New school & old school

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Preface: This is a continuation of previously published essay– WNBA mediocrity

I’ve used these terms a lot when discussing basketball without fully defining them. Old school is Red Auerbach. This means the coach/GM runs the organization and is considered the most important person. In old school, no player is above the coach or management. What they say goes, and players who complain or object are benched and/or traded away. Old school was too rigid & deeply unfair to the players, especially star players before free agency. The best players never had any leverage in salary negotiations, and that had to change– hence new school.

New school begins with free agency in any sport, and in basketball it really started with Michael Jordan who was the first player to be above his team because he was so, so great. The Chicago Bulls stunk when Michael Jordan was drafted in 1984, and he immediately made the Bulls the league’s hottest attraction. His Air Jordan shoe deal with Nike and the phenomenon it spawned made Michael Jordan the most popular athlete on the planet. That was the ESPN/cable-TV era of sports, pre-internet.

When I write that Michael Jordan was new school, it doesn’t mean he didn’t have any old school in him. Michael was a team player, who valued winning first, which are old school attributes. New school emphasizes self promotion & getting paid as the priority. Michael Jordan wanted to get paid, so he invented new school to take care of himself. In a pre-sneaker deal era, Michael Jordan would have been reduced to just being the best player, without him being the cultural icon he became in the 1980’s & beyond. It’s a combination of being ready to meet the moment, and society being ready for someone like Michael Jordan in the NBA.

New school means you have your own voice in the media. Media is defined as corporate outlets & social media. All professional athletes have a social media profile and manage it seriously. It’s how they speak directly to their fans & critics. It’s how they express their displeasure with the head coach over minutes, shots, and usage. There is no going back to old school on that.

The best athletes in any sport are the ones who maintain a healthy combination of old school & new school. You need to be able to express yourself publicly, but you also have to look yourself in the mirror first. If you aren’t putting in the work and your performance isn’t meeting expectations, then it’s best to shut up and get to work. This means going back to an old school mentality by listening to the coaches, accepting criticism, taking responsibility, etc. It’s taking an attitude that no one is bigger than the team or the game.

In the old school NBA days, if a ‘star player’ underperformed and started being a crybaby to the sports writers, a team enforcer would find a moment alone in the locker room to set that problem straight. Players simply weren’t allowed to throw a coach or a team under the bus without violent repercussions. With hazing now frowned upon in locker rooms (new school), these issues get handled differently today– for better or worse. The worse is when team drama gets dragged out because no one wants to have an uncomfortable discussion. Too many overpaid snowflakes being enabled is a new school issue.

The WNBA is all about drama. It’s just as much a soap opera as an athletic competition these days. This is different from all other sports leagues that have risen to prominence. The NFL, MLB & NBA all have drama going on behind the scenes, but the game remains the main attraction for the fans. In the WNBA, drama over Caitlin Clark dominates their daily narratives. More people know about that, than the defending WNBA champs. The primary narrative & financial driver for the WNBA is an unremarkable player named Caitlin Clark, and it represents new school at its worst.

Whatever temporary boost her popularity gives the league, in the long run the WNBA will be worse off for hyping Caitlin Clark as a great player. The issue here is all the basketball fans who recognize this garbage and call it out. The WNBA isn’t getting those fans back any time soon. What the WNBA has done with Caitlin C;lark is fundamentally disrespectful to the game, prioritizing hype over performance.

Up until Caitlin Clark came into the league in 2024, the WNBA was solid growing. Ownership embraced Caitlin Clark because she has caused franchise values to skyrocket. The Golden State Valkyries, a second year WNBA expansion franchise is now valued at $1B. The average WNBA franchise value is $460M according to Google. Ten years ago there wasn’t a single WNBA team that could get $100M in valuation.

The WNBA is a financial bubble, with insanely overestimated franchise values, and Caitlin Clark has been a tool for that. The WNBA needed a ‘great white hope’ and so they manufactured one in her. The element of racism that underlies all this is the elephant-in-the-room that can’t be discussed in the corporate media. It’s too uncomfortable.

Meanwhile, WNBA critics are labeled misogynist, racist or whatever semantic inversion they prefer in order to silence any discussion on the matter. The WNBA owners are the ones profiting from this hype, and when Caitlin Clark finally crashes, it will be perceived by them as the fault of those who correctly analyzed this from the start. Because myself (& others) have been critical we’re all slandered as ‘woman haters’, as that’s easier to understand than all the facts & issues involved. That’s NIL new school.

Thu 04 Jun 2026 10:00 AM CDT

Update: It’s been reported that the Indiana Fever revoked the press credentials for Scott Agness, the reporter who broke the story of Caitlin Clark not playing due to a sudden “back injury” on May 20. The team violated league rules by not reporting it on time, and was reprimanded by the WNBA for it as her unavailability was announced just before tip-off. All professional sports leagues take this seriously because of the wagering going on. Tanking (new school strategy) wasn’t the issue here. The Indiana Fever organization claims Scott Agness had his team credentials revoked for spreading “inaccurate and unsubstantiated information,” by referring to load management as the reason for the unavailability. What’s actually going on here is blatant retribution by snowflakes for reporting the truth, which isn’t popular with corporate institutions & their concocted narratives.

Along with this is a new article in the Athletic that is critical of Caitlin Clark’s defense, referring to her as a “sitting duck during hunting season.” None of this is untrue, yet the Indiana Fever and Caitlin Clark fans are (again) in a tizzy over this. It’s been branded a “hit piece” by Caitlin Clark supporters, when the fact is she is a poor defender and a liability to her team for it. The flak from her adoring sycophants is the head coach has the wrong scheme, and isn’t protecting her on the court as she should, etc. This comes mostly from people with money & influence who aren’t experienced enough to coach a JV basketball team, yet insist know best. Ball players counter that if she stinks on defense, that’s her fault and when her coaches call her out Caitlin Clark throws tantrums instead of sucking it up and improving her effort.

Fact: The WNBA still doesn’t make a profit, with annual revenues of only $300M and operating costs being much higher. Now that the CBA has been settled, franchise valuations are what matter most to the league. The hype over Caitlin Clark, and the extreme sensitivity over any criticism of her performance is part of this. The ‘chosen one’ has to be protected (enabled) to maintain these wildly inflated WNBA franchise values. That’s the source of all this media hysteria.

This is nothing more than new school nonsense taking over the game, in which performance doesn’t matter so much, as there’s always an excuse to protect its top attraction. If the Indiana Fever don’t do everything in their power to deflect criticism of Caitlin Clark, then her head coach will be fired, other players will be traded, or perhaps Clark will finally demand a trade. She has all that leverage, simply by being in the right place at the right time. Those are the new school rules in play, and it rubs many in the game the wrong way. Old school would involve what’s been discussed above, and apparently Caitlin Clark isn’t interested in that. This is just the latest dramatic episode in As the WNBA World Turns. It won’t be long before this tired act gets tuned out, which spells big trouble for the WNBA. That’s the Faustian bargain they’ve made which will eventually come home to roost.

To use a NFL analogy sports fans can appreciate, if you are Ryan Leaf instead of Peyton Manning, fans will learn the difference– sooner or later. That may feel extremely harsh to Caitlin Clark, but it’s much closer to the truth than the narratives being floated through the corporate media and onto social media. All this protective enabling isn’t doing Caitlin Clark, the Indiana Fever, or the WNBA any good. The sugar high of inflated franchise values will eventually turn into diabetes of the WNBA, meaning it will cost the league much more than it has gained. This lying & racist ‘great white hope’ campaign is hurting the league’s credibility.

