Category Archives: Economics

Bitcoin’s latest death spiral

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Preface: This is a serial that went one week– Sunday, November 16 through Sunday, November 23. Note that if you see ‘time stamps’ indicating different days of publication, that’s a serial. I don’t know when a serial is going to end, until it ends and I find out about it. There is a lag between when it actually ends, and me finding out, because I’m not privy to the closed-door discussions of the financial & political elites who run the world. I can only know & understand them through the propaganda they disseminate, which must be carefully deciphered to be correctly understood by the kids & working masses. The financial elites have decided (by indicating a December Fed rate cut) that bitcoin can’t be allowed to collapse, as it was doing again this past week. This blog (which specializes in crypto criticism) chronicled the process, and since a new level of “stability” has been reached, this story is over– for now. That’s how this serial ends. Come find me again when the next bitcoin crash happens, it won’t be long now. It won’t be very long.

Bitcoin has had quite a roller coaster run since Trump was elected last November. Exactly one year ago, bitcoin was valued at $89,875.56 on Coindesk’s tracker. It was at $106,188.14 on January 20, when Trump took office for this second term. Trump launched his own crypto, held a crypto summit, and had legislation passed that gave legitimacy & bailout protection to the industry.

Bitcoin peaked at $124,714.85 on October 4, 2025.

Less than a week later, on October 10, President Trump announced an additional 100% tariff on China, on top of the 30% already in place, to be effective on November 1. Bitcoin has been dropping ever since. This, and the reduced likelihood of a December Fed interest rate cut has sent bitcoin plunging. Here’s a recent screenshot of the Coindesk bitcoin ticker over the last year.

Bitcoin now faces a key $94-92K support test, with any dip below that level threatening a deeper fall to possibly $70K (or worse) amid massive liquidity outflows. For some reason, the crypto industry has chosen this price level ($92-94K) as a key point in its development. It may take some time, since there is such strong institutional support at $92-94K, but when this level is breached, apparently there isn’t much institutional support below this level until ~$70-74K. If that happens, all but the biggest crypto whales in bitcoin will be wiped out.

The future existence of crypto is being tested right now. Crypto whales are burning cash (while secretly selling bitcoin) to keep bitcoin afloat, as small investors are being liquidated, while new investors are too few. The entire crypto market is in ‘Extreme Fear’ according to industry analysts. Crypto whale Elon Musk stated less than a week ago that bitcoin & AI were the way out of the US $38T debt. In fact, bitcoin is only the latest manifestation of a problem that has created such an unpayable mountain of debt.

Update: Mon 17 Nov 2025 1:00 PM CST

Right now crypto whales are buying bitcoin, as they burn through their cash trying to prop up its market value. As discussed above, $92-94K is a strong institutional price level. What this means is that crypto whales have all agreed that this price level must be strongly supported with cash infusions when necessary, in order to maintain the bubble.

Holding over 1000 BTC is the definition of a whale. Right now there are 1300-1500 bitcoin whales in existence, but not all whales are created equally. Elon Musk is a huge whale, but his influence has been muted somewhat by his conflicts with Donald Trump, who is now also a whale– along with his family.

Michael Saylor is a very influential crypto whale. According to Coindesk, Michael Saylor now holds “649,870 BTC acquired for $48.37 billion, or $74,433 each.” This explains the $74K price level, discussed above. Whatever the average price a large whale has paid for their bitcoin becomes an institutional price level. No market has ever been more manipulated by insider trading than bitcoin/crypto.

As of this writing bitcoin is ~$92.5K. Under intense downward pressure, crypto whales now have two conflicting strategies. The biggest such as Michael Saylor are burning cash to buy bitcoin. This props up the market and increases their monopoly power in crypto. Some smaller whales are selling their bitcoin. Fear has created panic, so some whales are cashing out.

Instead of big fish eating little fish, which is crypto business as usual, it’s now whales eating whales which isn’t sustainable. Once the skittish whales have sold out, the hardcore whales have a larger stake in bitcoin– with no buyers but themselves. No newbie wants to enter the crypto market when it’s crashing, as it is now. So the question becomes: How long can the crypto whales hold out? That answer depends on their available cash, access to credit, and the willingness of Congress to give them a bailout.

Sun 23 Nov 2025 09:05 AM CST

On Friday November 21, Federal Reserve Bank of New York president John Williams announced a possible rate cut in December. Since then, bitcoin which had plunged to ~$80K, has made a miraculous recovery, now at $86K and rising again. This is how the capitalist market operates, workers who need a loan can’t get one, while the Fed always makes more money available to crypto.

Clearly, the crypto whales have exerted their nefarious influence again, implying if bitcoin goes down, the whole stock market could collapse. That was the content of Bloomberg, Barron’s, etc, articles before a possible rate cut (now estimated at 70%) was announced on Friday. Crypto is intimately linked to AI, so whenever you read about the “AI bubble”, think bitcoin, as big banks & universities (such as Harvard) are in on bitcoin. This episode once again reveals that crypto/bitcoin is the weakest link in the capitalist fake economy.

Top comment I read on Yahoo! during this time-frame: “Something is wrong when $19 Billion in liquidations causes a 20 something percent drop in an “asset” with a $1.9 Trillion market cap. That is only a 1% liquidation. There are much bigger dominoes to fall.”

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Arch rivals collide in Athens

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Preface: This is the epilogue to NIL Heisman 2025: Arch Manning

Georgia mauled Texas 35-10 last night as the Longhorns were severely outplayed & outcoached. Arch Manning was mediocre in his performance. Clearly, this is still a young kid trying to figure out college football. The expectations he faces, due to his family name, are impossible.

Most glaringly, Arch Manning needs to improve his accuracy & decision making. I also don’t see this ‘great athlete’ scouts have been raving about. He looked slow against that Georgia defense. Arch Manning knows how to play QB & read defenses, those are his strengths along with his physical size & arm strength. But he needs two more years of college play with a lot of improvement before he’s NFL-ready. NIL deals & the transfer portal make that decision easier for Arch Manning.

The satire in my previous piece was not directed at Arch Manning, as much as it was towards the crazy system that now exists in the NCAA. Arch Manning was being hyped pre-season as the top pick in the 2026 NFL draft. Two things influenced that: 1) the family name; and 2) the $6.8M in NIL money. That wins the NIL Heisman, but little else. That gets eyeballs on the TV, but for what? To watch Arch Manning not live up to expectations. That’s called setting someone up to fail, and it’s all for the money, which is a shame.

