A wind is blowing from the east

Former President Donald J. Trump and Senator JD Vance of Ohio are stopping today in two crucial battleground states: Mr. Trump in North Carolina, a state he won by a single percentage point in 2020, and Mr. Vance in Michigan, which Mr. Trump carried in 2016 but lost four years later. The Republicans are hoping to take back some of the momentum Vice President Kamala Harris has swiftly gained since becoming the Democrats’ nominee.

New polling from the Cook Political Report reflected the energy around Ms. Harris, showing her leading Mr. Trump slightly or tied among likely voters in six of the seven battlegrounds polled — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Ms. Harris and her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, also picked up the endorsement of the Teamsters union’s Black caucus, though its parent union has remained silent.

Here’s what else to know:

• On the trail: Mr. Trump is set to appear at a campaign event in Asheville, N.C., while Mr. Vance attended a small rally in Byron Center, Mich., just south of Grand Rapids. Mr. Walz continues his swing of solo campaign appearances with fund-raisers in Denver and Boston. Ms. Harris is scheduled to deliver an economy-focused speech on Friday in Raleigh, N.C., and she and Mr. Walz will campaign in Pittsburgh and western Pennsylvania on Sunday, the day before the Democratic National Convention kicks off.
• Poll shows a shift: The new Cook poll was a marked change from the same surveys in May that showed Mr. Trump leading by a solid margin or tied across seven swing states. In the latest polling, he maintained a slim margin in just one: Nevada. The reversal in North Carolina is particularly stark — Mr. Trump held one of his largest leads there in May, and the candidates are now neck-and-neck.
• Fall races set: A pair of prominent primaries were held on Tuesday. Representative Ilhan Omar, a progressive lightning rod, won the primary for her Minnesota seat. In Wisconsin, Eric Hovde, a wealthy businessman endorsed by Donald Trump, won the G.O.P. contest to challenge Senator Tammy Baldwin, the Democratic incumbent.
• Union cries foul on Trump and Musk: The United Automobile Workers union filed charges with federal labor regulators accusing Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk, in their livestream this week, of voicing support for the practice of firing workers when they go on strike.
• Doubling up: With Democrats gathering in Chicago for their nominating convention next week, the Harris campaign is planning for Ms. Harris and Mr. Walz to also hold a rally in Milwaukee — the same city where Republicans held their convention last month.
• Arizona abortion measure: A proposal to establish a right to abortion in Arizona’s Constitution will be on the ballot in November — and it could influence turnout in the battleground state. Democrats have leveraged unhappiness about the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade into gains in elections up and down the ballot over the last two years, but Republicans are betting that they can also use ballot questions to drive turnout in their favor in Arizona.
• Reaching out: Mr. Trump plans to meet with Miriam Adelson, the widow of the casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, after his aide sent her angry texts in his name. The messages accused her of having “RINOs” — meaning, Republicans in name only — running a super PAC, and that her late husband never would have tolerated it.

anyone know if we are talking about a long absence ?

Which of you hort troublemakers are flying car sized drones near New Jersey?
Fess up.

It is great to be an Iowa Wrestling fan.

Go Hawks!

how do teams with so much talent look so terrible.

Yet, with President Biden still in office for about another six weeks, immigration officials are expecting a surge of traffic at the border as immigrants looking to enter the country hope to do so before Trump takes office.

Michigan -8.5

Former Nebraska football coach Scott Frost is expected to join the Los Angeles Rams' staff as a senior analyst, according to an ESPN report.

Frost had been out of coaching since he was fired two years ago by NU. Frost received a nearly $16 million payout upon his firing after the Sept. 10, 2022, loss to Georgia Southern. He and his family later relocated to Scottsdale, Arizona.

In an interview with CBS Sports earlier this year, Frost said he wanted to return to coaching.
"I'm dying to get back in," Frost said.

He joins one of the top current franchises in the NFL. Under coach Sean McVay, Los Angeles has averaged 10 wins during the past seven seasons and played in two Super Bowls, winning one in 2022 over the Bengals.

Thanks for your attention to this.

but the players (current & former) would run thru a brick wall for him.

#2 Iowa wrestling is at the Journeyman Wrestling event in St. Charles, MO tonight.

6 PM: #2 Iowa vs Princeton
8 PM: #2 Iowa vs Army

I'll post updates in this thread.

5D chess move from the “national security threat.”

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Interesting. The guy was only at KU for this year and sucked the first 6 games. They went 1-6 with a qb who has been pretty good in previous years.

In this moment in time when so many things are being fixed or at least being broached for fixing, Jeffrey A. Tucker, a Senior Editor for "The Epoc Times," thinks the
"back to the Office" movement may be a broader phenomenon.
.........................................................................................................................

Ties Are Back, Thank Goodness​

Times of great social and political upheaval, epochs in which a paradigm shifts from one cultural moment to another, invariably involve changed fashions. It has become apparent in the world of menswear.

We are going back to jackets and neckties. Thank goodness and it is about time. A man is never fully dressed without a tie. From a purely aesthetic point of view, the tie completes the outfit. No open-collar shirt can achieve the same look.

This has been true for centuries, even back to the time of the cravat and all the crazy bows of the 18th and 19th centuries. The 20th century gave us the standard necktie and made it available to everyone, not just the elites. They have been standard for a reason: they look right. They suggest that the wearer should be taken seriously. It’s as simple as that.

It was only a couple of years ago that I was tottering around in a menswear shop and asked about ties and how they are selling. I was in the business in the old days so I’m always curious what people are buying. The man informed me that the tie is completely dead. No one buys them at all. He acted like this was a permanent shift.

