Suggestions for A Post Trump America: Decision 2026 Edition, Part 3: In An America Where Millions Are Frustrated by Both Parties Evan McMullin and Dan Osborn May Represent a Viable Alternative

 

It's understandable given the nature of how shocking the 2016 election was that very few people either at the time or in hindsight looked at the results in Utah. Because in a state that had gone Republican for generations Donald Trump underperformed compared to any Republican Presidential candidate in the 21^st century and in fact worse then any Republican since 1992.

Trump received just under 45 percent of the votes cast for President in the state of Utah and came the closest of any Republican to losing the state since LBJ had won it in 1964. The main reason for that was the presence of a third party candidate.

Evan McMullin had been a CIA operations officer from 2001 and 2010. He had been a senior adviser on national security in the House and chief policy director the Republicans from January 2015 to July 2016. McMullin was so appalled by the nomination of Donald Trump that he left the Republican Party and ran for President as an independent backed by the organization Better for America. The most prominent face of the so-called Never Trumpers, some polls would show him running ahead of both Trump and Clinton in Utah. While he did not win, he did receive 21.5 percent of the vote in Utah, by far the highest percentage of the vote any third party candidate in any state had managed to muster since Ross Perot's historic run for President in 1992. (Indeed Perot finished second in the popular vote in Utah.)

After his lost McMullin was one of the most prominent critics of the Trump administration. He publicly endorsed Joe Biden in 2020. After Biden's victory he was involved in early discussions of forming a new center-right political party. Then in October of 2021 he put himself to the test when he announced he would run for the Senate against Mike Lee.

Mike Lee was one of the first early victors of the Tea Party movement when in 2010 he upset incumbent Bob Bennett in the Republican primary and won reelection. One of the most prominent opponents of Trump during the 2016 primary campaign – he famously led a dump Trump movement at the 2016 Republican convention – he had done far better than Donald Trump when he had run for reelection that same year, outpolling Trump in the state by nearly a quarter of a million votes. However, like many Trump critics before 2016 he devoted himself whole-heartedly to Trump in the aftermath of his election to the White House.

McMullin made it very clear that he was a voice against 'extremism, dividers or self-serving opportunists'. Despite receiving endorsements from the Democrats in Utah by March of 2022 as well as their decision to endorse his candidacy rather then run a Democratic candidate McMullin made it clear that if elected he would caucus with neither the Republicans or the Democrats in the Senate. This would be keeping with McMullin's political positions across the board.

McMullin has been a prominent speaker against extremism, supports both NAFTA. However he supports cuts of all taxes including the estate task and cuts to entitlement programs like social security. He believes in the scientific consensus on climate change and is very much a hawk on foreign policy, criticizing the international nuclear agreement with Iran. He is also pro-life and believes abortion policy should be left to the states, while also believes contraception should be more widely available. Lastly he believes in the appointment of originalist justices to the Supreme Court.

Mike Lee was heavily favored to win the race from the start of the campaign and indeed he did. By the numbers it seems like Lee won in a landslide getting 53.2 percent of the vote to McMullin's 42.8. But in another sense it showed how much Lee's standing in Utah had dropped in six years, when he'd won reelection with 68.2 percent of the vote. McMullin's performance was by far the best by a non-Republican since 1976 when Frank Moss, the last Democrat to hold a Senate seat in Utah was defeated in reelection by Orrin Hatch. It was also one of the best performances by an independent candidate for the Senate since the election of Joe Lieberman under that banner when he won reelection in 2006.

The results of this race didn't get nearly as much attention as they should have during the last midterm elections but that is understandable considering that the 'red wave' that everyone other than Joe Biden had been certain was going to sweep the country didn't happen and it definitely didn't happen in the Senate where the Democrats managed to make net gains in the midterms for the first time in 60 years. Yet McMullin's superb performance demonstrated that in a polarized America and particularly in deep red states, there was a demand for an alternative to the two party system.

No one knew that just a few months later circumstances would unfold in Nebraska showing another opportunity for the voters to show this again.

In 2020 Ben Sasse had been reelected to the Senate in Nebraska. However just two years later he chose to resign to become the President of the University Florida. This led to a vacancy which was filled controversially.

During November of 2022 Jim Pillen had become the new governor of the states. One week after being sworn in, he chose to appoint the previous governor Pete Ricketts as Senator. Ricketts had financially supported Pillen's campaign for governor and despite the denial there was a certain stench to it.

In 2006 Ricketts had made his first attempt to get into politics by running against Democrat Ben Nelson for his seat in Senate.  He would outspend his opponents in the primary by nearly 10 to 1 to win the nomination. Ricketts had run on a conservative platform and had spent more money than any Senate candidate in the state's history and was trounced in the election, losing by nearly 28 percentage points to Nelson. However Nelson the most conservative Democrat in the party at the time, chose not to seek reelection in 2012 and Deb Fischer would take his seat.

So in 2024 both Senators from Nebraska were running for reelection. But by this point the Democrats presence in red states was almost completely gone and it was difficult for them to find candidates to run in one seat, never mind both. Eventually the Democrats would nominate Preston Love, Jr who had served as a write-in candidate the previous year when the nominated Democrat Chris Janicek was found to have sent sexually explicit text message to a female staffer. Even then Love has received just 6 percent of the vote to Janicek's 24 percent as Sasse outperformed Trump in Nebraska by the greatest margin of any Republican candidate that year.

While this was going on Deb Fischer was facing a different challenge from a very unlikely source.

Dan Osborn had served in the U.S. Navy after graduation high school serving as a storekeeper aboard an aircraft carrier. In 2004 he began working as an industrial mechanic at Kellogg's Omaha plant. He would eventually become the President of the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers and Grain Mullers International Union Local 50G. He rose to national prominent when he led the 2021 Kellogg's strike at that plant, prompted by a demand by a two-tier system of pay. It lasted 11 weeks.

After being fired he would turn to boiler maintenance and repair work as Boys Town and became a member of the Steamfitters and Plumbers Local. In October of 2023 he announced intention to oppose Fischer as an independent.. In less than six months he had collected 4000 signatures, enough to be eligible on the ballot.

Osborn has been registered as nonpartisan since 2004 and while Democrats chose not to run a candidate against Fischer he declined their endorsement. The Nebraska Democratic Party considered running a write-in candidate accusing Osborn of misleading them but he made it clear he wanted to form an independent caucus in the Senate, referring to the current system 'a two party doom loop." He made it very clear that he thought both Biden and Trump were too old to run for President (before Biden withdrew) and he raised more campaign funds, the majority small-dollar donations than any independent candidate in the state's history.

Even before the turmoil that led to Biden's withdrawal the 2024 map for the Senate was a nightmare for the Democrats with few possibilities to make any real pickup.. Perhaps at most they thought if Osborn did well enough the RNC would funnel money into Fischer's race that they would take away from races in swing states or possibly Texas or Florida. No one gave Osborn a chance of winning. And yet by August Fischer held a margin of 39 percent to 38 percent, stunning the political world. As the autumn progressed the possibility eventually went from Likely Republican to Lean and even tilt Republican. Polls increasingly said it was too close to call.

