Georgia got the win. The postgame scene? Not a good look. Georgia players were hit with water bottles thrown by Alabama fans following the 20-17 victory in Tuscaloosa.
#GoDawgs#DawgNation
I quit on the Falcons.
Moved on.
Told them I needed space.
Said I needed to find myself.
Knew we wanted different things.
Now Atlanta sends me a late-night "You up?" text....
CNN’s Ryan Young STUNS Wolf Blitzer with what he’s seeing at Atlanta’s airport after ICE deployment.
“Wolf, I almost can’t believe I’m able to say this—the times have dropped off tremendously.”
BLITZER: “Ryan, what do TSA wait times look like in Atlanta this morning?”
YOUNG: “Wolf, I almost can’t believe I’m able to say this.”
“The times have dropped off tremendously this morning.”
“People were waiting an hour in line. Now that is not the case.”
“If you look at the main checkpoint here, there seems like a less than a dozen people.”
“One thing I should note to everyone Tuesday is a traditionally slow day here at this airport. It’s a great day to travel out because there’s not as much volume.”
“So they knew today was going to drop off, but I don’t think people thought they were going to see the numbers where they are right now. And that’s TSA pre. This is the main checkpoint.”
“And we’re seeing those numbers just fall off.”
“Of course, the other thing that people have been asking about is of course what are the ICE agents doing who are walking through the airport?”
“What kind of responsibilities do they have?”
“Here to the officers who are sort of walking through the airport now, they’re patrolling the outside areas of the airport, keeping people safe, interacting with some of the people as they walk by.”
“But for the most part, they have this defensive posture where they’re just sort of walking around and making sure the perimeter is safe.”
Only in America can you find a kid wearing $150 tennis shoes, drinking a $5 cup of coffee, typing on his $1,000 cell phone, and complaining on social media that he is oppressed and that capitalism has failed him.
“It’ll be called college football. The games will be primarily on Saturdays, so the sport can be properly observed when most people are off work that day and the next.”
“Even the semifinals and championship, sir?”
“Of course not! The semifinals will be Thursday and Friday, while the championship will be on a Monday.”
@BlankFoundation Your football team is embarrassing! As a season ticket holder, I regret that financial commitment every day and Sunday's only reinforce that feeling! Do your damn job and get rid of everyone!!
This is simply beyond parody. We couldn’t come up with a Bee headline as ridiculous as granting CDL licenses to people with no name given. It is a mockery of the rule of law, and those responsible for it should be tried and convicted of treason (among other things).
When I was in college in the mid 1990s, the most prominent conservative on campus was Professor Harvey Mansfield. The majority of the student population in my time disagreed with many of his views. In the same era, Andrea Dworkin, a prominent feminist activist, was publishing prolifically and speaking on college campuses across the United States and Canada. The majority of the student population at my college disagreed with her views as well.
Had either of them been executed, the academic world, media, and nation would have been rightly and unambiguously horrified. It would not have mattered if some of their opinions were considered unpalatable in certain quarters. It would not have mattered which flavor of radicalization or psychopathic influences the shooter ascribed to. It would not have mattered how their deaths might be politicized afterwards or used to justify nefarious backlash. An assassination like that would have been widely recognized for what it is—an attack on free speech and the core values of our nation.
The reason we listen to speakers on campuses and elsewhere is precisely to be exposed to viewpoints that differ from our own. To be challenged into changing our minds, fire-testing our own viewpoints, or fortifying our opposition. To learn, argue, negotiate, reconsider, and integrate.
In our collective haze of righteous outrage, we seem to have forgotten that the First Amendment comes first because of what happens after we stop resolving our differences with words.
This Wednesday, an invited speaker to a college campus leading a discussion where he encouraged his interlocutors to “prove him wrong” was assassinated with a round to the throat in front of 3,000 college students. It was live-streamed to tens of thousands more.
He encouraged discussion and debate, opposed force and violence, and went into arenas to speak with people who vehemently disagreed with him. His literal brand was respectful discourse on college campuses—influencing non-coercively with reason, not fists or bullets.
As a conservative, he was despised by many on the far-right for being too accepting of minorities, was reviled by white supremacists, and was a bridge builder to the center and liberals.
I would like to say I can scarcely believe some of the reactions we are seeing online except that I can. We’ve all been watching this frog boil, degree by degree, in our cultural discourse, creating an authorizing environment for violence. It is commonplace now to dehumanize and vilify those with whom we disagree because “the stakes are simply too high now” for us to adhere to the norms that have guided our nation through unrest, wars, and horrors for 250 years.
