Longtime booster Red McCombs is not a fan of Texas' decision to hire coach Charlie Strong away from Louisville, calling it a "kick in the face" during a radio interview Monday.I don't know exactly how to read this. McCombs, on the surface, comes across as a little butthurt about not having any input into the decision to hire Strong. If I cut a check for a cool $100M, I'd prolly want some say-so as well. It's also clear McCombs didn't like seeing his buddy, recently fired Mack Brown, to leave. He's also got some weird wet dream for John Gruden, but we all know that's never happening.
The hiring of Charlie Strong, Texas' first African-American head football coach, is critical to the growth of the sport and our culture, writes Jean-Jacques Taylor. Column
"I think the whole thing is a bit sideways," McCombs said of the selection process during an interview with ESPN 1250 San Antonio. "I don't have any doubt that Charlie is a fine coach. I think he would make a great position coach, maybe a coordinator.
"But I don't believe [he belongs at] what should be one of the three most powerful university programs in the world right now at UT-Austin. I don't think it adds up."
McCombs, the former owner of the San Antonio Spurs, Denver Nuggets and Minnesota Vikings and co-founder of Clear Channel Communications, said on "The Blitz with Dat Nguyen and Jason Minnix" that he was stunned to learn Strong was the choice to replace Mack Brown.
He publicly lobbied last week for Texas to hire former NFL coach and ESPN analyst Jon Gruden.
"I think it is a kick in the face," McCombs said. "Beyond the fact of what actually happened. We have boosters that have a lot of knowledge about the game. When we decided to go get Mack -- from the time we decided to go get Mack to about 30 hours later to have a press conference here and it was done -- we had a lot of input before we went after him.
"So I don't know what the big rush was. I was kind of pleased that [Texas athletic director Steve] Patterson already said that he'd like to get it done in the middle of January. That seemed logical to me. I'm a team player, but I think they went about it wrong and made the selection wrong."
Texas named its McCombs School of Business after the benefactor, and he has a statue inside Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium. McCombs has donated more than $100 million to UT and is a close friend to Brown.
McCombs said he was certain Patterson couldn't go wrong on the hire during an interview with the San Antonio Express-News last week.
"I don't see how they can miss," McCombs told the paper. "They can get anyone they want. They can close their eyes and go 'Eeny-meeny-miny-moe' and end up with someone good."
"I think the whole thing is a bit sideways," McCombs said of the selection process during an interview with ESPN 1250 San Antonio. "I don't have any doubt that Charlie is a fine coach. I think he would make a great position coach, maybe a coordinator. But I don't believe [he belongs at] what should be one of the three most powerful university programs in the world right now at UT-Austin. I don't think it adds up."Strong, it should be noted, took a UofL program from garbage to relevance, just won a huge bowl game, and was a hot prospect. Texas made the move to hire him quickly, and despite what some critics think, I think he's a good fit.
Neighbor Charles Ramsey has told how he heard screams coming from an Ohio home and went to investigate -- a decision that led to the discovery of three women missing for years. To the neighbors, the house on Seymour Avenue in Cleveland seemed normal. There was nothing to indicate that inside -- in addition to the resident they had come to know -- were women who had disappeared in separate cases about a decade ago.Here's a couple of clips of Ramsey hamming it up for local news stations.
That changed on Monday.
"This girl is kicking the door and screaming," Ramsey told NBC station WKYC-TV. "So I go over there ... and I say, 'Can I help? What’s going on?' And she says, 'I’ve been kidnapped, and I’ve been in this house a long time. I want to leave right now.'"
Ramsey, who lived across the street and let the woman use his phone to call 911, described being stunned when he realized that the woman was Amanda Berry, who had been missing for 10 years.
Ramsey told reporters he had barbecued with the 52-year-old man who lived in the house. Police said that the man and two of his brothers, ages 50 and 54, had been arrested.
There were more surprises to come for Ramsey, other neighbors and the police. Also found in the house were Gina DeJesus, 23, who had been missing for nine years, and Michelle Knight, 30, who had been missing for 11 years.
America’s blacks voted at a higher rate than other minority groups in 2012 and by most measures surpassed the white turnout for the first time, reflecting a deeply polarized presidential election in which blacks strongly supported Barack Obama while many whites stayed home.I've got a bone to pick with that last line, specifically this part.
