Free Republic

Anyone who thinks this ends what the left is doing is deluded. This is merely the beginning of whatever phase 2 turns out to be.

It’s barely the second half of March. This is all going to get far more out of hand as we approach November.

If she seizes Trump’s property, which I now imagine she will (because Trump is weighing his limited options and is very deftly maneuvering her toward this result), she adds substantial further proof of her epic, over-the-top stupidity.

I am ever the optimist. All of these measures from the left are evidence of deep and growing desperation. They are losing badly as the general election clock starts to wind down.

Mitch’s endorsement was the biggest event by far in an eventful political week. It’s getting much too little attention.

“She’s lying.

She’ll drop after SC.”

Agreed

A “*” identifies the 4 out of 18 Republican senators who face any substantial accountability to voters. The rest can ride out their terms and retire peacefully to their assisted learning facilities.

Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) – 70 yo, facing re-election in 2026
Bill Cassidy (R-LA) – 66 yo, facing re-election in 2026
Susan Collins (R-ME) – 71 yo, facing re-election in 2026
John Cornyn (R-TX) – 72 yo, facing re-election in 2026
*Joni Ernst (R-IA) – 53 yo, facing re-election in 2026
Chuck Grassley (R-IA) – 90 yo, facing re-election in 2028
John Kennedy (R-LA) – 72 yo, facing re-election in 2028
Mitch McConnell (R-KY) – 81 yo, facing re-election in 2026
Jerry Moran (R-KS) – 69 yo, facing re-election in 2028
*Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) – 46 yo, facing re-election in 2026
Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) – 66 yo, facing re-election in 2028
Mitt Romney (R-UT) – 76 yo, retiring
Mike Rounds (R-SD) – 69 yo, facing re-election in 2026
*Dan Sullivan (R-AK) – 59 yo, facing re-election in 2026
John Thune (R-SD) – 63 yo, facing re-election in 2028
Thom Tillis (R-NC) – 63 yo, facing re-election in 2026
Roger Wicker (R-MS) – 72 yo, facing re-election this year
*Todd Young (R-IN) – 51 yo, facing re-election in 2028

I do not dislike Nikki Haley in any way.

But ... With these comments she has very likely ruled herself out from holding public office ever again. She knew Kristen Welker would be trapping her with this line of questioning and she was 100% unprepared. Even if what she actually said reflects how she actually feels, she had to have known not to say it. This is wildly inept.

She’s down 30 points in SC polls coming into today. She now looks to lose her home state by 60 points, plus or minus. This will take the idea of humiliation to all new levels. If she wants to salvage some small hope of a political future, she would do well to withdraw mid-week this week and endorse Trump without conditions or reservations.

Again, I don’t dislike her and for this reason I hope she cuts her losses so as to have hope to live to see another day.

I never cease to be amazed at how popular opinion is not only systematically wrong but gobsmackingly out of date.

Assuming that DeSantis and Haley want to live to fight another day, the smart thing for each of them is to withdraw after NH and endorse Trump. Haley will do herself nearly irreparable damage going into her home state and getting 20% of the vote. Better to withdraw ahead, and I say this as a Haley voter. DeSantis too. The party’s leaders are all lined up with Trump — Cruz, Rubio, Tim Scott, etc. — because this is all so obvious by now that it should go without saying.

President Gay is not the problem. She is a scapegoat and her resignation does nothing.

She was hired by the board, which must take ownership. The board needs to retain a representative but donor-heavy group to fix things and then every board member needs to resign, no exceptions. The designated group needs not only to choose the successors but also i) address the irretrievably bad state of governance and ii) turn the university’s primary focus toward being the world’s preeminent institution of higher education and to have that demonstrated through old school metrics.

Florida State got robbed, but as this is the last year of the 4-team format, there are no precedents to worry about re: denying an undefeated team.

With this written, GA is a 2-TD favorite over FSU. TWO TOUCHDOWNS. Of course, MI would have liked to play FSU.

I write this as a Buckeye fan.

The brilliant UCLA economist Armen Alchian often asserted that the best way to evaluate a policy decision, algorithm etc was to think about the precedent it sets for the future.

The signal sent by this decision re: FSU is that going forward teams that aspire to be chosen by this ridiculous committee for the Final 4 must not only win games and their conference, they must show off how they look, meaning better than those other guys. They must run up their scores, grandstand, etc to impress. Actual winning does not matter, though 1 loss is really the cutoff.

