Category: News

Things haven’t been going great for Donald Trump. His choice of dinner guests is getting heat even from the GOP, as is his call over the weekend to “terminate” the Constitution so he can be reinstated in the White House. It may be easy to forget he has some major legal and financial headaches as well. One of them is the trial involving the Trump Organization, which ended on Tuesday with the former president’s business being found guilty of all 17 counts of tax fraud. As of this writing, the big guy hasn’t had one of his now-daily meltdowns on his rinky-dink Twitter clones. On the actual Twitter, though, the ketchup jokes were flying.

Over the summer, when the idea of Trump’s business being all but destroyed was but a glimmer in the nation’s eye, the Jan. 6 committee received testimony from a Trump insider, Cassidy Hutchinson. Her’s was the wildest day of the hearings, and among her claims was that on that day went sideways for the outgoing commander-in-chief, he lost his stuff and threw ketchup-laden food at the wall. Trump later denied throwing ketchup at a wall.

But few believed him, and as his business was torpedoed for criminal behavior — with him directly involved, no less — tragically broken ketchup bottles was all some could think about.

There were even drawings.

As per The New York Times, the Trump organization was found guilty of, among other things, having “doled out off-the-books luxury perks to some executives: They received fancy apartments, leased Mercedes-Benzes, even private school tuition for relatives, none of which they paid taxes on.” Prosecutors stopped short of indicting Trump himself, but that doesn’t mean he’s in the clear. Nor are any containers of ketchup within arm’s reach of the famously volatile failed blogger.

(Via NYT)

On Monday, Kirstie Alley, legend of both the small and the big screen, passed away unexpectedly. She was 71. The cause of death was later revealed to be colon cancer. But it didn’t take long for tinfoil hat conspiracy theorists to offer an alternative (read: baseless and silly) explanation: that she was somehow murdered because she happened to be anti-vax.

As per Vice, mere minutes after news of Alley’s death was announced, QAnon adherents — a famously sensible bunch — began flooding message boards with tall tales of mysterious figures poisoning the Cheers and Look Who’s Talking alum as part of a global plot to silence critics of COVID-19 vaccines.

“I wholly believe the [deep state] has a way of dosing people with poisons that create aggressive cancers,” one person wrote. Another went further, writing, “She either just drew the short straw or she was poisoned by the Deep State for being a public Patriot.”

There was another breed of QAnon wackiness. Some believe that sudden deaths, such as Alley’s, mean that they were given a COVID vaccine. Alas, Alley reportedly never got a single jab. That forced conspiracists to get creative. Some speculated that, because Alley had recently joined the cast of The Masked Singer, she had been forced to get vaxxed. Others offered another out-there theory: that she had to get jabbed to receive treatment for her colon cancer. Others still wondered if it had anything to do with her longheld belief in Scientology.

And of course, there was some fun with numbers, with some pointing out that Alley was 71, and if you switch those two numbers around, you get 17 — an important number amongst the QAnon crowd.

For everyone else, you can honor the passing of Alley by digging into her vast CV, which contains more than a terrific run on one of the best sitcoms to ever air.

(Via Vice)

Family members of fallen Capitol Police officers publicly snubbed the GOP’s most public-facing leaders during a ceremony honoring those who gave their lives defending the Capitol building on Jan. 6th.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell were completely bypassed by relatives accepting awards on behalf of Capitol Police officers Brian Sicknick, Howard Liebengood, and William Evans, and D.C. Police officer Jeffrey Smith. The men were being honored with the Congressional Gold Medal for their bravery in defending members of Congress during the Trump-instigated insurrection which might be why their families weren’t pleased that Trump-simping Republicans were on-hand to pay their respects.

After all, these men died because of a voter fraud lie spread by Trump, who was enabled by both McCarthy and McConnell during and after the 2020 Presidential Election.

“I think whatever they said at that podium was because they were forced to,” Kevin Sicknick told The Huffington Post. “They had to show face because they were the leaders of their respective parties. But was it sincere? I doubt it.”