What Georgia football head coach Kirby Smart is saying above is that it takes a team to win. Georgia, like all the other SEC programs, is spending money, finding NIL deals for its athletes in an attempt to win a national championship. It’s that, or bust every year for these elite programs. But paying one guy $6.8M makes your team all about him, and if he isn’t ready, then you have nothing, as Kirby Smart says.

Note that my satirical pre-game discussion has even more bite after the game. Sports fans were reading my satirical piece, many anticipating a great performance by Arch Manning, but were disappointed. I made no predictions on the outcome, but notice that everything discussed still holds true & maintains its relevance. That’s because what I’m discussing is bigger than the game on the field. These games are more circuses than real competition anymore, so we need to look at them differently than we have in the past.

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NIL Heisman 2025: Arch Manning

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Preface: This piece is satire

The Heisman Trophy is traditionally the most-coveted individual award in college football, given to the best player that season. But times have definitely changed, as traditional on-field performance still counts for something, but not as much as in the past. Winning & putting up numbers used to be the sole criteria for Heisman hopefuls, but now Name, Image & Likeness (NIL) deals have entered the equation and can no longer be ignored.

In this era of the transfer portal and 7-year seniors, NIL brings a level of recognition & clout that simply can’t be dismissed. First & foremost, an athlete has to play in a big-time conference to be relevant to the Heisman discussion anymore; meaning the Big 10 or SEC. The Big 12 & ACC are trying to compete, as Texas Tech has spent $28M in NIL money on their football team in 2025, largely driven by oil & gas billionaire Cody Campbell and his Matador Club, in the hopes of making a name for themselves. Currently Texas Tech is ranked #8 and squarely in position to make the 12-team CFP, so there you are.

Money is driving all of this, and Texas is certainly a football state. Billionaire alumni boosters & mega TV contracts strictly define the parameters of the haves & have-nots in the NCAA. Of course the University Texas is a blue-blood football school, and thus by having sophomore QB Arch Manning, they are positioned to make the CFP and compete for a national title.

Less than ever, winning in CFB depends on performance. The level of media attention, referee bias & talent manipulation in the NCAA is unprecedented. Having the top NIL athletes means power programs will get on TV a lot more, and that’s where the money is. Football is almost entirely driven by television revenue. Arch Manning was a big name coming into college, and has only gotten bigger in 2025. Yeah, his numbers and performance are somewhat disappointing, but that’s not too important. The fact that he is being paid $6.8M in NIL makes him an automatic Heisman front-runner for the entire season.

Let’s compare Arch Manning’s football stats to two other QB’s who are considered the top Heisman hopefuls by CFB analysts.

QB Indiana, Fernando Mendoza: 2,342 yards, TD 26, INT 5, QBR 88.1
QB Ohio State, Julian Sayin: 2,491 yards, TD 24, INT 4, QBR 91.1
QB Texas, Arch Manning: 2,123 yards, TD 18, INT 6, QBR 63.1

I know, these stats say Arch Manning isn’t at the level of the other two Heisman candidates, but let’s dive-in deeper and take a look at the only number that really matters in 2025– NIL money.

Manning: $6.8M
Mendoza: $2.6M
Sayin: $2.4M

Once we get down to brass tacks we see that Arch Manning is the man.

Keep in mind, these NIL numbers are subject to change. Fernando Mendoza & Julian Sayin have both picked up a few NIL deals because of their good play, so give them credit. But Arch Manning still leads them all by a wide margin, despite a rough start to his season. Arch Manning’s Texas Longhorns are ranked #10, with a big game at #5 Georgia coming up next.

I’ll declare this here & now: A win for Texas over Georgia ensures the NIL Heisman for Arch Manning, as this game will be on national TV with every college football fan watching. Even if Texas loses badly to the Bulldogs, Arch Manning still probably wins the Heisman, because (in this era) it’s all about getting eyeballs on your program, not necessarily winning. Arch Manning delivers that, and that’s why Texas is on national TV every week. Some people would criticize that as putting hype over performance, and I won’t argue. That’s the way it is now, and I’m just the messenger.

There have been some great QB’s who have won the Heisman in recent memory: Jayden Daniels (2023), Caleb Williams (2022), Joe Burrow (2019), Lamar Jackson (2016), to name a few; but none of them made $6.8M in NIL deals in their sophomore year. Arch Manning is putting up numbers that no other college QB has ever approached, and since money is the only thing that really matters, I fail to see how he isn’t the Heisman Trophy winner in 2025. If you disagree then I must ask: What game are you watching?

When you see the Texas defense dominate, that’s all Arch. When there’s a hand-off to a Longhorn RB for a 50+ yard run, that’s Arch, etc. This is because no one sees this or cares about it without Arch Manning. His teammates all understand this and gratefully defer all major media interviews, glory & future NIL deals to Arch Manning, because he is their meal ticket. That’s the new roster dynamic in college football.

Arch Manning has the potential to play two more years in CFB and make over $20M for himself, while leading his program to national prominence, if not a national title. He may only project as a back-up QB in the NFL, if even that, but his name recognition is what matters. College football in 2025 is all about Arch Manning and if you don’t acknowledge that, then you are behind the times.

To not get this means you’re the type of fan who believes performance actually matters. That kind of outdated, old-school thinking needs to be discarded. And if coaches & alumni complain too loudly about interceptions and bad QB play, Arch Manning will enter the transfer portal, and then where will Texas football be? They certainly won’t be on TV as much, so (as an alum) think twice about being critical of Arch Manning or any other highly paid NIL athlete, because they don’t need your football program or a university education. They need unconditional praise & NIL money.

What I have described above is my new criteria for a Heisman Trophy winner. This means that if an unknown RB gains 6,000 yards in a lesser conference, that’s fine & dandy, but not a Heisman Trophy worthy season, because no one saw it, and it didn’t generate any publicity or revenue as compared to the Arch of Austin Texas.

Postscript: Carson Beck, the former Georgia Bulldogs backup quarterback and part of two national championship teams, transferred to the Miami Hurricanes after withdrawing from the NFL draft after he saw his stock plummet. Back for his senior year of eligibility, Carson Beck is getting an estimated $3.2M in NIL money in 2025, a distant second in the NIL Heisman to Arch. Miami is ranked #16. Note all rankings & stats are ESPN & AP poll through week 12.

Oh, Carson Beck’s on-field 2025 traditional QB numbers are: 2,194 yards, TD 15, INT 9, QBR 78.1. Miami is ACC, a lesser conference, and has two “bad” losses in the eyes of the NCAA. In contrast, Arch could lose them all and there would be no bad losses, only headlines & the transfer portal.

