Dak Prescott Must Resign

Danville, Kentucky -- America loves a fresh face. This was a lesson I learned the hard way while I was an employee at a rubber mill in Louisville. I loved my job. It was an honor and a privilege to help produce the material that is the lifeblood of our civilization. Think of how important rubber is, folks. Rubber puts tires on our cars so we can drive to work and to Olive Garden. Rubber puts treads on the tanks that our men and women in uniform use to deliver freedom abroad. Rubber bullets allow American law enforcement to suppress protesters without resorting to lethal force.

I was born to work in a rubber mill, folks. I dutifully put in 8 years working at that rubber mill. I did my time, gradually working my way up the company's food chain and earning the respect of my superiors. But then one day some punk showed up. I think he was roommates with my boss's nephew or something. He even had a fancy college degree. Before I knew it, this twenty-eight year-old carpetbagger had earned a position in management in no time.

Why? What that kid knew about making rubber I could fit into my eye with little to no discomfort. I spent almost a decade working on the assembly line. This kid was part of the company for only a couple of months. He had never even taken a whiff of the toxic smell of molten rubber. The injustice of it all was infuriating.

rubber production in action, folks.

America loves a fresh face. Every season, the NFL talking heads fawn over the improbable success of a rookie quarterback. Carson Wentz. Mark Sanchez. Robert Griffin III. Colin Kaepernick. Nothing sells more jerseys and NFL League Pass packages than an exciting rookie QB that Skip Bayless can label "the next Cam Newton" or "the next Peyton Manning" or "the next Tom Brady." We've all seen it: a season or two of serviceable football from a fresh-faced rookie, followed by uncontrollable hype and a massive let-down.

Folks, Dak Prescott, over-hyped rookie QB of the 11-2 Dallas Cowboys, is just the next RGIII that will be hyped for a year or two before fading into irrelevance. He's the Marco Rubio of quarterbacks. Marco Rubio, like that yuppie at the rubber mill in Louisville, was an annoying twerp because he didn't wait his turn. He was impatient and cut in line, unfairly shunting more deserving guys like Governor Jeb Bush aside. Just like Rubio betrayed his own mentor Jeb in cold blood, the upstart young Dak Prescott has stolen the job of the more deserving Tony Romo.

How Marco slew his ‘mentor’ Jeb Bush https://t.co/eshqasti5g | Getty and AP Photo pic.twitter.com/xhZVWO7mGH

— POLITICO Magazine (@POLITICOMag) February 24, 2016

The great quarterbacks in this league wait, my friends. Patience is a virtue. Tom Brady waited until Drew Bledsoe was no longer fit for the job. Aaron Rodgers waited for Brett Favre to retire. Prescott, on the other hand, cut in line. Dak performed admirably as a substitute for the injured Romo, no doubt. But with Romo healthy Dak has no business being the starter anymore.

the best things in life are worth waiting for, folks.

Tonight against the New York Giants, Dak turned in his worst performance yet. He looked lost, and unready for prime-time. He made the classic rookie mistake of favoring one receiver while under pressure, like young Matt Stafford used panic and over-target Calvin Johnson. Tony Romo has far more experience playing in high-leverage games. I have no doubt the Cowboys would be 13-0 under a healthy Romo's leadership.

The Cowboys have now turned the ball over 3 times.

All 3 times happened when Dak Prescott targeted Dez Bryant. pic.twitter.com/yewMnYKNjF

— NFL on ESPN (@ESPNNFL) December 12, 2016

America loves a fresh face, but America doesn't always need a fresh face. Sometimes America needs a man who has been there before. A man who knows the smell of molten rubber. A man who has more political experience than a one-term senator from Florida. A man who has played more than a season in Jerry Land. That's why I call on Dak Prescott to tender his letter of resignation to Jerry Jones. This is Tony's team. It will live or die by Tony's hand. For the good of the team, Dak must step aside.

Make Debating Great Again: Why Donald Must Debate Bernie

Danville, Kentucky -- Folks, I was never on the debate team in high school. I was too busy throwing no-hitters for the Danville High Admirals and spitting game with the local lasses. But I don't need a fancy debating pedigree to know that Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have a chance to make history. The 1858 debate between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas (not to be confused with Stephen A. Smith) was ground breaking, and spawned an entire format of debate that high schoolers participate in to this day -- or so I'm told at these parent-teacher conferences that I try my hardest to mentally check out of. Donald and Bernie recently expressed interest in a debate, but Donald has inexplicably backed out. A debate between Donald Trump and Marxist underdog candidate Bernie Sanders would be just as impactful and world-changing as the Lincoln-Douglas debates of old, if only Donald can muster the courage to go through with it.

