Category Archives: For Women

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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The NIL Frankenstein

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The NCAA Power 4 conference commissioners & athletic directors will attend a White House roundtable discussion hosted by Donald Trump on March 6. Invited guests include: Tiger Woods, Nick Saban, Mack Brown, Urban Meyer, Tim Tebow, Condoleezza Rice, New England Patriots president Jonathan Kraft, NBA commissioner Adam Silver, Fox Sports president Eric Shanks, and ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro.

The issue is NIL (Name Image Likeness) spending for top athletes, which has quickly turned into a Frankenstein for the NCAA, which was caught flatfooted from the start and has never come up with a fair & rational system to regulate NIL spending & the transfer portal, so they are now seeking Congressional & Presidential intervention. It seems like there is an athlete suing the NCAA every week now over eligibility, etc, and it’s become a right-to-work issue beyond its institutional control.

The NCAA’s “Power 4” is about football money, most of which comes from television & streaming. The Big 10, SEC, ACC & Big 12 are the Power 4– in that order. SEC commissioners & AD’s are upset because they collectively feel their athletic programs are vastly superior to those of the Big 10, but the NCAA is staffed at every level with Big 10 alumni, so they get favorable rankings, seedings, officiating, national television exposure, etc, which creates friction between the top dogs.

The ACC has suffered greatly in football during this NIL era of the transfer portal and conference expansion/reshuffling, so their school officials aren’t happy. The Big 12 had to rebuild itself after losing Texas & Oklahoma to the SEC a few years back. The Big 12 is doing better with Texas Tech committing $28M to its football program in 2025, which yielded them a coveted CFP playoff spot. But most schools can’t spend like that, and those that can’t are upset about competitive imbalance.

Everything is about football, as it generates the most viewers & largest wagering handles. Therefore, a basketball conference like the Big East has become irrelevant to the NCAA. UConn is still a top national men’s basketball team, but it won’t be able to recover its glory of just a few years ago when it won back-to-back national championships because it doesn’t have football revenue coming in to pay for top NIL basketball athletes like Power 4 conferences can.

On the NCAA agenda now is expanding its football playoffs from 12 teams. Sixteen teams makes the most sense, and always has, but it appears the NCAA is looking at possibly jumping to 20-24 teams for their playoffs. Top Big 10 officials (University of Michigan) insist on byes for Power 4 conference champions, etc. This makes it easier for their teams to win the football championship (as Indiana University did in 2025), versus having a 16-team playoff with no first-round byes.

Understand that the NCAA doesn’t want a fair & level playing field, it wants the Big 10 to win every year and put as many of its teams into the big tournaments (football & basketball) as possible. Generally speaking these days, the SEC qualifies & wins a lot because it spends the most money on NIL athletes, coaches & infrastructure. Everyone is lobbying for rules that give them the biggest advantage, so in the end their is little agreement. Money wins is the bottom line, and there is no way to change that fundamental under capitalism.

The Winter Olympics just concluded and the US had its best medal count ever. The last two Olympic games, Paris 2024 and Milan 2026, excluded Russian athletes, which affected medal totals. NIL spending, particularly for summer games sports such as track & field, swimming & gymnastics means these sports are now NCAA dominated, which is pushing up US Olympic medal wins.

Foreign athletes now get visas to come to a US university and train in their particular sport so they can get paid. Ed O’Bannon v NCAA in 2016 changed everything. College & high school sports are now openly professionalized as the concept of a “student-athlete” has been largely obliterated in bigtime NCAA sports. Today, the top girls high school softball & volleyball players across the country have a NIL profile. That’s how far it has proliferated.

AAU hoops & traveling soccer teams are corporate sponsored and the spending is only going up. The next tennis & golf prodigies are nurtured at ING academies and the like. Everybody wants to win, and seemingly every parent wants their son/daughter to get an athletic scholarship to a Power 4 school where they can play on TV & get paid.

Major universities have become sports factories more than institutions of learning. Back in the 1980’s, SMU and the University of Miami were outlaws in this regard in the eyes of the NCAA. Today they would be heralded as models of excellence in this age where winning in football is all that matters.

