God told Lane Kiffin to take the money and run. Kiffin is emblematic of much that’s wrong in today’s world.

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You are blessed if you have no idea who Lane Kiffin is, or why you should care. But the saga of how one of sports most-traveled and most-reviled figures decided to give up on his team while they were preparing to play in the College Football Playoff to determine the national champion and instead run off to a rival in the same conference speaks volumes about what is totally screwed up in today’s sports world . . . and in our country at large.

Here are a few short snippets from reporters and commentators I follow that help explain my growing sense that the current regime is finally being called out for the corruption and lies (the first few sections) and my growing ambivalence to virtually all sports played where alleged adults are involved (the last three sections).

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ENSURING THAT BILLIONAIRES ARE PRIORITIZED OVER REAL AMERICA

Americans are beginning to catch on . . . and the media is beginning to catch up . . . with the fact that the regime in place in Washington is focused on stealing what belongs to you and me and leaving the country high and dry.

In a sharp piece that explores this administration’s ties to the amoral billionaires of Silicon Valley, Marcy Wheeler noted that the New York Times recently published a 3,000-word profile of David Sacks. The Times story on Sacks describes “how his installment as the White House AI and crypto czar has led to a number of decisions that may not benefit the US, such as sharing AI technology with UAE in seeming exchange for personal gain for others, including Trump. The profile quotes Sacks’ own spokesperson explaining that poor David Sacks just ‘wants the entire American tech stack to win.’”

Wheeler, who is a dogged investigative journalist with a deep knowledge of the law, noted that the ferocity of the response by the “tech bros” is telling. “The closing paragraphs [in the Times report],” writes Wheeler, “nod to the significance of all this: that at a time when both crypto and AI need a bailout—a vastly bigger bailout than Silicon Valley Bank needed—David Sacks is there to ensure that gets prioritized over real America.” But in the end, Wheeler asserts that the Times story comes up short.

“None of this exposes the real underlying problem here, the degree to which the American economy has been hollowed out so these bro boys can attempt to divorce themselves from the physical reality of real people entirely.”

Follow the money.

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YOUR FAILED STRATEGY IS SHOWING

It is difficult to keep a straight face about your strategy of fighting drugs when the Commander in Chief promises to pardon former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who actually did what Trump claims Venezuela’s leaders are doing, who was convicted of it, who was sentenced to decades in prison. Paul Krugman makes the link between this pardon and corruption within the administration.

“[W]hy pardon Hernández? What’s the connection to the crypto/tech broligarchy? It’s called Próspera.

Próspera is a for-profit city being built off Honduras’s coast. Its charter largely exempts the island from Honduran law. Instead, the city is run by a governing structure that for the most part gives control to a corporation, Honduras Próspera Inc., which is in turn funded by a familiar list of Silicon Valley billionaires including Thiel, Sam Altman and Marc Andreesen.

So while the city is being marketed as a libertarian paradise, it’s best seen as an autonomous oligarchy, government of, by and for billionaires.”

Wheeler thinks the trajectory of the last few weeks has been lost in the serial disclosures, so she helpfully summarizes them here. Her headings alone are enough to remind you that going into Venezuela under false pretenses is illegal.

• Mark Kelly and five other Democrats made a video reminding service members they can refuse illegal orders
• WaPo publishes the first double tap story
• Trump promises to pardon Juan Orlando Hernández, destroying pretext for war
• White House concedes the double tap but defends Hegseth
• CIA’s disavowal of Rahmanullah Lakanwal
• Mark Kelly models leadership

Follow the money.

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SOMETHING IS CHANGING

Rebecca Solnit has noted that change is in the air. Progressives have reclaimed patriotism, the flag, and the Constitution. 

“This country goes through waves of anti-elitism: in 2011, Occupy Wall Street arose from the reaction to the 2008 crash; Franklin Roosevelt won on a wave of anti-elitism. Now Trump is sundowning in more ways than one and something deep is shifting. I don’t know exactly what or where it will take us. This does not mean everything is fine or anything is guaranteed; setting eyes on the destination does not mean you’ll make it there.

. . . [I]t will never be January 19, 2025 again. The end of Trump will either be the beginning of a national reconstruction/recovery project, or the point at which this country falls apart. How we go forward is improvisational, which is to say it’s up to us.

It always was.”

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TAKE LANE KIFFIN . . . PLEASE!

Let’s now turn to Lane Kiffin and get him over with.

There’s a history with this guy. Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis, who was no paragon of virtue, fired Kiffin from his first head coaching job and “called him a ‘flat-out liar’ who ‘conned me, like he conned all you people.’ Davis fired Kiffin for cause, and an arbitrator denied Kiffin’s grievance in 2010.” Kiffin is the coach who “left Tennessee and caused a riot, the guy who got fired on the tarmac at USC and the dude who Nick Saban booted during a playoff run at Alabama because Kiffin couldn’t handle that job and his upcoming gig at Florida Atlantic. Joe Rexrode says Kiffin, 50, has earned permanent villain status.”

But the quote that I found most absurd was Kiffin’s description of how he made the decision to leave Ole Miss in a lurch and run off with a new love.

“But it just became time. I talked to God, and he told me it’s time to take a new step. It’s a new chapter.”

Seriously?

The Southern humorist and writer Lewis Grizzard had a lot to say about God and sports. First, he noted that “As best as I can tell, God was undefeated in all sports last year. Anybody who won thanked Him, and I never heard a single loser blame Him.” But Grizzard also opined that God had more important things to deal with than whether your team kicked that winning field goal. In that vein, she really doesn’t care whether Lane Kiffin stays at Ole Miss or goes to LSU.

That is, unless God has become the equivalent of $12 million/year plus bonuses. Which is what really spoke to Kiffin.

As Susan B. Anthony once said,

“I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.”

When the governor of Louisiana got involved in the firing of LSU’s previous coach, Brian Kelly, in order to clear the field for Kiffin, it made me wonder if Louisiana is now such a paradise that the governor, like God (and someone else we know), doesn’t have anything better to do with his time than to meddle in sports.

Don’t answer that question.

For a good analysis of all the shenanigans involved, read Stewart Mandel’s article Lane Kiffin to LSU sets maddening precedent amid all-time hypocrisy in college football.

And as my favorite sports writer Joe Posnanski put it:

“I wish LSU all the best with this guy. They’ve got an unlimited amount of football money down there in Baton Rouge, and winning is everything, and it doesn’t seem like character is a necessary trait for successful football coaches, so it might just work out.

I’m not a betting person. But I wouldn’t bet on it anyway.”

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IT IS COLLEGE BOWL TIME. YIPPEE!

As this oldie-but-goodie cartoon from 2014 by Pulitzer Prize winner David Horsey suggests, we’ve gone too far with naming rights for college bowl games. A Depends Super Absorbent Adult Diaper Bowl sounds all too plausible in this day and age. These bowl games really are not about football, but are one big advertising bonanza using the fan bases of the colleges involved and the sports/industrial complex. Once again, follow the money.

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A BASEBALL LOCKOUT AND WORK STOPPAGE? SERIOUSLY?

Mere weeks after having produced a baseball postseason for the ages, the folks in charge are threatening a work stoppage and player lockout. The owners are printing money due to the links with the gambling industry, but heaven forbid they cut the players in on a significant piece of the action. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, as I quote my friend Robyn Ryle:

“Let me put it more plainly — the players want baseball to be good. The owners just want to make money. Period. End of story.“

In sports, as in life, when things go south you will seldom go wrong in finding out the problem if you follow the money.

More to come . . .

DJB

Money image by SK from Pixabay.