(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . What The World Can Learn from the Buffalo Bills: Saturday's GNR [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-01-07 All day Monday, most of Western New York was looking forward to watching our Bills play Monday Night Football. We love our Bills here in Buffalo and this very tough year, they have been a bright spot for us. We suffered a terrible racist attack last spring, which left many innocent people dead. We just finished a historic snow storm that claimed dozens of lives and left many people suffering without heat and power in the coldest of temperatures. Buffalo is an amazing city and a wonderful place to live, but this year has been hard, and Monday, we were coming off of a very, very hard weekend. But the Bills have been great. And we all knew that night we would be able to escape the tough of that week with a football game. For a few hours, Buffalo would just be about fun and (hopefully) winning. We love our Bills. Not only do they play well, but they are a young and exciting team filled with fun players who care about the community and love one another in the most amazing way. So we all sat down on Monday night ready for a break from the darkness. But, as the whole world knows, that is not what we got. Instead, we witnessed a horrifying and terrifying scene where a young man came incredibly close to losing his life. It was a kick in the gut for a town just wanting to pull itself up. We love that team. We love those young men. This was family. This was awful. In the days since, I feel like have learned a lot about my town, the world, and life. Some of this may sound trite, but I mean every word of it. So here are some lessons I think we can take from this week in Buffalo. I don’t know about you, but on Monday night I did not have much hope. That is a long time for someone to need CPR. I know the odds on that kind of thing and it looked really bleak. But since then, Damar has started an amazing recovery Damar Hamlin spoke to his team after breathing tube was removed overnight “Per the physicians at UCMC, Damar’s breathing tube was removed overnight,” the Bills said in a statement . “He continues to progress remarkably in his recovery. His neurologic function remains intact and he has been able to talk to his family and care team.” The development comes one day after Hamlin’s doctors at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center said Hamlin had made “substantial improvement” as part of a “fairly remarkable recovery” after he collapsed during the Bills’ game Monday night in Cincinnati and went into cardiac arrest on the field. The doctors treating Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin at a Cincinnati hospital have removed his breathing tube as part of his recovery, the Bills said Friday. x This is amazing: For the first time, #Bills S Damar Hamlin is addressing the team via Facetime. The breathing tube is out, and he’s spent the morning speaking to various teammates on Facetime. Now, he’s delivering a message to the entire group, I’m told. — Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) January 6, 2023 x Damar Hamlin FaceTimed into our team meeting today to talk to players and coaches. What he said to the team: “Love you boys.” ❤️ pic.twitter.com/8dorrWNaxt — Buffalo Bills (@BuffaloBills) January 6, 2023 So a key lesson for me was not to lose hope, no matter how bad the odds might be. 2. Caring for your mental health is nothing to be ashamed of Too many times people, especially men, are embarrassed to ask for help or share their feelings. This week, the toughest group of men around — the Buffalo Bills — normalized prioritizing mental health x Over the last few years, under Brandon Beane and Sean McDermott, the Bills have been at the forefront of providing as many resources as possible to assist in the mental health of their players, coaches and staff. That’s going to be very important over the next few days and beyond — Sal Capaccio 🏈 (@SalSports) January 3, 2023 x Coach Sean McDermott says talking to a counselor is not a weakness, it’s a show of strength. pic.twitter.com/U0sKUuhPMj — Jamie McCarty (@JamieMcCarty) January 5, 2023 3. Sometimes you have to wait, and keep faith, for things to improve We spent decades — DECADES — in Buffalo hoping and waiting for a solid football program to return. In the last few years, we’ve learned that we got that. In the last week, we learned that we also got amazing human beings. Sometimes you have to wait for something and work towards it — and when you finally get there, you may just find that it is even better than what you hoped for. x A big takeaway as I sit down to type a few thousand words on everything we heard and learned today: Buffalo waited two decades for Sean McDermott, Brandon Beane, and Josh Allen. As leaders and human beings, the city couldn't ask for more. — Matt Parrino (@MattParrino) January 5, 2023 x Brandon Beane is the best GM in the NFL https://t.co/fZwThmE7he — Kevin Massare (@KevinMassare) January 5, 2023 4. It is amazing when people think and care about their communities— not a sign of weakness With our American ethos of “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” and always be independent, we can forget how important it is to be a part of a community and care about that community almost a much as yourself. This week, we were reminded what that looks like x "For Damar to go through that and to come out on the other side, to still be thinking about his teammates, that's Damar, that's who he is." — Josh Allen on Damar Hamlin asking if the Bills won. pic.twitter.com/ATM1YefUy9 — ESPN (@espn) January 5, 2023 5. Look out for the people getting dumped on. Don’t take the easy route and dump on them too Some folks on twitter went after Tee Higgins. Reports are, Tee was destroyed by what happened and camped out at the hospital. It would be easy to bandwagon that — it always feels good to have a villain, but the right thing to do is to stop it in its tracks. And that is just what Josh Allen did. Resisting the urge to scapegoat — always a good lesson to remember x Very classy move by Josh Allen, who made sure to say this before his press conference ended today: "People should not be attacking Tee Higgins whatsoever. Hopefully he found some relief today. I hope he doesn't hold that upon himself." Well done. 