JustOneMinute

Ready For Some Football

Shovel some snow, pop some Aleve, watch the Rams and Chiefs advance to the Super Bowl - Big Day planned.

Ready For The Weekend

Here we go again! Snow Time!

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

Will there be a brawl to replace Breyer? IMHO, Democrats would welcome one. A chance to thrill their base AND deliver a win? Easy call.

On the Republican side obviously they can't pass on a fundraising opportunity. But they already have plenty of topics to excite their side and the Supreme Court will be delivering more (eg, on abortion and gun control) this year. No need to escalate a fight they will probably lose.

UPDATE: Great minds run in the same channel. Or at least, I hopeso, since Jim Geraghty is a great mind.

Let's Go TB12

OK, here in the 3rd quarter the LA Rams have just kicked an extra point to go up 27-3 over the Tampa Bay Bradys.

If the Rams had any respect for the game they have gone for the 2 point conversion. Then Brady could deliver 28-3 II and the Hollywood ending fans (like me!) would be thrilled.

I Believe It Is Chaos For Our Time

Joe Biden, self-styling as a seasoned foreign policy hand, steps in it and then wallows in it with comments and 'clarifications' on Putin and the Ukraine. The Times is clearly making a heroic effort to avoid panic:

Biden Predicts Putin Will Order Ukraine Invasion, but ‘Will Regret Having Done It’

President Biden’s comments went well beyond the formal intelligence assessments described by White House officials, which conclude that Russia’s president has not yet decided whether to invade.

Biden is so off-script its ludicrous.

WASHINGTON — President Biden said on Wednesday that he now expected President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia would order an invasion of Ukraine, delivering a grim assessment that the diplomacy and threat of sanctions issued by the United States and its European allies were unlikely to stop the Russian leader from sending troops across the border.

“Do I think he’ll test the West, test the United States and NATO, as significantly as he can? Yes, I think he will,” Mr. Biden told reporters during a nearly two-hour news conference in the East Room of the White House. He added, almost with an air of fatalism: “But I think he will pay a serious and dear price for it that he doesn’t think now will cost him what it’s going to cost him. And I think he will regret having done it.”

Asked to clarify whether he was accepting that an invasion was coming, Mr. Biden said: “My guess is he will move in. He has to do something.”

The president later acknowledged that Mr. Putin’s move might not amount to a full-scale invasion of the country.

Yeah, that clarification went well. So well the Times chose to bury the specific quote, although they present criticisms of it. This is CNN:

"It's one thing if it's a minor incursion and we end up having to fight about what to do and not do..."

AHHH! State Dept. and White House telephone lines have been burning up since then:

Biden Strengthens His Words on Ukraine After Flustering European Partners

After the president laid bare divisions over Russian meddling in Ukraine, his administration scrambled to get on the same page with European allies.

Clown show. 

Say It Ain't So, Joe

This is the week the wheels fell off for Joe Biden. Peggy Noonan's recap of his disastrous Atlanta speech marks just one of Biden's bellyflops.

Democrats are hoping for a reset but its hard to see White House roster moves or policy pivots that will help until Team Biden grasps the fact that pandering to Left Twitter isn't the same as trying to unite the country.

Peggy Noonan reprises many McConnell quotes. For a few more zingers, here is Ben Sasse from the Senate floor.

This passage follows his introduction, in which Sasse notes he defended the filibuster when Trump wanted it further modified (my emphasis):

Today, I rise to defend the filibuster again when it's the president of the other party who's decided to go full demagogue. For his entire career in the Senate, basically, Joe Biden served in this body as long as I've been alive, plus or minus a few years. Joe Biden was a stalwart defender of the filibuster. He said that weakening the filibuster would, "eviscerate the Senate." But earlier this week, the President was pushed around by a bunch of rage-addicted 20-somethings on his staff and agreed to go down to Georgia and just read whatever nonsense they loaded into his teleprompter. It was shameful. It was sad. The President of the United States called half of the country a bunch of racist bigots. Think about that. Half the country, a bunch of racist bigots. He doesn't believe that. This was a senile comment of a man who read whatever was loaded into his teleprompter. His speechwriters puppet-mastered him into saying that anyone who disagrees with him is George Wallace. Bull Connor. Jefferson Davis. You disagree with Joe Biden and you're Jefferson Davis. Pretty breathtaking. 

Harsh yet fair.

Trump v. DeSantis

Who is this guy and what have they done with Trump?

Trump Rips ‘Gutless’ Politicians Who Won’t Say If They’ve Had Vaccine Booster: ‘Say It’

OK, his eye is on likely 2024 Presidential candidate DeSantis. But courage, Ron - that O'Reilly crowd wasn't booing Trump; they were yelling "Boooost!".

A Lot Happening

Joe Biden wants to modify the filibuster so Dems can pass democracy-saving legislation without Republican support. Joe Manchin may not be on board, so we wait.

Donald Trump and his "Stop The Steal" enablers have not been worthy stewards of the voting process, so I can see why Dems might not trust the Reps on this one. And it doesn't seem like The Donald will be moving on from his 2020 delusions, although there are hopeful signs that other Republicans have.

A Great Story

What will be the top "feel-good" stories of 2022? Nadia Popovic broke strong from the gate with this one:

Kraken fan Nadia Popovici lauded for pointing out Canucks equipment manager Brian Hamilton’s cancerous mole during game

Nadia Popovici hadn’t woken up yet when what she had done to save a life was going viral on hockey Twitter.

A 2019 University of Washington graduate about to go to medical school, she worked at a crisis hotline overnight on New Year’s Eve. It was a shock to find out upon waking she had become a story.

“I woke up with my mom’s phone call and she was like, ‘Nadia, you have no idea what’s going on,'” she said. “She sent me the statement the (Canucks) put out, and it said they were looking for me. There was a lot of screaming. I couldn’t believe it.”

Popovici, who goes to Kraken games with her stepfather’s season tickets, was the subject of a search from Canucks assistant equipment manager Brian “Red” Hamilton, who said Saturday morning via a Twitter statement from the team Popovici had saved his life.

When the Canucks were at Climate Pledge Arena on Oct. 23, the Kraken’s home opener, Popovici — sitting behind the Canucks bench — typed a message out on her phone, knocked on the plexiglass and got Hamilton’s attention. “The mole on the back of your neck is cancer,” the message read.

Hamilton got medical treatment and eventually went on Twitter to find and thank her (so much for searching by way of glass slippers...).

Wild.

 

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! Will 2022 be the disappointing finish to a grim trilogy, or do we get a redemptive Big Finish?

I read somewhere the CDC has recommended we throw the Ring into Mt. Doom. Might help! But the day may come when the CDC recommends we all just pipe down and take the blue pill. Tempting!