If Trump could figure out how to do it, he would toss the Constitution in a heartbeat and declare himself dictator

He couldn’t sing.
He couldn’t dance.
He wasn’t charming. Ed Sullivan stood stiff under studio lights, spoke in a flat, halting voice, and always looked slightly uneasy in his own suit. Critics mocked him. One famously said he succeeded not by having a personality, but by having none at all. They misunderstood him completely. Ed Sullivan changed American culture more quietly and more deeply than almost anyone else in television history. Not with talent. With stubborn, unmovable decency. When The Ed Sullivan Show premiered on June 20, 1948, under its original name Toast of the Town, it followed a simple idea. A little bit of everything. Comedians, opera singers, jugglers, Broadway stars, circus acts, and musicians. A show meant for the whole country. But from the very beginning, Sullivan did something almost no one else dared to do. He booked Black performers. Not as exceptions.
Not in segregated segments.
Not with apologies or explanations. They appeared beside white performers, introduced the same way, treated the same way. This was 1948. America was legally segregated. Interracial marriage was illegal in most states. Black Americans were barred from schools, restaurants, theaters, and basic public life. And every Sunday night, Ed Sullivan placed Black excellence directly into white living rooms. One week after the show began, Billy Kenny and the Ink Spots became the first Black performers on national television. By the fifth episode, Sullivan paired Ella Fitzgerald with tap legend Bill Robinson. She sang. He danced. Joy crossed a divided nation through a flickering screen. And Sullivan never stopped. Louis Armstrong.
Nat King Cole.
Pearl Bailey.
Lena Horne.
Duke Ellington.
Count Basie.
Sarah Vaughan.
Sammy Davis Jr.. He didn’t keep distance. He shook hands. He hugged. He kissed cheeks on camera. That simple humanity enraged sponsors. When Sullivan kissed Pearl Bailey, Southern advertisers erupted. When he shook Nat King Cole’s hand, Ford’s Lincoln Mercury dealers threatened to pull sponsorships and drop the show across the South. Gas stations refused service to customers driving cars advertised on his program. Letters poured in. One viewer complained they had enjoyed Ella Fitzgerald right up until Sullivan hugged her “in our living room.” His response was never a speech. He booked them again. He wrote back to bigots. He once said, “The most important thing is that we’ve put on everything but bigotry.” When CBS warned him not to touch Coretta Scott King on air, he embraced her anyway. He did not call himself brave.
He did not claim activism.
He simply refused to humiliate people. Week after week. For twenty three years. He introduced Elvis Presley in 1956.
He introduced The Beatles in 1964. And alongside them, he continued to elevate Black artists. James Brown.
The Supremes.
The Temptations.
Stevie Wonder.
The Jackson 5 Integration did not arrive with shouting. It arrived with music. When Bill Robinson died penniless in 1949, Ed Sullivan quietly paid for his funeral in Harlem. When Ella Fitzgerald looked back on her career, she said Sullivan gave people a chance to be seen and heard, and that it felt like a beginning. That was his strength. Black performers trusted him to treat them with dignity. White audiences trusted him enough to let him challenge them without realizing it. By the time the show ended in 1971, integrated television felt normal. But it was never guaranteed. It happened because one stiff, awkward man refused to divide his stage. Ed Sullivan wasn’t cool.
He wasn’t smooth.
He wasn’t loved for charm. He was decent. And sometimes, decency practiced consistently and without compromise changes an entire country.

Fair Q

That cylindrical part is a ferrite bead (or ferrite choke). It acts as a filter that absorbs high-frequency electromagnetic and radio interference on the cable, converting the noise to a tiny bit of heat. This stops the cord from acting like an antenna that could disrupt nearby devices, while the normal charging current still flows through just fine.

Brutal community note. 😂

It looks like there is a massive End of Quarter Direct Delivery event getting ramped up at Giga Texas today, with in-processing tents set up, hundreds of vehicles in queue, very active work with vehicles processing through three new long tent stations & a long line of cars on the E sorting lanes next to the End-of-Line (EOL) facility. Several hundred cars also staged on the S end of the EOL overflow lot too. This is the last weekend of the 3rd quarter and the push for as many deliveries as possible is underway. Congrats to all the new owners picking up their cars this weekend!