👏pic.twitter.com/9YoyHnXhzp — Ari Meirov (@MySportsUpdate) January 5, 2023 6. The things that you think are most important, don’t matter at all. This is not a lesson anyone expected to get from Buffalo, of all places; but this week, we learned that football is not the most important thing. A week ago, this entire town was consumed with nothing more than winning the game to move closer to home field in the playoffs. But during that game, we realized that it didn’t matter at all. So many moments in life are like that. So many of the things that we worry so much about and give so much place in our minds — when it comes right down to it, they don’t matter at all. x Zac Taylor praised Bills coach Sean McDermott. "The first thing [Sean McDermott] said was, 'I need to be at the hospital with Damar.'" pic.twitter.com/3J0fkdjJ0v — ESPN (@espn) January 4, 2023 7. There are good people all over The NFL is so consumed by rivalry between teams that season ending injuries are often quietly celebrated by opposing fans and dehumanization of teams, players, and fans often occur. This week shows us that we are stronger united that divided. The show of support was amazing and heartwarming. x Brandon Beane recognizes the entire NFL changing their Twitter profiles to a graphic that read "Pray for Damar" Beane: I don't think I've ever seen that before. #Bills — Maddy Glab (@MadGlab) January 6, 2023 x Bills GM Brandon Beane says Damar Hamlin's mother told him, "Man, he just wanted $2,500 for this thing!" Beane responded, "You're going to be passing out cars next year, not toys!" GoFundMe just hit $7.8 million. — Andrew Siciliano (@AndrewSiciliano) January 6, 2023 x “It’s amazing to know the impact that this has had on so many people. And for Damar to be awake and his mom to be able to share that with him is incredible.” Sean McDermott on Damar Hamlin's progress: https://t.co/Ljqly3mIUm pic.twitter.com/AZY6MjRjyf — Buffalo Bills (@BuffaloBills) January 5, 2023 Prayers for Damar. Go Bills. Now, let’s get to the good news! Democrats are Doing Great Things While Kevin McCarthy was selling his soul in his bid to be the least powerful speaker in the history of the House, Democrats were doing great things! Inflation has fallen dramatically Maybe we should start the new year with some good news: Inflation has fallen dramatically. No, that’s not a prediction; it’s a fact. With one month remaining in 2022 (in terms of available data), inflation in the second half of the year has run vastly lower than in the first half. In fact—and this is astonishing—it’s almost back down to the Federal Reserve’s 2% target. Even more astonishing, hardly anyone seems to have noticed. Biden honors January 6 democracy defenders: ‘History will remember your names’ President Joe Biden on Friday commemorated two years since the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol – a day he’s called “one of the darkest periods of our nation’s history” – seeking to elevate the law enforcement and election officials who held firm against the most serious effort to prevent the peaceful transfer of power in American history. In a week defined by dramatic contrasts between a White House at work and a House Republican majority in chaos, Friday’s event at the White House served as an almost visceral coda. It gave Biden the opportunity to highlight the extremist risk to the nation and its politics that he sees as still very real – even as signs that the fever driven by his predecessor has started to break in concrete ways. That risk, in the view of some White House officials, will serve as a literal, if unintentional, split screen to Biden’s remarks. The president awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal to more than a dozen individuals – including law enforcement officers who were injured defending the Capitol, a Capitol Police officer who died the day after rioters stormed the building, officers who died by suicide after defending the Capitol, as well as elected officials and election workers who rejected efforts by former President Donald Trump to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Those in the room being honored, Biden said, “embody the best before, during and after January the 6, 2021.” He also acknowledged that for many the ceremony “is bittersweet,” noting that “more than 140 law enforcement officials suffered physical injuries and untold numbers are suffering from psychological toll of that day as well.” “History will remember your names. They’ll remember your courage. They’ll remember your bravery. They’ll remember your extraordinary commitment to your fellow Americans,” the president added. A Continuing Drop in Murders At the start of this year, America’s crime trends looked grim: Murders had spiked at a record speed in 2020 and increased further in 2021. But now that the year is ending, it’s clear