NY Football: Good/Bad News

A lot of ups and downs in the football season including the Packers and division-winning Bucs having some success after early problems. Bills with a key game tomorrow. Bye is no lock. 

The Giants came back from a nail-biter loss versus the Vikings (who were beaten handily by the Packs) to clinch the playoffs with a laugher versus the Colts. No "trap game" there. 

The Jets? They scored six points (vs Geno Smith's Seattle!) and were eliminated. Mike White is no answer for starting QB. Miami is even more in freefall (given the expectations) and the Jets have a shot at playing spoiler in their last game. Yay. Help the Pats clinch?

ETA: The third New York team is the Bills, who earlier blew one late versus the Vikings, so still had a tough road ahead to get that solitary bye.  They were behind 7-3 early when a horrible thing happened.  

It isn't totally clear, but it looks like a player got hit in the chest at the exactly wrong time, resulting in basically a near death experience.  He is still in critical condition as of Tuesday afternoon.  This resulted in basically a nationwide moment of human empathy, starting with the players on the field (this wasn't some normal horrible injury).  

The net result is that -- after longer than some thought proper (we will learn the full details) -- the game was suspended. There was some thought that they might start the game again, but the players just were too in shock.  The game very well might have major playoff implications, but it won't be played this week.  They will figure it out somehow.  

A player might have been severely injured (such as a head or spine injury) which was very scary and things might have gone down differently.  And, we can flag other cases where one person does not stop the course of things. Sometimes, however, special moments occur and they bring us to a special moment. Last night was such a moment.  

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As the Giants had a fun time (21-3 pretty quickly), checked in with the ongoing HLN (CNN Channel) West Wing marathon.  A couple years ago, for some voting thing, the cast (minus "Leo" who died near the end) came back for a performance of an episode.  The show at times is a bit much, but it is comfort food too.  

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I also finished reading over the transcript (over 100 pages) of the 1/6 Committee's interview with Ginni Thomas.  A basic theme was that she just knew (basically as a vibe) there was some fraud and Liz Cheney and others trying to talk her off the ledge ("what about after all those lawsuits" etc.) didn't help.  

She insisted she stayed out of the "law lane," but that isn't how it works recusal-wise.  The interview shows she was involved with groups mixed into events, including (if she did so more sparingly) communicating with certain people after the election.  There is even a bit where she checks in with Jared Kushner.  Come on.  

This is stuff is not surprising -- her communications with Meadows etc. received some coverage -- but it's useful to have a transcript that clearly spells it out.  This includes the basic faith-based sentiment that there was something wrong with the election, even if she had no real specifics to back it up.  

The transcript was repetitive at some point but one thing to flag is how her conservative groups dealt with state legislatures after the election based on again the assurance that there just was fraud there to address.

She also chose to have her last statement basically being "both sides" because Schumer criticized the judiciary somehow which could be deemed to incite violence or something.  Yeah.  Anyway, late in the transcript, we do learn she has dogs.  I'm sure the doggie lovers at Strict Scrutiny can now bond with her or something.  Yeah, they are cuties. 

As I noted in the longer SCOTUS piece where I first mentioned this transcript, there is LOTS of stuff to get through.