SEC dominates 2019 College Football Recruiting

The SEC just had best recruiting year in the history of the conference

 About the author: Joseph Grund is an Associate Manager & Managing Director, with Ameriprise Financial Services, Inc. in Palm Bach Gardens, Florida.

According to Rivals.com Georgia, Alabama, and LSU finished with the top 3 recruiting classes.  The SEC Also finished with 5 of the Top 10 and 7 of the Top 12 Classes.

Georgia 

The Georgia Bulldog’s football program signed 24 players in the Class of 2019, and finished with the top-ranked class in the country, according to Rivals.com.  The class included 3 FIVE STAR players and 15 FOUR STAR players. Kirby Smart's fourth recruiting class was his best yet and should put Georgia in position to compete for the next several BCS Titles.

Alabama

The Crimson Tide program signed 27 players this year.  The class included 3 FIVE STAR players and 21 FOUR STAR players. Nick Saban signed the deepest class in the nation, and even though they were ranked #2 by Rivals, this class could arguably be considered the best. The average ranking for the 27 member class was an incredible 4 stars, which is virtually unheard of for a class that large.

LSU

The LSU Tigers finished with the nations 3rd ranked class.  Coach Ogeron signed 25 players, including 4 FIVE STAR players and 9 FOUR STAR players. Coach Ogeron was hired because he could recruit and he got the job done in 2019. 

The Others

Texas A&M finished 6th

Florida finishd 8th

Tennessee finished 12th

Auburn finished 13th

Sleeping Giant

Some of the top players in this class defected from South Florida, but with Manny Diaz now in charge of the Miami Hurricane Football Program, watch for the Hurricanes to re-emerge as a recruiting force. They currently have the #3 class for 2020 and the #1 class for 2021.

The Best Football Players in Miami Hurricanes History

Joseph Grund, a financial advisor at Ameriprise Financial Services, enjoys spending free time watching college football. Although a graduate of Yale University, Joseph Grund counts himself a fan of the Miami Hurricanes. 

Many talented athletes have played for the Hurricanes, a program with rich history. The best of these include:

Warren Sapp

This dominant defensive lineman led a 1994 Hurricane defense that finished first in the nation in several categories, including total defense. In the same year, Sapp became the first Miami player to win the Lombardi Award, taking home several other honors in the process.

Ed Reed

The 2001 Hurricanes are considered by some to be the greatest college football team ever, and Ed Reed was their best player. In his four years at Miami, the safety set records for interceptions and interceptions returned for touchdowns that still stand today.

Michael Irvin

Known for his brashness and confidence, Michael Irvin consistently backed up his behavior with outstanding efforts on the field. The Playmaker set numerous receiving records while at Miami, and was key to the Hurricanes winning the 1987 National Championship.

Top 5 Las Vegas Restaurants according to Joseph Grund

Top 5 Las Vegas Restaurants according to Joseph Grund

Las Vegas Strip

Joseph Grund has spent more than 24 years as a financial advisor at Ameriprise Financial Services, Inc.  His office is in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, and he currently lives in Jupiter, Florida.  When he is not working,  Joseph Grund likes to travel around the country.  One of the places he likes to visit is Las Vegas, Nevada. Here is the list of Joe's favorite restaurants in Las Vegas.


1. Rao's- Rao' is located in Cesar's Palace on the Las Vegas Strip. The original Rao's restaurant opened in 1896 in New York.  Rao's is know for its authentic, southern Neapolitan Italian cooking. Try the Chicken Scarpiello, Steak Pizzaiola, and profiteroles for desert.


2.  Lavo- Located in the Venetian hotel, Lavo is know for it's gourmet Italian cuisine. Try the 16 oz. Kobe meatball, eighteen-inch lobster-scampi pizza, and Oreo zeppoles for dessert.


3. YardBird- Yardbird is housed at The Venetian Palazzo Resort & Casino in the heart of Las Vegas. Yardbird Southern Table & Bar is the best place in Nevada for classic Southern Cooking. Favorites include Classic Buttermilk Biscuits. Chicken 'N' Watermelon 'N' Waffles. & Skillet Cornbread.


4. Morimoto- Morimoto is Las Vegas very first restaurant from Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto. The Japanese chef opened his restaurant at the MGM Grand. Top dishes include seared snapper with Thai curry and mussels, braised black cod with a ginger-soy reduction, and Morimoto’s famous Duck Duck Goose with duck meatball soup & duck confit fried rice.


5. Momofuku- David Chang arrives in Las Vegas with a menu that mirror's many of his Momofuku restaurants in the United States and Canada. Favorites include ramen from the Noodle Bar, fried chicken with caviar, & a great selection of his famous soup's.

The ACC Finishes the Season as the Unquestioned Top Conference in College Football

College Football's Top Conference is Clearly the ACC

By knocking off Alabama for the national title, Clemson did more than just win the Colege Football National Championship.  It sealed the deal on the ACC’s rise to prominance in college football, by supplanting the SEC as the best conference in the America.

Clemson's victory should not have come as a major surprise. The ACC was showing their dominance throughout the season.

The ACC's Record Against Power Five Opponents...

The ACC was the only conference to post a winning record (17-9) against Power Five opponents this Season.   The ACC finished 10-4 against the SEC, 6-2 against the Big Ten -- both league records for most wins against those conferences. Eleven ACC teams finished with a winning overall record, also a league record.

Bowl Dominance

The ACC finished with a 9-3 record this Bowl season while the SEC was fumbling and stumbling to a 5-6 record.  In five head-to-head matchups, the ACC went 4-1 against the SEC.

National Title

Clemson's victory last night, coupled with the points above, and the fact that the ACC was won two of the past 4 national titles, cement the fact that College Football has a new King Conference!!