Sources mention that Carson Beck has a degree in sports management from the University of Georgia. This begs the question: What post-graduation degree is Carson Beck pursuing at the University of Miami? Answer: professional football. His diploma is finishing second in the 2025 (& inaugural) NIL Heisman. Note that there’s no actual trophy, as that too has been replaced by money. Instead of graduating with honors, Carson Beck is graduating with millions of dollars. Universities everywhere aren’t what they used to be and neither is college athletics.

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Michael Jordan on load management

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This video aired last night on NBC.

Load management is an individual athlete’s choice. Michael Jordan has his opinion from the perspective of an all-time elite athlete. Most athletes are inspired by his example but simply can’t live up to his standard. That’s what it means to be the best at what you do.

If you are hurt, you really can’t prove yourself because you’re hurt and can’t perform. NBA players are entertainers, but not like Broadway entertainers, where there is no real physical punishment & required recovery as part of the gig. Fans need to understand athletes are human beings, and sometimes they really can’t perform– and need rest. If a fan can’t understand that then that ‘fan’ is really a hater. There’s no point in trying to please haters, and you really aren’t going to shut them up either. You can quiet them for awhile, but they’ll be back and you’ll be more hurt trying to prove yourself over & over to people who don’t respect you.

Michael Jordan retired twice during his playing career, after his age-29 season and after his age-34 season. In that sense he load manged his career. He didn’t want to play when he was burnt out, or after his father was murdered, or when his back-stabbing GM Jerry Krause broke up the Bulls after 1998. Michael Jordan came back with the Wizards as a player/owner, which was something much different than MJ with the Bulls. Actually it was similar to when Michael Jordan first came to the Bulls in 1984 and the franchise was a joke.

Michael Jordan performed as best he could for two seasons with the Wizards from 2001-2003, then retired for good after 15 seasons and cashed in his Wizards chips to buy the Charlotte franchise. It’s clear Michael Jordan didn’t fully respect his ‘new school’ players as a NBA team owner. His standards were too high, so inevitably that clashed with new school attitudes of players demanding a trade, or a coach be fired, etc. Players’ grievances deserve to be heard, and their concerns honestly addressed, but there are too many egotistical players who haven’t helped their team win anything, demanding to call the shots for the organization. I’m sure that never sat well with team owner Michael Jordan.

The Charlotte Bobcats/Hornets stunk and never drafted well during the MJ tenure as owner. Being a NBA player means something different as compared to Michael Jordan’s era. Players are paid MUCH better, and many are celebrities, and all that is due to Magic Johnson, Larry Bird & Michael Jordan. Dream Team 1992 finally put those rivals on the same team, and basketball has never been the same since. I believe Michael Jordan feels that too many modern NBA players don’t give him enough credit for making them millionaires.

I believe that’s why MJ walked away from the NBA as an owner in 2023. He has since gone into racing where he has been much more successful as far as winning goes. He looks happier too, which is probably the most important thing for him now. Keep in mind, Michael Jordan made a $3B fortune for himself as a NBA franchise owner, much more than he made in salary as a player, so in that sense he was a successful owner. It all depends on your perspective & definition of success.

From a medical & physiological perspective, Michael Jordan is super-human as compared to any other basketball player. Even LeBron James needs load management rest, as any 40-year old athlete would. Would you rather him retire? I’d rather see Lebron James keep playing as long as he wants, even if it means he needs to sit for extended times during the regular season. The pace of play is much faster in this era, making the up & down 82-game grind even more punishing. The NBA is a punishing marathon in terms of what it does to a player’s body.

Any athlete that feels his/her body needs rest should not feel badly about not playing. It’s a professional athlete’s obligation to know their body and we all have limits. To try to push beyond those limits to entertain others while meeting a professional standard one has set for oneself is an ethical choice every athlete faces. There is a point where winning isn’t worth it, and that’s what Michael Jordan is talking about when he says he has a competitive problem.

Winning & leadership have costs, as Michael Jordan has pointed out, but winning at the cost of sacrificing ethics & bodily health isn’t healthy. The allure of glory & financial reward can mask those ugly costs for a period of time, but they won’t sustain excellence in the long run because they’re unrepeatable. You aren’t as talented as MJ at basketball, so you can’t criticize what he did as a player, even if it crossed ethical lines with his teammates at times. Winning & his greatness justified the means as long as they could be covered-up, but knowing what we know today, teammates in this era wouldn’t tolerate what they would consider abusive behavior from their superstar player.

Honestly, I think it’s abusive to expect NBA players to play all 82 games in the regular season anymore, and then expect them to be ready to perform at their best in the play-offs which have been greatly expanded from the era of Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan retired from the game whenever he wanted because he could. Most players don’t have that ability, and therefore have to do everything they can to extend their careers and get paid. Most retired players are lucky if they can get a broadcasting job, which is a huge pay cut, but still pays normal bills.

Michael Jordan is such an icon that he can do whatever he wants because he lives a different life than most people. He does what’s best for himself, just as any other person should do what’s best for themselves. As long as you are honest & of good heart, your ethics are secure.

It’s impossible to go through life without making a great many mistakes. When an athlete gets injured, as all great athletes have at some point in their career, it’s how they rehabilitate & recover to come back that often defines them. Taking care of your body & staying healthy is a skill. It’s also a personal judgment that no one else can (or should) make for you.

The danger of heroes is that we idolize them and believe they could never be wrong. This means what’s right for Michael Jordan may not be right for you. People get consumed by their admiration and lose their heads on stuff like this. Michael Jordan needed to play every game because he didn’t want to disappoint even one fan. I’m not a basketball savant like MJ and neither are you, so don’t worry about living up to his standards, because you can’t and there’s no shame in that. It simply acknowledges his greatness which you know you can never achieve. You can still be inspired by his example without trying to copy his personal template.

Humanize your heroes instead of worshiping them blindly. Michael Jordan doesn’t want you to worship him & he doesn’t need your money anymore. Instead he wants your understanding & respect. What Michael Jordan meant in his “Insights to Excellence” interview with NBC’s Mike Tirico last night was that he is the best player ever and this is why. He played in every game he could and didn’t need load management.

Hall-of-Famers like Grant Hill did need load management. Hall of Fames have inner-circles, and then inner-inner circles, and that distinction is important to winning according to MJ. If you get that, then you are understanding load management science correctly, in a situation that is confusing & muddled because fans don’t fully understand the true greatness of their hero.