that the violence has eased. Murders in large U.S. cities are down more than 5 percent so far in 2022 compared to the same time last year, according to the research firm AH Datalytics. Gun deaths, injuries and mass shootings are also down this year. The drop in murders is genuinely good news — the kind that often goes unreported. Think about how many headlines you have seen about the rise in murders compared to stories about the subsequent decline. Economy adds 223,000 jobs in December, showing resilience and cooling December will mark two straight years of strong growth, as well as a slowdown, which could help smaller employers that have struggled to hire The softening in the labor market appears to be benefiting small- and medium-size employers that had spent much of 2022 scrambling for workers, with the limitations of a smaller labor pool shaped by the pandemic. More of these companies are now finding the employees they need. Stocks rise after better-than-expected jobs report Wall Street's roller coaster ride continued Friday morning, with the three major indexes swinging back into bull mode by late morning after the Dow and S&P 500 opened modestly higher — then gave up nearly all their gains. The tech-heavy Nasdaq had even briefly dipped into negative territory. Why the rally? Another "bad but good" economic report may have been the catalyst. Stocks moved to their highs of the day after the Institute for Supply Management's services index unexpectedly contracted. That appeared to give investors more hope that the Federal Reserve will slow its pace of rate hikes. The Dow was up more than 535 points, or 1.6%, in late morning trading Friday. The S&P 500 gained 1.5%. The Nasdaq Composite rose 1.5%. x Starting today, thanks to relentless patient advocates and courageous Democrats, insulin for which Big Pharma charged hundreds of dollars per month will be capped at $35 per month for seniors on Medicare. We’ll keep fighting to expand health care and lower costs. -NP — Nancy Pelosi (@TeamPelosi) January 1, 2023 The Biden national cyber strategy is unlike any before it For the first time, regulation is on the menu of a national cybersecurity strategy The Biden administration is nearing publication of a national cybersecurity blueprint that for the first time embraces a major role for regulation. The Biden administration has issued or is in the process of issuing a number of cybersecurity regulations using preexisting executive branch powers, such as requirements for key pipeline operators to develop detailed plans for responding to cybersecurity incidents. Congress, too, passed legislation requiring critical infrastructure owners and operators to disclose to the federal government within 72 hours when they suffer a major cyberattack. The forthcoming strategy, led by National Cyber Director Chris Inglis’s office in the White House, builds on that approach, according to senior administration officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the document is not yet public. James Lewis, a cybersecurity expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, said: “It’s a break from the previous strategies, which focused on information sharing and public-private partnership as the solution. … This goes well beyond that. It says things that others have been afraid to say.” x President Biden's average approval rating has ticked up to its highest level (43.5%) in more than a year, according to FiveThirtyEight. — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) January 6, 2023 Abortion Pills Can Now Be Offered at Retail Pharmacies, F.D.A. Says Mifepristone, the first of two drugs in medication abortions, previously had to be dispensed only by clinics, doctors or a few mail-order pharmacies. Now, if local drugstores or chains like CVS agree to certain rules, they can provide it. We sponsored refugees under a new Biden program. The results were astonishing. Nine days after my wife and I submitted the sponsorship forms, the U.S. government authorized admission to three Ukrainian refugees — Ruslan Hasanov, his wife, Maya, and their 2-year-old daughter, Melissa. Less than five weeks after that they were here. This is little short of a miracle to those of us who have long lamented the sclerotic state of the U.S. refugee system. The brutal Russian invasion has forced more than 7 million people to flee Ukraine, creating the largest European refugee crisis since World War II. In response, the Biden administration established Uniting for Ukraine, a private refugee-sponsorship program that enables Ukrainian migrants to enter the United States far more easily than is possible under the conventional refugee admission system. The speed and ease of entry accomplished under Uniting for Ukraine are an impressive achievement, especially by the glacial standards of U.S. immigration bureaucracy, where visa and refugee applications routinely languish for many months or even years. Since April, at least 94,000 Ukrainians have entered the United States under the program. By contrast, the conventional refugee admission system, which relies on the government-approved agencies to resettle and support refugees, only admitted 25,400 people from around the world during all of fiscal 2022. Pete is literally the best If you haven’t watched this yet, please watch. If you have already watched it, enjoy it again x Wow. Pete Buttigieg just embarrassed Bret Baier. pic.twitter.com/L2xrICja46 — No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen (@NoLieWithBTC) January 6, 2023 x It's not the first time Pete has embarrassed Brett pic.twitter.com/caqMPbDFjy — Scott