Speaking of former #39s making big hits, who remembers this monster from 2002?
Rookie Sheldon Brown, wearing #39 for his first season, was contributing on special teams when he delivered one of the hardest hits you’ll ever see, against the Cowboys, no less.
One of those early career moments that needs to be shown with 39 days to go:
💥 2002: Sheldon Brown hit
Maggie Haberman spent an hour with him in the Oval Office in March and came away with a number. Seventy percent of his mind share, by her estimate, goes to the renovations. The ballroom. The arch. He interrupted an unrelated meeting to call Emmanuel Macron and ask what it is like to stand under the actual Arc de Triomphe, whether it has a visitor's desk, whether people jump off it. Someone had asked him what should go on top of his own version. He was deciding between that and a giant gold cast of his own fist from Butler.
Meanwhile nobody around him seems fully certain he understands how depleted American munitions are after this war he started with Iran, a live open question from a reporter who has covered him for a decade.
There is no policy agenda left, by Haberman's own account. No immigration bill in the works, no legislative program, nothing beyond retribution and construction. He is not governing a country right now so much as decorating a legacy he has already decided he deserves.
MAGA cult members, remember when Trump personally awarded Dr. Anthony Fauci a Presidential Commendation for his work on Operation Warp Speed and the COVID vaccine?
Trump apparently didn’t.
When Megyn Kelly asked him about it, he claimed he had no idea who gave Fauci the award. Kaitlan Collins pulled the receipt: Trump himself issued it on January 19, 2021—his final full day in office.
Thanks, Kaitlan Collins. The internet never forgets, even when Trump does.
TL;DR: If you’re afraid to exercise your rights, you’ve already lost them.
Six years ago, I started looking into QAnon because it was using game techniques and psychological tactics that I was familiar with because I had helped design them decades before. And what I saw was not normal. It was not a natural outgrowth of the internet. It was a death cult.
And so I tracked it for six months until I saw that it was organizing to attack the Capitol. So I warned about it. I yelled about it online. Other people did as well. No one listened. Sure enough, on January 6th, the worst political crime in American history happened.
The seat of our democracy was attacked. And I identified who did it, who conspired to do it, including Mike Flynn as the leader of QAnon and the cheerleader of the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, who was cheering for his digital soldiers to be ready to die on January 6th.
And Kash Patel in the Pentagon, ensuring through a memo, through Chris Miller, through Mike Flynn’s brother Charles, that the National Guard could not help, could not prevent that crowd of violent QAnon, Proud Boys and Oath Keepers from trying to murder Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi—and cops.
So I’ve spent seven days a week for six years trying to unravel why it happened, how it happened, and how we can build a system that will not allow it to happen again. 38 months ago, Mike Flynn and Kash Patel decided it was going to be a good idea to sue me, somebody who was tweeting about them, who was blogging about them. Not because I defamed them, but because I was right about them. I could have made it go away.
I could have deleted my posts or going crying away and tried to settle. This is America. It is my right to speak about people, especially when it involves crimes against my government.
So if I can be any inspiration or model to anyone, it’s all been worth it. I don’t like the attention. I am not somebody who enjoys being in the spotlight. But if you come at me, an American citizen exercising my rights, I am going to defend them.
And if there’s one message I have for people, it’s that if you are afraid to exercise your rights, you have already lost them. Fight for them. We can and will get through this. We can and will build something better. But we can’t do it if we’re cowards, if we appease them, if we let them rule us.
Not here, not in America. I want to thank everybody who has helped me along the way. There are far too many to mention. You know who you are. And I am so grateful. Thank you. We’ll get through it.
In this Commando (1985) featurette called "Let Off Some Steam" every bit of Rae Dawn Chong's interview is drop dead hilarious so I cut up some of her best bits for your enjoyment.
A woman paid for Amazon Prime for 5 years before she realized she was using it wrong.
She'd ordered hundreds of packages. Watched a few shows on Prime Video. Never once looked past the "Buy Now" button.
Her cousin — who worked Amazon customer service for 3 years — was staying over for the holidays and watched her order a phone charger at full price.
She finally said: "Wait — can I see your account for a second? You're missing 9 things that come with the Prime you're already paying for. Amazon doesn't advertise most of these. They'd rather you not use them."
She changed 9 things in 10 minutes.
She saved $340 that month. Got a package a day early. Found $1,200 worth of stuff she already owned buried in a benefit she'd never opened.
Here's everything her cousin showed her 🧵