: What if the study includes “community listening sessions” and “stakeholder engagement”? That usually buys eighteen months.
ENGELBERT: Perfect. We’re doing research. We’re listening. We’re committed to the future of the W . . . whatever the W turns out to be once the research is
complete. No one gets banned this season. No one gets tested. No one is forced to define a woman on the record.
PR WOMAN: What about next season when Enes and Royce enter the draft??
ENGELBERT: We’ll just send word they must not, under any circumstances, be given a contract! That will make a mockery of women’s basketball! We cannot have that! I won’t have it!
CHERYL: We need to center trans joy. And trans kids belonging.
ENGELBERT: Yes. Trans joy. Belonging. Kids. And a task force. Meeting adjourned before anyone says the word “biology” again.
(Silence. Someone takes a swig from a flask. Cheryl adjusts her shirt so the slogan is more visible for the inevitable press leak.)
FADE OUT.
What really happened. 👇
Kim Mickna retweeted
“With love is truth” Sophie Cunningham Fan Rally
Seattle, Tuesday July 28th
Thank you Sophie! 💛🤍💜
Kim Mickna retweeted
FAUCI PARDON: NOT BULLETPROOF
On the Pardon: Before the hearing @SenRandPaul a former senior Justice Department prosecutor told me there are three, viable legal strategies to challenge the preemptive Biden pardon.
But there is no easy path.
One strategy calls for charging Fauci with a crime, with the expectation he would file a motion with the court to dismiss based on the pardon. This could open the door to challenging the sweeping pardon’s viability and years of litigation.
Another strategy involves Congress. Because Fauci has theoretically been preemptively pardoned against past and future criminal charges related to his NIH work, it can be argued that Fauci has no plausible claim to the 5th Amendment, the right against self-incrimination.
If Fauci takes the Fifth at Senator Paul’s hearing (which he has) the committee could seek to compel Fauci's testimony. A finding of contempt could follow.
Finally, one of Fauci’s closest associates has been criminally charged. With pressure and the right incentives he might be flipped and become a cooperating witness.
Dr. David Morens, who was a senior advisor to Fauci at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was indicted on multiple charges including conspiracy and obstruction, including destruction, alteration or falsification of federal records.
Along with allegations that personal email accounts were used to evade the Freedom of Information Act, this could be a powerful motivator.
From media reports: Dr. David Morens has pleaded not guilty to all five federal criminal counts.
NOTE: @SenRickScott has just raised the Morens case. Fauci continues to take the Fifth.
Consider subscribing to@C__Herridge. Your support makes our independent reporting possible.
**This has been reposted to correct TYPO fourth line