There are the obvious dark-tetrad types celebrating pain for clicks and influence, of course. Sadly, we have come to expect that, though I will say that gleeful celebratory posts from the president of the Oxford Union wasn’t on my bingo card.
What feels more dislocating is the insidious equivocation lurking within many of the seemingly anodyne responses. The fact that a great number of people cannot bring themselves to condemn the assassination of Charlie Kirk unequivocally without pointing out that they “disagree with some of his positions,” that “he was part of the problem,” or that “the other side is worse” shows just how far gone we are to radicalization, tribalism, and infantility.
The “two things can be true at once” crowd isn’t merely painfully misreading the room in a time of immense sorrow and horror, they are revealing that their need to publicly reassert their in-group identity is more important than the human empathy they espouse to exemplify.
No one seems to be talking about the obvious.
Three thousand kids, just out of adolescence, just witnessed the most horrific thing.
A peaceful speaker shot through the throat live at a free speech event.
They watched a bullet enter a young man’s neck, an arterial gush paint his shirt. They watched him shudder and collapse.
Innumerable more saw it on the live stream. Tens of millions in the aftermath.
Everyone has seen it now. My kids. Your kids.
No one’s taking about how awful this is for them.
Instead we’re focused on political spin and ramifications.
What are we doing?
Charlie Kirk’s movement has 3500 chapters and clubs on college and high school campuses. According to Grok, his media clips garnered 15 billion social media views in 2024 alone, many viewed by kids and young adults.
Those kids whose lives he touched are not a monolith any more than “the left” or “the right” is. Some are Christians. Some are Jews. Some are conservatives who are not religious. Some are curious and figuring out what they think. Some are seeking meaning and inspiration. Some are angry at some of his positions and agree with others. Some disliked him the way I dislike the Yankees—I’m glad they exist for me to root against but would never wish harm on one of their players.
These are good kids.
American kids.
Our kids.
Charlie embodied many beliefs but near the top was a vehement American belief in words, debate, and reason over force and violence. When challenged to fight by a grown man in front of 2,000 kids, he said, “The only thing that is preventing us in this country from going to civil war is debate and dialogue… In fact, a mark of civilization is that we don’t have to go to blows and bullets, that we can have discourse and debate… We are going to remain peaceful.”
The reactions from adults to his assassination span the gamut. Conservatives are devastated and heartbroken. Bad-faith players are jockeying to subsume his influence while urging civil war. Dark-tetrad types are showing their true colors. Many liberals, mainstream media folks, and Democrats have condemned this.
And a shocking number of adults have objected to the assassination… but with qualifications and caveats. Many of those statements sound like brands trying to figure out what’s the best thing to say politically so it won’t damage their market share. And we are judging those responses like a gymnastics routine, rating them for which best hit the mark of authenticity.
What does this feel like to the tens of millions of our kids? What does it say to them about what they saw, what they are feeling, and how they are doing?
What do they want to hear from the adults of this country? Need to hear? Deserve to hear?
The same thing that our children terrorized by school schoolings deserve to hear.
Everyone needs to hear the same things.
All of our children need to hear them too.
𝘞𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘯’𝘵 𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘧𝘦𝘢𝘳 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘱𝘢𝘪𝘳 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭.
𝘞𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘧𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘭𝘺 𝘴𝘰𝘳𝘳𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘥 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘸𝘧𝘶𝘭 𝘱𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘵.
𝘞𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘥𝘰 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘵𝘰 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘢𝘥𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘳𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯.
𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘢 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘪𝘯 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘺.
𝘞𝘦 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘰 𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘱 𝘣𝘶𝘪𝘭𝘥 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘧𝘶𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦.
𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘰 𝘶𝘴.
𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘣𝘦𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘨 𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦.
𝘞𝘦 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶.
R.I.P. Charlie Kirk
I didn't know Charlie personally. But he did send me a kind message last year. "I love all people" is what he said. If that is any indication of who the man was, then this country has lost someone special today.
Partisan politics did not stand in the way of him paying me a compliment, and it should not stand in the way of mourning him either.
We cannot become a society where expressing political views, even controversial ones, leads to violence. Whatever you think of his politics, Charlie was a decent man, a patriot, and a brave defender of his values. My heart goes out to his wife and his kids.
This annual chart looks at how many draft picks a school has produced over the past 5 NFL drafts compared to recruiting class ratings from relevant years.
Michigan, Penn State, LSU some of the top overperformers at producing draft picks. Clemson and Texas A&M not so much.
"I'm sick and tired of making athletes greats, all-time greats that aren't the best examples! Those are the people that we want our kids to follow." - P.K. Subban