So how is Donald Trump going to fix this? To ask the question is to answer it– he won’t. Donald Trump & many of his invited roundtable guests are at the heart of this corruption that is destroying athletics. They don’t care about the athletes or the integrity of the game, they only want to profit & accumulate power from sports.

Conclusion: The issue for the NCAA is that college athletes are now paid free agents and this is getting very costly for universities that want to compete in sports. Power conferences dominate the NCAA because they have the deepest pockets and thus monopolize the top talent. What used to be hidden booster activity to avoid NCAA sanctions is now organized into university NIL collectives. Alabama will still win at football because their alumni are willing to spend whatever it costs to win. Whatever rules spending limits the NCAA sets, they will be covertly by-passed by universities that want to win– everyone knows that.

This mechanism change of paying athletes through NIL rules allows all schools to do what only the most competitive did in the past– pay their players. But the amounts are what matter, and just because Marquette can now pay its basketball players doesn’t matter so much when the University of Wisconsin can pay theirs so much more. The result is the Wisconsin Badgers are a NCAA Tournament team in 2026, while Marquette stinks. Marquette doesn’t have football so that program won’t have the revenue to rebuild through high-school recruiting or the transfer portal. Marquette was a consistent men’s Tournament qualifying team as of a few years ago, but that era is over.

These NIL issues have filtered up to the WNBA and have affected CBA negotiations which are currently at an impasse and are threatening the start of the upcoming season scheduled to tip-off on May 8. Top women’s collegiate players are now well-compensated through NIL deals, and this has raised expectations for the current WNBA players. WNBA owners still want to treat the WNBA players as “lucky to have a job,” so CBA negotiations have been non-productive thus far.

Every adult has the right to work and be paid. The question is: who gets the most money from their labor? This NIL era has transformed athletics and how young people look at sports. It’s now more of a business than ever, and at a younger age. This is double-edged in that it can take away the youthful love of the game, but also raises the level of consciousness of the young athlete in regards to what sports are.

The earlier one learns what sports are, the better that young athlete can decide whether it is worth it to compete seriously. It’s just as important to know what you are up against, as it is to know what you are competing for. It quickly becomes about a lot more than the game itself.

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Milan Winter Olympics observations & thoughts

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The perils of promoting oneself as a “Quad God” before taking the ice in front of the world became an Olympic reality for US figure skater Ilia Malinin, who entered the free skate 1st, but placed 8th after two falls during his long program.

It’s painful to watch.

This was Olympic pressure cracking a very talented young man. NBC’s evening coverage from Milan, which is tape-delayed, featured two retired US figure-skaters who mentioned Olympic pressure as nothing an athlete can simulate or be completely prepared for. Tara Lipinski won gold in 1998, and she admitted her knees were shaking going into her long program– which won.

So we can see that every athlete feels the pressure, even those who prevail as champions. It’s all about managing oneself and focusing on the tasks of the competition. When you put yourself under more pressure because you have promoted yourself as a Quad God, then you are setting yourself up for failure. That’s all one can say to the athlete on this.

I’m of a firm belief that figure skating & ice dancing are art-forms that should be appreciated as performance, instead of graded as competition. I feel the same way about diving & gymnastics at the summer Olympics. I understand this opinion is in the minority, but there are points to be understood, even if it doesn’t change your mind.

Let’s start with the ridiculous notion of music being an Olympic event and “best rock concert” wins the gold. The Beatles rock the house, followed by the Rolling Stones, Captain Beefheart & his Magic Band, the Velvet Underground, the Doors, Creedence Clearwater Revival, James Brown, and finally Jimi Hendrix. Judges (trusted old people) will rate their performances, based on criteria defined by them, and determine a winner & podium.

That may sound silly, and it is, but Rolling Stone magazine has been doing this since it started in 1967. More than anything, criticism of music & film and the judging of athletic performances are vehicles to promote personal favorites & devalue disliked acts. They act as political & social filters.

For the last 25 years the corporatized “music Olympics” has transformed from Rolling Stone magazine into American Idol reality TV, and it’s why music sucks so hard today. When industry gatekeepers control every aspect from development & finding talent, to access to resources & media promotion, it becomes nothing more than a popularity contest & pet projects among executives, instead of the kids deciding what they like & get to hear.