Fischer would end up winning by 53 percent to 46.5. But compared to Rickets, she underperformed him 86,000 votes. It was by far the worst performance of a Republican in the state of Nebraska since 1970 when Roman Hruska had only narrowly won reelection by 5 percent over Democratic challenger Frank Morrison.

 Osborn by contrast, outperformed Preston Love by nearly 87,000 votes. More strikingly Osborn's performance was the best by any challenger for a Republican-held seat in the 2024 election, including the Democrats attempt to unseat Ted Crus in Texas. It was by far the best performance of any independent in a Nebraska senate race, including George Norris, who had won the Senate as an independent in a three-way race. He even managed to carry two counties in the state that would go for Trump (Thurston and Sarpy)

During that year Osborn formed a PAC to support working class candidates. And because of the conditions of Ricketts' appoint he would have to run for reelection for a full-term this coming November. This past July Osborn announced he would once again run for the Senate as an independent, this time against Ricketts.

Like McMullin Osborn's political positions make it unlikely that either party would accept even were he not insisting on maintaining his independence. He agrees with raising the minimum wage and lowering taxes for small business, believes in the legalization and taxation of marijuana. He supports raising the cap on Social Security contributions for those with higher incomes and he believes in the right to organize unions. He supports reforming the immigration system but also increasing border security and believed in the construction of the border wall. He also believes firmly in the second Amendment and gun rights, positions which the increasingly left-wing part of the Democrats would not accept but Nebraskans are in favor. His position on abortion wouldn't fit either party. While he is personally pro-life and opposes late -term abortions he also supports Roe V. Wade and opposes a national abortion ban. He has made it clear he would accept donations from anyone 'whether you're a Republican, Democrat, Independent, Libertarian, America Party'.

While there is some overlap between the politics of Osborn and McMullin it is clear they both fit the definition of 'independent'.  Certainly with the extremists increasingly taking over the mandate of power major parties its impossible to imagine either party being willing to caucus with either man. Any one of McMullin's positions would be too conservative for the Democratic Party in the 2020s and given his personal break with the Republicans its impossible to imagine them ever accepting him.  Osborn would have difficulty fitting into either party either: his positions on immigration and gun rights are too conservative for Democrats and on unions and abortions to far-left for Republicans.

After his defeat in 2022 McMullin has been relatively quite in electoral politics. He didn't try to win Mitt Romney's seat in the Senate in 2024. Perhaps he did not wish to face the wrath of the man he had so prominently come out against in eight years earlier an forgivable sign of caution. It is worth noting that while Trump did win Utah yet again in 2024 Harris's margin of 37.8 percent was the highest received by a Democrat since 1964. Despite that John Curtis who succeeded Romney, received 31,000 votes more than Trump in that state.  He also received nearly 340,000 more votes than Lee did two years earlier. McMullin has to be aware of that fact going forward.

For decades Americans frustration with the two-party system has become a constant refrain and this became a din in the leadup to the 2016 election. It's generally been forgotten that while Hilary Clinton's win was considered a foregone conclusion in the leadup the overwhelming majority of the American people were not happy with either candidate. McMullin's run that year was based on that foundation and it has not gone away in the past decade.  While the move for a major third party in American increasingly facing obstacles that have become more difficult to overcome in the 21^st century while running for office at a state level it has less to overcome.

And in so many deep red states where anti-Trump voters are dismayed by the GOP's loyalty to them and the Democratic Party has become all but non-existent the success of McMullin in Utah and Osborn in Nebraska show that a 'third way' is possible and that voters will respond to it if the right candidate comes along. Whether Osborn defeats Ricketts this November or McMullin chooses to run again at a state level, their approach has shown that there is a path forward for those who choose to follow it. If America does manage to break free from partisan gridlock it will because these two candidates have shown a path forward, and I hope others follow in their footstep.

Homicide Rewatch: The Heart of A Saturday Night

 

Written by Henry Bromell

Directed by Whit Stillman

 

Ever since Season 2's 'Bop Gun'  Homicide's writers have typically given at least one episode in every subsequent season where they take a look at the murders from the perspective of those who are left behind to deal with their grief. These are without question some of the greatest episodes of the show's history.

The Heart of a Saturday Night represents by far the most fascinating variation on it we've yet seen. To this point all of the episodes have involved murders where more attention was paid to the families of the victims then the detectives. This episode takes a different approach. We look at the story in two time periods. The first is the Saturday night when three separate killings take place. We actually see the events proceeding either the murder or the discovery of the victim in the opening of the episode. We then follow each investigation as it takes place in more detail then usual.  None of them are easy to solve and indeed one will be left open. And we see as each investigator goes through the process of notifying the loved ones of the victims.

And on a parallel we see a group therapy session that takes place some time after the original murders. In a throwback to the early days of the show, the group therapy sessions take place in decolorized scenes while the action in the squad room is in full color.

This episode is in many ways closer to a feature film then we've seen on Homicide in a long time and that is in large part because this is another occasion when Homicide has chosen a notable film director to work behind the camera. In 1996 Whit Stillman was becoming known as a major voice in independent films. He had been nominated for an Oscar for his film debut Metropolitan, which would eventually win Best First Feature and the Independent Spirit awards. He'd followed that up with Barcelona in 1994and two years after that would do so with The Last Days of Disco in 1998. (He would make no other major films until the 2010s.) But unlike the movies he made throughout his career, which mostly focused on upper-class socialites 'Saturday Night' is arguably the grittiest and darkest work he has done in his entire career. Compared to such other film directors who worked for the show such as John McNaughton and Keith Gordon Stillman would seem to be an odd choice for the material. But as always he handles it well.

Because the show was a sweeps episode the series is also loaded with guest stars among those who grief. Rosanna Arquette is by far the biggest name but we also see two actors who have a sufficient TV imprint (See Hey, Isn't That…) Chris Eigeman and Polly Holiday.  All three actors are astonishing as they each give performances that show that they are all in different stages of grief.

Even more impressive is that this episode takes an in-depth look at every member of the squad while these investigations are going on as each of them has roots in them to an extent. For Lewis and Munch this is bad news because one of the deaths took place at the Waterfront in the midst of a bar brawl. ("That's the kind of publicity we don't need," Munch says accurately.) They are not assigned this case as Giardello makes it clear to Howard that he will handle it and she will hold down the fort. This surprises Howard (especially since the case will end up going under her name) but Al makes it clear he needs this one.

Jude Silvio is angrier than the others because his wife was killed in a carjacking. Carolyn Widmer seems depressed and seems to intuit something horrible has happened to her husband even before the notification takes place. And Mr. and Mrs. Rath the parents of the third victim are the most divided. The mother is in denial about the kind of child their daughter was and the father knew very clearly who she was. She's been missing for two days and the mother seems unwilling to acknowledge anything is wrong. Her father is the one who calls the cops.

