The price of hope: Madison and her dreams beyond the Garden gates.

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Let them eat cake, he says. Knicks fan Trump dismisses concerns over $9K NBA Finals tickets at MSG: “They can watch it on television.” Unclear whether he will be paying to attend Game 3 on Monday evening. {Basketball Network 6 June}

https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/watch-television-trump-dismisses-outrage-084501972.html

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🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

One in three NCAA men's and women's basketball players faced abuse from bettors, including death threats, during this year’s tournaments

Angel Reese. Photo: Getty Images

NCAA: 1 in 3 star athletes receive abuse, threats by bettors {ESPN 5/18}

Methinks I am not sufficient of a constitutional scholar to know if the federal government hath any legitimate authority to regulate gambling, and I generally do despise any nanny state tendencies I detect in others. All said, I really do hate gambling. Years ago, I laboured in gas station convenience stores and felt like a glorified drug pusher with all the scratch tickets I did sell to Massholes. Most of the folk buying them were downright pathetic, but I digress. Furthermore, I have long turned a blind eye to gambling in my waning enthusiasm for horse racing, knowing that it hath always been the lifeblood of the industry. Yet, for the life of me, I shall never understand why any individual would desire to play with money. It maketh absolutely no sense.

Absolutely nothing of goodly import is emerging from the explosion of legalised sports betting currently taking place. When combined with the endemic, regressive, and all-pervading hatred raging in the United States at this time, it doth create a deadly combination. The ESPN article notes that female collegiate basketball players are about thrice more likely than their male counterparts to receive abuse. One day, somebody is going to get killed, but it will not matter to the puissant interests invested in the commons casting away coin they cannot afford to lose. It ought to go without saying, this is beyond shameful and yet another sign, among thousands, that the people of #Murica are, in laymen’s terms, losing their s**t.

Alito J6 controversy ‘another blow for Supreme Court under fire’ - Lifetime tenure for Justices was a huge error of foresight by our nation’s founders. {AP 5/17}

President Biden signs a significant aviation safety and airline reform bill into law. {Reuters 5/16}

Cost of living crisis. Suze Orman warns ‘If you don’t have at least $5 million or $10 million, don’t retire early’. {Yahoo! 5/16}

Copyright 2024, Arthur Newhook. @Sunking278 and @FloydEtcetera on X, and at the same handles on FACEBOOK. MASTODON - @ArthurNewhook@mastodon.world, BLUESKY - @arthurnewhook.bsky.social, and @arthurnewhook on POST. DONATIONS GRATEFULLY ACCEPTED at https://tinyurl.com/ArthurNewhook.

Hath the United States of America deliberately forgotten COVID?

CDC

Is there a notable 'forgetting' taking place amongst the public concerning the pandemic? I find myself here in contemplation, casting my thoughts back to our state three years past: Most every enterprise shuttered, masks adorning the faces of all in public, and a large portion of the nation turned the act of complaining and whining into a cottage industry. The NBA and Stanley Cup playoffs contested in the month of August within empty arenas, the artificial hum of crowd noise accompanying baseball and football games played before sparse or nonexistent spectators. The utter lack of leadership from the incumbent president, a leader bereft of any discernible plan, viewing the pandemic merely as a diversion from his populist and slanderous escapades. Concurrently, the extensive protests for racial justice unfurled against the backdrop of the COVID scourge and the aftermath of George Floyd's untimely demise. It was an exceedingly distressing period, one that I ardently believe should not slip into oblivion. Indeed, the transient surge in emphasis on the act of hand washing remains a practice applicable at any time and in any circumstance, yet I hear scarce mention of it nowadays. In fact, due to widespread defiance regarding mitigation measures, we now find ourselves a less hygienic and more squalid nation. Nurses and physicians face disdain, basic cleanliness is met with scorn, and in the advent of the next pandemic or epidemic, it is probable that a sufficient portion of the general populace will disregard public health mandates. Irrespective of the trauma endured, a nation that willfully forgets and obstinately marches forward, pretending naught occurred, is destined to replicate its errors. Thus, it is doomed to failure.

[Visit Stop the Idiocracy, @Sunking278 on FACEBOOK and TWITTER; @arthurnewhook on POST and THREADS. And @ArthurNewhook@mastodon.world.]

#Murica has a baby formula shortage, while one of its top basketball stars sits in a Russian prison; Turkey’s Erdogan threatens to use NATO veto power to block admission of Finland and Sweden, and the Philippines has a new leader much like an old one

Kaylee Greenlee Beal/Reuters

President Biden says he expects the baby formula shortage to ease in coming weeks - How the hell do we have a shortage of baby formula in the United States of America? Something about contamination of supply and there somehow only being four viable manufacturers of the stuff, I know, but all of this crap we’ve dealt with in the last couple of years ultimately traces back to gross incompetence. The dumbing down of America is nothing new, but now the pace at which the degradation is happening is moving forward at lightning speed. This is absolutely not the country I grew up in. (Reuters 5/13)

DPPI/Ann-dee Lamour/LiveMedia/Shutterstock

American basketball star Brittney Griner’s pre-trial detention in Russia extended by a month on charges of allegedly smuggling hashish oil (the horrors) into the country - This woman’s detention is 100% politically motivated, designed to enrage the American public into demanding their officials cede to Putin’s will. An American women’s basketball star was his easiest target, as many female stars play in Russia during the WNBA offseason to supplement the relative pittances the American league pays them. The problem with all of this, of course, is that the American public is indifferent to the plight of a black lesbian. Now, if this were Tom Brady in her shoes, the reaction would be more akin to what Putin is seeking. #JustSaying (ABC News 5/13)

Yves Herman/Reuters

Erdogan: Turkey would not be 'favorable' to Finland and Sweden joining NATO - The least trustworthy of all NATO powers, an autocracy that has been gradually embracing Islamic fundamentalism for the past two decades, but they’re going to lecture the Europeans on who should or should not be in NATO. Erdogan has had a love/hate thing going on with Putin for years, and has pivoted his country away from the West. He has also greatly harmed relations with Israel. The better question here is, ‘should Turkey remain a part of NATO,’ and not whether two of the most civilized, prosperous, and peaceful nations on earth belong. (Sky News 5/13)

Another blow for humanity: Son of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos wins presidential election in the Philippines. (AP 5/10)

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