The End of Two Football Dynasties

Posted on | January 13, 2024 | Comments Off on The End of Two Football Dynasties

In the span of 24 hours this week, we learned that Nick Saban would retire as head football coach at the University of Alabama, and that Bill Belichick would “part ways” with the New England Patriots. Can we take just a moment — before discussing anything else about this news — to extend our condolences to Cleveland Browns fans?

Understand that Cleveland has been a persistent loser in the NFL over the past 35 years. Not only have the Browns never won a Super Bowl, but they haven’t even won a division title since 1989. Three years ago, Cleveland fans were thrilled when the Browns actually won a wild card playoff game against Pittsburgh, and this season, they’re hoping that elderly quarterback Joe Flacco — who began the season sitting on his sofa as a free agent — might be able to break their Super Bowl jinx.

Perhaps it’s an exaggeration to say Browns fans are actually “hoping” for anything, though; football fans in Cleveland have pretty much accepted that they’re doomed. Nothing illustrates Cleveland’s ill fate better than the story of Bill Belichick and Nick Saban. After Belichick had spent 12 years as an assistant to Bill Parcells with the New York Giants, winning two Super Bowls, Cleveland hired Belichick as their head coach in 1991. Belichick hired Saban as his defensive coordinator, and you might think — with two coaches who would later be hailed the greatest in football history — that this would betide championships for the Browns.

Alas, there is no escaping the Cleveland Curse. During the four years of the Belichick-Saban era in Cleveland, the Browns won 36 games and lost 44. Their best season under Belichick, in 1994, Cleveland posted an 11-5 record, just one game behind the AFC Central champion Pittsburgh Steelers, and won a wild card playoff against the Patriots before being eliminated in the next round by the Steelers. After the 1995 season, the corrupt owner Art Modell fired Bill Belichick, and moved his team to Baltimore, where they became the Ravens. Cleveland had to wait four years before they got a new Browns franchise under NFL expansion.

That connection between the Cleveland Browns and the two greatest football coaches of all time gives an ironic mirth to the double-whammy news that struck this week in Tuscaloosa and Boston. The media covering the Patriots had spent weeks saying that the team would get rid of Belichick after this 5-12 season, New England’s worst record in more than 30 years. But the retirement of Saban was unexpected. Alabama fans were happy that the Crimson Tide had beaten Georgia for the SEC title this year, and had returned to the college football championship playoffs, even if ’Bama did come up short against eventual champion Michigan.

Saban has always said that the biggest part of success in college football is recruiting, and his advancing age made that more difficult. At age 72, could he promise recruits that he would be there for their whole four years? And so, wanting to do what was best for Alabama, he made the decision to retire, after winning six national championships in 17 seasons at Tuscaloosa. Belichick’s exist from New England was less graceful, although both the coach and Patriots owner Robert Kraft were polite and diplomatic in their announcement of the decision to “part ways,” the reality is that, since Tom Brady left after the 2019 season, Belichick has plunged the franchise into disaster. The six Super Bowl victories during the 20-year Belichick-Brady “dynasty” era are an increasingly distant memory, and New England fans can’t live off nostalgia — they want a winning team, and they want it now. Well, good luck with that.

The Patriots elevated linebackers coach Jerrod Mayo to replace Belichick, and my forecast is that he’ll last three years before getting replaced by the next head coach, and so on and so on, for probably another 10 or 15 years or so before New England again makes it to the Super Bowl. The Patriots franchise is broken, and fixing it will not be easy, mainly because the fans in New England have become hopelessly spoiled by the 20 years when Tom Brady made it seem like winning Super Bowls was easy.

High expectations are all fine and good, but the Patriots organization had lost its mojo even before Brady left. Their draft choices in recent years have been less than ideal, shall we say? In 2022, New England’s first-round pick (#29 overall) was an offensive guard, Cole Strange, from UT-Chattanooga, and their second-round pick (#50 oerall) was wide receive Tyquan Thornton from Baylor. Strange has had his struggles and injuries, but isn’t necessarily a bad player, but was he worth a first round pick? Good luck finding any pro football analyst who thinks so. As for Thornton, in two seasons, he’s caught 35 passes for 338 yards. And then you compare this to the players that the Patriots could have chosen instead in the same draft, e.g., University of Georgia wide receiver George Pickens, who ended up going to Pittsburgh in the second round (#52 overall) where he’s racked up 115 catches for nearly 2,000 yards. When it comes to evaluating rookie talent, the Patriots aren’t just missing by a few inches, they’re missing by miles. The classic example of this is N’Keal Harry, who was drafted by the Patriots in the first round in 2019, but who accomplished next to nothing before being traded to Chicago in 2022. Harry’s NFL career stats after four years — 64 catches for 714 yards. He wasn’t even on anybody’s roster for the 2023 season.