Both McConnell and McCarthy, while speaking out against the actions of the mob that day, refused to take harsh action against Trump, with McCarthy even flying down to Florida to ensure his support for the contested House Majority leadership. McConnell and McCarthy voted against an independent commission investigating the Jan. 6th insurrection, a motion proposed by the families of police officers, including the Sicknicks.

“I’m just tired of them standing there and saying how wonderful the Capitol Police is, and then they turn around and… go down to Mar-a-Lago and kiss his ring and come back and stand here and sit with — It just, it just hurts,” Gladys Sicknick, Brian Sicknick’s mother, told CNN.

The Sicknicks hadn’t planned on publicly dissing the GOP frontmen, but video from the ceremony clearly shows the family refusing to shake the hands of McConnell and McCarthy while both men stand with their hands outstretched.

And though the context of this video is somber — these people lost loved ones because of the inaction and willful ignorance of the men now designing to offer them a glorified necklace in replace of their dead family members — the internet is having a bit of fun laughing at McConnell and McCarthy’s expense.

(Via Huffington Post)

Even though there had been some rumors swirling all over TikTok, fans were surprised when Keke Palmer revealed her pregnancy this past weekend during her Saturday Night Live monologue. Palmer has remained the world’s hardest worker this year after churning out various movies, TV shows, and hosting gigs, so it was a little shocking to see her throw parenting into the mix. But not surprising!

Palmer has been notoriously private through the years, so after the excitement wore off, many fans began their investigations into who exactly Palmer’s boyfriend is, and how long they have been together….assuming she didn’t just father the child herself.

While Palmer never explicitly said who she will be co-parenting with, we can assume that her longtime boyfriend Darius Jackson is the father. The two reportedly met at Sean “Diddy” Combs’ Memorial Day party in 2021 and have been together ever since.

Jackson works as a fitness instructor and actor, and Palmer explained in a 2021 interview with Tamron Hall that he is “industry-adjacent,” meaning he understands the demands of Palmer’s life and job. Jackson is also the brother of Sarunas Jackson who starred in Insecure, where Palmer also had a brief guest starring role.

While the two are private when it comes to their relationship, Palmer says that she is excited about the upcoming chapter. “Honestly this has been the biggest blessing, and I am so excited. Guys, I’m going to be a mom,” Palmer said during her Saturday Night Live monologue. “Even though some people feel a little weird about me having a baby cause I was a child actor, I just wanna say, look, I’m 29, I’m grown, I have sex, I own a home, I stormed the Capitol on January 6, you know? Things adults do.”

(Via Bustle)

Fiction writing can be rough stuff. Not only do you have to (in the words of Neil Gaiman’s Twitter bio) be adept at “making things up and writing them down,” but you gotta sell that stuff. And after that stuff gets published, you gotta promote, which means that book signings and the like must happen. Hopefully, some people show up, but that isn’t always the case. As Gaiman confirmed on Twitter, he and Good Omens co-author Terry Pratchett had a dud of an experience in the early 1990s.

This happened only a few short years after Gaiman’s The Sandman began its legendary comic book run. Both works have now become currently successful (not to mention rather phenomenal) streaming adaptations, so in other words, stick with it, people. Because back in the day, Neil and Terry actually showed up to an empty book signing, as showcased on Twitter by Professor Mark Wright.

“Nobody showed up to your book signing?” Wright tweeted. Meh, happens to the best of us. Literally. Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett are the best of us. And no one showed up to their signing of GOOD OMENS in Manhattan… So, y’know, chin up.”

Neil confirmed the truth of the matter. “We were meant to have been there for 2 hours,” the Coraline author tweeted. “After an hour of nobody in the store we told the store manager that we were going back to our hotel and that we would be in the bar, and if anyone came to get a book signed to send them there to us. Nobody came.”

He added that this went down in 1990, but he had a 2003 repeat in France.

That’s wild, but it goes to show that you, too, can maybe one day be lucky enough to have people ask you what happens when a werewolf bites a goldfish or ask George R.R. Martin about bodily functions. Life takes some wild turns, man.