Had people voted last November at the same rates they did in 2004, when black turnout was below its current historic levels, Republican Mitt Romney would have won narrowly, according to an analysis conducted for The Associated Press.
William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, analyzed the 2012 elections for the AP using census data on eligible voters and turnout, along with November’s exit polling. He estimated total votes for Obama and Romney under a scenario where 2012 turnout rates for all racial groups matched those in 2004. Overall, 2012 voter turnout was roughly 58 percent, down from 62 percent in 2008 and 60 percent in 2004.
Overall, the findings represent a tipping point for blacks, who for much of America’s history were disenfranchised and then effectively barred from voting until passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.
But the numbers also offer a cautionary note to both Democrats and Republicans after Obama won in November with a historically low percentage of white supporters. While Latinos are now the biggest driver of U.S. population growth, they still trail whites and blacks in turnout and electoral share, because many of the Hispanics in the country are children or noncitizens.
In recent weeks, Republican leaders have urged a “year-round effort” to engage black and other minority voters, describing a grim future if their party does not expand its core support beyond white males.
The 2012 data suggest Romney was a particularly weak GOP candidate, unable to motivate white voters let alone attract significant black or Latino support. Obama’s personal appeal and the slowly improving economy helped overcome doubts and spur record levels of minority voters in a way that may not be easily replicated for Democrats soon.
Romney would have erased Obama’s nearly 5 million-vote victory margin and narrowly won the popular vote if voters had turned out as they did in 2004, according to Frey’s analysis. Then, white turnout was slightly higher and black voting lower.
Census data and exit polling show that whites and blacks will remain the two largest racial groups of eligible voters for the next decade. Last year’s heavy black turnout came despite concerns about the effect of new voter-identification laws on minority voting, outweighed by the desire to re-elect the first black president.
The Big South and the MEAC collide in the NCAA play in game when the Liberty Flames and the North Carolina A&T Aggies square off.I'm not too crazy about being stuck in the play-in game, but the tourney is the tourney. My school made the Big Dance twice in the mid-90's, once while I was there. He lost to (eventual champion) Arkansas one year, and got obliterated by Tim Duncan and Wake Forest the other. We beat Liberty tomorrow night (early odds have us a 1.5 point favorite), and we get right right to be ethered by Louisville.
North Carolina A&T was one of the most unlikely entrants in to the Field of 64 as the 6th seed out of the MEAC. The Aggies overcame a red hot Morgan State in the conference championship but were surging themselves with victories in six of seven. This is the slowest team in the tournament, outscoring opponents 62-61 on the season, so controlling the pace and the scoreboard is generally their lone chance at winning with their attack hitting at 39% from the field. This is a team that needs plenty of shots to do their damage with Adrian Powell and Lamont Middletown as the primary scoring weapons with nearly 13.5 points apiece, but both need plenty of shots with under 40% from the floor on the year.
Speaking of unlikely participants in the NCAA Tournament, Liberty is that team with just a 15-20 overall record. The Flames definitely caught fire at the right time with five consecutive victories, including a win over regular season champion Charleston Southern in the title game to gain the conference automatic bid. The Flames are one dimensional with their score first mentality as they were outscored 70-69 on the year but gave up 62 points or less in four of five which made this a winning team down the stretch with the offense clicking. If Liberty is to survive the trio of John Caleb Sanders (14 ppg), Tavares Speaks (13 ppg) and Davon Marshall (13 ppg) have to score because that has been the strength of the Flames.
South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley will tap Rep. Tim Scott to replace outgoing GOP Sen. Jim DeMint, making Scott the first African-American senator from the South since Reconstruction.I don't personally think Scott's going to have an easy time getting re-elected, but that's just me. I don't know the mentality of South Carolina Republican voters, and don't care to hypothesize[1] any further.
The Associated Press has confirmed the Scott appointment, which will be formally announced by Haley at a news conference Monday at the Statehouse in South Carolina.
DeMint, an influential conservative and Tea Party favorite, will resign in January to become president of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank. His replacement will serve until a special election is held in 2014.
"This is historic for all of the South," said David Woodard, a political scientist at Clemson University. Tim Scott is "conservative and he's Republican. ... What African Americans need are capitalism and conservative values, and Tim Scott is a great vehicle for that. He represents a generation that is interested in entrepreneurship, conservative principles and volunteerism."
