Editor’s Note: This is a column and does not reflect the views or opinions of The Daily Barometer.

The college football landscape is shifting, and the Pac-12 has a golden opportunity to reclaim its identity.

Forget chasing TV markets that don’t care about the coast; the key to a sustainable, rowdy, and authentic conference lies in the True West.

By 2027, the Pac-12 shouldn’t just look for names; it should look for cultures.

From the deafening mountains of Missoula to the neon lights of the Las Vegas Strip, here are the four most realistic additions to finalize the conference.

Montana and Montana State: The Package Deal

You cannot have one without the other.

Bringing the “Brawl of the Wild” to the Football Bowl Subdivision is the most practical move the Pac-12 could make.

This isn’t just a local rivalry; it’s a national draw.

The 2025 Football Championship Subdivision semifinal rematch between these two on ABC averaged a staggering 2.8 million viewers, making it the most-watched FCS playoff game on record.

Montana State is a legitimate powerhouse, coming off a 2025 FCS National Championship victory in an overtime thriller.

They finished their most recent campaign with a 14-2 record and an offense averaging 37.9 points per game.

The last two FBS wins for MSU had one occur this past season, when they lost 59-13 to Oregon, and the other in 2024, when they were at one point given a 1.5% chance to win, before they came back and upset New Mexico 35-31.

Meanwhile, the Montana Grizzlies remain a postseason staple with 11 semifinal appearances and a record 29 playoff appearances.

The Grizz went 13-2 on the season, with both losses coming from their rival, the Bobcats.

The last time Montana faced off against a FBS school, they upset No. 20 Washington on the road in 2021. They were only projected to have a 5% chance of victory entering the game.

2026 even gives us a trial run of this potential merger, as Oregon State hosts Montana on Sept. 19.

These programs don’t just win; they bring a state to life. 

“It’s not about the glitz and the glamour… it’s all about showing out for the love of the state of Montana,” Ryan Labus, a sophomore at Montana said.

With fans routinely driving 10 hours for home games, the Pac-12 would gain the most passionate, NIL-proof fanbases in the country.

UNLV: The Entertainment Capital

Adding UNLV is the definition of a market splash.

With the Rebels already playing in the state-of-the-art Allegiant Stadium, they offer a 65,000-seat, NFL-caliber home that has already hosted the Pac-12 Championship.

Geographically and logistically, it is the most seamless fit.

Under the recent resurgence of the program, UNLV has become a scoring machine.

In 2025, they posted a 10-4 record, averaging 34.1 points per game (20th in the nation).

They also had a few matchups with teams that have already joined the Pac-12 for 2026, losing to Boise State twice but beating Colorado State and Utah State.

In 2024, UNLV had a preview of Pac-12 play, facing off against Oregon State  and beating them on their home turf, 33-25.

They aren’t just a Vegas team; they are a winning program with a massive ceiling.

Tapping into the Las Vegas market secures the Pac-12 a permanent home in the Sports and Entertainment Capital of the World, ensuring high recruitment draw and massive travel appeal for opposing fans.

New Mexico: The FBS Rise

New Mexico is an FBS program on the rise, making their transition immediate and practical.

Under the leadership of Jason Eck, who arrived in 2024 and immediately transformed the culture, the Lobos have shown they can compete with anyone.

In his first season, Eck led the Lobos to a 9-4 record, their first winning season since 2016.

The team boasted a top-tier offense and pulled off signature wins like an upset over UCLA.

Along with top-tier wins, they also beat a few Pac-12 teams in Colorado State, Utah State and San Diego State. Their one pitfall was Boise State, who beat them 41-25.

In 2027, the Lobos will arrive in Corvallis for a Sept. 11 matchup between the teams. 

Adding New Mexico provides the Pac-12 with a solid anchor in the Southwest and a team with a rising trajectory and a fan base that is hungry for high-level competition.