Again, you can’t evaluate how bad it really is without considering the players that New England could have drafted in 2019 instead of N’Keal Harry, whom they picked at #32 overall. Meanwhile, in the second round, the San Francisco 49ers used their pick (#36 overall) to take wide receiver Deebo Samuel from South Carolina. In five NFL season, Samuel has 283 catches for 4,122 yards. In the 2021 season, Samuel led the league in yards-per-catch and was named to the Pro Bowl.

Considering the importance of wide receivers in today’s NFL, wouldn’t you suppose that a team like the New England Patriots, who won six Super Bowls in 20 years, might have somebody in the building capable of assessing talent at this crucial position? But apparently not, and who was responsible for this failure? A guy named Bill Belichick, that’s who. As both head coach and general manager of the Patriots, Belichick had final say-so on all personnel decisions, and some of those decisions have been so bad that none of the analysts covering the team can explain how they happened. Getting rid of Belichick might be a first step toward fixing this problem, but New England’s front office is still staffed by the people Belichick hired, and the kind of incompetence that led to the Patriots throwing away first-round draft picks on no-talent players is likely to continue as long as those staffers remain. Beginning with a 4-13 team — worst record in the AFC — a rebuilding project is necessary, but unless the Patriots suddenly develop a knack for finding good draft picks, the team isn’t likely to improve anytime soon.

Alabama’s situation is less discouraging. They hired Kalen DeBoer, who took the University of Washington Huskies to the title game, to be the next head coach, and while I don’t think the Crimson Tide is likely to experience in the near future anything like the success Saban had during his tenure, it’s unlikely that Alabama will actually become a bad team. The tradition and prestige of the program are such that talented football players will keep going to Tuscaloosa, and they should be in the Top 10 at least for most preseason polls for years to come. If things go bad, however, DeBoer will get the boot. Alabama simply won’t tolerate a loser.

Thus does the Belichick-Saban era of football come to an end, and once again, we extend our condolences to Cleveland Browns fans.

Category: Football

In The Mailbox: 01.12.24

Posted on | January 13, 2024 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 01.12.24

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Usual weekend deadlines for the usual weekend posts.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.

Lovecraft knew.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Good Guys 1 Bad Guys 0
EBL: Batman, also, Jason Jones and the Catskill Police Department
Twitchy: Harvard Prof Who Insulted Harvard Extension School To Own Chris Rufo Forced To Do The Back Down, Canadian Gets Owned After Posting Map Mockingly Showing How She Sees America, and Alleged Author Joyce Carol Oates Steps In It Again With Claim The Bible Is Fiction
Louder With Crowder: Whoa: Texas seizes control of border city to stop Biden Admin from letting illegals in, now Biden’s DOJ wants SCOTUS involved
Vox Popoli: An AI Disproof of Evolution, Three Legends Depart, and Gonzalo Lira RIP
According To Hoyt: Before The Crash 1, 2, 3, 4, and That’s Not How Any of That Works
Monster Hunter Nation: O’Hare
Upstream Reviews: Shorty
Stoic Observations: The Cult of Truth