WSJ- Peggy Noonan Explains Why Trump Won

Joseph Grund is a Managing Director and the Associate Manager of the Palm Beach Gardens, FL office of Ameriprise Financial Services, Inc. Joe Grund currently lives in Jupiter, FL with his wife Michelle and dog Ralph.

It has been just a few weeks since the 2016 Presidential election that resulted in a shocking Trump win.  Since the election the media has endlessy tried to explain the reasons for Trump's win. They still seem as clueless as ever when trying to explain Trump' appeal.

I would recommend that the media, and all those still in shock over the results to read The article Peggy Noonan, from the Wall Street Journal, published  back in February titled Trump and the Rise of the Unprotected.

She explained during the primaries what the real reasons for Trump's popularity were, and why political pundits were struggling to make sense of his popularity.  If you would like to read an intelligent well written article that explains how it is that Trump won, I suggest you read this article.

Here is some of the text from her article...

We’re in a funny moment. Those who do politics for a living, some of them quite brilliant, are struggling to comprehend the central fact of the Republican primary race, while regular people have already absorbed what has happened and is happening. There are many answers and reasons, but my thoughts keep revolving around the idea of protection. It is a theme that has been something of a preoccupation in this space over the years, but I think I am seeing it now grow into an overall political dynamic throughout the West.

There are the protected and the unprotected. The protected make public policy. The unprotected live in it. The unprotected are starting to push back, powerfully. The protected are the accomplished, the secure, the successful—those who have power or access to it. They are protected from much of the roughness of the world. More to the point, they are protected from the world they have created. 

They are figures in government, politics and media. They live in nice neighborhoods, safe ones. Their families function, their kids go to good schools, they’ve got some money. All of these things tend to isolate them, or provide buffers. Some of them—in Washington it is important officials in the executive branch or on the Hill; in Brussels, significant figures in the European Union—literally have their own security details. 

Immigration was a big factor:

One issue obviously roiling the U.S. and Western Europe is immigration. It is the issue of the moment, a real and concrete one but also a symbolic one: It stands for all the distance between governments and their citizens.

It is of course the issue that made Donald Trump.

Britain will probably leave the European Union over it. In truth immigration is one front in that battle, but it is the most salient because of the European refugee crisis and the failure of the protected class to address it realistically and in a way that offers safety to the unprotected.

If you are an unprotected American—one with limited resources and negligible access to power—you have absorbed some lessons from the past 20 years’ experience of illegal immigration. You know the Democrats won’t protect you and the Republicans won’t help you. Both parties refused to control the border. The Republicans were afraid of being called illiberal, racist, of losing a demographic for a generation. The Democrats wanted to keep the issue alive to use it as a wedge against the Republicans and to establish themselves as owners of the Hispanic vote.

Many Americans suffered from illegal immigration—its impact on labor markets, financial costs, crime, the sense that the rule of law was collapsing. But the protected did fine—more workers at lower wages. No effect of illegal immigration was likely to hurt them personally.

It was good for the protected. But the unprotected watched and saw. They realized the protected were not looking out for them, and they inferred that they were not looking out for the country, either.

The unprotected came to think they owed the establishment—another word for the protected—nothing, no particular loyalty, no old allegiance. Mr. Trump came from that.

It is of course the issue that made Donald Trump.

Britain will probably leave the European Union over it. In truth immigration is one front in that battle, but it is the most salient because of the European refugee crisis and the failure of the protected class to address it realistically and in a way that offers safety to the unprotected.

If you are an unprotected American—one with limited resources and negligible access to power—you have absorbed some lessons from the past 20 years’ experience of illegal immigration. You know the Democrats won’t protect you and the Republicans won’t help you. Both parties refused to control the border. The Republicans were afraid of being called illiberal, racist, of losing a demographic for a generation. The Democrats wanted to keep the issue alive to use it as a wedge against the Republicans and to establish themselves as owners of the Hispanic vote.

Many Americans suffered from illegal immigration—its impact on labor markets, financial costs, crime, the sense that the rule of law was collapsing. But the protected did fine—more workers at lower wages. No effect of illegal immigration was likely to hurt them personally.

It was good for the protected. But the unprotected watched and saw. They realized the protected were not looking out for them, and they inferred that they were not looking out for the country, either.

The unprotected came to think they owed the establishment—another word for the protected—nothing, no particular loyalty, no old allegiance.

Mr. Trump came from that.

I don’t know if the protected see how serious this moment is, or their role in it. 

Presidential Election Homor

Cartoons & Crooked Hillary

AP NEWS WIRE: DOCUMENT SHOWS LESS LIMITS ON IRAN NUKE WORK

Obama promised to have an open and transparent administration.  We are repeatedly reminded by his actions that this was complete BS. It was already known that Obama and his cronies lied to get the Iran Nuclear Deal passed,  However, there is an article by the AP News Wire that shows Obama was even more dishonest than originally thought on the Iran Nuclear Deal.

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From the AP: 

Key restrictions on Iran's nuclear program imposed under an internationally negotiated deal will start to ease years before the 15-year accord expires, advancing Tehran's ability to build a bomb even before the end of the pact, according to a document obtained Monday by The Associated Press.

The document obtained by the AP fills in the gap. It says that as of January 2027 - 11 years after the deal was implemented - Iran will start replacing its mainstay centrifuges with thousands of advanced machines.

Centrifuges churn out uranium to levels that can range from use as reactor fuel and for medical and research purposes to much higher levels for the core of a nuclear warhead. From year 11 to 13, says the document, Iran will install centrifuges up to five times as efficient as the 5,060 machines it is now restricted to using.

Those new models will number less than those being used now, ranging between 2,500 and 3,500, depending on their efficiency, according to the document. But because they are more effective, they will allow Iran to enrich at more than twice the rate it is doing now.

Read the full story here