Old school means you work for your rewards, making them sweeter when they are finally achieved. And if you fall short, at least you gave it your best. New school is demanding the reward up front, then deciding if you want to put in the work or not. It’s turned the WNBA into an exercise in projections & speculation. Caitlin Clark isn’t measured by her performance, she’s measured in futures. Like the derivatives market in finance & investing, all the money thrown at her is about image & what bettors believe her future will bring. To honestly assess that, one needs to objectively look at her current professional track record which isn’t favorable. With these examples drawn out in ~1,800 words, lies the difference between old school & new school.

Post script: Defense is half the game. That’s actually an understatement of fact. Good defense leads to easy offense, while bad defense gives easy offense to the opponent. One energizes and the other demoralizes. Defense wins championships. Everyone in basketball knows this. All your teammates & coaches care about is are you an asset or liability on the floor? If you give up too many easy looks & baskets then you are a negative on +/- player rating. That’s a losing player. People who try to spin the truth on basketball don’t discuss defense seriously. For more on old school defense, read this.  For new school defense, read here.

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WNBA mediocrity

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The expansion franchise Portland Fire are currently the 5th seed, while the Toronto Tempo are currently the 7th seed in the WNBA standings. Second year franchise, the Golden State Valkyries are tied for the second-best record in the WNBA early in the 2026 season. Expansion teams, from the NBA, NFL, MLB, etc, are historically awful in their inception, so what explains this?

How about the fact that the WNBA really isn’t that good? The WNBA talent level is a mediocre mish-mash across the board, which allows expansion teams with rosters that are only a few months old to be competitive at the highest level of women’s professional basketball. Sad, but true. Remember there was a WNBA labor impasse due to the protracted CBA negotiations this past winter, so the WNBA expansion draft wasn’t held until April 3. These expansion teams have been together for less than two months, and yet the Portland Fire just rolled the Indiana Fever with Caitlin Clark. That’s not supposed to happen, as it creates an uncomfortable narrative for the WNBA.

While the Indiana Fever were getting pounded on CBS, real basketball fans were watching the Spurs-Thunder Western Conference finals, game 7 on NBC. The Portland Fire-Indiana Fever WNBA game was a sellout with 19,347 people at the Moda Center. Not one person in attendance at the Moda Center can claim to be a real basketball fan because if they were, they would have been watching the Spurs-Thunder game. It’s about respect for the game of basketball, as the Spurs-Thunder is as good as it gets, making it “must see.”

This leads to an important discovery concerning the WNBA– the quality of basketball doesn’t matter because the WNBA isn’t about basketball. The WNBA is about money, hype & promoting its feminist/DEI agenda. Caitlin Clark is the poster-girl for the WNBA bubble that has sent franchise values skyrocketing. The WNBA is all over TV at this point, replacing MLB & NASCAR which have largely gone to paid subscription & Amazon Prime, etc.

During breaks in the Spurs-Thunder game (and there were quite a few), I switched to the Fire-Fever WNBA match-up. When I watch Caitlin Clark play I think to myself, “This girl is not committed defensively, turns the ball over too much, and doesn’t help her team on the boards. She doesn’t connect with her teammates, who are probably jealous of her promotional earnings and frustrated with her inability to be a leader and help them win. She’s weak in her core & upper body, which probably accounts for her re-occurring back problems that have limited her games played & production in her 2+ years in the league. She’s also slow afoot with poorly-developed legs. If she doesn’t dedicate herself to getting stronger and more ‘basketball fit’, she’ll never be a great player. Caitlin Clark is still basically the same player she was when she came into the league in 2024, which is a red flag. I think she cares more about promoting herself than being a great basketball player.”

That’s my capsule scouting report on Caitlin Clark, and if I can see this, then surely management and the Fever coaching staff know this too. The problem is they can’t say it. Caitlin Clark isn’t even the best player on her team. Aliyah Boston is the best Indiana Fever player, or else it’s Kelsey Mitchell. This is a problem for the Fever because the face of the league can’t be your third-best player on a mediocre team, but that’s Caitlin Clark & the Indiana Fever.

Normally, if a star player in the NBA is under performing on a bad team, he gets traded. But in the WNBA, the Indiana Fever have ‘the chosen one’ in Caitlin Clark, who by herself has taken the league to new heights in popularity, largely based on white racism & corporate hype. It comes down to ownership priority, do the Indiana Fever want to win– or make money? It’s an easy choice, all they have to do is keep Caitlin Clark and they will continue to make money. If the Fever trade Caitlin Clark, they might get better but they will lose financially, and making money is the name of the WNBA game.

Inconvenient fact: the WNBA is 70% black, but 8 of the top 10 “most promotable” WNBA players are white. What explains that?

Caitlin Clark has parlayed an outstanding NCAA career at the University of Iowa into promotional gold, and it’s largely because she’s white. Everyone knows this, but no one is allowed to say it publicly. If you’ve noticed, WNBA crowds are mostly upper-middle class whites. There is a strong element of voyeurism in every WNBA crowd. Fans aren’t there for the quality of basketball, otherwise they would be watching the Spurs-Thunder, they are there to dream about themselves and their kids being on the court, making WNBA money, etc…

It starts with NIL deals in high school, then a NCAA scholarship to a Power 4 conference school, and then the WNBA. It’s so easy these days, and there is so much expansion going on now that you don’t have to be that good to play in the WNBA. It’s all there right in front of the fans to dream about, and that’s what they are doing most of the game, as they certainly aren’t watching these games critically.

Feminist, black racialist, and lesbian narratives rule the WNBA. There is a large segment of the sports-watching population that is hostile to the WNBA for this Democratic Party politicking that has infiltrated the women’s game. Support for the WNBA is strong, but the backlash is perhaps stronger. People watch sports to forget about politics, and yet the WNBA throws it in everyone’s face over & over. And when Caitlin Clark doesn’t live up to the hype, it’s always someone else’s fault, etc. The apologetics in her name are embarrassing.

This type of enabling is the opposite of compelling sport. It makes sports lovers cynical to the point where they change the channel in disgust, because none of this is real, much less good. To a certain degree, the WNBA has boxed itself in with its success. It can’t deliver on what it is promising. The league is mediocre, as regular season winners (see the 2025 Minnesota Lynx) are often eliminated early in the playoffs, while expansion teams are immediately competitive, revealing the flaky nature of success in women’s professional basketball.

Conclusion: A’ja Wilson is the undisputed best player in the WNBA, and her Las Vegas Aces are the dominate team of this era. But who are the new players that will transform the WNBA? They aren’t Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese or Paige Bueckers who all fall into a level of mediocrity that defines the current WNBA. NCAA glory doesn’t always translate into professional success as today’s game is physically demanding and has more foreign players than ever. The heavily-favored US women’s Olympic team was lucky to beat France in the finals at Paris 2024, so I no longer buy the ‘American superpower theory’ in women’s hoops.

Caitlin Clark dominated at Iowa largely because women’s NCAA hoops is still thin compared to the men. When facing consistently tougher professional competition, Caitlin Clark’s limitations are revealed, so I don’t blame her for doing so many promotions. It’s easy money compared to competing against better players. Anyone would take it. It’s those who are offering her all that money who are to blame. The root WNBA problem is that its most promoted players aren’t close to being their best players. It’s all being done for the wrong reasons and this level of enabling is new in sports. How long this lasts and how the WNBA will evolve remain very open to question.

Final game notes: The game of basketball is about respect. Michael Jordan always said he considered Madison Square Garden to be the “Mecca of Basketball” because that crowd appreciates greatness & can spot a phony. The true performers will rise to the occasion on the biggest stage, so to say. In contrast, during the Spurs-Thunder game 7, All-Star Chet Holmgren looked like he wanted no part of MSG as he was on the bench as the OKC Thunder season ended. That’s what Wemby did to him. Everyone in basketball respects that, and is excited for the Spurs-Knicks finals.