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: How Taiwan’s Election Could Upstage the Republican Primary
American Greatness: John Hopkins Chief Diversity Officer Retracts and Disavows Privilege ‘Hit List’
American Thinker: The FBI — the Dog That Turned on Its Master
Animal Magnetism: Rule Five Biden 2024 Friday
Babalu Blog: Food protest in Cuba leads to confrontation with police, Castro dictatorship tightens its internal blockade on the Cuban people, and A chat about Lopez-Obrador with Allan Wall
BattleSwarm: LinkSwarm For January 12
Behind The Black: Boeing completes Starliner parachute drop test, Japan’s H2A rocket launches military surveillance satellite, A new plan to send a probe to interstellar object Oumuamua, A cluster of strange terrain in Martian glacier country, and Another look at the increasing regulatory burden impacting commerical space
Cafe Hayek: “How Tariffs Aren’t All They’re Trumped Up to Be”, also, A Modern Economy, As Such, Cannot Owe or Be Owed Anything
CDR Salamander: Fullbore Friday
Da Tech Guy: The Obvious Jerad Mayo Patriots Head Coach Question
Don Surber: The comic who can save America
First Street Journal: You in a heap ‘o trouble, boy!
Gates Of Vienna: Justice? Or Lawfare? also, Those High-Maintenance Migrants
The Geller Report: Netanyahu: ‘We fight terrorists, and we fight lies. Israel is accused of genocide while it is fighting genocide.’, also, Elementary School Teacher Sues Hamas-CAIR
Hollywood In Toto: Disney Suffers Yet Another Cruel Blow, Greg Gutfeld: ‘Advertisers Are Now the Censors’, and Antifa Vows to Cancel Jewish Star Michael Rapaport (or Worse)
The Lid: The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.—A Proud Unapologetic Zionist
Legal Insurrection: Osage Nation Prevails in Court Battle Against European Green Energy Barons, Oil Prices Surge as Conflict in Red Sea Continues, Anti-Israel Ivy League Protesters Who Blocked NYC Roads and Bridges Vow to Do it Again, Media Beclowns Itself with Articles Linking Israel’s Military Efforts in Gaza to…Climate Crisis, and Hertz Selling 20,000 Electric Vehicles for Gas-Powered Cars
Nebraska Energy Observer: Scattershot Friday
Outkick: Alabama Hires Kalen DaBoer As Next Head Coach To Replace Nick Saban In Tuscaloosa, Alabama Releases Chilling Nick Saban Tribute That’s A Punch Straight To The Emotions, Riley Gaines Delivers Binder Of Petition To NCAA Reps As President Charlie Baker Continues To Duck, Florida State’s Mike Norvell Lands Massive Contract Extension After Alabama Comes Snooping, Tua Tagovailoa Had The Same Response To Nick Saban Retiring As The Entire Alabama Fanbase: Freaking Out, and Model Who Underwent Multiple Surgeries To Obtain The Biggest Boobs In The US Has Decided To Go Natural
Power Line: Jewish Students Sue Harvard; MIT Up Next, Israel’s long war, and Thoughts from the ammo line
Shark Tank: Waltz Grills Former West Point Teacher On DEI
Shot In The Dark: I Read Deena Winter In The Minnesota Reformer So You Don’t Have To, also, Pronouns – Ass/Kicked,
The Political Hat: Firing Line Friday: The British Crisis
This Ain’t Hell: Creativity in government, Valor Friday, Marine Veteran Ray Epps gets one year of probation for his role in the Capitol riot, Personnel Shortage Halts Coast Guard, Theft by former VFW post commander results in post needing to merge with another, and How are illegal aliens showing up at the border not looking like they had walked long distances?
Transterrestrial Musings: Back On The Air (Sort Of)
Victory Girls: Democrats Mad That Biden Ordered Strikes Against Houthi Terrorists
Volokh Conspiracy: Lawsuit Over UC Santa Cruz’s Diversity Statements Dismissed on Standing Grounds
Watts Up With That: EV Double Decker Bus Catches Fire in London Rush Hour, British PM Nuclear Push: “Nuclear is the perfect antidote to the energy challenges facing Britain”, Germany To Rely on Coal to Avoid Blackouts, and Biden Admin Unveils ‘Natural Gas Tax’ Proposal
The Federalist: Did Fani Willis Hire Her Unqualified Lover To Prosecute Trump At Taxpayers’ Expense? Battle-Tested Trump Brings A New And Improved Ground Game To Iowa, No, Conservatives Shouldn’t Seek To Emulate Richard Nixon, House Republicans Roll Out Legislative Blueprint For States To Secure Their Elections, Elon Musk Rightly Says Arizona Doesn’t Verify Federal Voter Citizenship — But The Feds Don’t Let Them, White Men Don’t Want To Join An Army That Tells Them They Aren’t Wanted, and Texas Stages More Border Security Theater With National Guard’s Eagle Pass Seizure
Mark Steyn: Four Days to Trial

