Predicting the Michigan Wolverines in 2024

I stopped making predictions before Covid, having been consistently wrong. I would not have predicted 15-0 last year, defeating Alabama, and winning the National Title, not after they lost to TCU in the Fiesta Bowl. Michigan was consistently ranked in the top four last preseason. Expectation are not as high this year. Many prognosticators rank them #8-10 preseason, and many predict the Wolverines won’t make the playoffs. I think 8-4 to 10-2 is a good choice. The team had 13 players drafted by the NFL. The entire offensive line has to be replaced. They lost their star quarterback, running back, and wide receiver, two defensive linemen, and All-American defensive back. The early games last season were cupcakes. Not in 2024. The second game of the season is Texas, which will set the tone for the season. They also have USC and Oregon at home and Ohio State in Columbus. 2-2 in those four games would be great. Ohio State is ranked #2 pre-season with the best team money can buy, $20 million in NIL money. The Ohio State family can’t believe they lost three straight to The Team Up North. They had more talent than Michigan, out recruited Michigan every year, and were loaded with 5 star recruits. Michigan mostly had three and four stars. The Buckeyes remain in an extended stage of denial. Some believe Michigan cheated through sign stealing. Two stats matter. The first is the won-loss records. 3-0 in the past three years. The second is the number of players drafted in the NFL Draft. Michigan had 13 players drafted in the 2024 draft. The Team Down South, only 4. Michigan had 9 in 2023 versus 6 for the Buckeyes. Ohio State had 6 in 2022 compared to 5 for Michigan. The three-year record is 27 for Michigan and 16 for Ohio state. Which team had the best players? Michigan has two advantages over Ohio State. First, it may have taken longer than expected for Harbaugh to mold Michigan into a physical, old time smash mouth football with the offensive and defensive lines wearing down the opposing lines. Tight ends and fullbacks play a major role. Run first, then pass. The second factor is Michigan developed its players, especially the Linemen. The lines were mostly fourth and fifth year seniors. They bulked up, got quicker, and learnt their positions. Ohio state’s high recruits often turned pro within two years. The Michigan linemen were frequently substituted because the backups, starters this year, were equally good. However, Michigan State remains the sleeper in the picture. Michigan beat MSU 49-0. Last year, their coach was fired, players left, and they have a new coach. History tells us every Michigan first year coach since 1959, whether great, good, or mediocre, has lost to Michigan State: 1959 Bump Elliott 8-34 1969 Bo Schembechler 12-23 1990 Gary Moeller 27-28 1995 Lloyd Carr 25-28 2008 Rich Rodriquez 21-35 2011 Brady Hoke 14-28 2015 Jim Harbaugh 23-27 Only two Big Ten teams won a national title, Ohio State in 2002 and 2014 and Michigan. The Big (Ten) conference teams usually lose to SEC teams. Michigan’s offensive line won the Joe Moore Award for best offensive line in 2021 and 2022. They were runners up to Washington last year. The Huskies line was obliterated by Michigan’s defensive line in the title game, showing the Huskies were overrated. Alabama, Clemson, and Georgia won multiple titles with incredible teams. I place Michigan’s 2023 National Championship with LSU’s 2019, season long dominance with outstanding players at each position. Texas, USC, Oregon, Ohio State and Michigan State. Let’s see how Michigan runs the gauntlet.

The Lexicon of President Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr.

And by the Way Anyway By the Way Come On, Man For Example Guess What (Lying) Dog-Faced Pony Soldier My Point Is Look You Know This

Will Judge MarchantJail President Trump or Dismiss the Case?