December is a great month to be a beer fan. Heck, it’s a great month to be a fan of all food and drinks. Office parties, holiday gatherings, and seasonal soirees mean there will be a lot of beers imbibed from now until the new year. Not only is it a great time to stand around sipping a napkin-wrapped beer as you gossip with your co-workers about other co-workers, but it’s also a month when a ton of delicious, seasonal brews are released.

This is why we’re so excited to once again list the best beers to track down this month. We picked ten flavorful, seasonally appropriate beers. Some are eagerly sought-after annual favorites and others are newly released bangers. All are well-suited for December drinking. Keep scrolling to see these offerings from the likes of Anchor, Anderson Valley, Rogue, Call to Arms, and Ommegang (among others).

Anchor Christmas Ale

ABV: 7.2%

Average Price: $12 for a six-pack

The Beer:

We dare you to find a Christmas beer more famous than Anchor’s annual offering. First released in 1975, his beloved beer is made with a slightly different recipe (which isn’t available to the public) and is adorned with a different hand-drawn Christmas tree. This year’s winter warmer has bold orange, caramel malt, and holiday spice flavors.

Tasting Notes:

Notes of brown bread, toffee, roasted malts, and wintry spices greet you on the nose. The palate has more roasted malts, chocolate, caramel, dried fruits, and seasonal spices. While spiced, the cinnamon, nutmeg, and other flavors aren’t over-the-top. It’s a very complex, well-balanced beer.

Bottom Line:

Even though the recipe changes slightly, Anchor Christmas Ale is one of those beers that you can guarantee will be complex and flavorful year after year. 2022 is no different.

Call to Arms Only Cans IPA

ABV: 8%

Average Price: Limited Availability

The Beer:

This collaboration with Westbound & Down is an 8% ABV “New Zealand IPA” brewed with Chinook and Centennial hops and dry-hopped wot Nelson, Riwaka, and Citra hops. The result is a surprisingly fruity, flavorful double IPA with a nice hit of floral, earthy hops.

Tasting Notes:

A nose of pineapple, grapefruit, fruit ester, caramel malts, and floral, earthy, herbal hops start this beer off on an impressive note. The palate is filled with bready malts, passion fruit, mango, guava, grapefruit, tangerine, and ripe melon. It’s well-balanced by slightly piney, citrus, and floral hops at the finish.

Bottom Line:

Even with the massive amount of varying hops included in this double IPA, it’s still surprisingly well-balanced, fruity, and easy to drink. It’s fruity, resinous, and delicious.

Rogue Santa’s Private Reserve 2022 Honey Mama’s

ABV: 6.5%

Average Price: $15 for a four-pack of 16-ounce cans

The Beer:

Every year Rogue Ales drops a Santa’s Private Reserve beer and they are all unique and different. This year’s annual release is a collaboration with Honey Mama’s, an Oregon-based producer of honey-sweetened truffle bars. This stout also owes its unique flavor profile to the addition of tahini, tangerine, and chocolate.

Tasting Notes:

The nose is surprisingly rich and robust. There’s a ton of orange peel, caramel, coffee, and chocolate on the nose. Drinking it reveals a roasted nut, chocolate, sweet honey, dried fruit, and roasted malt flavor. This is such a unique and complex stout that you need to drink it a few times to find all the flavors.

Bottom Line:

You might think honey, tahini, and orange peels aren’t necessarily a great combination in a stout, but they all work in perfect unison to create a memorable holiday beer.

RTJ CU4TRO IPA

ABV: 8.5%

Average Price: Limited Availability

The Beer:

You’ve likely heard of the hip-hop duo Run The Jewels. But you probably don’t know they also make collaborative beers with well-known breweries. One of its newest releases is RTJ CU4TRO IPA, a “2x Dry Hopped 2x India Pale Ale” brewed in collaboration with Interboro Spirits and Ales. This new release is brewed with Mosaic Incognito and Simcoe hops and double dry-hopped with Simcoe Cryo and HBC 586.

Tasting Notes:

This hazy, cloudy IPA begins with notes of oats, pineapple, guava, mango, and apricots. The fruity nose makes way for the creamy palate loaded with ripe peaches, caramelized pineapple, apricot, mango, and nice, gentle, dank pine at the finish. There’s little to no bitterness even with all the (hip) hop flavor.

