Lindsey Leistad

UNK’22

[kuz @kylekuzma]

Thirty years of women fighting to get this league built, and the question on the table this week is what a woman is. Needing a committee to find that answer is a disservice to every girl who was told this league was for her.

[Sydney Supple @Sydney_Supple]

Delainey Everett just had the quote of the post season, “an underdog is still a DAWG!”

Everett’s first complete game of her career was handing Oklahoma’s first shutout since 2019.

She did it on her parent’s wedding anniversary in honor of her father who passed away last year. Sports are special.🥹

[Shelby Hilliard @ShelbyCHilliard]

Jordy Frahm, what a story. Left the OU dynasty to rebuild her home program.

Tears her ACL two innings into her first season there in 2024.

Loses in Gm 3 of the Super Regionals in 2025.

Wins it at home in her senior year to get Nebraska to their first WCWS since 2013. SPORTS!

[Rhiannon Potkey @RPotkey]

This is what it’s all about. Pinch hitter Katie Hoffman with a two-run single for @SDCoyotesSB to tie the game 4-4 in the 7th.

The emotion from her and the coach saying “I’m so proud of you.”

[Anish Moonka @anishmoonka]

Orcas eat great white sharks. They hunt seals, dolphins, and baby whales. They have never killed a single human in the open ocean. Not once, in all of recorded history.

An orca's brain weighs up to 15 pounds. Yours weighs about 3. They have roughly double the brain cells we do in the regions that handle complex thought. A neuroscientist at Emory named Lori Marino put an orca brain in an MRI and found these animals can tell different species apart underwater. They do it by sending out clicks that bounce off everything around them and come back as a kind of 3D sound map (this is called echolocation). From 500 feet away, an orca knows you're a human and not a seal. It skips you on purpose.

The answer is culture. Orcas around the world are divided into at least 10 separate populations, each with its own food rules, its own language, and its own way of hunting. All of it learned from their mothers. One population eats only fish. Another eats only marine mammals like seals and sea lions. These two populations can live in the exact same water and never swap a single meal. A baby orca learns what food is from its mother, and that list stays the same for life.

In the Pacific Northwest, one population called the Southern Residents eats almost nothing but Chinook salmon. Scientists have documented them killing harbor porpoises 78 times over six decades, carrying the dead porpoises in their mouths, and never once eating them. Even when the group was starving. A 2023 study in Marine Mammal Science looked at all 78 cases and concluded it was play. These orcas would rather go hungry than eat something their culture says isn't food.

Researchers studying whale behavior in 2001 found that orca cultural traditions "appear to have no parallel outside humans." Each family group has its own dialect, its own version of the language. Calves spend about two years just learning how to make all the sounds their family uses. Mothers will slow down a hunt on purpose so their young can watch.

In 2005, a 12-year-old kid was swimming in Helm Bay, Alaska when an orca came at him full speed. At the very last second, the orca seemed to realize it was charging a human. It bent its entire body in half and turned back to open water. In captivity, it goes differently. SeaWorld's Tilikum killed three people during his life in a concrete tank. Research from 2016, published in the journal Animals, traced it to psychological collapse from being locked away from the family bonds orcas need to stay stable.

I think calling this a "mystery" undersells the science. Orcas decide what to eat based on culture, not instinct. No orca mother has ever taught her calf to hunt humans, so no orca hunts humans. Only about 75 of those salmon-eating Southern Residents are still alive. Their pregnancy failure rate is 69% because we've destroyed their salmon runs. They won't break their food culture to survive. Whether we care enough to protect theirs is the part that actually matters.

[SMB Attorney @SMB_Attorney]

With a week to reflect, I’m convinced this was the greatest moment in sports history.

A 2-star recruit leads the worst program ever to a national championship, beats his hometown team that wouldn’t let him walk on, and finishes it by running over the same guy who knocked him out the year before, with his mother battling MS watching from the stands.

If it was a Disney movie, you’d say it was too much.

[DKelly 🇺🇸🦅🇺🇸 @1Nicdar]

130 schools said no.
He led the losingest program in college football history to a national championship anyway.
Fernando Mendoza was a 2-star recruit from Miami.

He tried to walk on at his hometown school. They passed.
So did FIU.
So did FAU.
So did everyone else.

At 17, he was sitting in his bedroom, crying over a silent recruiting inbox—after driving to 18 camps with his dad and sending highlights to more than 100 programs.
Not one FBS offer.
His only option? Yale. No scholarship. No NFL path.

Everyone told him to be “realistic.”
“Know your place.”
“Be grateful.”
He didn’t listen.
Because Mendoza understood something most people miss:
The worst outcome isn’t failing.
It’s never getting the chance to try.

Two weeks before signing day in 2022, his phone rang.
Cal needed a body. One offer. Out of 134 schools.
He took it.
He arrived as the third-string quarterback.
Spent a year on the scout team.
Lost his first four starts.
Got sacked 41 times behind a broken offensive line.

Still got up. Every time.
Then Cal brought in a transfer instead of building around him.
So Mendoza left the only school that had ever said yes.
He transferred to Indiana—the losingest program in college football history.

People laughed.
“Career suicide.”
“Graveyard program.”
“Nobody wins there.”
One coach told him something different:
“I’m going to make you the best Fernando Mendoza possible.”
That was enough.
Mendoza wasn’t just playing for football.
His mother has battled multiple sclerosis for 18 years.