French (@ScottFr63415239) January 6, 2023 x There should be porn called “Pete Buttigieg owning Fox” — Joanna Hausmann Jatar (@Joannahausmann) January 6, 2023 The Speaker Mess is a Feature Not a Bug This is exactly what happens when a political party is no longer rooted in reality, reason, and good intentions. Nothing could be more predictable than this enormous mess. He finally won a giant mess of ungovernable people with the power to kick him out whenever they want. Congrats?! McCarthy falls just short on 14th ballot for House speaker in dramatic finish In a dramatic finish to the latest roll call vote, Republican Matt Gaetz (Fla.), among the Republican holdouts, voted “present” instead of in support of McCarthy, keeping him from getting the necessary majority. According to people familiar with what was happening on the floor, Democrats who are near the huddle are telling leadership that people were trying to flip Matt Gaetz in real time before the vote was officially tallied. McCarthy and his top allies rushed over to Gaetz, who is sitting next to Colorado’s Lauren Boebert and a dramatic showdown happened with Gaetz pointing his finger at McCarthy. At one point a McCarthy ally, Mike Rogers of Alabama, stormed into the huddle and seemed on the brink of violence, but he retreated to a cloakroom off the floor. Confusion set in after most of the GOP conference celebrated Matt Gaetz’s (R-Fla.) “present” vote, seeming to believe that was enough for Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to win. It was not. The room grew quiet, except for the sound of some Democrats laughing. McCarthy walked to Gaetz, engaged in some inaudible conversation, then walked away looking dejected. McCarthy speaker battle shows a party still incoherent, ungovernable The four days of public humiliation that McCarthy endured through 13 failed votes to pick a new speaker laid bare the challenge: The only path for McCarthy to potentially win the speakership after members return to the House late Friday night was a set of rule changes that will make the divisions within the party even more resonant over the next two years. House Republican leadership has further hobbled its ability to strike the deals with Democrats necessary to continue servicing the national debt and operating the federal government. The party is also no closer to uniting around a clear strategy for winning back general election majorities that will return it to power in the White House, despite a Democratic leader in President Biden who has faced skepticism from his own voters about a reelection campaign. As McCarthy divined early in 2021, the GOP lacks a current path to a national majority without keeping the two wings of Republican politics — the election-denying populists and the independent-courting moderates — inside the tent. Trump last accomplished this in 2016, in a shock to the political system, and Republicans have not been able to repeat it since. The party’s high-dollar donor class, responsible for backing an ever growing share of the cost of GOP campaigns, finds itself at odds with the priorities of a diminishing pool of grass-roots donors. The party’s primary electorate, meanwhile, repeatedly demonstrated last year a preference for candidates who were incapable or unwilling to appeal to less ideological voters. McCarthy is being consumed by the MAGA politics he helped push The Californian, who has lost a stunning 11 consecutive House roll call votes in his bid to become speaker, was the first major GOP leader to embrace ex-President Donald Trump after the January 6, 2021, insurrection. But on Friday’s two-year anniversary of the worst attack on American democracy in the modern era, he’s finding out that even that supposedly career-enhancing bet is insufficient to unlock the votes of Trump’s heirs in the chaos wing of the GOP. McCarthy is becoming the latest example of a political leader consumed by a revolution the “Make America Great Again” radicals helped to stage. For the radical lawmakers now blocking his ascent to his dream job, he’s become the political establishment he once condemned. McCarthy has made multiple concessions to the rebels that risk rendering the office of the speaker toothless if he does win it. But by the time he had suffered more defeats in roll call votes on Thursday afternoon, it was clear America was watching one of its greatest political farces. There you go again, House Republicans House Republicans are repeating the mistakes of the past at record speed. They’ve wasted no time in shutting down part of the federal government — in this case, their own chamber. Future, broader shutdowns are all but certain. The fight over speaker of the House has elevated the figures within the GOP conference, such as Matt Gaetz of Florida, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and Lauren Boebert of Colorado, who alienate the independents and suburban voters that the party needs to grow its majority. It’s as if incoming members looked upon the spotty record of previous GOP Houses not as a warning sign to take a different path, but as a challenge to surmount. The current dysfunction is not simply a product of the aftermath of Donald Trump’s presidency, the post-2008 tea party or the eight-year-old Freedom Caucus. Some things never change. History suggests that whoever emerges with the speaker’s gavel will be unable to lead for long a Republican conference given to sectarianism, conspiracy theory and dramatic gestures that inevitably backfire. President Biden is all smiles because he recognizes that Democratic presidents have done well when the GOP runs the House. The McCarthy speaker circus is a good argument for voting Democrat On one level, Democrats can sit back and luxuriate in schadenfreude. House Republicans were nothing but obstructionist when they were in the minority, reflexively opposing everything Democrats tried to do. Former speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) faced ideological differences within her caucus and had a razor-thin majority to work with, but she kept moderates and progressives together in passing major legislation. Republicans, by contrast, can’t even get themselves organized. “We’re still stuck at the starting block,” Rep.