Last Thoughts on the Last Dance

Michael Jordan was only seriously hurt once during his playing career, when he broke his left foot at the beginning of the 1985-86 season. When he returned he was load managed into 7 minutes/half, which he didn’t like. Michael Jordan felt his playing time was being manipulated to gain a better position in the 1986 NBA draft. Ironically, the Cleveland Cavilers were the team that lost out to the Bulls for the playoffs, but got the #1 overall pick and selected Brad Daugherty out of UNC. The Celtics took Len Bias #2. That was what was available and Bulls GM Jerry Krause surely wanted Len Bias. We all know how that turned out.

Michael Jordan says his best teammate ever was Scottie Pippen. Scottie Pippen load managed his 1997-98 season by having necessary ankle surgery late. This created resentment with Michael Jordan which apparently still exists to this day. Bulls head coach Phil Jackson wasn’t upset by it, because he understands player’s interests and can handle it. Scottie Pippen insists he would do the same thing again because he had to protect his interests. Who is right?

Talkin’ baseball load management

Last night the Toronto Blue Jays beat RHP/DH Shohei Ohtani in game 4 after Ohtani went 9-9 in plate appearances in an 18-inning game 3 Dodgers win. Game 3 was perhaps the best World Series game ever, but I believe if Dodgers manager Dave Roberts had it to do over again he would start Ohtani in game 3, knowing he would have an off day to rest before his start. No one expects an 18-inning game, but they would have been better prepared for that contingency with RHP Tyler Glasnow starting game 4. The Dodgers can stack both starters in game 7, if necessary, so that’s not a concern. Shohei Ohtani pitched on short rest, after needing an IV after game 3, and didn’t perform anywhere near his best in game 4 the next evening after a nearly seven-hour game the night before.

I have to tell you I was exhausted just watching that amazing game. Game 3 to 4 in the 2025 World Series defines the limitations of human performance and the need for proper load management in the example of Shohei Ohtani. The World Series is now tied at 2-2, as the once-invincible Dodgers are now in a dogfight, arguably because their manager didn’t load manage his superstar correctly in a short series.

A strong case can be made that Dave Roberts should have started LHP Blake Snell (on 3-days rest) in game 4 when it was apparent that game 3 was getting crazy long. By the 15th inning or so, Dave Roberts needs to explain to Blake Snell that he now has to be the starter tomorrow night, because Shohei Ohtani is exhausting himself getting the Dodgers a win tonight. RHP Yoshinobu Yamamoto, their game 2 starter [!], was warming-up (team player) so Dave Roberts didn’t have to use a position player on the mound if the game went into the 19th inning. 1B Freddie Freeman homered to lead off the bottom of the 18th, so he didn’t.

I don’t know if Dave Roberts approached Blake Snell about this or not, but that’s what needed to be done for the Dodgers. Blake Snell needs to make up for it by winning game 5 tonight, otherwise he’s a bust for the Dodgers in 2025. Snell under-performed in WS game 1 and took the loss, so tonight is what the Dodgers have paid him for. That’s the pressure of the situation the Dodgers have put themselves into.

I wonder how Dodgers minority owner Magic Johnson feels about this? Magic certainly won’t reveal his true feelings to the public now, but after it’s over he’ll open up & share his thoughts, especially if it backfires into a Dodgers failure. Magic is accountable like that and that’s why even Celtics & Padres fans love him.

The best thing about the original Dream Team in 1992 was that as a Larry Bird fan, it felt great to finally have Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan & Charles Barkley on my team, because those guys have been killing Larry Bird’s team for years. Larry Bird now has a bad back and is retired, so he needs these great rivals to carry his team now. The core superstars in 1992 all wanted to play with Larry Bird for the same reason. That was the level of respect & camaraderie that defined the greatest sports team ever assembled.

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The Chauncey Billups NBA mafia-gambling scandal

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Earlier this week the FBI made arrests & then held a press conference on an alleged fixed-betting & gambling ring tied to the Bonanno, Genovese & Gambino organized crime syndicates. More than 30 individuals have been indicted, including Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups, Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier, and former player and assistant coach Damon Jones.

“Face cards” are sports celebrities which the mafia uses to lure high-stakes betters into their rigged poker games. They use rigged card shufflers, x-ray tables and other high-tech devices to fleece the “fish.” It’s also alleged by the FBI that insider information on injuries to key players, etc, was also passed on to these mafia associates. ESPN online today reads, “NBA commissioner Adam Silver ‘deeply disturbed’ by indictments.” It’s their first official comment on the matter, and it’s entirely an attempt to distance the league from an issue it has tried to ignore & downplay for a long time.

For historical context, the NBA did everything it could to cover up their gambling issue when crooked NBA official Tim Donaghy went public in 2007 after being arrested by the FBI. Tim Donaghy convincingly explained that the NBA under commissioner David Stern had been rigging outcomes for years to favor the LA Lakers and other preferred teams. Tim Donaghy was threatened & assaulted while in prison for 11 months, and last I heard he was an online betting handicapper.

The 2002 Lakers-Kings conference Finals is the one that forever stands out most clearly in the minds of basketball fans. That series was clearly rigged by the refs for the Lakers. Players & observant fans knew it, and it’s been a different game since. Instead of the best team winning, it’s now about enabling “superstars” like Shaq to the title, so the league can make more money. It’s all about tie-ins to sponsors and who is most marketable.

Because of this, I’m much less passionate about all sports as far as the outcomes go anymore, which is healthy. As a healthy adult you can’t allow yourself to be used by the game you love. It’s crucial to understand how to use the game for your benefit, as I have done in my writings on sports. You don’t need to be a professional athlete to master sports, but you do need to be passionate & serious about them on all levels. A lot of professional athletes don’t understand the bigger picture and this is how they get used by the game.

For all the couch potatoes & wanna-be’s, being an obsessed fan makes you an overweight obedient zombie that can be easily manipulated by a sports addiction. The point of these games today are twofold: 1) they’re contests for the viewers to make wagers on, and 2) the endless series of commercials telling us what & how to think. That’s the root problem with sports, but no one can say it, as rule #1 is don’t antagonize the sponsors because they’re paying for this. What corporate America is actually paying for is league (ownership) partnership so they can attach themselves to the glory of the game. This serves to distract attention from how they are destroying society & corrupting the sports they are bringing us.

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A case study in MLB inequality: 2025 LA Dodgers

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What’s wrong with MLB is now on full display during the NLCS featuring the scrappy small-market Milwaukee Brewers against the behemoth of baseball in the LA Dodgers. The Brewers had the best record in MLB in 2025 and were 6-0 against the Dodgers, so their fans had hope going in. They both had met in the 2018 NLCS, with the Dodgers winning in seven, in what was a competitive & hard fought series. The Dodgers were then handled by the Boston Red Sox in the World Series.