A high-profile debate against the new face of the democratic party offers a golden opportunity for Donald to define key narratives of the general election. Aside from being an epic clash of worldviews -- between Donald's America-first nationalism and Bernie's beggars-first moocherism -- Trump has a chance to cogently lay out the case for why America must be made great again, by debating against one of the big-spending Senators responsible for America's decline.

Donald is a fighter. He's never let fear get the best of him before, expect when he dodged the draft and pretended to be his own publicist. When Donald is faced with adversity, he confronts it head on, then makes the problem go away with his considerable financial resources. If he's not a coward, Donald must debate Bernie. And he must make these points:

#1 Attack Hillary

Bernie has tons of momentum heading into the California primary, having recently won crucial states like Oregon and West Virginia, home of the once proud miners whose lives have been decimated by Hillary and Obama's war on coal. Bernie keeps on winning primaries. You won't hear it from the Clinton-funded establishment media, but the delegate race is tightening by the hour as Bernie continues to forment a revolution against NAFTA and rich people. Once the results of the rigged Nevada primary are invalidated via judicial decree, Bernie will have a commanding delegate lead heading to the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. The super-delegate race is primed to flip in Bernie's favor as well. Bernie's opponent, crooked Hillary, will be indicted and imprisoned for emailing on the job any day now. Things are looking up for Bernie.

Nonetheless, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, George Soros, George Clooney and the liberal-democratic Illuminati will never let Sanders be the democratic nominee. The democratic nomination has been signed, sealed, and delivered to Crooked Hillary. Donald must remember that he is not running against Bernie Sanders, and keep his eye on the prize. Bernie has been too afraid to attack Hillary for emailing on the job, but Donald must stay on the attack.

#2 Emphasize Common Ground

Bernie and Donald have alot in common. They're both great family men. They're both men of the people. Both of them despise President Obama and seek to reverse his signature accomplishments. They both want to protect American workers like me and my Uncle Bert. They're the only two politicians willing to speak the truth about the horrors of NAFTA, the back-stabbing trade deal that brought us shuttered factories and buffalo wing inflation. Donald needs to make sure these commonalities are not lost on his audience. Fortunately, Donald is at his best when everyone on the stage agrees with him, as evidenced by his stirring debate performances throughout the Republican primary. Being able to emphasize areas of agreement between himself and Bernie will help Trump peel away disaffected Bernie Bros from Hillary in the general election, ensuring a Trump sweep of rustbelt swing states like Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

#3 Insult Bernie

OK, folks. Everyone knows Donald and Bernie have some stuff in common, like great hair and yuge stage presence. But Donald needs to assert dominance. Nobody is watching presidential debates to learn about issues. Folks want to see fireworks and beat-downs you can usually only find on professional wrestling. Donald needs to do what he does best: don't worry about explaining policy details or ideological differences, just insult and belittle your opponent. Make fun of Bernie for only getting divorced once; real men have usually had three or four wives by the time they're Bernie's age. Make fun of Bernie for being poor and driving a normal car instead of flying around in Trump Force One. Mock Bernie's wife for not being as hot as Melania. This is the stuff presidents are made of.

#4 Insult Loser Republicans

Donald needs to realize Crooked Hillary is not his only enemy. The Bush-Romney-Ryan GOP establishment axis are already planning to blindside Donald by supporting an independent RINO candidate to destroy the Republican party from within and stop Trump.

Just a heads up over this holiday weekend: There will be an independent candidate--an impressive one, with a strong team and a real chance.

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) May 29, 2016

Donald needs to use the debate stage to preempt the traitorous treachery of the GOP establishment that is hell-bent on stopping him at all costs. That means insulting loser Republicans, even if they aren't on stage. Call John McCain a weenie. Call Jeb low-energy. Rattle off some one-liners about Lyin' Ted, Awkward Mitt, and Little Marco, even though they dropped out of the race months ago. Nerds have questioned the wisdom of Donald randomly attacking members of his own party. Folks, these worry-warts have never run a smash-hit campaign like Donald or written a masterpiece like Art of the Deal. Donald became the Republican nominee because folks love it when he attacks Republicans. Worry about uniting the party latter. In the meantime, let the zingers fly.

#5 Suggest A Trump-Sanders Ticket 

Lyin' Ted and Kasich's futile attempt to team up and stop Trump was an abysmal failure, as was the #NeverTrump movement. But Donald has an opportunity to create a ticket that would be Crooked Hillary's worst nightmare: a Trump-Sanders duo that would sweep through the industrial Midwest en route to a historic victory. Such a ticket would divide the democratic party and doom Hillary, simultaneously saving America in the process.

