Heather Douglass

Team @Pinkston_co. Former Hill communicator. @biolau alum | Views mine, sorry.

[Matt Rice @matt____rice]

An emotional end to Thune's eulogy for Lindsey Graham on the Senate floor:

"I am comforted by the knowledge that, in the end, he has just changed his address, and that one day, Mr. President, we will laugh together again."

[Guy Benson @guypbenson]

Helluva catch by anyone, let alone a Senator

[Reid Wiseman @astro_reid]

There are no words.

[NFL @NFL]

“Wow.” 🥹

[Kathryn Watson @kathrynw5]

Thank you to the men and women out there hard at work!!

[ESPN @espn]

FERNANDO. MENDOZA.

THE PLAY OF A LIFETIME ‼️

[Barry @BarryOnHere]

When you've achieved every single thing you have ever wanted and reached the absolute pinnacle of happiness.

[Nicholas Fondacaro @NickFondacaro]

Great message. Thank you @andersoncooper.

[Heather Douglass @HDouglass_]

Still just gutted by this news. I remember passing then freshman Sen. Sasse in the halls of the Senate during my first year on the Hill & being so struck by how unmistakably genuine and magnetic he was even walking by.

I know and pray the Sasses will hold tightly to the Lord.

[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

[Lyndsey Fifield @lyndseyfifield]

I’ll never forget the shockwaves his 2015 maiden speech sent through DC amongst young conservative operatives.

It was the first time someone convicted us with such hard truths about the institutions we dedicated ourselves to so tirelessly but fruitlessly.

It rewired my brain.

[Lauren L. Williams @WilliamsLaurenL]

Hawks guard Trae Young and his wife Shelby joined Atlanta Mission staff and volunteers on Wednesday at the
Shepherd’s Inn campus, an all-men’s shelter, to serve warm meals, assist the kitchen team in preparing food, while engaging with 300
residents.

[Los Angeles Dodgers @Dodgers]

THE LOS ANGELES DODGERS ARE BACK-TO-BACK WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONS!

[SportsCenter @SportsCenter]

THIS MOMENT 📸

[Dodgers Nation @DodgersNation]

WILL SMITH HITS A SOLO HOME RUN TO GIVE THE DODGERS A 5-4 LEAD IN WORLD SERIES GAME 7 🚨

OH MY GOODNESS!!!
https://t.co/PSKza03x9Z

[Heather Douglass @HDouglass_]

A very moving read in @CTmagazine.

"We tirelessly fight disease as a result of the Fall...when it persists despite our efforts, we seek to be faithful in that suffering, trusting that God can & will redeem it in ways that we may only barely understand."
https://t.co/YDKpzLNw4C

[Heather Douglass @HDouglass_]

Kersh forever 🥲💙

[Barstool Sports @barstoolsports]

Clayton Kershaw walks off the mound in Los Angeles for the last time in the regular season.

Legend of the Game

[Christopher J. Scalia @cjscalia]

"The attack didn’t just deprive a family of its center. It struck at the ties that hold a free society together: open assembly, civil debate, viewpoint diversity. Like every terrorist act, the shooting was meant to instill fear—in this case, fear of speaking out, of exposure, of making a difference." @continetti
https://t.co/pKSfUawhKz

[Bill Bratton @CommissBratton]

It's been 24 years since @ABC7NY streamed this live look at Lower Manhattan during the nightly news. It was then that thousands of people — including hero cops and firefighters — unknowingly spent final hours with their loved ones. We must #NeverForget.

[Daniel Darling @dandarling]

24 years ago. Never forget

[Dan McLaughlin @baseballcrank]

If your politics destroys your humanity, either your politics was terrible or you completely missed the point of it.