Jude spends the entire episode, both in the present and the future, angry. He is angry at the cops because they couldn't find his daughter. When they do find his daughter he's infuriated that they can't catch the man who killed him. He calls them incompetent. The episode shows that Lewis spends the episode desperate to find a way to close a case which he knows in his heart is a stone cold whodunit. He focuses all his energy on finding the daughter and after that goes first to Cox for help, which she rightly says is a sign of desperation, and while cleaning up the Waterfront goes out of his way to engage in an elaborate plot to figure out exactly who the killer is. It's rare to see Meldrick this desperate to solve a case that is clearly never going to be solved – and then we remember he has no one to go to home to right now.

Giardello spends the night interviewing the drunken witnesses to the bar brawl, most of whom are too plastered, hung over or angry to be coherent. Finally he runs into a very hung over man who vaguely remembers seeing Jack Widmer hitting on a woman at a bar and he chose to cut in. He doesn't even remember hitting him with the beer bottle that killed him. Carolyn is very expansive about how she feels complete empathy for the man who did it and is the most open about how much of drunkard and womanizer her husband was. Her main reason for anger is that she was planning to leave him that night and instead her husband left her. Once again her husband left her with the last word and she hates him for it. (You gotta love the ways she says she slams The Waterfront in her last statement.)

After talking to them Bayliss says that according to her parents "Dad wouldn't be surprised if she was Satan's little disciple and Mom thinks she got lost on her way to the prom." Part of it is no doubt because the mother had her at 40 and like all mothers wants to see the best in her daughter. In the therapy session the two of them are sniping at each other but its clear that the father has a clearer perspective of Lila then her mother does. Lila hasn't been home in two days and her mother doesn't think anything's wrong even though she hasn't come home for her sixteenth birthday.  She refuses to accept what happened to her daughter even though her husband knows right away.

Pembleton has chafed at being chained to his desk but he's been trying to prove that he deserves to go back out. In the last few episodes he has been offering Bayliss advise on how to handle investigations but he stills trying to overreach. In the opening he tries to force Giardello to send him on the street and Al once again has to push him down. Kellerman is not much happier but he's willing to do the busy work when it counts. He agrees to go through the search to see if there are any carjackers and is more than willing to update Al about the progress of the cases. And he has yet to lose the sympathy for the job; when no one can clearly identify the victim he says its sometimes worse when they're anonymous. The Raths would beg to differ.

Its interesting to see the interactions between Kellerman and Pembleton in particular because ever since he was introduced the two men have rarely interacted, even on red balls. There's logic to this: both men have partners and as we've seen their personalities were diametrically opposite when we met Kellerman.

Interestingly while both have been chained to their desks for the past month we haven't seen them interact that much. Mike tries to make an effort to reach out to Frank and talk to him and Frank, in his inimitable fashion, thinks Mike is condescending to him. Mike tries hard to say things are alike: "We're both stuck at our desk. We're both pissed off about it. I'd say we have something in common."

And Frank demonstrating the delicacy he always does says: "You are accused of a crime. Not me." Now its worth noting this is the first time anyone in the squad has been direct to Mike about what's going on and Mike calls him on it: "I'm accused of being dirty, so I'm a class below you. And you're clean because all that happened is your brain frizzled and popped." 

This is by far the cruelest thing any one has said about Frank's condition since he returned to the unit, Even when Munch mocked him in the early episodes he was never this insulting.  But in the case of Mike its almost justifiable when he calls Frank on the bs he's been showing to everybody since he came back.

"You're not just arrogant. You're vain. You're like a pretty girl who never wants to show the bad sign of her face."

When Frank tries to modify it by saying he never said Mike was dirty and Mike fires back he never said otherwise, its one of the few times that Mike's superiority in the face of these charges is justifiable. And Frank clearly takes it as a challenge. Immediately afterward he goes into the aquarium and starts to interview the crackheads who haven't been telling the truth about what they saw in the alley.

That will eventually lead to him figuring out that the crackheads saw Gary Swern, the local scum in the ally, A convicted rapist just out of Jessup his aunt, the woman who raised him, is all but hoping that Bayliss can find the evidence in her house that would put her nephew away for good. Bayliss does find the evidence and though we don't see it play out, it's pretty clear that he manages to get Swern to confess to the murder.

Maybe the final scene between Kellerman and Pembleton isn't surprising. Considering that so many people in the squad have been ridiculously polite to him ever since he came back Frank no doubt appreciates someone saying to his face what he no doubt thinks the majority of the people in the department actively think of him coming back. Kellerman is the first person in a long time who tells Frank his pushing back against everybody since he got here that maybe the person he's been holding on to all this time wasn't particularly pleasant to begin with.

And so by the end of the episode when both men are looking at the sky he says: "Kellerman, you're okay by me." He doesn't say he believes Mike; he doesn't tell Mike he'll get through this intact. He just says that as far as he's concerned he has no problem with Kellerman. And for Mike that's actually enough at least tonight. He gives the first smile we've seen him give since this ordeal began and then lays on his back and looks at the moon.

Giardello tells Kay after he manages to close the Widmer's murder case that the reason he did it was that he still feels guilt for the murder of Raymond Dessassy. But the writers are too smart to argue that by solving this changes anything. Al knows that he still is good police but it doesn't change the fact he killed a man. When he asks Howard if because Webster made a lapse in judgment he's guilty Howard says he's responsible. Al knows he's responsible too and though it's never mentioned again (at least on the series) we know he will carry it forever.

It is not until the final scene that we find out what links to get her. In her last encounter at the morgue Juliana Cox tells Meldrick she has somewhere to be on a Saturday. Now in the final scene she tells us she's late and that she's been attending groups like this for weeks.

It is here we get the horrible truth behind her father's death. We assumed that when he passed in M.E., Myself and  I it was because he succumbed to an illness. In fact his car was run off the road several weeks ago in what appears to have been a deliberate act. He lingers for weeks refusing to die and then finally his body gave out. It's a stunning revelation that once again adds layers to Cox's character – and unfortunately will rarely be mentioned again.

I've little doubt that Juliana recognizes all four members of the group from her work at the morgue, even if she can't immediately put names to faces. (Carolyn makes the link immediately; its not clear if Jude and the Raths do.) Mr. Rath and Jude have been sniping at each other the entire episode and Juliana's remarks manage to cause a truth.

Carolyn has a fitting last remark about what's happened. "I'm all alone. But (Mr. Rath) you lost a child but you still have your wife and (Jude) lost a wife but you still have your child. There has to be some comfort in that."

And for the first time Jude lets his guard down and says the truth: "No there isn't." Mr. Rath agrees with him. The final moments show the four members of the group at their homes. Mr. Rath says he and his wife can't go home any more and when they do they can't sleep. "You have to be free to sleep. And we're trapped by this thing that happened to us."

The fact that the final image of the episode is of Gary Swern in lockup makes the metaphor clear. Everyone in this group is as much a prisoner as the people who took their loved ones lives. Just because there are no bars doesn't make it any less a cage

 

 

 

NOTES FROM THE BOARD

 

'Detective Munch'  In the midst of cleaning up the Waterfront Munch reveals the meaning of life to an uninterested Meldrick. The thing is with Munch it makes perfect sense.