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Category: Linkagery

In The Mailbox: 01.11.24

Posted on | January 12, 2024 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 01.11.24

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

I’m sensing a theme…

OVER THE TRANSOM
Average Bubba: The End of an Era
357 Magnum: The System™ Won’t Lock People Up Until Someone Dies, also, AR-15 Self-Defense In Mississippi
EBL: Nick Saban and Pete Carroll Out, Chris Christie Craps Out, and Muzzel
Twitchy: “Go Off, Queens”, Army Sees Steep Decline In White Recruits Over Last Five Years, and San Fran Resident Whines About “Food Justice” After Crime Closes Neighborhood Safeway
Louder With Crowder: Pat McAfee tells critics that no, Aaron Rodgers is not fired from his show, also, Quebec Police say stop posting porch pirate videos because the guy caught stealing off of your porch might be innocent
Vox Popoli: Not So Good at Math, Everyone Watched…and Learned, Reading List 2023, and A High-Risk War
Upstream Reviews: Godzilla Minus One

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: Gangster Tactics in Liberal Poland Recall a Bygone Era
American Greatness: Rice University Offers ‘Afrochemistry’ Class Detailing ‘Inequities in Chemistry’, also, Biden ‘Saves’ Democracy by Destroying it
American Thinker: The Electric Car Con Explained
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Red Thursday News
Babalu Blog: Cuban dictatorship presents Interpol with list of Cuban exile activists it deems ‘terrorists’, Cubans on the dictatorship’s new economic policies: ‘terrible, unbearable, desperate’, and Castro dictatorship pocketed 94% of salaries paid for Cuban doctors sold as slave labor to Mexico
BattleSwarm: The Illegal Alien Bus War
Behind The Black: Engineers succeed in releasing two fasteners that blocked access to OSIRIS-REx Bennu samples, Red China successfully launched twice today, Update on Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander, Blue Origin moves first stage of its New Glenn rocket from factory to launchpad hanger, Astronomers discover Earth-sized exoplanet roasted by a Sunlike star, and Fauci now an admitted liar as well as incompetent scientist
Cafe Hayek: Ed Tower on the Balance of Payments
CDR Salamander: Diversity Thursday
Da Tech Guy: Five Basic Questions Under the Fedora, also, Is this why the Biden Regime tried to cancel William Penn?
Dana Loesch: Debunking Nikki Haley’s Website
Don Surber: Getting free speech wrong
First Street Journal: “No man’s life, liberty or property are safe while the Democrats are in control.”, also, Larry Krasner files lawsuit to prevent Mayor Cherelle Parker Mullins plan to clean up Kensington
Gates Of Vienna: Working For Our Muslim Future, An Electrifying Experience in Schleswig-Holstein, and A Culture-Enricher Who Likes Them Young
The Geller Report: Growing Calls to Remove Hamas-Tied CAIR from Maryland Hate Crime Commission Over Chair’s ‘Abhorrent’ Remarks
Hollywood In Toto: Beekeeper Takes Out the Trash (Including Hunter Biden?)
The Lid: Why I Quit My Dream Job at MIT
Legal Insurrection: Dr. Anthony Fauci Cannot ‘Recall’ Much About COVID Origins, Pandemic Responses, NYU “Permanently Discontinued” Discriminatory Whites-Only “Anti-Racist” Parent Program After Equal Protection Project Legal Challenge, Dept. of Education Investigating Brown U. for Alleged Discrimination Against Jewish Students, Pressure On Barrington (RI) School Committee Member Amanda Basse To Resign After Social Media Posts Bashing Israel And Suggesting Jews “Weaponized Their Religion”, Pro-Palestinian ‘Occupation’ Protest at Cornell Issues Demands, and New Hampshire’s Republican DOJ, State Dems Accuse DNC of ‘Voter Suppression’ Over Primary Letter
Nebraska Energy Observer: Ready now?
Outkick: Alabama Should Hire Ole Miss Coach Lane Kiffin To Replace Nick Saban, Broncos And Russell Wilson Protecting Themselves As Likely Split Draws Closer, What A Joke! NCAA Hands Down Suspensions And Penalties To Florida State For Infractions Tied To NIL Activity That Pretty Much Every Team Is Doing, ESPN Operates 13-Year Emmy Scheme By Using Fake Names To Honor Front-Facing Talent, Ohio State Star WR Emeka Egbuka Stuns Fans With NFL Decision, and Changing Of Guard At Alabama Will Be Culture Shock, As New Coach Cannot Run The ‘Nick Saban Way’ Or It Will Fail
Power Line: Whole lotta lyin’ goin’ on, Gaza comes to San Francisco, and Edward Jay Epstein, RIP
Shark Tank: Florida Demands Border Security & Immigration Action
Shot In The Dark: 20K, Meet The New Boss – Same As The Old Boss, and Now That San Francisco Has Solved All Its Other Problems
This Ain’t Hell: Carma strikes, Largest Demographic Shuns Army Service, Anthony Fauci does a U-turn on lab leak and social distancing, The US to help increase Guyana’s military readiness, and Iran Takes Tanker
Victory Girls: Taylor Swift is Not a Pentagon Psy-Op, So Shake It Off
Volokh Conspiracy: Antisemitism Lawsuit Filed against Harvard University, Includes Allegations re Harvard Law School
Watts Up With That: Energy Lease Hypocrisy: Biden Uses Taxpayer Protections to Prop Up Wind, Gut Oil, 2024 World Economic Forum Davos Meeting to Focus on “Restoring Trust”, and Germany’s Soaking Wet Drought…Helmholtz Drought Monitor Insists Drought Persists
The Federalist: How Democrats’ Prescription Price Controls Are Making Americans Sick, Hunter Biden Flipped Congress The Bird To Get B-Roll For His Damage-Control Documentary, No Country For Old Men Shows Why There Can Be No Compromise With Evil Like Hamas, Biden Smears Opponents As Nazis While Democrat Voters Riot For Jewish Genocide, and Why Gen Z Is Ditching The Girlboss For The Tradwife
Mark Steyn: The Colonisation of Britain

