Matt Dearmond

@KySportsRadio WHO GIVES A SHIT Great, the country got to watch us squeal by a West Coast Conference team and get boatraced by a school that hasn’t been to a Final Four since WWII.

Kentucky-Iowa State was the 2nd most watched game of the second round of the NCAA Tourney (behind Kansas-St Johns) And Kentucky-Santa Clara was the 2nd most watched game of the First round (behind Duke-Siena)

Can’t recruit, can’t develop, horrible medical staff, disgusting substitute patterns, misuse of timeouts, can’t adapt, analytics are wrong, terrible at media interaction, and we’re about to see that he can’t retain players either. What does Pope do well?

What a flurry of information rolling out of UK recently concerning athletics. Always begging for money, yet spending it like it’s wedding rice. Heads need to roll over there. They’re fleecing Kentuckians from Paducah to Virgie. 10 free home basketball/football tickets for life?

It’s really hard to hear people give the “if their two best players didn’t get hurt” excuse for Kentucky. Their best player/transfer was literally coming off of a torn ACL late last season and they still spent a ton of money to bring him in! That’s a roster choice not bad luck.

@RowlandRIVALS @MrsTylerKSR No shit. Because you targeted and signed 2 guys with serious health issues.

When asked about "the $22 million roster" Mark Pope said Kentucky never got to play the team it planned. A shorter bench had to play a different way. Read what Pope and players had to say after the game. on3.com/sites/kentucky…

@DrewFranklinKSR baldy’s name is Kip Kissinger and apparently he’s friends with your favorite Plaintiff-referee omahamagazine.com/uncategorized/…

@TJWalkerRadio Baldy’s name is Kip Kissinger and he’s apparently buddies with Higgins omahamagazine.com/uncategorized/…

WEIRD. Iowa State played incredible defense during its comeback, but now that it has its biggest lead of the game, the officials have suddenly decided they’re fouling a lot. Did the players completely change how they’re playing, or could it maybe be something else?

@KySportsRadio The ref’s name is Kip Kissinger and he’s friends with your boy Higgins: omahamagazine.com/uncategorized/…

I was very close to talking trash to a referee from press row so I decided it was my time to exit the building

Apparently, you're now allowed to kick the ball into the stands.

This is a technical foul in every league at every level

Why bother playing the games when so many officials are obviously compromised by gambling interests?

Investigate the refs

Stangs

@KySportsRadio “But we’re still THE NEEDLE” he screams into the abyss as Kentucky loses another NIT game

Still (along with Duke) the needle, even in down times

@KySportsRadio It’s literally a fact and it’s loser mentally to call that “talking trash.” We’re irrelevant.

Golden talks all the trash

@KySportsRadio I’m assuming you’re just copying and pasting that first sentence given how many times it’s happened. This is unacceptable. Period. Any rationalization of it is accepting mediocrity.

This is a really bad loss for Kentucky. Just can’t lose games like this at home With the schedule they have ahead, it also puts the possibility of not making the Tournament back in play

This video should unsettle anyone who takes the United States seriously as a nation. Because it exposes something dangerous: the trivialization of the world's most consequential office. It shows how carelessly the power, credibility, and accumulated moral authority of a superpower can be squandered for a few seconds of viral attention. In any other major democracy, this behavior from a head of state would trigger a constitutional crisis. Paris would burn. Berlin would convene emergency sessions. In the Nordic countries, resignation would follow within hours. Across functioning democracies, the public, institutions, and political class would recognize this for what it is: an assault on the dignity of the state itself. Leaders are not free to perform as entertainers without consequence. National honor is not personal property, it's held in trust. But the United States is not just another country with a provocateur in charge. It is the linchpin of global order. It maintains formal alliances and security guarantees with forty to fifty nations. It underwrites the financial architecture, trade systems, and diplomatic frameworks that billions of people depend on daily. When the American president speaks—or posts—it doesn't land as satire, meme, or personal whim. It reads as a signal about what the country is becoming. American power has never relied solely on carrier strike groups or economic output. It has rested on something more fragile and more valuable: trust. The belief that beneath domestic turbulence lies institutional seriousness, predictability, and a baseline commitment to dignity. That belief is now disintegrating in real time. Millions of American companies operate globally. They negotiate multibillion-dollar contracts in environments where reputation is currency. Boardrooms in Frankfurt, Singapore, and Dubai aren't debating whether a post was clever—they're asking whether the United States remains a reliable partner. Whether agreements signed today will be honored tomorrow. Whether American leadership has devolved from institutional to purely theatrical. Consider tourism, which sustains millions of American jobs—airlines, hotels, restaurants, museums, entire regional economies. Soft power isn't an abstraction. It materializes in flight bookings, conference locations, study-abroad programs, and decades of accumulated goodwill. A quiet, decentralized boycott doesn't require government action—only a collective sense that a nation no longer respects itself. Now picture this image being studied by foreign ministers, central bank governors, defense strategists, and sovereign wealth fund managers. Picture them asking a coldly rational question: How do we write binding thirty-year agreements with a country whose public face will be this, relentlessly, for years to come? How do we plan for the long term when the tone is impulsive, mocking, and unbound by the gravity of office? This is where the real calculus begins. Trillions in foreign capital depend on confidence that America is stable, credible, and rule-governed. That confidence is now being traded for what, exactly? Applause from an online mob? A dopamine rush from manufactured outrage? Content designed to dominate the news cycle rather than serve the national interest? Every serious nation eventually confronts this choice: burn long-term credibility for short-term spectacle, or safeguard the reputation previous generations bled to build. The United States spent eighty years constructing an image of reliability, restraint, and leadership under pressure. That image wasn't born from perfection—it came from a visible commitment to standards that transcended impulse. This isn't a partisan issue. Europeans who value democratic norms recognize something ominously familiar here. Americans—Democrat and Republican alike—who believe in responsibility and restraint should see it too. Power attracts scrutiny. Leadership demands discipline. A superpower cannot behave like a reality TV contestant without paying a price. The presidency is not a personal broadcast channel. It's a symbol carried on behalf of 330 million people and countless international partners who never voted but whose lives are shaped by American decisions anyway. Every post either reinforces or erodes the idea that America can be counted on when it matters most. So the question is no longer whether this is offensive. The question is whether this is who America chooses to be: a nation that trades a century of hard-won reputation for viral moments. A country that replaces statecraft with content creation. A republic governed like a season of reality television. History offers a harsh lesson here. Great powers don't fall because enemies mock them. They collapse when they begin mocking themselves—publicly, proudly, and without grasping the cost until it's far too late. Stay connected, Follow Gandalv @Microinteracti1

Yesterday I published the piece below and some folks said it was alarmist evidence of TDS (how anyone could say that after Jan. 6 boggles the mind). And today Trump says Republicans should take over the voting in multiple places. We're still too complacent. nytimes.com/2026/02/01/opi…

A large masked man who is surrounded by armed backup shooting a lone and panicked woman in the face in broad daylight is such an insane visual metaphor for this administration’s overall disproportionate use of force