* Later it was revealed the 2018 Boston Red Sox had used Iphone watches to relay signs stolen through clubhouse video, which seriously violated MLB rules on technology use during games, so that year has a fan asterisk on its champion. In 2017 the Houston Asterisks relayed their stolen signs by banging trash cans and this is why MLB now has PitchCom. I’m excited that MLB batters, pitchers & catchers can finally appeal balls & strikes in 2026. It’s about time, as this greatly reduces zealous Yankees, Red Sox, Mets, etc, crowds from unfairly influencing balls & strikes. No fan will miss the art of pitch framing by a catcher in MLB, we’ll be glad it’s gone. Padres SS Xander Bogaerts was punched out on ball four at Wrigley Field in the 9th inning of a deciding game three in the wild card round as his team was rallying. Technology needs to be used to prevent over-excited umpires from doing the wrong thing just to please a home crowd. This is the sports era we live in. Too many people who aren’t really part of the game keep trying to insert themselves into the game. This creates too many asterisks.

In 2025, the Los Angeles Dodgers are showing the baseball world what front office brains, tremendous clout & bottomless spending can achieve. In a game as random & unpredictable as baseball, the Dodgers have virtually ensured themselves a World Series championship. That much is clear after two games of the NLCS, with the Dodgers leading 2-0 and going back to Chavez Ravine for the next three, if necessary. They may only need two, but the outcome already feels inevitable.

As a San Diego Padres fan, it’s our calling to know & dislike the Dodgers. The Padres are like the Brewers & Mariners, they’ve never won it– while Seattle has never been. Mariners are up 2-0 on the Blue Jays and going home in the ALCS. Both these ALCS teams are better than the 2025 Brewers, but neither are going to be able to match the Dodgers. There is a qualitative change in how the Dodgers do things that has led so many fans to this conclusion.

The Dodgers won it last year and were dominant. The Padres were the second-best team according to the champion Dodgers, but there was some distance between them. This year the Padres fell to the 10th-best team in MLB, making the playoffs but losing to the Cubs in the Wild Card round. Among the post-season qualifiers, the Padres only could have beaten the Reds or Guardians, making them the 10th-best MLB team in 2025.

The Dodgers didn’t dominate MLB during the 2025 regular season like they did last year. They had significant injuries on the pitching side, and their bullpen collapsed at times. The Padres had many opportunities to win the NL West, but couldn’t score runs consistently. Their superb bullpen & great defense carried them as far as they got. The Padres were a flawed team, as was every other team in MLB– except the Dodgers.

The Dodgers do things differently from everyone else because they have the clout & brains to do it. For instance, the Dodgers signed LHP Blake Snell last winter for 5/$137M, specifically to pitch in October. The Dodgers only got 61.1 IP from Blake Snell during the season, but they were never concerned and didn’t have to rush him back from injury. Contrast that to 2024, when Blake Snell pitched 104 innings with a 3.12 ERA for the San Francisco Giants and his team wasn’t happy with that. Snell signed late because he had a limited free agent market due to QO restrictions, etc. The 2023 NL Cy Young winner (his second) missed the early part of 2024 with oblique injuries and by the time he got healthy the Giants were out of it and even floated trading Blake Snell to the Yankees at the 7/31 deadline. After the 2024 season, Blake Snell opted-out of his deal and inked with the Dodgers, who only expect him to pitch like an ace in October. The Dodgers are a different animal. Most teams need their ace all season AND in the post-season. Many teams have their World Series aspirations derailed by an injury to their ace. The 2025 Dodgers have four aces.

Big RHP Tyler Glasnow (4/$117M) pitched only 90.1 innings during the season, so he’s recovered, rested & ready to go for the playoffs, with an arm that most MLB post-season starters had in June. DH/RHP Shohei Ohtani 47 IP, 2.87 ERA during the season in which the entire organization has been building him up as a post season starter. RHP Yoshinobu Yamamoto (12/$325M) is the Dodgers true ace, making 30 starts with 173.1 IP and a 2.49 ERA. They didn’t overuse him trying to make the post season because they knew from the start they would probably win their division and surely make the playoffs. This is programmed planning that begins well before spring training. The Dodgers used homegrown pitchers to eat innings during the 2025 regular season, which allowed them to save their expensive aces until the playoffs. No other team can do that.

LHP Clayton Kershaw is a Hall-of-Famer, but he’s no longer dominant. In his final season he gave the Dodgers 112.1 above average innings as a starter. In the 2025 playoffs Clayton Kershaw is a middle-leverage reliever, and to his credit he accepts his role. RHP Dustin May pitched 104 innings and was good enough during the season, but gets left off the post-season roster. Tony Gonsolin is another Dodger homegrown righty starter who doesn’t make their post-season roster due to injury and/or ineffectiveness.

The Dodgers just use these guys and many others like them in the bullpen, to get through the regular season while allowing their championship level pitchers the season to recover and be ready to win in October. The Dodgers are playing a different game as compared to the rest of MLB. Even the Yankees have to struggle and fight with everything they’ve got just to reach the post-season. The Mets didn’t even make the post-season with a $320-350M payroll in 2025. The Dodgers spent the same or more than the Mets. The Shohei Ohtani contract currently defers $68M annually, so payroll commitments for the Dodgers are really over $400M/season. On top of that, their clout is all-powerful. Last winter in international free-agency, the Dodgers grabbed ace RHP Roki Sasaki, who is now their post-season closer. The Padres were in the Roki Sasaki running, but were forced to concede to the Dodgers, otherwise MLB would cancel (or at least downgrade) their TV deal.

It’s a fluid situation season-by-season these days, but in 2025, MLB produced & distributed local broadcasts for five teams: Arizona Diamondbacks, Cleveland Guardians, Colorado Rockies, Minnesota Twins, and San Diego Padres. These are teams that couldn’t negotiate a lucrative-enough TV-rights deal on their own, so MLB broadcast their games and paid these teams much less than others with their own deals.

For instance, on January 28, 2025, the Dodgers and Time Warner Cable signed a 25-year broadcast agreement valued at $8.35 billion, which would see the establishment of a new channel known as SportsNet LA. By comparison, the Padres lost $80-100M in the Diamond Sports Group bankruptcy, announced in March 2023, and have been trimming payroll while trying to remain competitive ever since. By the time Roki Sasaki was conceded to the Dodgers last January, all the remaining top international prospects had been signed, so the Padres were shut out of the 2025 international draft after signing the top prospect two years running. It’s like shoving sand against the tide for Padres GM AJ Preller.