Back in the 1960’s, kids loved the Beatles & Stones, and demanded more from the record labels, and what followed was its classic rock era. Today corporate heads manipulate everything you see in the media. The last thing they want is another Bob Dylan revolutionizing things. Today. one must pass through the corporate filter of reality TV before one can be anointed a star.

The Beatles & Rolling Stones wouldn’t be allowed to exist and become famous these days. Their type is too wild & dangerous, too exciting & influential with the kids, and that can’t be allowed to happen. That’s been the corporate philosophy on music & entertainment post-Nirvana.

It’s the same process in sports, which is big money these days because it’s live entertainment brought to the viewer through traditional television & now internet streaming. Sports harvest eyeballs in all demographics, which advertisers love & networks cash in on.

Thus, I don’t get caught up in this Olympics ice dancing judging controversy.

Unfair judging has been part of the Olympics for decades, as these are political slights intended to project power towards an antagonist nation. The actual effect is to degrade an athlete’s performance while raising suspicions of dirty politics undermining the spirit of “fairness & international goodwill” at the Olympics.

Curling is a little known sport, and this is historically my first commentary on it. Team Sweden accused team Canada of cheating during their competition. Video shows illegal touching by Canada, but the sport is not subject to replay review officiating– yet. Cheating at a “gentleman’s” sport which most people don’t even understand or care about reveals that we have a competition problem at the Olympics.

The problem is everyone lies, and the more money that goes into winning, means more cheating & lying to become the “best”. This can raise the pressure to a breaking point for many athletes. “Cracking” happens in many different ways– bad performances, rules cheating, hidden PED use, etc. The drive to be the best involves making difficult decisions and managing serious expectations. Failure can derail a career in minutes. Sponsors want a winning face that pops. Silver medals don’t get it done, as an Olympic athlete needs gold to have a successful post-athletic career in broadcasting or whatever.

Of course, I understand the need to recognize the best in sports, and in competitions where the event is decided by time or some other objective measure, or on the field played by a predetermined set of rules that is officiated on the field, then it is a sport where Olympic medals can be fairly awarded.

X-game events are largely subjectively graded, and should be appreciated as athletic-artistic performances, instead of judged for medals in competition. Let the fans & viewers argue about who is top-tier & best, etc. These performances would be better if they were considered as such. Music, art & entertainment are competitive, so there would be no lack of motivation to be recognized as the best. What would be removed would be tainted judging & corporate dominance in messaging, and sports fans would appreciate that.

Conclusion: I’m not an athlete, I’m a musical artist. The two are similar in that managing your performance is more mental than physical. World class athletes train a lifetime for Olympic competition. Unless there is an injury, it’s typically not physical issues that concern when the time comes to compete. It’s the same in music, as the performer knows how to play, but it’s nerves that can wreck it. Learning to control oneself and be calm in front of an audience is an advanced skill for any performer– artistic and/or athletic. It’s not something anyone is born with, it’s something that can only be learned through hard experience.

It involves breathing, taking in the moment, and realizing where you fit in as far as the bigger picture is concerned. It actually helps to have a bit of contempt for all this crap & people’s expectations, etc. If you feel the only expectations you need to meet are your own, then you are at peace and ready to perform. If you can’t do this, then it is easy to be overwhelmed by the situation, which creates self-doubt & performance slippage.

Lindsey Vonn crashed out of her skiing event (pic above), after trying to compete with a torn ACL. That was her choice as a professional athlete in an individual sport. Team sports are different, where competing injured can set an organization back in the long-term. In those cases, team physicians & management must make the final call, for the safety of that player, other players, as well as the interests of the organization & league. But in individual sports such as skiing, it’s the athlete’s choice.

These athletes consistently push their bodies beyond the breaking point to be the best and amaze the world. All this competition (music, art, sports) falls into the category of entertainment.

You do push yourself to (& beyond) the breaking point when you attempt to be the best in these fields. People admire & are inspired by great music, art & sport, but often don’t really understand the sacrifices, or the heartbreak of coming up short, getting injured, having to retire. No one can sustain the greatness to be the best in any of these entertainment fields for more than a few years. It’s too competitive and always progresses into the future, favoring the next generation.