As mentioned above, the only difference-maker in today’s WNBA is A’ja Wilson. For perspective, in an all-time WNBA draft it’s either her or a young Cheryl Miller at #1. Without A’ja Wilson, France would have won gold at Paris 2024. The rest of the WNBA is a group of players with differing levels of ability, but none are difference-makers. That’s the overall mediocrity of the WNBA that allows one player to dominate.

As for Caitlin Clark, if you are overrated & overpaid this hurts your team because respect at the professional level is (more than ever) measured in dollars– salary & endorsements. The hysterical (and all-too-easy) solution for the Indiana Fever is to fire their head coach in order to protect the underperforming “star player.” This allows a temporary reset, but doesn’t fix the underlying problem, which is Caitlin Clark’s performance & commitment to the game, teammates & organization. Her commitments to be the face of the WNBA are clearly more than she can handle.

Steve Alford is Caitlin Clark’s best historical comparable in the men’s game. All-American under Bobby Knight at Indiana University when the Hoosiers won the NCAA tournament in 1987, Steve Alford didn’t have the physique or game to be a successful NBA player.

Caitlin Clark needs to publicly admit that she is currently the third-best player on her team. This would help take the pressure off her head coach and earn some trust from her teammates by taking responsibility for not being the player she has been hyped to be. I believe Caitlin Clark can be a helpful piece on a championship WNBA team because shooters are always needed, but she isn’t a team leader or primary option. She doesn’t have that game.

This essay has been a critical analysis of the WNBA, something that has been sorely lacking in the corporate media. Most critics of the WNBA simply hate on it. My critical approach is that of a recreational basketball player who respects the game and can differentiate good play from poor. You have to base every critical judgment on performance & numbers. What are you doing to help your team win? What aren’t you doing that you need to be doing, etc? True leaders are accountable in all situations. Too many people running the WNBA don’t want to be accountable, they just want to be paid.

Handling the media is a component every modern professional athlete must deal with. As the saying goes, “It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you place the blame.” Throwing coaches under the bus is what players do in the modern NBA. Kyrie Irving, James Harden, Ben Simmons come to mind as legendary coach killers. Old school NEVER allowed that, but this is new school. Shoot the 3, and if it doesn’t go in, then complain about the coach not using you correctly, etc. Players in all leagues are paid much more now, and thus the head coach has to regularly take bullets for his players in the media to stay solid with them. It’s part of the job, and for which the coach will eventually be fired. In this NIL era, talent & marketability rules the game.

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Billionaires dumping bitcoin: an unmistakable sign of the coming crypto apocalypse

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Major crypto supporter & tech billionaire Mark Cuban has reportedly sold most of his bitcoin because “it didn’t act as an inflation hedge” during a time of crisis, which we have now due to Trump’s war on Iran. The Trump tariffs haven’t helped crypto/bitcoin, contributing to higher mining & maintenance costs with higher interest rates.

In the past few years there has been a massive wave of consolidations, layoffs & bankruptcies in the crypto industry. The narrative of bitcoin as “decentralized finance” has now been proven a fiction, as a few billionaires control bitcoin and through it the entire crypto industry. The derivatives market is manipulating bitcoin’s price through futures betting. Bitcoin is so thin on liquidity (meaning no one wants to buy it) that derivatives traders can now control the price (exert downward pressure) through shorting.

When we speak of crypto, and bitcoin in particular, it’s very important to understand that it’s a handful of billionaires & financial swindlers that are running the entire show. Adam Back is Satoshi Nakamoto, the largest individual bitcoin holder with an estimated 1.1 million bitcoins. Adam Back is the crypto king because he acquired his bitcoin at the lowest cost, before most people ever heard of bitcoin.

Michael Saylor’s Strategy & Blackrock ETF each hold ~818,000 bitcoins according to Google. Michael Saylor has paid ~$76K per bitcoin, which makes his financial position more precarious because he levered-up so much to acquire his stash, and has virtually no equity at this point with bitcoin currently at ~$77k. His borrowing costs are huge compared to Adam Back. Blackrock also bought high on bitcoin.

Crypto exchanges Coinbase (~958,000 BTC) & Binance (~634,000 BTC) rule the industry through their bitcoin holdings, which gives legitimacy to everything crypto– according to Kool-Aid drinkers. Interestingly, the US government holds ~328,000 BTC through seizures, while the Chinese government holds ~190,000 BTC.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX, according to its IPO disclosure just made public, holds 18,700 bitcoins purchased at ~$35k each. Tesla currently holds ~11,500 BTC, after Elon Musk sold 75% of Tesla’s bitcoin stash in July 2022 at a huge loss in order to cover costs.

And finally, Trump Media originally acquired 11,542 bitcoins at an average price of $118,522, which Trump Media is now dumping at a huge loss. What does that tell you?

Recall that president Donald Trump stated (over & over) he wanted Fed Chairman Jerome Powell gone because he wouldn’t lower interest rates– which is what the crypto industry always wants. Now Trump has ignited global inflation, and new Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh whom Trump handpicked has already been told by the bond market that interest rates must go up again– soon.

Credit is being tightened mostly for consumers & small businesses in need. The coming taxpayer bailout will be for the rich who caused all this mess. Pundits will proclaim with heated exasperation, “Who could have predicted all this?”

Wed 27 May 2026 11:00 AM CDT

Addendum: Huge outflows on Blackrock’s ETF. Meanwhile, Michael Saylor’s Strategy is burning through cash to pay his debts, after claiming bitcoin would now be trading at $40,000-$50,000 if he hadn’t been making such huge buys. In other words, one person has been propping up this entire house of cards.

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Victor Wembanyama

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Victor Wembanyama is something new & amazing in basketball. The Spurs-Thunder Western conference finals match-up has been much-anticipated throughout the NBA season. The OKC Thunder feature the reigning two-time league MVP in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who looked like just another player on the court with no answer for Wemby in Game 1.

Victor Wembanyama is a problem for all NBA teams. His 7-4 frame, commitment to strength & flexibility, and basketball skill & IQ make him the most unstoppable force in the game today. Wemby is the most feared rim protector in the NBA since the era when Wilt Chamberlain was allowed to goal tend & basket interfere.

Due to his strength & mobility, Victor Wembanyama can rebound over any opponent on both ends. Wemby always wins the jump ball, and doing that twice in the Game 1 overtime win over OKC shows what an advantage that can become. The Spurs got an extra possession at the beginning of each overtime because Wemby always wins the tip.

It’s just another “not since Wilt” aspect to his game that astounds basketball fans. Wilt did it in an era where his only competitive peer was Bill Russell. Today, outside of the bottom third of the league tanking, the NBA is extremely competitive from top-to-middle. Basketball is also a much more global game, with Victor Wembanyama as an example of that coming over from France.

Victor Wembanyama obviously knew he was going to the NBA at a young age, so he learned English and did everything else he needed to do to become successful with his talents. The best comparisons for Wemby in the modern era probably start with Hakeem Olajuwan, Kevin Garnett & Giannis Antetokounmpo. Those players were/are athletic big men who could really defend the painted area, as well as close-out on perimeter shooters.

On the offensive end, you need to be able to score everywhere to be the best. Free throws are often an Achilles Heel for big men. I’ve divided a list below into two eras, with Kareem being the end of ‘old school’, and Olajuwan marking ‘new school’ for basketball big men. Here are their comparative NBA FT%.

Wilt Chamberlain 51.1%
Bill Russell 56.1%
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 71.2%

Hakeem Olajuwon 71.2%
Shaquille O’Neal 52.7%
Tim Duncan 69.6%
Kevin Garnett 78.9%
Giannis Antetokounmpo 69.1%
Victor Wembanyama 81.7%

Only Kevin Garnett is close to Wemby in FT%. For the record, Nikola Jokić shoots 82.5%, but isn’t the active defensive force of Olajuwon, Garnett or Wemby. Kareem, Russell & Wilt played in an era before intentional fouling was widely used as a tactic on defense.

