I sure didn’t see this coming. Per the Associated Press, in a surprising and seismic shift in college athletics, the Big Ten voted Thursday to add Southern California and UCLA as conference members beginning in 2024. The expansion to 16 teams will happen after the Pac-12’s current media rights contracts with Fox and ESPN expire and make the Big Ten the first conference to stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific. This is a big deal. I will have more to come on this in the coming weeks as I have more time to digest the pros and cons of this. I am sure they can make this work for the two large revenue producing sports such as football as basketball. I am not sure how it is going to work for the non-revenue producing sports. I cannot see how it will be cost effective for Maryland to play volleyball at UCLA or USC.
To no one’s surprise, Red Wing President and General Manager Steve Yzerman has hired an assistant coach of the Tampa Bay Lightning to be the next Red Wing Head Coach. Based on the success Yzerman had in building the Lightning into a perennial contender for the Stanley Cup, I am confident he will do the same for the Red Wings.
Per the Detroit News, Derek Lalonde has been named the new head coach of the Red Wings.Lalonde becomes the 28th head coach in franchise history. “I’m very pleased to announce Derek as our new head coach,” general manager Steve Yzerman said in a statement. “He has proven himself as an excellent coach at every level and has spent the last four seasons in the National Hockey League as part of a very successful program in Tampa Bay. “We feel he is ready to take the next step in his career as the head coach of the Detroit Red Wings.”
Sometimes Heather Cox Richardson hits it out of the park. Here are excerpts from today’s Letters from an American.
In the National Review, Andrew C. McCarthy called Hutchinson’s testimony “devastating” and said, “Things will not be the same after this.” In an editorial, the Washington Examiner wrote, “Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson’s Tuesday testimony ought to ring the death knell for former President Donald Trump’s political career. Trump is unfit to be anywhere near power ever again…. Trump is a disgrace.” In The Dispatch, David French reviewed Hutchinson’s testimony and concluded that “the case for prosecuting Donald Trump just got much stronger.”
At the Reagan Presidential Library tonight, Cheney warned: “[W]e are confronting a domestic threat that we have never faced before—and that is a former president who is attempting to unravel the foundations of our constitutional republic, and he is aided by Republican leaders and elected officials who have made themselves willing hostages to this dangerous and irrational man.”
“Donald Trump attempted to overturn the presidential election. He attempted to stay in office and to prevent the peaceful transfer of presidential power. He summoned a mob to Washington, He knew they were armed on January 6th. He knew they were angry. And he directed the violent mob to march on the Capitol in order to delay or prevent completely the counting of electoral votes. He attempted to go there with them. And when the violence was underway, he refused to take action to tell the rioters to leave. Instead, he incited further violence by tweeting that the vice president, Mike Pence, was a coward. He said ‘Mike deserves it,’ and he didn’t want to do anything in response to the ‘Hang Mike Pence’ chants. It’s undeniable. It’s also painful for Republicans to accept.”
She concluded: “The reality that we face today as Republicans, as we think about the choice in front of us, we have to choose because Republicans cannot both be loyal to Donald Trump and loyal to the Constitution. ”The audience broke out in applause.
Per various news outlets, for the first time in more than a decade, Michigan lost population in an annual census estimate, the latest sign of what experts say could lead to economic problems for the state down the line. The state had 10,050,811 people as of July 1, 2021, according to new data from the U.S. Census Bureau. That’s a decline of 26,520 people, or just over one-quarter of 1% from the 10,077,331 people Michigan had as of April 1, 2020, which is considered Census Day. It doesn’t sound like much, but we lost one congressman because of our change in population between 2010 and 2020. If the yearly trend continues, we will lose another congressperson by 2030. In theory, the more congresspersons a state has, the better return they get on their federal tax dollars.
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Elections Matter. Pray for peace and tolerance. What are you doing to stop the violence?
Orchids of the Day: Brad Krieg, my son-in-law, and my step-grandson Gregory who both share birthdays today.
Onion of the Day: Passing on the onion today
Quote of the Day “The reality that we face today as Republicans, as we think about the choice in front of us, we have to choose because Republicans cannot both be loyal to Donald Trump and loyal to the Constitution.” Liz Cheney.
Question of the Day: When you are made up of 16 of the largest universities in the country, can you continue to call yourself the Big 10? How do you explain it to first grader?
Video of the Day: https://www.detroitnews.com/videos/news/local/detroit-city/2022/06/28/twenty-four-minutes-fireworks-compressed-into-one-minute/7753405001/