"Life is basically an ironic experience. Let me give you an example. Say that you start out life trashing the establishment. Calling cops pigs, thumbing your nose at authority. What is the most ironic thing that could possibly happen to you? Becoming a cop, right? Well, look at me right. What am I?"

This may be the most self-aware John has ever been or will ever be on Homicide. Of course then he spoils it. "Ironies and Human Emotion by John Munch. I think J.P. Sartre's hearing footsteps, don't you?" Lewis, who is going through the wreckage of the Waterfront, demands Munch shut the hell up.

Hey Isn't That… This will be a long one.

Rosanna Arquette is the oldest sibling of the famous acting family with a career stretching back to her teenage years in ABC Afterschool specials, Eight is Enough and the role in the short-lived series Shirley. Her breakout role came as Nicole in the Emmy winning miniseries The Executioner's Song where she played the girlfriend of Gary Gilmore. She became a film sensation in 1985 when she starred in Desperately Seeking Susan, Silverado and After Hours. Her major work in television was in mini-series and TV movies such as Son of the Morning Star and Fear City.  Movie fans know her best as Jody, the heavily pierced girlfriend who reacts to Mia Wallace's adrenaline shot with the famous line "That was trippy."

She has acted with less frequency in the 21^st century, though she has worked somewhat in TV. She played Cherie in The L Word and played Nicole in the ABC drama What About Brian for two seasons. Her most prominent role was in the first season of Ray Donovan when she played Linda, Mick's girlfriend who meets the end of a gun  and then as the voice of a dolphin.(No it doesn't make sense even if I explain it.) She has since appeared as the mother of the title character in Ballard.

Chris Eigeman made his film debut in Whit Stillman's Metropolitan and would also have roles in Stillman's Barcelona and Last Days of Disco. This role was relatively early in his career. Not long after he would be cast as Arthur in It's Like, You Know an ABC sitcom that aired one season. He appeared as Bill Moyers in the Emmy winning HBO film Path To War and Lionel over four seasons of Malcolm in the Middle. He also played Jason, one of Lorelai's potential love interests in Season 4 of Gilmore Girls. (Right before she and Luke finally got together.) A favorite of Amy Sherman-Palladino he had a guest appearance in Bunheads and the final two seasons of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Aside from that he basically stopped acting after a 2012 appearance in Girls.

Polly Holiday was had starred in TV for several years before she had her break out role as Flo on the classic comedy Alice. With her famous line of 'Kiss My Grits' her character was so iconic she even had her own spinoff for one season. She never achieved that success again but was a constant force in television with numerous guest roles and several regular roles. The year before she was cast as Mrs. Rath she had played Momma Love on The Client. In her film career she starred in Gremlins, Mrs. Doubtfire and The Parent Trap. Her last film role was as Diane Plame in Fair Game. She passed away in September of 2025 at 88.

 

Get the DVD:  The montage sequence that shows what is happening during the long Saturday night from the victims deals with their grief to Meldrick bringing the baby home triumphantly in the streaming is absent the song that makes it a classic: The Eels 'Not Ready Yet'. Trust me it absolutely doesn't have the same power without it. She has since appeared as the mother of the title character in Ballard.

 

2026 Jeopardy Invitational Tournament Finals Recap: And the Winner Is...

 

There was a bit of the familiar in the finals of the 2026 JIT. Roger Craig, one of the finalists from last year's Invitational was back for the second straight year. Andrew He, a finalist from the Inaugural Invitational was back as well. And just as with last year, one of the winners from the 2024 Second Chance Tournaments was present Long Nguyen.

But there was also a different kind of excitement as Roger and Andrew had yet to face off against each other in any sort of Tournament. Both men had a history of going up against some of the greatest players of all time. Roger had famously done so in the Battle of the Decades and the Jeopardy All-Star Games. Andrew, in his shorter Jeopardy career had done battle with four of the all-time Jeopardy super-champions and had a very impressive track record against all of them. And as we've already seen in the quarterfinals and semi-finals Long has done very well against players who on paper should be better than him.

With $150,000 and a spot in the Jeopardy Masters at stake here's how the Finals played out.

 

February 18

The first half of the Jeopardy round was a back and forth battle between Roger and Andrew. Andrew got to the Daily Double with $4800 and in tribute to Roger (who Andrew admitted had been a huge influence on his play) he went all in on A GOOD OLD JOB:

The name of this profession is also the action done by the worker who pulls a handle to make nonpotent potables flow.

Andrew figured it out: "What is a soda jerk?" With that he went up to $9600. At the end of the Jeopardy round he had $10,400 to Roger's $5800 and Long's $1600.

Long got a chance to make his move when he found the first Daily Double on his first pick PEOPLE OF THE WORLD. He bet the $2000 he could:

At about 70 million, the Hausa are the largest group in this African country, about 30%.

He said: "What is Nigeria?"

Long then got another chance later in the round when he found the other Daily Double in IDIOMS & EXPRESSIONS. He had $6400 and was a second. As was always the case he was forthright, particularly consider no one had responded correctly in this category so far.

Long: I hate this category.

(Laughter)

Ken: Strong words.

But given who he was up against he really didn't have much of a choice and he bet everything:

To insist on a point until people start to doubt you & it is to do this, spoken by Queen Gertrude in Hamlet.

It didn't go well. He finally guessed: "What is ad nauseam?"

It was actually "protest too much." Long went down to zero.

As a result Long was in third when Double Jeopardy ended with $2000. Roger was in second with $10,600 and Andrew was still in the lead with $16,400.

The Final Jeopardy category was AMERICAN AUTHORS.

She wrote the foreword for a 1971 cookbook sponsored by the Jackson Symphony League.

Long wrote down: "Who is Angelou?" That was incorrect. He wagered $1933, leaving him with $67.

Roger wrote down: "Who is Lee?", crossed it out and wrote down O'Connor. Both were incorrect. It cost him everything.

It came down to Andrew. He wrote down: "Who is Flagg?" They were all thinking of Southern authors, but the one that they were going for was Eudora Welty.

Author: I did know this one. Welty was the only female writer from Mississippi I could think of.

Andrew wagered $4801, but that left him enough to win his first ever match point in his career in the JIT. (He didn't score one in 2024 against Amy Schneider and the eventual winner and future Jeopardy Masters Champion Victoria Groce.)

 

February 19

Helped by the fact both Andrew and Roger were struggling early Long got off to a fast start in the Jeopardy round, helped by getting to the Daily Double ahead of Roger. He bet the $2400 he had in ACROSS THE LIBERAL ARTS:

Psychology: Before graduating from the University of Zurich in 1912, he got the nickname 'Klecks' or 'inkblot'. He figured out it was Rorschach and doubled his score to $4800. Andrew and Roger made up some ground but by the end of the round Long was still in the lead with $6600 to Roger's $2000 and Andrew's $400.

On the third clue of Double Jeopardy Long found the first Daily Double in ALL OVER THE COUNTRY. Even though he had $8200 to the $400 both Andrew and Roger it was hard to blame him for going all in again:

The extinct volcano Ilyas Dag is near the westernmost part of Turkey, while this volcanic massif is near the easternmost part. He hesitated: "What is Mount Ararat?" He was correct and at $16,400.