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Category: Linkagery

Priorities: Plastic Straws or Fentanyl?

Posted on | January 11, 2024 | Comments Off on Priorities: Plastic Straws or Fentanyl?

Homeless drug addicts on Pike Street, Seattle

Did you know that the idea of banning plastic straws was inspired by a nine-year-old boy’s science project? After reading that startling fact, I found myself going down a research rabbit-hole, during which I discovered that in 2018, Seattle became “the first major U.S. city to ban single-use plastic straws and utensils in food service.”

Then I began researching Seattle, which led me to this video by Jonathan Choe of the Discovery Institute:

FIRST POST OF 2024: I think it’s only fitting that I start the New Year at the corner of 3rd Ave & Pike St in downtown Seattle. I gotta stay on brand. ?
It’s after midnight and the open air drug den/black market of stolen goods is thriving. All the regulars are here and people… pic.twitter.com/v1VtIRl5Yg

— Jonathan Choe Journalist (Seattle) (@choeshow) January 1, 2024

In Seattle, one of the richest cities in the world, entire blocks of downtown streets have become open-air drug markets, but — BUT! — you can’t get a plastic straw in a restaurant there.

After further research, I started writing:

Seattle is in King County, Washington, where Joe Biden got 75 percent of the vote in the 2020 election. King County had more than 1,000 drug overdoses involving fentanyl in 2023. These two facts are almost certainly related, but which is the cause and which the effect? Or could it be that both (a) the tendency to vote for Democrats and (b) the addiction to dangerous drugs are caused by some unknown factor? Without a careful analysis of the available data to identify that unknown background factor, is it wrong to hazard a guess that the overdosing dopeheads and Democratic voters in King County are just plain stupid?
Beyond sarcastic put-downs, it behooves those interested in public policy to take a look at what’s going on in places like Seattle, where Democrats dominate and “progressive” ideas therefore advance unhindered by any effective opposition. In the case of King County’s skyrocketing drug overdoses — which increased nearly 50 percent in just the past year — local officials have declared the problem “a public health crisis.” However, fentanyl is illegal, which means that the overdoses are also indicative of a crime problem, and progressives are against putting criminals in prison. . . . .

Read the rest of my latest column at The American Spectator.

Category: American Spectator, Crime, Democrats, Washington State

In The Mailbox: 01.10.24

Posted on | January 11, 2024 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 01.10.24

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

This is the way.

OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: MAGA Fat Fani
Twitchy: “We’re Keeping Our Trucks”, Chris Matthews Warns Americans About The Rural Cult Trying To Take Over The Country, and “Journalist” Killed In Gaza Was Rocket Engineer For Islamic Jihad
Louder With Crowder: Aaron Rodgers returns fire on Jimmy Kimmel, but his comments on “the narrative” are more biting, Comedian Wrecks People Still Masking With A Question And Thirty Seconds Of Comedy, and “What Kind Of Crack Do You Smoke?”
Vox Popoli: Two AI Debates on Religion, AI Debate, Gab Edition, The AI Gods are Inevitable, and Like Father, Like Son
Upstream Reviews: Oni The Lonely
Stoic Observations: Plagiarism Vs. Open Source
Gab News: A Christian Vision For The Technological Renaissance

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: “I’m not a ’58 sede, but… ”
American Conservative: Lloyd Austin: A General Crisis
American Greatness: Court Blocks Biden Efforts to Crack Down on Dishwashers, Washing Machines
American Thinker: The Fabricated Memory of January 6th
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Hump Day News
Babalu Blog: Cuban dictatorship to raise public transportation prices by 180%, National Geographic features Cuba as a top destination in the Americas, makes no mention of the oppression, and First step of a Stalin-style purge? Shakeup in Cuba’s Ministry of Culture includes member of Castro dynasty
BattleSwarm: Scenes From The Cyberwar In Ukraine, also, How Corruption Hollowed Out China’s Military
Behind The Black: NASA makes it official: The entire Artemis schedule is delayed, SpaceX is ready to launch Starship/Superheavy by end of January but it won’t, NASA awards more money to two private space station proposals, Peregrine only has hours left, its fuel leaking away, and Democrats get a taste of their own vicious swatting tactics
Cafe Hayek: My Longer Response to Oren Cass’s Law & Liberty Protest Against Free Trade, also, The Whole Doctrine of the Balance of Trade Is Absurd and Misleading
CDR Salamander: The CNO Stated Her Priorities
Da Tech Guy: Antisemitism Hasn’t Increased PUBLIC Antisemitism Has
Dana Loesch: Chris Christie Drops Out, also, DeSantis vs. Haley Debate Live
Don Surber: The unelecting of a president
First Street Journal: Would you agree to house illegal immigrants in your home?
Gates Of Vienna: Deviant Opinions About Sexual Deviants Are Forbidden, No Wife of Mine, and Gabriel Attal vs. Giorgia Meloni
The Geller Report: Muslims Storm Villages, Slaughter 41 Christians and Kidnap Many Others in Nigeria, also, NYC Students Forced to Go Remote as City Houses Migrants in Schools
Hollywood In Toto: Jewish Stars Blast Oscar’s Diversity Rules for Leaving Them Out, When Dave Chappelle Lost Decades-Old Victimhood Status, Mean Girls Works Best as Nostalgia Blast, and FOX Nation Lures Dennis Miller Out of Semi-Retirement
The Lid: Joe Biden Lies about Going to Funerals of Jan. 6 Cops — Even Though Not a One Died, also, Hot Mic: Journalists Caught Fantasizing About Murdering Trump JFK-Style
Legal Insurrection: U. Michigan Spending Over $30 Million Annually on 500+ DEI Jobs, Rep. Roy Won’t Rule Out Supporting a Motion to Remove Mike Johnson From Speaker Role Over Spending Deal, Left Wing ‘Dark Money’ Org Funded Protesters Who Planned to Disrupt the Holocaust Museum, Biden Suffers Major Court Defeat in His War Against Appliances, German Farmer Protests Painted as “Far Right” Activism by Out-of-Touch Politicians and Media, and House Homeland Security Committee Holds First Hearing on Impeachment of Mayorkas
Nebraska Energy Observer: Donald, and Ron, and Nikki, and Michelle !!! oh my!
Outkick: Alabama’s Nick Saban Retiring As One Of Greatest Coaches Ever, Raptors Head Coach Goes Off On Referees After Giving Lakers 23 Free Throws In 4th Quarter, Draymond Green Shows Actual Self-Awareness, Says He Didn’t Deserve Applause From Warriors Upon Return From Suspension, Jemele Hill Hops On CNN And Calls Aaron Rodgers Stupid, Which Is Rich Given Her History, Pat McAfee Announces Aaron Rodgers’ ESPN Appearances Are Done For This NFL Season, Joe Flacco Is A Hero, Jim Harbaugh Describes One & Can You Handle This Wiener? and Stephen A. Smith Blasts ‘Fat B*stard, Piece Of Sh*t’ Jason Whitlock For Calling Him ‘Stephen A. Myth’
Power Line: White Governor Supremacy, Folies Bergès, and Can the Democrats Keep Trump Off the Ballot?
Shark Tank: Waltz Blasts Democrat Double Standard On Hunter Biden Subpoena
Shot In The Dark: Declaring The Causes That Impel Us – 2024 Edition, also, A Real American Hero
This Ain’t Hell: Quick updates – Adams, Su, and of course Biden, Former Green Beret stands with Venezuelan coup plotter, and Mel Brooks gets another Oscar
Transterrestrial Musings: Another Artemis Delay
Victory Girls: Docile GOP Kids & Other Leftwing Caricatures
Volokh Conspiracy: Supreme Court Oral Argument Indicates “Radical Agreement” that there is no “Legislative Exception” to the Takings Clause
Watts Up With That: Bloomberg: “Don’t be Fooled, Snow is Becoming a Thing of the Past”, Is France Quietly Ditching Renewable Energy Targets?, and Are ‘Green’ Agendas Carrying Governors to Political Cliffs?
The Federalist: Democrats’ ‘Sacred Cause’ Isn’t Democracy, It’s Power, Ohio House Overrides Governor In Next Step To Outlaw Child Mutilation, Democrats Are Forcing Ranked-Choice Voting On Alaskans Who Oppose It, The DNC Is Engaged In ‘Unlawful Voter Suppression’ Ahead Of Primaries, New Hampshire AG Says, New York Times Finally Admits The Left’s War On Standardized Tests Was ‘Misguided’, A Legitimate Justice System Would Jail ‘Intifada’ Vandals, Not Pro-Lifers, and Speaker Johnson Folds Like A Cheap Suit To Democrats’ Spending Increases
Mark Steyn: Live Around the Planet – Six Days To Trial