Conversely, an unstoppable force like Shaq in the 1990’s & 2000’s was fouled as soon as he caught the ball in scoring position and forced to make his free throws. If the targeted big man can’t do that consistently, then he’s of limited value offensively at the end of close games. Missing too many free throws means empty possessions for his team. That’s why Shaq needed closers like Kobe & D-Wade to win a title.

Jim Valvano at NC State in 1983 used NCAA Tournament pressure with perpetual 1-and-1 free throw situations for targeted players to great success. That rule was since changed, to 1-and-1 on non-shooting team fouls 7-9, and two shots on 10+. NC State upset Houston and won the national championship as a lesser team with that strategy.

In the NBA, Phil Jackson with the Chicago Bulls & coach Larry Bird with the Indiana Pacers created Hack-a-Shaq. Phil Jackson had three big guys he rotated in to foul Shaquille O’Neal and send him to the line. Larry Bird would have a player with no fouls (usually Reggie Miller) pull down Shaq’s Lakers shorts as a signal to the refs to call a foul away from the ball.

But you can’t do that if the big man shoots 82% from the line like Wemby does. He also shoots logo 3’s, can get to the basket off the dribble, and has unstoppable low post moves. He can dunk over other players with either hand. It’s hard for most basketball players to imagine being able to do that.

Victor Wembanyama is a freak, and if he stays healthy will become the dominant player of this era. This is the up-and-down, shoot-the-three era. Defense & rebounding is critical as always, just in different ways. Wemby can close out on any shooter and at least distract them. FG% against the Spurs while Wemby is on the floor tells you everything about his impact on the game. It drops to approximately to half of what it is while he’s on the bench.

Wemby discourages shooters from shooting, and it’s hard to find stats that measure that, but that’s the case and it has a major affect on the Spurs winning.

For basketball fans, this was the most-anticipated NBA series since the Warrriors-Cavs 2016 NBA Finals. Everyone anticipates the winner of the Thunder-Spurs series to win the NBA Finals. Most thought it would be a 7-game series, but the truth after Game 1 is if the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder don’t win Game 2, they’re getting swept. That’s what Wemby does for the San Antonio Spurs.

Sat 23 May 2026 12:30 PM CDT

Update: The OKC Thunder have come back strong to win games 2 & 3 to take a 2-1 lead in the series. This series is coming down to injuries & depth. Injuries are the X-factor in the playoffs. If a main guy gets hurt, his team has little-to-no chance of winning a title– see Jayson Tatum & Tyrese Haliburton in 2025.

For the Spurs this series it’s De’Aaron Fox & Dylan Harper getting hurt that’s created a depth issue at guard which OKC is exploiting. Overwhelming OKC pressure is creating turnovers before Wemby can get the ball in scoring position. The hamstring injury to OKC guard Jalen Williams can be covered with bench depth, which the Spurs don’t have. The disparity in production off the bench is the difference in this series.

Like Michael Jordan coming up with the Chicago Bulls in the 1980’s, Victor Wembanyama needs a little more time for the roster to fill out around him before he can lead his team to a title. One of the biggest reasons Magic won more titles than Bird was because the Lakers always had better bench depth. That and Kareem.

One man can’t do it by himself, and it appears the Spurs are going to come up short in Wemby’s third season. It’s been a meteoric rise for the Spurs who had struggled since Tim Duncan retired. The OKC Thunder are a young team with management that knows what it’s doing. They have a great head coach who knows his players and what his options are in all situations. These two teams are going to be competing for NBA titles for the foreseeable future.

In other sports news…

Kyle Busch 1985-2026

Kyle Busch was a jerk who won a lot of races. No one outside of NASCAR cared about this dickweed or even knew who he was until a few days ago. Amongst drivers he competed against sentiment is mixed at best. Apparently he died of pneumonia, and it’s a big loss for NASCAR because Kyle Busch invested so heavily in their racing series. NASCAR wants & needs good ol boys like Kyle Busch and now he’s gone. Danica Patrick was always a much better bet as a racing ambassador, but NASCAR didn’t want her. Watch the Indianapolis 500 this Memorial Day weekend and decide for yourself on this. Kyle Busch v Danica proves that winning isn’t everything.

Since I am a doctor and a man of science I can’t gloat over the death of another. From an atheist perspective, Kyle Busch has simply joined the great majority, as someday we all will. But letting an illness such as pneumonia go undiagnosed & untreated until it was too late is inexcusable for age-41 Kyle Busch. He had all the necessary resources to prevent this tragedy from happening, so it all falls on him. It’s a bad way to die and it becomes a big part of his legacy. The lesson is don’t overlook early warning signs that your body isn’t well. Money, fame, and racing wins can’t buy Kyle Busch one more breath of life– which is what matters most.

Life is what you do with it. What did you dedicate your soul to? This is how people remember those among the great majority. It’s not how much money & glory you accumulated, but how much you loved & helped others– especially those less fortunate. Racking up wins in the lesser Xfinity & truck NASCAR series is like a varsity team rolling the JV. Kyle Busch was the best driver with the best equipment and most money to spend in these series. What’s left now? In hindsight, which we now have, it’s a hollow legacy. That’s what we mourn.

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Beatles Evolution & Revolution

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If you are going to be successful as an act, you need management & a producer.

Brian Epstein was an ambitious music entrepreneur who managed the Beatles from 1961 until his death in August 1967. Epstein signed the Beatles with EMI’s Parlophone label, which became Capitol Records, and today is owned by Universal Music Group. Beatles songs were all produced by George Martin and remain a huge money maker, testifying to Brian Epstein’s ability to recognize talent, which itself is a talent, and then pair it with the necessary recording talent.

For the record, Brian Epstein was gay and like many stars & others of his era he died young (age 32) of a combined alcohol & barbiturate overdose, ruled accidental. Being gay is a difficult lifestyle, because apparently at some point there becomes an overwhelming need to separate from the mainstream. None of that conventional stuff satisfies. Beyond that, much of the conservative mainstream rejects gay, openly declaring its hostility.

Drugs & alcohol can become a refuge. Gay parties are different from straight parties. In my experience, there are much more drugs & sex going on at gay parties. Much of it is reckless & unprotected, as the attitude among many who are gay is to live it up today & die young. Many don’t want to live into old age, as they are in pain over their sexuality, and once it diminishes, their mental agony can become excruciating. Sadly this emotional pain leads to many early deaths.

Relationship building is an area where many people have issues. It’s especially hard for gays who have come out of the closet to trust straight people, because all straights said or did something offensive to their sensibilities at some point. It’s tempting for gays to become snowflakes on this, which doesn’t help anyone. Rehabilitation & education need to work together for there to be progress in sexual healing, but currently that is being cut out in favor of quackery, prejudice & identity politics. The real work that needs to be done is being actively resisted by all this.

After Epstein’s death, the Beatles attempted to manage themselves with Apple Records and it was a disaster. It wasn’t until after they officially broke up in the spring of 1970 that the Fab Four got they legal & financial issues in order so they could all get paid. Northern Songs was the famous Lennon-McCartney publishing company created under Epstein’s guidance. This got John & Paul paid equally on all their compositions.

George founded Harrisongs in 1964 which ensured he would get paid for his music. Ringo founded his own music publishing company, Startling Music Ltd, in 1968 after his deal with Northern Songs expired. Before the Beatles had begum to disintegrate as a band, each member was legally taken care of as far as songwriting, publishing & royalties. Those are the typical issues that break-up successful bands, and the Beatles showed the world how to handle it as it happened. “Creative differences” between band members is often rooted in legal issues that affect the commerciality of the act, along with who gets paid.