Will Judge Merchan escalate lawfare by sentencing President Trump immediately to jail? Will New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg pull the plug on the New York City case? It won’t be July 11, 4 days before the National Republican Convention. The Supreme Court Monday in the executive immunity case cast a strong shadow on the New York case and the federal prosecutions of President Trump. New York Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan has a dilemma. He presided over the New York City Trial of President Trump on bogus charges with the intent of convicting the President. Judge Juan Merchan was a respected jurist until he presided over the Trump Trial. He thought in his mind that his duty was to save America from the second coming of the “evil” Donald Trump Presidency. He could have sentenced President Trump to jail on July 11, 2024 with the intent of crippling President Trump’s campaign. He may have felt compelled to do so. The other attempts to derail the Trump Campaign have failed. Thursday’s debate shows America that President Biden is a dementia shadow of his prior self. On the other hand, Judge Merchan is not stupid. He knows his case will ultimately be overturned, if not by the appellate courts of New York, then by the federal courts on numerous constitutional grounds. That hasn’t bothered him up to now. The grounds for reversal are almost infinite: Constitutional Violations Evidentially Jury Instructions His problem is that he sees the Trump Campaign is headed to headed to victory, perhaps a landslide. Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Toney was a highly regarded jurist when he penned the Dred Scott decision, a ruling which lives in infamy. He thought in his mind he was resolving America’s slavery problem. Instead he drove America into the Civil War. Toney was Chief Justice of the United States. Judge Merchan is a trial judge in New York City. The hubris of thinking he could effectively disqualify the nominee of the opposing political party is mind blowing. Judge Merchan is not, so far as we know, a corrupt judge, but reflects much of the New York legal establishment. The trial and conviction are the result of a host of constitutional violations by the judge. Let’s start at the beginning. With a series of inexplicable coincidences. Judge Merchan presided over the Trump tax case, the criminal prosecution of the Trump organization bookkeeper, and of President Trump himself. Judge Merchan is scheduled to preside over the upcoming prosecution of Steve Bannon. Judge are normally assigned to cases by lottery, but someone, perhaps the judge himself, assigned these cases to Judge Merchan. He knows what he has to do. Judge Merchan is bound by the United States Constitution. The Sixth Amendment provides the right to a trial “by an impartial jury.” The Supreme Court held in the 1966 case of Sheppard v. Maxwell, 384 U.S. 333 (1966) that a defendant is entitled to a change in venue for venues with inherently prejudicial publicity. His first constitutional mistake was to deny a change of venue to President Trump. The New York Times, the premier newspaper in New York City has the constitutional right under the 1964 case of New York Times v. Sullivan to denigrate President Trump in its editorials, op-eds, and even in the news columns. It has done so for four years fueling a hostile environment for President Trump. The composition of the jury pool was very liberal. Only 23% of New York City voters cast a ballot in 2020 for President Trump. Yet the jury selected apparently excluded all conservatives from it. Judge Merchan failed to sequester the jury at any time – not during the entire trial, the last week including closing arguments, or especially the five days between the closing arguments and the jury instructions. He also did not forbid the jurors from going on the internet, TV, or print media during this period. They would have heard a lot negative about President Trump from their “friends and neighbors.” President Trump has a penchant for speaking out. Judge Merchan hit him with a gag order, but did not limit the prosecution or Michael Cohen, the hostile witness who makes money by denigrating President Trump. Judge Merchan ruled New York law does not require specificity of the underlying crime. He may be right. I don’t know New York Law. New York may not, but the Constitution clearly does! The Sixth Amendment requires the accused “to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation.” The defendants need specificity so as to be able to defend themselves. Judge Merchan’s failure to force the prosecution to identify the charge or to require proof beyond a reasonable doubt brings to mind Kafka’s “The Trial” as well as violating the Constitution. Many of the underlying, not specified charges are protected by Executive Immunity. The whole case is contaminated. Judge Merchan should have recused himself. Judges have opinions and views, but they are expected to project objectivity on a case before them. He three times contributed to the Biden Campaign or the Democratic Party. The amounts were de minimis and New York held he did not violate judicial ethics. Then we have his daughter, Loren Merchan, who is President and a shareholder in Authentic Campaigns, which worked on Kamala Harris’ 2020 presidential campaign, the Biden-Harris campaign, and for Representative Adam Schiff, earning large sums in the process. Family actions, in theory, do not relate to a judge’s conduct and impartiality, but the Second Circuit just reversed the decision of a federal district judge to dismiss a multi-million antitrust suit against ten banks including the Bank of America. The judge’s wife owned about $15,000 in Bank of America stock. Judge Merchan violated a fundamental, albeit mostly uncodified, foundation of the Rule of Law: NOT ONLY MUST JUSTICE BE DONE, BUT IT MUST APPEAR TO BE DONE! Judge Merchan knows though that in the normal course of judicial proceedings the reversal will not occur until after the election. He also knows, I assume, that federal courts do not normally intrude on state court criminal proceedings until the state proceedings are ended. He would have done his job. The question is: Will Judge Merchan finally do the right thing and set aside the verdict on September 6? or Is Judge Merchan so locked into jailing President Trump on September 18? He wants to imprison President Trump, but the wise course for him would be to grant the motion to dismiss the case on September 6, castigating the Supreme Court for forcing him to do so. Alvin Bragg achieved his goal. He got a felony conviction of President Trump. He should pull the case before it is reversed. Call it a victory and walk away.

