Batch 🇺🇦Stands With Ukraine🇺🇦 @Batch4Change

Aldon Smith passed away this weekend. Most people are talking about his incredible ability, potential, and performance as a football player. Even though that is all true. He was so much more than that. He was a great friend and his kindness changed my life forever. I met Aldon our freshman year at Mizzou. He was redshirted and relatively unknown as an athlete. His giveaway was the biggest hands you'll ever see and his ability to dunk at 250lbs, but his size in many ways didn't match his personality. He was relatively quiet and in most scenarios would try to shrink into the room vs stand out in it. Over the course of the next year, we became close. We were very different people, from different places, but we both connected on the feeling of being a bit lost in the beginnings of adulthood. That year, I never really thought about him as a football player. He was just this gentle giant who loved to play video games and talk about life. His sophmore year he broke the single season sack record at Mizzou, became an All American, and his life changed forever. He became a celebrity on campus. He became a household name in Missouri. He became a top NFL draft prospect. I remember how crazy his life became, and how quickly. ESPN doing interviews. Fancy cars being "loaned" to him. And people everywhere inserting themselves into his life. Despite the craziness, my friend was always a text away. My junior of college, I decided to take my first stab at entrepreneurship. I wanted to launch a chapter of Camp Kesem. Kesem is a summer camp for children whose parents have been affected by cancer. The camp would be totally free and be a chance for a kid to experience the magic of being a kid again. As a son of a breast cancer survivor the idea of being able to create this camp in Missouri meant the world to me. The Livestrong Foundation was hosting a nation wide contest to win $10,000 as seed capital to get started. To win, you had to have the most votes. I tried really freaking hard to win that competition. I was going up against some really influential people at huge schools. As a somewhat awkward kid in Columbia, MO I had no chance. So I asked my friend Aldon for a favor. I asked him if he would help me out and promote the link to vote. He did more than just posting about Kesem on Facebook, skyrocketing us into the top place in the country. He kept supporting me the next 3 years while I was working on building Kesem. He showed up to have fun with the kids. He helped me fundraise. He helped me get Kesem to become an official organization sponsored by the NFLPA so he could publicly endorse us as as a player. Since then Torry Holt, Larry Fitzegerald, and many others have supported Kesem. But Aldon was the first. Kesem led me to move to Austin to work for the Livestrong Foundation. Kesem is how I met my wife. Kesem gave me the confidence to start Workweek and continue the path of building something from scratch. But in reality, Aldon enabled all those things. Throughout the years we had many amazing memories together. Having my wife and I vacation to his house in San Jose. Going to New Orleans for the Super Bowl and seeing his entire family make the trip. Meeting his son and watching him be a dad. The hilarious night we met Derek Jeter. Having the most intellectual conversations about life while playing Call of Duty. I also saw him struggle. There's no doubt he was a complicated person. Truthfully, I don't know if he ever really figured out who he wanted to be. I know just because your'e 6'4, 250lbs, and get 5.5 sacks in a single NFL game doesn't necessarily mean you want to be a football player. No matter the reasons, he made many bad decisions in his life. Some of those mistakes made it hard for me to stay as close as we'd once been. One day, not too long ago, I just decided to text him. It had been years since we really chatted. I just wanted to say thank you for all that he had done for me and that I was sorry I wasn't there for him more through his struggles. We FaceTimed after that, and it was like the old days all over again. Aldon was more than the headlines, the mistakes. He was a generous, gentle soul, a kid at heart, someone who was endlessly curious about life... all in the body of a world class NFL player, bearing the weight of professional pressure and personal circumstances that most of us can't even imagine. People are complex. People who make bad decisions can also do great things. A person can be hated by almost everyone and, yet, there are people in that person's life who still love them deeply. I learned many of these lesson due to Aldon, and I'll carry them with me forever. Rest in peace, Aldon. You won't be forgotten.

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Buttigieg: We didn't know it, but we've all been trusting our lives to the restraint of whoever the president might be. And now we have a president who is completely unrestrained. And so the only answer to that is a functioning Congress. It turns out we do not have a functioning Congress. The House of Representatives is not representative. One of the most important organs of our democracy is not democratic. They say, "Oh, no. We're not manipulating the map to disempower black people. We're manipulating the map to disempower Democrats who happen to be black people.” So, the time has come to make it impossible to manipulate the map for any reason and just have fair maps.

I wholeheartedly agree with Joe!

🚨MAJOR NEWS: Sen. Jacky Rosen just revealed that Trump's controversial $1.7 billion payout fund could STILL move forward despite a judge's temporary pause. Her response is BRILLIANT. Rosen introduced legislation to redirect the money to food assistance, Medicaid, and public safety programs. Now Republicans will be forced to take a public vote: Do they support a $1.7 billion fund Trump could use to reward political allies and January 6 rioters... Or do they support feeding hungry children, helping families afford healthcare, and keeping communities safe? That's a vote they won't be able to hide from. Share this everywhere.

@Suzierizzo1 @WYgalinCali 👍

@Acyn W

DEVELOPING: DOJ is investigating $2.6B in suspiciously timed oil trades made right before Trump's Iran decisions. The corruption is finally catching up to them. Please like and share to get the word out!

Barack Obama hasn't been President in almost 10 years. MAGA racists cannot get past the fact that a Black man was President, won the Nobel Peace Prize, and will be remembered in history as one of the great leaders of the 21st Century. RETWEET if you love President Obama! 💙

I have a red line in determining which Democrat I will support for President. That person must commit to removing the stain of trump’s name from every single federal building, and kick it off with a grand public ceremony. With fireworks. You think I’m kidding. I’m not kidding.

Mediaite @Mediaite

a month ago

Poll Shows Americans Overwhelmingly Oppose Naming Government Buildings After Trump While in Office mediaite.com/politics/trump…

132 307 1K 818K 27

If Jeff Bezos can drop $10 million to sponsor the Met Gala, he can afford to pay his fair share in taxes.

Unbelievable. How is this fool still in a job and not in prison?

RETWEET if you stand with Jimmy Kimmel against Donald Trump!

@FLOTUS Pretty damn easy to either change the channel or god forbid turn off the damn TV.

"The fact is that Trump deserves to be impeached and convicted for his behavior in his second term. The misconduct of Trump, in terms of his corruption and his associates, is unparalleled in our history. His abuses of power leave Nixon in the dust." open.substack.com/pub/thebulwark…

🚨BREAKING: Lawrence O'Donnell looked America in the eye tonight and said on live TV what many are thinking about Donald Trump's profane, perverse, filthy outburst on Easter Sunday to commit war crimes. "The 25th Amendment was written for yesterday at 8:03am."

This is what terrorists look like

Trump in 2008: Anyone who invades the Middle East under false pretenses should be impeached. Let’s make sure it goes viral here.

TWO STATEMENTS BY TRUMP 7 MINUTES APART: Trump at 9:00: "Regime change was not our goal. We don't want that" Trump at 9:07: "Regime change is what we want. It is needed" These statements were made 7 minutes apart in the same speech

Jennifer Welch: “The Republican party has been lying to voters for decades. Wealth will trickle down, billionaires are job creators, we are the pro-life party, we support family values. It is all a fucking lie. The Republican party is a death cult”