Social Silence! Trump’s Chief of Staff Tells Cabinet Nominees to Cease Posting Online

Campaign’s On-Cam Pain: Kamala NC HQ Volunteers Release Tearful Farewell Video

Dropping a new tune to take you into the new year. Back in August, Morgan Wallen teased a new song on his social media that had fans begging him to drop it. https://www.instagram.com/reel/C-YYffnP8E4 And it looks like their wish came true. Morgan surprised fans with the new track called "Smile" as well as an accompanying music video. https://twitter.com/MorganWallen/status/1873961818122838444 Written by Morgan along with Ernest, Rocky Block, John Byron, Ryan Vojtesak and Luis Witkiewitz, the song tells the story of a guy who's happy to finally see his girl smile during a night out, "even if it was just for the picture." “I can’t remember the last time, You looked as happy as you did tonight, Your tipsy friend grabbed that bartender, Gave him your her phone, And pulled us over there with her, We counted to three, And baby I haven’t seen that side of you in forever, I hate it’s the truth, Baby you never do when we’re alone together, But it was good to see you smile, Girl you know it’s been a while, It was good to see you smile, Even if it was just for the picture” The song wraps up a big year for Morgan, who recently wrapped up his record-breaking One Night At A Time tour. And he was also recently named Entertainer of the Year at the 2024 CMA Awards (though he hasn't acknowledged the award yet...) It's been nearly two years since the country superstar last dropped an album, with his last full-length project coming in March 2023 when he released his 36-track One Night At A Time. But he's released a few singles since then, including "Lies Lies Lies" and "Love Somebody," both of which topped the charts and added to his incredible catalog of 16 #1 hits so far. Of course he also had a #1 hit in 2024 with "I Had Some Help," his duet with Post Malone, and there's no doubt that his newest release will soon be topping the charts too. Morgan obviously had his troubles in 2024 too, with his arrest back in April for throwing a chair off the rooftop of Eric Church's downtown Nashville bar, Chief's. But after originally being charged with three felony counts of reckless endangerment, Morgan entered a plea earlier this month to two misdemeanor charges and was sentenced to two years of probation along with 7 days in a DUI education center. He definitely had his ups and downs this past year, but it seems like Morgan is ending the year on a high note with plenty to "Smile" about. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7KdQ8CTe5E Of course Morgan also found himself in the headlines after reality show star Kristin Cavallari opened up on her previously-rumored relationship with the country music superstar. During an appearance on the Dumb Blonde podcast with Bunnie Xo, the ex-wife of Jay Cutler confirmed that she had indeed had a fling with Wallen - and had nothing but good things to say about him and his...well, performance in bed: “I was like, I kinda just want a f*ck buddy in Nashville. He’s a great f*ck buddy…He was good in bed... Morgan’s a good guy. He has a big heart, he really does… I love Morgan. I haven’t talked to him in probably a year, but I have nothing but good things to say about him.” Not sure if I would be pissed or happy about that one if I were Morgan...

Follow NewsClips channel at Brighteon.com for more updatesSubscribe to Brighteon newsletter to get the latest news and more featured videos: https://support.brighteon.com/Subscribe.html

Follow NewsClips channel at Brighteon.com for more updatesSubscribe to Brighteon newsletter to get the latest news and more featured videos: https://support.brighteon.com/Subscribe.html

Follow NewsClips channel at Brighteon.com for more updatesSubscribe to Brighteon newsletter to get the latest news and more featured videos: https://support.brighteon.com/Subscribe.html

Follow NewsClips channel at Brighteon.com for more updatesSubscribe to Brighteon newsletter to get the latest news and more featured videos: https://support.brighteon.com/Subscribe.html