Oh, wait. There is no precedent, since this horrifically stupid format is finally ending in favor of a 12-team playoff. Ergo, there is no way to evaluate this methodology. It is no better or worse than any other. It does not matter who gets in and who does not. Letting in FSU or GA or even those low lifes Ohio State would be just as defensible.

Let’s hope that Michigan or Washington wins, because they surely belong. TX and AL are random among a pool that includes at five equally deserving teams.

In any sane world in which today’s rules matter going forward, FSU got robbed.

The most interesting thing about demographics is how they end up locked in for decades moving forward. Radically assumptions are necessary to generate extremes, and even so the divergences take 20-30 years even to start materializing. The primary reason to extrapolate out to 50 years and beyond is because no horizon shorter than this ends up very interesting.

Next to these, the lefties insert “moderate” scenarios that give sublime results from their enlightened policies — fixing climate change, contraception and reproductive rights for all, no borders, a big rock candy mountain within 100 miles of everyone, etc. It then follows that by golly we better get busy on all of this stuff so that we don’t end up egregiously over- or under-populated ... at the end of this century.

The IHME is amazing, fantastic, beautiful by the way, if one can simply tune out the lefty noise. Their data are pretty darn comprehensive, complete, rigorous, ...

What to make of this? Looking out decades, I myself reject the extremes and see a middle ground that is not especially dependent on following one set of policy options or another. Then I focus on the next 10-15 years, as my large crew of children (ages 24 - 33) make key life decisions. The mass retirement and human capital attrition of old folks from high-income workforces in the US, Europe, Japan, Asia, etc. will create a vacuum like no one anywhere is anticipating. My over-educated and highly motivated children will have professional opportunities that astound. I lecture them relentlessly, though, not to put too much weight on their professional opportunities, because there will be even greater rewards (accruing over decades) for them in having large, talented families of their own.

Especially on issues like DEI and affirmative action, the left is gobsmackingly zero-sum over a 10- or 20-year forward-looking horizon. In fact, there will be huge returns from elevating anyone and everyone — even white men — who are talented, work hard and do good work. As us oldsters retire and die off, there will not be enough young adults to pick up the slack. The world’s mentality will have to shift to “all hands on deck,” and I am confident that it will.

I am an OSU fan from birth but have lived in Ann Arbor for 30 years. (Four family members have UM degrees.) I have followed media reports around this quite closely. There is almost no solid evidence for or against the allegations raised. It is impressive how folks are jumping to conclusions, and yes, the media is stoking it all. ESPN is especially risible.

Based on what I am hearing around town, all smoke teeny tiny fire. I do not know but would wager that Harbaugh’s extension goes through some time before the Buckeyes beat his team later this month on the gridiron. :)

There’s more attention here than is warranted to who is #1 through #3. This will sort itself out.

Who should be #4? And on what grounds? Florida State has by far the easiest path to winning out, and for this reason alone the easiest path to making the CFP. The committee is leaning into this, at least to some extent.

#5 Washington, meanwhile, is only the 2nd-best team in the PAC12 and it is not close. Washington has a last-minute home win against the best team, Oregon, and as such the committee has little choice but to put Washington in at #5. This is hugely problematic to the committee because Washington has peaked in any event and is unlikely to win out. The bottom line is that OREGON is nearly everyone’s choice to go to the CFP if any one of OSU, GA, MI or FSU falters.

I base all of this on the hypothesis that betting markets are quite efficient. The odds on FSU making the CFP are the best of any team (!!!) and yet the odds that it will end up champion ... not so much. FSU is a very, very good but not championship caliber team. The odds strongly indicate that they are a notch below Oregon.

Next, OSU — they have a relatively easy path the entire rest of the way, as most of their tough games are behind them. They win ugly ... perhaps ... but in retrospect the ND game was the only one where the final result was ever in question; the victory margins are not at all bad; and looking forward the point spreads show that gamblers see them as dominant.

WITH ONE EXCEPTION: THE OSU-MICHIGAN GAME. The UM is favored by 6 points and the Fanduel odds of Michigan rather than OSU making the CFPs, title game and national champion clearly indicate gamblers’ expectations that the UM is far superior. It is so freaking clear that the only conclusion one can draw is that the people who are putting down real money view the UM as the better of the two teams.

Georgia is Georgia. There’s not a lot to say about this team’s dominance. I will say, though, that people have written Alabama off way too early. They could give Georgia a very hard time in the SEC championship game. I take nothing away from GA — a great team — but neither GA nor MI is as invincible IMO as the gambling community thinks.

So ... for me ... 1T MI, 1T GA, 3 OSU, 4 Oregon or FSU.