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Category: Linkagery

Big Trouble for Fulton County D.A.

Posted on | January 10, 2024 | Comments Off on Big Trouble for Fulton County D.A.

If anyone in the Atlanta area saw a mushroom cloud Monday, don’t be alarmed. It was just the RICO case against Trump exploding:

District Attorney Fani Willis improperly hired an alleged romantic partner to prosecute Donald Trump and financially benefited from their relationship, according to a court motion filed Monday which argued the criminal charges in the case were unconstitutional.
The bombshell public filing alleged that special prosecutor Nathan Wade, a private attorney, paid for lavish vacations he took with Willis using the Fulton County funds his law firm received. County records show that Wade, who has played a prominent role in the election interference case, has been paid nearly $654,000 in legal fees since January 2022. The DA authorizes his compensation.
The motion, filed on behalf of defendant Michael Roman, a former Trump campaign official, seeks to have the charges against Roman dismissed and for Willis, Wade and the entire DA’s office to be disqualified from further prosecution of the case. . . .
Roman’s lawyer, Ashleigh Merchant, said she reviewed the case file in Wade’s ongoing divorce proceedings at the Superior Court Clerk’s Office and made copies of certain documents. But the case file was later improperly sealed because no court hearing was held as required by law, the motion said. . . .
The filing alleges that Willis and Wade have been involved in a romantic relationship that began before Wade was appointed special prosecutor. It says they traveled together to Napa Valley and Florida, and they cruised the Caribbean together using tickets Wade purchased from Norwegian and Royal Caribbean cruise lines — although the filing did not include documentation of those purchases.
The motion said the checks sent to Wade from Fulton County and his subsequent purchase of vacations for Willis could amount to honest services fraud, a federal crime in which a vendor gives kickbacks to an employer. It is also possible this could be prosecuted under the federal racketeering statute, the motion said. . . .
Willis and Wade, the motion contends, “have been engaged in an improper, clandestine personal relationship during the pendency of this case, which has resulted in the special prosecutor, and, in turn, the district attorney, profiting significantly from this prosecution at the expense of the taxpayers.”
A problem with Wade’s appointment is that it was not approved by the Fulton board of commissioners as required by law, the motion said. The motion also questions Wade’s credentials, contending he has never prosecuted a felony case. . . .
Wade entered into his special prosecutor contract on Nov. 1, 2021, just one day before he filed for divorce in Cobb County, the motion said.