James Doohan as Lieutenant Commander Montgomery "Scotty" Scott in Star Trek: The Original Series.... James Doohan became famous as Montgomery “Scotty” Scott, the chief engineer of the USS Enterprise on Star Trek. Although he was an actor rather than an engineer, his character helped make engineering look exciting to a generation of young viewers. That influence eventually earned Doohan an unusual academic honor. In February 1993, the Milwaukee School of Engineering awarded him an honorary Doctor of Engineering degree. Reports from the time said that when students were asked what had inspired them to pursue engineering, about half credited Scotty. Doohan later said he found it deeply rewarding to learn that his television role had influenced so many real careers. Scotty became known for solving seemingly impossible technical problems aboard the Enterprise, often finding a way to keep the ship running when everything appeared to be going wrong. Decades after the original series, Doohan's fictional engineer had left a very real mark on the engineering profession. #aechaeohistories

When Cher decided she wanted to leave Sonny Bono, she picked up the phone and called Lucille Ball. Cher knew Lucy had already done what frightened her most. She had walked away from a husband who was also her television partner, business partner, and half of a famous public couple. Cher asked, “Lucy, I want to leave Sonny… What should I do?” Lucy’s answer was blunt. “You’re the one with the talent.” The advice mattered because Cher was discovering how little control she actually had. Sonny had built Cher Enterprises around their career, but Cher later learned that he owned 95 percent of the company while their lawyer held the rest. She had signed agreements restricting what work she could accept, and she could not freely control money she had helped earn. On television, she looked fearless. Away from the cameras, she was realizing how much of the life attached to her name had been controlled by someone else. Lucille Ball understood that particular kind of trap. Her marriage to Desi Arnaz had also been woven into a television empire. “I Love Lucy” (1951–1957) made them one of America’s most famous couples, while Desilu turned their partnership into a major business. Their marriage deteriorated behind the success, and Lucy filed for divorce in 1960. Two years later, she bought Desi’s interest in Desilu and became the first woman to head a major Hollywood studio. She had not merely left a marriage. She had learned how to stand inside the business afterward. Cher had known Lucy since she was young, but one night in 1972 made the older star feel newly real to her. At an election-night gathering hosted by Jack Benny, Cher remembered Lucy growing bored with the commentary and firing off irreverent remarks. Cher could not stop laughing. Sonny became annoyed, while Lucy kept going, apparently unconcerned about who might disapprove. Cher later remembered her as a “kick-ass chick,” a woman who did not seem interested in making herself smaller for anybody. That image mattered when Cher’s own marriage reached its breaking point. By 1974, Sonny and Cher could still step beneath studio lights and find the rhythm that had made them famous. The teasing, songs, and chemistry still worked. But Cher later described a very different reality at home. She remained emotionally attached to Sonny, yet the marriage was collapsing, and the business arrangements surrounding their partnership made separation even more complicated. Lucy did more than offer one memorable sentence. Cher hired Mickey Rudin, the same lawyer Lucy had used during her divorce. Their outcomes were different. Lucy eventually controlled Desilu. Cher still faced contractual obligations connected to Sonny and had to work her way free of them. But something important had shifted. She had called a woman who understood the frightening mixture of love, fame, television, money, and identity, and Lucy treated leaving as something survivable. Cher and Sonny’s divorce became final on June 26, 1975. By then, Cher had begun carrying a variety show under her own name. Four years later, the story curved beautifully back toward Lucy. Lucille Ball appeared in Cher’s television special “Cher… and Other Fantasies” (1979), playing a mysterious cleaning woman. The woman Cher had once called when she needed guidance was now standing inside a television world built around Cher herself. There was another echo. Around this same chapter of Cher’s life, Tina Turner would turn to Cher while struggling inside her own marriage. Cher, who had once needed an older woman to show her that leaving was possible, found herself becoming that woman for somebody else. Lucy’s courage had traveled farther than one telephone conversation. Lucille Ball did not rescue Cher. She gave her something quieter and perhaps more useful. She showed her, through both words and example, that a famous partnership could end without ending the woman inside it. Sometimes one woman’s freedom becomes another woman’s map.