I’ve written in earlier posts that the Beatles wouldn’t be allowed to be successful in this 21-century era. The music industry has learned from the Beatles, punk rock, and 1990’s alternative rock/hip-hop. Those were times when popular music got out of their control and the industry doesn’t like that, even though it makes them billions of dollars. The industry wants to bottle everything up and endlessly sell it back to new generations of consumers, while never allowing another revolution in popular music. Historically, losing Frank Sinatra’s audience to rock & roll in 1955 started all this upheaval for the music industry. Charlie Parker & Sun Ra did the same in jazz.

You can’t stop history, which is metaphorically a raging river with unstoppable momentum & overwhelming power. Rock & roll is here to stay, and you can’t kill it. Same for reggae, rap, salsa, electronica, etc. Once a genre conquers the world, it becomes immortalized and can’t die because too many people, particularly kids, love it. It just keeps growing & flowing, increasing its influence as it goes along. All one can do is attempt to direct the flow. A revolutionary artist finds the best channel and directs all his/her energy into that historical task.

If the Beatles came along today and got their big audition on American Idol, Simon Cowell & company would listen for a bit, then insist to Paul that John be fired. Brian Epstein would be pushed out over a drug/sex scandal, etc, and Universal would handle all management through one of their preferred star agencies. This means Paul would be represented by CCA and be recognized as the undisputed band leader who gets all the songwriting & publishing money, while George & Ringo are a step above session musicians in this gig. If either protest they can easily be replaced. Drum machines that sample Pete Best & AI guitarists work much cheaper, making these new & improved Beatles more cost-efficient to the industry. This is the only way these new Beatles could be economically viable.

George Martin’s talents wouldn’t be applicable to these Beatles. Industry braintrust would surely prefer the guy who produced the Black Keys or Foo Fighters. New Beatles music would need that production edge with everything they’re missing, and George Martin is too subtle and respectful towards the artist to work in contemporary rock music which is now a top-down corporate-controlled project.

Under these conditions, John will struggle to get another opportunity as he’s too outside-the-box for this corporate era of music. He’s not sponsor friendly, so how can you market him? This is how all the gatekeepers & industry experts would understand a young John Lennon today. In this industry-created world, Paul McCartney & his New & Improved Beatles could become more popular than One Direction featuring Harry Styles. Of course, there wouldn’t be 1/10th the great songs from this new UK supergroup, but that’s just a cost of doing business.

Conclusion: There are great aspiring artists with the ability to make meaningful music, but it’s all being suppressed by ruling-class corporate which controls marketing, distribution & sales through its network of business partners, to which outsiders have no access. If you’re reading this, then you’ve discovered a real musical artist of the 21st-century. We’re all underground, censored & blacklisted by the establishment which has near-complete control over TV & the internet. It’s all dirty politics & big money that keeps us suppressed. Eventually the river of history will wash away all their detritus. This will happen when youth & working people unite in action, using music as a tool for revolutionary inspiration.

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My life with gay

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Beauty is blessing with a curse. Physical beauty attracts the opposite sex & gay. If you are attractive, you are going to have to deal with gay.

For the record, I’m 100% straight. Don’t believe that nonsense which declares everyone has gay in them. I have no desire for gay sex. That doesn’t make me anti-gay, it’s merely my sexual preference. Some snowflakes get jealous and attempt to persecute me for that. Anti-gay reactionaries are always looking for political cover for themselves, and a scapegoat to point their dirty fingers at. When you’re a real socialist, you get attacked from all sides politically.

I grew up in the 1980’s, when ‘coming out’ starting becoming in vogue. MTV & Madonna were a big influence on that, and it was certainly needed. I had Wisconsin high school friends (boys & girls) who came out after graduation, and I was among the first of the straights to be told by them. The gay boys were attracted to me, and the lesbian girls knew I was cool and would still be their friend. The ex-jocks & elitists were always the most reactionary towards gay, often claiming they were “betrayed” when they found out so-and-so was gay. That’s why most gays move out of the small towns and to the cities.

Those homophobic bigots were the people I soon lost touch with after high school, as they went on to become cops & local attorneys according to their aptitude. I soon lost touch with my new gay friends too, as that world became a culture that organically excluded straights who were unwilling to “experiment.” The only reason I was being invited to gay parties was because they wanted to have sex with me, not to be my friend.

I was kidnapped into a gay house sleepover in college. I thought I was being taken back to my dorm in downtown Milwaukee, but was instead taken to a rented home in Menominee Falls. I was introduced to all these new gay friends of my high school classmates, and was told we are having dinner & sleeping over here. [!!]

After this deception, I was uneasy about drinking alcohol, or anything else I didn’t serve myself. The meal was well-prepared, but hardly enjoyable. When it was time for bed, I slept alone on the living room couch, while everyone else went into a bedroom to have gay sex. It was my job to deal with all this like a man by waiting until morning to be taken to my desired destination, and not be a jerk about this. That’s a tough spot to be put in.

When gays are amongst themselves, they speak much more openly. After dinner, my just-came-out-of-the-closet male high school friend is examining the CD collection and is excited to see the Pet Shop Boys, Erasure, etc, well represented. The flaming-gay home resident says loudly to me with a wink & a laugh, “He’s going through his fag rock stage.”

Since then, all that 1980’s goth music has been ‘fag rock’ to me, because that’s what the fags call it– I heard it myself. That doesn’t make me anti-gay, it means I understand gay MUCH better than most straight people. Gay people need a few more straight people like myself who are honest about all this sexuality, because everyone else it lying about it for their own purposes.

For the record, my ‘gaydar’ is exquisitely sensitive, as it needs to be. I am usually the first straight man in the room to know there is a gay person in the area. This has been happening to me since I was a child, so what’s speaking here is a lifetime of experience & learning. If you are attractive, gay is going to find you. It’s all about how you deal with it. What you must do is:

1) Determine your sexual preference and don’t allow any unnatural forces to influence it
2) Determine you social attitude towards a group with whom you are not sexually attracted
3) Set healthy boundaries & limitations and maintain them

This is pretty advanced stuff for most people, as much of today’s society is failing Sex Ed 101. If you aren’t physically attractive, then you don’t have this problem of gay kidnappings, or being lured to their parties, gay bars, etc. Many heterosexual reactionaries are jealous of me because they are ugly. They want to pretend they know better, when in fact they know nothing on this. They claim to be protecting the public interest, when in fact they are fascist haters looking to scapegoat artists & leftists so their crimes can stay hidden from public accountability.

Jealously is the most dangerous emotion. It leads to contempt & uncontrollable rage. Nothing good can come from that. When politics get hyper-sexualized, everything gets distorted because most people are out-of-control when it comes to sex. Most people are never comfortable with their sexuality, and that becomes a root of many disorders– mental, physical, social, economic & political.

I have always turned to music in the face of such difficult & substantive issues. If you love the Velvet Underground & Nico produced by Andy Warhol (1967) they way I do, then you can’t be anti-gay. If you respect David Bowie, etc, in your music listening, then you are a friend of the gay community. With these tools at your disposal, you have all you need to connect with gay people on amenable terms– anytime, anyplace.

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Adam Back: CEO of bitcoin

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Satoshi Nakamoto is the mysterious computer programmer who invented bitcoin and drafted its “white paper” which describes how it works, why it exists, its ideology of anonymity, decentralized finance (de-fi), and other Libertarian tax-avoidance philosophy. There is also a lot of techno-babble on “blockchain” in the bitcoin white paper, which now has become much clearer.

The New York Times just published an investigation that identifies Satoshi Nakamoto as British cryptographer Adam Back, the owner of Blockstream, a very overvalued blockchain tech company headquartered in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, with offices & staff worldwide. Blockchain is a generic crypto industry term for the computer technology that stores & transfers crypto. Coincidentally, Adam Back owns the tech term for bitcoin storage as his company name, Blockchain. We now see more precisely how bitcoin works, when we know who started it.