Andrew finally got a chance when he found the other Daily Double in appropriately PUTTING THE DOUBLE IN DOUBLE JEOPARDY. So naturally he wagered everything:

An article in the journal Nature was titled this 'and the Wronged Heroine' about Rosalind Franklin. He figured it out: "What is the Double helix?" And appropriately doubled his score.

Long gave sixteen correct responses and no incorrect ones. Roger and Andrew each gave 15. However Andrew gave two incorrect responses and Roger gave a whopping 7. Long finished with an impressive $21, 600 but Andrew kept him honest at $12,800 while Roger trailed with $5200.

The Final Jeopardy category was WORLD OF FIRST NAMES: Like an English-language one, this German first name of a physicist of sound & a 1930s film director means 'serious'.

Roger wrote down the kind of response I don't think I've ever seen in thirty plus years of watching Jeopardy: "What is I hope Long writes 'Ernst!?"

Ken actually had to ask the judges before giving the all clear. "This implies that you believe the correct response is Ernst and that's correct. Ernst Mach is the physicist; Ernst Lubitsch is the director. Roger, however, bet nothing.

Andrew guessed: "What is Heinrich? It cost him $12, 733 leaving him with $67. (Something for the kids, Ken said.)

Long did not write down Ernst; he also wrote down Heinrich. And it cost him $4001.  If Roger had played just a bit better the victory could well have been his, but as it stood Long got his first match point.

My guess, for the record, was Fritz. I was thinking of Fritz Lang and hoping that someone like Doppler had the first name Fritz. Wrong.

 

February 20^th

 

Like every climatic game in the short history of the JIT Game 3 was a thriller from beginning to end. The Jeopardy round was a battle for supremacy from start to finish. Roger and Andrew were tied for the lead when Long found the Daily Double late in the round in ON THE ROCKS. He bet the $2800 he had:

A Rhine River rock that produces an echo inspired the story of this siren who seduces sailors with her song. Long knew it was the Lorelei and went into the lead with $5600. It was still incredibly close at the end of the round with Long at $6400, Roger second with $5800 and Andrew in third with $4400.

Long struck first in Double Jeopardy when he found the first Daily Double in WORLD HISTORY. Yet again he bet everything he had, $9200

In 'Mundus Novus', a letter published in the early 1500s & attributed to him, he tells of discovering a new continent. He figured it out: "Who is Vespucci?" He now had $18,400.

But just as in Thursday's game Andrew then found the other Daily Double a few clues later in BOOKS & AUTHORS. He had more money to wager and did, betting $7600:

Pierre Boulle drew upon his wartime experiences for this 1952 novel about POWs building the Burma-Siam railway.

He knew it was Bridge Over the River Kwai and went up to $15,200.

This was a battle to the death by all three players. Roger got 15 correct and 3 incorrect to finish with $6200. Long managed 19 correct responses (including both Daily Doubles he found) and only 2 incorrect ones to finish with $24,400But Andrew managed 22 correct ones (including running the category LOAN WORDS in an impressive streak of seven correct responses) to finish with $31,600 at the end of Double Jeopardy.

The Final Jeopardy category was EUROPE. Thomas Mann's 'The Magic Mountain' is set in this town that in 1971 hosted the first what was then the European Management Symposium.

Roger went through a lot of responses. What is Zurich, then Basil, and finally Baden? All were incorrect. He wagered everything which left him at zero which confirmed the tournament would end today.

Long wrote down: "What is Innsbruck?" That was wrong. He lost $8000.

It was all on Andrew. His response: "What is Davos?" Today it is now known as the World Economic Forum. His wagered was $17,201. That gave him a total of $48,801 by far the highest Final Jeopardy total at the end of this tournament and made him the victor of this year's Invitational.

 

For Andrew it was a fitting victory. In four years of playing some of the greatest Jeopardy players of all time since the 2022 Tournament of Champions, he had yet to win a single tournament. Now he finally managed to prevail to mark a triumphant return to the Jeopardy Masters for the first time in three years.

With his win in this tournament Andrew has now won $375,000 in Tournament Play alone, going back to his second place finish in the 2022 Tournament of Champions. Combined with his original five day total of $157,000 he has now officially entered the all-time leaderboard of Jeopardy greats, putting him just behind Scott Riccardi in sixteenth place all-time. Depending on how this year's Masters play out he could be in the top ten by the time it ends.

As for Roger Craig he finished this year's JIT like he did the last one: without a match point to his name. However he can take consolation that with the $50,000 he gained as a runner-up, he has become only the eleventh player in Jeopardy history to win more than $700,000 all time. And now that he has finally been defeated fans can take comfort that next year we will finally see another Jeopardy great Julia Collins who we've been waiting to return ever since the first Invitational was called.

And Long Nguyen has emerged from this year's Invitational as the new Sam Buttrey for Jeopardy fans. Just as self-effacing but far more ruthless on the trigger Long managed an impressive run when it came to getting to where he did.  He managed to defeat a Jeopardy super-champion, narrowly win over an 8 game winner and go toe-to-toe with two of the all-time Jeopardy greats and not only be their equal but for one game, their superior. I suspect we will be seeing Long soon enough.

It still remains unclear when exactly the Jeopardy Masters will take place this year and who the remaining participants will be. But with Paolo Pasco and Andrew He representing as a mix of the old and the new, it will surely be just as thrilling as the previous ones have been.

Season 42's postseason is in the books. We will now return to regularly scheduled games a little more past the halfway point of the season. Congratulations to all the players in the Masters and a special shout out to Andrew He.

One last author's note: I thought the Final Jeopardy might be referring to Davos but I was more influenced by recent events and wrote down: "What is Munich?" instead. I really need to trust my gut more.

How George Clooney's Infamous Op-Ed Demonstrated Why There Should Be A Line Between Celebrities and Politics

 

This article needs a bit more of a personal introduction than usual.

I'm not like the overwhelming majority of the writers on this site or indeed social media in general. First of all I have barely any footprint to speak of. Second for most of my career I stuck to my lane of criticism. I expanded it to history and politics only gradually and basically only staying in that lane. I wasn't writing to provoke or court controversy or in order to gain hundreds or thousands of followers. And perhaps for that reason it's taken me a considerable amount of time to gain even close to a thousand.

I don't seek conflict by nature, in my personal life or online. It's just not me. I want to engage in reasonable, logical debate and have constructive conversation. You know the exact opposite of what we seem to use the internet for these days. Whenever I challenged somebody in the comments section I did so painstakingly, usually with my own historical information (which I found in books rather then the internet) and always with the intention of giving the author the chance to give me an answer based on facts. I was usually met with silence and then increasingly with hostility.

In the past year and a half I have dipped my toe very cautiously into current events. Even then I stay in my own lane, usually using metaphor, always dotting my I's and crossing my T's. I'm still greeted with hostility far too often but by this point I've come to realize that the criticism is not about me but them. Specifically they care more about followers and their own approval from virtual people. For me, it's nice but not a necessity. I can take it or leave it. I will take the applause when it comes, when there is constructive criticism I will hear it out, and the vitriol and name calling, well, increasingly my attitude is to treat with satire and humor.