Thoughts and Quotes on the Biden-Trump Debate

Let’s start with a few quotes: 1) Chico: “Who you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes.”” We were told the videos of President stumbling, bumbling, wrong way, and misspeaking were cheap fakes. The world saw an old man in his dotage. President Biden is suffering from dementia. Sad! It’s a personal tragedy for the Biden family and a greater tragedy for America and the world. 2) Abraham Lincoln: “You can fool some of the people all of the time, or all the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all the people all of the time.” 3) Robert Hur, Special Counsel, refused to indict President Biden for mishandling secret documents, for which President Trump has been indicted. He explained a jury would view President Biden “as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” Robert Hur was criticized by both Trump supporters and Biden supporters. Trump supporters see a double standard by the Attorney General because these were the alleged crimes for which President Trump has been indicted. Biden supporters claim the statements were inappropriate and unnecessary. Attorney General Garland refuses, on questionable executive privilege grounds, to turn over to the House of Representatives the audio talk of the Biden-Hur interview. The AG was apparently trying to cover-up the President’s growing dementia. Attorney General Garland should release the video since the American people saw for themselves President Biden’s incapacity. Vice President Joe Biden’s handlers kept him sequestered in his basement during the 2020 election campaign because of Covid. He could run a stealth campaign touting experience and moderation against an unpopular President who had been viciously maligned for four years. 4) Who’s making decisions in the Biden Administration? We learnt Thursday night that President Biden is incapable of making decisions. His staff makes the decisions. Thus he has the Obama appeasers of Iran, Antony Blinken, Jake Sullivan and Susan Rice, appeasing Iran with more billions of dollars than they did in the Obama Administration. We know that the President, Blinken, and Sullivan live up to their reputation. 5) President Obama said of his Vice President Biden: “Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to fuck things up.” 6) Secretary of Defense Gates said of Joe Biden: “I think he has been wrong on nearly every foreign policy and national defense issue over the past four decades.” So much for experience! 7) Senator John McCain said Antony Blinken was not only ”unqualified” but also “has been dangerous to America and to the young men and women who are fighting and serving this country.” 8) Representative James Comer said National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan “has been at the epicenter of the worst foreign policy crises and decisions over the past decade.” Landslide elections periodically occur. Republicans across America were pulled under by Senator Barry Goldwater in 1964. Republicans were also decimated in 1972 after President Nixon’s resignation in disgrace. President Carter’s incompetence turned the White House and Senate over to the Republicans in 1980. Republicans won control of the House and Senate in 1994 because of President Clinton and again in 2002 because of ObamaCare. Democrats running for reelection in the Senate, House and state elections can see President Biden pulling them down in 170 days. They dread a Biden-Harris ticket.

The Democratic Candidate for President in 2024 Will Be

1) President Joe Biden 2) Vice President Kamala Harris 3) Michelle Obama 4) Governor Gavin Newsom 5) Governor Josh Shapiro 6) Governor Gretchen Whitmer 7) Governor J.B. Pritzker 8) Representative Dean Phillips 9) Robert F Kennedy, Jr. 10) Hillary Clinton 11) Senator John “Bluto” Blutarsky 12) Senator?