PREDICTION: That $2.8 billion settlement between NCAA and college players will effectively professionalize college sports, especially football. The deal includes revenue-sharing between the schools and players, but it won’t be long before the schools will be able to force revenue sharing with the players on their merchandise, commercials and appearance revenues. That will in turn pressure schools to drop eligibility limits, thus enabling popular (i.e. profitable) players to remain “enrolled” for years after their undergraduate “work” is completed in order to keep playing and producing revenue.

Anybody else remember the days when the college all-stars played the NFL champion each year?

ICYMI:

SCOOP: Whistleblowers at UCLA medical school say it has dramatically lowered admissions standards for minority applicants.

As a result, they say, 50% of some cohorts now fail basic tests of medical competence.

We've obtained shocking internal data.🧵https://t.co/CVMIXgn6sE pic.twitter.com/3ub10HNPpO

— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) May 23, 2024

CRY, CRY: AOC Frustrated That Her Voters Were Excited to See Trump.

MATTHEW CONTINETTI: Trump’s New New Majority: How to reward the new members of Trump’s coalition.

Related: Trump has a Republican problem: The public wants a winner. FJB and Republican senators are losers.

Plus: How the Republican Party could win the Black vote for a generation. “It has been 70 years this month since Brown v. Board of Education ended official separate but equal schools. Democrats are proud of that achievement. What they won’t tell you is that two-thirds of Black kids still go to flailing segregated schools presided over by Democratic mayors who have no clue how to fix them and unions that see their role as job protectors for teachers more than advocates for children.”

I HOPE HE’S WRONG BUT WE’RE SITTING ON AN AWFUL LOT OF DEBT, PLUS BIDEN’S INNOVATION-CRUSHING REREGULATION SPREE: JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon says can’t rule out ‘hard landing’ for the U.S., stagflation will be ‘worst outcome.’

When asked by CNBC’s Sri Jegarajah about the prospect of a hard landing, Dimon replied: “Could we actually see one? Of course, how could anyone who reads history say there’s no chance?”

The CEO was speaking at the JPMorgan Global China Summit in Shanghai.

Dimon said the worst outcome for the U.S. economy will be a “stagflation” scenario, where inflation continues to rise, but growth slows amid high unemployment.

“I look at the range of outcomes and again, the worst outcome for all of us is what you call stagflation, higher rates, recession. That means corporate profits will go down and we’ll get through all of that. I mean, the world has survived that but I just think the odds have been higher than other people think.”

However, Dimon said that “the consumer is still in good shape” — even if the economy slips into recession.

Between rising credit card debt and tapped-out savings, I wonder if Dimon isn’t overestimating what kind of shape consumers are in.

WHO COULD HAVE SEEN THIS COMING? Biden economy marred by high cost of living driving voters back to Trump: Poll.

ROGER KIMBALL: Trump’s bumper Bronx rally is a bad omen for Biden: He promised to return to New York and sort out the anarchy.

Future historians, psephologists, and political analysts, searching for the day and time that Joe Biden’s 2024 campaign imploded beyond recovery, are likely to settle on Thursday May 23, 2024, at approximately 7 p.m. It was then that Trump’s surprising rally in Crotona Park in the South Bronx really got underway. I didn’t hear any actual bells tolling, but if you listened carefully you could discern the mournful obligato that signaled the end of Joe Biden’s hopes in New York — and therefore the country.

No Republican has taken New York since Ronald Reagan’s great landslide in 1984. Why then would Trump waste time coming to the South Bronx? Because, to adapt Bob Dylan, “The Times They Are A Changin’.” Joe Biden won New York in 2020 by twenty-three points. A recent poll had Donald Trump trailing by only nine points. After the Bronx rally, who knows what the polls will say? As Trump himself put it, “You live in a blue city, but it is going red very, very quickly.”

I haven’t seen definitive numbers yet, but Trump’s rally was was planned to accommodate up to 3,500 people. As the event got underway, many outlets were reporting that the crowd numbered 25,000 or more.

Whatever the tally, the love was palpable. One brilliant moment occurred when Trump called former City Councilman Ruben Diaz Sr., a black Puerto Rican Democrat, up to the stage. In broken but heartfelt English, Diaz enthusiastically endorsed Trump for president. I didn’t note the exact time, but I’d wager that was the moment that Trump sealed the deal for New York for 2024.

It was a masterly speech. Trump hit all the sore spots: the migrant crime wave, the transsexual insanity, Biden’s economic chaos, the insecurity of American elections. In what is sure to be a major new slogan, Trump reminded the crowd that his victory in 2024 must be “too big to rig.”

“Too big to rig.” Nice.

STATE SPONSORED CENSORSHIP AND INTIMIDATION: The Overlooked Twitter Files Scandal: How the Intelligence Community Wore Down the Platform.

ROBERT SPENCER: The Human Cost of the Left’s Obsession With Victimhood: One Woman’s Story. “For the left, to be accused is to be convicted: if someone is charged with transgressing against one of the left’s dogmas, he or she must be destroyed.”

PURGE THE QUISLINGS: Fire Michael Schill: The Northwestern University president disgraces himself—and his institution—before Congress.

LOUISVILLE-BRANDEIS LAW CHOSE . . . POORLY: Activism Over Education? Law School Embraced Drag Shows And Social Justice Amid Rankings Free Fall.

Students at the University of Louisville Louis D. Brandeis School of Law were shocked in February to learn their school was hosting a “Drag Story Hour,” in which one of their professors dressed as a woman and told a story about a gay rabbit with a member of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.

The event was part of the university’s “Drag Me to Class” fundraiser to raise money for students to attend the LGBT-focused Lavender Law Conference in the nation’s capital. But while the school leaned into drag, students were fuming over projections that the law school could be taking a massive dive in the US News & World Report’s upcoming law school rankings.