Where would I put my money? Ohio State. They have just one obstacle in their way — Michigan — and all but one of their deficiencies has been resolved. The talent is best-in-country. No team has a better or more proven defense. The offense is rounding into form, with the RB room in better shape, the offensive line finally coming together, MHJr the best player in the country, and Ryan Day et al brilliant offensive schemers. Kyle McCord is the one remaining gaping hole and I see the chances as much better than even that other elements of that offense will cover up his shortcomings by enough to keep them very much in that OSU-MI game. I would not make OSU the favorite in that game, but the current odds are crazy irrationally lopsided in Michigan’s favor.

Haley does not in this video even mention bringing Palestinians into the US as refugees. Maybe that’s elsewhere in the interview, but the OP does a huge disservice to FReepers with a misleading headline.

“This may be an indication that the attacks were planned by Hamas partisans in the USA.”

Whether or not this is true, there is now open war against the USA, which the terrorists are quite explicitly and vociferously joining at the hip with Israel.

I worry in the here and now about the homeland. Without overreacting along any dimension, we need quietly to raise our own alert level to its maximum.

Oklahoma is under-appreciated, and while Texas is knocking on the door, I see them as a year away from contending. This will be a great game with a whole lot on the line.

This is Southern Cal’s last chance (v. Arizona) to raise its defensive play — a few notches will be needed — before it faces off next weekend v. Notre Dame. There is urgency to win now, b/c they lose their generational QB at the end of the season. This will be a fun one to watch.

I look for Alabama to beat TAMU convincingly on the road, and to begin finally (though too late for the CFP) coming together.

Georgia is beatable, though likely not by a decent Kentucky team. Its cream puff schedule has some possibility for a knock off during the regular season.

Beyond Oklahoma, I don’t see much potential this weekend for outright upsets. But I do think this is an important weekend for teams either to step up a full notch or two or to settle in with the weaknesses they each have.

Perhaps because of the NIL, though I also think relentless year-over-year improvement in the coaching and recruiting ranks, there is more parity in CF than in any prior year.

Just my take.

What now, Matt? Surely you have a plan. /s

Is anyone proposing that Newsom appoint Kamala Harris?

This would be the smartest move the Dems have made in 20 years. She resumes as an even more visible and esteemed US Senator, cruises to re-election and positions herself to run for president in 2028 or 2032. She lives and lives well to fight another day.

This would also make Biden more inclined to withdraw from the race, and the Dems desperately want him out. Perhaps Joe can be bribed with assurances of a pardon by his successor for Hunter.

There are deals to be made here. We need to get these imbeciles out.

Oh, wow! That was the best back and forth I have seen in years. Kudos to both Bartiromo and Gaetz. Fantastic articulation of the two sides. Passionate, brilliantly articulated, informative.

Matt Gaetz is far, far better at this than a year or two ago. Kudos to him. Maria Bartiromo ... has always been fantastic.

“Don’t expect a response from drellberg.”

Why would you think this? I am happy to respond and to wish you and others well as I do.

Trump and DeSantis are in a contest, where it is absolutely necessary to attack one another. Those who are giving me a hard time suggest that it’s in Trump’s nature to win no matter what, even with his own wife, and that he’ll somehow forgive and perhaps even forget once he gets officially all that he wants.

I’ve asserted Ronald Reagan’s Commandment #11, watered down actually to suggest that Trump merely curb some of what various people in this thread have themselves asserted are his proclivities. He has such a commanding lead with rather little time left that he and his backers could tone down the “DeLoser” and “DeSanctimonius” stuff perhaps and focus on policy differences or even deficiencies that he sees in Florida’s government.

I imagine that Ron DeSantis would pick up on that and back off at least a bit at this point on his more insidious criticisms of Trump — knowing where things are trending and how he and Trump will both fare better as rivals if they can at least get along.

A stunningly high percentage of people who have worked for Trump since 2016 became (and remain) highly critical of him. I find this the most concerning aspect of him being re-elected. Again, I am suggesting only that he live this reputation down a bit.

Folks here are very anti-DeSantis. Whether he eventually runs for president in 2028 or is chosen by Trump as VP or for his cabinet or whatever, he will be a force going forward. And he’s quite a bit above average as a GOP politician.

Lions are modestly better than the Packers but it’s at Lambeau Field. Objectively, this is a toss up as reflected by the odds (Lions -2). But the weather forecast is for a magnificent night, which I think will favor Detroit. The question came from a Detroiter, I presume, and I am from Detroit. So I would go with the Lions to win by a field goal. You can write me Friday morning to thank me for the tip. ;)

Have a great great great day.