And most fans feel pretty much the same at this point. No other league allows one team to outspend its competitors by 3-4 times. The NFL & NBA understand that star salaries need to be capped, while most athletes understand there needs to be more payroll equity at the bottom– especially for younger players. MLB is probably heading towards an owner lockout after the 2026 season.

There are serious labor rights issues here, along with ownership-league issues on competitiveness. These inequalities are distorting the game to the point where whichever big-market team manages itself the best and wins the hot stove season is virtually guaranteed a World Series. When MLB gets to the point we are now, radical new thinking is required. The same old tweaking, and revising of a broken system just leads to more conflict. The root issues are money & power over the game.

Players need to start taking more ownership of their game. It’s their labor that creates the game with all the fan interest. Billionaire owners mostly don’t understand baseball and only want to make money for themselves from it. This hurts the players, the fans, and the game itself. Capitalism is about crushing your competition, and that’s what the Dodgers are doing to baseball right now. MLB needs 30 teams competing on a level playing field for the game to be interesting again. In 2025, we have MLB hyping its behemoth for maximum ratings, while fans who have already anticipated the outcome are rapidly losing interest.

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NIL issues with AI

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Note: This short piece is an extension of “What is Tilly Norwood?”, published yesterday.

NIL means Name, Image & Likeness, and it has transformed college sports since Ed O’Bannon won his lawsuit with the NCAA in 2015-16. Women’s hoops has undergone a qualitative transformation with athletes like Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese & Paige Bueckers getting paid in college, then popularizing the WNBA to new heights.

The owners of the NCAA & WNBA want to convince everyone that it is their platform that has created this success, when really it’s the players. WNBA franchise values have exploded this year due to the players making the game more popular. It’s always the workers who create the value, with the owners trying to convince everyone the opposite. It’s high time for exploited workers to take control of their industries and shout down the parasitic & criminal owners who are impeding progress for humanity.

When it comes to Tilly Norwood, she is a composite of many young female likenesses that have been stolen and re-packaged as proprietary to a corporation. “Tilly Norwood is art,” says it’s creator, but art always acknowledges those who helped make it possible, while Particle6 erases them from history and pays no future royalties. The young women who contributed to create Tilly Norwood by having their faces & bodies scanned are kept anonymous and never compensated beyond that session.

AI is becoming a cheap way to replace people– from film to TV to pornography. It’s also being used to replace workers in other industries, because the people who currently own & control AI are ruthless capitalists, always looking to cut costs and increase their profits. This doesn’t work for the vast majority, who are being exploited & discarded with no future. Humanity is better than this, but we need new leadership and it has to come from a unified international working class.

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What is Tilly Norwood?

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If you read the Wikipedia page to “Tilly Norwood” and check the (currently) twenty references, you’ll notice than none are earlier than 9/27/25, and most are dated yesterday & today– see the screenshot below. Before then no one knew of this artificial intelligence (AI) generated actress that is taking Hollywood by storm. AI is a powerful tool that is being put to use by the ruling class to cuts jobs & production costs for big studios.

According to Wikipedia, “Tilly Norwood was created by Xicoia, the artificial intelligence (AI) division of Particle6, a production company founded by Dutch actress-turned-producer Eline Van der Velden in 2015. Xicoia was officially announced on September 27, 2025 [last Saturday], at the Zurich Summit, part of the Zurich Film Festival… Van der Velden stated she intended Norwood to be the next Scarlett Johansson or Natalie Portman… and Particle6 has stated that using Norwood could cut production costs by 90%.”

This has raised immediate & hysterical alarm bells among actors, including/especially A-listers. AI Commissioner, the computer generated comedy sketch which launched Tilly Norwood has been described as clunky, unreal & unfunny. Yet, the question within the entertainment industry is, “Will a talent agency sign Tilly Norwood?” The answer appears to be yes. Here’s the Particle6 video introducing Tilly Norwood to the world:

Tilly Norwood never gets old, and costs 1/100th of an A-list actress. Tilly Norwood never gives the director a hard time on anything. Tilly Norwood is pornography coming to Hollywood. Every actor now realizes they are screwed, just like the rest of us who work for a living. Welcome to the class war you’ve been ignoring for all these years in the name of your careers.

That’s how a lot of movie fans feel about Hollywood actors at this point. The fascists came for the immigrants, socialists, leftists….and when they finally came for them, the A-listers, no one was left to defend them. That’s celebrity ignorance coming back around to haunt them. How about lending your collective voices to the revolution? You’re pampered by comparison and not as good as you think, which is why AI snuck in and is about to wipe you out as an influential social class. Nobody who works for a living feels sorry for these living marionettes because they had it coming.

All the actors & actresses who supported the #MeToo campaign, which wiped out much of the top talent, are now about to be wiped out with AI. Ask Kevin Spacey, Dustin Hoffman or Bill Murray how they feel about this and their thoughts and feelings will echo what I’ve written. These pretty puppets who backstabbed their talented colleagues to get ahead are now themselves on the chopping block. The irony couldn’t be more real for those blacklisted & MeToo-ed.

Tilly Norwood is deep-fake pornography presented as legitimate. This is how messed-up things are in entertainment. The audience is reduced to a bunch of fat, stupid losers, who don’t appreciate the difference between what’s real and what’s fake. It’s part of the dumbing-down of culture, which now defines Hollywood and the entertainment industry. If movies are all superhero blockbusters, action propaganda, or lame rom-coms, then why not have AI actors? That’s the logic of the capitalist market, which monopolizes power into the hands of the richest class that gets to make all the decisions on what’s best for everyone.

Tilly Norwood can be featured in any of these types of movies, without any artistic value being compromised, because there isn’t any artistic value to begin with. Feature Tilly Norwood on AGT, The Voice, or The Masked Singer. Just punch her in, it wouldn’t matter, as these would still be the same shows filled with vapid ass-clowns & over-produced garbage. When culture is allowed to deteriorate to such a degree that this is possible, it becomes apparent to EVERYBODY that we need a revolution. That’s the explosive nature of what Tilly Norwood represents.

You can’t interview Tilly Norwood face-to-face. Everything she says is someone else’s words & ideas, so how can a public ever accept Tilly Norwood? How does Tilly Norwood accept an Oscar or Emmy? How can Tilly Norwood be considered an actress if she isn’t a real person?  Aesthetically, Tilly Norwood is a cartoon, no matter how lifelike she appears. It’s such a joke, yet it’s also the foreseeable future of Hollywood entertainment.

That’s the dialectics of revolution. Tilly Norwood represents the complete bankruptcy of the entertainment industry and the need for it to be overthrown. It means the studios don’t care about the quality of their content, they just want to cut costs and not pay anyone. This is the economic model being applied to science, healthcare, education, etc, and it’s what’s failing us.

