by John Walters

GOPfellas*

*The judges will also accept “The Last Subpoena” (not ours), “The Back Nein”, “World’s Worst Dockers Ad,” “Eight Men Out… On A Hole With A-Hole,” “They’re Literally Standing In A Swamp”

We don’t know what more needs to be written—no one here brought golf clubs, not even a putter— but things must be pretty mad for Mohammed to go to the mountain (i.e., D.C.) as opposed to the other way around. If you’re keeping score, half the minions here have hands on hips as if to indicate, “Maybe all of our lies and grifting won’t be able to get us out of this pickle. Our last hope is a GOP win in 2024 followed by a pardon.”

Wilson, Cast Away

It might have been a Hall of Fame career. Maybe it is, anyway. But after last night’s debacle in the stadium he called home for 10 seasons, Russell Wilson’s legacy may be that of the innocent victim of two of the worst coaching decisions anyone can recall. Last night, with his new team, the Denver Broncos, trailing his former squad, the Seattle Seahawks, 17-16 with just under one minute to play, Wilson’s offense faced a 4th-and-5 from the Seahawk 47. Of course you don’t punt. You go for it, right? I mean, it’s a 64-yard field goal try and this is the new QB you paid $160 Mil for.

The Broncos sent the field goal unit onto the field. Wide left. Final score: Seahawks 17, Broncos 16.

Couple this with Darren Bevell’s slant pass on 2nd-and-goal from the 1 in Super Bowl XLIX in Glendale, and Wilson must feel absolutely as if he’s playing against more than just the opposing defense.

Contrarian opinion: the Bronco kicker, Brandon McManus, had already connected on FGs of 30, 40 and 26 yards and was thus the game’s leading scorer. Go with the hot foot.

Trout-standing Effort

If it feels as if Angel-in-the-outfield Mike Trout has missed half the season, well, he’s only missed one-third of the season. But he still has blasted 35 home runs (third-best in the majors), boosted by one in each of the past seven games. The MLB record is one in eight consecutive games. Couple this with his former Angel teammate Albert Pujols’ recent homer surge—he’s now just three shy of 700 and no one from July’s home run derby has hit more since that night than Albert—and Aaron Judge’s chase of Roger Maris is only the third-most intriguing home run chase of the month.

By the way, if you’re scoring at home, three of the greatest players of this century—Trout, Pujols and Shohei Ohtani—have combined for zero playoff wins as Los Angeles Angels, a streak that will be extended this season. Baseball’s just different.

The Sarver is Down

BREAKING NEWS: The NBA has suspended Phoenix Suns owner Robert Sarver for one year for, among other things, using the N-word FIVE TIMES (I have to wonder how many times Chris Paul uses the N-word per day). So the going rate is 2 months, 6 days per N-word? Okay. Good to know. Sarver should really appeal his suspension to the AIA (inside joke for Phoenicians). No word yet on whether the NBA will appoint Blake Masters interim owner.

The Runaways

When the invasion of Ukraine began—fittingly, just a day or two after the closing ceremony of the Winter Olympics from Beijing (this had all been mapped out between Putin and Xi)—Russia had everything tilted in its favor with one major exception: a righteous cause. So here we are, seven months later and Russian soldiers are fleeing for their lives. And who can blame them? They know that their cause and their leader are corrupt and who wants to give his life for that?

We’d find it very funny if the bully (Russia/Putin) started whining if Ukraine’s military crossed over into Russia and started kicking ass. If I were Zelensky, and I’m not, I’d mount some offensives and inflict some pain on the Russkies, telling them, “We’ll stop when you hand over Vladimir Putin.” Of course Putin would pull a Hitler (suicide) before he allowed that to happen, but that would be a suitable outcome. Vladimir Putin needs to be punished for this war.