One reason to root against the Pats this weekend. …. Then again, do you have confidence in the Pats leadership to do the right thing with a No. 1 pick? I don’t. … Speaking of a collapse in confidence, Jerod Mayo Firing Watch updates here and here.

The total pay for the Legislature’s top Democrats hit $224,000 a year as of Wednesday, thanks to Gov. Maura Healey’s approval of an 11 percent increase in the base salaries for lawmakers, the Globe reports. But legislative leaders are still not happy, whining about the ‘persistent negative’ media coverage of Beacon Hill doings, the Herald reports. … And yet the leaders appear to confirm, or at least acknowledge, that there may be room for improvements at the State House, with promises of reforms tied to transparency and “efficiency.” … 

Btw – The ultimate reform: a constitutional amendment making the Legislature a part-time body. Massachusetts is one of only ten states with full-time legislatures – and I’d argue Beacon Hill’s full-time status is one of the main reasons for the chronic delays in getting budgets and bills passed. They’re under no strong deadline pressure to reach compromises. They can afford to call bluffs. They have time. They can … procrastinate. 

Here’s how McLean Hospital (yes, McLean Hospital, a source Google provided, I swear) describes the ‘p’ word: “Experts define procrastination as a self-defeating behavior pattern marked by short-term benefits and long-term costs. Many of us know it as putting off things that we need to get done, no matter the level of difficulty behind the task.” … ‘Self-defeating behavior pattern’? Pretty much sums up our Legislature. Give them time to proscrastinate and they will. Such as procrastinating till the very end to pass 100 bills.

The latest bad news for Jeff Bezos’s Washington Post: The Atlantic is raiding the Washington Post’s news staff as the magazine gears up for extensive political coverage of the incoming Trump administration, the NYT reports The Atlantic has already hired two national reporters from the Post – and more WaPo staffers are reportedly set to jump ship. … In a way, this is a tale of two billionaire media owners: Bezos, founder of Amazon, and Laurene Powell Jobs, widow of Steve Jobs and majority owner of The Atlantic. The former started off on a positive note as owner of the Post, overseeing expansion of the legendary newspaper and winning plaudits for its return to quality national reporting. But it’s been all negative in recent years, amid falling circulation, controversial editorial hires, low newsroom morale, and Bezos sucking up to Donald Trump. Meanwhile, the former Boston-based Atlantic has blossomed in recent years under Jobs, seeing its paid digital circulation soar and earning respect as a major journalism player in Washington, D.C. … I’d say Jobs is winning this new crosstown rivalry, don’t you think?

Think Boston has fiscal problems? They’re nothing compared to what’s happening in Chicago, my long-ago stomping grounds. The city of Chicago’s projected budget deficit: $982 million. … The cause: unfunded pension liabilities. As in $35 billion in unfunded liabilities, in addition to tens of billions of dollars in various other debts. … As Andrew Biggs puts it at the NYT: “The word bankruptcy has been hanging over Chicago like a storm cloud about to burst.”  

Re a Charlie Baker comeback (WCVB and Globe): I’ll believe it when I see it. First, I think he likes making the big private-sector bucks (though I doubt he enjoys his current NCAA gig as much as he claims). Second, he’s a state government and executive branch/hands-on type of guy, not a U.S. Senate blowhard attending countless committee hearings and issuing press releases about dramatic letters he’s written to evil cabinet members, etc. etc. … And then there’s Ed Markey. Is Baker really going to be the latest pol to underestimate him? I do see some theoretical attractions of Baker possibly making a U.S. Senate bid, including Markey being 80 on election day 2026. But Baker himself would be 70 years old in 2026, so … I do think Baker would be a great fit for president of a local college. Let’s fan that rumor instead. You heard it here first!

The H-1B Visa program is actually the model of how the U.S. should handle immigration, with its annual set quotas and emphasis on profession-specific jobs, as opposed to the chaotic flood of illegal migrants across the southern border. But the very limited and organized H-1B program still isn’t enough for some MAGA types who are now revealing themselves as opponents of most all forms of immigration. At the Free Press, Joe Nocera has a good summary of the “MAGA Civil War” over immigration, a war now pitting Steve Bannon vs Elon Musk. Locally, the Globe is getting into the debate as well. …

But this isn’t just about jobs and work visas, as Rupa Subramanya makes clear, also at the Free Press. There’s a clear racial component at play. Before pronouncing ‘Aha! A typical leftist response,’ keep in mind Subramanya is a harsh critic of both the ‘Woke Left and Nativist Right’ when it comes to racially categorizing human beings. It’s not a both-sides-ism view. It’s a real problem. In this specific H-1B case, we happen to be seeing the right’s old-fashioned nativist sentiments oozing out of the argumentative crevices.

I usually associate Jimmy Carter with the historic Egypt-Israel peace treaty that Carter famously brokered in 1979. But leave it to Jon Keller to recall something many in deep-blue Massachusetts would prefer to forget: how Jimmy ‘I’ll Whup His Ass’ Carter whupped Ted Kennedy in the Democratic presidential primaries in 1980. … And he really did whup Kennedy, who totally underestimated Carter and overestimated his own appeal. … In other local coverage of the death of Jimmy Carter, from the Globe’s James Pindell: “How Jimmy Carter remade a New England institution and altered American politics in the process.” … And from NBC Boston: “Jimmy Carter’s unique connection to Mass., and how he sparked the craft beer industry.”

After reading Daniel Mandell’s history of King Philip’s War (a definite thumbs-up recommendation), I was alerted to this great video about the rather bloody battle fought during the war in Sudbury, my hometown. In fact, I once lived on the very hill where the fight took place nearly 350 years ago. … The video was produced by local filmmaker and fellow history buff Andrew Rakich, a native of Wayland (which used to be part of Sudbury). Check out his website. He’s produced a lot of excellent work.