Cracker Barrel Country: TWTW's Orange Bowl Preview

Danville, Kentucky -- Michigan football's renaissance can be chalked up to one man: Jim Harbaugh. Harbaugh is America's coach, a coach of the people. No man in college football has better intuition than Jim. At a time when it would've been politically expedient for a man teaching in a liberal snowflake bubble town like Ann Arbor to be seen eating kale or driving a hybrid car, Jim took a stand for American family values and fine dining.

Jim felt the winds of change in the air. He correctly intuited that America is no longer a Chipotle country, or a Panera country. America is now a Cracker Barrel country. Jim knew this: just as the Crack Barrel ethos propelled Donald Trump to the presidency, it is now poised to make the Michigan Wolverines winners of back-to-back bowl games. 

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Cracker Barrel is a restaurant (and old country store) where deep familial bonds of love are formed over hot plates of meatloaf and country fried steak. As a man who has dragged his children kicking and screaming to numerous Cracker Barrel establishments across our fine nation during family road trips, I can vouch for the restaurant's ability to nurture relationships. Kids love the gift shop, and the plump blueberries snugged tenderly into each buttery pancake. Adults like myself love the rustic, cozy atmosphere and great decorations, which are a throwback to simpler times. 

The best part about Cracker Barrel is that they don't try to shove robots down your throat. You won't find any of those annoying, gimmicky touch-screen tablet devices that are now all the rage at Chilis and Applebee's. Chilis and Applebee's love to plant these things on your table in hopes that your child will steal your credit card and pay $20 to play Angry Birds while you aren't looking. 

Not only are these tablets prone to abuse by unruly children, they also put perfectly suitable human employees out of a job. These tablets detach restaurant-goers from their fellow man by making face-to-face interaction with other flesh-and-blood human beings unnecessary. 

@Applebees @TWTWsports promise to get rid of those iPad things at the table! They are confusing and disrespectful to the waitstaff

— amac (@amacthursday) December 24, 2016

@Applebees @TWTWsports golden age of Applebees was 1994. My family went every Sunday, and enjoyed a meal just fine sans some table machine

— amac (@amacthursday) December 24, 2016

Cracker Barrel has resisted this technological onslaught. Cracker Barrel values old-fashioned human interaction. If you want to entertain yourself at Cracker Barrel, you have to play a simple, non-electronic game like the pioneers of old. It's not as flashy as Angry Birds, but the pegs game teaches kids the value of concentration, perseverance, and mental stamina. 

Mr. Harbaugh, a brilliant tactician on the football field, coaches like a guy who has completed the pegs game a few times. Yet Harbaugh's most shrewd tactical decision may have happened off the field when he decided to take his team to Cracker Barrel. The family that eats together, stays together. The family that eats Cracker Barrel's famous "Sunrise Sampler" together, triumphs together. It's no coincidence that Michigan football began to win again after hiring a coach who understands the restorative power of a hearty helping of hickory smoked country ham. 

Contrast Mr. Harbaugh to his counterpart from Florida State. Folks, Jimbo Fisher cannot win. Jimbo's wife left him after cheating on him with one of Jimbo's own wide receivers, landing a hefty divorce settlement in the process. Like Jimbo, I am also a coach (of my nephew's little league team) who has been through divorce. However, if my wife cheated on me with one of the kids from the team I coach, you can bet I'd have the decency to retreat from the public eye. Jimbo should have the good sense to get out of college football while he can.

Harbaugh and the Wolverines made quick work of the Florida Gators last year in the Citrus Bowl; I predict a similarly decisive victory over the Florida State Seminoles. When Jim faces Jimbo, don't bet against Harbaugh. Don't bet against the man who has Cracker Barrel on his side.

Trump's First 100 Days Agenda: Deport All Robots

Danville, Kentucky -- Folks, if there's one thing that liberals don't get, it's economics. That's because most of them have never owned a business or even held a job. In contrast, my family and I have years of experience working in many crucial industries. The Hart family has proudly labored in General Motors assembly plants, coal mines, oil drilling rigs, snow-plowing, and rubber manufacturing mills, to name a few. But one-by-one, all those industries have disappeared. Now I'm forced to blog about sports and politics to make ends meet.

For generations, good-paying jobs were abundant in this country. You could go as far in life as your ambition and determination took you. But lately quality, dignified jobs have hemorrhaged from America to foreign countries like Mexico, China, and Vietnam. These days, steady employment is harder to come by than an MLB player that knows how to bunt correctly.

Those of us on the front-lines of America's most productive industries -- energy production, heavy manufacturing, fast food -- know that the departure of blue-collar jobs is primarily due to several decades worth of awful, unfair trade deals like NAFTA and TPP. Lots of liberals on twitter like to accuse me of being a partisan hack just because I openly supported Donald Trump; but let me be the first to say that these awful trade deals are a bipartisan affair. They've been pushed and supported by both Democrats and Republicans alike. Reagan gave us the Canada–United States Free Trade Agreement. Bill Clinton gave us NAFTA. George W. Bush supported China’s entry into the World Trade Organization. And Obama gave us TPP. It takes two parties to tango, folks. We wouldn't be where we are without a bipartisan consensus in favor of hollowing out American industrial manufacturing.