Tilly Norwood means we as a society are going to allow pornography to be legitimate while Jeffery Epstein clients will never be prosecuted because they aren’t so bad, etc… Tilly Norwood is the specter of fascist degradation which now looms over humanity. You can’t ever actually meet her, but you can follow her on Instagram. What more could you ask for?

The WNBA players are currently trying to win themselves a fair share of the league they have created & built through their work, but the commissioner (who always represents the owners), has been telling them to be grateful for what they get, as if they can be replaced. Fortunately for the players, the WNBA is real and can’t be replaced by AI. But listening to the WNBA commissioner, one gets the impression she & the owners wish they could.

What we have in both instances is the same struggle, but in different stages: workers (actors & WNBA players) against capitalists represented by team owners & big production studios. The WNBA is booming, and the players now realize they should be profiting more from their labor. Their CBA is about to expire after the Finals. The WNBA owners aren’t budging on player salaries or any other important issues. It’s capitalist greed that is leading to a labor war in the WNBA, and next season is already in question.

The WNBA players need to realize they are a part of a much greater struggle, otherwise they will be isolated & defeated. The owners & corporate media are too powerful for working class start-up institutions such as the WNBA players. The ruling class defeat of A-list actors with the introduction of Tilly Norwood is confirmation of that. Working class consciousness & solidarity across all industries is required to defeat capitalist fascism.

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Jimmy Kimmel or Charlie Kirk?

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Millions of people who never watch Jimmy Kimmel Live! tuned in last night to see his return to the airwaves after the Trump administration & FCC chairman Brendan Carr (pic below) pulled him for comments he made concerning the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Nothing Jimmy Kimmel said to get him cancelled the week before was outside the boundaries of free speech, but we now live in an era where Constitutional rights are being shredded by a fascist ruling class.

The Trump narrative is that Charlie Kirk was assassinated by a leftist, without providing a shred of evidence for this. Any suggestion that the shooter had right-wing ties is considered slander by the fascist Trump administration, despite the fact the shooter was a confirmed Trump supporter. The Democrats won’t acknowledge this truth, which leaves the field open for pro-Kirk fascist propaganda which has been non-stop since the shooting. Facts don’t matter anymore in politics, as big money demands conformity & obedience.

Here is Jimmy Kimmel’s opening monologue last night:

Jimmy Kimmel is to be commended for standing up to a fascist administration which seeks to stifle free speech and any political dissent. ABC initially acquiesced to Trump’s bullying, but were forced to retract due to overwhelming popular demand. This is another fact that is being downplayed in the media. Kimmel is more popular than Trump, says the American people, and that’s why he was back on the air last night– to Trump’s dismay. The ruling class is in crisis with no popular support for its reactionary policies.

Free speech advocates have become Kimmel’s new demographic, and there are a lot of them in America and around the world. Kimmel’s removal was part of a murky backroom deal demanded by the dictator-in-chief. Two giant right-wing corporate affiliates Nexstar Media Group & Sinclair Broadcast Group have refused to broadcast Jimmy Kimmel Live, despite the voracious viewer demand for his return. All this is part of appeasing Trump for his approval of their merger. These two companies control about 20% of the US media market, and are currently airing Celebrity Family Feud in place of Kimmel.

Right now, those are the battle lines in this free speech media war. Disney, ABC’s parent company, has lost nearly $4B in market capitalization over this, as viewers have cancelled their Disney+ subscriptions en masse. YouTube views of last night’s Kimmel monologue have exploded, and Hulu airs the next day, so how long will Nexstar & Sinclair lose advertisers & revenue over an ideological battle they really can’t win? This remains to be seen.

Charlie Kirk was a racist, homophobic, Christian nationalist who advocated political violence. Jimmy Kimmel is a liberal comedian talk show host. Which is more dangerous? To ask the question is to answer it. The lionization of Charlie Kirk is a disgusting spectacle that revolts tens of millions of Americans, so there needs to be voices allowed to express that sentiment, otherwise we have a fascist dictatorship. The Kimmel controversy highlights how close we are to that.

Jimmy Kimmel & Charlie Kirk are now forever connected in politics as they represent very opposite viewpoints. Keep in mind, Jimmy Kimmel is tame by any serious political standard. But free speech advocates support Jimmy Kimmel’s right to speak his mind without being censored. Too many socialists & left-wing activists have already been blacklisted & silenced, and it’s been going on for decades. What the Kimmel-Kirk-Trump conflict reveals is the deep-going nature of fascism today, and the popular impulse to resist it.

George Carlin paraphrased it best: If you don’t like the content, then change the channel. We have a president who is being allowed to be a dictator that can’t use a remote control properly, so he decides to take away everyone else’s TV remote control options. That’s like cutting millennials off from the internet, and it will quickly & predictably provoke a massive & angry response. People are now tuning-in to Jimmy Kimmel just to be part of a resistance to fascism. That’s what Jimmy Kimmel represents right now, and it’s a heavy burden to carry, so popular leftist support is all important.

On the ICE shooting in Dallas, Texas this morning: Clearly ICE isn’t doing enough to protect detainees & inmates from harm. Some nutcase shot through an ICE van and killed one detainee while wounding two others. Shut this American gestapo down through mass worker action, not political violence. That’s leftist ideology. Anything else is fake left, false-flag provocation & political confusion that has nothing to do with Marxism or socialism. This is the ‘big lie’ imperialist slander which must be politically defeated to end ICE terrorism.

Leftists educate & organize the workers & youth. Anarchists & Stalinists play into the hands of the Western imperialists with their reactionary brand of violence. Socialists condemn this pathological shooting, whose casualties were three detainees. If it had been three ICE agents as casualties, socialists would condemn it just the same because this isn’t the answer. It’s impossible to find a bourgeois politician who can be fair to the left because they view socialists as their existential enemy to be slandered, terrorized & annihilated. These capitalist criminals are responsible for this violence, and people need to be allowed to say that, otherwise we live in a police state.

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CIA Democrats livid over Trump-Putin Alaska summit

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A US President is being publicly friendly towards Russia [!!] which has thrown the entire Western intelligence apparatus into hysterical panic. This was the Friday evening news for one hour, where Vladimir Putin was treated with diplomatic respect [!] on American soil by Trump. This is all part of Trump’s strategy to win Election 2028. Hitler was friendly to Stalin when he needed to be, but it didn’t lead to peace. That’s a lesson worth remembering.