Every so often, usually late at night when I've seen something that troubles me, I will write a long column to get my feelings out. Then I put in a file and decide if I want to publish it or not after a day. Sometimes the urge passes, sometimes it doesn't, but I always take the time before I put on the internet where the world can see it.

Other times I've written articles thinking they will provoke an explosive reaction from this site. The overwhelming majority of the time it doesn't get a reaction at all. I'm initially disappointed, but usually I'm relieved. I'm a consensus builder and I avoid conflict.

So when two weeks ago I wrote a long article about Natalie Portman and a statement she made about the omission of female directors it was not one of those pieces. I don't like making accusations based on no evidence and I want to give people, even people I disagree with, the benefit of the doubt.  Given the timing of her statement and the information available I didn't think there was any other conclusions to draw then the two I reached. And it was only in regard to her statement about the lack of female directors being nominated by the Oscars that week. I only spoke about politics very generally because that was not the purpose of the article.

What it came down to was the idea of an informed opinion and in uninformed one. I argued that because Portman was an actress she was informed to talk about her industry and less informed to talk about anything that didn't involve Hollywood. Her statement about the omission of female directors in this year's Oscars seemed to argue that at best she was uninformed about even that. That has never struck me as a controversial idea at any time in my entire life. The fact that social media and the internet have basically obliterated the difference between those two shouldn't make it any less true.

I didn't state that in my article and indeed I haven't written it any of the articles I've written before mainly because I thought it went without saying. Given some of the more virulent reactions to some of my own articles I have only myself to blame for not realizing this is no longer a universally held truth.

Now after two weeks this article has gotten a lot of claps and mostly positive reaction. I'm grateful for it and the constructive criticism and as always the name-calling doesn't bother me as much as it used to. What it has made clear is that for more than a few people who peruse the internet not only is there no difference between an informed opinion and an uninformed one but many people are fine even if an uninformed opinion express because they believe it’s a valid one to have. Many of those same people believe its perfectly fine to support a celebrity whose wife felt it fine to cut off relations with loved ones because of who they voted for but that's another story and I already know for many of them it’s a non-starter to argue this point.

Instead what I'd like to do is answer a different question that I've been posed more than a few times in this article in particular: why shouldn't a famous person be allowed to raise awareness for their point of view? Well I have the facts on my side, and I've expressed them in other articles.

 I'll summarize:

 

Many Americans think Hollywood is a wing of the Democratic party.

The idea of the 'limousine liberal' has done much to push the working class voter into the Republican Party and that has accelerated since Trump's first run for the Presidency.

After the 2024 election, the Republicans won the White House and both houses of Congress, leaving the Democrats unable to provide a check on Trump leading to the current administrations actions.

The Democrats need to win power back to bring about the kinds of changes needed to repair America after the least decade and that means winning independents and working class voters.

Conclusion: Hollywood should shut up and therefore not make any unforced errors that will be a burden to the Democrats in the mid-terms.

 

Now I'm not saying that's the only thing Democrats need to do in order to win – I've made some suggestions in other articles and I will make more over the next few months. But if you want to try and convince the average American that you're on their side, having a bunch of millionaires making the kinds of political statements that Fox News can tie to the 'coastal elites' is absolutely not going to help. I don't know if the Democrats have realized this; I know for sure Hollywood has not.

Hollywood looks at problems in methods that are very much of the left-wing approach for the last half-century:

The problems in our institutions are so great that they need to be completely torn down, rather than reform.

In order to do this, the people must act, but since the electoral process can't be trusted it is useless to the cause.

Therefore we must raise awareness so that once the people know they will…

I've trailed off because in all the years of reading and seeing left-wing people not only do they not finish that last sentence, they rarely reach it all.

And Hollywood celebrities are focused on 'raising awareness' as if they believe, without irony, the only reason we still have these deep societal problems is that Mark Ruffalo has not been speaking out about them and Michael Moore has not been making films about them. Considering that they truly seem to belief 'no publicity is bad publicity' when it comes to their own industry they may genuine believe the same applies to all aspects of life. It is certainly seen that way among many of the people I've encountered on this site and others, but I'm not like them: I won't make this entirely about me.

I've made my other arguments about how Hollywood has not helped over the last year based on economic factors within the industry as well and how increasingly in the past year they seem to be going out of their way to prove that they are out-of-touch, annoying, privileged Americans who think they know what is best for the average person even though they haven't been one for years.

Now I can understand why one would want an academic to talk about certain subjects: they've at least spent time researching and studying. I don't per se believe in the left-wing bias of these academics mainly because I've seen more than my share of right-wing academics over the years. But I respect them more because many of them have informed opinions. The same can't be said for an actor or a director. And that brings me, finally, to George Clooney.

A little review because a lot's happened in two years. On June 27^th 2024 after the presidential primaries for both parties were over Joe Biden and Donald Trump had what would be their only presidential debate for that year. Before it was even half over America, if not the world, had come to the stunning realization: that the Commander-in-Chief was clearly not capable of engaging in a coherent debate.

This in itself was horrifying enough. But it was immediately swept away by more terrifying implications for the Democratic Party: their nominee for President was in no  mental condition to serve a second term. (We'd learn not much long after Biden left office that he developed a kind of bone cancer that would have almost certainly made him physically incapacitated.) The party had never been wild about Biden running for reelection in the first place: had he won he would have been eighty two years old when he was sworn in. Combined with negative popularity ratings even before the leading up to 2024 many had worried about his ability to do win reelection.

The reason I suspect the Democrats had stood by him was because he had been the picture of calm during the 2022 midterms when everyone in America in both parties had been certain there was going to be a 'red wave'. Biden was the only one who believed otherwise and everyone thought he was an idiot. And then the Democrats bucked the odds and had the best midterms of an incumbent party in 20 years and the best for any Democrat since FDR.  To ask him to not stand for reelection after that would have seemed ungrateful to the man who'd brought them back into power two years earlier and helped them keep it to an extent. I suspect that is why everyone in the party kept any doubts to themselves about Biden's competency for the next year and a half.

When it became apparent to the world that Biden wasn't up to the job the Democrats understandably panicked. They were already facing a difficult map in the Senate and Biden on the ticket now seemed certain to not only sweep Trump into office but completely destroy the Democrats at every level. The Republicans who were about to nominate Trump by acclimation were overjoyed. (Maybe some of them wondered if it had made sense to stand by Trump because now it seemed Republican could win against Biden. Story for another day.) There was clearly division in the ranks and while some Democrats were demanding Biden step down, many more were either standing by him or being quiet.

Now The New York Times, not without reason, is considered one of the most anti-Trump publications in the country. They had supported Biden throughout his administration in the op-eds, though to be clear, not as enthusiastically as the right might think. But the paper of record couldn't just close its eyes and say that Biden was fit for office having seen that debate. I can't imagine it was easy to find a Democrat of any standing who would be willing to say what needed to be said out loud.

With that all being said when they allowed George Clooney to write an op-ed on July 10^th they came as close to being a tabloid as they've ever been in my lifetime of reading them.  And Clooney should count his blessings for the rest of his life that America and the free world was so concerned with what was happening with the country that they essentially gave him a pass.