But many economists won't own up to this. They like to create all kinds of far-fetched excuses for the outsourcing of American jobs. They blame these losses on the uncontrollable forces of globalization, the tax code, cheap labor in other countries, climate change, and even robots.

@NewellNYC @paulkrugman ~20% of manuf jobs since 2001 lost to China/EMs. Rest of 80% due to increases in productivity->mainly automation.

— Christopher Vecchio (@CVecchioFX) November 26, 2016

The long-term jobs killer is not China. It's automation. https://t.co/QbhCu2p5Fu pic.twitter.com/Dgvbd9IuAe

— The New York Times (@nytimes) December 21, 2016

Leave it to a bunch of ivory-tower computer geeks to totally misdiagnose the problems that America's manufacturing sector is facing.

A debate about the true causes of the decline of American manufacturing is healthy. The problem is, these bogus arguments that automation is the primary cause of industrial job losses get used to justify the status quo. Whenever a tough guy like Trump comes around -- who breaks from the bipartisan establishment consensus in favor of job-killing trade deals and speaks out in favor of re-making the rigged global trading system -- he gets hailed with a chorus of jeers from egghead academics who claim that the true cause of job losses is advances in automation technology that render humans expendable.

Folks, it's not an either/or, forced choice. The U.S. government should take actions to address the multiple economic factors that have contributed to the decline of good-paying jobs. Trump has proposed a highly detailed program of reforms that would accomplish precisely that. Trump should move forward with that program. He should build the wall. He should slap tariffs on companies that ship jobs overseas. He should re-negotiate awful deals like NAFTA. He should hold China's feet to the fire so they stop manipulating their currency and dumping their cheap products everywhere.

He should also deport robots.

Trump has already promised to deport all 11 million illegal immigrants currently residing in the United States in violation of our immigration laws. While he's at it, he should round up job-stealing automatons as well. Paul Krugman and the gang are wrong to say that automation is the primary driver of American job losses; the distinguished title of "biggest job-killer" still belongs with NAFTA, my friends. Nonetheless, they have a point. Robots have stolen plenty of jobs from hard-working Americans. They've stolen factory jobs. They've stolen cashier jobs at fast food restaurants. Combat drones have even stolen jobs from our soldiers, folks. That's why I'm proposing a complete and total ban on job-stealing robots. I urge President-elect Donald Trump to vigorously pursue this policy during his first 100 days in office.

The benefits of an aggressive robot deportation policy would be plentiful. First and foremost, deporting robots would bring back lost jobs, causing millions of down-on-their-luck Americans to re-enter the workforce so they can provide for their families and put Spinach & Artichoke Dip on the table.

Once touch-screen ordering machines are tossed out of the country, teenagers will return to work as cashiers in our nation's multi-billion dollar fast-food industry, learning the importance of hard work and proper facial hygiene in the process. Once those creepy claw-machine things are left for dead on the Mexican border, the assembly lines of our nation's automobile, steel, rubber, and textile factories will once more be operated by flesh-and-blood humans. When you call your credit card company to complain that someone in Hungary has stolen your identity and is fraudulently purchasing sewing machines in your name, you'll speak to a human being and not a pre-recorded robot voice. Hundreds of industriousness people around our good country will find employment providing family-friendly live entertainment and music at Chuck E. Cheese's restaurants once those automated performers they've used in the past are efficiently and humanely expelled from the United States.

The benefits of my robot deportation proposal don't stop there. It's not enough to bring back the jobs of yesterday; Trump must also help create the jobs of tomorrow. A robust robot deportation program can help there too. My robot deportation policy would create millions of new high-paying jobs in the police force. Kicking out every last robot will require a lot of manpower, especially since we can't use robots to do it (we don't want this to turn out like Robocop, folks). Pursuing a policy to deport all robots will instantly create demand for skilled workers capable of apprehending, de-programming, and destroying these robots while also suppressing any uprisings if necessary. It's a win-win for the whole economy!

I'm tired of being told by liberals that I lost my job as a factory worker because my skill-set is outdated and irrelevant in a high-technology society. That's just false. It's not my fault they didn't teach software programming at Danville High in 1972. We didn't even have software back then, folks. I'm smart enough and hard-working enough that I could get a high-tech job if I wanted. I'd just rather work at a job where I have to get dirt under my fingernails than some job where I have to push pencils and sit in a cubicle all day. There's no dignity in working for a software firm or a tech start-up and staring at a computer all day, folks. That's why millions of hard-working blue-collar Americans voted for Trump in droves this past November. We want the pride and dignity that comes with CREATING and BUILDING things. It's time for Trump to make good on his promises and bring back the glory days of American industry. Deport all robots. Make America Human Again, Donald.