Of course, Adam Back denies the New York Times‘ claim he is Satoshi Nakamoto, yet in his denials he explains why he is Satoshi Nakamoto, so this is all a game of hide-and-seek with the truth for him. The NYT investigation used their best human investigators, combined with AI analysis of writing style among other factors to conclude with 99.5-100% certainty that Satoshi Nakamoto is Adam Back.

As a believer in science, technology & rational though, I accept the NYT on this, and see Adam Back’s response as an attempt to explain & justify his motives as Satoshi Nakamoto while boosting the value of his creation. The global crypto market is currently ~ $2.4T, and it was created by Adam Back, CEO of Blockchain. This is the biggest whale in bitcoin.

Do you see how much crypto murkiness gets removed when the public can know it is a fact that Adam Back is Satoshi Nakamoto? The mysteriousness of Satoshi Nakamoto lent mythical legitimacy to bitcoin from the start. The entire crypto industry began with bitcoin, which was concocted out of the ruins of the sub-prime mortgage crash of 2008. Bitcoin quickly became the newest form of malignancy in capitalist finance & economic theory.

As soon as that first pizza place agreed to take a few bitcoin for a delivery order, crypto has been legitimized & hyped. At first it was a bunch of Libertarian tax cheats who knew computer code, but it soon became a full-blown Kool-Aid drinker cult of online bitcoin fanatics in the 2010’s. Their mantra was/is: Make easy money without having to work or pay taxes, you’ll always be anonymous, it’s a community-owned technology, etc.

The exposure of Adam Back as Satoshi Nakamoto verifies all this bitcoin propaganda as lies. If you get as big as bitcoin has gotten, eventually the world will find a way to identify who you are. This expose’ (& Banksy) was ordered by serious monied interests, what I’ve identified as the “Warren Buffet faction,” the acceptable corporate opposition to bitcoin & crypto. That faction of capitalism sees crypto as an existential threat to the economic order, with bitcoin being the most explosive & destructive. If/when bitcoin crashes and can’t recover, it will bankrupt the entire international financial system, and it is increasingly likely that will happen in the near future. Right now, bitcoin is being propped-up by futures traders who are become increasingly pessimistic about the future.

Bitcoin & all other crypto doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Crypto is exceptionally sensitive to macro political issues. Like when president Trump expands a World War that Bazooka Joe Biden started in Russia/Ukraine & Gaza/Lebanon, by attacking Venezuela and kidnapping its elected president & his wife to have them held in a Manhattan maximum security facility awaiting trial on charges of narco-terrorism. The problem is the Trump administration has no evidence or proof of narco-terrorism, so everything is delayed and kept murky, while another front is opened up by attacking Iran. That’s how catastrophic world wars start and grow out of control– and it must be stopped.

Donald Trump was turned onto bitcoin & crypto by Elon Musk around 2022. This was between his terms as president, a time Trump retreated to his compound in Mar-a Lago to lick his wounds and plan his next assault on democracy & the international working class. Crypto became his latest scam, and it’s his best one yet– IMO. He’s made more money off his worthless crypto tokens & exchange than any of his other business ventures that went bankrupt, but in crypto his costs are virtually nil and people give him real money in exchange. He’s made billions on crypto, but more than that he’s learned a powerful, anonymous & nefarious way to move funds to fascist henchmen who will do his dirty work for him.

Fascism needs these mechanisms to pay its soldiers of death & destruction– the only things fascists are actually good at. So in the big picture in this War for Historical Truth, Adam Back is a leading enabler of fascism through his bitcoin creation & propagation. Crypto-fascism is the mechanism Trump is using to destroy what is left of democratic rights in order to establish a fascist police state dictatorship in America. To get to be Hitler, Trump needs bitcoin.

Bitcoin has helped the fascists WAY more than hard working people who are honest & want to live in peace. Bitcoin is a Libertarian ideological scam introduced around 2010, which has attracted the worst elements of modern society for all the wrong reasons. It is much easier for serious opponents of crypto to explain these facts to people now that we definitively know that Adam Back is Satoshi Nakamoto.

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NCAA hoops finals previews

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Pro-Michigan bias predicted for UM-UConn men’s hoops finals. Danny Hurley has his hands full here. UConn is a basketball school, that’s why they’re in the Big East. They are an original Big East basketball school, along with Georgetown, St Johns, Providence, Seton Hall & Villanova.

Times have changed, and Syracuse, Boston College & Pittsburgh are gone, with the likes of Marquette, DePaul, Creighton, Butler & Xavier now part of the expanded Big East. These are all basketball schools as far as NCAA recognition goes.

We all know football rules, as it draws-in the most viewers (television & streaming), sponsorship money and betting action. The NCAA favors Power 4 conferences, particularly the Big 10 which is run by the University of Michigan. As U-M alum QB Tom Brady says when it’s championship time, “Bet Michigan.” This is tacit recognition (from a true expert) that there’s more going on than the players on the field. There’s officiating, replay officiating, announcer & media commentary all feeding into this bias. Is this prejudiced & unfair? To ask the question is to answer it.

As I stated earlier, UConn coach Danny Hurley has his hands full. First, acknowledge that he’s a great coach and that deserves respect, but he can be a hothead who loses it when he’s been pushed too far with the officiating in a close loss. See Marquette v UConn on 2026 Senior Day at the Fiserv Forum. Marquette got favorable whistles in a nationally televised game on Fox, which kept the Golden Eagles in it and they pulled it out. It was their signature win in a dismal season, and Danny Hurley exploded at the refs on a good no-call at the end, aggressively confronting a bad referee immediately after the buzzer. He was fined $25,000 by the Big East for his outburst. As a Marquette alum, I thought that was ruling fair and moved on with no grudges.

UConn doesn’t make a distinction between men’s & women’s basketball, they are both strong NCAA traditions winning multiple national titles and producing countless NBA & WNBA stars & good players. Danny Hurley supports Geno Auriemma and vice versa. Jim Calhoun started the UConn basketball excellence, and Kevin Ollie is also revered as one of the great coaches in the UConn tradition.

Geno Auriemma has coached at UConn for 41 years, won 10 national titles, and coached the USWNT to basketball Olympic gold in 2012 & 2016. Geno Auriemma is perhaps the greatest women’s college hoops coach ever. It’s either him, or Tennessee’s Pat Summitt (1952–2016).

Yet South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley felt the need to disrespect Geno Auriemma by making him wait in front of everybody for 3 minutes before shaking hands pre-game at half court when announced over the PA system in the arena. When the names are announced, the coaches are supposed to shake hands as a sign of respect for your opponent, the game, as well as the fans in the stands who have paid to see a fair sporting event.

Clearly this was a punk power-play slight towards Geno Auriemma, and Dawn Staley still hasn’t explained it. She insisted he initiated the bad blood and she’s speechless, praise god, his will was done tonight, etc. Of course she’s allowed to get away with this clown act in the media, as they cover for her and don’t press her on anything important in the matter.

The Democratic Party controlled corporate media amplifies red herrings, and insist these are the “facts” that matter and nothing else is to be discussed. Sports fans now recognize this garbage instantly and comment on social media, where their most pointed & critical thoughts are removed by moderators and right-wing attack algorithms. AI bots spam “Fire Geno!!”, etc, and if your didn’t know better you would think this is how people actually feel.

But of course we all know how identity politics creates the narrative in situations like this. A while male heterosexual head coach angrily confronted a black, female head coach after a heated game, AND she praises God. Case closed for the #MeToo & #Black Lives Matter campaigns on that.

The video on this has been turned into propaganda by every fake left outlet, so I won’t post the video– I’ll describe it and you can compare for yourself. I’ve seen the original end game video a few times and I concluded I saw an upset legendary coach giving a foul-mouthed winning coach a taste of her own abuse. Then I see the winning coach going ballistic, hysterically screaming at the losing coach, requiring her entire staff to stand around her and separate her from going after him while hiding her face from the cameras. That’s how they have each others back at South Carolina. You can see how they’ve practiced that.

