The WNBA doesn't market--Caitlin Clark?! Why would the WNBA refuse to market its most revenue-producing talent?

 Mike McDaniel 

. . . "Could the resentment and the assaults be due to anti-white racism and the fact that Clark isn’t a lesbian? Clark’s presence in the league has dramatically raised the salaries of every player and equally dramatically increased the exposure of women’s professional basketball, yet the league and her own team seem determined to undermine her and, in so doing, undermine women’s basketball.

. . . "Outkick’s Clay Travis is right. This is marketing 101. You bring fans into the stands by marketing your stars, or in this case, the star, the young woman who has single-handedly made the WNBA a sort of going concern.

"And how has the League treated her? They’ve all but openly encouraged not fouls, but assaults on Caitlin Clark, which have resulted in multiple injuries, and now her own team is snubbing their number one draw—it’s not even close—in their marketing. That doesn’t mean you never feature other players, just that you have a clear, and fiscally responsible, sense of who puts posteriors in the stands.

And how did the featured Raven Johnson do? Not well:

Thrust into the spotlight as the unexpected "poster child" for the Fever in the WNBA’s promotional rollout, Johnson’s on-court production miserably failed to match her sudden marketing billing.

In 17 minutes of action off the bench, Johnson failed to register a single point, dropping a giant goose egg on the stat sheet.

While her defensive energy contributed to the team’s depth, a scoreless night highlighted the utter absurdity of the league elevating a backup guard over the most prolific scorer in basketball history, especially on a night when the team was already missing its star center.

"That’s right.  The Fever, missing its star center, Clark picked up some of the rebounding slack.

"The WNBA and Indiana Fever don’t have to listen to me. I’m not a noted and read sports writer, and particularly not a fan of women’s basketball, but I do pay attention to cultural issues, and this sort of treatment of a woman who is already playing a major role in the history of women’s sports is worth examining." . . .More...

"Critical thinking is not merely a buzzword. It is an essential tool that children must learn at an early age."

From Tying Shoes to Artificial Intelligence - Eileen F. Toplansky

"In fact, states are at long last now reintroducing cursive handwriting because it appears to boost brain development, reading comprehension, and fine motor skills. As of 2026, New Jersey districts require cursive handwriting instruction."

. . . "Of particular note is the finding that students who “used ChatGPT as a study aid retained significantly less knowledge 45 days after instruction than students who studied without it (Barcaui, 2025). Thus, short-term performance gains masked long-term learning deficits. 

"So, from tying shoes to the exponential growth of AI, we need to consider how well we are creating critical thinkers. In far too many instances, AI actually shortcuts the critical learning process, i.e., brainstorming, drafting, revising, justifying.

"If in the learning process, AI generates the product, the student loses the important steps of knowledge attainment because the effort has been removed as a consequence of the machines doing the work.

"Also, as Eng points out “[i]t is also worth remembering that AI developers have profit motives that have nothing to do with improving student learning. The enthusiasm of technology companies should not be mistaken for evidence of pedagogical effectiveness.”

"Children need to be exposed to the steps of learning. Instead, we are creating mental passivity and cognitive apathy. Passive acceptance without active thought creates boredom, which, in turn, creates a lack of desire to engage mentally.

"Critical Thinking is not merely a buzzword. It is an essential tool that children must learn at an early age. In the digital age, far too much is being done by machines.

Children deserve the right to discern for themselves; they need the challenge of discovery and the exhilaration of accomplishment.

"How do we create a balance? Are we cheating the children in our quest for increased technology?"

Check out Eileen’s new book titled Won Ton is Not Now Backwards. Available at Amazon, it is a collection of very short stories, and is a book that parents, grandparents, speech therapists and young people will find useful and most importantly enjoyable.

Wacky birds whack Cornyn

Don Surber   

"The media is lying when it frames the issue as Trump’s revenge against perceived enemies. This is MAGA voters flushing the commode. The electorate has had it with politicians who promise voters everything but give them Dem Lite."

. . . "Well, he is. The party has nominated Trump for president three consecutive times. In 2016, he ran on building the wall; Cornyn and company blocked him. In 2024, Trump ran on deportations; Cornyn and company won’t fund it.

"The Kool-Aid swilling media spin on Republicans choosing Paxton over Cornyn is this will elect Democrat James Talarico to the Senate.

"On CNN, Scott Jennings and Xochitl Hinojosa traded words.

HINOJOSA: Talarico is well funded. Talarico will continue to raise money, but it’s interesting to me that now Republicans have to worry about deep red Texas because they have a flawed candidate who does not know how to raise. And you’re now seeing that currently play out.
JENNINGS: All these analysis of this race and sort of the differences between what a Cornyn or a Paxton would look like here. I’m thinking about the differences between Talarico and LITERALLY every other Texan.

I don’t know any Texans who believe in six genders other than Talarico. Don’t know any Texans who said it’s immoral to eat meat other than Talarico. Don’t know any Texans who walk around saying things you know God is non-binary. You all are both Texans. Do you know ANY other Texan who even talks like that?

Issues aside, who says these things out loud? When this gets adjudicated, all that money coming in from California and New York, it will be well spent in Texas.

"Establishment Republicans see Trump and his voters—wacky birds as John McCain called them—as a threat to their very existence.

"For 10 years they weren’t. Now they are." . . . More...

All Democrats Boycott JD Vance's Anti-Fraud Roundtable, Because They're the Party of Looters and Shooters;

A reminder from last week: the Trump Administration charged 15 Minnesota Men for pillaging $90 million from American citizens.

AF Branco

 Ace of Spades HQ  . . . "A big source of fraud consists of paying off corrupt, criminal parents to take their children to a corrupt doctor to get a fake autism diagnosis. Then they get fraudulent benefits, and scammers bilk the taxpayers out of huge sums of money providing non-services to non-autistic children.

"Today's arrests mark the largest autism fraud bust in American history," said HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. "Under the leadership of President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance, this Administration is carrying out the most aggressive anti-fraud effort in modern American history. These criminals exploited vulnerable children, stole taxpayer dollars, and diverted critical autism care and resources away from families who truly need support, and we will continue rooting out fraud to protect children and restore integrity to America's public health programs."

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