March Madness. March Madness and post season basketball tournaments are up and running. NIL money has changed the landscape of college athletics. Clearly the highest level of the NCAA Men and Womens Division 1 Championship will be played between professional teams. The day of the student-athlete is long gone at that level. When you are paying players multi millions of dollars, they are professionals.
The last week was great fun with a lot of personal interest
Our family had some great wins at some tough losses in the opening round. As an Iowa alum, I was delighted with the big, exciting last-minute win by the Hawkeye men over the defending champions and number one seed — Florida Gators. Next up will be the Nebraska Cornhuskers. During the regular season they beat them at home but lost on the road .They will play in the South Regional in Houston.
The other game in Houston will feature the hometown Houston Cougars against Illinois. Scott’s undergraduate alma mater is Illinois. They are playing well but will have a tough road against the hometown team.
Much to the delight of our son Scott, his law school alma mater Alabama is playing great, but they will also have a tough game against another number 1 seed — Michigan.
Our grandson Miller was not happy with his alma mater losing. Nebraska beat Vanderbilt in a thrilling game. His brother is equally miserable as North Carolina lost in the first round. They will be rooting for their women’s teams as both advanced to the Sweet 16.
Ashton’s Georgia Bulldogs lost in the first round. Only Libby (Alabama) and Kyle (Michigan State) saw their team advance. Andrea (Pittsburg and Colorado) was the only grandchild who did not have a team in the tournament.
We had to put Shane on suicide watch a couple of times, but his Duke Blue Devils played well enough to advance. The Duke Women also advanced.
The men and women’s teams at both Illinois State and South Alabama played in the NIT. Only the South Alabama men’s team failed to advance.
As I said — great fun and a lot of personal interest.
Hypocrisy. The administration on Friday lifted sanctions on Iranian oil currently at sea. Iranian oil has been sanctioned since 1979. The lifting of sanctions will enable Iran to sell about 140 million barrels of oil, worth about $14 billion, including to the United States and to China.
National security scholar Phil Gordon, who served as the White House coordinator for the Middle East, North Africa, and the Persian Gulf Region during the Obama administration, posted:
“When Obama sent Iran $400m + $1.3bn in interest in 2016 Trump called it ‘insane’ and he and others spent a decade mocking the idea of ‘pallets of cash’ even though it was Iran’s own money, American prisoners were released, courts were likely to require the U.S. payment, and Iran had just agreed to significant and verified reductions and restrictions on its nuclear program for 15+ years. Now Trump is giving Iran up to ten times that amount of revenue—one of the most significant measures of sanctions relief provided to the Islamic Republic since its founding—in exchange for marginal and temporary relief from the big increase in oil prices his actions have caused, without any concessions from Tehran, and even as Iran continues to target the United States, its allies, and world oil supplies.”
I well remember my many friends who denounced Obama. I clearly recall the many MAGA voice-pieces who sounded the alarm over Obama. I have not seen the outcry from MAGA against Trump I saw against Obama.
Common sense asks the question – if returning 1.3 billion dollars of their own money to Iran was a terrible decision, what kind of decision is giving them 14 billion dollars? The decision is one that is open to debate. The hypocrisy about the decision is another matter. In my opinion, if you did not like the policy under Obama you should not like the policy under Trump.
The Mueller Report. Similar to his post about Rob Reiner, President Trump said he was glad Robert Mueller was dead. I confess I was ignorant as to the relationship between Trump and Mueller. I did not know any facts about the Mueller investigation. I tried to educate myself.
What I found was the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Trump campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts. Senior members of the Trump campaign, including Paul Manafort, Donald Trump, Jr., and Jared Kushner attended a June 9, 2016, meeting with Russian nationals at Trump Tower, New York, after outreach from an intermediary informed Trump, Jr., that the Russians had derogatory information on Clinton that was “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”
The investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities. Mueller did not indicted Donald Trump Sr. or Jr. or Jared Kushner. He did expose the truth about the Russians interfering and did seek indictments of several Russians.
Several people close to Trump were indicted but not for collusion. George Papadopoulos, Rick Gates, Michael Flynn, and Michael Cohen pled guilty that they made false statements to federal investigators or to Congress about their contacts. Roger Stone was convicted for obstruction of justice.
In August 2018, Manafort was convicted by a jury in federal court in Virginia on two counts of bank fraud, five counts of tax fraud and one count of failing to disclose an offshore bank account. The charges stemmed from Manafort’s political consulting work for a pro-Russia political party in Ukraine. All of the charges were unrelated to Manafort’s work for the Trump campaign.
A more telling report to me was by the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee. They agreed Manafort, worked with Russian operatives to help Trump get elected. The committee included Marco Rubio.
This and That
Iran offered to turn over enriched uranium two days before the US and Israel started bombing Iran.
Our tax dollars at work
Trump Administration to Pay $1 Billion to Energy Giant to Cancel Wind Farms – The New York Times
Jeny and I hope to fly to Grand Rapids in April. The staunch conservative Senator from Louisiana, John Kennedy made it very clear the failure to fund TSA is not the fault of Democrats.
MAGA senator exposes how Trump killed deal to end shutdown
Good News
Amazing stories
She Worked As A Janitor At Yale Hospital For 10 Years. Now She’s Returning As A Doctor
9-Year-Old Saves Man’s Life Just 24 Hours After Learning CPR
Volunteer Delivery Driver Arrives Just In Time To Save Woman’s Life
Peace
Jerry
0 Comments