The CIA Democrats were at the center of a right-wing coup that installed a pro-Western neo-Nazi government in Kiev in 2014, and they mean to see it stays that way as it gets everything it needs to fight Russia. To US ruling class interests, this is about fighting the evil enemy in Russia through a proxy in Ukraine. This distant war is not only good political policy, it’s good business for Raytheon & Boeing.

The problem is Zelensky is widely hated in Ukraine, where elections & freedom of speech aren’t allowed. Young men are conscripted by being kidnapped off the streets or from their homes & work by neo-Nazi goon squads, who send them off to be canon fodder. That isn’t popular and socialists such as Bogdan Syrotiuk are thrown in jail for being actively anti-war. Western media never mentions the case of Bogdan Syrotiuk when talking about Ukraine, as it conflicts with their pro-Zelensky, pro-war narrative.

Putin was provoked into this war with Ukraine by the activities of Western intelligence & NATO, who supported neo-Nazi fascist atrocities against inhabitants of the Russian-majority population of Crimea & the Donbas. The Russia-Ukraine War is popular in neither country because it was instigated (& is maintained) by the external forces of imperialism. US, German & UK intelligence with their military advisors are the instigators & leading proponents of the Russia-Ukraine War, and they certainly don’t want a ceasefire that cedes the Donbas & Crimea to Russia.

Zelensky is running out of rope, as his hold on the presidency is tenuous. His unpopularity makes him susceptible to far-right forces in Kiev, as well as in Berlin, London & Washington that are ready to remove him if he can’t remain firm in keeping the Ukraine army fighting even though it has been exhausted. Manpower losses have reduced this to a defensive war for Zelensky & his NATO backers. No NATO country will commit its military to significant boots on the ground, due to the unpopularity of doing that, so this NATO-provoked war is lost for imperialism.

Drone strikes are the new warfare. Drones are hard to stop because they are high-tech precise & devastating in impact. Despite its high-tech costs and operator training, drone warfare is cheaper than tanks, jets & helicopters because it offers a lower casualty rate for the attack side as compared to human operated attack vehicles. Drones make warfare more economical in every military sense.

Russia is winning the war because; 1) it has more resources, and 2) the war is being fought on Ukrainian soil. That means the majority of civilian casualties & infrastructure damage is on the Ukraine side. Ukraine is losing the battle of attrition and this was inevitable. Trump will not authorize long-range missile strikes deep into Russia from Kiev, because he knows that will lead to nuclear war. The CIA Democrats want Trump to play a game of nuclear brinkmanship with Putin because US intelligence is Russiaphobic to its marrow. These ruling class conflicts highlight the fundamental madness of capitalist imperialism.

The October Revolution of 1917 still lives in the collective class consciousness of every CIA Democrat & fascist, and it arouses all of them into fits of anger & hysteria. Lenin & Trotsky are considered the most serious enemies of capitalism. CIA Democrats always collaborate with fascists to persecute & exterminate socialists. All intelligence dirty tricks operations target the political left, meaning the US intelligence apparatus is an agency of spying & right-wing provocation.

Liberal Democrats are tools of the CIA Democrats, meaning AOC is a tool of Chuck Schumer & Mark Warner. With Trump warming relations with Russian President Putin, the liberal Democrats are being outflanked by a fascist who brings hope for peace to his people. There was no hope with Joe Biden, and Trump exploited that in Alaska with Putin. Trump & Putin both won this political game they’ve played, while the CIA Democrats are fuming at their defeat. Just hosting this event was too much for most of them. Russiagate, the ‘2016 election interference’ narrative was ridiculed by Putin, then Trump, which certainly infuriates CIA Democrats. No peace until there is a complete carve-up of Russia is the CIA Democrat mantra. We need to risk going to nuclear war over this we’re told. And told, and told…

These protestations over Putin as an aggressive war criminal are cynical when Benjamin Netanyahu, an ICC-wanted war criminal is armed to the teeth for the Zionist led IDF genocide & starvation of the Palestinians in Gaza & the West Bank. Double standards are the standard for the US corporate news media. It’s straight intelligence propaganda on network news & the NYT.

The sands are shifting from under the Democrats, who remain less popular than Trump. Their educated, left-leaning, and industrial worker base had moved to the left. Most youth now correctly understand that capitalism is the problem. Anything that doesn’t move to the left, has to gravitate towards Trump & fascism. Any anarchists, fake-leftists and such are actually right-wing provocateurs in that they seek to create confusion & chaos through violent acts & meaningless stunts.

Speaking of impotent political stunts, I haven’t updated on Pussy Riot in awhile. Their latest news is a lesson on what happens when silly provocateurs try to make a statement against fascism and get overwhelmed by real-life events. According to a report in the July 15 Guardian:

Nadya Tolokonnikova was only three and a half days into what was supposed to be a “durational performance” reenacting her two years as a political prisoner in Vladimir Putin’s Russia. But Donald Trump had ordered national guard troops into Los Angeles, over the objections of California’s governor, and the protests against immigration raids that Trump wanted to target were happening just a block from the gallery where Nadya Tolokonnikova was performing. The Museum of Contemporary Art hastily decided to shut its doors. But Tolokonnikova, 35, whose political art has left her as a wanted criminal in Russia, chose to continue her performance inside the empty museum. “Police State Exhibit Closed Today Due to the Police State,” she posted on Instagram.

This is what has become of Pussy Riot, the CIA cutout whose postergirl spokesperson is Nadya Tolokonnikova. You can hear the demoralization of this defeatist in her email statement, “I was thinking how the western idea that history inevitably moves toward progress is a mirage.” This begs the question: Who wants to be led by hopeless & impotent performers who can’t hold their audience?

Putin outed Nadya Tolokonnikova & her Pussy Riot cohorts as foreign agents a few years back, which was vehemently denied by CIA Democrats everywhere, particularly liberal feminists. Now, when Trump orders the National Guard to take over, her feminist milieu shuts down and abandons Nadya Tolokonnikova’s performance because in reality it is a useless & empty gesture which no one stands for when the military starts pointing guns in your direction. All of Nadya Tolokonnikova’s supporters ran away and abandoned her performance protesting life in a police state and her courageous resistance which has inspired so many…

Nadya Tolokonnikova performed to an empty room in LA for a bit, then gave up and went home because no one cared. She didn’t join the LA protesters just outside who were courageously condemning the ICE gestapo. Instead, she sat lifelessly in her fake prison cell until she gave up on her fake ‘durational performance’ which everyone had walked out on due to real threats from an all-too-real US police state which (according the her) can’t be resisted. This is the political & artistic legacy of Pussy Riot.

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