Bottom Line:

You might assume that a beer from Run The Jewels would just be a gimmick, but it definitely isn’t. The folks at Interboro brewed a fruity, dank, flavorful hazy IPA.

New Belgium Accumulation IPA

ABV: 6.5%

Average Price: $12 for a six-pack

The Beer:

If you don’t think about IPAs during the winter months then you’re likely simply not an IPA fan. The Strata, Mosaic, Lotus, and El Dorado hops in the hazy winter IPA give it a complex flavor profile of grapefruit, tangerine, and pine.

Tasting Notes:

The nose starts with aromas of grapefruit, pineapple, tangerine, lemon zest, and herbal, earthy hops. The palate continues this trend with more citrus fruits, tropical fruits, dank pine, and creamy wheat. It’s a fruity, flavorful IPA that will make you forget about the winter weather to come.

Bottom Line:

Fans of winter IPAs eagerly await this popular beer when it’s released annually in mid to late December and for good reason. It’s slightly hazy, complex, and a great beer to drink while you wait for winter to begin (and end).

Tröegs Mad Elf

ABV: 11%

Average Price: $16 for a six-pack

The Beer:

Tröegs Mad Elf is a different kind of holiday beer. Brewed with chocolate malt, Pennsylvania honey, Belgian yeast, and five different tart cherries (Bing, Lambert, Van, Royal Ann, and Montmorency), this popular beer is sought-after year after year.

Tasting Notes:

There’s a ton of cherry aroma on the nose as well as toasted marshmallows, toffee, vanilla, and baking spices. The palate is more of the same with caramel malts starting things off before working into tart and sweet dried cherries, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, and other wintry spices. It’s sweet, spicy, malty, and highly memorable.

Bottom Line:

The Mad Elf on this beer’s label looks very mischievous, but the beer itself is anything but. It’s sweet, tart, spicy, and delicious.

Dogfish Head Crimson Cru

ABV: 7.1%

Average Price: $15 for a six-pack

The Beer:

This worldly beer starts as a Rodenbach Grand Cru. The popular Flemish brown ale is aged in oak barrels before being shipped across the ocean to Delaware where it’s blended with Dogfish Head’s red ale, infused with orange peel, and sumac, and dry-hopped with Hallertau Blan hops.

Tasting Notes:

Complex aromas of sticky toffee, caramel malts, dried cherries, and candied orange peels greet your nostrils before your first sip. The palate is loaded with more dried cherries, caramel malts, orange peels, honey, fruit esters, and rich oak. It’s a slightly tart, highly warming winter treat.

Bottom Line:

If you’re already a fan of Rodenbach Grand Cru, we suggest grabbing a bottle of this collaborative seasonal beer. It’s a nice mix of a European tart Flemish brown ale and an American red ale with extra flavors added to meld everything together.

Anderson Valley Winter Solstice

ABV: 6.9%

Average Price: $13 for a six-pack

The Beer:

Brewed with a malt presence of Pale 2-row, Crystal, Munich, oat flakes, house yeast, and Northern Brewer and Chinook hops, Anderson Valley Winter Solstice is the California-based brewery’s caramel and slightly spicy take on the classic winter warmer.

Tasting Notes:

Raisins, dried cherries, toffee, cinnamon, and toasted malts are prevalent on this beer’s nose. The palate has a nice caramel malt backbone along with toasted malts, grassy hops, dried fruits, and wintry spices. It’s a highly complex, well-balanced beer that doesn’t rely simply on one flavor alone.

Bottom Line:

While this beer has some seasonal spices and holiday sweetness, it’s more of a straight forward rich, malty winter beer than anything else. And that’s a great thing.

Golden Road Champagno

ABV: 6.5%

Average Price: $12 for a four-pack of 16-ounce cans

The Beer:

December ends with New Year’s Eve, arguably the biggest night of the year for sparkling wine and champagne. But, if you don’t enjoy sparkling wine, or you’d just prefer beer, Golden Road has a great option for you. Technically available year-round, there’s no better time of year to imbibe this fizzy, mango-flavored ale.