Because make no mistake: under normal circumstances the fact that one of the biggest actors and forces in Hollywood was writing an op-ed arguing that the President of the United States needed to not stand for reelection with the seriousness of delivering a monologue from one of his films should have made him a laughingstock in the country, the industry and the free world.  Some people no doubt might have opened the Times and thought they were reading The Onion or The Babylon Bee.

And its striking that the day  it was written Jake Tapper called it: '"the most damning, damning opinion' with a straight face because Clooney had 'led some of the Democratic Party's biggest fundraisers."  He admitted that was his biggest qualification and no doubt because he'd won an Oscar. Perhaps if Ed Harris had written it, we would have taken it less seriously

Let's get to why Clooney wrote the op-ed. He said that he was holding a fundraiser for the Democratic Party with Biden in attendance a  week before the debate where he behaved in a fashion that was identical to his performance on the stage.. To be clear he saw Biden on June 20^th. He waited until July 10^th – two full weeks after the debate – to state:  "He wasn't the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate."

So you know he helped the Democrats raise $28 million dollars that day. So he felt no remorse about taking money that would have gone to his reelection on June 20^th and telling everyone there they'd wasted it on July 10^th.  For the record he'd have done well just to tell all of those people to save their money and of course no doubt offered everybody a full refund.

Next Clooney told us this was the opinion of every House member and Senator he'd talked to and every governor he'd spoken to in private. So Clooney was both protecting their confidence with anonymity and then telling the world that that they all thought the same thing. Clooney then says we can either put our heads in the sand and hope for a miracle in November or we can speak the truth.

For the record, and I just think its worth pointing out, the following November Clooney said that Harris replacing Biden was a mistake. So just to be clear we did exactly what Clooney suggested, we still failed to defeat Trump and now Clooney felt fine saying this one full year after Harris had lost. Maybe for his next film role Clooney should play Captain Obvious.

This is a moment when late night failed to meet the moment. Every single late night host from Colbert to Kimmel to Bill Maher should have roasted Clooney to the sky. Because Clooney made it clear in this op-ed that while he had no real expertise in electoral politics he'd fundraised for Democrats for years going back to Obama. This was the Times version of that famous commercial that starts:  Do you know me? I'm not a doctor but I play one on TV." (Which in Clooney's case was true but I wouldn't be asking him to be surgeon general.)

The parodies  practically write themselves:

I'm not an expert on crime and urban decay but as someone who played both Batman and Danny Ocean…

I'm not an expert on the Middle East or renewable energy but having won an Academy Award for Syriana…

I don't pretend to know anything about the Fairness Doctrine or cable news but as the writer of a film on Edward R. Murrow…

And of course…

I may not know much of running for President but as someone who in The Ides of March played one…

Some of you are no doubt saying that Clooney had a right  to give an opinion and that he was more informed then most of us. There is truth to that.  There's also the truth that the White House did hide the truth about Biden's physical and mental condition and concealed it until well past the time we could do anything to stop it. Biden does bear the responsibility for it.

But Clooney's hands are not clean. He could have gone before the cameras the day after the fundraiser and told the world what he saw. That would have been an act of courage. He had an entire week to say something that could have changed the narrative or at the very least given the world a heads up. Instead he held his tongue and waited for at least fifty million people watching at the time and then the rest of the country in real time realize what he had seen.

Then he went out of his way to talk to as many Democratic elected officials as possible. Maybe they confirmed what he already believed, maybe he genuinely wanted to know what they thought. Whatever the reason he spent two whole weeks before he chose to write his article in the Times.

And let's not forget what Clooney chose to do in the aftermath of the election. He and his family confirmed citizenship in another country. This is something that only the very rich among us can easily do and it confirms Clooney's elite status. He asked for Biden to step down to save democracy and when it didn't work as he planned, he chose to leave. It's conditional of course – he was back in Hollywood for the Golden Globes after being nominated for Jay Kelly  - but that only goes to prove a larger point.

For him the fate of American democracy is in a sense an abstraction, something that they can afford to worry about because they can afford to leave America. We've seen multiple celebrities from Rosie O'Donnell to Ellen DeGeneres to Robin Wright make a similar decision and in all those cases they've returned. Some have not been subtle about it; Wright was at the Golden Globes as well.

That is the larger reason why I don't think we should take celebrities advice when it comes to so many of America's problems. It's not that they're necessarily uninformed on the subject (though again I do think the majority are); it's because for all of them, they're like America itself: they can take it or leave it. Those are options the majority of the Americans who are worried about the policies of the administration (of which I'm one) don't have.

Now I know none of that is going to stop the rest of the world from commenting on them with superiority; I've seen countless people do so on this site alone. I don't have a lot of respect for them, particularly expatriates from the last decade. And it's for the same reason I don't have any respect for celebrities when they do: both of them are speaking 'truth to power' when they're in no position to suffer the consequences from that very power. It doesn't take a genius that if you say 'F--- ICE at an awards speech in New York, you will get a very different reaction then if you say it to the face of one.

And that's a big difference. I may not agree with the protestors and I may think that they are ineffective at anything other than 'raising awareness' but at least when they do it in a place like Minneapolis they know what the cost is.  Mark Ruffalo isn't risking anything when he wears buttons or says the same thing at the Golden Globes in LA. And if he really thinks the country is a dictatorship (which if it was, he'd have been jailed as a political prisoner years ago) he can always fly to London or Paris where many of his colleagues have taken up dual citizenship.

Hell maybe he and the rest of them can make a film about a bunch of handsome, well-clothed white people planning to break into the White House and get Trump to sign a letter of resignation. Clooney could write the screenplay and says its based on a true story. But because this is Hollywood he could tweak the ending to make himself the hero this time.

After all, the film version usually supplants reality.

2026 Jeopardy Invitational Tournament Recap, Part 2: The Semifinals

 We saw a lot of remarkable things happen in the quarterfinals of this year's Invitational and that has led us to the semifinals. Three previous participants in the Jeopardy Masters are competing, along with a former Jeopardy All-Star and two winners of the Jeopardy Second Chance Tournament.

The impossible has already had happened for two of the semi-finalists: Alison Betts and Drew Goins. So let's see how the semi-finals played out.

 

February 13^th

Roger Craig vs Jen Giles vs Drew Basile

 

For Jen her moment in the sun came early in the Jeopardy round when she found the Daily Double on the second clue in SONG & BOOK: SAME TITLE. The only one with money, she bet the $1000 she had:

Don Henley looks back at an old relationship; Roger Kahn looks back at the baseball players of the 1950s.

She figured it out: "What is The Boys of Summer?" She doubled to $2000. She would only get one more correct response the rest of the round. But because Roger got into a big deficit early (at one point he was at -$2000) she would be in second for the entirety of the round. Drew finished  in the lead with $6000 to her $2400 while Roger had half her total.

Roger then found the first Daily Double on the second clue of Double Jeopardy in A SCIENCE BRIEF. He already had $3200 and because as he said: "I am a scientist", he bet it all:

The Cassini-Huygens mission found rippling sand dunes and liquid seas on this moon.