-elect John James (R-Mich.) said Thursday, in the seventh speech nominating McCarthy for speaker. James’s speech was followed by the seventh vote for the speakership, in which McCarthy once again fell short. Same on the eighth vote ... and ninth vote. To say that it appears McCarthy is desperately seeking the worst job in Washington is a gross understatement. It might be the worst job in the United States. With the whole world watching, Republicans are making a compelling argument — for electing Democrats. and here are some of my favorite memes from this joy ride of disfunction: and the best one ever: Other Good News Their brilliance was a mirage. How 2022 exposed the world’s tyrants A year ago, the reverberations of the January 6 attack still loomed large. Russia was accusing the United States of “hysteria” for claiming Moscow planned to invade Ukraine. Even Ukraine was skeptical. The leaders of China and Russia, looking confident, seemed prepared to defy the world. Democracy was on the defensive across the globe from South America to Asia. A historic test was about to play out. Twelve months later, parts of Ukraine lie in ruins, but autocratic leaders around the world are now the ones that are faltering. Shortly after taking office and with the United States still reeling from the attack on the US Capitol, President Joe Biden declared, “We’ve got to prove democracy works.” He predicted that future generations “are going to be doing their doctoral thesis on the issue of who succeeded: autocracy or democracy?” Notice that it was an open question. At the time, many believed that autocracy would not only win, but would prove to be the better system. How many believe that today? How many believe Russia, China or Iran offer a better model than an open society with all its foibles and challenges? How many believe the US would be better off with a more autocratic president? In 2022, democracy fought back with astounding determination, conviction and, yes, idealism. Autocrats went on the defensive. Even populism started to sputter. At the moment, many of the positive trends – forged with great effort and through enormous human suffering – look promising. F.D.A. Approves New Treatment for Early Alzheimer’s The drug, Leqembi, may modestly slow cognitive decline in early stages of the disease but carries some safety risks. Still, data suggests it is more promising than the small number of other available treatments. Two years after US Capitol attack, investigation into Trump and insurrection enters new phase Two years after rioters stormed the US Capitol, the Justice Department’s sprawling criminal investigation into the effort to block the peaceful transition of power enters a new phase with the special counsel adding two right-hand prosecutors to an experienced team that will ultimately determine whether former President Donald Trump or his allies should face prosecution. Special counsel Jack Smith has returned to the US after spending the past month working remotely in Europe while recovering from a bicycle accident. He is adding two longtime associates who have specialized in public corruption cases, according to a person familiar with the matter: Raymond Hulser, the former chief of the DOJ’s public integrity section, and David Harbach, who conducted cases against former Sen. John Edwards and Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell. The expansion under Smith shores up the office’s ability to examine broad conspiracy cases and determine the avenues of the investigation, another source said. They join a team of more than 20 prosecutors from DOJ, as well as senior advisers brought into the department in recent months, who were already investigating Trump and his allies. Trump lawyers ordered to hand over names of individuals hired to search Trump properties for classified documents A federal judge has asked former President Donald Trump’s attorneys to turn over the names of the individuals hired to search four properties for documents late last year, a source familiar with the order told CNN. The names were handed over Wednesday night, two sources told CNN. It’s the latest twist in the Justice Department’s efforts to use the court to enforce a subpoena from May that sought to collect all classified records Trump kept in his possession after leaving the presidency. The New York Times first reported the development. x The South Carolina Supreme Court has struck down the state's six-week abortion ban, ruling the privacy rights in the state constitution protect abortion access. The decision allows abortion to remain legal in the state until 20 weeks of pregnancy. — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) January 6, 2023 On the Lighter Side I am so lucky and so proud to be in this with all of you 🧡💜💚✊🏾✊🏽✊🏻💛💚💖 [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/1/7/2145755/-What-The-World-Can-Learn-from-the-Buffalo-Bills-Saturday-s-GNR Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/