Do you remember the media hype around this Atlanta grand jury indictment? Do you remember how excited liberals were that a BLACK WOMAN was going to be prosecuting Trump? Oh, symbolic justice!

Sensible people, including attorneys of vast experience, looked at this case and saw a lot of obvious problems. Like, RICO? Are you kidding me with this? A presidential campaign trying to win a disputed election result is racketeering? All of these common-sense objections to the Fulton County case were ignored by the national media who were certain — as they had often claimed before — that this time, the “walls were closing in” on Trump. Because a BLACK WOMAN was prosecuting him!

Well, that’s really working out great for them, huh? Not only is this revelation about Willis and Wade’s “improper relationship” likely to cause the RICO prosecution to be abandoned, but it bids fair to get Willis driven out of office, disbarred and perhaps even sent to federal prison.

Has irony ever been more delicious?

Category: Corruption, Donald Trump, Georgia

Crazy People Are Dangerous

Posted on | January 10, 2024 | Comments Off on Crazy People Are Dangerous

In 2019, Adam Garcia was arrested in Minnesota:

In October 2019 at the University of Minnesota, a student was studying in the medical library at Diehl Hall when he grew uneasy by Garcia watching him. After speaking with security, the student was stabbed in the leg from behind by a hypodermic needle.
The criminal complaint said when police found a man matching the description of the attacker, later identified as Garcia, he pulled out a long knife and fought with officers. One officer was wounded by the knife.
After it was learned Garcia was positive for Hepatitis C, the student and the officer were both prescribed preventative medications. . . .
After that incident, Garcia was temporarily civilly committed with a doctor pointing to “methamphetamine-induced psychotic disorder,” among other mental and chemical dependency disorders. A judge wrote Garcia “poses a substantial likelihood of causing physical harm” as a result.

Despite these grievous felonies, Garcia was discharged from probation in late 2022, just three years later. Nor was this an isolated incident. Garcia has had 46 separate criminal charges in the past five years, and that was before what happened in November:

Authorities have charged a Minneapolis man with murder, alleging he fatally stabbed another man at a bus stop in Edina last week.
Adam Garcia, 32, faces one count of second-degree murder in connection with the killing of 62-year-old Chris Lundegaard, according to court documents filed in Hennepin County. . . .
Edina police officers were at the Cub Foods on York Avenue when the stabbing occurred outside, according to a criminal complaint. They went to the bus stop to investigate and found Lundegaard “bleeding from multiple stab wounds,” the complaint states. Officers attempted to save his life before he was taken to a hospital, where he later died. A medical examiner identified five stab wounds, two to Lundegaard’s chest.
Officers found the suspect, identified as Garcia, at the scene and detained him while they reviewed surveillance video and spoke to witnesses.
The video showed “a confrontation” between Garcia and Lundegaard at the bus stop, the complaint states. Lundegaard tried multiple times to get away from Garcia, but Garcia allegedly would not leave Lundegaard alone. At one point, according to the complaint, there was a “scuffle” between the two that ended with Lundegaard “knocked to the ground.” . . .
Court records show Garcia has a criminal record that includes several convictions over the past four years for burglary, assault, trespassing and property damage.

How was this guy on the street? He should have been in a padded cell, strapped into a straitjacket and given twice daily dose of Thorazine for the rest of his life. What part of “substantial likelihood of causing physical harm” do I need to explain here? And now this:

The suspect in November’s seemingly random, deadly stabbing at an Edina Bus stop was back in court Monday. . . .
Adam Garcia asked the judge for a speedy trial on charges that he murdered Chris Lundegaard the night before Thanksgiving.
But judge Peter Cahill told Garcia, who has a long history of mental health issues, that he will first need to be evaluated to see if he’s competent to stand trial.

Padded cell, straitjacket, etc. This dangerous kook should never be allowed in public again. Crazy People Are Dangerous.

Category: Crime, Minnesota