Old judges & seasoned critics contribute nothing useful or progressive to entertainment. They act as a brake on development & innovation, invariably favoring conservative corporate & political interests. Too much of these Olympics, along with all other sports, is about satisfying the demands of people who put themselves above the athletes in competition.

And finally: Russia & Belarus are once again banned from competing as nations in the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina. Both nations were banned from the 2024 Paris summer games due to the ongoing war with Ukraine. This ban was a political decision made by western imperialism backed by its International Olympic Committee. Only a limited number of individual, pre-vetted athletes from Russia & Belarus can compete as neutral, non-represented participants– and most choose not to. This drastically affects: figure skating, cross country skiing, ice hockey, biathlon & speed skating.

The US is able to run up its medal count at the winter games due to: 1) new (X-game) events which largely favor US athletes; 2) banning Russia from the competition; and 3) massive sports spending in America linked to the NCAA, etc. World politics & corporate sponsorship are the unspoken elephants in the room as far as any international competition goes these days.

It’s not the Russian athletes’ fault that Russia & Ukraine are at war, yet they lose their opportunity for which they have trained a lifetime due to the rulings of corrupt politicians & their puppet institutions. This NATO-provoked proxy war in Ukraine is the work of US, UK & German intelligence, supporting fascists in Kiev in an effort to carve up Russia. None of that has any rightful place in influencing Olympic competition. Imperialist institutions are responsible for unfairly banning Russian athletes, stripping them of their opportunities for Olympic glory. Those are the real politics that underlie all the official lip service on internationalism & the Olympic motto of “Faster, Higher, Stronger – Together.”

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Bitcoin bits & the Nancy Guthrie kidnapping

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Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent (portrait pic below) was asked the other day by a congressman if crypto was going to be bailed out, and it ended in a shouting match. The biggest bitcoin booster, Michael Saylor, is now deep underwater, as the crypto industry has been loaned hundreds of billions of dollars which they clearly won’t be able to repay. The issue has always been– will crypto be eligible for a taxpayer bailout when doomsday comes?

Here it is spilling out in the public arena after being discussed intensely behind closed doors. Since I last published, bitcoin has crashed & “recovered”– again. Banks have kept loaning to crypto up to this point, but it’s getting tougher to justify. This is the crisis which now imperils the entire capitalist set-up.

Bitcoin has “stabilized” again, let me explain how & why. First, peruse the reader comments to financial articles that discuss Scott Bessent and a possible taxpayer crypto bailout. They’re all negative– no bailout. These are people with money commenting, and none of them have an appetite for crypto. But bitcoin “bounced” again, so obviously the banks have quietly loaned Michael Saylor, etc, more money in another foolish attempt to re-inflate the bubble.

The music is still playing, but for how long? Trump tariffs & crypto are killing the US dollar with inflation. Tariffs make goods more expensive, while crypto (fake money) dilutes the dollar’s value when it is extensively invested-in by the US financial system. Warren Buffet said crypto is “rat poison,” and this is how it works.

Here’s an interesting post from an industry expert who has researched the latest bitcoin crash. In short, analysts now say derivatives are setting the bitcoin price. As liquidations pile up, questions are growing over how much Wall Street is manipulating bitcoin’s price. Recall that bitcoin was originally hyped by Libertarian money-nerds as “deregulated finance,” outside of government & Wall Street control. Today, all the premises underlying bitcoin (including finite supply) have been dispelled by capitalist machinations. For the original Kool-Aid drinkers, the crypto pitcher has run dry, and all that remains for them is a nasty hangover.

Of the $2.6B liquidated in the latest bitcoin crash, $2.1B came from liquidated long bets. “Long” means you bet the market would go up. Derivative short-sellers have been cleaning-up since 10-10-25, which was four months ago when Trump announced 100% tariffs on Chinese exports. Bitcoin started crashing from its $126,000 all-time high. Trump was forced to walk back that threat, but bitcoin kept falling and currently is at ~ $69K, after falling to $60K just two days ago. That cleaned-out all the long-bet suckers (again) down to $60K, and now it has been pumped up a bit and rests at just under $70K. It’s amazing how these crypto price levels magically hold & fluctuate.

Hypothetical question: What are the futures for an “asset” that has no legitimate use value?