P Terry's is a burger chain started in Austin, TX started by a husband and wife in 2005. They do ~$200m a year now. Each location is $3 million to $6 million in annual sales. In 2016 the couple took their first big dividend from the biz. "We took a little less than 10 million out. That's the only money we've ever taken out in all these years at P. Terry's, in 21 years." The founders seem like great people. They do interest free loans with employees, profit sharing, and a bunch of other cool stuff. Full write up: joinhampton.com/blog/patrick…

🚨INCREDIBLE: During a multi-vehicle collision on the Route 90 bridge in Ocean City, Maryland, a 2-year-old girl was ejected from a pickup truck, falling nearly 30 feet into the Assawoman Bay below. Jonathan Bauer, who was driving across the bridge with his teenage daughter when the crash occurred, rushed over to inspect the wreckage. Looking down into the water, he saw the toddler floating face down and becoming unresponsive. Without hesitation, Bauer instructed his daughter to flag down first responders, removed his shoes, and leapt off the bridge into the bay. He swam to the little girl, lifted her onto his shoulder, and patted her back until she coughed up water and began breathing again. A passing pontoon boat quickly navigated toward them, pulling both Bauer and the toddler out of the water and transporting them to shore, where emergency personnel were waiting. The child was airlifted to a regional medical center for evaluation and released the following day in good condition. Bauer was later honored by local law enforcement and civic leaders for his decisive actions and selflessness.

RT @MakeTexasBlue22: If Paxton and Abbott won't debate, then MSN should give Talarico and Hinjosa a townhall.

This is truly a great man. He has invested more in Ukraine than 185 countries combined. Meet Howard Buffett, Warren Buffett’s middle son. He is 71 years old. He dropped out of college three times. He drinks Dr Pepper and looks for a McDonald’s wherever he travels. Since the beginning of the war, his foundation has become the largest private donor to Ukraine: $1.4 billion. Over four years, he has personally visited Ukraine 27 times. In April 2022, he saw burned-out agricultural machinery and called the president of John Deere: “How many combines are available in Europe?” “Fifteen. All of them were supposed to go to Russia.” “I’ll take them all.” Then came all the available New Holland equipment in Europe. Altogether, more than 100 tractors and combines were provided to Ukrainian farmers. He even tested demining equipment himself - on his own farm in Illinois, detonating explosives beneath rollers. When a Ukrainian deputy minister expressed doubts, Buffett told him: “Stop counting my tractors. If necessary, I’ll blow up a thousand of them.” Andriy Stavnitser initially asked him for $1 million for Superhumans. Buffett asked how much was needed to build the entire center. “$14 million.” “Okay. And what do you expect in return?” “Nothing. Build it.” Today, his support for Superhumans has reached $77 million, and the center has treated more than 1,700 patients. But his largest area of spending is neither agricultural machinery nor prosthetics. It is food: 642 million meals. And that is only part of it: * 344,000 windows replaced after Russian attacks; * 9 bridges, 4 power plants, 2,500 generators, and 18 DNA laboratories; * Much of Bucha rebuilt with his funding. “I already have more friends in Ukraine than I do at home,” he says. He celebrates birthdays in Ukraine, comes for Christmas, and even has a Ukrainian godson. Friends, this is truly a great man - someone who understands that he cannot take all his money with him when he leaves this world. I simply want to thank him and wish him well. Whatever else one may say, this is real help from a person who had no personal obligation to Ukraine. He simply chose to help. Source: translated from the original text by Oleh Bairak.