The G5 Powerhouse Dream Picks

While the four above are the most practical, two wish list teams deserve a mention for their sheer Group of Five dominance:

Ohio Bobcats: A model of consistency in the MAC, coming off a 9-4 season in 2025 and an undefeated home record. They are a blue-collar program that simply knows how to win. They get a short taste of Pac-12 play when they travel to Texas State in 2027.

Western Kentucky Hilltoppers: The kings of the air raid. WKU is a constant powerhouse, finishing 2025 with 9 wins and ranking in the top tier of national passing offenses yet again.

Northern Illinois, which was in the MAC, is set to join the Mountain West sometime in 2026 prior to the football season. This gives reason that the location of the Bobcats and Hilltoppers wouldn’t be an issue, as other teams have done it.

Adding the Montana schools, UNLV and New Mexico doesn’t just fill a schedule; it builds a conference with a soul.

2028 Democrat presidential candidates should learn a lesson from California Governor Gavin Newsom. Anything less than denouncing ICE as a terrorist organization will quickly disqualify from any hope of winning the nomination from their increasingly deranged party base. Newsom made the intolerable error of backing down from his own press office's description of ICE as "state-sponsored terrorism" while speaking to Ben Shapiro on his podcast.  The New York Post's Brad Appleton described the scene on Thursday which incurred the wrath of the left in "Gavin Newsom backtracks on outrageous ICE claims made by his own team." Gavin Newsom appeared to backtrack on inflammatory rhetoric from his own press team during a tense interview with conservative commentator Ben Shapiro on Thursday. The California governor was grilled by Shapiro on his own podcast, “This Is Gavin Newsom,” in an exchange in which the two clashed over immigration enforcement, political rhetoric and gender identity. One of the biggest flashpoints came when the rumored presidential hopeful was confronted by Shapiro about the language his own office used about the fatal shooting of Renee Good by an ICE officer in Minneapolis, which they called an act of “state-sponsored terrorism.” The incident has sparked national controversy and led to furious debate about law enforcement tactics and rhetoric surrounding federal immigration authorities. “Your press office tweeted out that it was state-sponsored terrorism,” Shapiro said, before pushing back on the characterization of federal agents. “Our ICE officers obviously are not terrorists,” Shapiro added. “Yeah, I think that’s fair,” Newsom agreed. The governor also said he “disagreed” that ICE should be abolished. The moment quickly went viral, with critics seizing on the exchange as evidence that the governor was at odds with messaging coming from his own communications team. Yes, the moment sure did go viral with such a fury that just from reading many of the comments on Bluesky, including from leftist journalists, it appears that Newsom's 2028 nomination is in dire jeopardy. One such journalist was Marisa Kabas, whose leftwing credentials includes writing stories for MSNBC, the Huffington Post, The New Republic, and Rolling Stone. She left no doubt on where she now stands on Gavin Newsom as a result of his (for now) backtrack:   Nathan Grayson, who was once a Washington Post columnist, tells us how he REALLY feels about Gavin Newsom:   Finally, New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie joins in with the Newsom attacks by weirdly attacking Ben Shapiro's manhood: These are but a few of the plethora of Bluesky slams at Newsom for daring to deviate (for now) from the leftist script. Check out that site for yourself if you want to get an idea of the political conundrum Newsom has put himself into by attempting to sound reasonable. Exit Question: How long before Gavin the Chameleon backtracks on his backtrack?

UNEXPECTEDLY: Elon Musk-funded mural of murdered Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska goes up in Brooklyn — and local lefties are furious.

Portraits of Iryna Zarutska went up in D.C., NYC, Miami, and Venice, Ca after Elon Musk and Eoghan McCabe pledged to fund the murals.

Promises made, promises kept.

Thank you @elonmusk and @eoghan.