For context, since it matters, the reason Geno Auriemma had words for Dawn Staley was her pre-game slight, and also the officiating, where Dawn Staley was allowed to berate & abuse the officials, to the point where Geno Auriemma got into it with her & the refs in the second quarter. It was a 62-48 final score, where South Carolina went 18-22 from the free throw line, while UConn went 4-6. I didn’t watch the game, and it is primarily this reason I tune-out the NCAA these days. The officiating crew was Brenda Pantoja, Fatou Cissoko-Stephens & Katie Lukanich; and they should have to answer some questions here, don’t you think?

The UConn men’s team defeated Illinois to reach the finals last evening, but the Geno Auriemma-Dawn Staley dust-up was still their ticker lead, with UConn’s win over Illinois not even in their ticker. Only after Michigan beat Arizona in the second semi-final was Danny Hurley’s big win a story on the ESPN website. Over a thousand words on Geno Auriemma’s apology, etc, with prejudiced writers & numbskull analysts all asking “Is it enough?”

Yes, it’s enough. Now it’s Dawn Staley’s turn to answer for all her misconduct. But I don’t see that happening and neither does anyone else with any political & sports sense. The truth is both Geno Auriemma & Dawn Staley are to blame for this, but this system of “justice” says if we create a scapegoat, then he can be assigned all the blame, when actually it is cartoonish & a false reduction.

But that’s how it is with these people. Facts don’t matter and the truth isn’t welcome for a class of gatekeepers. In reality these are the functionaries & henchmen for fascism, who will to do anything to satisfy their masters. Universities represent capitalist ideology– through curricula, research & the NCAA. The top brands are always favored, just as the Yankees, Mets, Red Sox & Dodgers in baseball. Just as the Lakers, Knicks & Celtics receive favorable bias in the NBA.

It used to be called East Coast Bias, but it’s really big market bias. The top brands are always favored because it is perceived by elites that these brands carry their sports and nothing else matters. So if UConn wins over Michigan tomorrow night, that’s considered a huge blow to what the NCAA is trying to do, which is build its brand by making sure its signature brand (University of Michigan) wins the title.

The South Carolina-UCLA women’s hoops final is this afternoon, and I am making sure I’m published before the game starts. I feel I’m taken more seriously when I predict what’s going to happen in advance and am vindicated by events.

Severe U-M bias all down the line in the final is my prediction on the men’s side. UConn will have to hang in there and try to outlast the unfairness they will be facing. It’s probably too much, with Michigan much more likely to win in a blow-out than UConn, as the Wolverines are getting at least 8-12 points from the refs. It’s in Indianapolis, the NCAA HQ, so it’s basically a home game for Michigan.

As I’ve stated above, the only thing that really matters about the women’s game (to real sports fans) is what Dawn Staley says about Geno Auriemma and her own unsportsmanlike conduct before, during & after the UConn game. Winning isn’t more important than that, because if you have to cheat & abuse others to win it’s no longer a game, it’s a dirty political war.

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Iran & the 2026 FIFA World Cup

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On March 7, 2025, the Trump White House hosted a “crypto summit,” which featured a surprise appearance by FIFA president Gianni Infantino who pitched a FIFA meme coin and announced a partnership with Trump for World Cup 2026 to be held in North America. The crypto summit focused on making the U.S. a “bitcoin superpower,” establishing a strategic national Bitcoin reserve, and appointing David Sacks as crypto policy czar. Many crypto criminals were pardoned in this time period, or had their criminal DOJ investigations dropped.

This is also when the Trump regime took control of FIFA’s 2026 World Cup. This summer’s World Cup is to be entirely a play-thing of the most criminal & corrupt elements on the planet.

US imperialism’s current criminal war with Iran is the political equivalent of Hitler invading Poland in September 1939, and the corporate media & Democratic Party in America are doing their worst to obscure this historical parallel from being drawn out. This is the murky political backdrop to this summer’s FIFA World Cup, set for June 11 to July 19 in Mexico, the US & Canada. The Iranian national team qualified and are in Group G on the US West Coast with Belgium, New Zealand & Egypt, but it now appears they won’t be participating.

FIFA & the Trump regime are intimately tied together in their criminality & human rights abuses, as both have been in on a plan to build a 25,000 seat soccer stadium on the rubble of Gaza. A coalition of international advocacy groups, Palestinian football players, and clubs filed a 120-page complaint with the International Criminal Court (ICC) on February 16, 2026, accusing FIFA President Gianni Infantino and UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin of “aiding and abetting” war crimes and crimes against humanity.

President Trump would need to publicly declare & guarantee the safety of the Iranian national team and all its support staff & fans during World Cup 2026 for there to be any chance of Iran competing, but instead Trump says he doesn’t care if Iran participates. This was a political opportunity for Donald Trump to send a message to the people of Iran that he is on their side, but this proves he isn’t. This is how imperialist wars for regime change are judged by history.

If/when Iran pulls out, potential replacements include Saudi Arabia, Iraq, or the United Arab Emirates. Iran is currently in a mandatory 40-day mourning period following the death of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the initial US-Israeli strikes. All domestic sports in Iran have been suspended, meaning the Iranian national team has no way to prepare for the World Cup. As long as the US-Israeli aggression continues, there is no possibility the Iranian national team will be part of World Cup 2026.

With the Russian Federation and its nominal allies being banned from the 2024 & 2026 Olympics by Western controlled institutions, international sporting competition has reached a crossroads. Virulent nationalists & outright fascists are deciding everything in their interests based on cynical & rotten politics, to the detriment of the vast majority, and it’s leading humanity into disaster. World Cup 2026 is just the latest casualty in this war.

Conclusion: Let’s be clear, if a pro-US government could be established soon, the Iranian national team would be welcome at World Cup 2026 by Trump & the Democrats. But since re-installing a shah puppet dictator won’t be so easy, the Iranian national team won’t be welcome on US soil. That’s the line in the elite European & American media that have commented thus far. Most are keeping their distance, while FIFA is “monitoring the situation,” etc.

Donald Trump still has no idea how badly he has discredited himself. He’s too preoccupied with waging war & raging against Marxists to think about anything. Football fans around the world are watching, as crypto-fascism destroys perhaps its most sacred institution. The 2026 World Cup can have no legitimacy as a sporting event. This has nothing to do with how much of a favorite Iran was to make the Round of 16, etc. It’s about fair competition at the highest level being marred by crypto-fascism.

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US imperialism strikes Iran– again

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The war for regime change in Iran is also known as the war that can’t be won. That’s why, up to now, no US President dared try it. The Trump regime has now started its second war against Iran in a 9-month span. Trump and his cronies claimed the 12-day war with Iran last June destroyed their military’s nuclear ambitions and that America was now safe due to this armed intervention.

Yet America is again at war, when Iran poses no threat to US security. The insecurity in the region is entirely due to non-stop US-Israel imperialist aggression, which has finally provoked Trump’s decision to strike Iran again. This hawkish US foreign policy has much support among ruling elites on both sides of the aisle, but little-to-no support among the remaining layers of the population– from professional class to working class. To the American ruling class, that vast divide is the political danger in what Trump has done.

All the political pundits on every network are “wait & see,” when asked what will happen next. As a viewer I ask, “What are you so-called experts paid for? This is a crisis and you can’t tell us anything we don’t already know.” Click.

What’s going to happen? First, oil prices are going to rise dramatically, and everyone knows that means the price of everything from gas to groceries is going up. When you add that to Trump’s tariffs, it’s a recipe for economic, social & political disaster. I suppose that is why none of the pundits want to speak to this.

