Near Death: Buffalo Bills 24-year-old safety Damar Hamlin is in critical condition this morning after collapsing on the field last night following what looked like a fairly routine tackle. Hamlin suffered cardiac arrest and was administered CPR for nine minutes until he was taken away.

  The entire stadium went silent as some fellow players prayed and others cried.

  The Bills said Hamlin’s heartbeat was restored on the field. The remainder of the game was suspended at 5:58 of the first quarter after the coaches from both teams met on the field. 

 In a year of frightening NFL injuries, this was the worst. NFL Executive Vice President and former player Troy Vincent told the press, “I’ve never seen anything like it since I’ve been playing.” He said, “How do you resume play after you’ve seen such a traumatic event occur in front of you in real time?”

Change of Guard:  As the thin majority of congressional Republicans takes control of  the House today, California Rep. Kevin McCarthy faces a fight over his quest to become Speaker 

  McCarthy said in a New Year’s statement, “One party rule in Washington is ending and accountability is coming.”

  Not so fast, though. McCarthy needs 218 votes to become Speaker and the Republicans have just 222 seats. At least 14 members have said they are in doubt, or absolutely will not vote for McCarthy. Already he’s made concessions to hardliners, including agreeing to a threshold of just five members to trigger a vote on ousting the speaker.  

  Other extreme right Republicans are angling for power, including Georgia’s Marjorie Taylor Greene, who tweeted, “2023 will be a great year to impeach Joe Biden!” Greene told the NY Times that if McCarthy becomes Speaker he would have to be “a lot more aggressive” about punishing Biden and other Democrats for what she sees as their policy derelictions and for conducting a “witch hunt” against Donald Trump. “And to please the base, he’s going to give me a lot of power and a lot of leeway,” she told The Times.

  Keep an eye also on upstate New York’s Elise Stefanik, once a moderate who described Donald Trump as a “whack job” before discovering power in becoming a Trump apologist and claiming irregularities in the 2020 election. In the last two years, that rocketed her to #3 in the House Republican leadership.

The Killer Right:  Another rising voice on the political right is Kyle Rittenhouse, whose primary life accomplishment has been shooting and killing two men and wounding a third during a 2021 street demonstration in Kenosha, Wisconsin. 

  Since then Rittenhouse has become a darling of the gun totin’ right. He spoke at the Turning Point USA conservative conference where he was greeted with confetti and a standing ovation.

  Rittenhouse describes himself on Twitter as “Christian, Proud American, Dog Lover, 1st and 2nd Amendment Advocate.” He quotes the Bible and espouses some of the lines of the extreme right, writing for instance that, “The Bible and the Constitution should be taught in schools, not abortion and sexuality.” He’s the Babyface Nelson of moral sanctitude.

  He complains about the money spent on defending Ukraine and said that President Volodomyr Zelensky showing up at the White House in combat olive drab was “A complete insult to Americans and our tax dollars.” 

  He even says he loves Mike Lindell’s pillows.

   Rittenhouse was just 17 the night he went out armed with his assault rifle in the name of protecting local businesses. Late in the evening when the demonstration was petering out, one man tried to tackle Rittenhouse and take his gun. Rittenhouse killed him.

  Other demonstrators then chased Rittenhouse, who fired again, killing a second man, and wounding a third who was armed with a pistol. He successfully argued self-defense and was acquitted of murder. 

  Turning just 20 years old today, Rittenhouse is being sued for millions by the family of one of the men he killed … the rules for civil damages are different from murder.  In a fund raising message he complains that, “This civil lawsuit isn’t an attack on me, it’s an attack on ALL Americans’ rights to self defense.”

  His postings suggest that he intends to become an influential figure. He said, “My life might not ever be normal, but I’m going to make the best of it. I am going to fight for accountability to prevent other Americans from having to go through what I did at 17. The media and their lies have held way too much power, accountability IS coming.” 

The War Room: In a stunning admission, Russia, says it lost 63 soldiers in a Ukrainian rocket strike on an eastern base housing troops. 

  Ukraine says they killed as many as 400, but regardless of the number, Russia announcing such losses is an indication that they took a serious hit. A spokesman for the Russian-installed proxy government in the Donetsk region  called the strike “a massive blow.”

  Ukraine carried out what appears to have been a precision strike on the barracks building using the American HIMARS multiple rocket launching system. They’ve been getting targeting information from the US, shifting in recent days from hitting ammo dumps and supplies to personnel concentrations. 

The Spin Rack:  Brazilians lined up to pay last respects to soccer great Pelé, who was lying in state in the middle of a pitch in Santos, Brazil. — Nearly 1 million people became American citizens in 2022, a 15 year high. — Trevor Bickford, 19, a recently radicalized Muslim has been charged with attacking three cops New York cops in New Year’s Eve with a curved machete-like knife known as a kukri, notoriously used by Nepalese Gurkhas to separate enemies from their heads. Bickford wrote a farewell note to his mother saying, “I fear greatly you will not repent to Allah and therefore I hold hope in my heart that a piece of you believes so that you may be taken out of the hellfire.”