McCook Minion 🇺🇦

Libertarian with morals. Pay the athletes fair market value. I like snark. Senior Fellow, McCook Institute. 2006 TIME Magazine Person of the Year.

[Scott Strasemeier @ScottStras]

This is exactly what happened. Cavalli is the real loser here not Contreras

[George Howard @GhowardIV]

@georgewrighster “Don’t let your kid become a full-time athlete before they become a full-time person“… You spitin, brother 🔥

[Michigan Men's Basketball @umichbball]

Thank you, Dusty!

64 wins.
🏆 2025 Big Ten Tournament Champions
🏆 2026 Big Ten Champions
🏆 2026 National Champions

Thanks for two unforgettable seasons and for helping bring a national championship back to Ann Arbor.

Forever part of the Michigan Basketball family.

#GoBlue

[McCook Minion 🇺🇦 @mccook2002]

I'm sweating just watching this.

[SPEED on FOX @SPEEDonFOX]

What. A. Save. 😳

IG: dannyaitken42

[Gandalv @Microinteracti1]

I love this exchange between people travelling to America and the way America answers back.

A German bloke called Fiago posts a map of the United States, colours in the five places he has been, and asks one innocent question: where should he go next?

Within a few hours, two thousand people have turned up to answer, and not a single one of them agrees with any of the others.

What follows is possibly the most American thing I have ever witnessed, which is a few thousand strangers trying to win an argument about their own country on behalf of a man they have never met.

Because here is the thing about Americans, and they will be the first to tell you. Every single one of them lives in the one good state. Theirs is the real America, the true America, the part you simply must see. The state next door, meanwhile, is a place of mild suspicion, and the state two doors down is frankly a lost cause full of people who do everything wrong, vote the wrong way, and cannot even barbecue properly.

So the replies pour in, each one quietly convinced it holds the only correct answer.

Go to Arizona and Utah for the rock formations, says one, and do Sedona and the Grand Canyon while you are at it. Skip the cities entirely, says another, because the South between Texas and the Appalachians is a whole other culture and the soul of the place lives in the little towns.

Someone insists on Gatlinburg, Tennessee, which is gloriously kitsch, very Americana, and throws in bears, elk and deer at no extra charge. Several others gently warn the German to avoid the parts of the country they personally disapprove of, with the warmth of someone steering you away from a restaurant that gave them food poisoning.

And then there is Texas. Oh, there is Texas. "COME TO TEXAS we will give you BBQ and love." "Ya'll come on down, it's like a whole other country." "Come to Texas bud. Maybe not Houston though." They arrive in formation, hats first, promising to treat a visiting German like a king, and the unsettling part is that I think they genuinely would.

Now, before any European reads this and feels superior, let me stop you, because we are exactly the same. We just do it on a slightly grander stage.

We start at continent level, where the whole of Europe is convinced it is the civilised one and that the Americans are charming but a bit much.

Then we zoom in, and suddenly it is country against country, and everyone knows the people across that particular border are doing life wrong. Zoom in again and it is city against city. Paris looks down on Manchester, and Paris also looks down on Lyon, which takes some doing. Then we reach the towns, where the entire personality of a place is built on the unshakeable belief that the farmers in the next village along are completely barking and that you should come to our lovely spot instead. And if you go all the way down, right to the bottom, you will find two thousand people in a hamlet so small it barely registers on a map, warning visitors not to bother with the northern end of the village, because honestly, the people up there are so terribly pleased with themselves.

So no, this is not an American thing. It is a human thing, and the politics draped over everything at the moment is just the loud bit on top. Lift that off, and underneath you find what was always there on both sides of the ocean: a couple of million warm, funny, faintly competitive people whose deepest instinct is to feed a stranger and show him where they grew up.

Which is why my honest reaction, reading all of it, is that I just want to gather the whole gang. The Texans, the Tennesseans, the Arizona rock-formation evangelists, the people from the good end of the village. Sit them all at one absurdly long table, give them a proper meal and an even more proper party, and once the arguing has worn itself out, tell them the next round is on us.

Come to Europe. We owe you one.

[Ryan Hunter-Reay @RyanHunterReay]

Devastating in so many ways. Lost a true friend, leader, fierce competitor, family man. He embodied the essence of pure passion for the Indy 500 and IndyCar. My thoughts below… his legacy lives on.

[McCook Minion 🇺🇦 @mccook2002]

That's a load of crap.

[Bob Pockrass @bobpockrass]

The INDYCAR Officiating postrace report is out for WWTR.

As far as Siegel-Palou contact:

"Following review of multiple video sources, the Stewards determined that Car 6 was primarily responsible for the contact with Car 10."

Can be downloaded here: https://t.co/iPxmRXmTQk

[McCook Minion 🇺🇦 @mccook2002]

@coachspeak_pod @coachPJGibbs @RaeCrowther @R4FBCHAT @ProQuickDrawPQD @Coach_JBolton @_Coach_Martin_ This was a great episode.

[INDYCAR Radio Powered by OnlyBulls @IndyCarRadio]

Restart has been aborted with rain picking up again.

#INDYCAR
#Bommarito500

[McCook Minion 🇺🇦 @mccook2002]

@DLand91 If he's not penalized, it's gonna be hard to defend agains the favoritism allegations.

[McCook Minion 🇺🇦 @mccook2002]

@tyler_allen @Team_Penske @astemoglobal @josefnewgarden @smclaughlin93 @deximaging @Verizon @malukasdavid Man, isn't THAT the truth.
It's terrible, but had aura. I always thought the Penske cars in the Marlboro livery were the most distinctive and intimidating of the era.

[🏁 Cassie @mama_gforce]

Oh hello beautiful 😍😍😍

[David Land™❌ @DLand91]

Absolutely sensational.

[McCook Minion 🇺🇦 @mccook2002]

Um, have you heard of ANYTHING about Ken Paxton?
Or Donald Trump for that matter.

[Chloe Crawford @ChloeCrawford03]

James Talarico had an inappropriate relationship with his staffer — who is almost a decade younger than him — and abused his power in the Texas leg to score her a taxpayer-funded job.

Who’s surprised?

[McCook Minion 🇺🇦 @mccook2002]

Didn't even need help from Will Power this time.

[NTT INDYCAR SERIES @IndyCar]

Turn 1 bites 😬

Kyle Kirkwood's No. 27 sustains right-rear damage after a collision with the wall.

[Will Buxton @wbuxtonofficial]

If you had one shot, one opportunity, to seize everything you ever wanted, in one moment…

[McCook Minion 🇺🇦 @mccook2002]

I root for the Penske drivers, but that was a fantastic race.

[McCook Minion 🇺🇦 @mccook2002]

Agreed.

[McCook Minion 🇺🇦 @mccook2002]

Agreed.

[Aaron Bearden @aaronbearden93]

That’s got to be one of the best Indy 500s ever, right?

Unreal from start to finish. Record number of lead changes. Closest finish ever.

[McCook Minion 🇺🇦 @mccook2002]

Malukas, man. Gut wrenching.

[McCook Minion 🇺🇦 @mccook2002]

Thought for sure Malukas had it. What else could he have done!