Politics Stop the Press(es)! The decline of journalism from a trade into a profession has been a catastrophe. Credit: image via Shutterstock The Washington Post has “descended into a dark abyss,” the New York Post reports, as if some abysses are, as the real estate ads say, suffused with natural light. The Washington Post plunged into this infernal netherworld because its owner decided a few weeks back not to endorse a presidential candidate. The ownership of The Los Angeles Times also chose not to endorse anybody, and USA Today, among others, followed suit. Seeing this decision by their bosses as an unforgivable dereliction of duty, newsroom staff at these papers are still indignant. Some, in a huff, walked out. Readers, knowing they can get what they need off the website, have, in a bold act of defiance, cancelled their subscriptions.  This turn of events is newsworthy in at least one sense that none of the people who explain the world to us seem to have noticed. What they haven’t mentioned is that, not so long ago, newspapermen—and women—couldn’t have cared less what the slightly ridiculous “word merchants” who worked on the editorial page did or did not do. “Real reporters”—that is what journalists used to call themselves—sneered at the effete little nobodies, the ones in another part of the building who earned their keep translating the owners’ prejudices into compelling prose. The world of Ben Hecht and Charles McArthur’s Front Page, with its hard-drinking newshounds, is long gone, and I’m not so sure that’s a good thing. People who go into “journalism” these days, from all available evidence, consider themselves change agents. Seeing their work as a profession, rather than a mere trade, they are not content to tell us what is going on in the world. They want to reform it, and they take this mission very seriously. The reporters and the editorial writers actually know each other’s names; they no longer exist in separate spaces. And they seem to think these endorsements matter more than the facts might indicate. To be fair, there is evidence that newspaper editorials—or the absence of them—do influence some voters. Maybe not enough to sway an election, but who knows? We will probably find out in due course. The guy with the rolled-up sleeves—Steve Kornacki, is it?—is probably figuring this out right now, and if he contacts me, I will gladly share with him an important data point I have come across on my own.  A friend of my brother-in-law’s babysitter put me in touch with a family in the “all-important battleground state” of Pennsylvania who did not vote because, absent an endorsement from the Washington Post, they didn’t know who to vote for.  The members of this household—father, mother, and a jobless 37-year-old who eats and sleeps in the basement—were told by a neighbor that the Post’s failure to endorse a candidate must have meant that the election wasn’t important. That suggestion was not the sole reason for their failure to do their democratic duty, they tell me, but it was a factor. This family, whose identity I will not disclose, does not feel especially proud of its behavior, but they do offer a defense. “We waited and waited to find out what the Washington Post wanted us to do, and when they failed to tell us, we felt we could not in good conscience vote at all,” the father told me. “I just worry that millions and millions of other Americans acted as we did, and their failure to vote decided the election. I still have no opinion about whether Trump or Harris should have won, so it’s not like I’m biased or anything. I could never tell the candidates apart, to be honest with you. Which one was the rich white guy again?”  The post Stop the Press(es)! appeared first on The American Conservative.