America will never forget you, Iryna. ❤️ pic.twitter.com/ZYEPxMhIUi

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) December 22, 2025

The artwork on the corner of Jefferson Avenue and Evergreen Street is part of a campaign launched by conservative tech CEO Eoghan McCabe to honor the 23-year-old aspiring artist with murals depicting her in several cities. He told The Post he wanted to highlight how crime in liberal areas can lead to tragedies like Zarutska’s death.

“I started this campaign to make sure that the story of Iryna does not disappear. Her murder is at the nexus of many issues plaguing American society. For example, one is the progressive approach to crime,” said.

McCabe, who runs the AI firm Intercom, donated $500,000 to the tribute initiative and collected $1 million from Musk, a spokeswoman for McCabe told The Post. They also raised $200,000 from smaller donors.

As images of the painting on the building, which is home to the Taiwanese dumpling restaurant Formosa, first got praise from those saddened by the young woman’s tragic loss.

“Beautiful!! What a lovely tribute to a beautiful girl and a beautiful life! RIP Iryna!! . . . I’m so sorry the USA failed you!!” said a user named Mary Signorino on a Facebook post that also showed other murals commissioned by McCabe in Washington DC, Miami and Los Angeles.

But a backlash to the campaign by the conservative billionaire came quickly, as lefties on a Bushwick neighborhood reddit page angrily called the the mural propaganda from “anti immigrant fascists.”

“Anti-immigrant” and “fascist” seem like rather strange phrases to describe one of America’s most-prominent African Americans*, who is a proponent of a smaller government, but okay. The mural of Zarutska is a repeat, on a giant scale, of the posters that went up — before promptly being torn up — in American cities after October 7th. It’s already producing the same reactions from the same people who opposed them:

The thing about these people tearing down hostage posters is the sudden uncomfortable feeling of shame for the first time https://t.co/8sZ8ONcoPe

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) October 31, 2023

Are these posters political? Sure, in the sense that pictures of actual children kidnapped by bloodthirsty Hamas terrorists complicates someone's dopey abstract oppressor-oppressed narrative. And it drives them absolutely insane.

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) October 31, 2023

* In accordance with the prophecy:

Recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)  depredations in Minnesota further strengthen the already compelling case for abolishing the agency. A recent federal district court ruling outlines in detail ICE's extensive use of force against peaceful protestors, violations of a variety of constitutional rights, and other cruel, unjust and illegal actions.  Moreover, it is clear that these wrongs are not just the fault of a few rogue agents, but structural defects in the agency and its mission, exacerbated by the Trump administration's enormous expansion of it, and hiring of numerous dubious new recruits. The agency doesn't even follow its own supposed safety guidelines, which neglect was one of the reasons for the indefensible killing of Renee Good.

These widespread abuses have turned already skeptical public opinion further against ICE, to the point where a substantial majority of Americans disapprove of the agency, and - for the first time - a narrow plurality want to see it abolished.

Abolition is indeed the right approach. In an August 2025 article in The Hill, I outlined how to do it: by shutting down the agency and transferring its funds to state and local police. This strategy would have the virtue of  simultaneously further expanding political support for abolition,  reducing crime, and ending ICE abuses. Here is a brief excerpt:

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has become notorious for its cruelty, abuses of civil liberties and racial profiling. As a result, the agency and the Trump administration's deportation policies generally have become increasingly unpopular…..

[M]ost Democrats have hesitated to call for the agency's abolition, probably for fear of seeming to be soft on crime…. But opponents can avoid such accusations by combining abolition of ICE with reallocation of its funds to ordinary police, which would undercut accusations of being pro-criminal or anti-law enforcement. This could greatly expand support for abolition….

In my 2022 book "Free to Move," I proposed dismantling ICE and giving the money to ordinary police, perhaps in the form of federal grants to state and local law enforcement. Recipient agencies should be required to use the funds to target violent and property crime, and abjure ICE-style abuses.

Putting more ordinary police on the streets is an effective way to reduce crime rates, according to a long line of studies….