Scott, 47, was elected in 2010 to represent a U.S. House district in the Charleston area. A former member of the South Carolina state Legislature, Scott quickly became a favorite of House Speaker John Boehner and GOP officials in Washington and served in a leadership position for the 2010 freshman class.
He has a compelling life story, according to his biography in the Almanac of American Politics. Scott and his siblings were raised by a single mother who worked as a nurse's assistant. By his own account, Scott was on the brink of flunking out of high school when the owner of a Chick-fil-A franchise took him under his wing. He later earned a partial football scholarship to college, and ran an insurance company and owned part of a real-estate agency before entering politics
Woodard noted that Scott is popular and well-liked and has the support of his fellow members of Congress from South Carolina, which would give him an edge if he runs statewide for the Senate seat, as expected. The five GOP House members from South Carolina are very close, and they stuck together during a high-profile vote last year against Boehner's bill to reduce the deficit.
There have only been six blacks who have served in the U.S. Senate, according to the Senate website. They are Hiram Revels of Mississippi, who served in 1870; Blanche Bruce of Mississippi from 1875 to 1881; Edward Brooke of Massachusetts from 1967 to 1979; Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois from 1993 to 1999; Barack Obama of Illinois from 2005 until he resigned in 2008 after his presidential election; and Roland Burris, who was appointed to replace Obama and served until November 2010.
DC Advance Screening 3/24/12Still Standing is available on May 1st, and we'll be having a contest for free copies later, but you can pre-order the DVD on sale now.
CHI Advance Screening 3/31/12
HOU Advance Screening 4/27/12
DAL Advance Screening 4/28/12
ATL Advance Screening 5/3/12
Wall Street’s bulls have reason to celebrate: The Dow Jones industrial average has crossed the 13,000 mark for the first time since the financial crisis after European leaders reached a new deal to prop up the Greek economy.So, uhhhhmmm, yeah. Prepare yourselves for another 9 months of culture wars. I don't think there's much else to debate Obama on.
The Dow first crossed 13,000 in May 2008, but was battered down soon after when the mortgage bubble burst.
The blue chip index's latest surge has been driven by a stream of evidence signaling that the U.S. economy is on the mend. The Dow has risen 20% since hitting a recent low of 10,655.30 on Oct. 3.
The milestone reached Tuesday came after European leaders agreed to give Greece a $170-billion aid package in exchange for sweeping new cuts to the Greek budget. The deal is designed to give Greece continued access to the international bond market, but there are still big questions about how it will be carried out.
Investors have struggled to digest the import of the deal. The Dow wobbled Tuesday morning, entering negative territory in early trading before reversing course. Even after crossing 13,000 the index fell again, and was recently trading up 0.4% or 46.81 points to 12,996.68. Twenty of the index’s 30 stocks were trading in positive territory.
A burst of hiring in December pushed the unemployment rate to its lowest level in nearly three years, giving the economy a boost at the end of 2011.Sure, you could pick these numbers apart, as those running against Obama surely will. But hey, any time more Americans are working, it should be applauded. Some of these jobs were obviously seasonal, but many of them were in sectors like manufacturing & construction where we've needed to see growth. All signs point upward.
The Labor Department said Friday that employers added a net 200,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate fell to 8.5 percent, the lowest since February 2009. The rate has dropped for four straight months.
The hiring gains cap a six-month stretch in which the economy generated 100,000 jobs or more in each month. That hasn't happened since April 2006. For all of 2011, the economy added 1.6 million jobs, better than the 940,000 added in 2010. The unemployment rate averaged 8.9 percent last year, down from 9.6 percent the previous year. Economists forecast that the job gains will top 2.1 million this year.
The December report painted a picture of a broadly improving job market. Average hourly pay rose, providing consumers with more income to spend. The average work week lengthened, a sign that business is picking up and companies may soon need more workers. And hiring was strong across almost all major industries.
Manufacturing added 23,000 jobs, as did the health care industry. Transportation and warehousing added 50,000 jobs. Retailers added 28,000 jobs. Even the beleaguered construction industry added 17,000 workers.
More jobs and higher pay are crucial to helping the economy grow. They could enable shoppers to increase spending, which fuels 70 percent of economic activity.
The economy likely grew at an annual rate of above 3 percent, a healthy pace.