Culture What Happened to the Prime Time Buffaloes? Deion Sanders’s Colorado failed to live up to the hype—again. Credit: Ringo Chiu/Shutterstock After all the talk about finishing the season strong, Colorado’s gridiron heroes looked like they didn’t want to be anywhere near the Alamo Bowl on Saturday night. And based on the lethargic pregame trot of their mascot, Ralphie the Buffalo, neither did anyone else on the Colorado sidelines. In the end, Deion Sanders could only look on in horror as the Buffaloes were outmatched and outclassed by a far superior Brigham Young University football program.  No one can say it hasn’t been an eventful two years in Boulder. The lowly Buffaloes, once a powerhouse of the sport, got a shot of much-needed adrenaline with the arrival of Prime Time. Suddenly, the Colorado roster was full of talent and the sidelines full of celebrities. Folsom Field hadn’t been this loud in decades. Everyone was eager to see what Sanders could produce. Late in the 2024 season, Colorado held its playoff destiny in its own hands. If they could beat Kansas in Lawrence, the path was set to make the first-of-its-kind, 12-team college football playoffs. After the disappointment of 2023, here was the perfect opportunity to answer the critics. With the football nation watching, Colorado let Jayhawks RB Devin Neal run for 207 yards to go along with three touchdowns and lost 37–21 in what was never a close game. The usual faults that have haunted Sanders’s two seasons in Colorado were on full display. Bad penalties, poor defense, maddening quarterback play, and head-scratching coaching decisions all hampered the Buffaloes that day. Though Colorado would finish a respectable 9–4, and 4th in the B12, the dreams of competing for a national championship fell flat—again. It wasn’t for a lack of talent that the Buffaloes failed to live up to the incessant hype that followed the team all over the country these last two years. In Shadeur Sanders (Deion’s son) and Travis Hunter (the Heisman Trophy winner), Colorado had a one-two punch that many programs could only dream of. And they had them for two, full healthy years.  But neither of the young men, who are projected to be early selections in the 2025 NFL Draft, lived up to the hype when the going got tough. One play, early in this weekend’s embarrassing 36-14 loss at the Alamo Bowl, perfectly summed up Shadeur’s entire career at Colorado. Down 10–0 and facing a 3rd and 3 at the BYU 7-yard line early in the second quarter, Colorado needed points. Shadeur took the snap, and with the offensive line breaking down in front of him, attempted to outrun the outstretched arms of several BYU defenders, each move pushing him further and further from the goal line, until he ultimately took a 27-yard sack. Instead of throwing the ball away, Shadeur’s antics turned a chip shot field goal into a 48-yarder which was promptly missed. For anyone who watched the Buffaloes this season, that sequence was nothing new. In three years of college football (one season spent at Deion pere’s Jackson State) Shadeur has yet to learn when to throw the ball away. Getting rid of the ball when the play is dead is a quality of humility and maturity, one that all the great quarterbacks are forced to exhibit at one time or another. It’s about knowing when you’re beat, and in doing so, living to see another down. Instead, Shadeur attempted to make a highlight reel play and the Buffs paid dearly at a time when they desperately needed points.  And then there’s Travis Hunter, who plays both sides of the ball and has certainly made his share of highlight reel plays throughout two sparkling seasons in Colorado that ended with him winning the Heisman Trophy. Hunter beat out Boise State RB Ashton Jeanty, whom I profiled in October, for the nation’s top player award despite the soft-spoken Broncos running back amassing 30 touchdowns and more than 2,500 yards from scrimmage this season. Whatever the voters saw in the lead up to the Alamo Bowl was sorely missing from Hunter in San Antonio on Saturday. The two-way star was a shadow of himself outside a dazzling touchdown catch in the 3rd quarter when the game was already out of reach. His play on the defensive end was roundly mocked on ? following the game as videos showed the slight-framed cornerback being dragged into the end zone by BYU’s LJ Martin.  It’s a wonder why either of the top-five projected draft picks played in the bowl game at all, especially considering the performances they turned in. In some ways, the game spoke to a larger issue with the college football bowl system as the open transfer portal has turned meaningless bowl games into even more meaningless bowl games with the added feature of backups and freshman playing undisciplined and hard-to-watch football. Hindsight being 20/20, Hunter and Shadeur should’ve sat the game out completely. They would have been dragged on ?, but that’s happening anyway—and their draft profiles are being questioned.  Which brings us back to Deion. Prime Time. The man who wears a big, golden crucifix. I like Deion. I really like Deion. For all the bling and smacktalk, Deion’s been nothing short of a revelation for Colorado, a team that many college football fans were eager to see become competitive again. I still remember Kordell Stewart and the vaunted Buffs of old and it’s been exciting to watch the black and gold make headway on the national stage again. It’s been great for college football as millions of casual fans tune in to see Colorado every week, a team that was until two seasons ago a reliable bottom-feeder in its conference.  But as much as I like Deion and the work he does off the field to prepare and heal his young men, some of whom come from extremely broken upbringings, as a coach, he’s left much to be desired in his first two seasons at Colorado. The Buffs have gone 1–8 against top-25 ranked teams and only 2–9 against power conference squads with at least a .500 record. Nebraska, which finished 7–6 this year, put a licking on the Buffs right out of the gate, tamping down a much-hyped offseason that had some asking if Colorado could win the whole thing. All of the little things that Colorado got wrong were on full display in that shellacking.  With his two sons and his Heisman Trophy winner out of eligibility, where the Buffaloes go from here is anyone’s guess. Deion has signed the top rated high school quarterback in the country for next year and also secured a commitment from one of the top quarterbacks in the transfer portal. He’s also won a transfer cadre of top-ranked lineman to beef up what has been a weak offensive front. The best thing I can say about Deion is, as of this moment, he’s not jumping ship to another power 4 school or the NFL. For the casual fan, the show goes on. And for those of us who want to see Deion bring Colorado back to its past glory, here’s hoping he turns Fool’s Gold into 24-karat supremacy. The post What Happened to the Prime Time Buffaloes? appeared first on The American Conservative.