Bitcoin is useless in the legitimate market because it is valued in dollars or some other fiat. You may as well just pay for what you need with a dollar, instead of crypto. Most legitimate institutions don’t take crypto because they have no good reason to. ANY illegitimate & criminal organization with any ambition deals in crypto– from the CIA/MI5 & Al Qaeda/ISIS to online scammers & wrench hack kidnappers.

The high profile kidnapping of Nancy Guthrie, mother of Today show host Savannah Guthrie, reveals the actual use value of bitcoin. Apparently, the kidnappers are demanding payment in bitcoin, because it is online anonymous & virtually untraceable. The image below of the ransom demand sent to a local news station is blurry, just like everything else bitcoin is involved in.

Large bitcoin holders are targets for abduction, as they are often tortured into revealing the key codes to their virtual wallets. This is known as a “wrench hack,” because all that is needed is a wrench to beat the victim into submission. Bitcoin/crypto is intimately linked with these forms of criminal activity, and this is being under-reported in the mass media concerning Nancy Guthrie’s abduction.

We now learn from released documents that Jeffery Epstein was all over crypto from the start. Crypto links this entire corrupt nexus. The US government is now crypto fascist by definition. It’s how it operates behind-the-scenes, as crypto fascist is what the Trump administration intends to become in permanence.

What we can see from all this is that bitcoin has enabled a layer of crypto-criminals. Their activity ranges from online theft & kidnapping to Trump’s exploits in World Liberty Financial– his proprietary crypto exchange (founded in 2024) where he mints worthless Trump tokens and trades them for most established crypto such as bitcoin, along with any cash people will pay for his junk.

The consequences are to be paid by all of us who must endure higher prices with a dollar that is being devalued by crypto. Bitcoin does this by sucking-up money that could be better invested elsewhere, while undermining the value of fiat currency. Wall Street loans the money to crypto companies, then wins all its manipulated derivatives bets. That’s called getting paid on both ends, with the US taxpayers eventually being made to pay the bond holders & banks for all their losses on bad crypto loans.

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Long COVID recovery protocol

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If you’ve been exposed to COVID and are over age 40, you probably have had issues with Long COVID. This novel coronavirus evolved as a biological crossover in a Wuhan wet market in late 2019. Despite extensive containment measures instituted by the Chinese government, the virus escaped China’s borders and was allowed to run rampant in every other nation in 2020. The result is that we are now living (& dying) with COVID as a forever pandemic for humanity. That was (& is) the capitalist response to COVID.

The last serious research I’ve read said the average American has been infected with COVID nearly 5 times. That number goes up with each new study on this. COVID is a highly transmissible airborne pathogen. It’s also a nasty bug that gets in your body and stays.

Any dead zones in your body, particularly the lower back, are safe harbors for COVID. A calcified & immobilized spine is surrounded by stubborn fat. Fat is an infection, physiologically speaking. Muscle has herniated & atrophied in these areas, and there is no longer any vascularity. It’s your blood system that delivers histamines, white blood cells, leukocytes, eosinophils, and a host of other immune response cells. But if the area of the body from your bellybutton to your pubic region is dead, the COVID lives there, safe from your immune system.

COVID is constantly multiplying in there, taxing your immune system long term. When taken ill with a flu virus, Long COVID really goes into action, attempting to take over a weakened host. Total body weakness & lethargy are often the result. This virus must be dealt with seriously, otherwise it will eventually kill you.

Your spine is a lever. This means that force on one end is translated to the opposite end. This means that lower back stiffness is partially treated with head & neck physical therapy. This means gentle but consistent stretching of the opposite ends, searching for breakthroughs that allow ‘juice’ to get back into your spine. An old spine is stiff & ossified, a young (healthy) spine is flexible & vascularized. Spinal fluid, cartilage, splanchnic, tendons & ligaments, etc, all need juice to retain spinal health & proper back function.

The ossified areas of a spine is where the Long COVID lives. This means to rid yourself of this horrible affliction, you must make your spine younger & healthier through daily stretching & targeted body-weight exercise. There is no other way. This involves a longterm commitment to health which includes sleep & rest, nutrition & personal hygiene. You need to improve in all these areas to be free of COVID.