CONCLUSION

A Trump-Sanders debate would be a massive cultural event. Normally you have to go to a New York deli to watch old bald men from Brooklyn and Queens yell at eachother. Only this argument isn't about Rye vs. Pumpernickel or Lox vs Pastrami; it's an argument about the fate of America itself.

Expect sky-high ratings. Expect wall-to-wall coverage. Expect me to get kicked out of Buffalo Wild Wings when the manager refuses to change the channel on one of their grotesquely large TVs to the Trump-Sanders debate, for fear of disrupting an ESPN-3 women's college softball game. Expect Crooked Hillary to quiver in fear. Expect the tradition of American political debates to be great again. Greater than ever before.

Trust Deficit: How Credit Cards Bankrupted Rubio

Danville, Kentucky -- The 1960s were a simpler time. No instant replay, no internet, no international free trade agreements. Cash was the currency of the land. Every now and then somebody would write you a check, but during my time working on an oil rig in North Dakota, we were consistently paid in cold, hard, physical dollar bills.

The strenuous nature of the job demanded that us oil-men be rewarded with cash. We knew what we were getting ourselves into when we signed up to work on a rig. It meant 16 hour days on the rig. It meant waking up at 4 AM to get to the drill-site bright and early. It meant long nights at the bar trying to numb the pain of burnt skin with whiskey and gin. It meant living in a ghost town, populated only by other lonely oil-men trying to make a living before boom-time became bust-time.

As I laid awake at night in my log cabin near the drill-site, I would often wonder if any amount of money could make the risks we took worthwhile. It was dangerous work. The toxic fumes billowing from the core of the Earth would sear and sting your lungs like a cigar from Hell. Some men fell 50 feet or more to an untimely end. Sometimes there were unsightly accidents with the drilling machinery, with gruesome results.

For me, the promise of a cash payment was worth putting my safety on the line. It was a tangible reward for the hard work that I put in. The feel of a crisp dollar bill on my black tarry fingers was a grim reminder of what I had done to earn this salary.

Kids these days will never know that feeling -- the feeling of a cash reward after a hard day's work. The advent of credit cards ruined it all. Millennials trade Bitcoins and use Venmo and Paypal, rendering cash obsolete. The physical, at-your-finger-tips nature of cash induced a sense of restraint and responsibility in young Americans. Credit cards encourage frivolous spending by making money seem out-of-sight and out-of-mind.

The best part about cash was that it was all yours. You were free to pocket it, spend it, or stick it under the mattress. Thanks to credit cards, you don't even really own your own money. You have to put your money in a bank that puts your money on a card. Folks, banks can go under like in '08, taking your savings with them. That's why I only deposit my money into a pillowcase.

Thanks to credit cards, some crook in Portugal can steal your identity to buy hundreds of dollars worth of potatoes and fish. Credit cards and digital payments have made wasting money easier and more convenient than ever before, but they've made us all vulnerable to cyber-crime and prevented generations of Americans from appreciating the value of tangible, crisp cash.

Credit cards ruined America. Credit cards ruined Marco Rubio. While Speaker of the House in Florida's legislature, Marco racked up a 6-figure tab on a credit card issued by the Florida Republican Party. We can only guess what Marco spent those hundreds of thousands of dollars on: extramarital affairs, wild nights at Miami strip-clubs, Dolphins tickets, secret trips to visit his comrades in Cuba, or a cocaine habit. What we do know is that the moment Rubio accepted this credit card from his GOP establishment sugar daddies was the moment that Rubio became a puppet. In exchange for going on shopping sprees with his sugar daddy's credit card, Marco would be a Manchurian candidate, beholden to his corporate masters.

Americans are faced with truly difficult choices this November. Nearly every candidate has a fatal flaw. Hillary emailed on the job. Bernie is a socialist. Ted's a Canadian. Donald is an Anchor Baby who bought into the myth that college is a worthwhile investment. Add Marco to the list. His use of credit cards disqualifies him from the office of Presidency.

Working on an oil rig wasn't just about the money. It was about a sense of independence. Working on an oil rig was about proving that if a man was willing to get his hands dirty, he could make a living in this country. By using the GOP establishment's credit card, Rubio sold his independence to corporations and became a financial dependent. Like my ex-wife at IKEA, Marco has been swipe-happy at the American people's expense. Marco has overdrafted from the credit card of our faith, spending his way to trust deficit. It's time to close the account.