Focusing on undocumented immigrants is a poor use of law enforcement resources…. Transferring ICE funds to state and local police would allow a greater focus on violent and property crime, regardless of the perpetrators' background….

Abolishing ICE would not end all deportations. State and local authorities could still, in many cases, turn illegal migrants over to the federal government for removal… But abolishing ICE would make deportation much more dependent on state and local cooperation and would empower jurisdictions to make their own choices.

This strategy is even more viable today than might have been the case a few months ago. Events in Minnesota have further turned public opinion against ICE, and the idea of transferring its funds to real cops can provide an additional boost for abolition, by neutralizing fears that doing so would somehow increase crime. In addition, transferring the money to state and local cops could draw support from law enforcement interest groups that would stand to benefit.

In the August article, I also outlined how ICE abuses - including illegal violence, racial profiling, and horrific detention conditions - were already ubiquitous, even before the outrages in Minnesota. Recent events are an expansion of these evils, not a singular aberration. In that article, and a follow-up piece for the Boston Globe, (non-paywalled version here), I addressed a number of possible objections, such as concerns that local police also engage in various abuses. Here is an excerpt from that second article:

Many studies show that putting more police on the streets can reduce crime. Indeed, diverting law enforcement resources from deportation to ordinary policing can help focus more effort on the violent and property crimes that most harm residents of high-crime areas. Deportation efforts, by contrast, target a population with a lower crime rate than others…..

Some progressives might nonetheless oppose transferring funds to conventional police. The latter, too, sometimes engage in abusive practices, including racial profiling. I share some of these concerns and am a longtime advocate of increased efforts to combat racial profiling. But comparative assessment is vital here. Despite flaws, conventional police are much better in these respects than ICE, with its ingrained culture of brutality and massive profiling. They have stronger incentives to maintain good relations with local communities and don't need to rely on racial profiling nearly as much to find suspects. A shift of law enforcement funds from ICE to conventional police would mean a major overall reduction in racial profiling and other abuses.

Survey data show most Black people (the biggest victims of profiling) actually want to maintain or increase police presence in their neighborhoods, even as they (understandably) abhor racial profiling. Grant money transferred from ICE could potentially be conditioned on stronger efforts to curb racial profiling and related abuses, thereby further reducing the problem. It should also be conditioned on spending it on combatting violent and property crime, and structured in a way that prevents excessive dependence on federal funding.

If ICE can be abolished without transferring the funds to local and state police, I would still support doing so. But the strategy I outline offers the most likely pathway to political success, and could simultaneously reduce criminality in high-crime neighborhoods.

I first outlined this general approach to immigration and crime issues in Chapter 6 of my 2022 book "Free to Move: Foot Voting, Migration, and Political Freedom," where I also make other points on why crime control is a poor justification for deportation and immigration restrictions. See also my more recent discussion of these broader issues here.

The post How to Abolish ICE appeared first on Reason.com.

MATT DAMON SAYS NETFLIX WANTS MOVIES TO RESTATE THE ‘PLOT THREE OR FOUR TIMES IN THE DIALOGUE’ BECAUSE VIEWERS ARE ON ‘THEIR PHONES WHILE THEY’RE WATCHING:’

Matt Damon and Ben Affleck recently appeared on the “Joe Rogan Experience” to promote their new Netflixfilm “The Rip,” and the long-time friends and collaborators shared their thoughts on how the streamer is changing the way movies are made.

Damon pointed out that because viewers give a “very different level of attention” to a movie at home versus in a theater, Netflix wants to push the action set pieces toward the front of the runtime. He also said there are behind-the-scenes discussions about reiterating “the plot three or four times in the dialogue” to account for people being on their phones.

“The standard way to make an action movie that we learned was, you usually have three set pieces. One in the first act, one in the second, one in the third,” Damon explained. “You spend most of your money on that one in the third act. That’s your finale. And now they’re like, ‘Can we get a big one in the first five minutes? We want people to stay. And it wouldn’t be terrible if you reiterated the plot three or four times in the dialogue because people are on their phones while they’re watching.’”

