2.27 Rupert Murdoch, chairman of the conservative media empire that owns Fox News, acknowledged in a deposition that several of his hosts promoted the false narrative that the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald Trump, and that he could have stopped them but didn’t.
2.27 MSNBC: According to the Public Religion Research Institute poll, which surveyed over 20,000 people in all 50 states last year, 64% of Americans believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases. That’s nearly 10 percentage points higher than it was in 2010. And the percentage of people who said abortion should be illegal in all cases more than halved, from 15% in 2010 to 7% in 2020. The polling data shows that a bigger shift in favor of abortion rights started emerging in 2020, a couple of years before Roe v. Wade was overturned last year.
2.24 Phillips Payson O’Brien in The Atlantic: “The United States has made war look simple at times, most obviously in 1991, when Operation Desert Storm dislodged Iraqi forces from Kuwait in a month and a half. Yet that victory was possible only after a decade-long U.S.-military buildup and with the deployment of the world’s most advanced military technologies. Even then, a defining feature of the Gulf War was that the U.S. did not try to occupy another society. When the opportunity to march on Baghdad presented itself, President Bush’s administration held back. In the three decades since, the United States, despite boasting the world’s largest economy and most powerful armed forces, has generally proved unable to translate its dominance into quick victories, ending up instead in protracted conflicts with, at best, mixed results. Wars start quickly but end messily. No one really knows how armies, technologies, and economic resources will behave when thrown into kinetic competition. Plans fail, confusion takes hold, and military advances give way to periods of stalemate.’’
2.22 David Ignatius in the Washington Post: “War reveals the essential traits of human character that shape events. Who could have imagined that a Ukrainian comic actor named Volodymyr Zelensky would prove to be the first truly heroic leader of the 21st century? Who would have bet that Putin, the canny and cynical ex-KGB officer, would grossly misread both intelligence and history and ransom his country to what amounted to a fairy tale about the “oneness” of Russia and Ukraine? Perhaps most surprising of all, who would have bet that an 80-year-old U.S. president, a man who was garrulous, sentimental and sometimes appeared senescent, would turn out to the most undervalued American leader in modern times?”
2.20 Marjorie Taylor Greene on Twitter: “We need a national divorce. We need to separate by red states and blue states and shrink the federal government. Everyone I talk to says this. From the sick and disgusting woke culture issues shoved down our throats to the Democrat’s traitorous America Last policies, we are done.”
2.19 Richard Belzer dies at 78. Reportedly, his last words were “Fuck you, motherfucker.’’
2.18 Visit from Cara, Connor and Ivy.
2.16 Tim McCarver dies at 81. Tom Verducci in SI: `“He was the best audience I’ve ever had,” says Joe Buck, his Fox partner from 1996 to 2013. “His laugh lit up a room and was all encompassing. He actually knee-slapped. The only person I have ever met who did that.” Until McCarver came along, no one had ever done more than 10 World Series as an analyst, due partly to a rotation of networks covering the series, the star power of play-by-play callers and guest “name” analysts. McCarver elevated the position by merit. He covered 24 World Series across three networks (ABC, CBS and Fox) and with four play-by-play broadcasters (Al Michaels, Jack Buck, Sean McDonough and Joe Buck). His Memphis drawl, interest in humanities, cornball humor (“That was a Linda Ronstadt fastball: blew-by-you”) and critical eye—his father was a Memphis police lieutenant and his pitching mentors and good friends were the uncompromising Bob Gibson and Steve Carlton—made him the quintessential baseball analyst. He didn’t talk too much. He let the game breathe, interjecting only when he had something salient to say, which is the essence of making one’s words even more impactful.”
2.15 Raquel Welch dies at 82.
2.12 The Chiefs beat the Eagles 38-35 in Super Bowl LVII.
2.12 The US shoots down an unidentified flying object over Lake Huron, the third such object shot down over North America in the last three days. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre felt compelled to publicly state today that there’s “no indication of aliens or other extraterrestrial activity” related to the downing of three unidentified flying objects over the weekend.