Tasting Notes:

Caramel malts, apricot, mango, and peach are notable on this beer’s nose. It’s really fruity and fragrant and draws you in for a sip. This wheat beer begins with notes of tart mango, apricot, peaches, citrus peels, and light caramel. It’s a nice mix of effervescent sweetness and tartness.

Bottom Line:

Similar to a New Year’s Eve sparkling wine or a New Year’s Day mimosa, this is a juicy, fruity, slightly tart beer for the rest of the holiday season.

Ommegang Everything Nice

ABV: 9%

Average Price: $18 for a four-pack

The Beer:

This 9% ABV strong blonde ale comes from the folks at Cooperstown, New York’s Brewery Ommegang. It’s brewed with Citra hops, 2-row barley, and caramel malts. The wintry, seasonal flavors come from the addition of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, and even white pepper.

Tasting Notes:

A lot is going on with this beer’s nose. There are aromas of cinnamon, nutmeg, brown bread, and caramel malts. The palate is loaded with flavors like cinnamon, cloves, ginger, candied orange peels, toffee, caramel apples, and toasted malts. It’s like drinking a fruit cake but in the best way possible.

Bottom Line:

This is an aptly named beer. This Belgian-style beer starts as a blonde ale and then pairs wintry spices with it a create a warming, complex, winter winner of a beer.

Twenty minutes away from the Hollywood Sign, Dre Babinski, aka Steady Holiday is peacefully tucked away in the Los Angeles suburb of Eagle Rock. She’s surrounded by chickens in her backyard, sitting in a foldout and strumming her guitar as she sings “Can’t Find A Way,” her gentle November single from her forthcoming album Newfound Oxygen due February 17. Soft chords provide a mesmerizing backdrop for a tranquil admission. “I can’t find a way to fall in love with you,” Babinski coos. It’s a relatable hook that doubles as an indirect description of her initial relationship with Los Angeles after relocating there from her hometown of Fullerton, California in 2011. Now, Babinski isn’t even trying to fall in love with everyone else’s glamorized version of LA.

“My life is getting really small, in a good way,” Babinski says. “Living in LA feels like, not a status symbol but like people are here for a reason — to get a job done and to make it big or whatever. For me, it feels like the place that I’m from, and all of my people and all my things are.”

Cultivating a community didn’t come easy for Babinski. Growing up in Fullerton just 30 miles east, she struggled to fit in, chronically hesitant to express herself because what she loved sat in direct opposition to what her peers unanimously dubbed popular. It was Orange County in the late ’90s and early 2000s, so she was surrounded by surfers and skaters who loved hardcore emo, punk, and ska. Babinski, meanwhile, obsessed over classical music and playing the violin. She picked up the instrument in fifth grade. The same year, her mom recognized the spark in her daughter, and the family began regularly attending local orchestra performances and taking in the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl.

“I knew I was connecting with it, but I also knew it wasn’t cool,” Babinski says. “Part of me was like, maybe I keep this low-key. Not a secret, but like, this is not the thing that I broadcast and wear on my t-shirt at school. It felt like a very personal interest and not something I had much of a community around.”

Babinski held resentment toward her hometown. Age bred perspective, though, and she can now see what she gained from obscurity. She didn’t feel like a product of her environment. And she wasn’t, in the traditional sense. But really, she was. She grew into an acute lyricist because her adolescent restlessness expedited the development of an introspective lens. “The boredom bred a lot of creativity and made me ask myself a lot of questions about identity,” she offers.

Beginning in high school, Babinski’s search for identity became a team sport. She was invited to join a hodgepodge high-school band that encouraged her to indulge her love for violin, and the summer after high school, she met new bandmates who became her chosen folk/prog-rock family in Orange County for the following nine years. They exposed Babinski to the likes of David Bowie and Neil Young, and being around people who enthusiastically owned what they liked gave her permission to do the same.

“I was a part of something, both musically and also in a group of friends, in a culture,” she says. “We were young and barely had the internet and made mistakes. We cut our teeth. We spent all of our time together, and we booked our tours and did everything at a very scrappy, DIY level.”