He figured it out: "What is Titan?" With that he went to $6400 and moved into the lead for the first time.

Not long after Drew found the other Daily Double in WRITERS. In second with $5600 and well aware of who he was playing, he bet everything as well:

Dickens saluted this writer as 'my dear sir' but also expressed doubt that it was actually a man behind the name (it wasn't).

Drew figured it out: "Who is George Eliot?" He moved up to $11,200 and the battle was well and truly joined.

Roger moved back into the lead a bit later but it was not a picnic. Both Roger and Drew each gave 20 correct responses and each got a Daily Double correct. Roger gave four incorrect responses; Drew gave 2. But all of Roger's were in the Jeopardy round and that was enough for him to finish with a slight lead: $18,400 to Drew's $14,000. Jen loomed as a spoiler with $4800.

It came down to Final Jeopardy. The category was SAINTS. Mentioned several times in a 1699 play, this patron saint of cobblers had a feast day that coincided with the Battle of Agincourt.

Jen's response was revealed first. "Who is Saint Swithin?" Not a bad guess but wrong. It cost her $425, leaving her with $4025.

Next came Drew. He wrote down: "Who is Crispin?" And that was the correct saint. The play in question was Henry V and the St. Crispin's speech is one of Shakespeare's best. He wagered nothing, no doubt trying to keep ahead of Jen in case he got it wrong.

It was all on Roger. He wrote down: "Who is St. Crispin?" His wager of $9601 meant that even if Drew had bet everything Roger still would have won by $1. The former Master beat the Survivor and fellow All-Star as Roger returned to the finals for the second straight year.

February 16^th

Matt Amodio vs Andrew He vs Alison Betts

 

In the first Invitational Tournament there were complaints about how in the quarter-finals or semi-finals had any of the three former Masters facing off. They couldn't make that argument for this semi-final as two former Masters were facing off against each other with Alison standing against them. A tough battle but she'd survived one already.

Alison's best chance came when she found the Daily Double in the Jeopardy round on the second clue in IN A 'B' COUNTRY. She bet the $1000 she had:

Cricket is the national sport of the Caribbean nation & Anglicanism is the predominant religion. She thought and guessed: "What is the Bahamas?" She should have gone with her other choice Barbados.

From that point on Andrew and Matt went back and forth. Andrew got a big lead early and finished the Jeopardy round with $8400 to Matt's $3800 and Alison's $1400.

Matt got the first two clues of Double Jeopardy correct and found the first Daily Double in PLAYS & PLAYWRIGHTS. He bet the $6200 he had:

Set in a fictional town in the South, this 1955 courtroom drama was based on the Scopes trial; a film would follow. They weren't going to stump him on Inherit The Wind and he took the lead for the first time.

Andrew struck next when he found the other Daily Double in TAKE YOUR MARBLE. With $11,600 he bet $6000:

After some effort, 'The Brutalist' director Brady Corbet got to film in the quarries of this Italian marble mecca.

Andrew had no idea and guessed: "What are the Dolomites?" It was actually Carrara. But he'd wisely held some back and had $5600 left.

As you'd expect it was a close match. Matt gave 17 correct responses and only one incorrect one; Andrew gave 22 and 3 incorrect ones. Alison had 7 only 1 incorrect one. (There were quite a few triple stumpers particularly in STATE CAPITAL ENTERTAINMENT?) Matt finished in the lead with $19,200, Andrew was next with $13,600 and Alison was in third and had $2600.

It came down to Final Jeopardy. The category was MEN OF RELIGION. A 1660 book quoted Mary, Queen of Scots as saying she feared this man's prayers more than an army of men.

Alison's response was revealed first.  "These guys probably won't bet it all." As Ken pointed out, "That's probably true this time, Alison." She bet nothing.

Next was Andrew who took a philosophical approach: "Who else thinks the best season of Jeopardy was…? When Ken asked, it made sense when you considered the wager: $38. "That was your season, Andrew," Ken asked. "Yeah and Matt's. (Also Amy Schneider, Mattea Roach and Sam Buttrey; it was a very good season.)

Matt tried to take it seriously. "Who is James I?" But that was incorrect. Ken said: Mary Queen of Scots as a Catholic feared John Knox, leader of the Scottish reformation. So it came down his wager. Matt bet $8001, leaving him with $11,199 and Andrew He comes from behind to return to the JIT Finals for the second time in three years. (He also assures us that whoever wins the JIT Finals will be different for the third consecutive year.)

For the record I wrote down Who is Knox, crossed it out, wrote down Calvin, crossed that out and went back to John Knox.  So I was right but I really wasn't sure of it.

 

February 17^th

Long Nguyen vs Karen Farrell vs Drew Goins

This was the closest game of the tournament so far. Karen started strong when she found the Daily Double in the Jeopardy round on the second clue in POEM ADD A LETTER. With just $800 she wagered the $1000 she could:

Keats looks back on an unfortunate day as a line cook in Athens when his hand blistered after touching a hot gyro plate.

She figured out the category: "What is Ode on a Grecian Burn?" She went up to $1800. But not long after that Drew ran the category WORDS WITH A SILENT LETTER and the battle was joined.

At the end of the Jeopardy round Long had $5600, Drew had $4600 and Karen was in third with $3600.

Long got off to a great start in Double Jeopardy when he found the first Daily Double on the second clue of the round in MAPS & GLOBES. He bet the $7200 he had:

Lines of latitude are also called these, from their geometric layout; you're just about standing on the 34^th. He knew it was a parallel and was at $14,400.

Then he found the other Daily Double in OPERA on the very next clue and had a chance to put it away early. This time he was more cautious and bet $5000. It was good he did:

Maidens guard the title object of this opera, the first of the 'Ring' cycle. He guessed the entire opera: "What is the ring of the Nibelung?" It was actually Das Rheingold. He dropped to $9400 and gave Drew and Karen a chance to catch up.

It was a close game all the way. Long gave 20 correct answers but four incorrect ones to finish with $15,800.  Drew gave 18 correct answers and 3 incorrect ones to finish with $12,200. Karen rang in with 12 correct answers and not a single mistake to finish with $10,000 even. It was anybody's game going into Final Jeopardy.

The category was WRITERS.  The winner of 3 Pulitzer Prizes in 2 different categories, he called his home in Connecticut "The House the Bridge Built."

Karen's response was revealed first. She couldn't come up with anything. But she bet nothing leaving her at $10,000.

Drew was next. He wrote down: "Who is Agee?" It was not James Agee. He went big, wagering $12,197.

Finally it came to Long. He wrote down: "Who is Wilder?" And that was correct. It referred to Thorton Wilder who won Pulitzers for the plays Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth and for the novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey. Long had become the last finalist. He bet $5001 which means he was hoping to be left with enough if he was wrong and Karen had wagered nothing. Either way, his strategy made him the winner.

For the record I thought it was Steinbeck. Right idea, not enough Pultizers.

So Roger Craig, Andrew He and Long Nguyen will face off in the finals which start tomorrow. It should be exciting to watch and I'll be back whenever it ends