I knew for sure that he was wrong. Ties come and go, and usually their disappearance is a sign that something major has gone wrong. They were fashionable in the early 1960s and vanished in the late 1960s with shock over assassinations and conscription. They returned in the 1980s and then vanished in the 21st century with the popularity of hoodies and tennis shoes among the tech bros.

Let me say this again: What you wear is not really about what you are saying about yourself; it is what you are saying about others, the occasion, and the venue. People dress up for court or for Congressional testimony and that has never gone away. It’s because they are showing respect for the institution.

These same people will not dress up for the office or for a cocktail party, so what message is that conveying by comparison? It should be obvious that it betrays a lack of respect and appreciation.

For years I’ve heard excuses for looking like a slob. I don’t have to impress people. My achievements stand on their own without having to put on a fancy get up. I’m more comfortable in sweats and sneakers. And so on.

None of this has anything to do with anything. How you dress is a direct reflection of your attitude toward the event and others there. This is why it is so sad to me to see people at the symphony dressed like they are at a baseball game. For that matter, it is sad to see people at a baseball game dressed like hobos.

“Neckties may never regain prepandemic levels of popularity,” writes the Wall Street Journal, “but sales data show signs of resurgence. After tumbling to $61.4 million in 2020, U.S. tie imports rebounded to $106 million by 2022, according to the most recent data from trade-tracking website Observatory of Economic Complexity.”

The new interest seems to be driven by Gen Z, which associates back-to-the-office with actual office clothing and adulthood generally. Rightly so! Many years have gone by in which the boss was dressed down so seriously that new employees felt the need to emulate. But that seems to be changing as younger people clearly see the advantages.

Oddly, this is especially true in Zoom meetings. A person is shown only from the chest up so that one’s shoes or trousers do not matter. But you can wear a tie and look rather respectable. Plus it is a way of saying: I’m not one of those stay-at-home losers. I actually make some effort to come to the office and dress properly.

Let’s explore why the tie seems to be suddenly back. The lockdowns were also associated with constant shabbiness, plus there seemed to be a pandemic chic development that one’s clothing should be as close to rags as possible, almost in the garb of penance. This tendency lasted for longer than two years, as if we all had to behave like flagellants.

But those days are gone, and everyone is marching back to the office. In fact, this trend will soon come to Washington, D.C. which has mostly been a ghost town for years, since only about 6 percent of federal workers even show up full time. The Department of Government Efficiency is determined to change that.

No question that the Trump victory is also a victory for dressing up. He is always in a suit and tie unless you find him on the golf course. That sends a statement. To be sure, he has a habit—a bad one in my view—of leaving open the button on his suit jacket. This is a mistake. Trump will never change, but I hope this habit does not catch on.

Where to get your ties? Sure you can pay retail of $50–350 but you can also find astonishing prices on eBay. A brief look reveals fantastic fabrics and designs for as low as $1 each. To my mind, I really do not know why anyone would shop in other places.

A few cautionary notes. Avoid wacky ties with cartoon characters and abstract art. Those are and always will be tacky. A tie should be patterns, stripes, dots, or just solid with or without texture. Nor should they be in extreme colors. They should be silk and some wool or cotton depending on the season. Any tie with a synthetic fabric on the outer shell should be thrown away instantly.
As for the knot, there are really only three that are suitable: four-in-hand, half Windsor, or full Windsor. The rest of the alternatives such as the infinity knot are preposterous and should never be worn.

In any case, so much is changing and there are so many wonderful shifts in the air. It’s a moment when many things are being fixed and there are signs of restoration everywhere. The rise of the necktie is surely among them, so that men can look like men again.

Jeffrey A. Tucker

Jeffrey A. Tucker is the founder and president of the Brownstone Institute and the author of many thousands of articles in the scholarly and popular press, as well as 10 books in five languages, most recently “Liberty or Lockdown.” He is also the editor of “The Best of Ludwig von Mises.” He writes a daily column on economics for The Epoch Times and speaks widely on the topics of economics, technology, social philosophy, and culture.

Pretty interesting! That said, have to assume it's a massive win if DeSanto makes any of these matches competitive. Otto, it'll be interesting to see him stack up with senior level talent!

CBS News reports:

In what has become a pattern of spreading vaccine misinformation, the Florida health department is telling older Floridians and others at highest risk from COVID-19 to avoid most booster shots, saying they are potentially dangerous.
A prominent Florida doctor expressed dismay that medical leaders in the state, leery of angering Gov. Ron DeSantis, have been slow to counter anti-vaccine messages from Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, including the latest COVID bulletin.
The bulletin makes a number of false or unproven claims about the efficacy and safety of mRNA-based COVID vaccines by Pfizer and Moderna, including that they could threaten “the integrity of the human genome.” Florida’s guidance generally regurgitates ideas from anti-vaccine websites, said John Moore, a professor of microbiology at Weill Cornell Medicine.

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We’ve got plenty that love to plunge threads off into oblivion here at Hbot. Who does it best and why?

If she loses, will she run again? If so, will the Dem power brokers, particularly Obama, support her? If she runs again, and is nominated, would she choose Walz as her running mate?

If she loses, would Walz consider running for POTUS if Harris also runs? What if Harris doesn't run?

What is the likelihood that Harris is a sacrificial candidate? If she wins, that's icing on the cake because it wasn't really expected, and the power brokers have another puppet. If she loses, at the least the Dems didn't sacrifice someone with a good chance to win in 2028.

These Dr. Pepper commercials are so "on brand", especially given what is going on with college football today.

I suppose Bama will get selected for the CFP tomorrow as well, even with 3 losses.

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