Babinski moved to LA when the band decided to call it quits, and she relied on that scrappy mentality — working at a restaurant and becoming a plug-and-play instrumentalist for touring LA bands such as Dusty Rhodes And The River Band and Hunter Hunted. They demonstrated for her the clarity and professionalism necessary for success. “I was taking notes the whole time,” she says. Still, her insecurities lurked.

“I was getting a little disenchanted with just playing the violin,” she continues. “It took longer than it should have to realize, I think I wanna write songs. I had a hard time admitting that. It comes from a place of being afraid to share any unfinished stages of anything.”

Eventually, Babinski started sharing her musings with the bands hiring her and opened herself up to their feedback, which was the boost she needed to branch out on her own as Steady Holiday. If nothing else, Los Angeles gifted Babinski proximity to like-minded artists — valuable sounding boards — that she desperately lacked in Fullerton. The vast LA music scene allowed Babinski wiggle room. Babinski’s favorite thing about LA is its boundless physical space, and by 2016, she had finally decided to claim her space with her debut solo album Under The Influence.

“I don’t like to make waves / In the shallow end, I never learned to swim,” Babinski sings in the album’s ethereal track “Open Water.” “I’ll get the courage one day.” And she slowly accrued courage over the next few years, between Coachella sets and subsequent LPs Nobody’s Watching (2018) and Take The Corners Gently (2021). The musician once afraid to share her music serenaded her grandpa through the telephone in the evocative video for the anecdotal ballad “Love Me When I Go To Sleep” and goofily danced for TikTok in the video for the melodic, upbeat earworm “Sunny In The Making,” both Take The Corners Gently standouts.

But something was still missing.

“[Newfound Oxygen] is my fourth record, and there was a time in the middle where, I felt like, Alright, I have a label and a manager and an agent and a publicist. I had all of the things that I thought were going to open doors for me,” she says. “I was resting on my laurels and refreshing my email going, Well, where are the opportunities? I was looking for validation in all of the stupid things that I thought would make me feel like I’m not invisible in this industry.”

With Newfound Oxygen, Babinski realized she didn’t need mass approval; she just needed good friends in Ari Balouzian’s garage in Burbank, California — harkening back to her formative band days.

Babinski wrote the 10-track album before sending a cold Instagram DM to Balouzian, whose film scores she admired. They brought others into the process, including Azniv Korkejian and Gus Seyffert, and recorded over five days last February. Balouzian’s dog, Hope, wandered in and out, and his sister was often found reading in the lawn. Birds are heard chirping on the stripped-back track “My Own Time,” a testament to Babinski redefining what she wanted for herself and embracing simpler pleasures. She doesn’t recall circling LA on the map in 2011 as the destination that would fulfill her grandest dreams, but if she had, that dream might have looked like the making of Newfound Oxygen.

“My dreams, they would haunt me, a lifetime ago,” she sings in “The Balance,” her next single releasing in January. “Now I’ll climb a mountain with plenty of rope / Because dreams without failure never happen.”

Babinski knows what her dreams look like now. Thirty minutes northeast from The Kia Forum, twenty from the Hollywood Bowl, and fifteen from Crypto.com Arena, Babinski staged “the most special show of my life” at the unassuming Bob Baker Marionette Theater on November 12, raising funds for the LA youth to take theater field trips. She incorporated puppets into her set, unleashing her playful and silly side that she had shut off for so long, and stood firm in her voice. Hopefully, she encouraged kids in the intimate crowd to find power in their voices — to be brave enough to, you know, tell people you like the violin.

“It was the most myself, the most comfortable, I’ve ever felt on stage,” she says. And that sentiment extends beyond the Bob Baker Marionette Theater and into her next chapter, beginning with Newfound Oxygen.

She adds, “I’m proud to live in LA. I really enjoy my life in LA. I think I could enjoy my life pretty much anywhere, but what I have right now, I feel so lucky. I feel so lucky for my very small world.”

Newfound Oxygen is out 02/17/23 via Steady Holiday.

The San Francisco 49ers started this week with the belief that Jimmy Garoppolo was done for the season after breaking his foot early in a win over the Dolphins on Sunday.