As Justine Bateman noted in early 2024, “I’ve heard from showrunners who are given notes from the streamers that ‘This isn’t second screen enough.’ Meaning, the viewer’s primary screen is their phone and the laptop and they don’t want anything on your show to distract them from their primary screen because if they get distracted, they might look up, be confused, and go turn it off. I heard somebody use this term before: they want a ‘visual muzak.’ When showrunners are getting notes like that, are they able to do their best work? No.”

Netflix may very well be controlling Warner Brothers in the not-too-distant future. And with that, the collapse of the movie industry will be complete.

Conservatives haven’t had a show like “Landman” in ages. Maybe never?

The Paramount+ drama, starring Billy Bob Thornton as an oil and gas “fixer,” speaks directly to the Heartland in more ways than one.

The series understands the role oil plays in the American way of life. It may be messy, but we can’t live without what a classic sitcom called “Texas Tea.” The men and women who pump crude oil out of the earth are flawed but relatable.

The stories acknowledge their sacrifices without deifying them or their actions. The very first episode saw several workers die following an industry accident. 

Chilling.

It’s almost surreal to see something like “Landman” in 2026, given Hollywood’s progressive nature. And, more dramatically, the show takes occasional pot shots at the Left.

Last season, Thornton’s Tommy character gave an impassioned speech against green energy. Or, to be exact, why it isn’t what its supporters insist it is.

That sequence went viral, naturally, and show creator/writer Taylor Sheridan must have sensed how it caught fire with the public.

So he doubled down.

For season 2, Sheridan and co. have taken direct swipes at “The View” (twice).

Billy Bob’s description of “The View” on today’s episode of Landman is spot on

“Just a bunch of millionaires bitching about how much they hate Trump and men” pic.twitter.com/BW7XJq8cFk

— OKIE PATRIOT 76 (@okiepatriot_76) December 14, 2025

The show also refuses to bow to those who decry “the male gaze.”

Translation? The show’s buxom beauties – played by Ali Larter and Michelle Randolph – keep showing more skin than most dramas would allow. (And, to be fair, this season introduced a hunky new character played by Guy Burnet)

Last week’s ninth episode made those “View” wisecracks look tame by comparison.

Randolph’s Ainsley has a rough first meeting with her new college roommate, Paigyn. The two are studying similar topics, but they couldn’t be more different.

Ainsley is vapid, obsessed with fashion and generally upbeat. Paigyn has short, cropped hair and insists her new roommate use They/Them pronouns to address her.

You can imagine what happens next.

“Landman” has every right to introduce material like this. The sequence reflects the harsh reality of college life, and it shows how the woke among us can be cold and dictatorial.

Paigyn insists Ainsley avoid eating meat in their dorm room, not play music and other restrictions to preserve her safe space.

Paramount’s Landman OBLITERATES the pronouns argument after the show introduced a non-binary character as Ainsley Norris’s TCU roommate.

Non-binary roommate: “So what are your pronouns?”

Ainsley Norris: “My pronouns? I’d hope that was pretty clear?”

Non-binary roommate:… pic.twitter.com/faGDMrmTa9

— RedWave Press (@RedWave_Press) January 13, 2026

Wonderful. Funny. Necessary.

And yet the episode in question doesn’t give Paigyn much humanity. The show’s ability to deliver rich, textured characters is one of its strengths. Yet Paigyn is depicted as cold, cruel and joyless.

The “pronoun” confrontation went viral on social media, again, but “Landman” would be better served by allowing Paigyn a little dignity.

Right-leaning storytellers shouldn’t ape what progressive scribes too often do to conservative foils.

The post Has ‘Landman’ Gone Too Far in Bashing the Left? appeared first on Hollywood in Toto.