Dear Joe,
I wish I could sit down with you face to face and explain why so many of us were offended by the UFC fight on the South Lawn of the White House.
For me, it had nothing to do with the UFC or who showed up for the fights. The brand you and Dana have built is a bona fide American success story. More power to you. As for the fighters, in my book, anyone brave enough to put it all on the line in the arena is remarkable to witness. Their dedication and discipline inspire me. I don’t understand anyone who can’t admire that.
And as for the people who attended, I, for one, love Shane Gillis. I think he’s hilarious and brilliant. It was a show. A once-in-a-lifetime spectacle. I can’t blame anyone for wanting to witness it firsthand.
My problem is that I believe some of our public spaces are sacred. And unlike many of the great powers that came before us, these American monuments belong to all of us. Not to whoever happens to hold power at the moment.
The White House does not belong to Donald Trump. It does not belong to any President. It belongs to the people. To treat it as Caesar treated the Colosseum is antithetical to everything our founding fathers fought for.
This is not Rome. Presidents are not emperors doling out bread and circuses for the peasants. The White House is the People’s House. This “celebration” could have happened in any stadium within a stone’s throw of the South Lawn. No one would have had an issue with it.
But that was obviously Donald Trump’s whole point. By holding the event on the South Lawn, what he was saying to the rest of us is:
“This is my house. I own it. I will do with it what I please. I’ll build a colosseum and have the gladiators fight under my gaze. I’ll tear down the East Wing. I’ll pave over the Rose Garden. I’ll cover everything in gold and marble. I’ll erase the names of all the men who came before me.”
The fights were an exhibition of imperial domination, not a celebration of our 250th anniversary as a democracy.
The White House is not Buckingham Palace. It is not the Palace of Versailles. It is not the Forbidden City of Beijing. It does not belong to an emperor, or a king, or a commissar.
The White House belongs to us. All of us. The person who sits behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office is nothing more than an honored guest. A temporary caretaker.
The President is our servant. Not our Caesar.
Respectfully, Hunter
P.S. Cage match between me and Don Jr.? Your call on the venue. Anywhere but the South Lawn.
The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate today: 6.75%
Same day last year: 6.99%
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10-year Treasury yield today: 4.66%
Spread today: 209 bps
The first season in the Ken Holland experience was an abject failure everyone but team shills saw coming. One of the least enjoyable seasons I can remember as a fan. Good riddance to the 2025-26 #LAKings season. #GoKingsGo
Not sure anyone ever played goal better than Jonathan Quick played in the 2012 playoffs. It was like Patrick Roy in 1993, Ken Dryden in 1971, Bernie Parent before that. Congrats on retirement to a crusty three-time champion.
Dodgers pitcher Alex Vesia is wearing a custom glove with the name of his late newborn daughter Sterling Sol Vesia on it, along with her birthday and the letter K on the ring finger for his wife Kayla
His newborn daughter passed away two days after the start of the World Series last year
Scientists put kids through 100 hours of reading, then scanned their brains. New wiring had physically grown inside the language regions. Communication between brain areas sped up by a factor of 10. Kids who didn't read showed zero change.
That was a 2009 Carnegie Mellon study. It gets wilder.
In 2013, Emory University scanned 19 students every morning for 19 straight days while they read one novel chapter each night. Mornings after reading, the brain areas responsible for understanding other people's emotions lit up with new connections. So did the region that processes physical sensation. Their brains were simulating what the characters felt, as if it were happening to them. Those changes stuck around for 5 days after they finished the book.
Now flip to scrolling. A massive review published in Psychological Bulletin last September pulled together 71 studies covering 98,299 people. Heavy short-form video use (TikTok, Reels, Shorts) showed a clear pattern: worse attention, weaker self-control, and more anxiety. Consistent across teenagers and adults, across every platform tested. Oxford didn't name "brain rot" its 2024 Word of the Year for nothing.
A 2024 brain wave study found that people hooked on short-form video had weaker activity in the front of the brain, the part that controls focus and impulse control. Separate brain scans showed the same thing: heavy scrollers had less activation in the exact regions that deep reading strengthens.
UCLA neuroscientist Maryanne Wolf has been studying this for decades. Humans were never born to read. There's no gene for it. Reading is something we invented, and it hijacked neurons that were originally meant for recognizing faces. Over time, it built entirely new brain circuits connecting language, vision, and emotion. But those circuits only survive if you use them. Stop reading, and they fade. Wolf's conclusion is simple: screens built for speed produce a speed-wired brain. Books built for depth produce a depth-wired brain.
One honest caveat: most of these studies are snapshots, not long-term tracking. People who already struggle to focus might just prefer short videos. But the same pattern showing up across nearly 100,000 people is hard to shrug off.
The tweet repeats the line seven times. The research backs it up with brain scans, EEG data, and white-matter imaging across tens of thousands of people.
We witnessed one of the most amazing moments you'll ever see at a high school event tonight at Schneider Arena.
Colin Dorgan, who lost his mother, brother & grandfather in the Lynch Arena shooting last month, scores a 2OT game-winner to send his team to the @RIIL_sports D-II championship game.
Incredible resilience from this young man & this BVS team.
Fortunate to call this emotional moment with Marty Crowley tonight on the NFHS Network.
@SRASaints@PCDAthletics@Fic27
This is a crazy storyline in USL Championship. Cristo Fernández is likely signing with El Paso Locomotive. Yes, the actor who played Dani Rojas in Ted Lasso. Can’t wait to see how this one plays out.
This is Nazgul. A 2-year-old Czechoslovakian Wolfdog who escaped his enclosure at the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics cross-country sprint in Italy. Decided to join the racers, sprinted alongside the pros, and crossed the finish line unharmed.
🇺🇸 ICE persigue a manifestante de Minneapolis mientras se desliza cuesta abajo, sentado en una silla de escritorio y vestido de "fuck you" 🤣
https://t.co/SsdMkvpDs3
After a certain age, your parents slowly become your children.
They ask simple questions, repeat stories, and depend on your patience the way you once depended on theirs. Very few understand this role reversal. What looks like innocence or inconvenience is really time coming full circle. Don’t correct them harshly. Don’t rush them. Care for them the way they once protected you. This is not a burden. It is repayment, quietly wrapped as love.