Brock Purdy, who played an impressive game in Garoppolo’s stead, will become the starter and, in doing so, is the first Mr. Irrelevant (the last pick in the Draft) to start in the NFL. It’s quite the story, particularly considering the 49ers are among the top contenders in the NFC and have genuine aspirations at winning the Super Bowl. Purdy’s job won’t be that much different from Jimmy G’s, as his directive is to get the ball in the hands of guys like Deebo Samuel and Christian McCaffrey in space and let them work. The Niners offense figures to take even fewer deep shots and lean even more heavily on the rushing attack with Purdy in, but against Miami there wasn’t a hugely noticeable change in how they operated.

Still, having Garoppolo would be far preferred to a rookie, and on Tuesday word broke from Adam Schefter that it’s possible, should the Niners make a deep playoff run, they could get Jimmy G back after doctors determined he didn’t need surgery.

There are a ton of ifs at play here, not the least of which is the part about rehab having to go well. That’s not a guarantee, and neither is the Purdy-led Niners making it far enough in the playoffs to get to where Garoppolo could return. Seven weeks (depending on when they start the clock) would be the Divisional Round, while eight weeks would mean San Francisco would have to be in the NFC Championship Game. At that point, they’d have to decide if Garoppolo having sat out two months is a better option than Purdy, who would’ve won them two playoff games to get to the NFC title game.

That said, it’s generally good news that Garoppolo won’t need surgery and hopefully he can make a speedy and full recovery. If the Niners are in a position to have to make a tough decision on who starts an NFC Championship Game between he and Purdy, I think that’s a choice they’d be thrilled to have to make.

Fox News is once again hammering Donald Trump for causing severe damage to the Republican Party. After turning on the former president for his negative effect on the midterm elections, which did not manifest in “red wave,” Fox Business host Stuart Varney tore into Trump for his recent remarks on terminating the Constitution.

After highlighting that the majority of candidates backed by Trump lost in the midterms, Varney proceeded to hammer Trump for his lame attempt to walk back his remarks about suspending the Constitution and election laws to name him the winner of the 2022 presidential election.

“That plays right into the Democrats’ hands,” Varney said. “He’s trying to walk it back today, but the damage has been done.”

Varney then turned his attention to Trump’s diminishing stature in the GOP despite his best efforts to play kingmaker. Via Mediaite:

The Fox Business host accused Trump of losing his “iron grip” on the Republican Party and predicted the former president would spin [Herschel] Walker’s victory or defeat to his favor.

“If Walker wins, Trump will take all of the credit, guaranteed,” Varney said. “If Walker loses, Trump will blame Walker for not inviting Trump into the state.”

Even before Trump’s highly controversial comments on the Constitution, Varney has not been impressed with the former president particularly after the disastrous midterm election results. In fact, he told Lara Trump to her face that her father-in-law’s not doing so great after his low energy 2024 announcement.

“Those of us on the outside looking at it, it didn’t seem that he got the old magic,” Varney said.

(Via Mediaite)

Baker Mayfield has a new team. According to Adam Schefter of ESPN and Ian Rapoport of NFL Network, Mayfield, who spent this season as a member of the Carolina Panthers until he was waived on Monday, will head to the west coast and become the latest member of the Los Angeles Rams’ hobbled quarterback room.

It has been a rough year in Los Angeles, particularly when it comes to their signal callers. The defending Super Bowl winners are 3-9, putting them in last place in the NFC West, while starting QB Matthew Stafford and top backup John Wolford are both sidelined with injuries. The only healthy QB on the roster is second-year quarterback Bryce Perkins.

According to Schefter, the health of the room played a role in the decision to claim Mayfield off of waivers. There’s also the fact that they could potentially receive draft capital this offseason, depending on how things go with him. And to top it all off, the Rams apparently believe in the talent possessed by the former No. 1 overall pick.

After spending the entirety of his career prior to this season with the Cleveland Browns, Mayfield joined the Panthers this past offseason. He appeared in six games with seven starts and completed 57.8 percent of his passes with six touchdowns and six interceptions.