With no more elections for himself and no democrat needing to shy away from him in the next two years, Obama went on the offensive in the State of the Union Address. It was the type of the best defense is offense theory that I proposed at the midterm election. As I mentioned before, it may not have changed any results but by shying away from Obama, the Democrats were essentially agreeing with the Republicans that Obama was a failure. In reality, as Obama pointed out, by almost any measure he was way more successful than Bush. So now he makes proposals that will have no chance of passing the Republican majority in both chambers. But at least he makes his points. For example, didn't Wall Street screw up the economy last time? So now you are worried about regulations for Wall Street? I think Obama's vision will cause the Republican nominee to lean to the right and will make he/she less likely to win moderates in 2016.
While I agree with Obama in most issues, I don't agree that community colleges should be free. From my experience, when someone gets something free, he is less likely to appreciate it. I think here in California, the cost of attending junior colleges is very affordable. I know a lot of people who go to junior colleges and work to save money to transfer to a 4 year school. If it is necessary to lower the cost of junior colleges, I think they should first have to get rid of the sports programs in these schools before asking for more tax money. I don't think these schools should be a minor league for the pros or 4 year colleges. I know of people who played two years and had no credit toward transferring to a 4 year school. I can't think of any country whose technical schools or colleges spend millions for intercollegiate athletes. If the goal is prepare kids for the real world, don't use these schools to be minor leagues in sports.
I got the feeling that the Patriots are going to throw a ballboy under the bus like USC did a few years ago when they did the same thing. Belichick is the usual bad guy. But I can't imagine he would tell someone to deflate the balls to below standard since he is not the one throwing the ball. I hope Brady is not involved other than telling the ball boy to get it down to 12.5 psi, the lowest allowable level. While the Patriots are not going to be thrown out of the Super Bowl no matter what happens, Brady's legacy could be in jeopardy if he instructed someone to cheat on his behalf. The whole thing is stupid anyway. Why do each team have different balls? Baseball pitchers don't bring their own balls. Why didn't the officials notice a difference of almost 20% among the balls before half time? And if Brady cheated, why was he so stupid? Sure, a softer and lighter ball is easier to grip. But a lighter ball would also be more affected by air resistance. So it would be more difficult to control in bad weather. Think in extreme: would you rather throw a baseball or a ping pong ball in the wind? So why cheat?