Cuban Baseball Crisis: Why the Tampa Bay Rays Should Not Play the Cuban National Team

Danville, Kentucky -- For half a century, our world was divided. A Cold War was waged between countries who believed in man's inalienable right to free enterprise and the pursuit of happiness, and countries who espoused a cruel and failed ideology responsible for Stalinism and Pol Pot. For 13 days in October of 1962, the Soviet Union moved nuclear missiles into Cuba and our world stood at the precipice of nuclear war. President John F. Kennedy had the steadfast resolve and moral courage to stare evil in the eye that day, and evil blinked. Months later, our great nation lost its President; the white knight of our country, who for one brief, shining, moment showed us the promise of the New Frontier. Because Mr. Kennedy had the courage to stand up to Communism, he was taken by an assassin's bullet; the victim of a grand conspiracy perpetrated by a disaffected worm with known Cuban ties, elements of his own government, and a shadowy network of Castro sympathizers.

When Ronald Reagan single-handedly brought the Iron Curtain down, intellectuals myopically heralded "The End of History" and the Triumph of Liberal-Democratic Capitalism. The Soviet threat was vanquished, and communism discredited, they said. The only work left to be done was to spread globalization to every corner of our world, so that the virtues of free markets and international trade could be enjoyed by all, they said.

Folks, they lied. The Cold War never ended. Less than 400 miles from Giancarlo Stanton's moon-shot launching pad in Miami lies Cuba, backwater country and one of the last defenders of the cruel and failed ideology of Communism. Since the days of Eisenhower, the Castro regime has repressed the democratic yearnings of its people, denying them basic civil rights and the freedom of speech and free expression. The natural impulse of all free men to purchase and exchange goods in a free-market system has been denied. Good Americans have been imprisoned and abused by this regime. Cuba is a place so awful that people risk their lives trying to escape it, like Brayan Pena or Marco Rubio's parents.

In spite of these atrocities, Obama and the MLB have sought to bring Cuba within the fold of globalization by slowly integrating Cuban baseball organizations into the MLB. The first step? An exhibition game held in Havana, between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Cuban National Team this March 22nd. Mr. Obama and his Castro-sympathizing comrades Jay-Z and Beyonce may have forgotten about Castro's crimes, but I haven't. Obama should be ashamed that he is validating and legitimating the regime's abuses by pledging that he will attend this game. The Castro regime does not need the Obama seal of approval. If you stand for nothing, Obama, what'll you fall for?

The MLB would tell you its motives are benevolent, but we all know this is just a pretext to spread Draft Kings advertising to a new market of consumers. If we capitulate to the Cubans, I fear a domino effect. Where does it end: sending some unfortunate MLB team to play against the brutal Kim regime in North Korea? There's a reason our country launched the Tet Offensive instead of inviting the Viet Cong to a friendly baseball exhibition. If there's a need to send MLB teams to other communist hell-holes, I vote for the St. Louis Cardinals. Better yet, let the Cardinals play an exhibition game in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

A Solution?

Folks, the geopolitics isn't even the worst part of this exhibition game. The MLB chose the wrong team to represent America. If the goal of this exhibition is to show the Cubans America's best ballplayers, why not send over a winning team? The World Champion Kansas City Royals™ or maybe the democratically-elected American League All-Stars would suffice. I love Chris Archer and Drew Smyly as much as the next guy, but the Rays' sabermetrically designed lineup just doesn't have the star-power you'd want for a showcase like this. Fortunately, the solution is right under our noses.

If I were willing to put aside my moral objections to playing baseball in Havana (which I'm not), I wouldn't send the Rays. I'd make an all Cuban team. Let the best and brightest Cuban exiles in the MLB play ambassador to their former homeland. For starters I'd invite: José Abreu, Yoenis Céspedes, José Fernández, José Iglesias, MVP-snub and "Cuban Breakfast" Kendrys Morales, Yasiel Puig, and Jorge Soler. Brayan Pena, the nicest guy in the game, should be catcher and player-manager of this team. This would be the true way to generate goodwill and bridge the cultural divide between the US and Cuba.

The Rays are like the Trump-haters Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan: not the right men for the job. And Cuba is a country of no jobs, other than brutally suppressing liberty at the point of a gun. Do the right thing, Mr. Obama. Don't appease a country that tortures and abuses its own people. America spent decades fighting the Castros, and sacrificed untold blood and treasure attempting to stem the tide of Communism. The Cubans already killed Kennedy; don't let them kill the MLB's moral compass too.