Before every snap, he thought of her.
“My mother is my why.”
Indiana went 16–0.
Beat six Top-10 teams.
Won their first Big Ten title since 1945.
Mendoza threw 41 touchdowns.
Won the Heisman—first in school history.
First Cuban-American to ever do it.

Then came the title game.
Miami. Near his hometown.
Fourth-and-4. Season on the line.
Quarterback draw.
The kid 134 schools rejected spun through defenders and dove into the end zone.

Game over.
Indiana—national champions.
The losingest program became the best team in America.
All because a 17-year-old refused to believe “no” was the end.

Rankings don’t decide your ceiling.
Gatekeepers don’t write your ending.
Being overlooked isn’t a verdict—it’s a starting point.

Sometimes all you need is one shot…
and the courage to bet on yourself when nobody else will.
Don’t quit.

Credit: Barclay Mullins

[Lyndsey Fifield @lyndseyfifield]

On Wednesday afternoon 25-year-old Caitlin Stup was on her way to work at Sweetgreen in Houston when Brayden Smith boarded the bus and spotted gang rival Patrick Scott.

Smith was out on probation for attempting to commit aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon.

Scott was out on reduced bond for aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon.

They began shooting at each other (with guns they're not legally allowed to have). They missed each other entirely and instead shot Caitlin in the head—killing her.

Smith has been charged with the murder, but Scott faces only a misdemeanor charge of unlawful carrying of a weapon.

And not a single major media outlet has covered this story.

[Collin Rugg @CollinRugg]

NEW: Father of 22-year-old woman who was brutally killed by a career criminal, absolutely unleashes during a House hearing against soft-on-crime policies.

"[He] dragged her out of bed naked, forced on her knees with her hands over her head ... BANG! Dead. Gone."

"Why? Because Alexander Davante Dickey, who was arrested 39 godd*mn times, 25 felonies, was on the street..."

Logan Federico was visiting friends at the University of South Carolina on May 3 when career criminal Alexander Dickey, 30, broke in and shot her before stealing her credit cards and going on a shopping spree.

Dickey had 39 previous arrests and 25 felonies.

Everyone responsible for keeping this man on the streets should be thrown in prison.

[Johnny St.Pete @JohnMcCloy]

🔥WOW. Erika Kirk was texting Riley Gaines about a gift for her upcoming baby the morning prior to the assassination and @Riley_Gaines_ flew all the way from Tennessee to Arizona on her due date to be at Charlie Kirk’s Memorial.
Riley laughs about the notion of her water breaking while at Charlie’s service and the legacy that Charlie left to GET MARRIED & HAVE KIDS.

[Naomi Seibt @NaomiSeibt]

Charlie Kirk introducing his fiancée Erika on the show for the first time is the best clip on the internet right now.

THIS is what I want every liberal monster and legacy media LIAR who defamed Charlie to see.

THIS is worth fighting for!!! 👇

[Charlie Kirk @charliekirk11]

If we want things to change, it's 100% necessary to politicize the senseless murder of Iryna Zarutska because it was politics that allowed a savage monster with 14 priors to be free on the streets to kill her.

[ali @duartconrad]

grieving

[Erika Kirk @MrsErikaKirk]

Psalm 46:1 - God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

[Charlie Kirk @charliekirk11]

It’s all about Jesus.

[David J Harris Jr @DavidJHarrisJr]

CAUGHT ON TAPE: Texas A&M student kicked out of class after objecting to a transgender lesson, citing her faith and Trump’s executive order.

This is what courage looks like! We need more of this. 👏

https://t.co/r7aFZulgr9

[Riley Gaines @Riley_Gaines_]

🚨HUGE !!!! President Trump has signed an EO ordering the immediate halting of chemical castration & genital mutilation for minors.

TRUMP: “I will declare that any hospital or healthcare provider that participates in the chemical or physical mutilation of minor youth no longer meets federal health and safety standards—they will be terminated from receiving federal funds effective immediately.”

[Shipwreck @shipwreckshow]

How have I NOT seen this video until today... damn.

Dear Nike

[Dan Zaksheske @RealDanZak]

WOW. Boise State announced that it will forfeit its semifinal match against SJSU and transgender Blaire Fleming, ending its own season to protest against biological male athletes in women's sports. This is MONUMENTAL.

[Ralph Avallone @The_Captain1968]

A Tragic Loss Demands Accountability

Yesterday afternoon, as snow began to fall in Swannanoa, North Carolina, a husband, wife, and their 18-month-old baby were finally given a glimmer of hope after enduring months in a tent on their property. Their home, destroyed by Hurricane Helene, left them with no shelter until a donated RV arrived to provide warmth and safety.

However, at 5 p.m., a repossession truck arrived, seizing the donated RV and leaving this family with no choice but to return to the freezing tent in the middle of a snowstorm. That night, temperatures plummeted, and this young couple woke to the unimaginable tragedy of their baby’s death from hypothermia.

To FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell, President Joe Biden, Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and Governor Roy Cooper: the blood of this innocent child is on your hands. Your inaction, mismanagement, and negligence have directly contributed to this tragedy. You have failed the American people, and justice demands that you are held accountable.

This is not hearsay or exaggeration. Leaders from four collaborative organizations, along with a team from one of my own organizations, were there to witness and confirm this heartbreaking event.

It’s time for us to rise and demand change. Peaceful protests are already being organized at the Governor’s Mansion to shine a light on this gross failure of leadership. If you are ready to join this fight for justice, private message me here on X.

We must force our government to serve the will of the people—not abandon them in their hour of need. This child’s death must not be in vain.
@thinktankfranks @DisrespectedThe