The Democrats are finished, as they threw in their lot with Trump’s crypto-fascism long ago. Democrats support ICE, DHS, the FBI & CIA, all of which are authoritarian secret police agencies that are above the law. These agencies protect the Jeffery Epstein clients because they now take their marching orders from one of his top clients: Donald J Trump.

The Democrats as a caucus support the crypto industry, perhaps the biggest scam in financial history. The Democrats support the military action Trump has taken in Iran, they only object to being left out of the loop. This consolidation of political, economic & military power into one individual has those on the fake left (Bernie Sanders, AOC, etc) a bit concerned. These near-dead liberals may be forced to organize a one-day protest to let off some steam. Their motto will be: Vote Democrat in the mid-terms.

Democrats operate in that area of circular logic which insists that if the Republicans are exposed & largely discredited as Nazis, then supporting the Democrats is the only “realistic” alternative for democracy. Nevermind the Democrats have enabled & collaborated with Trump all along. It’s getting harder to fool the public when the veneer of democracy has been violently torn away by Zionist genocide in Gaza & ICE terrorism & murder in Minneapolis.

None of the official narratives that apologize for war crimes & crimes against humanity are holding up on social media. The kids can see that Trump is lying and that Congress, the Supreme Court, and the corporate media all allow him to get away with it– day after day after day. What the kids now know is that the Democrats are political accomplices in Trump’s criminality and largely suspect that all this corruption stems from capitalism.

Sports aside: Donald Trump was given the FIFA Peace Prize by FIFA president Gianni Infantino (pic above) in December 2025. No comment yet from Trump or FIFA on whether the Iranian national team will be allowed to compete in World Cup 2026 hosted in North America. Iran qualified and is in Group G with Belgium, New Zealand & Egypt. Iran is scheduled to play two matches in Los Angeles and then in Seattle against Egypt on June 26. Sports pundits have remained conspicuously silent on this.

Update: ESPN just published an article titled, “Iran’s soccer federation says World Cup participation in doubt”. Fans from Iran were already barred from entering the US by Trump’s travel ban. The president of Iran’s soccer federation said he does not know if their national team can play World Cup matches in the United States following the surprise US-Israeli attack on his country. “What is certain is that after this attack, we cannot be expected to look forward to the World Cup with hope.” For the record, Donald Trump has already negatively disrupted group play & attendance at the 2026 World Cup, which of course pleases him. And sports fans thought football was decided on the pitch.

President Trump is what the ruling class needs & demands– a dictator. Dictators are toppled by the international working class when their regimes of authoritarian terror & cultural vandalism become so bankrupt & malignant that no one will fight for them anymore. Defections from fascism are happening on different levels. The American working class has already rejected Trump’s attempts to establish a fascist regime in permanence. Popular resistance to ICE terror testifies to that. Republican prospects in the upcoming mid-term elections also speak loudly to fascism’s existential political crisis.

This war on Iran is Trump’s attempt to shift the narrative and start a world war which would allow him to exercise martial law and declare himself President for life. History “experts” on major news networks fail to make these obvious connections, which makes one wonder how much they really studied. How much do they understand about fascism? They barely use the term, much less attempt to draw obvious historical parallels between Adolph Hitler & Donald Trump.

Below is the bulk of George Stephanopoulos’ interview with Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi this morning on ABC’s ‘This Week.’ It has been slighted edited for clarity. This interview can teach the international working class much about how nationalist class interests affect the news and turn it into propaganda by distorting facts & eliminating historical truth from the discussion. For once, someone was allowed to reply to this.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Who’s in charge of Iran right now?

ABBAS ARAGHCHI, IRANIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: There is a transitional council of the president, the head of judiciary and one jurist of the Guardian Council. These three would decide — are in charge right now.

STEPHANOPOULOS: President Trump issued a warning overnight, warning the Iranians not to retaliate. And he said, “they better not do that. If they do, we will hit them with a force that has never been seen before.” How do you respond?

ARAGHCHI: Well, I don’t think any leader of a country has the right to say so. You know, we are defending ourselves and we have every right, every legitimate right to defend ourselves. What the United States is doing is an act of aggression. What we are doing is the act of self-defense. There are huge differences between these two. So, one should tell, you know, the president of the United States, do not attack, do not — you know, make any aggression against another country. But nobody can tell us that you don’t have any right to defend yourselves. We are defending ourselves whatever it takes, and we see no limit for ourselves to defend our people, to protect our people. Just look, yesterday, they hit — they struck against a school. So far, 148 girls, students have been killed and this is a big massacre. This is a war crime, and you say we don’t have any right to defend ourselves?

STEPHANOPOULOS: You say you want to protect your people, but your own regime, according to the estimates we’ve seen over the last several months, is responsible for the killing of up to 30,000 of Iranian — Iranian citizens.

ARAGHCHI: We have already answered this accusation. You know, let me to explain. We were faced with a terrorist operation. It was first protesters, demonstrations — demonstrations which were legal. According to our constitutions, our people have the right to protest and to go for gatherings and demonstrations. They did it from 28 December to 7 January. We had legal protests. Everything was fine, and nobody was killed.

And then on 8 January to 10, we [were] faced with a terrorist operation. Armed elements were added to the — to this — you know, question, and they started to shoot at our police forces, our security forces and then they started to shoot at ordinary people, even to protesters. Why? Because they wanted to increase the number of deaths.

Since the president of the United States has — had already said that if there are killings, he will come to — he would come to rescue. So, they wanted to actually drag him to this question. So, they started to kill people. So that was a terrorist operation for three days and the number of killings were exactly 3,117. And the names of those victims, all of those victims have been already published by us, together with their identification number. If anybody claims that the number is more, as you said, 30,000 — 50,000, whatever, please show one evidence. Please add one more name to the list we have already published.

If somebody shoots at a police department officer in the United States, how do you react? Do you just, you know, give him permission to do whatever he wants because he is a protester? No.

And so many people were killed, you know, blindly by these terrorist elements. Because they were ordered by Israel, at that time, they were instructed to kill people and give a big number of killings to the president of the United States. We have their voices, their instructions, which coming from Mossad, from outside, to these terrorist elements, who are ordering them to kill police officers, if not police, kill the boy and girl in front of you, because they wanted killings.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Is a negotiated settlement with the United States still possible?

ARAGHCHI: Well, you answer this question. We negotiated with the United States twice in the past 12 months. And in both cases, they attacked us in the middle of negotiation. And that has become a very bitter experience for us. In last June, we were negotiating. We had five rounds of negotiations, and we had already fixed the sixth round for 15 June when the Israelis attacked us, and then the U.S. joined the attack.

And this time, we had three rounds. Last Thursday, we had a very good discussion, very good talks in Geneva. Both Iranian and the U.S. delegation were happy at the end of seven hours of negotiations. And I can go into the details of what we agreed and how a deal was at our reach. And when we concluded, the Omani foreign minister, who was the impartial intermediator between us, he concluded by saying in his post that we made significant progress this time. We were able to come to a good understanding on some of our differences.

Some other differences were left for the next meeting, and we decided to go for Vienna, to send our technical teams to Vienna on Monday, which means tomorrow [3-2-26], to go to the IAEA, and with the help of the International Atomic Energy Organization, try to find technical solutions for the political problems. And we both believed, I mean, both delegations believed that this is possible. So, a deal was at our reach, and we left Geneva happily with the understanding that we can reach a deal next time we meet.

And it was very unfortunate that those who are against peace, against diplomacy, against negotiation, when they understood that diplomacy is going on well, they decided to spoil it, and they created a buildup in the media, you know, against the Islamic Republic of Iran, against the desires of us, against Iran. And they made lots of accusations against us. They made — they created false information and disinformation, and they finally get, today, to what they wanted. They dragged President Trump, they convinced President Trump to attack us unprovoked and unwarranted.

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