The governments of the world made the decision long ago to let COVID rip. The ruling elites insisted upon this as a weapon of class war. it is the working people & youth who are most exposed to COVID and suffer the most from it. Masking is of limited value at this point, since COVID is ubiquitous and most masks are inadequate. You have to make yourself healthier and be ready to deal with the next COVID variant that comes.

I’ve published much on hip & back injuries, and how to recover from them. It’s the same concept when dealing with COVID. You need to re-juice your entire spine from the cranial nerves in your head to the sacral vertebrae in your butt. Use any histamine response from illness to help break up the calcifications that are deep in your spine. This means stretching especially when you are ill, which is uncomfortable, but will speed along your rehabilitation in the long run. It’s all about moving energy through your entire body and building on those daily gains.

When you get sick with Long COVID, a flu bug hits you and activates the COVID deep inside your body, so you spread the COVID variants you carry. This mixes with new variants and we have a perpetual cycle of infection that gets nastier & deadlier.

COVID will now have to be eradicated in this manner, slowly and through case-by-case therapy. Human society could have eradicated this COVID problem from the start with lockdowns, quarantining, contact tracing & masking– ie, medical science. But capitalist politicians & their corporate paymasters insisted they knew better and this is the result.

Daily back stretching & core strengthening are the exercises that matter most in treating Long COVID. This pandemic is a warning to humanity that we must do better in every phase, otherwise we are doomed to be defeated by a virus & ignorance. Make your trunk stronger & more flexible and your COVID cough will slowly disappear for good.

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Finally, a helpful AI application!!

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Socialism AI, introduced by the WSWS on December 12, proves that you don’t need billions (or even millions) of dollars to build an effective AI system.

I’ve queried Socialism AI and it is most impressive. The point is that anyone with the technical know-how & initiative can build a useful AI system, so trying to monopolize this technology is a futile waste of money. The WSWS just launched the smartest AI system because they have the smartest people. That’s how you harness Artificial Intelligence to its full potential.

To understand the burning issues here it is necessary to describe the current ecosystem. Crypto & AI are deeply connected among the ruling elites, ideologically & financially, and bitcoin is the weakest link. There is little-to-no liquidity left in bitcoin, as a few whales such as Michael Saylor are the only remaining buyers propping up this nearly-dead market. It’s the same process in both fields, as monopoly capitalists try to control the technology, the difference is AI has real world value and bitcoin/crypto doesn’t. That’s why the upcoming financial crash is more likely to start with bitcoin, but AI giants will quickly get sucked in and require bailouts to survive.

Oppositional ideological response to Socialism AI mostly resembles the Luddites. Originally opposed to industrial machinery in England in the early 19-century on the grounds that it eliminated jobs & reduced pay & quality of output, Luddites destroyed machinery as a political response. This reactionary movement was crushed by early capitalism, as the owners of the machinery enlisted their government, the police & military, goon squads, etc, to rid themselves of these pests. The industrial revolution continued unabated by Luddism, and it has since been a derogatory political term, representing a reactionary dead end. Those who rail against AI are Luddites.

The fundamental problem with ChatGPT, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc, versions of AI is their pro-corporate bias, which claims “safe” or “neutral” reasoning on political issues, which always means pro-capitalist bias. The morality of capitalism is unquestionable as these AI systems are developed by (and in the interests of) the richest people in the world. Too much of AI is GIGO– garbage in, garbage out.

The problem is you can’t be intelligent if your reasoning is built on false assumptions. This severely limits all versions of corporate AI, and it is why it’s destined to go bankrupt and trigger a devastating global financial crash in the near future.

AI as a tool today is comparable to Wikipedia (& everything else) coming online in the early 2000’s. It was a huge advance, but pro-corporate bias kills much of its usefulness. Wikipedia can accurately recite hard science subjects such as physics & math, and do well in geology & archeology, but its pro-corporate bias kills its credibility in the fields of history, economics & politics. Social sciences are distorted through a pro-capitalist ideological lens. Many Wikipedia biographies are outright fakes– see Pussy Riot.

Socialism AI from the WSWS seeks to rectify that intellectual & moral injustice. Based on historical materialism and objective truth, Socialism AI is a much improved political tool for working people & youth seeking serious answers– anywhere, anytime. Give it a try.

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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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