Ben Lucas

[Ben Lucas @BenLucasME]

Most I’ve ever related to an online video

[Ben Lucas @BenLucasME]

Give him a lifetime contract now

[MLB @MLB]

James Wood crushes home run No. 20!

[Just Baseball @JustBB_Media]

50 games into the season, the Nationals are 25-25 (.500).

It's the first time they've been .500 or better in the first 50 games of the season since 2018.

[Samuel Benson @sambbenson]

Scoop: Mitt Romney held a fundraiser for Susan Collins this week in Utah

It was Romney’s first foray into national politics since he retired last year — showing how deeply he wants GOP senators in his mold to survive

Story: https://t.co/eDaAwUcrix

[SportsCenter @SportsCenter]

One more chance to thank Ovi 🙌

These eight hockey fans got to meet with @Capitals legend Alex Ovechkin to give thanks for the impact he's had on their lives.

[Sahil Kapur @sahilkapur]

Just now off the Senate floor: Susan Collins gets into an elevator. Chuck Schumer walks into that elevator behind her. Susan Collins quickly walks out before the door closes and looks for another elevator.

[RandomTomBradyHighlights @TomBradyDaily]

Throwback to Brady’s first Super Bowl touchdown pass with Gil & Gino on the call

[Ben Sasse @BenSasse]

Friends-

This is a tough note to write, but since a bunch of you have started to suspect something, I’ll cut to the chase: Last week I was diagnosed with metastasized, stage-four pancreatic cancer, and am gonna die.

Advanced pancreatic is nasty stuff; it’s a death sentence. But I already had a death sentence before last week too — we all do.

I’m blessed with amazing siblings and half-a-dozen buddies that are genuinely brothers. As one of them put it, “Sure, you’re on the clock, but we’re all on the clock.” Death is a wicked thief, and the bastard pursues us all.

Still, I’ve got less time than I’d prefer. This is hard for someone wired to work and build, but harder still as a husband and a dad. I can’t begin to describe how great my people are. During the past year, as we’d temporarily stepped back from public life and built new family rhythms, Melissa and I have grown even closer — and that on top of three decades of the best friend a man could ever have. Seven months ago, Corrie was commissioned into the Air Force and she’s off at instrument and multi-engine rounds of flight school. Last week, Alex kicked butt graduating from college a semester early even while teaching gen chem, organic, and physics (she’s a freak). This summer, 14-year-old Breck started learning to drive. (Okay, we’ve been driving off-book for six years — but now we’ve got paper to make it street-legal.) I couldn’t be more grateful to constantly get to bear-hug this motley crew of sinners and saints.

There’s not a good time to tell your peeps you’re now marching to the beat of a faster drummer — but the season of advent isn’t the worst. As a Christian, the weeks running up to Christmas are a time to orient our hearts toward the hope of what’s to come.

Not an abstract hope in fanciful human goodness; not hope in vague hallmark-sappy spirituality; not a bootstrapped hope in our own strength (what foolishness is the evaporating-muscle I once prided myself in). Nope — often we lazily say “hope” when what we mean is “optimism.” To be clear, optimism is great, and it’s absolutely necessary, but it’s insufficient. It’s not the kinda thing that holds up when you tell your daughters you’re not going to walk them down the aisle. Nor telling your mom and pops they’re gonna bury their son.

A well-lived life demands more reality — stiffer stuff. That’s why, during advent, even while still walking in darkness, we shout our hope — often properly with a gravelly voice soldiering through tears.

Such is the calling of the pilgrim. Those who know ourselves to need a Physician should dang well look forward to enduring beauty and eventual fulfillment. That is, we hope in a real Deliverer — a rescuing God, born at a real time, in a real place. But the eternal city — with foundations and without cancer — is not yet.

Remembering Isaiah’s prophecies of what’s to come doesn’t dull the pain of current sufferings. But it does put it in eternity’s perspective:
“When we've been there 10,000 years…We've no less days to sing God's praise.”

I’ll have more to say. I’m not going down without a fight. One sub-part of God’s grace is found in the jawdropping advances science has made the past few years in immunotherapy and more. Death and dying aren’t the same — the process of dying is still something to be lived. We’re zealously embracing a lot of gallows humor in our house, and I’ve pledged to do my part to run through the irreverent tape.

But for now, as our family faces the reality of treatments, but more importantly as we celebrate Christmas, we wish you peace: “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned….For to us a son is given” (Isaiah 9).

With great gratitude, and with gravelly-but-hopeful voices,
Ben — and the Sasses

[Ben Lucas @BenLucasME]

Going to be amazing if they go in together the same year with how much bad blood there is now.

[New England Patriots @Patriots]

Robert Kraft and Bill Belichick have been named Contributor and Coach finalists for the @ProfootballHOF Class of 2026!

[NFL on CBS 🏈 @NFLonCBS]

"We're not worried about Buffalo — we're worried about Thursday night."

- Drake Maye after @tracywolfson told him the Bills lost

[Jacob Rubashkin @JacobRubashkin]

The Maine 2026 Senate primary is heating up, but 2020 nominee Sara Gideon still has $3.3 million in the bank five years after losing to Susan Collins.

[ProFootballTalk @ProFootballTalk]

Via @Heel247, "potential exit strategy" discussions have begun at North Carolina regarding Bill Belichick, with reports of rules violations fueling the situation. https://t.co/kmElR7qN7R

[Pat Welter WRAL @PatrickWelter]

"It's an unstructured mess, there's no culture, no organization. It's a complete disaster."

I've talked to parents, players, coaches, Board of Trustees, and the athletic department to try and paint a picture of why Bill Belichick has been a bust. #UNC

https://t.co/6CTN8dK5mX

[Savage @Savageboston]

Tom Brady on Drake Maye.

😭

[GOLF.com @GOLF_com]

Rory McIlroy still believes America is the greatest country in the world. 🇺🇸

[Ari Meirov @MySportsUpdate]

The #Commanders are officially returning to D.C.

The D.C. City Council (@councilofdc) just approved a $3.8 billion project — including a 65,000-seat stadium on the old RFK site, targeted for 2030. The vote passed 11–2.

[DP World Tour @DPWorldTour]

RORY WINS HIS NATIONAL OPEN ⭐️

Rory McIlroy wins the 2025 Amgen Irish Open 🏆

#AmgenIrishOpen

[Taylor Kyles @tkyles39]

Forged in Foxborough dropped video of Mike Vrabel diving into a scuffle during #Patriots-Commanders joint practice

🎥: @Patriots