Those fears were confirmed on April 9, when the rankings saw Brandeis drop from 99 to 136 in the rankings. The 37 spot drop was the largest of any school on the list, and has left both faculty and students pointing fingers. School administrators blamed the drop in rankings on leadership changes, a lagging job market due to the COVID pandemic, and a new methodological ranking system by US News & World Report.

Current students aren’t buying it, and told The Daily Wire that the drop came as they witnessed the school pivot towards activism, and away from academics. The school’s total first-time bar passage rates have been in a free fall since 2020, when the rate sat at 89%, to just 75% last year. And the pass rate was just 65% in 2022, according to the most recent data available on the school’s website.

Instapundit has been covering Louisville’s decline since 2016 and before.

Flashback: “Apparently the University of Louisville law school has decided to meet declining enrollments and dwindling funds not by upping their game, but by ‘branding’ itself as a ‘progressive’ institution committed to ‘social justice.'” Plus: “Ultimately, of course, this is why U of L’s branding effort will fail miserably.” Called it!

HE’S FINE: Biden Implodes at Reporter During Embarrassing Presser, Reveals ‘Deal’ Around Questions. “Apparently the reporter crossed him up by saying he wanted to ask two questions. Biden snapped at him and said, ‘One.’ He probably only has one answer in his notes to read from and doesn’t want to have to deal with anything else.”

LOL: Dems Release Damning Photo of Alito Reading the Constitution.

I love the — non-parody — recasting of the 1775 Pine Tree Flag into a symbol of “white supremacy,” including assiduous Wikipedia-editing in support of that absurdity.

Related: Democrats’ Alito ramblings are about delegitimizing the Supreme Court.

TRUE: Hamas Has Exposed a Sickness in Western Society. “Indeed, there is something very dark bubbling up to the surface of society these days. The people who latched on to semantics in the video translation look absolutely insane. Not strange, not silly, not eccentric, not unpleasant. Actually insane. The fact that some of these people teach in universities is a dirty trick committed against humanity itself. . . . At some point, we in the West are going to have to grapple seriously with the fact that, yes, the protesters and their faculty supporters are pro-Hamas, just as they say they are.”

Related: The thousand deaths of today’s feckless academic cowards: Faculty and administrators are rarely, anymore, profiles in courage. Well, you reap what you sow. Well, some are cowards, others are actively on the other side. Plus: “In decades, there wasn’t a week that went by without someone—faculty, administrators, even a dean and a president—approaching me to write about something under my byline that concerned them. This despite the fact that the same newspaper would have been more than happy to run a column from them. There were never any takers because columns require a byline with an attached name. That’s a bridge too far for people who are more accustomed to stabbing Caesar than being Caesar.”

INITIAL REPORTS ARE ALWAYS SUSPECT: New Footage of the Scottie Scheffler Incident Tells a Different Story Than the Police Report.

YEAH:

This doesn't read the way you think it reads. https://t.co/nynQ9m1bc5

— Omri Ceren (@omriceren) May 22, 2024

YOU HAVE TO LAUGH OR YOU’LL CRY:  Coal’s Importance For Solar Panel Manufacturing.

GEEZE, MERRICK – YESTERDAY THE FBI WAS TELLING US THE ‘USE OF FORCE AUTHORIZATION’ WAS STANDARD BOILERPLATE IN FBI SEARCH WARRANTS. CAN’T YOU GUYS GET ON THE SAME PAGE?  AG Garland denounces Trump claim ‘deadly force’ approved in Mar-a-Lago raid: ‘False and extremely dangerous’.

For those playing bingo, they’ve played “It’s completely normal”, then “It never happened”, next up is “It happened and it’s a good thing.”

STILL AS SHARP AS EVER:  Angry Biden complains press ‘never keep the deal,’ calls Kamala Harris ‘president’ during confused press conference with Kenya leader.

I WAS RELIABLY ASSURED WE’D HAVE NO FEET ON THEIR GROUND:  US service member critically injured, airlifted to Israel while working on Gaza aid pier.

I THINK THIS IS SATIRICAL BUT EVERY DAY IT GETS HARDER TO BE SURE:  Angela Rayner, the face of Sewage.

Proposed actions include the establishment of five new Ministries: for Rain, Drought, Wind, Drizzle and Sewage. Sir Keir Starmer believes the issues to be so important that he plans to appoint his best brains to lead the new Ministries. Ed Miliband will supervise Rain, David Lammy will be the mastermind for Drought, Lisa Nandy will control Wind, Nadia Whittome will sprinkle her wisdom on Drizzle and Angela Rayner will be the face of Sewage.

NO:  Would you buy a car with a shrinking fuel tank?

With an EV battery:

• the maximum range seems to be somewhere between 150 and 250 miles;

• you’re advised to charge it only up to 80 per cent;

• the battery degrades every time you charge it, thus reducing the range;

• when the battery needs replacing (supposedly after eight to ten years but probably earlier), you’ll need to spend over £10,000 on a new one, so you might as well scrap your EV;

• even a minor accident or bumping into a kerb may mean you have to buy a new £10,000 battery as it’s impossible to know whether the potentially explosive battery has been damaged;

AS IF EVERY COUNTRY DOESN’T HAVE SUCH VERMIN CRAWLING THROUGH OUR HALLS:  Democracy in Decay: The shadowy unelected figures who scuppered our country.

Okay, so in some countries the vermin is striding.

GO ON. RE-READ PUPPET MASTERS:  Masquerade.

FIXED, DISMANTLED, THE EARTH SALTED… BUY STOCK IN SALT COMPANIES:  Why our educational system needs to be fixed.