2.9 Burt Bachrach dies at 94. Stephen Holden in the Times: “A die-hard romantic, Mr. Bacharach fused the chromatic harmonies and long, angular melodies of late-19th-century symphonic music with modern pop orchestration and embellished the mixture with a staccato rhythmic drive. His effervescent compositions epitomized sophisticated hedonism to a generation of young adults only a few years older than the Beatles. Because of the high gloss and apolitical stance of the songs Mr. Bacharach wrote with his most frequent collaborator, the lyricist Hal David, during an era of confrontation and social upheaval, they were often dismissed as little more than background music by listeners who preferred the hard edge of rock or the intimacy of the singer-songwriter genre. But in hindsight, the Bacharach-David team ranks high in the pantheon of pop songwriting.’’
2.9 Harding Mazzotti focus group
2.9 Attempted fraud for $5k
2.8 Another first place finish at the CP Library Trivia Night
2.8 Huffington Post: “President Joe Biden used his State of the Union address to declare the return of the old populist Democratic Party, explicitly aligned with the middle class and willing to call out entrenched economic power. He focused squarely on working-class voters in states like Ohio, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, which could determine the fate of his likely reelection bid in 2024 and the future of the Democratic-controlled Senate for years to come.”
2.7 Biden delivers energetic, feisty State of the Union speech, confronting Republican jeers Washington Post: “The most forceful Republican response, a cascade of boos and denials, came when Biden said that some Republicans want to cut Medicare and Social Security. Several Republicans shouted loudly enough to interrupt Biden’s speech, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who exclaimed “Liar!” The president responded by professing surprise that they had changed their position and now liked those programs, saying, “I enjoy conversion.” Adding that he would veto any effort to cut Social Security and Medicare, he added wryly, “But apparently it’s not going to be a problem.”
2.5 LeBron James sets NBA scoring record. The Athletic: “ There’s something about the number 38. LeBron James, at 38 years old, became the NBA’s all-time leading scorer on this effortless stepback jumper last night, putting his career total at 38,388 points. He broke Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s record, which held for 38 years until last night. He finished with 38 points on the night, too.’’
2.5 Beyoncé won her 32nd Grammy,, the most of all time.
2.5 Madonna unveils a new face at the Grammys. Jennifer Weiner in the Times: “Social media’s loudest roars weren’t about her speech, her longtime L.G.B.T.Q. advocacy or her upcoming world tour. They were about Madonna’s preternaturally smooth and extravagantly sculpted face. All of Madonna’s features looked exaggerated, pushed and polished to an extreme. There was her forehead, smooth and gleaming as a porcelain bowl. Her eyebrows, bleached and plucked to near-invisibility. Her cheekbones, with deep hollows beneath them. The total effect was familiar, but more than slightly off. People noticed.”
2.4 The US shoots down a Chinese spy balloon that had flown over US territory.
2.3 Overnight temperatures in Albany fall to -13 degrees, tying a record set in 1978.
2.2 Lauren Bohbert: “Alcohol, tobacco and firearms,” she declared. “In Western Colorado, we call that a fun weekend.” Stephen Colbert: “Don’t get so full of yourself, Western Colorado. In Florida, they call that the food pyramid.”
2.2 Ten days before the Super Bowl, the secondary ticket market is through the roof. SI Tickets says the average ticket price is $10,959.29. The lowest price (for a seat in Section 436) is $6,051. The highest-priced seat–at midfield, in Section 108– $40,723. Anybody willing to pay that much should first have to submit to a drug test, a mental health exam, and a tax audit.
2.1 Boris Johnson, while visiting: “I’ve been amazed and horrified by how many people are frightened of a guy called Tucker Carlson. Has anybody heard of Tucker Carlson? What is it with this guy?”
2.1 Tom Brady retires–“for good.’’