Have you ever noticed we live in a country where a 95-year-old man can walk into a mud pit in Chicago, call his band The Fuckers, and start reciting “Enter Sandman” like he’s giving a TED Talk from the afterlife? William Shatner. Ninety-five. Riot Fest. Douglass Park. Thirty-five minutes. Spoken-word heavy metal. In the mud. With people cheering like this is normal. It is not normal. It is magnificent. He did “Crazy Train.” He did “Ace of Spades.” He did Metallica. Not sang them. Talked them. Like Captain Kirk got trapped in a guitar amp and decided to negotiate with Satan instead of the Klingons. Behind him: actual musicians. Marcus Nand. Phil Soussan. Grown men who have paid rent with real notes while a nonagenarian stands there going, “What the F is heavy metal?” and somehow makes it a question worth answering. Brian May is on the record. Tony Iommi is on the record. The album is called *What the F Is Heavy Metal?* which is the most honest title in music since someone first admitted most of it is just louder complaining. The crowd ate it up. Of course they did. We will watch a man old enough to remember radio as furniture stand in wet dirt and dare death to tap him on the shoulder. Death probably took one look, said “I’m not dealing with this today,” and went to find someone easier. You’re never too old to live out your dreams. That’s the line they always use. The real line is: most people quit the second it gets embarrassing. Shatner waited until embarrassing became the whole act, then sold tickets. Follow @wickedsmaahht before the rest of the timeline figures it out. #WilliamShatner #RiotFest #WhatTheFIsHeavyMetal #NeverTooOld #SpokenWordMetal #LiveLongAndGetLouder #CaptainKirkHasEnteredTheChat

On March 16, 1968, US troops were raping and massacring Vietnamese civilians including children and babies at My Lai. Then an American helicopter pilot named Hugh Thompson Jr. saw what was happening — and decided he could not stand by. Thompson was flying a reconnaissance mission in an OH-23 Raven with his two crewmen, Glenn Andreotta and Lawrence Colburn. Their job was to scout ahead of the ground troops and identify enemy positions. But something was terribly wrong. From the air, Thompson noticed bodies everywhere — women, children, infants and elderly people. There was virtually no return fire. He marked wounded civilians with smoke so they could receive medical help. But when he came back, he discovered that some of the people he had marked as wounded had been shot dead. He watched a wounded Vietnamese woman lying on the ground. An American soldier approached her, prodded her with his foot — and shot her in the head. Thompson was horrified. He then saw a group of 12–15 Vietnamese women and children fleeing toward a bunker while American soldiers pursued them. He landed his helicopter between the civilians and the soldiers. Thompson confronted the Americans and ordered his crew to cover the civilians. He told his gunner, Lawrence Colburn, to train his M60 on the American troops and fire if they opened fire on the Vietnamese. Think about that. An American soldier had reached the point where he was willing to risk shooting fellow American soldiers to prevent them from committing more war crimes. Thompson then helped get the civilians out of the bunker and called in other helicopters to evacuate them. His crew helped rescue Vietnamese survivors and wounded children. After returning to base, Thompson immediately reported what he had witnessed to his superiors. Hugh and his men deserve to be remembered, not because they were American soldiers, but because they chose humanity when others had abandoned it. While others were killing innocent people, these three Americans risked their lives to save them. That is courage. That is humanity. This is Thompson Hugh Jr.

I have seen it all. 🤣95 yr old WILLIAM SHATNER ‘sings’Metallica yesterday. The guy astounds me. He gives me hope for growing older. I mean.. he is 33 yrs older than me… I really love this dude. Always have👊🏻

Katie Phang, our hero Journalist is going to nail this ugly SOB’s ass. Because of her tenacity, her case is forcing this dude to show up in court on September 24th, to explain why he’s holding the Epstein files, or face contempt charges from judge Sullivan’s court. You go girl.

Spotted in Dallas 👀 @MeidasTouch

I’d be lying if I said Navy SEAL burpees looked enjoyable, but they do hit nearly everything at once. Chest, legs, core and lungs all get dragged into it pretty quickly.

One of the most iconic moments in rock history - #Heart performs Stairway to Heaven for #LedZeppelin at the #KennedyCenter. I shared a clip earlier, but this is the entire song, and I hope you sit back and experience it for yourself. You won't regret it. #SaveTheCenter #KennedyCenterBoard #JFK #VOTETRUMPOUT

This was the Kennedy Center before that orange shit stain destroyed it like he's destroyed everything else he ever touched. He will never have a legacy that lives up to anything worthy of the Kennedy Center and he knows it. That's why he's so obsessed with it. Just like Obama.